crime news

Will this tragedy move Congress?

The question is being asked all across the country: Will the Michigan State University slaughter of three students and the wounding of five others produce meaningful legislation that will curb gun violence?

I believe I have the answer.

It is no. It won’t. Too many members of Congress are too beholden to the gun lobby to enact any sort of semi-aggressive legislation that would stem the epidemic of gun violence.

The latest shooting in East Lansing, Mich., is the 67th such “mass shooting” in 2023. Yes. That is correct. The number of shootings so far have outstripped the number of days in the year.

This latest goon was a 43-year-old moron with no apparent ties to the school. All of the victims were — and are — students. One individual, a young female, happened to live through her second mass shooting in a decade. She was one of the children who survived the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn. Think about that for a moment, about any individual who can live to talk about two such national tragedies, having seen them both up close.

Congress is too full of political cowards for the body to enact legislation that could keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have any access to such weaponry.

Shameful … simply shameful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

education news

Farmersville ISD: ahead of curve

I am chuckling just a little as I watch the news reports of North Texas school districts considering and then approving new school calendars resulting in four-day school weeks.

Why, they just can’t believe how cool it is to give teachers an extra day off from the rigors of the classroom; it enables the districts to attract quality educators who are enamored of the four-day school week idea. Hey, not to mention the children loving the extra day off each week from school.

Well, I’ve been covering a local school district that implemented a four-day school week during the COVID-19 pandemic. Farmersville Independent School District liked it so much the school board recently approved a policy that stays with the new calendar. I see no signs of the school district turning back.

Just recently I spoke with an FISD administrator about all the hoopla surrounding other districts’ decision to follow Farmersville’s lead. She joked that it’s nice to be ahead of the curve. Indeed, the four-day week has worked well for Farmersville, as it has been able to do the very things that other districts aim to do for themselves.

I am equally impressed that a school district with which I have become familiar can hold itself up as a model for progressive education.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Rick Perry earns a bouquet

I am going to do something I never envisioned doing when this politician was serving in public office.

Rick Perry has earned my admiration for the job he did as Texas governor, even though I was reluctant to say so in real time.

Two issues stand out for me in the wake of the current trends we are seeing in the Republican Party. Neither of them is a “social issue,” but they appeal to two policy issues that are near and dear to my ticker.

Wind energy and Dreamers.

On Perry’s watch as a Republican governor — which seemed to go on forever — Texas became the nation’s leading producer of electrical energy from wind. Think about that for a moment.

A state that has prided itself on the production of fossil fuels is now the nation’s leader in generating electricity through a clean and renewable source. The wind that howls across places like the Caprock, the South Plains and the Trans-Pecos is producing an increasing amount of electricity.

The explosion of wind farms throughout West Texas occurred on Perry’s watch as governor. I want to applaud the former governor for enabling and allowing wind-generated electricity producers to lift the state’s environmental awareness profile. If only he would have been more out-front on wind power while he served as energy secretary during the Donald Trump administration.

Dreamers? You know who they are, right? These are the individuals who entered the United States as “illegal immigrants” because their parents sneaked them into the country in search of greater opportunity.

Although he didn’t exactly boast out loud about this policy stance, Perry stood firm for the notion of allowing these Dreamers to attend our public colleges and universities as “in-state residents.” That gave them a break on the cost of their higher education. Perry treated Dreamers as Texas residents … which they most certainly are!

That view has become anathema to the MAGA crowd that dominates today’s GOP, which is driving the state’s current lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, to push for a more rigid legislative agenda. Gov. Greg Abbott is marching to the same cadence.

Republicans such as Rick Perry are becoming an endangered species. Believe me when I say that it isn’t easy for me to write that previous sentence.

It is just that Perry’s view of the value of harvesting wind for electricity and his compassionate view of those who were brought here as children make him sound downright reasonable and rational.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Still waiting on AG

Merrick Garland has impressed me ever since I first heard of him as a man of high principle and of well … patience.

He once was selected to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, but saw his nomination derailed in 2016 by Senate Republicans who decided to play politics with President Obama’s constitutional authority to nominate justices to the highest court in the land.

