Category Archives: State news

State news, Uncategorized

Austin needs a new interstate highway

traffic-austin

SAN MARCOS, Texas — The drive from north of Dallas to just south of the state’s capital city went virtually without a hitch.

Until we got to Austin.

We spent four glorious days in Allen with our granddaughter Emma, her parents and her brothers. Then we headed south for some more Christmas vacation time. In the next day or so we’ll gather with our nieces, one of our niece’s husband, our two great-nieces and my wife’s brother.

Then we’ll head home.

I intend fully to avoid Austin on the way home. Coming through the city this afternoon was no picnic.

Don’t misunderstand: We had no mishaps. We didn’t come to a complete stop at any point on our journey through what’s known in Texas as “The People’s Republic of Austin”; hey, this last Lone Star bastion of liberal politics needs a term of endearment.

But it was around 2 p.m. as we entered the city. It’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The traffic isn’t supposed to be this clogged; aren’t many millions of Americans supposed to be taking some time off — at home?

I’ve concluded that Austin needs another interstate highway, an east-west thoroughfare to take some of the stress off that demolition derby track aka Interstate 35.

I read somewhere not long ago that Austin (population that exceeds 800,000 residents) is the largest city in America with just a single interstate highway coarsing through it. I-35 runs north-and-south through the city. There ain’t one that runs perpendicular through Austin, which as most of us know is going through some serious growing pains. Everyone seems to want to live there.

Even though Austin is enduring this growth spurt and with traffic bound to get only worse as more people migrate there, the city is faced with this political reality: It is a Democratic bastion in a heavily Republican state; what’s more, Congress is controlled by Republicans, which would seem to make it problematic if the city hopes to acquire federal highway money to route an interstate highway spur through Austin.

Infrastructure improvements — you know, highways and other things like that — used to be above and beyond politics.

That was then, which of course bears little resemblance to the here and now.

 

legal news, State news

Throw book at ‘Affluenza Teen’ mom

affluenza

Ethan Couch is in custody … again.

So is his mother.

The so-called “Affluenza Teen” has been found in Mexico, where authorities are preparing to send him back to Texas.

Why the big deal? This is the nimrod who piled into a pickup in 2013 — when he was 16 years of age — and while roaring drunk plowed his vehicle into another vehicle, killing four people.

The kid got 10 years probation largely on the testimony of a shrink who blamed his ghastly behavior on the upbringing he received from his wealthy Fort Worth parents.

Thus, the term “affluenza” was born.

Then the kid — who’s now 18 — was seen taking part in a drinking game in violation of his probation; and after that, the kid failed to report to his probation officer. Can’t do that, young man.

So, Mom and Ethan went on the lam, ending up on the Mexican Riviera before the cops found them.

Texas law limits the amount of time Ethan can serve in jail; he faces a maximum of 120 days in the slammer.

Mom, though, ought to spend some serious time in The Joint.

What’s so ironic about all of this is that the “affluenza defense” has taken an odd turn toward validity.

Ethan Couch never should have been too drunk to drive. Did his parents enable his terrible behavior?

It seems that Mommy Couch’s accompanying her little pride and joy to another nation suggests that she truly has enabled Ethan’s criminal activity.

She deserves some hard time if a Texas court convicts her of aiding in her son’s flight from the law.

 

 

 

State news

Tornadoes, tornadoes everywhere …

dallas-tornado-from-airport

Suffice to say this has been a most interesting Christmas weekend.

We piled into our pickup Christmas morning and headed to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Our granddaughter, Emma, awaited us.

We discovered right away that it’s really quite a treat to drive any distance on the morning of this holy day. Why? We were among the very few who were hitting the road.

We pulled our fifth wheel and arrived in Allen, Texas about 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

We exchanged Christmas gifts with Emma and her parents. We laughed and hugged on our precious little pumpkin.

We awoke this morning. We ran some errands; I purchased a new computer with my son’s help and returned to his home. My wife, daughter-in-law and granddaughter went on a shopping spree of their own.

Then all hell broke loose.

