Monthly Archives: March 2018

International news

Look out, ‘radical Islam’

President George W. Bush told us in clear and unequivocal terms while the nation grieved over the 9/11 attack: We are not at war with Islam.

President Barack H. Obama followed that message to the letter. On the night he announced the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the president told us that bin Laden was not a “Muslim leader,” but that he was a “mass murderer of Muslims.”

A new president has taken over. Donald J. Trump has just nominated Mike Pompeo to be secretary of state and has appointed John Bolton to be the new national security adviser.

These two men — not to mention the president — seem intent on changing the narrative. They want to take direct aim at “radical Islam,” as if the terrorists with whom we are at war represent a great world religion. They do not. They have perverted Islam to fit some ruthless ideology.

As Politico has reported: Both Bolton and Pompeo will now be working for a president who has alleged, with no evidence, that American Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks, and who has proposed banning all foreign Muslims from U.S. shores. Critics say the personnel moves suggest Trumpā€™s worst instincts on how to approach the worldā€™s 1.5 billion Muslims will find receptive ears among his foreign policy aides.

Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster, who will be leaving the State Department and the National Security Council, respectively, were thought to have some sort of moderating influence on Trump. But the president has shoved them aside, elevating two more fiery confidants to help formulate U.S. foreign policy. They are likely to seek to steer the president toward a position that mainstream Muslims might interpret to be more hostile to their religious faith.

That, I suggest, is a dangerous trend.

The killers with whom we have been at war since 9/11 need damn little pretext to recruit new militants to follow their perverted cause.

environmental news, local news

Praying for sun gives way to praying for rain

There once was a time — long ago! — when rain drove me nuts. It made me stir-crazy. I suffered cabin fever because it rained constantly in my hometown of Portland, Ore.

I took a couple of years away from home to serve in the U.S. Army; my hitch took me to Vietnam, where it also rains a good bit of the time.

I got married not long after I returned home. My wife, sons and I eventually moved to Texas; our first stop was in Beaumont, which also gets a good bit of rain. Then my wife and I moved to Amarillo, where, um, it doesn’t rain so much.

We are now in the midst of a drought. It’s been months on end since we had any measurable moisture.

I no longer pray for sunshine. I now pray for rain. I am doing so this evening. The weather forecasters are telling us we can expect some rain tomorrow.

I hope they’re right. Oh, brother, I want them to be correct.

I’ve written on this subject before.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/03/this-isnt-the-dust-bowl-but/

Forgive me if I’m repeating myself. Still, it bears repeating. The Texas Panhandle doesn’t get a lot of rain annually, only about 20 inches — give or take. This year we’ve got to go some if we’re going to reach our annual average.

The region is quite dependent on agriculture, which quite naturally requires water. Those dry land farmers who don’t pump groundwater to irrigate their crops rely exclusively on the sky to bring rainfall to them. Five-plus months of no measurable “precip” has deprived them of their income — and their ability to produce food that ends up on our dinner tables.

My outlook about rain has changed dramatically since my boyhood. I griped so much about the rain I drove my parents — chiefly my dad — to near madness.

With all of that said, I think I’ll wait — and hope — that the Texas Panhandle gets wet.

national news

Nothing from POTUS

Linda Beigel Schulman is a better person that I am.

She and Michael Beigel lost their son in the Parkland, Fla., massacre of 17 students and teachers on Valentine’s Day. Their son, Scott, was a teacher who died while protecting students from the gunman who opened fire.

Schulman told The Hill that she has received a “beautiful letter” from U.S. Sen Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and from former President Obama. The former president wrote, in part: ā€œWe can only imagine the hardship you are going through; hopefully all the wonderful memories can help ease the pain. Weā€™ll get the details about your fund in his honor. In the meantime, you are in our thoughts and prayers.ā€

Has she heard from Donald Trump, the current president? No.

