It's a re-creation: "The People vs. O.J. Simpson"

We can all remember where we were at certain key phases of the whole O.J. Simpson matter. I remember that at the time of the "Bronco chase," I stopped by the Marv and Kathy Meyer residence in Morris. I was there to collect information related to Marv's involvement with athletics. We paused to watch the TV screen.

The pursuit of O.J. did not come across as a true law enforcement pursuit, rather it seemed like an escort. It was an escort befitting a truly important person.
Weren't we always conflicted during the whole O.J. Simpson matter? I remember reading that O.J. was a person who we had allowed into our homes for years. He played football on TV. Then he was a sportscaster and movie actor.
A defining quality of the entertainment industry is that it pulls us out of our mundane reality. This is why we can find it so intoxicating. Hollywood is known as "the dream factory" and it's literally true. Part of the illusion is that we really think we know all those stars and celebrities. Of course we don't - not even close. We felt a certain affinity with O.J. Simpson.
Of course we acknowledged that he could have committed the celebrated murders. But a part of us, owing to O.J.'s celebrity, wanted to make the whole thing into a "whodunit." Vince Bugliosi was upset about anyone wanting to use the word "whodunit." Of course O.J. did it. Eventually a civil suit nailed him. But at the time of the sensational trial, there was back and forth between the defense and prosecution that built a real sense of suspense.
It was a media phenomenon at a time when cable TV news was beginning to find its footing. We still had the hour-long Larry King show each night on CNN. There are times today when I miss Larry as part of the mainstream cable news landscape in America. So often he'd host big names who had fallen into a need for repentance! I'll never forget his great chemistry with Bill Maher. The King show was a prime place to pick up daily highlights on the O.J. trial.
Today we can watch "The People vs. O.J. Simpson" as a reminder of that trial and of that epoch in American life. The Internet was barely off the ground - it seemed remote and exotic to us. In the early days it was a cesspool of conspiracy types. It was common to hear people talk down the Internet. Today I think we have all adjusted. We know how to separate the wheat from the chaff online. In fact the online world helps do that for us with its meritocracy in search.
I watched "The People vs. O.J. Simpson" on DVD the other day. It came as a package of four separate DVDs - rather cumbersome, yes - which I checked out from our Morris MN Public Library.
My reaction? Usually when Hollywood presents something from real life, it takes some liberty with the facts in order to present compelling drama. The movie "Hoosiers," for example, was based on the real-life Milan IN basketball team, that David from "David and Goliath" - but the plot details were created almost from whole cloth. The real-life story was totally happy and with no conflict. Those Milan kids got along with each other and their coaches all the way through from elementary to the senior grade. There was no movie there! So Hollywood came up with a compelling script about how this was all about "second chances" in life. We got a town drunk to boot, a character that I thought was overdone. It was a successful movie.
"The People vs. O.J. Simpson" was totally different. I would call this movie a "re-creation." All details were presented with as much authenticity as possible. Many of the actors/actresses bore so much resemblance to the real-life people, I was astonished. This is particularly true of Marcia Clark. At one point midway through the movie, I began to feel it was primarily about Clark. She was the white woman thrust into the thankless role of prosecutor in a trial where race was absolutely at the forefront.
Clark is portrayed in a sympathetic way through most of the movie. At the end she falls down a little where she's giving the closing argument. It becomes clear that she "gets into the weeds" too much with details, whereas the big picture should have been evident to all. The football star was not going to be convicted "beyond a reasonable doubt" by nit-picky details. I recommend that you read the book by Bugliosi called "Outrage."
Clark made too big a deal out of Mark Fuhrman. I do not believe Mark Fuhrman is a racist. Seems to me, the worst thing the detective ever did was to confess to a little racial profiling, only in terms of who he might pull over, not in terms of who'd get convicted. You can argue that such profiling is unforgivable racism, and I'm sure many would, but wouldn't a little profiling have in fact saved us from 9/11, possibly?
Fuhrman's use of the 'N' word was in consultation with people putting together an entertainment project, right? We heard tapes of Fuhrman speaking. He dropped the 'N' word so much, it didn't even seem genuine. As I read at the time, he seemed like a caricature in that regard. The writer of that op-ed wondered, "did KKK members in the Deep South in the 1930s even talk like this?"
I eventually checked out the book written by Fuhrman about the Martha Moxley cold case (at that time) of murder. You have to admire Fuhrman when reading that book. He comes across as sensible and truly caring.