The rain came. The wind blew. Then the tornado sirens began screaming. The TV weather guys were all over the story of a storm that ravaged the entire greater Dallas area.

We didn’t experience any damage in the neighborhood where Emma lives with our son, daughter-in-law and her two brothers.

But the twisters were close.

Wylie? Hammered. De Soto? Pounded. Garland, Ellis County and Rockwall? More of the same.

As I write this brief blog post, eight people have died in just the past three hours. Three died in a Garland gasoline service station that was pulverized by a tornado.

The worst of the storms has swept on by. We’re still standing, breathing a major sigh.

My wife and I have known for a very long time how blessed we are in so many ways. Our hearts are broken for those who have lost so much on this evening, the day after Christmas.

Still, tonight we feel especially blessed … and thankful.

business news, local news, State news

Texas faces new oil bust, but might fare better this time

boom

Texas is heading for a bad-news, good-news economic cycle.

The bad? The price of oil is going to continue falling, making it difficult for producers to keep drilling for the crude.

The good? Texas is better positioned this time to handle this bust compared to its history with these crazy economic cycles.

CNBC.com reports: “In some ways, the Texas oil industry today is a victim of its own success. After a steady output decline in the 1980s and ’90s, U.S. oil producers staged a remarkable and widely unexpected revival over the past decade by deploying new seismic and drilling technologies. By coaxing drill bits to move horizontally, and breaking up ‘tight’ oil formations with fracking, millions of barrels of oil have been produced from decades-old fields once left for dead.”

So, the world now has a glut of oil, thanks to tremendous increases in production here at home.

Texas is going bust, sort of.

I arrived in Texas in the spring of 1984 to begin work at a newspaper in the Golden Triangle, one of the world’s premier petrochemical producing regions. Life was good in Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange.

Then the bottom fell out. Two years later, the price of oil had collapsed. Refineries and petrochemical plants laid off thousands of employees. Some operations shut down. The jobless rate zoomed to nearly 20 percent in that part of the state.

Life, quite suddenly, became not so good.

The mantra then became “economic diversification.” Texas had to branch out, seek other economic revenue streams to take the pressure off the oil and petrochemical industry.

So, the state did that. It invested in high-tech, medical research, automobile manufacturing and a lot of other smaller initiatives.

That 1980s oil bust hammered the Texas Panhandle, too, where I would move in early 1995.

And, yes, in this part of the state we’re faring relatively well. We, too, have diversified. We aren’t nearly as dependent on oil and natural gas as we’d been since, oh, the Spindletop gusher came in at the turn of the 20th century.

Has the state been hit hard by the steep drop in oil prices? Yes. CNBC reports that the gross state product has been reduced to near zero as the year draws to a close. State government is looking at a serious revenue shortfall that the Legislature will have to deal with when it convenes in January 2017.

There isn’t the sense of panic, though, that we felt in the 1980s.

Why? Much of the state has heeded the diversification warnings our leaders sounded the last time the bottom fell out.

 

political news, State news

Texas government is a monstrous entity

Sunset-in-Texas-Banner_1

I posted a blog recently that was critical of an appointment to the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick selected a former Florida congressman, fellow Republican Allen West, to the panel. Its job is critical to assuring that Texans are being well-served by their state government agencies.

I feel a need to flesh out just a bit why I object to West’s appointment.

I’ll get right to the point: Allen West likely knows next to nothing about how our state’s government functions and how its myriad agencies work.

The Texas Sunset Commission recommends which agencies should continue and which should bit the dust. It conducts serious business. It reviews agencies’ efficiency and whether they’re giving Texans the biggest and best bang for the big bucks Texans spend on their state government.

West’s credentials? His expertise?

Well, he’s a fiery conservative, just like the man who picked him for the post. Dan Patrick earned his own political stripes first as a radio talk show host and then as a state senator from Houston. West’s record contains a couple of significant chapters: He was an Army officer who lost his battalion command during the Iraq War in 2003 after he admitted to assaulting an Iraqi detainee; he then was elected to Congress in 2010, but lost his re-election bid two years later.

