President Obama is jetting off to Israel for a three-day visit that many think is an attempt to mend fences with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

I hope he can do so and would suggest to him that he simply reiterate what he’s said repeatedly in the United States: that this country’s ties to Israel are as strong as they’ve ever been.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/288903-obama-to-woo-suspicious-israelis

Obama has made it abundantly clear throughout his first term as president that our commitment to Israel’s security never will waver, at least while he is president. And yet conservatives refuse to believe him, accusing him of kowtowing to Israel’s Muslim neighbors.

I’ve had a bit of exposure to Israeli mistrust of Barack Obama. I spent five weeks in Israel in the spring of 2009, just a few months after Obama took office. I was a working journalist at the time and the question came to me repeatedly from my Israeli hosts: Do you think Barack Obama is our friend? I answered “yes.” But the response to my answer almost always was followed by a statement that Israelis don’t quite “trust” Obama the way they trusted his predecessor, George W. Bush, who many Israelis consider to be one of their best friends.

Perhaps the president’s rhetoric hasn’t been as forceful as Bush’s. He has sought a more nuanced approach to settling the centuries-long dispute between Israelis and their neighbors. The Obama administration has opposed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

But Obama has declared his intention to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; his administration has been killing Islamic terrorists left and right (e.g., Osama bin Laden); and the president himself has stated that this nation will not abandon Israel if warfare ever were to erupt.

I wish Barack Obama well as he embarks on this journey. Moreover, I hope he can restore trust between two long-standing allies. I have faith he’ll succeed.

I’ve never shared the view of those who oppose globalism, the linking of economies by country or even continents.

But I am puzzled as to precisely why the troubles in Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean, are causing such tumult all over the world.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/19/investing/premarkets/index.html?source=cnn_bin

Cyprus has a Gross Domestic Product – the value of all goods and services produced annually – of about $23 billion. It has a population of about 1.1 million people. Its capital city of Nicosia has a few more residents than Amarillo (population, 191,000). Control of the island is split between governments supported by the ethnic Greeks who comprise the vast majority of the people who live there and the ethnic Turks, who set up a minority government in 1974 when Turkish forces invaded the nation to prevent what they said was a threat to the Turks on the island.

But with a run on the banks in Cyprus and with the world watching what might happen there, investors have gotten fidgety.

It’s because of concerns that might develop in the rest of the European Union, of which Cyprus is a member. Indeed, the EU itself is a product of globalization, as nations all across Europe scrapped their currencies in favor of the euro, which is used as monetary tender throughout the continent, with a few exceptions, such as Great Britain.

The Cypriot economy appears to be heading for trouble, just as it has in Greece, Spain and Italy. The country needs EU bailout money and the banks have been shut down to prevent a mass withdrawal of currency from their vaults.

And all this worry over a country that contributes so very little to the world’s economic health and well-being.

We’d all better get used to this kind of turmoil in smaller countries such as Cyprus. Whenever one of them burps in this age of globalization, it seems as if the whole world gets heartburn.

Tiger Woods has confirmed that he and skier Olympic Lindsey Vonn are an item.

He issued a statement today that said, in part, the following: “We want to continue our relationship, privately, as an ordinary couple and continue to compete as athletes.”

An ordinary couple, eh?

Nice try, Tiger, the man chasing the all-time record for golf major titles, the guy with 76 wins on the PGA tour and the man some experts already have anointed as the greatest golfer in the history of the storied game. (In my humble view, for what it’s worth, golf’s main man still is Jack Nicklaus.)

Let us not forget as well that Tiger Woods encountered some personal difficulties that made headlines all around the world about three years ago.

And Lindsey Vonn? She’s equally glamorous and is well, drop-dead gorgeous.

Ain’t nothing – not a single thing – that can be “ordinary” about this couple. It’s a sad reality in this hyper-media age.

I’m kind of liking this internecine warfare heating up among leading national Republicans.

Karl “Bush’s Brain” Rove and Sarah “Barracuda” Palin have gotten into a snit over their role in leading the party’s insurgent wing. Now we a former Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, blasting the current RNC boss, Reince Priebus, for being a “loser.”

http://thehill.com/video/campaign/288785-steele-priebus-feud-heats-up

I won’t concern myself with the “Brain-Barracuda” dustup. Neither of them really is relevant at the moment.

Steele vs. Priebus is another matter. I kind of agree with Steele’s assessment of the GOP at this point. Priebus has just presided over a party that had a chance to win the presidency in 2012, only to nominate Mitt Romney, who emerged from one of the weirdest political primary fields in recent memory.

Steele did run the RNC when the GOP scored some stunning off-year election victories in 2010, taking control of the House of Reps and closing the gap with the Democrats in the Senate. He lost the chairmanship to Priebus in 2011 and then watched as his party lost ground in both houses of Congress and lost the presidency by 5 million votes and a near Electoral College landslide.

