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Would the Cowboys’ owner fire himself … please?

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I hate commenting on sports because I don’t know enough of the nitty-gritty to talk intelligently about it.

However, I do know bad management when I see it. It’s running rampant inside the head office of the Dallas/Irving/Arlington Cowboys professional football franchise.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1890803-cowboys-wont-find-success-before-massive-culture-change-in-dallas?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=cnn-sports-bin&hpt=hp_bn15

The team owner Jerry Jones also is the team’s general manager. He’s got his own TV show on which he blathers on about football strategy and other on-the-field things about which he knows next to nothing.

I haven’t been a Cowboys fan since Jones bought the team in 1989 and fired a living legend, Tom Landry, the team’s head coach since it entered the NFL in 1960. I used to like the upstarts from Big D, when they tried to knock the Green Bay Packers off in the late 1960s. They came close — and nearly froze to death in the Ice Bowl game played in Green Bay.

Then along came Jones. The former Arkansas Razorback hired his old Hog teammate Jimmy Johnson as head coach. After a spell, the two parted company because Johnson didn’t like the owner meddling in football strategy and tactics. Their friendship ended, too.

Now the Cowboys are languishing again. As the blog linked to this note observes, the Cowboys are known as one of the NFL’s best teams — on paper — but they are managing yet again to prove they cannot win consistently.

Yep, the Cowboys have won some Super Bowls since Jones took over the team. It’s looking, though, as if the next one is slipping farther and farther into the future.

Why? It has to be Jones. The owner is a smart businessman who made enough money to buy himself a professional football team that has moved from the Cotton Bowl at the State Fairgrounds in Dallas, to a new stadium in Irving and now the place nicknamed Jerry World way over in Arlington — which is a lot closer to Fort Worth than it is to Dallas. Take it from me, many of the folks in Fort Worth detest the reference to the Dallas Cowboys.

Jones may be an adequate owner. He needs desperately, however, to turn over the day-to-day management of the team to someone who knows what the bleep he’s doing.

That someone is not Jerry Jones.

Take a hike, big guy. Sign the paychecks, pay the bills and get the heck out of the way.

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Austin soon may not be so ‘weird’ after all

Well now. It turns out Austin — the Texas capital city and the home of some of the best music anywhere — is grappling with ways to maintain its self-proclaimed weirdness.

Motor vehicles, lots and lots of them, are rattling Austinites’ sense of uniqueness.

NPR broadcast a story today detailing how Austin’s population is continuing to skyrocket and how all those people are arriving in Central Texas aboard all those vehicles, be they SUVs, pickups, sedans, Jeeps, whatever. They’re clogging the city’s streets. They’re making Austin like, well, every other big city in America that apparently has done a good enough job in planning for future growth.

http://www.npr.org/2013/12/17/248757580/even-an-85-mph-highway-cant-fix-austins-traffic-tangle

My favorite part of the story was when it told how the Texas Department of Transportation built a toll highway east of the city that is intended to divert traffic away from Austin.

Here’s the problem: TxDOT put an 85-mph speed limit on Texas 130, which I’m guessing has scared a lot of motorists away from the highway. The NPR reporter noted that Austin traffic is still gridlocked but Texas 130 is virtually empty.

How is the city going to deal with this problem, which only is scheduled to get worse in the years ahead? The city’s current population of about 850,000 residents is projected to double in the next two decades. One set of ideas being kicked around is to make Interstate 35 a toll road, take the toll feature off of Texas 130 (and perhaps slow it down a bit, say, to around 80?) and build some light-rail lines through the city to lure people out of their cars.

Good luck with that, Austin.

NPR took particular note of an ironic twist. It said Dallas — long thought to be a bastion of conservative political thought — has built the nation’s largest light-rail transit system while Austin, arguably the last liberal holdout in all of Texas, has done nothing to promote rail transportation.

And Austin remains the largest city in America with just a single interstate highway running through. I-35 has long been thought of as a virtual demolition derby between Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio.

Traffic is going to be a great inhibitor to future growth in Austin. That’s the message I got from NPR’s thorough report this morning.

But hey, there’s always the music.

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Move Packy out of Portland? Are you kidding?

Lily Tomlin doesn’t know who she’s messing with here.

