They were sturdy folk

March 14, 2021 kanelis2012

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I have just about finished reading a book it took me far longer than I thought it would take to read.

The book is titled “The Worst Hard Time.” It was written by a stellar New York Times reporter, Timothy Egan, who chronicled in astonishing detail the suffering that came to the Texas Panhandle during the 1930s.

The Dust Bowl plundered the landscape made vulnerable by farming techniques that destroyed the native grasslands that kept the soil in place, preventing wind erosion. The Dust Bowl has been labeled the “worst manmade disaster in U.S. history.”

“The Worst Hard Time” tells story after story of how these sturdy residents of places like Dalhart, Perryton and, yes, Amarillo weathered the astonishing misery of that era. Black Sunday is still thought to be the most nightmarish scenario anyone ever saw, as enormous, towering clouds of dust blew in over the region.

Just how bad was it then? | High Plains Blogger

Children and old people died of “dust pneumonia.” Farmers lost crops. They couldn’t pay their bills. Livestock died by the tens of thousands of head.

Many of them moved away. Many others of them stayed. Their descendants live in Amarillo to this day. I got to know some of those Dust Bowl descendants during my time there. They are a remarkable lot.

For a time after I left the Amarillo Globe-News, I had the privilege of writing a blog for Panhandle PBS, the Amarillo College-affiliated TV station. They paid me to write about public affairs TV programming shown on KACV-TV in the Panhandle.

In March 2016, PBS broadcast a special called “The Dust Bowl,” which was put together by noted historian/documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. I wrote a blog post that talked about its airing.

‘Dust Bowl’ returns just as Panhandle dries out (panhandlepbs.org)

I do hope that PBS will show “The Dust Bowl” again. I want to witness the accounts of those individuals whose stories I read about in “The Worst Hard Time.”

Yes, it was a hard time. The worst of it was unimaginable to those of us who never lived through it.

Timothy Egan’s book only deepens my pride in my former neighbors and fellow travelers.

DC riot

Shades of ‘good people … on both sides’

March 14, 2021 kanelis2012

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ron Johnson has a screw loose in that vacuous noggin of his.

The Wisconsin Republican U.S. senator made a statement about the insurrection of The Sixth of January that truly makes me wonder about this clown’s fitness to serve in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

He told a Wisconsin radio interview several things, two of which stand out in my mind.

One is that the insurrection didn’t “scare me at all” because the terrorists were Donald Trump supporters. But … had the shoe been on the proverbial other foot and Trump had won the 2020 election and had Black Lives Matters or antifa followers had rioted in that fashion, why, then he would have felt endangered.

The racist tenor of that remark stands alone. It is hideous in the extreme. Oh, but then he said something else that makes my spine shudder.

He said the terrorists were “law-abiding” citizens who “would never do anything” against the law. Look at the picture I posted with this blog. It shows terrorists storming into the Capitol Building. Hmm. Oh, and they killed a Capitol Police officer during the melee and injured several others, not to mention causing the deaths of about five other Americans.

To which laws were these lunatics abiding? None.

It reminds me of Donald Trump’s infamous declaration after the KKK/Nazi-inspired riot in Charlottesville when he declared there to be “good people … on both sides” of that deadly riot.

Someone needs to slap a straitjacket on Sen. Johnson.

medical news

Let’s not get ahead of this?

March 14, 2021 kanelis2012

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

If I were to express a nagging anxiety about the “good news” we keep hearing about the possible/potential end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that we need to avoid getting ahead of ourselves.

Good news is coming at us by waves these days.

COVID infections are declining; so are hospitalizations; death rates are falling.

Are we getting complacent? I hope that is not the case.

Yet, that is my fear as governors around the nation — including Texas’s Greg Abbott — make these bold declarations while removing statewide mandates for Americans to wear masks. Sure, Abbott and others tell us to take all the necessary precautions, such as practice social distancing, washing our hands, keep sanitizer handy (and use it!). Are we heeding the advice or are we listening only to what we perceive to be the end of a national nightmare?

We must not get ahead of the scientists who are working their butts off searching for more cures for the disease that has killed 530,000-plus Americans and sickened millions more of us.

Hey, I want a return to normal, too. I want to see family and friends more frequently. I want to spend more quality time with my granddaughter.

