Monthly Archives: January 2018

International news

So, what about nuclear preparedness?

Hawaii residents were shaken to their core over the weekend when they thought for what seemed like forever that they were going to be blown to bits in a nuclear attack.

Their cell phones sounded an alarm and it took 38 minutes for them to learn the truth: It was a false alarm.

But, this incident begs many questions. Why did it take so long to call off the statewide panic? How did an employee “push the wrong button”?

And then there’s this: What kind of preparation are other communities throughout the United States making in case of a real nuclear attack?

I’ve been thinking about that for the past day or so. What would happen if some enemy nation launched missiles aimed at a Department of Energy facility just northeast of Amarillo, Texas? You know about which I am mentioning here: Pantex, the sprawling compound in Carson County where this nation stores nuclear warheads. Many of us here refer to it light-heartedly as “The Bomb Factory.”

But it’s no joke. They do serious work out there.

What has Amarillo done to prepare for such an event?

I have lived in the Texas Panhandle for 23 years. So help me, I never have heard about a community emergency response system. Whatever it is, I don’t know where to go.

I grew up, of course, in the duck-and-cover era when the United States faced off against the Soviet Union, the other nuclear superpower. It was just Uncle Sam vs. the Big Ol’ Bear. Us vs. Them. Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys.

Today’s world is different. The USSR morphed back into Russia, but they’ve still got plenty of nukes. So do several other nations: India, Pakistan, South Africa, China, the UK, France … maybe Israel.

Oh, and North Korea!

The SNAFU in Hawaii has alerted all of us — or at least it should alert us — that the nuclear threat remains dire, perhaps even more so than it was during the Cold War.

Are we prepared? If someone out there has a plan, let’s hear it.

I’m all ears.

International news, national news

An ’embarrassment’? Yeah, do ya think?

Chuck Hagel isn’t your run-of-the-mill Donald John Trump critic.

He once served as defense secretary for President Obama. Oh, but wait! The man isn’t a squishy liberal. He also is a former Republican senator from Nebraska, one of the many states known to be rock-ribbed, red-state Republican bastions. Hagel also is a Vietnam War veteran, serving there in the U.S. Army. He’s been in battle and knows its consequences.

So, when Chuck Hagel calls the president an “embarrassment” to the nation, well, I tend to listen to him.

Hagel sat down with the Lincoln (Neb.) Star-Journal in which he unloaded on the president. He tore into him for his reported “sh**hole countries” comment describing Haiti, El Salvador and nations in Africa that account for many immigrants coming into the United States.

“Donald Trump is doing great damage to our country internationally,” Hagel told the newspaper.

He said lawmakers take an oath to defend the Constitution and not stand blindly behind any individual or their political party. “I was philosophically a Republican with a conservative voting record,” Hagel said, “but that did not mean I would always go along with the party.”

So, he’s not going along. He is speaking from his heart and telling us what’s on his mind. Moreover, he is speaking for a lot of his fellow Americans — such as yours truly — when he tells us that the president is embarrassing us.

I happen to be embarrassed — and ashamed — by the conduct of the man who is our head of state.

Thus, I share Secretary/Sen. Hagel’s pain.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 70

Our retirement journey has hit a bump in the road.

Don’t worry. It’s not serious. It’s not a dealbreaker. There’s an “end game.”

As I write these few words, my wife and I are hunkered down with Toby the Puppy in our fifth wheel waiting out a winter blast that’s plowing through Amarillo, Texas.

The temperature is plummeting through the day. The sun will set — although we won’t see it through the cloud cover — and the temp will bottom out at around 8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Then it’ll climb back to something more, um, tolerable.

We knew the moment we moved into this fifth wheel full time that we were set to experience a bit of the downside of this new lifestyle we have adopted.

The winter blast we’re experiencing at this moment is one of them.

We’ve taken measures to protect our plumbing. We’ve also taken measures to ensure we have plenty of heat.

As for Toby the Puppy, he seems to have gotten over his case of cabin fever I told you about a few blog posts ago. He knows it’s cold out there and, given that he’s among the smartest — if not the smartest — pooches ever, he is not about to ask his mother and me to go outside until it becomes an absolute imperative … if you know what I mean and I am sure you do.

So, the journey continues. We’re just not going anywhere — until it warms up a bit.

national news

Trump is wearing us out; just think, it’s only been a year!

We are on the verge of marking the first year of one of the more, um, consequential presidencies in the history of the American republic.

I use the term “consequential” with caution. I do not mean to suggest that Donald John Trump Sr.’s first year in office has produce much in the way of positive consequence. I mean to suggest that the consequence has been important in ways few of us could have imagined.

On Jan. 20, 2017, Trump took his presidential oath and then delivered one of the darkest, most forbidding inaugural speeches in history. The most memorable line spoke of how he intended to end “the American carnage.”

Did he end it? Uh, no.

It has gone downhill from there.

