education news

Take all the phones away!

All the recent news reporting about local school districts “cracking down” on cell phones in public schools has me nearly laughing out loud.

Call me a hardline, no-nonsense conservative fanatic on this issue … but I have believed since the advent of cell phones that those devices have no place in a public school classroom. Zero. None.

I long have been advocate for school districts confiscating cell phones from students when they enter the school building at the beginning of a school day. Take ’em away, lock ’em up in a secure place and tell the kids they can collect the devices when the final bell rings at the end of the day.

Several school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area have been reported to be cracking down on the devices.

I wrote a column about this matter while working for the Amarillo Globe-News. The blowback I received from angry parents was a thing to behold. I didn’t get a lot of negative response, but much of what I received was nonsensical on its face.

One parent actually told me that her child needed to be available for instant communication and that depriving the student of a phone would put him or her in jeopardy. I reminded her of how parents used to get in touch with kids during a school day: They call the school, ask to speak to their little darlin’, the school secretary sent someone to the classroom and the student arrived at the office to take the call.

How long does that take? Five minutes?

Teachers have a difficult enough job as it is without having to cope with students sending text messages back and forth during lesson time. Students should be required to devote their undivided attention to the teacher. Yeah, I understand that such a requirement was impossible to achieve even prior to the advent of cell phones.

I am heartened to hear that districts report a decline in cyber bullying after the cell phone crackdown. How can that possibly be a bad thing?

local news

Meeting set once again

I had reported on this blog my intention to comment on a special Princeton City Council meeting called to discuss the fate of that construction eyesore next to Wal Mart on US Highway 380.

Then the council postponed the meeting. It will meet this Thursday at 5 p.m. acting as the Princeton Housing Standards Authority. Now, they tell me, there will be a hearing to decide the fate of the abandoned, partially built, rotting luxury apartment complex that appears to be going nowhere in a hurry.

The general contractor got into a beef with the developer and walked off the job in the spring of 2023. My guess is that it’s about 40% finished. Will it cross the finish line? My gut along with my ol’ trick knee tell me “no.”

I intend to be present for this rescheduled hearing on Thursday. I don’t yet know whether the council make a decision that night. I asked Mayor Brianna Chacon whether there will be a decision; I haven’t received an answer.

I want to see some leadership on this matter rise to the occasion.

Let’s get rid of that eyesore.

national news, political news

Yep. the man is unfit

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Dawn  finally is breaking over the pundit class that is covering the third presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.

Ever since he announced his bid for the presidency the first time in 2015, some of us have been saying that Trump’s zero experience with public service would render him unfit for the presidency. Now, others are seeing the proverbial light.

Consider what the numbskull said about those who receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and how it compares to the Medal of Honor. He put them on an equal footing, suggesting further that the Medal of Freedom is “more important” because Medal of Honor recipients “always are wounded” and some have died to earn the recognition.

What an absolute crock of bull dookie!

The Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor; it goes to those who contribute greatly to our cultural life, through athletics, art, music, drama. The Medal of Honor is our nation’s top military honor; it is awarded to those who perform heroically on the battlefield.

Both medals are big deals.

However, for the former POTUS to put down Medal of Honor recipients because they are “wounded or killed” betrays a profound lack of understanding or appreciation of those don the nation’s uniform in service to their country.

It also reveals what I have noted many times on this blog, which is that Trump never has committed a single moment of his existence on this Earth to public service.

I am running out of ways to say this … but this moron is unfit for public office at any level, let alone as commander in chief.

Joe Biden

Getting ready for curtain call

Many readers of this blog perhaps can recall a time or three when I have revealed that I can be a bit of a sap when my emotions get the better of me.

Therefore, when I turn on my TV Monday to watch the Democratic National Convention, I am prepared to lapse into my sappy mode that evening.

Democrats are going to stand and cheer the incumbent president of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., and likely won’t stop cheering for a good while. They are going to thank the president for the job he has done during his term in office … and thank him for stepping aside and handing the party nomination to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Of course, I will be far from the Chicago convention site; I’ll be watching from my North Texas living room. I might even join the crowd in giving the president my own expression of thanks. It’ll make me feel better.

