Monthly Archives: December 2015

local news, medical news

Higher ed turf fight in the offing … perhaps

ttucampus

Texas Tech University has announced it is considering the development of a school of veterinary medicine.

No plans have been set. It’s just talk at the moment. The word came from Tech Chancellor Bob Duncan that the university system is scouting around for a proper location while deciding if it actually wants to go ahead with development of the program.

Amarillo is considered one of the potential favorites for the new veterinary medicine campus.

The Texas Tribune that Tech has cited increasing student interest in the veterinary medicine campus and noted that Amarillo — with its huge agricultural base nearby — might be a good fit for such a campus.

OK, but it gets even more interesting.

Texas A&M University — which already has one of the premier veterinary medicine programs in the country, if not the world — is considering expanding that part of its curriculum to other regions of the state. You have just one guess on where the A&M System might locate that new veterinary medicine campus.

If you said West Texas A&M University, you’d win an undetermined prize.

The Tribune reported: “After Tech’s announcement, A&M System Chancellor John Sharp seemed to hint in a statement that A&M was considering expanding its school to other areas in the state.  ‘As a courtesy, last weekend I informed Chancellor Robert Duncan that the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine would soon announce a presence in several Texas A&M System schools,’ Sharp said. ‘In response, Mr. Duncan comes up with this long-rejected claim we should fund a vet school at Texas Tech. The Coordinating Board has specifically rejected the notion. The Legislature has rejected this for 40 years. We will proceed with our announcement as planned.’”

Here’s the full Texas Tribune story.

So, is there a bit of jockeying taking place here? Would the Texas Panhandle be in the running for both university systems’ desire for veterinary schools? I doubt strongly we’d get both of them.

Whatever happens, we’ll just have to stay tuned to see how this plays out.

national news, political news

Jeannette Rankin: ideological purist to the core

Rankin-2673195x

I started thinking about how I might describe ideological purity and then I came up with the name of someone who embodied it in spades.

Jeannette Rankin was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana. She served during two eras in the House and they coincided with our nation’s entry into the two world wars that dominated the 20th century.

What sets Rankin apart is that she voted against declarations of war in both instances.

While we lament politicians’ lack of ideological core and their willingness to bend in whichever direction the winds are blowing, we have this individual who stands tall as the purest of the pure.

Rankin was elected to the House in 1916, four years before women even had the right to vote! President Wilson came to Congress seek a war declaration in 1917 for entry into the Great War. He got it, but Rankin was among 56 House members to vote “no” on the request.

She left the House, but then was elected again in 1940.

Then came the “date which will live infamy,” Dec. 7, 1941. President Roosevelt came to Congress to ask once again for a declaration of war against the Empire of Japan. Every House member — except one — voted to declare war.

The lone holdout? Rep. Rankin.

She was a lifelong pacifist. When given a chance to vote for war, she opted twice to stick to her principles.

It wasn’t popular, particularly in the hours and days immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, to stand on a belief against war. Rep. Rankin did.

When I hear of individuals such as that, I become torn between conflicting emotions.

My dark side tells me to condemn these people for failing to heed their constituents’ wishes. My strong sense was that her Montana constituency favored going to war in both instance.

My kinder side wants to give her credit for standing foursquare on a principle she held dear to her heart.

I believe that today, as we remember Pearl Harbor and the war we declared against Japan and later, against Germany and Italy, I’ll give more credence to the part of me that salutes Jeannette Rankin.

 

International news, military news

Pearl Harbor: Infamy will live forever

attack

Seventy-four years ago today, airplanes swooped in over Honolulu and bombed the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor.

Battleship Row was decimated. The pilots in those planes then took aim at Hickam Field, where the U.S. Army had a substantial air base. More destruction followed.

Japan had committed an act of war against the United States.

The next day, President Roosevelt stood before the Congress and asked for a declaration of war. He got it by the end of the day.

War was a simpler endeavor back then.

One nation attacked another. The victim of that attack then declared war; the nation that did the attacking declared war right back. Both nations mobilized and sent young service personnel to the battlefield to fight it out.

Yes, we remember Pearl Harbor today as a “date which will live in infamy,” as FDR told us.

The young men we sent off to war — or what’s left of them — are old now. They’re in their 90s.

