Monthly Archives: July 2019

local news, Sports news

Matney was right: Amarillo is a ‘baseball town’

Paul Matney has about as much long-term, “institutional” knowledge of Amarillo, Texas, as anyone who’s lived there in the past century.

So, when the retired Amarillo College president said in 2015 that “Amarillo is a baseball town” and would consume minor-league baseball like no one’s business, we all should have been paying careful attention.

Matney became a spokesman for a campaign to win a non-binding referendum on what was called merely a “multipurpose event venue” at the time. His statements seems to be proving to be more than truthful. Matney seems to know baseball. More than that, he knows the community that now plays host to a AA minor-league baseball franchise. It is affiliated with the National League’s San Diego Padres. They call this team the Sod Poodles.

It is playing baseball in a brand new ballpark before nearly full crowds every night the “Soddies” are at home.

What a remarkable turn of events for the city.

I am delighted beyond measure to see the city embrace this form of sports entertainment. It also is fascinating to see who suits up these days for the Sod Poodles and who, eventually, makes it to the Big Leagues … and who among those might carve out over time careers befitting of inducting into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

It won’t happen? I young man named Tony Gwynn played hardball in Amarillo for a time in the early 1980s when the city was home to an earlier affiliated team.

Gwynn is now in the Hall of Fame.

As for Matney, I admire his knowledge of the community and his courage he exhibited by declaring that “Amarillo is a baseball town.”

He appears to have been so correct.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 73: Passing a huge test

LAKE BOB SANDLIN, Texas — Toby the Puppy had one of his biggest days ever, even while showing us his jumpy side.

One of our concerns about Toby over the five years he has been a member of our family has been whether he could fight the urge to chase after critters he deems to be potential playmates. I’m talking about squirrels, birds, rabbits and perhaps even fellow pooches. Thus, we had generally kept him leashed up when we gathered for outdoor activities.

We came to Lake Bob Sandlin to celebrate the Fourth of July with friends and family members. We were gathered alongside Lake Bob Sandlin in East Texas. We faced the question: What do we do with Puppy? Keep him leashed or do we let him run loose? We were advised that the other puppies there would provide plenty of company for Toby to enjoy. Let him run loose, our family members advised. He’ll be just fine.

OK. So we did.

They were correct!

He ran himself all over the place. Our concern about his running away was overstated, although we have watched him in the past take off running at a full sprint at whatever critter catches his eye.

No sweat this time.

Then came the fireworks show at the end of the evening.

Not so good.  The noise frightened Toby terribly. He wasn’t the, um, “lone wolf,” though. The other pooches playing alongside the lake didn’t fare too well, either, when the rockets began blasting over the lake.

But … we learned something new about Toby the Puppy. He plays well with others. Good job, pup.

The next project? Getting him to use the doggie door …

national news

Teleprompter went ‘kaput,’ Mr. President? Really?

Donald Trump isn’t prone to saying he’s sorry for anything, so no one should have expected him to apologize for the ridiculous assertion he made about 18th-century airports during his “Salute to America” speech Thursday night.

His blaming the mistake on a rained-on Teleprompter does require a certain suspension of disbelief. The mistake went viral, with Twitter hounds around the world poking fun at the president.

Why? Because he made some goofball reference to revolutionary soldiers “taking the airports” while they fought for their independence in 1775. You know the rest of it: The first airplane didn’t take flight until Dec. 17, 1903.

Blame it on the rain, Mr. POTUS

He said the gadget from which he was reading his text “went kaput” in the heavy rain that soaked the event. Does that also explain why he referenced “Fort McHendry,” when he should have said “McHenry,” and that that battle to which he was referring occurred during the War of 1812?

OK. I’m not going to belabor this point. Suffice to say, though, that the president of the United States is hardly a student of the very history of this great country. He made a mistake while seeking to extol the nation’s greatness.

If only, though, this individual — Donald Trump — could just say it loudly and clearly: I messed up. My bad.

national news

Baffled over ‘airport’ gaffe by POTUS

I need to visit briefly one of the goofy moments that developed during Donald Trump’s “Salute to America” speech Thursday in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

He referred to the revolutionary soldiers taking the “airports” while they fought for the nation’s independence — more than 125 years before the invention of the airplane.

