Monthly Archives: January 2014

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Turns out Sherman isn’t such a punk after all

One week from The Big Game — aka the Super Bowl — and I’m feeling a bit embarrassed by my first reaction to a sideline rant by one of the game’s bigger stars.

Seattle Seahawks defensive back Richard Sherman made a great play at the end of the NFC championship game against the San Francisco 49ers. The Seahawks won the game, after which commentator Erin Andrews asked Sherman to comment about his team’s big win.

Sherman then launched into a tirade against 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree, against whom he made the big play. He woofed and hollered all kinds of smack against Crabtree. Andrews cut the interview short.

My thought then was: Who is this clown?

It turns out Richard Sherman is quite the young man.

The New York Times article attached to this blog post notes that (a) Sherman graduated second in his class at Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif. and (b) received a football scholarship to attend Stanford University and (c) earned a bachelor’s degree in communication and is now working on his master’s degree.

My bad for thinking ill of the young man.

Did he behave like a gentleman, a sportsman in that sideline interview? No. He got caught up in the moment, I suppose, of his team winning a game that puts them into the biggest game of the year. Adrenaline can make one say and do amazing things, which appears to be the case here.

His personal story, though, is compelling. Sherman came from a tough neighborhood. He could have fallen into the gang life. He could have made a wrong turn at many points along the way. He appears to have made many correct decisions.

Do I want this young man’s team to win the Super Bowl? Fat chance. I remain an AFC fan and will be pulling for the Denver Broncos.

I do feel better, now, for coming clean on my false first impression of a man who’s achieved many good things in his young life.

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Discovering new life in semi-retirement

This is another in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on retirement.

Life is a journey of discovery. I’ve known it for a very long time. Until one’s professional life ends abruptly — and not entirely the way one envisions it — then you learn fully about the discovery that awaits.

Such is what is happening to me now.

I just turned 64 years of age. I’ve embarked along several paths here and there since the late summer of 2012. A few of the paths have taken me down blind alleys. I’ve detoured a bit and moved on to other things.

But I think I’m hitting my stride at my relatively advanced age and I’ve learned that life does exist after one has the plug pulled on what had been a fruitful, exciting, fulfilling and — I hope– successful career.

I spent roughly 37 years in daily journalism, working at four newspapers in two states. I moved up the rungs as my experience grew. I hit a few bumps along the way, as we all do in life. I learned from mistakes, vowed never to repeat them — which, of course, didn’t always prevent me from making new mistakes. What a ride it was, allowing me to travel and to cover some of the most compelling people and events imaginable.

Then it ended. A company “reorganization” resulted in my resigning from a job that my employer said should go to someone else. One word described my feelings at the moment I learned my fate: devastated.

I packed up my office and left. I mourned the loss of my career. I had wanted to go out on my own terms. I’d hoped for a party, a toast or two, a few laughs around a big cake. It didn’t happen that way.

That was about 17 months ago. You know what I’ve learned? It is that I can continue to contribute to my community’s thought process. This blog is one vehicle. I spend considerable time each day spewing out thoughts and opinions on all manner of issues. I get smacked around by those who disagree with me and occasionally I get kudos from those of like minds. It keeps my head in the game.

About seven months ago I started working as a customer service concierge for a Toyota dealership in Amarillo. This job, too, enables me to employ another skill I’ve possessed for most of my life: an ability to speak to strangers. I greet customers at the dealership and seek to make them feel comfortable while they wait for their vehicle to be serviced. I’m successful most of the time.

But prior to the concierge gig, I got hired by the local public TV station in Amarillo as a public affairs programming blogger. “A Public View with John Kanelis” has been an absolute blast to write. My bosses at Panhandle PBS invited me to join them in October 2012 and the blog has enabled me to stay current on what public TV is broadcasting to our Panhandle viewing audience.

I haven’t made any new discoveries about myself now that I’m well into semi-retirement. Instead, I’ve been able to reaffirm what I learned when my wife and I packed up our then-young sons and moved from Oregon to Beaumont, Texas nearly three decades ago. It is that I am an adaptable creature, far more than I thought I was when we left those familiar surroundings in the Pacific Northwest for a decidedly unfamiliar environment — in every possible context — on the Texas Gulf Coast.

