Michael Bates: July 2008 Archives
tomhull.com: Old-Time Country / Cowboy / Western Swing
A summary of grades assigned to albums, but without the bullet reviews. Interesting collection includes a lot of western swing and other forms of hot hillbilly music. And here's a broader list which includes outside recommendations.
tomhull.com: January 2002 Notebook
The top entry on this page has two-sentence reviews of about 50 albums, including most of Bob Wills's Tiffany Transcriptions, For the Last Time, and the Longhorn Recordings; the two Billy Jack Wills compilations; Tommy Duncan's solo work; Adolph Hofner; Merle Travis; Jimmie Rogers (the Singing Brakeman); Jimmie Rivers (Brisbane Bop); and old-time fiddler Eck Robertson. This guy doesn't care for obscuring the music patter and chatter -- the sort you find on the Longhorn Recordings and on old radio transcriptions. I find the snippets of talk colorful and fascinating.
Tulsa World: Fair board approves use of excess excise taxes
Actually, it's a use tax. And $300,000 to move dirt for the Arabian Horse Show? How much of a subsidy are we giving to this private enterprise?
Tulsa World: ORU, former accountant at odds over audit report
Just because your school is called Oral doesn't mean your audits should be.
Tulsa World: Wayne Greene: Stop cutting my taxes, and can I get you some ice water
The Whirled editorial board is unanimous, as always -- they never met a tax increase they didn't like: "As we always do, we told [State Rep. Lucky Lamons] to stop cutting our taxes."
ToddSeavey.com: Dark Knight vs. X-Files: Nerd Without Pity
"I take no joy in saying this -- I just feel sad for the people whose careers were quietly dying in front of me while I watched the X-Files movie.... I didn't hate X-Files: I Want to Believe. I felt sorry for it."
Tommy Allsup MyBestYears.com INTERVIEW SPOTLIGHT
The legendary western swing & rock-n-roll guitarist looks back over 60 years in music: the Oklahoma Swingbillies, Johnnie Lee Wills, Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings, the Winter Dance Party Tour and the fateful coin-flip with Ritchie Valens, producing Bob Wills, session work for Kenny Rogers, George Jones, and the Everly Brothers, and leading the ongoing Texas Playboys band.
Confessions of a politically correct journalist - Crunchy Con
What western reporters wouldn't tell their readers about the ugly realities of life in Africa.
Field of Schemes: Tiger Stadium gets tenth life
There's still a chance that part of Detroit's grand old ballpark will be saved.
Brand New: Less Hyphen, More Burst for Walmart
Wal-Mart Walmart gets a new logo for the first time in 27 years. See why they lost the hyphen, and revisit logos of the past. (Via Dustbury.)
Pretty Goes with Pretty: My Listening Month: Favorite Downloads of July
"My favorite thing about this song ['That's What I Like about the South,' from For the Last Time] is the fact that there is a hype man on a country tune. Did Flava Flav and Chuck D steal their schtick from Bob Wills?" Yes, but Bob stole it from the medicine shows. (More about "this song" on Dustbury.) (And this is not the first time I've seen Flava Flav compared to Bob Wills.)
Hello Vegetables: Afraid And Shy, I Let My Chance Go By
"This mighty titan of a country song was written by two people who have passed on in the last couple years -- Cindy Walker (who also wrote 'Sugar Moon' with Bob Wills) and Eddy Arnold. Arnold and Jerry Vale both charted with it in 1956, but when Ray Charles covered it in 1962, people wept and threw money at their local record-store clerk."
Awesomely Bad Tulsa Architecture « Irritated Tulsan
The Borg Cube, the Prayer Tower, the Big Syringe, and more. Number 1 is said to resemble chromed Number 2.
RealClearPolitics - HorseRaceBlog - On Obama's Message
"A message of unity could be effective, even though it is tricky to sell in a partisan campaign. The problem is the first part. Around what does the Obama campaign envision the nation unifying? Around the grand person of Barack Obama....
"Everybody thinks the economy is lousy and a strong majority thinks George W. Bush has done a poor job, but not everybody thinks Obama is the greatest thing since sliced bread. To get to half-plus-one, he must persuade people who are immune to Obama-mania. He must frame this election in a way that appeals to them. He is not doing that right now."
Michelle Malkin » Conservative coping mechanism: the secret resume
See-Dubya says sometimes you want to show the resume with the Heritage Foundation internship, and sometimes you don't.
NYTimes.com - Heading Home - Signed, Sealed, Delivered...Finally
Retired ballplayer Doug Glanville cleans out a closet and gets caught up on fan mail going back to 1994.
"The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing." The American Physical Society's position on global climate change: "Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, 'just in case', can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them."
BaylyBlog: The "New Living Translation" and "Today's New International Version" are bad...
Are Bible publishers watering down parts of the Bible they think are too harsh or exclusive?
