Recently in Oklahoma Category

BatesLine reader Jimmy Hamilton has noticed something strange in the list of Oklahoma lottery winners:

I normally don't care much about what goes on with the lottery, but found it interesting that a trust had claimed the most recent jackpot: Specifically, the Zorro Trust.

That name rang a bell, so I started to research it online. I quickly remembered why it was familiar. The Zorro Trust belongs to Jeffrey Epstein. I don't know how familiar you are with Jeffrey Epstein, but he is (was) a billionaire money manager who is close friends with many high-profile politicians (like Bill Clinton) and cultural elite, was a major investor and former employee of the troubled Bear Stearns hedge fund, and most recently was convicted of soliciting [details of immoral and illegal behavior snipped in the interests of decorum -- see the Wikipedia entry if you must know], for which he is currently serving 18 months in prison. There's much more, but that should give you an idea, if you weren't already aware.

My question is if the Zorro Trust that claimed the lottery prize is, in fact, the same Zorro Trust owned by Jeffrey Epstein. If so, I find it a strange coincidence that someone involved in the Zorro Trust, which allegedly doesn't have any clients that aren't billionaires, would end up with an Oklahoma Lottery Ticket, purchased at a convenience store in Altus, worth $85 million.

Is this the same Zorro or some other swashbuckling trust?

Following some links from Brandon Dutcher's blog, I came across the blog of the Absalom family. Alex and Hannah Absalom and their three boys moved from Sheffield, England, to the Oklahoma City area in 2007, where Alex joined the staff of Bridgeway Church.

It's always interesting to see your own culture through new eyes, especially when those new eyes are connected to a frank and funny voice. The Absaloms are immersing themselves in local culture and reporting their reactions on their blog. Here are a few of the experiences they've had so far:

Home appliances:

We now own a washing machine and dryer that are large enough to wash not only all of our family's clothes in one go, but also the children too. However those machines are topped by our new fridge/freezer, which comes complete with a whizzy dispenser on the front that makes three varieties of ice and a colony of penguins on the second to bottom shelf.

Upon hearing our report back after a hard day in Lance & Stacy's pool, Joel's summary was "Why is everything in America so large, especially the people?".

Pedestrians:

Joel came dashing in to find me the other day.

"Daddy! Daddy! For the first time I've just seen someone actually walk past our house!"

In a later entry, they are stopped and interrogated by a man with a "huge handlebar moustache, worthy of Asterix the Gaul" who found their strolling on a country lane highly suspicious.

Public transport:

We must have driven the best part of 1000 miles in the last 6 weeks (for our European readers: it's a very scattered city!), but that was the first time I'd seen a regular bus running....

I've done a little research and it turns out that the buses run on just a couple of routes, themselves selected by a strange process that defies natural logic for where they should start or finish. Bus usage is also not helped by the way that the bus stops are camouflaged in a manner that would impress Jack Bauer.

The Wildlife Expo:

There was an unwritten dress code that involved checked (plaid) shirts, old baseball hats and anything with something printed on it indicating support for either John Deere, the U.S. military or huntin', shootin' or fishin'. A few of the experienced types managed all three at the same time, receiving many sartorial nods of approval....

Thus it turned out that the wildlife in question was there to be fished, hunted, shot, eaten or stuffed. All very interesting for something that was being run by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and "a coalition of conservation organizations". Clearly here the word conservation has a different meaning to the sense in common usage in the rest of the world.

OU football:

The referees - all seven of them - originate from English Morris Dancing, since they tuck their trousers into their socks and throw handkerchiefs into the air whenever they are excited. Locally this is called throwing a flag, but really it's a hankie.

Silver Dollar City and a timeshare presentation in Branson:

Branson is a town that has grown up entirely, and I mean entirely, around the entertainment business. In many ways it is a Mid-West/Bible Belt version of Las Vegas. This means that the overarching Vegas theme of entertainment-around-gambling is replaced by entertainment-around-God'n'country. Thus you have shows full of country music, 60s tribute bands, country music, crooners, country music, dancers (less can-can, more line-dance) and cutting edge comedy, if your edge was cut in the 1940s. Did I mention they also like country music a great deal?

Mall walkers:

Instead of enjoying such risky things as grass, fresh air and the sun, they instead choose to exercise by marching briskly around the shopping mall. Now this might make sense if Oklahoma City was labouring under 2 feet of snow or a 40C heatwave, but yesterday was 14C, dry and a very pleasant day. However, the big scary outside doesn't have such basic fundamentals as seats every 50 yards, five fast food outlets and exactly the same experience every time.

The ice storm:

People have seemed remarkably stoical and positive. From the various conversations we've had in shops and our neighbourhood, as well as through the church, there is what we Brits would call the Blitz spirit shining through! People have been helping each other out and sharing homes and resources, and so far we've not had stories of people dying through lack of care from others....For lighter distraction we've also enjoyed the antics of the local weathermen, with each channel outdoing the other with their forecasts. The local stations even have special little logos and stirring music to go with reports, and we have rolling lists on screen of cancelled events and closed schools, businesses and churches (this being the South).

Oklahoma City bloggers are agog at the unveiling of Devon Energy's plans to build the state's tallest building. Steve Lackmeyer, who blogs about downtown OKC development for the Oklahoman, has been covering the story extensively. Some of the land in question is owned by the city's urban renewal authority, which voted yesterday to approve the plan. The tower will be 54 stories, 925 feet tall, the 21st tallest building in America. At the moment the state's two tallest buildings are in Tulsa -- the Bank of Oklahoma Tower at 667 feet and the central tower of Cityplex (née City of Faith) at 649 feet.

Over at TulsaNow's public forum, some participants are feeling tower envy, wishing for some deep-pockets oil company to build some new skyscrapers in downtown, but we have to recall that Oklahoma City took a pass, for the most part, on the building frenzy of the late '70s, early '80s oil boom. While OKC's tallest building is of that era, the next tallest is from the '30s. From the late '60s to the early '80s, Tulsa built five new skyscrapers: Fourth National Bank (now Bank of America), Cities Service Building (now 110 W. 7th), 1st National Bank (now First Plaza), the BOk Tower, and the Mid-Continent Tower -- the addition that stands beside and is cantilevered over the original Cosden Building at 4th and Boston.

There are rumors of even more tall towers in Oklahoma City, and some OKCers are giddy at the thought of "filling the gaps in the skyline."

The thing about filling those gaps is that the new skyscrapers have to touch the ground at some point, and how these towers meet the street is what matters most to downtown's vitality. It may look beautiful from five miles away, it may have a great view from the top story, but how does it look to someone walking by on the street?

David Sucher is fond of saying, "Site plan trumps architecture."

Putting it yet another way, what happens more than 30 or so feet off the sidewalk is of only secondary importance.

The important thing it to create an urban, walkable space at sidewalk level by following Sucher's simple Three Rules -- build to the sidewalk, make the building front "permeable" with doors and windows you can see through (no blank walls or mirrored glass, and, preferably, with spaces that are open to the public along the street, such as storefronts), and put the parking behind the building.