We adapted and changed and have carved out a nice life all along our Texas journey.

It’s taking a new turn and we’re looking forward more than ever to the future. The past is what it is. The future is exciting because we don’t yet know what we’ll discover.

We’ll be ready for whatever awaits.

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How should POTUS describe SOTU?

The state of our Union is … getting stronger.

There. I’m seeking to put words into President Obama’s mouth in advance of his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/196416-obama-to-travel-to-four-states-after-state-of-the-union

It’s not back all the way just yet, but it’s surely getting there.

That’s how the president ought to frame his speech, in my ever-so-humble view. Yes, even out here in Flyover Country things are looking up — no matter how much gloom and doom the Republicans who run everything around here try to make it.

Joblessness is down, employment is up. The deficit is down. Americans are signing on daily with affordable health insurance. Energy production is up, as is development of alternative energy resources. The stock market is up — the recent huge selloff at the end of the week notwithstanding.

The outlook at home is getting better. I hope the president doesn’t seek to continue the blame game regarding what he inherited on Jan. 20, 2009. That’s history. He owns this economy now, but the progress we’ve seen in the past five years is unmistakable and it needs to be hailed.

No, we haven’t reached the state of perfection. It’s always a never-to-be-achieved goal.

Huge challenges remain overseas. We’re still fighting that war against terrorists. I’m guessing that conflict never will end completely. As long as terrorists plot against nations such as ours, we’ll need to remain vigilant and ready to strike. My sense is that we’re remaining on high alert.

Yes, trouble spots remain: Syria, Egypt, North Korea and Iran come to mind. When have those places not given presidents heartburn for the past three or four decades? I’d say, well, never. Is there work to be done? Certainly. We need an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord; we need progress on ending Iran’s potential nuclear weapons development program; we need to find paths to peace all over the globe. It never ends. It won’t end when Barack Obama leaves office, nor will it end when his successor leaves at the end of his — or her — time in the White House.

I was one of those who felt a sense of unease about the future of our country. I’m feeling better about it today than I was, say, a half-dozen years ago.

Does the 44th president deserve all the credit for our recovery? No. He can claim some of it, pass around some kudos to others in government who’ve worked with him, while extending an olive branch to the folks on the other side.

Our Union is regaining its health, Mr. President. Say it like you mean it.

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LBJ could play hardball with the best of ’em

Ezra Klein is too young to remember President Lyndon Johnson, which doesn’t diminish one bit the young man’s brilliance.

His recent in Bloomberg View compares LBJ’s legendary bullying with what’s being alleged against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who’s still trying to put the “Bridgegate” hoo-ha behind him. Good luck with that, governor.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-22/pining-for-lbj-we-got-christie.html

Klein refers to Robert Caro’s biography of the 36th president:

“In the fourth volume of Caro’s biography, he tells the story of Margaret Mayer, a Dallas Times Herald reporter who was investigating the television station LBJ owned. Johnson had his aides call Mayer’s bosses and let slip that if Mayer kept investigating Johnson’s business, Johnson might sic the Federal Communications Commission on the Dallas Times Herald’s businesses — which included TV and radio stations. Mayer’s bosses got the message. Her investigation was quickly terminated.

“That, however, was an example of LBJ’s lighter touch. According to another story Caro recounts, Johnson had long been irritated by the coverage of Bascom Timmons, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s chief Washington correspondent. So he called the paper’s owner, Amon Carter Jr., and told him that it’d be a shame — just a shame — if the Fort Worth Army Depot ended up getting closed. Even worse, what if the Carswell Air Force Base were shuttered, too? Then there was the Trinity River Navigation Project, which would make the river navigable from its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. All these projects meant jobs, development, and, ultimately, readers and advertisers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.”

That should remind long-time Amarillo residents of a darker time in the Texas Panhandle, when the Pentagon closed the Amarillo Air Force Base reportedly in retaliation for the political support Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater showed in this part of the state in the 1964 presidential election. Legend has it that LBJ — who allegedly hated the Panhandle — just shut the base down in a fit of pique. His friends here — and he had a few of them — deny any such motivation.

Whatever the president’s motives, he acted decisively. Amarillo took a huge punch in the gut, but has survived and has flourished in the decades since.