Clark should have veered away from such total condemnation of Fuhrman at the end of the O.J. trial. It seemed like a put-on.
The trial wound down with an increasing sense that a fog of details and irrelevancies would set the stage for a "not guilty" verdict. And that's just what happened.
Yes, this movie was a re-creation with no details that weren't commonly known at the time. We would be just as well served with a Ken Burns documentary. The movie is quite useful in stimulating our memories.
We were all younger and more sprightly back then. And more naive. We had naivete about the sport of football and what it does to people. Now looking back, we can all sense that O.J. might have been a changed person, having changed to become horribly dangerous as the result of all his years of intense contact playing football. He played a full college career at USC. Then he got pounded for many more seasons playing runningback in the NFL. Every time he got the ball, a team of determined big and strong men on the other side of the ball converged to try to stop him with great intensity. The likelihood is very great that O.J.'s brain was impacted. It has happened to so many other former football players.
Just the other day, Bo Jackson was quoted saying if he had it to do over again, he would not have played football. I would suggest that Bo could have played a full baseball career and be in the Hall of Fame now. Bo knows.
Should we view all former NFL players as potentially dangerous? If yes, we need to re-examine our whole culture that has football in a prominent role like for our kids, many of whom choose to "go out" for football. We need to emphasize, though, that football is not an essential part of growing up, does not show you to be "masculine," and may in fact reflect bad judgment.
There was hardly any talk about concussions in the mid-1990s. We were hardly aware of the Internet. In fact, it is the easy availability of information on the Internet today that is discouraging many young men from playing football. It is setting us free.
There is one clear highlight from "The People vs. O.J. Simpson" - a scene that sticks in your head. Clark is flirting with Christopher Darden and he eventually backs away. It's at the door to her hotel room. I remember gossipy articles about the two at the time. Clark subsequently seems embittered by his rejection to the point where she reminds him tersely that "she's the boss" on the prosecution. Might this episode have disrupted the chemistry the two needed to finish out their work as prosecutors? We are left wondering. Maybe Darden should have cashed in and had sex with Clark when he had the chance.
Lance Ito? He comes off as benign in the movie, even though it seemed he got starstruck and distracted in the trial. John Travolta does not bear a physical resemblance to Bob Shapiro. But I think his acting was very effective. We see the whole cast of characters in "The People vs. O.J. Simpson."
The devotion to authenticity is rigid. The person reading the verdict stammers in a certain place just like how it happened in real life. I was waiting for that. "The People vs. O.J. Simpson" accomplished its purpose if the purpose was to be a total re-creation. If you simply want to be taken down memory lane, this movie is for you. I'm glad I watched it. Actress Sarah Paulson is incredible playing Marcia Clark. As for Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J., well, who could play O.J. with total authenticity? Gooding comes off as endearing to a degree, whereas I wouldn't want to be in the same room alone with Simpson.
"The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" was the first season of the FX true crime anthology TV series "American Crime Story." I wonder if the Jacob Wetterling case in Minnesota might get like treatment. It was resolved not long ago after a painful 27-year ordeal of wondering what happened.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwillyh73@yahoo.com

Might Noah Carlson be good fit for U of M?

Should Noah Carlson join the circus known as University of Minnesota football? Carlson has a caliber of play that promotes himself as a candidate. Would it be in his interests?
Carlson is an athlete from Southeastern Minnesota who made big waves coming down the stretch of his prep career. He is of interest to Morris residents - that's because he's the great grand nephew of Truman Carlson. There's a good chance you had Truman for a biology class at Morris High School.
These days the retired Carlson is most pleased to follow athletic prodigy Noah. Noah plays for Rushford-Peterson in the shadow of Magelssen's Bluff. I had the pleasure once of covering an MAHS Tiger football game at R-P during our climb to Prep Bowl. That was many moons ago. Jerry Witt was the coach of our Tigers.
Noah Carlson might fit in with the much-ballyhooed new football regime at the U of M. Let's stress that the young man has not yet made a commitment. It appears there's no guarantee he'll even commit to football. His track and field credentials are absolutely stellar.
John Casper of the Winona Daily News feels the U ought to court Carlson. Casper wrote his column before the new coach was named at the U. We are again digesting a pile of hype about a new coach in a high-profile sport at the U. We're always supposed to think the new coach is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The Star Tribune publishes sensational splashes. We got this for Jerry Kill too. Then reality sets in.
With Kill, the new reality is that he turns thumbs down on the U of M and is personally boycotting our stadium. He's coaching for fellow Big 10 member Rutgers now. Rutgers is creeping along from a weak position but it could be a sleeping giant - it's in the New York City market which is why the Big 10 coveted getting them. Coach Kill walked away from the U with a wheelbarrow full of largesse money, and now he's coaching against us!
Casper publicly encouraged the new coach to get on Highway 61 and go south. Casper noted that Highway 52 would actually be faster "but you can't beat those views, even in the winter." The writer advised "plug the address of Rushford-Peterson into your GPS. Find Noah Carlson. Offer him a scholarship. And don't leave until he says yes. Four or five years from now, you'll thank me. I know it."
The writer advised that Carlson would have a steadying influence at the stew of turbulence which has become the U of M football program. Tracy Claeys is the departed coach. We all know what happened with the sensational reports of personal behavior, the suspensions and that stupid threatened boycott. On the morning that the "boycott" was withdrawn - about two hours before the deadline - I read the headline and shuddered. If the players were not going to have the courage of their convictions - if they cold not buttress their actions with a firm factual background - they should have just shut up and gotten ready to play their game against Washington State.
The U of M was dealt a black eye of embarrassment and humiliation. Is it anyone's fault? Oh, listen to all those violins being played by "administrative" people. What a tangled web we weave. And now this morning (Wednesday), as I passed by the Star Tribune vending machine in front of DeToy's Restaurant, I peered through the darkness (and snow) to see a headline about the U of M wanting a ton more money. It's knee-jerk. It's the way these creatures operate. But wait, I thought that MnSCU (or whatever it's called now) has proclaimed a "financial emergency." Won't the state have to take care of them?
My personal view is that our society needs to start getting ready for the phasing-out of all bricks-and-mortar campuses of "higher education." We will be relieved of all those sexual assault episodes and controversies. I think young adults could stay at home for 3-4 years after high school, contributing to the family welfare while gaining knowledge for a career with the use of online. But until then, we have the quasi-professional phenomenon known as Division I college football. And every day we take another bite. The players get beat up.
Noah Carlson has already gotten nicked by injury. Memo to Noah: Take care of your body. Maybe you should have refused to play "both ways" (offense and defense). The coaches are paid to win, not to take care of you.
Noah for his part probably feels the "invulnerability of youth." He was full-go physically for the state semis and sprinted all over the place. He rushed for 236 yards and scored four touchdowns, and by the way, this was all in the first half!
In the state championship game, when R-P finally came up against a foe of truly superior caliber, the physical toll was too much for the young man. A two-point conversion play saw him take a hard fall, the result of which was a hairline fracture of his tibia and partial tear of his meniscus. He missed two plays and then came back. He came back to be involved in all phases of play: offense, defense and special teams.
Casper talked about Carlson's pained look as he realized a loss was about to happen. This loss will be quickly forgotten. What's important now is that Noah gets his physical problems patched up. Heck, some of the top college football stars are passing on their bowl game so as to stay healthy for the NFL draft - that's how cautious these young men become. Carlson should be no different. No pat on the back is called for, for "playing hurt."
Noah was the state AP Player of the Year. He took five gold medals at the state track and field meet. As a sophomore he was part of a state basketball championship. I just hope and pray he hasn't over-taxed his body. He has scholarship offers from South Dakota State and North Dakota State. But what about the University of Minnesota? Is that the environment he would really want to step into?
The new coach comes here buried under an avalanche of money. The figures end up having no impact on us anymore. They are just wildly high. Double them. Triple them. Would it really matter? I sense this pattern is almost getting into Sodom and Gomorrah territory. Will God punish us for our misplaced priorities?
It's hard to turn away from big-time football. You could argue it's a societal disease. But the norm continues. The legislature should impose restraint and austerity on the U of M. As for MnSCU or whatever it is, maybe it should just be allowed to die on the vine. Countless young people could be spared the temptation to engage in "binge drinking."
I hope Noah Carlson takes care of his body above all else.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Edward Morrison, RIP

