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Now … a good word

I’ve been bitching up a storm lately about this and that.

I now want to say something good — are you ready? — about an insurance company and an auto-body repair shop.

My wife and I pay a hefty sum each month for motor vehicle insurance. This week I learned that it’s a good thing to have, even if we grit our teeth while paying the monthly premium.

On March 27, someone sideswiped our big ol’ 2011 Dodge Ram pickup as it was parked. It got scuffed on the right side. I filed a claim with my State Farm Insurance agent immediately.

What happened next is quite stunning.

The agency filed my claim as an “uninsured motorist” claim, given that I didn’t have the name of the person who dinged my truck; that category of claim knocked my deductible down to $250. I took the truck to the adjuster four days later. The adjuster looked it over and settled on an estimate of $1,444 to repair the damage.

We got a check two days after that.

Meanwhile, I called a local body shop, then took the truck in for the guy to examine it. He said it would take “maybe a week” to get the truck repaired. I had the money in hand.

The insurance company then arranged for a car for my wife and me to drive while the truck was being repaired. The company paid for the rental.

We delivered the truck this past Wednesday to the body shop. Tuesday, my cell phone rang and Jason at Soncy Road Body Shop told me the truck was ready to be picked up.

We got the truck, paid for the repair with the insurance check and drove it home.

Oh, and as a courtesy, the body shop washed the truck and detailed the interior to such a degree I am now afraid to take it anywhere for fear of getting it dirty all over again.

We complain about insurance companies. Sometimes they deserve it. This time, a particular agency in Amarillo — along with a local auto-repair shop — deserve pats on the back.

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Changes coming to AMA

The Wright Amendment expires later this year, meaning that some changes are in store for an air carrier that serves Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport.

Southwest Airlines, headquartered at Dallas Love Field, will reduce its daily service at AMA from seven flights to five.

What’s the connection?

Well, the Wright Amendment, enacted in 1974, was meant to protect the then-new Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport by restricting travel from Love Field. Southwest Airlines planes couldn’t take off for destinations without having to stop first in close-in locations. The amendment, named after its author, former U.S. Rep. Jim Wright, D-Fort Worth, has been scrapped now that D-FW has grown up and become one of the world’s pre-eminent air terminals.

What’s in store for AMA? Two fewer Southwest flights daily, for starters. Airport officials aren’t signaling any panic. They’ll continue to compete for air service in and out of their shiny new terminal. Southwest will be able to depart Love Field for farther non-stop destinations.

Amarillo, though, isn’t without some economic weapons of its own to toss at carriers looking for a place to land. It’s used one of them with effectiveness in the past. The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation once paid American Airlines more than $1 million annually to retain jet service in and out of AMA. The money came from sales tax revenue it collected, believing that the jet service would attract business to Amarillo by providing more comfortable and speedier air service. Critics scoffed at the idea of paying for jet service, but it worked. American Airlines retained the jet service, then scrapped it for a time, and then returned it to Amarillo — as well as to other regional airports around the country.

I’m not too worried that AMA is going to be left in the cold once the Wright Amendment passes into history.

However, if business falters at AMA, the AEDC has a large pile of money at its disposal to dangle in front of those who are looking for some incentives to do business with Amarillo. The precedent has been set.

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Elect federal judges? Oh, please!

Many of those on the right are quite fond of criticizing “unelected federal judges” who issue rulings that go against their world view.

What, then, is their alternative? Do they want to elect those who sit on the federal bench? Do they wish to do away with the federal judiciary?

I mention this because the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a University of Michigan policy that disallows affirmative action practices when considering who the school should admit. Did those on the left issue similar cries against those “unelected judges”? I didn’t hear any.

And yet, when judges keep striking down states’ bans on same-sex marriage, the cries go out from those who think the federal judiciary is overreaching when it declares states cannot write laws that violate U.S. constitutional provisions, such as the one that provides for “equal protection” under the law, regardless of sexual orientation.

