Monthly Archives: July 2015

International news

Too many sharks, or too many humans?

Brian Kilmeade is one of Fox News Channel’s co-hosts on its “Fox and Friends” morning show.

He wonders — in the wake of the spate of shark attacks — whether coastal authorities are doing enough to rid the waters of the predatory fish before swimmers dive into the surf.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/foxs-brian-kilmeade-why-arent-we-clearing-the-waters-of-sharks-so-ocean-swimming-is-safe/#.Va0iEG7QGPA.facebook

A champion surfer, Mick Fanning, was attacked by what is thought to be a great white shark while surfing off the South Africa coast. He fended off the attack and was rescued.

Still, Kilmeade pondered aloud: “You would think that they would have a way of clearing the waters before a competition of this level,” he opined. “But I guess they don’t.”

I rather like the response from a shark expert, George Burgess, who told The New York Post: “We’re basically flooding them out of their own home. It’s a function of how many people we’ve got,” Burgess pointed out. “You get this unholy mix of bait fish, sharks and humans together. When you have that, you’re going to have some bites.”

So, is the problem that we have too many human beings swimming in shark habitat? I get what Scripture says about humans having “dominion” over the animals.

Let’s be reasonable about this. Why would you stage a surfing competition in a coastal region where it is known to be populated by predators, such as great white sharks?

The oceans are vast and so are the beaches that surround them. How about looking elsewhere for those monster waves?

military news, national news, political news

Politics of ‘personal destruction’ bites the GOP

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This comes from Bill Press, a noted Democratic Party loyalist, TV commentator, author, pundit and partisan gadfly.

He posted this on his Facebook feed today.

“You might say: ‘What goes around, comes around.’

“In 2004, it was OK for Republicans to attack war hero John Kerry. But suddenly in 2015, it’s not OK for another Republican to attack war hero John McCain. I’m sorry. That doesn’t work. To murder yet another aphorism: “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

“Don’t get me wrong. I think Donald Trump’s comments about John McCain are disgusting. I like McCain. I believe he’s the real thing: a genuine American war hero, who deserves the respect and gratitude of every American, no matter what you think of his politics.

“But Republicans can’t have it both ways. They can’t practice one kind of politics – and then whine and moan when somebody plays the same kind of politics against them.

“Two lessons to be learned here. First, the Republican Party should do what I suggested a month ago: Disown Donald Trump and throw him out of the party.

“Two, Republicans should stick to the issues and stop playing the politics of personal destruction. Because, eventually, it’ll turn around and bite you in the ass. It just did.”

I’ll add only this.

John Kerry and John McCain happen to be close friends. Their Vietnam War combat experience is their common bond. They worked together in the U.S. Senate to help establish diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam.

And Kerry, who’s now secretary of state, has strongly condemned the comments that Trump made about his friend.

military news, State news

By all means, let soldiers carry their firearms

Gov. Greg Abbott has issued exactly the right order to allow Texas National Guard personnel to carry firearms while they are on their various military installations.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/18/gov-greg-abbott-calls-national-guard-be-armed/

The order comes in the wake of the shooting deaths of four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tenn., by a young man.

Abbott said: “Arming the National Guard at these bases will not only serve as a deterrent to anyone wishing to do harm to our service men and women, but will enable them to protect those living and working on the base.”

Indeed, military personnel are trained in the use of firearms and they absolutely should have standing orders to carry them when the needs arise.

If the governor sees the potential for violence — and the tragedy in Chattanooga suggests such potential exists anywhere — then it’s right for him to arm the men and women who are serving the state.

My hope is that every governor in every state issues the same orders to the men and women in uniform under their respective commands.

national news, political news

McCain doesn’t need apology, but he deserves one

John McCain says he doesn’t “need an apology” from Donald Trump, who’s inflamed the political rhetoric by suggesting that McCain isn’t a “war hero.”

The Arizona U.S. senator, though, said family members of others who have served and sacrificed for their country need the apology from the flame-throwing Republican presidential candidate.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-john-mccain-feud-veterans-usa-today-op-ed-120347.html?hp=t3_r

Well, if you’ll excuse me for butting in, senator … but you certainly deserve an apology from the bombastic blowhard, Trump.

McCain’s story is about as well-known as any political story out there. His Navy fighter jet was shot down during McCain’s 23rd combat mission during the Vietnam War. He suffered a broken leg and two broken arms when he ejected from his airplane over Hanoi. McCain was taken captive and imprisoned for more than five years. He was tortured, held in solitary confinement, tortured some more. His injuries never were treated properly. He resisted his captors the best he could.

If that doesn’t define heroism, then perhaps nothing does.

McCain told “Morning Joe”: “I’m not a hero, but those who were my senior ranking officers, people like Col. Bud Day, a congressional Medal of Honor winner, and those that have inspired us to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t have been capable of doing. Those are the people that I think he owes an apology to.”

Trump — who obtained multiple student and medical deferments during the war and never served — has bloviated quite badly over McCain’s service.

Yes, he should apologize to McCain — and to all others who have served.

