Monthly Archives: July 2016

national news, political news, State news

Welcome, Mr. President, but please … no politics

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President Barack Obama isn’t likely to get the message I’m about to deliver — but I’m going to deliver it anyway.

The president is coming to Dallas on Tuesday to attend an interfaith memorial service in honor of the five law enforcement officers who were slain this past week by the gunman who opened fire at the end of a Black Lives Matter-sponsored march downtown.

I want him to steer away from politics. By that I mean I hope the president speaks exclusively about the officers’ lives, their heroism, their dedication to duty and to their community and to the love of their grieving families.

He might be tempted to veer — if only briefly — into the realm of gun violence and the lethality of the weapon used by the shooter. He might be drawn to say something about the need to tighten rules and laws that allow people to obtain these weapons.

My wish is for the president to save that speech for another time, another venue, another context.

Dallas is hurting. The nation is hurting over the senseless loss of life.

A memorial service by definition is designed to pay tribute to the fallen and, if possible, to celebrate the contributions they brought to this earthly world.

I share the desire to welcome the president to Texas. I’m glad he cut short his NATO summit to come here.

Barack Obama is a wise man who will be guided by his conscience — not to mention by his team of political advisers. I hope they tell him: Mr. President, stick to the matter at hand, which as we see it is to help this community heal its grievous emotional wounds.

national news

No need to say killers’ names out loud

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President Obama has been taking flak for declining to refer to radical Islamic terrorists by that name.

He’s playing a curious game of omission that puzzles some of us.

Accordingly, I’ve decided to play my own similar game. I’m no longer going to refer to mass murderers by their names.

I’m not alone in this symbolic decision. Some media outlets have done so already. I’m all for that decision.

There’ve been so many of them now, going back, I suppose, to the 1966 murder from the top of the Texas Tower at the University of Texas-Austin. I’ve referred to that killer by name many times in the past. I won’t do so here — or ever again. He was killed by police officers.

Since then, well, we’ve had a number of them. The recent string of mass murders began with the Columbine High School massacre. It’s been a non-stop string of them ever since.

I will acknowledge having in the past referred to the two shooters at Columbine, to the madman at Newtown, Conn., to the (officially) alleged shooter in Charleston, S.C., and to the monster who killed those people in Orlando, Fla., by name already. Yes, there have been others. Too many others, to be sure.

My declaration came after the Orlando shooting, though.

When the Charleston suspect goes on trial, it will be difficult to refrain from identifying him by name, but I’ll give it a go. Maybe I’ll just refer to him as “the defendant.” Does that work?

The guy who shot those Dallas police officers to death this past week now deserves to be cast into oblivion. He’s dead, too, along with most of the aforementioned gunmen.

To mention their names is to call attention away — if only for an instant — from the victims of their heinous actions.

So, to assuage my own feelings, I hereby pledge to refrain from mentioning these monsters’ names out loud.

Will it take our minds off the evil acts they committed? Hardly. We all know what they did and we feel no less pain over the tragic loss of life by refusing to mention their names.

There. I feel better already.

national news

Use robots as last resort, not first

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The Dallas Police Department has earned high praise over the years for its progressive approach to law enforcement.

It stresses community policing and outreach; it employs a widely diversified force of officers working in an ethnically and racially diverse city of more than 1.3 million residents; it has a tactical squad that is second to none.

This past Thursday night, the police department deployed a special weapon to eliminate the shooter who had gunned down 12 officers, killing five of them at the end of a peaceful march through downtown Dallas.

It was a bomb-toting robot device that it armed with a Claymore mine and then detonated near the shooter, who died in the blast.

Some have questioned whether the use of the device was wise. Police Chief David Brown stands firmly behind his decision, as do many other law enforcement officials around the country.

Chief Brown made the right call.

The shooter posed an imminent threat to other officers, not to mention to civilians caught in the hail of gunfire. Dallas PD negotiators sought to talk the gunman into surrendering. They sought a peaceful end to the event. He was having none of it.

The device worked perfectly.

Now, having expressed support for the decision to use the robotic bomb, I want to caution its future use by other departments that possess that kind of lethal technology.

I truly hope it becomes a case of last-resort, rather than first-resort deployment.

Police occasionally have to take extraordinary means to quell the kind of violence that erupted in Dallas this past week.

This technology, though, should be used only when circumstances warrant it … such as the events that unfolded Thursday night in downtown Dallas.

national news

Black Lives Matter? Yes, but no more than any other

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We’ve been getting bombarded lately with commentary about Black Lives Matter, a movement born out of a spate of deaths of young black men at the hands of police officers.

I don’t intend here to debate each case, but I do want to call attention briefly to what I believe has been something of a perversion of what the message “Black Lives Matter” is intended to convey.

Critics of the movement contend — wrongly, in my view — that its name suggests that Black Lives Matter more than others’ lives. They have formed a kind of counter-movement, calling it All Lives Matter.

Certainly, all lives do matter. The loss of anyone’s life unjustly is a shame and should be mourned.

