Tag Archives: Rodger Jones

local news, media news

Texan of the Year? From Amarillo? Why not, indeed?

The Dallas Morning News makes a huge deal every year about selecting its Texan of the Year.

One of the paper’s editorial writers/bloggers, Rodger Jones, has pitched the idea that Shanna Peeples, the National Teacher of the Year, should be nominated for the paper’s acclaimed award.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/three-candidates-for-texan-of-the-year.html/

I concur with what Jones is suggesting.

But I’m biased. Like a lot of folks in these parts, my path crossed Shanna’s years ago when we worked for the same newspaper here in Amarillo. She went on to pursue her calling as a teacher and, well, she’s succeeded beautifully.

As Jones writes in his blog: “Shanna can tailor instruction to the needs of her students, whether she is working with refugees who have suffered traumatic events in their lives, or AP students who crave challenging curriculum or at-risk students who are attending school in the evenings to recover lost credits,” Palo Duro Principal Sandy Whitlow said. “The bottom line is that her students know she truly cares about them, and she will invest every ounce of energy in helping them attain their goals.”

How can you not consider this dedicated and talented public school teacher to be Texan of the Year?

State news

Drug-test elected officials? No, but the idea still intrigues

State Sen. Eddie Lucio has this goofy notion that Texas ought to require all elected officials submit to mandatory drug testing.

The Brownsville Democrat has inserted it into an amendment, which means the Senate could consider it before adjourning in a few weeks.

Dallas Morning News blogger/editorial writer Rodger Jones is adamantly opposed to the idea.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/should-every-elected-official-across-texas-be-drug-tested.html/

I guess I share his opposition — to a degree.

But the idea of drug testing elected officials has a certain element of poetic irony to it, if you think about it for a moment.

City council members, school board trustees, college regents, state legislators, county department heads and statewide officeholders all have the authority to require testing of regular Texans. You know, folks like you and me.

Why not, then, require them to do the same thing? Why not subject the leaders who make these policy decisions to the very same hassles they place on the rest of us?

Jones writes: “… government gets horribly Big Brother-ish in presuming to extract samples from one’s body and laying out test results for all to see. Elected officials are private citizens first, public servants second. There should be a zone of privacy for them, just as there should be a zone for welfare recipients. Government should not stick its nose into our private affairs.”

Private citizens first, public servants second? By my way of thinking, elected officials take on a sort of co-equal standing. They are both private citizens and public servants equally, again in my view. How does one particular standing trump the other?

So, if they’re public servants and they hand out policy decisions that affect the lives of actual full-time private citizens, why is it unfair to require them to do the same thing they demand of others?

Jones is spot on about one point, though, in his opposition to Lucio’s idea. It’s impractical. It would create many thousands of urine samples and require government to test them for drugs.

It’s too expensive.

Still, a part of me wishes we could do such a thing.

 

Uncategorized

D-FW signage needs major upgrade

Good news has arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, according to the Dallas Morning News’s Rodger Jones.

The airport is getting better street signage.

Let me be among those to a offer major shout-out to anyone involved in improving the signage at the mammoth air complex that, even in the best of circumstances, is difficult to navigate.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/good-news-for-my-fellow-confused-dfw-airport-bound-drivers-better-signage-is-coming.html/

Earlier this year, I experienced a borderline nightmare trying to get into the place from somewhere — anywhere — on the ground.

It went something like this:

My wife and I drove to Allen to welcome our new granddaughter’s arrival into this world. Emma Nicole Kanelis was born March 6 at a hospital in Plano. I had to leave after three days to return to work; my wife was staying a few extra days to help with caring for our little angel while our son and daughter-in-law got used to having a newborn in the house.

My son offered to drive me to the airport. “Do you know how to get there?” I asked. “No problem,” he said with supreme confidence.

With that we headed west toward D-FW. Then the trouble began.

We couldn’t find our way to the terminal. We kept circling, looking for exits. Signs were guiding us up this and that overpass. We had hoped we’d see something — an off-ramp or a sign — that made sense of the confusion.

The place was under construction but the detour signs didn’t take us anywhere.

I think we made three, maybe four, passes on the highway before we stumbled our way onto a lane of traffic that took us — finally — to where I could get out of the car and hustle into the terminal.

I caught my plane back to Amarillo — for which I was grateful.

Jones’s blog, which is attached to this post, spells out nicely the confusion he apparently has experienced as well.

I cannot remember the precise highway we took from Allen to D-FW, nor can I recall the myriad loops we took trying to find our way into the terminal.

It’s good to know, though, that the state highway department is promising less-stressful travel to D-FW.