All told, the United States put 16 million men and women into uniform during that terrible period. Last I heard, there were around 2 million of them left.

We owe them everything. Our freedom. Our way of life.

Today, war looks different. We aren’t fighting nations. We are fighting ideologies. We are fighting a cunning and ruthless enemy.

Is a declaration of war possible now, in this era when we’re waging a conflict with an elusive force that stops at nothing to kill innocent victims — in the name of what they call “religion”?

I believe it is. The current president, Barack Obama, has asked Congress for what amounts to a war declaration. He wants a vote to “authorize” continued warfare against an enemy that has committed acts against us that are — in FDR’s words — every bit as “dastardly” as the attack on Pearl Harbor.

War, though, isn’t as simple now as it was then. Politics has gummed up our national resolve.

Still, we ought to keep those brave warriors — the living and those who have passed from the scene — who answered their nation’s call to arms more than seven decades ago in our thoughts today.

Their nation rallied behind them and crushed the tyrants who sought to bring so much harm to the world.

 

political news, State news

Texas GOP comes to its senses

103109_txsecession001_jv_png_312x1000_q100

I’ll admit something.

Part of me wanted Texas Republicans to be able to vote on whether to support the goofiest idea conceived since, oh, just before the Civil War. A Golden Triangle-based group wants a secession referendum placed on the GOP primary ballot in March.

My thought was, hey, let ’em vote on it. Let ’em vote it down and then we can be done with this nonsense. It won’t happen.

The Texas Republican Party executive committee has voted the idea down. It’s not going to the party’s ballot in March after all. The GOP frowns on outside groups, such as the Texas Nationalist Movement, putting issues on party ballots. My hunch is that the executive committee decision will stand, no matter what the Nationalist Movement does.

The Texas GOP sometimes seems a bit goofy. But with this decision, the party seems to be run for the most part by grownups.

The state Democratic Party was harsh in its criticism of the pro-secession measure. Imagine that. According to the Texas Tribune:

“Calling it ‘unpatriotic,’ the Texas Democratic Party had seized on the secession debate as evidence that the state GOP was falling victim to extremists in its own ranks.

“‘Every hardworking Texan should be worried that fringe issues are now the hot topic in the same party that controls state government,’ Crystal Kay Perkins, the executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement after the vote Saturday.”

Well, no need to worry about that now.

Reason has prevailed at the top of the Texas Republican Party.

Still, a resounding defeat at the polls would have sent an equally clear message.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

President restates anti-terror policy, and then …

barack

President Obama has asked something of Congress that the legislative branch of government isn’t likely to do.

He wants Congress to authorize the commander in chief to keep up the fight against the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations abroad.

The president’s speech from the Oval Office tonight didn’t break much new ground. He restated what he’s already done in the effort to destroy ISIL.

The bombing campaign will continue; we’ll deploy special forces to work with local ground forces in Iraq and Syria; we’ll keep hunting down terrorist leaders; we will work with allies such as France, the U.K. and Germany to pound terrorist targets; and we will seek to negotiate a ceasefire in Syria so that our allies and “other countries, such as Russia” can concentrate on eliminating international terrorists.

Then came the challenge to the other branch of government that needs to buy into this struggle.

Congress must vote to authorize continued action. The British Parliament enacted a similar authorization this past week and within minutes of the vote, British jets took off to hit ISIL targets in Syria.

The president has asked Congress, in effect, to issue a declaration of war against ISIL. Will it happen? I’m not holding my breath.

Republicans who control both legislative chambers seem to believe we need to commit ground troops to this fight. They want to return American service personnel to the battlefield. Air strikes aren’t enough, they say. So, let’s put “boots on the ground.”

The president won’t do that. He reiterated that view again tonight.

However, he has tendered a reasonable challenge to Congress. Let’s put forward a united front to our enemies, authorize the president to continue the fight and demonstrate that the United States is fully committed to winning this war.

My own view is that we’re at war with the Islamic State, then the president needs to ask Congress to issue the declaration of war … and that Congress needs to act.

What we have now on the table is the next-best thing.

Members of Congress, give the president the authorization he seeks to fight this war.