It took a while to find a site plan of the Devon building; Doug Loudenback has it. The building will be on an existing 2-by-2 superblock, just north of another 2-by-2 superblock where Myriad Gardens is located. A public park will occupy the southwest corner of the site. A six-story building will be connected to the tower by a rotunda. There will be retail in the six-story section, but it's unclear if it will be accessible along the exterior of the building. Only a small portion of the six-story section will front the street; the tower itself will be surrounded by a moat.

Somewhere I saw it mentioned that this building will anchor Harvey St. as a north-south axis which will ultimately connect the downtown core to the North Canadian River's shore. In fact, Harvey will remain closed through this superblock, a missed opportunity to correct a planning mistake from the past. Like the Williams Center in Tulsa, it will act more as an obstacle than a link.

Some things I wrote elsewhere about Devon's plans:

On TulsaNow's public forum, I had this initial reaction:

I don't care about how far this thing sticks up as much as I care how it meets the street. I haven't seen pictures yet, but the descriptions indicate some sort of plaza and moat. A work of high art rather than a working part of a walkable urban streetscape. Bleh.

We got our allotment of skyscrapers in the '70s and early '80s. Oklahoma City built a few towers during that period, but none as tall as Tulsa's.

Tulsa would be far better off to fill all our parking lots with four-story buildings -- storefronts on street level, offices on the second level, apartments on the third and fourth floors -- than to build even one new skyscraper.

Tulsa's skyscraper boom may have satisfied some corporate egos, but it hastened the conversion of downtown from a real downtown to an office park. Buildings that used to house people and small retail were cleared away for the towers and for the parking that the towers required.

In response to a comment that you can build towers and pay attention to the street at the same time, I wrote:

Yes, you can, and it was done all the time before WWII -- e.g., the Empire State Building has street-level retail -- but I'm hard-pressed to think of an example from the last 40 years of a skyscraper that conforms to the Three Rules for generating urban places....

No one else could think of one either. It sort of goes against the starchitect code of honor -- you have to put a plaza around your masterpiece, create some distance between the street and the building so people are able to see more of it and admire it. Plazas -- unless they are surrounded on all sides by some sort of wall to create a kind of room -- don't work well. They are rarely done the right way in America. They may look nice as you drive by at 30 mph, but name me one plaza in Oklahoma where people choose to linger.

I posted this comment on an entry at Steve Lackmeyer's blog about the possibility of other towers in downtown OKC.

What happens at street level is far more important to the long-term health of downtown than how tall the buildings are. Go ahead and build a skyscraper, but make sure you don't clear out block after block of three and four story buildings to make room for the parking. Make sure the ground floor relates well to the street, with human scale elements, like street-fronting retail space.

Tulsa's 1970s skyscraper binge hastened downtown's conversion from a traditional mixed-use downtown to a 9-to-5 office park. We're only now starting to recover, with the renovation of the handful of old low rise buildings that weren't razed for the sake of parking.

TRACKBACK: Steve Lackmeyer responds with a post called "Blank Walls," which mentions urban critic William Whyte's observations of Oklahoma City in the early 1980s. Whyte's ideas influenced pioneering Bricktown developer Neal Horton. Quoting Whyte from a 1983 article in Time:

"The Blank Wall is on its way to becoming the dominant feature of many United States downtowns," Whyte complained. "Without the windows or adornment to relieve their monotony, the walls are built of concrete, brick, granite, metal veneer, opaque glass and mirrors ... designed out of fear - fear of the untidy hustle and bustle of city streets and undesirables - the walls spread fear."...

"By eliminating the hospitable jumble of shop fronts, restaurant entrances and newsstands, the walls deaden the very city the buildings claim to revitalize."

(This appears to be the Time story: "Drawing a Blank Downtown" by Wolf von Eckhardt, which quotes Whyte and mentions a collection of his photographs illustrating the problem.)

Steve has photos of Leadership Square and the Pioneer Telephone building, which illustrate the point about blank walls, and there is a thoughtful discussion underway in the comment section.

Will Ferrell has a TV ad for Mr. Spriggs Barbecue in Midwest City, Okla., as his video pick of the week:

Usually even a good commercial makes me think "Yeah, right. Of course you're saying that. You wanna sell your thing." This video makes me want to move to Oklahoma and eat Mr. Spriggs for breakfast, lunch, dinner and Taco Bell fourth meal. Enjoy the joy.

That smooth voice you hear belongs to Cameron Dukes:

Cameron Dukes, simply known as Cam amongst friends, defines the word "smooth" with his relaxed mixture of R&P(Rhythm & Praise) and Rap. His debut album "Just Listen" is filled with a message of purity, hope and God's love, challenging the listener to make Godly decisions in life.

An Italian blog had this to say about the commercial:

Se passate per Midwest city, non potete non andare da Mr. Spriggs, il grande mago del barbecue. Ciò che però fa ridere di questo filmato, non è Mr. Spriggs in se stesso, ma il modo in cui il suo locale viene promosso.

In pratica sembrerebbe un classico videoclip di Mario, R. Kelly, o di qualche musicista di colore, R'n'B di classe insomma, ma invece di parole d'amore, ecco parole focose, carnali, per un barbecue insomma.

Instead of words of love, words of fiery meats, of barbecue in short.

(Via The Lost Ogle.)

Check the traffic before you get on the highway with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) traffic camera website, Oklahoma Pathfinder (oktraffic.org).

Tulsa has cameras at major freeway junctions: I-44 and the Broken Arrow expressway, BA & US 169, I-44 & I-244 (west side and east side), I-44 & 169, I-244 & 169, southeast and southwest interchanges of the Inner Dispersal Loop, plus 71st St & 169, I-244 at 25th Street on the west side, the BA at 129th East Ave, and I-44 at Elwood. The camera locations are displayed on a map; you select a location, then select which of two to four directions you want to see. This will be very helpful for routing around snarls, particularly at locations like eastbound I-244 at I-44, where a severe backup can catch you after there's no way to get around it.

There's an educational games website called PurposeGames. It provides a framework for setting up simple quiz and multiple choice games. In about 10 minutes, I created a quiz for identifying Oklahoma's 77 counties. As a background, I uploaded a public domain outline map of Oklahoma (created for Wikimedia by Scott Nazelrod), then placed a dot and a label over each county.

When you play the game, as each county name is shown, you click on the appropriate dot. You get three guesses before you're shown the answer. It's fun, and a great way to memorize geography. During storm season, it pays to know where Oklahoma's counties are.

Toll on the Muskogee Turnpike: $1.20.

Tank-full of gasoline: $52.50.

Tickets to the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival: comped.

Digital camera: $329.

Having that digital camera handy when you run into a co-worker in full Renaissance Festival costume?

Priceless.

###

I don't have much for you tonight because we spent the day at The Castle in Muskogee, and we had a great time. My two older kids completed their "quests" -- scavenger hunts that take you to all parts of the grounds. They both tried the rock wall -- the seven-year old made it to the top; the eleven-year-old tried the more difficult "jackpot" path, but didn't quite make it. We saw the joust and a falconry demonstration. My eleven-year-old son decided he wanted to go in costume. He looked like young Wart in Disney's The Sword in the Stone.

