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Saint Francis parental access policy: An open letter to Bishop Konderla
Saint Francis Health System is cutting off access for parents of teenagers to their children's medical records as of June 15. Why is a Catholic Christian organization taking these steps intended to enable teen experimentation with sex, drugs, and gender identity?
Coronavirus notes: 2020/03/16
News and opinion on the coronavirus plague, in reverse chronological order (mostly): Here is a coronavirus COVID-19 dashboard and interactive map showing current numbers of cases from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Here is the spreadsheet that feeds the map. As of 7 a.m....
Why streetcars survived in Boston
It's a commonplace sentiment among fans of streetcars that a cabal of car and tire manufacturers bought out city streetcar systems one by one and shut them down, replacing the wonderful old PCC trolley cars with diesel-belching buses. In reality, there were many factors undermining the popularity and financial feasibility...
Inhofe: Gas tax isn't a tax
From the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog: Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R., Okla.), who just took the reins of the panel, said he is open to considering raising the gas tax as a way to help pay for the dwindling Highway Trust Fund that keeps...
The food truck approach to public transit
Many of my hipster urbanist friends are very fond of food trucks. Food trucks today offer a wide variety of cuisines and a wide range of sophistication and price. The mobility of the kitchen allows the restaurant to go where the customer is. Better food can be offered for...
Do new OKC skyscrapers have to go downtown? A Parisian possibility
Steve Lackmeyer has a story in today's Oklahoman about the dilemma facing Oklahoma City as surface parking downtown is being replaced with new development. Now, [Stage Center] is set to be torn down to make way for a tower rising at least 20 stories into the skyline. And if one...
TulsaNow mayoral surveys online
Grassroots civic group TulsaNow sent a questionnaire to the candidates for Mayor of Tulsa; Bill Christiansen and Kathy Taylor responded. There were multiple attempts to contact incumbent Dewey Bartlett Jr, but he did not respond. Question topics include delays in PLANiTULSA implementation, police department scandals and rising costs, park demolitions,...
MIT shooters, Boston Marathon bombers: one dead, one in custody
I was up late last night anyway, but when my wife told about reports of a shooting at MIT, I tuned in to Twitter and the live streaming coverage of WCVB in Boston as they took phone calls from frightened residents of a neighborhood in Watertown where shots were being...
Fallin rejects Obamacare exchange, Medicaid expansion
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin announced today that Oklahoma will not create a state-based Obamacare exchange or participate in Obamacare's Medicaid expansion: For the past few months, my staff and I have worked with other lawmakers, Oklahoma stakeholders and health care experts across the country to determine the best course of...
Iowa caucuses: How Ron Paul can "win" and lose in the same night
Several recent poll results suggest that Texas Congressman Ron Paul could be in for a good result this coming Tuesday, the night that Iowa voters gather for Republican precinct caucuses, the first step in a series of conventions that will lead to the selection of delegates and alternates to...
Campaign finance transparency update
Thirteen of the candidates running for Tulsa City Council accepted my challenge to publicize any contributions they received after the pre-primary reporting deadline (listed alphabetically per district): Jason Trent, District 1, Democrat Jeannie Cue, District 2, Republican David W. Bell, District 3, Republican Roscoe Turner, District 3, Democrat Maria Barnes,...
Tulsa Metro Chamber's 2011 election manifesto
Here is the Tulsa Metro Chamber's "candidate priorities" -- effectively the Chamber's "manifesto" for the 2011 City of Tulsa election. Candidates seeking the endorsement of and funding from the Chamber's PAC (TulsaBizPac) were interviewed and questioned about these issues. I have added bold font for emphasis on the most controversial...
Snowbound
Thanks be to God: We are all cozy and home. Power, cable, phone, and internet all work. Plenty of food in the fridge and pantry. I made my last trips to the store and the gas station at about 10 Monday night, just as sharp ice pellets began to fall...
City best place to ride out societal collapse?
Back in the 1990s, companies spent billions correcting the Y2K bug, and many worried that mass chaos would ensue when buggy software failed on 1/1/2000, disrupting banking systems, financial markets, power grids, and food distribution. Many believed the best way to ride out the impending crisis was rural self-sufficiency: enough...
Links elsewhere 2010/06/22
Man of the West looks at the Leftist track record and wonders why America's leftists "champion the same policies that have brought whole nations to their knees and criticize their opponents for their alleged insensitivity to the poor--the poor that leftist policies indisputably create in massive numbers!" He also offers...
Cheaper to buy all the riders a Prius?
Via Gerard Vanderleun, I found a provocative blog entry on the cost of light rail and other forms of fixed-route mass transit: When Phoenix was building its light rail system, I made the following two-part bet: I could take all the money spent on construction and easily buy a Prius...
PLANiTULSA: Which scenario is rosiest?
An edited version of this column was published in the May 21-27, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here's my blog entry linking to the article. The date of the PLANiTULSA scenario rollout was May 12, 2009, not March...
PLANiTULSA "Which Way Tulsa?" rollout tonight at Cain's
Tonight at Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main, from 6 to 8, the PLANiTULSA "Which Way Tulsa?" survey will be unveiled tonight. Four different scenarios for future growth and development will be on display, and Tulsans will have the opportunity, online or on paper, to rank the scenarios according to preference....
PLANiTULSA scenario launch
An edited version of this column was published in the May 7 - 13, 2009, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. Here is the blog entry I wrote at the time, linking to the column, and a blog entry reporting on the rollout. The published version is not available online. Posted...
Oklahoma roundup 2009/04/13
Of recent note in local blogs: At Choice Remarks, Brandon Dutcher salutes State Rep. Jabar Shumate (D-Tulsa) for his efforts to expand school choice with a bill that will allow tribal governments to sponsor charter schools. Tulsa Chigger has posted a 1934 Chicago Tribune cartoon lampooning the New Deal, headlined...
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