August 2010 Archives

Kohl's is running a contest via Facebook, the Kohl's Cares for Kids $10M Giveback Contest. From now until Friday, September 3, 2010, you can vote up to five times each for your favorite school. (You have 20 votes total.) The top twenty schools nationwide will be awarded $500,000 each.

I spent 10 of my votes on two schools that already do great work and could do even more with a half-million dollars. One of them, the Little Light House, here in Tulsa, is currently ranked 29th, the only Oklahoma school in the top 100.

The Little Light House has been around since 1972, working with "children, from Birth to the chronological age of six, with a wide range of physically and mentally challenging conditions," helping them to get the best possible start to reaching their full potential. The school was an early recipient of Pres. George H. W. Bush's "Points of Light" award.

The Little Light House uses a trans-disciplinary team approach to provide highly individualized services to each student. Parents, teachers and therapists from the various arenas make up this important team which establishes each child's individual measurable goals and objectives for the year. Volunteers assist the professional staff to provide the highest degree of individual attention to each child possible.

Right now the school has a long waiting list. $500,000 could be a big boost to their ability to expand.

If you're a Facebook member, please take a minute to cast five votes for the Little Light House.

And while you're at it, I'd appreciate it if you'd cast some of your remaining 15 votes for a school near and dear to my heart, a school with a challenging classical curriculum, a strong drama program, and great school spirit, Tulsa's Augustine Christian Academy:

On Right Wing News, John Hawkins has posted a first-hand report with lots of photos from the Defending the American Dream Summit (organized by Americans for Prosperity) and the Restoring Honor rally, held last weekend in Washington, D. C. There were huge crowds at both events (although the rally on the Mall was a couple of orders of magnitude bigger).

Wichita blogger Bob Weeks was at the AfP event and has reports on speeches by Dick Morris and George Will. Morris spoke about the challenges conservatives will face when Republicans take back Congress this November:

First, we have to make sure the people we elect based on pledges to reduce spending keep their word.

Then, the states will come begging to Washington for a bailout. We need to say no, Morris told the audience. States should have a way to declare bankruptcy and get out from under public sector union contracts.

Will had interesting things to say about a variety of topics:

On education, he said we need an education system that "equips people to compete in a free society." He criticized the short school year in the U.S., as compared to other countries. He told the audience that a major problem with schools is the teachers unions. The increased spending on schools has not worked. 90 percent of the difference between schools can be explained by characteristics of the students' families, he said. "Don't tell me the pupil-teacher ratio, tell me the parent-pupil ratio."

Even with as many problems as there are, he said that an "aroused citizenry" like that in the room tonight can fix the problems. He's not pessimistic, he said, because Obama has stimulated a "new clarity" from the American people.

There is a tension today between freedom and equality, two polar values. Liberals today stress equality of outcomes, and believe that the multiplication of entitlement programs to produce this equality serves the public good. But conservatives stress freedom, and that multiplication of entitlement programs is "subversive of the attitudes and aptitudes essential for a free society of self-reliant, far-sighted, thrifty and industrious people."

Will quoted Winston Churchill: "The American people invariably do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives."

C-SPAN has video of the Restoring Honor rally, featuring speeches by Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. St. Louis Cardinals fans should note that manager Tony LaRussa took the stage to introduce first baseman Albert Pujols, who received an award for his charitable work.

Big Journalism has an item on the crowd estimates for the rally and an aerial photo taken from the top of the Washington Monument.

Some links around the Oklahoma blogosphere:

Brit Gal in the USA is now an American gal in the USA. Congratulations, Sarah! In an earlier blog entry, she writes about her emotions in the days leading up to the citizenship ceremony. And despite living in western Oklahoma for nearly five years, there are aspects of life here that she finds exotic.

Laurel Kane, owner of Afton Station on Route 66, had a surprise visit from a local car collector who also happens to be a country music legend.

A sports promoter wants to bring a LeMans Grand Prix race to the streets of downtown Oklahoma City, and Mayor Mick Cornett is all a-flutter with the prospect, despite a city staff finding that street Grand Prix racing in the US has "a documented record of poor sustainability." In a sidebar, Oklahoman reporter Steve Lackmeyer notes a potential conflict between city plans to improve the downtown pedestrian experience and the requirements of a high-speed race.

A report by the city's special projects manager, Tom Anderson, advises city leaders may have to decide between Project 180 and the race as part of their deliberation. The course would likely require elimination of medians along E.K. Gaylord between Reno and NW 4 and Robinson between Reno and Robert S. Kerr. Such medians were strongly recommended as a means to make downtown friendlier for pedestrians in a report compiled last year by consultant Jeff Speck.

And on his OKC Central blog, Lackmeyer writes about controversy over the location of Oklahoma City's proposed new convention center, which will be funded by the MAPS 3 tax. What's notable is that OKCitians who had a great deal of confidence in the city's handling of previous MAPS programs are starting to get some heartburn over the lack of transparency this time around.

In the comments, Doug Loudenback links to a Scott Cooper story in the latest Oklahoma Gazette on the convention center controversy and the surprise discovery that there is $30 million in the MAPS 3 convention center budget to relocate an electric company substation:

While the situation with the substation was known before MAPS 3 was put together during Core to Shore, the mayor said the estimated cost -- $30 million -- was not calculated until days before calling the election.

"The issue was, do we take that $30-million figure and create sort of a ninth initiative? In other words, do we have an OG&E initiative as part of it?" Cornett said. "That didn't seem to fall in line with what we had done with MAPS or MAPS for Kids. Because the convention center -- or more specifically, the convention center hotel according to the Core to Shore plan -- might sit on that site, I made the decision to put that into the convention center budget and increase it from $250 million to $280 million."

The mayor said he informed the City Council and the chamber of his decision and built a consensus for the proposal.

But the $30 million for the substation can't be found in any MAPS 3 campaign literature. Very little public discussion occurred on the matter, leaving the public in the dark.

The Gazette story has links to two studies (by Urban Land Institute and HOK) that make recommendations for the convention center location which are at odds with Cornett's apparent preference.

As I've lost a couple of lengthy entries to a bug in the very old version of blog software that runs this site, I've decided to upgrade to a newer version before trying to add any more content. I'm hopeful that it will be a smooth transition. Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE: New version installed, and everything seems to be working.

FURTHER UPDATE: Well, no, everything isn't working. There are some very strange things going on with the CMS software.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Found the problem. New static directory needed to be copied to the right place.

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 land to grow your own food, in a defensible location far from rioting city-dwellers.

As it happened, Y2K had no significant effect, beyond boosting income for software engineers and freeze-dried food suppliers. We never got a chance to find out whether the city or country would have fared better in the complete breakdown of Western Civilization.

Dmitri Orlov, who lived through the collapse of the old Soviet Union, believes that the same factors are in place for the collapse of his adopted homeland, the USA:

The theory states that the United States and the Soviet Union will have collapsed for the same reasons, namely: a severe and chronic shortfall in the production of crude oil (that magic addictive elixir of industrial economies), a severe and worsening foreign trade deficit, a runaway military budget, and ballooning foreign debt. I call this particular list of ingredients "The Superpower Collapse Soup." Other factors, such as the inability to provide an acceptable quality of life for its citizens, or a systemically corrupt political system incapable of reform, are certainly not helpful, but they do not automatically lead to collapse, because they do not put the country on a collision course with reality.

That link is to the text of a speech by Orlov, "Social Collapse Best Practices," and it's thought-provoking. (It's also filled with that peculiarly Russian gallows humor.) If our current societal arrangement is a house of cards, how can I prepare now for the transition to a new, more stable, more sustainable arrangement?

In one section, Orlov describes the advantages of overcrowded Soviet cities over sprawling American suburbia for dealing with social collapse:

These all seem like negatives, but consider the flip side of all this: the high population density made this living arrangement quite affordable. With several generations living together, families were on hand to help each other. Grandparents provided day care, freeing up their children's time to do other things. The apartment buildings were always built near public transportation, so they did not have to rely on private cars to get around. Apartment buildings are relatively cheap to heat, and municipal services easy to provide and maintain because of the short runs of pipe and cable.... Also, because it was so difficult to relocate, people generally stayed in one place for generations, and so they tended to know all the people around them. After the economic collapse, there was a large spike in the crime rate, which made it very helpful to be surrounded by people who weren't strangers, and who could keep an eye on things....

