Monthly Archives: November 2017

education news

University pulls plug on Greek life … you go, FSU!

I have to acknowledge at the top of this brief blog post that I didn’t belong to a fraternity in college.

I was a young married father by the time I enrolled at Portland (Ore.) State University. I commuted to class from my small rented house and went home at the end of the day.

But when I read about Florida State University suspending fraternity activities, I couldn’t help but cheer the news. FSU President John Thrasher suspended Greek life after the death of an FSU student who died as the result of a fraternity prank gone horribly bad.

This is the kind of tragedy we hear about from time to time. Students join these frats and sororities and subject themselves to all kinds of misbehavior from their “brothers” and “sisters.”

I know that deaths from these kinds of pranks aren’t all that common. I also accept that there’s a lot about Greek life I never have experienced and arguably don’t quite “understand.”

What I’ll never get is why students attending institutions of higher learning have to behave as though they’re still in junior high school. Yes, I’m an old man now. I do remember a time when I was much younger and I can recall some of the foolish things I did when I considered myself virtually bullet-proof.

Still, I want to applaud FSU President Thrasher for banning all Greek life and prohibiting alcohol consumption by students on the Tallahassee campus.

Perhaps this terrible story could send shockwaves across the nation’s vast networks of higher ed institutions.

Sadly, I doubt it will.

national news

What a year it has been, eh?

I am going to give Donald J. Trump and his presidential election team some props.

Hell hasn’t frozen over. I just want to share a brief word about how this man pulled off the most stunning political upset I’ve ever witnessed.

He won a presidential election one year ago. No one outside of his team really thought he’d win. At least they weren’t saying so publicly. I cannot know what they were thinking in private.

I was one American who was certain that voters would make history on Nov. 8, 2016 by electing the first woman as president of the United States. My money was on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Silly me. Silly all those so-called “experts.” Voters made history, all right, by electing a guy with no public service experience. None. Zero. He surprised us all.

What’s more, he did it despite saying the most outrageous things I’ve ever heard. He won despite mocking his opponents, hurling insults left and right, spewing outright lies almost daily. He won despite exhibiting profound ignorance of government and the political process.

I once declared that Donald Trump would be “my president” in spite of the fact that I voted — along with a significant plurality of Americans — for the other major-party candidate on the ballot. Yes, he is my president. I am not happy about it.

In the year since the election I’ve tried to figure out just how he did it. How did this carnival barker/clown pull off this huge upset? I guess I’ll go with the view that he spoke the Language of the Everyman. He tapped into that latent anger at The Establishment. He managed to persuade enough voters in just the right states that the nation was going to hell when in fact it has been in economic recovery since 2009.

He pushed forward the lie that he would “make America great again.” If you think about it, he managed with that slogan to insult the greatness of this nation that’s always existed through good times and bad.

I’ll have more to say later as we look back on the year since Trump’s inauguration. For now, it’s good to reflect on what truly was a historic presidential election.

You can’t see me do it, but at this moment I am shaking my head.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 53

I’ve told you already about how adaptable I am, how it has surprised me over many years.

Never did I imagine moving from my home state of Oregon to Texas. But we did in 1984. I adapted to a new life.

Then we moved from the Golden Triangle — an area known for swamps, bugs, gators and stifling humidity — for the High Plains, which has virtually none of what I’ve just described. I adapted to that, too.

Now I am proud to declare my adaptability stretches to the cutting of the land line that tethered me for my entire life.

My wife and I made that decision just before we shoved off in our pickup and our fifth wheel RV for Oregon. We severed the land line. We rely these days exclusively on our cell phones. She has her number; I have mine.

When I get asked for a “contact number,” I now respond without thinking with my cell phone number.

I mention this only because we’re moving farther into this retirement phase of our life. The cell phones give us mobility. Yes, they only are symbols of our mobility, but that symbolism does translate to the real thing.

Being someone in my late 60s, I suppose I can be accused of being rather somewhat “stuck in my ways.” Time has taught me over the years that change is inevitable. I can react one of two ways: to embrace it or run from it.

I have chosen the former.

This cell phone reliance has demonstrated — I believe — that I am finally a 21st-century human being.

I have learned to adapt. Now I await the challenges of the next chapter of our life.

Bring it!

military news, State news

Air Force messed up on shooter’s record

More than two decades ago, the 1995 Texas Legislature considered a concealed handgun carry bill. I opposed it with great passion.

The Legislature enacted it. Then-Gov. George W. Bush signed it into law. Over the years, I grew to accept the law, although I never have totally endorsed it.

But get a load of this: The Texas concealed handgun carry law did its job as it regards the Sutherland Springs shooter while the U.S. Air Force failed to do its job.

The loon who killed those 26 worshipers in Sutherland Springs was denied a concealed carry permit in Texas because of a criminal record check the state performed on him when he made his application.