Joe Biden had vowed to stay in the contest after his godawful debate performance in Atlanta. Then he decided to put his country first by stepping aside and delivering to Harris his blessing as she transformed in an instant from loyal VP to the party’s standard bearer in the effort to keep Donald Trump as far away from the White House as is humanly possible.

But … first things first. President Biden is going to stand before the nation and the world Monday night in Chicago and receive the raucous curtain call he so richly deserves.

May the emotions flow.

International news

‘Old country’ beckons

In about three weeks, I am going to drive to a parking lot near Dallas-Fort Worth airport, park my truck and then get ready to board an airplane for a lengthy flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

I will land eventually at Eleftherios Venizelos airport in Athens and will begin 10 days of total relaxation in my ancestral homeland. I will stay in a bed and breakfast place near the Acropolis. Then I get on the metro train bound for the port city of Pireaus, where I will board a ferry for a five-hour ride across the Aegean Sea to Noxos, an island resort.

I will meet my cousin and her grown son in Greece, and we will bask in the late-summer Mediterranean heat.

I also will carry with me the memory of someone who once told me that of all the 20 or so countries she had seen, Greece is the only place that she could “visit over and over and over again.”

My beloved bride Kathy Anne traveled to Greece twice with me, in 2000 and 2001; I made a third trip there in 2003, but traveled by myself. All three of those earlier visits were media trips, at the invitation of the Greek press ministry. This fourth visit will be strictly to relax and to do damn near nothing during my entire stay in the country.

I will have plenty of down time, plenty of time to be alone with my thoughts., And you are entitled to bet every penny in the piggy bank that those thoughts likely will involve my bride, who I lost to cancer in February 2023.

I am happy to report, though, that my thoughts won’t bring heaviness to my heart. They will bring back memories of the glorious time my bride and I spent together looking at the antiquities, enjoying the food and pinching ourselves at the thought that we were able to see these sites together.

Do I miss her? Of course I do! I am resolute, though, in pursuing my life as she wanted me to do. “Life is for the living,” Kathy Anne told me. Take this to the bank: I can think of nowhere else I would rather be than the middle of Aegean Sea.

national news

What about Trump’s laugh?

True story: I really hate “what aboutism,” which often surfaces when your candidate gets jabbed by a foe and you respond with, “Well, what about your guy?”

Kamala Harris’s reportedly annoying laughter has been drawing some flak from foes of the vice president who’s running for the presidency. Rather than picking apart policy matters, her foes have taken to reminding us of the laugh that annoys them.

Here comes the “what aboutism.”

What about Donald J. Trump? What about his laugh? Indeed, has anyone ever heard him laugh out loud? That’s the rejoinder making the rounds on social media.

I confess I haven’t heard anything that sounds like laughter coming from the indicted/convicted/twice-impeached former president.

I have long thought that Trump had zero discernible humor. He’s a crabby sorehead who cannot stop relitigating matters over which he has zero control. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is having the time of her life … and this is an American patriot who enjoys seeing a presidential candidate exhibit such joy.

Keep laughing, Mme. Vice President.

national news, political news

GOP has no governing platform

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Anyone who believes today’s Republican Party has a governing platform that is worth a damn needs to pay careful attention to what is being reported all around the world.

It is that the GOP is — and has been — the exclusive property of a one-time real estate developer and a former TV “reality show” host who in 2016 stumbled into the U.S. presidency.

Put another way, Donald J. Trump has no policy, no guiding principles, no moral compass to guide him. He makes policy up as he goes along and that “policy,” and I use the term with an abundance of caution, somehow becomes the policy of the MAGA cult that is running the once-great political party.

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is on the verge of unveiling her economic policy. She will present it perhaps before Democrats meet next week in Chicago to send her into the fight with Trump as their party’s nominee.

I met someone today who expressed support for the “Republican Party platform.” I answered that the party “doesn’t have one.” This individual wouldn’t buy that idea. We changed the subject.

This is the kind of stubborn notion that is so damn hard to expunge from Republicans’ noggins.

Of course, this all ignores the deep moral failings that Trump has exhibited his entire adult life.