But there is no reason at all to think that a suburban single-family house is in any sense a requirement. It is little more than a cultural preference, and a very shortsighted one at that. Most suburban houses are expensive to heat and cool, inaccessible by public transportation, expensive to hook up to public utilities because of the long runs of pipe and cable, and require a great deal of additional public expenditure on road, bridge and highway maintenance, school buses, traffic enforcement, and other nonsense. They often take up what was once valuable agricultural land. They promote a car-centric culture that is destructive of urban environments, causing a proliferation of dead downtowns. Many families that live in suburban houses can no longer afford to live in them, and expect others to bail them out.

As this living arrangement becomes unaffordable for all concerned, it will also become unlivable. Municipalities and public utilities will not have the funds to lavish on sewer, water, electricity, road and bridge repair, and police. Without cheap and plentiful gasoline, natural gas, and heating oil, many suburban dwellings will become both inaccessible and unlivable. The inevitable result will be a mass migration of suburban refugees toward the more survivable, more densely settled towns and cities. The luckier ones will find friends or family to stay with; for the rest, it would be very helpful to improvise some solution.

One obvious answer is to repurpose the ever-plentiful vacant office buildings for residential use. Converting offices to dormitories is quite straightforward. Many of them already have kitchens and bathrooms, plenty of partitions and other furniture, and all they are really missing is beds. Putting in beds is just not that difficult. The new, subsistence economy is unlikely to generate the large surpluses that are necessary for sustaining the current large population of office plankton. The businesses that once occupied these offices are not coming back, so we might as well find new and better uses for them.

Another potential home for suburban refugees: The college campus, once the higher-ed bubble has popped:

College campuses make perfect community centers: there are dormitories for newcomers, fraternities and sororities for the more settled residents, and plenty of grand public buildings that can be put to a variety of uses. A college campus normally contains the usual wasteland of mowed turf that can be repurposed to grow food, or, at the very least, hay, and to graze cattle. Perhaps some enlightened administrators, trustees and faculty members will fall upon this idea once they see admissions flat-lining and endowments dropping to zero, without any need for government involvement. So here we have a ray of hope, don't we.

Self-sufficiency in the countryside sounds plausible, but in the event of a new Dark Ages, people will need to develop new ways to feed, clothe, protect, and move themselves. To do that efficiently requires cooperation, organization, and division of labor, and that means having lots of people at hand with variety of skills and knowledge.

The hopeful note in Orlov's talk is that human beings are resilient, even those who have been beaten down by totalitarianism for eighty years. I'd like to think that the USA, with its long history of voluntary organizations (Burke's "little platoons"), would fare even better than the resilient Russians.

Hat tip to Little Miss Attila for the link to Orlov's talk.

UPDATE: midnight, 2010/08/25. Nearly 120,000 Oklahoma Republicans voted in the runoff, and 70% of them voted for John Doak. Congratulations to Mr. Doak and the Oklahoma GOP. This year's turnout is only slightly lower than the 2006 runoff, which was dominated by the high-profile, expensive and fierce runoff for Lt. Governor between Scott Pruitt and Todd Hiett.

(Turnout was up almost 10% in the 5th Congressional District runoff. About 42,000 voted in the 2006 runoff between Mary Fallin and Mick Cornett, while about 46,000 voted in this year's James Lankford vs. Kevin Calvey bout. Fallin beat Cornett 63-37. Lankford beat Calvey 65-35.)

There's always the danger, in a minor election especially, that people will vote for someone with a familiar name. That's a problem if the name is familiar for the wrong reasons. How else can you explain a first place primary finish for John Crawford, the former Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner who was the subject of a federal corruption investigation.

James L. Harlin (FSA, CLU, ChFC, FLMI, MAAA) was an informant to the FBI during its investigation of John P. Crawford during his term as Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner from 1995 to 1999. Last week, Harlin spoke to the Oklahoma Conservative Political Action Committee (OCPAC). Charlie Meadows, OCPAC chairman, sent Harlin's statement out to his email list. (If you'd like to subscribe to the OCPAC's weekly email newsletter, send a note to Mr. Meadows at charliemeadows7 at gmail dot com.)

Harlin alleges that Crawford, as Mid-Continent Life actuary, created an actuarially unsound insurance product, then, as Insurance Commissioner, interfered with the sale of the company, abused his power to seize the company, destroyed the company and hundreds of Oklahoma jobs, and deterred other investment in Oklahoma by an outside company; Crawford's official actions, according to Harlin, convinced them that Oklahoma was a corrupt backwater of cronyism.

Oklahoma Republicans need to show up at the polls today, August 24, 2010, and vote for John Doak for Insurance Commissioner. Doak has strong industry experience, is a conservative, and has a sterling reputation. He will be a strong standard-bearer in the November election. Crawford's name on the ballot would not only kill our chances of having a pro-life, anti-Obamacare Insurance Commissioner, but it's likely to stain the entire Republican ticket.

Here is Mr. Harlin's statement:

John Crawford & Mid-Continent Life August 18, 2010

Purpose

To share my direct experience with John Crawford when he was Insurance Commissioner. To defeat Crawford in the primary runoff August 24 because there is a strong chance that the Republican nominee will become the next commissioner.

Opening

There are numerous examples of John Crawford's incompetence, cronyism and corruption. These include his weak credentials as an actuary, channeling money to his son in a dubious technology scheme, having his chief of staff raise campaign funds while on the payroll of a company he illegally seized, FBI investigations, etc.

MCL

However, I want to focus on Mid-Continent Life Insurance Company. MCL was the oldest insurance company incorporated in the State of Oklahoma and was formed by the Stewart family around the time of Statehood.

MCL operated successfully for over 70 years in the traditional life insurance business.

In the late 70's a group of MCL managers designed a new product called "Extra Life" that tried to take advantage of the hyperinflation and inordinately high interest rates caused by the financial mayhem created by the Carter administration. That mayhem is being repeated today by Obama... but that's a story for another day.

The actuary for MCL at the time this product was created was John Crawford. He certified the financial strength of the company, the integrity of the dividends, and the pricing of the products. He did this certification every single year up until 1986. He did this even though the economic circumstances changed during the Regan years to the point that the dividends and the pricing of the product were no longer sustainable.

In 1987, Florida Power bought MCL. Seeing Florida Power's financial resources, Crawford decided to increase his fees tenfold. At this point Crawford was summarily fired.

In the early 90's Crawford ran as a Democrat for congress (I remember meeting Crawford at the park in Crescent on the fourth of July when he was running) and lost. In 1994 he switched parties and rode in on the coattails of Gov. Keating to become the insurance commissioner.

A new management team arrived at MCL in 1995, 18 years after the "Extra Life" product was launched. Within 3 months this new management team discovered the problem of unsustainable dividends and pricing in the product. The management team laid out a course of action to correct the problems in order to maintain the solvency of the company. In 1996 the point was reached of needing to cut the dividends and raise the rates. This plan was contractually allowed within the provisions of the policy and was later judged by the court to be the proper course of action.

In early 1997, as a standard of protocol, the management team presented the plan to Crawford in a confidential meeting. Four days later MCL's President received a solicitation along with an offer of a bribe from a friend of Crawford's to channel the company to him (the friend) in conjunction with Crawford's support. The MCL President refused and reported the incident to Florida Power officials.

Two months later, Crawford abused his power as commissioner to seize the company. He demanded that Florida Power pay millions of dollars to cover up the financial shortfall that he had mishandled when he was the company actuary. Statements from people at the time of his firing showed this was Crawford's way of getting retribution against Florida Power.

Crawford removed the entire MCL management team and proceeded to try to prosecute them and their lawyers even though none of them designed the product or certified to the financial integrity of the company for the nearly two decades prior to their arrival. That prosecution was ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence.

Each member of the MCL management team went on to establish very successful careers. The President became the Chairman, President & CEO of Chase Insurance, the largest bank insurance enterprise in America. MCL's general Counsel became the General Counsel for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. He now oversees the legal framework for the entire U.S. insurance industry for every state in the country. The Chief Actuary is now the Chief Actuary of the largest TPA in America. The Chief Financial Officer became the CFO of a large Oklahoma company. The marketing officer became the President of several international insurance companies. This was a superb management team with outstanding credentials and an impeccable record of performance excellence.

Because of John Crawford, MCL no longer exists. Hundreds of Oklahoma jobs were lost. The insurance industry considers Oklahoma a "backwater" for doing business. Florida Power had an opportunity to invest $500 million in a power related industry in Oklahoma. They passed on this investment because of their treatment by Crawford and his cronies. The MCL President had first-hand knowledge that Florida Power shared their dim view of Oklahoma with many of their Fortune 500 friends.

