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Bobby Koefer, steel guitar wizard, RIP
Steel guitarist Bobby Koefer, one of the last surviving members of the Texas Playboys who recorded and toured with Bob Wills, has died at the age of 95. Here is Bobby's obituary, written by western swing historian Buddy McPeters for publication here at BatesLine: John Robert 'Bobby' Koefer, passed away...
Do all cultures share the same values?
A recent tweet from Jeremy Tate, founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test (CLT): Classical education is fundamental an educational [sic] it what it means to be fully human. It is not a politically conservative alternative to the already politically hijacked mainstream education. Instead, it is an education in...
Resources on believers' baptism
A rain-filled mikveh (ritual immersion pool) at Korazim National Park, Israel. Photo © 2023 by Michael D. Bates, all rights reserved. Here are a couple of useful resources that I recently encountered, one very old, one new, in support of the view that Christian baptism is for those only...
Re-elect Governor Kevin Stitt
Oklahoma hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2006. Since 2004, every county in Oklahoma has given a plurality of its vote in every presidential election to the Republican nominee. Voter registration, a lagging indicator, continues to trend toward the GOP across the state, most strongly in southeastern Oklahoma,...
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,...
St. John's College profiles alumnus Timothy Carney
St. John's College is famous as the college that pioneered the Great Books curriculum in 1937. Still known as "The New Program," the single track takes all students through the progression of western literature, mathematics, philosophy, science, and music, through the authors and works in which the great insights of...
2018 Tulsa district judge elections
Here are the nuts and bolts of how we elect judges in Tulsa and Pawnee counties.
Santa Fe, Taos, Aspen and back
Late last night we returned from a quick five-day, nearly 2,000-mile trip to Aspen, Colorado, by way of Amarillo, Santa Fe, Taos, Buena Vista, the Great Sand Dunes, Capulin Volcano, and Black Mesa. We packed a lot into a short trip. Some notes: Downtown El Reno has a very nice...
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...
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...
Camille Paglia on transgenderism: Personal experience, common sense
The transgender debate is very personal to cultural critic Camille Paglia, professor of literature at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, as she tells Washington Free Beacon writer Sam Dorman, in a highly-quotable interview about her latest book Free Women, Free Men. Paglia, a Catholic-raised atheist lesbian who nevertheless reveres...
The purpose of a political party
We are at interesting point in Oklahoma's political history. Never before has the Republican Party ever been so dominant, but never before has it been in such danger of betraying the ideals that won it its dominant position. The task of the moment is not merely to win elections, but...
Jay Cronley, RIP
Longtime Tulsa newspaper columnist, novelist, and screenwriter Jay Cronley has died at the age of 73. Cronley was an institution on the front of the City/State section of the Tulsa Tribune, then made the transition to the Tulsa World after the World's publisher purchased and shuttered the Tribune. Cronley's curmudgeonly...
News and comment from the presidential race
Bureaucrats in the tank for Hillary, Trump's policy wonks quitting, why Ron Paul isn't backing the Libertarian ticket -- after the jump....
Benedict Option in Oklahoma
Oklahoma's Clear Creek Abbey and the lay community growing around it are featured in a recent story about the "Benedict Option" -- an approach to living faithfully in Christian community as the broader culture transitions from being supportive of and accommodating to Christianity to being hostile and aggressive. The term...
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...
100 years ago: Ottoman Muslims begin purge of Christians
Yet another grim commemoration. Stella Morabito, granddaughter of survivors, writes in The Federalist: What You Should Know about the Armenian Genocide. April 24 marks the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, a massive tragedy that brutally snuffed out the lives of up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians in the Ottoman Empire....
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...
2014 judicial elections: General thoughts
Tomorrow morning, Monday, October 27, 2014, at 8 a.m., I'll be on 1170 KFAQ discussing judicial races on the Pat Campbell Show. (UPDATE: Here is the podcast of my conversation about judicial races with Pat Campbell, Eddie Huff, and Tulsa Beacon publisher Charlie Biggs. Here is a direct link to...
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