Monthly Archives: August 2019

environmental news

A-bombs to prevent hurricanes? Really, Mr. President?

2 Comments

This one almost got by me, as I thought it might be a satirical “news” story.

Hey, it wasn’t. Reportedly

Donald J. Trump reportedly floated the idea that we ought to use atomic bombs to prevent hurricanes from inflicting damage ashore. Yep! Drop them bombs on hurricanes!

What in the world is the president of the United States thinking? Oh, wait! He isn’t thinking. He never thinks before opening up his mouth or unleashing his Twitter fingers. He never ponders the impact of these pronouncements coming from someone who is supposed to be a man of reason, forethought, nuance, rational thinking.

He is none of it. None, I’m tellin’ ya!

I’m thinking The Onion ought to write a story about it, publish it in its satirical spin on the news. I’m wondering whether many readers will realize that Donald Trump actually meant it!

Axios reported that Trump made the remarks in a meeting of advisers. One of them leaked it to the media, telling how Trump thought it would be feasible to drop a nuke as a storm was forming off the Africa coast and began its trek toward North and/or South America.

Oh, but the president denies saying it. Sure … and I am expected to believe the serial liar in chief? Hah!

Weird, man.

national news

Why criticize Trump? Let me count the reasons

I knew I would get this kind of response to a blog post I published wondering about whether Donald Trump’s incessant criticism of Barack Obama is fueled by racial animus toward the nation’s first African-American president.

The response comes from a friend; he’s not just a Facebook “friend,” but he’s the real thing. He and I go back about 35 years. We differ politically, but we remain dear friends.

He wanted to know why, if I am so angry at the criticism of President Obama, I have kept hammering incessantly at Donald Trump during his presidency.

I’ll answer my pal right here.

It’s because I believe that Trump is unfit at every level I can think of to hold the office to which he was elected.

Trump is amoral. He lacks principle. He has no governing philosophy. He is a narcissist who cares only how issues of the day affect him personally. He has behaved like an alley cat for many decades. He panders to his political base. He has no interest in the U.S. Constitution. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t listen to advisers. He lies gratuitously.

There’s more.

He insults American heroes, patriots and Gold Star families. He mocks people with disabilities. He never admits failure or to being wrong, even when both matters are obvious.

My most recent gripe about Trump had less to do with what he said than the person he keeps referencing. I have connected the few dots needed on that score. Barack Obama is a mixed-race African-American politician; Trump is a white guy. Trump keeps singling Obama out for specific criticism, particularly when he foments the lie that Obama was not born in the United States of America. Is that racially motivated? I believe it is.

My friend appears to be an avid Trump supporter. I don’t harbor any less personal affection for him because of that. I hope he feels the same about me. Indeed, he told me just a couple of years ago that he had to remind his wife that our friendship goes far beyond politics and policy.

I hope he takes this response in the spirit in which I offer it. He is my friend.

I just want the guy he supports as president out of office … as quickly as possible!

Sports news

Boxing: once fun to watch, now it’s unwatchable

There once was a time when I would glue myself to the TV set when professional boxing was on the air.

That was a long time ago. Quite obviously, I was much younger. I didn’t appreciate fully a brutal aspect of the sport I loved to watch: the men who fought inflicted terrible damage to the other guy’s brain; and they received equal amounts of terrible damage from the other guy’s fists.

That was then.

So many of the athletes I used to watch — some of whom I admired, truth be told — now are gone. They fell victim to pugilistic dementia, which is another way say they had their brains scrambled.

Fighters aren’t suffering such punishment more frequently these days. I am just older now, perhaps a bit wiser (which often is merely a benefit of growing old) and also I am less bloodthirsty than I was as a kid.

I’ll spare you the gripes I have about boxing’s governing bodies and how the sport has morphed into a sort of “participation trophy” of sports. That is, there are more “world champions” at every weight class than I can count. There once was a time when the heavyweight champion of the world was the baddest man on Earth; Muhammad Ali didn’t have to brag about being “bad” … he just was.