So bottom line, all the headlines of corruption, cronyism and incompetence surrounding John Crawford are vividly real. Oklahoma consumers, the insurance industry, and Oklahoma businesses cannot afford a repeat of Crawford as Insurance Commissioner.

It is imperative to defeat Crawford in this primary runoff on August 24.

Here are Charlie Meadows's comments on the Doak-Crawford runoff:

John Doak has a great deal of experience in a variety of levels in the insurance industry. He is a solid conservative and I believe a man of high moral character and integrity which is a most important qualification for this office. The insurance commissioner has enormous regulatory powers over both small and very large businesses and as such the person must be above reproach. I believe his opponent, John Crawford to be corrupt, a charlatan and an opportunist. He was the first Republican elected to this position on the coat-tails of Frank Keating's election to governor. During his one term in office, before voters sent him packing in 1998, his office was under numerous allegations of fraud, nepotism, mismanagement and corruption.

The liberal Democrat Incumbent Kim Holland really wants John Crawford to become the nominee as she will have a field day bringing up all those very serious allegations from the past. She will have a difficult time defeating John Doak, but Crawford is so bad, I will even vote for Holland over Crawford if he is the nominee as the Republican party can not afford to put a suspected crook in office with a "R" by his name.

For all Oklahoma Republicans and for some Democrats around the state, there's a runoff election next Tuesday, August 24, 2010. Early voting at county election boards across the state began on Friday and continues Saturday, August 21, 2010, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Monday, August 23, 2010, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The runoff is to decide party nominees following a primary in which no candidate received 50% of the vote. There are only 11 nominations for federal, statewide, and legislative offices to be decided on Tuesday. (Runoffs for non-partisan judicial races will be held in November.)

Republican runoffs:

U. S. House District 2: Daniel Edmonds, Charles Thompson
U. S. House District 5: Kevin Calvey, James Lankford
Insurance Commissioner: John Doak, John Crawford
State Senate District 44: Ralph Shortey, James Davenport
State House District 27: Josh Cockroft, Richard Bennett
State House District 100: Elise Hall, David Looby

Democrat runoffs:

State House District 3: James Lockhart, Matt Webb
State House District 18: Carolyn McNatt Hill, Donnie Condit
State House District 21: Jerry Tomlinson, Nathan W. Williams
State House District 66: Eli Potts, Andrew Thomas Williams
State House District 86: John Auffet, William T. Will Fourkiller

The only runoffs for Tulsa County voters are for the Republican nomination for Insurance Commissioner and the Democrat nomination for HD 66.

I'm supporting John Doak for Insurance Commissioner, and I urge my fellow Republicans to do the same. Doak, a Tulsan, has been an insurance agent and an insurance executive, in the business since graduating from OU in 1988. Doak has been endorsed by many prominent Oklahoma Republicans, including former Sen. Don Nickles, State Sen. Randy Brogdon, Tulsa County Assessor Ken Yazel, and Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy, who writes:

The office of Insurance Commissioner is extremely important to our state. The Republican Party and the citizens of Oklahoma are best served with John Doak, who is passionately pro-life, as our nominee. He has joined a federal lawsuit against Obama Care and is the insurance commissioner candidate who best represents Oklahoma values. Through John Doak's experience with his daughter, who is the survivor of three open-heart surgeries, as well as his outstanding professional experience in the insurance industry as both an agent and executive, I believe he truly understands consumers' needs as well as the business aspects of the insurance industry.

Here's Doak speaking at the Muskogee Tea Party Voter Education Rally on July 2:

And an ad that aired before the July primary:

I heard Doak speak at the candidate forum sponsored by the USA Patriots. He was a very impressive and dynamic speaker, and he won over the audience.

Doak's opponent is John Crawford. Crawford was elected Insurance Commissioner in 1994 but was narrowly defeated for re-election in 1998 by Carroll Fisher, who left his own personal stain on the office.

Crawford's final year in office was overshadowed by a Federal investigation into whether he misused his office to the benefit of a company connected with his son:

In 1998 the Daily Oklahoman reported Crawford was the target of an FBI investigation into alleged fraud and nepotism regarding computer contracts he awarded on behalf of Enid-based insurance company American Standard Life & Accident Co. The FBI probe focused on allegations Crawford's son, the late John P. Crawford III, profited from the contract.

American Standard Life was declared insolvent and placed in receivership in 1991. When Crawford became insurance commissioner in 1995, he became responsible for either the rehabilitation or dissolution of the Enid insurance company. The liquidation of American Standard was ordered in October 1997 in Oklahoma County District Court.

In 1995, while under Crawford's control, American Standard allegedly entered into a $60,000 contract with a Nevada firm, Advanced Computer Technology Inc., a company whose registered agent was "John P. Crawford," the Oklahoman reported.

The investigation was dropped without charges against Crawford. Key Insurance Commission documents regarding the contract had gone missing, and John P. Crawford III committed suicide in January 1998.

Crawford jumped into the 2010 campaign on the last day of filing, apparently with no previous announcement of his intention to run. Crawford reused a 1998 TV ad featuring a general election endorsement from Jim Inhofe. While the ad's run on Cox Cable may have been a mistake, blogger Jamison Faught has his doubts:

While this may be the case, it does not explain why the Crawford campaign knowingly placed the ad on YouTube and on his website. A Cox employee might have mistakenly aired the wrong commercial, but they could not have edited his website. In addition, the ad was re-worked to include a "paid for by" disclaimer reflecting his 2010 account, so some work had to have been done on the ad before running it, and I find it hard to believe that Cox did not ask for approval on the re-worked edition.

Right before the primary, I received a couple of strange form letters in support of Crawford, similar in appearance to one another, one from a gun rights group that I'd never heard of (signed by political consultant Kirk Shelley) and one from an individual I'd never heard of. It made me wonder just who is in the shadows backing Crawford's run.

The person who will most benefit if Crawford wins the runoff: incumbent Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland, a Democrat from Tulsa. Many Republicans would have difficulty backing Crawford because of the questions about his stewardship of the office, and you can expect that Holland's campaign and the media will call attention to Crawford's history.

In John Doak, we have a Republican candidate for Insurance Commissioner with a truly squeaky clean record, a long history in the insurance business, and the energy and message to win the office in Novermber. Please join me in voting for John "Okie" Doak.

William Franklin, a Tulsa muralist, wants to create a museum in Tulsa devoted to Art Deco. He calls the idea "Decopolis," and he's working incrementally to gather fellow deco fans to help make this dream a reality. Supporters of Decopolis held a Deco Ball earlier this year in the zig-zag deco lobby of the Oklahoma Natural Gas building at 7th and Boston. The next promotional event is a Gatsby Picnic on Sunday, October 3:

The idea comes from the book the "Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. On the lawn of his mansion, Jay Gatsby would throw fabulously extravagant parties that everyone longs to attend. Gatsby has his own beach, a swimming pool, tents having overflowing food buffets, and live music under the stars. These parties, frequented by the sophisticated old money families from the east and the new, "rough around the edges" wealthy from the west, were the epitome of 1920s indulgence and opulence.

A Gatsby Picnic is a chance to step back to this luxurious time and have a little fun. Period costume is highly encouraged. The setting for our picnic will be the lawn of the magnificent Harwelden Mansion. There will be tents selling foodstuffs, but we do en­courage you to bring a picnic basket and blanket. Some even go so far as to set up dining room tables and chairs or have a sitting room type set up with say, comfy wicker chairs, a rug and coffee tables. We will be having a contest for best picnic set-up. We will also have badminton, bocce ball, and croquet games going on. Plus, we will have "deco era" 1920's-40's cars at the event. If you know of anyone who has a car from that era, have them go to our sign up page on the DECOPOLIS website, we would love to see them there. The picnic is free, but as this is also a fundraiser to help create an Art Deco Museum for Tulsa, we will have raffle tickets, great silent auction items, and a percentage of what is sold at the food and arts tents will go towards the museum fund.

Here's more information on the 2010 Decopolis Gatsby Picnic, and here's where you can apply to be a food or art vendor at the picnic.

For more info about Decopolis, visit the website and sign up for the monthly Decopolis Star Dispatch, an email newsletter with updates on museum plans, a spotlight on an Art Deco building or artifact, and period cartoons, drawings, and jokes.