The comedian and animal-rights activist has stepped in it big time with her demand that Portland, Ore.’s zoo send Packy the Elephant somewhere else to live out the rest of his life.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/12/lily_tomlin_vs_oregon_zoo_poll.html#incart_m-rpt-2

The Oregonian newspaper did an online poll on the question of whether the Oregon Zoo should keep its elephants. The overwhelming majority of those responding to the admittedly non-scientific poll said the zoo should keep the elephants.

Let’s go back about, oh, 51 years. Portland is my hometown. I was very much aware of the world when Packy was born in my native city. He was the first elephant born in captivity in the United States in 44 years. His birth put Portland and its zoo on the international map.

Packy became an instant international celebrity. People came from around the world to gawk at the then-little guy. He has become synonymous with the zoo.

Packy is now 51 years of age. He figures to live a couple more decades. Portland isn’t going to give up its elephant population. And why should it? The beasts are pampered, babied and live incredibly sheltered lives at the Oregon Zoo.

Lily Tomlin means well and I don’t begrudge her for wanting what she believes is best for the zoo’s elephant family. But come on! Packy leave Portland? You can’t be serious.

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Creationism vs. Evolution: Where’s the conflict?

Three of the four Republicans running for lieutenant governor are tripping over each other in the rush to pander to the extreme right wing of their party.

The issue this time is creationism. Should it be taught in our state’s public schools? Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and state Sen. Dan Patrick say “yes.” Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson stopped short of that declaration.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/12/texas-lt-gov-hopefuls-voice-support-creationism/

They traveled to Waco the other day to debate among themselves. By golly, three-fourths of them are creationists. They believe in the biblical version of Earth’s creation and they want it taught in public schools.

Me? I think creationism should be taught in Sunday school, in church where people worship their faith — where I worship my faith.

Even though Patterson didn’t jump on the creationism bandwagon directly in Waco, he said this: “Show me where that’s in the Constitution, because it’s not in the Constitution. I see nothing wrong with standing up at least for a moment of silence, let those who wish to pray pray in their own faith. I see nothing wrong with having a prayer before a high school football game.”

Well, I believe the First Amendment is pretty clear that Congress shall make no laws establishing a state religion. I do agree with him, however, that prayer before a high school football game doesn’t violate the Constitution, if someone other than a public school administration calls for it.

Creationism is a tenet of one’s faith. Evolution is science, backed up by mountains of empirical evidence. One should be taught in church, the other should be taught in publicly funded school classrooms.

Here’s where it gets sticky, in my view. I do not see any contradiction in the two notions.

Creationism, according to my reading of the Bible, does not stipulate that God created the Universe in six calendar days.

Therefore, I do not see the contradiction between what Scripture tells us and what scientists have uncovered relating to the evolution of the universe.

Am I less of a believer in God than my friends who interpret Scripture differently? I think not.

Amen.

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Mega Million jackpot is tempting me sorely

I won’t do it.

I will not succumb to the temptation to buy a ticket for a chance to win a half-billion bucks. That’s what the Mega Million lottery jackpot has reached.

I’ve long opposed the lottery. It’s a sucker’s bet. It preys on those who want to spend what little disposable income they have on the chance of winning the Big One.

It won’t happen, folks. CNN talked about a study in which someone calculated the odds of winning the whole prize at 150 million to one. You have a greater chance of being struck by lightning or being eaten by a shark than you have of winning the prize.

Texas voters approved a lottery back in 1991. I opposed it editorially at the paper where I worked at the time. The voters didn’t heed our advice and approved it overwhelmingly. I think the margin was something like 65-35 percent. It was supposed to bring a windfall to state government. It didn’t do it. Texans quit playing the game when they realized their chances of winning the big dough were next to nil. The state has tweaked the lottery a few times over the years to give players a little bitter chance of winning something.

Some folks said then-Gov. Ann Richards promised the money raised by the lottery would go exclusively toward education. Gov. Richards never made that promise, but somehow the accusation stuck.

Now the state has joined the Mega Million stampede. The jackpot is huge. It’s tempting to play.

I won’t go there.

I’ll rely on this bit of history. I played the Texas Lottery when it first came into being back in the early 1990s. I bought a ticket in Beaumont for $1. I won $3. I was $2 to the good. I spent a buck on the next drawing. I lost, didn’t win a nickel.

So, with that I’m a dollar ahead.

Knock yourselves out, everyone.

