James Williams, president of the Amarillo firefighters union, made an impassioned plea this week to the Amarillo City Commission.

He pitched an idea worth pondering: whether to allow firefighters to run a new city ambulance service to replace the one being abandoned by Northwest Texas Hospital.

But he injected an unfortunate bit of hometown-ism into it. He suggested that a city-run ambulance service would be preferable because it would comprise people who live in Amarillo.

Whoa! The city is considering a proposal from American Medical Response. AMR is an out-of-town company. But it would hire folks who, like the firefighters, live here too. Williams suggested in remarks to the commission that AMR isn’t the kind of company Amarillo should welcome.

Perhaps the firefighters have a better plan than AMR; it might be that AMR’s is better. City commissioners need to examine which is the best buy for the city. They need to examine all aspects of every proposal they get before making this critical decision.

The City Commission shouldn’t base its decision on shallow boosterism.

Health care reform may be worse than a lot of things. But worse than a terrorist attack?

Southwest Airlines had little for which to apologize when a flight crew departing Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport evicted a woman and her screaming child.

The tot began hollering when he and his mom — a native of Dumas — boarded a flight on Oct. 26 at AMA bound for San Jose, Calif. They were here visiting a sick family member. The boy’s screeching became uncontrollable. Imagine flying 1,000 or so miles having to listen to that racket.

The flight crew couldn’t get the tot quiet, so mother and child were ordered off the plane, reportedly to a rousing ovation from grateful passengers.

If the airline owed them an apology, it only was for the failure to fetch the passengers’ luggage so they could take it on a later flight. But that’s as far as it goes.

Air travel isn’t much fun in this post-9/11 era. Those who have flown much since then know what I’m talking about. Passengers need not have to endure screamers at 35,000 feet.

Good going, flight crew.

High Plains Public Radio has just concluded its latest fund drive. It did so with a fascinating tribute to the late Teel Bivins.

It had received a pledge in Bivins’ memory from someone who noted that two of his brothers were instrumental in bringing HPPR to Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle. Why is that so fascinating?

Well, consider that the Bivins family has long been associated with conservative Republican politics. Consider, too, that HPPR and its parent company — National Public Radio — have become favorite targets of those who accuse the “mainstream media” of tilting too far to the left; Paul Greenberg, the great editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, refers to NPR as “National Propaganda Radio.”

The late Levi Bivins started the effort to bring NPR to the Panhandle. Levi died in the 1990s and brother Mark took the effort forward. So, it became something of a family affair. Teel, the one-time state senator and ambassador to Sweden, wasn’t so much out front on the NPR campaign.

But the tribute given in Teel Bivins’ memory speaks to the quality of a family that would seek to enlighten the Panhandle with the news and information that National Public Radio can bring.

Good job, Bivins Brothers — and thank you.