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| Ann DuHamel |
You accept the premise of climate change in attending this series of performances. I think that is totally reasonable. Should be incontrovertible. Oh but it can be "controvertible" in our present day.
The reactionary political forces hover out there. They were led for a long time by a man who proclaimed climate change theory to be a "hoax." Is this man still leading them? He leads his flock as Jesus Christ once did. All the way down to the local level, hardly anyone who is affiliated with the GOP questions Trump. It is a drumbeat. It's like hypnosis. And I am getting profoundly tired of following all of this in the daily news.
Sometimes I wonder if it's exaggeration, as if the problem cannot really be that bad.
UMM and a buzzword
I'll grab a word out of the Fox News lexicon - "woke" - and use it, only because you'll know what I'm talking about. The concert series at UMM definitely reflects "woke-ism." So I wonder seriously how much longer UMM can stay under the radar, as it were, with the boisterous right wing political crowd.
We have one-party rule in the Dakotas. That of course is right next to us. Tom Emmer came dangerously close to defeating Mark Dayton for MN governor a few years ago. Not that Dayton was a total saint, but he was a caring and humanistic person.
But let's focus on climate change, since the wonderful DuHamel performance at the keyboard accented that. The awareness began taking hold with the term "global warming." This allowed the Republicans to really yuk it up when we got a cold spell. They could not even approach the subject seriously. Their arguments would often devolve into ad hominem attacks. If you try to assert yourself as someone on the left side of the political spectrum today, you face risk. Republicans, led by Fox News, have strategies for trying to make you look foolish.
The sense of tribalism among them is so strong, look what has happened in our neighbor to the west, South Dakota, with the Ravnsborg matter. You're probably aware he's the attorney general who is now suspended. He's been impeached. But holy cow, why such a dragged-out process? Why the hesitance to call a spade a spade? A very tight vote in the SD House.
It's tribalism. Now we see the Republican Party having become so strong in the Dakotas, "internecine" conflict has developed. Because, conflict in one way or another is always inevitable in politics. Rather than two wings of the Republican Party, I'd rather see the normal Democrats vs. Republicans arrangement.
But the Republicans have come to demonize the Democrats so much. Can the worm turn with this? One never knows, however the prospects look bleak.
Easter weekend was harder on me than ever in 2022. Do not fret because it is not clinical depression, just a general sort of down mood. By the end of April we will have had a good half-year of really being forced to stay inside. Why am I talking about that here? Because the theme of this post is climate change and political resistance to it. Climate change is "extreme weather." Certainly not just "warming."
So, consider the prolonged nature of our cold months, and consider too the prevalent winds. It is not your imagination that the wind has been especially severe. It has kept me confined indoors even more than the cold. I can often live with the cold just fine. But the wind?
High school spring sports
It is not your imagination that high school sports has had an awful time getting going this spring. Following the DuHamel concert at the HFA, I crossed paths with a sports parent who informed me that the softball Tigers were in fact playing that day. He was headed to the field shortly. I believe this would be just the team's second game.
So the weather conditions were going to be cooperative, but not completely. The fan/parent informed me that the game's location had to be changed. He cited the "mushy ground" at the original location, the "softball complex." Have I written enough about the softball complex? Maybe not. I drove past there the other day and I thought for the first time that it actually looks "blighted." It looks like it might even be an embarrassment for the community.
Look at all the tree stumps. No effort to remove them yet. In fact, I think it's a shame that a whole bunch of trees had to be removed. Is there a risk of vehicles driving other them? Parking was mayhem at the place last spring, and that's not even funny. I guarantee you it will not be funny if someone gets hurt out there. Mark Ekren has publicly warned us about this.
So, my friend at the concert told me that the Thursday softball game would be played up on the public school grounds. Yes, "up" because it's higher elevation, less likely to have moisture problems. A friend said to me a couple years ago "why don't they play there all the time?" He was reacting to proposals for the complex. The complex rolled along with a feeling of inevitability. You know how it goes. An exception to that was when the public rose up in opposition to the proposed county jail. No such thing happened with the softball complex. So now we have the complex with its tree stumps, mushy ground and worst of all, horrible/abysmal fan accommodations for viewing.
Fans are an important part of the mix for school sports, n'est-ce pas? I would certainly assert that. Couldn't some people have gotten suspicious when looking at the early blueprints? Ask questions? I will dread seeing those long rows of parked cars along Prairie Lane again.
How much of an outlier am I with all this? The school sports crowd typically reaches consensus and then it's hazardous to voice views that might contradict some of that. I will voice my views. The UMM Cougars have been playing some of their games at Big Cat Stadium. That is so cool! I have finally gotten some resolution on whether the Tigers could do this too. The answer is "yes!" So I might ask: has the option been explored by the public school? It would be totally cool to see the Tigers play softball at Big Cat.
Oh but better yet, let's see high school spring sports fundamentally altered. Looks like climate change with the more extreme weather is making the standard high school spring sports impracticable. Worse yet, I hate being cooped up for six months out of the year, such is the lousy state with the weather.
So congrats to Ann DuHamel of the UMM faculty, as she helps raise awareness, even if it might mean the institution is stepping on toes with the political right wingers. We have Republicans representing us in the legislature. Their tribe follows this man named Donald Trump, a climate change denier.
Republicans in the old days were temperate people, listened to reason. This is no longer the case. Look how they attacked that poor Supreme Court nominee - they were like comic book characters with their posturing and pure farce. We should be able to see through them. Too many of us cannot.
Just look at all the "conservative" churches in Stevens County. These people cannot even think for themselves any more. And they might be poised to come after "woke" UMM. I'm just trying to warn you all.
I'm warning you about the anti-"CRT" forces too. So bizarre. So sad. So I'm ready to just walk away from Easter in the future. See you in hell, I guess.
Memo to Kevin McCarthy: Honesty is the best policy, you dumb s--t.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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