environmental news

Farmers, ranchers cherish Planet Earth

A quick follow-up to an earlier blog post about Earth Day is in order.

One of my sons shared my post and he got a fascinating reaction from someone, who said farmers and ranchers celebrate Earth Day every day of the year.

That is so true. Indeed, if we all cherished Planet Earth the way farmers and ranchers do — given that they earn their living from the earth — the world would be in much better shape than it is today.

Here, though, is a caveat that needs mentioning.

Farmers and ranchers comprise a tiny and still shrinking percentage of Earth’s population. The rest of on our planet happen to be urban dwellers. In fact, some years back the U.S. Census Bureau stopped counting farmers in a separate demographic category, relegating them and ranchers to “miscellaneous” status. I saw that as a virtual insult to the men and women who harvest food, produce cattle and other edible livestock — otherwise feed the rest of us.

Yes, they care about Earth more than the rest of us.

It is to their great credit that they do.

environmental news

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

So help me, I wish Earth Day was a bigger deal than it has become.

For a whole day — as if that’s enough time to honor the only planet we have — we’re supposed to put Earth on the top of our mind’s awareness.

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This is the 45th annual Earth Day. Many communities around the world are going to have public events to commemorate the day. That’s fine. I welcome all the attention that will be paid to Earth until the sun comes up tomorrow.

Given that it was created 45 years ago, that means Earth Day began during the Nixon administration. I doubt President Nixon really paid a lot of personal attention to the condition of the planet, but I certainly applaud that it was during his years in the White House that the Environmental Protection Agency was created.

In the decades since Earth Day’s creation, though, it has become something of a political flashpoint.

Some of us believe the planet is in peril. Our climate is changing and yet humankind keeps doing things to the planet that exacerbate the change that’s occurring. Deforestation is one thing. Spewing of carbon-based emissions is another. Some of say we need to do a better job of protecting our planet — or else face the consequences, which are as grim as it gets. Hey, we have nowhere else to live — for the time being, at least.

Others of us say there’s little we can do. Climate change? It’s part of Earth’s ecological cycle. We need to accept the inevitable and not seek to destroy our industrial base to chase after a cause that is far too big for mere human beings to tackle.

I won’t accept the hard-core climate change deniers’ thesis.

For the time being, I am at least grateful that the world sets aside a day to honor the good Planet Earth.

We ought to do it every day of every year.

 

national news

Oops … congressman caught with assault rifle

Ken Buck is a Colorado member of Congress who, I guess, likes to be photographed with high-powered weapons.

He needs to take care where he records these events.

The Republican lawmaker was photographed recently packing an AR-15 assault rifle. He was posing with fellow GOP U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-congressman-who-posed-with-gun-in-office-could-face-probe/ar-AAbsBnC

What’s the problem?

The District of Columbia prohibits these kinds of weapons. Thus, Buck may have broken the federal district’s gun laws.

Buck calls the rifle a “beautiful, patriotic paperweight.” It’s pained red, white and blue.

Local laws are to be followed, correct? So, if the District of Columbia bans ownership of these firearms, does it prosecute a member of Congress for breaking the law?

Let’s all stay tuned to this one.

 

State news

Everyone hates these tests; why do we have them?

Standardized testing has been a big part of Texas public education for the past three decades, dating back to the Perot Commission’s recommendation to reform the state’s education system.

You recall the Perot Commission, yes? It was headed by Dallas zillionaire H. Ross Perot, who in 1983 popped off about how Texas was more interesting in producing blue-chip football players than developing blue-chip academic scholars. Then-Gov. Mark White challenged Perot: If you think you can do better, why not produce some recommendations on how we can improve public education?

Perot accepted the challenge and headed the Perot Commission, which came up with a series of reforms, including some standardized testing that required students to pass if they wanted to graduate from high school.

It’s been a rocky journey ever since.

We’ve had TAKS, TAAS, TEAMS and now STAAR tests.

Obviously, I haven’t talked to every one of Texas’s 325,000 public school teachers, but I’ve visited with a lot of them during my 31 years living and working in Texas.

Every single teacher I’ve talked to hates the testing regimen. You can say the same thing about the parents of students; they hate the tests, too. Ask a student? You’ll hear it from them, too; they hate the tests.

My question, thus, is this: If everyone hates these tests, why do we still have them?

national news, political news

Why bother with a congressional has been?

The last time I commented on former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s blatherings, some of my lefty friends asked: Why pay her no never mind? She’s out of office, irrelevant, she doesn’t matter any longer.

