Texas has become a leader in — are you ready for this? — green energy.

Those are the findings of a new book, “The Great Texas Wind Rush,” that details how Texas has become a pre-eminent producer of wind energy.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/07/05/how-texas-won-the-race-to-harness-the-wind/#more-29422

As a resident of arguably the windiest place on Planet Earth, I welcome this revelation by reporters Kate Galbraith and Asher Price, authors of the book.

The wind energy boom has yet to develop fully in the Texas Panhandle. But will testify to what I’ve witnessed over recent years across our vast landscape: the emergence of many hundreds of wind turbines whirling in the incessant wind that sweeps the region almost non-stop.

I realize that wind energy remains a bit expensive to produce, compared to fossil fuels. But once the technology is developed, perfected and made more efficient, there perhaps can be no greater boon to the nation’s energy policy that wind.

It’s plentiful, definitely renewable and clean.

As reported by State Impact, a reporting project of National Public Radio:

“Those early years of ‘windcatting,’ as the two describe it in their book, were full of trial and error. Lighting strikes, blade malfunctions, faulty designs. Osbourne ‘actually hired a couple of musicians, being an Armadillo type, to go up and fix them,’ Galbraith says. ‘It’s fascinating how intertwined the music scene in Texas is with wind.’ But in part thanks to their early efforts, wind eventually took hold in Texas.

“Another factor that played into Texas becoming a wind leader were the state’s vast expanses of private property, with landowners willing to lease it out, as they had become accustomed to during earlier years of oil and gas drilling. ‘People that lived in these far-flung areas, they were often independent types, tinkerers, they new how to work machinery,’ Galbraith says. ‘And they were used to the idea of people coming, knocking on their door, and asking to create some energy. Usually, it was, ‘Let’s drill here,’ but in this new case it was wind power.’”

Texans often are proud of being “No. 1.” I am delighted at the prospect of Texas one day topping the list of states that are mining green-energy sources – such as wind – that will help save the planet.

Former President George W. Bush reportedly is going to weigh in next week on immigration reform.

You go, W.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/309359-george-w-bush-expected-to-discuss-benefits-of-immigration-reform-during-keynote-speech

The former president is taking part in a panel discussion at his newly opened presidential library and museum in Dallas. The Dallas Morning News reports that it isn’t clear how specific he’ll get but that he’s going to speak at least in general terms about the need to reform the nation’s immigration system.

The immigration reform movement got a needed and welcomed (in my view) boost when the United States Senate approved — in a sweeping bipartisan vote — a package that includes a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million or so illegal immigrants; it also beefs up border security and spends money to finish a wall along our nation’s southern border.

Now it sits — some think it languishes — in the House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner says it is going nowhere without a majority of support among Republicans in that chamber. Thus, a minority of the full House is holding the reform package hostage.

It is patently unreasonable to think immigration cops that round up the millions of illegal residents and toss them out. President Bush has understood that going back to when he served as Texas governor. His successor, Rick Perry, is right on immigration reform as well. And what should one expect from governors of a large border state? There exist here realities that other governors and other elected officials elsewhere simply don’t get … such as the fact that even though there are illegal immigrants among us, many of them have carved out productive lives.

Immigration reform legislation seeks to show a bit of compassion to those who desire citizenship in the United States.

I’ll await former President Bush’s remarks in Dallas next week. I just hope they don’t fall on deaf Republican ears.

Today’s jobs report brought plenty of good news: The economy added 195,000 jobs in June; unemployment held steady at 7.6 percent, which means that more people are encouraged enough to re-enter the job-hunting market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/business/economy-adds-195000-jobs-as-unemployment-rate-remains-at-7-6.html?hp&_r=0

On top of that, the federal budget deficit has been cut roughly in half, to around $600 billion for the current fiscal year. That’s still too high, but it’s a heck of a lot better than it was a year ago, let alone when President Obama took office in January 2009 while facing the worst worldwide financial meltdown since the Great Depression.

I keep waiting for Obama’s foes to give him some credit, at least a little, for helping end the free fall. I put my ear to the ground and I hear … nothing. Not a sound.

Instead, I hear the same old gripes — sprinkled with some outright lies — about Barack Obama’s motives, his intentions and even his loyalty.