The image shows Ed and Helen Jane Morrison at the gallery named for them at UMM.
 
Ed Morrison has gone to that publishing office in the sky. His life was long and rich. The end finally comes as it did for my father.

Connected as he was to publishing, I'm not sure that's the role he would wish to be enshrined with him. He was on the ground floor helping ensure that our campus on the east side of town would transition into the 1960s. Apparently there was grave concern that this might not happen.
The town leaders collectively said "eureka" when the U of M, the most august institution imaginable, declared its intention to take over the campus. It seemed like striking oil.
The campus had been phased out from its long-time role instructing farm kids. It was the West Central School of Agriculture. Kids came here for a shorter school year than their city cousins. Those were labor intensive days on family farms. The kids were needed for home duties, so their school commitments got crammed into an abbreviated school year. The WCSA existed because it filled a need, as all education institutions do. But times change. Our culture evolves. Technology makes inroads. We adjust. The kind of farm life that existed in Norman Rockwell's America was fading. Our "ag school" in Morris reached its end.
Ed Morrison was part of a leadership network that was typical in our small communities of the mid-20th Century. These people were autonomous in how they ran their businesses and families. Autonomous? Those were the days of mom and pop businesses on main street. Main street was clearly the hub of the community. People pushed coins into parking meters. Men gathered at the pool hall. Let's consider the bankers: They were like tribal leaders in the community. Whereas today the head of a bank answers to people in a distant corporate office, back then the banks were stand-alone enterprises with flag firmly planted in the community.
The various heads of the old banks engendered opinions among the citizenry - frankly, oftentimes jealousy, perhaps prompted just by the perceived wealth of those bankers. A sociologist wrote extensively about the old small town model in a book he wrote about a 1950s murder in Foley MN. He shared it in considering whether certain circumstances related to the murder may have been soft-pedaled or covered up. While that's a notorious scenario, feeding conspiracy theory thinking, let's emphasize instead the forward-looking model as we saw in Morris in around 1960.
Ed Morrison with his newspaper business was committed to seeing Morris thrive with the arrival of the University of Minnesota. Meanwhile I was in St. Paul watching "Captain Kangaroo" on TV. My father taught music at the U of M's St. Paul campus.
My life was going to merge with the Morrisons. No, I'm not the kind of person who'd be quoted in an article about Ed's passing. I was merely a "foot soldier" type of employee in the Morris newspaper organization. I was the quintessential foot soldier, getting seen all over the place virtually seven days a week. I went to my office one Christmas Eve and kept my window drapes open, so passers-by (police?) would notice me there. It's the only meaningful role I had in life. It ended in 2006, several years after the Morrisons left their ownership interest.
Ed left any newspaper-related headaches behind him while son Jim stuck around for a time. Forum Communications sucked all the joy out of working there. The paper followed the pattern of those banks I alluded to, no longer locally owned but part of branch systems. The heads of these places can always say "hey, I just work here!" It's nice in a way. On the down side, these local managers can be given local directives and policies - Wells Fargo! - that they know are not in their customers' interests. They plod ahead, knowing they must do as they're told.
Jim was assigned a boss named Dennis Winskowski of Detroit Lakes. In a vein of levity I came up with the nickname "Ol' Leadbottom" for Winskowski, plucking that moniker from my recollection of the old "McHale's Navy" TV series. Ever notice how that series isn't re-run much? The reason is its political correctness issues, their terms for referring to the Japanese.
Jim Morrison admitted to me he didn't get along great with Dennis Winskowski. I would suggest that anyone "not getting along" with their boss in the Forum Communications system is not going to be around long.
Newspapers fell into the path of retrenching in order to keep profits coming in from legacy customers. I saw it as a cynical strategy. The business world has a word for it: "harvesting." The crop is mature and it's time to haul it in. We'll worry about the future tomorrow. The Grant County Herald has resisted that temptation and is a vastly superior product to the present-day Morris Sun Tribune.
 
