Southwest Airlines had little for which to apologize when a flight crew departing Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport evicted a woman and her screaming child.

The tot began hollering when he and his mom — a native of Dumas — boarded a flight on Oct. 26 at AMA bound for San Jose, Calif. They were here visiting a sick family member. The boy’s screeching became uncontrollable. Imagine flying 1,000 or so miles having to listen to that racket.

The flight crew couldn’t get the tot quiet, so mother and child were ordered off the plane, reportedly to a rousing ovation from grateful passengers.

If the airline owed them an apology, it only was for the failure to fetch the passengers’ luggage so they could take it on a later flight. But that’s as far as it goes.

Air travel isn’t much fun in this post-9/11 era. Those who have flown much since then know what I’m talking about. Passengers need not have to endure screamers at 35,000 feet.

Good going, flight crew.

High Plains Public Radio has just concluded its latest fund drive. It did so with a fascinating tribute to the late Teel Bivins.

It had received a pledge in Bivins’ memory from someone who noted that two of his brothers were instrumental in bringing HPPR to Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle. Why is that so fascinating?

Well, consider that the Bivins family has long been associated with conservative Republican politics. Consider, too, that HPPR and its parent company — National Public Radio — have become favorite targets of those who accuse the “mainstream media” of tilting too far to the left; Paul Greenberg, the great editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, refers to NPR as “National Propaganda Radio.”

The late Levi Bivins started the effort to bring NPR to the Panhandle. Levi died in the 1990s and brother Mark took the effort forward. So, it became something of a family affair. Teel, the one-time state senator and ambassador to Sweden, wasn’t so much out front on the NPR campaign.

But the tribute given in Teel Bivins’ memory speaks to the quality of a family that would seek to enlighten the Panhandle with the news and information that National Public Radio can bring.

Good job, Bivins Brothers — and thank you.

“Could you list the mistakes she made other than being a conservative woman? Or is it being a member of a church you don’t like? Maybe having too many children or having imperfect children? Or was it being an outspoken conservative? Maybe you could blog about the mistakes Sarah Palin made… I would love some of the “facts” that give you the right to state so overtly the charge that she made “plenty of mistakes”.Was that you who blogged last week about Fox News being biased?”

The above is a comment to an item I posted on my blog this week. OK, I’ve been called out.

Mistakes?

Let’s see. Sarah Palin quit her job as Alaska’s governor halfway through her first term, declaring she didn’t want to be a “lame duck.” That was something of an admission that she is incapable of governing for the remainder of her term after declaring her intention not to seek re-election. I consider that to be a mistake.

Hmm. What else? Oh, she said she refused federal earmark money for the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” Oops. Not true. She accepted it at first, then turned it down when the stuff hit the fan over the earmark and former Sen. Ted Stevens’ role in obtaining it for Alaska. Yep, that’s a mistake.

Anything else? Oh yeah. In a TV interview, she said she couldn’t name a single newspaper or news periodical she read. The question seemed to catch her off guard and off balance. Another mistake.

OK, one more. In another TV interview, Gov. Palin couldn’t define the “Bush Doctrine” as it relates to the nation’s foreign policy. (My understanding of the doctrine is that President Bush felt it imperative to put our national interests first when deciding critical foreign policy matters; he didn’t believe it was altogether critical that the United States be held in high esteem in foreign capitals.)

Palin bristled at John McCain’s aides who tried to control her speeches and public utterances; she demonstrated a lack of knowledge on economic matters and on critical foreign-policy issues.

So, there you have it — for what it’s worth.

Gov. Palin has made plenty of errors on her meteoric rise to political superstardom.

And I’ll say it again: Fox News is every bit as biased as the other networks.

Levi Johnston has done the impossible: He’s made me feel moderately sorry for Sarah Palin.

Johnston is the guy who got Palin’s daughter pregnant. He and Bristol Palin then broke up shortly after the 2008 election, which featured the former Alaska governor’s bid to become vice president on a Republican ticket led by Sen. John McCain.

