Monthly Archives: January 2015

State news

Gov. Abbott must act as AG Abbott did on rebel plates

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott no doubt casts himself as a man of high principle.

Well, here’s his chance to demonstrate it. He can ensure that the state does not issue motor vehicle license plates that carry the Confederate flag on them.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/01/texas-faces-a-serious-confederacy-conundrum.html/

He should take the argument to the Supreme Court of the United States and argue the same thing he did while he served as Texas attorney general. The plates are offensive to a significant number of Texans and they should not celebrate Confederate Heroes Day. Period.

As the blogger Tod Robberson points out on the link attached to this post, the plates would “honor” individuals who became enemies of the United States of America by fighting to defeat the Union during the Civil War.

Robberson writes: “It shouldn’t matter whether it’s a visible symbol on a license plate or the in-your-face knowledge — especially among African American taxpayers of the state — that Texans have to pay state employees for the day off to commemorate people who were enemies of the United States and who fought for the right to preserve slavery. It’s offensive either way to a huge number of people.”

I will add that African-Americans comprise about 12.5 percent of the state’s population, or about 3 million people.

Gov. Abbott is the same man who served as attorney general. He was right to oppose the issuance of the plates before — as was then-Gov. Rick Perry. The new governor should follow suit and not allow these license plates on Texans’ motor vehicles.

 

State news

'Open-carry' votes missing in state Senate

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is showing some early signs of realism.

He said the Texas Senate might be unable to approve a bill allowing Texans to carry firearms in the open.

I hope his skepticism hold up.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/01/27/lt-gov-patrick-open-carry-votes-arent-there/

Patrick told the Texas Tribune that while he embraces the Second Amendment, open-carry legislation isn’t a top priority among state senators. “Second Amendment rights are very important, but open carry does not reach to the level of prioritizing at this point,” he said. “I don’t think the votes are there.”

I’ve waltzed all over the pea patch on this one. I used to oppose concealed-carry legislation, fearing the worst. The worst hasn’t happened and it doesn’t appear that it will, so I’ve acknowledged by mistaken fear of concealed-firearm carry legislation.

This open-carry business, though, still gives me the nervous jerks.

I keep asking myself: Back in the days of the Old West, was this a safer place with good guys packing heat right along with bad guys?

Yes, this no longer is the Wild West and we’re supposed to be more, um, civilized now than they were back in those days.

It’s just the idea of seeing folks with guns on their hips …

Patrick might be able to count votes among the 31 senators, but he’s got a wild bunch across the way in the House of Representatives who are going to put the pressure on enact this legislation.

Be strong, senators.

 

business news, local news

Mixed bag with big Xcel Energy plans

The news about downtown Amarillo hasn’t been good of late, what with the master developer hired by the city vaporizing into thin air in the span of a 24-hour day.

But it’s not all bad.

Xcel Energy announced plans to build a $42 million office building, which is the first large-scale office construction project in more than three decades.

Good news, right?

Yes. But there’s a catch.

Xcel is going to vacate the several floors it occupies at the Chase Tower, that huge 31-story skyscraper that juts out of the downtown Amarillo skyline.

I ran into my old pal Wes Reeves recently at the coffee shop on the ground floor of the Chase Tower. He made some cheeky remark about the appearance of the new structure. Actually, it looks attractive — at least to my eyes. It’ll comprise four stories and 114,000 square feet at Seventh and Buchanan. Three floors of office space will sit atop a parking garage that will hold at least 500 vehicles.

Xcel plans to move in by the spring of 2017.

I’m glad to see the activity picking up downtown.

What about the floors that will be vacated at the Chase Tower? Developers there have done a great deal to improve the appearance of that skyscraper. It’s a bustling hub of activity now. However, West Texas A&M University is moving its Amarillo campus operation of out there eventually to a new site where the Commerce Building sits.

The exit of WT and now Xcel will vacate about a dozen floors of the Chase building.

That’s an unacceptable level of darkness in a building that towers so tall over our city.

 

political news

Palin now 'seriously' considering a WH run

Sarah Palin has gone from “considering” a campaign for the presidency to “seriously considering” it in 2016.

Oh, boy. This is getting fun.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/01/27/palin_hits_quasi-conservative_fox_on_fox_dings_oreilly_for_calling_potential_candidacy_reality_show.html

Palin dinged Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly for having the temerity to refer to a possible Palin campaign as a “reality show.” She went after who she calls “quasi-conservatives,” who, I guess, aren’t like her, which I suppose is a “true conservative.”

Truth be told, I no longer recognize the modern version of conservatism as I’ve always understood its political meaning.

