Tag Archives: High Plains Blogger

‘Fake news’ has become a conspiracy

January 29, 2017 kanelis2012

TIGARD, Ore. — I have just spent a wonderful afternoon catching up with members of my family who came together to celebrate my uncle’s 90th birthday.

We laughed, hugged, expressed our love for each other and shared plenty of memories.

I’ll likely have more to say about that later, but for the moment I want to pass along a comment I heard from one of my cousins.

Jim said he reads this blog “religiously.” He likes my take on the state of the world and the nation. Thanks, Jim, I appreciate it more than you know.

Then he offered this observation. He wants me to keep fighting against what he believes is a “conspiracy” to build up “fake news” that he thinks has become so pervasive that it is dumbing down society so much that we don’t know “real news” when we see it.

“Am I right?” he asked. Well, I don’t know precisely if he is correct. It might be a bit early to determine the pervasiveness of fake news and whether it has overwhelmed our information flow to the extent Jim — and likely others — believe it has.

I do believe this: It is that the presence of fake news has made most — if not all — of us more wary about the items we read on the Internet. Digital sources have proliferated to such an alarming degree it has become next to impossible to discern fiction from fact on many of these “news” items that are bouncing around in cyberspace.

Fake news has put me on my toes. I intend to stay there probably for the rest of my life as a full-time blogger. If it overwhelms me, then I’ll just have to shift the focus of this blog to more “life experience” kinds of topics.

I’m not yet ready to give up the fight to keep filling cyberspace with my own view of the world.

Thanks for the show of support, Jim. As someone once said, “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.”

local news, national news

Trump creates a ‘word game’ for some of us

January 23, 2017 kanelis2012

Word games. We all play them. OK, some of us do. Maybe even most of us do.

I have concocted a word game of my own. It involves the 45th president of the United States and it goes like this: I refuse, early in the presidency of Donald J. Trump, to type the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively. (Please note I didn’t do so just now.)

I am using High Plains Blogger as my insignificant form of protest over Trump’s election this past November.

Please do not misconstrue my intent. Nor should you ascribe anything other than one voter’s displeasure at the outcome. I do not intend to launch any kind of public demonstration. I won’t carry a sign on the courthouse square or shout down a Trumpkin whenever I encounter one — and believe me, living here in the Texas Panhandle, they’re everywhere.

Moreover, my refusal to type those two key words consecutively does not mean I refuse to accept the fact that Trump is the duly elected president of the United States. I know how the U.S. Constitution works. Trump won the election. He got enough Electoral College votes to qualify him as president. He is a “legitimate president.” And as near as I can tell, he was born in the United States of America, too!

There. I’ve just repeated something I’ve stated already. So, those of you who are inclined to put words in my mouth, you are welcome to resist doing so now.

Back to my point.

It is quite possible I will grow weary of playing this word game. Given that I tire occasionally of playing games of any kind, I have given you some advance notice of what might transpire. I cannot predict when that will occur. I cannot predict when I’ll succumb to the temptation to attach the presidential title directly in front of Donald Trump’s name.

It might occur when the president does something that I can support with a full-throated cheer. I don’t know what that would be. It could occur if he declares that Vladimir Putin is a really bad guy and that he’ll add more anti-Russia sanctions on top of what his predecessor enacted; he might deliver a soaring State of the Union speech that hits many of the hot-button issues near and dear to my heart; he could nominate someone to the U.S. Supreme Court who isn’t a right-wing ideologue but instead is a mainstream centrist in the mold of, say, Merrick Garland — who got stiffed by Republicans when he was nominated by Barack Obama.

I don’t know. I’m waiting for the moment when my pique will pass.

In the meantime, I’ll keep playing my word game. Humor me.

local news, media news, national news, political news

Criticism should keep us all humble … not make us angry

January 15, 2017 kanelis2012

This is going to sound presumptuous and for that I apologize up front.

Donald J. Trump’s knee-jerk reaction to criticism via Twitter got me thinking about how most folks who say or write provocative statements react to comments from those who disagree with them.

I want to count myself in that category. I write this blog and it draws its share of negative reaction. I take all of it seriously. I choose not to respond to all of it directly.

If only the president-elect would show just a little more reticence when someone delivers a barb. I mean, c’mon! You’re about to become president of the United States of America, dude!

