Recently in Oklahoma Bloggers Category

Just a quick note on the run: Many thanks to my fellow Oklahoma bloggers for honoring BatesLine with the Best Political Blog (Conservative) award. I'm particularly honored given the competition -- second place went to the excellent McCarville Report. (Happy anniversary, Mike and Ann!) And congratulations to the rest of the honorees for the 2009 Okie Blog Awards. I was especially pleased to see Dustbury honored as Best Veteran Blogger, Tasha Does Tulsa recognized with two awards -- best Tulsa blog and best culture blog -- and Erin Conrad Photography for best blog design. Irritated Tulsan had a couple of second place finishes, but as a weekly contributor he can claim a share of The Lost Ogle's Most Humorous Blog award.

I'd give more shout-outs, but I have to run. Thanks again to my fellow Okie bloggers for the great honor.

Photographer Erin Conrad has decided to blog every day this month:

That seems like an appropriate thing to do for the shortest month in the year.

Blog every day of it.

So perhaps I should try to do the same -- get back in the habit of posting on a daily basis. (Erin's posts are bound to be prettier than mine, but I'll post anyway.) So here's a roundup:

Speaking of Erin Conrad, she posted a very sweet photo on Sunday.

Tulsa area bloggers are gathering at Joe Momma's Pizza downtown (1st & Elgin) on Thursday, February 4, 2010. 40 bloggers have RSVPed, and now there are some contests and prizes to encourage even more to attend.

@TashaDoesTulsa has a Twitter list of independent Tulsa businesses to which you can subscribe, as well as a list of Twittering Oklahoma bloggers.

One of those blogging tweeters, Cindy W. Morrison, encourages her fellow bloggers to take a 31-day challenge to optimize our blogs with social media.

And if you're an Oklahoma-based blogger, the deadline for nominations for the Okie Blog Awards is Wednesday, February 3, 2010.

Tulsa Gal has a biographical sketch of Alfred E. Aaronson, a founder of the Tulsa Historical Society and leader in the development of Tulsa's city-county library system. Earlier, she took a stroll down Boston Avenue's past.

Irritated Tulsan seeks your votes for January's Tulsan of the Month. And Mr. M (with the munching mouth) frolics in the snow.

Yogi's Den has a collection of stunning photos from the Hubble Space Telescope. Don't be worried by the URL -- it's all safe for work.

You can always find the latest posts from a selection of Tulsa-based blogs on my BatesLine Tulsa headlines page.

Tasha Does Tulsa, Tulsa Project, and Art of Manliness are sponsoring a Tulsa Blogger Meetup at Joe Momma's Pizza, 1st & Elgin downtown, from 7 - 9 p.m. on Thursday, February 4, 2010. Click the link for details.

Blogger meetups are great fun. It was five years ago this weekend that a number of bloggers from around the state and elsewhere gathered at a coffee house in Oklahoma City for an informal "Okie blogger bash." There have been a couple of statewide blogger roundups since then.

I hope to be at this one and will, barring a conflict with business travel, kid activities, or Mom's night out. While this is a Tulsa blogger meetup, I'm sure any blogger with the ambition to travel to the event from outside the city limits would be welcomed warmly.

RELATED: Nominations are open, through February 2, for the 2009 Okie Blog Awards, founded by OkieDoke's Mike Hermes and administered this year by Jennifer James (aka JenX67). Just like the Academy Awards, the Okie Blog Awards are nominated by active Oklahoma bloggers and only active Oklahoma bloggers are eligible to vote. (That link explains precisely who qualifies to participate.)

Two recent posts on the subject of grief, both by Oklahoma bloggers, deserve your attention.

C. Michael Patton (the theologian from Edmond, not the recycler from Tulsa) lost a sister to suicide six years ago. He was encouraged to write a "grief letter" to his sister and to share it, so he's posted it to his blog. He writes of her encouragement to him as he pursued teaching theology, her struggling with doubt and depression, and how her tragic death has fired his passion for grounding people in solid theology, as a way of preparing them to deal with the inevitable grief and loss of this life.

Those of you who followed Brandon and Susie Dutcher's blog through the roller coaster of their daughter Anne Marie's brief life have seen up close how that works. In the latest entry, Susie writes about
the help and encouragement that has come during this time of deep sorrow -- help from the Bible, from others who have lost babies, from books and sermons. (She links to several helpful sermons by John Piper, whom she says "is about the best when it comes on teaching and preaching on sovereignty and suffering.") She concludes:

So yes, help has come. The awful pain is still there, and seems only to get worse because I miss Anne Marie more and more each day. But sometimes I forget that if it didn't hurt so bad then it wouldn't be called suffering. And in this suffering, God is helping me "to feel in my bones and not just know in my head that God is for me" and that "behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face."

It's been too long since I've done this, and here I'm going to try to do it on three hours sleep. My day is just about to end as yours is getting started. Here are some posts of interest from blogs in Tulsa and around Oklahoma:

Tasha Does Tulsa has a list of things to do around town now that your kids are off school because of the bitterly cold temperatures for Thursday and Friday. I'm intrigued by the Sand Springs Museum's exhibit of classic toys.

Mad Okie wonders about the "mother" depicted in a frequently-seen internet ad.

