Monthly Archives: July 2025

Donald Trump

How does he do this?

I am headed for the great beyond eventually, although I am not wishing for any sort of exit sooner … as I would rather it occur much later.

Before I check out of this world, I am going to seek to understand how people I consider to be reasonable, intelligent, well-read and blessed with the ability to discern right from wrong can continue to stand behind the charlatan who is masquerading as president of the United States of America.

They support this Republican In Name Only even as he:

  • Embraces dictators, tyrants and killers around the world.
  • Grants full pardons to individuals who attacked our government on 1/6 and inflicted harm to police officers.
  • Cuts off international aid aimed at preventing terminal illnesses.
  • Stands behind the lying Russian goon and then denigrates our own intelligence network that determines that Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election.
  • Selects unqualified and unfit members of a Cabinet he runs.
  • Violates at every turn the oath of office he took to protect and defend the Constitution.

There’s probably more to list. You get the idea.

What perhaps is equally baffling is how Donald Trump has managed to buffalo these aforementioned folks into believing a single thing that flies out of his overfed pie hole.

That brings me to what might be the million-dollar question. Which is more frustrating, that millions of Americans continue to slather up this guy’s lies or that Donald Trump, the man with no commitment to anyone other than himself, is able to persuade his followers that he is “one of them”?

He isn’t. Donald Trump is unique. There can be no one else on Earth who can manage this kind of political stunt work.

environmental news

Weather cools; climate still hot

If I was able to hear every conversation taking place this weekend in North Texas, I am certain I would hear something like this: Boy, this cooler weather is sure putting the kibosh on the nonsense being conveyed about climate change and how the planet is getting hotter.

Well, you know where I am going with this. Weather and climate are different critters. Weather is what’s happening in the here and now; climate requires the wider angle. Earth’s climate has changed. It has nothing to do with the weather of the moment. The only argument worth discussing, and that argument is fading away, is the effect human activity has had in changing the planet’s climate. Those who argue that human beings have had an impact on the climate have all but won that argument.

Arguably the most insipid public display of ignorance on the climate change discussion occurred in the U.S. Senate some years ago. D.C. was in the midst of a serious cold snap one winter, so in walked Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., a climate change denier who was carrying a snow ball he brought in from outdoors. He displayed his laughable ignorance by suggesting that the existence of snow meant that the climate wasn’t changing, that it was actually getting cooler. He was wrong.

We’re likely getting a taste of that ignorance in the past week as North Texas has basked in weather that doesn’t match up to the customary sweat-box character so familiar at this stage of the summer season.

The high temperature today was supposed to hit 85. Tomorrow will be about the same. Then it will heat up to more seasonable temps in the low to mid-90s. Hey, I never have quite welcomed the heat and humidity of North Texas. I just have learned to expect it.

However, the break from the heat has been a welcome respite.

local news, media news

‘My Life in Print’ awaits

I pledged some time ago that I would keep you apprised of certain aspects of my private life as I continued on my retirement journey into old age.

With that I will make an admission: I have fallen short on one of my key goals, which was to complete the draft of my memoir by the first quarter of 2025. OK. I got that off my chest.

Now I will make another pledge. My intention is to finish that task by the end of this year. I need to parse the language just a bit. Notice I said it is my “intention.” I intend fully to complete this task.

For those who are unaware, I spent nearly 37 years covering communities in Texas and Oregon for newspapers. I worked for four of them, two in Oregon and two in Texas. I pursued my craft with great joy … until the end began creeping up on me. The end came on Aug. 30, 2012 when I learned I had fallen victim to the changing media environment. My boss at the Amarillo Globe-News informed me I would no longer do the job I thought I did pretty well for 18 years there. I resigned on the spot.

Then my bride said to me, “You know, you need to tell the story of your career. You’ve met some fantastic people and done some unbelievable things. Put it down and give it to our boys.” I agreed. I started work on it.

I had to compile the lengthy list of notable folks I encountered along the way. Some of them were great men and women; others were, well, not so great. I did some remarkable things along the way. I flew over an erupting volcano in early 1980; I returned to Vietnam in 1989, where I served for a time in the Army; I took part in an aircraft carrier tailhook landing and a catapult launch in 1993.

Only recently, I came up with a working title for my memoir. It’s called “My Life in Print.” It has a bit of a double entendre. It tells of my career using a print medium; and it tells the story of my modestly successful — and fully joyful — career in print journalism.

I got distracted along the way. I lost my bride to cancer 2 1/2 years ago. We had moved from Amarillo to the Dallas area six years ago. My effort to rebuild my life has taken more of my attention than I imagined. One of my two sisters recently passed away.

