kilgorenewsheraldblog

NEWS FLASH: The president of the United States is going to address public school students.

When Franklin Roosevelt said we have nothing to fear but fear itself, he obviously didn't know that Barack Obama would be president some day.

If this isn’t the funniest, most poorly-informed controversy in years, I can’t imagine what might be. The Fox News crowd is working itself into a lather in fear that the president might persuade youngsters to grow up and vote for him or convince their parents that he’s a good guy.

As those students might say, “well, duh.”

When did a president not hope to inspire students to vote for him, lobby for him, march in support of him? (Okay, maybe George Washington did not, but he didn’t really want to be president, so that doesn’t count.)

Like those who are worked up about the president’s speech, I’ve neither read the text nor heard the presentation. I have read several proposed lesson plans, some bothersome, some less so.

None of this is particularly new. I was distraught over the Bush administration’s no-bid contracts to Dick Cheney’s former company in Iraq. My anger was visible when Bill Clinton tried to blow smoke with his comments about defining  the word “is”. I was appalled by Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech. Going back as far as Lyndon Johnson – in office when I reached voting age – I can’t remember truly trusting a president.

But I certainly never threatened to home school my children because they might be exposed to something said by a politician I disliked.

Here’s an idea: Encourage your student to watch it. Find out what they thought about it. Discuss it. Encourage them to think independently. Did he say anything motivational? Did he say anything that was purely political?

But, please, turn off Beck and Limbaugh for at least the duration of the conversation.

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On September 11, 2001 terrorists commandeered three fully-loaded commercial airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Thousands of people lost their lives. My memories of that date are exceedingly clear. Your memories are probably equally sharp.

My recollections of the next day, though, are a little fuzzier. I know I listened, enraptured, to one talking head after another (some elected, some not) rail against terrorism and preach about the pressing need to live free from the fear of another terrorist attack. Fuzzy as those memories might be, I’m fairly certain I spent virtually no time thinking about taxes, federal deficits, bail-outs of the banking and auto industries or even health care reform.

Yet, somehow, the Glen Beck wing of my political party has chosen to politicize 9/11 in the most distasteful way. That faction is organizing a September 12  “National Tea Party March on Washington.” For those who can’t travel to D.C., there will be little rallies like the one planned for Longview on that date.

As it was described at a town hall meeting in Kilgore Tuesday night, the event is supposed to “take us back to the way we felt on September 12, 2001.”

Allow this digression: this whole notion of modern tea parties grew out of a comment made on CNBC’s morning stock market show early last spring. One of the market commentators, on a soap box about TARP (the Troubled Asset Recovery Program created by President Bush and Hank Paulson), warned that government bailouts will lead to a new tea party. Now back to my rant.

On September 12, none of us were thinking Tea Party. For the advocates of today’s Tea Parties to seize upon the terror of 9/11 – and the deaths of some 3,000 persons – and turn it into an anti-tax rally is a shameful example of the poisonous attitudes that have all but destroyed the open, fruitful political debate that set this nation apart from so much of the world.

Shame on us for allowing America’s greatest tragedy to become a symbol of something – anything – other than what it was: the day that Middle East terrorists brought their war to us.

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This week the White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, encouraged citizens to report to the White House “fishy” speech opposing the administration’s health care goals.  Phillips pointed to private, unpublished, even casual speech, writing that “rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.”  Phillips wrote “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

Frankly, I would not have been at all surprised if Dick Cheney had asked us to spy on our neighbors. He is the former vice president who (a) asserted that he works only for the president and was not answerable to Congress and (b) asked the military to arrest suspected terrorists in New York. I would have expected this from him. And I would have been outraged.

I am at least as outraged that this comes from an administration that represents itself (falsely, we think) as supporters of individual freedoms and the U.S. Constitution.

I’ve done today what the White House Director if New Media asked; I’ve reported subversive behavior.

The text of my email follows:

“I have received and sent email which I believe to be fishy. Much of it contains political opinion which may be an attempt to subvert the administration's goal to assure ownership by the federal government of automotive, health insurance and financial companies. Even worse, I believe I know others who actually think shareholder-owned insurance, manufacturing and financial companies may be a desirable goal.”

I’m as eager as you are to see the how the administration responds to all this fishy conversation.

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The city is on Bobby Florence's case about the decrepit condition of the Lou Della Crim house. That's understandable.

Bobby bought the rambling old frame home, which dates back to about the turn of the previous century, in the early 1970s. In the almost 40 years since, the house has fallen into disrepair. The derricks in the yard have rusted, the cutout of Texas Ranger Lone Wolf Gonzaullus is looking pretty ragged and front porch looks to be rotten.

We sympathize with Bobby. His heart was in the right place. He bought the house because he felt it should be preserved. The Crim family history is central to the history of Kilgore.

Unfortunately, Bobby says he can't afford to spend much on maintenance or repairs and, unlike some other communities, Kilgore offers no property tax relief for privately-owned historic structures. No historic preservation groups have offered help -- and even if they wanted to they probably couldn't come up with the cash, either.

The property's future is a significant conundrum for city hall. The structure can only be described as frail; the city's health officer describes it has a health hazard and attorneys would likelyu call it an attractive nuisance. If the city orders the building demolished -- or has a city crew do it -- we can imagine there would be significant outcry from the community.

Discussion of the issue, and likely a vote to take action, is on the city council's agenda for next Tuesday, July 28.

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The "health reform" measure being promoted by the White House would greatly expand the number of people eligible for Medicaid. On average, the states (that's you and me) pick up 43 percent of the cost of Medicaid and the federal government (that's you and me, too) picks up 57 percent.

The Senate Finance committee is actually considering a proposal which would encourage the states to issue bonds to help pay the increased costs. The new financial burden, as envisioned by the Senate Finance Committee, would be so large that states couldn't cover the cost without borrowing money.

The Senate Finance Committee has issued no recommendations for repaying that borrowed money.

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A friend who works at the Humane Society in Longview told us Sunday that "the pound" euthanizes about 20 animals per day.

Last year, she said, the Humane Society took in about 10,000 animals. Something like 2,000 found new homes. The remainder were killed.

We're not naive. We know the vast majority of domestic animals are pets in only the loosest sense of the word. Most aren't pampered, most never see a vet. The old expression about being treated "like a yard dog" has its roots in reality. So it's natural that those unsupervised pets give birth to pups and kittens that must forage for food and, all too often, wind up at the pound and -- eventually -- in the incinerator.

There probably is not a solution. But the thought of killing 20 pets a day is sobering.

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