Monthly Archives: November 2021

national news

More subpoenas on tap

The world continues to spin faster and faster and I am trying like the dickens to hold on with both hands.

The House select committee that is examining the 1/6 riot/insurrection/attempted coup has issued six more subpoenas. They are looking at more individuals who worked within the upper echelon of the Donald Trump administration.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is wasting no time firing these orders out. Now comes the question: Will the former Trumpkins answer the summons to appear before the committee or will they follow the lead set by former Trump senior policy adviser Steve Bannon and be held in contempt of Congress?

If it were me — and thank God in heaven it ain’t — I’d answer the summons. I would sit before the committee, take the oath to tell the truth and then … tell the truth!

If Donald Trump insists that he did nothing wrong when he incited the rioters to storm Capitol Hill, then there’s no reason to demand his cultists stay away. Isn’t that right?

Sure it is!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Old courthouse becomes new

BONHAM,  Texas — Oh, how I love watching old things become new, as is the case in Fannin County, where crews are finishing up work restoring a 19th-century courthouse into tip-top shape.

Fannin County Judge Randy Moore said the county will move back into the renovated structure by the first week of January. There will be one notable piece of work to be completed, he said: the “main courtroom,” which he said contains a lot of woodwork that will need to fine-tuned and polished up.

“All the other offices are going to be back in there,” he said.

The courthouse has been paid for with a Texas Historical Preservation grant that funded the exterior work. The interior was paid for with county money.

The exterior grounds will not be finished when employees report for work in the newly restored building, which now has a fully functional clock tower on top. Allow me to say without question that the clock tower is an impressive structure that one can see from a good distance as you approach downtown Bonham.

Moore said the landscaping should be done by the spring, and the courthouse will be as good as it was when it opened up all those many decades ago.

The county judge beams with pride when talking about the structure. I figure he likes old things made new as much as I do.

Well done.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Permanent DST? Sure, why not?

I want to make the case once more for a change in our clock-changing regimen.

We’ve just backed the time off one hour, returning to Standard Time. I am not dedicated to any sort of reform, but if we’re going to do away with the twice-yearly time change, I want to argue on behalf of permanent Daylight Saving Time.

Why that instead of permanent Standard Time? I guess it’s because I dislike the sun setting at 5:30 p.m. Man, it got dark quickly tonight on this first day of Standard Time.

Yes, the sun rises a bit earlier in the morning … at least for a while. Earth’s rotation will take care of that eventually as we get near the first day of winter around the third week of December. After that the days start lengthening.

I want to stipulate that I have no particular problem with the time change. Springing forward in the spring at the start of DST doesn’t bother me; nor does fall back in the autumn to Standard Time. I know, though, that some legislators here in Texas want to do away with the time change. We were supposed to be able to vote on it in 2019 but the Legislature never got the bill ready in time to submit it. The choices would have been to (a) keep the time change, (b) settle on permanent Standard Time or (c) settle on permanent Daylight Saving Time. I would have voted to keep the time change.

If we are forced to scrap the status quo, then I would argue for permanent DST.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

First election was a heartbreaker

Forty-nine years ago on this very day I cast my first vote for president.

Within minutes of the networks opening their election-night broadcasts, my heart broke into a million little pieces.

Sen. George McGovern ran for president in 1972 against Richard Nixon, the incumbent who sought re-election amid the Vietnam War (which was drawing to a close, even as protesters marched on our streets) and a burgeoning scandal, Watergate, that eventually would bring Nixon’s presidency to a premature close.

I was a young college student. I had just returned from that war, confused and as uncertain about our mission in Vietnam as I was when I landed in-country in March 1969.

I was newly married, too. The first of our sons would be born in just a few weeks, but I had gotten totally involved in politics. I worked to register college students to vote in that election at the college I attended in East Multnomah County, Ore. I was looking for budding Democrats to help defeat President Nixon.

I was a flaming lefty back then. I have moderated my views since then, but at the age of 23 I thought I knew all there was to know.

Well, Nov. 7 dawned that day and I actually had a thought in my noggin that we might be able to pull off a miracle, that Sen. McGovern somehow would prevail in his fight against President Nixon.

What in the world was I thinking? The polls wouldn’t close until 8 p.m. in Oregon. Wouldn’t you know it? Sometime shortly after the polls closed on the East Coast the networks called it: Nixon would win re-election.

Boy, did he ever. He finished with a 40-state landslide, a 23-percentage point victory in the balloting; the Electoral College total ended up 520 for the president, 17 for the senator (with one of the electors voting for a third candidate).

I was — to put it plainly — crushed! That would be the final election in which I ever would become an active participant. I had started my journalism career in 1976, so volunteering for voter-registration drives was out of the question.

Hey, but here’s a bit of cheer: Sen. McGovern carried Multnomah County, Ore., by just a little; he would lose Oregon to the president by double digits.

It was a game-changer for me. It whetted my appetite for covering and commenting on politics and politicians throughout my journalism career.

I am happy to report that my eternal optimism perhaps flickered a bit that evening, but it didn’t die.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Defund police = losing strategy

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If an effort to “defund the police” can fail in a city such as Minneapolis, Minn., then where would any such effort succeed?

That is an situation facing progressive political groups and politicians as they ponder the results of this past week’s election in Minneapolis, the city that produced the horrifying image of the cop murdering George Floyd while making an arrest on an allegation that Floyd sought to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.

Indeed, writer Grace Curley says in an article published in the Spectator World, that the “defund the police” movement could be the death knell for Democrats everywhere.

She writes:

A ballot measure voted on this week read in part, “Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove the Police Department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety?” Voters rejected Question 2 handedly, with 56.17 percent of residents voting no on the amendment.

The results should have sent a shockwave across the cocktail parties of the liberal bourgeois in DC, many of whom proudly shout about defunding the police from the rooftops of their fancy apartment buildings. How could an uber-progressive dream like this fail to gain support from voters — especially in a liberal city of all places?! If this Squad-stamped idea failed in Minneapolis, where, if anywhere, could it succeed?

Defund the Police will be the death of the Democrats – The Spectator World

The term “defund” is what has caught the attention of everyone. To “defund” something implies you take money away from it. Defunding police departments, therefore, suggests one does not want to pay to have cops patrolling the streets, arresting bad guys/gals and keeping us safe from those who would do us harm.

I don’t doubt that many officers have acted badly. They are overwhelmingly outnumbered by decent men and women who take their oaths to protect and serve seriously.

I hope the progressive movement can step away from the defund the cops notion. It’s a loser at the ballot box. It’s also a loser on our city streets.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Joe Rogan: medical expert?

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Joe Rogan has become a medical expert in the eyes of those who are defending pro football quarterback Aaron Rodgers’s decision to take Ivermectin to ward off infection from the COVID-19 virus.

Hmm. Let’s ponder that.

Rogan is a talk-show host. He also is a promoter of mixed martial fights and fighters. He talks a good game. He isn’t trained as a medical professional. Rogan just, oh, talks on subjects about which he knows nothing.

I guess Rogan is friends with Rodgers, who plays QB for the Green Bay Packers. Rodgers told the world he had been “immunized” against the pandemic. Turns out he wasn’t.

The Ivermectin is known generally as a de-worming agent used on horses and cattle. OK. You got that?

A critic of this blog informs me that medical doctors prescribed the drug to Rodgers and Rogan. I get it. They found docs who would prescribe something that other docs say isn’t worth a damn in fighting the virus. Big deal.

None of this makes Aaron Rodgers’s deception any more palatable. Nor does it give Joe Rogan any standing as a medical expert who is qualified to talk about things of which he is ignorant.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

The humblest of heroes

For as long as I draw breath, I will not understand how heroes rise to the challenges that confront them while their lives are in dire peril.

I just read four letters that one hero wrote home. He talked about facing an enemy intent on killing him and his buddies. He said he never wanted to be a hero. However, he accepted that those who believe he is a hero wanted to treat him as such.

You’ve heard the name Audie Murphy. He died in 1971 at a young age in a plane crash. He led a troubled life after earning the Medal of Honor near the end of World War II. The Medal of Honor citation tells how he single-handedly silenced a Nazi German armored unit and saved the town of Holzwihr, France; the town honors Murphy annually, saluting the exploits he delivered to the people of that tiny town on the France-Germany border.