There are some new linkblog entries on your left. Stan Geiger has a bunch of new posts up about Tulsa Community College's spending habits and doubtful enrollment figures, things to keep in mind for Tuesday's TCC property tax hike election, so be sure to pay him a visit.

Tyson Wynn of WynnBlog has been delving into a mysterious lockdown that occurred at Rogers State University in Claremore last Tuesday, due to an unspecified threat. RSU didn't say anything publicly about the lockdown until Thursday.

WynnBlog learned that a student had been taken into custody for mental health evaluation, and the Claremore police cited health privacy laws in keeping the police report of the incident from the public. The identity of the individual was available, and some OSCN research revealed that three protective orders against Tywone Parks, an RSU alumnus, had been sought and granted.

Today, WynnBlog has the specifics provided on the protective order applications, including that Parks "stated that he knows where to hide bodies," "decapitated a dog and left the head on a doorstep and blood on a door," and " stated that he wanted to decapitate an individual, store her head in his freezer, and feed her to her sisters."

Tyson Wynn notes that the official story -- the individual was never on campus and the lockdown was merely a precaution -- doesn't square with what is asserted by those who applied for the protective orders.

Keep an eye on WynnBlog for further developments.

UPDATE (2008/02/26): Tywone Parks was taken to Rogers County Jail on Feb. 22.

A major league sports team doesn't add squat to a city's economy.

That's not something uttered by an opponent of Oklahoma City's proposed one-cent sales tax, which would raise $110 million for upgrades to the very new Ford Center and pay for other facilities to lure an NBA team to the city.

That's from the owners of the team they hope to lure to OKC. Seattle SuperSonics owners asserted their team's economic uselessness in a recent court brief, as reported in the January 18, 2008, Seattle Times:

The team made the argument in papers filed in U.S. District Court this week, seeking mediation or a speedy trial to allow the team to abandon city-owned KeyArena before 2010. In the documents, Sonics' attorneys dispute the city's contention that the team's departure would have a broad and hard-to-quantify impact.

"The financial issue is simple, and the city's analysts agree, there will be no net economic loss if the Sonics leave Seattle. Entertainment dollars not spent on the Sonics will be spent on Seattle's many other sports and entertainment options. Seattleites will not reduce their entertainment budget simply because the Sonics leave," the Sonics said in the court brief.

The Sonics also said they would produce a survey showing that 66 percent of Seattleites say the team's exit would make "no difference" in their lives, while only 12 percent said they'd be "much worse off."

Those sentiments belie what Sonics' boosters -- and sports teams in general -- have argued when asking for taxpayer help to build a new arena. Teams and their supporters generally portray professional sports as a boon, bringing a city millions in revenue, hundreds of jobs and immeasurable civic pride.

I wonder if Messrs. McClendon and Bennett intend to make this a part of their case to Oklahoma City's voters in the upcoming MAPS for Millionaires vote on March 4.

Via Field of Schemes, a blog about sports facility extortion, which I've now added to the BatesLine blogroll headlines page.

If you were wondering whatever happened to Don McCorkell, the former Democratic state representative from north Tulsa and 2006 candidate for mayor, he's been busy making a movie.

Shall We Gather at the River? is a documentary about factory farming and its impact on the environment, with particular concern for the effect of concentrated chicken farming on Oklahoma's waterways.

Here's the description from the film's website:

Scientists and health officials have raised grave concerns about so-called "factory farms". They have been called "mini Chernobyls" causing vast environmental damage and risk to human health. The film starts in the U.S. with a brief look at our history and how we got from a country of family farms to one dominated by multinational corporations with gigantic factory farms--literally cities of animals. The film examines the impact of urbanizing animal populations without a way to handle the vast amounts of sewage generated. A report card comparing lax environmental and health standards in the U.S. to the strict ones in Europe is presented. The impact of permitting arsenic in feed in the U.S. is dramatically exposed in a segment on Prairie Grove, Arkansas, which may earn the reputation as the "Love Canal" of factory farming because of the deaths of young children in the area from cancer. The overuse of antibiotics in the U.S. (prohibited in Europe) is examined critically with an explanation of how that use is dramatically reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics for human use. The vast difference between the U.S. and other developed nations in the regulation of food borne illness is exposed (for instance salmonella has been virtually eliminated in Scandinavia and is present in a high percentage of poultry sold in the U.S. In Japan 100 percent of beef is inspected for Mad Cow disease. In the U.S. less than 1 per cent is inspected. The vast amount of waste generated by these facilities is destroying rivers, lakes, and even parts of oceans. The film exposes the political influence, intimidation, threats, corruption, false advertising, and delaying tactics that have made the U.S. the dumping ground of this industry. The film presents solutions that could be effective.

You can see a trailer for the film on the Shall We Gather at the River? website.

Monday morning on 1170 KFAQ, Gwen Freeman and I talked about top stories at the state and local level. These were my top 10 local stories, in no particular order:

1. Defeat of the proposed Tulsa County sales tax for Arkansas River projects
2. ORU: Professors' wrongful termination lawsuit and resignation of Richard Roberts
3. December ice storm
4. Tulsa Police Department: tenure of interim chief David Bostrom and rehiring of former chief Ron Palmer
5. Illegal immigration: Tulsa County Sheriff's Office qualifies under 287(g) to hold illegal immigrants for deportation; Tulsa City Council passes new policy for checking immigration status of people taken into custody for felonies and serious misdemeanors
6. City Hall move to One Technology Center
7. Centennial celebrations, including the Belvedere unearthing in June
8. City of Tulsa annexation of the Tulsa County Fairgrounds (will go into effect at the end of 2008
9. Arena: first city budget accounting for arena expenses, at the expense of police academy and golf courses; decision not to demolish convention center arena
10. Bell's removal and demolition

We didn't cover these, except to go through the AP's list, but on the state level, these were the stories I thought most notable, beyond those above:

1. Oklahoma's centennial
2. Passage of HB 1804 on immigration enforcement
3. Sidetracking of HB 1648 (competitive bidding for PPPs, killed by big construction lobby)
4. Former State Sen. Mike Mass pleads guilty, turns state's evidence
5. Indictment of TABOR petition leaders (the "Oklahoma Three")
6. Power-sharing in the Oklahoma State Senate

My list tends to be political, and I have probably overlooked sports, business, and human interest stories. What would you add to these lists of top local stories?

During the late campaign for a Tulsa County sales tax increase to pay for river projects, we were often told by the tax increase's proponents about the low-water dams that Oklahoma City funded with its MAPS tax, and how this investment had brought jobs in the form of a Dell Computers call center. I've read about plans to run a water taxi service from the hotel cluster at Meridian Ave. to near downtown along the river.

I was in OKC this past Saturday morning for the Oklahoma Republican Party executive committee meeting and afterwards decided to have a closer look at their river, the North Canadian, aka the Oklahoma River.

This picture was taken from beneath the south end of the Exchange Ave. bridge looking east. Clicking the photo will take you to a set of seven pictures, all taken from the south bank of the river between Penn and Exchange.