Old Lyndon, though, knew how to play tough.

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Huckabee reveals his truer self, apparently

Hey, wasn’t Mike Huckabee supposed to be the voice of a new brand of “compassionate conservatism,” a term made popular by another prominent Republican, a guy named George W. Bush?

The former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist preacher — who also happens to play a pretty good bass — once was considered a good guy even among those who likely wouldn’t vote for him.

Now comes this little item.

“If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. Let us take that discussion all across America.”

Gov. Huckabee made that statement to a Republican gathering just this week — and has reopened the firestorm relating to why the GOP keeps doing so badly among women.

“Uncle Sugar.” What an endearing term. As one commentator said this week, such terminology in street lingo is meant to refer to pimps. Here’s a preacher, a man of God, suggesting Democrats are trying to persuade the “women of America” that they need good ol’ Uncle Sugar to provide them with contraceptives because they just can’t control their desire to have sex.

I rather liked the compassionate conservative Mike Huckabee. This version of himself, which he rolled out when he became a Fox News TV commentator and talk show host, is quite unappealing. I only can imagine what the women of America will be thinking once they start considering the 2016 campaign for the U.S. presidency.

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Smoking a disqualifier for presidential candidates

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is nothing if not candid.

He told Jay Leno this week that he likes smoking cigarettes too much to be president of the United States. He won’t quit the nasty habit. So there, he said. He ain’t going to run for president.

I’m glad that smoking is now seen as a deal-breaker for anyone who wants to run for the highest office in the land. Think of it. The president has a Presidential Council on Fitness; he names a director to run the organization. Smoking is a key component in the message the office delivers, which is to say that children shouldn’t smoke, because the habit can kill you.

The current president used to smoke but has quit — he says. No one has yet confirmed it independently, at least I’m not aware of any confirmation. Even so, no one ever would see Barack Obama lighting up.

It didn’t used to be this way. President Franklin Roosevelt famously smoked cigarettes with that cigarette holder cocked in that famously “jaunty” angle. President John Kennedy was known to light up a stogie in the Oval Office while pondering the issues of the day. President Richard Nixon didn’t smoke, but first lady Pat Nixon did — although no one ever saw her in public; same thing was said of Jackie Kennedy, come to think of it.

President Bill Clinton? Hmmm. How do we handle this one? I guess he smoked cigars, but as we learned to our national disgrace, he did other things with them that didn’t require them to be lit.

Speaker Boehner declaration takes one national politician out of the hunt for the presidency in 2016. Other issues may derail potential candidates. I’ll give the speaker credit, though, for his forthrightness on a disgusting habit that in this day and time has no place in the Oval Office.

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Re-election hill steepens some for incumbents

The Gallup Poll organization reports something that might give congressional incumbents plenty of pause as they campaign for re-election.

Listen up, Rep. Mac Thornberry.

It is that 46 percent of Americans — a record low — would vote to re-elect their member of Congress in 2014.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/24/poll_record_low_would_re-elect_representative_121344.html

That’s down from 59 percent in 2012, according to RealClearPolitics.com.

Get this as well: It’s split evenly among Democrats and Republicans, at 18 percent for members of each party.

Why should this concern incumbents? Republicans in particular have shown this penchant for — as the late Texas state Sen. Teel Bivins used to say — “eating their young.” Tea party insurgents keep popping up to challenge “establishment Republican” incumbents. It’s happening in the 13th Congressional District — which Thornberry represents — with two challengers trying to outflank the incumbent on the right. The same is true in Kentucky, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is being challenged by the tea party, as is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

It’s no secret that this appears to be the season of discontent with Congress. Polls show congressional approval in the low teens, which actually is a slight improvement from late in 2013, when it slid into the single digits.

How will this end up? It could end well for incumbents, but only perhaps when Congress can re-learn the art of legislating, which involves some compromise between the parties.

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Time to harvest abundant sunlight in West Texas

Let the sun shine, which it does continually in West Texas.

