Monthly Archives: April 2019

Sports news

Hey, we won! Let’s destroy some property!

I am trying to grasp what went through the mind of the dipsh** who said Saturday night: Hey, we won that basketball game tonight, so let’s go tip some cars over and light them on fire!

Texas Tech’s Red Raiders won a game Saturday to put them into tonight’s NCAA men’s college basketball championship contest against Virginia.

I don’t know if Tech is going to win. I hope the Red Raiders do. I also hope Lubbock can keep its sanity to avoid a repeat of what happened Saturday night.

Lubbock police had to deploy its riot squad to put down the disturbance.

This is the kind of behavior that mystifies me. There is no explaining it. Teams win at games that determine championships and their fan(atic)s go bonkers . . . which I guess is why the word “fan” is derived from “fanatic.”

So . . .

If the Red Raiders win tonight, let’s keep our cool. Hoist an adult beverage if you’re so inclined. Same for those of you in Charlottesville, Va., if the Cavaliers manage to win.

No need — not ever! — to destroy people’s property.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 153: Weekends galore!

Those who have been retired far longer than my wife and I have been will understand what I am about to say next.

I am having a bit of difficulty understanding that the term “weekend” no longer is relevant to either of us.

We have embarked on a two-week sojourn that will begin in Amarillo. We’ll pull our fifth wheel south to San Angelo, then to the Hill Country, down to the Golden Triangle, then to New Orleans, to Shreveport and then home.

What’s different about this particular journey is that we’ll be parking our RV in a new storage place just around the corner and down the street from our new home in Princeton, Texas.

Which brings me to the “weekend” point.

My wife has reminded me that we’ll be able to grab our fifth wheel and take it on short trips to any of the numerous state parks surrounding us in Collin County.

“Sure thing,” I have said. “We can plan a weekend trip.” She laughs out loud at me. “No-o-o-o! Don’t you get it? We don’t have to wait for the weekend,” she responds. “We can go in the middle of the week. No crowds. Others will be working.”

Well, duhhh.

I just will need to keep all of that in mind once we get a wild hair and want to haul our fifth wheel out of storage and head out for some quiet time in the woods, or next to a lake.

I’m getting the hang of this retirement thing. Every now and then, though, I need a knock on the noggin to be reminded that weekends are for working folks.

local news, media news

Retirement hobby keeps juices flowing

2 Comments

Time for a quick update. Here goes . . .

This blog is on an 893-consecutive-day streak. I have posted items on High Plains Blogger for those many days in a row.

I have no intention of letting up.

I want to share (boast, if you don’t) some news with you.

  • March was the second-best month recorded by this blog in terms of page views and unique visitors. I am proud to make that announcement.
  •  The second-best month followed by the best month ever by just two months. High Plains Blogger posted its most productive month in January.

Those two record-setting months have set me up for another record year of page views and visitors. I intend to seek to keep the heat burning.

I have discovered a pattern as it regards these best-ever blog performances. They usually include some comment on local matters.

The January and March figures were driven by some posts I published concerning the resignation of an Amarillo High School volleyball coach. There is intense interest in Amarillo in what prompted Kori Clements to quit the AHS post after a single season. Her resignation letter was one of the more, um, declarative such statements I’ve ever seen. She blamed the school board and the administration for failing to back her as she fended off complaints from a parent who griped at her over playing time given to the parent’s daughter.

There will be more to come as developments warrant.

I also intend to keep the heat on Donald Trump and those who serve in the president’s administration. I want to emphasize what I believe is a critical point as I continue to comment: The president and his administration work for us, for you and me. The individuals who report to the president are not paid by him; they are not answerable ultimately to him.

We are the bosses. They all are our employees.

So, I’m heading for a 900-consecutive-day streak. I want you to stay with me. I also ask you to share these musings with those with whom you share social media networks.

There. Boasting is over. Until the next time.

International news

Homeland security boss out . . . yawn!

Kirstjen Nielsen is out as secretary of homeland security.

What in the name of governmental competence am I supposed to make of it?

She tussled with Donald Trump over immigration policy. I am trying to grasp what precisely caused the president’s homeland security honcho to resign — effective immediately.