Then the former congressman moved to Texas a year ago to begin a new job.

This job shouldn’t go to someone who’s a political celebrity. It ought to go to individuals who have a sufficient knowledge of how to make Texas massive government machinery work well for the folks who pay the bills.

I believe it is fair to ask Lt. Gov. Patrick: Weren’t there a sufficient number of individuals who (a) share your political philosophy and (b) understand the complexities of our state’s enormous bureaucracy?

 

political news, State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick makes celebrity pick for Sunset panel

Allen_West_jpg_312x1000_q100

Allen West is a brand-new resident of Texas.

But by golly, he’s gotten himself a high-powered political job, thanks to an appointment by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

West is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a former one-term Florida congressman, and a contributor to the Fox News Channel. He’s now a member of the Texas Sunset Commission, the panel that decides which state agencies live and which ones should die.

West’s statement upon the appointment is quite fascinating, too. According to the Texas Tribune: “There is no mission more important than working towards a more efficient and effective state government,” West said in a statement. “As a graduate of the University of Tennessee and a former member of Congress, it is a blessing to follow in the footsteps of Davy Crockett who came to Texas to fight for liberty and freedom.”

He’s a Republican, as is Patrick.

I believe West is a smart man, although I happen to disagree with just every utterance that has come out of his mouth since I first heard of him. He’s a fiery conservative who has said some rather remarkable things over the years, such as, oh, that most Democrats in Congress are communist sympathizers.

West’s combat duty during the Iraq War suffered a serious blemish. He was serving as a battalion commander, but then was stripped of his command after he admitted that he assaulted an Iraqi detainee during an interrogation. That’s not how officers behave, you know?

So, does this brand new Texan — he moved to Dallas about a year ago — know enough about Texas government agencies to be a serious contributor to the Sunset Commission?

I’m just wondering … out loud.

He’s a smart guy and perhaps he’ll get up to speed. I hope he does.

It’s just that from my perch, it seems that Lt. Gov. Patrick has picked someone as much for his notoriety as for his expertise.

Good luck, Col. West.

 

State news

Oh, the irony of the ‘Affluenza Teen’ story

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ethan

The hunt for the missing kid known as the “Affluenza Teen” contains a huge twist of irony.

Ethan Couch was 16 years of age when he plowed into a parked car near his Fort Worth hometown, killing four people and injuring others, some of them critically. He was roaring drunk, plastered to the gills, 10 sheets to the wind … all of it. Couch’s blood-alcohol level registered three times greater than the legal definition of drunk while driving.

He could have faced prison time. He got 10 years probation instead, largely on the testimony of a shrink who said he was a “victim” of wealthy parents who raised him without teaching him right from wrong. He was ordered to go into rehab, which didn’t seem to do him much good.

So, what did the kid do? He took part in a drinking game, violating the terms of his probation. He then took off, failing to report to his probation officer.

The ironic part? He apparently went on the lam with his mother. Couch and his mom might have left the state, if not the country.

Doesn’t that simply drive home the idiocy of the sentence that was handed down in the first place?

Couch is facing some prison time when the authorities catch up with him. The U.S. Marshals Office is involved, as are Tarrant County officials. Couch is on the county’s most wanted list.

Once they find him, let’s hope they charge Mommy Couch with aiding and abetting, convict her and toss her into the slammer too.

 

State news

Rich kid on the run … who knew?

affluenza

How could the authorities have not seen this coming?

Ethan Couch, a son of a wealthy couple in Fort Worth, avoided prison time after killing four people in a horrific drunk-driving-induced motor vehicle wreck, is now on the run after allegedly violating terms of his parole.

Tarrant County officials have launched a manhunt to find Couch, who’s now 18, after he failed to report to his probation officer as required under the terms of his all-too-light “sentence.”

Couch’s defense hinged on testimony from a psychologist who said the youngster’s wealthy parents enabled his hideous behavior, coining the term “affluenza.”