Nursing UMM to its feet
Ed Morrison and his network of community guardians did everything they could to facilitate UMM's arrival. The word at the time was that UMM might be viewed as experimental and that its future was not even assured. The state had the benefit of taking advantage of an already-existing campus.
Maybe there was a feeling of fits and starts as UMM got going. UMM got past those baby steps with Dean Rodney Briggs. I'm biased when I say the most vibrant aspect of the campus in those heady early days was my father's men's chorus. Remember those trademark maroon blazers? Remember how they wowed audiences at Edson Auditorium? Remember how they traveled to two World's Fairs? Those memories cannot be topped. I'm sure the Morrisons joined in the audiences.
UMM was never a good fit with me personally. I always felt intimidated by the place because I was sure my own intelligence level wouldn't cut it there. I was puzzled by the total liberal arts mantra that it subscribed to. It was taboo in this community to suggest any other, more allegedly "practical," purpose for the school. UMM interests would come at you as if a mafia, if you were reputed to make such a suggestion.
But then I learned this was a pattern in Morris MN, of certain memes or notions that were not meant to be questioned. This can be a dangerous pattern. In the late 1980s the public school was a focus for an earthquake type of clash in the community, over issues that were really rather minor and manageable in the scheme of things. It showed the power of a classic "good old boy network."
I sense that those dynamics are gone now. So too is the old framework of totally locally owned banks with their (male) leaders who were sort of like tribal chiefs in the community - patriarchs. Ed Morrison was a patriarch and a noble one carrying the best of intentions. His legacy can be seen on the east end of town, every time you pass by our campus.
UMM may not be done with transformational challenges. We hear about how liberal arts is being cut back across the nation all the time. Could a new metamorphosis arrive? I think it's quite likely. In the meantime we have gotten our beloved campus through previous chapters with diverse purposes, all starting out with a crusade to bring Native Americans into Western culture.
I was six years old when coming here. Thus I'm considered a "lifer" for all practical purposes. I believe I started kindergarten midway through the year with teacher Ms. Feigum. The other kindergarten teacher was Sylvia Yarger who sat at my table for church coffee Sunday. Sylvia is in her 90s and quite vibrant, following our Minnesota Vikings with great exuberance.
I feel as though Ed and Jim reflected the generation gap in the same way as my father and I. Jim and I would laugh at jokes the meaning of which wasn't relevant to our parents' experiences. Our parents were so straight-laced and responsible with their lives, getting to bed at the proper hour etc. Meanwhile the children bounced around in a most silly fashion. Didn't we ever stop to think we were so different from our parents? Did we ever pause to wonder why? That infernal marijuana. Why did anyone have to push that in my face? Why the ear-splitting "stereo" music? Sociologists have surely explored this.
We have lost an iconic member of the so-called "greatest generation" in Morris. Carry on, Helen Jane. Us younger people should be humbled, trying to internalize the principles our parents would wish to bequeath us. Get to bed at a decent hour.
 
You won't find this in the obituary
To conclude I'll share a trivial little nugget of remembrance. I noticed that Ed would sometimes reach to the seat of his pants and pull out a little, as if his undershorts had gotten too far into his crack. I had the same tendency because I never took to the "tight pants" fashion for males in the 1970s ("Starsky and Hutch").
I mentioned that little habit of Ed and I, one night when a bunch of us were "on the town." I began reaching back to give a little tug once in a while, and each time it was met with uproarious laughter. We were consuming alcohol back in a time when we were much less inhibited doing that. We'd go to a restaurant for the "bar rush." The waitresses at restaurants today probably need a little lesson on what that was. It was really shameful. But life always goes on. It always goes on.
Edward Morrison will continue watching the doings in Morris MN from his perch in heaven. I hope he is someday joined by his son even though his son professes to be a non-believer.
 
