February 2025 Archives

This is the story of a building in Tulsa's Greenwood District that rose from the ashes of the Tulsa Race Massacre, housed a successful pharmacy, became a beloved malt shop, served briefly as a neighborhood co-op grocery, saw its share of burglaries, robberies, and violence, suffered an ignominious old age, and finished its life as a location in a beloved cult film based on a book by a local author, before its final destruction at the hands of city officials, backed by federal funds, after a mere six decades of existence.

Danny Boy O'Connor reports on the discovery of a foundation stone from a demolished commercial building on Greenwood Avenue. The building, on the southeast corner of Greenwood and Latimer Street, was used by director Francis Ford Coppola as the pet shop in the movie Rumble Fish, based on the novel by Tulsa's S. E. Hinton. The stone will be moved to the Outsiders House for preservation:

You're looking at an 8-foot concrete footing, left buried on Greenwood from the original buildings featured in Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, based on S.E. Hinton's classic novel and filmed in Tulsa in 1982. I discovered this hidden piece of history a few years ago while searching for historic filming locations. I immediately thought the site would be a perfect location for a future museum. As fate would have it, I later met with Kimberly Johnson, CEO of the Tulsa City-County Library. To my surprise, this very site was the planned location for her new library in North Tulsa. I shared the story with her, explaining that a piece of cinematic history lay buried beneath the surface. I asked for permission to recover it for a future exhibit or museum, and she graciously agreed to let The Outsiders House Museum preserve it. Today was a good day! I can't thank Nathan Tuell and the team at Nabholz Construction enough for carefully digging out the footing and loading it onto our trailer. Huge thanks as well to Gary Coulson from The Outsiders DX in Sperry, Oklahoma, for helping transport and store it. And, of course, my deepest gratitude to Kimberly Johnson for making this dream a reality--allowing us to save the last remaining piece of the Rumble Fish pet store location. P.S. Thank you, Patrick McNicholas, for the reference photos and the photo mashes.

Rumble Fish and its locations inspired Chilean author Alberto Fuguet to visit Tulsa and then to create a documentary about the experience: Locaciones: Buscando a Rusty James (Locations: Looking for Rusty James"), which was screened at Tulsa's Circle Cinema in 2014.

The pet store location was a two-story retail building on the southeast corner of Latimer St and Greenwood Ave. The 1957 Polk City Directory says that Kyle's Sundry was at 1023 N. Greenwood, and the Kyle Apartments were upstairs at 1023½. This was one of the last surviving bits of a commercial area on the north end of Greenwood Avenue between King Street and Pine Street. Sometimes called Upper Greenwood, the area was considered more family-friendly than Deep Greenwood, at Archer. Many of the buildings, like this one, were two stories, with rooms to rent on the 2nd floor. There were a number of churches here, a movie theater (the Rex, just two blocks away at 1135 N. Greenwood), groceries, cafes, barber shops, and pool halls. The area was cleared as part of the City of Tulsa's urban renewal program. This sort of retail building, and the idea of having retail next to residential, was considered "obsolete" and "blight" by urban planners of the day, so it was demolished at some point in the mid-1980s.

I see a lot of hair-on-fire social media posts from my friends on the political left about the way the Trump Administration has hit the ground running, particularly the rapid moves by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to shut down questionable flows of Federal funds through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Notwithstanding President Trump's denial of any links to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, he clearly understood the same urgency that inspired Project 2025: If you're going to be a good steward of the authority entrusted to you and the political capital you have after an election win, you have to have plans and personnel queued up long before Inauguration Day. Really, you need to start well before Election Day to draft executive orders, vet sub-cabinet political appointees, and lay out a sequence of events. That didn't happen in 2016, and opportunities were wasted as a result. There are wild-eyed claims that Trump is driven by an agenda developed by Curtis Yarvin, an online personality known as "Moldbug."