I pulled a blog post I wrote nearly seven years ago, back when I was working for a living at the Amarillo Globe-News. Here it is:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2010/01/damnation-to-the-max/

I used to keep a “Praise and Damnation” file full of notes that, um, praised and damned me. I regret that I have destroyed that file. I did so when I got into a file-cleaning frenzy about a year or so ago. My thought was, “What’s the point?” The bulging folder was taking up room in my filing cabinet and I rarely, if ever, looked at the submissions in it.

I recall what I said in 2010 about that folder and about a particular letter that caught my attention back then. Now, as it was then, I believe criticism keeps me humble. It kept me grounded while I was writing opinion pieces for newspapers and it does so today now that I am writing strictly for myself.

I was unaware of Twitter seven years ago, if memory serves. Heck, I don’t know if it even existed then.

The world is full of know-it-all smart alecks like me who think they know better than those in the public eye. However, we smart alecks have something in common with celebrities such as, oh, the president-elect: We get our share of criticism in return for our comments.

The difference, though, lies in our reaction to that criticism. Grown-ups just let it ride and not fire back angrily. The more childish response is to do what Donald J. Trump has been doing.

In the words of Vice President Biden: “Grow up, Donald. Grow up.”

national news, political news

Why keep bashing Trump? Here’s why

January 9, 2017 kanelis2012 2 Comments

A fellow with whom I’m acquainted via Facebook posed an interesting question to me today: Why do I insist on using High Plains Blogger to bash Donald J. Trump continually and why don’t I look at a particular story regarding Barack Obama’s treatment of veterans while he has been president?

Well, the story he mentioned turned out to be false.

To the other point about bashing the president-elect, I am going to answer it right here. Donald Trump deserves it!

I do not intend to look the other way when the next president does something with which I agree. Unfortunately — for him and for the rest of the country — he keeps stepping in it as he prepares to become president.

Furthermore, and this is probably more directly to the point, the level of criticism that Trump leveled at his foes entitles him to some equal measure of it in return.

Do you recall the countless incidents during the Republican Party primary and during the general election campaign when Trump said some remarkably ghastly things about his foes.

The mocking nicknames. The innuendo. The outright lies. The demonstrably false accusations.

Dare I also mention the continued years-long lie he promulgated about President Obama’s place of birth? D’oh! I just did.

Trump is about to become president. Part of the presidency’s unwritten job description means that he’s going to get pounded by critics. It goes with the territory. Surely he knows that. If he doesn’t, then he knows far less about politics and government — not to mention the unique American character — than many of us ever thought.

I intend fully to provide my share of criticism toward Trump as we all move forward.

And, no, I do not want him to fail. Were that to happen, the entire country would suffer. I intend to remain a U.S. citizen and a resident of this great country — which entitles me to use this blog as a venue to criticize the president whenever I damn well feel like it.

I’m just waiting for him to do something worthy of praise.

local news

Full-time blogging is just so much fun

December 13, 2016 kanelis2012

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

I feel compelled to give you an update on the status of this blog.

I call it High Plains Blogger because that’s where I live: on the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle; the Llano Estacado; or what I call — with great affection, of course — the Texas Tundra.

I created it in 2012 after leaving a career in daily print journalism. The end of that career came rather quickly. It wasn’t how I envisioned a nearly 37-year career would end. I’ve told folks for years now that all I wanted was a going-away party, with a sheet cake and frosting that had a message wishing well and thanking me for a job well done.

It didn’t happen that way … but what the hey, that’s life, man.

I created this blog and was able to transfer a lot of the blogging I’d done at the Amarillo Globe-News into High Plains Blogger’s archives.

My traffic of late has shown tremendous growth. Indeed, over the lifetime of High Plains Blogger my daily “hits” — which include page views and something called “unique visitors” — has increased about five-fold.

https://highplainsblogger.com/

It’s not where I want it just yet, but it’s creeping its way toward a more acceptable level. I don’t have an end point. I haven’t said, “When it gets to a certain level, I think I’ll cap it right there.” Oh, no. You can’t have too many readers, too many followers, too many people willing to offer comment.

My intention is to keep self-promoting whenever I feel it is appropriate. Today seems like an appropriate time to call attention to this blog.

Full-time blogging is far more fun than I ever imagined it would be. Yes, I enjoyed writing for The Man. I did it for nearly four decades. I enjoyed some success. I had a hiccup or two along the way.