Click on the link below to appreciate the flavor of UMM's earliest days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcXFMzPGCH0

 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Mages and his 3-pointers help sink MACA

BOLD 68, Tigers 63

The MACA boys nearly came from behind to defeat the Warriors of BOLD Thursday night, here. We were in a hole, down 37-27 at halftime. We fought to get the score tied at 61-all. We outscored BOLD 36-31 in the second half. But the surge wasn't enough, so in the end we were defeated 68-63.
Mason Mages of BOLD was a thorn in our side. Mages connected for a '3' with less than a minute remaining. In all this Warrior made four 3-pointers and scored 18 total points. But it was Thomas Meyers leading the Warriors in scoring with 21 points. And two other BOLD players scored in double figures: Logan Dahik with eleven points and Gavin Vosika with ten.
Ryan Snow put in six points and Devin Gluesing added two. Mages' four 3-pointers were complemented by Meyers who made one long-ranger. Dahik snared eight rebounds while Vosika had six. Vosika dished out four assists and also stole the ball three times.
On to the Tigers' stats: Jacob Zosel and Tim Travis were a 1-2 punch with 15 and 14 points, respectively. Camden Arndt was next on the list with ten points. The list continues with Tate Nelson (9), Connor Koebernick (7), Kyle Staebler (4) and Lukus Manska (4). Five Tigers are on the list of three-point makes, led by Zosel with his two. These Tigers each made one '3': Travis, Nelson, Arndt and Manska.
Nelson snared eight rebounds while Arndt had seven. Nelson produced five assists and stole the ball three times.
 

Girls: Tigers 65, Montevideo 61

The Tigers and Montevideo fought to a stalemate in regulation time Tuesday night at Monte. Morris Area Chokio Alberta had the upper hand at halftime with a 35-26 lead. Monte found new life in the second half to outscore MACA 29-20, setting the stage for overtime. The orange and black had what it took in the OT extension, carving out a 10-6 advantage. So the action concluded with MACA on top, 65-61.
Maddie Carrington and Riley Decker each made two 3-pointers. Ashley Solvie topped the scoring list with 20 points. Decker contributed 13 points to the winning effort. Carrington's total point output was 12. The list continues with Correy Hickman (8), Nicole Solvie (6), Jenna Howden (4) and Mallory Anderson (2).
Rebound leaders were Ashley Solvie (12), Nicole Solvie (7) and Hickman (6). Hickman was the assist whiz with ten, followed by Ashley Solvie and Carrington each with four. Hickman had six steals and Anderson had four.
Abby Olson was at the fore of Montevideo's scoring as she poured in 25 points. Molly Reeves joined her in double figures with ten. Other Thunder Hawks scoring were Ashley McKee (9), Kaylee Glomstad (8), Kamren Saue (4), Sarah Sulflow (4) and Alex Wolner (1).
The T-Hawks had no three-point makes. McKee collected nine rebounds while Olson and Sulflow each had seven. Reeves and Olson each dished out three assists. Olson had five steals while McKee had three.
 

Travail again at U of M

Gophers football: enough, already? At a certain point in the unraveling of the recent University of Minnesota sports mess, didn't you begin to think: aren't we losing some sense of proportionality? The Star Tribune became dominated by the subject. Huge headlines at the top of various sections. You could page through and find references from various angles all over the place.
The misbehavior of the young men was considerable. But why the sensational reporting, as if our lives are somehow built around this group of student athletes who carry the banner on the field for the U?
We only care about them because of their ability to dash to and fro on a football field, seeking to garner wins over other institutions. When you get down to it, who cares? The U's athletes don't really represent Minnesota. They come here as warriors, mercenaries if you will. Beyond their football abilities we wouldn't care about them at all. You wouldn't want them around your daughter.
We cheer for the logo. We cheer for the team colors. A large percentage of Minnesotans really don't care how the team does at all. It's stupid to pay so much attention to this. But, for as long as the program gets bankrolled by so many generous resources, we will all be forced to pay attention to it, even acknowledging, and being reminded of, such sordid behavior.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Boomers make their bed, must sleep in it

The image shows a peace sign, such a symbol of the boomer generation.

     
People between the ages of 52 and 70 are "baby boomers." It's like a tsunami wave for America's entitlement programs: Social Security and Medicare. All this happens while the Republican Party is being given the keys to the car. Republicans have taken over Congress, the Senate and the presidency, and this is the party that does not believe much in entitlements.
If boomers voted in substantial numbers for Trump, they may have been creating adversity for themselves. Republicans may have their beliefs but they are fundamentally incapable of handling the reins of government. That's because a chief tenet of their beliefs is that they don't believe in government. It's always dangerous when they get the majority.
One can argue that Republicans are at their best when they're a minority striving to impose proper discipline in government. But the Republicans now have those proverbial "keys to the car." Personally I'd mutter "heaven help us all." Here's a party that decries entitlements and government oversight of things, taking over at a time when the U.S. population is aging and ever more people are living beyond their productive years. Seems odd.
I would suggest that many people fall prey to to the rhetoric of conservative media, rhetoric which on its surface appeals to an impulse within many of us. It's an impulse that seeks to affirm self-reliance and a mistrust of those seemingly impersonal government forces.
We in the Midwest have a sense of self-reliance inherited from our forebears. We think of those "cowboys" paving the way for westward advancement, affirming good vs. evil. We grew up watching myriad "westerns" on TV. They presented moral conclusions all over the place. Boomers saw through a lot of that.
We knew the world was full of injustice and needless tragedy. The TV westerns gave us a template that didn't want to acknowledge a lot of the uncomfortable truths. They clung to a superficial world where all the answers seemed so readily at hand. Let's not get too excited about Jim Crow laws. Let's not get drastic or excited about pronouncements that the Viet Nam war was necessary.
Can the youth of today possibly put themselves in the shoes of America's youth when military conscription was in effect? When young men were forced over to Southeast Asia where the odds of death were considerable?
Maybe we have forgotten how the Cold War cast such a depressing shroud over us. Our public schools once put tremendous academic pressures on kids so we might "keep up with the Soviet Union." Communism crumbled over there. It had nothing to do with our military efforts in Southeast Asia. People found their footing over there because they wanted a better way. The transformation was organic, the way it should be. Not the result of young men being given guns to shoot at other men who shot back.
The boomers enter their twilight years with the Cold War having faded to a distant memory. We have a president-elect who has actually developed affinity with Russia. His conservative followers don't seem distressed by that at all.
Allow me to predict that America is on the verge of very troubled times given our new political landscape. People have taken over power who reflect all those screaming voices from the conservative media. They cannot govern because they're not interested in governing. Some terrible things could now happen. Mark my word.

