{"id":13782,"date":"2016-03-29T03:44:49","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T03:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13782"},"modified":"2016-03-29T03:45:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T03:45:19","slug":"feeling-unchained-these-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13782","title":{"rendered":"Feeling unchained these days"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I had a marvelous opportunity this evening to speak to some nice folks about the state of play in media, politics, and the world in general.<\/p>\n

The Potter\/Randall Democratic Club asked me to offer some observations about this and that.<\/p>\n

They figured I needed something to do now that I’ve been kinda\/sorta retired for more than three years. A number of the folks there are acquaintances of mine. A couple of them were contributors to the Amarillo Globe-News opinion pages over the years, writing letters and sending in guest columns for my consideration.<\/p>\n

I truly enjoyed meeting new folks and getting reacquainted with old friends and\u00a0sharing some thoughts about the condition of our political and public policy world.<\/p>\n

It occurred to me as I began my remarks that one of the true joys about being able to speak for myself is that I no longer represent someone or something else. I no longer am on a media outlet’s payroll, which enables me to speak my mind and to offer thoughts on this blog.<\/p>\n

Sure, I do write for a couple of broadcast outlets these days; I write part time as a freelancer for KFDA NewsChannel 10 and Panhandle PBS, which means that I am not counted as being employed by them.<\/p>\n

It occurred to me as I began my remarks that I am officially unfettered, untethered, unencumbered, unleashed, unbound, unrestricted, uninhibited … well, you get the idea. I get to speak my mind — whether I’m standing at a podium or offering comments through this blog.<\/p>\n

Sure, my career as a full-time print journalist ended unhappily for me back in August 2012. I wasn’t entirely sure at the very moment I realized my career had ended whether I could bounce back. I\u00a0did manage to pick myself\u00a0up;\u00a0I got off the deck and along the way I discovered a side of my adaptability I didn’t realize I possessed.<\/p>\n

Thus, am I now glad my\u00a0tenure at the Globe-News came to a screeching halt?<\/p>\n

You bet I am.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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I had a marvelous opportunity this evening to speak to some nice folks about the state of play in media, politics, and the world in general. The Potter\/Randall Democratic Club asked me to offer some observations about this and that. They figured I needed something to do now that I’ve been kinda\/sorta retired for more … Continue reading Feeling unchained these days<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,14],"tags":[179,2946,3294,3487],"class_list":["post-13782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-media-news","category-political-news","tag-agn-media","tag-mass-media","tag-newschannel-10","tag-panhandle-pbs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13782"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13786,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782\/revisions\/13786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}