I remember when Al Franken came to our U of M-Morris to deliver the commencement address. His stature seemed so high then. It seemed like a triumphant time for all here in Morris. Now Franken is on his heels.
We have Ivanka Trump, daughter of the president, saying that not only will pedophiles go to hell, "there is a special place in hell" for such offenders. As if there might be a preferable place in hell. I once talked with Neil Thielke about whether we ought to categorize sins, some being worse than others. Neil was skeptical. It's not for us as mortals to make such a judgment - we all just need to acknowledge our sinful nature.
Ivanka's father has spoken as if he wants to see Roy Moore win in Alabama. A Moore victory would spell lots of complications for the Republican Party. Would Moore require special security if he goes to Washington D.C.? I remember when our community of Morris had a problem with a misbehaving priest, and we learned through media coverage that he was being handled in a certain way "for his own safety."
Child molesters present a problem for our conscience - they really do. Is there really a "moral" dimension here, or is this a condition related to one's mental state? I would assert that people like Moore have a problem with their brain chemistry. They have compulsions that they cannot control. They know that society disapproves. Moore "denies" the accusations like crazy. He knows full well what he has done. He is a profoundly conflicted human being.
In Jerry Sandusky's case, his background with football might explain his brain problems. I'm not sure there's really a moral element there. I would discourage any talk of "the depths of hell." The well-known atheist Ron Reagan Jr. talks about how he's not afraid of "burning in hell." I quite agree with his stance on this.
It's good that Sandusky is in prison because the innocent victims of his disposition need protection. The taint of criminality is not necessary.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I had the opportunity to view C-Span coverage of a Congressional hearing on football's health dangers. We learned there is a new element to worry about: a whole generation of men in their late 50s and early 60s who played football at a time when the risks accelerated. I invite you to read this blog post of mine by clicking below. It's on my "Morris of Course" site. Thanks for reading. - B.W.
The late Glen Helberg and I used to talk about how holidays are depressing for unemployed or inactive people. My family (of my mom and I) essentially have no relatives to share with any more. We celebrated Thanksgiving for most of my life with my uncle Howard and his wife Vi of Glenwood. They are gone now.
We used to enjoy the Community Thanksgiving Dinner at Assumption Church. I still remember the big spread of pies to choose from. That's gone with the wind now, perhaps a reflection of how the Morris community in general is declining. It doesn't mean that Morris isn't still a nice place to live. Holy cow, the Morris paper slid back down to 16 pages again. It's startling to see this now that the run-up to Christmas is on, normally the most robust time of year for papers.
The Morris paper scratches and crawls to keep its "sig ads" a.k.a. "sucker ads" going. We saw an example with a full page that said nothing more than "Happy Thanksgiving." And then we saw the list of businesses willing to get our their checkbooks and throw their money away on something like this. Some of these businesses are doing this with non-local people making the decisions. I think the guy acting on behalf of Riverwood Bank has his office in Baxter. It's just a budget item to them. "Happy Thanksgiving." Yawn.
Sports, sports, sports
Now that the Morris paper has gotten so terribly small, I think the excessive size of the sports section has become more of an issue. There is a "sports" heading at the top of the second section of the paper. I'm sure we all think it's terrific that our school has a variety of sports offerings for our kids. That's not the issue at hand. The issue is whether we need to see all the minutiae of details in print all the time. If you were to do a poll on this, I'm sure the answer would be overwhelmingly "no."
Ever wonder why "Senior Perspective" is so appealing? There are several reasons, but one is that there's no sports. Hallelujah. We love the large type size of "Senior Perspective" along with its very appealing feature-oriented content - something interesting on every page! Our community papers seem to ignore the wisdom inherent in those advantages.
The Morris paper claims it has "combined" with the Hancock paper. This is literally impossible because if anything, the Morris-based paper has gotten smaller since the claimed "combo." I assume all the obits that used to appear in the Hancock paper must now be squeezed into the Morris paper. Most people just go online for obit news.
The people who are interested in UMM Cougar sports are served totally by the online world too. The Morris paper includes all this stuff because of old habits and old expectations. Sports started becoming a problem for papers when participation in sports began growing markedly. We saw girls get totally equal opportunities. Then came the addition of various sports to join the old mainstream ones. The sports section became a political football as it were. All the teams had advocates screaming at the paper about the need for serious attention. There was a problem of just keeping up with the demands.
Another problem was that the many readers out there weren't interested in consuming all this stuff. Papers felt they had to "cave" to demands from sports parents, which while understandable, wasn't realistic from the standpoint of the paper's interests.
