Of course we're "Morris Area Chokio Alberta." I remember the Chokio-Alberta Spartans coached by Neal Hofland. Neal is still very much on the scene with local athletics. More of us might have a harder time remembering when he and John Mithun led those red-clad Spartans into battle, always ready to deploy the "toss-sweep." I often remind Neal of that memory when I see him in DeToy's Restaurant.
DeToy's is a nice place to hear lots of pro-Republican and pro-Trump rhetoric if that is your thing. Is the presidential race a matter of great concern? You might think it is, if you like the "horserace" aspect of it all. Like following football, maybe?
Why might I express detachment? Let me ask you this: Does the president of the U.S. have the power to devalue our currency? No. The central bank a.k.a. "Federal Reserve" has that power. Trump says he would like to exercise power over it. Does anyone think he would ever use that power to influence interest rates higher? No it would be the reverse.
The reverse would be a way for our elected leaders to get a "quick fix" and maybe ensure their re-election. Maybe Trump can talk about Haitians going door to door to eat your dogs and cats. I will assume that the usual roster of "talk radio hosts" is making hay of this. It's another day for them e.g. Mark Levin to keep their racket going. Surely there is a receptive ear for them here in western Minnesota where we have Michelle Fischbach as our representative.
Her priorities? "Pro-life and Second Amendment." Well that's our choice.
I'm not sure the November election will do much to lift our lot in life. That's because the Federal Reserve led by Jerome Powell has already promised a course of lower interest rates. Yes this is cheered by a great many. But you fools, don't you realize there's no such thing as a free lunch? People with interest-bearing bank accounts will be totally screwed again.
Worse than that, I think, will be inflation. Shouldn't people be bothered by inflation? Do people have some magical mystical way for adjusting to this? That I do not know about? I wandered the county fairgrounds last month and felt prices for concessions were disturbingly high. I can remember a time when Americans were more sensitive about this kind of thing.
Was I just paying more attention when I was with the Morris paper and circulating out and around more? I can remember when the local public was complaining with a real bite about the single copy price of the newspaper going from 50 to 75 cents. At our county fair I just saw a sea of people so contented and apparently with wads of money handy to buy the various food items.
It's good if people are happy. I just think there's a chance that the new big round of Federal Reserve "rate cuts" could bite us. I know Wall Street always cheers this. But as I asked a friend recently, if I put all my money in the stock market, how does that help me buy breakfast tomorrow morning, and the morning after that etc.?
Chris Matthews broke down on MSNBC once when he still had his daily program, saying "are you always supposed to buy (stocks)? Are you ever supposed to sell?" It really struck me because you practically never hear this kind of skepticism about stocks in the MSM. It's as if MSM is part of a big conspiracy, which I will note with the understanding that I'm sounding like the kind of crackpots I often criticize.
Money does talk though. Even if it cannot sing or dance or walk. Or as my old friend Jim McRoberts of this community once told me, "talk is cheap but it takes money to buy whiskey."
Hey, there's a home football game at Big Cat tomorrow (Friday). How long has Big Cat been in existence? Where does the time go? I remember when it was totally new. Such a contrast with our previous facility of Coombe Field. A whole different atmosphere.
The old field had its charms as a place where people gathered to socialize to an extent that the game seemed almost secondary. Remember that? A school board member reminisced by calling it a "town square" type of place.
Big Cat was designed with the idea that the vast majority of people are there to seriously watch football. Many new football facilities with artificial turf have been constructed this way around Minnesota. What that meant was that high school football was going to have to be more marketable. Football is a product. It is entertainment. Boring games would diminish interest.
The High School League went to work adjusting rules to try to encourage more offense, more scoring and probably more passing of the football. It worked. Look at the scores of the first two MACA games as examples. We beat Minnewaska 46-27 and Thief River Falls 42-0. We won 42-0 over a community with a population of close to 9,000. I wonder what the backstory is.
Football is alive and well even though it should not be. We should discourage our boys from playing this sport which requires a helmet. Alas, the progress on this has been halting. We do have a soccer team now. That is progress.
My priority
Now, on to the media coverage subject. This is always closest to my heart. I'll turn the writing over here to my old Bonanza Valley newspaper friend Randy Olson with whom I periodically correspond. (Look further down.) He is still fighting the battle of putting out a community paper. He really sets an example with what he does online to compliment his paper work.