Your incoming team needs to be well versed in laws and precedents involving presidential authority, government finances. To look at it as a computer software engineer, you need to know the operating system, the kernel, system functions, the whole toolset you have at your disposal to accomplish your aims. None of this requires violating the Constitution, federal statutes, or court precedents.

A friend reposted a claim that Trump was violating the Constitution by spending money on DOGE without explicit action by Congress to appropriate money for the initiative.

DOGE (as the US DOGE Service) is just a new name of an existing office (US Digital Service) which President Obama established by Executive Order. It is under the Executive Office of the President, and presumably it is spending money that Congress has appropriated for the current fiscal year to the EOP or possibly that was directly appropriated for the USDS. I haven't been able to find any number more recent than $30 million appropriated to USDS in 2016.

An apportionment is an Office of Management and Budget (OMB)-approved plan to obligate budgeted resources. Here's an OMB document showing how the apportionment process was handled by the Obama Administration in 2016. The OMB ensures that funds are apportioned in accord with appropriations and continuing resolutions authorized by Congress. Apportionments are listed on the OMB website. Under FY 2025, under Executive Office of the President, you'll find JSON and Excel versions of apportionment requests.

I found several apportionment requests for US DOGE Service, citing 31 USC 1535 and 5 USC 3161 as authorizing legislation. The first provision allows agencies to purchase services from other agencies; the second allows funding for temporary organizations established by executive order or by statute. So presumably the USDS is using appropriated funds to pay the US DOGE Service Temporary Organization to track Federal funds and analyze spending for fraud, waste, and abuse.

When President Obama was faced with a Congress he thought would obstruct him, he said, "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone," and used executive actions within the discretion already authorized by law to move money and people around to pursue his priorities. There's bound to be plenty of litigation, but it appears that the Trump team is following Obama's example.

Take a close look at Executive Order establishing DOGE. Section 4(a) specifically links the US DOGE Service mission to the purpose for which US Digital Service was created -- "Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity." Section 5 carefully bounds the Executive Order so as not to override the statutory authority of OMB, agency heads, and congressional appropriation authority.

Several people on social media have mentioned Franklin D. Roosevelt as another example of a president making sweeping changes, using powers delegated by statute, without needing immediate congressional action, finding ways around the existing bureaucracy to get things done:

In addition to revamping the Supreme Court, FDR believed that he needed to reform and strengthen the Presidency, and specifically the administrative units and bureaucracy charged with implementing the chief executive's policies. During his first term, FDR quickly found that the federal bureaucracy, specifically at the Treasury and State Departments, moved too slowly for his tastes. FDR often chose to bypass these established channels, creating emergency agencies in their stead. "Why not establish a new agency to take over the new duty rather than saddle it on an old institution?" asked the President. "If it is not permanent," he continued, "we don't get bad precedents."FDR would look at other ways to increase his administrative and bureaucratic power. His 1937 plan for executive reorganization called for the President to receive six full-time executive assistants, for a single administrator to replace the three-member Civil Service Commission, for the President and his staff to assume more responsibility in budget planning, and for every executive agency to come under the control of one of the cabinet departments. The President's conservative critics pounced on the plan, seeing it as an example of FDR's imperious and power-hungry nature; Congress successfully bottled up the bill. But in 1939, Congress did pass a reorganization bill that created the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and allowed FDR to shift a number of executive agencies (including the Bureau of the Budget) to its watch. While FDR did not get the far-reaching result he sought in 1937, the 1939 legislation strengthened the Presidency immeasurably.

FDR won the 1932 election precisely because he promised to take quick and decisive action to address the Great Depression, in contrast to Herbert Hoover, who was careful to stay within precedent and norms. As the above linked article shows, FDR was a pragmatist willing to move from one experiment to another to find measures that would put Americans back to work, relieve hunger, and stabilize the financial system. (Although FDR was not an ideologue, he was steered and influenced by ideologues, including Harry Hopkins, a Soviet agent.)