Schulman said,Ā ā€œI received no correspondence whatsoever. I received nothing from the White House.” She has demonstrated, though, a bit of a magnanimous spirit that I likely wouldn’t exhibit.

Although she believes the president should have reached out, she isn’t disappointed. ā€œBecause I didnā€™t expect it,ā€ she said. ā€œI have realistic expectations.”

I cannot pretend to know how she feels about the loss of her son. I do get that she is angry about the gun violence that has erupted yet again in this country, this time striking her straight in the heart, shattering it.

This is a national tragedy, one that has enveloped an entire nation. It has spawned deeply impassioned debate about gun policy and violence. It requires — in my view — the leader of this great country to reach out, to speak directly to the victims of this scourge.

He didn’t do what is expected of him. I am left to sit on the sidelines and look on with awe at those who are stricken and who have it within them to soldier on with their “realistic expectations.”

media news

‘So much fake news’

Every time Donald John “Liar in Chief” Trump Sr. throws out the “fake news” allegation, I am reminded only of one thing: The president lacks any sense of self-awareness.

You know the type. These are people who accuse others of doing what they do. It’s a form of projection. Perhaps it’s a pathological condition.

Whatever it is, Trump’s got it. Or he lacks it.

The president fired off a tweet after the “60 Minutes” interview with the porn queen who says the two of them had a fling in 2006. He called it “fake news.”

Sure thing, Mr. President. I happen to believe her. She’s more credible than the president of the United States. Yes. A porn actress is more believable than the head of state. What in the world has become of this world?

And … why is that? Because the president is the king of fake news.

He perpetuated the lie that Barack Obama was not qualified to serve as president because he allegedly was born in another country. He lied about President Obama wiretapping his offices in Trump Tower after the 2016 election. He lied about witnessing “thousands of Muslims” cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11.

He lies without any sense of shame or guilt.

Through all of this, the president has the stones to slap the “fake news” label on any news story he deems to be negative.

Fake news are those items that are demonstrably false. They are made-up tales. They are lies put forward by those who cannot tell the truth. These tall tales are meant to defame others, to do damage to others’ credibility.

The president will never look inward while he accuses others of fomenting “fake news.” It is left to the rest of us to do it for him.

The Liar in Chief is a disgrace to his office.

business news, local news

What? Barfield is coming back to life? Maybe?

Well, shut my mouth and call me … whatever you want.

I had written not long ago about my doubts over the future of the long-abandoned Barfield Building in downtown Amarillo, Texas. It stands at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Polk Street. It’s a rotting hulk of its former glory.

https://highplainsblogger.com/?s=Barfield+Building

This morning I awoke to read a story in the Amarillo Globe-News that declares that the Barfield Building is en route to a revival. It will become a luxury hotel, developed by the Marriott Corporation.

Then came the qualifier. “Maybe,” according to the AGN. Maybe it will happen. Maybe … it won’t.

I’m going to pull for the “maybe it will.”

Plans call for the Barfield to morph into a Marriott Autograph Collection Hotel. It’s an upscale concept. As the Globe-News reports: ā€œWe want to bring the Barfield back to life and tell its story,ā€ said Mark Brooks, of Brooks Hospitality Consulting. ā€œWe want to create something that speaks to Amarilloans. Hopefully, itā€™s pretty exciting.ā€

Brooks told the AGN’s Jeff Farris that the interior demolition at the Barfield is nearly done. Next up will be acquiring building permits from the city.

The Barfield has been down similar roads before. It’s been through several ownership changes. There have been reports of progress made to breathe new life into the building. They have been premature. Nothing has occurred there. As the AGN noted, the city came within a whisker of condemning the building.

This fellow Brooks, though, now is delivering some potentially good news about the Barfield. The category of hotel suggests it will be unique. Marriott says that none of its Autograph Collection structures are duplicates of others.