The Computer Bed - Euro FlyingBed
Soon to be standard cubicle equipment? David Szondy calls this $3,650 convertible bed / computer desk "A Sign You'll Never Go Home Again "
Me and My Girls - The Night of the Gun - David Carr - NYTimes.com
An excerpt from New York Times columnist David Carr's new autobiography. He investigates his past as a junkie and strips away some of the romantic gloss he had put on his past. (Via Alarming News.)
World On the Web: Theologies of work, Part III
Latest in a thought-provoking series on the deficiencies of the evangelical theology of vocation: "It was Frederick Buechner who wrote that your vocation is 'where your deepest joy meets the world's deepest need,' and I think we ought to maintain some of that reverence -- and relevance -- as we consider what work we will do with our hands and minds."
Paul Greenberg :: Townhall.com :: Good News is No News
Why the media silence on the dismantling of al-Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq? Even the New York Times has noticed and so has Barack Obama, in his own odd way: "Last year Barack Obama, who's now cinched his party's presidential nomination, was still arguing that the Surge would fail.... But don't look for any of his anti-Surge statements on Senator Obama's Web site, not any more. They've just been purged. And replaced by a new, more militant stance. To borrow a phrase from Ron Ziegler, Richard Nixon's hapless press secretary: 'This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.'"
Things I Learned In Oklahoma: Tulsa Edition « Dealy's Domain
He came from Wichita to see Ween at Cain's Ballroom. (Wait -- someone came to town for a concert and the BOk Center isn't even open yet?!?!? How can this be?!?) He noticed a few things: "The one thing Tulsa has that Wichita doesn't is Cain's Ballroom, the home of Bob Wills.... Cain's is the type of venue that famous people love to play because it has hosted countless legendary acts.... Tulsa has a real visible homeless population.... Caz's Pub is a must local hang out if you are looking for a place to get a drink with friends before a show. They sure know how to make a suicide with their soda machine too!... The Blue Dome Restaurant is a pretty good place to get morning grub...."
A thoughtful and thorough synopsis and review of the classic book on what makes an urban place thrive or fail. (With PLANiTULSA underway, every serious thinker in the city should read or re-read this book.)
A brief video explanation of fiddle tabulature -- an alternative notation that shows you which string and finger to use, rather than which note.
Library of Congress: Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
"Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection presents digital audio files for 184 tunes, 19 pages of searchable fieldnote documentation, and 69 tune-transcription images, all pertaining to West Virginia-born fiddler Henry Reed (1884-1968) and recorded and documented by Alan Jabbour in Glen Lyn, Virginia, in 1966-67."
Seattle Western Swing Music Society: The Roots of Western Swing
"The only sounds that crept in from the outside were from the radio networks and the powerful stations beaming their signals down from Chicago or up from New Orleans. These stations featured the pulsating sounds of jazz: Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and Jack Teagarden were three of the favorites. This being the only outside influence on Western Swing, Southwestern musicians drew from their own cultures for material and soon, the rich mixture of Blues, Ragtime, Dixieland, Cajun, Mexican, German, Anglo-American, and Cowboy Traditions began to churn and blend. The result was a brand of music that was so all-encompassing, so pervasive throughout the area, that there was no need to distinguish it from any other kind of music. It all became one. The repertoires varied from city to city, but basically? it was the same sound. And when there is only one choice, there is no need for a label to distinguish it from another genre. It was simply music to dance to."
"A Descriptive Index of North American and British Isles Music for the Folk Violin and Other Instruments": An encyclopedia of fiddle tunes and fiddling terms.
internetmonk.com: C. Michael Patton Explains Sola Scriptura
Not Tulsa's RecycleMichael, this Patton writes a theology blog called Parchment and Pen. Michael Spencer provides links to Patton's defense of the central Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, a favorite point of attack for Catholic apologists.
Phil Wood's List of Tulsa City EXECUTIVE ORDERS
There are more rules for Tulsa city government than just the charter and the ordinances. Posted online by City Auditor and online government info pioneer Phil Wood.
Bounded Rationality: We Need A Long Term Energy Policy
Jeff Shaw writes: "If the entirety of one's energy policy is merely to reduce the amount of money we pay at the pump, or to merely increase drilling, that's not an energy policy, that's just stupid and not forward thinking enough for me. That's TASTP (Typical American Short Term Planning)....
"Part of the Energy Policy could include the re-urbanizing of large American cities, to such an extent that would reduce the amount of transportation energy consumed by its citizens. This could help 'free up' energy resources for farming, and manufacturing, and trade."
Art of Jeff Brame: Day 4 of 21 - Bedrock Zombies
Tulsa artist turns Hanna-Barbera characters into the brain-eating undead. (Other entries in the series include Grape Dead Ape, Atom Dead Ant, and Yogi Zombie. What do you suppose Yogi is carrying in his pic-a-nic basket?)
OKAero.com - Browse Directory - A to Z
Oklahoma's aerospace industry is bigger than you think. Here's a directory of businesses.
