Category Archives: local news

local news, medical news, national news

'Shep' gets it exactly right on Ebola

1 Comment

One of two things has happened.

Hell has frozen over or the sun rose this morning over the western horizon.

How on God’s planet Earth can one explain that a Fox News Channel anchor has gotten it so very right on the media’s reporting of a non-existent Ebola “epidemic” in the United States of America?

Shepard Smith is the anchor. His message is right here. Listen up:

Never Thought I’d Say It, But DAMN #FoxNews Gets It RIGHT on #EBOLA!

Readers of this blog know I am not prone to heaping praise on Fox News, the “unfair and unbalanced” network that keeps saying it is “fair and balanced.” My experience has been that when media keep saying such things, chances are they are neither.

Smith has laid out a perfectly reasonable rationale for why Americans have no reason to panic over news that two Americans have come down with Ebola symptoms. They treated a man who traveled to Dallas from Liberia; that man was infected with the disease and he has died, tragically. The two health care workers treated the gentleman and are now under the care of the best infectious disease medical professionals anywhere in the world.

Smith argues that unless you have come in contact with someone who is exhibiting Ebola symptoms, you have nothing — not a single thing — to fear.

He blasts the politicization of the story and the laying of blame on health care professionals who’ve been accused wrongly of lying about Ebola.

Smith’s best advice in combating Ebola? It’s fantastic! “Get a flu shot,” Smith said, adding that flu kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. It presents symptoms that are similar to Ebola.

We had a mild anxiety attack in Amarillo on Wednesday when a man was admitted into the emergency room of Baptist-St. Anthony Hospital. BSA ordered a lockdown of the ER after believing he was exhibiting “Ebola-like” symptoms; local media reported the lockdown and the reason for it. Those two events set off a whole lot of chatter around the city about the situation that unfolded at BSA.

It turned the individual tested negative for Ebola; the lockdown was lifted.

However, the angst was palpable throughout the city. Why? Because the media have done generally a poor job of keeping this story in perspective. At least that would be Shepard Smith’s take on it.

He is right. Listen to his remarks. If you do, you’ll feel better. Honest.

environmental news, local news, State news

Water: We cannot live without it

Public television is, by definition, supposed to educate viewers as well as entertain them.

That’s how I’ve always understood public TV’s role. Well, on Thursday night, Texas Panhandle public TV viewers are going to get an education about something many of us have taken for granted.

It’s about water. How we acquire it. The value it brings to our economic infrastructure. Its future use. Ways to preserve and conserve it.

Now for a bit of disclosure. I had a teeny-tiny hand in this project. I was a reporter for a segment that Panhandle PBS assembled for this project, which was done in conjunction with other public TV stations around the state.

The program, “Texas Perspective: Water,” airs at 7 p.m. on Panhandle PBS. That’s Channel 3 for cable users; Channel 2 if you don’t have cable in the Texas Panhandle.

The program will air throughout the state because it is a state issue. Every region of Texas has reason to be concerned about the future of its water. Some regions are doing a better job of managing this resource than other regions.

I don’t want to give any of this special away here, on this blog post.

Instead, I merely want to call attention to an important public affairs program that will remind Texans from Hartley to Harlingen and from El Paso to Orange that water is absolutely critical to our survival.

It doesn’t get any more educational than that.

local news, medical news

Ebola has not arrived

We can stop making Ebola quips, jokes and puns now.

For several hours this afternoon and evening, thousands of Amarillo-area residents were on the edge of their seats awaiting word about a patient who had checked into the emergency room at one of the city’s two acute-care hospitals.

The word went out that the ER at Baptist-St. Anthony’s Hospital had locked down. Why? Medical personnel thought they might be treating someone who had shown symptoms of the deadly disease that is originating in West Africa.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/26798037/breaking-news-patient-with-ebola-like-symptoms-at-bsa-hospital

It’s been confirmed that the patient does not have Ebola, nor had even been in Africa.

The lockdown has been lifted; ER personnel have been allowed to leave. The patient, I presume, is going to recover fully from whatever it is that caused all the uproar.

These stories tend to drive me just a tiny bit insane. My first reaction when I heard the news was unkind toward the TV stations that were blabbing that someone exhibiting Ebola-like symptoms had shown up at BSA. “If this story is bogus and doesn’t pan out, the stations should be ashamed,” I blurted out to someone at work.

Then my more cautious angel began whispering into my ear. “Yes, but the ER was locked down and that, by itself, is news,” the angel told me. “The media had an obligation to explain the reason for the lockdown,” the angel said.

OK, I get it now. I’m a media guy myself and I understand the rules of the game.

We’d better prepare ourselves for more of this type of mini-hysteria until someone finds a way to stop this disease’s deadly path of destruction.

I’m guessing there’ll be more of these kinds of cases.

