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Tulsa school board 2024 candidates
Here's a brief introduction to the six candidates running for three seats Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education, drawing on public information, including filing information, voter registration records, and social media accounts. All addresses are in the City of Tulsa. Because there are only two candidates in each race, each...
Oil in Oklahoma: Tulsa TV 50 years ago
I have finally gotten around to reading Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, in anticipation of the Martin Scorsese film to be released in October. I'm about halfway through, and I was skimming ahead. (It's OK. I already knew who the bad guys were.) I was surprised to...
Stitt saves anti-SLAPP law
Monday, May 22, 2023, Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed HB 1236, a bill that, by the change of a single word, would have significantly neutered Oklahoma's deterrent against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). Deep-pocketed and powerful public figures have used meritless lawsuits to punish critics and chill free speech. The...
NO on Oklahoma SQ 820 recreational marijuana legalization
All of Oklahoma's voters have an election on Tuesday, March 7, 2023. The only thing on the ballot is State Question 820, which would enact a law to legalize marijuana for any purpose, over and above the "medical" marijuana law, SQ 788, approved by voters in June 2018. I will...
Howard Johnson's on Oklahoma turnpikes
The last surviving Howard Johnson's restaurant, located in Lake George, New York, was recently found to have closed, evidently for good. An enthusiast, Alyssa Kelly, reported on Facebook over Memorial Day weekend that there were cobwebs on the door, a for-lease sign out front, and all the furnishings and...
Tulsa, May 1921: Moescha Rosenberg sues Sinclair
In 1921, Tulsa jeweler Moescha Rosenberg sued his landlord, the Sinclair Oil & Gas Co., for harassing him to get him to surrender his 10-year lease on a prime retail location.
Owasso city manager malfeasance investigation matter of public interest, court rules
From the Oklahoma Taxpayer Alliance, news on the vindication of the late Owasso City Councilor Patrick Ross in his fight to release a report investigating alleged wrongdoing by City Manager Rodney Ray, whose 20-year tenure ended in 2013 under an ethical cloud but with a hefty severance package from the...
Leftist groups donate $6.3 million to SQ 805
Two out-of-state Leftist organizations contributed a total of $6,336,852.36 in support of State Question 805, the proposed constitutional amendment that will allow temporarily inconvenienced career criminals to return more rapidly to their vocation of victimizing their neighbors. The two organizations, the ACLU and FWD.US, combined to provide 87% of the...
Tulsa Election 2020: Ty Walker for Mayor
What looked like a sleepy re-election run, for Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum IV as recently as the beginning of May, with one declared opponent and a perennial candidate in jail, turned into a free-for-all. As soon as he had some tough decisions to make, the smiley guy that everyone...
Independence Day 2020: Are flags in churches idolatry?
If you're on Twitter you might have concluded that July 4th was Hipster-Pastors-Complaining-About-Flags-in-Churches Day.
Where are Tulsa's candidates?
I've made this plea repeatedly on social media, on Pat Campbell's show on 1170 KFAQ, and here on this blog. And yet I look at the list of candidates after two of the three days of the filing period, and I am amazed to see so many unopposed candidates. Four...
66% of COVID-19 hospitalizations were sheltering at home?
A misreading of a bar chart goes viral, misshaping public perception. Will it distort public policy?
Spanish Flu in Oklahoma, 1918: Avoid osculation
The earliest reference to Spanish flu or influenza in the Oklahoma Historical Society's Digital Newspapers Collection is from page 4 of the August 31, 1918, edition of the Daily Ardmoreite. The flu is still a far-off thing, but near enough to be worthy of some advice: INFLUENZA AND OSCULATION If...
Scott Pendleton for Tulsa school board, Office 5
The Tulsa school district needs drastic reform. Enrollment and attendance are dropping, teachers are fleeing, and more and more schools are closing. In the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2016, the Tulsa district had an Average Daily Membership of 39,167. Four years later, ADM for the first quarter of FY2020...
Bob Gregory: A tribute from his son
After I posted my tribute in memory of Bob Gregory, I received an email from his son, Jason Pitcock, who included a copy of the eulogy he wrote for his dad and delivered at his service. What an amazing life he led! Like Bob Gregory's work, Jason's tribute to his...
Did a stolen Rubens masterpiece hang in a Tulsa art store in 1921?
While looking for something else in the Oklahoma Historical Society's online newspaper database, I came across this startling headline atop the April 17, 1921, edition of the Tulsa Sunday World: PRICELESS PAINTING RECOVERED HERE Beligum Reclaims Ancient Million-Dollar Work of Old Master Bristow Tool Dresser Had Ruebens' Work, 'Descent From...
Minneapolis bans single-family zoning
NOTE: I will be on KFAQ 1170 with Pat Campbell at 8:05 am on Wednesday, October 8, 2019, to discuss this issue, which was mentioned by Minneapolis police union president Lt. Bob Kroll in his interview with Pat Campbell this morning, as well as the City of Tulsa's plan to...
Covington Catholic and the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect
Mollie Z. Hemingway asks, regarding the unraveling of the mainstream media narrative about activist Nathan Phillips and his confrontation last weekend with the young men of Covington Catholic School: The thing I keep thinking about: if many media types are dishonest about reporting contradicted and shown to be dangerously false...
A bidding prayer for Christmas, A. D. 2018
Edited from the version originally published on December 25, 2012 Merry Christmas to anyone who happens by BatesLine today. As a Holland Hall high school student, I attended and sang in the annual service of Christmas lessons and carols at Trinity Episcopal Church, modeled after the annual Christmas Eve service...
Oklahoma State Question 800: Creating the Oklahoma <s>Slush</s> Vision Fund
Oklahoma State Question 800 would add a new section to Article 10 of the Oklahoma Constitution. It would siphon off part of the gross production tax into a fund that the State Treasurer could invest in private businesses. I'm voting NO, AGAINST SQ 800. Here is the new section that...
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