Black Lives Matter’s intent, as I understand, is to suggest that Black Lives Matter as much as anyone else’s life.

But as we’ve seen in recent days, with the shooting in Dallas of those five law enforcement officers at the end of a Black Lives Matter march, critics of the movement have actually sought to blame its organizers for the violence that erupted.

The young man who opened fire on the officers was seeking precisely to undo the intent of the march. He didn’t speak for the movement with his weapon. He spoke only for himself, but the critics of the movement have sought to conflate the individual’s evil intent with what — until the gunfire erupted — had been a peaceful march through downtown Dallas.

The perversion of Black Lives Matter’s name is a bit reminiscent of what has happened to the Don’t Mess With Texas slogan that was adopted in the 1980s — as a statewide anti-littering motto. Some groups around the state have morphed that slogan into a kind of macho mantra that speaks to Texas pride, Texas individualism and Texas bravado.

Do black lives matter? They damn sure do. Let’s not presume, though, to suggest it means that black lives matter more than anyone else’s life.

It also would do us all good to stop seeking to find blame for what happened the other night in Dallas. Let us devote our energy into healing a stricken community and nation.

national news

Dallas set to begin long road back from grief

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It’s been said in recent days that the tragedy that struck Dallas is somewhat reminiscent of an earlier time, another tragedy, another moment of profound community sorrow.

The deaths of five police officers is tragic in the extreme and no one should give short shrift to the grief. Their families are shattered. A community is forced to ask itself “Why?” in the wake of the violence that erupted the other night near the end of a peaceful march through the city’s downtown district.

Dallas, though, has shown a community spirit that was challenged in the most horrific fashion imaginable. It occurred nearly 53 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was gunned down while riding in a motorcade through the city.

Those of us who are old enough to recall that terrible shock understand the national grief that enveloped us all. I’m not at all sure how one grapples with such grief when it happens in your community, with your neighbors directly involved.

Dallas suffered a terrible stigma as a result of that single act of violence in 1963. It took a while for the city to recover. It did.

It became an even more vibrant community. It grew out of its grief and has become one of the world’s — not just one of the nation’s — great cities.

It’s good to take note that communities far more often than not are able to dig deep to find the reservoir of encouragement from which they will build a path toward the future.

Whether they are struck by profound natural disaster or by the kind of violence that erupted the other night — and that which claimed the life of a world leader more than a half-century ago — they find a way back.

I am supremely confident that Dallas will recover and that it will emerge from this tragedy an even better community.

Some prayer and good wishes clearly are in order as Dallas seeks to collect itself.

business news, local news

Downtown Amarillo opens another venture

Fresh Vegetables at market

Amarillo’s downtown district is undergoing significant change, perhaps even more dramatic change than we’ve witnessed at City Hall during the past year or so.

Amarillo Community Market opened today.

It brings together artisans and food producers to sell produce and assorted goods to customers who wander downtown to browse and buy. Check out the link right here:

http://mix941kmxj.com/the-amarillo-community-market-opens-on-july-9th/

Will this concept succeed? Will it flourish? Will it become part of downtown’s fabric?

No one knows.

However, it does remind me of the kinds of urban projects that have succeeded over many years. I like to use my hometown of Portland, Ore., as an example where a touch of innovation can take root and grow into something quite grand.

Portland’s Saturday Market began more than 40 years ago at the west end of one of the many bridges that span the Willamette River. It was little more than a small flea market — or a glorified yard sale.

Today? It’s huge, man. It has become part of Portland’s urban culture.

I’m not a futurist. I cannot predict what’ll happen in the next day, let alone in the next year, or next decade.

But the signs of change in Amarillo’s thinking about its downtown district give me hope that there might be a place for a Community Market to grow into something significant for the city.

Hey, come to think of it … aren’t we still planning to build that multipurpose event venue downtown?

Gosh, the MPEV well might serve as the perfect venue for this Community Market once it’s complete.

Don’t you think?

national news, political news, State news

Unity, compassion and then … Dan Patrick

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It’s been a remarkable past few days, hasn’t it?

Two young men were shot to death by police officers; one in Baton Rouge, La., the other in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb. Their deaths prompted demonstrations and marches around the country.

One of those marches occurred in Dallas, where Black Lives Matter organizers managed to stage a peaceful event through the city’s downtown. Police officers were mugging with protestors taking selfies of themselves and the men and women in blue.

Then a sniper opened fire, killing five of those officers. The nation was shattered by the violence.

We heard politicians of all stripes speaking essentially in unison: This has to stop; the killing of police officers is unacceptable; we pray for the officers’ families and for the city has been stricken.

Then came the words from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick …

He shows up on “Fox and Friends” and says the protestors who fled the shooting were “hypocrites” because they sought protection from the very people whose conduct in those earlier events they were protesting.

Patrick then blamed Black Lives Matter and — of course! — the media for the senseless carnage in Dallas. I guess Patrick doesn’t understand that the shooter’s action were diametrically opposed to the message Black Lives Matter was seeking to convey. Oh, and Black Lives Matter protestors also were being shot at.

