It is 3 a.m. and I cannot sleep any more. Common situation to be in. Middle of night is such a calm and tranquil time. A time to put aside the fuss of real conflicts out there. We can all see where we are all headed as a country now, maybe?
No point in showing any cautionary notes about this. Most people will not listen. Old norms just continually crumble before us. Now it's the U.S. Senate that is shape-shifting. It is becoming more like the restless House of Representatives. Its image as the more "mature" body is fading fast.
The House of Representatives is led by this big totally Bible-believing Christian, a guy with a Scandinavian name and look about him, but he is no Midwesterner. He's from the very Deep South. Between the Deep South folks and AM talk radio listeners, we see a class of people now with strength to dictate the norms for all of us.
I am not going to sit here and try to argue against what such folks stand for. They assert themselves tremendously right here in Stevens County. I believe it's wise to try to get along with my friends and neighbors. Maybe the signs are not all bad. Frankly it's hard to figure sometimes.
I had thought my church of First Lutheran was literally dying. This would be because we're an outlier with our affiliation with the ELCA. CW has it the ELCA has been tumbling in its national fortunes. I don't know why any organization would accept this as its fate. Up until December the denomination had a really nice magazine with a long history. December marked the end of that.
Meaning what? A reflection of the tumbling fortunes of the ELCA? Or, the tumbling fortunes of the on-paper media? Now there's a challenging question. But the magazine is most certainly dead. There has been a raft of new headlines lately about the accelerating decline of legacy media. So we're talking all the newspapers and magazines, long taken for granted.
We all know there's been some erosion there. It's impossible to miss the headlines. The most recent headlines make clear it's hardly over. One prominent article talked about the current decline being an "extinction-level event." All the tricks that have been applied for a sort of "artificial resuscitation" are failing one-by-one, if you believe many of the current articles.
Interesting, First Lutheran Church is now showing signs of newfound stability. Well, at least that's in terms of the impression gained at the Sunday services. The turnout appears satisfactory in this time when we do not have a pastor. So we've been using this resource called "Pulpit Supply." Has kind of an uninspiring ring to it, wouldn't you say? But actually I find the system to be quite satisfying. And one reason is that we can get a variety of styles and viewpoints from the front of he sanctuary.
Having the same pastor means you accept the idiosyncrasies and biases of that person all the time. A pastor inevitably bonds with certain people more than others, which is one reason why church bodies don't want a particular minister to become a "lifer" somewhere. The parishioners become suspicious that the pastor has his "favorites." (When I say "his" I really mean it as a unisex term. Ah, the problem with pronouns! What a fundamental problem with the English language!)
My old late friend Glen Helberg talked about the problem of ministers being seen as "having their favorites." He said the main church bodies "don't want that." There will always be exceptions, ministers who can plant their flag and stay somewhere for years, raising their kids and sending them through one school system. A retired area band director was known to say "don't put the minister's kid on the tuba." We might be amused but that's really a pretty good point.
Can the ELCA enjoy a comeback? I sure don't see how, not with the political winds blowing in this country the way they are. Maybe the decline of the legacy media helps explain this. The legacy media in its prime was a blessing but could also be a curse. Maybe they felt too much pressure to "be on the same page" about certain things.
At present, were the legacy media still enjoying their old prime, I think they'd be leading us along with the assumption that the U.S. needs to send all that foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel. The U.S. Senate with its "maturity" and measured judgment might want to follow that drumbeat. Wait, if there's such a strong drumbeat, shouldn't we put trust in our august national leaders? Not so fast: remember how the status quo persisted with how we needed to continue fighting in Vietnam? Maybe a good democratized Internet could have gotten us out of that so much faster.
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| Mitch McConnell |
But we the people have put him there. Say what you want, we all take responsibility for having put these new hard-edged Republicans in their positions of power.
AM radio factor
The old gatekeepers of the media are fading so fast. But "talk radio" has carved out its very firm niche. It is incredible - don't you think? - how such predictably strident voices have taken over this medium. The people who are in this racket must see what's happening, how they increasingly sound alike. Check the radio dial for "news talk" and the phenomenon of which I speak is all over the place.
It is so predictable, it's hard to see why people seek it, why they wouldn't just choose to listen to music. I listen out of mere curiosity: what are all these hyper souls up to? Well there's a market for it: that is self-evident.
And anyone with a functioning brain can see that all this could be leading us down a trail like 1930s Germany. We have the additional parallel of having inflation: a factor creating unease, making more people receptive to despotic leaders. The AM talk radio voices feed right into that.
It's 3:30 a.m. now as I continue writing, still very tranquil, all the sound and fury still in the distance for now. But the cacophony will awaken. Another day of listening to the hard right wing. I can only hope that this overwhelming movement will create something good. After all, Speaker of the House Johnson is about the biggest Bible-believing Christian you can find. That's what he says anyway. He would probably want to distance himself from the ELCA.
What does the future hold? My headline for today's post uses the expression "brave new world." This is from Shakespeare, from his play "The Tempest." What does it mean? It is used ironically, we learn, as it denotes a "utopia which turns out in fact to be a nightmare in which human beings are trapped in a society where their humanity is deleted."
Shall we be whistling past the graveyard?
Back-and-forth
Here's a comment I posted with a Yahoo! News article in middle of night!
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| Mike Johnson |
"Pookie" responded:
Brian, do you think that Johnson might think that Trump is his God?
"Nichols Alton" responded:
When Trump goes down, many of those who let him dictate how they should vote are going down with him. Those who follow his destructive advice will help us separate "the wheat from the chaff". . .
"James Deming" responded:
Why? Because the would-be Orange God/King is their prophet, their leader, their paragon of Republicanism.
"Andrew" responded:
They still believe the election was stolen and all 91 charges are fake. The only good thing is they are weak and cowardly so they won't get violent when he loses again.
"Punk Rock and Minerals" responded:
Because traitor Trump now owns the GOP.
"Patte" responded:
Actually, the prosecutors are coming from way, way left.
A younger Mitch McConnell is at left. Interesting backdrop for photo.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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