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Tulsa in the 1920 Official Automobile Blue Book
Before Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System, before state highway officials collaborated to create a national highway numbering system in 1926, motorists traveling cross-country followed turn-by-turn directions contained in the Official Automobile Blue Book. These books are a time capsule of transportation history, not only mentioning routes, but road conditions, locations of...
Ted Cruz's 51% path to first-ballot nomination
UPDATED: Added a new tab to the spreadsheet to game out an alternative scenario: Cruz 45, Trump 40, Kasich 15 in remaining contests. Despite the near-sweep last night for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz still has a plausible path to arriving at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland with enough...
Tom Coburn's farewell to the Senate
Oklahoma's U. S. Senator Tom Coburn did not suffer from senioritis. He made the most of every minute of the final weeks of his ten years in the Senate. On December 9, Coburn issued the latest and last in his long-running series of reports on government waste. Tax DecoderTom_Coburn-Tax_Decoder-2014.pdf, an...
MIT's football team
My alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is not known as an athletic powerhouse, but MIT does offer a surprisingly large number of varsity intercollegiate teams (at times it's had more varsity teams than any other college and the school has national championships in sailing and pistol). The 'tute...
QuikTrip favorite convenience store chain, Wawa tops in coffee
Market Force Information polled over 5,000 consumers for a study of convenience store preferences. Tulsa-based QuikTrip had the highest "Composite Loyalty Score" at 79%, followed closely at 74% by Wawa, a 645-store chain founded 50 years ago in the Pennsylvania township of the same name and dominant in the mid-Atlantic...
1967 Tulsa USGS aerial photos
Tulsa history expert Paul Uttinger pointed me to a couple of amazing U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) aerial photos from 1967. It captures an interesting point in time, as land was beginning to be cleared for I-244 and the Inner Dispersal Loop. Tulsa had, about a year earlier, tripled its...
Betrayal: Oklahoma Senate passes National Popular Vote bill
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. If you thought you could relax because the Republicans are in charge at the State Capitol and Oklahoma Republicans have a conservative party platform, remember that there are lobbyists giving our friends at the Capitol one side of the story. We in the...
Kickstart a libertarian radio show
Angel Clark, a Delaware-based libertarian blogger and radio talk show host, has an opportunity for a radio syndication deal that would get her show on more stations. But to make it happen, she needs to fund an upgrade to her studio equipment and to cover the increased cost of licenses....
Tulsa Election 2013: Ethics report notes; mayoral bet-hedgers
This is the first City of Tulsa mayoral election in which candidates are required by state law to file campaign finance reports through the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, rather than the city clerk's office, making it far easier to have access to the reports and analyze them. Tulsa County candidates also...
Kathy Taylor's runoff problem
Runoff was one of the topics mentioned in Tulsa mayoral candidate Bill Christiansen's press conference on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, about the questionable ethics of his principal opponents, former mayor Kathy Taylor and incumbent mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr. The runoff under discussion isn't the election that will be held in...
Urban roundup 2013/04/01: Tulsa zoning code update, zombie development, and more
Preserve Midtown has posted a note from Theron Warlick, City of Tulsa urban planner, on the status of Tulsa's zoning code update: I'm the lead planner on the zoning code update and I think I can shine some light on the process. For about nine months, I've been working with...
Blog roundup 2013/01/28
Notes hither and thither: If you're a fan of beautiful cartoon art, you should make at least a weekly visit to Whirled of Kelly, which features the art work of Walt Kelly, most famous for the comic strip Pogo. Blogger Thomas Haller Buchanan has been running a series of Sunday...
Delaware beaches battered by Sandy
My blogpal Angel Clark is riding out Hurricane Sandy in Sussex County, Delaware, not far from the Atlantic Ocean. No internet where she is, but she was able to set up a blog entry with a collection of photos of Sandy damage along the Delaware shore -- Lewes, Rehoboth Beach,...
1950s Tulsa in Cold War propaganda film
Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) chairman Bill Leighty came across a wonderful documentary short subject about Tulsa. The 15 minute film was part of the Cities in America series, produced by the United States Information Service, the Cold War-era organization that used a variety of media to promote a...
Tulsa Election 2011: Democrat Suliburk the conservative in District 8
In the previous entry, I mentioned a candidate survey issued by OK-SAFE -- Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free Enterprise. Say what you will about OK-SAFE and their views, but the group's questionnaire gets into the details of real questions facing City of Tulsa officials, and they allow candidates to respond...
George Kaiser, GKFF, and Solyndra
This is long, but worth reading, particularly if you're knowledgeable about the financial aspects of bankruptcy. There are some interesting twists and turns that seem to suggest that GKFF's investments have been protected to the detriment of federal taxpayers. If that's so, I'm torn: It's better for Tulsa if GKFF...
What will become of Wilson Middle School? Public meeting Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tulsa Public Schools is holding a public forum on Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 6 to 7 pm, regarding the sale of Wilson Middle School, one of 14 school buildings closed at the end of the last school year as part of the district's cost-cutting plan. The forum will be held...
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...
Molester grooms parents; DMCA impedes criminal investigation?
The headline story in today's Delaware State News reported testimony in the trial of pediatrician Earl Bradley on two dozen counts of rape, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation of children. According to the story, much of the prosecution's evidence is digital video recovered from thumb drives and memory sticks. 86...
The 2011 Delaware Republican Convention
May 4, 2011: I'll be on the air with Angel Clark on WGMD 92.7 at 8 pm Eastern (7 pm Central) Listen online at wgmd.com. Business had taken me to Dover, Delaware, and Friday morning on my way to work, I heard a news story about the upcoming Delaware Republican...
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