Uncategorized

This crime needs national attention

Two New York City police officers were assassinated over the weekend.

They were “profiled,” and that’s what it was, because they were wearing their uniforms. They were on duty, protecting the neighborhood from thugs, such as the one who killed them in cold blood.

Now we find out the killer was retaliating for the Eric Garner case, in which a man — Garner — died after being choked to death by a Staten Island police officer. A grand jury declined to indict the officer — and all hell broke loose.

Then this happened.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/2-cops-ambushed-fatally-shot-in-car-gunman-kills-himself/ar-BBh3g1E

The dead officers are Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were sitting in their patrol car when Ismaayil Brinsley walked up to their car and shot them point-blank. Brinsley then fled to a subway station and killed himself. No great loss there.

The loss of the police officers, though, is tragic beyond description.

The men and women who take an oath to uphold the law and protect citizens from criminals — as Liu and Ramos were doing — put their lives on the line every day they report for work. They take that oath in good faith — virtually all of them do, anyway — and then do their duty.

That some moronic goon would respond to a tragedy by creating yet another tragedy simply defies one’s senses at almost any level.

This story deserves a lot of media attention, too.

 

International news, political news

Lame-duck status has its advantages

Sometimes it can be good for politicians to use their lame-duck status to move important debates forward.

Take the lame-duck president of the United States, Barack Obama. All he has done in the past few days is call for a profound change in our nation’s relationship with Cuba, with which we’ve had zero relationship for, oh, the past 50 years.

With no more campaigns to run, or elections to win (or lose), the president has done what he could have done years ago. Indeed, earlier lame-duck presidents dating back to the Johnson administration could have done it.

They chose sit on their hands.

Contrast that context with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a possible — if not probable — candidate for president in 2016. He’s a TEA party Republican who’s backing the Democratic president on this deal.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/rand-paul-supports-opening-cuba-113677.html?hp=b2_l3

Paul will have some answering to do if he faces the deeply split Cuban-American community in south Florida in a couple of years.

Obama has staked out an important change in U.S. foreign policy with this push for “normalization” of relations with Cuba, which came with the release of Alan Gross, an aid worker who’d been held prisoner for five years on a bogus spying charge by the Fidel/Raul Castro regime in Havana.

He had to have figured he could act now that he’s a lame duck. Of course, no politician ever admits to such a thing. They offer up high-minded rhetoric about “doing the right thing” or “acting in the best interests” of the city, state or nation.

That explains, perhaps, the president’s change of heart on Cuba. It doesn’t explain Sen. Paul’s courage on the issue, given that he’s bucking many fellow Republicans on this matter.

About the only thing that makes sense about Paul’s support of Obama on the Cuba policy issue is that he’s not going to run for president after all. I hope that’s not the case.

As for the president, well, lame duck status does have its advantage.

 

Uncategorized

Staying ready for Christmas

The question comes to me — and everyone else — every … single … year.

“Are you ready for Christmas?”

Upon making a pact with myself some years ago to avoid the “hassles” associated with Christmas, I initially found the question a bit awkward. I’d come up with some kind of semi-catchy response, although I no longer can remember what I’d say.

These days, my answer is simple.

Yep. I’m ready. I’m always ready. I stay ready. I was born ready.

In fact, my current response is taken from something a friend of mine down Beaumont way, the late Gene Dumatrait, used to say. He was always “ready” for anything. You name it, Gino was ready for it.

Back to my point, which is that Christmas is something for which I always am ready. I spend very little time worrying about anything this time of year. Indeed, the holiday shouldn’t be about getting prepared for things. I choose to take time to reflect on simple pleasures, on the many blessings I have … such as my family. I want to consider the real “reason for the season,” which Scripture tells us is the birth of Jesus.

I no longer concern myself with getting “ready” for Christmas.

I’m not denigrating others who get caught up in the hustle, bustle and sometimes tussle of this holiday time. That’s their call to make and more power to them.

Me? I’ll just go with the flow.

Isn’t Christmas a time for joy? I intend to have a joyful time of it.

 

political news, State news, Uncategorized

Perry to Aggies: I'm thinking about running

Here’s a news flash: Texas Gov. Rick Perry said some other things to college graduates besides declining an offer to have a building named after him at Texas A&M University.

Such as — he’s thinking about running for president of the United States of America.

That’s kind of a big deal, yes?

Perry spoke at the Texas A&M convocation. He told graduates the school from which he graduated shouldn’t name the Academic Building after him. Then he went on to say that he’s pondering another run for the White House.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/12/perry-teases-presidential-run-in-speech-to-aggies/#13219101=0

He ticked off his credentials as someone who governed a state with the world’s 13th-largest economy and oversaw a group of individuals who “bicker a lot,” referring to the Legislature.

