The story published the other day about residents complaining about the manure smell in southeast Amarillo reminded me of when I first arrived in Texas way back in 1984.

My already long list of pet peeves is getting even longer.

I got stopped yet again today by a traffic signal that, 99 percent of the time, serves no purpose.

It’s on Buchanan Street, between the Amarillo Civic Center and the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts. The only entry onto the street at the light is a driveway from the Performing Arts center parking lot. This was around 11 a.m. today. Nothing was going on at the center. Thus, there was no need — none — for the light to stop northbound traffic on Buchanan.

Why can’t that light be converted to a blinker during those many hours when the G-N Center isn’t hosting an event? Then, when there’s something going on, the city can turn the signal on to allow traffic from the parking lot onto the street once the event is over. That policy could apply when something is going on at the Civic Center and when parking spills over from the east side of the street to the west side, at the Globe-News Center parking lot.

There. Problem solved, with one less pet peeve on my long list. I’ll bet I’m not alone.

The president of the United States has a big day ahead of him. He’ll take care of the country’s business and then, tonight around 8 (CST), he’ll stand before a joint session of Congress and deliver his first State of the Union speech.

Pay attention, ladies and gents, and put your texting devices away. Oh, and avoid the unbecoming outbursts that became the back story of the previous time President Obama spoke to y’all.

The president has some serious things to discuss tonight. Jobs, the overall state of the economy, the on-going war against terrorists and the general state of matters in the United States will be covered. It’s reported that Obama even might admit to some mistakes during his first year in office. The president deserves the undivided attention of the elected reps sitting in front of him, and they shouldn’t be tweeting, twittering, texting, twisting and twirling to their friends, supporters and family members while the president is speaking to them.

Let’s remember, he’s been invited formally by the House of Representatives. That’s the protocol involved here. He’s a guest in the People’s House. And he should be treated with respect.

As for the outburst, one should hope everyone in the audience will have the good manners to keep their traps shut, unlike Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Wilson, R-S.C., who — the last time President Obama spoke to a joint session — embarrassed many Americans with his well-chronicled outburst.

Pay attention, folks.

Conservative vs. conservative.

That’s the nature of a key Republican U.S. Senate primary race out west, in Arizona.

John McCain, the incumbent, is facing a challenge from former radio talk show host and ex-U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who says — get this — that McCain isn’t conservative enough.

Interesting stuff.

McCain, as many millions of Americans are aware, is a war hero. He was captured by North Vietnamese soldiers when his plane was shot down in 1967. This valiant naval aviator spent more than five years being tortured and beaten within an inch of his life in captivity. Yet he continued to resist his captors’ attempts to pry information from him. McCain rejected an offer for an early release from his prison cell in Hanoi.

And now he’s being challenged by an upstart who thinks McCain — who has had the temerity during his long congressional career to work Democrats — doesn’t quite fit the mold of an Arizona conservative.

Hayworth has hung that terrible “moderate” monicker on McCain.

Someone needs to remind Hayworth that McCain, the GOP nominee for president in 2008, was conservative enough for many middle Americans. McCain captured 80 percent of the vote in the Texas Panhandle, even though a good many Republicans here grumbled that McCain was just too darn moderate for their liking. Still, he polled tremendously in this part of the country.

McCain no doubt will pull out the heavy artillery to use against Hayworth.

What else would one expect from someone who’s taken part in an actual war, not just a mere political skirmish?

Gov. Rick Perry has decided that he isn’t coming to Amarillo to seek the Globe-News’ editorial endorsement. He might come for an airport rally, or to rouse support among his allies.

I keep a file in my desk drawer at work. I label it “P&D,” which stands for “Praise and Damnation.” I’ve carried my P&D folder — several of them, actually — with me for more than three decades.

They contain comments from readers who either (a) love the things I write or (b) hate them.

