Sports news

You go, Philip Rivers!

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Philip Rivers’s story has captivated me in a way I never expected and to be honest, I am not sure I want it to end.

Rivers is a quarterback who retired after the 2020 season after many stellar seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Being a staunch fan of the Oakland Raiders, Rivers didn’t really capture my attention even as he ran up magnificent stats while QB’ing the Chargers. I certainly knew of Rivers and figured long ago he would be a first-ballot lock for the Pro Football Hall of Fame when he became eligible for induction.

This would have been the year when the Hall of Fame would call his name. Except that the Indianapolis Colts needed a quarteback. So, the Colts called the 44-year-old father of 10 and grandpa to one baby. He was living quietly in his native Alabama coaching high school football. The Colts tendered him an offer he couldn’t turn down, so Rivers said, “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

Here’s what makes this story — in my view — so compelling. Rivers’s Hall of Fame eligibility has been pushed back at least another five years. He’ll get the call from the HoF when the time comes. He hasn’t said that he’s done playing tackle football for keeps. You see, he found out while playing for the Colts that he can still play this young man’s game.

The Colts didn’t make the playoffs and their season is about to end. Rivers will suit up but won’t play Indy’s final game. My quandary as a fan is whether to suggest Rivers should call it quits for keeps or keep the phone nearby in case some other team needs a QB in a pinch.

It’s an enthralling story and I was delighted to see an old football warhorse called back to active duty.

I’m proud of Philip Rivers.

national news

Wanted: Basic human decency … please!

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Of all the areas where Donald Trump is deficient in the only office he ever has sought and held, I have settled finally on the one aspect of this individual’s being I find most lacking.

Basic human decency!

Trump lacks any semblance of the kind of humanity we have grown to expect from the person sitting in the Oval Office of the White House. Trump has demonstrated his lack of decency in the most profound ways imaginable in the wake of the deaths of Rob and Michelle Reiner.

Instead of remaining silent or at least offering a boiler-plate response that offers good wishes to the loved ones of the acclaimed filmmaker and his wife, Trump exhibited a level of abject boorishness millions of us never have seen in a U.S. president. On top of that, he followed his Reiner response with a hideous reaction to the passing of the daughter of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Tatiana Schlossberg, who died of cancer just the other day.

This is the kind of thing too many Americans have grown to expect from Trump. He actually declared in that ghastly Truth Social message that Rob and Michelle Reiner died of what he called Trump Derangement Syndrome. Yep … that’s where it ended for Reiner who admittedly was a stern and ferocious critic of Trump.

Rather than leave the dispute in the dust where it belongs, Trump chose to rub the wound raw while the Reiners’ loved ones were mourning their horrific murders.

This is the kind of individual Americans elected not once, but twice, as president of the United States. What in the world does this say about us, not just about the moron chosen to lead the world’s most indispensable nation?

We are facing an opportunity this coming November to begin to right the ship of state by turning Congress over to the loyal opposition Democrats who stand an excellent chance of seizing back one of the three co-equal branches of government.

Maybe then we might see a return of basic human decency … in the Capitol Building.

Uncategorized

Why run up the score?

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Oh, man … it hurts to make this comment criticizing a college football team I want to win the NCAA championship, but I have to speak out at what I saw at the end of the Orange Bowl game on Thursday.

I watched the University of Oregon score touchdown when none was needed to ensure their victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

The Ducks were leading 16-0 with about 30 seconds left in the game. They had stuffed the Tech offense thoroughly during the game. Head coach Dan Lanning called a time out and the Ducks returned to score a touchdown to make the final score 23-0.

Oregon could have simply snapped the ball to run out the clock. There was no time for the Red Raiders to score twice and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Sometimes I just don’t quite understand what goes through coaches’ minds in the heat of the moment. I just believe Coach Lanning could have let the clock secure the win all by itself. Don’t misunderstand me. I am glad the Ducks won … but still.

Sports news

Disliking the ‘transfer portal’

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You may count me as one American college football fan who has grown disgruntled over the personality change that has overtaken a great college sports tradition.

I refer you to the “transfer portal” that has become a major recruiting tool for football coaches from coast to coast. What the portal does in my view is turn college football into a mercenary game played by athletes looking to fatten their pro football experience and, thus, their bank accounts when they are drafted by pro teams.

We are now paying, in a manner of speaking, college students to play sports.

I’m old school in that regard. My own thought for decades has been that offering a student a full-ride scholarship and a free college education because he can play football — for example — at a high level is payment enough. Now, though, athletes can market themselves and promote their value and earn income while playing college football or baseball or basketball. For the purpose of this post, I shall limit my discussion to college football.