Many folks I know in this part of the world — this heavily Republican stronghold — just cannot bring themselves to offer a good word about his economic policy. They say the stimulus did no good, even though federal stimulus money helped states such as Texas balance their budgets; they gripe about that stimulus money, all the while watching silently as cities and counties throughout our region accepted it.

I’ll concede that the job growth has been tepid. I keep wondering, though, what would have happened had the Obama administration failed to take action when it did. No one, not even the president’s harshest critics, seem able to answer that key question. Would the private sector have righted itself? Would jobs begin developing out of thin air? Would the deficit have been reduced as dramatically as it has done in the past year and a half?

Where I stand, I’ll take slow-and-steady growth as a sign of an economy that’s rebuilding itself from its foundation.

Well, that was an unpleasant surprise this morning.

I went to my neighborhood grocery store at the corner of South 45th Avenue and Bell Street in Amarillo to (1) buy some food for our household and (2) dump some newspapers and other paper into the recycling Dumpsters I thought were lined up along the Bell Street side of the parking lot.

I got there and they were gone. Gone! All of them!

I inquired inside the store and was told that the city solid waste department pulled the Dumpsters out. Apparently not everyone in Amarillo thought of the Dumpsters as being used specifically for material to be recycled. They were throwing regular old trash into them.

The city got fed up with having to sort the throwaway trash from the recyclables, the store management staffer said, so it yanked the bins.

Count me as a dedicated recycler. I seek to recycle anything I can whenever I am able and wherever the community sets aside bins to take the material intended for recycling. This was a terrible blow to my desire to protect the planet from waste material that can be reused.

At this moment — I’m still recovering from the shock of the disappearing Dumpsters — I am unsure what I’m going to do. I’ll likely call one of my many acquaintances at City Hall to inquire as to whether the city has eliminated its recycling program altogether. I hope that is not the case.

As for the nimrods who have ruined who’ve abused the recycling program and ruined the sense of “giving back” that recycling gives to the rest of us — you know who you are — you should be ashamed of yourselves.

My wife and I went to Canyon this morning to watch a parade and to sample some so-called “food” sold at one of the many booths scattered around the Courthouse Square.

We had a good time looking at the arts and crafts. The weather was gorgeous. It was a great day to watch a parade.

Still, I couldn’t take my eyes off that exquisite courthouse structure in the middle of the square.

After so much hassle, heartache and occasional hysteria over many years from historic preservationists, the courthouse exterior is all dolled up. The money came from a Texas Historical Commission grant, with the county kicking in a little bit to cover the rest of the cost.

As pretty as the outside of the 1909-vintage building is, the inside is, well, a dilapidated mess.

I’m still waiting for someone or some agency or some business to step up and take over the place. With all the effort that went into preserving the courthouse building exterior, I remain baffled as to why it remains vacant.

Randall County’s government has vacated the place. It occupies the finance building across the street; it’s where the commissioners court meets, the county judge has his office, as does the human resources department. Its justice center is about a mile and a half away, at the old Wal-Mart site across the street from West Texas A&M University.

Who will move in? That’s still anyone’s guess, last I heard.

Still, the courthouse made for an elegant backdrop today for the Canyon Chamber of Commerce’s Independence Day celebration. I just wish there was a way to finish the job and put someone on the inside of a very old, but gorgeous once again, structure.

Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, is thinking about a statewide campaign for public office. She might want to think again about running for governor.

A Public Policy Polling survey released the other day indicates she’d lose big to Gov. Rick Perry if the governor decides to seek re-election. The PPP poll — which usually leans Democratic — says Perry would defeat Davis by 14 percentage points.

But I’ve already gone on record as predicting that Perry won’t run for re-election. I’m still thinking he’s going to bow out and concentrate on building a 2016 campaign for (gulp!) president of the United States.

State Attorney General Greg Abbott, another Republican, is waiting in the gubernatorial wings and he, too, will be difficult to beat, even for a Democrat who won a lot of fans over her anti-abortion bill filibuster in the Texas Senate.

Many dreamers are hoping for a time when Texas becomes politically competitive. I’m one of them. But the PPP poll indicates that time hasn’t yet arrived.