But what about our "self-reliance," our apparent birthmark as Americans? Rugged individualism. Well, how do you think the desert Southwest got developed? Undeterred pioneers? Cowboys with guns blazing? No, it was the government, specifically with construction of the Hoover Dam. The government!
Conservative screamers in the media simply have a racket going.
I recently wrote song lyrics focusing on the boomer generation. These are tailored to a quite pleasing melody, IMHO. I don't know if I'll have the song recorded. I write lots of poetry and lyrics. My song is called "Baby Boomer." Here are the lyrics:
 

"Baby Boomer"

by Brian Williams
 

World war was over

Ashes in its wake

Greatest generation

Showing what it takes

They were our dear parents

Getting on their feet

We fulfilled their mission

finding life so sweet
 

We adored the Beatles

And their Mersey sound

They gave us a message

That we rendered loud

We believed in cultures

Meshing as if one

As we heard John put it:

"All you need is love"
 

CHORUS:

I was born a baby boomer

Getting old is just a rumor

Through the storms we always endured

I was born a baby boomer
 
 

We unleashed our voices

Toward a better world

Breaking down each barrier

Going 'round each curve

Though it would take patience

We would not desist

We were like an army

No one could resist
 

Through it all our elders

Never really changed

They just knew their values

That their lives ordained

So much pain behind them

They were feeling fine

Thankful for their bills paid

And for every dime
 

(repeat chorus)
 

We respected NASA
And the men who flew

Racing through the heavens

In a small capsule

Finally we could see them

On the moon so real

JFK would smile

As we sealed the deal
 

Some of us were hippies

That was a tough sell

Some of us had placards

Saying war is hell

Civil rights was pressing

Women sought their place

We were building bridges

For the human race
 

(repeat chorus)
 

We got Richard Nixon

He just didn't work

He was left imploring

"I am not a crook"

We moved on to disco

Interest rates so high

It was like a world

Far beyond the sky
 

Movies gave us Star Wars

So we could escape

We loved Carrie Fisher

Fantasy first-rate

We were so resilient

Always glass half-full

Moving to the future

Like a raging bull
 

(repeat chorus)
 

We bemoaned our elders

Getting up in years

Had they not been faithful

We would not be here

They gave us the wellspring

For our every task

They turned back the Axis

What more could we ask?
 

Yes we will discover

Our mortality

Though we won't acknowledge

Even one frailty

We exuded chutzpah

As we did our good

We will live forever

Please just knock on wood
 

(repeat chorus)
 

(repeat chorus again, then repeat the last line)
 

© 2016 Brian R. Williams

Newspapers' decline accelerates after a lull

"Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel," the old quote goes. I supplied that to Neil Thielke before he went up onstage for an emceeing stint at East Side Park for one of those Thursday night things. The idea is, you'd better be careful taking on a newspaper.