 

business news, local news

Fort Wayne emerges as civic test case for Amarillo

Fort Wayne, Ind., is home to roughly 253,000 individuals.

Amarillo’s population is just a shade less than 200,000.

Fort Wayne has developed a downtown convention and entertainment district that includes — get ready for it — a multipurpose event venue.

Amarillo wants to re-create its downtown district into something quite similar.

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2015-07-18/can-it-work-here

An article in the Amarillo Globe-New by my old pal Jon Mark Beilue asks whether a Fort Wayne-style plan can work in Amarillo.

I continue to see the Amarillo proposal as a net positive for the city that could turn into a spectacular positive.

Fort Wayne has made it happen, despite some serious push back as plans were being formulated. Interesting, when you consider the resistance that has developed here over a plan that looks for all the world — to many of us, at least — like a prescription for revival.

Beilue makes an important point in comparing what Amarillo wants to do with what Fort Wayne has accomplished. The cities are comparable in size. He notes the huge disparity in population between Amarillo and, say, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, which also have enjoyed spectacular downtown revivals. He writes: “Its (Fort Wayne’s) metro area is 416,800, about 165,000 more than Amarillo. That’s not apples to apples, but is a more realistic comparison than to the major cities of Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, which have undergone large-scale downtown transformations.”

Beilue then writes: “’We came together as a community and came up with something really valuable for economic development, for downtown development and a way to retain and gain jobs,’ said Graham Richard, who was Fort Wayne’s mayor when the project was approved.”

Why is that such a difficult concept to grasp? Some folks here — and I have not accepted the idea that they comprise a majority of our population — keep looking for reasons to oppose the project.

The MPEV won’t work. The city needs to expand the Civic Center. Too many palms are being greased. It’s going to cost taxpayers a fortune.

That’s a sample of the kind of thing we keep hearing.

Are this city’s residents so uniquely contrarian that we simply refuse to fathom a future that looks radically different from our past?

Take a good look at the article attached to this blog post.

It’s enlightening.

My own takeaway is pretty straightforward: If a city such as Fort Wayne, Ind., which doesn’t seem to have that much more to offer than Amarillo can remake itself, then what in the world is stopping us from marching toward a brighter future?

political news

Trump won’t apologize? Shocking, I’m tellin’ ya

Donald Trump says he won’t apologize for denigrating John McCain’s service during the Vietnam War.

He won’t say he’s sorry for telling an audience in Iowa that McCain’s status as a war hero is “only because he was captured. I prefer people who weren’t captured.”

He won’t take back the statement that has offended other military veterans — not to mention those who also were captured by enemy forces and subjected to torture, not just in Vietnam but in all wars dating back to World War II.

This digging in by Trump perhaps might the most unsurprising aspect of the firestorm that has erupted on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

You see, to apologize means that the person doing the apologizing needs to feel shame for what he or she said.

Donald Trump is shameless to the max. His sole purpose in making outrageous statements is to get people talking about him.

I consider Trump to be a political buffoon and an embarrassment to the Republican Party, whose presidential nomination he’s seeking.

However, I do not think he’s a stupid man. I am quite certain he knows precisely what he’s saying and he expects precisely the reaction he gets when he says these things.

Should he take back what he said about Sen. McCain — the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee? Of course he should.

First, though, he’s got to reveal some shame.

I do not expect him to do that. Neither should anyone else.

national news

Klansman statement is soaked in irony

Time for a pop quiz, ladies and gentlemen.

You ready? Here goes: What comes into your mind — immediately — when you hear the term “Ku Klux Klan”?

Time’s up.

The answer should be: hatred, bigotry, violence, virulent and vicious racism and anti-Semitism.

It is with that context established that I must offer a brief comment on a statement offered this weekend at a clash between supporters of the KKK and the Black Panthers, who gathered in front of the South Carolina state capitol to protest the taking down of the Confederate flag. The flag came down as a response to the heinous murders of nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, S.C., by a white gunman. A young man is accused of the crime.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/19/us/south-carolina-kkk-black-panther-rally/index.html

The KKK and the Panthers rallied today to express different points of view of the flag.

One comment stands out, at least to me. It came from a Klansman, who told CNN: “The Confederate flag does not represent hate. A lot of Americans died for that flag,”

Ah, yes. It “does not represent hate.”

Back to my question about the Klan: What words come to mind when you hear the term?

I’ve actually covered a couple of Klan rallies. Both were in Texas; one in Orange and one in Amarillo. They took place to protest government policies that helped African-Americans. What was the predominant symbol seen at both rallies? The Confederate battle flag.

Let’s recall — if we need reminding — that the Klan has a long and infamous history of violence toward blacks and Jews. Lynching? Shootings? Arson? Cross-burnings?

And they have performed these acts while standing next to or under the Confederate battle flag. They’ve wrapped themselves in that banner. They proclaimed proudly that they stand for what the flag stands for. And that would be … ?

The Klansman is right about one element of his statement. A “lot of Americans” did die for the flag. He didn’t say, apparently, that they fought on the side that sought to tear the country apart. Why was that? Because they fought that that euphemistic principle of “states’ rights,” which was to allow states to continue the practice of slavery.

