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Atheists picking senseless fight

One can find religious symbols virtually everywhere. The cloud that spreads sunlight from the heavens? How about spectacular sunrises or sunsets? Rock formations that resemble, say, the Star of David or perhaps an oversized Buddha?

Well, a group calling itself American Atheists has argued before a federal appeals court that a piece of I-beam in the shape of a crucifix that was taken from the World Trade Center wreckage in the wake of the 9/11 attacks should not be placed in a private museum.

Give … me … a … break.

http://www.today.com/news/world-trade-center-cross-fight-continues-athiest-group-appeals-ruling-2D79328902?ocid=msnhp&pos=4

There are religious symbols and then there are those things that transcend pure religion. The crucifix-shaped metal fits the latter description. As an appellate judge ruled earlier in allowing the article to be displayed, it “demonstrate(s) how those at Ground Zero coped with the devastation they witnessed.”

Thus, the symbol has become far more than some religious symbol, although I personally see nothing wrong with it symbolizing the faith of millions of Americans — and a billion or so people around the world.

American Atheists filed suit in July 2011 to prevent the display at the museum, which was built on land leased from the federal government.

The cross-shaped beam was discovered in the wreckage as crews sought to clear debris after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and killed about 3,000 people, most of the Americans.

It’s become a symbol of strength, resolve and courage — all of which have been demonstrated amply by those who toiled in the rubble left by the terrorist attacks on that horrifying day.

American Atheists are entitled to express their opinion on the suitability of religious icons.

On this one, though, they’ve missed the mark by a mile.

Let’s hope the Second Court of Appeals sees this issue correctly.

The 9/11 National Museum is set to open in May. Here’s hoping the cross-shaped beam is on display in all its glory.

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County to get its first female judge

Nancy Tanner reminded us today of something that seems to have slipped under the radar.

She made history by becoming, pending the election this November, Potter County’s first female county judge. I have to take pains to avoid getting ahead of myself. Tanner at this point only is the Republican nominee to be county judge. Her election is uncontested, as there are no Democrats on the ballot. I doubt seriously anyone will emerge as a write-in candidate, so her election is virtually assured.

One of the foes she vanquished Tuesday happened to be another history-maker, Debra McCartt, who had been elected as the first female mayor of Amarillo. McCartt sought to parlay that name-recognition into the county judge’s office, but fell short, finishing third in the five-candidate field.

It’s not yet clear how Tanner’s gender will determine the way she runs the Commissioners Court. Heck, I’m not convinced her gender even really matters.

She’ll be serving with four capable individuals on the court, three men and one woman. Two commissioners are Republicans, two are Democrats.

The most interesting relationship on the court could be the one that develops between the two women who serve the county, Tanner and Precinct 2 Commissioner Mercy Murguia.

One of the cautionary tales being bandied about in the weeks leading up to the primary was how the new judge might be able to work with Murguia, who’s become a force of nature on the court. She has become an aggressive questioner of department heads and others who come before commissioners, which can be a good development for the court if the questions are constructive and produce changes when needed.

Tanner strikes me as someone who can be a no-nonsense administrator. Her gender should have no bearing on how she runs the county as its only Commissioners Court member elected countywide.

Then again, she’s entering what traditionally has been a man’s world. One of the things I’ve learned about the Texas Panhandle in more than 19 years living here is that some traditions have a way of hanging on.

I’m betting — and certainly hoping — that Tanner’s history-making election will make way for an equally historic county judgeship.

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Why vote for Merritt?

Tommy Merritt is facing a runoff for the Republican Party nomination for Texas agriculture commissioner; he’s facing Sid Miller on May 27.

Here’s the question: What has Merritt done to earn the job?

I am asking because in recent days I’ve gotten some campaign fliers at my house promoting Merritt’s candidacy to replace Todd Staples, who lost his bid to become the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor. The fliers, I hasten to add, have said nothing about what Merritt would do to promote Texas agriculture.

Instead, they talk about his commitment to the Second Amendment (the one that guarantees gun ownership), his belief that life begins at conception, his lengthy marriage, his “strong conservative values,” and some other stuff that has nothing to do with agriculture policy.