After taking office in 1993, Bill Clinton fired nearly every US Attorney and the head of the FBI and replaced them with loyalists. Republicans hated it, but what's the point of an election if the newly elected officials aren't allowed to change anything? The Framers of the Constitution would not have approved of a permanent branch of government that pursues its own policy preferences unaffected by the results of an election. (They'd also object to the size and scope of the Federal government, stretching the Elastic Clause to the breaking point.)

I am old enough to have lived through several cycles in which control of Congress and control of the White House changed hands. Back when Nixon, Ford, and Reagan were president, the House was Democrat-controlled throughout, and the Senate as well, except for Reagan's first six years in office. During that period, Republicans wanted the executive branch to have more power at the expense of the legislative branch, and Democrats wanted Congress to have more power to constrain the President. When the situation was reversed under Clinton and Obama, Democrats were defending the prerogatives of the President, and Republicans were urging Congress to use the power of the purse to reign him in.

I've seen the same thing in discussions of voting systems -- caucus selection, jungle primaries, non-partisan elections, instant runoff voting. People will argue for one or the other based on whether it would have helped their preferred candidate to win or not. But that will change from year to year. Republicans love first-past-the-post when the Green Party siphons enough Leftist votes to allow the GOP to win with a plurality. The GOP loves runoffs when right-of-center voters are split among several candidates and the Leftists are united behind the Democrat.

It makes more sense not to decide matters of long-term constitutional structure on short-term advantage. If we want to talk about extra-constitutional authority, 90% of what the Federal Government spends money on is not authorized by the Constitution. The Framers intended for there to be "energy in the executive" to be able to respond quickly to emergent situations at home and abroad, but Congress has delegated far more power to the Executive Branch than the Framers would have believed to be wise. A smaller, less important Federal Government would reduce the stakes in federal elections and hopefully reduce the amount of fear and panic that is generated over the results.

DOGE meme from imgflip.com

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A friend has posted a YouTube video from the MinuteEarth channel warning: "Your Favorite YouTube Channels Might Not Survive This."

And here's the thing: Many of your favorite channels, rely, at least in part, on the kind of funding that's in danger. Here at MinuteEarth, half of our production budget last year came from partnerships with scientists at government organizations like NASA, and through government-funded universities and National Science Foundation grants. These institutions allocate a tiny amount of their budgets to outreach and communication about science, which include supporting editorially independent videos on channels like ours so we can share the important -- and awesome! -- research they are doing with curious folks around the globe.

The end of the video identifies Neptune Studios LLC as the copyright owner of the video. From MinuteEarth's partners page (which hasn't changed substantially in four years):

We help our nonprofit and university sponsors reach a large, engaged, and scientifically-minded audience. In addition to crafting traditional sponsorship messages, we often work with experts from these organizations to tell the stories in the videos themselves. Past partners include the University of Minnesota, Bill and Melinda Gates, GiveWell, and the Heising-Simons Foundation....

Many of our videos contain sponsored ending messages, in which we thank partners for their support and tell our audience about their products. We work with brands to shape engaging messages that are true to the spirit of each brand. Past successful integrations include a diverse group of consumer brands, from Audible to 23andMe to Crunchyroll....

No shame in selling your visual storytelling skills, but when "half of [y]our production budget" comes from government money, it calls into question your editorial independence. Would you ever do a video that exposes research that is unimportant -- or non-awesome! -- or shoddy, misleading, or harmful, if it makes your government clients look bad. Would you do a video on the practice of estimating temperatures for defunct climate monitoring stations? Or the influence of urbanization changes on global temperature measurement? Or the hazards of gain-of-function research? You'd figure out pretty quickly what you can and can't say in order to keep the funds flowing that allows you to keep doing what you love.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025, is the annual school primary for Oklahoma school districts and technology center districts, plus city elections in some charter cities, and a number of special county, municipal, and school elections. Polls will be open on election day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visit okvoterportal.okelections.gov to find your polling place and view your sample ballot. Early voting will be available on Thursday and Friday only from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will be no early voting on Saturday. Tulsa County early voting will be at the long-time election board building in the old Marina-style Safeway at 555 N. Denver. Only one early-voting location will be open for Wagoner County, at the First Baptist Church, 401 NE 2nd, Wagoner; unlike many recent elections, the Broken Arrow location will not be open.