 

national news

President Carter has more work to do

**FILE**Former President Jimmy Carter takes a question during a conference at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Tuesday, June 7, 2005. An independent panel Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2005 reversed a Pentagon recommendation that the New London submarine base in Connecticut, base be closed. One of the panel members even said a letter from Carter _ the only president to ever serve as a submariner _ pleading the panel to keep the base open was one of the reasons he voted against closure. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

Count me as one American who was thinking dark thoughts when President Carter announced some months ago that his doctors had found cancer in his brain.

There was a certain sound of resignation in the former president’s voice as he told the nation of the diagnosis, while announcing he would proceed with radiation treatment.

Then came news today. It was much better news … at a time when we Americans are looking for a glimmer of hope somewhere in light of recent events in California and the still-simmering aftermath.

President Carter told his Sunday school class he is cancer-free. The cancer is gone. The treatment worked, did its job.

This is an admirable man. He spent four years in the White House and has spent the longest post-presidential period in the nation’s history doing good work around the world. He’s been building houses for poor people; he developed the Carter Center in Atlanta; he has been monitoring elections in countries that never had free and fair elections before; he’s been speaking out on issues of the day.

I was delighted to hear this good news about the former president’s  health.

Yes, he’s an old man. He’s past 90 and he’s lived a full and fabulous life. When it’s his time to leave this world, the president — a deeply devout Christian — will be ready.

I’m glad to know his time among us isn’t up just yet.

 

local news, Uncategorized

Taking the big leap toward retirement

retirement-sign-copy

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

I am a happy man today.

Perhaps you’re asking, “Why?” Well, I’ll tell you.

This morning I took the huge — or, as Donald Trump would say, “Yuuuuuge!” — leap toward retirement by applying for my Social Security benefits.

My 66th birthday is right around the corner. That’s when I become eligible to draw full retirement benefit from the Social Security Administration. That means I can draw the benefit and keep working part-time — which I intend to do.

On the advice of three women I trust implicitly — starting with my wife — I made the decision to go ahead and not wait any longer.

The other two are our tax accountant and the manager of our retirement investment portfolio. They both have concluded that it’s best to go now. Don’t wait any longer, they say, even though the longer I would have waited the more I could get monthly once I got approved.

Part of my Social Security income will be subject to income taxation if I earn more than a certain amount annually. But it’s a small enough portion, with the tax liability being minimal, I figure, “Why not go now?”

I should stipulate as well that I’ve never minded paying taxes. Unlike some of my fellow Americans out there who rant, rave and rebel against paying taxes, I never have harbored that kind of anti-tax sentiment.

I made the application this morning and ever since submitting the information online I’ve feeling strangely satisfied that I’ve done the right thing.

I want to add another good word. Many of us bitch constantly about the government and its sometimes-complicated machinery. I was amazed today at the ease of applying for this benefit online. The questions were clear; the government website provided “help” links if I stumbled — and yes, I checked with two of them to make sure I was answering the questions correctly.

It was easy, man.

It’s a big step. I had been looking forward to taking it for a good while. Now that I’ve taken it, I’m feeling even better about the decision my wife and I have made.

 

 

national news, religious news

More guns to ‘end those Muslims’ … yeah, that’s it

falwell

Jerry Falwell Jr. sounds a good bit like the late Jerry Falwell Sr.

The elder Falwell founded Liberty University, a leading Christian-based institution of higher learning. His son now runs it.

Falwell Sr. once produced a video that alleged Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in the murder of their close friend Vincent Foster. You remember “The Clinton Chronicles.”

Falwell Jr. now says, and this takes my breath away, that more students on the Liberty U. campus in Lynchburg, Va., should be carrying firearms so they could “end those Muslims before they walked in.”

All … right.

Did he really mean that? Does he really mean that “more good people” should be carrying weapons to kill Muslims?

Jerry Jr. says he didn’t mean that. He says he was referring to radical Islamic terrorists. OK, but he didn’t say that. According to the Washington Post: “I just wanted to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to get your permit. We offer a free course,” he said. “Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”

By “they,” does he mean Muslims, or just those who commit acts of terror?

It’s not entirely clear to me.

Falwell’s language defies understanding.

I get that he’s angry and frightened over what has just occurred in San Bernardino. But I have trouble grasping that a leader of a prominent Christian university would actually use such inflammatory language to whip up a crowd in the manner that he reportedly did in his speech at Liberty U.