Perhaps it’s instructive that these two men would be sniping at each other, given that Priebus wrested the chairmanship away from Steele.

But it does go to show you that Republicans have fallen into the trap that ensnared Democrats in the 1970s. Democratic liberal insurgents fought with party establishment types over the Vietnam War and that internal squabbling tore the party apart for two decades before Bill Clinton arrived in 1992 and “triangulated” his way to the presidency. Clinton found a way to cut to the moderate center of his party while playing the two extremes against each other.

Republicans just might find themselves in a similarly long period in the wilderness.

I have changed my mind about the value of ethanol as an alternative energy resource.

There once was a time when I thought the notion of growing corn and transforming it into a fuel to mix with petroleum-based gasoline was a critical remedy to this nation’s growing energy demand. Count me now as one who believes the idea is a bummer.

A Sunday New York Times story tells a grim tale of high corn prices, drought and dwindling demand for the fuel product.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/us/17ethanol.html

The premise of the story basically is that the cost of corn is making it more expensive to produce ethanol, which in some areas comprises 10 to 15 percent of the gasoline content people are pumping into their motor vehicles. And why is the production price spiking? Water.

And therein lies perhaps the most critical aspect of all. The Times story discusses the drought that has plagued much of the Corn Belt in recent years. Corn producers are having to reach more deeply into the ground to pump the water to irrigate their crops. That’s surely true in the Texas Panhandle, which produces its share of corn to supply the shrinking ethanol market.

About five years ago, economic developers were hailing the arrival of ethanol plants in Deaf Smith County. That chorus has been largely muted because of the cost factors associated with producing the substance.

The Times story doesn’t talk enough, though, about an issue related to the drought. I’m referring to the growing scarcity of water.

Almost every water-planning expert will say that irrigated agriculture consumes the vast bulk of water. That’s true throughout the High Plains, where irrigation drinks up more than 90 percent of the water taken from the Ogallala Aquifer.

And of the crops produced in the Texas and Oklahoma pandhandles, as well as in eastern New Mexico, which of them do you suppose is the thirstiest? If you said “corn,” you’d win the prize – whatever it is. Thus, the drought has made it more expensive for farmers to produce the corn that is processed into ethanol, but more importantly it has put intense pressure on the water supply.

The lack of moisture makes it imperative that we preserve our water. Pumping enormous quantities of water to irrigate crops to produce a fuel substance that is falling out of favor makes no sense.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/no-movement-gambling

Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka isn’t exactly crying the blues over the prospect that the current Texas Legislature isn’t going to bring gambling slot machines into the Lone Star State.

I concur with Burka. Gambling is a sucker’s bet if there ever was one.

The man’s major point is that little economic development accrues with gambling. It creates jobs, say, for card dealers, cashiers, cocktail waitresses, security personnel and assorted other staffers. But the lure of casino gambling just doesn’t amount to much.

I used to live near the Sabine River, which borders Texas and Louisiana. And occasionally I would venture to Lake Charles, La., where they’ve had riverboat gambling for years. They have fancy riverboats with casinos on board moored on the Calcesieu River. Folks would flock from Texas and other neighboring states to “Lake Chuck” to gamble. They poured a lot of money into the casinos. But when you looked at the surroundings on shore, you saw little impact of the boats on the community. Downtown Lake Charles still looked pretty deserted as I recall … for years after the riverboats docked on the river.

The point is that casino gambling — even allowing slot machines at racetracks — is far from an instant fix for any state that’s interested in economic development. Burka seems a bit more enamored of full-scale casinos. I’m not a fan of those, either.

My own preference is to foster economic development without preying on people’s desire to win big money in a hurry. When you’re playing against The House, there can be just one winner — and it isn’t you.

A fascinating discussion is beginning to occur in Amarillo regarding whether to name a new bridge after a former county commissioner who, depending on your point of view, was a stalwart champion of his constituents or was a nuisance who didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

The late Commissioner Manny Perez died a couple years ago after suffering post-surgery complications. He was, to say the least, an unforgettable guy. He also had a habit of picking some inopportune times to say certain things to certain people.

Some Amarillo residents want the City Commission to name a new bridge at Third and Grand after Perez. They say he was their champion and fought to have the bridge built as way to alleviate traffic congestion near some railroad tracks. The traffic would get clogged beyond all reason when freight trains would creep along. The city decided to act after hearing gripes for many years from residents in the neighborhood.

Perez was one of them.

But here is where the issue gets a bit sticky from the city’s standpoint. First of all, the bridge was built by the city, not by Potter County, which Perez served as commissioner for more than two decades before his death. Amarillo also got some help from federal government stimulus money — yes, the money that so many folks around here said they opposed, but were rather eager to stretch out their hand when it became available.

Yes, Manny Perez raised some ruckus over getting the bridge built. He also raised more than a bit of a ruckus over other city-sponsored projects, such as downtown redevelopment. Perez opposed the strategy the city had employed in moving the downtown effort forward. The disliked the tax increment zone for downtown. He argued that Potter County shouldn’t dedicate a portion of its tax revenue to the downtown taxing district.

