An Impression of Oklahoma

On Wednesday, May 28, Sue Nahm and Alex Tsai set out from Cleveland, Ohio for Santa Monica, California. They documented their trip, including Oklahoma, in their weblog. This is part of what they had to say about Oklahoma:

Once we crossed the border into Oklahoma, the flat lands and blue skies beckoned, while Tom Petty sang 'Into the Great Wide Open' on the stereo. The speed limit hit 75 miles per hour, which meant that we could drive 82 miles per hour without any fear of harassment from the 5-0. We stopped briefly in Vinita, OK for blue raspberry ice shavings and to order French fries at the world's largest McDonald's just outside the town of Vinita.

The sun started disappearing as we rolled into Tulsa, OK. All of the radio stations are playing country music, which isn't half bad. We picked up dinner at a local cookie-cutter Tex-Mex chain restaurant, ate dinner in the hotel room while watching the news intently for more details on the Laci Peterson case, and slept for 9 hours.

America's heartland is a strange place. Billboards reading JESUS IS LORD and PORNOGRAPHY DESTROYS EVERYONE are common. Across the street from Oral Roberts University, the monstrous Victory Christian Fellowship Center (advertising the 'Word Explosion 2003' conference) sits in all of its triumphalistic glory. That was the largest church building we spotted on our cross-country tour, unfortunately. We didn't get to see any of the megachurches that are said to populate the landscape of the south and midwest.

Not too far off the mark except that elsewhere they describe Eastern Oklahoma as full of red dirt and wheat fields. So they mixed up Western Oklahoma with Eastern Oklahoma - most people "from away" can't even locate the central states of the USA on a labeled map.

Cam Edwards on Bush and Democrats

You can count me among those disappointed in Bush policies like the USA Patriot Act, the lack of control over deficit spending, and even the No Child Left Behind Act (an attempt to appease the NEA while trying to improve public schools). That being said, I look at the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates and don't see one I would feel comfortable supporting.

I too fear the choices don't look too good at this point. I hope a hero emerges. I know it won't happen but I wish Colin Powell would give it a try. Will we ever find a wise pragmatist with vision?

Safe Medicines' Misleading Ads hit Oklahoma

In the last week on Oklahoma radio stations I've heard advertisements sponsored by a group called "Safe Medicines". The ads warn consumers of the danger of imported medicines and urges them to use local, American pharmacies. The ad I heard urges Oklahomans to call Oklahoma Congressman Brad Carson to ask him to protect American consumers from questionable imported medicines. Only if you know what's behind this ad would you know how outrageous it is.

Nowhere in the ad does "Safe Medicines" mention Canada - but the importation or re-importation of American, Canadian and British drugs from Canada is what "Safe Medicines" is trying to stop. Millions of Americans are buying their medicines from Canada for the simple reason that the price they pay for a drug from Canada is much lower than the price we pay for the same drug in the USA. Canada puts caps on drug prices - we don't. US pharmacies and drug companies do not like this trend - and rather than lower their prices in the US their greedy solution is to cut off Americans' access to drugs from Canada.

Take a look at Safe Medicines' website. Who are their sponsors? The National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. While these may be fine organizations they are not people who stay up late at night worrying if your Grandmother can afford her medicine.

This is a classic case of businesses masquerading as a consumer group and using misleading advertising to scare consumers into doing the businesses' bidding. Rather than call Brad Carson and ask him to help cut off our access to medicines call him at (918) 341-9336 and ask him to protect your right to buy drugs from Canada - or whereever you want to.

Shame on the American drug industry for their greediness and their dishonest tactics. See what AARP has to say here.

Oklahoma Iraqis

Many Iraqis got their education in Oklahoma. A recent story in the Washington Post qoutes one of those Iraqis who was helping the Post reporter with his story on hunting down bad guys in Iraq:

Eventually I ask my translator what he thinks. A former Iraqi Airways flight engineer who studied in Oklahoma, Naseer Nori has at this point assisted me with more than 15 hours of interviews with Azzawi. We have visited the ex-cop's family twice.

Dish vs Cable

I have to laugh when I see those Cox Cable ads that feature disgruntled dish subscribers whose programming connection fails when "the dog wags his tail". I have Cox cable service and the outages are so frequent I'm afraid I've missed many of their anti-dish ads. Channels are so frequently unavailable I'm wondering is satellite dish could be any less reliable.