A part of me laughs off a possible Palin candidacy. It cannot possibly be serious. Indeed, in the book “Game Change,” a chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign, key advisers to Republican nominee Sen. John McCain acknowledged not vetting Palin after her name emerged as a possible pick to join McCain on the Republican ticket. McCain’s senior political adviser Steve Schmidt acknowledges now that it was a huge mistake to select Palin to run with McCain.

Yet, another part of me would welcome a Palin campaign, perhaps for the same reason I’m cheering for Mitt Romney to run again. Mitt made some goofs while running for president in 2012. Palin has written the book on gaffes, blunders and foul-ups since her 2008 campaign for VP. So, maybe this is her chance at redemption.

Sounds good, yes? Sure, except that Mitt is a serious politician, while Sarah Barracuda is not.

Mitt can redeem his reputation. Palin is a lost cause.

 

business news, local news

David Wallace: All hat and no cattle?

David Wallace talked a good game when he came to visit us at the newspaper.

I think it was around 2011. He was a partner in this high-dollar development company. He brought his game to Amarillo and pitched it to local civic, government and business leaders. He and his partner, Costa Bajjali, would be the “lead developers” in the city’s effort to rebuild, revive, renovate and resuscitate downtown Amarillo.

He persuaded many of us that he had the goods. He could make it happen. I recall quite vividly the crux of his statement — which I cannot quote verbatim today — that Wallace Bajjali was not in the business of failure. He didn’t make all that money, Wallace implied, by putting the screws to communities that hired him and his company.

Well, guess what? Wallace Bajjali is now history. The firm’s relationship with the city has gone kaput. The Local Government Corporation has declared the firm to be in default. Wallace and Bajjali have had a serious falling out. Wallace has disappeared. So has Bajjali. The city is left holding the bag, so to speak, on a parking garage it still intends to build — despite the absence of Wallace Bajjali as the can’t-miss master developer.

I read in the paper today that Richard Brown, the current president of the LGC, said everyone — including the media should have done a better job of vetting Wallace Bajjali. I guess Brown is trying to shed some of the responsibility for this mess-up by suggesting the media deserve some of the blame for getting entangled with this company.

But the city did lay out some dough. I understand it totals about $1 million. For that kind of money, I think the public deserves an explanation on what in the world happened to this one-time supposedly fail-safe partnership.

I know we can’t force Wallace or Bajjali to spill the beans on each other. But as a taxpayer and as a one-time member of the media who was sold a bogus bill of goods, I’d like some answers to what went so terribly wrong.

International news

You go, Mme. First Lady!

Social media are chattering about first lady Michelle Obama.

No, she didn’t say anything worth noting. All she did was get off a plane in Saudi Arabia sans a scarf covering her hair, which is customary in the Sunni Muslim country.

Some, but not all, of her hosts were offended by the first lady. My own reaction? You go, Mrs. Obama!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27/michelle-obama-forgoes-a-headscarf-and-sparks-a-backlash-in-saudi-arabia/?tid=sm_fb

The president and first lady stopped briefly in Saudi Arabia to pay their respects after the death of King Abdullah. Saudi custom dictates that women cover their heads; many Saudi women wear niqabs.

But here’s the deal. Saudi women do so to honor their Islamic faith. The Obamas aren’t Muslim. They are practicing Christians. Indeed, although the custom is followed generally in Saudi Arabia, it’s not a requirement, particularly if women are seen only in, shall we say, secular surroundings. Were she to enter a mosque? Yes, I can understand the requirement to cover her hair as required by Islamic teaching.

And as the Washington Post reported: “Exceptions are made for foreigners, however, and Michelle – who did wear loose clothing that fully covered her arms – appears to have been one of them. In photographs from the official events, other foreign female guests are also shown not wearing headscarves.”

That hasn’t stopped Saudi social media from chattering all over creation about the supposed “insult” perpetrated by the American first lady.

Let’s just get over it, shall we?

local news

City cuts ties with developer, then marches on

So many questions, so few answers — at least not yet.

Amarillo’s Local Government Council, which is overseeing the city’s effort to breathe new life into the downtown business district, today cut its ties with an outfit it had hired to be the “master developer” for this project.

Wallace Bajjali, based out of Sugar Land, apparently has gone dark. It closed its office in Joplin, Mo., where it had another redevelopment arrangement. Its phone line in Sugar Land is disconnected. The company is gone, or so it appears.

The LGC met this morning in closed session, then reconvened in open session to vote unanimously to put Wallace Bajjali in “default.”

What gives? Where does the city’s downtown plan stand at this moment?