So, back to the question: Why does this guy deserve to be agriculture commissioner?

He’s not alone in promoting values and principles that have little or nothing to do with the nuts-and-bolts policy issues relating to his office.

Do you remember Jim Hightower, the goofy Democrat who held the office until losing in 1990 to Republican Rick Perry? He touted farmers’ markets as his answer to bolstering agriculture. I can’t remember what Perry bragged about. Republican Susan Combs argued for value-added product sales of commodities.

Now, we have Merritt — a former legislator — vowing to protect unborn children and fighting for Texans to keep their guns.

I haven’t gotten anything from Sid Miller in my mailbox. Maybe something will arrive in time for the runoff. If it does, it hope it says something — anything — about agriculture.

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Hey, didn’t Russia invade Georgia … in 2008?

The criticism of President Obama’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine crisis of 2014 ignores the Russia-Georgia crisis of 2008.

Six years ago, Russian dictator/president Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia, another one of those former Soviet satellite states. The U.S. president at the time, George W. Bush, let it happen. What could President Bush to stop Putin? Nothing. What should he have done? Go to war? That’s a tough call, given that the United States was already involved in two shooting wars at the time, Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’m left to wonder: Where was the criticism from the right back then? It was silent.

Move forward to the present day. Russian troops are sitting in Crimea, a region of Ukraine. There might be more military involvement from Russia, which is nervous over the ouster of pro-Russia president by insurgents in Ukraine.

What’s President Obama supposed to do? What can he do? Does he go to war with Russia? Well, of course not.

Yet the criticism is pouring in from the right, from the likes of Sen. John McCain, former defense boss Donald Rumsfeld, former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, every right-wing talking head this side of Sean Hannity. They’re all bemoaning the “invasion” of Russian troops of a sovereign country, Ukraine.

Oh, but wait. Didn’t this country invade a sovereign country, Iraq, in March 2003 because — we were told — the late dictator Saddam Hussein had this big cache of chemical weapons?

President Bush told us once that he peered into Putin’s “soul” and saw a man of commitment and integrity. Well, that soul also belongs to a former head of the KGB, the former Soviet spy agency.

I’m thinking another key Republican, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has it right. He’s telling his fellow GOPers to tone down the criticism while the president tries — along with our allies — to manage a dangerous crisis.

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Primary deals tea party a setback in Texas

What’s the big takeaway from the Texas primary election?

It well might be that the tea party, which claims all kinds of strength in Texas, had its head handed to it by voters all across the state.

Good deal.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn brushed aside what had been thought to be a stern test in his Republican primary victory. U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, the Gulf Coast goofball who challenged Cornyn, was trampled by the incumbent.

Other veteran members of Congress survived challenges, including Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon, who was renominated in a three-person race in the GOP primary here at home.

The Texas Legislature primary also saw some setbacks dealt the tea party wing of the GOP. The District 31 primary out here in West Texas produced a win by the incumbent, Republican Kel Seliger of Amarillo — although his margin was far closer than I ever imagined it would be.

A win is a win, however.

Some races still need to be decided. The lieutenant governor’s race is heading to a runoff with state Sen. Dan Patrick in the catbird seat against the incumbent, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Dewhurst has been stung once already, the Senate primary in 2012 that saw him upset by tea party upstart Ted Cruz. He’s been leaning farther and farther to the right ever since. To be honest, he doesn’t seem comfortable in this new role as a newfound ultraconservative and he’s now in danger of losing his party’s nomination to what once was considered the most powerful office in Texas.

The attorney general’s GOP primary featured three guys cut from the same far-right-wing cloth.

The tea party wing of the GOP had hoped for a much bigger night than it got. Instead, it has seen its influence diluted.

All this Republican in-fighting is going to lead the party somewhere, but the destination remains unknown.

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Election provides a couple of stunners

Two big surprises highlighted my watching of the Republican primary elections Tuesday night.

One of them is quite good; the other is potentially troubling.

First, the good.

Nancy Tanner’s victory in the GOP primary for Potter County judge caught me off-guard, but it does demonstrate that competence and experience can win an argument over name identification and relative sizzle.