Wireless networking and DHCP aren't complicated. They ought to work every time, but they don't.

I recently spent a couple of weeks in what was built as a Residence Inn (separate buildings, with eight suites in each) and is now affiliated with a different national chain. Nice place, good price, quiet, and the staff is friendly.

They provide wireless internet with a DSL modem and a wireless router in each of the buildings, each router with its own SSID. I could usually see four or five when I looked for available networks. I never could connect to the internet through the router in my own building, despite the fact that it was right behind the bed's headboard.

When you connect to the internet via wifi, there are three main things that happen. (This is, of course, an oversimplification.) The first is the computer and the router make a connection on a certain radio frequency using a particular signal protocol (some variety of IEEE 802.11). Once you've made this connection, it's just like you plugged an Ethernet cable into your computer.

The second thing that has to happen is the router has to give your computer an IP (Internet Protocol) address. That's four numbers between 1 and 254, separated by periods, e.g. 192.168.1.55. Without an IP address, you can't do much -- the protocols your computer uses to send web requests and receive web pages (HTTP) and to send and receive email (SMTP, POP, IMAP) all use IP addresses to get data where it needs to go.

Once upon a time, you had to change your IP address manually (and reboot, usually) every time you connected to a new network. (Tools like Netswitcher were a godsend.) Nowadays, when you connect your computer to a network (whether wired or wireless), your computer sends out a request for an IP address and an IP-address-giver-outer (known as a DHCP server; this task is usually handled by the router) responds with an address that isn't already in use. At least that's the way it's supposed to work.

But your computer probably doesn't know the IP addresses for your favorite websites, and that brings us to the third essential step: Getting the IP address of a computer, called a DNS server, that can translate computer names (like www.batesline.com) to numbers. In the early days of the internet, when the number of connected computers were relatively small, each computer on the net had a long file (/etc/hosts) with a list of names and IP addresses, a list that had to be updated by hand every time a new computer was added or an IP address or host name changed. DNS -- Domain Name Service -- was developed to handle all this automatically. When you connect to a network, the router not only assigns your computer an IP address, it tells your computer the IP addresses of two or three DNS servers.

In a dream world, all three things happen automagically behind the scenes, and within seconds of connecting, you're ready to surf. Lately, though, I connect to a wireless network and almost as often as not, I get the dreaded "Limited or no connectivity" error. This means that even though my computer and the router are on speaking terms, the router has not seen fit to give my computer an IP address. Instead, Windows assigns a fake address that does no good.

During my business trips, I connect to a lot of different networks -- at the hotel, at the job site, at coffeehouses and restaurants. I would consistently get an IP address on some networks and would consistently get the "limited or no connectivity" error on others. Lately the problem seems to happen more often than it used to. I've looked for solutions on the internet, but no one seems to know what causes this to occur. The suggested courses of action seem like snake oil or folk remedies. If some tactic did work for someone, nobody can explain why it worked. The problem continues to exist even for Windows 7 users.

As I mentioned, the nearest router at the hotel was behind my headboard, and the front desk gave me their blessing to cycle power and see if that helped. It didn't.

So consider this a cry for help. Few things are more frustrating than getting settled in with a cup of coffee and discovering that you can't connect to the coffeehouse's wifi. Or having to settle for a low-speed, weak, distant connection, because the five-bar signal across the room won't assign an IP address.

I'd welcome any suggestions.

Here's a blog that aims to provide complete discographies for hundreds of western swing, country, and rockabilly musicians. Each entry has three sections: recording sessions (when, where, session musicians, and tracks recorded), albums, and singles. Each album listing includes the titles of each track, although it doesn't link back to the specific recording session.

Here are a few of the western swing discographies on the site:

• Bob Wills: Part I (sessions)
• Bob Wills: Part II (albums and singles)
• Johnnie Lee Wills
• Luke Wills
• Tommy Duncan
• Hank Penny

The Billy Jack Wills and Leon McAuliffe discographies are in the process of being updated.

Although the Bob Wills discography does not include the Tiffany Transcriptions sessions, it does include albums of airshots, live concerts, and radio transcriptions. Beyond the two massive Bear Family box sets of the Texas Playboys' commercial recordings, there's plenty of other material, including songs that were never recorded for release.

MORE: This Facebook page devoted to a famous Nashville recording studio has all the sessions Bob Wills recorded at 804 16th Ave. S. One unreleased track that isn't listed in the other discographies: Webb Pierce singing "What's the Matter with the Mill" with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, November 13, 1956.

That page about Oklahoma's "Blaine Amendment" (linked by Brandon Dutcher, regarding school vouchers vs. tax credits) had an interesting summary of an Attorney General's opinion:

1984 Op. Atty. Gen. No. 227. ("Funds raised by or through a public trust organized under 60 O.S.1981, § 176 that do not come from the public treasury are not 'public money' and not subject to Article II, § 5 of the Oklahoma Constitution.").

Title 60 trusts are everywhere in Oklahoma government. They exist in part as a way to bypass constitutional limits on government contracting.

Although OSCN has Attorney General's opinions online, I wasn't able to find the one mentioned.

This is just a brief note to self to see what I can learn about this.

Mickey Hepner, Professor of Economics at the University of Central Oklahoma, suggests one way to raise per-pupil school funding, other than raising taxes or cutting non-education spending: Offer vouchers to encourage parents to put their children in private schools.

In 2008-2009 Oklahoma education funding averaged $8,006 per student. This figure though, is based only on the number of students enrolled in public schools. If Oklahoma was able to shift more students from public to private schools, state funding would be spread out over fewer students, thereby raising the per-pupil average. Of course, the only way to shift large numbers of students from public to private schools is to help pay for private school tuition...a cost that offsets some of the gains. However, if structured correctly, a voucher system could still generate cost-savings for the state, allowing it to raise per-pupil spending.

For example, last year I proposed my own school voucher program for Oklahoma--one that would provide a $3,000 tuition scholarship for every K-12 student attending an accredited private school. To pay for the scholarships, each school district would see their allocations fall by $3,000 for every student they lose to a private school. This means though, that the remaining $5,006 can be redistributed to the remaining students enrolled in the public school. Essentially, this program allows schools to outsource the education of some students (to the private schools) to free up more resources for the remaining public school students.

Interesting way to look at vouchers -- outsourcing education, much as we do with government functions like road construction.

Do read his entire piece, for the context (what if SQ 744 passes?) and some qualifiers (e.g., $3,000 may not be the optimal voucher amount).

Via Brandon Dutcher at Choice Remarks, who offers an amendment to Hepner's proposal:

My only suggestion would be to phrase it this way: "they should embrace a school voucher or tax credit program." There's nothing wrong with vouchers, of course, but until Oklahoma can solve its Blaine Amendment problem (preferably through repeal), tax credits are going to be a much cleaner way to go.

The BBC World Service has aired a two-part series, Useful Idiots, about Western intellectuals and journalists who were and are apologists for evil regimes. (The title is a phrase of Lenin's.) Part one focuses on the Soviet Union, Stalin, and his defenders, like George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Walter Duranty, who won a Pulitzer Prize while withholding his knowledge of Stalin's murderous famine from his New York Times readers. Part two is about recent examples of useful idiots:

From Mao's China, General Pinochet's Chile, Apartheid-controlled South Africa, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, to President Ahmadinejad's Iran, why - and how - have so many supposedly intelligent people been manipulated by dictators into saying good things about bad regimes?

Via Ace of Spades HQ, which has direct links to downloadable MP3 files of the broadcasts. Ace notes that part 1 includes the quote "something so stupid only an intellectual could believe it."

NOTE: There's some question about the provenance of the document that was previously linked here, regarding the connection between the Democratic Socialists of America and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I am looking into it and will let you know what I find out.

If you're a conservative, one of your core beliefs is that human nature has no history. Human nature is not some malleable thing that the government can, with sufficient incentives or punishments, reshape into its ideological ideal. The Soviets tried to create a "New Soviet Man," willing to give his all for the sake of the state with no hope of reward for himself, and they failed miserably. Any society that refuses to acknowledge basic, undeniable truths about human nature will meet the same fate. It's like trying to build a bridge over a canyon without acknowledging gravity.

One of the undeniable truths about life is that life reproduces. Whether you believe that life is the result of evolutionary blind chance or an intelligent designer, there's no doubt that life perpetuates itself through reproduction. There are differences of opinion on the list of the essential characteristics of life, but reproduction is on everyone's list.

