Monthly Archives: December 2019

military news

Still opposed to Space Force

Count me as remaining opposed to the creation of a new military branch of service, called Space Force.

It’s an idea cooked up by the Donald Trump administration. Its aim is to put more resources and effort into ensuring the United States retains its dominance in space.

The more I think of Space Force’s relevance, the more I am inclined to compare it — odd as it might seem — to the notion of constables here in Texas. We have municipal police departments and county sheriff’s departments, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety enforcing the law. We also have elected constables, politicians who get to carry guns and wear badges who also enforce the law. They don’t make sense to me.

Back to Space Force … another add-on military agency.

It will be administered as a branch of the Air Force; the arrangement reminds of the Marine Corps being part of the Navy. The head of Space Force is likely to be the current commander of the Air Force’s Space Command.

My point is a straightforward one: The Air Force already has a stout and stellar Space Command that does a marvelous job of ensuring our security from potential attack from outer space. The existence of Space Force seems to be a sort of political plaything concocted by a commander in chief responding to an idea he might have heard on the golf links at Mar-a-Lago.

It might work, but only if the Pentagon brass keeps it under the Air Force’s command.

The United States is by far the world’s pre-eminent space power and I am one American who has faith that the Air Force will maintain that standing.

national news

Dissent in GOP ranks? Not likely

Some in the media are reporting the seeming presence of “dissent” among Republican U.S. senators who are getting ready to join their Democratic colleagues in putting Donald J. Trump on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors.

The source of the chatter? Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s statement about being “disturbed” at Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s assertion of taking his marching orders for the trial from Trump’s legal team.

Disturbed? Yeah, it’s disturbing, all right. It’s actually much more than that. How about, oh, reprehensible; or repugnant; or disgraceful. I could go on, but I won’t.

Murkowski is disturbed. I keep wondering if her disturbance will allow her to vote to introduce witnesses into the trial or, even more dramatically, allow her to vote to convict the president if the evidence she hears is enough to push her to the Democrats’ side.

I guess this is my way of suggesting that any thought of widespread “dissent” among GOP Senate ranks is far too premature to assess.

I know I sit out here in the middle of Trump Country, so I’m away from the action, as it were. Given what has transpired to date, the Republican power structure in D.C. is too loyal to the man and not to the U.S. Constitution which, in my view, he has failed to honor and uphold.

His abuse of power in bargaining for a political favor from a foreign government and his obstruction of Congress by denying aides from answering congressional subpoenas are enough to persuade me that Trump needs to go.

But … that’s just me. You know?

national news

How does POTUS find time to tweet like that … when he’s ‘working’?

Donald Trump visited on Christmas Day via laptop computer with troops overseas. He wished them a Merry Christmas and told ’em he was at Mar-a-Lago, the resort he owns in Florida.

He said he spends his time there “working.” Hmm. It got me thinking just a bit.

How does the president of the United States find time to fire off dozens of Twitter messages each day when he’s busy making America great again? Or solving the myriad problems he found on his desk when he took office? Or dealing with trouble spots around the world? Or looking for ways to put America first?

How in the world … ?

I guess perhaps the president mighta been, um, lying to the service personnel with whom he spoke when he said he was busy “working” at the glitzy resort where he spends a lot of his time.

You’ll recall, I’m sure, how he said he wouldn’t have time for golf once he became president. That turned out to be a false statement, too. His golf outings at various Trump-owned properties have totaled something on the order of $118 million; the cost covers security, transportation to and from the locations and assorted ancillary expenses.

Trump’s time working hasn’t interfered with his golf fetish. Understand something: I don’t begrudge the president playing golf as he is always “on the clock.” What is maddening is how he insisted repeatedly that he wouldn’t do such a thing. It’s the lying about it that I find so troubling.

So now he’s telling the troops in harm’s way he’s busy working at Mar-a-Lago, all the while firing Twitter rants about “evil Nancy” Pelosi, Democrats, the House that impeached him and the “hoax” investigations that have put many key aides in prison.

Weird.

Sports news

Let the football gurus rebuild the team, Mr. Franchise Owner

I am going to delve into a subject about which I know nothing … which is no surprise, I guess, to critics of High Plains Blogger.

Still, here goes my foray into what I think is best for a pro football franchise that is the talk of the region where my wife and I now reside.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones needs to give up his stint as the team’s general manager. He should hire a competent, knowledgeable football guru to make drafting decisions, make coaching staff hiring choices, run the day to day operations of arguably the most valuable pro sports franchise on Earth.

I get that it’s his team. He spent zillions to buy the Cowboys back in 1989. He fired the team’s only coach, the legendary Tom Landry. He said something at the time about getting involved with every aspect of the team, including “washing jock straps,” or some such nonsense.

The owner anointed himself the team’s GM.

To be fair, the Cowboys have won three Super Bowls since Jones bought the team. However, they’ve gone 25 years since playing in the last one. The team is struggling again this season. The coach, Jason Garrett, is likely to hit the road once the final game ends this weekend.

