I have not been to the Monte gym in many years. My first memory is of the beautiful mural type of painting that showed a silhouetted Native American with headdress. Monte had the "Mohawks" nickname at the time. I habitually thought of them as "Mohawks" through my youth.
We are in different times. Monte has switched to "Thunder Hawks," a name where I always have to confirm if it's one word or two! Just like "Silverstreaks" with the Osakis school. That's a name I find colorful and appealing BTW. We here in Motown are most safe with our "big cat" name which is a default "safe" type of name. Same with UMM.
Whew! Because, look what Benson is going through now! It's in the news again. Looks like Benson is going to be a loser on this. I write about this in my current post on my "Morris of Course" site. I invite you to read with this link:
Montevideo 59, Tigers 58
So the Tigers were defeated Friday in Thunder Hawk country. The key basket at the end was a layup. Fans at the Monte gym cheered lustily as Devin Ashling put the ball in the basket. The time remaining was 18 seconds. So there was time to overcome. Our first shot missed. Griffin Epema of Monte got the rebound and was fouled. He went to the line for a one-and-one. A miss!
The Tigers had a last-gasp try from about 27 feet out. Drew Huebner put up the shot and it was no-go. Defeat!
The Tigers trailed by two at halftime, 20-18. Both teams are sailing along with a pretty good W/L, our Tigers at 9-4, Monte with 10-5 numbers.
Riley Asmus was our go-to player as he poured in 24 points. One other Tiger achieved double figures: Charlie Hanson 13. Huebner posted nine. Then we see Owen Anderson 6, Jack Kehoe 4 and Tyler Friesen 2. Asmus and Hanson each made three 3-pointers. I cannot find any other stat info for MACA.
A trio of T-Hawks each scored six: Brody Dack, Gannon Reidinger and Griffin Epema. Gavin Marty rounded things out with two points. Monte would need every point.
So, a heartbreaker loss for our MACA crew in a game that was nevertheless entertaining and exciting. I can't get out of my head the old mural painting in the Monte gym. I personally never saw it as disrespectful to Native Americans. But such imagery has surely had to be retired in connection with school sports. Too bad Benson could not have shown proper foresight.
Benson was once known as the "Plowboys." That got replaced by "Braves" with the garden variety type of approach with the Native American thing. That includes the logo with the feathers! Ahem. Get into the year 2024, y'all.
Oh, some more stats to report for Montevideo from Friday. Boike and Cooper Dack each made two 3-pointers. Reidinger with his nine rebounds led Monte there. Reidinger was tops also in assists with three. Boike had a steal. And Reidinger blocked a shot. Congrats to the T-Hawks.
I invite you to compare my coverage of this game with what you see on the Morris newspaper website. That's fair, n'est-ce pas?
Mid-January trials
The thermometer inches upward on this mid-January weekend. We can sense March getting closer, maybe? St. Patrick's Day? A lot of good that would have done us last year. We had an endless winter that really delayed the start of spring activities. Made my idea of an "inflatable cover" for Big Cat Field seem so recommended. I wish someone would follow up on this discussion with me. Like for example to set forth what the cost would be.
I am guessing that someone would say it is prohibitive. I mean for Morris MN our little outpost on the Western Minnesota tundra. "Tundra" is hyperbole that I learned from the old WCCO Radio host Steve Cannon. Remember Steve Cannon? "Morgan Mundane?" AM radio was different in those days. Better? It's hard to compare because the eras in which we live are hard to compare.
A headline gets my attention on "Drudge Report." People can look for answers in the wrong place - a human foible. "Science revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized." Truly is CW thinking (conventional wisdom) that we are so divided. Has human nature really changed?
The headline makes me wonder if "politics" should be treated as singular or plural. Surely we get the point either way. Only a stuffy college prof would come forward to correct us. And on the subject of "different eras," let us note that in contemporary times we are not so influenced by college profs or teachers of all kinds.
I would suggest the new paradigm applies especially to English teachers. English teachers with their rules on capitalization, for one thing. People have become so empowered with communications, they agree on certain rules outside of the territory once owned by "teachers." Young people lead the way. The young could not care less if you capitalize "Midwest" or not. Do it either way..
When teachers choose to be heavy-handed with their rules, it's all about power. Their poser, naturally. And they have had to retreat from this turf continually. Today, teachers who are compensated by the public are steadily in position to just be thankful they have a job. So don't come at me about capitalizing "Midwest."
I once worked under a real "school marm" type of editor at the Morris newspaper. "School marm" was the term I hard Jim Morrison apply to her one day. She was certainly connected to the heyday of academia's preening, even if her association was really by marriage. It was the culture she was attuned to. And it's important to add that her marriage ultimately ended! I personally could not have withstood the kind of indignity she was subjected to at the end of that. I surmised through reliable accounts. I was privy to all such accounts pertaining to everyone, much in contrast with today when I "see no evil," in effect.
Is evil still out there?
We are certainly in an era where people, i.e. the parents have taken the reins with public education and aren't cowed by the system's employees. I think the transition started happening in the mid-1980s. As with all such transitions it crept along. Finally a friend informed me that "kids today walk all over the teachers." No time for a teacher to be heavy-handed in impressing a rule like capitalizing "Midwest." I'm serious.
So we see the headline on "Drudge" which has "politics" as a plural thing. "Politics are" rather than "is." Naturally, no one should care at all.
The situation is the same with "media." Plural or singular? I have my pwn personal standard. Yes, the former editor of the Sun Tribune couldn't care less what my personal standards are. My standard for "media" is what "sounds right" or natural in a particular sentence. Totally contradicts the thinking of academics who insist on rules, because "rules" give them grounds to judge students and give out grades, a certain percentage of which must be in the 'C' range.
What an awful system that was, and for some reason the boomers' parents put up with it. Only a handful of kids making the 'A' honor roll. Such a spartan and humorless system, maybe in line with a culture full of people who participated in the war effort of WWII. Military discipline. Do as you're told. Don't think for yourself. And they adopted this whole outlook from their world in which WWII had actually been good to them. (Of course, you had to survive it.)
David Brooks of the New York Times has written about "the redundancies in the typical World War II type of organization." People my age know what he's talking about. Needless redundancies are always to be frowned upon, just as onerous rules of writing ("Midwest") defy good logic. We see young people leading the way as is typical for such things.
To repeat the headline from "Drudge" today: "Science reveals why American politics are so intensely divided." Remember the actual strides that George Wallace was making before he was shot? And you'd suggest we're even more divided today? People are going to theorize every which way about our divisions today, but I would suggest what for me is my default explanation: look at the media, its basic nature. The way the most outlandish voices can gain reach through platforms, not struggling for attention on the mere fringes.
So we may get Donald Trump as president again. He has vaulted again to the forefront despite the horrifying revelations coming out about him all the time. The revelations would have been such obvious disqualifiers in "olden times." Like the 1970s.
The reality is headed our way, and the challenge now is to be ready for it, to brace ourselves for it. I cannot stop it, sorry. The guys in the middle section of DeToy's Restaurant in early morning are going to win out, to have their way. "Their guy" Trump has already succeeded in assaulting women's reproductive health care rights. Hey, this is real! So much for just being amused by Trump. We are so well past that.
And every day he picks up momentum, inexplicably, like from the African-American Tim Scott. What an a-hole. The illustration below says it best re. Senator Scott of South Carolina, yes Nikki Haley's state.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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