Virginia’s governor, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, said this in a statement: “My administration is committed to making Virginia an open and welcoming Commonwealth, while also ensuring the safety of all of our citizens. Mr. Falwell’s rash and repugnant comments detract from both of those crucial goals. Those of us in leadership positions, whether in government or education, must take care to remember the tremendous harm that can result from reckless words.”

Yes, I know that Falwell’s message will resonate with many other Americans.

Such a message, however, simply saddens me at a time when millions of Americans are filled with overwhelming sadness over our nation’s latest mass-shooting tragedy.

national news

Killers victimized their infant daughter, too

farook and malik

Of all the victims of the latest mass shooting, in San Bernardino, Calif., the most troubling of all well might be a six-month-old girl.

She’s still alive. But she is the daughter of the two people suspected of carrying out the terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured many more.

How does one comprehend the act of taking an infant to her grandparents’ home, leaving her there, and then launching a mission of terror against innocent victims at a social services agency?

What happens now to this little girl? Sure, she’ll be reared by her grandparents. I get that. What is more difficult to get is what will become of her as she comes of age.

Will she ever know of the tragedy that her parents, Tafsheen Malik and Syed Farook, inflicted on the world? Should she know what her parents did?

I’ll let others debate that one. I’m not going there.

A little girl now is left to grow up without a set of parents who presumably loved her, but who felt compelled to commit this horrific act.

Who’s the villain in this tragedy? It’s looking as though Malik was the “radicalized” one, that she persuaded her husband to join her in this jihad against those at the agency who were celebrating at a Christmas party.

But, of course, that does not absolve Farook of anything. They both abandoned their baby girl to take up for some demented cause.

She’s now left to grow up and enter a world that’s been made decidedly less safe and comforting by the two people who broke their solemn pledge to protect her.

This is a singular tragedy that defies logic at every level imaginable.

 

Sports news

Remembering a humble pro sports executive

inman

I shared a story with a young friend of mine this week, and I want to share it here. It involves a now-deceased professional sports executive who embodied the kind of humility we see little of in today’s world of pro sports.

On June 5, 1977, the Portland Trail Blazers won the National Basketball Association championship. They beat the Philly 76ers in six games, winning the final game in Portland.

Oh, and Portland is my hometown. I didn’t attend the game, but watched it on TV. You’ll recall that the Sixers had some pretty good athletes: Julius Erving, Darryl Dawkins and George McGinnis come to mind.

I was working at the time as a sports writer for a small suburban daily paper in Oregon City, about 15 miles south of Portland. I was not yet 28 years of age.

The Blazers scheduled a victory parade through downtown Portland a few days after the big win. My editor assigned me to cover it, to shoot pictures and write a story about the event for the next evening’s paper.

Off to Portland I went.

The parade commenced. I followed the open cars along several streets, shot some pictures of the players waving to their fans and then ended up in Terry Schrunk Plaza, a park in front of a 40-story bank building.

The crowd was enormous. I looked across the way and saw a smaller building attached by an overhead walkway to the skyscraper. I went to that building, which overlooked the plaza and the crowd of about 60,000 or so fans; all told, the parade drew perhaps a half-million folks into downtown Portland.

The players were introduced. Bill Walton! Maurice Lucas! Terry Gross! Lionel Hollins! All of them took their bows. Head coach Jack Ramsay said a few words.

Then I looked across the platform where I was standing and noticed another familiar figure. He was all alone.

It was Stu Inman. And who is this man? Oh, he was just the guy who built the team that was being honored below. Inman was the general manager of the Blazers. He negotiated the deals that signed Walton, Lucas and the others who had just brought much glory to the city.

Why wasn’t he down there, soaking up the love that was being thrown at the team? I walked over to him, introduced myself — and asked him directly, “Stu, why aren’t you down there?”

“Oh, that’s for someone else,” he said. He wanted the players and the coaches to collect all the adulation. It wasn’t his thing, he said.

Fair enough. I thanked him, congratulated him and said so long.

Humble. That’s the word that comes to mind today as I look back on that man and that time.

I’m trying to imagine: Do you think Dallas Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones would stay away?