Category Archives: Uncategorized

local news, Uncategorized

Accelerating the transition … just a bit

retirement_road

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

People essentially have two ways to move from their working lives to retirement.

They can jump into full retirement immediately, all at once. They walk away from the job, put their wristwatch into the drawer and never worry again about missing a deadline or an appointment.

Or, they can do it slowly.

My wife and I have chosen the latter approach to retirement.

We’ve decided to stay busy with part-time work. However, the time is approaching for us to make the transition fully into retirement.

So, we have decided to accelerate the pace of that transition … just a bit.

How is that acceleration taking place? I won’t go into too many details. Suffice to say, though, that we’re making more definitive travel plans. We also have begun some serious rehab on the yard, which — because we didn’t install an irrigation system when we had the house built in 1996 — suffered quite a bit during the drought of 2013-14.

We own a recreational vehicle that we enjoy taking on the road. Our plans involve more extensive travel in it across this fabulous continent of ours.

Just this week, for example, we penciled in a date next June to travel to the southeastern United States to visit some friends who are coming here from Israel. I met this lovely couple seven years ago while on a journey through the Holy Land; I stayed in their home in Lehavim, a city on the edge of the Judean Desert.

They’re coming to Atlanta to attend the 2017 Rotary International convention and plan to tour New Orleans and Nashville while they’re on this side of The Pond. We, too, are hoping to find them in either place and get caught up with them.

I’m going to stay busy with my part-time work. Two of the jobs involve the media. Eventually, I’ll have to part company with those jobs, which I enjoy beyond measure. They continue to challenge me and they keep me alert.

The time is fast approaching, though, to complete this transition.

We are looking forward with hope and with great joy at encountering what lies ahead.

Bring on the future!

legal news, local news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

Seeing some symmetry between SCOTUS and APD chief picks

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Am I hallucinating, or do I see a certain symmetry between two appointments: one at the highest level of government, the other right here at home on the High Plains of Texas?

One of them deserves the opportunity to do his duties as an elected public official. The other one also has earned the right to perform his duty as an appointed one.

Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has selected Ed Drain to be the city’s interim chief of police; Drain is set to succeed retiring Police Chief Robert Taylor on July 1.

There might be a point of contention, though. You see, Childers won’t be city manager for very long. The City Council already has begun looking for a permanent city manager and Childers has declared his intention to retire completely from public life.

The council, though, has given Childers all the authority that the city manager’s position holds. Childers can hire — and fire — senior city administrators. He also is able to enact municipal policy changes when and where he sees fit. What the heck? He was able to bring changes to the city’s emergency communications center because he misplaced his briefcase at an Amarillo hotel, right?

Now, for the other example.

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President Barack Obama has named Merrick Garland to a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The voters delivered the president all the power he needs to do his duty when they re-elected him to his second and final term in 2012.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate, though, have said: Hold on a minute! The president’s a lame duck. We don’t want him appointing the next justice. We want the next president to do it. They, of course, are hoping that Donald J. Trump takes the oath next January. Good luck with that.

Here’s the question: Should the city manager be allowed to appoint the permanent chief of police, or should the council demand that the decision be left to the permanent city manager?

My own take is this: I’ve railed heavily against the GOP’s obstructing Obama’s ability to do his job. Republicans are wrong to play politics with this process and they are exhibiting a shameless disregard for the authority the president is able to exercise. The president is in the office until next Jan. 20 and he deserves the opportunity to fulfill all of his presidential responsibilities.

Accordingly, the Amarillo city manager will be on the job until the City Council hires someone else and that permanent manager takes over.

Thus, Terry Childers ought to be able to make the call — if the right person emerges quickly — on who should lead the police department … even if he won’t be around to supervise the new chief.

national news, political news, Uncategorized

So much grist on which to comment this election year

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trump

I ran into a former colleague of mine at the grocery store in southwest Amarillo this afternoon.

We exchanged pleasantries, talked a little about how he’s doing at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I toiled along with him for a number of years; he offered me a glimpse of the pressure he’s feeling in this new era of daily print journalism, as he’s wearing multiple hats these days.