But I no longer can stomach the sight of two grown men beating other’s brains’ out.

I no longer watch videos of some of my favorite pro fighters from back in the day. I can barely watch fights of The Greatest — Muhammad Ali — knowing what became of him as he grew older. Yes, he died of Parkinson’s disease and reportedly did not lose any cognitive ability, but I do believe his fatal ailment was accelerated by the punishment he took at the end of his career.

Boxing once was a thrill to watch. These days, it gives me the creeps.

national news

Why the continual attacks on Barack Obama?

I feel like entering the discussion about whether Donald Trump is driven by some sort of racial animus against people of color.

Why now? Well, I keep hearing the president leveling gratuitous criticism of Barack H. Obama. He keeps yapping, yammering and yowling about Obama’s record, making untrue statements about whether Obama was “outsmarted” or overmatched when facing down world leaders.

He keeps trying to inflate his own record in comparison to President Obama’s two terms in office.

So I keep wondering, why does he feel the need to single out Barack Obama?

Is it because the black guy is smarter, more erudite, more nuanced, more sophisticated than he is?

Might it have something to do with the skewering Obama leveled at Trump a few years ago during the White House Correspondence Dinner, when Obama poked fun at Trump’s former role as host of “Celebrity Apprentice”? You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the president’s stand-up at the mic at Trump’s expense.

How does one explain Trump’s long-standing obsession with the lie that Obama was born in Kenya and was not constitutionally qualified to run for the office to which he was elected twice?

And how does one justify Trump’s phony assertion that Barack Obama didn’t perform well academically at Harvard Law School, or at Columbia University?

Trump now is president of the United States and he insists on mounting fraudulent attacks on President Obama. Does he beat the drum with the same frequency and intensity with, say, President Clinton, or President Carter, or President Johnson, or President Kennedy? No.

President Barack Obama gets the vast majority of Donald Trump’s barrages.

Is race a factor?

Hmm. Seems like it is to me.

local news

DMV: Legislature’s next big project?

Texas state Rep. Scott Sanford came to our Rotary Club in McKinney the other morning to provide an update on the accomplishments of the 2019 Legislature.

Then he took a question from the audience about an issue that has been in the news of late in North Texas: insufferably long lines at Department of Motor Vehicles offices.

What is the Legislature going to do about that? How do Texans avoid having to wait in line for hours on end to get a new driver’s license or to do any kind of business at DMV?

Sanford, a McKinney Republican, didn’t have a quick-and-easy answer. He is acutely aware of the problems that have plagued Collin County DMV offices.

News reports in recent days, noting the 100-degree temperatures logged all across the state this summer, told of people waiting six or seven hours. Some of them waited until the DMV office closed, denying them the chance to get finish their business at the state office.

I’ll mention Collin County because it’s where I live. It’s also a rapidly growing part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The county’s population sits at right at 1 million residents. DMV needs to do a much better job of responding to residents’ needs; that’s what I have heard in our brief time living there.

It’s the kind of question that confronted Rep. Sanford. He couldn’t provide much assurance that relief is on the way.

My hope is that he takes those concerns with him to the 2021 Legislature, presuming of course that he gets re-elected next year. My sense is that DMV should be high on lawmakers’ to-do list when they return to work.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 166: Avoiding a catasrophe

I thought originally I would keep these next few thoughts to myself. Then I changed my mind, which I am entitled to do.

They involve a near-catastrophe on U.S. 287 just west of Wichita Falls, Texas.

We were tooling along the highway per our normal speed of around 60 mph; we never take our pickup/fifth wheel assembly to the posted speed limit of 75 mph. We also are quite aware of the distance we should keep between our truck and the traffic ahead of us.

So … we’re on our way to Amarillo, having been told earlier in the morning that wildfires had closed Copper Creek State Park, where we intended to spend the night before tooling into the Big A.