Tuesday is a primary election for any school board seat with three or more candidates; if any candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, that candidate is elected; otherwise, the top two candidates compete in the school general election on April 1, 2025, alongside school board seats for which only two candidates filed. Also on February 11, some charter cities, including Oklahoma City, Norman, Edmond, Bristow, Pryor Creek, Ponca City, and Altus, will elect mayors or city councilors; in Tulsa County, only Owasso has a municipal election. Special primary elections will be held for unexpired county commission seats in Oklahoma and Okmulgee Counties. Many school districts, including Jenks and Owasso, will vote on bond issues (property tax increases). There are county-wide propositions in Garvin, Major, Sequoyah, and Wagoner Counties, most notably the Wagoner County proposition to increase the county sales tax for 15 years, in lieu of a 10-year increase in property taxes, to pay a $13 million dollar civil rights judgment. Here is the full, statewide list of elections for February 11, 2025.

Tulsa County elections:

Tulsa Public Schools, Office No. 3: Brandi Joseph. Incumbent Jennettie Marshall is not seeking re-election for this district, which covers nearly everything north of Pine Street, plus all of the Osage County portion of the Tulsa Public Schools district. Brandi Joseph (39) is the lone registered Republican running. Joseph is an ORU alumna and member of Victory Christian Center. Dorie Simmons (50) and Eartha (Shanina) McAlester (46) are registered Democrats; Kyra Carby (39) is registered independent. Simmons is a real estate agent and attends Metropolitan Baptist Church. Carby was a TPS teacher and a community engagement manager for the Gathering Place and Guthrie Green and is now "Community Genealogy Grant Coordinator for the City of Tulsa. In this role, she oversees the administration of the Emmett Till [Cold Case] Grant Program providing support to grant subrecipients while advocating for the victims and families of racial violence from the Tulsa Race Massacre." None of the candidates filed the required pre-election campaign and expenditures reports by the Monday, February 3, 2025, 5 p.m. deadline. Nehemiah Darnell Frank doesn't like Brandi Joseph, which is a very good endorsement in her favor.

Broken Arrow Public Schools, Office No. 5: Bruce Allen Lamont (48) is the lone Republican running. Jerry Denton (60) is the incumbent Democrat. Another challenger Kate Williams (40), a freelance writer and an adjunct professor at TU and TCC, is also a Democrat. Williams filed a Statement of Organization, but none of the candidates filed the required pre-election campaign and expenditures reports. In response to my open records request, the BAPS district clerk indicated that she was unaware that candidates were required to file anything other than a Statement of Organization. The Broken Arrow Sentinel interviewed Williams.

Owasso City Council, Ward 5: Chad Balthrop (R, 54) is Executive Pastor at First Baptist Church, Owasso; Brandon Shreffler (R, 43) is a driving instructor. Long-time incumbent Doug Bonebrake is not seeking re-election. Neither candidate has anything on the web or social media that describes specific policies or what they would change about Owasso's direction as a city. Balthrop filed a Statement of Organization with the city clerk, Shreffler did not, and neither candidate filed the pre-election report of contributions and expenditures required by state ethics laws.

Jenks Public Schools bond issues: Proposition No. 1 is $18,950,000 for Phase III Freshman Academy expansion, plus other improvements; Proposition No. 2 is $650,000 for student transportation equipment. According to the Jenks Bond Transparency Act document, Jenks Schools has $114 million in outstanding debt principal, plus $33 million in unissued bonds approved at the 2020 bond issue election.

Owasso Public Schools bond issues: Proposition No. 1 is $193 million for a new 5th grade center, fine arts center, soccer complex, and other improvements; Proposition No. 2 is $4.5 million for vehicles for student transportation. According to the Owasso Bond Transparency Act document, Owasso Schools has $56 million in outstanding debt principal, plus $33 million in unissued bonds approved at the 2022 bond issue election.