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President’s Christmas vacation draws barbs … again

I think I can hear the faint sounds of rhetorical sniper fire coming from the right yet again over President Obama’s 17-day Christmas vacation.

Some of it could be heard around Amarillo, from a couple of my social media friends who just cannot understand how the president can spend 17 whole days vacationing in Hawaii while the rest of the nation is hard at work. These are tough times, you know, and Barack Obama needs to keep his shoulder to the wheel, according to my friends.

I am quite certain some of the well-known right-wing radio and TV talk blowhards will weigh in soon enough on this.

I’ll remind them yet again of an obvious fact of political life.

It is that the president of the United States is never not the president. He’s never off the clock. He’s never out of touch. He’s never not in command. He gets his daily national security briefings on vacation as regularly as he gets them in the Situation Room at the White House, or on Air Force One, or whether he’s in some foreign capital visiting with a fellow head of state.

One of my pals here did have the good sense to remind the critics that even though he is no fan of the current president, “All presidents do this. Geez!”

Presidents George W. and George H.W. Bush took vacations. W was fond of going to his ranch in Crawford; Daddy Bush sped around off the Maine coast in his speedboat. President Reagan took extended vacations at his beloved Rancho Del Cielo in southern Californai. President Clinton would jet off to Cape Cod, Mass., to hob-knob with the beautiful people. President Carter retreated to his peanut plantation in Georgia, President Ford teed it up at Palm Springs, Calif., President Nixon high-tailed it to San Clemente, Calif., or Key Biscayne, Fla. President Johnson had his ranch in the Hill Country. President Kennedy had his family compound in Massachusetts. President Eisenhower played golf at Gettysburg, Pa.

And on and on it goes.

Enjoy your time with your family, Mr. President.

See you when you get back.

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Rep. Ryan makes sense on Meet the Press

I thought my ears were playing tricks on me today when I listened to the “Meet the Press” interview with Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray, co-chairs of the congressional committee that hammered out the two-year budget deal that passed overwhelmingly in the House the other day.

There was Ryan, a stalwart tea party Republican — and the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee in 2012 — sounding reasonable and accommodating. He noted that compromise requires both sides to give a little. He said it was good to sit down with the Democrat Murray to understand what she believes and where she stands on budget matters.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/15/sen_patty_murray_rep_paul_ryan_tout_budget_deal_in_joint_mtp_interview.html

Ryan also noted that the 2012 presidential election, which he and Mitt Romney lost to President Obama and Vice President Biden, served as a wakeup call to Republicans. The other side won and we lost, Ryan said.

Therefore, it was time to start working with those on the other side, not against them.

Therein lies the key to the budget deal that has enraged the right-wingers of the GOP and made more than a few left-wing Democrats unhappy. The message from Ryan and Murray? Live with it and let’s back to governing.

It’s nice to realize I wasn’t hearing things after all.

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Tea party faces big test in Texas next year

Ross Ramsey has put together another fascinating analysis for the Texas Tribune about the upcoming Republican Party primary race for the U.S. Senate in Texas.

It involves the incumbent, John Cornyn and a loudmouthed challenger, U.S Rep. Steve Stockman of Friendswood.

Stockman is a tea party favorite who’s decided to give up his House seat for a shot at Cornyn’s Senate seat. Good luck with that.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/13/senate-race-sound-and-fury-signifying-what/

Ramsey puts forth the view that Stockman’s candidacy may provide significant data on just how strong the tea party is in Texas. He notes that Ted Cruz knocked off Lt. David Dewhurst in 2012 to win the GOP nomination to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Stockman could do the same with Cornyn. I doubt it’s going to happen. At least I hope it doesn’t happen.

I’m trying to imagine Texas being represented by Ted Cruz and Steve Stockman in the same Senate chamber. Have mercy on us.

I didn’t have the honor of covering Stockman back in the mid-1990s when he was serving his first term in the House. He won that seat in 1994 by knocking off the legendary Democratic stalwart Jack Brooks of Beaumont. After watching the campaign from my post in Beaumont, I left the Gulf Coast for the Texas Panhandle in January 1995. My successor at the Beaumont Enterprise, Tom Taschinger, had the distinct pleasure of watching Stockman up close during his single term in Congress; he lost his seat in 1996 to Democrat Nick Lampson. My pal has written an equally interesting commentary detailing the folly of electing Stockman to the Senate.