I happen to agree with WFAA-TV sports commentator Dale Hansen, who said this morning that the owner’s meddling in matters about which he knows not a thing is what is fundamentally wrong with the Cowboys.

Hey, he’s entitled to be the owner. It’s his money. However, he is feeding a bloated ego by being in the news constantly.

I prefer sports owners to be silent. Let them pay the salaries. Let them run the board meetings. They can make command decisions, but then have their flacks make the announcements.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/12/would-the-cowboys-owner-fire-himself-please/

I’ve seen and heard enough from the Cowboys’ owner and the guessing games about what he intends to do to fix the team. Just walk away from the GM job, Mr. Owner, and hire someone who knows how to run a pro football team.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 175: Adaptability accentuated

The longer we live as retired folks, the more I realize just how adaptable I am.

I’ve told you already about how I discovered my adaptability gene when we moved in early 1984 from the community where I was born, was reared, where I came of age, where I got married and where my sons came into this world. We moved from Portland, Ore., to the Golden Triangle of Texas. Talk about culture shock, not to mention humidity shock!

We settled in just fine there.

Then we relocated to Amarillo a mere 11 years later. Once again, we settled in. We sank our roots deeply into the Caprock soil.

Then retirement arrived, albeit a bit unexpectedly. I learned quickly to welcome it. I discovered almost immediately that separation anxiety from work is greatly overrated.

We love telling people that “we’re retired.” We have learned that weekends no longer exist, that every day is a proverbial Saturday.

My wife and I both worked hard at our jobs for many years. We effectively retired the same year.

After living in the Panhandle for more than two decades, we relocated to the Metroplex. Adaptability anyone? We’ve got it in spades, man! We sold our house, we moved into our fifth wheel RV, lived in the “house on wheels” for a few months, then headed down the road, where we found our forever home in Collin County.

I mention all of this because the longer we live here, the longer we go about our days as retired folks, the more comfortable we both feel with this life we have embraced tightly.

At this point in our journey through life, I suspect strongly that our adaptability will start to exhibit some limitation. Neither of us, for example, is going back to work full time.

However, as we look back on our lengthy and fun-filled journey — and speaking only for myself — I am amazed at the adaptable nature I have been able to show … much to my pleasant surprise!

national news

Hearing it often doesn’t make it any easier to swallow

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

I keep hearing U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell say up front, out loud and for the record that he intends to conduct a Senate trial of Donald Trump in “coordination” with the White House.

I hear it. I believe it even less than the previous time I hear it. I keep shaking my head at the abject brazenness of what McConnell is saying.

McConnell is seeking to grease the presidential trial in Trump’s favor. He’s already got enough Republican senators in his pocket who will acquit the president of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. They likely will hold together when the time arrives for a vote: up or down on Donald Trump.

What continues to astound me is that McConnell is now resisting the notion of calling witnesses to testify before the Senate. He said precisely the opposite thing 20 years ago when a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was impeached for obstruction of justice and lying to a grand jury about his affair with a White House intern.

What’s more, trials cannot be considered valid, fair and impartial when the de facto “foreman” of the jury — in this case, McConnell — is working hand in glove with defendant’s legal team.

In the name of fair trial, what am I missing here? I do not get any of this. None of it makes sense. It is scrambling the eggs in my noggin.

local news

This is not just an urban pipe dream

FORT WORTH — Gideon Toal …

That name came to mind today as we approached Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth. I now shall explain what that is and why it’s relevant.

Gideon Toal is the name of a Fort Worth-based urban planning outfit that Amarillo officials enlisted when they began discussing the notion of reviving the Texas Panhandle city’s downtown district.

The thought at the time, as I recall it, was that if Gideon Toal could bring some of the creativity to Amarillo, then the city could adopt those ideas and apply them to whatever master plan the city fathers and mothers could develop.

We went to Fort Worth today to look around and soak up the atmosphere of the city’s downtown district. It had been a good while since my wife and I ventured into downtown Cow Town. It is the day after Christmas and it was fairly quiet today. However, I was blown away, as I was the first time I came here, with the enormous variety of cultural opportunities around virtually every corner surrounding Sundance Square.

Then the thought occurred to me: Is this kind of atmsophere — on a scaled-down version — even possible in Amarilo, which is in the midst of its downtown revival?

Scaled down? Yes. Amarillo’s population is peeking over the 200,000-resident mark; Fort Worth’s census is something well north of 800,000. What’s more, Fort Worth is one of two major anchor communities of the Metroplex, which has a metro-area population exceeding 7 million residents.

Melissa Dailey, the former head of Downtown Amarillo Inc., enlisted Gideon Toal way back when. She left DAI eventually and moved to Fort Worth. I’ve lost touch with her. However, the idea of hiring an organization with a demonstrated record of success was an inspired choice.

I have argued on this blog in favor of what the city is trying to achieve with its downtown district. I applaud the incentives it has employed to get private businesses to do business downtown. The payoffs are presenting themselves routinely, with hotels, dining establishments, the championship AA baseball team and assorted forms of boutique retail business coming into the downtown district.