Humans reproduce sexually. That's obvious to most of my intelligent readers, but sometimes you have to state the obvious. There are two sexes, male and female, and one representative of each sex is needed to make reproduction happen. Round about the age of 13 certain hormones kick in making us not only capable of sexual reproduction but also driving us to seek out someone with whom we can reproduce.

If that sexual drive fixes itself to some person, animal, or object with whom reproduction is impossible, it means there's been a malfunction. Something has gone haywire. Whether that mis-direction is the result of an act of the will, some physical or psychological trauma, or both doesn't change the reality that one's sex drive isn't working to further the survival of one's own genetic traits.

A conservative approach to issues involving homosexuality begins with the reality that it is a malfunction, a disability of one of the core characteristics of all living beings.

I'm amazed and disappointed by the willingness of many self-described conservatives to wave the white flag on cultural issues. Perhaps some of them believe that asserting traditional -- and increasingly counter-cultural -- understandings of marriage and sexuality are hurting conservatism's political success. Perhaps some have abandoned traditional sexual mores in their own lives and don't wish to be called out as hypocrites. Perhaps they just don't want to be thought of as judgmental.

But being a conservative means being willing to deal with human nature as it is. It means respecting and defending the institutions that have evolved over millenia to cope with human nature, particularly the institution that provides a stable context for the reproductive drive and the children that result from it.

RELATED and a must-read: Theodore Dalrymple's City Journal essay on the roots and fruits of the Sexual Revolution. It's from 10 years ago but seems right up to date. Dalrymple notes the clash between the realities of human nature and the misguided utopianism of those who laid the foundation for what emerged in the 1960s: Margaret Mead, Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, to name a few:

The revolution had its intellectual pro-genitors, as shallow, personally twisted, and dishonest a parade of people as one could ever wish to encounter. They were all utopians, lacking understanding of the realities of human nature; they all thought that sexual relations could be brought to the pitch of perfection either by divesting them of moral significance altogether or by reversing the moral judgment that traditionally attached to them; all believed that human unhappiness was solely the product of laws, customs, and taboos. They were not the kind of people to take seriously Edmund Burke's lapidary warning that "it is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free": on the contrary, just as appetites often grow with the feeding, so the demands of the revolutionaries escalated whenever the last demand was met. When the expected happiness failed to emerge, the analysis of the problem and the proposed solution were always the same: more license, less self-control....

There is virtually no aspect of modern society's disastrous sexual predicament that does not find its apologist and perhaps its "onlie" begetter in the work of the sexual revolutionaries 50 or 100 years earlier. It is impossible to overlook the connection between what they said should happen and what has actually happened. Ideas have their consequences, if only many years later....

Of course [Margaret Mead's] depiction of Samoa was in error: she was taken in by her ironical informants. Sexual morality in Samoa was puritanical rather than liberal, and owed much to the efforts of the London Missionary Society, no advocate of free love during adolescence or at any other time.

But few people are averse to the message that one can indulge appetites freely without bad consequences to oneself or others, and so Mead's book passed as authoritative. And if youthful sexual libertinism was possible in Samoa with only beneficial social and psychological effects, why not in Sheffield and Schenectady? Even had her depiction of Samoa, per impossibile, been accurate, no one paused to wonder whether Samoa was a plausible model for Europe or America or whether the mere existence of a sexual custom--the celibacy of religious communities down the ages, say--should warrant its universal adoption.

So generations of educated people accepted Mead's ideas about adolescent sexuality as substantially correct and reasonable. They took the Samoan way of ordering these matters as natural, enjoyable, healthy, and psychologically beneficial. No doubt Mead's ideas were somewhat distorted as they filtered down into the class of people who had not read her (or any other) book: but it does not altogether surprise me now to meet people who started living in sexual union with a boyfriend or girlfriend from the age of 11 or 12, under the complaisant eyes of their parents. Only someone completely lacking in knowledge of the human heart--someone, in fact, a little like Margaret Mead--would have failed to predict the consequences: gross precocity followed by permanent adolescence and a premature world-weariness.

My periodic work-related travels to Wichita this spring and summer have given me the chance to watch another state's elections up close, and I was back in Kansas for last Tuesday's primary. While the process is essentially the same there as in Oklahoma, there are some interesting differences in the way Kansas does elections.

As in many states, Kansas elections are under the authority of their elected Secretary of State. (Oklahoma is a rare exception -- our election board is an independent agency, and secretary of state has been an appointive office since the Boren-era constitutional amendments that eliminated a raft of statewide elected officials.)

Kansas has an automated the process for putting results on the web. Every 15 minutes on election night, not only were the statewide vote totals updated, but so were results by county -- how many precincts reporting and how many votes for each candidate. And better still, a map for each statewide and congressional race was automatically updated. Counties were color coded to show which candidate was leading. No color at all meant no results reported yet, a lighter hue indicated the candidate leading the incomplete results, and a darker hue indicated the candidate who finished first where results were complete. It was easy to tell where the remaining votes were coming from, and when the Republican Senate primary narrowed to a few thousand votes, it was clear the race would widen when all the results were in, since the remaining precincts were in the leading candidate's home turf.

As it's Kansas, most of the action was in the Republican primary, as it has been since Kansas became a state in 1854. Sam Brownback is leaving the U. S. Senate to run for governor. Two long-time congressmen -- Jerry Moran, who has represented the northwestern two-thirds of the state's area since 1996, and Todd Tiahrt, who has represented Wichita and a few counties south and east since 1994 -- quit their safe seats to seek to move to the Senate.

Both are conservatives. Tiahrt -- his T♥ yard signs explained his name's pronunciation -- is known for his work to protect gun owners from unwarranted Federal intrusion.

Moran was seen as more of a deficit hawk -- he scored better on Club for Growth's "RePork Card" -- but not really a conviction politician on constitutional issues. Paul Moore, who quit his job as an assistant U. S. Attorney in January to manage Moran's campaign, left the campaign after two months and endorsed Tiahrt, using phrases that I suspect apply to many Republican politicians of the sort that Man of the West calls "laundry-list conservatives":

After more than two months of intense interactions with Jerry Moran, I came to believe that he was not instinctively conservative and that his willingness to actually lead against the tide of government intrusiveness into our lives and businesses was practically nonexistent.

I have worked with many politicians throughout the last two decades, including during my service as a Regional Political Director for the Republican National Committee. Yet, it was stunning to see a man with Jerry Moran's decades of government service be so seemingly unsure of himself and his beliefs. While he is a hard worker, I still cannot tell you with any certainty what he truly believes.

To my surprise, Jerry Moran winced at the frequent use of the words "conservative" or "pro-life" to portray himself out of fear he might offend moderate or pro-choice voters. He ultimately relented to the political realities and has thoroughly advertised himself as "pro-life" and "conservative" to describe who he needed to become to get elected.

Our country desperately needs men and women of backbone who don't have to consult political weather vanes to know what they stand for. Neither candidate is perfect, but Todd Tiahrt will instinctively stand up for the country's founding principles - without regard for the political winds. Jerry Moran would be reliable - so long as the winds are blowing in a conservative direction, as they are now.

Tiahrt had support from Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and the National Right to Life PAC (based on Tiahrt's track record as a leader on the abortion issue. Moran had twice as much money to spend, but Tiahrt got 45% and held Moran to just under 50%, with two minor candidates splitting the rest.

So when's the runoff? Kansas doesn't have them. In the race to replace Tiahrt in Congress, the winner, Mike Pompeo, received 39% of the vote. A two-candidate runoff wouldn't have clarified the situation much, as the second and third place candidates differed by only about 800 votes (about 24% each), and the 4th place candidate had 13%. This was a perfect situation of instant runoff voting.

At one point there were polls indicating that the sole pro-abortion candidate in the primary, State Sen. Jean Schodorf, had a strong enough core of support to finish first, as the pro-life majority split their support among the other four candidates. In the end, pro-lifers consolidated around Pompeo. That consolidation was helped by controversy over businessman Wink Hartman's claims to being a lifelong Kansan. Hartman, like Tulsa's former Mayor Kathy Taylor, had a homestead exemption in Florida and had been a registered and active voter there. (Unlike Taylor, there's no indication he was simultaneously registered and voting in two states.)