Mike McCarville has the latest on Army Lt. Michael Behenna of Edmond, who was sentenced to 20 years for killing an al-Qaeda operative in Iraq. Behenna is seeking clemency and also appealing the verdict on the grounds that the prosecution withheld expert testimony that would have exonerated Behenna.

Pollster extraordinaire Chris Wilson links to news that portable electronic signature gathering equipment is being developed by a Silicon Valley firm called Verafirma. The idea is to make it easier to solicit signatures using social media and gather signatures using smartphone apps. Wilson asks, "Are we ready for this?"

At Choice Remarks, Brandon Dutcher links to a quote from Lt. Gov. Jari Askins about the fiscal wisdom of the HOPE initiative, on the ballot in November, given the current economic realities. The initiative would peg Oklahoma education expenditures to those of surrounding states. According to a story in the Edmond Sun, a study by the Oklahoma House of Representatives indicates HOPE's passage would require a 40% tax increase or a 20% across-the-board cut of non-educational spending.

On his personal blog, Brandon says his daughter's avid interest in Sports Illustrated is "another reason to come courtin'."

Laurel Kane, owner of the Route 66 landmark Afton Station, traveled down Admiral Pl. in Tulsa, a Route 66 alignment from 1926-1932, looking for roadside history and snapped a few photos in the process. (Admiral was also the alignment for State Highway 33 and -- at various times -- US 75 and US 169, so it continued to attract roadside development long after 66 was shifted to 11th St.)

Emily, the Red Fork Hippie Chick, is looking for activist songs as part of a unit for her class. She knows a lot of left-leaning songs, but she wants to be balanced, so she's looking for songs from a conservative perspective (and not just -- Irritated Tulsa will be pleased to know -- "Toby Keith bleat[ing] about putting a boot up somebody's arse"). She's also looking for items people are willing to loan to create a hippie decor for her classroom.

Speaking of Irritated Tulsan, he has a list of Tulsa's top 10 places not to wake up dead. And his weekly Tulsa Tuesday post at The Lost Ogle reports "Downtown YMCA Moves, Creates Really-Homeless People."

Tyson Wynn gloats about the Corporation Commission's decision to use an overlay instead of a split to handle the 918's lack of available phone numbers. (My friend Dana Murphy was the only commissioner to vote the sensible way -- for a split. Area codes should indicate area.)

Lots of interesting articles on all manner of topics by Lynn Sislo over at Violins and Starships and by Charles G. Hill at Dustbury. But you knew that already, or should have. Lynn has a list of 12 things that every woman needs, including a "lifetime supply of drama repellent." Charles reports that he has written over 2 million words, and that's just since the start of his second decade of blogging.

Straight Shooter shares her two New Year's resolutions.

Yogi, lucky fellow, got to hear Hot Club of Cowtown at Cain's Ballroom last Saturday night.

Finally, The Pioneer Woman turns 41 today and has posted a gallery of old photos (with old hairstyles) to mark the occasion.

Yet another linkfest: I washed, dried, folded, and distributed seven loads of laundry yesterday, so I'm lagging behind. Meanwhile, Tulsa area bloggers are turning out plenty worth reading.

In a post titled, "Why I am a Republican," Man of the West relates the evolution of his political philosophy, having started out as a Ayn Rand-inspired Libertarian, then moving to a conservative perspective under the influence of the Bible and writers like Francis Schaeffer. He had been registered as an independent, but "In registering Independent, I began to see, I, and other conservatives like me, were actually making it easier for the Republican Party to continue its slide into political and philosophical incoherence." He came to see the Republican Party as the only hope for promoting and electing officials who would pursue conservative policies.

So I changed my registration to Republican. I vote in the primaries, and I always vote for the most conservative candidate available. But please understand: it's not the Republican Party per se that matters to me; it's the election of conservative candidates. The Republican Party is not my nation, and certainly not my God. The Republican Party is merely a vehicle. And if and when that vehicle isn't getting me where I want to go, I feel free to abandon it, or its candidates.

And that brings him to the impending election:

At the time of writing, there's a candidate for Tulsa mayor--Dewey Bartlett, Jr.--that campaigned in the primary as a "conservative," despite having previously endorsed a pretty liberal Democrat for re-election, despite having supported some very questionable local governmental maneuvers, and having, in his first ads, made rather obvious reference to local conservatives via referring to people's partisanship and "bickering." In my estimation, he appears to have less loyalty to the Republican Party than I do--I certainly never endorsed Kathy Taylor's re-election--and is running as a "conservative" for no other reason than that he knows that being a liberal is political poison in this city. In his case, the vehicle isn't getting me where I want to go, and I refuse to put any "gas"--money or time--into it.

Elsewhere in the Tulsa blogosphere:

Steven Roemerman doesn't like Lucky Lamons's legislation to require pseudoephedrine to be sold only by prescription and he points out the unintended consequences of restrictions on pseudoephedrine sales. (I agree with Steven that phenylephrine -- the drug being substituted for pseudoephedrine in many cold products -- just isn't as good at unblocking sinuses.)

Don Danz has some sweet photos of his boys, including his middle son's third birthday and his smallest learning to pray.

Scot Law remembers his uncle, pianist Larry Dalton, in the latest episode of Goodbye Tulsa.

The Pioneer Woman has some reassuring words for those suffering from the October Homeschooling Blues.