Perhaps my favorite criticism of the high court came when it ruled 5-4 to uphold the Affordable Care Act. The ruling was narrowly defined and it was decided by a single vote, when Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to keep the ACA intact. The criticism — from the right, of course — went something like this: The law should be tossed out because a narrow majority on the Supreme Court voted to keep it, and that the one-vote majority really didn’t mean the law is constitutional.

The founders had it exactly right when they empowered the president with the authority to appoint judges to the bench for life. They sought to de-politicize the federal bench by disallowing the election of federal judges.

States, of course, retain the right to elect judges. Texas even elects judges on partisan ballots, meaning that judicial candidates of one party has a built-in advantage over candidates of the other party. In Texas, that means if you’re a Republican, you’re in; it used to be the other way around, when Democrats were dominant.

Either way, good judges from the “out” party are kicked out simply because they are of the wrong political persuasion.

The federal judiciary, from the Supreme Court on down, functions precisely as the framers intended for it.

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City probe hits serious hot button

Can there be a more sensitive issue for many human beings than allegations that animals are being “improperly” euthanized?

So it is with Amarillo Animal Control officials who are under investigation by the police department.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=1034678#.U1gs61JOWt8

I believe there needs to be some serious questions asked here.

Allegations have been flying about the way Animal Control personnel are disposing of unwanted pets. The use of the term “improper euthanizing” sends chills up my spine and I’m sure the spines of others. Such supposedly improper activities cover a wide — and frightening — array of methods.

There allegedly is an absence of scales at the animal shelter that enable employees to weigh animals to ensure they administer the proper amount of drugs to put the animal down. What else is going on out there?

Scott McDonald is the acting animal control director. He isn’t talking much about what’s being investigated, nor is he discussing the administrative leaves ordered for two employees caught in the middle of the allegations.

Let’s hope the city releases the clamps on what it so far isn’t saying about this matter. Human beings, sensitive creatures that we are when it comes to the treatment of animals, need some answers as to what’s going on at the city-financed animal shelter.

What’s more, we human residents of Amarillo need to know what’s being done to correct what allegedly has gone wrong.

We’re all ears, City Hall.

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Liar, liar …

Let’s talk briefly one more time about lies and lying.

President Obama’s critics accuse him of “lying” about the Affordable Care Act, specifically about the pledge he made that Americans can “keep their doctor if they so wish.” It turns out, with the unveiling of the ACA, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Republicans jumped all over Obama for “lying” to Americans.

The dictionary defines “lying” as the intentional telling of an untruth. To suggest someone is lying is to know beyond a doubt the person made a statement knowing it is untrue.

Did the president knowingly assert the “keep-your-doctor” pledge knowing it wasn’t necessarily true? I don’t know, and neither do his critics.

I also need to revisit one more time the so-called “lies” President Bush told us about whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The president used WMD as a reason for going to war.

We invaded Iraq in March 2003, looked high and low for those WMD. We found none.

Intelligence analysts all over the world said Saddam had the WMD. Secretary of State Colin Powell said so in a statement to the United Nations. Were they lying? Did they purposely tell a falsehood? I don’t know that any more than I know that Barack Obama “lied” about the ACA.

I just have grown weary of the casual use of this particular “L” word.

How about cooling it until someone can produce incontrovertible proof that he or she is a true-blue mind reader?

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Security breach? Do you think?

San Jose, Calif., airport officials are seeking some answers to a vexing — and terribly embarrassing — question: How did that youngster get past security to stow himself away on an outbound flight to Hawaii?

We know the story.

A 15-year-old boy got past security, walked onto the tarmac at San Jose International Airport, climbed into a wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 767 and flew across the Pacific Ocean.

http://news.yahoo.com/teen-stowed-away-flight-hawaii-remains-hospitalized-212826541–finance.html

The most remarkable aspect of the story really isn’t the security breach. It’s the fact that the kid didn’t freeze to death at 38,000 feet above the water, where temperatures plummeted to 40 below zero. What’s more, the compartment wasn’t pressurized, meaning he had precious little oxygen to breath at that altitude.

