I can’t stop thinking about an idiotic applause line that Mitt Romney threw at the Republican faithful as he accepted his party’s presidential nomination in Tampa.

He chided President Obama for pledging to stem rising ocean tides and while saving the planet; then he said his first priority would be to help “American families.” The Tampa crowd roared its approval.

I’m with those who wonder how the threat of global climate change became a political punch line.

I also am among those who believe the climate is changing. I’m open to discuss the reasons for the change: manmade or a natural geological cycle that occurs every few millennia. There can be no dispute, though, over the fact that the ice caps are melting, the worldwide mean temperatures are rising, ocean levels are rising too, storm systems are becoming deadlier and more violent, and many species of God’s creatures are becoming threatened by all of it.

And let me include human beings in that final example.

Yes, that also includes American families.

Is it really and truly prudent to ignore these trends? I think not. Scientists who are a lot smarter than I am – or even smarter than Mitt Romney – keep telling us that we’re approaching the point of no return. Indeed, there may be nothing humankind can do to reverse these warming trends if you subscribe to the notion that the climate change is part of some evolutionary cycle.

But from where I sit, I consider these threats every bit as real as the persistent economic threats that endanger Americans’ way of life.

There’s nothing funny about them.

I normally don’t pay much attention to presidential debates – or joint appearances, given that they’re not really debates as I understand the term.

This year’s encounters may be different. The supposed closeness of the race between President Obama and Mitt Romney suggests the joint appearances could be decisive.

I track the RealClearPolitics poll averages daily. I see that the race is tight – if you believe the averages. I think it’s pretty close, but I sense that it’s not as close as the RCP average suggests.

The reputable polls – such as Pew, CNN and Gallup – all seem to show Obama opening up a lead of 4 to 6 points. He’s getting very close to the magic number of 50 percent in many of these surveys. Some of the more right-wing partisan polls, Rasmussen in particular, pull the gap closer.

What, then, will the debates reveal? They’ll show us which candidate is sharper on his feet. They’ll produce some sound bites, some of which might live forever: “Poland isn’t under Soviet domination,” “ There you go again,” “Are you better off now than when you were four years ago?” and, my favorite (from the 1988 VP debate), “Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine … senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

As I’ve watched Romney and Obama trudge their way through this campaign so far, it’s clear – to me at least – that the president is the more intellectually nimble of the two.

But debate prep could be key. New York Times is reporting that Obama is a bit behind in his preparation, while Romney is ahead of schedule. And that leads to the potential of being “too prepared,” a la President Reagan in 1984, who stumbled badly in his first encounter with Walter Mondale.

Ah, but the Gipper was ready in Round Two, when he was asked, based on his earlier performance, whether he was too old to be president. “I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I will not exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” Reagan said. (Come to think of it, maybe that was my favorite political debate moment.)

This upcoming series of joint appearances could be just as much as fun as any we’ve seen in the Television Age. As for the veep debate, don’t rule out Vice President Joe Biden making the sound bite hall of fame list, for better or worse.

Looking forward to watching it.

If Barack Obama were to ask me for advice on how to get re-elected — and he won’t — I’d offer this tidbit.

Do not follow the Ann Richards model in her losing 1994 bid for re-election as Texas governor.

Ann Richards was wildly popular personally while running for re-election against Republican challenger George W. Bush. But she didn’t offer a simple theme for sending her back for another four years in office.

My recollection is that Richards didn’t tell Texans what she’d do in the next four years. She spent a lot of time and verbiage trashing Dubya. She called him “some jerk.” She made fun of his lack of government experience. She campaigned all across the state with punchlines.

Dubya, meanwhile, stuck to his focused theme, which dealt with education and fiscal responsibility.

President Obama now needs to lay out specifics on how he plans to fix the economy while keeping the nation safe from terrorists. It won’t work for long for him to keep blaming President Bush’s negligence for the economic collapse of 2008 and early 2009. Many of us get that part, Mr. President.

Now, tell us how you plan to lead us into the future. And please be specific.

Two images stick out in my mind from the Republican and Democratic national conventions.

