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Talking and driving is actually a gas

I’ll admit that I’m not as technologically advanced as many Americans.

That is why this notion of Bluetooth technology in automobiles is so fascinating to me.

I took a phone call the other day from my son, who called my cellphone number. I was walking across the parking lot at work. We chatted as I walked toward my car. I got into my vehicle and started it.

Immediately, the phone switched over to the radio speaker and I was able to drive off the parking lot while continuing my conversation with my son.

It knocked me out!

I told him so. He laughed and said something like, “Well? What did you expect?”

He equated my fascination with this technology — which I admittedly resisted getting for many years after it became available — to someone born in the 19th century awakening in the 21st century and finding streets buzzing with automobiles.

Maybe that’s an accurate metaphor.

What I do know is that I am still struggling with the guilt of talking on the phone while driving my car. I know city ordinances do not prohibit me from doing so. Amarillo has this law on the books that says it’s illegal to use a handheld device while driving a motor vehicle. I am grateful the City Commission enacted the law — even though I have yet to actually witness a police officer pulling someone over for breaking that rule.

I am guessing my guilt will dissipate with time. Won’t it?

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Persistent Perry keeps talking about jobs

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is nothing if not persistent.

He’s just authorized another national political ad that touts the job creation that’s occurred in Texas on his interminable watch as governor.

According to the Texas Tribune: “In a new ad for Americans for Economic Freedom, an organization aimed at helping Rick Perry champion Texas’ economic model, the governor and possible presidential contender talks about national job creation strategies.”

Interesting, eh?

Job growth in Texas has been largely a private-sector phenomenon. Gov. Perry has helped champion a business climate that is conducive to employers wanting to come here. I applaud that.

It fascinates me that Republicans such as Perry are quick to take credit for job creation while dismissing job growth that occurs on Democrats’ watch. I shall single out the dismissive attitudes the GOP has assumed regarding job growth during the Obama administration. The Labor Department this week announced that 204,000 jobs were created in October and it revised upward by 60,000 the number of jobs created during the previous two months.

Those jobs also are result of mostly private-sector activity.

Texas’s relatively good health is well-known around the world. Gov. Perry has reason to be proud of the state’s economic growth. Does he deserve the credit for jobs being created outside of government?

He thinks he does.

I’m wondering now if he’s ever going to give credit to the guys in the other party for the successes they, too, have enjoyed.

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Texas prosecutor to pay for his crime

I guess if you live long enough you’ll get to see just about anything.

This story from the Huffington Post is a serious eye-opener.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-godsey/for-the-first-time-ever-a_b_4221000.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

A former Texas prosecutor and judge, Ken Anderson, is going to jail for sending an innocent man to prison for decades. It’s the first time in history that this has actually happened.

Perhaps you’ve heard of this case. Michael Morton was sent to prison for allegedly killing his wife. It turns out, though, that the prosecutor in the case — Anderson — intentionally withheld evidence that could have let Morton off the hook. Twenty-five years later, Morton finally walked out of prison.

Anderson’s career took off, according to the Huffington Post. He became a judge in Williamson County, near Austin. Morton, meanwhile, sat in a prison cell and worked to get himself released from his unjustified imprisonment. Anderson eventually resigned from the bench when all hell broke loose regarding the Morton case.

Anderson’s sentence isn’t a lengthy one. He’ll serve 10 day in jail and will have to perform 500 hours of community service. The most meaningful element of the sentence, though, is that he will surrender his license to practice law.

Justice finally has been done.

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’60 Minutes’ in trouble … again

I once considered “60 Minutes” to be the Cadillac of TV news shows.

It might be becoming the Edsel.

Lara Logan, one of the CBS network’s correspondents for “60 Minutes” apologized this morning for a news report that cast a damning light on the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2012 that left four people dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/53498378/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/

Seems that Logan’s sourcing was a bit questionable. The guy she attributed for much of the information, security contractor Dylan Davies, had given the FBI information that had contradicted what he told Logan’s staff in preparation for the broadcast.

Davies told Logan he was there during the attack; he told the FBI he didn’t get there until the next morning. So … did he see anything or didn’t he?

The attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi remains one of the more tragic episodes in U.S. diplomatic history. It was confusing, chaotic and fiery. That’s what happens in fire fights. Don’t they say often that “truth often is the first casualty” in these incidents?

This isn’t the first time “60 Minutes” has gotten its backside in a sling. In 2004, CBS correspondent Dan Rather broadcast a now-discredited report that alleged George W. Bush pulled too many strings to get himself signed up with an Air National Guard unit and then didn’t fulfill his obligation. Rather essentially lost his job over the shoddy reporting.

