national news

Grief will linger for a long time

dallas-shootings

I cannot stop thinking about police officers … or their loved ones.

Two incidents of police-related violence erupted in Louisiana and then in Minnesota. Two men were shot to death by cops. They were African-American; the officers are white. The events made me think, “Oh, no. Not again!”

Those events are horrible on their face. The officers involved directly on those events need to held accountable for what happened — if it turns out that they reacted badly. My hunch is that they did, but there’s more to learn about what actually happened.

Then came the event last night in Dallas during a peaceful march that protested those earlier shootings. A sniper opened fire on police officers and killed five of them. The cops cornered the suspect, tried to talk him into surrendering. He refused. Then the police deployed a bomb-loaded robot and detonated it near the suspect. He died on the spot.

Did the first two events justify the third? Did the monster who assassinated those police officers have cause to do what he did? Of course not.

My heart breaks for the families of the two men who died at officers’ hands in Louisiana and Minnesota.

It also breaks for the families of those men who died last night in Dallas.

I am reminded of a brutal truth about police work: It is that there is nothing “routine” about that profession. Indeed, I keep hearing the term “routine traffic stop” used to describe the Minnesota event that led to the death of the African-American man. Every cop on the beat will tell you: There is no such thing as a “routine traffic stop.”

The men who went to work Thursday fully expected to go home at the end of their shift. Their loved ones expected them to walk through the door. They didn’t. Those loved ones’ lives are shattered forever.

I’ve had a long-standing respect and admiration for the men and women who take the oath to protect and serve our community. The carnage that erupted in Dallas just reaffirms it.

Every day potentially could be their last day on Earth.

I’m not yet ready to buy into the notion that America is coming apart. I want to hang on to the faith I have in the basic good will of our people. We’ve been through paroxysms of violence before. I think of 1968: war protests turning violent; the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and then Robert F. Kennedy. And oh yes, this all occurred during a presidential election year.

We had that election. And over time, the nation pulled itself out of its emotional quagmire.

I will hope that in this case history will repeat itself.

Until then, though, I am going to pray for all the families of the violence that has erupted.

What’s more, I offer a word of thanks to police officers for all they do to keep my family safe.

national news

RFK’s wisdom worth hearing once again

A friend of mine put this video out on social media this afternoon.

He asked those in his network to be quiet for a few minutes and listen to it.

I heard Sen. Robert Kennedy make these remarks in real time, when it happened in April 1968. Indeed, Sen. Kennedy was the rare politician who could speak the kind of blunt truth that we all needed to hear — even if in times when we might not want to hear it.

I want to share my friend’s video here.

I also want to echo his admonition. Take a few minutes and listen quietly to what this politician had to say during an earlier time of national grief.

 

State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick shows off his mean streak

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, questions John Bradley during a hearing by members of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009, in Austin, Texas. Legislators heard testimony from Bradley, the new chairman of the revamped forensic science commission, and attempted to learn the status of the case of executed convicted killer Cameron Todd Willingham. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

I had planned to keep quiet about this display of intemperance from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Then I thought I’d speak out.

While the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, was appealing for calm, unity and peace, the state’s No. 2 elected official took quite another approach.

Dan Patrick decided to attack the protestors in Dallas last night for running when they heard gunshots. They sought protection from the people whose activities they were protesting, Patrick said.

He called the frightened protestors “hyprocrites.”

How in the world does this individual justify such mean-spiritedness in light of what happened in Dallas?

Five law enforcement officials — four from the Dallas Police Department and one from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority — have been shot to death. Seven others are injured, some of them seriously.

The city, state and nation are in utter and complete grief over what has happened.

http://beta.dallasnews.com/news/dallas-ambush/2016/07/08/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-calls-dallas-protesters-hypocrites-running-snipers-bullets

And the state’s lieutenant governor hurls epithets at those who — until the gunfire erupted — were engaging in a peaceful march to protest the shooting deaths of two young black men in other communities by police officers.

Lt. Gov. Patrick has disgraced himself … and the state he represents.

national news, political news

Huck is right about POTUS’s response to shooting

huck

Hell hasn’t frozen over, but it’s a bit chillier down there this morning.

Why? Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — a man with whom I rarely agree — offered a fascinating critique of President Obama’s immediate response to the Dallas shootings overnight.

The president, said Huckabee — himself a former Republican candidate for the highest office — politicized the event by introducing the topic of gun control during his statement on the killing of five Dallas law enforcement officers.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mike-huckabee-dallas-shooting-obama-225280

The president, Huck said, needed to be more Reaganesque in his response. Huckabee recalled how President Reagan sought to bring the nation together after the Challenger shuttle tragedy. That, he said, ought to be the model for presidents to follow in this time of national grief.

As Politico reported: “During his statement earlier Friday morning in which he condemned the attack as ‘vicious, calculated and despicable,’ Obama remarked that ‘we also know that when people are armed with powerful weapons, unfortunately it makes it more deadly and more tragic, and in the days ahead we are going to have to consider those realities as well.”‘

Huckabee, of course, focused more on the latter part of that statement rather than the first part. But he does make a valid point about how presidents ought to react publicly to events such as this.