Allow this brief explanation.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michele-bachmann-the-rapture-is-coming-and-its-obamas-fault/ar-AAboZhG

I chose to comment on Bachmann blaming the coming Rapture on President Obama because — believe it or not — a lot of Americans actually take her seriously.

I am not one of them.

Bachmann served a few terms in the House of Representatives. She became a favorite of the TEA party wing of the Republican Party. She ran for president in 2012 and for one brief moment during the GOP primary, she actually rose to near the top tier of the class of clowns running for the party nomination. For the record, I do not include eventual nominee Mitt Romney in that gaggle of goofballs.

Bachmann then decided to step down from public office in 2014, but she hasn’t stepped down from public life or from the public’s attention.

She remains relevant in some people’s minds, although for the life of me I cannot understand why.

So, when she says, as she did the other day on a right-wing radio talk show, that the Rapture is imminent, some folks listen to her. “We in our lifetimes potentially could see Jesus Christ returning to earth and the rapture of the church,” Bachmann said. “We see the destruction, but this was a destruction that was foretold.”

She said more. “We are literally watching, month by month, the speed move up to a level we’ve never seen before with these events,” Bachmann said. “Barack Obama is intent. It is his number one goal to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

Sigh.

I never know whether to laugh or laugh harder when Bachmann opens her mouth.

She is giving folks like me plenty of commentary grist.

That’s why she remains relevant.

national news, political news

No diversity on Democratic bench? C'mon!

The Hill newspaper has a headline that shouts that actual and potential Democratic candidates for president lack “diversity.”

The Democratic “bench” is too, um, bland … or some such thing.

Hold on here.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/239460-democrats-have-no-bench-and-no-diversity-in

The trio of mug shots that accompany the news story attached here tell me something quite different.

* Hillary Rodham Clinton is, quite obviously, a woman. She was first lady for eight years from 1993 until 2001. She served in the U.S. Senate and then as secretary of state. Enough said there.

* Jim Webb is a former U.S. senator from Virginia. He’s a Vietnam War veteran. He saw combat as a Marine. He served in the Reagan administration, not exactly a bastion of progressive principles.

* Bernie Sanders is an independent U.S. senator from Vermont. He’s a card-carrying, say-it-loud-and-proud socialist. He makes no bones about his share-the-wealth philosophy.

I won’t mention Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who keeps saying she isn’t running.

Oops. I just did.

Those three individuals look pretty diverse to me. They each bring a different set of governing principles to a presidential campaign.

Only one of them, Clinton, has declared her candidacy. Webb has formed an exploratory committee, while Sanders is keeping his options open.

I get what The Hill means, though, about the lack of “diversity.” It refers to the Republican field that so far has two Hispanic candidates — Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. There well might be a woman, Carly Fiorina, in the mix as well. An African-American, Ben Carson, is likely to run.

Let us not dismiss the potential Democratic primary field as being bland and one-note boring.

Among the possible field of three — Clinton, Webb and Sanders — one can find plenty of ideological diversity.

media news, Sports news

Why the attention to Tim Tebow?

Tim Tebow seems like a fine young man.

He put together a stellar career as a quarterback at the University of Florida. He won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top collegiate player. Then he became a pro and has, well, had a not-so-stellar career playing football for a living.

He’s tried out for various teams, been cut, come back for more, been cut some more.

He’s been hired by TV networks to provide soft features and so forth.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/armour-another-tim-tebow-try-that-is-certain-to-fail/ar-AAbp6jZ

And oh yes, he’s also demonstrated his religious faith, which many Americans — me included — find appealing.

Therein might be the reason — his devout faith — for the continuing interest in a young man who probably never will become a full-time starting quarterback in the NFL.

The Philadelphia Eagles have signed him to a one-year contract. He’s the No. 4 QB in the Eagles’ depth chart.

Will he succeed, ever? Likely not, according to USA Today: “The sad truth is that success in college is rarely a guarantee of success in the pros — quite the opposite in many cases. With the exception of Cam Newton, quarterbacks who won the Heisman have generally been a bust in the NFL.”

Tebow’s vocal fan base will keep the interest high as this young man keeps trying to find a place on some team’s roster. But as the essay attached to this post notes, the interest in Tebow has more to do with his faith than it does in football.

Thus, as today’s media culture will allow it, the drama will continue to play out.

 

State news

Railroad Commission has nothing to do with trains

Elizabeth Ames Jones used to serve on the Texas Railroad Commission.

Once, while visiting Amarillo, she paid a visit to the Globe-News, where I worked as editorial page editor.