“60 Minutes” is scheduled to go on the air Sunday with a full apology and what’s known in the trade as “correction.” It likely won’t retract the story. The correction, though, is necessary if the news show seeks to return to its Cadillac status.

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Jobs report was supposed to be dismal

I saw the word “dismal” when reading a projection Thursday of today’s jobs report issued by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Then came the report: 204,000 jobs added to the national payroll in October.

It was far greater than the “experts” had predicted. They said in advance of the report that the government shutdown would have dissuaded employers from hiring folks they normally would be hiring, given that the Christmas shopping season is nearly upon us.

The naysayers out there will focus most certainly on the one-tenth of a percent uptick in the unemployment rate. I share their concern. We cannot seem to reduce significantly the jobless rate while we’re continuing to add tens of thousands of jobs each month.

Politics being what it is, the jobless rate increase will be President Obama’s fault, while credit for the significant boost in the job creation will go to someone else.

I’m quite certain congressional Republicans will find someone in their ranks willing to step up and take the credit.

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What’s to love about Texas Constitution?

I hate the Texas Constitution.

Don’t misunderstand. It’s not that it stands for evil intent.

My problem with it is that it so damn archaic and nonsensical.

Consider one of the measures Texans voted on this past Tuesday. It involved whether we here in the Panhandle, or in East Texas, or the Hill Country, or the Trans-Pecos, or the upper Gulf Coast should vote on a tax measure involving the Hidalgo County Hospital District.

The measure passed, as did all nine of the constitutional amendment proposals the Texas Legislature tossed in our laps. Some of them actually mattered, such as Prop 6, which sets up a fund to pay for water development projects across the state. The drought-ravaged Panhandle can use that kind of help from the state.

Back to the Hidalgo County Hospital District. I didn’t bother to vote on that one. Why? I don’t care about tax rates involving a hospital district about 500 miles from here. If we lived on the East Coast, it’d be three, maybe four, states away.

I get why the state’s founders set up a Constitution this way. They wanted to spread power to as many folks as possible. They hated centralization and didn’t want to copy the federal constitutional model. Heck, they partitioned the state into 254 counties, for crying out loud; one of them, Loving County, is populated by all of 71 residents.

If the idea, then, was to create an environment for greater local control, why did they set up a Constitution that requires all Texans to vote on things that have no bearing on their lives? Remember when the entire state had to decide whether to let tiny Roberts County just northeast of Amarillo let go of its hide inspector’s office?

Some issues ought to be a totally local matter and don’t have to involve the rest of the state.

I would ask the Legislature to change the document to make it more modern and make more sense.

Except that such a request will go nowhere. The hidebound traditionalists who populate the Legislature will have none of it.

Get ready, therefore, to vote in two years for issues that will have you scratching your head.

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Two elections should send GOP a clear warning

Two gubernatorial elections occurred Tuesday that ought to serve as a serious wakeup call to the fractious Republican Party.

One GOP candidate won big; another one lost a nail-biter to a Democrat.

The big winner, Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey, won huge in a Democratic-leaning state. The loser, Ken Cuccinelli, lost in Virginia, which has been leaning a bit Democratic in recent years. Christie — despite his claim of being a conservative — has governed as more of a centrist, mainstream Republican. Cuccinelli, the state attorney general in Virginia, is a tea party favorite who campaigned as a far-right conservative.

Christie’s win and Cuccinelli’s loss should tell the Republicans they’d be better served in 2016 if they nominate a candidate who can appeal to voters other than those who adhere to the right-wing fringe elements who comprise the party base.

Yes, Cuccinelli lost a narrower-than-expected race to Democrat Terry McAuliffe. He’d been down as much a 12 points, but ended up losing by just 2 percentage points. But … he still lost.

Christie, on the other hand, cruised to victory by a landslide margin in a state President Obama has won twice by impressive margins.

The GOP is fighting among itself. The tea party fringe is seeking to wrest control of the party from the so-called “establishment wing.” However, the establishment types have shown time and again they’re ability to work with Democrats to legislate effectively. The tea party wing has demonstrated equally well that it doesn’t care about working with Democrats or anyone else.

The lesson now for the Republicans is staring them in the face as they ponder the 2016 campaign for the White House. Will they nominate a candidate who represent all Republicans or will they march in lockstep behind someone who follows the narrow dictates of the dedicated zealots?

The clock is now ticking on the next presidential campaign.