“He doesn’t need to inject the divisive arguments like gun control at a time of great grief for the nation,” Huckabee said. “And he ought to do for us what Ronald Reagan did after the Challenger disaster. And that’s remind us of what we have in common, not what separates us. And that’s why I’m always so frustrated. Barack Obama has such great potential to be a leader.”

The president has labeled the acts in Dallas correctly. They were “despicable,” “vicious” and “calculated.”

My hope now is that the president goes to Dallas and embraces the police department and the families of those who were struck down and offers words of healing to a nation that is stunned.

That, too, is how Ronald Reagan would react — and it’s also what Barack Obama has done many times during his presidency.

national news

More tragedy, more violence

2 Comments

Police-Shootings-Protests-Dallas-4

There must have been a reason my sleep pattern last night was so fitful.

When I rolled out of bed this morning, I discovered the horrible truth about what was unfolding overnight in Dallas: five law enforcement officers shot to death by snipers.

Millions of Americans are dumbstruck, shocked beyond belief at what transpired.

A demonstration turned into a riot last night after crowds gathered to protest the shooting deaths of two African-American men by police officers in Baton Rouge, La., and in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn. ; and yes, the officers are white.

Our knowledge of those tragedies is pretty compelling, too, and at one level I share the anger of African-Americans in those communities over the alleged conduct of the officers involved. It’s a fair question to ask: Would these men have died had they been white?

But then … to react in this fashion in Dallas?

Authorities have suspects in custody and they apparently have acknowledged that the shooters were targeting white police officers, that the shootings were acts of revenge over what happened in Baton Rouge and near St. Paul.

Hmmm. Do the Dallas shootings qualify, then, as hate crimes?

What in the name of all that is holy justifies this hideous violence?

The demonstrations in Dallas reportedly were peaceful, quiet and the demonstrators were interacting with police officers. I heard reports last night of officers posing for “selfies” with some of those who were protesting the violence elsewhere.

And then this.

It’s hard to come up with words of wisdom so soon after such senselessness.

I won’t try.

Perhaps it’s best at this point to rely on our first option — which is to pray for the victims, their families, for the community that’s in shock and for the nation that has been stricken once again by violence.

local news, State news

Palo Duro Canyon ‘National Park’? Who knew?

9-palo-duro-canyon-lighthouse

You learn the most amazing things just picking up magazines and browsing through their pages.

Take what I found out today when I opened a copy of the Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine.

It was that in the 1930s, Palo Duro Canyon came within a whisker of being designated a national park. Is it possible that the jewel of the Texas Panhandle could have joined Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks?

The magazine noted that the canyon was “considered a prime candidate for one of the nation’s first ecosystem parks, a National Park of the Plains.”

Big Bend became a national park in 1944; Guadalupe Mountains earned the designation in 1972.

I know we have a couple of federal parks in the Panhandle: Lake Meredith National Recreation Area and Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument; both were created in 1965. They’re fine attractions and provide a great escape for those seeking to enjoy the splendor of this part of the world.

Palo Duro Canyon was considered, though, to be “too similar” to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. But as the magazine noted, when did “being too similar to the Grand Canyon become a problem?”

The magazine article prompts me to ask: Is it too late for the federal government to make such a designation?

Much of the canyon now is part of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. It is a state park and is considered to be one of the premier parks within the state’s enormous park system.

It’s expensive, of course, for the federal government to set up these national parks. But think of this: A huge chunk of Palo Duro Canyon already is in public hands. Couldn’t the state deed this spectacular piece of property to the federal government, which then could designate the canyon as a national park?

It’s not as if the National Park System has stopped creating these parks. The most recent was created in 2003, when Congaree National Park was set aside in South Carolina.

Every visitor we’ve taken to Palo Duro Canyon has been aghast at its scenic splendor when we arrive there. It opens wide along the vast prairie and it sneaks up you when you approach it.

Is it reasonable to ask: Is it too late to reconsider Palo Duro Canyon for a national park designation?

I won’t hold my breath. Still, I am posing the question out loud.

local news, Uncategorized

Council is pulling a shroud over transparency

Transparency

Am I understanding this correctly?

The Amarillo City Council — that bastion of transparency and public accountability — is trying to keep secret the process it uses to select its fifth member. Council members are disagreeing over how to proceed.

If memory serves, city voters elected three new fellows to the council in large part because they promised to be more answerable to the public. They were tired of what they alleged was a good ol’ boy star-chamber system of doing business.

Things were going to change, dadgummit!

Well, here we are, more than a year after that election. Councilman Brian Eades is quitting the council effective Aug. 1. The council will have to pick his successor.

I’ve said before that the council makes one hiring decision: the city manager. It now gets to make another one by selecting someone to join its ranks.

This transparency pledge that the new council members made along the campaign trail isn’t that hard to keep.

The council has selected five finalists from a longer list of applicants for Dr. Eades’ seat. We all thought the council was going to interview the finalists in public, asking them a set of questions.