Beyond Tulsa County:

• Wagoner County sales tax increase, 0.25% for 15 years, to pay federal court settlement
• Garvin County sales tax increase, 1% for 15 years to build a new county jail
• Major County sales tax increase, 11/32-cent (0.34375%) for 18 years to build a new County Health and Education Center and renovate the existing Health Department building
• Major County sales tax increase, 3/32-cent (0.09375%) for 7 years for county courthouse renovations
• Sequoyah County 4% permanent lodging tax for fairgrounds operation (60%), contracting for marketing and tourism promotion (30%), and roadside beautification (10%)

RESULTS:

132,627 votes were cast for 112 races or propositions across the state, but many jurisdictions had two propositions and there was some overlap between school, municipal, and county issues. The biggest turnout: 18,452 for mayor of Norman. The smallest turnout: 16 voters in the town of Paradise Hill in Sequoyah County. Only 20 voters each chose a Moffett school board member (also in Sequoyah County) and an Ada city councilor. Langston had 26 voters for a town proposition -- can't find any info on what issue was on the ballot. Two seats on the Bristow city council for Ward 3 -- a regular election and a special election for an unexpired term -- were decided by 39 voters.

Image by Grok

Dueling worldviews are holding conferences this week at the University of Tulsa.

TU's Honors College and Department of Philosophy & Religion is sponsoring an evening-plus-a-day conference commemorating the 1500th anniversary (sesquimillennial?) of the death of early medieval Christian philosopher and polymath Boethius. Registration is $15 or $25 for two and includes meals and receptions. (TU students and staff can attend for free. At this writing, the registration link is broken, and I have emailed the conference contact to see if it is still possible to register and attend. UPDATE: Registration closed on January 31. The banquet is full, but you may still be able to register by email to attend the other conference sessions.)

Please join The University of Tulsa's Honors College and the Kendall College of Arts and Sciences Department of Philosophy and Religion as we commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the death of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius Feb. 6-7, 2025. We will be joined by internationally recognized scholars to honor the life and work of one of the fundamental thinkers of western Civilization. Across the centuries, his works have illuminated the path of reason and revelation for thoughtful readers. His exploration of the themes of fortune and providence continue to resonate to the present day. Though known primarily for his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius wrote widely, including works in the fields of theology, logic, mathematics, and musical theory.

He was key for the transition from the ancient Roman and pagan eras into the Christian Middle Ages. Besides his intellectual works, he was a prominent figure in the history and politics of the post-imperial west. Imprisoned and executed by the Arian Ostrogothic king Theodoric, Boethius has become an example of resignation and resistance in the face of injustice, and an example of the resilience of humanity under persecution. His cultus as a saint was confirmed by the Catholic Church in 1883.

This conference will have two keynotes by some of the worldwide experts on Boethius, John Marenbon of Cambridge University and Peter Kreeft of Boston College. They will be joined by numerous other scholars to illumine the world bequeathed by this pivotal figure, who will explore the many dimensions of Boethius' work and influence, honoring a man whose vision has shaped the intellectual landscape of the West.

Here is the list of sessions:

• Why read Boethius now?
• Boethius and the Concept of the Person
• Virtue and Knowledge: Boethius and the Quadrivium in Medieval and Renaissance Europe
• A Soft Sword, Two Clocks, and an Abandoned House in Milan: Boethius in the Context of Ostrogothic Italy
• Teaching Boethius in a Classical Curriculum
• The Feminine Genius of Lady Philosophy
• The Consolation of Music: An Exploration of the Use of Music in Boethius' Healing
• The Icon of Boethius and Lady Philosophy
• The Contemporary Relevance of The Consolation of Philosophy: Twenty Healing Lessons

Fans of John Kennedy Toole's hilarious novel A Confederacy of Dunces will recall that Ignatius Reilly's misreading of Boethius's most famous work, The Consolation of Philosophy, was often on his thoughts as he suffered the indignities of the fickle finger of Fortuna.