So, with this news, I am anxious to see if downtown Amarillo — which already has seen tremendous change in the past decade — is about to take another huge step forward. The multipurpose event venue is under construction. The Embassy Suites hotel has opened across the street from the Civic Center; Marriott opened another hotel prior to that at the historic Fisk Building. Construction crews are hard at work on new eateries and other business establishments along Polk Street. West Texas A&M University is set to open its downtown Amarillo campus.

And now? The Barfield Building? Is it possibly coming back to life? Might there be signs of activity in that dilapidated structure?

Maybe.

national news

Where is the moral compass?

I have been trying to glean something relevant from the past three days of non-stop coverage of Donald J. Trump’s behavior.

Here is what I think I’ve determined after watching two remarkable interviews with two women who claim to have had sexual relations with the married man who a decade later would be elected president of the United States.

One of them, a former Playboy model, said she was “in love” with Trump and said she believes the president-to-be was in love with her. She now claims to have rediscovered her religious faith, attends church regularly, and is a staunch Republican who “voted for Donald” in 2016.

The other of them is an, um, pornographic entertainer. She met Trump the same year as the former Playboy Bunny, had sex with him in a hotel room. She said she didn’t find him attractive at the time and saw their potential relationship as a “business opportunity.”

They both claim to have taken a tumble with Trump a year after he married his third wife and who had just given birth to their son, who’s now 12 years of age and is being exposed to the hideous publicity surroundingĀ  his father.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed them both. They both sound believable to me. Perhaps it’s my intense anti-Trump bias that makes me want to believe them. Whatever. I do believe their accounts.

I also consider Trump to be the biggest moral pig ever to occupy the Oval Office. Yes, he is worse than JFK and Bill Clinton, two men with their own shady personal histories.

I am left to wonder: Where in the world has become of our moral compass? How does this president — based on what these two women, and possibly other women — purport to speak with any sort of moral authority on anything to anyone at any time?

It’s not yet clear where these women’s revelations will lead us, or whether their stories will be relevant to the man’s governance. Maybe all that we’ll be left with is the belief — if not the actual knowledge — that we are being governed by someone with the morals of an alley cat.

And that leads me straight to what I consider the Big Question: How in the name of marital fidelity does this man, the president, continue to own the support of the “base” of his political party that comprises a large segment of Americans who profess themselves to be “evangelical Christians”?

national news

This is a ‘smooth’ legal team?

Chris Ruddy, a friend and political ally of Donald Trump, said the president considers his legal and political apparatus to be a “smooth running machine.”

Really? Yes, really. The president’s self-delusion and lack of self-awareness has presented itself again.

Get a load of this sequence.

He sought out the legal services of former federal prosecutor and Fox News TV “contributor” Joe diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing. Then his lead lawyer, the guy who’s representing him in the “Russia thing” probe — John Dowd — quits, claiming that Trump doesn’t listen to his legal advice.

This weekend, moreover, Trump decided that diGenova and Toensing wouldn’t be joining his team after all. It seems they had some “conflict of interest” issues that needed to be resolved.

Oh, but the president said — via Twitter, of course — that he has no shortage of brilliant legal minds begging to join the Trump legal team to defend him against the investigation into collusion with Russians who meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Oh … really? Honestly, Mr. President?

Who in the name of juris prudence is this guy trying to kid?

He cannot hire a good lawyer to save his life, let alone his politicalĀ  backside. Nor can the president retain a national security team. He cannot fill important posts within the State Department. Washington is bursting with rumors that if White House chief of staff John Kelly quits, that the president won’t hire a new person to run the executive branch “ship of state”; Trump will do it himself.

There you go. He told the nation at the Republican National Convention that “I, alone” can solve every problem under the sun.

It is beginning to look as though he’ll get a chance to deliver on that bold bit of boastfulness.

Good luck with that, Mr. President, as you handle the controls of your “smooth-running machine.”

military news, national news, political news

Get ready for Mattis vs. Bolton

Donald Trump’s national security team just cannot get its legs under it. It cannot function as a cohesive team that imparts advice to a president who is willing to (a) listen to it and (b) follow it.

