Monthly Archives: April 2023

national news

Sen. Feinstein should quit

I am hereby joining others in suggesting that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, needs to resign her Senate seat.

She’s missed far too many votes in recent weeks because of illness. Feinstein already has declared that this is her final term in the Senate. Fine. Except that she’s unable to do the job for which she is drawing a handsome, six-figure salary.

A resignation would clear the way for Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a new senator, someone who can show up for the work and do the fundamental task we demand of our elected representatives. Which is to vote on important policy matters.

Feinstein has enjoyed a distinguished career in the Senate after serving as San Francisco mayor. However, her time is up.

A more vibrant senator would enable the Senate to enact legislation that could stall if one of the Democrats in the majority is unable to do her job. Let us remember, too, that the Democrats’ hold on the Senate majority is mighty tenuous.

Resign, Sen. Feinstein … and thank you for your service to the country.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Another leg completed

SANTA FE, N.M. — The longest leg of this extraordinary journey is complete. I am pooped. So is Toby the Puppy.

The next two legs will be pieces of cake compared to what we just endured. What was that?

We left this morning at 5. Our trip from Richfield, Utah to a campsite just north of Santa Fe was all of 570 miles. My Ford Ranger guidance system said it would take about eight hours of drive time. It took us 11 hours.

We had to get some shut-eye along the way, Toby the Puppy and I had to relieve ourselves, we needed gas and I stopped for lunch in Cortez, Colo.

My bride, Kathy Anne, and I lived in West Texas for 23 years before moving to Princeton in 2019. During our time out yonder, we learned one irrefutable truth about that part of the world: In order to get anywhere, you have to drive some distance. Amarillo is a long way from most destinations, so we accustomed ourselves to driving a while to get to where we needed to go.

Those trips, though, rarely required us to drive 570 miles.

I’m going to see friends near Lubbock and then family in greater Austin before I point my buggy toward the house.

This journey has been worth the effort. I’ll have more to say about it later. Just know that I believe it was the correct course of action to take.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Mind is clearing

RICHFIELD, Utah — Am I allowed to declare “mission accomplished” regarding this journey that is winding to a close?

I set out to clear my mind and to remove myself from the closeness of the tragedy that befell our family on Feb. 3 with the passing of my beloved bride, Kathy Anne, to the ravages of cancer.

I believe my mind is considerably clearer now than it was when I set out on March 15 for points west. I can think of my bride without welling up. Talking about her, though, remains a challenge, as my heart remains severely damaged. I am working on that, but I cannot predict when I’ll turn that corner.

My friends and family have told me not to rush it. I won’t. I might never be free of the tears. I accept that, too, given that we spent 52 years together, 51 of them as husband and wife.

I will miss Kathy Anne forever and beyond. However, I am going to declare that my noggin is much clearer today than it was when Toby the Puppy and I launched our journey.

I am ready to go home.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Judicial activism anyone?

RICHFIELD, Utah — A federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, has offered yet another example of how the MAGA cult of the Repubican Party has turned traditional GOP orthodoxy on its ear.

The standard GOP mantra used to be that the party hated activist judges, that they shouldn’t “legislate from the bench.”

Well, welcome to the new world of GOP judicial activism.

It reared its repulsive puss in the form of U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who ruled this past week that the abortion drug mifepristone shouldn’t be used to terminate a pregnancy. He suspended its use, which the Food and Drug Administration approved more than 20 years ago, and which women for decades have relied on to end health-endangering pregnancies.

I write this blog while sitting in a community that likely endorses the judge’s activist stance. No worries. I’ll be gone in the morning.

To suggest that the judge has launched a legislative battle from the bench is to be guilty of grotesque understatement.

The judge is a Donald Trump appointee. He succeeded an iconic figure in Texas Panhandle judicial circles, the late Judge Mary Lou Robinson, who likely never — not in a million years — would have tossed out judicial precedent in the manner exhibited by her successor.

Kacsmaryk has done the dirty work of the GOP members of the MAGA cult in Congress. Never mind that most Republicans oppose the judge’s decision, along with a significant majority of all Americans, who want to protect a woman’s reproductive rights.

The Justice Department has filed an appeal with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and is preparing to take the matter to the top of the judicial food chain, the U.S. Supreme Court.

As for Judge Kacsmaryk, he has tossed aside GOP political precedent by invoking the most judicially activist position possible in wiping out women’s rights.

I am fairly confident that the women, along with many milliions of other Americans, are going to have their say when the 2024 election rolls around.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Sunrise takes on poignancy

ALONG U.S. HIGHWAY 20, Ore. — This sunrise greeted me today as I sped along the roadway toward Burns.

I have to tell you something that many of you likely will presume about me … which is that a tragic event in my life will require me to look differently at the sky when these events occur.

My bride’s passing from cancer in early February shattered my heart, but when I saw this sunrise today, I thought immediately of Kathy Anne.

The sunrise didn’t mend my heart, but it did give me pleasant form of pause.

I cannot prove what I am about to say, but please know it is what I believe, which is that I felt her gazing on Toby the Puppy and me as we moved along in the light of the dawn.

It filled my heart with a bit of sadness, but also with happy memories of the life we shared on this Earth. I also was filled with hope at the life we will share in eternity.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Join another state? Huh?

BURNS, Ore. — I have just breezed through a portion of my home state that appears to rival Texas — my new “home” state — as a hotbed for right-wing lunatics.

Granted, I only have read bits and pieces about this so-called “movement” in Oregon, so I don’t know many of the details.