A huge solar plant is now being planned for an area west of Fort Stockton in Pecos County. It will be a 22-megawatt operation, one of the largest of its kind in Texas — and it could signal a new twist in the state’s ability to harvest alternative forms of energy.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/01/22/solar-plant-planned-west-texas/

The sun does shine a lot out here in the West Texas prairie. Amarillo gets more than 300 days of sunshine, some of it intense — such as it is today, even though it’s colder than a well-digger’s backside.

Why not harvest that sunlight for energy, kind of like what’s happening with wind, another energy commodity that is in infinite supply out here?

Oh, I forgot. West Texas also is home to a lot of oil and natural gas operations. Do you think those folks have something to say about how we configure the energy grid? I’m guessing, well, yes, in a big way.

Back to the Pecos County plan.

The Texas Tribune reports: “This is an important step forward in our efforts to establish West Texas as a center for renewable energy,” Pecos County Judge Joe Shuster said in a statement. “We are not resting on our legacy of leadership in oil and gas. We welcome solar as the next new component in our portfolio of energy resources.”

The Barilla plant won’t be the biggest solar plant in Texas. Operations near San Antonio and Austin will generate more megawatts of energy than the Pecos County operation. Still, it does signal an opportunity to invest in yet another seemingly limitless energy resource that can heat homes in the winter, cool them in the summer — and do all of that without burning up the state’s finite amount of fossil fuel resources.

Let the sun shine, indeed.

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Let’s be self-aware, Dr. Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer was a psychiatrist before he became a political pundit.

As such, he surely had some training in medical school about self-awareness, and how to counsel patients who perhaps lack that important emotional quality.

I was struck, therefore, by Dr. Krauthammer’s own lack of self-awareness as he lambasted President Obama for what he called the president’s “repulsive” lack of respect for those on the other side of any given political debate.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/01/23/krauthammer_obamas_self-righteousness_and_refusal_to_give_respect_to_the_other_side_is_repulsive.html

Krauthammer told Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly that the president thinks he’s always right and that his foes are always wrong and that he shows his arrogance regularly when he puts down his adversaries for their so-called “lack of patriotism.”

Isn’t the good doctor listening to the other side? Has he not heard Republicans step way beyond the bounds of decency when they criticize things such as, say, the Affordable Care Act. For that matter, he ought to listen to himself when he levels such criticism at Barack Obama or those allied with the president. All that talk about arrogance and self-assuredness can be directed right back at the individual who makes such a claim in the first place.

I’ve lost count of the number of ACA foes who have proclaimed it to be the “worst legislation” in U.S. history, or those who contend it is the moral equivalent of a terrorist attack on the U.S. health care system. Gosh, I would rate any of the many laws enacted that sanctioned slavery to be quite a bit worse than the ACA.

Does the doctor forget about all the times former Republican U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich proclaimed Democrats to be the “enemy of ‘normal Americans'”? How about the ridiculous assertions that many tea party Republicans have made regarding Obama’s citizenship, allegiance to the country or whether he’s “American” enough to hold the office to which he’s been elected twice?

The other side — Dr. Krauthammer’s side — has plenty of examples of precisely the kind of repulsiveness he lays at Barack Obama’s feet.

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Glenn Beck sorry? Now he owns up to it

Glenn Beck told the Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly that he is sorry for all the division and partisan rancor he has caused since the start of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Now he says he’s sorry? Now?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/01/22/glenn-beck-admits-divisive-role.html

It’s a bit late in the game for Beck, the talk-show radio host and one-time TV superstar on Fox to say he’s sorry for all the divisiveness he has contributed to the country.

Fox signed him on in 2009 and seemed to give him a single task: Trash the news president often and with extreme prejudice. Beck did all of that with apparent glee.

He made things up. He embellished his version of what he said was wrong with the country. He stoked the fire of anger from those on the right and the far right over the nation electing its first African-American president. You’ll recall that Beck once said famously — or infamously — on the Fox channel that the president of the United States hated white people.

Now he’s sorry for saying all those angry things about the president.

It reminds me of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara writing in his memoir, published in early 1996, that he believed the United States shouldn’t have fought the Vietnam War, that we were engaged in a futile endeavor. He was about 30 years late in offering that mea culpa, after more than 58,000 Americans were killed in that tragic war.

I recall the reaction then was that McNamara, too, was a bit late.

It pains me to say it, Glenn, but you can’t unhonk the horn.