Indeed, the immediate departure tells me that she pushed out the door. Reports indicate that Trump flamethrower Stephen Miller, the senior policy adviser from hell, has been engineering a top-to-bottom overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security.

Truth be told — if you want to call it that — is that Nielsen learned to lie as clumsily as Donald Trump. She had trouble justifying the parent-child separation policy the Trump administration enacted in its hideous effort to curb illegal immigration. Oh, and then this homeland security secretary of Scandinavian descent just couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge that Trump favors immigrants from that part of Europe over those who hail from “sh**hole” countries in Africa.

Now comes word that Trump wants to get even tougher on illegal immigration. So I guess Nielsen wasn’t quite on board. Is that so?

So the president has named an acting homeland security secretary, who will join the ranks of acting defense secretary, acting White House chief of staff, acting United Nations ambassador, acting interior secretary, acting EPA administrator.

Holy cow, man! The “best people” with whom the president surrounds himself keep heading for the tall grass.

national news

If there’s nothing there, release the report . . . now!

If there’s no evidence of “collusion” or “obstruction of justice” in that well-chronicled — but still-unknown — report from special counsel Robert Mueller, then why is Attorney General William Barr dragging his feet in releasing it to the public?

Hey, I have to ask, you know?

Mueller finished his exhaustive probe into whether the Russians colluded with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Barr said Mueller came up empty. No collusion. Got it! Check!

Obstruction is another matter. Barr said Mueller did not “exonerate” Trump, but found nothing on which to file a criminal complaint.

So, there you have it — according to the attorney general.

Democrats in Congress want the full report released. Barr said he intends to block some of it. Maybe much of it. The public won’t see the whole thing, if Barr gets his way.

Donald Trump keeps swaying in the breeze. He says “release it.” Then he waffles. Back and forth.

I am going to presume the president doesn’t know what Mueller found per the obstruction matter. I also am being forced to presume — at least until it’s proven otherwise — that Barr has concluded there may be more than meets the naked eye in that Mueller report.

Trump trumpets “no collusion, total exoneration, witch hunt!” If so, then what in the world is the holdup here?

Gosh, I’m inclined to believe that New York Times report that some of Mueller’s legal eagles are unhappy with the way Barr presented their findings, which likely might explain a whole lot about the delay in getting this report released to the public that deserves to see it in its entirety.

They told the NY Times that Barr soft-pedaled the findings in his four-page summary and that there’s more in there that implicates Donald Trump in something not yet explained.

Can we get it explained? Immediately?

local news, Sports news

Almost time to ‘Play ball!’

AMARILLO, Texas — They used to refer to the place pictured here as the “multipurpose event venue,” aka . . . the MPEV.

It’s now gotta name. And in a little more than a day from now some guy in an umpire uniform is going to stand behind home plate and shout “Play ball!” to two minor-league baseball teams.

One of them will be the Amarillo Sod Poodles, who will open their home season in their shiny new ballpark in downtown Amarillo, just across the street from City Hall and a couple of blocks from a newly bustling Polk Street corridor.

I snapped this picture Sunday afternoon while running an errand. My wife and I came back to Amarillo for the weekend. We have to shove off Monday morning for points downstate.

I truly wish I could be parked in the stands to watch the Sod Poodles play hardball.

This is a big event for this city of 200,000 residents. It marks a huge turn around a lengthy and occasionally contentious corner toward a future that isn’t yet defined fully. I sense that it is going to be a bright one.

The Sod Poodles are affiliated with the National League San Diego Padres. They will play AA baseball, which is two steps below the Big League. The players will boast significant talent and will provide a season full of entertainment for baseball-starved fans of Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle.

Oh, but there’s minor hurdle to clear Monday night when the ump gets the game started at Hodgetown. It involves an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game that is occurring in Minneapolis at the same time. One team is the University of Virginia; the other is Texas Tech University.

You see, Amarillo sits just a bit north of Lubbock, where Texas Tech plays its home games. On Monday night, the Red Raiders are playing for their first-ever men’s college basketball championship.

I fear that some Sod Poodles ticket holders might want to sit out the home opener to watch the Red Raiders try to make men’s basketball history.

Talk about an embarrassment in riches.

