Monthly Archives: June 2025

local news, media news

Words of wisdom live on

AMARILLO — The late Gene Howe, one-time publisher of the Amarillo Globe-Times, coined a phrase that ought to become the credo for every media organization that is still standing.

It is engraved on the side of the newspaper building and it reads: A newspaper can be forgiven for lack of wisdom but never for lack of courage.

The newspaper no longer occupies the building you see with this post and they have torn down the sign denoting the company that operated there for decades.

I drove by a couple of times this weekend and I was filled with sadness at the emptiness of the space. Some windows have been broken and they have put plywood in the sills to keep the weather out.

The company that owns what is left of the newspaper moved the few remaining staffers out of there a few years ago. They work in a bank tower in the downtown district. I haven’t had the guts to darken the office’s door since they moved in. I don’t know what I would say. No one there would care that I once worked for the paper, running an opinion section that used to provide daily commentary on issues important to the community.

They do not have an opinon section any longer. Commentary? Leadership? Courage? Pffttt! It’s all gone, man!

A new dynamic now fills the void left by the virtual demise of the daily newspaper. The Internet is the medium of choice. Newspapers such as the one where I worked joyfully for nearly 18 years haven’t  yet figured out how to compete in this new age. Certainly not the parent company that once ran the Globe-News. The Morris Communication brain trust — and I use the term with caution — gave up the fight and sold the papers for a song to another company.

I don’t know what will become of the building that once symbolized a great media organization. I won’t lose any sleep over it. Still, seeing that engraved message on the side of a building where such words meant someting important does leave me wistful.

And, yes … quite sad.

local news, media news

I am the ‘newspaper guy’

AMARILLO — I attended the memorial service of a dear friend today, schmoozed with plenty of folks I once knew back in the old days and came away with a strange loss of identity.

You see, I once called this bustling city of 200,000 people my home, My wife and I lived here for 23 years, longer than in any community during our 51 years of married life together. Therefore, I was a bit puzzled by a seeming lack of recognition from some of those folks I once knew.

When I said the words “newspaper guy” or “Amarillo Globe-News,” I could see the light bulbs flicker on in their minds. “Oh, yeaaahhhh!” came the response. “I remember you now! Hey, welcome back home. Man, we sure could use you around here these days,” they would say … or words to that effect.

There you have it. I am identified by the job I performed for a newspaper that once was a significant presence in the lives of residents throughout the Texas Panhandle. It isn’t any longer. The Globe-News exists today mostly in the memories of those who subscribed to the morning Daily News, the evening Globe-Times or the Sunday News-Globe. Many of them read all three papers, given that they were produced by separate newsgathering and opinion page staffs.

Those days are long gone. Forever, too. The paper — if we can call it that — is merely a dimming shadow of its once-glorious self. The Globe-Times won the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1961, print journalism’s top prize.

What does any of this have to do with me? Not much, truth be told. I wasn’t part of that glorious past. I was part of a past that meant more to people’s lives than the present does or that the future ever will. We weren’t a great newspaper when I joined it in 1995, but we were solid and we damn sure reported the news thoroughly throughout the region.

What I didn’t realize is how much the job I did for the community melded itself into my identity. I will not complain about it. I am just realizing it out loud for the first time.

It’s all very strange.

local news

Returning … only to say good bye

AMARILLO — I think it was Boone Pickens — the late, legendary oil tycoon — who once told me he didn’t return often to Amarillo “except to attend funerals.

It’s weird saying so, but I am finding myself in the same boat as the former Amarillo resident. My wife and I lived here for 23 years. She’s gone now and I don’t come back much these days. I have returned to attend a memorial service for a friend we both new. Kathy Anne is here in spirit, while I am here in the flesh.

And the sad truth is that my life has relocated from the Panhandle to the Metroplex. Which means that I don’t return often to the community where my wife and I forged a wonderful life.

We made a lot of friends during our time here. I reckon I’ll see many of them as we all bid farewell to a woman who also cultivated many friendships during her 70-something years on the good Earth. I don’t want my return here to revolve only around funeral services. It seems that is the inveviable trend my life will follow.

Whatever. I have returned this weekend. Hope to hug a lot of folks before I head back home.

local news

City playing catch-up with growth

When you attach the adjective “explosive” in front of the noun “growth,” you might be describing a community that is struggling to cope with why so many people are moving into your neighborhood.

Princeton, Texas — where I have lived for more than six years — is in the midst of a growth explosion. This one-time rural burg is now the fastest-growing city in the entire United States of America. Its 2020 Census was pegged at 17,027 residents. The city’s estimated population, just five years on, stands at 37,000 … give or take. City officials have said the actual estimation is well past 40,000 based on the number of water meters online.

The city council recently extended a moratorium it placed in new residential construction another 160 days, until November 2025. My own view of the future of the building ban? Good luck if you think you’ll have made significant progress on the infrastructure to lift the ban. I don’t see it happening. Then again, I didn’t predict a building ban in the first place.