It pains me deeply to say this, but a former U.S. representative who I grew to loathe during his single term in office is correct to blast Lady Gaga’s recent rendition of the National Anthem.

Gaga substituted the phrase “home of the brave” with “home of the gays.” That drew intense fire from former Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., who called her improvisation “reprehensible.”

http://thehill.com/video/in-the-news/309155-allen-west-blasts-lady-gaga-for-defiling-national-anthem-with-home-of-the-gays-lyric

Gotta say it: West is right.

Gaga has been a gay-rights activist at least for as long as she’s been in the public eye. I do not begrudge her activism in that regard. Everyone ought to have a cause, and Gaga has chosen to take up the cudgel for the plight of gay people. At some level, I share her concern that gays are treated shabbily by society.

But … there are some things one mustn’t mess with and where I come from the “Star Spangled Banner” is one of those things that must remain true.

West said this on his Facebook page: “Having served in the US Army for 22 years alongside some very brave men and women, I find Lady Gaga’s defiling of our National Anthem reprehensible.” Gaga’s rendition was delivered this past week at a gay pride rally in New York City.

I don’t recall hearing about it when it happened. But it does frost me terribly when I hear of someone twisting lyrics whose meaning borders on sacred to many millions of Americans. I consider the National Anthem to be in that category of lyric.

I don’t care in this instance one bit about the nobility of one’s cause. Leave the “Star Spangled Banner” lyrics alone.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t Mohamed Morsy’s election as president of Egypt supposed to signal a new day in that Arab nation?

Apparently not. The crowds poured into the streets just as they did two-plus years ago and now Morsy is out, just as Hosni Mubarak was ousted after his 30-year rule as president.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/03/egypt-live-blog/

Remember the Arab Spring? It was meant to bring a new era of freedom and liberty to a region ruled by ham-fisted dictators. It’s been, shall we say, a mixed blessing.

Libya is more or less free. Same with Tunisia. Syria is in the middle of a bloody civil war. Egypt, the largest Arab country of them all, now is being riven by more tumult, uncertainty and possible bloodshed as it makes the transition once again to another government.

Morsy was thought to be able to share power with his foes. He didn’t. This member of the Muslim Brotherhood consolidate his own grip on power and that apparently infuriated the reformers.

Here we go once again. The world is holding its breath.

I’m hoping Egyptians get it right this time.

I received a lesson the other day in generational differences as they relate to historic events.

It came from a young public television producer who wondered aloud whether people her age are going to “get” the significance of the upcoming 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s murder in Dallas.

It was on Nov. 22, 1963 that a gunman killed the president as his motorcade moved slowly through downtown Dallas. The event shattered the nation, if not the world. We went into mourning. As a young teenager at the time, I was certain that the Soviet Union (you remember them, right?) was responsible and was going to invade the United States at any minute.

Those of us who were old enough to remember that event were stricken deeply. We’ll look forward to a time later this year when we’ll stop to remember, recall and honor the memory of President Kennedy. We’ll also look back on what we felt when we heard the news none of us at the time ever thought we’d hear: The president is dead.

But not all Americans have that awareness, my young friend noted the other morning. She wasn’t yet born when JFK died. Her only exposure to that event is through high school and college textbooks, which she said devoted relatively little space to that event. Her high school teachers weren’t that interested in telling the whole story of JFK’s brief presidency or in sharing the grief that struck the nation.

Her recollection was that her history teachers said that Kennedy was killed and, well, that was it.

The remembrances coming later this year will have to take the views of young Americans into account. Dallas is planning a dignified memorial to commemorate that tragic moment. City officials no doubt will face many questions from younger residents there who weren’t around to feel the pain that their parents and grandparents felt at that time. Why is this such a big deal? What did John Kennedy mean to the nation? And tell us again: What precisely was Camelot?

I’ll be awaiting those remembrances. Television programming will devote many hours to that event, rehashing perhaps the debate that’s raged for five decades over whether the gunman – who himself was shot to death two days later – acted alone or was part of some grand conspiracy.

My hope is that the remembrance becomes relevant and memorable even to those who weren’t around to feel the pain in the moment.