Monthly Archives: August 2020

national news

Chaos reigns!

You want chaos as it regards anything involving Donald J. Trump?

Try this on for size …

The Republican National Committee chose Charlotte, N.C., to stage its 2020 presidential nominating convention; then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he couldn’t guarantee that the health of convention goers would be protected from the fatal virus. So then the RNC moved the convention to Jacksonville, Fla., where Trump was supposed to accept the GOP nomination.

Then came word from the Republican sheriff of Duval County, who said he couldn’t guarantee the safety of those attending the gathering in Jacksonville. Trump then cancelled the Jacksonville event.

He moved it back to Charlotte, but with a wrinkle: There will be no media allowed to cover the event live. It’ll occur in the arena, but it will be done more or less in secret.

Eek, man! What’s going on here?

I can no longer begin to keep up with the machinations of what is supposed to be a grand political event. Granted, the pandemic has thrown a lot of it into a cocked hat.

Meanwhile, though, Democrats are proceeding Milwaukee, Wis., just as they planned to do when the pandemic started sickening and killing Americans.

Does all of this portend what another four years of Donald J. Trump would produce were he to actually win this presidential  election? I dread the thought.

national news

Feels like the first time

Anxiousness is setting in as I await Election Day.

To be candid, I do not believe I have felt quite like this prior to a presidential election since, oh, the first time I was able to cast my ballot. That was in 1972. A long time ago, yes? However, I do have much the same sense of anticipation that I felt way back when I was so much younger.

I want this outcome to turn out the right way. I want Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. to be elected president over Donald John Trump Sr. I want Trump banished from the White House, from my house, from your house.

I was a freshly scrubbed registered voter in 1972 when I got to vote for the first time. I had served my country in the U.S. Army. I returned home from my two-year stint impassioned to change the course of the nation. The Vietnam War was raging. I had gotten a look at that war up close for a bit of time and came away more confused about it than I was when I arrived there in the spring of 1969. They were still shooting guns, dropping bombs and killing people with the same regularity when I left as when I arrived.

I wanted that war to end.

I lined up behind Sen. George McGovern. I wanted President Nixon to lose the election. I wanted then, as I do now, a dramatic course correction for our nation. It didn’t work out well for us then. Nixon was bigly, as in really huge.

That’s where the symmetry between then and now ends.

Many presidential elections have come and gone, of course. Some of them turned out the way I preferred. Some of them went the other way. The nation survived. I feared we might not survive the 1972 election result. It turned out that another matter, Watergate, intervened to take care of things for us. Nixon quit less than two years later.

I am sensing much the same anxiousness now as I was then. Add a bit of anxiety, and you might grasp a bit more the importance I am attaching to ridding the nation of the repulsive conduct of our commander in chief.

Yep, it feels like the first time.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 184: Finding a hidden jewel

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I really enjoy discovering places I didn’t know existed.

Fairfield Lake, just about 100 miles south of Dallas, is our latest discovery.

Texas Parks & Wildlife runs a state park here. Our GPS told us we had “arrived” at our destination, but we had to travel another 10 miles or so before we stumbled upon the park headquarters building.

We got to our RV campsite. We hooked up our RV. We had something to eat. Then we walked to edge of the lake. Holy smokes, man! This place is beautiful.

Our retirement journey has taken us to many places around the country. This ranks up there with the best of ’em. Just think, too, that it’s on the edge of our neighborhood! Who knew? Not me, kids.

Fairfield Lake State Park opened in 1976 after Texas Power & Light built a dam to store water to cool a power plant nearby. The lake comprises 1,460 acres in Freestone County.

Our goal is see every state park in our TP&W system of parks. We have a long way to go, having visited only about 25 or so out of the state’s system of more than 90 parks. We might be delayed in getting to all of the sites. Why is that?

Because of something my wife told me: “This is one park I definitely could come back to if we just wanted to get away for a few days.” There you go. We can’t be everywhere all at once.

It’s a gorgeous place. I’m all in.

national news

Trump: a lost cause

It is clear to me that for Donald Trump to speak candidly and frankly about the state of the battle against the coronavirus pandemic would be tantamount to admitting defeat … and admitting he was wrong to boast about the fantastic job he and his response team had delivered.

Medical experts are telling us that the pandemic is getting set to sweep into areas of the country not yet hammered by its misery. The Sun Belt has felt the virus’s wrath; so has the Pacific Coast; same for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Now it’s the Midwest’s turn to face down the coronavirus dragon, or so we are being told.

Dr. Deborah Birx, one of Trump’s pandemic task force response members – and an acknowledged expert on infectious disease – has issued dire warnings about what lies ahead for the nation. Trump’s response? He calls her “pathetic.” Good ever-loving grief, dude. Get a grip. She is the expert. You are not!

Trump’s aversion to admitting failure or to acknowledging a mistake is well-known. It’s his modus operandi. He fires off rebukes and epithets to those who surround him, those he enlists – ostensibly – to assist him in putting down crises. This is what he has done to Deborah Birx as well as to Dr. Anthony Fauci, another world-renowned infectious disease expert.

I am at the point now of giving up on Donald Trump ever being able to discuss with us the gravity of the crisis that continues to unfold. It continues to spread its tragedy. It has killed more than 155,000 Americans. It has sickened more than 4 million of us. Some of those infected happen to be friends of mine and even some members of my family. I do not feel comforted one tiny bit by anything that flies out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

Nor do I ever expect to hear anything approaching an honest assessment of the battle we are waging. Why? Because Trump has wrapped himself tightly in a blanket of false delusion.

State news

Wanting two parties to fight it out

I want Texas to become a two-party state.

It’s not enough to be dominated by a single political party. Not even the Democratic Party, which used to control everything in sight dating back to the period after the Civil War. They held onto power like a vise until the 1970s, when Republicans began picking off statewide elective offices and then started winning local races where Democrats once reigned supreme.

Now it’s all Republican all the time.

Democrats keep yapping about the next election cycle when they’ll turn the corner, when they’ll start winning back some of those seats. It hasn’t happened … yet!

Is this the year? Is this when Texas Democrats can start regaining some of the clout they gave away when the party leadership veered too far to the left to suit many millions of Texans?

We’ll have to wait. And see. And hope.

Why is a two-party state preferable to a one-party juggernaut? This comes from my own point of view, given that I consider myself to be a moderate, center-left Democratic-leaning voter.

Two viable political parties make them both more alert, more receptive to compromise, tacking more toward the middle. That has been the case in Texas, at least during my more than 36 years living here while reporting and commenting on Texas public policy.

My definition of good government combines the best of both major parties. It also compels them to work with each other, not against each other.

We have in Texas a Donald Trump version of the Republican Party, which is to say that it doesn’t hue to traditional GOP partisan principles. Low taxes? Government fiscal responsibility? Internationalism?

The Texas GOP follows Trump down some version of the Yellow Brick Road to, well, nowhere in particular. Meanwhile, Texas Democrats see this as their best opportunity to pick off a few GOP posts, playing to the anger and perhaps some disappointment among rank-and-file Texas Republicans. Take my word for it, there are a number of them out there wincing, grimacing and gnashing their teeth over the way Donald Trump has chosen to lead the nation.

Might all of this pave the way for a return to competitive political environment? My hope springs eternal.

medical news

COVID compounds our sorrow

I just received a tragic bit of news from a friend who lives in Amarillo.

His wife died this past spring. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. She also had tested positive for COVID-19. My friend told me this: The worst part of it was that I didn’t get to see her the last 4 months. Her nursing home was in total lock down.

That statement, right there, should tell us all plenty about the terrible nature of the pandemic that has killed more than 152,000 Americans. More deaths will follow. We are not experiencing, as a senior Trump administration official said, a time of “triumph” in the fight against the pandemic.

This story has created an unheard-of phenomenon in many respects. One of them involves the isolation that COVID patients must endure. They cannot have family near them as they struggle for life. No friends. No loved ones. They die separated from those who cherish them the most.

Which arcs back to another aspect of this disease. It is the special relationships that nurses, doctors and care facility staff develop with these patients. Think of this for a moment. These medical responders become “surrogate loved ones” for the people in their care.

How many stories have you heard since early this year about nurses and physicians sobbing at the death of patients who cannot feel the embrace of their spouse, their children, their parents? I have lost count. Yet every story I hear told fills me with heartache that tugs just a little harder than the previous time.

Then there are the stories of patients who are released from medical care and reunited with the people who love them. The happiness we see and hear from the medical personnel is as joyous as the sadness felt at the end of the tragic stories.

My friend’s story is not unique to the larger world. To him, though, it is unbearable, unspeakable and unimaginable. It hurts to hear this news because of the unique misery it brings to those who must endure it.

national news

‘Unity’ becomes hate speech

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REUTERS/Dominick Reuter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Do you remember when Donald Trump promised to “unify” the nation? Do you recall the many times he said he would be everyone’s president?

I do. It was just four years ago. It seems like an eternity.

Here we are. We’re on the cusp of another presidential election. My several social media networks are abuzz with memes, proclamations, hysteria. Donald Trump’s re-election effort has produced — at least in my memory — the most hateful back/forth possible.

Why is that? How did we get to this point?

I have to point straight, with both hands at the White House, at the guy who lives there with his wife and youngest son. Donald Trump has failed to deliver on many of his 2016 presidential campaign promises.

The “unity” pledge stands out. It’s a doozy. Trump’s strategy has been clear almost since the day he took the oath of office: He would speak only to his base; the rest of us, especially those who voted for his opponent four years ago, do not matter to him.

The result has been hate speech disguised as “political discourse.”

I’ll be clear: We have been through more divisive times in this country; the Civil War comes to mind; so does the Vietnam War; Watergate, too.

In my lifetime, though, this era — ushered in with the election of a first-time office seeker and former reality TV show host — has been unique in the level of hostility between the sides. Friendships have been plowed asunder. Family members are at each others’ throats. Prominent politicians have quit talking to those on “the other side of the aisle.”

Why is that? I focus my attention and the blame at the man at the top of the heap, the current president of the United States.

Donald Trump occupies the bulliest of political pulpits imaginable. The president is fully capable, were he so wired, to guide the tone of the debate toward a civil tone. Instead, Donald Trump has used that pulpit to foment the anger that has devolved into hatred.

This is my statement of fair warning that we need to prepare ourselves for the gutter-level campaign that Donald Trump intends to produce for us. This won’t be fun.

environmental news, local news

Littering provokes militancy

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SEA RIM STATE PARK, Texas — I am married to an anti-littering militant.

I have known it for the nearly five decades of our married life, but I saw it on full display on a morning walk along the Texas Gulf Coast.

We sauntered onto the beach from our fifth wheel. Immediately, she became incensed at what she saw … and what she began to collect on our stroll. I figure we must have picked up close to a 40 pounds of trash on our walk of several hundred yards.

I am proud of her, as you might surmise.

The point she made struck home with me. Why come to the great outdoors, enjoy nature and then soil it with this kind of trash? We understand fully, though, that a lot of trash washes ashore from offshore — from seagoing vessels and from the oil platforms one can see from the beach.

In the early 1980s, the General Land Office launched its anti-littering campaign, labeling it “Don’t Mess With Texas.” The phrase over time has been perverted to connote some sort of macho statement about Texas and Texans. However, it means simply that we shouldn’t toss litter onto our landscape.

I get it, and I assure you my bride certainly gets it.

Let me be clear on this matter: We are proud supporters of our state parks. We intend to see them all before we no longer are able to haul our fifth wheel around our immense state. I also am proud of the way Texas Parks & Wildlife cares for our parks. TP&W does a stellar job of keeping them well-groomed, which makes them so attractive to us.

It’s no one’s fault here at Sea Rim State Park that the beach is littered with too much trash. The fault lies with the nimrods who come here, as my wife says, to “enjoy nature” only to sully it with their trash. The fault also lies with the seagoing vessel crews and the dipsticks who work on those platform way out there on the horizon.

To those who aren’t as careful as they should be about disposing of their trash, be forewarned: Don’t mess with Mrs. Kanelis.

local news, State news

Time to put country ahead of party

This is no great flash, but I want to share with you a conversation I had recently with a prominent West Texas politician.

I won’t divulge his name because he doesn’t know I am going public with this exchange. So, bear with me.

My friend is a Republican through and through. He also happens to believe that Donald J. “Republican In Name Only in Chief” Trump needs to lose the November presidential election.

Trump is a disaster, according to my friend. He has led the country since the very beginning of his time as president down the wrong path. I didn’t ask my friend this, but I should have asked him whether he considers Trump to be a real Republican or just someone who wears a partisan political label for reasons only he knows.

I told my friend that he was “preaching to the choir” in expressing his view of Donald Trump. What I didn’t tell him — but wish I would have done so — was that he needs to take his concerns to the public. He needs to say what he told me out loud, in the proverbial public square.

My friend needs to speak from the heart, tell his West Texas constituents — who likely are going to vote one more time for the carnival barker — that they would make the gravest mistake possible. They shouldn’t endorse Trump’s re-election.

Does this individual need to serve in the office he now serves? Oh, probably not. He is a man of means who doesn’t need the publicly funded salary he draws. Thus, this is my way of saying he shouldn’t care whether he angers his constituents enough for them to vote him out of office.

My friend is far from the only Republican officeholder who carries that belief about Donald Trump. I haven’t spoken to many of them. I just know that others are out there who share my friend’s belief that we cannot afford another four years of Donald Trump.

My friend is a patriot. He loves this country. It’s time for him to demonstrate his love of country by telling the world what he told me.

national news

Obama goes political? So what?

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Alyssa Pointer / alyssa.pointer@ajc.com

Right-wing media have been having the time of their lives chastising former President Obama over the nature of his eulogy in memory of the legendary civil rights leader, the late John Lewis.

The 44th president was just too damn political in that moment, they say. To which I respond: Big … deal! So what?

Obama is getting set to join former Vice President Joe Biden in the effort to unseat Donald Trump in November. That has been known for a long time.

So, the former president weighed in during his time saluting John Lewis to remind the nation of the damage being done by the Trump administration to the very institution — voting rights — that Lewis sought to build and strengthen. He pointed out correctly how “those in power at this moment” are seeking to suppress the rights of African-Americans and other minorities. It would have been horrible in the extreme for Obama or any of the other eulogists to ignore that real-time reality.

In fact, though, Obama’s remarks weren’t in any way out of bounds. They sought to honor the legacy that John Lewis left after dying this past week of cancer at the age of 80. Indeed, Lewis shed blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 while marching on behalf of voting rights and human rights.

And while we’re on the subject of political speeches — and please forgive this dose of “what about-ism” — can you imagine Donald Trump eulogizing a politician without tossing out a barrage of political epithets? In an election year, no less?

The right-wing media pundits are entitled to their opinions, for sure. I get that and I honor the U.S.  Constitution that provides them their liberty to speak their mind.

Their right-wingers’ criticism of President Barack H. Obama in this context, however, is off base.