Taliban aren’t ‘terrorists’?

January 20, 2016 kanelis2012

Let us hit the reset button for a moment.

When the United States secured the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who’d been held captive by the Taliban for five years, the rationale was that the Taliban aren’t a “terrorist organization.” That’s what the White House press flack, Josh Earnest, said about the negotiation that led to Bergdahl’s release.

Our policy has been that we don’t negotiate with terrorists, Earnest said. Since the Taliban isn’t a terrorist outfit, well, that gave our side the opportunity to secure Bergdahl’s release from captivity in Afghanistan.

Then we awake this morning to news that at least 20 people have been killed in a terrorist attack at a Pakistan university.

Who took responsibility for the tragedy? The Taliban!

Someone has some explaining to do.

Many of us out here haven’t bought the notion that the Taliban is anything but a terrorist organization. The ultraconservative extremists have been terrorizing Muslim women for longer than any of us can remember. They’ve been denying citizens of Pakistan and Afghanistan access to education. How do they do that? By killing them.

Isn’t that the ultimate form of terror?

It appears to be time for President Obama’s national security team to take another look at how it defines the Taliban.

They got it wrong about this monstrous organization.

national news, political news

Loyalty? Palin throws it away

January 20, 2016 kanelis2012

Well, that was fun to watch.

Former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed Donald J. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. She is the queen mother of the TEA Party movement.

The conventional wisdom had been that she’d endorse Ted Cruz for the GOP nomination.

It didn’t happen.

So now you have to wonder: Has Palin changed her stripes?

TEA Party loyalists — the hard-core folks — call Trump a closet liberal. He’s not the real deal, they say. He used to be friends with (gulp!) Bill and Hillary Clinton, for crying out loud. He’s given money to Democrats.

But then out came Sarah Barracuda today, talking glowingly about Trump.

As for Cruz, he’s now the man left in the cold.

Cruz welcomed Palin to a conservative action conference a year ago, calling her someone who “picks winners.” He called her “principled” and “courageous.”

Is she now all of those things, in Cruz’s mind? I’d bet not.

I never thought the Republican Party primary campaign could get any more fun — or hilarious — than it has been up to this moment.

Silly me. It just did.

national news, political news, religious news

We’re all sinners . . . and need forgiveness

January 19, 2016 kanelis2012

Donald Trump’s stumbling over the name of a New Testament book Monday seems to punctuate something many of us believed already.

The candidate’s bald-face pandering to a certain Republican Party voting bloc is unseemly on its face.

Trump stood before a “record crowd” at Liberty University and proclaimed the virtues of “Two Corinthians.”

OK, I am not a biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know the name of the book that contains the Apostle Paul’s “second letter” to the people of Corinth. Moreover, I’ve read “Second Corinthians” many times over the years.

Trump, though, has said something else that reveals the pandering element of his pitch to Christian voters. It is that he’s never sought forgiveness because “I don’t need it.”

Trump didn’t say it overtly, but statements such as that suggest he believes he is without sin. Now, the Bible I’ve read my entire life tells me that we’re all sinners. Every single human being who’s ever been born needs forgiveness for his or her sins.

I don’t intend to pick apart every single thing Trump said at Liberty University, nor do I intend to question Trump’s personal faith journey. Maybe it’s the real thing. Then again . . . well, I just don’t know.

I do recognize pandering when I see and hear it.

Look, I know that politicians pander. It’s part of their DNA. They have to pander to persuade voters that they — the politician — understands them.

Some politicians do it better than others. Trump has said all along he’s not a “career politician.” His performance at Liberty University certainly proves the point — and not necessarily in a way that should make the candidate proud.

Check this out.

State news

Bland jail death case still not resolved

January 19, 2016 kanelis2012

One can make at least this assumption about the arrest of a young woman.

It is that she well might be alive today if the Texas state trooper who arrested her had followed proper police procedure.

Sandra Bland, though, is dead after hanging herself in her Waller County jail cell. The Department of Public Safety trooper, Brian Encinia, has been indicted by a grand jury for falsifying the circumstances of Bland’s arrest.

DPS commander Col. Steve McCraw has told the Texas Tribune that the trooper blew it and that the agency is going to terminate the officer.

Now . . . is there cause for a wrongful death lawsuit, which Bland’s parents have filed against the state? I don’t know and I hate to speculate about that matter.

Bland was pulled over this past year in a traffic stop. She and Encinia got into an argument after Bland allegedly failed to signal properly prior to making a lane change. The trooper, rather than calming the young woman down, escalated the argument. She left her vehicle and, according to the trooper, struck him while he was taking her into custody.

To think that someone is thrown into the slammer for a lane-change violation. Good grief.

Well, the grand jury doubted the allegation that Bland had struck Encinia. Hence, the indictment.

This case drew national attention after corrections officers found Bland dead in her jail cell. I don’t believe she was killed by authorities in the lockup, which some had speculated. I believe she took her own life.

