Survival of the Fittest

I once heard a story of a super salesman who tried to get an older relative to buy a pair of gently used shoes at the Salvation Army. 

 

This week the world of the media has woken to the human condition.  Real life suffering did not seem so far away.  The next administration was going to be about, even if the candidates would not publicly admit it, survival in a pair of gently used shoes. 

 

I sense an undertone of gasoline rationing, in a world with limited supply of foreign oil, as one candidate’s solution.  No one was asking specifics.  Talk was cheap anyway, except when you were paying for those commercials.  Where I live, you saw little sponsorship on televsion except by the candidates.  And this more than anything reflected a sick society. 

 

The real price of freedom:  “Human nature doesn’t change, with the changing of latitude or longitude, with parliamentary majorities, and not even with the passing of time,” said Tarcisio Bertone this week.  In a collapsing economy everything was at risk.  Health, education, defense.  In a collapsing economic system called capitalism, where there has been a true revolution going on, basic human rights involving speech, religion, and the press were at risk.  The War on Terror had not ended.  It also never began on September 11, 2001.  The struggle of the human condition has been ongoing before 1776.  America never held the patent to human rights.  Freedom was not defined by Americans in the 20^th Century.  It was an ongoing struggle.  America was just the place where you could find a pair of gently used shoes. 

 

It is said that political films, like political books, are most eagerly welcomed in societies that repress free speech.  It is said that religion flourishes in a society when religious freedom is supressed.  The human spirit is spurred on in its quest.   

 

 

This morning it seems to me that an end of an era is at hand.  Dew points were falling, the leaves were changing, and fear was in the air.  Things that had always been cheap and available, gas, credit, would be regulated like drugs and alcohol.  Banks would be nationalized.  The vibrations of it all.  On democracy and freedom.  I suspect even gasoline, if you listen to what Obama is never asked.  The way of life that I have known is changing.  There will be political consequences to governments around the world.  In some places there will be revolutions.  Intimacy between neighbors has long been lost in this society.  Commuting long distances had isolated us all. 

 

Evil men will jump in at some point.  I had not figured out the appropriate defensive measures if there were any.  Dwight Eisenhower had once said when it came to the War Department, Department of Defense, it all was dependent on a thriving econmy of hard working citizens.    

 

This week in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Lawrence Brandt, the bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Greensburg which has about 180,000 parishioners in four counties east of Pittsburgh, announced the consolidation of 28 parishes or sharing of clergy and the clsosing of 14 of its 100 parishes that will take effect Oct. 30th, in an effort to deal with a priest shortage.  Brandt said 20 percent of the diocese’s priests were being used to serve just 2.5 percent of its population, in his decsion that grew out of a three-year study.  “I know that people are mentally and emotionally attached to their parishes and churches in a way they identify with no other building or entity,” Brandt said in a statement. “It is understandable that they feel a part of themselves has been lost forever.”

 

When Catholics quit praying, they argued and quit becoming priests. 

 

In Minneapolis–St. Paul, we had two papers that were both on the verge of collapse, running out of money and opportunity.   When you ran out of money, the choices were limited.  No one was discussing the affect on the community with the loss of real freedom when it was gone.  When American quit praying in this suburban world, they argued, really quit caring, and went about individual lives.  In a sense, the community was broken.  No one cared about a newspaper owner far away.     

But I was going to be harder to find a gently used pair of shoes.  And the distances between us were a long way to walk.  Whether it was newspaper closings, church closings, or the loss of jobs, it was all about the survival of the fittest.    -

The Russians Are Coming

What exactly did you believe in? 

Globalization and the news:  Thomas Friedman with the New York Times thought globalization was a good thing.  Of course he moved away from a Minneapolis suburb and has made a living around the globe ever since.  He got on the world stage in New York and lost his local connection. 

Yesterday I responded to a call from the St. Paul newspaper, agreeing to a subscription.  It was against everything I believed to respond to a telephone solicitation.  Yet it might save one local paper.  I thought my ideals were worth bending until the caller told me she was in Nevada.  It was a stock company.  I then told her no.  Maybe the day would return when local ownership returned.  I was beginning to disagree with Thoms Friedman.   

Foreign buyers.  The acquisition of steel maker by a Russian company so that they now own 10% of all United States steel manufacturers.  The sellers of this recent business did not care, especially in a falling U S market.  The Russians had the money now due to oil.  So what exactly did you believe in after the Cold War?  Was this a good thing?  Should I ask a Vietnam War vet or a Hmong refugee. 

What exactly did you believe in?  Last year there was the acquisition of the Wall Street Journal by an Australian, Robert Murdoch.    Free markets. Human rights.  The United States Constitution guarenteed a free press. 

The cost of education, health care, oil.  The survival of a local press.  Was it all to be determined just by a free market?    What exactly did you believe in? 

 

 

The War on Terroir

There was a day when no one ever was allowed to do business in farm towns without the approval of the local banker.  How the world had changed. I worked in a state bordering the one I grew up in, for six years.  I was a big city guy spending a lot of time dealing with farmers.  It was the 1980s.  I dealt with one local banker.  And he wanted to promote the other local businesses.  He liked the idea of supporting the local merchant, local ownership, because if the people in the town did not, who would?  Who cared if prices were cheaper in the big city 140 miles away?  Because no one else was gonna help you. 

 

His philosophy came out of the same satisfaction that people still had here when the local kid made good.  It was now almost 20 years later and we live in a world when people no longer bowled.  When stock companies owned you, it was all about money.  And saving it. That was what had happened in the world of newspaper.  Business was held hostage each quarter to the shareholders.    

 

Look at the present day world.  There was growing trouble handling debt.  Individually. Communally. There were growing deficits.  Ford lost $8 billion this past quarter.  GM had lost $15 billion.  AIG announced losses of $5.36 billion this week.  Handling debt.  Stock companies with no local ownership.  The world was different. 

 

People in Minnesota were different from those in Texas.  We were formed by the winters, the land, the lakes.   We were a lot like wine.  It was in the terroir.   Taste was determined by the amount of sunshine. Geographic origin.   The soil.  Terroir was some mysterious blending of earth, climate and culture.   It was the same mystery, in the same sense, how one person was blended to become a personality.  Only we had all become like McDonald’s friendly arches.  The franchise was now owned by people scattered about, far way.  To them, we were all the same and our city was no different from any other place. 

   

The newspaper had passed through the hands of 3 owners in this decade. 

And it was this change in the community why no one cared that the newspapers were folding.  It was not just in Minneapolis.  It was the St. Paul Pioneer Press too.  We had all somehow lost a distinct taste.  At least in the view of the owners of these papers. 

 

I never liked that South Dakota banker.  But he saw clearly how the environment was all about money.  And what he had to do to make sure some of it stayed in South Dakota.  Wanting more of it.  For the local people who banked with him.  I had once been caught up in this world.  And I now was caught up in this one.