Another blog article started long ago, July 26, 2021, but never quite finished, until now. In 1982, Oklahoma was celebrating its 75th anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee of statehood, and it was one of the focuses (along with Korea) of the Smithsonian Institution's 1982 Festival of American Folklife. The program book...
The City of Tulsa's odd and oft-changed election process comes to its 2022 conclusion Tuesday with runoffs in three of nine Tulsa City Council seats. Three incumbents, all registered to vote as Democrats, failed to reach the 50% threshold in the August general election and so face a runoff. The...
Looks like Tulsa's billionaire overlords aren't as competent as they pretend to be. If they're going to insist on being in charge and push us to elect their minions, couldn't they at least show some signs of competence? And maybe a little frugality along the way?
Two State Senate districts and six State House districts that overlap with Tulsa County have general elections on November 8, 2022. Neighboring counties add in four additional State House seats. Here's an overview with my recommendations in six of the races; details after the jump, and more to be added....
During the recent U. S. Senate debate on KOTV/KWTV, there wasn't much distance between the four participating candidates on economic matters and social issues. There were a few differences on how the U. S. should respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the wisdom of unrestricted aid to...
The substance of HB 1775 occupies a mere page and a third, 282 words by my count. So why should mainstream media mischaracterize the bill, when they could easily quote the entire text?
This past April 22, 2020, was the 131st anniversary of the land run that opened the central part of today's State of Oklahoma to homesteading by non-Indian settlers. These were lands owned by the U. S. Government and not assigned to any organized territory nor to any Indian nation or...
Back on August 12, I sent the three eligible candidates for City Council District 4 a questionnaire using the email addresses provided in their declarations of candidacy or on their websites. The questionnaire included the 18 questions I asked the mayoral candidates, plus a question about neighborhood conservation districts and...
Last Wednesday, BatesLine sent a questionnaire to the six serious candidates for Mayor of Tulsa, using the email addresses provided in their declarations of candidacy or on their websites. We sent two reminders. We received replies from three candidates: Craig Immel, Ken Reddick, and Ty Walker. The survey consists of...
Hello from Tulsa, M.C.N. We're not in Oklahoma any more. This morning, in a 5-4 decision, America's permanent super-legislature voted, in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma, to liberate convicted child molester Jimcy McGirt by ruling that all the lands within the 1866 boundaries of the Muscogee Creek Nation...
If you're on Twitter you might have concluded that July 4th was Hipster-Pastors-Complaining-About-Flags-in-Churches Day.
The Rev. Merle Dry, 55, Berryhill resident, United Pentecostal minister, and grounds manager at Oral Roberts University, is the first death resulting from Wuhan Chinese Bat Virus in Oklahoma. Metro Pentecostal Church, where Dry was a member, posted the following information on its Facebook page: It is with great...
UPDATE: Jerry Griffin emails with his complete report, which includes itemized expenditures, and which he says he filed. Either the district clerk's copy got lost, or I overlooked it. I've added the information below. Below are the campaign ethics reports filed with the Tulsa Public Schools district clerk as of...
Scott Pendleton, candidate for Tulsa Public Schools Office 5, responds to the BatesLine questionnaire.
There are those who worry about the influence of the wealthy on federal politics but are quite blasé about the influence of the wealthy on local politics. That slobbery, smooching sound you heard Saturday was Wayne Greene's column in the Saturday, December 31, 2016, Tulsa World, telling all of us...
Here is a press release from a month ago about the Center for Women's Studies at Northeastern State University. NSU is funded by the taxpayers of Oklahoma (with additional subsidies from people who shop in Broken Arrow) and governed by the board of regents of the Regional University System of...
Legendary country singer and songwriter Merle Haggard died Wednesday on his 79th birthday. It might be going too far to say he saved western swing from oblivion, but Merle Haggard's efforts to honor Bob Wills went a long way toward introducing a new generation to the sound. In 1946 or...
This coming weekend, September 6 and 7, 2014, is the opening weekend of the Helmerich Center for American Research, a unit of the City of Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum. The new facility is adjacent to the museum on Gilcrease Museum Road. A weekend full of free events is planned, including Native...
What an interesting night! I had been at the watch party for Randy Brogdon, Ken Yazel, David Brumbaugh, and Chuck Strohm. The mood there was generally upbeat: Yazel had survived another establishment attempt to knock him off, winning re-election to another four-year term as County Assessor and Courthouse Gadfly with...
Here are the candidates I'm recommending and voting for (when I can) in the Oklahoma primary elections on June 24, 2014. (This entry will change as I decide to add more detail or discuss additional races between now and election day. The entry is post-dated to keep it at...
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