Garland went back to the DC Circuit Court bench until he got tapped to become attorney general in Joe Biden’s presidential administration.

He now is overseeing — even from some distance — investigations into the goings-on of Donald J. Trump. He has handed off a key probe to a special counsel, Jack Smith, who appears to be closing the circle around Trump. Smith has subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence to testify under oath to a grand jury looking into Trump’s incitement of the 1/6 insurrection.

My sincere hope is that Pence complies, takes the oath and tells the truth. Will he do the right thing? He’s a man of deep faith, so I believe the Bible instructs him to follow the law.

Meanwhile, AG Garland is biding his time in collecting information that will help him determine whether to indict Trump for (alleged) crimes he committed while he was getting ready to depart the White House.

I once hoped for a quick end to this probe. I have changed my mind, which I am entitled to do. I believe it is critical for the AG to get it right. A mistake in evidence-gathering would spell disaster for the rule of law and for holding Trump accountable for the crimes I believe he committed.

Merrick Garland just doesn’t strike me as a gun-toting buckaroo. I will have faith that he will deliver the correct decision at the correct time and in the correct context.

The AG is just too damn smart to blow this gig.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

‘Abundance of caution?’ Yes!

The Pentagon says it is employing a policy that stems from an “abundance of caution” over the sightings of these high-altitude objects it is shooting out of the sky.

Good! The more cautious abundance the better!

The Pentagon and President Biden have gotten roasted unfairly over the shooting down of the Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean. Right-wing critics have said the president should have acted sooner than he did, forgetting that the Pentagon was able to disable the PRC balloon before it could collect much valuable intelligence. The military brass and the POTUS are taking no chances now, knocking these UFOs out of the sky damn near daily.

If they enter U.S. airspace — boom! — they take a missile from a fighter jet.

That is totally OK with me, given the dangers posed by assorted spooks and spies lurking out there, working either for foreign governments or by themselves.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

One more grief update …

OK, gang. I am going to give you one more brief update on my struggle with grief before I move on to other topics — at least for a little while.

The loss of my beloved bride a little more than a week ago has prompted me to make at least one command decision as I begin the long trek toward daylight at the end of this dark path.

I will hit the road, probably sooner rather than later. Toby the Puppy and I are going to climb into our pickup truck and go somewhere, probably out west toward the Pacific Ocean.

I have family out there and I have friends who live along the way. I want to see them. But more importantly — and I know that’s hard to fathom — is that I want to vacate the house I shared with Kathy Anne for the past four years.

Why? Because I see her everywhere in this house. Her cabinets with angels. Her wall decorations. The pictures she put out of our sons and assorted family members. My bride’s fingerprints are all over this place.

They will be there when I return. I know that I will have to look at what she left behind when I walk through the door. I believe in my heart I will be able to take it all in better than I can at this moment.

Of course, and this goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway), I never will cease remembering her and the life we shared for more than five decades.

We are going to have a memorial service on Feb. 25. That will occur in the church where we worshiped for two decades in Amarillo. I hope to see our many friends come to celebrate the joyful life my bride led and remember her as the faithful servant of God she was for her entire life.

After that? I’m on the road in search of that shining light.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Buh-bye, Austin city manager

It is looking for all the world as if the Austin City Council is going to make a serious personnel decision next week.

The council appears ready to axe City Manager Spencer Cronk over the city’s pitiful response to the ice storm that hammered the Texas capital city this past week.

It happened on Cronk’s watch as city manager. It is his job ultimately to ensure the city’s 1 million residents are kept warm in the face of Mother Nature’s wrath. Cronk didn’t deliver and the city appears ready to move on from his tenure as city manager, a post he has held since 2018. Hundreds of thousands of Austinites were without power, despite assurances from Gov. Greg Abbott and others that the power grid was working … well, in fact.

Austin City Council to vote on replacing city manager Spencer Cronk | The Texas Tribune

I am a bit confused about whether the city should grant him a severance, which apparently will be on the table when the council decides his fate next Wednesday.