Stan Geiger takes a closer look at what the stimulus money coming to Oklahoma is actually stimulating:

From down the turnpike, Steve Lackmeyer's OKC Central blog presents a post on Oklahoma City's future by Nick Roberts. Nick thinks the core-to-shore plan needs to be reworked, but beyond his interesting ideas on that topic, I really like this guiding principle that he sets out:

In order to visualize Downtown OKC in 2020 we have to visualize Downtown OKC in 2000, and 1990, and so on. Most importantly I think we need to visualize Downtown OKC in 1920, 1930, and 1940. OKC needs to go back to the future to a time when it had excellent downtown parks, a great streetcar network, and downtown vibrancy.

Of recent note in local blogs:

At Choice Remarks, Brandon Dutcher salutes State Rep. Jabar Shumate (D-Tulsa) for his efforts to expand school choice with a bill that will allow tribal governments to sponsor charter schools.

Tulsa Chigger has posted a 1934 Chicago Tribune cartoon lampooning the New Deal, headlined "Planned Economy or Planned Destruction." In the corner of the cartoon, a Trotsky-esque fellow writes a placard: "Spend! Spend! Spend under the guise of recovery -- bust the government -- blame the capitalists for the failure -- junk the constitution and declare a dictatorship." Chigger writes, "Strangely similar to our situation now, isn't it?"

Chris Medlock writes about State Sen. Randy Brogdon's upcoming announcement as a candidate for governor and the impact of a Scott Pruitt candidacy on the race.

Owasso blogger James Parsons wonders about the conservative credentials of another GOP gubernatorial possibility, former Congressman J. C. Watts, who has spent the last seven years as a corporate lobbyist.

Yogi gets quote of the week honors: "I love little 'creases' in time and space." Me, too. He's referring to unexpected places like an Italian mining community in southeastern Oklahoma named Krebs that boasts legendary Italian food. Yogi recounts a recent visit to Pete's Place -- it's been too long since my last meal there.

OKDad is working on a mystery: A statue of a farmer, erected for the American Bicentennial in 1976 and currently under restoration, turns out not to be a bronze after all, but "some sort of hardened concrete-plaster hybrid." "He was planned as a bronze. Molds of him were made in preparation for a bronze. Funds were apparently raised for him to be cast in bronze. The papers from July 4, 1976 (the day he was dedicated and unveiled) clearly state he is a statue of bronze stature. So, where's the bronze?" The mystery is still unsolved, but here's the latest development.

Rod Dreher has posted an 1999 article by Russell Hittinger about how a Benedictine monastery came to be established in Cherokee County. (Driving directions on the monastery website include prayers to St. Jude and St. Benedict in the event of high water. Irritated Tulsan might advise prayers if you decide to follow the restaurant recommendation on the same page -- I've eaten at said restaurant three times and never had a problem.)

Irritated Tulsan's Tulsa Tuesday post last week on The Lost Ogle: Tulsa's Worst Remodels, including a Pizza Hut turned adult novelty and lingerie shop, a Wal-Mart-to-church conversion and a KFC (complete with bucket on the sign) turned chiropractor's office. (I wonder if you can still get a chicken wing there -- either the food kind or the wrestling kind.)

Down the turnpike:

Steve Lackmeyer has posted a series of videos featuring urban planner Jeff Speck's comments on downtown Oklahoma City. The latest segment hits a harsh reality in Speck's comments: When you optimize a street for moving cars at high speeds, you inherently make it hazardous for pedestrians. Here are the three earlier entries in the series:

Jeff Speck Video No. 1 on urban parking
Jeff Speck Video No. 2 on giving people what they want
Jeff Speck Video No. 3 -- outlook for downtown

JenX67 has a gorgeous photo of nightfall in OKC's Plaza District.

Nick Roberts has an interesting chart showing Oklahoma City's population by decade since its founding. Noting the massive growth the city experienced in the 1920s and 1950s, he wonders whether, despite great rankings in a variety of categories, OKC will ever again be a place to which people flock.

Finally, congrats to Blair Humphreys and the MIT design team for their victory in the 2009 Urban Land Institute design competition. The design is for a transit-oriented development to replace big-box and strip-mall retail in Denver.

Chris Medlock is back to blogging, having moved his blog to a domain with a matching name, www.MedBlogged.com. Since relaunching, he's written about both local and national issues, including the strange case of Obama excluding the press from a ceremony in which he was to receive an award from a press organization.

His most recent entry includes audio of Pat Campbell's comments on his show the Monday morning after KFAQ cancelled the Chris Medlock Show. Pat has kind words to say about Chris, and he made it clear that the cancellation of Chris's show reflected the station's economic situation, not Chris's performance.

Shortly before Pat's arrival in April 2008, I was informed that my weekly segment on KFAQ, which had run continuously since September 2003, was being discontinued. I was told that I might be called on from time to time to talk about a particular local issue that I covered here or in my UTW column. (And indeed that happened, with occasional appearances with Pat, Chris, and Elvis, most often with Chris, although the time of day didn't always allow me to participate.)

The change made sense: The station was launching a two-hour daily program devoted primarily to local issues, hosted by an expert. There really wasn't a need for my segment to continue. It was fun while it lasted, but I haven't missed having to get up extra early every Tuesday.