I have been impressed by the rant offered by Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz, who reminds us that “public service” is a foreign concept to Trump. I have been saying since the day his political career began that Trump has spent his entire professional life focused on one thing: enriching himself. He purports to be a populist but doesn’t give a damn about the millions of disenfranchised Americans who need a real champion, not one who portrays himself as a populist on the campaign stump.

So, when Republicans tout their party platform, they should add a caveat that reminds us that it’s all a creation of Donald Trump’s demented mind.

national news

A landslide in the making?

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Let’s get to the first thing I must say … which is that I dare not even try to predict the outcome of the 2024 election for president of the United States.

I can, however, offer an opinion of what I believe might be playing out as we speak.

What was beginning to look like a Donald Trump rout over President Biden might be turning in a 180-degree reversal, with Vice President Kamala Harris coming out on the long end of an electoral landslide.

The landslide might manifest itself only in the Electoral College. What do I mean? I am going to speculate that the popular vote of all Americans might not meet or exceed landslide proportions, which generally is about a 10% or greater margin of victory.

The Electoral College could be a different matter. Polling data released since Biden ceded the nomination to Harris tells us the VP is making serious headway in many swing states, that she is either tied or leading Trump that the GOP nominee was leading over Biden.

Political experts across the spectrum who once said the race was “Trump’s to lose” now say the tide is turning dramatically in Harris’s favor.

I am just a spectator to all of this in the middle of what once was called Trump Country.  I am not going to venture any guesses on what I think will happen, I am left only to offer what I hope occurs on Election Day …. and my hope is looking more realistic all the time.

A landslide might be developing, but not in the manner to which many of us have grown accustomed.  All eyes will be turned on the Electoral College.

business news

Looking for votes? Well … yeah!

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A brief lesson in political context seems to be in order, as I must respond to a statement from a frequent critic of this blog.

I wrote something the other day calling attention to Kamala Harris’s support of an idea first pitched by Donald Trump: to end the rule requiring taxes on income received from tips for service workers.

My critic just couldn’t leave the issue well enough alone. He couldn’t just endorse Harris’s support of an idea first promoted by her presidential campaign opponent and then move on to the next point of contention.

No … instead he said something about how Democrats blasted Trump for the idea, saying he was just angling for votes.

In an election year? A candidate is looking for ways to win favor with voters? Who knew?

Here is the lesson. Listen up. In an election cycle, every single proposal offered by candidates is done with one primary goal in mind: to win votes! It makes no difference which politician does it, or which party to which he or she belongs. They all do it and they all have the same motive in mind.

I just want to make clear that we should understand the context at play here. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are of like minds on the principle of banning taxes for tips. They both want voters to believe them over the other person.

As for my critic. Pipe down, dude!

national news, political news

GOPers for Harris channels an earlier mutiny

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They call themselves Republicans for Harris, believing that the Democratic nominee for POTUS is suited better to hold the job than the Republicans’ own presidential nominee.

It is far too early — and the view from my perch doesn’t allow me to predict anything with accuracy — to know what this means in terms of determining the outcome of the election.

This Republicans for Harris movement designed to bolster the election of Kamala Harris over Donald J. Trump has a certain ring that I recall vividly from my first political campaign.

Flash back for a moment to 1972. Democrats nominated Sen. George McGovern for president. He ran against President Richard Nixon. McGovern wanted to end the Vietnam War. So did I, so I signed on as a campaign worker. I was aligned with the Democratic Party in my early years. My wife, Kathy Anne, and I were newly married and we both became involved.

Not all Democrats were enamored of the effort the nominee was making to obtain an early-as-possible exit from the bloodshed in Vietnam.

Thus, the Democrats for Nixon movement was born. One of its leaders was the late Big John Connally, the former Texas governor who was wounded seriously that day in Dallas when President Kennedy was murdered. Democrats for Nixon grew to a huge following of disaffected Democrats.

Nixon won that election with 520 electoral votes to McGovern’s 17; Nixon carried 49 of 50 states, winning 61% of the popular vote.

I smile these days when I recall those results, hoping that this Republicans for Harris movement could contribute to the same level of victory for the candidate I want to become president, Kamala Harris.

I cannot predict an outcome, even though Harris’s momentum continues to build. Trump continues to struggle.

Maybe it’s a long shot, but I am going to cling to some notion that history just might be able to repeat itself.

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