Historically it's true. But newspapers are not having to acquire as many barrels of ink these days. Talk of newspapers' decline swelled about ten years ago. For a time it seemed like Hollywood worrying about television. The big screen was hardly going to be wiped out, despite television's burgeoning presence.
Any time certain experts are predicting in arm-waving fashion, the demise of an American institution, be skeptical. If something is really destined to go away, it will just happen. There will be no air of sensation about it. The reason: people will have just found the means to an alternative way of getting things done.
Newspapers are in a genuine pattern of decline at present. Ten years ago the erosion was evident but not totally destructive. The histrionics were shown by well-known media analysts Michael Wolff and Jeff Jarvis, and they got a fair amount of attention for their pronouncements. A cynic might say that was what they were looking for.
I occasionally checked Jarvis' blog called "Buzzmachine." He does have a lot to offer. He is an academic with true insights. But I caught his post about how newspaper preprint advertising was going to disappear within three years. Preprint ads are those circulars or inserts that are stuffed in papers, a pile of which you'll find in each week's Morris paper. People who don't do a lot of consuming are annoyed by this. You have to deal with these, i.e. dispose of them. Maybe it would have been nice to see preprint ads gone within Jarvis' suggested timeline. My goodness, this was several years ago, and he suggested a timeline of three years.
Jarvis said he had industry contacts (i.e. in the industries that advertise) who were consulting with him on this. Ah, I've been in the media neighborhood long enough to recognize posturing when I hear it. I remember when our local Pamida store (of the famous potholes in the parking lot) went into arm-waving over disgust with an upcoming advertising price hike. I recall our advertising rep quoting the store management as saying they'd refuse to pay it. But they must have ended up paying it. The squawking was just the usual back and forth of business.
Those polluting advertising circulars have hung in there for years, getting blown into rain gutters and all over the place.
Michael Wolff, a biographer of Rupert Murdoch among other things, many years ago said 80 percent of newspapers would go under within 18 months. Boy, that really would have been news. It would have been spectacular which is precisely the reason why we should have been skeptical.
The media overreacted tremendously to the closure of two newspapers that were outliers, not in the standard media market monopoly model. Those two papers, as you might recall, were the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Rocky Mountain News. I sneered as I saw the likes of network news anchors report these closures as if they were reflecting a broad tailspin of the print media, something that would happen soon. Instead we saw the print media go into some retrenchment but (apparently) land on their feet. The whistling past the graveyard subsided for quite a long time.
We'd read occasionally about layoffs. But all the familiar old titles were still pretty much around. Panic over? Well, no. The trend of pressure on those austere old titles just needed more time. Changes in popular behavior just don't happen so suddenly.
We can see the renewed panic on the micro level in Morris MN. Maybe you haven't noticed that the Morris Sun Tribune has gotten smaller yet again. Recently a pattern of 20-page papers has developed, down from the long-time average of 24. Of course, the paper used to come out twice a week (during my long tenure there). The page size has been shaved several times. Less has not been more.
The paper has been trying to cling to its legacy (up-in-years) customers who just assume that "getting the paper" is part of standard life. This treading water has worked to a degree. But the older generations are naturally moving on, forcing adjustments with churches and myriad other threads of our society. People are rapidly moving from the traditional funeral/burial format to cremation and even natural burial. An advantage is to save virtually thousands of dollars. Money talks, as my old friend Glen Helberg always implored. Glen chose cremation. I am deeply regretful that my family didn't make that commitment.
We have not had the Morris newspaper delivered to our home for several years. When I left the Sun Tribune I tried buying a subscription but was turned down - I was told I'd just get a complimentary copy, apparently in recognition of my years of yeoman service. After a couple years, I was simply cut off. I breathed a sigh of relief when learning I was in good company: Jim Morrison told me his father Ed got cut off at the same time. Obviously the paper staff had a meeting to go down a list of people getting "comp" subscriptions and started crossing off names.
Forum Communications has never been known for its class - it is a Machiavellian business. Well, congratulations. You guys are also part of a dying business. It may not have happened ten years ago but sure as shootin' is happening now.
The Sun Tribune's shrinkage down to 20 pages happened in the weeks leading up to Christmas, historically a robust time of year for newspaper advertising. Obviously the uptick in newspaper ad spending did not happen this year. Instead the hole got deeper.
The newspaper will harass its news employees as if they're the problem. But of course they aren't. They're scapegoats. Management will turn to the overblown sports department and decide there's an issue there. Thrashing around over sports coverage issues is a constant. Once in a meeting when sports was brought up, Jim Morrison got a resigned look in his eyes and said "I don't want to get in a big discussion about sports."
The Sun Tribune newspaper had a chronic problem through the years I was there, of employees who had an emotional investment in local sports. This group included (most notably) the advertising manager, to whom Morrison was so deferential, she really should have been general manager. But then what would Jim's job be?
The newspaper has scrambled by deciding to charge for obituaries, an unethical move no matter how you look at it. I don't need an obituary of a family member in the local paper. A death is a private family tragedy and not a community spectacle.
Shoppers demonstrated in 2016 that they're doing ever more of their holiday shopping online. Retailers' spending on paper advertising declined more than 30 percent in the holiday season. It was the biggest decline in at least four years. The measure declined 15 percent in 2015.
Jon Swallen of Kantar Media said: "Newspapers have been a challenged medium with declining circulation and revenue."
Those preprint ads that shower us each week, mostly from non-Morris businesses, are in fact fading in use now, quite belatedly following Jarvis' forecast. Swallen said: "Retailers may have reached a tipping point in terms of their use of newspapers and share of ad budget."
And the esteemed Paul Gillin of "Newspaper Death Watch" comments: "After a spate of closures and layoffs in the latter part of the last decade, the newspaper industry appeared to find its footing over the last few years. But now that oasis of stability may be drying up."
More: The 13th annual Pew Research State of the News Media Report documents another year of alarming declines for newspapers - the worst since the 2008-09 recession.
We are in fact adjusting our habits so newspapers are not an assumed, standard part of our lives. We are moving on. So, once that process has been completed, it simply will not be "news" because we will have adjusted and acquired new habits.
We moved on from high-button shoes, didn't we?

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Thoughts with the passing of Christmas, 2016

Christmas has come and gone for 2016. The pace of life slowed more than it normally does. Christmas Eve Day was on Saturday and Christmas was on Sunday. A holiday that falls on Sunday doesn't really count because it's a day we'd get off anyway. Therefore, Monday takes over as the day off.