I think that’s a fine idea.

It’s an equally fine idea for the council to deliberate in public about who they like. As I’ve noted before, the Texas Open Meeting Law doesn’t require governing bodies to meet in secret to discuss “personal matters”; it only empowers them to do so. I also could argue that selecting a council member doesn’t fall within the realm of “personnel.”

Who doesn’t favor a more transparent government?

The Amarillo City Council took office this past summer with a new majority of members committing to shining the light on the way it does its job on behalf of the public.

Well, do they — or don’t they — still believe in what they promised?

local news

Let’s not jump to conclusions

Retirement

This is another in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

I love most people … but I won’t disclose those I don’t love.

I’ve discovered, though, that when you reveal certain aspects of your life and how your life is changing, that people do tend occasionally to jump to vastly premature conclusions.

My wife and I have no made no secret of our desire to relocate, to live much closer to our granddaughter, Emma, who’s now 3. We want a front-row seat as she grows up.

I informed one of my bosses of that desire the other day. He’s fully aware of our medium- and long-term plans.

But when I mentioned it to him the other day at his office, one of his colleagues apparently told another colleague that “John’s moving!” Another of his colleagues came into his office and said, “I hear you’re moving.”

The implication in his statement clearly — to my ears, at least — was that the move is imminent.

I assured him it is not.

We are in the lengthy process of transitioning from semi-retirement into full-time retirement. Some things keep getting in the way of making that transition more rapidly. One of them relates to potential changes in some of my work responsibilities. There might be some significant changes coming up with one of my part-time jobs and I want to see how they play out.

We are proceeding with all deliberate speed — with the emphasis on “deliberate” — with our transition. We have some work to do on our house to prepare it for sale. Then we will hope for the best. After that, we have a lot of fifth-wheel travel in our future.

Just don’t push out the door quite yet. We’ll get there. Probably sooner rather than too much later.

My friends ask me all the time, “How ya doin’?”

My answer is always the same and I say it with absolutely sincerity.

“I’ve never felt better in my life.”

business news

Here’s a sign of inflation

Aristotelis-Onassis

Some financial wizards are speculating that computer marketing genius Bill Gates could become the world’s first trillionaire.

His net worth today is around $75 billion. He might be able to add another $925 billion to his portfolio by the time he checks out, according to at least one guru.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-silicon-valley-mogul-says-a-world-with-trillionaires-is-inevitable-%e2%80%94-heres-how-itll-happen/ar-BBu1hus?li=BBnbfcN

Whenever I see stories like this, or lists of the world’s richest people, I cannot help but think of this bit of financial trivia that I’ll share with you now.

The Greek shipping mogul Aristotle Onassis died in 1975. At the time of his death he was rated among the top two or three richest men on Earth. He was known actually more for the fact that he married the former first lady of the United States, Jackie Bouvier Kennedy.

He and another Greek shipping magnate, Stavros Niarchos, occasionally swapped places annually — kind of in the manner that Bill Gates does today with Warren Buffett or Carlos Slim.

Onassis’s estimated wealth at the time of his death?

Oh, it was about $600 million.

That ain’t chump change as I understand the meaning of the term.

For Gates and some of his other fellow billionaires, though, Onassis’s portfolio comprised, well, walkin’-around money.

Whatever. It’s all way out of my league. As John Wayne said in the film “Big Jake”: Times change.

legal news, national news, political news

Clinton need not be shut out of classified access

BBrGg2n

Let’s settle down just a bit, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The Wisconsin Republican said Wednesday that Hillary Rodham Clinton should be denied access to “classified material” after she becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee for president of the United States.

Why? Because of her handling of the e-mails while she was secretary of state and because, according to the speaker, it “looks like” the FBI gave her preferential treatment in its yearlong investigation into her use of a personal e-mail server while she led the State Department.

It’s been customary for decades to allow presidential and vice-presidential nominees access to national security briefings while they campaign for the White House. Ryan got it when he ran for VP four years ago along with GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

I thought the best response to this statement of outrage from Ryan came from famed defense lawyer and constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz. He said on CNN Wednesday that — in light of FBI Director James Comey’s stern tongue-lashing in announcing he would recommend no criminal charges be brought against Clinton — that the former secretary of state would be careful in the extreme in reviewing this classified material.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ryan-block-clintons-access-to-classified-materials/ar-BBu0Vt8?li=BBmkt5R

Ryan, of course, won’t be called off. Quite naturally — and expectedly — he’s angry that the FBI and the Justice Department have decided that Clinton didn’t commit any crimes. He’s going to proceed with a Republican investigation into the FBI probe to determine whether Comey and his staff of career prosecutors did their job fairly, without bias and without outside influence.

It’s quite obvious to me that Ryan’s mind is made up, that the FBI was in the tank for the Democratic presidential candidate. This GOP investigation won’t answer any questions.

For her part, Clinton needs to face the partisan outrage head-on. I hope she does so. Will she be able to quell the partisan anger? No.

In the meantime, Clinton she should be able — as a candidate for president — to receive the national security briefings that has gone to previous nominees.

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