In and Around Magazine published the letters that Murphy wrote home to his family and friends in Farmersville, Texas — which also stages an annual Audie Murphy Day. Full disclosure: I write freelance articles for the company that publishes In and Around Magazine. It is not entirely clear to me that Murphy actually lived in Farmersville, but the dog tags the Army issued to him engraved Farmersville as his hometown. That is good enough for those who live there today.

https://inaroundmag.com/

What is so striking to me as I read the letters (the link I attached to this blog post will enable you to read them, too) is the overarching humility that Murphy expresses. He wrote this in one of his missives: “I’d rather return to the Colmar pocket in France than face another ‘welcome home’ or review another parade.” He continued, “But you can’t say ‘no’ to people who are honoring you and I appreciate all that has been done for me.”

In another letter home, Murphy writes that “there are a lot of things that can make a man brave. Wanting to go back to Texas, lack of sleep, anger, disgust, discomfort and hate — those things won me my medals, and they’ve won medals for many other guys. There are fellows over there who wanted to come home more than anything else who will never get back. Those are those guys who should get the medals, not me.”

We’ll be celebrating Veterans Day soon. Audie Murphy isn’t around to receive the tributes he deserves to this day. My sense is that he wouldn’t want to be bask in the “glory” of what likely was the worst day of his life.

Audie Murphy personified heroism in its finest form. Circumstances found him, which is the way it goes for those who earn the title of “hero.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 92: A travelin’ pooch

We are getting close to taking our final RV trip of the year. We won’t go far from the house, only about 50 miles to a state park at Lake Tawakoni.

We’ll bring it home and then winterize it, send it into hibernation.

I just wanted to salute the most notable road warrior in our family. That would be Toby the Puppy.

I hear occasionally from friends and some family members about their pooches getting “car sick.” Toby the Puppy? Hah! He is happy to ride anywhere, at anytime, for any length of time, any distance. No matter what!

Toby has a iron constitution as well. He will let us know he has to relieve himself. How does he do that? By getting out of bed, jumping into the lap of the person in the passenger’s seat in the truck and scratching at our arm. Then we know. Time to stop.

Mostly, though, he just snoozes between us.

I want to offer this good word for all you potential pooch parents who might worry about how your puppy travels, whether he or she gets motion sickness while riding in your vehicle. I am proud to say that Toby the Puppy, the pooch we proclaim to be the No. 1 puppy of all time, is the ultimate road warrior.

Yours can fit that description too.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

What is ‘woke’?

I need to brush up on my glossary of contemporary idioms.

For example, I do not know how to use the term “woke” in a sentence … even though I am doing so at this very moment.

I saw a definition that describes the word “woke” thusly: the quality of being alert to injustice and discrimination in society, especially racism.

That’s it? OK, I understand all of that, but today’s discourse contains this word all the time and I am finding it a bit distracting. For instance, when I hear the term or read it my mind freezes for an instant as I try to remember what it really means. “Woke” this or “woke” that. Adjective or noun?

I write this blog for my own pleasure. I recognize fully one shortcoming in my own writing skill, which is that I am not fully fluent in contemporary language. It’s kinda getting away from me, sorta like the new media age has lapped me at least a couple of times.

I’ll just have to be content with relying on my old-fashioned use of English as I plow through these discussions. As for my use of this term “woke” … well, I’ll have to pass. I’ll surely know “wokeness” when I see it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

What’s wrong with mandates?

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I do not understand the resistance by many of us to government “mandates” issued to encourage us to protect ourselves against a disease that can kill us.

I see it all the time. I hear it just as often. “The government shouldn’t tell me what to do!” the anti-mandate crowd bellows at rallies. Really?

Then why do you drive the speed limit? Why do you refuse to drink and drive? Why do you buckle up when you get into your car? Why do you purchase insurance when you get a driver’s license? Why do you refuse to yell “fire!” in crowded theater? Why do you refuse to rob banks, or the grocery store, or steal candy from the shelf?

Because every one of those actions is regulated by government mandate. The government tells us to do certain things and we do them.

We are still fighting a killer pandemic. The government is telling us we need to get vaccinated against the virus. Business owners are asking us to wear masks when we enter; some of them are demanding it. Yet we hear yammering from so-called American “patriots” that they fear a civil war is going to break out if the government keeps issuing these orders.

This is nonsense. It is trash. It is utterly un-American, un-democratic, dangerous, reckless, feckless and, oh yeah, stupid!

You may count me as one American patriot — and I consider myself to be the real thing — who does not object to the government seeking to protect me, my family and assorted loved ones.

The more of those who think as I do climb aboard the sensible bandwagon, the sooner we will be free of this pandemic.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com