But … it’s not a downer. I have finished about 65% of the writing. I am pretty much done adding names of individuals to my already lengthy list. The end of this project is in sight. At least I think it is.

I also intend to publish it in some form. I want to bind the pages in a binder with an engraved cover. I also plan to dedicate to my bride, Kathy Anne, my immediate family and to the men and women I encountered along the way who have given me the grist to help me tell my story.

Moreover, when I’m done, you’ll be among the first to know.

national news

Donald Trump: RINO in chief

Donald John Trump’s game of charade as he pretends to be a “conservative Republican” has been called out many times by many people and in many forums. So what I am going to provide isn’t an exclusive.

He is a Republican In Name Only. Trump is the nation’s RINO in chief.

There once was a time when Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility. They railed against budget deficits, no matter their size. The 1980 GOP landslide win for the presidency rested in part on Ronald Reagan’s intense criticism of President Carter’s $43 billion budget deficit that fiscal year. Forty-three billion bucks wouldn’t even get a mention these days!

Trump’s big ugly bill runs up deficits in the trillions of dollars. It piles on another $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. About the only GOP-friendly policy in the big ugly bill are the tax cuts that benefit the mega-rich. Those cuts come at a cost … the aforementioned deficits and debt.

Republicans hate Marxist dictators. Trump calls them “smart cookies,” says he admires their leadership strength, wishing he had the kind of popular support that they enjoy.

GOP pols normally would rally to the side of a sovereign nation attacked by Russia. Not this RINO in chief, who scolded the Ukrainian president for daring to suggest he could defeat the Russians on the battlefield.

Donald Trump has turned Republican orthodoxy on its ear. Yet he continues to bully GOP members of both congressional chambers into backing his idiotic tariffs, which real Republicans such as George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford all have said are taxes that result only in inflation.

Donald Trump once admitted that he ran for president as a Republican only because the GOP offered him the easier path to the pinnacle of power. There you have it right there. He cannot articulate a party policy issue because he is too stupid to understand one.

All hail the RINO in chief!

environmental news, local news

Heroism abounds in Hill Country

Hill Country heroism is alive, well and flourishing as the nation grieves the horrifying loss of life and the destruction in the wake of the Guadalupe River flooding that began on the Fourth of July.

I cannot keep up with the fatality count these days. It’s past 100. It figures to climb. Many more are missing. Time is running out on those looking for survivors.

Through it all, we keep hearing about the men and women who drop all they are doing to pursue their lives to lend aid, comfort and assistance to the first responders who, themselves, are behaving with heroism beyond the call of duty.

Fire departments and medical organizations from all across the nation are deploying personnel to lend aid to the recovery effort. That’s what Americans do. We rally. We reach out. We offer love, prayers — and pickup trucks — to help our fellow Americans bring closure to the drama they are enduring. And by closure, I mean happiness as well as sadness.

I feel helpless sitting in my comfortable North Texas home. I am left to offer my best wishes to those who have survived the carnage. Prayers to those who are grieving the loss of those they love.

I also can salute the heroes who are answering the cries for help from Central Texas. They fill me with pride and hope that they might be able to minimize the suffering as we seek to recover from our collective grief.

environmental news

Looking for answers to this tragedy

Public officials charged with finding solutions to prevent future tragedy appear to be zeroing in on what might have led to the carnage we are witnessing in the Texas Hill Country in the wake of the horrifying floods that tore through the region.

It was the lack of any sort of electronic warning system that would have told residents to get the hell out of the Guadalupe River’s way as it roared its way downstream.

I heard a news report that absolutely galls me to no end. It stated that Kerr County Commissioners Court had debated the installation of storm sirens for years only to fail to act after earlier floods.

Would adequate warning sirens have prevented all the deaths that have occurred since the Fourth of July deluge? Probably not. However, for God Almighty’s sake, if they could have prevented some loss of life then that would be a huge victory for some Hill Country victims.

I don’t yet know how many victims’ remains have been recovered from the carnage. I know there will be more. Many of them will be children who were attending Camp Mystic, the Christian girls camp along the river. Our hearts continue to break as they find what’s left of these beautiful children. And the adults who died along with them.

I don’t want us to wait until we’re no longer hurting before we find some answers to the issue at hand: What can we do to prevent this from happening again? I believe storm sirens would be a productive start?

environmental news, local news, media news

Keep it in perspective

Once in a while, news of the day can render whatever discomfort we are feeling to be irrelevant, if not laughable.

Here’s what happened to me on Monday morning.

I was delivering my weekly run of Meals on Wheels to shut-in residents of Princeton. I left the house wearing just my shirt, a pair of shorts and sandals. I picked up the meals to deliver at a local church and went on my way. I made the first stop, chatted up the gentleman who is always waiting for me.