Despite the fact that it was in the 70s and sunny and about 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday, I encountered only about eight other people using the trails. I read that there was a boat parade that evening, but I can't imagine where they had enough water to float a boat.

Anyone have an explanation for this?

A notice posted on the County Clerk Public Records site (found via Dustbury):

THE DELAWARE COUNTY COURTHOUSE WILL BE CLOSED THE FOLLOWING DAYS FOR ELECTIONS: TUESDAY AUGUST 14/TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11^^THE ELECTION BOARD (TWO BLOCKS NORTH OF COURTHOUSE) WILL ANNOUNCE LIVE RESULTS OF THE ELECTIONS @ THEIR OFFICE ABOUT 7:30 PM^^BRING LAWN CHAIRS****PLEASE DO NOT BLOCK ALLEY!!

It warms the heart to think that elections could still be a community event somewhere.

It happens that we have film from outside the Delaware County Election Board on August 14. Take it away, Leon:

(Side note: So now 27 more Oklahoma counties have their county clerk's land records on the internet. When will Tulsa County catch up?)

Here are a couple of new blogs dealing with specific aspects of public policy in Oklahoma:

Two Tulsa attorneys Matthew B. Free and J. Spencer Bryan have set up a blog called Opinions from Oklahoma & the Northern District, providing summaries of and links to recent decisions by the Federal Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma and the appellate courts of the State of Oklahoma. They also have a useful set of links to court websites and other online legal resources, including nationally-known legal blogs.

Their most recent entry is about the Oklahoma Supreme Court's denial of certiorari in the lawsuit brought by the Oklahoma Education Association and the Jenks, Foyil, and Western Heights against the state legislature:

The plaintiffs alleged that the legislature thereby deprived school children of a constitutional right to a uniform opportunity to receive a "basic, adequate education according to standards set by the legislature, and deprived school districts of the ability to fulfill their constitutional and statutory duties to meet "contemporary educational standards established for every child."

In a nutshell, the OEA and the Jenks school board wanted the courts to take over the state education system and force state taxpayers to fork over another $4 billion.

And government-funded education -- and the seemingly insatiable appetites of school administrators at every level of government -- is the topic of another new blog. I've been the recipient, along with every reporter in Tulsa covering the education beat, of many an e-mail from Stan Geiger. His columns by e-mail were always well written, well reasoned and full of tempered outrage at the tax-funded education establishment. After getting a few of these e-mails, I strongly encouraged him to start a blog: Rather than lobby media people to cover the issues that concern you, become a part of the new media and make your analysis directly available to the public.

At last Stan has a blog, and he's writing about city and county politics as well as education at all levels.

You'll find both linked in the sidebar, and links to new posts will show up on my NewsGator page.

Good news: I mentioned that we drove by the Bartlesville Playground -- the Kiddie Park -- this last Saturday to see how it was affected by the flooding of the Caney River, the worst since 1986. KOTV is reporting that they're in the process of cleaning and repairing everything and have hopes of reopening by August 1.

The Kiddie Park holds a special place in my memory -- as a small child, I lived about two blocks away -- and now it's a special place to my children as well. I remember taking our oldest there when he was barely three, watching him riding in the boats, pulling the rope to ring the bell, and remembering what it felt like to be there when I was his size. The toddler is big enough to ride this year, and I know he'll love it too.

I just came across a blog called Medicine Park Posts, which is devoted to the historic resort town of Medicine Park, Oklahoma. The town was founded 99 years ago and is a few miles north of Lawton and Fort Sill, and just east of the entrance to the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge. The town sits in a shady valley along Medicine Creek and is famous for the number of buildings made of cobblestones. It's a pretty place, and it reminds me a bit of Luckenbach in the Texas Hill Country. The people there seem very serious about making it a destination once again while preserving its history.

Medicine Park Posts has the happy news that the old Medicine Park Music Hall is open for business once again and serving food, with plans to offer live entertainment in the near future. (They serve cheddar-garlic biscuits -- reason enough to stop in.)

For newcomers to town, this post explains the etiquette of small-town covered dish suppers.

Next Friday night at 9, OETA, Oklahoma's public television network, will air "Islam in Oklahoma":

Oklahoma is home to more than 30,000 Muslim Americans. Join leaders from Oklahoma's Muslim community as they address the questions and issues raised by America at a Crossroads, Friday May 4 at 9 p.m.

(Is it just me, or does the background of that title image look more like Hebrew than Arabic?)

OETA says more panelists will be announced, but for now they only list Sheryl Siddiqui, a leader in the Islamic Society of Tulsa, Imam Imad Enchassi, Ph.D., president of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, and Dr. David Vishanoff, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Oklahoma.

The facilities of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City and of the Islamic Society of Tulsa are owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which is part of a network of Saudi-funded organizations working to extend the influence of Wahhabism in the US. (There's more detail about NAIT and its related organizations -- the Wahhabi lobby -- in this post I wrote some months ago.)

There's a name that ought to be on that list of panelists discussing Islam in Oklahoma -- Jamal Miftah. His name belongs on the list for his eloquent condemnation of terror in the name of Islam. But it also belongs there because of the response that he received from the leaders of the Tulsa mosque, who confronted him angrily in the prayer hall and in the corridor of the mosque, saying that because of his column he was anti-Islamic, a label that could be heard by others as a thinly veiled incitement to violence against him.

Just this week, two more threatening comments targeting Miftah were posted from a Pakistan IP address at JunkYardBlog, simply because he condemned those who use their religion to justify their acts of violence.

If OETA spends an hour talking to two leaders of Wahhabi-connected mosques, without hearing any other Muslim voices, viewers will not get the complete story of Islam in Oklahoma. If you agree, drop a line to info@oeta.tv. OETA says they want input on the show's content, so let 'em (politely) have it.

UPDATE: A reader sent the following note to OETA:

I have always thought of OETA as an educational channel that was fair. However; regarding the upcoming program on “Islam in Oklahoma”, Oklahomans deserve an unbiased discussion. If OETA has two leaders of Wahhabi-connected mosques on the discussion panel without hearing any other Muslim voices, viewers will not get the complete story of Islam in Oklahoma. Please do the right thing in providing a fair and balanced program by inviting other Muslims such as Jamal Miftah.

Oklahomans are not stupid, please don’t portray us as such.

Here's the reply from OETA public information manager Ashley Barcum:

Thank you for sharing your concerns about Islam in Oklahoma. Please note that OETA worked with the Oklahoma Governor’s Council on Ethnic Diversity to select the panelists and to ensure a balanced panel.

We do have a non-Muslim academic on the panel, Dr. David Vishanoff, who is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He will be on hand to provide an objective viewpoint. Due to the short time of the program, the producers would like to keep the panel limited to the three panelists, which includes Dr. Vishanoff.

Please note the panel discussion will primarily involve a discussion of the experience of Muslims in Oklahoma. What the program intends to do is provide a look at the local experiences of those practicing one of the state’s minority religions. It is an ongoing conversation sparked by the recent PBS series America at a Crossroads.

In addition, the program will be moderated by Gerry Bonds, a veteran broadcast journalist.

Please let me know if you have additional questions or concerns.

Why, that makes it all better, doesn't it? The governor says these two Muslims are representative of the diversity of Oklahoma Muslims so it must be so. Never mind the ethnic diversity within Islam -- Arab, Pakistani, Indonesian, Turkish, North African. Never mind that there are other views than the Wahhabi view, even if those other views aren't as well funded.

And how can you have a panel discussion about local experiences of practicing Muslims while ignoring a very local, very recent experience of an Oklahoma Muslim that made national news?

Notice that the website statement that there would be additional panelists has been contradicted by Barcum, who now says that those three are it.

MORE about "America at a Crossroads," the PBS series to which "Islam in Oklahoma" is a follow-up: Okie on the Lam had this entry on April 9 about PBS's decision to suppress one of the films in the series. The film was called “Islam vs. Islamism: Voices From The Muslim Center.” It was one of 34 proposed films for this series selected for a research and development grant by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Here's the description in the list of grant awards:

Islam vs. Islamism (Martyn Burke, Frank Gaffney and Alex Alexiev, ABG Films Inc., Los Angeles) will explore how Islamic extremists are at war with their own faith, and how the consequences of their ambitions and policies devastate the socio-economic potential and well-being of the Muslim world. The filmmakers will follow the stories of several Muslims who have been victimized by the radicals and who are fighting back.

Sounds like a story that needs to be told, right? The CPB thought so, because it then selected the film for one of 20 production grants -- the money needed to get the film made.

But now PBS is refusing to broadcast the film. One of the film's executive producers, Frank Gaffney, explained why in an April 12 Washington Times op-ed:

As it happens, I was involved in making a film for the "America at a Crossroads" series that also focused on, among others, several American Muslims. Unlike Mr. MacNeil's, however, this 52-minute documentary titled "Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," was selected through the competitive process and was originally designated by CPB to be aired in the first Crossroads increment.

Also unlike Mr. MacNeil's film, "Islam vs. Islamists" focuses on the courageous Muslims in the United States, Canada and Western Europe who are challenging the power structure established in virtually every democracy largely with Saudi money to advance worldwide the insidious ideology known as Islamofascism. In fact, thanks to the MacNeil-Lehrer film, the PBS audience soon will be treated to an apparently fawning portrait of one of the most worrisome manifestations of that Saudi-backed organizational infrastructure in America: the Muslim Student Association (MSA). The MSA's efforts to recruit and radicalize students and suppress dissenting views on American campuses is a matter of record and extremely alarming.

In an exchange with me aired on National Public Radio last week, however, Robert MacNeil explained why he and his team had refused to air "Islam vs. Islamists," describing it as "alarmist" and "extremely one-sided." In other words, a documentary that compellingly portrays what happens to moderate Muslims when they dare to speak up for and participate in democracy, thus defying the Islamists and their champions, is not fit for public airwaves -- even in a series specifically created to bring alternative perspectives to their audience.

The MacNeil criticism was merely the latest of myriad efforts over the last year made by WETA and PBS to suppress the message of "Islam vs. Islamists." These included: insisting yours truly be removed as one of the film's executive producers; allowing a series producer with family ties to a British Islamist to insist on sweeping changes to its "structure and context" that would have assured more favorable treatment of those portrayed vilifying and, in some cases, threatening our anti-Islamist protagonists; and hiring as an adviser to help select the final films an avowed admirer of the Nation of Islam -- an organization whose receipt of a million dollars from the Saudis to open black Wahhabi mosques is a feature of our documentary. The gravity of this conflict of interest was underscored when the latter showed an early version of our film to Nation of Islam representatives, an action that seemed scarcely to trouble those responsible for the "Crossroads" series at WETA and PBS.

You can read an independent perspective on the dispute here. The film may yet air, but there are no guarantees.

Back a few months I let out a "hooray" on the linkblog at the news that Thomas Gordon Smith, a classical architect, had been named Chief Architect of the United States, a position with the General Services Administration, with responsibility over the design of Federal courthouses and other Federal buildings. The decision seemed to offend all the right people:

Others are worried federal architecture will lose its cutting-edge focus. Henry Smith-Miller, of Smith-Miller + Hawkinson, a New York firm, which designed a border station under construction in Champlain, N.Y., said he finds Mr. Smith's appointment "deeply troubling." He called Mr. Smith's traditional views "anti-progressive."

The appointment even brought out a bit of Bush Derangement Syndrome:

Smith is a crawl-back-into-the-womb kind of guy, addicted to buildings that look like Greek Temples and Roman palaces, seemingly right in tune with the Bush administration's mindset of empire.

And more:

But not everyone in the architecture community so sanguine. “A representative of the U.S. government needs to act on balance in the selection of architects,” Stanley Tigerman, principal of Tigerman McCurry Architects in Chicago, tells ARCHITECT. “And with Jeff Speck [director of design at the National Endowment of the Arts, appointed in 2003] and now Smith, there seems to be a right-wing Republican pattern…. To have [Smith] as head of GSA—shocking barely begins to describe it.”

Blair Kamin, the Chicago Tribune architecture critic wrote:

Some modernists were apoplectic, charging that Smith's devotion to traditionalism would set back the progress made by former GSA chief architect Ed Feiner. Feiner spearheaded a design excellence program and recruited leading modernists such as Thom Mayne of Santa Monica, Calif., and Richard Meier of New York City to design federal buildings.

In classical quarters, there was rejoicing about a resurgence of marble and white columns. "Modernists have had their chance to shape the nation's appearance, and few people would say that it's more pleasing today than it was before," wrote the editorial page of the Providence Journal, which serves as a sort of Fox News of architecture criticism.

I guess that Fox News reference was supposed to be a slam. A newspaper that expects beauty in taxpayer-funded buildings must be a robo-supporter of Chimpy McBushitler's fascist regime. These critics of Smith's appointment seem to be angry that the government will no longer fund buildings that set out to insult bourgeois notions of aesthetics using the bourgeoisie's own money.

Here's an entry on Veritas et Venustas with photos that contrast the classicism of Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia campus with the work of Smith-Miller, the anti-anti-progressive mentioned above. Would you rather live, study, and work among classical rotundas or modernistic versions of deer stands?

A look at Thomas Gordon Smith's online portfolio does not reveal a slavish devotion to Greco-Roman columns and marble, but rather a willingness to draw from traditions that are appropriate to the locale, the urban context, and the building's purpose.

One of his projects is the Clear Creek Priory, a Benedictine monastery under construction near Hulbert, Oklahoma. The directions of the client to the architect: "We want a monastery to last a thousand years." Smith's project page gives this description:

The site is in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. The monastery consists of a church and a cloistered residence. The architecture is reminiscent of Cistercian monastic structures. A porter’s lodge responds to the Benedictine tradition of providing hospitality in enclosed communities such as this. The complex corresponds with the traditional pattern of organizing function and orientation.

Do you see any Roman columns in this drawing?