However, I do not want others to put all of that in peril by declaring a premature victory in this war against an invisible killer.

economic news

POTUS keeps name off checks

March 14, 2021 kanelis2012

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is worth asking, I suppose, whether any American who receives a COVID-19 relief check from the U.S. Treasury is going to wonder why it lacks the name of the president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden.

I know the answer. No one is going to care whether President Biden’s name is on the check. Any more than Americans cared that Donald J. Trump’s name was affixed to the earlier round of relief checks that circulated.

Yet, the former president made a big deal out of ensuring that his name appeared on them. He wanted Americans to see that he was responsible for the help that arrived in their bank accounts or in their mail boxes.

Except that Donald Trump played virtually no role in negotiating the deal that helped millions of Americans.

His successor, Joe Biden, did play a role in crafting this current round of relief. However, his name will be nowhere on the payments.

That’s how collaborative government is supposed to work.

local news

Waiting for library to reopen

March 14, 2021 kanelis2012

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

George W. Bush ran five times for public office.

Twice for Texas governor in 1994 and 1998. Twice for president of the United States in 2000 and 2004. I voted for his opponents every time. I hadn’t moved to Texas yet when Bush ran in 1978 for a West Texas seat in Congress, which he lost. There, I got that out of the way.

Still, I am saddened to read that the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is still “temporarily closed.” The damn COVID-19 virus has shuttered the doors of the library on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

My wife and I moved to Collin County in 2018, which puts us within a brief drive to W’s library in Big D. I have been there three times already and I had planned on taking a family member who’s coming to visit at the end of next week.

I want to mention this because I have grown more respectful of the former president as time has moved on. He looks quite good to me these days, given the most recent Republican president with whom the nation has contended for the past four years. Plus, President Bush was among the first prominent GOP politicians to recognize publicly the election of President Biden in 2020, calling him an honorable and decent man. Indeed, the men did work well together when Bush was president and Biden was a U.S. Senate icon.

Moreover, it was the Bush White House team that worked so seamlessly after the 2008 election to ensure a smooth transition to an administration led by Barack Obama and, oh yeah, Joe Biden.

I am left now to hope for a reopening of the library, which I find quite compelling whenever I visit it.

national news

Is Trump scarred forever?

March 14, 2021 kanelis2012 1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump’s post-presidential existence cannot possibly end well.

I say that without any knowledge of whether he will be indicted by two states that are pursuing criminal charges against him. Even if no indictments will be part of Trump’s future, my gut tells me he is likely to be scarred forever by the pursuit of the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney and the Manhattan DA up yonder in New York City.

The Fulton County DA is pursuing whether Trump violated state law by pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to “find” enough votes to swing the state’s 2020 presidential election result from favoring President Biden to favoring Trump. This investigation appears to be fairly straightforward and reasonably uncomplicated.

Fulton County DA Fani Willis is an experienced prosecutor and she has vowed to spare no effort in following the evidence that she will present to a grand jury which will decide whether to indict Trump.

The Manhattan case, led by Cyrus Vance Jr., is a whole lot more complicated. As I understand it, Vance is examining whether Trump violated campaign finance laws in paying off a porn star to keep quiet about a sexual liaison she and Trump allegedly had in 2006. Oh, and Trump denies it happened — but he paid her 130 grand anyway! Go figure. He’s even hired a prosecutor experienced in racketeering cases to help him make the case.

I cannot possibly know whether either prosecutorial team is going to bring formal charges against Trump.

However, my sense of understanding of how history looks back on political figures tells me that historians are going to judge Trump’s time since leaving office harshly. That prosecutors even are considering whether to file charges suggests to me that Trump will be scarred for life.

national news

Keep talking, GOP hypocrites

March 14, 2021 kanelis2012

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The checks are in the mail — so to speak.

At least a good number of “checks” are showing up this weekend in Americans’ bank accounts, thanks to President Biden and his Democratic Party allies in Congress, who worked to enact the COVID relief package over the strenuous objections of their Republican “friends” and colleagues.

But wait a minute.

Now comes word from around the country that Republican members of the House and the Senate are trying to take credit for something they opposed. I hear, for instance, that Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, one of the 50 Senate GOP “no” on the relief package, is heralding the benefit it will have on education in his state.