But now that there isn't a Chris Medlock Show, it would make sense to add a regular local politics segment alongside all the other weekly segments on the Pat Campbell Show. And it would make sense for that segment to feature the insights of a former city councilor and mayoral candidate named Chris Medlock.

MORE: Muskogee Politico notes that KFAQ has reposted the final week of podcasts of the Chris Medlock Show; MP calls it a "good start." Steven Roemerman says the gesture is "too little, too late."

Some notes from around the Tulsa blogosphere:

Tulsa City Councilor John Eagleton has updated his website. On his City Council News page, he's posting city government documents. Recent entries include an update on the Public Works contracts put on hold because of Federal bribery indictments and a spreadsheet from the Tulsa Police Department with two years of crime statistics. On his blog, he has links to articles and editorials of interest, on such topics as the economy, law, and national defense.

I'm happy to see MeeCiteeWurkor back online. His latest entry is about plans to unionize the City of Tulsa's Information Technology department.

Steven Roemerman was on KTUL last night commenting on his earlier story about Taco Bueno outsourcing its drive-thru order-taking.

The story reveals that old media is still struggling with new-media terminology: "Roemerman even wrote a local blog about his experience." Actually, Roemerman is a local blogger who has a local blog and who wrote an entry on that local blog about his experience.

Irritated Tulsan is celebrating the first anniversary of his blog, and this week he's been blogging like it's 1979. An entry about Forgotten Tulsa Stories from the 1970s remembers the Tulsa Babes women's pro football team. Today, Mr. M (with the munching mouth) is visiting downtown.

The Babes mention had me struggling to recall the name of the Glenn Dobbs-coached semi-pro team that played Skelly Stadium in 1979. It was the Tulsa Mustangs. The Football entry in the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture says that the Mustangs played five games of a 15-game season, then folded. This webpage says the team played in 1979, which sounds about right to me.

Continuing on in stream-of-consciousness fashion about short-lived pro sports teams of the 1970s, here's a 1978 People story about Bobby Delvecchio, a 21-year-old from the Bronx who was the bull-riding star of the Tulsa Twisters major league rodeo team.

Going further back to the '60s, Yogi, the Crusty Gas Guy, has an interesting post on Brutalism right here in Tulsa (not brutality, but the architectural style of the '60s and '70s that seeks to be brutally honest and unadorned about its materials). Yogi points to the Civic Center Plaza as an example of the style, which spawns some good discussion in the comments, including a defense from fans of modern architecture, including Shane Hood. I like SandyCarlson's comment: "True to its material seems like a weird idea. Like asking the cake you baked to be obvious about its flour. Why?"

DoubleShot Coffee Company is celebrating an anniversary, too. It's five years old, and they'll be throwing a birthday party on Saturday, March 14, from 7 p.m. to "whenever."

Yesterday at lunch -- I spoke about blogging at the spring workshop for the Ad Program at the University of Tulsa -- I mentioned that some companies give prizes to bloggers to give to their readers as a way to help the blogger build traffic and to help the company reach new customers. Someone asked me if I'd done much of that, and I noted that it was the mommy bloggers who seemed to get prizes to give away. (E.g., the Pioneer Woman giving away a $500 Apple Store gift certificate in a contest (now closed). Then again, I'm not likely to draw over 16,000 comments on a single blog entry.)

Now I see that two mommies who blog, Natasha Ball and Holly Wall, have teamed up on a giveaway post, which also contains a great overview of arts events this weekend in Tulsa -- theater, sculpture, photography, Shakespeare -- if you can't find something fun and interesting to do in Tulsa, you're just not trying. The contest involves answering an opinion question about the arts in Tulsa. The prize is tickets to "Educating Rita" at the PAC for tonight (Thursday).

Natasha is running a second contest -- this one's for a $20 gift certificate to the downtown fresh-Mex restaurant Eloté's first night of being open for dinner, also tonight. This one involves answering an opinion question about downtown dining.

There aren't very many entries yet, so your chances are good. Give it a whirl!

My deepest gratitude to my fellow Oklahoma bloggers, who have named BatesLine the Best Political Blog for 2008. It's especially meaningful to be recognized by fellow bloggers who know what it is to write content for public consumption day-in and day-out. And it's particularly encouraging during what has been a very stressful time.

Congratulations to the other winners, particularly to Tulsa-area blogs: Confessions of a Pioneer Woman for Best Overall Blog and Best Looking Blog, Rocks in My Dryer for Best Writing Blog, Tasha Does Tulsa for Best Culture Blog, and Decisionally Challenged for Best Humor Blog. (Yogi's Den came second for Best Culture Blog.)

Go check out the rest of the winners, and check out the rest of the nominees as well. As Mike Hermes, who founded this competition in 2005 and has been running it ever since, noted, "We are all winners to be a part of a thriving Oklahoma blogging community."

There are three bloggers that deserve a great deal of the credit for that thriving Oklahoma blogging community. Mike Hermes of Okiedoke is one of them, for his Okie blog roundup feature and the annual awards. Kevin Latham is another, for creating the BlogOklahoma webring. And then there's the doyen of Oklahoma bloggers, Charles G. Hill of dustbury.com, who has, for as long as I remember, made special note of his fellow Oklahomans in his blogroll and called attention to them by linking worthy posts. Their work has made this blogging community possible. Whatever our other affiliations, these three have helped us recognize what we have in common.