Palin then quit the governor’s office for reasons that few of us in the Lower 48 can understand. Meanwhile, Johnston — an inarticulate rube — has gone on the attack against the Palin clan. Now he’s set to pose for Playgirl magazine. He is making a name for himself merely because he fathered a child out of wedlock with the daughter of a public figure who made a name for herself by becoming the darling of the morally righteous wing of the Republican Party.

But ex-Gov. Palin doesn’t deserve to be trashed by this clown, Levi Johnston.

She’s made plenty of mistakes on her own. That she’s being raked over the coals by a loser such as Johnston is insulting on its face.

I’m feeling just a tad sorry for her.

I took Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina to task for shouting out “You lie!” to President Obama during a presidential speech to a joint session of Congress. Wilson acted like the loser he is with his highly inappropriate remark.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/burkablog/?p=5111&click_code=3681c98344608825aee2a91d38f9e775.

Take a look at the above link. It’s from Paul Burka’s blog on Texas Monthly magazine.

It deals with this week’s death of former state Sen. Teel Bivins. What’s at least as fascinating as the notation from Burka about a man he knew well are the responses and comments from those who have read it.

Bivins made a huge mark on many folks throughout the state. His imprint was felt far beyond the Panhandle, where he grew up, came of age and returned to carry on his family’s lucrative business. Then he went a huge step farther by entering the world of partisan politics. He won the state Senate seat in 1988 and became a big-time player in state government.

Bivins no doubt stepped on some toes along the way. But it’s interesting that the reaction so far to the sad news of his passing, at least on one blog, is so positive and downright affectionate.

Another high-profile funeral is about to occur in Amarillo.

This one will be for former state Sen. Teel Bivins. It will be Thursday at St. Andrews’ Episcopal Church. The sanctuary no doubt will be packed. People will remember the impact that Bivins had on this region, first as the scion of a powerful family, then as a state senator who rose to considerable prominence in the Legislature during his 15 years representing the Panhandle in the Texas Senate.

Bivins died this afternoon of complications from a long and debilitating illness. He was 62.

The community he loved so deeply will miss him.

I didn’t make an ill-fated prediction, exactly; it was just wishful thinking.

In an earlier posting on this blog, I had expressed a hope that the LA Angels and the LA Dodgers would win their respective Major League Baseball championship series and then face each other in the World Series. Why? The weather in La La Land would be far better than in the Rust Belt cities their championship opponents call home.

Alas, it’s not to be. The NY Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies won the right to play in the Series.

Bundle up, diehard Yanks and Phils fans. And be patient while you await the games delayed by rain — and possibly snow.

It seems as if everyone is commenting on the White House feud with Fox News.

Now it’s my turn.

Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, happens to be right about Fox. It isn’t “fair and balanced.” Its news presentation is no less biased than, say, the other networks who many folks say tilt the other way. Those who suggest that Fox presents the news without bias do not understand the meaning of the term “bias,” nor can they unhook themselves from their own political tether.

Fox has a huge following in the Panhandle. I understand the political leanings of this community. Our residents gravitate to news presented in a way that they find agreeable, just as those in Berkeley or Boston gravitate to news presented in a way that they find agreeable.

But the bigger issue is whether the White House should have singled out Fox in the first place. The answer is a resounding “no!” The White House has many bigger fish to fry than a cable television network. And Anita Dunn has picked a fight that she simply cannot win. Fox’s ratings are through the roof. She merely has enabled the network to make hay where none existed prior to her opening her mouth.

President Obama could end this matter on the spot by appearing on a Fox News talk show, joust with his interrogators (just as he jousted with George Stephanopoulos recently on “This Week”) shake their hands when the time is up and be done with it.

Word of mouth can be a brutally efficient method of conveying information. It also can be equally brutal in spreading falsehoods.