The Boethius conference begins Thursday evening, February 6, 2025, at TUPAC with a social hour followed by a keynote address by John Marenbon of Cambridge University, "Why read Boethius now?" On Friday, February 7, 2025, there will be eight sessions at Helmerich Hall, including a panel discussion on "Teaching Boethius in a Classical Curriculum." The conference will be capped off in the Great Hall of the Allen Chapman Student Union with a banquet and a talk by Boston College Professor Peter Kreeft, "The Contemporary Relevance of The Consolation of Philosophy: Twenty Healing Lessons."

You may know Prof. Kreeft from his popular works of philosophy published by Intervarsity Press, such as Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley, Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ, or The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion. Between Heaven and Hell imagines a conversation between three very different thinkers who all died on November 22, 1963: Lewis representing orthodox Christian thought, Huxley representing eastern mysticism, and JFK representing modern western secularism.

(I met Prof. Kreeft about 40 years ago when he came to MIT to speak to a roundtable of students from various Christian organizations on campus. It was a fairly small group, and we were around a large table in a Course III (Materials Science) classroom in Building 8. It was there that I learned that the double-E in his Dutch surname is pronounced like an English long A.)

Meanwhile, at 101 E. Archer in downtown Tulsa (the old AHHA building, acquired by TU), the University of Tulsa's Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) will hold its inaugural conference. (Someone at TU thought it would be cute to create an acronym honoring a murderous Communist.)

The Center for Heterodox Economics invites you to our first conference addressing some of the most pressing issues of our time. From the global political issues to the challenges of inequality, poverty, gender equality, climate change, and anti-capitalism movements, our discussions promise to be both engaging and impactful.

This event is open to everyone, and we encourage you to join us in exploring these critical topics. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a vibrant community dedicated to understanding capitalism.

The description on the Center for Heterodox Economics homepage is a little different:

The Center for Heterodox Economics (CHE) is excited to announce its inaugural conference, set to take place in February 6th to 8th. This groundbreaking event will bring together leading scholars, organizers, students, and local citizens to explore alternative perspectives in economic theory and practice.

Understanding the history and mechanisms of capitalism is crucial for addressing social and economic issues. By examining timely topics through a heterodox perspective, we can explore how our economic system functions and how people drive societal transformation.

Join us for this landmark event as we pave the way for a more inclusive and dynamic understanding of economics.

The conference sessions:

• How does Your Work Embody Heterodoxy?
• The Political Economy of Karl Marx
• Inflation, Austerity, and Class Conflict
• The Political Economy of Occupied Palestine
• Community Organizing and Class Consciousness
• The Political Economy of Piero Sraffa
• Probabilistic Political Economy
• The Exploding Crises of Care and Climate under Capitalism

The conference will also be presented on CHE's YouTube channel.

Rabbi Dovid Feldman will lead the session on "Occupied Palestine." Feldman heads Neturei Karta, an anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jewish organization that rejects the legitimacy of the State of Israel because only Messiah can restore Israel.

I note that this Communist-inclined conference is being held on the same block as a museum devoted to a famous Communist agitator and Stalin fan, and I can't help but wonder if the jolly banker who financed the latter is also involved with the former. If any of my readers have information on the funding source for this new TU initiative, I'd be very interested.

Interesting too that the CHE conference got two mentions in the Tulsa Whirled, but no mention was made of the Boethius conference. That may be indicative of the Whirled's Leftist leanings but may also reflect a powerful and persuasive local force behind CHE.

As pleased as I am that classical philosophy has regained a foothold at the University of Tulsa so quickly after the "True Commitment" demolition of the humanities at TU, it is disturbing to see TU at the same time opening a new avenue for the propagation of destructive illusions about human nature. Donors and alumni may wish to communicate their concerns to President Brad Carson and his administration.