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Tulsa and Oklahoma historical maps and aerial photos
What was here? Who owned it? What did it look like? There are a number of resources available for reconstructing Oklahoma's geographical past, and they're easier to use than ever. These are my go-tos when researching the history of a neighborhood or answering questions about the past. This is an...
SB962 to move school board elections to the fall
SB962, which would move school board general elections to November, has cleared the Oklahoma House of Representatives Rules Committee and is awaiting action by the whole house. The bill does not alter terms of office and does not make the elections partisan. The bill does not change the date for...
Nigel Farage speaking in Tulsa, May 13, 2021
Brexit leader Nigel Farage will speak in Tulsa, part of America's Comeback Tour, presented by FreedomWorks
Tulsa City Council preview, 2021/05/05: 36th & MLK TIF
AFTER-ACTION REVIEW: All items on the regular council meeting agenda were approved without dissent. There was only one controversy: Gary Brinkner, vice chairman of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, objected to special event application for the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival, which would block off Greenwood and Archer for three...
Cornhill Magazine and the Internet Archive's time machine
My trouble has always been that I find too many different things interesting. The vast collection of printed material in the public domain and available on the internet is like a time machine that beckons one to enter and explore. A Pocket article (originally from Narratively), advertised on a new...
Tulsa School Board 2020 campaign contributions and expenditures
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...
2019 Census estimate changes congressional reapportionment projections
New population estimates indicate that Texas may gain three seats and Florida two seats in the US House of Representatives after next year's US Census, while New York and California may lose a seat each. A handful of other states, mainly in the West and Sun Belt are projected to...
Vision Tulsa, sheriff special election: BatesLine ballot card
Here are my recommended votes in the Tulsa County special election on April 5, 2016, for the unexpired term for Tulsa County Sheriff and county and municipal sales tax propositions. Links lead to more detailed information or earlier blog entries. (This entry may change as I decide to add...
Dam hazards: Ohio cities removing low-water dams
It's very typical of Tulsa to embrace an urban development fad just as other cities are rethinking and reversing course. (Case in point: No sooner did we close off Main Street for a pedestrian mall than other cities began noticing that pedestrian malls killed retail businesses and started reopening pedestrianized...
Chambers of Commerce are the same all over
In the midst of an entertaining rant about supply and demand and journalism (which includes an even-more entertaining anecdote by Hunter S. Thompson about a period in which Thompson "was a sports columnist for one paper in the morning, sports editor for another in the afternoon, and at night [he]...
Silent films and pipe organs this Saturday and next Friday
Tulsans will have two chances this month to sample the movie-going experience as it was almost a century ago, thanks to the Sooner State Chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society. This coming Saturday, January 9, 2016, at 11 a.m., Circle Cinema will screen the 1927 film It, starring Clara...
Boehner and the stalking horses
Oklahoma 1st District Congressman Jim Bridenstine has reversed himself and announced his opposition to John Boehner's re-election as Speaker. But other Republicans are sticking with Bridenstine's earlier analysis that Boehner cannot be beat. But critics of the anti-Boehner rebellion who say the announced challengers -- Louis Gohmert of Texas and...
Ronald Reagan, "A Time for Choosing," 50 years ago today
On October 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan gave this televised speech in support of Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my...
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...
Coburn aide: Tea Party winning, even if "Tea Party candidates" aren't
John Hart, Sen. Tom Coburn's communications director, attempts to help the mainstream media understand what's happening with the Tea Party movement, and in the process encourages Tea Partiers to be of good cheer, notwithstanding the renomination of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: For those keeping score, it is now roughly...
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...
Bridenstine votes against Boehner for speaker
Color me surprised and impressed. Newly sworn-in Oklahoma 1st District Congressman Jim Bridenstine was one of 12 Republicans who did not vote to re-elect incumbent Speaker of the House John Boehner. (I exclude Boehner from that number, as the sitting speaker customarily does not vote.) Bridenstine and two other congressmen,...
Is our state in a fiscal death spiral?
Forbes staffer William Baldwin has a list of 11 states in a "fiscal death spiral" because the number of takers exceeds the number of makers and because of high levels of debt and unfunded pension liabilities. For those 11 states, Baldwin says, if you have to live there, fine, but...
Cherokee Maiden (not 1/32, the real deal)
Here's Merle Haggard, singing lead and doing his best imitation of Bob Wills' hollers, with three Texas Playboys: Johnny Gimble playing fiddle, Tiny Moore (next to Merle, holding a fiddle) and Eldon Shamblin (playing his Stratocaster) singing harmony. Let's send this one out to Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren in Massachusetts. Tiny...
The anthropomorphization of the GOP
This post has been percolating in my brain for a couple of months, and the topic for even longer, but other business has prevented its completion until now. As I read conservative blogs, I see a great deal of understandable frustration with different aspects of Republican Party politics: The National...
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