All the teenager did was get plastered, climb behind the wheel of a motor vehicle and then plow into another vehicle that was disabled on the side of the roadway. Several individuals were injured along with the four who died; two of them were hurt critically and one reportedly remains paralyzed as a result of the injury sustained in the wreck.

Couch’s blood-alcohol content registered three times greater than the legal limit to determine drunken-driving.

Now we hear that Couch might have fled the country … with his mother, no less.

Someone is going to be in deep trouble. If all this is true, I see some serious prison time for both mother and son.

 

legal news, State news

‘Affluenza’ teen may be in trouble again

beer pong

The case of Ethan Couch introduced America to a new term: affluenza.

It was coined by a psychologist who testified in Couch’s defense after the then-16-year-old Fort Worth teenager got roaring drunk, climbed into a motor vehicle and then killed four people and injured several others, at least two of them critically.

Couch dodged some serious prison time and received a probated sentence and was ordered to participate in a drug rehab program.

The psychologist had argued that Couch’s wealthy parents had enabled the boy’s behavior and, therefore, the youngster wasn’t totally responsible for what he did that night.

The state had sought to put the boy behind bars for a long time.

Now it turns out that the cops are looking for Couch, who’s now 18, after a video surfaced that seems to reveal he is participating in a game of “beer pong,” which is a game involving participants hitting a ball into a cup and then drinking the contents of whatever cup the ball lands.

Sound like fun? Uhh, not really.

The issue, though, is whether Couch has violated the terms of his probation, which was for 10 years and which prohibits him from drinking alcohol.

Did I mention that Couch’s blood-alcohol content was three times the legal limit for an adult at the time of his horrific accident?

The nation was shocked by the stunningly lax sentence handed down in that Tarrant County courtroom in 2013.

Something tells me that when the police catch up with Evan Couch that the young man will get the justice he deserved when he killed those people in the first place.

 

business news, local news, State news

Welcome back, Blue Bell … I guess

BB

Blue Bell Ice Cream is returning to freezer shelves in Amarillo.

With that, our collective souls will be healed. We’ll be returned to some sort of Promised Land of delectability.

It’s all a puzzle to me.

Blue Bell Creamery yanked the ice cream from the store freezers when the listeria virus was discovered. Understandably, the folks at Blue Bell didn’t want to sicken millions of us.

It was here. Then it was gone. If memory serves, the feeling all over Texas was one of disbelief over the apparent demise of this Lone Star State favorite concoction.

I now will stipulate — as if you didn’t know it already — I ain’t of Texas. My family and I have lived here for nearly 32 years. We call Texas home and we have forged a great life in this wonderful state.

I tweeted something earlier today about Blue Bell coming back and my admitted lack of understanding of why this is such a big deal. A friend — a native Texan — reminded me that Texans hold some traditions near to their hearts and “Blue Bell is one of them.”

OK, I get it.

It must be that the creamery where it’s made is in Brenham, where every spring the bluebonnets bloom, filling Texans with pride in the beauty of state’s official flower.

Is the confection, though, that good? Is it the kind of treat that one recognize over all others? Diehard Texans, I suppose, would say it is. And I actually did proclaim my love for the stuff in an Aug. 5 blog post. But since then I have come to realize something during the months it was gone from our Amarillo stores: I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I might.

Don’t get me wrong. It does taste good. But I don’t think it rises to the level of, say, a certain barbecue sauce I discovered in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Dreamland Drive-In sauce is, indeed, the best BBQ sauce ever created. But … I digress.

This fascination with Blue Bell reminds me vaguely of a certain love affair some of us in high school back in Oregon had with Coors beer. We couldn’t purchase it in Oregon; but you could get it way over yonder in neighboring Idaho.

So-o-o-o … when one of our friends went to visit his aunt and uncle in Payette or Nampa, we’d fork over a few bucks and he’d bring back some Coors for us to swill — illegally, of course.

Looking back on it now? The brew was overrated.

Blue Bell Ice Cream is about to make a triumphant return. I’m glad, not so much for myself, but for my fellow Texans who’ve been yearning for it. You are whole again.