Most people see this the way I do, and many just shrug and continue to consume the paper anyway. But keep in mind that Hancock has lost its paper and the Morris paper is steadily deteriorating. It showers us with advertising circulars for Alexandria businesses every week. Well fine, maybe within a few years there will be an area-wide newspaper centered on Alex, mailed to people on the old Morris/Hancock subscriber list. Don't the old Hancock Record subscribers now just get the Morris paper? Oh, I think this scenario is quite likely, probably within the next five years.
It wasn't necessary. The Morris paper could have stayed stronger longer. But the opportunity for that is past. It will be up to the Fargo-based management to make the ultimate determination.
Should Al Franken resign? He just has a little sex demon in his head like we all do. Let's not start categorizing sins. Bill O'Reilly has said he's "mad at God." This was after the news came out that he paid $32 million to a woman over a harassment issue. Yes, it was God who made us this way with such peccadilloes. Or maybe we're all just descended from space aliens and Earth primates, and our very existence is a mystery. "Ancient Aliens" is a fascinating show on the History Channel. (Remember the early days of the History Channel when many of us poked fun at it, as the "Hitler Channel?")
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
We used to enjoy the Community Thanksgiving Dinner at Assumption Church. I still remember the big spread of pies to choose from. That's gone with the wind now, perhaps a reflection of how the Morris community in general is declining. It doesn't mean that Morris isn't still a nice place to live. Holy cow, the Morris paper slid back down to 16 pages again. It's startling to see this now that the run-up to Christmas is on, normally the most robust time of year for papers.
The Morris paper scratches and crawls to keep its "sig ads" a.k.a. "sucker ads" going. We saw an example with a full page that said nothing more than "Happy Thanksgiving." And then we saw the list of businesses willing to get our their checkbooks and throw their money away on something like this. Some of these businesses are doing this with non-local people making the decisions. I think the guy acting on behalf of Riverwood Bank has his office in Baxter. It's just a budget item to them. "Happy Thanksgiving." Yawn.
Sports, sports, sports
Now that the Morris paper has gotten so terribly small, I think the excessive size of the sports section has become more of an issue. There is a "sports" heading at the top of the second section of the paper. I'm sure we all think it's terrific that our school has a variety of sports offerings for our kids. That's not the issue at hand. The issue is whether we need to see all the minutiae of details in print all the time. If you were to do a poll on this, I'm sure the answer would be overwhelmingly "no."
Ever wonder why "Senior Perspective" is so appealing? There are several reasons, but one is that there's no sports. Hallelujah. We love the large type size of "Senior Perspective" along with its very appealing feature-oriented content - something interesting on every page! Our community papers seem to ignore the wisdom inherent in those advantages.
The Morris paper claims it has "combined" with the Hancock paper. This is literally impossible because if anything, the Morris-based paper has gotten smaller since the claimed "combo." I assume all the obits that used to appear in the Hancock paper must now be squeezed into the Morris paper. Most people just go online for obit news.
The people who are interested in UMM Cougar sports are served totally by the online world too. The Morris paper includes all this stuff because of old habits and old expectations. Sports started becoming a problem for papers when participation in sports began growing markedly. We saw girls get totally equal opportunities. Then came the addition of various sports to join the old mainstream ones. The sports section became a political football as it were. All the teams had advocates screaming at the paper about the need for serious attention. There was a problem of just keeping up with the demands.
Another problem was that the many readers out there weren't interested in consuming all this stuff. Papers felt they had to "cave" to demands from sports parents, which while understandable, wasn't realistic from the standpoint of the paper's interests.
Most people see this the way I do, and many just shrug and continue to consume the paper anyway. But keep in mind that Hancock has lost its paper and the Morris paper is steadily deteriorating. It showers us with advertising circulars for Alexandria businesses every week. Well fine, maybe within a few years there will be an area-wide newspaper centered on Alex, mailed to people on the old Morris/Hancock subscriber list. Don't the old Hancock Record subscribers now just get the Morris paper? Oh, I think this scenario is quite likely, probably within the next five years.
It wasn't necessary. The Morris paper could have stayed stronger longer. But the opportunity for that is past. It will be up to the Fargo-based management to make the ultimate determination.
Should Al Franken resign? He just has a little sex demon in his head like we all do. Let's not start categorizing sins. Bill O'Reilly has said he's "mad at God." This was after the news came out that he paid $32 million to a woman over a harassment issue. Yes, it was God who made us this way with such peccadilloes. Or maybe we're all just descended from space aliens and Earth primates, and our very existence is a mystery. "Ancient Aliens" is a fascinating show on the History Channel. (Remember the early days of the History Channel when many of us poked fun at it, as the "Hitler Channel?")
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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