Tony Blair for President

Did you catch UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's appearance on Capitol Hill today? What a class act. Watching him debate in Parliament is even more fun. Blair is incredibly articulate - even if I didn't like most of his policies I would wish him as our President. Can you imagine a debate between Bush and Blair?

What pains me is how awfully bad Bush and Rumsfeld have treated Blair - their best foreign friend.

Unwanted Spam Faxes

It's bad enough getting all the unwanted spam in our mailboxes but can you believe the lowlifes that send advertisements to your fax machine? I don't know how these creeps get people's personal fax numbers but I know I don't give my fax number to ANYONE but family - still, I get an average of one unsolicited ad by fax at home every day. Today I recieved one advertising a "Rapid Weight Loss program by "Dr. Michael Bouchard". There is no address or no way to get off their fax list - at least the sender does not identify how to. They do give an 800 number to call to order their junk but I'm too wary of calling to tell them to stop sending me this stuff - I've heard too many stories of people unwittingly getting charged telephones fees by calling certain numbers.

This is worse than spam because it uses up expensive ink and paper. It should clearly be illegal.

But, I did file a complaint with the FCC. You can easily do this in about 3 minutes at the FCC's online complaint center.

A Lieberman in Tulsa

I received a postcard announcing the appearance of Hadassah Lieberman at the Teamster's Local 523 in Tulsa on July 22nd. Apparently, Jose Geise is the state director for Lieberman. Is Hadassah Joe's wife? Lieberman's sister lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

Lieberman seems to be a principled man but I'm not sure I care for some of his policies. His dedication to the crucial American principle of the separation of church and state is very shakey and at times he seems at least as interested in the welfare of Israel as he does in America's - and the interests of the two are often not the same.

JC Watts in Nigeria

Former Oklahoma Congressman JC Watts showed up in Nigeria when President Bush visited the country last week. Watts just had to be there with the President so he could impress his Nigerian business contacts that he still has stroke with the Prez. Even while Watts was traveling to Nigeria as a Congressman (at gov't expense) the word is that he was trying to negotiate business deals there with, or on behalf of, a Tulsa-based energy company. As a private person Watts is free to do business where he can - the question is, did he do it while he was travelling in an official capacity for the people of the United States? The next question is, can you do business in Nigeria without paying illegal bribes to Nigerian officials? I don't think so.

Tulsa's No-Nicks Get Early Start

The Tulsa version of Oklahoma City's MAPS project is finally ready to go to the ballot in September. It took forever to get the package ready, partly because the Mayor LaFortune was so dis-engaged and partly because it was a grassroots effort. But the anti-tax Ludites got an early start in putting out their "Vote No" signs. I doubt they even know what's in the package Tulsans will be voting on.

The anti-tax and anti-investment crowd in Tulsa has defeated the last two bond issues brought to the citizens and have, as a group, caused the downward spiral of Tulsa over the past decade. Tulsa used to be the proud and progressive city that Oklahoma City envied. But Oklahoma City has invested heavily in itself over the same decade and has blown Tulsa away. If Tulsa doesn't overcome these selfish anti-communitarians in September the city might as well give up hope of ever pulling itself up by its bootstraps.

A Tulsa friend of mine told me last week she's determined to leave for Dallas if the bond issues are voted down this time. As more and more young professionals leave Tulsa for more progressive cities the negative nabobs comprise an ever greater percentage of what remains of Tulsa.

The Great Wall of Tulsa

Last year, the state Transportation Department bought and demolished dozens of houses along I-44 between Yale and Sheridan in Tulsa. The reason for demolishing all these very nice homes at taxpayer's expense was supposedly to widen I-44. In the neighborhood today I see that rather than widen the highway they built a wall where the houses used to be, landscaped the area, planted trees and built a walkway to nowhere. The area that used to have beautiful homes and many families in it is now occupied by homeless people and, judging by the graffiti on the wall, gangs. The highway can't be widened unless they tear out the wall and trees they planted. The question is, why are we paying for this kind of idiotic expenditure? I see no beneficial aspects of this expensive boondoogle at all. Was this a case of a contractor needing some business at state expense?

