national news, political news

Sticking with Biden

Just so you know, I am standing firmly behind President Biden’s effort to win re-election to a second term in office.

Yes, I have read the polling data. I have heard the talking heads worrying their little noggins out over the polls that show the president trailing his Republican opponents. I have heard the concerns about his age.

I acknowledge fully the age issue is a serious one to be sure. He is about to turn 81. Life can go south in a hurry at that age. Believe me when I say that I have felt the crushing pain of watching a loved gone o from healthy to seriously unhealthy virtually overnight … and she was in her early 70s when we lost her.

However, I am not going to accept any arguments about mental acuity or loss of intellectual capacity in the president.

Joe Biden is fit for the job. I want him to stay at his post.

local news

Ol’ Sam still stands tall

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — They call the statue you see with this blog post the “largest statue of an American hero in the world.”

Indeed, the man portrayed in this 67-foot steel and granite masterpiece could be made even larger and it still might not adequately represent what he means to Texans.

Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas and seventh governor of the state after it was admitted to the Union in 1845.

We first saw this towering tribute on one of our trips to the university in Huntsville that bears his name. Our son was attending Sam Houston State University when they dedicated the statue in 1994. Our son, majoring in criminal justice, graduated the following year and left the area to join his mother and me in Amarillo.

But Gen./President Houston’s image has kept his watch on traffic rocketing past along Interstate 45.

I need to mention that it was Gen. Houston, commanding the Texian army, that forced Mexico’s Gen. Santa Anna to surrender at San Jacinto in 1836, ending the revolution that resulted in Texas’s independence from Mexico. We still celebrate Texas Independence Day every March.

I stopped this morning en route to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex after spending some time in Houston catching up with dear friends and former colleagues. I wanted to take an up-close gander at the great man’s image.

It remains an impressive tribute.

local news, media news

The party? It was worth it!

HOUSTON — Thomas Wolfe once wrote that “You can never go home again,” and I suppose you can’t.

However, you can reunite with those with whom you once formed relationships that went far beyond your professional environment.

I came back to this city which is close to where I jump-started my journalism career in Texas. I returned to pay my respects to a former colleague who passed away earlier this year from symptoms of a devastating stroke she suffered.

I also returned to see old friends and colleagues with whom I became acquainted as a fellow journalist seeking to make an impact on the Golden Triangle community we all served while working for the Beaumont Enterprise.

I gotta tell ya, the return was every bit worth the effort I put into coming back to The Bayou. I saw many of my friends. We hugged. They all knew about the tragedy that struck my family and me earlier this year and to a person they all showered me with love.

To be clear, I didn’t come here because I needed the love I received. I have gotten plenty of it already from my immediate family, my extended family and the many friends Kathy Anne and I made in the Golden Triangle and in the Texas Panhandle, where we lived for23 years before moving to the Dallas/Fort Worth area in late 2018.

But, damn … it was so good to see these men and women who welcomed my family and me to our new surroundings in 1984 and who have remained close to my heart in the decades that have passed.

I have long believed that true friendships last no matter how often you see someone. I don’t see these folks often, but I want them to know how much I love them.

education news, local news, State news

Vouchers torpedoed by GOP lawmakers

How ’bout them rural Republican Texas legislators for standing up for their public school systems?

They have helped torpedo a plan to allow public school money to be funneled away to enable parents to enroll their children in private schools. According to the Texas Tribune: The House voted 84-63 in favor of an amendment offered by Rep. John Raney, R-College Station, which removed the provision of the bill allowing some parents to use tax dollars to send their children to private and religious schools. Twenty-one Republicans, most of whom represent rural districts, joined all Democrats in support.

Texas House votes to remove school vouchers from massive education bill | The Texas Tribune

Is this a major embarrassment to Gov. Greg Abbott, who keeps calling legislators back into special session to enact his top priority? You bet it is.

My hope is that Abbott will surrender on this approach that he deems so vital.

The GOP lawmakers understand something fundamental about the role that public school systems play in their district. Which is that the schools are the heart and soul of their districts. Why damage or destroy them by taking money away? They won’t go there. Nor should they!

Pete Laney of Hale Center is the most recent Democrat to serve as speaker of the House. Laney always said that he wanted to let “the will of the House” determine the flow of legislation. One of his successors, Republican Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont, is following that lead.

The will of the House has spoken on behalf of our public education system.

local news, media news

Celebrating an amazing life

HOUSTON — I have returned to a city near where I got my introduction to Texas nearly 40 years ago.