The nominations are in and the voting is underway for the 2008 Okie Blog Awards. Voting is open only to active Okie bloggers, but even if you don't fall into that category, you should click that link and explore the nominated blogs. It's a great way to learn about new blogs and to catch up on what you've been missing.

I was especially pleased to see Jeff Shaw's Bounded Rationality recognized with two nominations (political and commentary). Natasha Ball was nominated twice as well for two different blogs: Tasha Does Tulsa and My Life As Told by Food, which combines cuisine and autobiography in a fascinating way. Rookie Irritated Tulsan got a well-deserved nod in the humor category. Red Fork Hippie Chick was nominated in the inspirational category. And I see many more friends and blogging acquaintances on the lists, next to blogs I look forward to exploring soon.

Dustbury is up for best overall blog, which is inappropriate in my opinion. Charles G. Hill shouldn't have to compete for an award that should be named in his honor. (The Charles G. Hill trophy for best overall blog -- could we call it the Chazzie for short -- would, of course, be a statuette of a finch.)

Thanks again to Mike of Okiedoke for all the hard work he puts into this process.

This week's cover story in Urban Tulsa Weekly is a profile of Tulsa's growing blogging community. The piece features:

Dan Paden's No Blog of Significance

Jeff Shaw's Bounded Rationality, which is celebrating its second anniversary. (Congratulations, Jeff!)

Emily Priddy's Red Fork State of Mind and Indie Tulsa, her husband Ron Warnick's Route 66 News, and their blog about "green" living, the House of the Lifted Lorax.

Irritated Tulsan's Irritated Tulsan

Alternative Tulsan's Alternative Tulsa

Last but not least, Natasha Ball's Tasha Does Tulsa, who regularly puts the lie to the oft-heard whine that "there's nothing to do in Tulsa." There was a very sweet and touching quote from Natasha in the story:

Many local bloggers herald UTW's own Michael Bates' "Batesline" as the gold standard of Tulsa blogging. When Natasha Ball got her first congratulatory comment about her blog from Bates, Ball said, "I was elated. I danced around the living room. I even cried a little. I was star-struck, I guess. I was happy to know I would start to reach more readers, too, since several of the local bloggers with established readerships had told their subscribers about me."

There are many more Tulsa-based bloggers. I wrote about a bunch of them two and a half years ago. Commenters on this week's story have posted links to several more.

It's exciting to see Tulsa's blogging community continue to expand and diversify. The more the merrier!

I'm happy to note that Bobby of Tulsa Topics has several new entries up -- a commentary by Kent Morlan about the downtown stadium trust and the oligarchy that put it together, a visit to Espresso by the Book in Gardner's Books, and an item about his work as an industrial computer specialist working on control systems for natural gas production, a job that has taken him to Tunisia, Massachusetts, Texas, Boston, and Montana, among other places.

Welcome back to blogging, Bobby -- hope you'll continue to bless us with your observations and commentary.

Some recent finds worth telling you about:

Here are two fairly new "news around town" blogs devoted to Tulsa: Tulsa Loop and This Tulsa.

This Tulsa has a very cool logo (featuring the BOK Tower, the Mid-Continent Tower, and University Club Tower), and they encourage readers to submit links of local interest. (If you've missed Beef Baloney, the site has a video with Matt Zaller interviewing Bill Hader and talking about growing up in Tulsa.)

TulsaLoop aspires to be "Your Tulsa City Guide," offering a calendar of events, a list of attractions, and news about happenings around town.

I noticed Kick the Anthill when the blog weighed in on the CAIR-OK EEOC complaint against the Woodland Hills Abercrombie Kids store. The three bloggers cover a wide range of topics:

We're a small group of ants that got tired of getting kicked, so we decided to kick back. We're mad about movies, conservative politics and our Christian faith. Safe to say we're just mad in general. We also like to yak about Oklahoma (which, seemingly coincidentally, is just one gigantic anthill itself) and other completely random things. Thanks for joining us.

I've already been following Terra Extraneus, but I just noticed that blogger Terry Hull has a separate, personal blog, with entries that link to things I need to read, like this one about someone who makes more than $100,000 a year blogging, and this entry linking to Writer's Digest's 101 Best Websites for Writers.

I've come across a number of blogs devoted to real estate and development in Oklahoma: The Journal Record has a blog called Oklahoma per Square Foot, covering the commercial real estate industry in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Oklahoma City homebuilder Jeff Click writes Modern Land Run.

Blair Humphreys dreams about Oklahoma City's future on his blog imagiNATIVEamerica. Right now he's in living car-free in Boston, where he's studying planning and urban design. Here's a great post, illustrated with photos and maps, about what makes for pedestrian friendliness.

Nick Roberts is a fellow right-winger and urban advocate who has just started blogging at A Downtown ontheRange. He lives in Calgary, but considers Oklahoma City his adopted hometown:

Obviously OKC is a very special place to me, and I'd rather not be away from it at this point in my life, but I promise I will come back home better positioned to leave the kind of impressions that I would want to on my adopted hometown. Whether I settle down in OKC, or Galveston where I was born, remains up in the air, but the only thing certain at this point is that I am hardly finished with OKC. I want this blog to have the same kind of impact that Doug Dawg, Steve's OKC Central, and other blogs have had, in informing readers about the life of urban OKC, and perhaps Tulsa, too! And I will be making comparisons to beautiful Calgary whenever possible, just for the purpose of expanding you guys' horizons.