From my vantage point, the council is set to fire Cronk for cause, that he didn’t do his job while his Austin constituents were freezing in the dark. So, he’s going to get a severance … even though he failed to do his job?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Time for cheer, not tears

We buried my bride today, saying goodbye to my partner of more than 51 years.

I am not going to dwell on the tears we shed today. There were plenty, to be sure. I want to speak briefly to the joy we felt coming from the woman who officiated over our ceremony.

The Rev. Mally Baum — who heads the staff temporarily at Trinity Presbyterian Church in McKinney — admitted she did not know Kathy Anne well, but knew her well enough to acknowledge what my family her many friends and I knew about her, which was that her belief in eternal salvation was real and was not something to show off. She felt it in the depths of her soul.

When we learned the day after this past Christmas of the cancerous tumor that would take her from us, Kathy Anne’s first words were, “We have to get it out of there.” That was a demonstration of the strength she carried with her. Through the ups and downs of our life together, I could depend on her to be strong. She kept that strength even as she faced what she no doubt knew could be a catastrophic illness.

Yet she maintained hope, which again is what her faith in salvation embedded in her.

One of my sons and I had spoken with Mally a few days ago about my bride, telling her about aspects of her life that she didn’t know. She took copious notes and today delivered a brief tribute to Kathy Anne that she packed with almost all the details of her glorious life.

We all shared some laughs and, yes, also some tears. My bride was a joyous individual, though, who spread kindness and joy willingly … and without a hint of self-regard.

As one of my sons noted in an earlier social media post about his mother, this collector of angels is now singing and dancing among the real angels.

I guarantee that the hereafter is a much happier place — if that is possible — with this latest angel among them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

GOP now tolerates boors

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boorishness on the floor of the House the other evening was a sight to behold.

Why? Because in the not-too-distant past, other members of the Republican caucus were scorned for doing the kind of thing she did during President Biden’s State of the Union speech, which was to shout “liar!” at the commander in chief and our head of state.

GOP Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina pulled a stunt like that during one of President Obama’s SOTU speeches and he was called down by the then-speaker John Boehner. Greene has become a living caricature of the MAGA cult that comprises much of today’s Republican Party.

As for the current speaker, Kevin McCarthy, he sought to shush the MAGA cabal of his caucus prior to the speech, to no avail. What has been his response to Greene’s defiant outburst? Well … not a damn word.

This congresswoman from Georgia is demonstrating to all of us just how dumb she is and just how gullible the people she represents are in sending her back to office for a second term.

Sickening.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Here is how we met

I have taken some measure of comfort sharing with you my heartache in the wake of my darling bride’s passing from brain cancer.

A member of my family, though, asked whether I would like to share some positive memories of Kathy Anne. He thought it would do me some good as I grapple with the grief that has shattered my heart and soul. So … I will do so.

We met in January 1971 in college. I had returned from two years in the Army the previous summer and re-enrolled in college to pursue studies in journalism. Then, it happened.

I was sitting in the student union one afternoon when I saw this girl across the way, playing pool with some friends. My very first thought when I saw her? Dang, I have to meet this girl.

As luck and fate would have it, we found ourselves sitting at a table a day or two later with a mutual acquaintance. He was carrying on about his work as a zookeeper or some work like that. This girl and I began winking and smirking at each other across the table as this dude kept spouting nonsense.

Well, he left the table. We sat there by ourselves. We started chatting and I mentioned to her that I would like to see her again. She agreed.

Fate intervened yet again the next day when her car battery croaked in the parking lot. She needed a ride home. I gave it to her. The next day I jump-started her car for her. Then, at some point later that hour, I leaned over to kiss her.

Ah, yes. The kiss. It was one for the ages!

The rest, as they say, is history. We dated for six months. I proposed marriage that summer as I slipped a ring on her finger. We got married in September 1971 and commenced our extraordinary life together for the next 51 years.

I want to share this story as my proof of what I have preached ever since, which is that men should not look for the girl of their dreams; she will just show up. It happened to me … and I believe it happened to her, as well.

That memory is etched forever in my heart.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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