You see, Houston lies only about 80 miles west of Beaumont, where I started working as an editorial writer for the Beaumont Enterprise. One of my colleagues at the newspaper was a woman whose life I have returned to celebrate.

Her name was Carol. She lived large. She lived as if there was no tomorrow. She was a dynamo and a writer without equal among those I have met in my many years as a print journalist. She passed away a few weeks ago after suffering a debilitating stroke that rendered her helpless. Her husband, Pat, cared lovingly for her. Then she died.

I came to celebrate her life and the amazing journey she took along the way. In truth, though, I also came to see friends I made when I ventured to Beaumont after spending virtually my entire life in Oregon. I came at the behest of the Enterprise editor, who thought I would be a good fit working in what he called at the time “a great news town.” He was right.

The last time I saw Carol probably was in the late 1980s when she left Beaumont and gravitated to Houston to work for the much larger Houston Chronicle. She was full of life and — if you’ll pardon the expression — also full of piss and vinegar. That’s how she rolled.

Her celebration will occur tomorrow afternoon at a Cajun joint in Houston called the Big Easy Social and Pleasure Club. If you knew Carol and Pat, it is precisely the kind of place where she would want her friends to remember her.

I expect to see many friends I made when I arrived in the spring of 1984. And many of those friends I grew to love as family. I came here ahead of my wife and still-young sons. Kathy Anne stayed behind to sell our house in suburban Portland. She moved with the boys to Beaumont in August 1984, just in time for them to start school.

Kathy Anne learned right away about the friendships I made in her absence. She fell in love with many of them as well. And they did with her.

What I had told her was how many of these young people went out of their way to include me in their after-hours social gatherings. They included my bride in their frivolity once she and our sons settled into our new digs in Beaumont.

So … there you have it. I look forward to seeing dear friends, and celebrating the life of a force of nature.

It ought to be a hell of a party. Carol would have it no other way.

local news

Blog keeps me active

The most prideful thing about writing this blog rests in a single statistic: the consecutive days I post something that is distributed into cyberspace … and beyond.

As this item is posted, it will mark the 783rd consecutive day in which I have had something to say about anything in this good ol’ world of ours.

The blog, though, has another benefit that I cannot measure with mere statistics.

It keeps my brain functioning. That’s an important matter to consider, given that my dear mother passed away at the age of 61 from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. I have read that there is a certain hereditary aspect to this killer disease, so the longer I can keep my brain active, functioning and alert to the news of the day the better, I figure, are my chances of hanging on for a good while longer.

I soon will turn 74, which means I will have outlived my parents by a good bit; Dad died in a boat wreck at the age of 59.

My consecutive-day streak never has been in danger. I can find something to write about any day of the week. The only change one can see in this blog is the number of entries I have been posting each day in recent months. They have dwindled partly because I have had a bit of trouble focusing on the day’s news in the wake of the passing of the first true love of my life, my dear bride Kathy Anne.

Glioblastoma — an aggressive form of brain cancer — struck my bride with sudden savagery in late 2022. She received her diagnosis on Dec. 26, 2022, and was gone the evening of Feb. 3, 2023. The resulting journey I have undertaken since that terrible moment has restricted my blog activity.

The blog, though, in many ways has been a life-saver for me. It has enabled me to share portions of my journey with you. The love and support I have received along the way have sustained me.

And it has enabled me to keep my streak alive!

The streak will continue for as long as I am able to string sentences together. As will my journey.

Uncategorized

Timing is everything

One of the tricks I learned quickly upon moving from Amarillo to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is how to navigate smoothly along this region’s massive highway network.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the traffic in this part of the world. Dallas’s traffic jams have become legendary … and Fort Worth is no picnic either.

Rule No. 1: Never attempt to get anywhere during “rush hour,” morning or afternoon. You wait patiently to schedule your sojourns when you expect everyone out there to be either at work in the morning or at home in the evening.

Rule No. 2: Find back roads that could get you there nearly as quickly as the freeways/turnpikes/parkways/toll roads. That’s problematic, given that others might already have discovered those back roads, rendering them next to impossible to navigate.

I drove today from Collin County all the way to southwest Tarrant County. I left after the morning rush and returned prior to the evening rush. The drive is about 60 miles in length, taking me a little more than an hour to complete.