Chaos has led to confusion, which has led to controversy, which has brought us resignations and dismissals of top administration aides and advisers. The president’s reliance on Twitter as his main method of conveying policy proclamations has been, well, also quite consequential. 

The president has continued to lie about his foes, his policies, his pronouncements … everything, or so it seems.

He has insulted world leaders. Seemingly all of them. Our friends and our enemies have been on the receiving end of Trump tantrums and tirades — all via Twitter.

Trump has reshaped the American presidency. He has demanded loyalty to himself. He fired FBI director James Comey when he failed to receive such a pledge.

Yes, it’s been a hell of a ride so far. It is bound to get a lot bumpier, provided the special counsel, Robert Mueller — appointed to look into that “Russia thing” — is allowed to do the job to which the Justice Department appointed him to do. Will it result in something terribly, um, “consequential” regarding the future of the Trump administration? Let’s find out.

As for the president’s first year, it’s been the longest such stretch of time I can remember. I’m old enough to recall quite a few of these historical events.

I know I have just peeled the first layer of skin off the presidential onion with this blog post. I mean, there’s just so much.

Still, I hope you get my drift. I considered this guy unfit for the office to which he was elected while he was running for it. My feelings about his fitness have changed. He’s worse — more consequential — than I thought.

Now, let’s get ready for Year No. 2.

national news

‘I am not a racist’ Oh, really?

Donald J. Trump says it clearly and with seeming conviction.

“I am not a racist. I am the least racist person you’ve ever interviewed,” said the president of the United States.

OK, then. That settles it, right? Trump isn’t a racist. He didn’t actually question Barack Obama’s place of birth and his legitimacy as president; he didn’t actually call those countries in Africa, as well as Haiti and El Salvador “sh**holes”; he didn’t actually say an Indiana-born federal judge couldn’t decide a case involving Trump University because “he’s a Mexican.”

Well, I believe the president’s denial of racist leanings reminds many of us the time President Nixon told us “I am not a crook.” We know how that turned out in the 1970s, yes?

Trump has taken a tremendous amount of criticism for his sh**hole comment, which he reportedly made during a White House meeting on immigration.

This blog has used the “racist” term, too, to describe the president’s leanings. Indeed, the record that includes a large body of demonstrable evidence of racial bias can be used as a counterweight to the president’s assertion that he doesn’t harbor bias against people who don’t look like him.

The sh**hole comment about nations that produce immigrants to the United States — coupled with an assertion that the United States needs to encourage more immigration from “countries like Norway” — only fuels the fire that’s burning close the White House.

Donald Trump can tell us all he wants that he is not a racist. The lengthy record of previous pronouncements, though, tells us something quite different.

International news, military news, national news

Here’s a thought: Stress diplomacy over nukes

Donald Trump has offered a word of praise to Hawaii officials.

The president lauds them for taking “full responsibility” for the near-panic caused when someone “pushed the wrong button” and sent out an false alarm that declared there was an incoming missile from … possibly North Korea.

As The Hill reports:

“That was a state thing but we are going to now get involved with them. I love that they took responsibility. They took total responsibility,” Trump told reporters Sunday.

“But we are going to get involved. Their attitude and their — I think it is terrific. They took responsibility. They made a mistake,” he continued.

When asked what he will do to prevent a similar false alert from taking place, Trump didn’t answer directly but said, “we hope it won’t happen again.

He added, again according to The Hill:

“Part of it is people are on edge, but maybe eventually we will solve the problem so they won’t have to be so on edge,” Trump said.

Yes, they are “on edge,” Mr. President. Indeed, Trump’s bellicosity along with the unpredictability of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has put millions of Americans — not just those in Hawaii — on edge.

With that, I’ll offer a modest suggestion for the president: How about stressing diplomacy and setting aside the threats of “fire and fury,” “total annihilation” and using a “big nuclear button”?

The military option we keep hearing about ought to be the option of last resort — not the first, second or third resort. Military confrontation with North Korea is, shall we say, fraught with grievous consequences.

I, too, am glad that Hawaii officials have owned their mistake. Hawaii Gov. David Ige has apologized to his constituents and, by extension, to the rest of the nation.

Yes, the federal government can get involved. The commander in chief can set aside the tough talk and start sending signals to North Korea that it’s time to settle our differences through diplomacy.

media news

Happy Trails, Part 69

Blog-writing remains one of my current passions.

It gives me immense satisfaction in this era of retirement. I wrote opinion articles for many years as a print journalist. Then I stopped being a print journalist.

But I didn’t stop writing opinion pieces. I just post them now online. They get distributed via this blog platform. I have my share of subscribers to the blog and for that I am grateful. My aim is to grow that subscriber list.

I distribute the blog posts through various social media. Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are my main vehicles of conveyance.

Here’s one aspect of that process that I want to discuss briefly: Facebook prompts some serious arguments among those who read these posts on that medium.

To be candid, I have a sort of out-of-body experience as I watch these folks argue among themselves.

Someone might comment on a blog post; someone else then might respond Person No. 1’s comment; Person No. 1 then might respond to the response.