So let’s stop cracking wise about Ebola. None of it is funny.

local news, national news

Randall County makes a dubious list

It’s not every day that little ol’ Randall County, Texas, gets a mention in a Washington Post investigative story about local government spending.

But that’s what happened recently when the Post included the county in a list of government agencies that used asset-forfeiture funds on things that, um, could be seen as a bit extravagant.

Here’s the Post story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/

At issue is a $637 coffee maker that the Sheriff’s Department purchased with money seized from drug busts.

The rationale is a bit odd. Sheriff Joel Richardson said the money didn’t come out of taxpayers’ pockets. It came from drug forfeiture money, the money the cops take in when they bust people for carrying illegal “controlled substances.”

I haven’t bought a coffee maker in a good while. But it does seem as though that $637 is a bit expensive to spend on something that might cost, oh, about a 20th of that price. I think I saw a Mr. Coffee unit at Wal-Mart selling for about $30.

“It’s typical restaurant equipment,” Richardson told my pal Jim McBride at the Amarillo Globe-News. “It’s for any meeting with might have there. Yes, it’s a legitimate expense.”

The Post story chronicles some high-dollar expenses from drug forfeiture funds around the country, including a $5 million helicopter for the Los Angeles Police Department and a $1 million mobile command center for Prince George’s County, Md.

That’s pretty serious dough, but those expenses seem related directly to law enforcement activities.

The Randall County Sheriff’s Department coffee maker? It might be necessary for staff meetings after hours.

But at that price?

local news, political news

This responder spews rubbish so well

I don’t think I’ve done this before, but I want to offer a brief tribute to someone who has taken me to task on a blog I recently posted.

Here’s the blog:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/10/09/political-discourse-needs-cleansing/

This person’s response — and my reply to it — is at the bottom of the posted item.

The blog post discusses the lack of civility in today’s political discourse. The comments come from someone I don’t know — or at least I don’t think I know who it is. He/she posts the responses under a user name.

But honestly, the individual responding to my blog does so with such flair and panache, that I just couldn’t help but call attention to it.

This person says he/she “hates” liberals. Hates? Man, that’s tough language.

The individual also says he/she doesn’t question their “patriotism,” but believes their love of country is for another entity that none of us red-blooded Americans would recognize.

Liberals, according to this individual, want to form a new country in the place that currently comprises the United States of America.

Well, I salute this individual for (a) responding to my blog, (b) doing so in such an artful fashion and (c) proving my point in a way that I cannot say any better.

local news, national news, political news, State news

Bill Clinton helps more than Michelle Obama? Umm, yes

The headline over Dallas Morning News blogger Rodger Jones’s post asks: Does Bill Clinton help Van de Putte more than Michelle Obama helps Wendy Davis?

Well, duh? Do ya think?

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/does-bill-clinton-helps-van-de-putte-more-than-michelle-obama-helps-wendy-davis.html/

The 42nd president has endorsed Democratic lieutenant nominee Leticia Van de Putte. Meanwhile, first lady Michelle Obama has recorded a radio ad for another Democrat, the nominee for governor, Wendy Davis.

With all due respect to the first lady, who I consider to be profoundly successful in her role, she ain’t no Bill Clinton.

President Clinton is a genuine political rock star. He’s the 800-pound gorilla in any political setting imaginable. He can walk into deeply red Republican regions — as he did in 2008 when he campaigned in Amarillo for his wife’s bid to become president — and pack ’em in.

Jones refers to Clinton as “Bubba,” and his endorsement amounts to a “seal of approval.”

Van de Putte will need all the help she can get in her uphill fight against Republican nominee — and fellow state senator — Dan Patrick. Clinton’s standing as the leading Democrat in the nation — yes, even more than the man who now occupies his old office in the White House — gives any candidate who receives his blessing maximum oomph.

It’s an astonishing comeback for the second president ever to be impeached. The Senate acquitted him of those politically motivated charges relating to his misbehavior in the White House. It didn’t take long at all for the president to regain his standing among many Americans.

And in the 13 years since his leaving office, that standing has grown almost beyond all recognition.

Will his endorsement put Van de Putte over the top? I doubt it. Still, she isn’t going to erase this “seal of approval.”

business news, local news

Town poised to join 21st century?

Canyon, Texas, is a lovely college community. It’s the Randall County seat, where my wife and I live, although our house is about 12 miles north of Canyon’s city limits.

It also engenders this perception among outsiders of being a place that’s a bit old-fashioned. Its residents seemingly adhere to some archaic social mores, such as its time-honored ban on selling alcoholic beverages.

Well, on Nov. 4, voters have a chance to drag Canyon into the 21st century by allowing the sale of alcohol, as in beer and wine.

It’s time for the city to let its municipal hair down just a bit and allow the sale of these products.

I do take seriously the opposition to this idea, which has been — pardon the pun — brewing for some time. A lot of hardened opponents think the sale of beer and wine at grocery stores is going to open the door to — gasp! — liquor by the drink, sold in bars and taverns.