During our conversation, the Republican former state legislator, made a fascinating and totally sensible proposal. The Railroad Commission needed to change its name. It has nothing to do with railroads or trains. It doesn’t have anything to do with trucking regulations, which it used to have. The name “Railroad Commission” is an archaic term that has zero relevance to what the agency does today, which is regulate fossil fuel production.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/20/texas-mulls-railroad-commission-name-change-again/

Why not change the name, she said, to something like the Texas Energy Regulatory Commission — or TERC, for short?

Why not, indeed?

The RRC is the state’s oldest regulatory agency, but as the Texas Tribune noted, it scrapped railroad regulation long ago.

That hasn’t persuaded the hidebound interests who still run many things in Austin to change the name of an agency devoted to energy-related issues.

It’s not an easy solution, as the Texas Tribune reports: “The change would require an amendment to the Texas Constitution, since the document mentions the agency by name. That means two-thirds of lawmakers in each chamber must approve before putting the question to Texas voters.”

Why not refer it to the voters in the form of a constitutional amendment proposal? The Legislature needs a super-majority of lawmakers to do it. My hunch is that too many of them are strangely devoted to the Railroad Commission, perhaps out of nostalgia if no other reason.

If Texas is going to continue its evolution into a modern state that recognizes that change occurs here from time to time, then it should change the long-ago obsolete name of an important regulatory agency.

Oil and natural gas are important to this state’s economy. Why not give its governing agency a name that everyone would recognize?

 

State news

Open carry bill set to become state law

Believe it or not, I’m going to keep an open mind on open carry.

The Texas House of Representatives has approved a bill that would allow licensed concealed carry holders to wear their sidearms openly. The state Senate already had approved it. Gov. Greg Abbott says he’ll sign it when it gets to his desk.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/20/open-carry-headed-governors-desk/

Some legislative Democrats had sought to soften the bill by allowing big-city residents to vote on whether to opt out of the state law. That was a reasonable amendment to the bill, given that urban residents have a different view of open carry legislation than rural residents. Someone in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of south Dallas thinks differently of the bill than, say, someone living in Dumas or Dalhart.

“Rural open carry is different than densely populated open carry,” state Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, said. “If you put this to a vote in big cities, I think people are going to say resoundingly no.”

The amendment failed.

Now that I am resigned to open carry legislation set to become law, I’ll respect the Legislature’s decision — even though I disagree with it.

I now will hope that open carry doesn’t become the monstrosity I feared back in 1995 when the Legislature approved concealed carry legislation.

The concealed carry bill hasn’t produced shootouts in intersections, for which I am grateful.

Time will tell on this open-carry legislation. I’m going to hope for the best.

 

local news, media news, political news

No lawn signs or bumper stickers … just yet

I had thought that when my daily print journalism came to an end in August 2012 I’d be able to wear my political preference openly.

It’s not going to happen any time soon, or at least that’s my hope.

The last lawn sign I put in my yard — I think — was in 1976. I put a sign out front for U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, who was a candidate for president in the Democratic primary. That was in Oregon, before my journalism career got started.

I went to work on the copy desk of the Oregon Journal in Portland and then took a job as a sports writer for the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier, a suburban afternoon daily just south of Portland. I toiled in the business for the next 36 years, moving eventually to Texas in 1984.

I’ve had a keen interest in politics for many decades, going back to my college days and even farther back, to a time when I was just a year out of high school.

That was when I had a chance meeting late one night in May 1968 with another U.S. senator, Robert F. Kennedy. I shook his hand as he got out of his car on the eve of the Oregon primary, got his autograph, we exchanged a few words and he disappeared inside the restaurant he was visiting.

RFK was murdered a week later in Los Angeles.

My print career ended more than two years ago, but now I’m back in the journalism game once again, in a new format.

So, I’ve decided I still cannot display lawn signs or paste bumper stickers on my vehicles. Since February, I’ve been writing for NewsChannel 10’s website, newschannel10.com, as the station’s “special projects reporter.” Moreover, I’ve been blogging for Panhandle PBS for more than two years, writing about public affairs programming. Thus, I’m back in journalism.

Am I having fun? Does the bear do his business … well, you know.

Does that disqualify me from writing this blog? I don’t see that it does. I just won’t make the leap and endorse candidates for local office, as much as I want to do so, while I’m writing about local political and civic affairs for a local TV news station.

That means my lawn will be sign-free and my vehicle will be bumper-sticker-free for the foreseeable future.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience