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2022 School & Municipal Primary Election: BatesLine ballot card
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS UPDATE, with all precincts counted: The conservative, pro-parent school board candidates have either won outright (Debbie Taylor in Broken Arrow) or made it into a runoff (conservative Tim Harris against Susan Lamkin, who had the endorsement of the GKFF-connected incumbent and the support of the TPS establishment; conservative...
Jenni White for Oklahoma Republican chairman
Jenni White is a principled conservative, an excellent communicator, and someone with a record of getting things done. She has the intelligence, organizational skills, and powers of persuasion to be a successful Oklahoma Republican Party chairman, and I ask my friends at the convention to give her their support.
Oklahoma Election 2020: Judges
The 2020 Oklahoma general election ballot has retention votes for three State Supreme Court justices, two judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals, and three judges on the Court of Civil Appeals. These are yes-no votes, unlike the district judge elections that occur in gubernatorial election years. If "no" prevails...
Genius: A short film about intelligences
One of the films created at the recently concluded Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute involved my favorite violinist. The film was directed and produced by Matt Hanisch and Shauna Rathbun. The music is "River Flows in You" by Yiruma. The setting is Quartz Mountain Resort on Lake Altus-Lugert in southwest Oklahoma....
A capital weekend -- and the end of a long journey
Greetings from the self-proclaimed "Cutest Café in Georgetown" (Snap, 1062 Thomas Jefferson St, open 11 to 11 most nights, til 10 on Sundays, crepes, bubble tea, free wifi), where I'm grabbing a quick bite of dinner to complete a wonderful weekend in the Washington area. Planning to meet up with...
Map monsters: "Gerrymandering 101"
"Zombie," a blogger known for documenting through photographs the nauseating obscenity of festivals and protests in the Bay Area, is documenting a political and geographical form of obscenity: The gerrymander, the deliberate drawing of district lines for political advantage. The first of two recent posts -- Gerrymandering 101 -- explains...
My week in jail and a visit to the Aztec Theater for "San Antonio Rose Live"
Because this is a long entry, you'll need to click the "Continue reading" link to see the whole thing. Clicking any of the photos will take you to a bigger version and my full set of San Antonio streetscape photos. If you're interested in hotels, restaurants, historic preservation, and entertainment...
Historic US 62 bridge photos
Getting caught up: Early last month (best defined as the very cold windy period between the big Christmas snowstorm and the big late January ice storm), I had two back-to-back business trips, both involving graveyard-shift hours, separated by less than a day at home. The first trip was to Altus...
San Antonio sojourn
I'm nearing the end of two business trips in one week, separated by less than 16 hours at home, both involving graveyard-shift hours. The first was to Altus, in southwestern Oklahoma -- drove down on Wednesday, worked the wee hours of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, slept a bit, then drove...
"Out of the night, when the full moon is bright..."
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...
Simulation: It's the real thing
An edited version of this column appeared in the December 5, 2007, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is no longer available online. Posted September 9, 2017. Simulation: It's the real thing by Michael D. Bates How often do the stars line up this auspiciously for Tulsa? Congress...
The scenic route: Altus to Medicine Park
Recently I had to go to Altus, in southwestern Oklahoma, for the day. I left early in the morning, made one stop, and got there in great time. Coming back I decided to take the scenic route from Altus back to I-44 near Lawton. I didn't travel any unfamiliar roads....
SB 1324 is still lurking
Please join me in urging our State Representatives and State Senators to kill SB 1324, which would infringe upon local control of zoning and land-use decisions. The bill is still alive. Its author, Sen. Brian Crain, tells me that it is headed for conference committee, although I find nothing in...
Major Oklahoma bases won't be closing
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...
Altus, Vance AFBs to close?
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...
I hate mini-bars
In my last day or two at FlightSafety, I was going through my old engineering notebooks and remembering some of the projects I worked on. Occasionally some non-engineering thoughts were recorded on the page. During a business trip to Montreal in the summer of 2001 I came up with an...
Sim you later
Today is a major milestone in my professional life. After 19 years in one industry, 12 at the same company, I'm starting in a new business and a new position. I've made it a policy not to talk about my work on my blog, so while I won't be telling...
How Berkeley Can You Be
Saint Kansas the Dawn Patrol)--> links to photos from last month's "How Berkeley Can You Be? Parade". Berkeley, aka Bezerkely, is home to the main campus of the University of California and is the proud capital of the Left Coast, a place so far out that it makes Cambridge, Mass.,...
What they promised if we opened the Main Mall to traffic
(Don't forget this morning's protest! 9 a.m., 4th & Boulder.) The Tulsa Whirled's plan to demolish the old Froug's Department Store at 3rd & Main, to replace it with heating and cooling equipment for the rest of the Whirled's complex, is a slap in the face of Tulsa's taxpayers, who...
Get your kicks on US 62?
Charles of Dustbury lists some of his life's ambitions (them that are printable, or nearly so). One of them is to drive a couple of the diagonal U.S. highways that are still official: US 62 from El Paso, Texas, to Niagara Falls, New York, and US 52 from the...
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