The kid huddled in there for — what? — five hours.

Airport security in this country is supposed to be air tight in this post-9/11 world. San Jose is a fairly busy air terminal to be sure. A lone youngster, though, just isn’t supposed to walk undetected across a vast expanse of open space, climb into a jetliner compartment and then take off as a stowaway.

I see a very serious wakeup call in he making here.

San Jose is bound to deploy a lot more eyes and ears on everyone who ventures onto the airport site.

As for the youngster, who remains hospitalized from the ordeal, he’ll get to explain eventually just how he pulled off this amazing stunt. Someone will need to ask him what, if anything, he did just to stay alive.

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'W' surprises us with records release

George W. Bush presided over one of the more secretive administrations of the past century.

Thus, it is a pleasant surprise to see him prepare to release many of his previously classified presidential papers so openly and quickly after his two terms as president have concluded.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/george-w-bush-white-house-records-105851.html?hp=t1

President Bush is drawing deservedly high praise for this impending document release.

Politico sought the information about the Bush papers in a Freedom of Information request. The papers will reveal plenty of information and “talking points” used by the president and his chief aides.

Why is this important? Because it helps historians gain a fuller picture of a two-term presidency that — during its very first year — was jolted into a war by terrorists who flew those jetliners into buildings in New York and Washington. The war framed the rest of the Bush presidency and created a political climate the likes of which never had been seen in this country.

Observers note that President Bush is planning to be much more forthcoming in the document release than his immediate predecessor, President Bill Clinton. Some have concluded that Bush feels he has little to lose and much to gain by releasing the documents. Whatever the motivation, it is a welcome change from the manner in which the Bush administration at times conducted the affairs of state and government.

As Politico reports, “The high marks Bush is receiving for his letter are startling, since historians and a media coalition complained loudly and bitterly in 2001 about an executive order he issued ceding additional power to former presidents to prevent disclosure of their records. A judge struck down part of the order in 2007.”

The change of heart is welcome. A curious nation will look forward to seeing what’s in the record.

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A/C for Texas prisons on the way?

Turn up the air conditioner, will ya, Bubba?

That might be the new normal within the gigantic Texas prison system, if a human rights organization has its way.

The state’s prison system doesn’t have air conditioning. The University of Texas Law School Human Rights Clinic recommends installing A/C units in all 109 prison units and demands that the temperatures do not exceed 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Report-recommends-A-C-for-Texas-prisoners-5419486.php?t=6b4c931e085eb86e8f

Or else … there might be a lawsuit in the offing.

Given the state’s history with observing prisoners’ rights — you’ll recall the infamous Ruiz lawsuit that federalized the state prison system for years because of overcrowding — I’m thinking the air conditioning units might be cost-effective in the long run.

The feds took over the state prison system in the 1980s, forcing the state to launch a huge prison-building campaign to relieve crowded conditions. Now we see this report suggesting strongly that the state needs to make life a tad more comfy for inmates.

I learned of the state’s non-air-conditioning prison system when I took a tour of the Clements Unit in Amarillo back in 1995. I didn’t think much of it at the time, given that the heat here — while it can exceed triple digits — isn’t as oppressive as it is in many regions downstate. The Stiles Unit in Beaumont comes to mind, where the humidity is as stifling as it gets.

Inmates have died in recent years of exposure to the heat. As the Houston Chronicle reported, “The clinic’s recommendation is expected to draw controversy in a state that has never been known for treating its prisoners too well and could fuel new lawsuits in addition to the six pending over eight heat-related deaths in Texas’ prisons — many of them in East Texas — in the past three years.”

I don’t believe in molly-coddling prisoners and, yes, it’s going to be a costly endeavor to install air conditioning in all the state’s prison units.