Well, to those Tech faithful who have a decision to make . . . good luck. It’s your call.

I’ll be cheering for Tech’s Red Raiders to bring home the trophy. I also will be cheering for the Sod Poodles to wow ’em at home and bring back the first of many victories in this maiden season.

Sports news

They’re yelling themselves hoarse in West Texas

Amarillo is only 120 miles or so north of Lubbock in West Texas.

Both cities are full of happy basketball fans tonight. Indeed, as my wife and I are parked in our RV in far west Amarillo, I am wondering if I can hear the shouts from sports bars all over the city.

Indeed, I might have to dial in my ears to hear the shouts from down yonder in Lubbock, where Texas Tech University sits.

The Red Raiders have earned a shot at the men’s college basketball title by defeating Michigan State University tonight. Now they’ll go after the NCAA men’s title Monday night against the University of Virginia.

I watched every minute of the game. I am not a Tech grad. I don’t even follow college basketball all that closely. But both my wife and I have many Tech grad-friends we met during our many years in Amarillo. I am happy for them all.

However, you can count me as one happy former West Texan who will cheer loudly for the Red Raiders to bring home the hardware.

economic news

What’s Trump trying to do with the Fed?

I cannot begin to comment in any detail about federal economic policy. But I do wonder about a couple of nominations planned for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Donald Trump appears to be angry with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. So what’s he going to do? He has nominated Stephen Moore, a non-economist and a vocal Powell critic, as a Fed governor. What’s more, Trump is slated to nominate Godfather’s pizza mogul and former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to another governor’s post; oh, yeah, Cain also is a Powell critic. Cain also has the specter of sexual harassment allegations hanging over him.

I long have thought the Fed was beyond partisanship. It is supposed to regulate economic activity. It sets interest rates. It can reduce them when the economy is struggling; it can increase them when the economy prospers.

Trump, who selected Powell to replace Janet Yellen as Fed chairman, has been openly critical of the rate increases that have occurred on Powell’s watch.

Now he wants to put a couple of fellow Powell critics on the board?

Is that how the Fed is supposed to operate? I don’t believe the Fed should be politicized in this fashion.

national news

There he goes again: disparaging another beloved American

I am shaking my head yet again at something the president of the United States has said.

Donald Trump told the Washington Times that he understands why the late former first lady, Barbara Bush, disliked him so much. “Look what I did to her sons,” Trump said.

Yeah. Look at that.

It won’t happen, ever, but a tiny part of still wishes the president could exhibit the tiniest sense of public decency when responding to critics.

Mrs. Bush died this past year a few months before her husband, the 41st president, George H.W. Bush, passed away. She made her feelings known in a new book, “The Matriarch,” written by USA Today reporter Susan Page. She disliked Donald Trump. That, ladies and gents, is no secret.

As for Trump’s response, he denigrated Jeb Bush as “low-energy Jeb” while they competed for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Trump boasted to the Times that Jeb was supposed to win, but was eliminated early. Trump also was highly critical of President George W. Bush’s conduct of the Iraq War; I get that criticism, but then again he did use some inflammatory language to challenge the former president.

It’s not in Trump’s DNA to keep his trap shut. Or at least to offering akin to a statesmanlike acknowledgement that a beloved former first lady is entitled to her opinion.

Oh, no. He has to mock her.

Classless.

environmental news

There’s fate . . . and then you have this!

I believe I have just read what could be the most dramatic demonstration karma imaginable.

The Hill newspaper reports the following:

South African wildlife authorities say they have recovered the remains of a man suspected of poaching rhinoceroses, one of Africa’s most endangered great beasts.

But get a load of this . . . they believe the guy was killed by an elephant and his corpse was devoured by a pride of lions.

Check out the story here.

To be brutally candid, I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to this kind of story. I have heard about how some African governments have issued shoot-on-sight orders to park personnel who witness individuals killing wildlife illegally. Given that I am a devoted wild animal lover, I have cheered those reports.

Should I feel badly for this guy’s family? I suppose so. Park officials have offered their condolences, which is appropriate.

This development, if it turns out to be true, would buttress the old commercial jingle that over the years has turned into something of a cliché: It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.