My latest P&D entry, though, is by far my all-time favorite. I’m not sure I’ll ever get a letter quite like the one I got from an Amarillo resident who took serious — and I mean serious — issue with an editorial we published on Wednesday.

The editorial called on the Haitian government to ensure it is accountable to nations that are pouring relief into Haiti to help the people ravaged by the killer earthquake. Here’s the link to the editorial.

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/012010/opi_opin1.shtml

But then I got this note. I can’t reprint it in its entirety here, because it is full of too many four-letter words. The writer calls me a “racist.” But he did say this: “Where have you been when for years Haiti has been the center of the worst child slavery exceeses in the Western Hemisphere? Where have you been in demanding that the former excess of over 400 years of racist oppression be address and reversed? Permit me to answer my own questions. You have been pandering to rank and silly commercial interests — local advertisers who prefer that you continue with your racist crap instead of standing up for the oppressed and helpless. I call your … newspaper ‘—hole journalism.’ It always stinks to high heaven.”

The letter has more of this kind of rhetoric. It is graphic in its personal loathing of yours truly.

To be honest, this letter set me back on my heels. It’s not that he is right, it’s that his criticism is so intensely personal.

And here’s the best part: This guy and I know each other and we had a nice relationship — right up until the moment this note dropped into my lap.

I’ll keep this letter at the front of my P&D file, at least for a while. Most of the criticism I get keeps me humble. This one, though, makes me sad.

Can it be that Texans have more in common with residents of Massachusetts than most of us here, in the Lone Star State, are willing to admit?

Bay Staters expressed their anger Tuesday at the federal government by electing Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat held for 47 years by the late Ted Kennedy, a liberal Democratic icon if ever one existed. It’s been reported for weeks now that Massachusetts hadn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. What hasn’t been reported, though, is that the Republican elected that year was Edward Brooke, an African-American moderate in the mold of, say, the late Nelson Rockefeller. Brown doesn’t appear to have any of the leanings that Sen. Brooke exhibited during his two terms in the Senate, except perhaps his pro-choice views on abortion.

Still, listening to Sen.-elect Brown’s victory statement Tuesday night was akin — almost — to listening to Texas Gov. Rick Perry throw down on the feds in the spring of 2009 when he declared that Texans might get angry enough to want to secede from the United States of America. Brown said he’s fed up and isn’t going to take it anymore, and that the voters in his state have affirmed him with their vote that sends him to Washington.

Thus, we see a bit of a Texas resemblance way up yonder in that Yankee bastion of Massachusetts.

Hey, wasn’t it Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama who declared in 2004 that we are the “United States of America”?

Anti-incumbent fervor? What fervor?

Governors, just like presidents, take more credit and get more blame than they deserve.

That’s especially true in Texas, which has a weak governor’s office. Yet the Republican gubernatorial debate showed Texans how Gov. Rick Perry sought to gather up all the credit for creating jobs and how his challengers, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina, sought to blame him for all that has gone wrong.

The next debate — which should include Medina, who many Republicans see as a spoiler — needs to hone in on the realities of the office all three people are seeking. How does the next governor plan to act within his or her power to make things right? What specifically can the governor do — without legislative authority — to put people back to work?

My sense is that there isn’t anything the governor can do. So why does Perry keep touting his “record” as a job creator and a tax reducer? For that matter, why do his challengers keep pounding him for things over which he has next to zero authority or control?

Remember when Gov. Perry issued an executive order requiring middle school-age girls to receive a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer? The Legislature quite promptly overrode the governor’s order. So much for executive authority, correct?

Texas’ founders had this idea that the governor shouldn’t have too much power. The governor is empowered, however, to make appointments to boards and commissions. The first governor’s debate didn’t touch on any of that. Perhaps the second one will zero in on the type of people the governor will appoint to Texas regulatory agencies.

If so, then we actually might get some relevant discussion going.

Pantex was locked down this morning when some goose hunters showed up near what’s known as The Bomb Factory.