It goes like this: Some residents of Oregon’s eastern counties want to detach themselves from Oregon and join the neighboring state to east, Idaho. I have no clue how they would accomplish such a thing, whether a statewide referendum — which is legal in Oregon — ever would pass. Do they do it legislatively?

It seems the folks in places like Malheur, Harney and Lake counties feel more akin to politicians in Boise than those who work in Salem. It seems the folks in places like Malheur, Harney and Lake counties feel more akin to politicians in Boise than those who work in Salem. Oregon is strongly blue; Idaho is just as strongly red. Oregon favors Democratic candidates for president; Idaho favors Republicans. Get it?

I saw only one outright political demonstration while breezing through Burns; it was a “Trump 2020” sign on the side of someone’s house, with the subtitle “Keep America Great.” I guess the folks didn’t get the memo, which is that Trump lost that election and that America is still the greatest nation on Earth.

There’s a tiny bit of similarity to those in the Texas Panhandle who want that part of the state to break off from the rest of it, believing that Austin doesn’t listen to the needs of those who live so far away. Well, they have chosen to ignore all the highway work that the Texas Department of Transportation is doing to improve rights-of-way in Amarillo and elsewhere.

And, of course, we have the secessionist cabal that wants Texas to become — once again — an independent nation. Umm, can’t do it. It’s illegal, you know?

The Oregon “rebellion” never will see the light of day. For that, I am glad. I like the state being the ninth-largest geographically in the nation. Besides, the wackos in eastern Oregon do a good job of reminding those who live in the rest of the state of their presence.

It’s best to keep everyone in plain sight.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Finally … the sun shines!

WINNEMUCCA, Nev. — Take a good look at the picture you see with this brief post. What don’t you see?

Time’s up! You don’t see a cloud in the sky. Nothin’, man! Clear blue sky from horizon to horizon to horizon to horizon.

It took me a while on this westward journey Toby and the Puppy have taken, but we finally freed ourselves from the dreary rain that has inundated California and the Pacific Northwest. We were unable to lay eyes on the great peaks of the Cascades. Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson, the Three Sisters? All were hidden by clouds.

We had to travel past the Central Oregon Cascades to see what I fondly refer to as El Sol. I don’t know what the future of this journey holds for us, but I am going to remain hopeful that we can avoid much of the misery that has soaked by home state of Oregon, Washington and much of California.

The mountains in the photo, by the way, stand in northern Nevada and can be seen in the place where we’re spending the night before heading on to our next stop in southern Utah.

Let me be clear about another point: I had planned to drive along U.S. Highway 50, billed as the “Loneliest Highway in America.” I will offer a differing point of view. Highway 50 will have to go some to beat U.S. Highway 20 east from Bend to Burns.

I didn’t count them, but my best guess is that we saw maybe a dozen other vehicles on the highway between those two cities. No fuel stations. No public restrooms. No eateries.

Not a single thing out there but a few vehicles … plus Toby the Puppy and me.

Oh, but I do love the open road.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

It’s the ‘rule of law’

The “rule of law” has nearly become a cliche, given the frequency of its use by politicians on both sides of the great divide.

It is much more than that, of course. The rule of law needs to apply to every single citizen of this great country, even former presidents of the United States.

Thus, it is critical to view the indictment of Donald Trump on 34 counts relating to his hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels as a victory for the rule of law.

Trump’s allies on the right wing of the Republican Party say that an ex-POTUS is above being prosecuted, that the Manhattan district attorney overstepped his authority by persuading the grand jury to indict Trump.

The translation of that, naturally, is that the rule of law doesn’t apply to an ex-POTUS.

Baloney! It damn sure does apply. Indeed, it must apply if the judicial system is going to work as the founders designed it. Either we cherish the system or we toss it aside.

I am going to cherish it with the hope that the rule of law will run its complete course.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

‘Shoe Tree’ is gone

BEND, Ore. — Well, gang, I have made the turn and am heading for the house in North Texas.

And along the way I suffered a semi-serious disappointment. I was told about a tree on the east side of U.S. Highway 97 a bit north of Bend that I needed to see. It was called colloquially the “Shoe Tree.”

My cousin and his wife told me it was a tree that had died some years ago, but motorists would pass by and hurl shoes onto the branches. It stood apparently for years along the highway.

I guess its time ran out, as in someone must’ve lost patience with seeing it there, collecting old shoes.

Me? I would have loved to see the Shoe Tree. That’s the kind of thing that makes outstanding roadside attractions. Heck, the folks nearby could spring for a concession stand, they could sell artifacts such as bumper stickers, ball caps, t-shirts.

Hey, that’s what they have done along Interstate 40 west of Amarillo, where motorists gather to spray paint graffiti on the cars that comprise Cadillac Ranch!

Well, unless I missed it as I whizzed by, the Shoe Tree appears to have gone on to tree heaven.

An opportunity lost. Would’ve made a great picture to go with this post.

It’s on to the next stop.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

We’re going to survive

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

How many of us who have brought children into this world, reared them and guided them toward adulthood have shared those thoughts are something like them along the way? My hunch is that we all have.

The quotation I have posted here is attributed to Socrates, the Greek philosopher who lived from 470 until 399 … B.C. That’s more than four centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ!

I want to offer this quotation as my brief statement of faith in the future of our world. I believe that humankind is going to get through all the things that seem to trouble us today.

I mean if Socrates can express these misgivings about the youth of his day and the world can survive as it has done in the two millennia since the great man’s time, who are we to worry about the future of our species going forward?

I continue to think well of our young people. They have answered the call to arms. They are continuing to behave like good citizens. Our great nation and humanity will survive … even as old folks far into the distant future will bitch about young people.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com