With that we now have a new national security adviser, uber-super hawk John Bolton who quite likely will clash openly with Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis.

I’m going to pull for Mad Dog to win this fight, although Bolton now is the man of the hour, the guy who’s got the president’s ear.

Heaven help us if Bolton’s world view carries the day in the West Wing of the White House.

Bolton is known around the world as one with an itchy trigger finger. He favors pre-emptive military action against North Korea. Indeed, he has favored “putting boots on the ground” in places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan … you name it, Bolton wants to flex U.S. military muscle.

He despises the nuclear arms deal worked out by the Obama administration that seeks to de-nuclearize Iran.

There’s Bolton’s profile in brief.

How about Mattis? He favors the Iran nuclear deal. He believes it is working and is worth retaining. And North Korea? Well, the retired Marine Corps general, a decorated combat veteran to boot, believes diplomacy should remain as Option No. 1 in our efforts to talk the reclusive Marxist regime out of striking at South Korea, or Japan — or the United States of America!

Mattis’s world view is forged by a career that has seen him serve up close in harm’s way. Bolton’s world view comes from a different perspective. He doesn’t have the kind of front-line military experience that Mattis does; Bolton served six years in the Maryland Army National Guard.

I want to bring this to your attention only to suggest that there might be yet another ideological storm brewing within the Trump White House.

As I have noted before, “Mad Dog” Mattis is one of the few grownups who have signed on to serve this president.

I do not believe John Bolton falls into that category of public servant.

national news

Bigger than Trump inaugural? Hmm

Let’s all wait for it.

Someone is likely to produce crowd-count estimates of the March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend that well could deliver some startling news to Donald John Trump.

They well might declare that the March crowd was larger than the crowd that gathered for Trump’s inaugural speech in January 2017.

I have read some snippets from March organizers that suggest as much. Nothing yet from, say, the D.C. police about how many people were actually gathered in the nation’s capital to march against gun violence.

If it comes and someone in authority says that the president’s inaugural crowd was dwarfed by the March For Our Lives mass rally … well, I think we’re going to watch Donald Trump go apoplectic — yet again!

local news

A sobering sign of today’s era

I was talking with the mother of one of the March For Our Lives organizers in Amarillo, Texas, when the thought recurred to me.

“You know something?” I said Saturday. “I never once — ever — had this conversation with my parents when I was in school. Not in grade school, junior high or high school. My mother never told me to to ‘stay safe’ when she sent me off to school.”

Indeed, Mom and Dad always assumed I would return home at the end of the school day. There never was a single thought that I ever remember that someone would open fire with a weapon in school.

Oh, how we have entered a new era.

The March For Our Lives event in Amarillo was just one of hundreds of other community events called to demand remedies to the gun violence that has killed so many children, teachers and others.

Violeta Prieto, the mother of Carla Prieto — an Amarillo march organizer — responded to me that neither did she have that discussion with her parents. And she graduated from Palo Duro High School just 21 years ago, in 1997. I reminded her with a chuckle that “I am a whole lot older than you are.”

We would take part in fire drills and those once-quaint “duck and cover” drills to prepare us to respond to a possible nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. It was the “cold war” back then. Those drills don’t seem quite so quaint these days in light of recent international developments … but, I digress; more on that another time.

Today’s students and their loved ones are facing a potential “hot war” in the fight to eradicate gun violence in our schools and other public places.

And while I’m on this topic, I must share with you that we have members of our family who likely are having — or will have — discussions with young children that we never dreamed of having. I don’t recall talking with our now 40-something sons about gun violence when they were in school; they graduated from high school in 1991 and 1992.

So … this is new to us. It is chilling in the extreme to wrap our heads around the potential danger facing our children in communities throughout the country.

I join them in their fright.