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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...
Farewell KC-10
Pilots and boom operators are sad to contemplate the September 2024 retirement of the KC-10, the aerial refueling tanker based on the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airframe. Though the Air Force operates only 59 KC-10s compared to 396 KC-135s and a planned 128 KC-46s, each of the Extenders packs a punch....
9/11: Twenty-one years
Today is the 21st anniversary of the Islamist attacks on America. We pause to remember the husbands and wives, sons and daughters who died that day and in the years since in the pursuit of the evil movement that perpetrated the attacks. Please take a moment to remember Jayesh Shah,...
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....
Oklahoma school board filing period 2021 <s>underway</s> complete
This is a reworking of a post from two years ago, but it has been updated with current information about open seats and candidates, and there is some new information below. END OF FILING UPDATE, 2021/12/08: 5 of the 17 seats in Tulsa County had only one candidate (Berryhill, Collinsville,...
UK Elections 2019
The United Kingdom will hold a general election tomorrow, Thursday, December 12, 2019. All 650 seats in the House of Commons, the popularly-elected house of the national legislature, will be on the ballot. Voters cast a ballot only for their local Member of Parliament (MP), but the leader of the...
Is Kevin Hern "deceptively liberal"?
Did Kevin Hern really give $17,000 to a PAC that donates to far-left Democrats? Here's the rest of the story.
Run for School Board; filing ends Wednesday
UPDATE Thursday, December 7, 2017: Filing is closed, and here is the final 2018 school board candidate list from the Tulsa County Election Board. Only three of 17 seats will be contested. Shawna Keller, the incumbent from District 4 in the eastern part of the Tulsa school district, has drawn...
Remembering 9/11, 16 years on
I'm late this year taking time to remember the Islamist attacks on America and the husbands and wives, sons and daughters who died that day and in the years since in the pursuit of the evil movement that perpetrated the attacks. My thoughts have been occupied much of the day...
Lukács, the Frankfurt School, cultural terrorism
As we look ahead to launching another child into higher education, I am thinking that the Ivy League schools have ceased to offer an education worthy of the price tag, much less their long and honorable heritage. Case in point: This center-left Yale student's complaint that his Shakespeare course had...
Perspective on Trump's refugee executive order
Here is a link to the text of the executive order on CNN's website. (The White House website has yet to post it.) David French, a columnist at National Review and a vocal opponent of Donald Trump -- so much so that he considered mounting an independent presidential campaign as...
"I Love a Sunburnt Country"
In 1908, just seven years after Australia's federation, a young woman named Dorothea Mackellar wrote a tribute to her homeland. The poem, "My Country," is sometimes called by the first line of its second verse, the beginning of the poem proper after a prefatory stanza. I love a sunburnt country,...
9/11, 15 years on
Time flies. The five-year-old boy I took to the zoo -- and kept away from the TV and the radio -- the day the terrorists flew planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center is on his way back to college after a short visit home. Sonia Shah was...
GOP double-talk on illegal immigration
From the Miami Herald's "Naked Politics" blog: In GOP State of the Union responses, different messages in English and Spanish on immigration. (Highlighting of key differences added.) The Republican Party's immigration split was reflected Tuesday in the two responses hand-picked party members gave -- one in English, one in Spanish...
Run for School Board
Next Monday through Wednesday, December 7 - 9, 2015, is the filing period for public school board positions in Oklahoma. Most school districts will have a single seat, Position No. 1 up for election to a five-year term. Skiatook will have one additional seat on the ballot to fill an...
Hack-proof your mind
Is the current generation of Americans especially susceptible to propaganda and emotional manipulation? Early this past summer, Stella Morabito wrote a column for The Federalist called How to Escape the Age of Mass Delusion. Morabito pondered the startling turnaround in societal norms on sexual identity issues, the backlash against modest...
Fred Thompson, RIP
Tribute image posted on Facebook by National Review I was sad to hear of the passing, on Sunday, of actor, lawyer, and former U. S. Senator Fred Thompson, who was felled by lymphoma at the age of 73. My condolences to his family and friends, with my thanks for...
Remembering 9/11, 14 years on
I am late getting this put together, late taking my own time to remember the events of 14 years ago. Take a moment to remember University of Tulsa and Memorial High School graduate Jayesh Shah, who worked on the 103rd floor of the north tower for Cantor Fitzgerald, and to...
Murrah Building bombing 20th anniversary
What follows is my blog entry from the 10th anniversary. My wife and I had visited the memorial a few days before, when we were in town for the Oklahoma Republican Convention. I don't think I can improve upon what was written by those who were there. I've updated links...
Readings on jihad and crusades
ADDED at the top because of its valuable info: Thomas F. Madden reviews The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam by Jonathan Riley-Smith On September 11, 2001, there were only a few professional historians of the Crusades in America. I was the one who was not retired. As a result, my phone...
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