My friend then paid me what I took as a compliment when he said, “I enjoy reading your blog … especially the stuff you’re writing about the election.”

Ah, yes. I took a breath. “God bless Donald Trump,” I told him. “He’s giving me so much material.”

Indeed, it never seems to end with Trump as he marches toward the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

I told my friend that my confidence in an early prediction I made about a Hillary Clinton landslide was shaken a bit as Trump closed in on the magic number of delegates he needed to secure the GOP nomination. He seemed to pick up some momentum.

However, as I mentioned to my young friend, that confidence is being restored a bit by the unrest and unease being expressed by Republicans about the man they are about to nominate. Their angst is brought forward by the manner in which Trump has responded to recent crises and the continuing barrage of insults and innuendo he’s leveling at his critics.

Just so you know, I pay hardly zero attention to what the Democrats are saying about the prospect of running against Trump. I’ll just remind my Democratic friends out there what the Democratic moguls were saying back in 1980 when that cowboy former California governor/movie actor, Ronald Reagan, decided to run for president. Why, they couldn’t wait to run against The Gipper.

Bring him on! they crowed. We’ll make mincemeat of him.

It didn’t work out too well for President Carter, as he won a grand total of six states and lost by 10 percentage points in a serious landslide.

Republicans that year were brimming with confidence. This year it’s a different story, with Trump set to mount his steed while carrying the GOP banner into battle against Clinton and the Democrats.

My trouble with this blog that I write is that I’m having trouble focusing on things other than the myriad negatives that Trump is bringing to this campaign. I feel almost as though I need an intervention.

I’m going to try to do a better job from this point forward in finding some positive policy topics on which to comment. I can project with decent certainty that Trump won’t provide them.

I’ll have to look elsewhere.

When I find those topics, you’ll be the first to know.

national news, Uncategorized

Filibuster provides a rare Senate ‘victory’

Chris Murphy was incensed at his U.S. Senate colleagues.

Four years after his Connecticut constituents suffered the unspeakable grief from the Newtown school massacre, Congress hadn’t done anything to curb gun violence.

So, the Democratic lawmaker took the Senate floor the other day and began filibustering.

He was spurred to talk and talk and talk by the latest mass slaughter, of 49 individuals in Orlando, Fla., this past weekend.

I want to applaud Sen. Murphy for something he achieved from his 15-hour gabfest. He persuaded the Senate Republicans who run the place to hold votes on at least a couple of key bills that proponents say will help curb gun violence.

Hey, it’s a big deal. As big a deal is that it came about by a senator persuading his colleagues to schedule these votes by talking the issue to death.

Filibusters are unique to the Senate. The House doesn’t allow it.

A filibuster allows senators to talk about whatever they want. They can use the procedure to stall legislation. Some prominent lawmakers have used the filibuster to obtain legendary status. The late Sen. Strom Thurmond holds the record for non-stop Senate blabbing. My former senator, the late Wayne Morse of Oregon, was another well-known blowhard who knew how to use the filibuster to maximum advantage.

Sometimes senators’ use of the filibuster backfires. Ted Cruz of Texas sought to filibuster the Affordable Care Act to death in 2013. He failed.

Murphy, though, managed to get a vote on one of the knottiest issues of our time: gun control.

I am not sure where it will go. There are some interesting compromises to what Murphy favors, dealing with disallowing suspected terrorists from obtaining a firearm.

I won’t comment further here on the merits of what Murphy desires.

However, I applaud the senator for talking long enough to get the Senate leadership to at least put this issue to a vote.

national news, Uncategorized

Bring your hiking shoes, first family

cave

President and Mrs. Obama are taking their daughters to Carlsbad Caverns, N.M., as part of a commemoration of the National Park Service’s centennial celebration.

The park service turns 100 and the Obamas are going to mark the occasion by touring the caverns, along with Yosemite National Park in California.

Take it from my wife and me, Mr. President and your lovely family: You need to have comfortable shoes if you’re going to go deep into the cavern.

We just went there ourselves.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/17/obama-family-to-visit-carlsbad-yosemite-to-highlight-national-parks/

I’ve got some good news and some bad news for the first family.

