Joshua Duane Barnes must be channeling Harry Houdini.

But I’m guessing that the great escape artist, Houdini, had nothing on this other dude, Barnes.

Joshua Barnes escaped corrections authorities — for the third time — over the weekend. He had wiggled his way out of Potter County’s grasp before being sent to the state corrections system on a variety of felony convictions in both Potter and Randall counties.

Barnes was being treated in a Galveston prison hospital for injuries suffered in a fight at the Ferguson Unit north of Huntsville. Texas corrections officials say he apparently broke through the drywall in his hospital room, got through a window and used a couple of sheets to lower himself to a roof. Then he was gone.

Potter County sheriff’s authorities say they’ve gotten word of Barnes’ escape.

Police urge the rest of us to look for someone wearing hospital garb — and sporting shiners under both eyes as well as other facial injuries. You’d think he wouldn’t be that hard to spot.

Then again …

It’s pretty much understood that Jerry Jones isn’t your typical professional sports team owner.

It’s maddening to listen to a loony despot pop off, issuing statements of the most outrageous nature.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has done it … again. He told an NBC interviewer that the Holocaust is a fraud, a hoax, a lie perpetrated by Israelis who use it as a pretext to occupy Palestinian territory.

He called the most documented event in human history a fantasy.

Just how offensive can this man get?

I had the high honor of touring Israel during most of May and a good bit of June this year. I listened to countless tales of the misery inflicted by the Nazi murderers in Europe who exterminated 6 million Jews prior to and during World War II. Israel’s very existence as a state is due largely as a result of that horror. And yet, the Iranian lunatic — who’s never been to Israel — says the Holocaust never happened?

Those piles of corpses discovered by American, British, Canadian and Russian forces fighting their way to Berlin were a figment of someone’s imagination?

And to think that this madman just might acquire nuclear weapons.

My goodness.

http://isurvived.org/Pictures_iSurvived-4/corpses-HOLOCAUST.GIF

If you’re interested, click on the above link. Viewer discretion is advised.

Maybe I’m not paying much attention, but I rather doubt it. Amarillo’s civic leadership needs to get the word out to our community’s young mothers about the Baby Moses law.

It’s a 10-year-old statute that allows people to drop their children off at emergency providers within 60 days of the child’s birth. There will be no questions asked. There will be no charges filed. It’s meant to save the lives of children whose parents cannot — or will not — care for them.

Perhaps a greater awareness of the law might have prevented the death of an hours-old infant the other day in Amarillo. I say “perhaps” only because a 15-year-old girl is accused of a crime for which she has not been convicted. Potter County authorities accuse her of killing her baby hours after the baby’s birth. The baby died of asphyxiation.

Lots of investigation will ensue. One avenue might be whether the community is sufficiently aware of the Baby Moses law. I’m thinking Amarillo is in dire need of a major PR campaign to educate the public — now.

Can there be anything of less use than forcing a member of Congress to apologize to the House, even though he’s already apologized to the man at whom he directed an idiotic shout?

House Democrats on Tuesday introduced a resolution rebuking the actions of Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina for shouting out “You lie!” to President Obama during the president’s address to a joint session of Congress this past week.

Wilson apologized immediately for his comments to the president — who accepted it. That’s not good enough for the House leadership, whose members contend that Wilson embarrassed the House as well as the president.

So, they want to make him pay, by golly, for his outburst. With what? A public dressing-down? Wilson is loving the attention, which he never got before he shot off his mouth this past week.

This is a waste of time. Wilson’s remarks spoke for themselves. The setting required maximum dignity, which Wilson didn’t exhibit. He behaved boorishly. That ought to stand as a testament to this guy’s lack of class.

The House leadership can’t do anything more to this clown.

Meanwhile, members of both houses of Congress have many more productive matters at hand. Do the words “health care” mean anything to these people?

How does an obscure, back-bench member of Congress make an instant name for himself?