I drove to the second residence. On the way, it started to sprinkle. The rain worsened the farther along I drove. By the time I delivered my second meal, the sky had opened up. It poured. I got soaked.

I grumbled to myself as I drove to the third location. Damn rain, I wish it would stop … or so I muttered under my breath.

Then the news came on the radio, which I had turned on my truck to National Public Radio. The reporter told me of the suffering in Central Texas. The raging river had killed dozens of residents. Many of the victims were girls attending a church camp in Kerrville, It had destroyed thousands of homes. The deluge roared down the Guadalupe River bed at enormous speed, sweeping away trees, homes, big and small vehicles and presumably people.

That was the moment I realized I was bitching about something that didn’t matter one damn bit. Why am I complaining because I am getting wet from rainfall.

Needless to say, I realized in real time that my concerns about wringing my clothes from the rainfal paled in comparison to the unfathomable tragedy that has gripped our Central Texas neighbors.

I learned my lesson.

environmental news

FEMA can earn its spurs … again!

One of the many idiotic ideas carried in Donald Trump’s big ugly bill is the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Trump kicked aside because of alleged corruption or some made-up reason.

The entire world now gets to see if FEMA can re-earn its spurs by expediting aid to the stricken residents of Texas victimized by the raging Guadalupe River floodwaters. The scenes of entire homes being swept away in the deluge are mind-blowing and heartbreaking in the extreme. Families have lost every single thing they own while watching their homes being swallowed up by the raging storm.

FEMA stands ready to help all Americans in need. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared an immediate disaster in the region. He is pulling together all the state resources at his command. Non-government agencies have stepped up. Pro sports teams’ ownership have ponied up money to buy food, medical supplies and assorted household goods for victims. The president now is obligated to do the same. FEMA is the feds’ go-to agency in times like these.

I don’t know how Trump can reverse the damage his big ugly bill has done to our government’s operations. I damn sure hope he finds a way to bring FEMA back into the game of saving lives.

environmental news

What if we had voted ‘blue’?

Grateful as I am for Donald Trump/s pledge to rush aid to struggling Texas families damaged by the raging floodwaters of the Guadalupe River, I feel compelled to ask what I believe is a fair question.

What would his response be if Texas had voted against him in three presidential elections?

Trump has this sickening habit of politicizing everything, of attaching partisan preferences to issues that demand that he act as president of the entire United States of America. Disaster relief of the scale that has befallen Central Texas is one of those issues.

We have seen his reaction to California wildfires when he lectured state officials on what he said was inadequate forest management policies. Or his silence on the assassination not long ago of a Minnesota state senator and her husband by a known MAGA supporter.

I dislike bringing all this up, but I know it’s on the minds of many Americans who are worried and grieving the loss of all those Texans from the carnage brought to the Hill Country by the Guadalupe River.

Texas has stood firmly in Trump’s corner through three presidential elections, in 2016, 2020 and 2024. I guess our state’s fealty to Trumpism has earned the quick federal response. It sure isn’t supposed to be that way.

environmental news

Grappling with layers of grief

I have been grappling with my emotions over the past couple of days as the world watches the Guadalupe River in Central Texas unleash its savagery on the land … and the people who occupy it.

My grief is more profound than your run-of-the-mill natural catastrophes, not that any of them ever should be treated as run-of-the-mill.

The loss of life is staggering. Ninety confirmed deaths the last I heard. The number is likely to grow.

There’s an element to the human loss that is even more staggering. So many of the lives claimed by the normally docile river belonged to young girls, many of whom were attending Camp Mystic, a Christian retreat for girls in Kerrville. They’re recovering the remains of the girls declared missing, bringing untold heartache to loved ones and friends.

My sons have attended a similar camp in Kerrville, so in a strange visceral sense, the loss of those girls hits me at level that is a bit more personal than it otherwise might be.

It could be the location that has stung so many Texans deeply. The Hill Country is a magical place. It is full of recreational sites, including those that feature river water. The Guadalupe River, known for its rafting and other recreational pursuits, is now feared by many as a monster capable of delivering unfathomable carnage.

There’s the political element at play. This event occurred just as Donald Trump signed legislation that among other things guts the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s role in disaster relief. To his credit, Trump did say FEMA is going to work full-time — and then some — while it remains on the books to deliver aid to those stricken by the raging water.

Texas and the nation are grieving the loss of life. The state has been visited many times by nature’s vengeance. This one seems to hurt even more deeply than what we perceive as “normal” … as if we ever should become accustomed to this kind of environmental mayhem.

I fear that more of it will come with increasing frequency.