But the root cause of the entire tragic situation goes back to the arresting officer and his abject failure to follow proper policy.

I hope this incident has awakened police officers and their commanders to the dangers of every-day police work.

What’s more, I also hope it drives home the point that no traffic stop is never, ever routine.

***

See the video of Col. McCraw’s interview with Texas Tribune editor in chief Evan Smith.

http://www.texastribune.org/2016/01/19/video-a-conversation-with-steve-mccraw/

national news, political news

Don’t be overly ‘audacious,’ Mr. President

January 19, 2016 kanelis2012

President Obama hardly seems like an “audacious” fellow.

Remember the “No Drama Obama” mantra during his first term in the White House? That was meant to describe a president who disliked being overly aggressive in the pursuit of foreign or domestic policy.

I guess that’s about to change now that the president is entering his final year in office.

He wants to ponder “audacious” executive actions, things he can do unilaterally without the approval of Congress.

Presidential prerogative is an important element of governing. I’ve long believed in it, given that the president is elected nationally.

Barack Obama has used the power of his office — granted by the U.S. Constitution — relatively sparingly during his seven years in the White House. However, some of the orders he’s issued — such as those on immigration and on gun control — have caused considerable consternation.

Are they illegal? Is he “lawless,” as some Republican presidential candidates keep alleging as they toss out the red meat to their supporters from the stump? No on both counts, in my view.

But the president’s “audacious” use of executive authority clearly must have its limits.

I will continue to have a large measure of faith that the legal eagles in the Justice Department and in the White House’s West Wing know the limits set forth in the Constitution. What’s more, the president keeps reminding us that he taught constitutional law once.

So, if Congress isn’t going to help govern the country along with the White House, proceed, Mr. President.

But please, young man, be careful.

business news, national news, Uncategorized

Landline = lifeline . . . still

January 19, 2016 kanelis2012 1 Comment

Another friend of mine has announced he’s cutting himself loose.

He’s my age. A peer. A former colleague. A friend to this day.

He and his wife are cutting the cord, so to speak, by ending their landline telephone service. I guess they’re going to be a cell phone family.

My wife and I have wrestled with that issue for nearly as long as we’ve owned cell phones, which isn’t as long as most of our peers. We’ve waffled and wavered. We just cannot cut the cord ourselves.

Our sons are cell phone-only telecommunications consumers. They like it that way. They take their phones with them wherever they happen to be.

Us? We remain tethered to the landline.

We’ve had them our entire lives. They have become part of who we are, I reckon.

Do we intend to stay tied to the home phone, the landline for the rest of our lives? I doubt it, strongly.

I’ve noted on this blog about our upcoming retirement plans. They include significant amounts of time on the road. We’ll, quite obviously, be spending less time “at home” and more time in our “home away from home,” our fifth wheel.

Thus, it makes little sense for us to keep the landline. Correct?

I get it. My wife gets it. Our sons no doubt snicker at us for being so, oh, wedded to the old way.

Too bad.

For now and for the foreseeable future, we’re going to stay hooked to the landline. I cannot explain precisely why we want it that way. We just do.

When the moment presents itself, when it’s time to cut ourselves free of the telephone line, we’ll know it when it arrives.

International news, national news, political news

UK leaders want to ban Trump?

January 18, 2016 kanelis2012

Donald Trump has insulted his way to the top of the Republican Party presidential heap.

Suffice to say that if British Parliament members had a vote in this country, why, they would do all they could to keep anyone from endorsing Trump.

The House of Commons today debated whether to ban Trump from entering the United Kingdom. It’s all in the wake of Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the United States, as well as plenty of other things Trump has said along the presidential campaign trail.

To be honest, I don’t think that Parliament needs to debate this issue. Indeed, the decision rests ultimately with the British home secretary.

Still, we’ve heard a snootful from the Brits about Trump.

It ain’t pretty.

Trump doesn’t care who he insults. He should, at least in this case.

Great Britain is arguably our most loyal ally on the planet. Sure, we shook off the bonds of the British Empire in the 18th century and then fought them again in the early 19th century. Since then? We have been side by side through two world wars, the Cold War and now in the war against international terrorism.

What on Earth could be transpiring here if the Brits were to actually ban someone from entering their country if that certain someone happened to be elected president of the United States of America?

I’m not predicting either event will occur: Trump’s election and the home secretary’s decision to ban him from entering his country.

But members of the British Parliament have delivered a stunning rebuke of a guy who wants to become the next “leader of the Free World.”

Does he care? Again . . . he’d better.

local news

How about a State of the City speech, Mr. Mayor?

January 18, 2016 kanelis2012

I’ve asked this before, and didn’t get much reaction to it.

Why doesn’t the Amarillo mayor deliver an annual State of the City speech?