I don’t necessarily begrudge college coaches who know how to use the transfer portal to lure top-drawer athletes. It’s there for all to use and some programs are better equipped than others to make hay with it.

It simply seems to bring an element that wipes out loyalty for the students to the school for which they are playing and for the fans who prefer to cheer for college teams that represent their schools and the players who suit up to play for those teams.

I watched the Orange Bowl game today between the Oregon Ducks and the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Every player worth a damn for both teams seemed to be a transfer athlete from another school. I must have heard the “transfer portal” 100 times during the game.

I dislike the idea of paying college kids to play sports while attending school. The transfer portal takes us way too close to that line I hoped the higher education system never would cross.

local news

Get busy, Princeton

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Princeton, Texas, is hurtling head first into municipal adulthood … but it appears to have little vision of what it wants to become or how it intends to get there.

The city manager and his top assistant quit in December. The manager was on the job for less than two years. Now he’s gone on to pursue “other interests,” which is one way of saying he left without a clear idea of where he will end up.

A long-awaited and much-hyped commercial project on the corner of Beauchamp Boulevard and US Highway 380 has yet to show any signs of life. The city appears to be up to its armpits in litigation over the construction of apartment complexes and a new residential development along Longneck Road.

Ask anyone who lives near Princeton about my city and you get a curious look of befuddlement, amusement and even a bit of sorrow over what residents here are having to endure. City Hall is not a well-oiled, fully functional, machine that runs with all cylinders firing the way they’re supposed to.

My wife and I moved here in February 2019 hoping to be on the cutting edge of a population explosion that is destined to lead the city to greatness. Well, greatness remains a distant dream.

Eugene Escobar defeated Brianna Chacon for the mayor’s seat pledging a more “transparent” government. I think he’s trying. Chacon didn’t deliver much transparency when she engineered the hiring of the city manager who lasted a month short of two years on the job.

I am ready for the city to start showing signs of actual maturity. I am ready for City Hall to act as if the folks who run our local government can extinguish the last flames of confusion and get down to the task of providing services efficently for a city of 40,000 residents (give or take).

A new year has dawned. I welcome 2026. I am going to remain optimistic, but with an abundance of caution.

national news

Year ends in frustration

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I hereby declare that the final post on High Plains Blogger in 2025 will end with my hands thrown into the air accompanied by the sigh of frustration from an American patriot who still cannot grasp what has become of the country he loves more than life itself.

That would be me, of course.

The year that is drawing to a merciful close will give way soon to many new opportunities to correct what has gone so terribly wrong. I await 2026 with undying optimism that we’re going to snap out of it, we’ll come to our senses and we will begin charting the corrective course that will save us all.

Donald John Trump was elected in 2024 to another term as the White House gatekeeper. I am finding it difficult these days even to refer to him as president. I vowed after the 2016 election that I would decline to attach the word “President” directly in front of Trump’s name. I have been faithful to that pledge. I accept your congratulations.

Now that we’re one year into the second term, I cannot even refer to his second victory as a “re-election.” The dude did get his melon thumped in 2020 by President Biden and he debased the office even more by declaring his refusal to accept the result and then incited the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

The individual is a disgrace.

The year was spent hiring incompetent boobs to run multibillion-dollar government agencies. The more I think about it, the more logical it seems that the imbecile in chief would surround himself with agency heads who at some level make the man in charge seem smarter than he is. It really hasn’t worked.

What is the remedy? Midterm election. We’re going to elect the entire and House one-third of the Senate in November 2026. The notion that the House is likely to flip from R to D when the ballots are counted gives me hope that a competent House speaker will be able to steer that congressional chamber back to doing what we expect of it. The House will return to governing!

We also have to consider that a third Trump impeachment may occur. I don’t want that to happen. If it does, I want the House to produce proof that could persuade enough GOP House members that they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump has violated his oath of loyalty to the Constitution.

The reconstruction of our democratic principles can begin in this new year. I will use this blog to do my tiny part to ensure the project gets completed.

local news

Adapting to custom

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For those of you who have forgotten — and that’s probably all of you — I once declared myself to be a surprisingly adaptable human being, given that I uprooted myself from my home in Oregon in the 1980s to move my family to Texas.

That was in 1984 and by and large we all learned how to change many of our thoughts about our new home and to adapt to many of the customs practiced here. It wasn’t until a young woman joined our family in March 2012 that I truly grasped what one of those customs means to the average Texas family.

Eating black-eyed peas to welcome the new year.