Without a runoff, and with less than 40% of the vote, Pompeo doesn't have much of a mandate to unite the party behind him, and there's no second round to encourage former rivals to back one or the other. In fact, the folks who were scolding Randy Brogdon for waiting a whole week to make a formal endorsement of Mary Fallin need to head to Wichita to give a good talking-to to three of Pompeo's four Republican opponents, who are so far refusing to endorse or campaign for him.

Two other Republican congressional primaries were won with less than 50% of the vote. The winner of the race to replace Moran in CD 1 was won with 35% of the vote, and the vote in CD 3 (suburban KC) was 45-37, with the remaining 18% split between 7 candidates in single digits.

Moran isn't the only (alleged) weather vane in Kansas politics. At the edges of farms, along the highways, big campaign signs are posted in a way that protects them from being destroyed by the constantly blowing Kansas wind. A typical rig involves an inverted, L-shaped section of PVC pipe, to which the top and one side of the sign is attached. The pipe holding the sign sits in another pipe attached to a fencepost, able to swing freely as the wind direction changes. Pretty smart.

Kansas allows write-ins. Primaries that drew no contestants or only one contender were still on the ballot, and voters could opt for another choice.

Party precinct officials in Kansas are elected at primaries. (Oklahoma parties hold caucuses.) Republicans and Democrats alike voted for a precinct committeeman and precinct committeewoman. Many of these elections drew only one candidate or no one at all. Here are the results from Sedgwick County, including all the primaries for precinct officials and township clerks.

I received an email of appreciation about the BatesLine entry on Radio's Online History Resource, and I was asked how I find this stuff. In this case, I had done a Google search for Hal O'Halloran -- his name had come up in an email conversation among a group of us who were regular listeners and callers to Hal's sports talk shows in the late 1970s and early 1980s on KXXO, KTOW, and KELI.

As it happened, the reader who asked the question, radio veteran Chuck Fullhart, had worked with Hal in the 1970s, and he had an interesting story about one Tulsa station's broadcasts of our minor league baseball team at the time, the Tulsa Oilers of the American Association:

I had the pleasure of working with Hal doing the Oiler broadcasts one season. If memory serves me correctly, it was the time after he had left 8 and had started doing the talk shows.

My job as PD at KBJH, later KCFO was one of the more interesting and challenging that I held while worshipping at the Shrine of The Golden Transmitter.

And working with guys like Hal made it a real pleasure.

The station income went into a black hole in the college books somewhere (the licensee was American Christian College-Billy James Hargis's school that he founded), and we were constantly looking at sports events and anything that we could peddle to make money in the afternoon and evening hours.

What you heard was what you got with Hal. Really just a nice guy, and extremely knowledgable as a broadcaster and sportscasster. That was 8's loss.

We just provided Hal with a mixer and mike, and made sure that the phone line was installed, and Ma Bell managed to put a few gray hairs on my less that plentiful head of hair by getting the installation done an hour before an away match started.

KCFO also made a deal with the devil, A. Ray Smith, to carry the Tulsa baseball games for about 2 seasons.

I didn't have to deal directly with the gentleman, but I had heard the stories about him for years.

Terry Green was the announcer on the payroll at the time with the team.

The first year, it was just putting in the phone lines to the away games, and selling the time.

The second year, after looking at the costs, someone made the decision that we would not carry the away games,since the cost of the phone loops were to expensive, and that the away games had to be recreated.

This was a real challenge for a station with no sound library, and a relatively primitive setup with equipment. Lots of mikes, and a couple of studios, but not much else.

We finally went to a few of the games, recorded the background sounds, bats cracking, cheering, etc. and put them on carts.

When Terry was in the studio for the away games, he would crack a bat, or the guy on the board at the time would crack the bat, and make sure that the crowd cheered, etc.

It was hard to believe that we were actually doing that in the early 70s, when it probably had not been done since the mid 50s.

One of my most prevelant memories is Terry's recovery after asking some ball player a question during the pre game or post game when he would interview and spotlight the various players, and there being nothing but dead air for 30 seconds while the highly paid, athletically talented but either not too interested or just bored player would either not respond or just grunt a yes or no. That's the best training in the world, and I think all three people listening at the time realized it.

Many thanks to Chuck for allowing me to share this story on BatesLine. For more of Tulsa's sportscasting and baseball history, be sure to check out TulsaTVMemories.com, where you can find some of my reminiscences about Hal O'Halloran, too.

It's happened twice this week. I've written long blog entries -- long essays with links -- and then hesitated to click the "publish" button. Ironically, the essay arose from a story about a sociologist reluctant to publish his findings because they may give aid and comfort to the politically incorrect.

Rather than leave you completely deprived, while I decide what to do with this latest piece, which is about immigration, here are some of the articles I read while writing it.

First, the item that got me started, by John Leo, on Robert Putnam's five-year study showing "that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities." Leo reports that Putnam (best known for his book Bowling Alone) has expressed reluctance to publish his research:

Putnam's study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of one's own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer. The problem isn't ethnic conflict or troubled racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation. Putnam writes: "In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to 'hunker down'--that is, to pull in like a turtle."

That led me to Roger Axtell's collection of books on "Do's and Taboos around the World" and an essay on missionaries and culture stress.

And from there, I went looking for Francis Fukuyama's work on trust, social capital, and economic development:

Social Capital and Civil Society (1999)
Social Capital and Development (2001)

Then there's this McClatchy news story from January 2010 on the devastation wrought by Haiti's lack of construction codes:

Most buildings in Haiti go up without engineers, standards or inspections. The earthquake is only the latest, and worst, tragedy to expose the largely unregulated and slapdash construction long accepted on the island -- practices that structural engineers believe added to a staggering death toll that could reach 200,000....

It wasn't just humble shacks and turn-of-the-previous-century icons like the historic Roman Catholic Cathedral of Port-au-Prince, but new and newly renovated schools, police stations, bank branches, high-end hotels and hospitals. The U.S. Agency for International Development reported Thursday that 13 of 15 government ministry buildings had been destroyed.

"This was pseudo-engineering. It was terrible," said Eduardo Fierro, a California-based forensic and seismic engineer who was among the first experts to survey the damage....

Most Caribbean countries, Haiti included, have building laws based on the Caribbean Uniform Building Code, said Cletus Springs, director of the OAS' Department of Sustainable Development in Washington. But in many places, rules exist only on paper....

Haiti has taken stabs at beefing up building codes in the past. Ironically, said architect Magloire, one expert brought in recently to work on the code died in the collapse of the Hotel Montana.

You may recall Tulsa City Councilor Jim Mautino's remarks from March 2010 regarding "taco trucks" and zoning, health, and tax enforcement:

City Councilor Jim Mautino said he had received complaints from constituents regarding six mobile food trailers. He said he was concerned about food safety and the city's ability to collect sales taxes.

"This is Third World stuff," he said. "When people come here we assimilate them (new residents of the country) into our lifestyle and our politics; it's not the other way around.

"And it seems to me like what's happening is we're being assimilated."

Mautino expanded on those comments in an April 28 UTW story:

As for new residents assimilating to the U.S., Mautino said this statement stemmed from what he was taught as a child.

"My parents came from Italy and their opinion was when you're in Rome you do like the Romans, when you're in America you do like the Americans," he said. "You come to this country and you don't change this country. You can add things that come from your country, but you abide by our laws."

And here's another immigration-related item, although not part of my essay, on the topic of immigration enforcement, a report that U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have no confidence that the agency's leadership is committed to enforcing the laws:

On June 11, 2010, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council and its constituent local representatives from around the nation, acting on behalf of approximately 7,000 ICE officers and employees from the ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), cast a unanimous "Vote of No Confidence" in the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, and the Assistant Director of the ICE Office of Detention Policy and Planning, (ODPP), Phyllis Coven.

The letter from the president of the AFL-CIO-affiliated union that represents ICE agents explains that local law enforcement is really the only path to immigration enforcement at the moment:

• While ICE reports internally that more than 90 percent of ICE detainees are first encountered in jails after they are arrested by local police for criminal charges, ICE senior leadership misrepresents this information publicly in order to portray ICE detainees as being non-criminal in nature to support the Administration's position on amnesty and relaxed security at ICE detention facilities.
• The majority of ICE ERO Officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing United States immigration laws outside of the institutional (jail) setting. This has effectively created "amnesty through policy" for anyone illegally in the United States who has not been arrested by another agency for a criminal violation.