I watched the RNC from a distance, on TV. I saw a lot of white male faces in the cheering throngs. Yes, the Republicans are seeking to reach out to ethnic minorities, trying to instill a “we feel your pain” view in their hearts. But the people closest to the action in Tampa tell a different story.  The black and brown faces in the adoring crowds were few and far between. Everyone looked like, well, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the GOP ticket seeking to unseat President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

And what did I witness first hand at the Democratic gathering in Charlotte this past week? Something quite different.

That crowd was as throaty as the Republican throng … maybe more so. It also was much more, um, colorful.

African-Americans were everywhere at the convention hall, along the street offering help to visitors and, oh yes, in the crowd cheering the president, vice president and all who trooped to the stage to exhort the adoring faithful.

That Democratic crowd looked a lot more like the country the party seeks to govern.

We are a nation, after all, that prides itself on its diversity. Correct?

The Democrats seem to get it. The Republicans? Well, they have much more work to do.

NOTE: I found this archived blog post. It was published initially on Aug. 31, 2010. I thought in light of recent events that I’d share it once again.

The 43rd president of the United States has been a man of his word: He vowed to keep silent when he handed the keys of the Oval Office over to his successor in January 2009. But now he needs to speak up on something about which he was quite eloquent.

President Bush made a valiant effort in the wake of 9/11 to assure the world that the United States was not going to war against Islam, that we were at war with terrorists who perverted their religion.

But that declaration has been lost on those who believe in how Bush responded to the terror attacks. Many of them now have declared war on Muslims, making no distinction between those who love peace and the religious perverts.

President Obama has been trying as well to make the same point that President Bush made. But he has a unique problem: Many of those who hate Muslims believe Obama is one of them. Thus, his message is falling on deaf ears.

This is why Bush needs to break his self-imposed silence.

The former president has taken up residence back in Texas to work on his library and to write his memoir. He is working with former President Clinton on getting relief for Haiti’s earthquake victims. But he has declared that Obama “deserves my silence” with regard to his policies.

What the current president deserves now is a strong message from his immediate predecessor condemning the anti-Muslim violence that is erupting in communities across the country.

Our enemy is the same today as it was when we struck back in the wake of 9/11: We are fighting terrorists, not Islam’s mainstream believers.

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay wants to move his corruption trial out of Travis County because, his lawyer says, the county is too “liberal” and DeLay cannot get a fair trial.

Where does The Hammer want to stand trial? In his home county, Fort Bend.

So, DeLay wants to trade one jury pool’s potential bias in favor of another jury pool’s bias. He wants to swing the pendulum potentially in his favor. Ponder that for a moment.

Justice isn’t supposed to swing in either direction. It’s supposed to be administered without bias or prejudice — for either side.

DeLay has been accused in Travis County of money laundering in connection with the use of campaign cash. He left Congress in 2006 and is set to stand trial beginning Oct. 26.

His change of venue request, which has been denied, really is laughable.

Consider the size of Travis County. It is home to nearly 1 million people, roughly half of whom are eligible to serve on a trial jury. Is The Hammer’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, asking us to believe that no one in that vast pool of potential jurors can pass judgment without regard to DeLay’s or their own political leaning? Give me a break.

Yes, Travis County is a “liberal” county, but it isn’t unanimously so. Not everyone there marches to the same political cadence.

As for Fort Bend County, the jury pool there is roughly half the size of the Travis County pool, which means lawyers are less likely to find jurors who aren’t favorably disposed to DeLay’s plight. Is that fair to the state that will prosecute DeLay for the allegations leveled against him?

Senior State District Judge Pat Senior, to his credit, has denied DeLay’s change of venue request. So, he and the lawyers will have find 12 competent jurors to determine DeLay’s fate. It might take a tad longer than normal to find 12 people who aren’t biased — one way or the other. But let them take all the time they need.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/photos/28431/194023

Rolling Stone is a fine publication. But its editors got it all wrong when listing the top 10 Beatles songs of all time.

The mag’s pick? “A Day in the Life.”

I’ll concede that it’s a fine tune. But the best of all time? Hardly. It’s not even as good as “Strawberry Fields” or “Get Back.”

I’ve been saying for decades that the best song ever recorded — by any artist ever — is another Beatles ditty: “Hey Jude,” all 7 minutes 11 seconds of it. But that’s just my opinion.