Tanner is going to take over the county judge’s duties at the first of the year. The GOP voters of the county showed that they appreciate her two decades serving as administrative assistant to Arthur Ware, the current judge who’s stepping down.

Ware had fired Tanner from her job in 2013 for reasons that haven’t been explained fully. Tanner had just made known her intention to run for Ware’s seat after he had announced his impending retirement from public life. Ware had been slowed considerably by a devastating stroke he suffered in 2010, leaving Tanner and other county officials to perform many of the duties attached to the county judge’s office.

It was her experience and intimate knowledge of the nuts and bolts of county government that made Tanner the most qualified of the five candidates running for the office.

Which brings me to the surprise. I was quite sure no one was going to win this primary outright. I figured it would be two of three top-tier candidates — Tanner, former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt and Bill Bandy — competing in a runoff.

Silly me. I underestimated the wisdom of the voters.

***

State Sen. Kel Seliger’s hair-raising win over former Midland Mayor Mike Canon provided the other surprise.

Seliger, R-Amarillo, by all rights should have won that race in a walk. He’s smart, articulate, knowledgeable, calm, reasonable, effective, collegial, detail-oriented, friendly … what am I missing? Whatever. He deserved to be re-elected to the Senate District 31 seat he’s filled since 2004.

Then came Canon, who began accusing Seliger of being a closet liberal, which is fightin’ words in this part of the political world. The word among some observers is that Canon was recruited by Michael Quinn Sullivan, a tea party political operative who over the years has developed a nasty relationship with Seliger.

Even given the Texas political climate, I didn’t believe Canon would come as close as he did to defeating Seliger.

There is a potential for concern here. Seliger’s re-election — with no Democrat on the ballot — should not signal a sharp turn to the right for the already-conservative lawmaker. Other elected public officials have reacted badly at times to these challenges from their left or the right by tacking too far in either direction.

My hope is that Seliger is comfortable enough in his own skin to stay the course and keep up the good work he’s already done — such as water planning and funding for public education — on behalf of his constituents.

All in all, where these two races are concerned, the election turned out just fine.

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Charlie ‘did it,’ all right

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=715472731818192&set=a.162532927112178.34097.105810232784448&type=1&theater

My brother-in-law posted this picture from the Texas State Cemetery.

It speaks to the courage of someone I used to know fairly well, but in a mostly professional way. The late Charles Wilson was an East Texas congressman whose district was part of the region our newspaper circulated back in the old days.

He was a tiger, a fierce defender of freedom against tyranny. He had his flaws, such as his partying ways — but he never apologized publicly for the lifestyle he led.

When he wasn’t carousing — which occupied little of his time — he served his Second Congressional District constituents honorably. He also was a friend of the Afghan freedom fighters known back in those days as the mujahedeen. They were the ferocious partisans who fought the Red Army that had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Charlie saw it as his mission to arm the mujahedeen with modern weapons, Stinger missiles the fighters could use to shoot down Soviet helicopters.

Wilson persuaded his colleagues in the House of Representatives to pony up the money to pay for the weapons.

The weaponry worked. The Soviets were driven out of Afghanistan. Two years after their defeat, the Soviet Union vanished from the face of the planet.

Charlie Wilson was one of those Texas Democrats who managed to work across the aisle with his Republican colleagues. In this polarized era today, it’s not likely Wilson could get nominated by his own party any more than a moderate Republican can get elected from within his or her own party.

But guys like Charlie knew how to legislate. They knew how government worked.

Charlie Wilson died in 2010. The more I see the dysfunction that passes for government today in Washington, the more I miss him.

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Robo-calls flood my inbox

We arrived home Monday afternoon after spending a wonderful weekend with our granddaughter and her parents, celebrating little Emma’s first birthday.

After walking into the house we heard the beep of our answering machine. Five messages had come in while we were away.

We started playing them back.

All five of ’em were political robo-calls, those automated messages designed to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate or political cause.

In our case, they are an instant signal to delete the message without ever listening to them.