This logic applied to Christmas Eve Day as well, Saturday, which is normally a slow day for people. So that day didn't really count as a holiday either, causing the slowdown to spill back to Friday.
I tried visiting my tax preparation office at about 3:30 p.m. Friday, tugged on the door and found it was locked. Then I saw the sign informing that they closed at 3 p.m. Their official hours go until 4:30. I had gotten a letter from them just recently that included a reminder of their business hours. But they weren't about to abide by that on Friday, the day before Christmas Eve Day. You see, Christmas Eve Day was Saturday, a day they'd take off anyway.
The effect of having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day over a weekend, was to spread out the "slow" time for the holiday so much more. I wonder how much loss of productivity this caused. I complimented our Morris Public Library director on being open two hours on Saturday, Christmas Eve Day. Kudos to Anne Barber the librarian. But I do miss Melissa Yauk, now a long ways away in Idaho. It doesn't seem right for Melissa to be gone.
By the time we got done with Monday, I had had it with the disrupted routine.
The late Glen Helberg and I once discussed how holidays are hard on unemployed people. Everyone else relishes the "reprieve." For us it's just four more days: Friday through Monday. And I suppose the same scenario will present itself for New Year's weekend. The Eve on Saturday, New Year's Day on Sunday. Again, you can't treat Saturday and Sunday as real holiday days - that would be unfair - so they ''stretch" things to Friday and Monday again. More lost productivity I guess. More depressed times for us non-working people who sort of languish.
Mom and I have no relatives close by anymore. We try to go to church but our church has been in flux for a long time because of instability in the pastor position. We go to First Lutheran. I don't demand or expect some sort of award-winning pastor. We have had great difficulty even trying to tread water.
There was a time when I was still with the Morris newspaper, when I had Christmas CDs that I played at the shop at night, usually when I was the only one there. I might be there until 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night. Sometimes I'd ride my bike home. I'm sure a memo got shared around the police department about this weirdo at the paper who might be out and about keeping burglar's hours.
I played Christmas-themed CDs at the shop rather late. This might start right after Thanksgiving. It seemed I felt a genuine Christmas spirit right after Thanksgiving, which seemed natural and proper then. Some of these CDs were special compilations by Del Sarlette featuring music with trumpet players of note. I love Jack Sheldon with "A Jazz Musician's Christmas."
I photographed the Parade of Lights through the first few years. There was a time when I composed a "telegram from Santa" that appeared in the Morris paper, complete with the word "stop" for periods. I photographed Santa arriving in Donnelly.
These days I'm surprised by how little motivation I have to trot out the Christmas stuff. I try to resolve to do better the next year but it never seems to happen. I examined my own mindset about this. I was sure I had not developed an inclination to simply be bitter or skeptical about anything. That's not my nature.
But in a way, I have just developed a little bitterness based on what I would cite as outside forces. I have become disappointed in Christianity. The media constantly report about the "evangelicals" as if they define Christianity. I wish they'd give us a meaningful definition. Through the presidential primary campaign, we'd hear the drumbeat of the "evangelicals" who naturally are on the right wing of the political spectrum. Listen to Mike Huckabee and that fits the template.
I attend a church in a synod with the word "evangelical" in it. But the media aren't thinking at all of me when trotting out "evangelicals." They think of Huckabee. Now, why is this?
The people loosely described as "evangelicals" are confrontational. They have a chip on their shoulder regarding various issues. The media absolutely feed off confrontation and controversy. So we hear about the "evangelicals" and all their pitched battles. Makes good news copy.
Meanwhile my Evangelical Lutheran Church of America looks bland and boring. That is because we are gentle and inclusive people. We are temperate. The "evangelicals" with fire in their eyes look at us like we're misguided, like maybe we aren't even Christians. They can't possibly know what's in our minds or soul.
The ELCA approach is like how Christianity was broadly understood in the Norman Rockwell days. Those wonderful middle class Americans, bred by the GI Bill and having learned from true adversity, seemed passive as they headed up the church steps on Sunday. My generation of the boomers decided to mock them to a degree. Some of us mocked the ladies who prepared meals in the typical Lutheran church basement. We decided a lot of those people were hypocrites.
We began hearing about "born again" Christians who professed to be superior. And then along came the Moral Majority which really drew a line in the sand. The more hyper-motivated Christians got the most attention, created the most buzz. And, most significantly, according to many sociologists, the Moral Majority and their ilk slowly started alienating a lot of younger people. Those younger people didn't like the rigid, non-inclusive stance that Christianity began to take on, at least in the popular consciousness.
God would have looked on most disapprovingly. Church numbers have been heading down primarily because of this alienation. I stayed away for about 35 years because I was disappointed in the mainstream Christian denominations sitting on their hands when they could have used their considerable influence to get the boys out of Viet Nam. But I'm going again now in the year 2016, soon to be 2017. I'm a boring ELCA Lutheran.
We have a wonderful ELCA pastor in town in Dell Sanderson. I can't even tell you the name of our own interim pastor. The pastor's position at First Lutheran has been a revolving door.
Allow me to synthesize the main point I'm making in this post: the degree to which the so-called "evangelicals" have come to define Christianity, has slowly gotten me discouraged at Christmas. I figure that if Fox News and Donald Trump are going to be the leaders in saying "merry Christmas," sticking a thumb in the eye of non-Christians, I really don't want anything to do with Christmas and maybe not even with Christianity.
Maybe the tide will turn. Maybe the gentle Norman Rockwell template will return.
 
Addendum: Ever notice that photo of the late Willie Martin with his arms held up in exuberance on the Willie's Parade of Lights float? I took that photo. If I'm fortunate enough to go to heaven, Willie and Del Holdgrafer will be the first two people I look up. Willie was amazing. You might say he was "super astronomical."
 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com