Tours for "People of Color"


Is this niche marketing or racial divisiveness? I was surprised to receive an e-mail inviting me to subscribe to the "Ethnic Traveler" newsletter - an online publication that "caters to the dynamic (travel) tastes of people of color". Maybe this is something I just missed, but I didn't know that "people of color" (why not just say "non-white" if that's the artificial and exclusionary concept you have in mind) traveled differently than Caucasians. Do Asians have special Asian travel things to do? Do Africans do special Africany things when they travel? Do whites take different airlines than others? What happens if someone advertises a newsletter for white travelers? Isn't this sort of nonsense just racism?

Steak and Potatoes Radio


Commercial radio in Oklahoma is awful. Commercial radio in America is awful. That is unless you like hip-hop, country, Christian, or a narrow spectrum of talk radio. Awful in choice and diversity that is. It's the steak and potatoes of the airwaves.

Just as an experiment I scanned the radio spectrum a few minutes ago and before I gave up I found a choice of several hip-hop or "urban" music stations (gag), a couple of country and western music options (ugh), three channels with preachers hollering at me (who listens to this?), two Christian music stations, four very conservative talk show stations, and several stations playing OLD rock and popular music. Only National Public Radio (NPR) had something to interest me. No cutting-edge music available at all. No politically moderate and in-depth talk shows to listen to. Certainly nothing from the political left on talk radio - not that I'd like that much more than the far right stuff.

I'm glad hip-hop lovers and rightwing folks have their thing to listen to but - What is a politically-moderate person interested in cutting edge music supposed to do? Don't look for help from Clear Channel Radio. Either listen to NPR for synaptic stimulation or go to the Internet. I go to Spinner.com - where you can find everything from Reggae to New Age to Europop to Electronica to listen to. When I can afford it I'll get one of those satellite radios for my car so I can have some choices. I just hope that Clear Channel doesn't buy it and homogenize it before I can experience it.

Easy to be spoiled

I bought a simple bamboo steamer recently. It was made in China. It's hard to find a "Made in USA" bamboo steamer. In reading the instructions on the side of the box it came in I was puzzled by the following English:

"The bamboo steam-cooker can acheieve (sic) better cooking by electric apparature. This steam-cooker set includes a pot for boiling water so that the pot can be heated by gas stove, or magnetice stove."

The operation instructions further advised:

"This steam-cooker made of nature bamboo. In 1st time. Boiling water remains light-brown water color due nature bamboo, no harm health." "If no clean, it will easy to be spoiled."

I was spoiled long ago but I just love reading instructions in English obviously written by non-English speakers. As more and more foreign companies get savvy and have their prose checked by native English speakers it's more difficult to find these gems.

Supreme Court Opens Gates of Hell!!

Well, at least that's what our pastor said in church last Sunday when he was warning us that the Court's striking down of Texas' anti-sodomy law was just the beginning. He said if we hope to stop the legalization of "homosecshul" marriage we had better get serious about only voting for political candidates that will openly declare allegiance to Jesus Christ.

Pastor Billy was just one of the alarmed that I heard from. I listen to talk radio when driving because it is so irritating it keeps me awake - and the coming of the abomination of homosexual marriage was all I heard on the radio this week. Laura Ingram was foaming at the mike on her show tonight - telling me I'd better help get some REAL hardcore conservatives on the Supreme Court.

I find this amusing to some degree - that so-called conservatives would feel the need to try to regulate what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms. What hypocrites! I don't care what other people do with their bodies as long as they don't hurt others. Gay marriage? Bring it on. It's their right to marry who they please - except I draw the line at animals since who can tell whether it's consensual?

Just a note - have you ever considered the fact that a certain percentage of every animal population is gay? Seagulls have the highest average of gays in their population. It happens, so chill out homophobes.

Hargis Dissed, Biboists Outraged

Biboists in Oklahoma are up in arms over the dissing of Burns Hargis by Governor Brad Henry. As you may recall, Biboists regard the sayings of Burns Hargis as the revealed truth and thus have a high regard for the man that comes to us in the forms of a banker, TV pundit, and Chamber of Commerce official. The offense of the Governor was to agree to appear as keynote speaker at a Hargis-hosted OKC Chamber fund-raising function earlier this year - and then to fail to appear. And to offer no apology, no explanation.

Of course for Henry to fail to show for an event is no great surprise. He does that very often. But, Burns Hargis, was on Henry's Transition Team - a Republican that stuck his neck out to help Democrat Henry. The thanks Hargis gets? Public embarrassment at being stood up by the Governor.

