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Christopher Alexander: Finding patterns, and God, in urban design
From the BatesLine Bookshelf, a very occasional feature on authors and books that have influenced me: Christopher Alexander was an architect, but he might more appropriately have been called a philosopher of the built environment. He spent his career trying to describe and name the qualities that make a place...
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...
GT Bynum's transgender executive order
I will be on with Pat Campbell on AM 1170 KFAQ tomorrow morning, August 29, 2019, just after the 8 a.m. news, to discuss Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV's executive order adding gender identity and gender expression to the city's non-discrimination policy. (UPDATE: Here's the podcast of my August...
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...
TaxCutsNow rally today in Tulsa
The TaxCutsNow bus tour is making a stop today, September 12, 2017, in Tulsa, from 12:50-1:20 pm at the Crowne Plaza Hotel north of 81st & Lewis, just west across the street from the Mabee Center, for a rally in support of tax relief for small business owners. The tour...
Nat Hentoff and how Jesse Jackson sold his soul
A few weeks ago, Nat Hentoff, a long-time columnist for the Village Voice, died. Despite the fact that Hentoff was a political liberal and an atheist, he was remembered fondly by many conservative Christians, particularly for his principled opposition to abortion and his defense of the freedom of speech, even...
Road conditions maps, good and bad
I had occasion Saturday afternoon to travel to Joplin with my dad (a seasonal celebrity), who was making an appearance at the Sam's Club there. There was freezing rain in the forecast, so I spent some time before leaving town looking for current weather and road condition information. Getting current...
The fake REAL ID panic
UPDATE 2016/10/14: Oklahoma, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maine, and South Carolina have been reclassified as non-compliant and have been granted a grace period only until January 15, 2017. Alaska, California, Oregon, and Virginia have a limited extension until June 6, 2017, and American Samoa, Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Northern Marianas,...
Back from Israel
By now, the loyal readers that have bothered to hang around will not be surprised by long gaps between blog entries. Work and family obligations have been preempting time and energy to write for publication here or anywhere The most recent silence was about family, but much more joy than...
Celebrate school choice with a snowcone in the park tomorrow
The Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (OCPA) and Americans for Prosperity Foundation are celebrating the 102nd birthday of Nobel Laureate and educational-choice champion Milton Friedman with snowcones at Tulsa's Mohawk Park Pavilion 2, tomorrow, Thursday, July 31, 2014, from 4 pm to 6 pm. It's a come-and-go event for the...
Mary Fallin: What's holding her back from bold leadership?
Here we are, the reddest state in the nation: Republican governor, overwhelmingly Republican legislature. (36-12 in the Senate, 72-29 in the House.) But instead of tightening the state's belt, as their constituents have had to do, instead of cutting tax rates significantly so that Oklahomans will be able to keep...
MIT prof Patrick Winston lectures on How to Speak
January at MIT is neither fall semester nor spring semester. It's the Independent Activities Period (IAP). Students can choose to stay back in their hometown, travel, or come back to campus, and once on campus there are hundreds of activities to choose from. Nearly every department offers for-credit courses in...
Vote for Jarrod and Jaime in the Union Pacific 150 jingle contest
The Union Pacific Railroad is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year, and as part of the celebration, the UP is asking people to try their hand at remaking the "Great Big Rollin' Railroad" jingle used in early '70s UP TV ads. The grand prize is $15,000, and there's a monthly prize...
Francis McGrath, the definition of a city manager
If you look in the AP Stylebook to find out whether to capitalize city manager*, you find his name as the example, the paradigm: "City Manager Francis McGrath." When people ask me what I think about Tulsa changing to a council-manager form of government, I think of Francis McGrath. For...
The 9/11 7-Eleven; the blocked <em>Path to 9/11</em>
While we again mourn the dead and recall the shock of 9/11/2001, we mustn't forget the path that led to 9/11 -- the Islamist preachers and philosophers who inspired the attacks, the jihadis who carried them out, and the mixture of immigration laxity and political correctness that enabled the attacks...
Oklahoma municipal elections, school runoffs today, April 5, 2011
Oklahoma towns and cities with a statutory charter (which is to say, no charter at all; they are governed by the default provisions of Oklahoma Statutes Title 11) and some charter cities have elections today, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Some school board seats will have a runoff, if none of...
School election 2011 tomorrow; polling places shifted for snow
Voters across Oklahoma will elect school board members and vote on school bond issues tomorrow, Tuesday, February 8, 2011. Snow from the February 1 record storm plus the extra snowfall since then continues to make streets hazardous. Many Tulsa polling locations are still very hard to reach by car. To...
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...
"Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" cartoonist goes into hiding
Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris is "going ghost" -- "moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity" at the insistence of the FBI, according to a story a September 15, 2010, story in the Seattle Weekly. (Via GWSchulzCIR on Twitter.) She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our...
<em>Oklahoma!</em> OK, but Discoveryland could use a spruce-up
Some long-time friends, a couple of families from our church small group who left Tulsa for other cities some years ago, came back to town this weekend and suggested that we all go out to Discoveryland for their production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! and for the pre-show cattleman's ranch...
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