The newest family member married one of my sons. She is a Plano native and has lived in North Texas all her life. She prepares black-eyed peas each new year and persuaded us to join her in eating them to welcome good luck to our family. We have done so since. I am going to do so again this year. I likely will continue doing so for as long as I draw breath.

The good news is that I happen to like black-eyed peas. They make a wonderful soup dish. I suspect I’ll just heat ’em up and consume ’em right off the stove top. The good luck will be sure to follow, right?

This is a big deal for this transplanted Texan. We began our Texas journey in Beaumont, then moved way up yonder to Amarillo and finally settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. My family and I have called Texas home since the spring of 1984. That makes almost 42 years waking up under the Lone Star and beginning a new year.

The state has changed in many ways since we first arrived here. Politically? You bet! Texas used to be reliably Democratic. Now it’s reliably Republican. For that matter, Oregon — where I was born in 1949 — has gone from nominally Republican to hard-core Democratic in about the span of time as Texas’s re-generation. Who knew … ?

I did not grow up in a family that lived with tradition. We didn’t participate in activities based on family history, or state culture, or religion. I guess we lived more or less for the moment. Texas taught my family and me that some traditions are worth keeping alive.

Eating black-eyed peas to ring in the new year is one of them.

Happy New Year … and bon appetit.

media news

Living the editorialist’s dream

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I guess you can date this phenomenon back to around 9/11, the day the terrorists declared war on the United States of America and thrust us into the global war against terrorism.

It fell on the laps of people like me — who was writing editorials and columns and editing the pages on which we would publish them — to seek to provide context, perspective and leadership through the written word.

The phenomenon of the moment took place in this fashion: Hardly a day went by while I was working as a full-time opinion journalist where I didn’t have something on which to say. That’s right. The task I faced almost every morning when I reported for work was to decide what to set aside for a later publication date.

Many of those who have done what I did for a living for nearly 37 years faced the opposite … finding topics on which to comment to fill a gaping hole on the page. Not me, man! 9/11 introduced us to a whole host of terror-related and national security issues that required commentary from the newspaper. This occurred during the time when newspapers actually meant something to the comunities they served.

Writer’s block? Fuhgettaboutit!

I had a brief bout with writer’s block. It’s passed. My A-game has returned. I am grateful.

I now will continue living the dream … a life as a semi-retired blogger who gets to foist his views on the rest of the world.

national news, political news

How did we come to this?

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For as long as I draw breath on this good Earth, I likely never will be able to understand the question that comes to me from my friends around the world.

They ask: What has happened to you Americans? How did you manage to elect Donald Trump twice to the presidency?

I guess my answer to Trump’s first election in 2016 would address the quirkiness of the U.S. electoral system that enables a candidate to be elected despite drawing fewer actual votes than the winner. Hillary Clinton finished that campaign with several million more votes than Trump, who won the election because he collected more than enough Electoral College votes than Clinton.

The second election, though, in 2024, is harder to explain. I mean, the guy was impeached twice by the House in his first term, he was found liable for rape against several women, he has demeaned his foes as “enemies” and the press as the purveyors of “fake news.” He told us he was going to seek revenge on those he said had done him wrong. He never said a word about hiring the world’s richest human being and ordering him to eliminate programs aimed at feeding the needy around the world. The individual has 34 felony counts tacked onto his criminal record.

My friends all tell me they have great respect for Americans. The love this country and those of us who call it home. They are baffled beyond measure at the tolerance of Trump’s petulance by Republican toadies who still stand with this clown.

I am left to admit to them: So am I.

media news

Cure for writer’s block?

I am suffering at this moment from a mild case of writer’s block. How do I know it? Because I am writing about it … that’s how!

I never heard this tip from the source himself. It came to me via a fellow editorial writer and editor. He’s a dear friend and he told me that Paul Greenberg, the late, great editorial writer who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 writing for the PIne Bluff (Ark.) Commercial, that the “best way to cure writer’s block is to read the Psalms.”

You’re thinking: How does reading Old Testament Scripture cure writer’s block? My answer? Beats the stuffing out of me. I cannot ask Paul now, sadly, because he’s gone to his great reward.

I figure it will pass. I have gotten them before. They fade away eventually. To be honest, the events of 9/11 I thought had all but cured me of writer’s block. That terrible day unleashed a torrent of responses that demanded commentary, which I was doing in September 2001 writing for the Globe-News in Amarillo, Texas.

I know the president provides grist. To be candid, Donald Trump is boring me. The commentary I hear online and on TV also bores me.

I said the other day I was returning to my bash-Trump self. I still intend to do so.

Just not today.

 

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