The good news is that they’ll be amazed at what they see once they start hiking down the path into the cavern. It’s about 750 feet down vertically from the main entrance. Sure, they’ll have plenty of company with them as they make the journey.

The bad news?

The elevator is broken. We heard some park officials say it’s going to take many months, perhaps a year or two, to repair the elevator that’s supposed to haul tourists back to the top if they don’t want to make the hike. Now you have no choice. It’s a haul.

I get that the president and first lady are quite fit. Mrs. Obama has made nutrition and exercise a hallmark of her first ladyship. She has a chance now to show she practices what she has preached.

As for Malia and Sasha, well, they’re young. Enjoy  yourselves, girls.

If a couple of older folks can make the invigorating climb out of the cavern, so can you.

 

Uncategorized

As POTUS rises, Congress falls

Time for a brief update on the latest round of public opinion surveys examining approval ratings of two important aspects of the federal government.

I refer, of course, to the presidency and to Congress.

I’ll admit to being as addicted to polls as many in the media are while reporting on the 2016 presidential campaign. It’s called “horse-race coverage” and the media are doing it well.

I follow a link called RealClearPolitics.com, which includes a vast array of political commentary and reporting — as well as polling averages.

President Obama is about to break the 50-percent barrier in the RCP average of polls.

An interesting twist to this, though, is that Congress is about to fall below 12 percent in its average of the polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Check out the link here.

The president’s relatively good political fortune seems to bode well not only for him, but also for his political party’s presumptive presidential nominee, fellow Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s opening up something up a growing lead over GOP nominee-to-be Donald J. Trump.

The RCP poll average is instructive as well, as it includes all the major polling outfits’ findings. Those that lean right and left are lumped together and calculated.

The trend is clear. The voting public is looking for favorably on the incumbent president and the individual from his own party who hopes to succeed him, while looking more dimly on Congress, which is run by those from the other political party.

local news, Uncategorized

Terrorism begets frayed nerves

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Tragedies such as what occurred in Orlando, Fla., over the weekend have a sobering impact on all of us.

We’re all on edge. The nation has been shaken.

Then something happens closer to home — a lot closer to home, in fact — and your hair stands straight up in a manner it otherwise might not had the earlier tragedy not occurred.

This morning I was driving home from an assignment in Pampa, Texas. My phone rang; I answered it using the Bluetooth device in my truck. It’s my wife.

“Where are you?” she asked. I tell her I’m on Amarillo Boulevard about to turn south onto Loop 335.

“Don’t go near Interstate 27 and Georgia Street,” she instructed me. “The police have it blocked off. There’s a shooter.”

Holy s***!

It turns out that someone was holding someone else hostage inside the Walmart store at that intersection. Police had cordoned off the area. They were negotiating with the gunman.

I got home and watched the news. Not much time after returning home came word that law enforcement officers had shot the gunman to death. The hostage is OK.

The crisis is over. Now comes the investigation into what happened and why.

Then it occurred to me. This is what acts of terror do to people. The gunman in Orlando might have committed that horrific act for any number of reasons.

The bottom line is this: He terrorized that community and in the process put the rest of this very large and powerful nation on edge.

Suffering the symptoms of fear as a result of a terrorist act is no fun at all.

Quite obviously, I’m glad the crisis is over and that the Amarillo Police Department, the Randall County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety, which I know to be run by dedicated professionals, did their jobs.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for keeping us safe.

We all can breathe again.

 

Uncategorized

Puppy Tales, Part 20

puppy

Toby the Puppy has thrown us another curve ball.

I’ve told you already about the kennel, about how we sought — upon acquiring him in September 2014 — to “train” him to sleep in it.

He refused.

We gave it about a week. He’d whimper and whine. We gave up. He’s been bunking with us every night since. We lay out a blanket. He curls up on it. We throw it over him and he spins twice and then lies down. Lights out for the night.

That’s been the drill more or less ever since we surrendered to his sleeping whims.

Lately, though, he’s done something a good bit different.

He’s walking into the kennel voluntarily. On his own. No prompting. No cajoling. No bribery.

