We continue to be blood-red out here with our political complexion. I can't fully explain it but I just adjust to it. I won't give up trying to understand it.
Was relieved this morning not to hear any of the usual Democrat-bashing talk at DeToy's Restaurant. This emanates from the middle section. The restaurant will probably never be open in evenings again. Businesses cut back when people had to adjust their behavior dramatically due to covid. Lately, though, there has been an encouraging resurgence in our normal lifestyle. We appear to be quite uninhibited making our normal (old) rounds.
And so this sense got reinforced for me as I attended the spring band concert at MAHS. It was the concert of grades 5-8. The audience size was impressive, in line I felt with the pre-covid norms. Man is a social organism. We like getting together with others. Covid forced a drastic adjustment for many of us. Some people thought that some of the changes could become permanent. "Worship where you are" for example. And it's a nice choice to have.
Really, though, I think most people gravitate to the real thing, not to experience it from the screen of your Internet device. Everyone knows what "Zoom" is now. It was once just a word indicating rapid acceleration.
Wouldn't it be a sea change to see football challenged for its very existence? But wouldn't it make total sense?
Think of the money and effort that went into having Big Cat Stadium constructed. Yes it was a big deal. Could the field there be converted to soccer? Enriching as the sport is, could it ever draw as many fans? There are already soccer fields established on the UMM campus. Those are UMM facilities, not combined with the public school.
Am I drastic in suggesting that football might fade away? It's not drastic to consider IMHO. When it comes to parents caring for the welfare of their sons, the commitment is pretty robust. Basic health? Cognitive health? Just thought I'd mention it, and I've never even been a father. Having never been a father means I have never been through yearning for my son to get his "male creds" by playing football and being on a "winning team."
As if anyone would remember several years later how that team did. One thing you would remember: if your son got drafted and sent to Vietnam. Was football made big as a sport as sort of a model or laboratory to bring young men along to learn the proper military discipline? To take risks for feeling pain? Sometimes intense pain?
Football has continued over the last 15 years in spite of all the news coming out about the price paid for playing it. Eventually the fathers will learn to prioritize this consideration over the "fulfillment" they might have gotten seeing their sons in uniform with helmet. A game that requires a helmet is just too much. Or let me put it this way once again: any game that is too rough for girls to play is too rough for everyone.
Girls can handle the basic skills of all sports 100 percent fine. Isn't that being demonstrated as we speak with women's basketball? Girls were totally deprived when I was growing up. We have progressed to where today, I'd assert that girls have it better than boys. They do not play football. I see where they have filtered into wrestling. In the past I have written that girls were fortunate not to be in wrestling. That's because of the temptation of unreasonable weight loss. The sport is trying to address that.
I noticed this past winter that Tiger wrestling does now include girls. I sure hope they aren't forced into the same position as the boys over time immemorial: losing weight to a fault.
We're early in the spring sports season as I write this. Winter along with early spring have seemed mild and mostly this is true, but conditions have been so cool, gray and wet lately. Spring winds can be a downer.
In the past I have lobbied for an "inflatable cover" for Big Cat Field. They have this exact thing at St. Cloud State and it seems like an incredible resource there. Is the Morris campus just deprived by comparison? Don't see why that should be the case. We're part of the mighty U of M. That's why the MIAC never wanted to let us in "in the old days." We always had the potential resources to dominate.
This spring of 2024 has been marked by the very dark background in the behavior of our U.S. president from 2016 to 2020. The headlines come at us daily. Whereas, we should be focusing on the normal legitimate political issues, six months before an election. And this is what we'd be doing if it was Biden vs. Haley.
But instead the MAGA movement looms as large and as ominous as ever. We really truly could fall into an autocratic form of government. If it happens, so-called rural America will be largely responsible. That's us out here in West Central Minnesota.
An amazing transformation has happened. People out here were content for a long time living with a true two-party system. You could be on one side and keep your friends on the other side. I find now that if you're not clearly MAGA, you risk putdowns of a totally personal and insulting nature.
And it's not as if those pointing fingers have really researched issues. It's not as if they can discuss the particulars of anything. As soon as they see something that seems "liberal," they pile on with anger. They make ad hominem attacks. They are not interested in a detailed discussion of anything. They just engage in flag-waving for "their guy." Then they attack the "Dems" or the "libs" with fun-poking comments.
If you try to confront them, they might just smile.
Collin Peterson was a "Dem" and he tried avoiding the "lib" tag. The red staters in the end would not be convinced about that. Peterson seemed even to want to escape the Democratic Party at the end. This was profoundly disappointing for yours truly to see. If he really felt that way he should have formally severed himself from the Democratic Party.
So it's a one-party thing out here in the windswept hinterlands now. And in the spring of 2024, we have gotten lots of windy days.
And we have a new political face coming at us, last name of Boyd. He makes clear that he believes "life begins at conception." So you know where he's headed with that. Has he made a statement on the concept of the "nationwide abortion ban?"
Do y'all realize that any miscarriage is a spontaneous abortion? So, do you realize how complicated these matters get? Well no, many of you don't. Maybe there's hope in the sense that you really can object to a puppy-killer being a leader of your party. Maybe. But I still would not rule out Noem being Trump's VP selection.
Trump is all about cruelty. It has been said that "everything Trump touches dies." So whither the United States of America? You don't think this is important?
This Boyd fellow is challenging incumbent Republican Congressperson Michelle Fischbach from the right. Amazing. Fischbach has been so sympathetic to MAGA, she voted against certifying the 2020 election results. Even though, the certification process was set up from the get-go as a formality.
Do Republicans really want the presidential election to be Federalized? For truly "big government" to take over? I thought they were against that.
Trump should be trying to win in the marketplace of ideas. That is the last thing he could consider doing. All these recent headlines about tawdry, scandalous behavior, brought about by what? By Trump getting a hard-on when looking at photos of Daniels and McDougal, then wanting to use his power, wealth and celebrity to get in the sack with them. And it's because of that we are being dragged through the current endless news updates. Updates from a courtroom in New York City? And MAGA is fighting our very legal process?
Trump tries to de-legitimize our very legal system? Simply because New York State "leans blue" in its orientation? So does Minnesota on the whole. If red vs. blue ever breaks out in a true civil war, we had better hope blue wins. But we out here in rural West Central Minnesota are blood-red, just fanatically pro-MAGA with a good chance of giving a majority to Steve "Life Begins at Conception" Boyd.
 |
| Steve Boyd |
I mentioned to a friend there one morning - a "counter" friend - that the MAGA types there likely receive a fair amount of government support even though they are so fond of attacking "big government.."
My friend's response: "They take more than anyone."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment