crime news

Oh, the tragic irony

Surely, I am not the only American who sees the horrible irony of the mass shooting today in Highland Park, Ill., that killed six people and injured dozens of others.

It occurred on the Fourth of July, the day we recognize the birth of our great nation that tragically has become known for precisely the type of violence that erupted yet again this morning just north of Chicago.

“Only in America” can this happen? I hate making that suggestion, but it appears that appears to be the case. To be clear, other parts of the world do experience this sort of madness … but not to the extent to which we are becoming seemingly numb to its frequency in this country.

We just finished burying those 19 precious children and two of their teachers in Uvalde. That remembrance came immediately after 10 shopping center customers were gunned down in Buffalo, N.Y.

The instances occur with frightening regularity. My wife said to me today, “It looks like we’re not going to be able to go anywhere.” The shooting today took place amid the red, white and blue bunting, banners and flags of a Midwest town’s parade honoring our nation’s 246th birthday.

The good folks of Highland Park now will be consigned to remembering this day for entirely different and tragic reasons.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

City facing stern court test

My cheap-seat perch has enabled me to weigh in on a matter involving a community where I lived for 23 years and remains a place where I maintain a deep affection.

Amarillo City Hall is going to trial Tuesday to face a lawsuit filed by a local businessman over a city effort to foist a $260 million debt on property owners to build a new Civic Center. I use the term “foist” understanding what it implies.

The city is foisting the debt on taxpayers because those very city residents said “no” to a bond issue in November 2020 that would have done what the city wants to do without voter approval.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that approach.

Businessman Alex Fairly wants the 108th District Court in Potter County to slow the process down just a bit to enable all parties — I’ll presume Fairly intends for the city to be included — to present their cases more thoroughly. The city, according to Fairly, wants to fast-track the decision to a quick verdict.

Fairly is contesting the legality of the decision to issue those “anticipation notes.” He argues that the city didn’t give proper advance notice to residents and did so without going through the entire process he says is required.

I won’t argue that case. What does seem wrong is the timing of this effort by the city.

To be clear, if I had a vote in the matter, I likely would have voted “yes” on the money to build a Civic Center; the one they have is no longer adequate. However, most voters turned thumbs down on the project. I tend to respect the view of the majority … you know?

The City Council’s response has been tantamount to sticking its finger in the eye of electorate, telling them: We don’t care what you think. We need to do this anyway and we’re going to go around you … no matter what.

Therein lies what I believe is the crux of the argument that Fairly is trying to make.

This legal challenge represents a significant departure from the way city government has operated in Amarillo for practically as long as I have been acquainted with the city and its leadership.

This can be a healthy challenge to the city’s power structure. I want it to be a constructive one as well.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

He didn’t know he was in charge?

Pete Arredondo needs to quit his job as Uvalde Independent School District chief of police. He’s already resigned his city council post, citing a need to clear the city of “distractions.”

The blunt truth, though, is that I cannot get past the scandalous excuse Arredondo has given for failing to stop a gunman from killing all those children and the two educators this past month at Robb Elementary School.

Arredondo said he “didn’t know” whether he was the lead officer in the moment.

So, what did he do? Nothing! For nearly one hour, the gunman kept killing children. Arredondo did not respond because he “didn’t know” whether he had authority to act.

I spoke with a North Texas educator immediately after the tragedy unfolded in Uvalde. This fellow, and I will keep his identity private, seemingly didn’t understand why the Uvalde cops waited. “We are going in,” the North Texas educator told me in describing how he would respond to a similar situation were it to occur on his watch.

“We aren’t waiting” for someone to determine who’s in charge, he said.

The lack of transparency and — so far! — the lack of accountability for what happened in Uvalde has upset many of us, most notably the loved ones of those who died in the slaughter.

Pete Arredondo is at the center of this continuing storm. He has failed his community and he needs to go.

First things first, though. Arredondo must explain what happened that day and why he froze while children and teachers were being shot to death.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

Church and state are separate … period!

Lauren Boebert must believe she knows something that’s lost on practically every American alive today, given that the nation’s founders created a government more than two centuries ago, long before any of us were around.

The Colorado Republican congresswoman made a patently preposterous assertion recently. She said: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it. I am tired of this separation-of-church-and-state junk.”

Well …

She made the comment at a church service. Imagine that, eh?

Let me spell out what I believe the founders intended. They intended to create a secular governing document, one that does not answer to the dictates of spiritual teaching. The First Amendment, for example, contains several civil liberties the government protects. The first one mentioned — and this is important — deals with religion.

The amendment declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … ”Ā I want to call attention to the fact that the founders thought enough of that clause to make it the first one mentioned in the First Amendment to the nation’s government document.

Boebert’s ignorant statement about “separation-of-church-and-state junk” reminds me of a mantra a former Amarillo Globe-News colleague of mine used to recite. He kept insisting that since the Constitution doesn’t mention church-state separation specifically that it doesn’t really exist. I had to remind him that the courts have held over the course of two centuries that the First Amendment’s meaning intends to keep the church out of government’s business. Just because the Constitution doesn’t declare in so many words that the church cannot mingle in state business doesn’t make it less true.

So it is with nimrods such as Lauren Boebert, who in her brief time in Congress has managed to stand out as a spokeswoman for some truly wacky notions.

I tend to interpret the Constitution the same way I interpret my Bible, in that I am inclined to take a broad, expansive view of what both documents mean.

It’s my right to do so. The Constitution speaks clearly to it in that First Amendment.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

The Fifth implies guilt

You know what? I am going to agree with an assertion that Donald J. Trump made on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

The Republican Party nominee for president declared that those who use the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination usually have something to hide; they imply their own guilt by pleading the Fifth to the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, all of that changes when it’s your friends and supporters taking the Fifth, which Trump hasn’t spoken about in recent weeks while the House select committee examines the 1/6 insurrection against the government.

Former short-term national security adviser Michael Flynn, for instance, hid behind the Fifth more than 100 times when he faced questions from the committee. His response, for example, to a question from Rep. Liz Cheney about whether he believes in the “peaceful transition of presidential power”? He said: “Fifth.”

We’re going to hear a lot more of that kind of gamesmanship from Trumpkins summoned to testify before the panel. The cultists can avoid being indicted for contempt of Congress by showing up and then refusing to answer direct questions by hiding behind one of the founders’ civil liberties … which they are entitled to do.

However, none of it passes the smell test.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news

Finally, I get the ‘Black’ reference

Yes, it is true that I am a bit slow on the uptake at times, even in matters relating to the craft I pursued for 30-plus years, almost all of them with great joy and vigor.

It is with that intro that I intend to reveal that I finally understand why media organizations are capitalizing the “B” in “Black” when referring to people.

It started with The Associated Press changing its style. The AP explained it this way: APā€™s style is now to capitalize BlackĀ in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, includingĀ those in theĀ African diaspora and within Africa. The lowercase black is a color, not a person.Ā AP style will continue to lowercase the term white in racial, ethnic and cultural senses.

Explaining AP style on Black and white | AP News

The light bulb came on. What the AP and other organizations are saying is that Black people — those of the African diaspora — have little if any knowledge of their specific heritage. So, the term Black is used as an ethnic reference the way, say, I use the term “Greek” to define my own ethnic heritage.

I get it. I just thought I would share the realization that finally dawned on me and to declare that from this moment forward, High Plains Blogger is going to adopt that style forever.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Hoping for a quiet Fourth

We live in a North Texas city that prohibits fireworks from being detonated within the city limits.

Indeed, Princeton City Hall has made an extra effort this year to get the word out that the Fourth of July celebration must not include fireworks within the city’s corporate boundary.

So, here comes the question: How does the Princeton Police Department enforce that rule?Ā 

Independence Day is coming. Am I expecting a sleepless night listening to fireworks exploding all over the damn place? Yes, I fear that will happen. It will occur because the Princeton PD is unable to arrest or cite every single violator out there.