All told, it was a career made more fun by the people I have encountered along the way and some of the amazing things I was able to do: Flying over an erupting volcano in March 1980 on a picture-taking mission was one of them; landing on the deck of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in 1993, the USS Carl Vinson, and then being catapulted off the deck is another.

Blogging, though, is a new career I intend to pursue for as long as I can as I enter full-time retirement. You see, this full-time blogging pursuit is something that co-exists quite nicely with full-time retirement. Neither title — blogger and retiree — is mutually exclusive.

So, with that, I say “thank you” to those who read this blog regularly and to those who have offered comment. Yes, I even want to thank the critics. You know who you are. I try my best not to take it personally, as long as the criticism doesn’t call me nasty names.

Let’s enjoy the ride for as long as we can.

media news

Total strangers become foes, even enemies

November 15, 2016 kanelis2012

One of the downsides — and there aren’t many of them — of writing a blog is that I might be guilty of turning total strangers into enemies.

I post these musings on my High Plains Blogger website. I then transmit them via several social media outlets: Twitter, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. My aim, of course, it to maximize exposure for this blog with the hope of getting those with whom I’m connected on all those sites to share these messages with their friends and social media acquaintances.

That’s straightforward enough, don’t you think?

But then something happens. My friends/”friends” on Facebook start tangling with each other. They read what is circulated on that social medium and respond to it. Then someone else reads the response and responds to that; it’s quite often — if not mostly — a negative response. That draws a rebuttal, which then attracts another reply.

On and on it goes, too often to no good end.

I do not like getting ensnared in this back-and-forth. I prefer to stay — if you’ll pardon the high-minded tone — “above the fray.”

I put the stuff out there, having stated my piece. Then I let others have at it.

Now, if someone asks me a direct question that requires a direct answer, I’m inclined to answer it. But I don’t always respond. I also might respond to an insult, which I do get occasionally.

The upshot of this is that while I (more or less) regret the hard feelings that erupt on occasion from those who respond to my blog spewage, I won’t back off from sending this stuff out there.

It provides great therapy, even if it comes on occasion with a bit of angst over the anger that boils up.

***

I made what some might consider to be a strange reference in this blog post. I describe my Facebook contacts thusly: friends/”friends.”

I do that to delineate between actual friends and those who I know only through Facebook. I have a number of folks out there who I consider to be — if not friends in the classic sense — friendly acquaintances. Truth be told, my actual friends amount to a tiny fraction of those with whom I have a friendly relationship.

There are others I know only because we’ve connected on social media. Those are the “friends” to whom I refer.

So, there you have it. To my many friends/”friends,” I say: Peace be with you.

local news, media news

Blogging produces revelations

August 21, 2016 kanelis2012

Of all the responses I’ve gotten since I became a full-time blogger in the fall of 2012, two of them stand out for me.

One of them came from a friend and former colleague, who told me that the blog proves a theory he had about me when I was writing editorials for the Amarillo Globe-News. His theory was that “you didn’t believe most of what you wrote” while working for The Man.

The other response came just recently from someone I know less well, but someone with whom I had a professional relationship back in the day. This fellow, a lawyer and a former judge, told me that my “blog postings have revealed a side of you I never knew existed.”

I consider both responses to be compliments. They certainly are discerning.

Of course, High Plains Blogger has produced a lot of less-complimentary responses from critics. Some of them are actual friends; others are “friends” who read the blog on Facebook or Twitter and are individuals with whom I barely know — or not know at all.

What the blog has enabled me to do, of course, is speak for myself.

The Globe-News has a long-standing conservative editorial policy. When the former publisher interviewed me in late 1994 for the job of editorial page editor, our conversation turned to the paper’s conservative editorial outlook. My boss knew of my more progressive personal philosophy and I told him there were some boundaries I couldn’t cross.

He hired me anyway, but stipulated that I had to follow the paper’s conservative tradition. I agreed to do that. I was glad to do it, with one provision: that I be allowed to speak more independently with my own voice in a signed column. We came to a meeting of the minds.

But I always felt a bit hamstrung even with my column. I didn’t want to veer too far into the ditch on the left-hand side of the road. I managed over the course of nearly 18 years on the job to push forward a more moderate personal view while expressing the conservative view of the newspaper.

That tour of duty ended on Aug. 31, 2012.

I began blogging almost immediately.