Traffic was moving along nicely. We approached a rise in the highway. Then, in an instant — and a frightening instant at that! — we saw a car that had just crashed; it was facing the wrong way on the highway.

What does one do when he spots something like that, with traffic in the other lane? I’ll tell you what I did. I slammed on the brakes! Hard! I stood on ’em!

The truck by itself would have stopped quickly. Not this time! We were hauling our fifth wheel, which weighs, oh, several thousand pounds. The truck would not stop!

I kept maximum pressure on the brakes … until we brought it to a full stop — about five to six feet from the driver’s side door of the car that had just crashed on the highway.

My wife and I sat there for seemingly forever. I had to catch my breath, as did my poor wife. The young man in the car in front of us appeared dazed from the impact he had endured. His vehicle’s air bags had deployed and I reckon he was jarred by the device designed to save his life.

I rolled down the window and asked him if he was all right. He said he was “just waking up.” He looked for all the world as if he didn’t know where he was at that moment.

At this moment, I cannot recall how much distance we had to bring the truck/fifth wheel assembly to a complete stop. Nor can I tell you precisely how I managed to get our rig around this fellow without tipping the fifth wheel; the highway sloped sharply to our right. Other motorists were stopping to aid the young man. We had our hands full and our minds focused intently on one thing only: bringing our truck to a stop.

I do hope he’s all right.

I am happy to report two things coming from this near-miss. One is that the fifth wheel trailer brakes worked perfectly; the other is that the entire assembly stayed in proper alignment as we sought desperately to avoid crashing into this young motorist’s vehicle.

I do not need to be petrified any more than I was in those perilous few seconds once we spotted trouble.

We now shall sally forth. With caution.

national news

Where are the GOP challengers with ‘heft’?

Joe Walsh has joined William Weld and Mark Sanford as actual and potential challengers to Donald Trump in the president’s quest for nomination by the Republican Party for another term in office.

A friend of mine wonders where the GOP challengers with “heft” are hiding. He believes Trump will “swat” any of the three challengers being discussed “like flies.” I fear he is right.

Who, then, are the hefty GOP heavyweights who might stand a chance of giving the president the primary campaign scare he so richly deserves?

I am having difficulty coming with names.

Former Secretary of State/Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell more or less comes to mind. He won’t walk onto the field. He had his chance leading up to the 1996 election when Bill Clinton was running for re-election. Gen. Powell begged off, citing the lack of support from his wife, Alma. I doubt Mrs. Powell has changed her mind. Besides, Powell’s time has passed.

I think also — are you reading for this? — of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. Naww. He won’t do it, either.

I fear the GOP is left with three men who don’t stand a serious chance of inflicting any meaningful damage on Trump, who is raising many millions of dollars toward his re-election effort.

Mark Sanford is grievously damaged already. He once was South Carolina’s governor who messed around with a woman other than his wife; he skulked off to South America for a fling, while telling his staff to lie to the media about his whereabouts, instructing them to say he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail.” No good, Mark.

William Weld ran for vice president in 2016 on the Libertarian ticket headed by former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. Weld does have political experience, having served two terms as Massachusetts governor. But he ain’t gonna make the grade, either.

Joe Walsh served for a term as a congressman from Illinois. He’s a firebrand, a TEA Party advocate. He is ultraconservative. He also cannot stand the idea of Trump serving as president. He says things about Trump that many of us have said to each other at dinner tables and living rooms around the country.

I fear the GOP pool of challengers is thin, given the state of politics in the country at this moment. History shows that intraparty challenges against presidential incumbents have proven politically fatal to the incumbent. Sure, Trump is likely to have someone run against him, but he has rewritten the playbook and installed strategies that few “traditional” politicians can recognize, let alone emulate.

The GOP primary campaign will contain plenty of fiery rhetoric. Of that I am sure. Will it matter? I am thinking it won’t.

We’ll have to await the main event to commence sometime in the late summer of 2020 when Democrats nominate their candidate and Republicans swallow hard and send Donald Trump back into battle.