A couple of other bloggers are in Oklahoma but a long way from where they grew up:

Sarah, Brit Gal in the USA, moved here from the UK after falling for an Oklahoma man she met in an online backgammon room. Her blog helps you expand your transatlantic vocabulary with a "Brit Word of the Day" -- Wednesday's word was bollard.

Stuart Campbell, the Dusty Traveler, is from New Zealand, and he's been photographing scenic spots around Oklahoma, including the Wichita Mountains, Red Rock Canyon, Turner Falls, Maysville, and Natural Falls. He finds it a challenge to capture the grandeur of the Great Plains:

Big mountains are dramatic. A big lake is peaceful. A big city is bustling. The plains are just BIG. There is a lot of space with nothing going on and it is hard to capture nothing and make it look spectacular.

Some secrets I am discovering; color- go early or late but the middle part of the day dilute the color. The sky- watch what is happening above as the clouds are fascinating in themselves and can add to a wide open space. Find things to put in the picture -- whether it be natural or man made it can add character to a scene.

But capture it he does. Click that link and have a look at our photogenic home state.

I found many of these new blogs via the BlogOklahoma web ring -- a list of nearly 900 Oklahoma-based blogs, with brief descriptions for each. To give you an idea of how Oklahoma's blogosphere has exploded, BatesLine joined in March 2004 as blog number 39. The latest addition to the web ring -- yesterday -- is called I Don't Think I'm a Grown Up Yet -- number 861. And it's not an exhaustive list: The oldest Oklahoma-based blog of all isn't a member of BlogOklahoma (which is akin to Switzerland not joining the United Nations -- when you're Switzerland, you don't need to join the UN to prove yourself as a peace-loving nation-state).

Terry Hull of Terra Extraneus, an Oklahoma City-based blog about the law, is looking for other Oklahoma "blawgs." So far he's found six -- five based in OKC, but only one based in Tulsa, the Oklahoma Family Law Blog by Dan Nunley.

I have a blawg in my blogroll that Terry hadn't yet encountered: Opinions from Oklahoma & the Northern District: Legal Decisions from Oklahoma State and Federal Courts. 28 entries were posted there between June and December of last year, but nothing since then.

A blawg can be a way to promote both your own practice and a broader understanding of the law, not by offering specific legal advice, but by explaining legal issues you encounter in your practice in terms that are understandable to lay people.

If you're an Oklahoma attorney actively blogging about legal issues, drop by Terra Extraneus and leave a comment.

If you're an Oklahoma attorney interested in blawging and you need an example to inspire you, I'd encourage you to check out Likelihood of Confusion, an award-winning blog about copyright, trademark, and intellectual property law by Ron Coleman. Ron is general counsel of the Media Bloggers Association, and he was a tremendous help in my dealings with the Tulsa World.

I've added three more blogs by and about Oklahoma to my blogroll. You'll see new entries from these blogs pop up on the powered-by-NewsGator blogroll headlines page. (I'm thinking it may be time to break out the Okie blogs to a separate page. What do you think?)

Random Dafydd (that's the Welsh version of David) grew up in Tulsa but now lives in Bartlesville. His blog covers Tulsa history, ancient manuscripts, and many other topics. Here are a couple of his recent historical entries: Tulsa before the railroad: Taylor Postoak Home and Tulsa Architecture, Hooper Brothers Coffee. The latter entry includes photos of the historic building on the edge of downtown at Admiral and Iroquois.

Green Country Values, which covers politics and regional events. Here's an entry about a trip last Saturday to the Lavender Festival and Stone Bluff Cellars. Blogger Jenn also has the scoop on U. S. Rep. John Sullivan's Private Property Rights Protection and Government Accountability Act, which addresses eminent domain abuse in the wake of the Kelo v. New London decision.

Finally, Save ORU chronicles the rebuilding of Oral Roberts University's finances and credibility. reacts to the AP report of declining enrollment:

It's something that should have happened long ago, after years of struggling with a crushing debt and a corporate culture of fear, Oral Roberts University has another major hurdle to overcome. Since its beginnings, ORU has taken on the role of a "surrogate parent/guardian" for its students. Whether you were 18 or 40 -if you lived in the dorms -you had a curfew and an RA telling you to clean your room. Adding insult to injury, it cost you a pretty penny too, and up until 2001, you had to wear business attire to attend classes.

With tuition costs soaring and more students footing the bill for their own education, they want to be in control of their college experience. ORU has improved over the years with the adoption of more customer-service oriented approaches, but the recent scandal has made many of the most forgiving students and parents take a step back and ask "what am I really getting for my money?"

(I found that last blog via Club Fritch, the blog of two ORU graduates, Ryan and Gillian (Rowe) Fritzsche, who are now in the film industry. They have a category called ORUgate.)

If you have a blog that you think would be of interest here at BatesLine, drop me a line at blog at batesline d0t com.

Oklahoma-based but internationally-renowned blogger Lynn Sislo hits the half-century mark today, and she's rather pleased about it, because it gives her an appreciation for technological advances that the younger set merely takes for granted:

You have to be my age (or nearly so) to understand how seriously cool and awesome all this stuff is. I don't want to be old but I'm glad I'm old enough to get it. And I can hardly wait to see what they come up with next.