I read a letter to the editor opposing the idea in today’s Amarillo Globe-News. The author of the letter is a gentleman with whom I’m acquainted and based on my knowledge of his political leanings, he no doubt would like to see a return of Prohibition.

Glen Stocker refers to the “Canyon crooks” who are “trying to push booze down our throats. “The lack of alcohol sales may not stop all drunken pregnant women,” he states, “but why make it easy for them?”

Sheesh! Let’s get a grip here.

The sale of this stuff doesn’t create a society of drunks. Nor does it promote alcohol abuse. It’s a realization that in our mobile society it makes no sense to ban the sale of such products when all one has to do is drive a few minutes (in this case, north to Amarillo) to purchase the stuff, bring it back home and swill it to their hearts’ content.

The very idea of dry cities and dry counties in this era of extreme mobility no longer makes sense. It might have at one time, when we traveled by horseback.

Those days are long gone.

business news, local news

'Ban the box' from job applications

OK, I’ll stipulate that I am a bleeding-heart liberal on a lot of issues.

Hiring policy is one of them.

I ran across this item in the Charlottesville, Va. Daily Progress that got me thinking about a certain question employers occasionally ask prospective employers.

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/roanoke-joins-charlottesville-in-removing-felony-question-from-city-job/article_3e05c5c0-5073-11e4-9508-001a4bcf6878.html

It’s the one that asks if you’ve been convicted of a felony.

I believe the question is counter-productive and that employers shouldn’t ask it.

The link attached notes that Roanoke and Charlottesville — two substantial cities in Virginia — have eliminated the required question from applications for public-sector jobs.

I’ll go along with those who say the question deters employers from hiring someone who’s done his or her time and is trying to rebuild a life outside of prison. Asking the question about their criminal history acts as a disincentive to employers looking for people for their payroll.

It’s an unfair question.

Yes, I get that employers have a right to know as much as they can about applicants. They can perform background checks, though, without asking the individual to confess to whether he or she is a convicted felon.

And what about Amarillo? City Hall asks applicants to fill out a “criminal history” section, listing convictions and the nature of the charge.

I understand that some states have enacted laws prohibited all employers from asking the question. That’s a step toward enabling folks to rebuild their lives.

Will it ever happen in Texas? I doubt it. Strongly. But it should.

local news, military news

The tank is elsewhere

Social media can be quite a boon to finding answers to nagging questions in a hurry.

The other day I posed a question on Facebook about the whereabouts of a battle tank that once “guarded” one of the doors to the Potter County Courthouse in downtown Amarillo.

I got my answer … quickly. It’s been moved to Pampa, about 60 miles northeast in Gray County.

The tank is now sitting proudly with some other war relics.

I mistakenly referred to the tank as an M-48. It’s actually newer than that; it’s an M-60.

Potter County Judge Arthur Ware put the tank out there after then-Justice of the Peace Jim Tipton — a fellow Marine — procured the vehicle from someone, whose identity escapes me at the moment.

Ware, who is leaving office at the end of the year, told me several times over the years how proud he was to have the tank out there. He said it symbolized some memorial to veterans who had served their country. Ware, a Marine reservist, was called up during the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91 and went into battle with his fellow Marines against the allegedly vaunted Iraqi Republican Guard.

The tank stood there for many years. Then the county sought some historical preservation grant money to restore the courthouse. The rules from the Texas Historical Commission are quite restrictive, as they should be. The county sought to return the courthouse to its original pristine state, which in 1930 did not include the tank on the grounds.

The tank had to go. Period.

So the county found a suitable home for it.

I’m glad it hasn’t been scrapped. I also am glad the state historical preservationists stuck to their guns — so to speak — by ordering the county removed from the courthouse grounds.

The county did a good job of restoring the grand old building — while obeying the rules that took an old weapon of war to another location.

local news

Walking and texting pose hazard

1 Comment

This isn’t a flash to anyone, but I feel the need to share it anyway.

This morning my wife and I did a little grocery shopping at a store in southwest Amarillo. We were backing our car away from the parking stall when my wife noticed a young man walking behind us.

“He’s texting and walking, not even paying a bit of attention to what’s going on out here,” she said.

I grumbled. She rolled her eyes.

The young man walked past us into the store, never once looking up from the device he was using.

My question is this: Who’s liable — the driver or the non-attentive pedestrian — if there’s a car-pedestrian collision in a parking lot?

I totally get that individuals are addicted to their, um, telecommunications devices. I struggle a bit with that form of addiction myself, checking emails that roll into my cell phone. My wife is far from addicted. She’s a lot smarter about using her cell phone than I am — occasionally.

This yahoo, though, walking through the parking lot might have needed a nudge from a car to wake his sorry backside up and alert him to the hazards of walking through traffic while engrossed in whatever message he was sending or receiving.

It’s another distressing sign of the times.

Would I be totally wrong had I given this young man a slight bump with my car?