Oh … boy!

national news

Former GOP Rep. Walsh now set to challenge Trump

Joe Walsh hasn’t been in the public eye all that long, but his time in the spotlight has been fraught with, shall we say, uncomfortable moments.

The former Republican member of Congress has thrust himself back onto the stage with an announcement that he’s going to challenge Donald J. Trump for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

Does this TEA Party adherent stand a chance of wrestling the nomination away from the president? Ohhh, probably not.

However, the guy who now works as a right-wing talk show host could make this primary fight entertaining in the extreme.

Walsh served a term in the U.S. House. Then his district got redrawn in a way that favored Democrats. He sought to switch districts and then lost to Tammy Duckworth, who since has gone on to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Walsh, though, has been far from silent. Yes, he once spoke harshly against President Barack Obama, but has all but apologized for the intemperate language he used against Trump’s immediate predecessor.

In a way, though, it kind does my heart good to hear him say things many millions of us have been saying about the president since before he won the 2016 election.

He calls Trump unfit, frightening, incompetent, crass, callous, lacking in empathy. And this is from a Republican who once stood foursquare behind Donald Trump.

Joe Walsh isn’t exactly the kind of politician I want to see elected. He tilts too far the other way than I do. He was elected as a TEA Party advocate. I am not crazy about TEA Party candidates or officeholders.

However, he stands on a set of principles in which he believes strongly, which happens to be something that is foreign to Donald Trump, who doesn’t appear to have a single guiding principle other than what benefits him.

So, with that I wish former Rep. Joe Walsh well. Give POTUS the dickens. He deserves every lick he’s going to get.

International news

Which is it? Is POTUS unsettled or is it all going well at G7?

Who are we supposed to believe?

Independent observers report that Donald Trump appears unsettled, unnerved, uncomfortable among world leaders meeting at the G7 summit in France.

Trump aides are furious over he way French President Emmanuel Macron has conducted the meetings. They’re angry when a top Iranian official showed up unannounced, apparently at Macron’s invitation. Hey, it’s his country; I guess he can invite whoever he wants.

Then the president of the United States says the meetings are going “well.” It’s all good, he said. No worries.

Let’s see. Who is the more credible source?

OK. I think I can decide. I’ll take the word of others. It pains me terribly to disbelieve the president of my own country. However, given his penchant for prevarication, I am left with no choice.

I don’t believe anything that flies out of POTUS’s pie hole.

So sad.

media news

Technical issues create maximum frustration

There are times when I feel as if I’m speaking Martian, or times when the other person is speaking to me in Martian.

Technical difficulties occasionally get in the way of all the fun I have writing this blog.

They barreled into my fun time this morning. I don’t know if they’re fixed. At the moment the site that I use to write this blog is working. My most recent post has been distributed along the various social media I use to publicize these musings. Life is good … for the moment.

The frustration occurs when I call for technical support. I use an Internet hosting company. I’ll call them when things like this occur. I usually get a very young person on the other end of the line. I tell the youngster about the issue that’s plaguing me at the moment. He or she will respond with a rapid-fire sequence of sentences that usually involve lots of initials and acronyms.

I have more than once stopped the individual and reminded them that I am old man who isn’t fluent in the language they are speaking. I haven’t yet grasped all the nuances of Internet-speak.

Those who are kind will tell me that I have communicated my concern to them clearly. They say I can speak to them in their language better than I think I can. That’s all fine. I understand what customer service is all about: Their mission is to make me feel comfortable making a phone call.

Arguably the most astonishing aspect of this computer age is the vast array of entry points the “techs” can use to access this and/or that “tool” available to me. I don’t know where these access points can be found, so I rely on the experts to wander through the maze of options that only they know exist.

Blogging remains a lot of fun for me … when the computer system I use is working well. Which is most of the time.

When it’s not, well, I venture into a world with which I am totally unfamiliar. Maybe I will learn how to navigate through the darkness.

Or … maybe not.