Even as young as I am I claim the right to be a curmudgeon and to talk about how we did things back in the day and to say we were right, because we were. I know; I was there. I claim the right to be a know-it-all and to give unsolicited advice because I do know more than most folks. One of the benefits of being 50, you see.

Go wish Lynn a happy birthday.

If you live in Oklahoma and run a blog, you are eligible to nominate blogs, vote for blogs, and maybe even win an Okie Blog Award. This will be the third year for the peer-driven awards, founded and run by Mike Hermes of Okiedoke.com, one of his many wonderful efforts to build an Oklahoma blogging community.

You'll find the rules for participation and the categories here. Nominations close on September 8.

This process is a great opportunity to introduce yourself to new Okie blogs, even if you aren't a blogger and aren't eligible to vote. The Blog Oklahoma web ring has 458 members, so there is a lot of unexplored territory out there. If you have or know of an Okie blog that I ought to check out before I submit my nominations, please leave a comment below.

I came across an item about Tulsa-based blogs while looking for info about Tulsa's Coliseum -- the stories were on the same page in the April 2007 Tulsa People.

Writer Andy Wheeler mentions this blog and two others: Indie Tulsa, which spotlights locally owned businesses and Alternative Tulsa, an left-leaning anonymous political blog. Included in the list of blogs is a non-blog, the Voices of Tulsa forum, founded and run by MeeCiteeWurkor.

It looked like they intended to do a monthly feature of Tulsa-related web links, but I don't see that it continued in more recent issues.

But there was this piece, in their Tulsarama-themed June edition, showing how the price of a home, a gallon of gas, college tuition, a postage stamp, and a movie ticket had changed since 1957. Family income rose faster than the official rate of inflation, and University of Tulsa tuition rose at five times the rate of inflation. (A year at TU would be $4,334 today if it had kept pace with the cost of living. Instead it's $20,669.)

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics online Consumer Price Index calculator, 100.00 in 1957 has the same buying power as 735.54 in 2007.

Congratulations to fellow Tulsa blogger Steven Roemerman on his confirmation as a member of the City of Tulsa Sales Tax Overview Committee. It's a sign of his manifest intelligence and civic-mindedness that he was nominated by the man whose election he tried to prevent. Roemerman was a fervent supporter of former Councilor Jim Mautino, who was defeated for re-election by Dennis Troyer.

The Sales Tax Overview Committee monitors the spending of the "third-penny" sales tax fund for compliance with the list of projects promised to the voters. I know that Steven will be a diligent watchdog, and he should have some interesting insights into city finances to share with us on his blog.

Former State Rep. Kevin Calvey (R-Oklahoma City) is a captain in the Army National Guard, and he is finally getting his long-awaited opportunity to go on active duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While he's there, he'll be keeping a blog about the experience, called "Calvey in Iraq: From State House to Bunkhouse." He received his deployment orders on Thursday and leaves today for Fort Bliss, Texas.

Kevin is a sharp guy and his departure from the State House (he ran for the Republican nomination for the 5th Congressional District) is a loss for Oklahoma. I'm looking forward to his reports from the scene in Iraq and hope he'll also share some reflections on his time in the Legislature.

Be sure to keep Kevin and his new wife (they wed on December 29) in your prayers.

... and it's a boy! Click the link to see pictures and to add your congratulations to Steve and family.

The 2006 Okie Blogger Round-up was a fun event and a good start to what everyone hopes will be an annual tradition. Much credit belongs to Mike Hermes of Okiedoke, who started the planning on this over a year ago. It was well organized, and there was never a dull moment. Thanks, too, to Kevin Latham of BlogOklahoma.us and ITLnet, particularly for providing a WiFi router for all us bloggers to use during the event and for allowing someone (me, in fact) to take it home as a door prize.

Sean Gleeson led the opening Blogging 101 session, and Dan Lovejoy led the advanced blogging panel discussion, joined by Sean, Kevin, and Kurt Hochenauer of Okie Funk. The sessions were well-done, and I learned plenty of new blog tricks.

I came in late -- I had been helping my 10-year-old son get his Lego entry for the Tulsa State Fair ready to take over to the fairgrounds -- but registration was handled very smoothly by Redneck Diva,, her sister Taterbug, and Babs of Conversation Station.

Through Okiedoke's weekly Okie round-up feature, the Okie blog awards, and the Blog Oklahoma webring, which now includes 343 blogs, Mike and Kevin have done more than anyone else to introduce Oklahoma's bloggers to each other and create a sense of community.

It was great once again to see most of the folks who joined us for the much smaller Okie blogger bash a year and a half earlier. While I didn't expect anyone to come all the way from New York this time, I missed seeing John Owen Butler and Dwayne the Canoe Guy, aka Mike Horshead.

(Dwayne has a fairly new blog called Matching Dragoons, devoted to 1970s DC comics bounty hunter Jonah Hex. What I love about this blog are his regular features of comic book mail order ads from the '70s -- e.g., combat games with exploding pieces -- and the Weekly Wonderous Moment in Comics -- often featuring gorillas. Look for "Pitchman-a-go-go" and "Weekly Moment" in the sidebar at Matching Dragoons.)