Princeton has to install a lot of infrastructure to keep pace with the growth that continues to occur. It needs more police and firefighters. The chiefs of both departments say they are making progress in achieving those goals. The police department seemingly needs many more officers to cover the city properly and my hope is that Chief Jim Waters is able to secure the funds needed. He faces additional salary funds and money to equip the officers with state-of-the-art equipment. Fire Chief Shannon Stephens is in the same predicament in needing qualified firefighters to be on call 24/7.

The city needs water to deliver to the thousands of newbies who want to move here. Sewer service, too.

I am a bit dubious as to whether has bought enough time to secure all of that in the next 160 days. For one thing, even though the city imposed the moratorium in September 2024, it still must honor building permits that already have been issued to homebuilders. Take a quick gander in the city and you see plenty of new housing being erected. They soon will be home to new residents who will seek service that the city promises to deliver.

One more aspect deserves a mention: schools. While many communities are closing schools because of dwindlng student enrollment, Princeton cannot build schools quickly enough to accomodate the flow of students who are enrolling here. While it might seem like a “nice problem” to have, Princeton ISD Superintendent Don McIntyre doesn’t smile much when he ponders how he will accommodate all the new children coming into our public school system.

And so, the struggle continues in a city my wife and I barely knew about when we moved here. Now it seems everyone knows about Princeton and they want to be a part of the action.

International news, military news

Settle down, Donald!

Donald Trump simply must learn — even at his advanced age of 79 — to settle down when plans don’t go quite as he envisioned or as he boasted after the fact.

Trump ordered the Air Force to strike at Iran’s military complex. He sent the B-2 stealth bombers thousands of miles to the target, where they dropped about a dozen bunker-buster bombs aimed at destroying Iranian nuclear installations.

After the mission, which was completed with no U.S. casualties — thank God! — Trump announced the installations had been “obliterated.”

Wait! Not so fast, according to U.S. intelligence analysts. They tell us the sites weren’t destroyed. They suffered heavy damage and work on the weapons likely was set back several months.

Trump’s response was to dismiss the findings. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also stands by the obliterated declaration.

All of this has me scratching my noggin. Maybe the bunker busters’ lethality is overrated? Maybe the Iranians knew about their presence in our arsenal and ensured their installations would be heavily protected?

Trump is still able to claim a success. The mission went off without a hitch. The bombers and their fighter escorts all got home safely. At the very least, the Iranians know that the leader of the Great Satan is unafraid to deploy massive military might, never mind the cost politically at home and around the world.

As for the assessments on the damage done … we have plenty of intelligence eyes and ears on the ground to get to the whole truth. No need for the commander in chief to peddle overheated falsehoods about whether our bombers obliterated the Iranian nuclear capacity.

local news, media news

Better friends … than ever!

Someone posted a question on social media that drew an out-loud laugh from this old man.

“How many of you are friends with someone you knew in high school?” this individual asked.

So help me I chuckled out loud … loud enough for my puppies to hear me and come running to see for themselves.

Here’s the back story …

I graduuated from Parkrose High School in Portland, Ore., in June 1967. They called it the Summer of Love. Whatever. The truth of my high school years was that I didn’t have many friends. I was painfully shy around girls and so I didn’t date. That’s right … I dated no one from my high school. I had a few close friends, maybe two or three. I met one of them the day I reported for junior high school in March 1962 after my parents moved us to the suburbs.

Dennis and I have been close friends ever since.

I change came over me in the 58 years since I graduated from high school. I snapped out of my shyness, thanks in large part to the girl I met in college in January 1971 and whom I would marry and spend 51 glorious years in her embrace.

We traipsed through life and along the way I came across men and women I knew back in high school. I was unafraid to chat them up, whereas before I wouldn’t have dared try to engage them in conversation.

Over the years as social media has advanced and taken over many millons of Americans’ lives, I now find myself with quite a few more friends from high school than I had in the olden days. Some of them are men with whom I share a common bond called “the Vietnam War.” Others are guys who just pop up from time to time on Facebook friend request feeds, enabling us to connect. Others still are women who these days are all grown up and understand why some of us boys were too shy to reach out before.

I cannot count a lot of high school-age friends, but my network of acquaintances surely has grown … thanks to social media.

Hey, it’s not all bad. You know?

Uncategorized

How did she escape blame?

I want to revisit one of the darker chapters in our nation’s glorious story, the 9/11 terror attack that killed 3,000 or so innocent victims.

Netflix has produced a three-part documentary that chronicles the effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden, mastermind behind the 9/11 attack. It’s more than four hours of really gripping TV. It takes the viewer through all the pre-9/11 attempts to hit the United States. There are interviews with key officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

We remember what happened that day. It was a gorgeous September morning in New York. A jetliner crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Then a second plane tore into the other Tower. A third plane smashed into the Pentagon. A fourth jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought with hijackers for control of the doomed craft.

The documentary sought to assess responsibilty for the catastrophic intelligence failures that produced the tragedy. I didn’t hear one time the name of an individual at the center of the intelligence network, nor did I hear a single reference made to anything she did or didn’t do: Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser for President Bush.