I have questioned whether the presidential speechwriter penned that passage into Trump’s prepared text. If that was the case, was there no one on the staff who read it prior to the president delivering it? Did they not recognize the obvious error that the text contained? If they didn’t notice, were they asleep at the wheel? If they did notice, did they  ignore it to, um, embarrass the commander in chief?

Or did the president, pardon the pun, wing it at that moment, thinking it was a clever addition to the text that had been prepared for him by the “best people” who comprise his speechwriting team.

I just find it weird in the extreme that the president of the United States would make such an egregious error in that particular event.

No need to remind me that presidents are human, that they are entitled to make verbal mistakes on occasion. I get it. However, this president had weeks — indeed, months — to prepare for an event he pledged would be the greatest tribute to America the nation has ever seen.

Oh, wait! He was making a joke! Isn’t that what happened?

national news

POTUS doesn’t blow it … completely!

I had been concerned about whether Donald J. Trump would deliver a too-political speech while offering a “salute to America” at the Lincoln Memorial, that he would hijack a traditionally non-partisan celebration and turn it into a re-election campaign event.

To my admitted surprise, he didn’t fall into that trap. He gave what I guess you could call a workmanlike speech that sought to pay tribute to the revolutionaries who (a) created a new nation and (b) fought for it on battlefields along the Atlantic coastal region.

Yes, I know about the reference to our men taking control of the “airports” in, um 1775, which occurred 128 years before Orville and Wilbur Wright launched the first airplane in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Bad speech-writing, bad editing there.

But the president managed to stick mostly to script.

I have promised to offer a good word when Donald Trump earns it. I am doing so here and now.

national news

Back bencher bails on GOP … will there be more?

Justin Amash used to belong to the Republican Party while serving as a congressman from a reliably Republican district in Michigan.

How reliable is it? Grand Rapids, Mich., used to be represented in the House of Representatives by Gerald R. Ford, who went on to become the nation’s 38th president. If there was anyone who was more “establishment Republican” than President Ford, then he or she has been hiding in the tall grass for generations.

Amash bailed on the GOP this week. He is the lone GOP House member to sign on to the call to impeach Donald J. Trump. He believes Trump has committed crimes against his high office and the Constitution. Yet his formerly fellow Republicans are having none of it. Now, Amash is having none of them.

He is now an independent. Rumors are flying that he will run for president in 2020 — as a libertarian! Well, good luck with that.

Actually, I admire Amash for sticking to his principles. He likely won’t change any Republican minds by leaving the party. There are those of us out here in this vast nation of ours who believe he is right, that the president did commit crimes that have risen (or sunk!) to the level of impeachment.

He isn’t going to place fealty to the president or to his former political party over the principle of adhering to the law and defending the Constitution.

Is this former GOP back bencher going to move to the front rank of politicians? We will need to see how that plays out. My hope is that he does. My concern is that he will disappear.

national news

God bless America, warts and all!

My friend David Stevens, a New Mexico newspaper publisher and all-round good guy, has it right.

He said on Facebook he has no intention of protesting anything on the Fourth of July. He intends only to salute the country, even with all its flaws.

I have to concur with him.

I make no apologies to anyone for my love of this nation. I am the grandson of immigrants who came here with virtually nothing. They reared their children — 10 of them all told on both sides of my family lineage. They all enjoyed success and brought families of their own into this world.

I, of course, was one of them.

We hear so much these days about the divisions that run deep throughout our society. I admit they exist. They make me mightily uncomfortable. I don’t like the tone of the political discourse these days. However, not a single aspect of it makes me love this country any less than I always have.

I am a sucker for Independence Day pageantry. I love parades. The patriotic music makes my soul soar.

I’ll admit that I do not stand and salute the Stars and Stripes when they play the National Anthem. I have seen my fellow veterans do that. Such outward public displays of patriotism look to me to be a form of showing off, of making a spectacle of oneself. I prefer instead to take off my cap, put my hand over my heart and sing the anthem loudly … even if it’s more than a bit off tune

The protests over shoe companies, over the late Kate Smith’s “God Bless America,” over athletes “taking a knee”? I take no part in any of that. None of that interests me in the least.

I stand and salute the nation I love without condition. It’s not the perfect nation. It merely is the best one on Earth. I am proud to be one of her sons.

business news, military news, national news

Shut up, Lou Dobbs!

Lou Dobbs doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he calls American general-grade officers “snowflakes.”

The Fox News business correspondent/talking head stepped in it with a comment about the generals’ opposition to the militarization of the Fourth of July celebration set for tonight in the nation’s capital.