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Tell whole truth about weight loss, Gov. Christie

Congratulations belong to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who cruised to re-election Tuesday.

As The Business Insider website reports, the governor has just “basically” launched his 2016 campaign for president of the United States.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-christie-2016-campaign-begins-election-results-new-jersey-2013-11

Which brings me to the point here: He has lost a good bit of weight and says he is about halfway to his weight-loss goal. My question is this: Why not tell us the complete reason for losing the weight, governor?

Christie underwent weight-loss surgery several months ago. He proclaimed then it was to ensure he sticks around for his family. He doesn’t want to die early because of conditions associated with being significantly overweight. I accept that stated reason. But my sense is that he has more “political” reasons stashed away that he’s not telling us.

Allow me this bit of candor. I believe he is losing the weight because he wants to present a more physically appealing image to Americans across the land if he chooses to run for president in 2016.

What’s more, I see nothing wrong with him saying so. What can be so damning for a politician who prides himself on blunt talk and being frank with constituents to actually tell us the whole truth about such matters? Didn’t he once tell a New Jersey woman he didn’t care what she thought when she criticized him for sending his children to private school? Voters forgot about that snarky remark, as seen by the resounding victory this self-proclaimed “conservative Republican” scored in a heavily Democratic state.

Perhaps the governor could tell us what many of us know already: The Media Age requires national politicians to present pleasant images to voters. Such wasn’t the case prior to TV. Imagine someone who looked like, say, Abraham Lincoln being elected today. How about William Howard Taft, the heaviest president in history at 320 pounds?

If the New Jersey governor is entertaining thoughts of a presidential campaign in 2016, he has taken the first step — admittedly a cosmetic one — on that long road.

What’s wrong with acknowledging it?

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ARC sinks under voter displeasure

I awoke this morning to some distressing news.

Amarillo voters rejected a worthy bond issue that would have enhanced greatly the quality of life in their fair city.

The Amarillo Recreational Complex failed by a 54-46 percent margin. It would have cost around $31 million to build this complex, which would have comprised a comprehensive array of amenities for citizens young and old to enjoy. It would have included outdoor ball fields, indoor swimming, basketball, tennis and swimming centers … heck, I can’t even think of all the things it would have entailed.

A citizens committee had been beating the bushes raising money to offset the public tax burden, hoping to raise about $6 million from private donations. Spokesmen for the committee had made the case — or so I thought — that the ARC would be a good investment for residents to make.

What’s more, it’s not as if the city has been spending money like mad on parks. The last municipal parks bond issue was approved in 1972. That’s 41 years ago, for crying out loud.

Silly me. I didn’t realize small-mindedness still had such a grip on Amarillo voters.

Speaking of voters, I hasten to note that of the nearly 100,000 residents who were eligible to vote, only about 15 percent of them actually cast ballots … which means that a tiny majority of the voting public decided this important ballot measure.

I am a sad man this morning.

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Political hero has left us

Politics occasionally produces heroes.

One of them has just died and I wanted to call attention to this man’s heroic deed.

His name was Jimmie Cokinos. He served as mayor of Beaumont, Texas in the late 1950s and later was elected as the first Republican to serve on the Jefferson County Commissioners Court.

I knew Cokinos pretty well owing to my time as editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise. He and I became good friends. He came from a large and boisterous family of brothers, which also comprised Pete, Andrew and Mike.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Beaumont-political-legend-Jimmie-Cokinos-dies-4956508.php

But I grew to respect Jimmie as well for what I learned about what he did while serving as Beaumont mayor.

Lamar State College sought to integrate its student enrollment in 1956. The White Citizens Council — a racist group active in the region — got wind of it. It started a demonstration to protest the enrolling of black students at Lamar. Cokinos, without approval of any of his city council colleague, acted as mayor and ordered the chief of police to break up the demonstration — which was threatening to turn into a riot.

The police chief did as he was told. The demonstration was quelled. The White Citizens Council responded by trying to firebomb Cokinos’s house; the effort failed. The racists then bombed the church Cokinios attended and a synagogue.

Cokinos stood firm.

It’s good to understand the racial divisions that exited in Beaumont at the time. They were quite noticeable when I arrived there in the spring of 1984. The city was divided deeply along racial lines, given that Beaumont’s culture is quite akin to the Deep South’s prevailing attitudes about black-white relations.

Jimmie Cokinos resisted a very strong tide in 1956. He didn’t have to do what he did. He acted heroically and his actions spoke volumes about the character of a man whose spirit and soul was far greater than his diminutive stature.

Rest in peace, Mr. Mayor.

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