Here it is:

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/columns/article/THOMAS-TASCHINGER-Stockman-faces-gigantic-odds-5063347.php

I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that Texas Republicans know better than to knock off a senior GOP senator with substantial conservative credibility in favor of a goofball who didn’t distinguish himself the first time he served in the House — and who has done even worse during this second tour of duty in Congress.

It is true that David Dewhurst got blindsided by Ted Cruz in 2012. I’m pretty sure John Cornyn will keep his eyes wide open as he hits the campaign trail against Steve Stockman.

Look for the mud to start flying soon.

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Aggies join the campus presidency tumult

Just when I thought that Texas A&M University had avoided the kind of administrative warfare that has dogged the folks at the University of Texas-Austin, there go the Aggies in getting mixed up in a tussle over who should be the next president of the system’s flagship campus.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/14/hussey-named-interim-president-texas-m-university/

The A&M System Board of Regents has unanimously named Mark Hussey to be the interim president of A&M-College Station, succeeding R. Bowen Loftin, who will leave soon to become chancellor of the University of Missouri.

It turns out Hussey was favored by Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp. Another prominent Aggie, Gov. Rick Perry, wanted an old pal, Guy Dietrich, to get the interim president job.

Sharp’s guy won out. Too bad for the governor.

This kind of dispute is troublesome. We’ve been witnessing the hassles occurring at UT-Austin with President Bill Powers’s fight with some of the UT System regents. Gov. Perry has gotten mixed up in that kerfuffle as well. The regents keep meddling in Powers’s administrative duties. Perry, strangely enough, hasn’t done a thing to get them to back off, given that Powers was hired to do the heavy administrative lifting at the Austin campus.

I’m now officially concerned that Hussey could be undermined by Perry-Dietrich loyalists as he seeks to run the College Station campus during its transition from the Loftin era to whomever will get the permanent job.

It also might signal a rift between Sharp and Perry, one-time political rivals who have made peace in recent years. Sharp lost the lieutenant governor’s race to Perry in 1998 by a narrow margin. It was reported then that bad blood brewed between the two former Aggies dating back to when they served in the Legislature together.

I hope it’s all a mirage, that the two men are bigger than to let old hostility resurface.

The Texas A&M University System deserves better — as does the UT System — than to let politics get in the way of effective university administration.

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Mandela was no pork-barrel politician

They’re burying Nelson Mandela today in his hometown of Qunu, in a remote eastern region of South Africa.

Indeed, the remoteness of the great man’s home brings me to an interesting point. Listening to NPR on Friday, I heard something that caught me by surprise. A Qunu villager actually was critical of Mandela for — are you ready for this? — failing to bring more modernity and infrastructure to his hometown.

The news report detailed how much hassle it would be for Qunu to prepare for this event that is drawing worldwide attention. The village lacks many modern amenities. Roads are unpaved. There’s virtually no lodging available for visiting dignitaries. Qunu lacks much of the sewage and fresh water infrastructure that is needed to accommodate the visitors.

The individual being interviewed wondered why “Madiba,” as Mandela is called, would have neglected his hometown while basking in the glory of international acclaim and reverence.

Interesting, I thought.

I’ve tried to ponder the implications of that criticism.

Imagine, then, this scenario playing out. Suppose Barack Obama would steer road and bridge development to his south Chicago neighborhood, or perhaps to Hawaii, the state of birth. Imagine if you will George W. Bush directing federal money to Crawford, Texas, where he vacationed often while he was president and where he has a small ranch; Crawford could use some highway improvements, too. What if Bill Clinton had done the same for his hometown of Hope, Ark., or George H.W. Bush done so for Houston (which doesn’t need as much federal help as many small towns in America)? Hey, Ronald Reagan came from a small town in Illinois, Dixon. Couldn’t that town have used a little presidential push to build infrastructure? Same for Plains, Ga., Jimmy Carter’s hometown.

Any of those men would have been accused of promoting pork-barrel politics above the national interest.

Might that have been the case for Nelson Mandela, who presided for a single term — from 1994 to 1999 — over what’s been called a “developing country”? Its gross domestic product goes only so far and it well might have raised more than a few eyebrows if Qunu had received money that could have been spent in other struggling villages.

Mandela will be buried today. The town will erect a suitable monument to its iconic son.

My hunch is that Nelson Mandela eventually will bring much in the form of tourist money to Qunu now that he’s gone.

His greatness lives on.

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