Following up some email conversation about Tulsa broadcaster Hal O'Halloran, I came across an online treasure trove of radio history: Radio's Online History Resource. It consists of scans of radio industry publications beginning with the earliest years of the medium: Annual publications like Broadcasting Yearbook, Radio Annual; FCC rulebooks; and listening logs and station lists.

At the bottom of the site's main page, the proprietor, David Gleason, explains how he put the site together and why he does it:

The deterioration of the old yearbooks and magazines is just one factor in my decision to try to preserve the heritage of radio's premier publication. The other is the fact that most libraries are short on space and funding. This means that seldom used publications are sold to eBay merchants and every day that passes there are fewer places where this information can be obtained. Most of these specialized publications were not microfilmed... and who has a film reader at home, anyway?....

Since this is a free site, as it always will be, many have asked, "why do you do it?" since some of the Yearbooks have cost as much as $1,000 on eBay. Simply put, I celebrated 50 years in radio in 2009, and this endeavor is a small way to preserve the memories, the heritage and the events of that industry, particularly at a time when the death of our medium is so broadly predicted.

This site is my small contribution to the industry and profession that have given me challenges, joy, frustration and, of course, an income for half a century.

I spent some time browsing through just one of the volumes in the collection, the 1949 Radio Annual and Television Yearbook. Weighing in at just over 1200 pages, there's a wealth of information not only about the stations themselves, but about all the components of the broadcasting industry -- content producers, actors, announcers, advertisers. There are articles by industry leaders on the contemporary challenges and developments. These books, like city directories and phone books, capture irreplaceable, contemporaneously recorded details about the history of American culture.

Here's the section of the 1949 Radio Annual with Oklahoma's listings. It must have been compiled before KRMG's debut that year. Tulsa had KAKC (1570), KFMJ (1050), KOME (1340), KTUL (1430), and KVOO (1170). 1170's transmitters haven't moved in the last sixty years, but in 1949, KAKC and KFMJ had their sticks at 21st and Yale, and KOME's transmitter was at 3904 S. Newport -- now a residential section of Brookside. All but one of the stations had studios downtown -- KVOO in the Philtower, KFMJ in the Alvin Hotel at 7th and Main, KAKC at 412 E. 5th St, KOME at 8th and Main, and KTUL just south of downtown at Boulder-on-the-Park.

Further on in the same volume is a directory of radio and television artists, vocalists, newscasters, and sportscasters. It's interesting to scan through and see names that I know from TV in the 1970s. Paul Henning, creator of Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Petticoat Junction, is listed as a writer for George Burns and Gracie Allen (p. 802). Mel Blanc has a half page ad, featuring a photo of himself, pensive with cigarette in hand, next to a list of his credits -- Warner Bros. Cartoons, characters on the Judy Canova and Jack Benny shows, and novelty records for Capitol (p. 805). Mark Goodson has a quarter page ad -- just his signature -- p. 808 -- he went on to produce the most popular game shows of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Game show host Bill Cullen shows up in a photo on p. 814.

Page 841 has ads for New York Yankees announcer Mel Allen and New York Giants announcer Russ Hodges. There's a listing on p. 849 for Charlie Kuralt, WAYS, Charlotte, host of Jr. Sports Parade. Hugh Finnerty, long-time Tulsa sports broadcaster and promoter, is listed as having worked in 1948 at KBYE in Oklahoma City and KWFT in Wichita Falls.

On p. 865, in the list of newscasters, you'll find Hal O'Halloran at WHBL Sheboygan, doing a program called "Looking Things Over." (THat's probably Hal, Jr., who spent most of his career in Tulsa, not his dad, Hal, Sr., who hosted the WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago in the 1930s, before going into TV in Wisconsin.) The same page lists Jack Morris at KTUL Tulsa. Paul Harvey's on the list, WENR Chicago, in the same column as wartime newsman Gabriel Heatter.

There's a photo of a very young Joe Franklin, then a disk jockey at WMCA, on p. 873. KTUL's "Sunshine Man," Glenn Hardman, is listed on p. 881.

Want to see a list of major radio network programs of 1948 and their sponsoring companies and products? It's here, starting on p. 962.

The next part of the book is devoted to television. There were commercial TV stations in only 30 cities, few enough stations that each had a paragraph and a photo of an executive. WGN Chicago boasted 45 hours of programming a week.

The last section of the volume includes television construction permits and FM radio listings. The networks were in their infancy, with stations numbered in the dozens. Two Oklahoma stations had construction permits at the beginning of 1949, WKY-TV, channel 4 in Oklahoma City, and KOVB, channel 6 in Tulsa. In 1949, Tulsa had two FM stations: KAKC-FM at 95.5 and KTUL-FM at 97.1.

There were commercial shortwave stations in 1949: CBS had stations in Brentwood, Long Island, NY, Wayne, NJ, and Delano, CA, NBC had stations in Bound Brook, NJ, and Dixon, CA, GE had stations in Schenectady, NY, and Belmont, CA, Crosley had stations in Bethany and Mason, OH. The Associated Broadcasters, Inc., transmitted from San Francisco, and World-Wide Broadcasting broadcast from Scituate and Hull, MA. Near the end of the book there are listings of radio stations in Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines.

All that was gleaned from just one volume in this immense collection. If you love the history of mass media and popular culture, you'll find this site fascinating.

Attention fellow political geeks and number-crunchers: The Oklahoma State Election Board has posted the complete results of the July 27, 2010 Oklahoma primary election, including results broken out by county (PDF) and by precinct (zipped PDF). The precinct results are available in a human-readable report and in a text file that can be imported to a database. (There's a description of the text file record layout, too.) Thanks to the great staff at the Oklahoma State Election Board for making this data readily available to the public.

The results cover all Federal (U. S. Senate and House), statewide, legislative, and judicial races (district judge, associate district judge, district attorney). (Results for county, municipal, and school elections are handled by the appropriate county election board. Tulsa County has posted summary results for 2010 and 2009 elections. (Here's a direct link to the Tulsa County July 27, 2010, primary results (PDF).)

If you prefer your data in visual form, Jamison Faught, the Muskogee Politico, has been posting a series of maps of the Oklahoma 2010 primary results by county.

A while back I told you about an Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame exhibit about American jazz musicians touring the world as cultural ambassadors during the Cold War. The exhibit has since moved on, but you can see it online: Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassadors. Here's Louis Armstrong (born on this day in 1901) and His All-Stars on one such goodwill tour, in Stuttgart, West Germany:

According to the description on YouTube, here's the lineup:

Louis Armstrong - trumpet
Trummy Young - trombone
Peanuts Hucko - clarinet
Billy Kyle - piano
Mort Herbert - bass
Danny Barcelona - drums

(Via Wilhelm Murg on Facebook)

Something you may not have known about Louis Armstrong: He played trumpet and his wife played piano on a 1930 Jimmie Rodgers recording - "Blue Yodel No. 9 (Standin' on the Corner)." Here's Armstrong talking about the song and then performing it with Johnny Cash in 1970.

A couple of interesting items on our recently concluded Oklahoma governor's primary and the upcoming general election battle -- Dem. Lt. Governor Jari Askins vs. Congresswoman and former Republican Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin.

Political opinion researcher Chris Wilson has some thoughts on why the polls were so far off, predicting a comfortable win for Attorney General Drew Edmondson over Askins and a solid first place finish for Kevin Calvey over James Lankford in the 5th Congressional District Republican primary to replace Fallin.

We are reminded, more than a little, of the discussion in the wake of another major polling failure--the failure of many outlets to correctly model the New Hampshire Democratic primary of 2008.

AAPOR, the professional organization of the polling community, conducted a major investigation of the New Hampshire polling and released a multi-hundred page report of findings.

We think that many of those findings apply in a substantial way to the failure of the public polling in Oklahoma to correctly analyze the outcome of this week's primaries. But the biggest one is this, primary elections require very well-crafted likely voter models to find the population of actual primary voters and sample from them.

Although the polls' predicted outcome in the Republican governor's race was correct, they were way off on the margin. Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates's Sooner Survey, taken July 18-20, said that Fallin had a 50-22 lead over Brogdon, beating Brogdon 40-25 even in the Tulsa area. (Brogdon won every county in the Tulsa metro area.) The Tulsa World - SoonerPoll.com poll, taken July 16-21, had Fallin over Brogdon 56-18. The actual result was 55-39.

