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Eclipse 2024 notes
Composite image of August 21, 2017, total solar eclipse, Madras, Oregon. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani) Monday, April 8, 2024, will be the nearest a total solar eclipse has come to Tulsa in my lifetime. The path of totality stretches from south Texas to northern New England. Oklahoma southeast of...
Oklahoma Primary 2022: Statewide races
Somewhat short takes on the races for Oklahoma statewide office on the June 28, 2022, Republican primary ballot. Lt. Governor Matt Pinnell did not draw a primary opponent, and Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready has been re-elected without opposition. I've endorsed John O'Connor for Attorney General in a separate entry....
Australia Day and the black-armband view of history
Two Augusts ago I was in the stands at Brisbane's Exhibition Grounds waiting for the evening performance at the "Ekka" -- Queensland's state fair -- to begin. The crowd stood at attention as a cowgirl on horseback rode around the arena waving a huge Australian flag. The band played and...
Al Sharpton, alleged snitch and shakedown artist
You may notice this blog becoming more of a weblog in the purest sense of the word -- collections of links of interest, logged here mainly for my future reference. With that here are a collection of links and some pull quotes about Al Sharpton and the societal trends that...
Jonathan Gruber? Never heard of him
Jonathan Gruber is the MIT economics professor, often called the "architect of Obamacare," who has said publicly that Obamacare's passage owed much to the "stupidity of the American people" and that its authors necessarily obfuscated the impacts on taxpayers in order to get the bill passed. "Lack of transparency is...
Eldon Shamblin and Smokey Dacus tell tales of the Texas Playboys
As the rhythm section of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, rhythm guitarist Eldon Shamblin and drummer Smokey Dacus, along with Al Stricklin on piano, defined the beat that drove dancers across the southwestern U. S. in the 1930s from the band's home base at Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom. Dacus was...
Billy Cowsill, Gary Lewis and Tulsa's "Mazeppa Scene"
The poster at right was posted on the KAKC - Memories of the Big 970's Page and the Tulsa Memories of the '60s and '70s page and spurred by a comment that Billy Cowsill and Gary Lewis had a band in Tulsa in the early 1970s. The Cowsills were...
<em>In tenebris</em>
(There are a fair number of stream-of-consciousness reminiscences in this piece, so to simplify matters, the main thread of last Friday's story is in normal text, and the flashbacks are in italics.) My feet hit the floor at 4:15 a.m. Eastern time Good Friday morning; pitch black outside. After a...
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...
Early Oklahoma in the archives
Here are some interesting publications relating to early-day Oklahoma on the websites of the National Archives and the Internet Archive. The National Archives has an online sample of documents from their Center for Legislative Archives about Oklahoma's path to statehood including: Survey Map of Oklahoma and Indian Territory showing distances,...
Tomnibus
Scroll down for an update to this entry. Robert N. Going likes what he sees in Oklahoma's junior senator: I think I have a new hero, a United States Senator who believes in requiring politicians to justify their spending of your tax dollars, who kept his term limit pledge when...
The subject of this blog has been cobbled together
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...
Coburn, edifice complex prevention on 20/20
Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn will be on ABC's 20/20 tonight (9 p.m. CDT) to talk about Congress's spending addiction: But who in Congress really wants to end [wasteful spending]? After all, you can get re-elected by spending other Americans' money on people in your state. Well, at least one senator...
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....
Notes from a visit to west Texas
My wife's dad's folks are all cotton farmers from west Texas, specifically the area around Stamford, which is just a bit north of Abilene. We drove down and spent fall break there. What follows are some disjointed notes from the trip down and back: We stopped at the Rock Cafe...
Stem-cell research bills in U. S. Senate tomorrow
From an e-mail alert from Tony Lauinger, chairman of Oklahomans for Life: On Tuesday, July 18, the Senate will vote on H.R. 810, a bill that would force taxpayers to fund research using stem cells obtained by killing human embryos. This bill, which is strongly opposed by Oklahomans For Life...
Why vote no?
NOTE: I originally published this as a special page on this site, rather than as a blog entry. To make it easier to find, on July 11, 2007, I've added it as an entry on the blog. Why Vote No? Against the proposed Tulsa County Sales Taxes September 9, 2003...
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