Monthly Archives: June 2025

local news, media news

See you on the other side

I like making command decisions, given that I write primarily for myself, which means I can tell myself what to do … or not do.

Here’s my latest command decision: High Plains Blogger is going dark for a few days. I am taking some time away from the daily humdrum of commenting on issues of the day. And also from the more personal slice of life issues that pique my interest.

Why? Well, I am taking some time away from the house. I will be elsewhere for just a little while. The other reason is that I believe I am getting a bit stale. I kind of let that cat out of the bag a few weeks ago by suggesting I might dial it all back a bit.

I am doing so beginning when I sign off from this post. I just need some time away. I also might re-post some previous blog items. They likely would deal with current issues of the day. Or they might be of the human interest variety. I haven’t decided to post earlier items.

I occasionally go back through the archives to re-read those items. Candidly, they look pretty good to me. I might even mutter under my breath: Damn, I hit a home run with that one!

I long have prided myself on the volume of work I am able to produce each day. Some of my friends have expressed a sort of awe that I can crank this stuff out.

I’ll admit that I am running a little low on fuel. I need to fill the tank. I am taking some time away to do that very thing. I’ll see you on the other side.

International news

Recalling a life-changing journey

It is impossible for me to believe that it has been 16 years since a journey of a lifetime came to a glorious end. This week marks the anniversary of a month-long trip I took in 2009 with four West Texans to Israel. We stayed with families who opened their homes to us. We toured sites not on everyone’s bucket list of places to see. We got to see up close how Israel has carved out an oasis in the desert. I led a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team to Israel. My traveling companions were four professionals, none of whom belonged to Rotary. They were Aida Almaraz Nino, Katt Krause Massey, Shirley Davis and Fernando Valle. They took Israel by storm. They were the perfect West Texas ambassadors … and they remain four of my closest and dearest friends to this very day. We traveled with a team from the Netherlands. We overwhelmed our Dutch colleagues, too. They were much more, um, reserved than we who hail from West Texas. Some of them responded well to our over-the-top attitude; others, not so well. I remain good friends with a couple of my Dutch colleagues. This trip was a life-changer at many levels. I got to see holy sites I only have read about in the Bible. I was able to cast my eyes on Gaza City, the area under intense fire in a war that Hamas terrorists started with a brazen rocket attack on Israeli civilians. I stood on the Golan Heights, the area once held by Syria. I got to swim in the Dead Sea, slather myself in Dead Sea mud the locals said contained mystical restorative power. Indeed, my GSE colleagues all got to swim in the Dead Sea, the Red Sea and the “Med” Sea. We learned how to navigate through a kosher diet, we learned how to make hummus. We were allowed to see how Israelis live in constant fear of attack from neighboring states. It was a wonderful, joyous, edifying and delightful exposure to a culture carved out of the desert. And I would go back in a heartbeat if given the chance. We learned a Hebrew phrase, which means “to life.” So, with that I offer a grateful “l’chaim.”
national news

Peaceful transition is part of democracy

When I hear former presidents of the United States discuss the value of turning over the keys to the White House to successors in a “peaceful transition of power,” It is absolutely impossible to avoid bringing to mind what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.

Barack Obama famously spoke of the temporary nature of his family’s residency in the White House. As did George W. Bush before him and Bill Clinton before Bush’s election in 2000. I listen to these men’s comments occasionally on social media platforms that continue to carry those remarks.

When I do, I am drawn immediately to Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge defeat in 2020 and the assault he allowed to occur on Jan. 6 on the Capitol as Congress met to ratify the result of the free, fair and legal election of Joe Biden as president.

Presidents must acknowledge as these recent occupants of the White House have done that they are there for a short time. Obama said that “we are renters here.”

All that happened on Jan. 6 only serves to remind me of what could occur post-2028 election if a candidate from the Democratic Party manages to defeat whoever the Republicans present as a candidate for the presidency.

It’s also why I am going to stake my country’s future on the ability of our Constitution to do the job our founders intended when they created this government. The Constitution is strong and it will endure.

national news

What goes around …

As they might say at the office water cooler, “What goes around comes around,” or so it appears now that Republicans have control of both congressional chambers and the White House.

Republicans have produced what Donald Trump has called the “big beautiful bill,” but no one has read the 1,400-page document.

Allow me to flash back to when the TEA Party wing of the GOP was raising hell in Congress. Republicans bitched out loud that Democrats were pushing legislation forward without knowing what it contained. A key element of the Democrats’ bill happened to be the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Republicans sought to derail it by exposing the bipartisan ignorance of what the massive bill contained. It didn’t work. We got the ACA and some other constructive measures … yes, along with plenty of pork stuffed into the nooks and crannies of the bill.

Now it’s the GOP’s turn to shove a bill across the finish line. It would add $2 trillion to the national debt, do nothing to reduce the federal budget deficit, award tax breaks to zillionaires and cut Medicare, Medicaid, USAID and the Affordable Care Act.

This is Elon Musk’s doing, but the planet’s richest human being calls the bill an abomination.

I guess I need to mention that the volume of Musk’s disapproval of the bill suggests he was fired from his job as Donald Trump’s go-to guy. I don’t really care about that. What I do care about is the hypocrisy among Republicans who lambasted Democrats for cramming an omnibus spending bill with too much spending are silent when their package is now under the lights.

Didn’t Trump vow to “drain the swamp” when he got elected the first time? Yeah, he did. Only the swamp is getting deeper and far more dangerous to working folks like many of you.

local news

Sabol the Puppy: ruthless killer!