He told the A&M grads he’ll be looking for a job in about 30 days, just as they will.

Is this a precursor to a presidential run? Yes, it sounds like it to me.

I hope he jumps in. I’ve already spoken out in favor of Mitt Romney getting back into the game. I’m inclined also to welcome Jeb Bush into the Republican presidential field.

Why not — to coin the late Molly Ivins’s term — Gov. Goodhair?

He’s got the look, the charisma, some governing experience and he’s developing a pretty good gift of gab.

Perry’s ideas about the role of government, though, don’t quite set well with some of us out here. He’s inclined to be anti-federal government, which is sort of an dubious stance for someone who wants to oversee it.

But what the heck. He gave us a few laughs the last time he ran for the White House in 2012. Maybe he’s got a few more gag lines up his sleeve the next time around.

Bring it, governor!

 

entertainment news, national news

Rethinking this Sony film matter

Mea culpa time, kind of.

I’ve been getting beaten up over a blog I posted about whether Sony erred in making a comedy about an attempted assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. I said Sony Pictures’ biggest mistake was in making the film at all.

The chastening I’ve taken has forced me to reconsider what I wrote. Here it is:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/12/19/sonys-bigger-mistake-was-in-making-film/

President Obama said this week that Sony “made a mistake” in pulling the film from its scheduled release. He said the filmmaker should not be intimidated by a two-bit dictator. Others have noted that the United States, the strongest nation on Earth, shouldn’t be cowed by a tinhorn despot.

My friends on the left and the right have slung barbs at me for suggesting that Kim Jong-Un had a legitimate beef with the filmmakers and the film, “The Interview,” which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco.

No one likes admitting they were mistaken, but I think I’m about to go there.

Maybe I got caught up in the heat of the moment and didn’t think through the implications — all of them — in suggesting Sony had messed up.

Perhaps if I were running Sony, I would have been reluctant to depict the killing of an actual sovereign leader. Here’s the thing, though: I am not running Sony. That was someone else’s call. They had the right to make that decision.

Kim Jong-Un, therefore, didn’t have the right to bully Sony into pulling back the release of its film.

There. I actually feel better now.

 

national news, political news

Bring on the State of the Union

House Speaker John Boehner has put an end to one of the more idiotic notions to come from the TEA party wing of the GOP in, oh, maybe ever.

The speaker officially invited President Obama on Friday to deliver the State of the Union speech on Jan. 20. It’s in keeping with congressional custom, which says the speaker invites the president into the House chamber to speak to a joint session of Congress — and the nation — about (yep!) the State of the Union.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/19/john-boehner-obama-state-of-the-union_n_6354448.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

A minor tempest popped up a few weeks ago when some TEA party advocates in Congress actually suggested — apparently in all seriousness — that Boehner ban the president from making his speech. Don’t extend the invitation, Mr. Speaker, they said, because we want to punish the president for issuing that executive order that saves 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.

That’ll teach him, isn’t that right, Mr. Speaker?

Well, Boehner didn’t listen. Good for him.

The president will deliver the State of the Union speech. He’ll lay out his agenda for the next two years. Democrats will clap; Republicans will (mostly) sit on their hands. That’s the way it goes at these events, no matter the party to which the president belongs.

 

national news

Vacation for first family; POTUS will need the rest

President Obama has jetted off to his home state of Hawaii for some R&R with his family.

I’ll be interested now for the next several days whether we’re going to hear any carping about the golf being played, or whether the first lady is spending a lot of money on shopping excursions, or whether the first daughters are behaving themselves.

This kind of carping goes with the territory, I guess, and I am hoping that now — six years into the job — that the president and his family have grown used to it.

Social media being what they are, criticism hits cyberspace in swarms. It’s immediate, quite often mistaken and misplaced and also quite cruel.

I recall a couple of other notable presidents who’d take lengthy vacations.

* President Ronald Reagan would get holed up in his ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif., uttering hardly a peep in public. He’d come back down from his Rancho del Cielo refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of the day. You’d hear the occasional gripes from the media about the president’s lengthy hiatus, but hardly none of the nitpicking one hears today.

* President George W. Bush liked to “clear brush” at his own ranch in Central Texas, near Crawford — which is near Waco. Again, the media would gripe about that time off, although my hunch is that they disliked hanging out in rural Texas, which I’m guessing lacks some of the creature comforts to which those big-city media hounds had grown accustomed.

In both instances — and regarding vacations other presidents have taken — such criticism is unfounded and ridiculous.

Barack Obama doesn’t have any planned public events while he’s enjoying Christmas with his clan in Hawaii. He’ll get his usual daily national security briefings and updates on other matters way back east in Washington.

For now, enjoy your time in the sunshine, Mr. President. A new Congress controlled by the “other party” awaits you when you return for the home stretch of your time in office. You’ll need all the rest you can get.