Normally Okie hate and Okie love are Okiedoke's department, but I spotted this bit of appreciation for Oklahoma in the midst of a general trashing of Red State voters (the old "What's Wrong with Kansas?" theme), in a comment thread on Pandagon, the blogospheric flagship of foul-mouthed feminism and as regular as Old Faithful when it comes to spewing forth against advocates of traditional values and the sanctity of human life. (Pro-life author and blogger Dawn Eden is a frequent target of their eruptions.)

Here's the comment, posted by "Truly B." earlier this week, in which she compares life in red-dirt Red State Oklahoma City to life in Blue State Maryland. She reports that she had to travel a long way from her Oklahoma home to encounter ignorant and hurtful rudeness. (I bowdlerized the "n" word, but otherwise left this as is.)

i’m a female, native, black oklahoman from oklahoma city. i am an alumna of the university of oklahoma, and have traveled the world extensively. i currently live in maryland (counting the days until i leave!) and go home on a regular basis. suffice it to say that i’ve seen no evidence in oklahoma city of “forced” allegiance to certain views. i grew up learning that people are different and they are going to do what they want to do–you can’t really change others, only yourself–THIS IS WHAT I LEARNED IN OKLAHOMA CITY.

i find it funny that people who simply drive through my state can decisively diagnose all the people who live there…especially when all they’ve done is no more than possibly fill up their gas tanks…or as little as leave their exhaust fumes behind.

i also find the stereotype of what oklahomans are supposed to be, do, and think, laughable. i’ll just say that i’ve never encountered so much idiocy, racism and small-mindedness until i came to maryland in 1997, where i was stationed on an army post (and unfortunately still remain in this state while trying to recoup losses from my divorce and finish my graduate degree).

i’ve never been called a “n----r” for making a left turn into my correct lane until early 2006 in maryland. i’ve never been ignored at a restaurant (while whites who came in after me were seated) until 2005 in washington dc…that same year i was at a maryland farmers market where a white shop owner stuck a watermelon inches under my nose and joked about how he knew i “just couldn’t wait to dig into” the fruit because he could “see my lips twitching.” these are simply the newest affronts that i haven’t suppresed yet…

i know other blacks in baltimore city who tell me they are afraid to travel to the county i live in–20 minutes from baltimore–and they’ve told me i should expect the treatment that i receive on a daily basis, because it’s “klan country.” here, the klan marches REGULARLY in annapolis, md, home of their state capitol…SHOCKING. reports have been made of maryland schools that have had all class reunions–but none of the blacks that had attended were invited, interestingly enough.

oh yes, life in blue state maryland is so much better for me[/sarcasm]…NOT!

please know that everything is NOT what it seems…nor what the media tells you it should be. i am of the opinion that all this “red/blue state” rhetoric is nothing more than a way to divide americans, invest some with a false sense of superiority and distract everyone from the true issues at hand, such as shrinking political rights and increased lies told by governmental entities.

i love oklahoma city and i’m on my way home. EVERY PART OF THE U.S. has problems with ignorance…not just the “red states.” i am well aware that there are no utopias, so let’s just keep a balance in talking about things, shall we?

Well said.

The gist of the rest of the discussion is that Red Staters have been hypnotized by our churches to vote based on sex-related issues like abortion and gay marriage. Otherwise we would be voting for Democrats who, they say, are on the right side of the issues that should matter to us poor, ignorant crackers -- i.e. Federal entitlements.

What's ignorant is the left's failure to understand that issues like the sanctity of human life really do matter to us in the pews. Far from being brainwashed during the Sunday sermon, lay people have led the movement to get conservative Christians involved in politics. Plain ol' Christians read their Bibles and began to apply what they read to what they saw happening in the political realm. They saw the horror of abortion and the threats to traditional values, and they got involved in campaigns and ran for office. These same lay people then tried to mobilize their friends at church to pay attention and get involved. Clergy were often the most reluctant to engage political issues at any level, partly for fear of alienating parishoners, partly for fear of the IRS.

The left also fails to understand the political maturity that has developed among politically active conservative Christians over the last 30 years. We've read books like Blinded by Might and learned lessons from the failures of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition. We understand why Kipling referred to "Triumph and Disaster" as "those two impostors"; we know that no victory in politics is total or permanent -- but neither is any defeat. We know the value of incrementalism in politics. We regard Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as fringe figures at best, embarrassments at worst. We don't take our marching orders from James Dobson. We understand the need to work alongside people of common immediate aims but disparate values and ultimate goals. We know that politics is not a tidy business, and we are not going to cloister ourselves because we got a bit of dirt under our fingernails.

Most of all, we are not going to stay home on November 7, just because we aren't 100% satisfied with the Republican Party.

In acknowledging his own nomination for an Okie Blog Award, Ron of Route 66 News called attention to a worthy but overlooked Oklahoma-based blog:

Regrettably, I didn�t find out about the nominating process until late, and forgot to do anything about it. If I had, I would have nominated my favorite Oklahoma-based blog, Yet Another Small Town Moment, which isn�t one of the nominees.

The premise by OKDad�s blog is this: �Moving from Los Angeles to a small, rural town in Oklahoma has proven to be an interesting experience for my family and me.� His observations about the Sooner State are wry, affectionate and even touching.

This is how good of a blog it is: The first time I encountered it, I went to the archives and read every entry. I haven�t done that with a blog before or since.

It is as good as all that. It's fascinating to see your home state through the eyes of someone who is experiencing it for the first time, the good and the bad alike, but mostly the good. Semi-regular features of the blog include comments on items in the small town's paper and the "Stay-at-Home-Dad Knowledge Base".

Worth a regular spot on your tour de blogosphere.

A bomb went off outside the OU-Kansas State game at about 8 p.m. on Saturday. Here's the official statement from the University of Oklahoma. Sunday's Daily Oklahoman reports that the bomber and sole victim was Joel Henry Hinrichs III, a junior. A cache of explosives was found at Hinrichs' apartment. Although the initial press release mentioned that a second bomb was found and detonated, OU is now saying that it was not a bomb, just a "suspicious object."

It's interesting that for a photo of the bomber, the Oklahoman published "a mugshot... provided by the FBI." So the FBI was already tracking this guy?

Norman photojournalist Lam Lamphear heard the explosion from his home a mile away and was on the scene soon after. He isn't buying OU's version of events. Via Dustbury. In a comment on that entry, Mike Swickey links to this collection of media reports, images, maps, and observations on the bombing.

Jared, of the blog 10,000 Fists in the Air, has a list of free WiFi hotspots in his Oklahoma City. (Via OkieDoke, who adds a list of free hotspots in Norman.)

Wherein our heroine sees antiques that were exactly like household items that might have belonged to President Eisenhower's parents and visits Oklahoma for the first time, puzzling through the Delphic utterances of a Sonic call box and visiting a temple of the state's established religion:

Imagine your local community rec center. Now shove in as many slot machines as it�ll hold. Ok, now put a big TV and a room full of phones in the back. Get some betting slips and turn on OTB. We�re almost there. Now squeeze the slot machines together, making some room for about five or six blackjack tables, put the unhappiest people you ever saw behind the tables; fill the place with stale cigarette smoke and lonely desperate people.