The tepid response from Amarillo-area educators to President Obama’s speech to students today is a clear reflection of the broader constituency.

Look at it this way: The president’s speech likely will be shown live in virtually all classrooms in school districts where Obama polled much better than he did here.

Consider these locations: Alameda County, Calif., Dallas County, King County, Wash., Cook County, Ill.? Students in those regions got to watch Obama live, in real time, as he spoke to them about the virtues of working hard in school.

Here, though, the calculation is much different. Obama finished far behind Republican presidential nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Thus, the teachers’ and school administrators’ reluctance to show the speech live to students is understandable.

Politics shouldn’t govern whether the president is allowed to offer wisdom to students starting a new school year. But that’s the nature of the proverbial beast — and the nation’s politican in chief knows it better than anyone.

I guess we’re getting close to seeing and hearing just about anything these days.

President Obama wants to speak Tuesday night to the nation’s school children. He wants to encourage them to study, to work hard, to listen to their teachers and to obey their parents. But not even as straightforward a message as that is immune from the nut jobs who are accusing the president of trying to foist some evil agenda on those young and tender minds.

What in the world is going on here?

I got a call late this past week (I was away from the office for a few days of R&R with my wife) from some guy who said that “no way” was he going to let his child hear the president’s message. “I don’t like the guy,” the caller said. That was enough of a reason, apparently, to ensure that Obama’s message was blocked out here. He wanted to know if Amarillo ISD was going to let the kids hear the president’s 18-minute speech, and was hoping for all the world that it wouldn’t allow its students to be poisoned by President Obama.

This craziness is beyond the pale.

If Americans are worried about the president of the United States offering words of time-honored wisdom to our children, then this country is in even deeper trouble than we think.

The eyes of the nation will be on Texas next spring.

Political junkies such as me will enjoy immensely the spectacle of two big hitters laying haymakers on each other. Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison are vying for the Republican nomination for governor — a job now held by Perry.

What’s yet to be determined is how Texas Democrats are going to garner any attention.

I can guarantee that Perry and Hutchison are going to command virtually all the media’s attention from now until the primary next March. That leaves the Democratic Party primary as sort of a preliminary event occurring simultaneously with the Big Show on the Republican side.

I also can guarantee that the rest of the nation will be peering this way for a clue on how Perry campaigns and how Hutchison counters the governor’s sure-fire appeal to the conservative base within the GOP.

Perry’s talk this past spring of secession was meant to fire up the faithful. It worked.

Hutchison is seen in Republican circles as a more “moderate” politician. But the Panhandle GOP faithful don’t trust her, chiefly because of her perceived squishiness on abortion. Yes, she remains a strong Second Amendment supporter, which she demonstrated with her vote against confirming Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Political types across the nation will be looking for evidence of a Republican comeback in 2010. Whatever success Perry gets in the primary will set the tone for the rest of the year. If, however, Texas Republicans grow tired of the governor and turn toward Hutchison, then her moderate stance becomes the new standard that the party ought to follow in other statewide and congressional elections.

Shake hands and come out fighting.

“You just don’t get it.”

With that, a gentleman told me early today that my column on Sunday about the late Sen. Ted Kennedy was way off the mark. He had tapped my shoulder, got my attention, and then unloaded.

http://media.amarillo.com/kanelis.shtml

Kennedy lacked character, the man said, “and that’s why the Panhandle never could support someone like him.” He was referring, of course, to the many personal misdeeds that plagued the senator’s life.

Kennedy couldn’t lead a “Judeo-Christian nation like ours,” he said, noting that the senator’s many sins disqualified him from a position of leadership.

OK. Point taken.

But I’ll just add that the Bible is chock full of references to grace and forgiveness. And I believe it also says that only God is fit to pass judgment on someone’s sins.

I prefer to let the Almighty determine who is fit to enjoy eternal life.

I did, however, get the gentleman’s name and thanked him for his comments. Maybe we can talk some more.