But worst of all, he would stand before city commissioners and rail against the downtown project, suggesting that the city was ignoring “my people” who live on the east side of the town.

Let’s face a grim reality here: Manny Perez angered a lot of people at City Hall. My guess is that the anger hasn’t subsided too much even after his death.

So now Manny’s friends and political allies want the city to name a bridge in his honor?

Someone will have to explain in detail what precisely what Perez did to make the bridge a reality and why the city should just forgive the obstructionism Manny displayed when it sought Potter County’s support in rebuilding its downtown district — which, by the way, is located with Potter County’s boundaries.

I continually am amazed at the growing up that has occurred in our nation in its treatment of veterans and those who are serving in the military.

I now will explain.

The closet in the entry way of our home contains quite a few ball caps. A couple of them are quasi-military in nature. One of them is a cap that says Army; I bought it at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio while visiting our nephew, who’s serving his country there. The other was a gift from Capt. John Payne, the commanding officer of the USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier I visited in 1993 while reporting on a fact finding mission led by U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Texas.

I recently wore the Carl Vinson cap on a brief trip to Allen, Texas, where we welcomed our precious granddaughter into the world. I flew home a few days later, while my wife stayed behind to dote a little more on Emma Nicole.

As I walked through airport security at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport – sporting my Carl Vinson cap – the TSA agent asked me if I had served in the Navy. I said, “No. I served in the Army – a long time ago.”

“Well,” the agent said with a broad smile, “I want to thank you for your service the country.” I thanked the gentleman in return.

Such greetings are fairly common when I wear either of those caps. They remind me of how far we’ve come from the days when military personnel in uniform and veterans were treated much differently, such as during my time in the Army.

I served from 1968 until 1970. The nation was tearing itself apart while debating the Vietnam War. But unlike the debate that has occurred over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in recent times, opponents of those actions never – not one time – have aimed their rage at the men and women who are carrying out their mission. That wasn’t always the case during the Bad Old Days.

No one ever hurled epithets at me when I returned home from Vietnam. Others did hear them. It is to our collective shame that they received that kind of abuse from their countrymen.

It’s a new day now, though. We have grown up since that terrible time. These days we greet returning service personnel with banners, flags and flowers. We pat them on the back and offer a heartfelt “thank you for your service” to them. That’s the way it always should have been.

This veteran is ever so grateful that this nation has come of age.

Dr. Ben Carson is an up-and-comer among political conservatives.

He’s a brilliant neurosurgeon … but he needs an education on political decorum.

Dr. Carson spoke recently at the National Prayer Breakfast and used the occasion to criticize President Obama’s policies while the president was sitting nearby.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/288583-ben-carson-controversial-conservative-figure-hints-at-run-for-office

Carson responded to critics of his speech this way: “I don’t believe that expressing your opinion, regardless of who’s there, is being rude.” Actually, doc, it is rude. But it’s not really about the company you keep when you say these things. It’s the location and the setting that deserves attention.

The National Prayer Breakfast is meant to bring people of all faiths together for a time of prayer and ecumenical fellowship. It’s not a place for political posturing. Many other venues exist for such speechmaking. How about, say, a national political convention, a political action conference (such as CPAC), or a street-corner rally?

The doctor is said to be considering a run for office. He will give up his medical practice, reports indicate, and devote his time to public-policy-improvement pursuits. More power to him. I wish him well in that endeavor.

But let’s lay off the politics at the National Prayer Breakfast. As the saying goes: It ain’t the time or the place …

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush might have demonstrated Friday why he could face a rough road to winning his party’s presidential nomination in 2016.

He spoke of the Republican Party’s need to avoid be against everything and everyone.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/other-races/288569-jeb-bush-gop-cant-be-anti-everything

Bush delivered his admonition to the CPAC conference, which has heard from a lengthy list of political clowns. Jeb Bush isn’t one of them. He’s a serious fellow who every political pundit in the country believes is considering a run for the presidency in 2016.

Yes, he is packing some baggage, such as the legacy of big brother George W. Bush’s two terms as president. But his message to the conservative faithful is plain enough. The party needs to stand for something constructive and end the perception among voters that it is composed of obstructionists exclusively.

Bush said this, among other things, to CPAC: “Way too many people believe Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker, and the list goes on and on and on. Many voters are simply unwilling to choose our candidates even though they share our core beliefs because those voters feel unwanted, unloved and unwelcome in our party.”

If people believe such things about your party, then you need to (1) change your message if that’s indeed what is being conveyed or (2) develop a whole new marketing strategy to persuade voters that their perception of you is incorrect.

It appears to me, though, that the hardliners are winning the intraparty struggle at the moment within the GOP. They likely don’t want to hear what Jeb Bush is trying to tell them.