It's another hilarious installment of Dawn Summers' travels. Go read the whole thing. (Y'all come back sometime -- there is more to Oklahoma than Sonics and casinos.)

Jerry Buchanan, chairman of the Tulsa County Republican Party, toured Camp Gruber on Tuesday with a group of state legislators. Camp Gruber, near Muskogee, is the first location in Oklahoma to receive a large number of refugees from Hurricane Katrina. Here's Jerry's report -- it's encouraging:

Today, I had the privilege to tour with a delegation from Tulsa, the displaced Americans from Louisiana placed at Camp Gruber, near Muskogee. We talked with people that were in the Astrodome, people that were from the Communities around New Orleans that lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, people that lost family members, friends and pets.

The delegation was made up of your own State Representatives Fred Perry, Pam Peterson, John Wright and John Trebilcock. Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel, Ken McConkey from Senator Jim Inhofe�s office,
Clay Bird, Chief of Staff from Mayor LaFortune�s office, along with Stacy Ward, CERT program director of Homeland Security in Tulsa, and Tulsa Police Chaplain Director Danny Lynchard traveled with us.

Oklahoma Senator Jim Williamson and Representative Dan Sullivan toured the Camp yesterday. They found what we found, people that are being treated with respect and dignity. The Oklahoma National Guard and Oklahoma Highway Patrol are in charge and they are organized, friendly and compassionate with authority that is appreciated by all. The Red Cross volunteers move like angels to and fro tirelessly like a breath of fresh air.

Our guests at Camp Gruber are not thugs that looted the businesses. Nor are they dirty, drugged out or rude. They are people that have endured hardships that most people have only imagined in a nightmare or in a horror movie. They are people that have lost their homes, cars and all material things, but they have not lost their pride or their spirit to start over.

Today, I spoke with five men outside a dining facility. One was a construction worker, one was a backhoe operator, one was a brick mason, one was a floor tile cutter and one was a cable layer. All, however, said they could do many other things to make a living if given the chance. The question we heard over and over was �where can we get work. We love Oklahoma and the people here have just overwhelmed us with kindness and generosity. Does Tulsa have jobs for us? We would love to move to Tulsa if the people are like the rest of the Oklahomans we have encountered.�

Most everyone at Camp Gruber have accepted the fact that all of their worldly goods have been lost in Louisiana and are ready to relocate in Tulsa, Oklahoma City or where ever they can find a job and make a living for themselves and their families. Over and over I heard �God Bless Oklahoma!� A little girl actually kissed my hand and said �thank you for all you have done for us�, making me feel awkward and humbled.

These guests are not blaming God or the federal government for their predicament. They are just trying to deal with a very bad situation as best as they can. They now realize that the Governor of Louisiana did not act promptly. They know when Louisiana�s Governor Blanco did allow the National Guard to take charge, things begin to happen for the better and it is getting better every day.

In their living quarters, twenty or more people gather around a single TV set trying to see the latest news. Some try to nap in the heat of the day to pass the time. Others watch with anticipation the activities of the Red Cross, National Guard, Highway Patrol and in today�s case your own elected officials shaking hands giving signs of hope and words of encouragement.

Today�s events make me even more proud to be an Oklahoman. Proud to have elected officials that are willing to roll up their sleeves and pass out water, toiletries and what ever it takes to help these desperate people from the sister states of Louisiana and Mississippi. Proud of a President that has three times, that we know of, visited the devastated area and prays for the families and victims daily.

If it seems to you that I am somewhat overwhelmed, you are correct.

I was going to include this in the roundup post below, but this deserved its own entry.

I first came across the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) county highway maps back in the mid-'70s, when I would take the MTTA bus downtown from school on Wednesday afternoons and hang out at Central Library until Dad got off work. I could spend hours poring over maps, and became particularly fascinated with the ODOT county maps, which showed rural roads and locations of homes, businesses, farms, cemetaries, and schools outside the city limits. The maps indicated which roads were dirt, which were gravel, and which were paved. City limits and fence lines were shown, along with the odd exclaves -- places like the Tulsa Fairgrounds which are in the city but outside the city limits.

The ODOT map of Wagoner County included, as an inset, the first street map I had ever seen of my neighborhood, Rolling Hills, at the time an unincorporated subdivision in the northwest corner of the county. (We lived there from 1969 to 1978.) Most commercial city maps of the time didn't bother to show Tulsa beyond "Tulsa proper" (the pre-1966 boundaries), but even if a map did go out all the way to the new city limit, it stopped abruptly at 193rd East Avenue. So it was interesting to see, at last, how my mental map of the neighborhood, sketched by years of walking to church, riding my bike to the UtoteM and the In-N-Out (convenience stores), and visiting friends, matched up to the real distances and proportions shown by the map.

What really caught my imagination were the names and boundaries of townships -- county subdivisions that, as far as I am aware, have had no official function since the 1910s. These townships sometimes matched up to the Northwest Ordinance 36-square-mile townships, but mostly didn't. Tulsa County had Boles, Frye, Willow Springs, Lynn Lane, Wekiwa, Red Fork, Dawson, plus townships that bore the same names as still-extant towns: Collinsville, Owasso, Skiatook, Jenks, Glenpool, and Bixby. I had the idea that the old township boundaries could be put to use for city government. Tulsa (then governed by a board of city commissioners elected at-large) could have boroughs, just like New York City, using the old township boundaries to create some geographical element to city government.

When I was in college, my roommate had posters of the Landers twins and Morgan Fairchild next to his loft bed. I ordered some county maps from ODOT, used colored pencils to highlight the township boundaries, and put up Wagoner, Rogers, and Tulsa County on my side of the room. I wasn't making a statement. I just liked looking at the maps (although I'm sure not as much as he -- or I -- liked looking at the Landers twins).

After college, newly empowered with my own car, I bought an atlas collecting all 77 county maps in a single book: The Oklahoma Wildlife Federation's County Maps and Outdoor Guide to Oklahoma. The counties were each squeezed down to a single page, two at most, which made the maps hard to read at times, but it still was a helpful companion on my Saturday rambles around the state. I'd look for paved routes that were off the state numbered highway system: a shortcut from Skiatook Lake to Prue, Kenwood Road in Mayes and Delaware Counties, the road from Oaks to Rocky Ford to Moodys in Cherokee County, Jones and Hogback Roads in Oklahoma County. The atlas was also handy for spotting old highway alignments, like old US 75 as it winds through Vera, Ramona, and Ochelata, another segment of old 75 from Beggs to Preston to Okmulgee, and US 62 through Headrick, Snyder, Indiahoma, and Cache -- places where a beeline connecting cities 50 miles apart replaced the twists and turns that connected one little town to its neighbor.

Some years later, Shearer Publishing incorporated data from these ODOT county maps with topographical data to produce The Roads of Oklahoma, a full-color atlas with a consistent scale throughout.

So it was nice to see that ODOT now has the full set of county maps online, along with the current official state highway map and other publications.