Air Force misfires

But the U.S. Air Force, which sent him packing with a bad conduct discharge, didn’t tell the National Criminal Information Center about a court martial conviction in connection with an assault charge against his wife and her child. That failure to report enabled the shooter to purchase legally the rifle he used to massacre those First Baptist parishioners, including several children.

I’m not going to brag about Texas’s concealed carry law. I still am not a huge fan of it. Still, it hasn’t produced the kind of street-corner violence that many of us — including yours truly — feared would occur.

I am a bit heartened, though, that the state law worked. Texas denied this madman a permit to carry a gun under his jacket.

If only the Air Force had done its job, too.

Maybe it could have prevented this tragedy. Just maybe …

State news

Guns and mental health both played a part

Donald Trump believes the hideous massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas, is a “mental health issue,” not a “guns issue.”

I’ve been trying to process the president’s statement, which he delivered in Japan. I am coming up empty with that notion.

You see, I happen to believe the lunatic shooter who killed 26 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs had no business packing the weapon he used to commit the carnage.

In other words, “mental health” and “guns” aren’t mutually exclusive issues as they relate to this horrific episode in our nation’s history.

The shooter was an Air Force veteran who received a bad conduct discharge after he assaulted his wife and young child. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pointed out that the gunman applied for a concealed handgun permit, but was denied the permit because of his criminal record.

And that begs the question: How did this sicko get his mitts on an assault rifle? And, yes, I expect to hear the argument that will come forth that bad guys will obtain guns no matter how many laws we have on the books.

The debate on this hideous deed will commence fully in due course. The nation will grieve and a community will bury its victims. I don’t want to wait too long before this debate gets under way.

The president can lead that debate by acknowledging what I believe is painfully obvious about what has transpired. It is that guns need to be part of the discussion topics, right alongside the issue of mental health care.

These issues are not mutually exclusive.

State news

Heroism thrust unto young man in Texas

Oh, man. It is so hard to find anything at all positive to say about the horrific tragedy that unfolded Sunday in a tiny town just east of San Antonio.

I am going to try to say something good.

It involves a young man who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. He is Johnnie Landendorff, a lanky young man who was having breakfast Sunday morning and was planning to visit his girlfriend. Then he walked out of a diner and started driving. He approached First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Then he noticed a man dressed in black trading gunshots with someone else.

The fellow who was shooting back at the gunman approached Langendorff. They had never met. They took off in Langendorff’s pickup and chased the lunatic for several miles, at speeds believed to be around 95 mph. Langendorf called the police and gave them directions on his location and of the vehicle he was chasing.

The gunman’s SUV crashed eventually. The shooter was dead inside the vehicle when the police arrived.

Local law enforcement officials now seem to believe the gunman took his own life, either as the vehicle was fleeing the scene or after he crashed. The fellow who joined Langendorff in the pursuit reportedly hit the gunman with a gunshot during the fire fight outside the church. As the Washington Post reported: “The gentleman that was with me got out, rested his rifle on my hood and kept it aimed at him, telling him to get out, get out. There was no movement, there was none of that. I just know his brake lights were going on and off, so he might have been unconscious from the crash or something like that, I’m not sure,” he said.

None of this is likely to give comfort to the families and loved ones of the 26 people who died — or the estimated 20 others who were wounded — in the carnage. However, it is entirely possible that Langendorff and other fellow likely prevented even more heartache with their actions.

It’s been said that heroes usually don’t seek to act out their deeds, that circumstances often are thrust upon them. Such was the case with two Texas men.

I don’t feel like offering any glowing praise in this moment of profound national grief and mourning. I’ll just say simply that we should thank God Almighty that these men had the presence of mind to do what they did.

military news

Hoping we don’t pervert Veterans Day

The nation is going to celebrate Veterans Day soon.

There will be parades, speeches, statements of gratitude and expressions of pride and thanks for those who have served in the military.

Our oldest veterans are in their 90s now. They saved the nation from tyranny. Those who answered the call in the decades since World War II also served to protect our national rights and liberty and the aspects that make this country so unique and special among the roster of nations around the world.

Of late, we’ve seen a perversion of what we’ve all sought to honor and salute. I was one of those vets who spent some time in the Army. My country sent me to Vietnam during a much different time, when we weren’t so grateful for the service performed by those of us who did our duty.

We all served to protect our special liberties. They include the right to protest our government policies. That right is protected stringently by the U.S. Constitution. The perversion has come from those who have castigated U.S. citizens who happen to be profession athletes; those athletes have chosen to protest certain government policies by “taking a knee” during the playing of the National Anthem at the start of sporting events.

Even the president of the United States has weighed in, saying those athletes are “disrespecting” the flag, the nation and those who served the nation in the military.

I beg to differ with the president. There’s no disrespect being shown toward any of what’s been described. As a veteran, I take not one ounce of personal affront to those who kneel to express their political point of view.

Indeed, I believe we all served to guarantee them the right to do what they have done … and continue to do.

