Opinion

Last week a West Texas spring “breeze” decided to throw stuff on, around, and off my roof at 2:30 a.m. When daylight arrived, I realized my carport roof had been lifted, and flying pieces of metal and lumber had also knocked the swamp cooler off my roof.

Spring activities are in full swing, and there is a new energy in the air on all the campuses. It seems like every day we have a different group of students headed out to compete in one area or another.

Nine years ago this month Netflix changed how we watch television. The streaming service released an entire season of its political drama, “House of Cards,” at once, enabling viewers to binge on 13 episodes.

I first heard of the broken window theory at the completion of my active duty in the U.S. Navy as I was pursuing a criminal justice degree in college at Sul Ross. The broken window theory concept is based on the idea that unimpeded dysfunction in communities results in further crime and anti-social habits.

My mother and father keep our old photos in their hall closet in a sturdy old Pabst Blue Ribbon box. Sifting through old photos is a glorious experience - one, we now know, that relieves aches and pains by calming the brain, according to a recent study.

There has been talk of closing access to Big Bend National Park area where that terrible act of vandalism took place by some thoughtless, immature, and disrespectful people. To the authorities of the park, I beg them not to close it and here is why.

Growing up among good Americans, I learned what we should be. My parents and others roll over in their graves due to what we’ve become. Bad Americans say parents of school kids, soldiers, and police who disagree with them are threats to the U.S., while other shady actors push corporate, judicial, military, and DOJ corruption. They also promote election fraud, divisive racial identities, immoral education, ending the First and Second amendments, censoring Christians, needless abortions, needless euthanasia, mandated trial drugs, and illicit drug use.

The world seemed surprised when Hitler annexed the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in 1938, more surprised when he invaded Poland in 1939, and flabbergasted when he marched into the Soviet Union in 1941.

My next door neighbor and good friend William D. Bates died the evening of Feb. 8 at his home. For many years Dan and I spent several hours on Sunday mornings with coffee and talk, always interesting and enjoyable given his wide range of interests and curiosity. Dan was never one to argue as those of you who met him over the years know. As he walked our streets to the grocery store, the public or Sul Ross libraries, or the bank or McDonalds or the Sunshine House, he was never too busy to stop and chat with anyone and everyone.

Everyone should be familiar with the 1948 Berlin crisis and the U.S. military airlift that supplied the city with food while it was blockaded by the USSR. The American public is less informed about why the Soviets stood down. President Harry S. Truman ordered B-29s - the bombers that had dropped the atomic bombs on Japan - to impose a threat by flying toward Russian positions in Germany. Nobody called Truman crazy.