Governors give State of the State speeches. And, yes, some mayors craft annual speeches on the state of the cities they govern.

Not here.

I once broached the idea out loud and then-Mayor Debra McCartt gave what I believe was a single speech. I can’t remember its content, which I guess might be why mayors here don’t bother with such speeches.

However, the city has gone through quite a lot of change in the past 10 months.

We elected three new City Council members, the city manager quit, as did the city attorney; the assistant city manager retired. We had a municipal referendum on the ballot this past November on whether to support construction of a $32 million multipurpose event venue/ballpark downtown; voters approved it.

A lot of work is ongoing.

State transportation department crews are digging up highways all around the city; we’re going to get a new western segment of Loop 335 installed; the southern portion of the loop also is under construction; streets are torn up.

We’re getting a new downtown hotel and parking garage.

Why doesn’t Mayor Paul Harpole — and then future mayors — make it part of their official duty to inform us at the start of every calendar year about the state of the city?

We’ve got a Civic Center that could serve as an appropriate venue. We have public access television provided by our cable network to televise such an event.

Amarillo residents keep getting battered by the media — and I include myself here — for failing to vote in sufficient numbers. Do we not care to know how our city is faring?

Consider this yet another request for the mayor to give us the nitty-gritty on how Amarillo is progressing. And I’m even open to hearing where the city has fallen short and how the mayor intends to make it right.

International news, media news

Penn fails to make the case

January 18, 2016 kanelis2012 2 Comments

Sean Penn invented a word last night on “60 Minutes.”

He called himself an “experiental” journalist.

I’ve been working with words for, oh, damn near 40 years. I consider myself a journalist. I worked at four newspapers in two states. I enjoyed some modest success during my career.

“Experiental”? What the . . . ?

Penn is a movie actor of some renown. He recently ventured to Mexico, where he shook hands with Joaquin Guzman, aka El Chapo, the then-fugitive drug lord; he had escaped in early 2015 from a maximum security prison in Mexico. Penn interviewed this supremely evil individual for a 10,000-word article he wrote for Rolling Stone.

I watched with considerable pain in my gut as Penn sought to explain to CBS News correspondent Charlie Rose what he hoped to accomplish by writing a story about El Chapo, who was recaptured by Mexican authorities the day after the magazine article hit the streets.

I think I heard a tinge of sympathy in this guy’s voice as he tried to relay Guzman’s reasons for peddling drugs, for delivering so much misery to so many millions of people, for being responsible for the deaths of thousands of individuals with whom he has come in contact.

I also believe I detected a look of incredulity in Rose’s face as Penn offered his explanations.

And then Penn would drop that hideous, made-up adjective that he put in front of the word “journalist.”

This thought doesn’t come from me, but I’ll pass on what a friend of mine said this morning on social media.

My friend, too, is a trained journalist. He wants to know if he can now seek to become an “experiental movie actor.”

***

This just in: I’m advised that “experiental” is a real word. I stand corrected on that particular point.

Uncategorized

MLK Jr.’s dream still unfulfilled

January 18, 2016 kanelis2012

Banks are closed today. We won’t get any mail. The nation is observing the birthday of one of our greatest Americans.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be 87 if he were alive today.

His life came to a violent end on April 4, 1968. Yet we remember him today for the message he left behind, which was to seek change through peaceful means.

His greatest moment during his brief time among us? It had to be that speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Washington Mall, under the shadow of Abraham Lincoln’s Memorial.

We know it as the “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s been reported before but I want to mention it once again here.

The guts of the speech — the part of it that resonates to this very day — was delivered extemporaneously.

The first two-thirds of Dr. King’s address was fine. It flowed nicely.

Then came the rhetorical riff that stands for all time. The part where he told us of his dream that black children and white children can play together, how the world could sing out “Free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last!”

Watch it here.

The improvisation came reportedly at the urging of legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was on the podium with Dr. King and others that day. “Tell them about your dream, Martin,” she urged the great man.

And he did. He delivered. The world cheered at that moment.

Yes, we’ve made great strides since then. Congress has passed laws guaranteeing all Americans their basic civil rights and the right to vote. We’ve witnessed symbols of racial oppressions taken down from public squares. We have blended public school systems that had been separated by the race of students.

More work remains. Perhaps there will always be work to do.

However, today we remember a young Baptist preacher whose soaring rhetoric took a nation a huge step forward to the day when our dreams indeed will come true.

Happy birthday, Dr. King.

High Plains Blogger

Monthly Archives: January 2016

Taliban aren’t ‘terrorists’?

Loyalty? Palin throws it away

We’re all sinners . . . and need forgiveness

Bland jail death case still not resolved

Don’t be overly ‘audacious,’ Mr. President

Landline = lifeline . . . still

UK leaders want to ban Trump?

How about a State of the City speech, Mr. Mayor?

Penn fails to make the case

MLK Jr.’s dream still unfulfilled

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience