Monthly Archives: March 2021

medical news

Politics overpowering pandemic battle

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One of the more astonishing aspects of this fight against the coronavirus pandemic — and there have been so many of them — has been the political tug-of-war over whether to get vaccinated against a disease that has killed 500,000-plus Americans.

On one side we have the MAGA-hat crowd, the folks who continue to stand with an ex-president who spent much of the previous year denying the pandemic was anything to cause worry. They oppose getting vaccinated.

It fell, then, on Dr. Anthony Fauci — the world’s leading infectious disease expert — to implore Donald Trump to encourage his minions to get vaccinated. The ex-president did so and for that I applaud him.

For the life of me I cannot fathom how vaccination protocols have become something to kick around like a proverbial political football.

The evidence of all three U.S. government-approved vaccines’ efficacy is overwhelming. They are helping curb the infection, hospitalization and death rates. Still, we hear reports of individuals declining to get vaccinated because of some lie that refuses to be exterminated that the vaccines aren’t working.

In a related matter, we also hear about individuals refusing to wear masks while doing business with companies that their customers to wear them. Did you see the video of the woman in Galveston getting arrested in a bank because she refused to mask up even though bank policy requires her to do so? She shouts idiotic cliches about her “personal liberty” being infringed by rules aimed at protecting her life and those with whom she comes into contact. Ridiculous!

If there is a sign that the politicization of society has veered out of control, I believe we are seeing it play out in real time … at this very moment. It has to stop!

local news

Happy Trails, Part 190: The journey continues

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Earlier today I realized something that I should’ve known when I crossed that threshold.

It is that I have lived most of life in a place I never dreamed when I was much younger I would find myself in retirement. That is Texas.

I am now 71 years of age. We moved to Beaumont, Texas in the spring of 1984 when I was a mere pup of 34. We gravitated from Beaumont to Amarillo nearly 11 years later. Then we pulled up our deeply rooted stakes on the Caprock and ventured to Collin County with our No. 1 goal to be near our granddaughter.

I mention all of this because when my wife and I got married nearly 50 years ago we never imagined, never even discussed the notion of moving to a place so far away from Oregon, where I was born and where my wife essentially grew up and came of age.

Texas beckoned in late 1983 with a phone call from my former boss, who had relocated to Beaumont to become executive editor of the Beaumont Enterprise. He wanted to know if I would be interested in working there as an editorial writer. My first reaction was to laugh.

One thing led to another in the course of the next day or two and I decided that, yes, I would like to explore that opportunity. I flew to Beaumont from Portland and spent a couple of days visiting with my old friend and mentor.

I returned to Oregon. I told my wife that the job looked appealing. My friend called, offered me the job, I accepted his offer and then relocated. Our sons were still quite young, 11 and 10 years old. My family joined me that summer.

My wife and I considered Beaumont to be part of a “three- to five-year plan.” We would live there, I could develop some more experience and then try to peddle my skills to another employer … somewhere else! Maybe back “home” in Oregon.

It didn’t transpire that way. Another opportunity did present itself in Amarillo. I flew from Beaumont to Amarillo in late 1994, spent a day interviewing at the Globe-News, returned home to Beaumont. The publisher offered me the job … etc. You know how this played out.

We are now happily retired. I still get to write. I have my blog. I also work as a freelance reporter for a couple who owns a group of weekly newspapers in Collin County. I write for the Farmersville Times. It is a serious, unabashed blast. I have returned, in a way, to where it all began for me in the 1970s: covering city council, school board and writing the occasional feature.

It has been a marvelous journey. Retirement is everything it’s cracked up to be. The road ahead still beckons and to be honest, I am thrilled that our three- to five-year plan never panned out.

media news

Had to break this vow

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

I had made a vow after Donald Trump left the presidency that I wouldn’t purchase any more books that discussed his time in office.

Today, I broke that vow. I purchased the paperback version of “Front Row at the Trump Show” written by ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl.

Karl is making the talk show rounds to talk about what happened in the White House after the pandemic hit the nation. His initial version of “Front Row” was published prior to the pandemic’s arrival here. So he had to rewrite some of the book and added a new afterword to freshen up the news contained within its covers.

So I bought the book. It will arrive tomorrow.

There is just so much to learn about what a total clusterf*** operation Trump ran at the White House.

environmental news, State news

Then there were none

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

What the hell?

The last remaining member of the Public Utility Commission of Texas has resigned … at the request of Gov. Greg Abbott.

Holy cow, man! Arthur D’Andrea was the last man standing at the PUC. His two colleagues had quit already, including the chairman DeAnn Walker. Why the exodus?

Well, the PUC overseas the management of the electrical grid, which is run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT, though, made some boneheaded decisions during the February snow and ice storm that paralyzed most of the state. Millions of Texans lost power. More of them lost water.

The PUC along with ERCOT became the whipping kids.

According to the Texas Tribune: “Tonight, I asked for and accepted the resignation of PUC Commissioner Arthur D’Andrea,” the governor said in a statement, adding that he plans to name “a replacement in the coming days who will have the responsibility of charting a new and fresh course for the agency.”

Abbott added: “Texans deserve to have trust and confidence in the Public Utility Commission, and this action is one of many steps that will be taken to achieve that goal.”

I’m glad spring is about to arrive. There is no time to dawdle. We need to “chart a new and fresh course” for the PUC.

It’s time to get busy. As in, um, right now!

Donald Trump

What? Trump does the right thing?

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Hey, did hell just freeze over or what?

Donald J. Trump, the one-time pandemic denier in chief, has issued a statement that urges Americans to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. I know what some of you are thinking. This can’t be true. Can it? I thought the same thing when I first heard it.

However, the ex-president has gone on the record in a Fox News interview that the vaccines out there are safe and are effective against the pandemic. Trump and his wife got vaccinated in the final days of the Trump presidency, only they didn’t tell anyone about it.

Trump’s suggestion for Americans to get vaccinated comes after Dr. Anthony Fauci — who needs no introduction — urged him to do what he did. “I think it would make all the difference in the world,” Fauci said on Fox News Sunday. “He’s a very widely popular person among Republicans. If he came out and said, ‘Go and get vaccinated; it’s really important for your health, the health of your family and the health of the country,’ it seems absolutely inevitable that the vast majority of people who are his close followers would listen to him.”

Well, the former president did it.

Trump encourages Americans to get the Covid vaccine (msn.com)

It remains to be seen if his followers, many of whom remain skeptical about the vaccine and its efficacy, will follow suit. If they don’t and get sick, well … you know.

I am going to do something I didn’t think I would do, which is to thank Donald Trump for doing what, admittedly, he should have done a long time ago.

local news

Blizzard warning!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As I write these words, my fancy I-phone weather app tells me it is 72 degrees in Amarillo, Texas.

Tomorrow? Blizzard warning is in effect. It’s the middle of March!

Which brings me to a brief point. The weather in the Texas Panhandle keeps everyone on their toes. My wife and I lived there for 23 years. We saw snow in April; we also saw the temperature rise to, oh, 70 degrees on the same day!

Someone I met there once said you could “experience all the seasons of the year in a single day.” He wasn’t kidding!

It’s good to remember that Amarillo sits just about 3,700 feet above sea level. Rocky Mountains are about a three-hour drive to the west. The wind blows incessantly there from the north and west during the winter and early spring.

So today the warmth bathed the region. Snow is coming in just a few hours. And when the National Weather Service issues a “blizzard warning,” well … then you’d better unpack your parka.

The weather there is sure to give complete strangers something to talk about as they go through their day.

medical news

Cheering is contagious

2 Comments

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

All this back and forth among friends, acquaintances and even total strangers is amazing in the extreme.

I am referring to those who are using social media to proclaim that they have gotten vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. Hey, I share their joy. I am vaccinated, too. So is my wife. Same for one of my sons; my other son has “antibodies” in his system, which tells me he must’ve caught the virus but didn’t show any symptoms.

This is a peculiar side effect of the pandemic response.

The vaccines are rolling out, tens of millions of doses at a time. Three big pharma companies have yanked out all the stops to deliver the vaccines in virtually no time. Operation Warp Speed kicked in and the drug makers delivered the goods.

I am just astonished at the enthusiasm we are expressing when we are able to obtain a vaccine. I cannot remember any time when public response to a crisis has reached this kind of level.

We are hearing the occasional grumbling, too. A member of my family had two vaccine appointments canceled when she was informed that she didn’t qualify under one of the two initial groups that were getting the shots. That changed today. She went to her local pharmacy and received her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. What did she do? She called me to share the good news!

We’re getting giddy about the vaccine. I am going to wait anxiously for the time when we get word that we have reached the threshold of “herd immunity,” which is when a significant majority of Americans are inoculated.

If this initial reaction to the arrival of the vaccine is going to produce the kind of response I sense that we’re getting, well, then it’ll be Katie-bar-the-door when enough of us get inoculated against a disease that is still causing too much misery for us to cheer too loudly.

But I welcome the reaction. It’s as if we’re all having babies.

political news

Irony is so very rich

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When I watch Christopher Krebs recount the immense security measures implemented to protect the 2020 presidential election against chicanery by foreign actors, I cannot let go of the incredible irony that Krebs presents.

Donald Trump hired Krebs specifically to protect the U.S. election system against foreign interference. Krebs did his job brilliantly. The 2020 election, he said, was the “most secure election” in U.S. history.

Then we heard Trump, who lost the election, make bogus claims that it was “stolen” from him and handed to Joseph Biden. What does he do then? He fires Krebs who did precisely what Trump had hired him to do!

Now we hear from the U.S. intelligence community that has just issued a final report declaring that Krebs was right, that the election was safe, it was secure and that there was no foreign tampering.

The intel report drives the nail into the proverbial coffin containing the Big Lie that Donald Trump continues to preach.

Amazing.

national news

Trump stain will last a good while

1 Comment

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump will be remembered ultimately as a failed president, one who damaged the institutions of our democracy and someone who came dangerously close to destroying the fabric of our republic.

He called himself a “consequential” president. He was all of that. And more.

Thus, his imprint will be difficult to erase from what he left behind.

I say all this because his rhetoric still resonates with so many Americans. Many millions of them voted to return him for a second term as president. Many millions more, though, voted to elect Joe Biden as president in 2020. I was among the latter category of voters, as if you didn’t know it already.

Trump’s followers continue to cast doubt on President Biden’s election, fueled by Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that he lost fair and square to someone who outsmarted and outcampaigned him.

The near-destruction of our government, of course, occurred on Jan. 6 with the insurrection provoked by Trump.

I cannot yet identify what will be the overarching legacy that historians will determine is Trump’s most, um, significant imprint.

It might be the riot on Jan. 6; it could be the terrible spike in race-related hate crimes that occurred on his watch; it might be the fraying of alliances around the world with nations that used to depend on the U.S.’s power and influence.

My personal “favorite” ought to be the mishandling of the pandemic that exploded on the world in late 2019. Trump lied about the misery that awaited us, despite knowing that the pandemic would do the damage it has done … and is still doing!

To be sure, Trump will tout the three justices he selected to the U.S. Supreme Court. I don’t begrudge the fact that Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett sit on the court. Elections do have consequences and the 2016 election installed a president who sought to shift the court dramatically to the right. It remains to be seen, though, just how far right the court will tilt over time.

Donald Trump is gone from the White House. My sense — and certainly my hope — is that he never darkens the door of my house ever again. He is not forgotten. Wiping away the stain left by a consequential presidency will take time.

medical news

Fauci makes timely plea

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci has issued a timely and seemingly authentic plea to the 45th president of the United States.

Fauci, who is President Biden’s chief medical adviser, has asked Donald J. Trump — who he describes as enormously popular among those who continue to follow him — to encourage his millions of supporters to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

This is just my view, but my hunch is that Trump isn’t likely to listen to too much that Fauci says about anything. I mean, he did call Fauci an “idiot” after the renowned infectious disease expert challenged an assertion that Trump had made.

Fauci is trying to de-politicize the vaccine debate. The Trumpsters keep resisting the vaccine. Other Americans are lining up to receive them. The infection rate is falling, as is the positivity test rate — and the death rate.

Indeed, we now know that Donald and Melania Trump received their vaccines in private just a few days before leaving the White House. The POTUS and the FLOTUS didn’t want to let it be known that they had gone against Donald Trump’s own stated resistance to the severity of the pandemic.

The beans have been spilled and Dr. Fauci is seeking ways to get to the millions of Americans who hang onto the goofy notion that the vaccine is going to harm them. Fauci and the many other scientists say they only will help us.

Any of them would be acceptable, Fauci said: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

I applaud Dr. Fauci for seeking to talk sense to those who at times seem to lack any sort of rational thought. If they hear from their hero/idol/cult leader that the vaccines are safe and effective, then perhaps we can accelerate the return to what we used to think of as “normal living.”