BatesLine Oklahoma headlines

True history of the two million acres opened for settlement in the April 22, 1889, Land Run. No, the land wasn't stolen. American taxpayers paid millions for it, twice.

An essay from 2012. If you want to understand why the people who call the shots don't get much public criticism, you need to know about the people I call the yacht guests. "They staff the non-profits and the quangos, they run small service-oriented businesses that cater to the yacht owners, they're professionals who have the yacht owners as clients, they work as managers for the yacht owners' businesses. They may not be wealthy, but they're comfortable, and they have access to opportunities and perks that are out of financial reach for the folks who aren't on the yacht. Their main job is not to rock the boat, but from time to time, they're called upon to defend the yacht and its owners against perceived threats."

Introducing Tulsa's Complacent City Council

From 2011: "One of the things that seemed to annoy City Hall bureaucrats about the old council was their habit of raising new issues to be discussed, explored, and acted upon. From the bureaucrats' perspective, this meant more work and their own priorities displaced by the councilors' pet issues.... [The new councilors are] content to be spoon-fed information from the mayor, the department heads, and the members and staffers of authorities, boards, and commissions. The Complacent Councilors won't seek out alternative perspectives, and they'll be inclined to dismiss any alternative points of view that are brought to them by citizens, because those citizens aren't 'experts.' They'll vote the 'right' way every time, and the department heads, authority members, and mayoral assistants won't have to answer any questions that make them uncomfortable."

BatesLine has presented over a dozen stories on the history of Tulsa's Greenwood district, focusing on the overlooked history of the African-American city-within-a-city from its rebuilding following the 1921 massacre, the peak years of the '40s and '50s, and its second destruction by government through "urban renewal" and expressway construction. The linked article provides an overview, my 2009 Ignite Tulsa talk, and links to more detailed articles, photos, films, and resources.

From 2015: "Having purged the cultural institutions and used them to brainwash those members of the public not firmly grounded in the truth, the Left is now purging the general public. You can believe the truth, but you have to behave as if the Left's delusions are true.

"Since the Left is finally being honest about the reality that some ethical viewpoint will control society, conservatives should not be shy about working to recapture the culture for the worldview and values that built a peaceful and prosperous civilization, while working to displace from positions of cultural influence the advocates of destructive doctrines that have led to an explosion of relational breakdown, mental illness, and violence."

Tin Pan Alley Composer and lyricist Biographies

Biographical sketches of the men and women who built the Great American Songbook. Not merely the Tin Pan Alley songwriters, but earlier writers like Francis Scott Key and Stephen Foster as well.

Manuscripts - Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts

A searchable comprehensive database of New Testament manuscripts, with details of each and links to images.

London Calling : Jimmy Perry : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

A radio sitcom written by Jimmy Perry, co-creator of Dad's Army and Hi-de-Hi, about the early days of the BBC, starring Jimmy Perry, Graham Crowden (Waiting for God), Bill Pertwee (Round the Horne, Dad's Army), Roy Hudd (The Crowned Hudds), and Jeffrey Holland (Hi-de-Hi).

BBC Radio 4 - Letter from America by Alistair Cooke

A collection of nearly 1500 episodes of Alistair Cooke's weekly commentaries for the BBC on life in America. The series ran from 1946 to 2004, "the longest-running speech radio programme hosted by one individual." A two-hour program offers highlights from his 1970s broadcasts, a tumultuous period in American history.

918 BBS List

The prehistory of online communication in Tulsa. Before high-speed internet, before dial-up internet, there were modems and bulletin board services (BBSes), and you'd dial into someone else's computer to exchange files, play games, and chat. The era ran from 1981 to 2004. Black Gold BBS was one of the biggest and longest lasting. Wayne's World was one of the last. Mike Lester's GalaxyStar evolved into an Internet Service Provider. Some great memories embedded in with this list of northeastern Oklahoma BBSes.

The Bible and the American Founders, by Daniel Dreisbach

Prof. Dreisbach's 2017 talk on the influence of the Bible on government in America's founding era bolsters the case for Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters's push to include the Bible in public education. American history can't be comprehended apart from the Bible.

"How did the Bible inform the founders' political and legal pursuits? I want to get a little bit more specific here. As I've already said, the founders held diverse views, including diverse theological views. Some doubted Christianity's transcendent claims. Some doubted the Bible's divine origins. But I'm going to suggest to you that many in this generation looked to the Scriptures for insights into things like human nature, civic virtue, social order, political authority, and other concepts essential to the establishment of a political society. Perhaps more important, there was broad agreement that the Bible was essential for nurturing the kind of civic virtues that give citizens the capacity for self-government. In various conventions and representative assemblies of the age as well as in pamphlets, political sermons, and private papers, founding figures appealed to the Bible for principles, precedents, models, normative standards, and cultural motifs, to define their community and to order their great political experiments. The Bible, some thought, offered guidance on how to select righteous leaders. They thought the Bible offered guidance on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, including the right to resist a tyrannical government....

"I don't think you can understand the most basic, fundamental features of the American constitutional design -- and by that I have in mind things like limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, rule of law, due process of law and representative government -- without understanding this biblical anthropology, this idea that man is a fallen creature, and where power is given, that power must be checked."

The Dark Side Of AI: Tracking The Decline Of Human Cognitive Skills

"Furthermore, educational experts argue that AI's increasing role in learning environments risks undermining the development of problem-solving abilities. Students are increasingly being taught to accept AI-generated answers without fully understanding the underlying processes or concepts. As AI becomes more ingrained in education, there is a concern that future generations may lack the capacity to engage in deeper intellectual exercises, relying on algorithms instead of their own analytical skills."

How To Save Pepper Seeds - Pepper Geek

Some useful articles for growing and using peppers -- saving seed, growing peppers in pots, pickling, dehydrating, and freezing.

On Millennial Snot - by Dudley Newright - The Upheaval

Smarm, snark, and snot: Why millennial political discourse is so juvenile. "The obsession with data is a pretext for the reality of the liberal position, which is that any grievance expressed in terms that lie outside the current window of acceptable liberal discourse is simply not valid - it's false consciousness, it's mis/disinformation, it's problematic, it's stochastic terror. Political difference is a matter of some people being incorrect - If you only possessed the right knowledge, saw the right charts, the right facts, you'd change your mind. Political conflict, to the modern liberal, is not about struggle for finite resources, insoluble moral differences, or fundamental divergences in our conception of what America ought to be. It's only a failure of half the country - a bunch of dumb hicks - to know what's good for them. The grand liberal challenge has been recast as an effort not to improve the material conditions of the unwashed masses "clinging to their guns and religion," but to enlighten them so hard that they rewire their minds. Compromise is now impossible, because only one position is correct. And when reality does not comport with the liberal worldview, when data fails to tell the story liberals want to tell, when the chuds stubbornly refuse to get with the program, the only tactic that remains is policing group boundaries via shame and ridicule of the outgroup. If I can't persuade you to agree, I'll publically humiliate you until you learn your lesson."

Blue Spring Te Waihou walkway to open ahead of summer - NZ Herald

One of the most beautiful places my family and I have ever been: Water so crystal-clear you can see the plants waving in the current at the bottom of the stream, surrounded by a canopy of tall evergreens. Soon to reopen after being closed for a year because of a rockslide at the end of the trail with a parking lot.

"Work to restore public access to the Blue Spring / Te Waihou Walkway is underway, almost a year after the track closed. South Waikato District Council awarded the project to build a new track at the Leslie Rd end of the walkway to Keir Landscaping and Structures earlier this month."