Last night, he sauntered into the kennel at bed time.

He curled up inside the carrier — and slept there for almost the entire night.

Do I expect this to continue? Do I anticipate Toby has found a new favorite place to sleep? Umm. No. He remains a Mommy’s boy. He’ll want to cuddle with his mother at night. Toby might give me a nod on occasion. That’s OK.

As my wife and I have learned since we joined the ranks of dog owners (we’ve always been dog lovers), our pooch is capable of surprising us daily.

Toby already has figured how to make us laugh at him daily.

I’m sure there’ll be more surprises on the way.

political news, State news, Uncategorized

Texas could be in play — for once

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Texas-calendar

Is this the strangest election year you’ve seen since, oh, The Flood?

Consider, then, what just might be coming down the road in Texas, this place where Republicans rule from horizon to horizon and where Democrats seem to have been placed on a witness protection list.

Hillary Rodham Clinton just might — with the help of her probable Republican Party presidential campaign opponent — be able to make this state competitive in the upcoming election.

You can stop laughing now.

Hear me out.

GOP nominee-in-waiting Donald J. Trump appears to be doing everything he can to anger Latino voters. It all started with that hideous campaign launch in which he declared his intention to build a “beautiful wall” along our border with Mexico to keep out the rapists, murderers and drug dealers who, he said, were being sent here by the Mexican government.

Then just the other day he singled out an Indiana-born federal judge who Trump said “hates” him. The judge has a Latino name. Trump called him “a Mexican.” Uhh, no. He’s not. The judge is as American as Trump.

How does this play in Texas? The state’s largest minority group is Latino, who also are the fastest-growing demographic group in the state.

Just suppose the Latino population turns out in massive numbers after hearing the constant barrage of statements that the Republican nominee has made about them. Suppose that Clinton’s campaign team taps into that anger with a concerted effort targeted at reminding that voter bloc of what lies ahead for the country if Trump gets elected president.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/clinton-plans-play/

Granted, history hasn’t been good for Democrats in Texas. The state’s Latino population so far hasn’t turned out to vote in numbers commensurate with its enormous potential impact.

Erica Grieder, writing for Texas Monthly’s Burka Blog, notes: It seems that empirical evidence on campaigning in Texas deserves an asterisk too, because Clinton has now declared her intention to do something no Democrat has attempted recently: compete in a general election in Texas with the goal of winning. Barack Obama didn’t allocate serious time or resources to try to win the state’s electoral votes in 2008 or 2012.

My earlier prediction — such as it was — that Clinton might score an Electoral College sweep this fall is looking less and less possible, given recent polling data showing a tightening race across the nation.

However, consider this: If Clinton does make Texas a competitive state and closes to within spitting distance of Trump, then she’s likely to win those states that now are deemed too close to call.

Therefore, if Texas does flip from R to D, then I suggest we just might see a blowout in the making on Election Day.

And yes, I can hear you laughing now.

media news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

Polling put to a new kind of test this election cycle

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The media obsession with polls, “horse races” and determining who’s up and/or down continues.

The Hill has given us the latest read on how this presidential campaign will turn out.

The conclusion? Polling data may be skewed beyond all recognition because of the high unfavorable ratings of both major-party nominees-to-be.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/281910-doubts-creep-into-trump-clinton-polls

The pollsters are having difficulty taking their findings to the bank. Republican presumptive nominee Donald J. Trump’s favorable ratings are in the tank; Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s plus-side scores are right behind Trump’s.

Voters’ fickleness puts more guesswork into the polling, according to The Hill.

Will it be a high-turnout or low-turnout election? My own guess is that it’ll be the latter. Voters might decide the choices between the major-party picks are so dismal that they’ll just sit it out. They might not want to consider a third option because that ticket has no chance of winning.

Then again …

Some pollsters think the turnout will be high as voters are motivated to vote against the other candidate.

The anti-Clinton voter bloc will be set to vote for Trump. And vice versa.

All of this seems to be the ingredients tailor-made for a patently miserable campaign.

Hey, hasn’t Trump himself declared he has no intention to “change”?

My fellow Americans … we are in for a rough ride to the finish line.