I did so in both directions with little fuss and even fewer four-letter words muttered under my breath at the traffic jams. What’s more, when you live in West Texas for as long as my wife and I did — 23 years — you learn that to get anywhere, you just have to drive a good bit to get there.

None of this accounts for the possibility of an 18-wheeler overturning and spilling toxic substances all over creation.

Just wanted to share this learning experience with you. I realize it’s no great discovery on my part, but it sure allows me to go from Point A to Point B and back again without undue stress.

national news, political news

So long, Rep. Santos

George Santos will go down in history as the first — but probably far from the last — piss ant member of Congress to bring shame to the body before ever taking office.

The New York Republican announced this week he won’t seek re-election to the district he won by lying his way throughout the 2022 campaign. He also allegedly stole money from his campaign fund and used it for personal pleasure.

The House Ethics Committee has issued a blistering report condemning Santos and its chairman, a Republican who voted against impeaching Donald Trump and in favor of overturning the 2020 presidential election result, now vows to file a resolution calling for Santos’s expulsion from the House.

Santos has taken lying to stratospheric levels. It’s unbelievable that he hasn’t been sanctioned long before now. But … it’s about to happen.

Santos says he won’t run for re-election. Big … effing … deal!

As for shaming the body? Well, it was full of shame long before Santos set foot in the House chamber.

Good riddance … George!

legal news, national news

SCOTUS takes tiny step

The U.S. Supreme Court is 234 years of age and only until this week it has operated without a single standard for the way its justices should conduct themselves.

The court finally has adopted a sort of guideline for the things its justices can do, but it falls far short of anything worth a damn or any measure that could help restore public confidence in our nation’s highest court.

Two justices have been in the news of late. Clarence Thomas — the court’s senior member in terms of service — has received lavish gifts from a Dallas billionaire while also ruling on cases involving the Harlan Crow’s business interests. The gifts include vacations for Thomas and his wife, tuition paid for his grandson, and a mortgage paid for a home occupied by Thomas’s mother.

Samuel Alito took a fishing trip at the expense of a hedge fund manager and then failed to recuse himself in a case involving the fund.

Oh, we also have the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg taking a trip to Israel paid for by someone with a case pending before the court.

This is utter nonsense. It’s pure crap. It compromises the court’s integrity, its fairness, its objectivity, its ability to rule on the merits of a case exclusively without being influenced by outside pressure.

I have been yammering all along that Clarence Thomas should resign from the court, but that call involves the numerous instances of conflict of interest that seem to fly over the justice’s head; the others involve his wife’s involvement in the Big Lie and the assault by MAGA morons on 1/6 seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The very first rule of ethics should be for justices to avoid any possible conflict of interest by being involved in any fashion with litigants appearing before them. The Supreme Court has stated it now in writing.

What’s missing, though, is any meaningful enforcement of the rules. The court has laid out nothing that prescribes a punishment for justices who are caught violating these rules.

That absolutely must be the next step.

national news, national security, political news

‘Weaponized’ DOJ? Hah!

How in the name of legitimate political discourse does the MAGA wing of the Republican Party justify accusing Joe Biden of “weaponizing” the Department of Justice?

Why pose the question? Because the MAGA minions’ main man, Donald Trump, took weaponization to a new level … and pledges out loud and with crystal clarity that he plans to do even more of it were he allowed to return to the White House!

Trump said he intends to rid the nation of the “vermin” he says occupy key offices in D.C. Think about the use of that particular term for just a moment. Does it ring a bell? It should. It’s the same kind of language Adolf Hitler used when talking about his desire to rid the world of Jewish people.

How would Trump accomplish that moronic notion? By deploying federal agents. In other words, by weaponizing the Justice Department.

The MAGA morons are lining up behind the idiotic rants of a disgraced, twice-impeached, multiple-times indicted former POTUS who stands at this moment of being a convicted felon by the time the GOP presidential nominating convention kicks off next summer.

We are witnessing in real time, ladies and gents, the dumbing down of a voting population that calls itself “patriotic” when, in reality, they are the exact opposite; No patriot would dare endorse the notion of siccing federal government agents on Americans whose only “crime” is to disagree with politicians who crave power.

But … listen carefully to the rants that pour of out of Trump’s pie hole and you hear a fraudulent pol pledge to toss democratic principles into the crapper.

He pledges to turn the Justice Department into a weapon he can use to punish anyone who dares challenge the idiocy that is bound to become this individual’s benchmark.

He must not be allowed anywhere near the White House.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience