We are drifting out of summer ever so slowly. I wonder if the county fair is successful. The people in charge will certainly say it is. The media will quote them accordingly. And never is heard a discouraging word, despite our newspaper pontificating about how "newspapers are a watchdog on government." I might substitute the word "lapdog." It's not so much a matter of propping up the movers and shakers, it's an instinct to avoid controversy.
Sometimes you have to just listen out and around to get a sense of what might be up. I had wondered quite legitimately if the city manager might be on thin ice. One can read between the lines in that direction. Can we boil things down a little? So a friend communicated this morning:
Haven’t heard anything about Blaine being on thin ice. But Kevin Wohlers is sure ticked-off about how Blaine and the rest of the city council handled the police issue. Did you know that the city sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of police dept equipment to sheriff’s department for $1.00? Kevin was not happy about that. His was the lone dissenting vote on the dissolution of the police dept.
I hope that with this dissolution, we can all be more relaxed as we just drive around town. That is my hope anyway. Will we ever talk about the "good old days" of having a police department? I will not talk in such a vein.
We are seeing the MAGA element of society mobilize against law enforcement now. To hell with law enforcement, I guess, if it might apply the law and rules to a certain person at the place called "Mar-a-Lago." Up is down, down is up. I thought these self-styled conservatives were such law-and-order types.
Well, let me tell y'all this: if the autocracy embraced by Trump really breaks through and takes charge, you'll still have a lot of rules to follow and they'll start to scare you. I'm just tipping you off in advance. The Jan. 6 event may go down as a "rehearsal."
The worm is not turning on this. All the MAGA types from their church pews this morning (Sunday) continue to push for their "savior," I guess, Donald Trump. I always try to understand human behavior but I cannot understand this.
On the school front
Let's get back to the local scene where I see MAHS has a new activities director and "dean of students." I suppose that's the guy who has to mete out discipline. My generation made "bad guys" out of such people. They were portrayed in movies as crusty, dull, humorless types who just existed to spoil everyone's fun, to be a stick in the mud, whose home you might want to vandalize on Halloween. Did that ever happen in Morris? Legend has it "yes." I might suggest it's more than mere legend.
Today? I think our culture has changed to where the kids don't view the principal or "dean of students" as some sort of ogre. That attitude never made any sense. But that's the way it was from the days when my generation had an attitude about school like it was really a drag. We'd cuss on the first day of school, celebrate whenever a "snow day" was called.
Have you ever wondered why "taking attendance" was a thing of such paramount importance, to "count every head in the classroom" and have a conniption if someone wasn't there? Why so important? There were many days when I would have been so much better off just leaving the building and walking home to the comfort and security of my family's home place. Not to be idle, mind you. There was always lots of stuff to do around our place, where I continue to reside today.
Plus, I was self-motivated to read a lot, so literacy would never be an issue with me, heavens. I was required to go to school where I was often emotionally/psychologically abused by peers and teachers. So today I fantasize the "what if?" of just walking out of school and going home. Truancy. Would I even make it home without a cop accosting me? That would have been the Morris police.
Would it be an unpleasant confrontation? With threats, maybe? I could fantasize today about smarting off. That's easy to do when you're an older adult. I really wish I had tried just "escaping" from school. But my parents would be distressed. They were distressed anyway trying to raise me.
So now I'll answer the question: Why were teachers so uptight about "taking attendance" all the time? Well, it was to make sure the school would keep getting the "state aid money." Things come down to money so much, right?
I heard long ago that the "Chokio school bus rescue" happened because the school went out of its way to be in session even with bad weather menacing. To get the money, stupid. I also heard that rules on the money got adjusted after that, in order to prioritize kids' basic safety. A novel thought to have, I guess.
Today? All my senses tell me that today, school life is far more pleasant and uplifting for the kids. No longer is it like being waterboarded. A novel thing to establish. So I'm happy for all the kids today, even if they can intimidate teachers sometimes. I have heard that the kids today "walk all over the teachers," largely because of fear of lawsuits. I will always give the benefit of the doubt to the kid. That conclusion I draw from my own unpleasant experience in the public school.
Boomers attended school in a system set up by the "Greatest Generation" of WWII/Depression era parents. The fathers had been through "boot camp," get it? Public schools had a huge "big government" problem. Our parents acceded to the wishes of big impersonal government too much. And why was that? Well I'd say it was because big government had won World War II.
We all glorified war so much. We did that because of the sheer necessity we felt in crushing the Axis powers. That was then. In the '60s? Vietnam? Not the same situation. So I'd come home from school to watch the evening news with its "body count" numbers out of Vietnam. Trump may be dangerously crazy but nothing was worse than drafting young men to be sent to Vietnam.
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| Blake Karas (SCT image) |
I see our new activities director/dean of students is "Blake Karas." Looks like he was hired from a thorough professional search. Congratulations on that, not like the old days when the "good old boys" principle came into effect so much. Coaches got hired who had hung around UMM and made friends with certain key people.
Part of the problem was that administration didn't wish to act like they thought sports success was really important. Oh, they'd give it lip service, and they'd crush anyone who sought to come forward and maybe share a critical thought or two. They were famous for saying "academics is more important than sports." I'm guessing you don't hear that any more.
If you look at all the co-curricular stuff at MAHS, and I take that to include music, I actually think it's more important than academics. We don't need hardcore academics so much any more due to our digital age and its problem-solving miracles and shortcuts. We don't need to try to make all our young people into geniuses. Or let's re-phrase that: they can all find a totally satisfying future role with the tools that are acquired through about the sixth or seventh grade. After that it's just a lot of pretentious bulls--t.
So good luck, Blake Karas. I'll probably never meet you or speak to you. "Mongo just pawn in game of life." Hey, "Mongo" in "Blazing Saddles" was played by Alex Karras with two r's in the last name.
Addendum: To understand today's blog post headline, let me refresh: In 1986, a jury found the NFL liable for one antitrust violation, but ordered the league to pay only one dollar in damages to the rival United States Football League, which had sought $1.69 billion.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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