“No wonder” they haven’t won a war since 1991, Dobbs wrote on Twitter, which lit up in return over Dobbs’ ridiculous bloviation.

Dobbs takes heat

Just for giggles, I sought to look up Dobbs’ background and came up empty in the hunt for any military experience. I am not suggesting that military critics who didn’t serve are not qualified to offer criticism of the brass. I am suggesting, though, that service in the military might have tempered Dobbs’ statements about the brass’ opposition to what Donald Trump is seeking to do with the nation’s tradition of honoring its independence.

And what, therefore, does the commander in chief think of the criticism from the ranks?

For his part, the president has been tweeting all day, apparently, about the thrill of seeing the finest military hardware on Earth while the nation commemorates its independence from colonial rule in the late 18th century.

What I should tell readers here, given Dobbs’ apparent lack of understanding of these matters, is that the military high command dislikes being used for political purposes. The men and women who serve do so to protect the nation, not to be used as props.

The generals’ opposition is not a matter of “snowflake” sensibilities. It’s a matter of understanding the mission of the world’s mightiest military establishment.

Get a grip, Lou Dobbs. Stick to business reporting and steer far away from — dare I say it? — “fake news.”

local news, national news

My congressman is being seen more than heard

I had a chance to visit for a few minutes this week with my new congressman, a young man named Van Taylor. He’s a Republican, a former Marine and a former Texas state legislator from Plano.

I have no clue on Earth what kind of lawmaker he will become as he represents Texas’s Third Congressional District. However, I want to say something positive about the style he has adopted while settling in to his new responsibilities writing federal law.

He’s been quiet. One does not see Van Taylor on TV during every news cycle. Why? I reckon he wants to earn his spurs before he stands before the media to pontificate about this or that public policy matter. He says he prefers trying to build bipartisan bridges, working quietly across the aisle with Democrats.

I will concede a couple of points about Taylor.

First, he succeeds a legendary congressman, Sam Johnson, the former Air Force pilot who had the back fortune of being shot down during the Vietnam War and was held captive for seven years in the Hanoi Hilton; he spent most of his confinement in solitary quarters. It would be terribly bad form, therefore, for young Rep. Taylor to hog the spotlight while serving under the enormous shadow of the man he followed into the House of Representatives.

Second, he is a member of the minority party in the House. Democrats took control of the body after the 2018 midterm election. That means in many cases, Republicans’ voices aren’t as, oh, meaningful as those that come from Democratic throats.

Make no mistake, the Democratic majority has its boatload of media blowhards. They’re all rookie lawmakers, too. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is everywhere, it seems. There’s also Rashida Tlaib of Minnesota, Katie Porter of California and, I don’t know, maybe a dozen or more of them out there.

My representatives is taking a much more respectful approach to working his way into the limelight, if he ever gets to that point.

I just prefer the newbies in the House and Senate to earn their place before swallowing up all that air time and newsprint.

You’re off to a good start, Rep. Taylor.

national news

Human rights, Mr. POTUS; they matter, too!

Former President Jimmy Carter made some news the other day by questioning the “legitimacy” of Donald Trump’s election as president, suggesting that Trump is in office only because of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

What has gotten little attention, though, was the setting in which Carter made the statements. He was conducting his annual human rights conference at the Carter Center in Atlanta, which seeks to call attention to one of the hallmarks of the former president’s single term in office.

Jimmy Carter made human rights arguably the hallmark of his foreign policy, which of course have been virtually ignored by Donald Trump.

While the current president kowtows to dictators, strongmen and despots, the former president called attention to their hideous treatment of fellow human beings.

A foreign hostile power led by a strongman attacked our electoral system in 2016 and the president blows it off. Trump speaks glowingly of a North Korean tyrant, talking about the “beautiful letters” he receives from the overfed Kim Jong Un, who lives in relative luxury while his fellow North Koreans are starving. Oh, and then the president recently spoke directly to Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, telling him how “honored” he was to meet the man who has been implicated in the gruesome murder and dismemberment of Saudi-born Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

President Carter’s legacy is still being determined. Historians are going to argue perhaps for the rest of time about the quality of his single term in office. On the issue of human rights and the huge stake Carter placed on furthering them, there can be no argument.

Jimmy Carter towers over Donald Trump in that critical regard. If only the current president understood the danger he poses when he cozies up to killers.