I learned about these online maps from a fascinating new blog about our great state: blogoklahoma.us. And I learned about blogoklahoma.us from Mike of Okiedoke's latest Okie roundup.

This is Class Warfare links to an extraterrestrial extension of Google's brilliant maps site. Be sure to zoom down to the smallest scale to learn the shocking truth!

Mike of Okiedoke took a trip to Fort Worth on Amtrak's Heartland Flyer, which was quite pleasant, but didn't get to come back the same way, which wasn't. Learn how not to miss the train, and what your alternatives are if you do. (Last I read, the Heartland Flyer is the only profitable Amtrak route outside the northeast corridor. UPDATE: Not so. See comments for details from Mike.)

Mike also links to a McCurtain Daily Gazette article, which examines the strange exclusion by the FBI of information pointing to links between the Oklahoma City bombers and the Elohim City paramilitary camp.

Chase McInerney writes about his visit, as a 12-year-old, to the humble Oklahoma County home of baseball legend Lloyd Waner, aka Little Poison. He asks why Major League Baseball still hasn't done anything to provide for the handful of surviving MLB veterans who aren't covered by the MLB pension plan.

A commenter ("Shadow6") on my entry about the Edison High School stadium proposal mentioned a site full of stats on Oklahoma High School sports: the Oklahoma High School Sports InfoNET. The site has schedules, scores, stats, and standings going back to 1998 in most sports.

For official info on high school sports in Oklahoma, there's the website of the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association. No archives, standings, or schedules, but they do have the overall calendar for the coming year for sports seasons and championship tournaments, eligibility rules, and (promised for the future) the classification for each participating school.

While looking up that info, I came across an interesting one-page history of Skelly Stadium. It has a list of biggest crowds and milestones, but no mention whatsoever of the late, unlamented Tulsa Mustangs semi-pro football team, coached by legendary University of Tulsa head coach Glenn Dobbs.

Northwestern Oklahoma blogger Mark Allen reports that an exhibit of the work of Oklahoma-born and -based cartoonists will be a part of the Pauls Valley Toy and Action Figure Museum. Pauls Valley is a lovely little town, the seat of Garvin County, just off I-35 south of Norman.

The Oklahoma Cartoon Collection will include original editorial cartoons (e.g., Dave Simpson, who used to be funny when he drew for the Tulsa Tribune), comic strips (e.g., Broom Hilda by Russ Myers and Bizarro by Dan Piraro, both cartoonists from Tulsa), comic books, and humor magazines. The late Don Martin, who drew for Mad for many years and later for Cracked, is listed among the participating cartoonists -- I had no idea he had any connection to Oklahoma.

(Someone has compiled a dictionary of sound effects from Don Martin cartoons, from "AAAAGH! EEEEEOOOW ACK! UGH UGH MMP AGH! AEEK!" to "ZZZZ ZZT-ZNIK SNUFFLE SNORK.")

Happy news from BRAC (not to be confused with Brak) -- none of Oklahoma's major military facilities will close, and in fact the number of military personnel in the state will increase by 3,448, plus another 474 civilians, nearly all at Fort Sill. Altus AFB will "be realigned" and will lose 16 people. Vance AFB gains about 100. Tinker gains over 300 civilian personnel. The Tulsa area will lose the reserve center near Broken Arrow and the Navy-Marine Corps Reserve Center, but will keep the Air National Guard Station at the airport. You can find the list of facilities and impacts, organized by state here. The Army Ammunition Plant near McAlester is gaining some new roles, too.

According to the detailed recommendations (PDF documents which you'll find linked from this page), the Altus realignment involves relocating a Logistics Readiness Squadron along with another at Little Rock AFB to a new Logistics Support Center at Scott AFB in Illinois. The Air Defense Artillery Center and School will move from Fort Bliss near El Paso to Fort Sill and be combined with the Field Artillery Center and School -- over 3,000 personnel will be involved in the move, which is expected to result in a net savings to the taxpayer of $319 million. The Red River Army Depot in Texas is closing -- the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant will pick up the storage, demilitarization, and munitions maintenance functions from Red River's munitions center, and Tinker AFB will gain the "storage and distribution functions and associated inventories of the Defense Distribution Depot."

Congratulations to our Oklahoma military bases and to the towns that depend on them.

Friday the 13th is going to be a very unlucky day for some number of cities near US military bases. That's the day that the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) will announce its recommendations. Spook 86 has published the draft list he received back in January, emphasizing that the list is only a draft. The draft list has 49 bases slated for closure and three for realignment. One of the distinguishing aims of this round of realignment is to put common functions of different services at the same location, rather than continue to have bases that are exclusive to a single service.

Two of Oklahoma's three Air Force bases were on the draft list for closure: Altus AFB, near the city of the same name, and Vance AFB, near Enid. The closing of either would hurt the surrounding community, but Enid, twice as big as Altus, and the largest city in northwestern Oklahoma, is better positioned to weather the blow.

Altus AFB trains 3000 students a year as pilots, boom operators, and loadmasters for C-5 and C-17 cargo aircraft and KC-135 tankers. With flat terrain and over 300 days of good flying weather a year, it's a great place to train pilots.

I visited Altus many times during my years with Burtek and FlightSafety, working on C-141 and KC-135 simulators, and it was always awe-inspiring, as I approached the town on US 62, to see the massive C-5s float across the sky, like flying whales. They used to park one of them, with the nose open, on the apron facing one of the base's streets, so that as you drove down the street, you looked straight into the maw of the massive aircraft.

The economy of the City of Altus, which has a population just over 20,000, is very dependent on the air base. In addition to military personnel, many civilian contractors work there, like the employees of FlightSafety Services Corporation who maintain and operate the flight simulators for the C-5 and KC-135. Altus has a couple of other major employers, like Bar-S Foods and Luscombe Aircraft Corporation, but they don't employ anywhere near the numbers of people that the base does. Mike Andrews, a columnist for the Altus Times wrote:

The numbers are stark. A town of just over 20,000 has more than 4,000 people employed on base. And that's not including subcontractors or the people who make a living selling cars and houses to people who work on base. Saying that losing the base would be bad for Altus is much like saying the Dust Bowl was bad for Oklahoma.

Altus is not a very exciting place, and as we used to say, "It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there." They have done a lot to spruce up their downtown in recent years, thanks to their award-winning Main Street program. The people there are friendly and welcoming, as I found during some longer stays back in 1987, when I visited several different churches. A surprising number of Air Force folks like it well enough to stick around, even after retirement. One such retiree opened a popular Italian restaurant, Luigi's, in the town of Blair, eight miles to the north. Even if the base closes, Altus would still serve a purpose as the biggest place for over 60 miles in any direction, but I imagine that at least one of the two nicer hotels would close, along with many restaurants and small service businesses.

The BRAC process is a good one. Decisions about the location of bases should be based on military advantage and cost efficiency, not on who sits on the House Armed Services committee. The U.S. military doesn't exist for the purpose of keeping small towns alive. Still, it's sad to see those small towns suffer, and we'll be rooting for and praying for Altus this Friday the 13th.

(Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for the link to Spook 86. She has links to more articles on the subject.)