My favorite robo-call came from Sen. John Cornyn, in which he introduced himself by saying: “Hello, Kathleen, this is John Cornyn …”

We deleted that right after hearing “Cornyn.” My wife, who never uses the name on her birth certificate, declared that Sen. Cornyn’s greeting would never get her to listen to anything he had to say over a recorded message. “He obviously doesn’t know me,” she said, laughing.

Robo-calls are intended to reach as many people as possible with the fewest man-hours spent as possible. I get why candidates use them. However, I’ve ever met anyone who’s heard a robo-call, listened to it and then decided how they were going to vote on a race based on the automated phone call they had just heard.

The robo-call season is about to end — for now — once the primary election ballots are counted. The calls will rev up again for the May 27 runoff that’s expected in several of the statewide Republican races; I’m thinking of the lieutenant governor’s contest for starters.

Be forewarned. The calls that come to our phone won’t be heeded.

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Same-sex couples jumping through hoops

Let’s see if we can sort this story out a bit.

The Amarillo Globe-News reported Sunday about a same-sex couple seeking a “family membership” at the Amarillo Town Club. The club has denied the couple such a membership, citing the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

The couple, two women, were asked to provide a marriage license. They aren’t yet married, but plan to wed soon presumably in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage. The club informed the women that the marriage license had to be issued in Texas to make their marriage legal. Well, the state doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage, so that’s out.

The couple is petitioning the Town Club to grant them a family membership and to allow them to proceed with their weight-loss plan.

Here’s where it gets a bit sticky for the couple: The Amarillo Town Club is owned by Baptist Community Services, a faith-based organization. It’s not a public institution, funded by taxpayer money. Its members pay the freight with membership dues. Thus, the Town Club is within its rights to set admission policy any way it so chooses, as long as it doesn’t discriminate.

You want it to get even stickier?

Here goes.

My wife and I joined the Amarillo Town Club more than a decade ago. We, too, have a family membership. We signed up as husband and wife.

No one at the Amarillo Town Club — either at the main facility at 45th and Cornell or the one at Hillside — ever asked us to produce a marriage license. I cannot recall precisely, but perhaps they asked us to show them driver’s licenses to prove we were who we said we were.

A marriage license? The issue never came up. Were we even legally married? No one ever asked that question.

For the record, my wife and I were married — legally — on Sept. 4, 1971 in a little Presbyterian Church in southeast Portland, Ore. That’s in case anyone is interested.

All of this leads me to conclude that it appears some discrimination involving the two young women at the center of this story may have taken place.

Yes, indeed. This story is going to get quite complicated.

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Hoping for a Seliger blowout

Of all the local races that have piqued my interest, one stands out.

The Texas Senate District 31 contest between incumbent Kel Seliger of Amarillo and former Midland Mayor Mike Canon had the earmarks of a true test of ideas.

It’s turned into an onslaught of half-truths and talking points from one of them, Canon.

Seliger is the Amarillo Republican who’s represented the sprawling Senate district since 2004. He turned into a quick study, learning rapidly the art of legislating, the language of the Senate — and he has shown an affinity for working with Democrats as well as Republicans, a trait that has gone missing among many members of both legislative houses in recent years.

Canon, meanwhile, has conducted a campaign that refers to Seliger as some kind of closet liberal, implying that he is misrepresenting the people of District 31.

I had the pleasure of taking part in a candidate forum sponsored by Panhandle PBS. I asked the men whether they supported term limits for legislators and to explain why or why not.

Canon offered the true-blue talking point that we need fresh ideas and a brisk turnover in the Senate. He owed to serve just two terms before bowing out.

Seliger, meanwhile, offered the nuanced answer I’ve come to expect from him. He said elections have a way of determining whether a legislator is doing his or her job properly and he wouldn’t commit to setting a term limit for himself.

Seliger gave the more honest and courageous answer given the tenor of much of the debate these days.

I just returned from the Dallas Metroplex, where I saw lawn signs scattered all over creation touting the virtues of “conservative Republican” candidates. What in the world differentiates Texas Republicans these days?

Canon is running as a “conservative Republican” candidate for the state Senate. Seliger is running as an accomplished incumbent who knows how the political system works.

My hope Tuesday is that Seliger scores a blowout win.

He’s done the job his constituents have sent him to do.

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