As we walked around Sundance Square and along some of the streets adjacent to it, I got a sense of a certain type of familiarity. I have heard from my friends in Amarillo that they want to see the city turn its downtown district into something similar to what has been born in Fort Worth.

And no, I don’t mean identical. Amarillo cannot duplicate what Fort Worth has developed. It can adapt some form of it to fit its own level of resource.

My hope for Amarillo is that it keeps Fort Worth in mind as it moves forward on its downtown revival track. They have hit a home run in Cow Town.

local news

Does he really want to know what I think?

My congressman, Republican Van Taylor of Plano, wants to know what I think of the job Donald Trump is doing as president of the United States.

Hmm. Let me think about this one. My first reaction was to ignore the poll. I am having second thoughts.

I live in the Third Congressional District, which includes much of Collin County. It’s reliably Republican. Collin County voted for Trump in 2016, even though it borders Dallas County, which voted for Hillary Clinton.

Someone at Taylor’s office in Plano knows already how I feel about the president. It’s not good. He or she knows that. Yet the first-year congressman sent me this poll advisory via social media.

I’ll just have to stipulate once again up front: I want Trump defeated at the next election; moreover, I want him convicted in the Senate trial that will convene eventually to determine whether he committed impeachable offenses by abusing is presidential power and by obstructing Congress. I believe he did both things.

I am now thinking about answering the poll survey. I hope it gives me room to offer some commentary on whether I believe Donald Trump is unfit to serve as our head of state and commander in chief.

I believe he is. Unfit, that is.

local news

Expecting a bright 2020 for former city of residence

I’m looking ahead to the new year and I cannot help but think good thoughts about what lies in store for the city my wife and I called home for more than two decades.

Amarillo, Texas, appears to be on the move. I mean, think about some developments.

  • Downtown Amarillo’s progress continues at full throttle. A couple of new “boutique hotels” might be opening for business in the coming year. One, for sure, will start welcoming guests at what used to be called the Barfield Building. It once was a rathole. It has become something quite different. There might be some movement in the Rule Building nearby. I’ll have to wait before assessing that structure’s future. It looks somewhat promising.
  •  Amarillo’s minor-league baseball team played before a packed Hodgetown house in 2019. The Sod Poodles won the Texas League championship. They’ll be returning in 2020 as the defending champs. Hodgetown has been honored as the nation’s top AA ballpark; the Sod Poodles have been recognized as the top AA baseball organization in the country. They have built a solid foundation in Amarillo.
  •  Construction will proceed on the new Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine near the Tech medical school campus in Amarillo. This will be only the second vet school in Texas and will serve a growing demand for large-animal veterinary care in a region that relies on livestock.
  •  West Texas A&M University’s downtown Amarillo campus will bring even more energy to the center of the city.
  •  City Hall is looking to renovate the Civic Center, re-do the Santa Fe Railroad Depot building and relocate its municipal offices somewhere in downtown Amarillo.  A big caveat remains on the final item: The city must identify a location and reveal it to the public well before it asks for residents’ endorsement of a $300 million bond issue.
  •  Interstate 40 and 27 reconstruction hopefully will draw much nearer to completion in the coming year. I don’t get back to Amarillo all that often these days, but I am hoping to see some tangible progress toward an end date for that massive I-40 project.

The city’s future — to my way of thinking — looks a lot brighter today than it did 10 to 12 years ago. It’s progress, man. A city that isn’t progressing remains stagnant. Keep moving forward, Amarillo.

national news

Looking ahead to third decade of 21st century

We’ve put our Christmas gifts away, finished our dinner, we’re relaxing around the house.

And, by golly, I’m already looking ahead to the next year. It commences the third decade of the 21st century.

Wow! That’s about all I’ve got to say about that specific item.

However, the year coming promises to be one for the books. A U.S. president will stand trial for high crimes and misdemeanors, only the third one in the nation’s history. I shudder to think how the trial will turn out, so I won’t mention it specifically.

Then we’ll have a presidential election. Candidates and assorted politicians always tell us that the next election is “the most important in history.” This one actually might be the most crucial.

Donald Trump’s bid for re-election is fraught with plenty of peril. I don’t want him re-elected; but you knew that already. Another four years of this individual in the White House is bound to produce a volume of drama and chaos that will make the past four years seem like a game of patty-cake. It won’t be fun.

I just want a “normal” politician to take office. I don’t know who that would be, or should be among those seeking to replace Trump.

In a curious sort of way I am looking forward to the campaign. I just hope my sense of anticipation isn’t overtaken by a sense of dread that turns to nausea.

Trump will keep telling the lies about presiding over the greatest economy in human history, how he took over a military that was “decimated” by his immediate predecessor, how he is “making America great again” by stiffing and scolding our international allies.

Why are they lies? Because the economy isn’t doing as well as it did right after World War II; because our military always has been the most powerful such apparatus in world history; and his quest for American greatness has turned us into an international laughingstock.

We need to take stock of what we have gotten from this individual so far and we must decide whether we want more of the same. I do not want an acceleration of what we have experienced.

The new year of 2020 will give us a chance to perform a serious course correction.