It has been a major puzzle to me how in the world she has escaped any recrimination for the failure to detect or act on any clue that might have materialized prior to the events of that horrifying day. I recall at the time as the nation endured the shock of what happened that no one seemed to mention Rice’s name publicly. My goodness, she was at center of our nation’s intelligence-gathering network.

President Bush selected Rice to be his national security adviser because she is known to be a deep thinker, a critical analyst, one who studies her craft thoroughly … and for my money, someone who should be held accountable for whatever failings occurred on her watch that led to the mass murders and destruction of the World Trade Center.

The series concludes with a detailed look at the planning that went into the eventual killing of bin Laden by the SEALs. I was struck by this nugget as well. President Obama was told that his national security team had less evidence of bin Laden’s presence in that Pakisani compound than what was used to persuade Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t have the WMD and we went to war in March 2003. All Obama had was purely circumstantial evidence that bin Laden was in the compound.

I am still waiting to learn, though, whether Condoleezza Rice ever will be asked to answer this question: Did you do all you could have done to prevent 9/11?

military news, national news

One and done? Hah … !

Donald J. Trump no doubt is hoping for a “one and done” bombing mission against Iran’s nuclear weapons project.

He likely won’t get it. Instead, Iran is vowing to strike back at U.S. interests and most certainly against Israel. The question for Trump then becomes: What shall this country’s follow-up entail? More air strikes? Boots on the ground?

I am suspicious of Trump’s decision to send the B-2 bombers over Iran. I join him in praising the skill and precision exhibited by the aviators who carried out the mission. They dropped about a dozen bunker buster bombs weighing about 30,000 pounds apiece. Submarines launched Tomahawk missiles at the nuclear targets once the aircraft had completed their mission.

I do not want the United States to go to war against Iran. Under no circumstances should we commit our forces to fighting an enemy dedicated to our destruction, not to mention the destruction of Israel … which began this conflict some days ago with missile and drone attacks against the Iranian nuclear sites.

The political consequences of this event are staggering. Democrats in Congress say Trump has committed an impeachable offense by acting without prior consultation with Congress, which they say is spelled out in the Constitution. They are joined by the MAGA mob that says Trump campaigned for election on the promise to end “endless wars.” Spoiler alert: Don’t wait for the MAGA morons to join an impeachment movement against Trump.

These are dangerous times, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve been through them before. I could blow this off as a one-and-done deal, except that with the current POTUS, one never — not ever! — can predict what he’ll do.

military news

Hegseth: a disgrace to the military

Pete Hegseth’s smirking responses to serious questions from members of Congress only serve to remind many millions of us what a horrifying choice Donald Trump made in selecting him as our secretary of defense.

Trump plucked Hegseth from the weekend TV talk show ranks to put him in charge of managing the most lethal military force in human history. Hegseth entered his new job with myriad issues: questions over how he treats women; alleged drug and alcohol abuse on the job; his blatant politicization of every issue that comes across his radar; his lack of experience running an agency of any size, let alone one as massive as the Department of Defense.

Yet there he is. He lectures members of Congress on how they should conduct themselves while questioning his policy decisions. Hegseth actually has smirked and snarked his way through answers from the likes of U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who lost both legs while flying for the U.S. Army in combat in the Middle East.

I get that Hegseth earned his spurs as a weekend co-host on “Fox and Friends,” where he made a handsome living poking fun at politicians’ policies. As I watch him answer questions from House members and senators, I am struck by the perception that he still sees himself in that former role.

The dude needs to take his new gig far more seriously than he does at the moment. He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the chief of Naval Operations. He has yet to hire a new top sailor. When asked if an appointment is coming, all he can offer is a bland “I’ll make that decision due course.” What the hell … ?

We are in the midst of a potentially deadly crisis in the Middle East and Trump’s version of the “best people” in the Pentagon doesn’t have a clue as to what he must do to keep us all safe.

Trump keeps vowing to surround himself with “the best people.” He wants us to believe Pete Hegseth is the best person he could find to run the Pentagon?

national news

Our system will hold up!

I am running out of ways to say what I believe in my heart about the strength of the governmental system our nation’s founders devised in the late 18th century.

We had a spirited discussion in a worship study this week in the church I attend. It turned to the events in D.C. and whether Donald Trump was going to destroy the republic and create a dictatorship. I sought to remind my friends, many of whom have that concern, that the founders created an imperfect governing document, but imbued in it the ability to withstand crises such as what many of us believe is unfolding.

I reminded my friends of Gerald Ford’s wisdom spoken minutes after he became president in August 1974, that “the Constitution works.” I said that it worked in that moment. I believe it will withstand the tumult being stirred at this very moment.

My faith in our founders’ wisdom is about all I have left on which to rely. I reminded them that we endured a Great Depression, engaged in two world wars, killed 600,000 of our own citizens in our Civil War, slogged through four presidential impeachment trials and watched our government fumble, bumble and bamboozle its way through various and sundry crises of various sizes and importance.

What has remained intact through all of that? The Constitution of the United States of America.

I want this foolishness to stop as much as the next guy. I am using this blog to seek to wield some influence toward that end. We have an election coming up in a little more than a year from now. Another one will follow two years after that. We have the power to enact fundamental change … just as the Constitution grants it to us.