It happens every year, right about now.

Summer sets in and it gets hot in places like, oh, New York and Washington, D.C. Then the media, realizing that it’s hot in their neighborhood, report it with the kind of zeal reserved normally for really big stories, such as the Gulf oil spill.

As someone who lives in an area of the country that knows summer time heat, I have to ask: What’s the big deal? The cable networks are all over the heat. Why? Well, my guess is that it’s because the networks are based in NYC and DC. Thus, a local story becomes a national story because the media hounds and talking heads must deal with what the rest of us out here in places like the Texas Panhandle deal with every year at this time.

Yes, a couple of people reportedly have died from the heat. That’s tragic, for sure. But is the casualty list mounting rapidly? Well, no.

If the heat wave was happening in, say, February or March, then I’d understand the enthusiasm over this event.

But it’s summer, man. It gets hot in the Big Apple and inside the Beltway every single year.

If the media pack wants to chase a story, I can think of other events that deserve at least as much attention as the weather is getting this week.

Last time I checked, the oil was still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

Technology is introducing us to a new language.

Specifically, it’s turning nouns into verbs.

Two such terms stand out.

The first one is “text.” It used to mean a body of type. Text was a noun. Today it’s become a verb, as in, “My boyfriend, like, texted me just a minute ago and, like, he was so cute trying to tell me he was doing it while driving his car down the freeway at, like, 80 miles an hour.”

OK, “texted” is the past tense of the verb “text.” But you get the point, right?

Now comes the newest version of a common word: friend.

My wife and I were having dinner one night this past weekend with a young couple with whom we are friends. I informed the young woman that I had just opened a Facebook account. “Oh, really?” she said. “Now I’ll have to ‘friend’ you.”

Huh?

The term “friend” used to mean only someone with whom one is quite close; the person to whom you can tell the truth. You share secrets with that person, who knows more about you than you know about yourself.

Now it’s a verb, which describes the act of becoming a friend on a Facebook network.

I was hoping that “parent” would be the last noun to become a verb (e.g., “I am learning how to ‘parent’ my kids”). I never imagined what technology would do to the English language.

I’m sure there’ll be much more to come.

I’m mystified at the silence of the Panhandle’s faithful Republican residents, the folks who gave John McCain 80 percent of their vote in the 2008 presidential election.

They’ve been silent on the latest gaffe by their party’s chairman, Michael Steele. National Republicans, such as Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and Sen. McCain himself have called for Steele’s head over remarks he made the other day in which he described the Afghanistan war as President Obama’s “war of choosing” and said the war was all but unwinnable, given history’s record of failed military efforts in that primitive land.

Steele’s utterance, of course, shows tremendous ignorance at a couple of levels. First of all, it wasn’t Obama’s war to begin with; the war began on President Bush’s watch. And it surely wasn’t a war of choice, since the first hostile act came from terrorists headquartered in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, national Democrats are keeping silent. They aren’t saying anything about whether Steele should remain as head of the RNC. They no doubt want the GOP’s human gaffe machine to stay right where he is.

But out here, in Flyover Country, where Republicans rule the roost, our rank-and-file electorate remains amazingly quiet over Chairman Steele’s latest bout of foot-in-mouth disease. The many Republican partisans throughout the Panhandle who are so quick to criticize the Democrats in Congress, and the one in the White House, need to speak up now.

Do they want Steele to stay or go?

Watching the Republican Party leadership try to “clarify” its chairman’s remarks about the Afghanistan war is making me laugh almost out loud.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said this week that the war is of President Obama’s “choosing.” Furthermore, the chairman said the war is virtually unwinnable. Party loyalists have jumped all over Steele, saying that no RNC chairman should declare anything but unqualified support for our troops in the field. Many in the party have called on him to resign.

What the party hacks aren’t acknowledging, though, is that the Afghanistan war didn’t even start on President Obama’s watch. It began nearly nine years ago, when President Bush was in charge. And it surely wasn’t a war of choice. Bush sent the troops in to go after al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

What’s interesting in the fallout over Steele’s stupid remarks — made at a fundraiser and caught on video — is what the loyal opposition isn’t saying.

If the Democratic Party chair, Tim Kaine, had said something similar to what Steele said, the GOP opposition would accuse him of hating our brave soldiers fighting for our freedom. So far, we aren’t hearing such nonsense from Steele’s political adversaries.

But oh yes, Chairman Steele has made a terrible mess that he’s going to have trouble cleaning up.

A horse race for Texas governor? Can it be that we actually might have a competitive contest for the state’s most visible elected office?

Let us hope.

The most recent polls show Republican Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic challenger Bill White in a virtual dead heat. White, the former Houston mayor, has closed what had been a double-digit lead to next to nothing.

What’s going on here? White has been pounding away over the governor’s pricey rental house, where he and his wife are living while crews repair the fire-damaged Governor’s Mansion across the street from the Capitol Building. White’s press releases refer to Perry routinely as a “career politician,” as in, “Career politician Rick Perry said … “

So, in a way White is hanging the label that Perry hung around the neck of his chief Republican primary rival, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry pounded Hutchison for being a “Washington insider” and whupped her soundly in the GOP primary.

So, now comes White — who presents himself as a mild-mannered policy wonk — to slip on the brass knucks and draw blood from the tough-as-a-boot incumbent.

The last truly competitive governor’s race was in 1990, when Democratic Treasurer Ann Richards beat West Texas oilman Claytie Williams in a race that Williams was supposed to win. So, two decades later, we’re in the middle of another potential donnybrook.

Bring it on, boys.

Amarillo has just gotten a seat at a table full of powerful political leaders.

The late Robert Byrd was a pork-barreler — and proud of it.

It can be said of the late Robert C. Byrd that his picture belongs next to the entry “term limits” published in any political journal.

Rain, rain everywhere — or so you’d think.

But that’s not the case.

Rick Husband International Airport recorded 1.4 inches of rain over two days this week. But at our house across town, we got only a sprinkle. Our rain gauge recorded next to nothing.

What’s more, Lake Meredith’s levels continue to fall. It’s at 44 1/2 feet — and receding. I looked recently at a local television Web site and read an explanation of just how the lake could return to its historic levels, about double where it is now. It would have to flood in Fritch, pouring enough water into the lake to bring it back up to where it used to be. Goodness, I would hate for that happen to our neighbors in Hutchinson County.

I received a note this week from a Hansford County commissioner that thanks Texas transportation officials for their response to the horrendous torrent that fell across that region.

So here we are, nearly halfway through the year and the year-to-date moisture levels are considerably greater than normal at the National Weather Service station at AMA.

Why, though, does it still seem so dry?

Republican U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon isn’t known for snarkiness — unlike, say, Democratic U.S. Rep. Barney Frank or U.S. Sen. Al Franken.

But he unveiled a different side of himself Wednesday when commenting on the Changing of the Generals announcement at the White House. Stanley McChrystal is out and David Petraeus is in as commander of allied forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal got into serious trouble when he and his senior aides were quoted criticizing White House and Pentagon officials over their conduct of the war in Afghanistan. Vice President Biden was the target of some of the sarcastic comments from McChrystal’s staff.

“General McChrystal said some things he should not have said, and his staff engaged in immature banter — all in front of a (Rolling Stone) reporter,” Thornberry said in a statement. “It was poor judgment. There was never any indication of insubordination or of policy differences, however. Even the president admitted that.”

“So it came down to personalities and political embarrassment,” Thornberry said, adding this:

“If every person in government who has made fun of Vice President Joe Biden is forced to resign, there will be few people left.”

Bingo, congressman.