How do I measure this song’s greatness? It’s the only song that I can remember where I was the very first time I heard it. That event ranks right up there with President Kennedy’s murder, the first moon landing and 9/11. For the record, that moment came in my barracks at Fort Lewis, Wash., as I listened to a transistor radio on my bunk in the late summer of 1968. I had just joined the Army and was taking a breather after a day of the usual harassment doled out by drill sergeants to a platoon of young recruits. I have no clue where I was when I first heard “A Day in the Life.”

Rolling Stone rated “Hey Jude” at No. 7 all time. Aw, c’mon. What have those guys been smoking?

I am excited about downtown Amarillo’s downtown progress and the momentum that continues to build toward an eventual revival.

But I’m troubled by the lack of discussion about what to do about a particular piece of property: the old St. Anthony’s Hospital site on Polk Street and Amarillo Boulevard.

It’s been vacant for a long time. Its demise began when St. Anthony’s merged in the mid-1990s with High Plains Baptist Hospital to become Baptist-St. Anthony’s Hospital. Everyone packed up and moved to the BSA site at the medical center complex off Coulter Street.

What’s left now on the northern fringe of the downtown district is a weed-infested, deserted complex of buildings.

I spoke at length this morning with Mike Callahan, the new head of the Harrington Regional Medical Center, about a number of health-related topics. The discussion turned briefly to the Saints campus. He doesn’t know what will become of it. Callahan said a developer purchased the site “for a song.”

But with all the talk about various parcels in our near the downtown district, why hasn’t the old hospital complex been a topic of public discussion and debate?

It’s too big of a piece of real estate to just let rot.

Someone at City Hall, Center City or Downtown Amarillo Inc. — or at all three agencies — needs to get this conversation started.

It took me a few days to figure it out, but I found a not-so-obvious difference between Amarillo and the place where I was vacationing for the past week with my wife.

We didn’t see a single billboard anywhere in Hawaii.

OK, we’re aware of the clear differences between the High Plains and the Island Paradise: We have, um, the big sky; they have heavily forested mountains that obstruct the view of sunsets and sunrises. We have sparse rain and relentless sunshine; they have abundant rain and intermittent clouds day and night. We have wide boulevards and miles and miles of straight-line driving; they have hair-pin turns and narrow two-lane roads that turn into one-lane roads.

We also have billboards that advertise everything. Hawaii gets along quite well, apparently, without them.

I actually thought of Bill Ware, the big-time Amarillo banker who also is a well-known advocate for limiting billboards and other outdoor signage in his hometown. I’m guessing he’s been to Hawaii already, so he knows of which I am writing.

I didn’t miss the billboards. They would have messed up some very beautiful scenery we saw for the week we were tooling around the islands.

And I wouldn’t miss them here at home if they tore them all down immediately. Our big sky also is quite easy on the eyes.

Hey, whatever works …

Gov. Rick Perry has announced that, just as he did in the primary campaign, he will not speak to newspaper editorial boards while he seeks re-election to his third full term.

Perry raised plenty of eyebrows early in the year when he swore off the interviews. He said then he had better things to do than speak to newspaper editors who would question him about why Republican voters should renominate him.

An interesting thing then happened: Virtually all the papers in the state endorsed his major primary opponent, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. From Amarillo to McAllen, and from El Paso to Beaumont — and all the places between — papers spoke glowingly about Hutchison’s credentials as a senator and the dedicated service she has given to the state.

What did that get her? Well, she lost the primary by more than 20 percentage points to Perry.

So, the governor must figure that what worked in the primary can work in the general election.

Perry’s Democratic challenger, former Houston Mayor Bill White, spins the refusal quite differently. In a statement issued today, White spokeswoman Katy Bacon said, “It’s no wonder Rick Perry doesn’t want to meet with editorial boards. He has a lot to answer for, from his spending and the $18 billion budget deficit to a lack of ethics and abuse of state government as his own self-serving, partisan political machine. Texans deserve a leader who’s not afraid of tough questions.”

Bacon does have a point. It’s been a tradition for politicians to meet with editorial boards and to answer pointed questions from ink-stained wretches. Bill White no doubt will get the treatment when he comes calling later this year. It goes with the territory.

But as the governor proved during his winning primary campaign, this is shaping up as an unconventional election year.

However, the National Conference of Editorial Writers is having its annual meeting next month in Dallas. One of the featured speakers will be, um, Rick Perry.

I wonder if he’ll take questions.