Mike was wise to give us a three-hour break between the afternoon roundtables and the evening activities. There was plenty of time to grab a leisurely dinner and do a little sightseeing or shopping before the awards ceremony commenced.

I had dinner at Bricktown Brewery with three other veterans of the earlier blogger bash -- Charles G. Hill, Don Danz, and Dan Lovejoy -- and for the first time got to meet Dan's lovely wife and co-blogger Angi and their adorable and well-behaved three-year-old son Elijah. Charles kindly picked up the tab for me and Don, in consideration for traveling a relatively long distance to be there.

Before heading back, I took a brisk stroll around Bricktown, enjoying the perfect temperature and the cloudless skies. Don headed off to the Apple Store. (Tulsa doesn't have one yet.)

At the awards ceremony, I sat with Brian of Audience of One and his beloved Terri, Steph Waller, Lynette Erwin, and AKA Monty. I wasn't familiar with Steph or Lynette, but I had read read AKA Monty's blog on occasion and Brian's blog fairly regularly.

The highlight of the awards ceremony was seeing Charles win for Best Overall Blog and giving him a standing ovation. Given his decade of excellence in Internet publishing, the Okie Blog Awards trophy ought to be named in his honor. (Mark your calendars for next year's Chazzies.)

After that, some danced, some blogged, many drank, some did all three. (I blogged.)

I had been suffering from a strange shyness most of the day. I felt comfortable around the folks I knew, but awkward making small talk with people I was meeting for the first time. That's normally not a problem for me, and I meet new people all the time with the civic and political stuff I do. But Saturday, when I met someone new, I wanted to say, "Ah, would you excuse me for a moment while I read a few pages of your blog so I can hold an intelligent conversation with you?" I was embarrassed at the thought of asking a blogger a question to which, were I a faithful reader, I would know the answer. Eventually I got past that and had some good conversations.

The evening closed with a screening of the documentary Mozartballs, which featured Steph and Lynette, along with three other people who feel a special connection to Mozart. The Mozartballs of the title are the Echte Salzburg Mozartkugeln -- chocolate, marzipan, and praline candies which come individually wrapped in gold foil with a picture of Wolfie himself. The film has been shown on TV in Europe and at Cannes, and an expanded version will be released in the US this fall on DVD. I wouldn't be surprised if it pops up on the Bravo channel.

I stayed around to see the film mainly because, as the two big kids are both very interested in classical music and have studied Mozart's life and music in school, I wondered if it might be appropriate for my children to see. (It's not.)

I made it home about 1 a.m., tired, but glad to have made the trip and looking forward to the next one, hopefully with a bigger Tulsa presence.

Other bloggers review the round-up:

• Don Danz, who has a comprehensive summary and list of attendees
• Mike Hermes, our rounder-upper, presenting the perspective of the event's organizer
• Wild Bill, who broadcasted his Internet radio show from the event
• Sean Gleeson
• Charles G. Hill, reacting to his award (and to Monty) (and he displays his award here)
• AKA Monty (and scroll up for duck pix -- I can't find permalinks on her site)
• Jan, the Happy Homemaker
• Kurt of Okie Funk
• Brian of An Audience of One
• Cissy from North of the Red River
• Melessa of But I Digress
• Kristin, the Redneck Diva
• Taterbug, Kristin's sister
• Babs of Conversation Station (and more here)
• Steph of Incurable Insomniac

And here again are links to the official list of 2006 Okie Blog Award winners, the Flickr photo pool for the event, and videos of the event on YouTube. And Bill Bauer has photos and audio, too.

No time to write much now (time to finish my column), but I'll point you to the Flickr photo pool for the 2006 Okie Blogger Roundup. Above, Charles G. Hill, winner of the 2006 Best Overall Blog award, is congratulated by his adoring fans, Dr. Jan and Betsy of the Ugly Girls Club.

2006's best overall Okie blogger Charles G. Hill is at this moment on the dance floor with not one, not two, but three lovely ladies. (Pictures to follow later, assuming I don't find the cash-filled plain envelope in the previously arranged location.)

UPDATE: Because of the underpowered flash on my digital camera, Charles gets a reprieve. (And thanks for dinner, too, Charles.)

UPDATE (2): Don Danz's flash worked just fine.

UPDATE (3): There's video!

Quickly dashed off on the Treo -- will add links later:

Corporate: Oklahoma Wine News
Inspirational: Counseling Notes
Commentary: Two-Headed Blog
Culture: Blog Oklahoma
Writing: Audience of One
Unusual: 3:40 am
Layout: Taste the World
Audio: Daily Bitch
Humor: Ramblings of a Redneck Diva
Family: Rocks in My Dryer
Political: Okie Funk
Overall: Dustbury

Congrats to all the winners, particularly to Charles G. Hill of Dustbury, who also received a much deserved standing ovation.

I came in late, but I'm here at the first ever Okie Blogger Roundup at the Bricktown Central Plaza Hotel. Sean Gleeson is the lecturer for the session on basic blogging. Dan Lovejoy is running the presentation laptop, and looking around the room I see nearly all the folks I met at the January 2005 Okie blogger bash: Jan the Happy Homemaker, Charles G. Hill, Don Danz, and Wild Bill. There are about 25 folks here now; I expect to see more for the advanced seminar and the awards ceremony and social hour later.