Well, LGC chairman Richard Brown said the parking garage that Wallace Bajjali was supposed to manage is proceeding anyhow. It’s fair to ask: How does it proceed without a managing developer?

Oh, and what about the ballpark and the downtown hotel? Those projects were assigned to new developers and they, too, will proceed, Brown said.

The private financing for all this work reportedly has been collected — or is about to be collected. No worries. The work will get done.

Wallace Bajjali has been paid more than $1 million in public money for work it has completed for the city, so there won’t be any recovery of funds. So, what does “default” mean in that context?

I recall meeting some years ago with David Wallace — the “Wallace” in this former partnership — and was taken aback by the absolute confidence he expressed in his company’s ability to do this project on time and on budget. Wallace, who resigned from the company effective immediately, told us at the Amarillo Globe-News about all the successes his development company had achieved.

He said something about how his company wouldn’t be in business today if it had racked up a string of failures.

Well, the company that Amarillo has come to know no longer exists.

That leads me to yet another question: What in the world happened between the partners — Wallace and Costas Bajjali — that blew this self-described “success story” apart?

Given the public investment already laid out, the public deserves some answers.

 

International news

Auschwitz liberation turns 70

This still-new year has just welcomed the first of many 70-year anniversaries, most of which are related to the Second World War.

It was 70 years ago this week that the Red Army, which was storming across eastern Europe on its way to Berlin, liberated the Auschwitz death camp, where the Nazi monsters exterminated thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, while pursuing what Adolf Hitler called “the final solution.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11368740/Holocaust-Memorial-Day-remembering-horror-of-Auschwitz-70-years-on.html

Other death camps would be liberated by the Soviets — and by American, British and Allied forces rolling toward Berlin from the west. They would uncover horrors never imagined.

The world will spend a good bit of time this year looking back on the final chapter of the world’s most destructive conflict.

Seventy years ago this year:

* Hitler died, taking his own life to avoid being captured by the Soviet army. Good riddance to that hideous monster.

* Franklin D. Roosevelt died. For many Americans alive at the time, he was the only president they knew. He helped rescue the nation from the depths of depression and then led it into battle against tyranny.

* The Manhattan Project brought us the atomic bomb, which FDR’s successor, President Truman, ordered dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We’ll have much more to say about that at a later time.

* The Allies declared Victory in Europe, and the world celebrated VE Day, as Nazi Germany surrendered.

* The Japanese surrendered later and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur accepted their surrender aboard the USS Missouri.

* The United Nations was founded in San Francisco.

Nineteen forty-five was a monumental year, yes?

World War II ended and the world began picking up the pieces of its shattered existence.

State news

Campus-carry gun bills are reloaded

1 Comment

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

College and university campuses have been victimized for decades by gun violence, so what do some Texas legislators want to do? They want to allow folks to pack heat onto those campuses.

That’s the way to solve the issue of gun violence. Bring in more guns.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2015/01/texas-lawmakers-reload-campus-carry-bills/

Texas Senate Bill 11 has 19 co-sponsors, which under the new rules of the Senate makes it eligible for vote in the full Senate. SB 11 won’t allow guns into campus hospitals, nor will it allow guns in elementary schools. I guess that’s a small victory for common sense.

When I read a blog posted by the Houston Chronicle about the bill’s status with the University of Texas System, well, I got a bit confused. The blog states: “Similar legislation has been proposed in previous years but failed after heavy opposition, especially from campus leaders. University of Texas Chancellor William McRaven recently came out against the effort.”

I can’t tell by reading this post whether McRaven — a retired Navy admiral and one-time SEAL — opposes the legislation or opposes the effort to derail it.

Whatever the case, the notion of allowing more guns onto higher education campuses makes this Texan — that would be me — quite nervous.

 

 

local news

Amarillo has just been decked

Something tells me that Amarillo has a budding crisis of confidence on its hands.

Wallace Bajjali, the developer hired by downtown business and civic interests to ramrod the development of the downtown business district, has vaporized — or so it appears.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/27943700/development-group-hired-to-renovate-downtown-amarillo-has-closed-offices

The company, based in Sugar Land, was supposed to spearhead the effort to collect enough private investors to build (a) a downtown hotel, (b) a multi-story parking garage and (c) an athletic field, aka “multipurpose event venue,” or MPEV for short.

As of today, or perhaps as of some undisclosed time prior to today, the company has closed up shop. Its office in Joplin, Mo., has been shuttered. Its headquarters phone number is Sugar Land has been disconnected. David Wallace, one of the principal owners of the firm, has quit.

Many of us throughout the city are likely wondering: What the hell has just happened?

Someone will need to explain this thoroughly and in language we all can understand.

I’m all ears.