The buzz around Oklahoma is that this governor is the worst in memory at sheer rudeness as exhibited in unkept promises, missed events, very late arrivals, and dissed supporters. Many are overheard saying that the only work this Governor does is to work overtime to rub everyone the wrong way.

A Letter from Walter Cronkite

A "personal" appeal from Walter Cronkite arrived in my mailbox today. "Well, it's about time!", I thought to myself. Walter's letter told me of his disapproval of the Religious Right but singled out Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for attack because they blamed 9-11 on America's ho-hum attitude toward gay marriage, feminism, etc. Walter pointed out that the two Christian Coalition leaders had also, in essence, blamed God for inflicting 9-11 on us in retribution. Walter said he didn't agree with these two characters and said they did not represent most "people of faith" (is this the politically correct way to say "religious folks"?) like him.

Walter was writing on behalf of an organization called the Interfaith Alliance and invited me to contribute to the group's effort to promote an acceptance of all faiths and an agenda of loving kindness rather than a hateful political agenda dressed in religious clothes. Checking the organization's website I see where the Oklahoma City and Tulsa chapters of this group are having a seminar in OKC on Monday, June 29th.

I'm with Walter on this issue with one request - what do they have to say about people of no faith? Do such people exist in equal standing?

Mr. Man on the Street

Check out Cam Edwards blog about the "Mr. Man on the Street" - a fellow that the New York Times has featured a hundred times as a random, "man on the street". Apparently, being a "man on the street" is a full-time job, at least in NYC.

I was sorry to see Brill's Content go out of business. It was a mag that kept an eye on the media and watchdoged the Fifth Estate. Now we have blogging to do that - but I still miss Brill's.

The media needs watching. Last year the Daily Oklahoman featured an article about a state agency that was full of errors. I was interested to see how misinformation spreads through the media unchecked. In the case I am aware of several small city newspapers both editorialized on the basis of the DO's bad information and reprinted the misinformation without lifting a finger to confirm any of the "information" with the people misrepresented in the DO story. Even the Tulsa World used the misinformation in the Daily Oklahoman for the basis of an editorial that just further spread the errors as fact. None of the newspapers bothered to check out the story or the DO's story before spreading the errors. After the agency contacted the newspapers to alert them to the weighty errors did they correct the story? What do you think?

Are you with "the Family"?

The interesting Juzcuz brings to our attention a couple of sources on a bizarre story of intrigue that touches on Oklahoma's US Senators Inhofe and Nickles as well as ex-Congressman Largent. The story is that a secretive Christian group of powerful executives and government leaders runs a house in Washington where some Congressmen, including Largent, have lived and that seems to have a strange agenda among world leaders. Much of the story is said to be covered in a Harpers story by a writer named Sharlett. It's almost too bizarre to believe - and I'll be checking it out more thoroughly. In the meantime, you might want to read the links for yourself.

In an earlier blog I told you about hearing the Reverend Billy Joe Daugherty tell a huge audience that Senator Inhofe sets up meetings with leaders in Africa on the pretense of discussing bilateral matters and then uses the meeting to try to "bring the African leader to the Lord". If Senator Inhofe does this, in his capacity as US Senator, it is outrageous. If any of the facts in these articles on "the Family" are correct, it is outrageous, and downright scary. Ok, Oklahoma media, are you going to set on this one?

No Thanks AEP

When American Electric Power was allowed to buy out Public Service Company of Oklahoma a few years ago I thought it meant bad news for Oklahoma and consumers. I still think that. Not only did AEP eliminate jobs in Oklahoma and move them out of state they virtually eliminated PSO's long history of involvement in promoting economic development in Oklahoma. They used to contribute a lot to the state's efforts to recruit new investment into the state - now that assistance is almost non-existent. On top of that, their service is poor - at least their online service is poor. Try to pay your bill online. You can't do it without signing up for a third-party service called Check-Free that will debit your bank account "automatically" when your bill is due. I learned long ago (in Internet years) not to give any company carte blanc to debit my bank account. You can bet that when you end your service account with that company that they WON'T notify the guy/gal that debits your bank account. You always have to go back and forth with such companies to try to straighten out the screwed up accounting.

With SWBell at least it is easy to go online any pay your bill without giving the company the right to drain your bank account as they see fit. Allowing Ohio-based AEP to take over PSO was a big mistake. Thanks Corporation Commission!