Frankly, the blog has given me a sense of freedom that I’ve found invigorating. I’m able to speak my mind without worrying about the consequences of angering an employer. These days, the consequences come from angering some of my actual friends who might hold different points of view.

However, I am happy to be unfettered, unchained, unrestricted, unencumbered, unshackled and whatever “un” word you can come up with.

As for working for The Man and speaking anonymously for the institution that paid me a decent salary, I refer yet again to something another friend and former colleague once told me: If you take The Man’s money, then you play by The Man’s rules.

media news

Self-consciousness sets in

July 15, 2016 kanelis2012 2 Comments

I am feeling a bit self-conscious these days.

Why is that? Well, I’ve been pretty active on Facebook for about five years or so. I’ve developed a pretty healthy list of “friends,” many of whom are actual friends; others of them are “friends” only according to Facebook parlance.

Of late, some of my friends have expressed concern — some of them outright anger — over the politicization of this particular social medium. They don’t like all the politics being spouted on what is supposed to be a place for people to connect, interact socially and exchange good tidings.

I use Facebook, though, as a vehicle on which to distribute my blog. Many folks who read High Plains Blogger’s musings/spewage/commentary do so on Facebook.

High Plains Blogger is meant to be a platform to talk about politics, public policy and what I call “life experience.” You get plenty of politics and policy, for sure. You also get a decent dose of life experience as I enjoy writing about upcoming retirement, and ownership of a rambunctious puppy.

In order to boost my blog traffic, I like using Facebook — along with Twitter, LinkedIn and Google — to spread whatever word I feel like spreading at the moment. Indeed, my Twitter feed is linked also to my Facebook feed. Therefore, when I tweet about this and/or that political event, it goes to Facebook, too.

I should add that I generally don’t post things exclusively on Facebook that deal with politics, although I do admit to “sharing” others’ political points of view.

The day might arrive when I get so much blog traffic that I no longer feel the need to use Facebook to transmit High Plains Blogger’s message — whatever it is.

My particular problem, though, might be in determining when I’ve gotten enough traffic, that I longer need to distribute it on other social media.

Perhaps that day will arrive when I’ve decided I’ve got enough money.

For now and perhaps for the foreseeable future, I guess you’ll have to bear with me.

In the meantime, I also will just have to deal with my self-consciousness.

national news, political news

Who’s qualified to become POTUS?

April 7, 2016 kanelis2012

Politicians “walk back” comments all the time.

They get caught up in the heat of tossing verbal barbs and stones and then rethink what they say. Are the rest of us allowed to reconsider things we say out loud?

I’ll do so here. I won’t take back everything I said earlier.

At issue are the qualifications of the current crop of candidates for president of the United States. I said in an earlier blog post that I believe Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most qualified of the five people running for president — in either party.

Here is what I wrote earlier.

Then came a comment from a regular reader/critic of this blog. He tells me that Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s qualifications and record make him the most qualified candidate.

This reader, I feel compelled to note, is an Ohio native. So maybe — just maybe — his view is a bit colored by some home-boy bias. I hope he might concede that point. I won’t hold it against him if he doesn’t.

He does make a good point, though, about Kasich — who long ago emerged as my favorite Republican presidential candidate.

Why is Kasich my favorite? He works well with Democrats. He showed an ability to do so while he served in Congress. A good bit of his congressional service included his chairmanship of the House Budget Committee, which — as its title suggests — helps craft the federal budget.

While he sat in the chairman’s seat, the federal government managed to balance its budget. That means Chairman Kasich was able to reach a meeting of the minds with the Democrat who at the time was president; that would be William Jefferson Clinton.

That is no small task. It’s been made even more profound given the current political climate that has poisoned the air and water in Washington.

He’s my favorite Republican for that reason, plus his grown-up answers to today’s tough questions. He understands how government works, how Washington works. That also commends him for the presidency, rather than the blow-it-up approach preached by Donald J. Trump and Rafael Edward Cruz.

Does this make him more qualified than Hillary Clinton? My critic says Clinton’s service has been marginal; she “stood by her man” as U.S. first lady, served an undistinguished tenure in the Senate and her time as secretary of state was plagued by scandal … he said.

That’s his view. I honor that. I just disagree with it.

I do, though, admire Gov. Kasich’s service. I hope lightning strikes at the GOP convention this summer that produces a Kasich nomination for president.

Then the decision for yours truly becomes difficult.

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