And - ahem - what a night-and-day contrast with our Morris paper which is totally derelict when it comes to online. Why doesn't the community rise up about this? I mean, you click on the "sports" link of the SCT site and it's all UMM.
I'm almost inclined to suggest a profanity-riddled complaint to the Morris paper. I know people in Morris are capable of complaining this way, even people in professions like medicine and law. No aversion to the potty mouth here in Motown. Maybe this helps us understand the mania for promoting Donald Trump here. Are we really just uncouth and ignorant?
The presidential race is really just kind of window dressing IMHO while the real critical issue affecting our lives is what the Federal Reserve does.
Now I'll quote Mr. Olson on local media performance:
Hello Brian,
I say that if you're in the media, you either hitch onto a new way of doing things. Example, here's a second blog post that I have from Week Two of B-B-E's football season.
I say that if you're in the media, you either hitch onto a new way of doing things. Example, here's a second blog post that I have from Week Two of B-B-E's football season.
I run the newspaper and operate a strong Internet presence for B-B-E sports. No staff. What is the excuse for newspapers who have staff? Why the lack of timely sports reporting?
Media organizations who can't keep up with the times do need to hang it up and just turn sports over to the schools. You raised good points about this in past blog posts, how schools can do the sports reporting themselves. It's great experience for students, and they can utilize school websites, YouTube and social media to do it all. Plus, it does not cost that much money for the infrastructure. This is not a big expense for a school.
Schools already have video cameras, yearbook cameras...obviously Internet access too. The big issue for newspapers is labor - but that's free for schools as they have kids who need the experience anyway. The skills learned from sports reporting can be carried on as an adult even if you have nothing to do with sports in the workforce.
My two cents!
Randy Olson
Continuing conversation
Randy communicated to make sure I had access to (some of the) Tuesday volleyball match information: MACA vs. 'Waska. The info from the WC Trib only had 'Waska highlights. I blogged about the match anyway on "Morris of Course." Here's the permalink and thanks:
I responded to Randy's considerate and thoughtful email. One thing we have in common is that we have a natural enthusiasm for this sort of thing. We'd never wait almost two weeks to share with the public about the high school football opener like our SCT did. We just couldn't. My email response to Randy:
Thanks of course. Lately I have noticed that the WC Trib has had its paywall down. I have noticed this maybe 4-5 times in the last few days. I don't take notes. But this is unusual. So I have to wonder if the paper is wondering what route to go in the future. Maybe the paywall model has more negatives than positives. They must be experimenting with having it down now and then, but this has been for several days now. Maybe it's a tough "sell." Complaints from some fans who can't find what they are expecting to find there?
I have wondered for a long time if the WC Trib can keep counting on coaches calling in. I have to believe this is stressful for coaches who may have been through a long night. And what if it was a heartbreaking loss? Of course the prizewinner for this was when Tiger football had a big comeback win at Paynesville and the coverage was so butchered the next day, Lyle Rambow contacted me to clarify some of the most obvious errors. I'd hate to admit now how many years ago this was. I had left the Morris paper. Jerry Witt was still coach.
Back when I regularly consulted with the Willmar paper when it published five or six days a week, I was surprised how often I found obvious discrepancies in game info. Anyone who blogged about any team using the paper as info resource would have noticed this. And I'm sure that processing game info can be an inexact science. The coaches have to do this so hurriedly on game night. I say just get something posted within 24 hours. Have some time to do some double-checking.
Hey, I wonder if the WC Trib ever appeals to school administrators to try to get more cooperation from coaches. I'll bet it has happened and I wonder what the response is, because the administrators would know this is not in the coaches' contracts. I would guess the administrators would be hands-off, but I'm speculating.
Looks like in Morris there is a school board candidate set up to represent the teachers' interests. You can tell by spotting signs in teachers' yards. I'm not familiar with this person. I would much rather have board members who do not answer to the teachers at all.
Again thanks.
- BW
Oh, and Randy responds:
Oh my, That is extremely suspicious and all I can think is what could go wrong with the teachers having a pet on the school board????? Give me a break
No comments:
Post a Comment