If lawsuits are waiting to be filed and if the state is going to lose to plaintiffs in court over this, then it seems to make sense to get ahead of the curve by installing the units and cool the places down just a bit.

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Lesson to ponder for Earth Day

Today is Earth Day, a time we set aside to ponder the future of the planet and whether we humans are being careful stewards of this relatively tiny orbiting object.

Are we doing enough to protect it, and ourselves? I don’t think so but I pulled a resource book off the shelf to illustrate something I noticed some time back.

The World Almanac and Book of Facts is an invaluable font of information. I found this on page 734 of the 2013 edition:

The world is going to add 2.3 billion more people between now and 2050, according to data collected from a number of credible sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Programs Center. The world has roughly 7 billion inhabitants now; the number zooms to 9.3 billion in the next 36 years.

Let’s look at an individual country to see just how dramatic this explosion can get.

How about, say, Nigeria? The population of Nigeria, a country in central Africa, is estimated at 170 million people. By 2050, the population there will is expected to explode to 402 million.

Why single out Nigeria? Consider that the country comprises an area of 356,669 square miles, which is about the size of Texas and New Mexico combined. The United States population, which stands at 310 million people today, is expected to climb to 422 million by 2050. The U.S. comprises an area of roughly 3.7 million square miles, the third-largest land mass on the planet.

Nigeria’s population density will expand from 438 people per square mile to more than 1,000 by 2050. The U.S. density is expected to go from 88 to roughly 100 in that time.

Some countries will see population decreases in this period of time, according to the World Almanac. They are largely in the Far East and in Europe.

I mention Nigeria only to ponder out loud: How does a country with such relatively limited living space care for all those people? And what will this explosion of humanity do to the land that supports it?

I’m very afraid.

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Happy Earth Day, everyone

It just occurs to me that with all the trouble in the world today, Planet Earth is going to have a big day.

Earth Day is upon us.

We’ve been obsessed with a lot of disheartening news of late: that missing jetliner that’s lying in the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the mudslide in Oso, Wash., the capsized ferry off the Korean coast, Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, the Syrian civil war … and a whole of other things that are too numerous to mention.

But now it’s the 44th celebration of Earth Day.

This is the day we’re supposed to call attention to taking better care of the tiny planet all 7 billion of us inhabit.

My wife and I spent a few days in the Davis Mountains region of Texas recently. We took a trip to McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, where we heard about the construction of a telescope that looks deeply into space. We heard narrations about billions of galaxies floating hundreds of billions of light years away. I tried for a moment to fathom the size of the universe; it cannot be done.

So I’m left to worry about our little, teeny-tiny speck of it that orbits around our relatively insignificant star we call “The Sun.”

Are we taking good enough care of this orbiting globe? Hardly.

We’re polluting our water, cutting down or burning forests, spewing toxic fumes into the air, filling our land with garbage we cannot — or will not — recycle. That’s just the beginning of it.

Earth Day came into being in April 1970, during the administration of that flaming environmentalist Richard Nixon, on whose watch the government created the Environmental Protection Agency. President Nixon had it right then to establish an agency charged with regulating industries’ standards and to hold them accountable for the mess many of them were — and still are — making of the environment.

The EPA since then has become the bogeyman of the far right, which doesn’t like government telling private industry how it should protect the land, air and water. I happen to like the EPA and hope it stays around for as long as human beings inhabit the planet — which I’m supposing will be long after I’m gone.

There’ll be rallies around the world. Well-meaning folks will remind us we can do a better job of protecting the planet. We’ll nod our heads in agreement; some of us will dismiss it as government overreach.

Then the day will pass and we’ll return to wondering about that jetliner and hoping war doesn’t break out in Ukraine.

Earth, though, has a special day set aside. Happy Earth Day, fellow travelers. Take care of this planet. It’s the only one we’ve got.

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