And … off they go.

They’re snarling and growling at each other. Occasionally, these exchanges get intensely personal. I have read actual name-calling, although those instances are rare. What happens is that someone might insult some else’s intelligence. In one recent exchange, one of the quarrelers accused  another one of being unable to understand what he reads; thus, one guy accused the other one of being a dim bulb.

I have no particular desire to stop these exchanges. I just choose to stay away from them. No, I don’t mean to suggest that I “stay above” these arguments. I just don’t have the stomach, let alone the time, to engage in continual back-and-forth arguments that at times seem as though they have no end.

One of the lessons I carried with me from print opinion journalism to full-time blogging is that nothing I write is going to change anyone’s mind. We all have our biases. We have our own set of values, most of which were formed when we were, oh, much younger … if not when when we were children.

I prefer to state my case on this blog. And then walk away to the next topic. Oh, I might quibble and quarrel with someone, but I’m only good for about three or maybe four responses; and, yes, I’ve gone beyond that a time or three. Then I’ve had enough.

The way I see it, my relative lack of fighting spirit preserves the love I have for this new retirement adventure.

Oh, how I love blogging.

national news

Who can we believe regarding POTUS’s gutter mouth?

It’s come down to this: No longer can I take a single thing that Donald John Trump Sr. says at face value.

I do not believe unequivocally a single statement he can make.

Take his recent use of the term “sh**hole” to describe Africa, Haiti and El Salvador. He denies saying it. This morning, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who was in the room when the president said it actually stood with Trump in his denial.

Others in the room — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — said Trump used the term. Durbin said he uttered the term “repeatedly” while talking about immigration.

Trump’s lying is so pervasive, so inclusive, so very disturbing that I’ve crossed a key threshold that now casts into doubt every single utterance that flies out of his mouth.

My state of disbelief rivals how I used to feel about a one-time Amarillo, Texas, figure. I refer to the late Stanley Marsh 3, the eccentric millionaire artisan/lawyer/goofball who in his day did some mighty strange things.

The Weather Channel came here in the early 2000s to cover a weather-related event and while the TV weatherman was on the air, Marsh — while wearing a feathered head dress — started prancing around in the background doing some sort of Native American dance.

Marsh was the strangest of strange dudes. It got so weird that there came a time when there wasn’t a single thing one could say about Marsh that I could dismiss out of hand.

“Hey, did you hear that Stanley flew to Mars and brought a Martian back to Earth with him.” I always felt in the deepest part of my gut, “You know … I wouldn’t put it past him.”

And so it is with Donald Trump. The man has been heard in public using filthy language. He referred to pro football players protesting police conduct against African-Americans as “sons of bi*****. ” He has used what my father used to call “the functional four-letter word” on more than one occasion since becoming a politician. He has done the same with the scatological term as well.

So, when he denies calling certain nations of the world “sh**hole” countries, well … I don’t believe his denial.

The man is a liar.

religious news

Left hand, meet the right hand

I consider High Plains Blogger to be a forum for commenting on politics, policy and life experience. I use it to comment on those matters with with great glee.

For a moment, though, I want to veer far from any of those topics. Well, maybe “life experience” might qualify.

I learned something today in Sunday school that had me scratching my noggin about our secular world and how we human beings morph the Holy Word occasionally into something quite different.

We are studying Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Then we ran into this passage from the Gospel of Matthew 6:3. According to Scripture, Jesus Christ instructs us, “But when you give to someone in need, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

Given that I am far from a biblical scholar, I wasn’t aware of those words of wisdom — until I saw them today.

Why scratch my head? Because in our contemporary society, we now use the reference to our “left hand not knowing what the our right is doing” as a pejorative. We scold individuals or those who run institutions by saying that “the left hand doesn’t know … ” You get the point, right? Of course you do!

However, according to New Testament Scripture, Jesus Christ himself tells us to avoid letting each of our hands know what the other is doing. How in the name of all that is holy did this bit of divine instruction become a metaphor for criticism?

I might never use that saying ever again when I witness confusion unfolding before my eyes. I’ll have to get creative.

There. Now, back to more worldly matters.

national news

What took so long to call off the panic?

I want to concur with much of the analysis offered in the wake of the “false alarm” caused by an inadvertent alert of a bogus missile strike that was heading toward one of our United States.

A lot of folks are asking a simple question: It’s bad enough that someone supposedly “pushed the wrong button” during a shift change at a security post, but why did it take 38 whole minutes to tell Hawaii residents that what they thought was impending doom was in fact a mistake?

Thirty-eight minutes! For more than a half-hour, Hawaii residents were left to wonder if someone had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile at them. Was it, oh, North Korea? Was it the Russians? Did the Chinese do it?

For 38 minutes, 1.5 million Americans were scrambling to find a way to cope with a potential nuclear holocaust.

How in the name of Mutually Assured Destruction does that occur?

And what in MAD’s name can we do to prevent it from ever happening again?

We’re waiting for some answers. Anyone?