I was appalled when Texans elected this guy lieutenant governor in 2014. To hear him spew such garbage in the wake of this national tragedy, when circumstances compel politicians to use good judgment and circumspection in their public remarks, only reinforces my disgust in this individual.

Patrick’s idiotic rant doesn’t diminish the outpouring of good will that has come from around the country toward Texas’s third-largest city. Indeed, Dallas has been through even more profound national tragedy before and I have every confidence it will bounce back. It will recover emotionally. That recovery won’t happen overnight.

Facilitating the city’s return to normal, though, requires the type of political leadership we’ve witnessed from the likes of Gov. Greg Abbott, Dallas Mayor Michael Rawlings, from President Barack Obama, from Dallas Police Chief David Brown, from spiritual leaders of all faiths and from members of Congress on both sides of the political aisle.

The city does not need the kind of lunacy that came out of the mouth of Dan Patrick, who should be ashamed of himself. I do not, however, expect him to exhibit any such shame.

national news, political news

Obama to cut NATO trip short … and will visit Dallas

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 01: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to the media after meeting with House Speaker John Boehner at the White House, March 1, 2013 in Washington, DC. President Obama said that no agreement was reached with Republicans to avoid the sequester that will trigger automatic domestic and defense cuts. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, whose district covers part of Dallas, today was critical of President Obama because he happened to be absent from the United States when the shooting broke out in Dallas.

“If we are weak at home, we are weak around the world and this is an example of a weakness when our president goes overseas and has a terrible tragedy like this … ”

Yes, Sessions said that, as if the president could predict that a madman would open fire on police officers during a peaceful demonstration in downtown Dallas.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/ben-carson-dallas-shooting-obama-225278#ixzz4Ds1z5qkL

Well, you know what?

Barack Obama announced today he is cutting short his long-ago-planned trip to Europe to attend a NATO summit. He’s coming back home. And, by golly, he’s going to Dallas.

My strong hope and expectation is that the president of the United States is going to do what he has had to do too many times already during his time in office. He’s going to embrace the family members of the slain police officers. He will offer words of support and encouragement to Police Chief David Brown, to Mayor Michael Rawlings, and the rest of a community that’s been shattered by this spasm of violence.

Will that stem the partisan critics?

No. However, the president is going to do what his job description compels him to do.

My other hope, too, is that the president doesn’t politicize his visit to Dallas. The city and the nation need healing, not a lecture.

national news

Grief will linger for a long time

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I cannot stop thinking about police officers … or their loved ones.

Two incidents of police-related violence erupted in Louisiana and then in Minnesota. Two men were shot to death by cops. They were African-American; the officers are white. The events made me think, “Oh, no. Not again!”

Those events are horrible on their face. The officers involved directly on those events need to held accountable for what happened — if it turns out that they reacted badly. My hunch is that they did, but there’s more to learn about what actually happened.

Then came the event last night in Dallas during a peaceful march that protested those earlier shootings. A sniper opened fire on police officers and killed five of them. The cops cornered the suspect, tried to talk him into surrendering. He refused. Then the police deployed a bomb-loaded robot and detonated it near the suspect. He died on the spot.

Did the first two events justify the third? Did the monster who assassinated those police officers have cause to do what he did? Of course not.

My heart breaks for the families of the two men who died at officers’ hands in Louisiana and Minnesota.

It also breaks for the families of those men who died last night in Dallas.

I am reminded of a brutal truth about police work: It is that there is nothing “routine” about that profession. Indeed, I keep hearing the term “routine traffic stop” used to describe the Minnesota event that led to the death of the African-American man. Every cop on the beat will tell you: There is no such thing as a “routine traffic stop.”

The men who went to work Thursday fully expected to go home at the end of their shift. Their loved ones expected them to walk through the door. They didn’t. Those loved ones’ lives are shattered forever.

I’ve had a long-standing respect and admiration for the men and women who take the oath to protect and serve our community. The carnage that erupted in Dallas just reaffirms it.

Every day potentially could be their last day on Earth.

I’m not yet ready to buy into the notion that America is coming apart. I want to hang on to the faith I have in the basic good will of our people. We’ve been through paroxysms of violence before. I think of 1968: war protests turning violent; the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and then Robert F. Kennedy. And oh yes, this all occurred during a presidential election year.

We had that election. And over time, the nation pulled itself out of its emotional quagmire.

I will hope that in this case history will repeat itself.

Until then, though, I am going to pray for all the families of the violence that has erupted.

What’s more, I offer a word of thanks to police officers for all they do to keep my family safe.

national news

RFK’s wisdom worth hearing once again

A friend of mine put this video out on social media this afternoon.

He asked those in his network to be quiet for a few minutes and listen to it.

I heard Sen. Robert Kennedy make these remarks in real time, when it happened in April 1968. Indeed, Sen. Kennedy was the rare politician who could speak the kind of blunt truth that we all needed to hear — even if in times when we might not want to hear it.

I want to share my friend’s video here.

I also want to echo his admonition. Take a few minutes and listen quietly to what this politician had to say during an earlier time of national grief.