Sabol the Puppy has become a cherished member of my family but I admit to being a little remiss in reporting on her progress since she joined me in September 2024.

I have something of interest to report. Here goes.

Sabol loves to spend time outside. She mastered the doggie door immediately after moving in with me. In and out, in and out! It’s constant. Rainfall? Pffftt! She likes the rain, too … unlike Toby the Puppy, who hated water, unless it was for his bath.

Here’s what happened last night that deserves a brief comment. I was away from home for a while during the evening attending a city council meeting in another community; I was on assignment for my part-time gig as a freelance reporter.

I kept the back door open for Sabol to use at her pleasure. She long ago discovered some rodent activity near the back of the yard. She’s always back there sniffing around where the mice come into the yard. What’s more, I always wondered what my Chihuahua mix pooch, who’s now around 7 years old, would do if she ever caught one.

I got my answer last night when I returned home from my reporting assignment. She found a rodent, mauled it viciously, killed it deader ‘n dead … and brought it into the house!

So help me, I didn’t think she had that instinct in her. I am glad to know I was mistaken about her.

As my sis told me, “She’s a cat in puppy’s clothing.”

economic news

Musk is gone; his ‘legacy’ lives on

Elon Musk went to work for the Donald Trump administration vowing to make a difference in the way the government operates.

Brother … he left his mark. None of it, as near as I can tell, will be the stuff of legend. That is, if you count the destruction he performed during his time leading that idiotic Department of Government Efficiency.

He has to rescue his car company now. Its value has tanked. But when you’re the richest man on Earth, he can afford to lose a few trillion dollars and still be filthy rich.

I have been trying to wrap my noggin around what this moron accomplished during his time leading DOGE. He said he would slash trillions of wasteful dollars. He didn’t come close. He managed to piss off just about everyone with whom he came in contact, including — as I understand it — Donald John Trump. He boasted about taking a chainsaw to government agencies he determined were corrupt.

I will accept the idea that there exists plenty of corruption with the federal government. But you don’t dismiss tens of thousands of public servants who are there to do a job for the public they serve … and expect the department to miraculously cleanse itself.

Musk is now back in civilan life. He’ll return to making cars, launching space ships and presumably trying to recover the fortune he lost while torching the federal government. Truth be told, the richest man on Earth had no business making decisions on government programs that deliver essential services to those of us who need them just to make it through the day.

I just don’t know — nor will I ever understand — why Trump brought this clown into his sh**show in the first place.

Uncategorized

Standing by the Constitution

My belief in our system of government is as strong as ever, despite the myriad challenges being mounted against it by the likes of Donald J. Trump, the MAGA morons, DOGE and Elon Musk.

I feel it’s important to make that declaration now as we enter the summer months. Trump will continue to push our system to its limit. He will seek greater executive power than the U.S. Constitution allows. He will continue to scrawl that signature of his on executive orders. He will seek to undermine the checks and balances written into the nation’s governing document.

However, I am going to maintain my faith that the judicial system the founders created will rise to the occasion and determine that the “rule of law” is more vital to our nation’s well-being than the machinations of a tinhorn tyrant.

How do I come to that conclusion? We are beginning to see evidence of Trump appointees to the federal bench relying more on their fealty to the Constitution than to the nitwit who placed them into their lifetime jobs. Why, even a member or two of the nation’s highest court appear willing to administer what could be the death knell to the liar in chief’s tariff tantrum.

I have held a longstanding belief in the founders’ wisdom when they crafted the Constitution after winning independence from the British Crown in 1781. They built a foundation with the intention of expecting it to be challenged. Indeed, we have gone through four presidential impeachments, four Senate trials of presidents, the Great Depression, two world wars, a civil war, and myriad crises of varying significance over the span of 250 years. We have amended the document 27 times in an effort to create a “more perfect Union.”

The Constitution has withstood all of that. It remains the pillar of our nation.

I am going to rely on the Constitution to do its job as Americans challenge what passes for the wisdom of the current president and his cabal of sycophants.

local news

Time is relentless … and merciless

Reminders present themselves to me with stunning regularity … and they all say the same thing, which is that time is not my friend, that it marches on without mercy.

Ã¥How do I know that? For starters, I know when I was born and that date tells me I am 75 years of age. I am actually still upright a touch longer than your average American male. I also know when the reminders knock when I see obituaries of friends. I heard this past week about the passing of a friend my bride and I knew in Amarillo. Kathy Anne is gone now, but I am going back up yonder at the end of the month to celebrate Caroline Woodburn’s life.

I am acutely aware that I am not providing a flash for those who are older than I am. They’ve known the obvious longer than I have. However, it is worth mentioning only because I am enough of a realist to understand what we all know to be true … that death is a part of life.

I have lost several longtime friends over the past calendar year. The rate of demise is accelerating. I am not a Pollyanna about this fact of life. Indeed, when I don’t hear from peers of the same age for any length of time, I begin to presume the worst. For instance, a high school classmate of mine — a fellow to whom I’ve grown close since we graduated from high school in 1967 — went quiet on social media for longer than usual. I called him to see if he is still alive. He is! I told the reason for my call and he assured me he is in good shape except for the usual old timers’ issues that plague all of us. We both laughed out loud.

The reminders keep arriving. I am an old man. I don’t expect to check outta here any day soon. However, as we all should understand, all of that can change — snap! — just like that.