Yeah, keep talking Sen. Wicker. The voters in Mississippi ought to be wise to what’s up with him.

This kind of doublespeak occurs from time to time. Lawmakers who find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion look for ways to weasel their way into voters’ good graces. It turns out the COVID relief package totaling $1.9 trillion is quite popular with the masses out here. Eighty-plus percent of Democrats favor it and a slim majority of — gulp! — Republican voters look kindly on the government relief effort.

None of that swayed the GOP cultists in Congress to sign on.

However, here they are, trying to glom onto the benefits being sent out en masse to those who have been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. They have lost their jobs, not to mention lost their loved ones, to the disease. The package provides unemployment relief for the next several months and seeks to lessen the misery that has befallen so many millions of us.

What’s more, President Biden spoke to us the other evening and implored Americans to help in steering the nation away from the effects of the virus. “I need you,” he implored, which I consider to be a marvelous about-face from the “I, alone, can fix it” mentality offered by Donald John Trump.

However, don’t be fooled by the GOP fools who are trying to hoodwink Americans into thinking they played some role in bringing this relief to beleaguered pandemic victims.

media news

No ‘Last Word Contests’

March 13, 2021 kanelis2012

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I wrote a brief message on Facebook five years ago that I want to share again today.

It went like this: I’m trying to decide if I want to get into a Last Word Contest with some of my Facebook friends/acquaintances who have this insatiable need to have the last word on every exchange … every single time. I’ll get back to y’all on that.

This ditty appeared in 2016. I am prepared to tell you at this moment that I am even less inclined now than I was then to engage in this kind of back and forth.

I celebrated my 71st birthday not long ago. The means I cherish my time more now than I did when I was a mere pup of 66 years of age, when I made that earlier post. Therefore, I remain wedded to the notion that my blogs should stand as my statement on whatever point I want to make.

It’s a further indication of a notion that I generally am in no mood to change my mind significantly.

For example: When I wrote many times that Donald J. Trump was “unfit” for the office of president, there would be no way on God’s good Earth that I would change my mind. Now and then, someone would respond with a “what about” retort, trying to say that Trump’s lies were no more egregious than what came from the mouths of his predecessors. Well, yes they were. No changing my mind there.

I also appreciate that the older I get the grayer issues get, that I tend to look at issues with a bit more nuance than when I was a young punk, fresh out of the Army, enrolled in college and full of piss and vinegar.

Still, I am not going to waste my time trying to persuade someone with a different world view that my view is correct and theirs is wrong. I’m too old for that.

And so … the blog marches on. I said I would “get back to y’all on that.” I just did.

national news

Ex-Presidents Club excludes Trump

March 13, 2021 kanelis2012 1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Imagine that the world’s most exclusive club — the men who have served as presidents of the United States — would erect a tree house to have their meetings.

I can picture them nailing a sign on the door that reads: No Soreheads Allowed. Or, how about No Seditionists Allowed?

Well, you get my point, I reckon.

The ex-presidents club now contains four men who’ve served in the nation’s highest office. The actual number of former POTUSes, though, is five. The most recent ex-president, Donald J. Trump, is likely to be permanently excluded from club meetings.

Former Presidents Obama, Clinton, Bush and Carter all have something in common that appears to be missing in Donald Trump. They love this country more than they love themselves. They also value the office to which they were elected.

Trump took office in January 2017 and immediately denigrated the service of all his predecessors. He spent his entire four years in office engaging in the type of self-aggrandizement that was the hallmark of his entire professional/adult life prior to running for public office.

Then came the climax of the hideous example he set. That was when he refused to accept that President Biden defeated him in 2020 and then incited the insurrection that erupted on the Sixth of January, causing the House of Representatives to impeach him for a second time.

The four active members of the Ex-Presidents Club — along with their wives — took part in a public service announcement touting the COVID relief legislation that Joe Biden managed to get approved through Congress. Donald and Melania Trump were nowhere to be seen or heard.

Don’t misconstrue my thoughts. I don’t give a rat’s a** about Donald Trump. I just mention all this because of the post-presidential scorn he is going to experience. It is unprecedented and to my way of understanding Donald Trump, there will be no way on Earth that he ever will redeem his shattered legacy.

It’s all fine with me.

Good fu**ing riddance … Donald!

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