So, let’s quit slinging the horse manure around on this issue.

political news

This is when Donald Trump’s candidacy died

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Mark it down.

The weekend of July 18-19 is when Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy came to a screeching halt.

That’s the good news.

The bad news — which in reality is good news — is that (a) he doesn’t realize it, (b) he’ll refuse to realize it and (c) he’ll stay the course for as long as he can.

Trump decided to self-immolate his campaign by declaring to a conservative audience that he preferred U.S. military veterans “who weren’t captured.” That was his inimitable way of denigrating the heroic service of another Republican presidential candidate, 2008 GOP nominee John McCain.

Sen. McCain, of course, was captured by North Vietnam when his plane was shot down in 1967. He suffered grievous injuries, which weren’t treated properly his captors.

He spent more than five years in captivity. He came out in 1973, along with hundreds of other POWs, after the United States agreed to a negotiated end to the Vietnam War.

Trump, though, didn’t serve in the military. He got those deferments, allowing the war to swallow up millions of other young Americans.

He didn’t have a chance in hell of being nominated by the Republican Party, let alone getting elected as the 45th president of the United States.

This latest bit of verbal excess just seals the deal.

If his chance of nominated was next to nil before, it’s now really at — or below — that level today.

But, heck, don’t drop out, Donald. Some of your GOP foes think you’ve disgraced yourself enough. Get out, man, they’re imploring him.

Stay in, Donald. Another fellow GOP candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, thinks The Donald deserves to be heard. I do, too.

However, he’s going to find it harder and harder to get his message heard above the laughter — and the boos.

media news, political news

Yes, John McCain is a hero

I think I’ve officially heard all there is to hear.

Of all the things that have poured out of Donald Trump’s mouth, he finally said more than most Americans can handle.

He actually said that U.S. Sen. John McCain does not qualify as a war hero. He really and truly denigrated the service McCain performed for his country.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-attack-on-john-mccain-war-record-is-new-low-in-us-politics/ar-AAdbgjc

Is there anything that Trump will not declare off limits? Has this political buffoon said enough?

I am not a political fan of Sen. McCain. I do not like his world view. I didn’t vote for him when he ran for president in 2008. But as God himself is my witness, I truly admire this man’s service. I consider him to be a heroic figure.

And for Trump to ignite the firestorm that he’s ignited through utterly careless musings about someone who — in what passes for his political judgment — criticized him for earlier statements, well, that goes so far beyond the pale it defies Americans’ ability to express their rage in harsh enough terms.

Not only that … yes, there’s more, Trump did not serve in our nation’s military. He obtained student deferments during the Vietnam War. By my standard, Trump qualifies as a “chicken hawk,” who has zero standing to comment on someone who did serve — and did so with remarkable valor and, oh yeah, heroism.

McCain never has leaned on his service during the Vietnam War to promote a political cause. He was shot down over Hanoi in 1967; he suffered serious injuries as he parachuted into a lake in the middle of the city. He was taken captive, thrown into a cell, beaten nearly to death, suffered other forms of torture. He was placed into solitary confinement, brought out, beaten and tortured some more and then returned to solitary.

He was given a chance for an early release as a POW; the North Vietnamese thought they could get political mileage out of releasing young McCain early, as his father was a senior naval officer who helped shape U.S. war policy in Vietnam. McCain declined to be released. His payback for refusal? More torture.

That doesn’t qualify him as a hero?

Donald Trump has lost his marbles.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another GOP presidential candidate and an Air Force veteran, said Trump’s attack on McCain is a “new low in American politics” and demanded that Trump “immediately withdraw from the race for president.”

Aww, heck. Trump ought to stay in the race — and keep shooting off his mouth.

national news, political news, State news

Get rid of gun free zones? Really?

Back in 1995, when the Texas Legislature was debating whether to allow Texans to carry concealed handguns, the publisher for whom I worked posed an interesting question to our state senator.

“Why don’t you just allow folks to carry guns on their hips and walk around the State Capitol?” he asked the late Teel Bivins, a Republican and an avid proponent of gun-owners rights.

I cannot recall Bivins’s response. Perhaps he thought it was a rhetorical question.

But it comes to mind now as I read this essay about gun free zones in the wake of the Chattanooga murders of four Marines and a sailor.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/gun-control-us-capitol-120310.html?hp=t2_r#.VapPCbnbKt8

Why not allow guns into the U.S. Capitol?

Joel Zeitz, the author of the essay, noted that Donald Trump sounded like a mainstream Republican when he said we need to “get rid of gun free zones.” According to Trump, the men who died at the hands of the shooter didn’t have a chance because they were in a zone where gun are prohibited, which of course didn’t stop the shooter from sneaking a gun into the place.

The U.S. Capitol has seen gun violence erupt. People have gotten past security systems with weapons. They have harmed individuals and damaged the structure.

Would guns inside the Capitol stopped the incidents? I have trouble believing they would have worked.

Texas’ concealed handgun carry law, by the way, hasn’t been the disaster some of us thought it would be when the Legislature enacted it two decades ago.

However, this argument that more guns makes us a safer society has yet to be proven — at least to me.