It's worth noting that at least some of the data in each poll was over a week old by the time election day rolled around. That's bound to make the results look worse than they are, especially for SoonerPoll.com -- the Tulsa World waited until July 25 to publish the results, four days after the poll was concluded. The information about the polling date was there in the story, of course, but readers are apt to assume that a poll released two days before the primary should match the result pretty closely.

It would have been nice to have more polls for comparison. For some odd reason, Rasmussen Reports did two polls comparing each Republican contender with each Democrat in a general election matchup, but never bothered to poll the primaries. I wish Survey USA or WRS had run a poll -- both outfits are good about releasing crosstabs, something that neither SoonerPoll.com or Sooner Survey made available. Given that Oklahoma is an early presidential primary state in 2012, I'd have thought national polling outfits would have wanted to show off their skills at reading Oklahoma Republican voters for prospective clients.

Looking ahead to November, Steve Fair, the 4th Congressional District Republican Party Chairman, saw Mary Fallin and Jari Askins at their first post-primary joint appearance, the Oklahoma Grocers, Wholesale Marketers and Petroleum Marketers convention. He warns, "Askins will not be a pushover!" and draws some comparisons to 2002.

As I entered the hall, I saw Lt. Governor Jari Askins, (D-Duncan). She hugged me and I congratulated her on her upset victory last night. Jari Askins is one of the most gracious people in politics- no matter what your party affiliation is. That demeanor has served her well in Stephens County and across the state. It will get her some 'swing' votes in the upcoming general election. She softens her liberal views with a sweet dispensation. She ain't Nancy Pelosi!...

After the press conference, Fallin shook hands with a half dozen people and left. Askins hung around for three hours, getting pictures made with exhibitors in the MIO [Made In Oklahoma] booth and other booths and several retailers....

Fallin should have stayed at the show and met the 'regular folks.' That gets votes, it's fundamental and it's also the right thing to do. Askins interacts with people well! Several "R"s in the MIO booth remarked how much they liked Askins. VIRTUALLY EVERY PERSON IN THE MIO BOOTH HAD THEIR PICTURE MADE WITH HER! She will get consideration from people that Fallin should have locked up. Many Stephens County Republicans will vote for Askins in November, not because of her politics, but because of her gracious nature. Fallin should soften her image, not hurry through campaign stops and discuss more than issues with those she meets on the campaign trail....

[In 2002, I invited [Republican gubernatorial nominee Steve] Largent to come to the show and meet the grocers, exhibitors and manufacturers at the show. Largent came, addressed the crowd and left just like Fallin. He didn't engage anyone and unless I took him around to each booth and introduced him, he just stood around. I remarked to a friend that had Frank Keating been in that room, EVERYONE WOULD HAVE KNOWN HIM. Keating is engaging- he has great interpersonal skills. Fallin is not Largent, but on the first day after her nomination, she made a strategic error reminiscent of Largent's gaffe.

Fair's blog entry is also worth reading for his perspective on the decline of independent grocers in Oklahoma and how government policies "unlevel" the playing field in favor of major chains and big box realtors.

MORE of interest from the same authors:

Chris Wilson: How to Kill Twitter: Charge for It. Wilson notes that the USC/Annenberg report from which this insight came is itself inaccessible unless you pay $500, which means the report is unlikely to have the circulation or influence it would have if available for free on an advertiser-supported website.

Steve Fair, who also serves as Stephens County Republican Party chairman, explains how the county party works, where it gets its funding, and why it needs your support.

Finally, the Oklahoma Republican Party is asking Republicans to donate $20.10 for 2010. Every dollar donated stays in Oklahoma to help Oklahoma candidates.

Busy weekend -- no time to do much more than to pass along some interesting links:

Ace of Spades HQ: Hoyer: Expiration of Bush Tax Cuts = "Republican Tax Increase": The House Majority (not for long) Leader tries to sell the idea that its the Republicans' fault that their tax cuts will expire, the tax cuts passed during the Bush administration which the Democrats blocked from being made permanent.

Doug Dawg's Blog: Oklahoma City Area History: Not the history of the OKC vicinity, but the history of the square mileage of Oklahoma City, which reached its peak at 680 sq. mi. and once reached into 6 counties before retreating a bit.

TulsaGal has a history mystery to sort out: What happened to the World War II monument in Veteran's Park?

Howard Kozloff, writing in newgeography has some ideas on what to do with surplus real estate in resort towns:

Most stalled or dead projects were geared to higher-end buyers searching for second, or third or fourth, homes. As the lenders and creditors seize these assets and write down their values after taking heavy losses, perhaps there is an opportunity to reposition them and solve both worker housing demand and over supply of second homes.

Lileks Lint: How good's your '70s pop music knowledge? Identify the faces in an ad for Capitol Record Club. I think I've figured out all but three.

New York Times: Media Decoder: How Did William Shatner Interview a D.C. Sniper? He Asked.

Yes, it was Mr. Shatner, the "Star Trek" actor and Priceline negotiator, who interviewed Mr. Malvo and found out that the snipers claim to have committed dozens of other shootings, some with co-conspirators.

"It was the most electrifying 20 minutes I've ever spent on the phone," Mr. Shatner said in an interview Thursday.

The interview was conducted for "Aftermath," Mr. Shatner's new series on the Biography Channel. The series, which Mr. Shatner said he conceived and sold to the channel, is about the human leftovers of the 24/7 news cycle.

Best comment on the story, by PeteBDawg of Cambridge, MA:

If you were a sniper who had killed a bunch of random people and were sitting in prison, and somebody told you William Shatner was on the phone, of course you'd talk to him. I have no idea why that makes perfect sense, but it makes perfect sense. It's like the man has preternatural authority of some sort - like he's an angel from a low-key and unconcerned God who doesn't hold grudges and appreciates the ridiculous.

Old but still interesting: The Syncher, Not the Song: The Irresistable Rise of the Numa Numa Dance -- how a Moldovan pop song became the soundtrack for one of the biggest viral videos ever: "Brolsma's video singlehandedly justifies the existence of webcams.... It's a movie of someone who is having the time of his life, wants to share his joy with everyone, and doesn't care what anyone else thinks."

mental_floss: Drink Up! The Stories Behind 11 Regional Soft Drinks: Cheerwine, Moxie, Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray, Big Red, Green River, Belfast Sparkling Cider, Ale-8-One, Blenheim Ginger Ale, Vernors, Hires Root Beer, Sun Drop. I suspect most of them are available at Pops or Ida Red. (HT @randalljweiss)

ReadWriteWeb: Study: Youth Not Only Care About Facebook Privacy, They Do Something About It:

The research finds that "most" Facebook users modified their privacy settings at least once in 2009, with this practice only becoming more common as time went on, increasing for both frequent and less frequent users. "This suggests that either Facebook's changes to the site or the public discussion about them that took place between 2009 and 2010 -- or a combination of the two -- may have influenced people's practices," reads the report.

A couple of poignantly funny bits from The Onion:

Plan To Start Little Stationery Store Too Sad For Bank To Deny Loan
New Robot Capable Of Unhealthily Repressing Emotion: "...the robot instantly performs millions of computations to ensure feelings of unresolved anger and simmering resentment remain deeply buried within its complex circuitry.... with its superior processing power, the robot could apply for clerical work and settle for the nearest available partner 10,000 times faster than a human being."

Houldsworth's Ramblings: The Price of Fear: Our fear-driven legal environment is strangling freedom and creativity.

"The Law" can be a powerful driver of human behavior, and when laws are permissive and easy to understand, society and business can flourish. But years of highly publicized frivolous lawsuits has given people justifiable cause to be fearful. I could give examples but...there is no need, everyone has their own favorites.

In reality, the number of successful crazy cases is small, but they change behavior. For example, after a highly publicized suit against Microsoft, I was not allowed to keep any consultants on site for more than 9 months, even though it took those consultants between 3-6 months just to get up to speed. Inefficient and unnecessary, but a response to fear of "The Law".

(Via Lenore Skenazy of FreeRangeKids -- a blog devoted to combating fearful overreaction to unlikely dangers.)

Beregond's Bar: Today Would Have Been Our Anniversary: A touching story of love and loss: a story that begins with a 300 baud modem and a trip to the ER on the first date and ends with her sudden death after seeing him through a prolonged life-threatening illness:

Giving everything to take care of the ones you love is not enough. They love you, too. You're important to them. Taking care of you is part of taking care of the people you love. Yeah, you're busy. Yeah, you've got a million things to do. But do it for the people you love. You're their most important You.

And with that -- take care of yourselves and have a great week.