 

national news

Boys kept out of White House queries

President Obama’s final press conference of 2014 made news in an unexpected manner.

Eight reporters asked him questions in the White House Press Room. All of them were women. Obama said at the outset he had checked his “naughty or nice” list when developing his list of questioners.

I guess the men among the White House press corps had been naughty.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-answers-female-reporters–questions-only-at-year-end-press-conference-212200355.html

What’s the statement here? I haven’t a clue.

One of the other interesting elements of the roster of questioners was that most of them rarely, if ever, get a chance to ask the president something at one of these events. They were “unknowns.”

The “big hitters” among the White House press cadre — the men and women who get the front-row seats — comprise the major broadcast and cable news networks, along with The Associated Press, the pre-eminent print news outlet. They sat there stone-faced while Obama called out names of people sitting in the back of the room.

Actually, I thought it was rather cool for the president to call on those who don’t usually participate in these televised news conferences. It gives others whose job is to report on presidential events a chance to put their own questions on the record with the Leader of the Free World.

Enough of the major-media echo chamber, thank you very much.

***

A memory came to mind just as I was typing this post about “no-name journalists.” Here goes.

Back in the 1980s, NASA announced a plan to send a working journalist into space aboard a space shuttle mission. It then put the word out for any journalist who was interested to apply.

I applied for a spot on a shuttle mission. What an amazing opportunity to report first hand, up close, in real time the immense thrill of orbiting Earth from outer space. Hey, I could do this.

As it turned out, NASA scrubbed its “civilian in space” after the Challenger disaster in January 1986, when school teacher Christa McAuliffe died along with her crewmates.

But after I submitted my application to NASA, I was sharing my desire to fly in space with a colleague of mine at the Beaumont Enterprise, where I was working at the time. I mentioned to my friend, Rosemary Harty, that NASA likely would go with some big-name network TV news celebrity — someone like Walter Cronkite.

“Oh, no they won’t, John,” Rosey said. “They’re going to pick a nobody, just like you.”

 

International news

Study your history, Sen. Rubio

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio needs a refresher course on 20th-century American history.

The Florida Republican — quite naturally — was critical the other day of President Obama’s decision to begin normalization of relations with Cuba, a nation with which we’ve had zero diplomatic contact for the past five decades.

Rubio ventured into Fox News Channel’s right-wing echo chamber and declared that Obama is the “worst negotiator since Jimmy Carter.”

I heard that and thought, “What in the world is that young man saying?” Chris Matthews noted correctly that Rubio was 7 years of age when President Carter worked some diplomatic magic.

Worst negotiator, eh?

To the young senator, here’s a bit of history for you to ponder.

President Carter summoned two enemy heads of government to the White House in 1978. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to hammer out a historic peace treaty between the ancient enemies.

They went to Camp David, took off their jackets and ties and worked day and night to agree to a peace treaty. Carter reportedly got along much better with Sadat than he did with Begin. Sadat and Begin couldn’t find their way past their ancient differences, dealing mostly with how their people could live together in places like Gaza.

Finally, after several days in the Maryland mountains, Carter got the two men together and the three of them agreed on a peace treaty that holds up today, nearly four decades later. It’s now known as the Camp David Accords.

The deal ended up costing Sadat his life when Muslim extremists assassinated him during a parade. An Israeli extremist would kill Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for hammering out a peace deal with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.

For the young Florida Republican senator to suggest Jimmy Carter is a terrible presidential “negotiator” is to ignore the historical record.

Hit the books, senator, before popping off.

 

business news, local news

Gas-price skid causes nervousness

So-called “experts” on energy prices and policies keep telling us the same thing.

The downward spiral in oil and gasoline prices is going to continue perhaps well into the new year.

But watching the price ticking down — often more than once daily — continues to make me nervous.

The price of unleaded gas has now dipped to less than $2 per gallon in Amarillo. I work part time across the street from a leading gas dealer here and I’ve seen the sign tick down as many as three times during a single day.

How low will it go?

The experts aren’t saying yet how cheap they think gas will get.

Supply is up. Demand is down. American drillers keep producing oil like there’s no tomorrow. But everyone knows how free-market economics works: If the supply keeps outstripping demand, eventually the suppliers will scale back their production to even out the inventory of oil and gasoline on the market. The result inevitably increases the price of gas a the pump.

As we’ve all seen for the past several years, gasoline increases in price at a far quicker pace than it decreases.

Hey, I’m not predicting gloom and doom at the pump.

I’m merely suggesting that I’m getting quite used to paying the same amount for gas that I was paying five years ago or longer.

The “new normal” in gas prices had produced a certain form of numbness to the prices we were paying. Now that new normal has been shaken — but in a positive sort of way.

It still makes me nervous about what could be coming down the road.

 

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