So, as we prepare to honor our veterans yet again this year, let us be mindful of the rights we have and of the Americans who have fought — and died — to guarantee we can exercise them without fear of recrimination.

media news, national news

How does Trump justify his media hatred?

The hate/hate relationship Donald John Trump has with the media has baffled me from the beginning of his presidency.

You see, the man ought to be thanking the media for the role they played in advancing his presidential candidacy. It hasn’t worked out that way. He has become the media’s Enemy No. 1. And how? Because he fired the first shot in the war.

The media’s making of a presidential candidacy became evident from the candidate’s first day on the campaign trail. He rode down that elevator at Trump Tower in June 2015 and a “love affair” was born.

Trump made outlandish statements from Day One. The media didn’t challenge him. The media seemed reluctant to call the candidate what he was: a liar.

When he announced his plan to ban Muslims from entering the country, he said he witnessed “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the Twin Towers; he didn’t witness any such thing. He said he lost “many friends” in the Twin Towers; he didn’t lose any friends.

Did the media challenge him in real time for the lies he told? No. They generally let them ride.

Prior to his running for the first public office he ever sought — the presidency — Trump loved the media exposure as long as it promoted his business ventures. He loved the media as well. He chummed around with media moguls.

Eventually, and it took a while, the media began to wise up to how the candidate was playing them. They started, um, doing their job.

It’s been said that the media should “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” That’s what they do. It’s part of their charge as professionals. Trump is among the more, uh, comfortable people in public life; he kept telling us how fabulously wealthy he is. And smart, too.

It’s gone downhill ever since. His election as president has turned the one-time media lover into a media hater. He labels the media as the “enemy of the American people.” His standard retort to anything he deems negative is to call it “fake news.” Trump commits the unconscionable act of singling out individual reporters and the news organizations they represent. He lies continually and the media keep calling him out.

It truly is an amazing turn of events. The president of the United States has declared war on the very institution he needs to inform the public of whatever message he wants to deliver.

Every single one of the president’s predecessors has experienced difficulty with the media during their time in the office Trump now occupies. They all understood something that Trump ignores: The media kept them accountable for their actions.

The media are doing now what they should have been doing from the very beginning of this guy’s campaign for the presidency.

State news

Once more: Get rid of constables office

Now that we’re talking about law enforcers in Texas today, I want to turn attention briefly to an issue I have raised before — and likely will raise again until the Texas Legislature does what it should do.

When have you ever read about a Texas constable playing any kind of significant role in any case, or made a significant arrest?

I continue to be utterly astounded that Texas allows this office to remain on the books throughout the state. It’s an elected office. Yep, we elect these law enforcement officials. We charge them with delivering summonses and other civil papers to residents; they also are empowered to provide court security in justice of the peace courts.

Their powers go beyond just the humdrum of paper serving and bailiff duties.

In actuality, any of those duties could be done by municipal police and sheriff’s departments.

I have written about this before. The Legislature isn’t taking the hint, which I’ve said out loud is to get rid of the office.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/03/constables-who-needs-em/

The 2019 Legislature isn’t likely to budge on this matter. I wish it would. The problem lies in the power of the constables and judges lobby, which is significant in Austin.

The performance of the office as it has been handled in Texas Panhandle counties has been spotty at best. I’ve been observing this office for more than three decades at opposite corners of the state. I have watched it function badly in the Golden Triangle and again in Potter and Randall counties.

I realize that other counties put constables to more effective use than what I have witnessed up close.

Absent a total abolition of this waste of taxpayer money, my hope remains that counties are given the authority to toss aside constable offices where they don’t serve the public good.

I’m still waiting to read or hear about a constable making a tangible difference in local law enforcement.

State news

Shooting decimates S. Texas town

Leave it to The New York Times to put the Sutherland Springs, Texas, massacre today in perspective.

The newspaper notes that the unincorporated town had a population of 362 according to the 2010 census. With an estimated 25 people killed today by a gunman who opened fire at First Baptist Church, the town is likely to have lost about 7 percent of its population in one despicable act.

I am going to refrain from identifying the shooter by name, as has been this blog’s policy for some time. He’s dead. It’s not known if the police shot him or if he took his own life. My reluctance to identify him is because I choose instead to focus on the deed and the victims.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials have said he is a Texas resident.

Texas town is shattered

What now?

Federal, state and local police are going to sift through the gunman’s history to learn about him and try to ascertain why he would launch a Sunday morning church service rampage that reportedly took the lives of several children. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, sent his love and prayers from Japan, where he is attending meetings with foreign leaders. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is en route to Sutherland Springs. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has offered support from his office to aid in the probe of this terrible event.

And, yes, the minute we know about this lunatic’s motivation, we can expect the debate to recommence on ways to curb gun violence of this horrific type.

I welcome the debate when it occurs as soon as is humanly possible.

The immediate reaction — as in how we must respond during this calendar day — must center on prayers and love sent from all over the world to a tiny Texas town that is shattered by an all-too-common form of grief.