Which I guess brings me to the point of wondering why have an ordinance that cities cannot enforce effectively?

I know that Princeton isn’t the only city in America that has such a rule on the books. Indeed, I suspect most cities have them, which means that fireworks celebrations are limited to unincorporated areas way out in the country.

In our part of the world, the country isn’t so far away. Still, I am going to lament what I expect will happen in our neighborhood that sits in the middle of a growing city in Collin County, Texas. We’re going to hear bombs bursting in air and watching the rockets’ red glare.

The last time I posted something complaining about the noise associated with these celebrations, I got called out for being a sorehead. Well, I guess I’ll have to expect it once again by wishing there was a way for our PD to enforce a citywide rule.

Still, I want to wish the United States of America a happy Fourth of July birthday. I’m going to do so quietly.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Saddened by newspaper images

The images I keep seeing of the place where I spent the longest stint of my newspaper career keep tugging at my heart.

The Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News buildings have been vacant for some time. What’s left of the newspaper staff moved into a suite of offices in a downtown bank tower. Someone reportedly has purchased the G-N site, which will become a place that manufactures lubricants.

The images just tear my guts out.

The press room still has paper in the presses. I saw one picture of encyclopedias piled up. Another one had bound volumes of old editions. The newsroom looks like the staff fled the building in haste, leaving paper and assorted trash strewn across the floor.

I would pay real American money to know what the G-N’s final days were like as the company that purchased it from the owners for whom I worked got ready to vacate the site.

Next month marks a decade since I walked off my job after nearly 18 years as an editor of the opinion pages. I don’t miss it these days. I got over the pain — and the embarrassment — associated with my sudden departure from a career I pursued with great joy for nearly 37 years.

To be candid, seeing the images of what is left of the Globe-News only heightens my relief and happiness at being away when the end arrived.

Life goes on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

One down, one to go …

Pete Arredondo no longer serves on the Uvalde (Texas) city council, having submitted his resignation in light of the staggering publicity surrounding Arredondo’s other job.

He is currently the police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police department. Arredondo is now on “administrative leave” from that post pending a probe into the “abject failure” he demonstrated by failing to stop the madman who killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers more than a month ago.

Arredondo needs to do something else for a living, in my humble view. Police are probing the Robb Elementary School massacre and have described Arredondo’s lack of action in the early minutes of the slaughter an “abject failure.”

The police authorities, including the Department of Public Safety, have clammed up. Parents, grandparents, siblings and loved ones of the victims are demanding answers. They aren’t getting anything.

Arredondo took office on the city council a few days after the horrifying massacre. He has missed numerous meetings. He resigned, saying he didn’t want to be a “distraction.” Thanks for nothing, chief.

He is an even bigger “distraction” as chief of the Uvalde ISD police department.

I’m just telling ya’, the man’s law enforcement career is now over.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Cheney a ‘sellout’?

Roll this one around for a moment: A critic of this blog believes U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney is a “sellout” because she doesn’t profess loyalty to Donald J. Trump.

This critic, a fellow with whom I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News — and a guy I still consider to be a friend — predicts that Cheney will lose badly in the Wyoming GOP primary in August. He’s probably right. However, it is worth asking: why?

She is likely to lose because most Wyoming Republican primary voters believe the same as my critic/friend, that she has “sold out.”

To whom? Or to what?

I want to be clear about something. Liz Cheney remains an ardent conservative lawmaker. She is far too conservative for my taste. However, she takes her responsibilities seriously and is faithful to the core of her being to them.

My view is that she has sold her soul to the search for truth behind the 1/6 insurrection. Cheney has sold out, too, to the oath she took when she joined Congress nearly eight years ago. That oath was to the United States Constitution, to the laws of the land and to the government; she did not pledge an oath to an individual.

Cheney is a “sellout”? If that’s how these right-wing, Trumpkin Cabal of Kooks define the term … well, I welcome it!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience