Proof that blogs can play a vital, uplifting role in our society:
Oklahoma blog Phototune, after hearing how Republican presidential candidate John McCain is missing so many votes in the Senate, comes up with an idea for our own embarrassing Republican legislator, Jim Inhofe.
On Wednesday, The Tulsa World published the results of a survey (of 752 likely voters conducted April 27-30) on the attitudes of Oklahomans on abortion.
Surprising to me, 75% of respondents said that the statement “It is a medical decision involving the woman and her doctor” most closely reflected their feelings on the issue. Only 17% thought that “It is a legal and moral decision to be decided by the government.”
Some Oklahoma Republicans are trying to override Gov. Henry’s veto on a bill which further restricts abortion in the state. Fortunately, a coalition of medical workers and rights advocates have prevented that from happening — so far — by ONE VOTE.
No survey is going to stop those politicians from persisting in their effort. They are ginned up and bankrolled by radical religious groups, and thus on a mission separate and distinct from the good of their constituents or the state as a whole. But other, more rational representatives need to have this poll brought to their attention every time they seem to be capitulating to the radical right noise machine.
Street Prophets: Too Inclusive?
I just discovered another Daily Kos spinoff (I think Kos now has more spinoffs than Happy Days and All in the Family combined): Street Prophets. It seems to have the mission of giving voice to a progressive Christ-based faith, which, despite my atheism (or perhaps because of it), I am always ready to promote.
One recent post has a really interesting take on an article in Christianity Today by a Tulsa writer, about a Tulsa church.
It would be equally appropriate to [tell] this story a different way. I once heard of a Baptist church in Tennessee that decided to integrate in the 1950’s, long before that was a widely acceptable choice. Their pastor led them from a congregation of 500 to one of 60, and from there they rebuilt, around a vision of racial equality and - wait for it - inclusion. By any kind of worldly measure, the congregation’s drive to integration had been a disaster. But the pastor stuck to it, proclaiming that the church was called to be faithful, not successful.
But of course to tell the story that way would trip up the narrative of conservative religious ascendancy. We are told, ad nauseum, that mainline denominations are losing membership because they are too politically or theologically liberal while conservative churches are packed to the rafters. Never mind that virtually no denominations have shown significant growth recently. Never mind that birth rates may have more to do with church growth than liberal vs. conservative dichotomies. No, Pearson has been too inclusive, and therefore his ministry has been a failure. [Empasis mine.]
I moved to the Waco area from the Oklahoma City Metro, home of “the worst newspaper in America“(CJR).
The Waco Trib is slightly better, which instead of a failing grade of 20 on the journalism test, it gets a failing grade of 40.
The star student in the class who skews the curve is editorial columnist John Young, and of course, the local no-nothings rail at every turn against him and his even having a job at the Trib.
Here’s an example of why Young drives the Bush ite fanatics over the edge: A million little evasions
Yeah, I’m blogging again … until the next time I suddenly take a long break. If you’re one of the two or three people who have kept up with my blogging over the past three years, you know I’m not joking.
During this particular break, i.e. since I left Oklahoma to go to Crawford to spend a couple of days with Cindy Sheehan, I’ve moved to Texas, close to where everything happened last August, and made a lot of other major changes in my life, like, um, working for a living. I’ll be adjusting the categories of this blog accordingly over the next little whiles, and/or as necessity dictates, to reflect the geographical and personal changes.
As explained in my previous post about my pending visit to the Bush ranch, I needed money to help me get there and back. I some donations tonight, enough to feel like I can go without being in constant panic mode over money. And it looks like I got a travel companion as well. Folks at Camilo’s talk at Maayflower UCC were very jazzed about what’s happening in Crawford, and made donations to help the Peace Center there keep the demonstrators as comfortable as possible.
If you are thinking about contributing, send me a note privately through the contact page on this site. If something happens and I need your assistance, I can contact you. That would give me some backup, but not make this a profitmaking enterprise. Otherwise, save your dough for another cause another day.
Tonight I attended a potluck dinner followed by a talk by Camilo Mejia, the conscientious objector who was imprisoned for nine months here in Oklahoma for following his conscience and refusing to return to fight in Iraq. He is one of my heros and it was great to see him again, and to get more details about his journey — and further to see him reach ever more people with his message of personal morality and empowerment. I’ll post a story at www.okimc.org with more details about his talk as soon as I get a chance.More photos
Mike at Okiedoke is a great promoter of Oklahoma and bloggery — he’s even organizing the 2006 Oklahoma Blogger convention — so who better to institute the Okie Blogger Awards? Good thing he’s taken his own out of contention, or the rest of us wouldn’t have much of a chance.
I don’t do nearly enough browsing of the blogs of my fellow Okies, despite the fact that Mike and K at BlogOklahoma make it their mission to keep track of them for us. I have become quite partial to Okiefunk since its debut this year. Kurt’s profiles of radical Okies really are something special, and the one of Woody Guthrie was so good I copied it to OKIMC.
My friend James Branum was kind enough to vote for me in two categories, which only makes me think he hasn’t been doing much blog surfing lately either. The categories were “unusual” and “culture.” Hmmm, I wondering about that! But I do appreciate the thought.
But if there was a category for most blogs created and/or maintained, I could really be the hands-down winner. To wit:
www.gypsyresort.com
www.peacearena.org
www.herlandsisters.org
www.okgreens.org
www.okobjector.org
okcodepink.blogspot.com
ruralgreens.blogspot.com
www.okimc.org/blogs
www.okimc.org/network
www.greencommons.org
www.greenbloggers.org
There are others that are no longer active, and thus not eligible, including okprogressive.blogspot.com and www.gypsyresort.com/shoot66/.
There are probably a couple of other live ones I’m forgetting at the moment, but I think I’ve made my case.
An Oklahoma travesty, via Joni:
May 2005 Engineer Update
In the 50-square-mile part of Oklahoma known as the Tar Creek Superfund Site, tainted waters run orange in creeks and streams, poisonous mountains of chat (mining cast-off) define the horizon, hundreds of dangerous and deteriorating open mineshafts dot the landscape, sinkholes constantly threaten, and children have high blood lead levels.A partnership including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior, with support from the state of Oklahoma and Quapaw Tribe, is stepping in to clean up the area.
An unprecidented coalition of federal agencies, the state of Oklahoma and tribal governments are working on addressing this really critical area. No mention, of course, of the mining companies that created the problem.
I’m about to leave for Tulsa, for the national Greens meeting. Looking forward to talking with attendees from around the country, as well as other Okie Greens. I still don’t know where I’ll be sleeping, but going on faith that something will materialize.
Oklahoma’s red flag waves again, thanks to my friends and OK Greens co-conspirators, Rachel Jackson and James Branum. They have developed and are selling t-shirts (maybe later other products?) that are based on the now-banned agrarian-socialist flag that symbolized the state from 1911 to 1924.
As I told James, I think the forbidden nature of this shirt is its biggest marketing angle. The law against it is stupid. I would like to see a huge group of folks wearing the flag-shirts descend on the Capitol for a press conference and rally.
If you’d like to get a shirt, you can order through the web site, www.redflagpress.com (or jmbzine.com/redflagpress if that doesn’t work). A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Green Party of Oklahoma.
In today’s Oklahoman, in an AP story about President Bush’s new ethics guidelines for White House employees, the name of the Deputy Chief of Staff, which hasn’t exactly been scarce in the news lately, is misspelled. It’s only eight letters long in its entirety; how hard can it be to get it right?
In the online AP version, oddly, only the last name “Rove” is used in its first use in the story, which is bad form for AP. So, evidently papers using the story needed to fill in the first name. I checked at another paper that ran it, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (selected at random), and they have it spelled correctly.
So whatever editor “corrected” the copy for the Oklahoman, performed the ultimate editorial faux pas: making an even worse error than the one they were trying to fix. I’m sure that person will be moving right on up the Gaylord express career ladder!
Found another lefty Okie blogger, in this case at Daily Kos (via diary). The Oklahoma Hippy calls his blog Phish Fan in Jeebus Land. I know that Phish is a band, but if I’ve ever heard their music, I’m not aware of it — just not that into music. Anyway, he’s pretty rad politically (outside of seeming to be a big fan of Hillary Clinton), but I can only read half the thing, cuz it’s black with dark blue links. I thought it might just be displaying poorly in Opera, but no, same thing in Firefox. Why? Why do people do that?
I saw a site a while back with some of the same kind of info about a wider conspiracy behind the Oklahoma City bombing (unfortunately I forgot to bookmark it) — now a similar story has been published in the McCurtain Daily Gazette.
[…] a group of former Department of Justice (DOJ) officials have told this newspaper that the FBI never seriously investigated Tim McVeigh’s connections to a right-wing paramilitary training camp.
[…]
Documents from the FBI and other federal agencies involved in the OKBOMB case support their claims that the FBI failed to arrest all the persons involved and that political considerations played a role in deliberately limiting the investigation to Tim McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier […]
The paper’s source includes a woman who infiltrated the neo-Nazi movement in eastern Oklahoma, at a place called Elohim City, and she reported about their plots to attack government installations — prior to April 19, 1995.
Gee, wouldn’t it be good if Tim McVeigh was still around in a secure prison so we could ask him about who else was involved and maybe, just maybe, prevent something similar from happening in the future.
(via Okiedoke)
The Oklahoma City Impeach Bush Meet-up group — the folks who did the DSM demo at the Capitol a few weeks ago — is now hosting a study circle on the Downing Street Minutes (or “Memo) to mark the three-year anniversary of the document. Here are the details:
DSM 3rd Anniversary Study Circle
July 23, 2005, from: 02:00 PM until 04:00 PM
Address: The Backdoor CoffeeHouse 3214 N. Classen Blvd.
Directions: also known as ” Jeep-on-a-stick”, The Backdoor Coffeehouse is @ N.W.32nd & N.Classen
Sign up or get more info by following the link.
I’d say I’d be there, but I plan to be in Tulsa at the Greens National Convention that weekend.
Want to see a good film? Might want to pass by the multiplex and try a more intimate venue with more thought-provoking fare. Each of these films have been highly acclaimed. For more info: http://www.okcmoa.com/programs_film_cal.htm
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Amazing letter to the editor in today’s Oklahoman. (Not the usual uninformed anti-liberal rant, which in itself is notable.)
Volunteer force is floundering
Having served in the military recently, I believe I can shed some light on the questions posed by William R. Melton (Your Views, July 10). He wonders if our fighting men can maintain good morale and continue to fight under these conditions. They can’t. The morale of our enlisted men is already low. Most of the young enlisted men who do the majority of the fighting are tired of the lies from this administration. They know they are not defending America’s freedom; instead, they are wrapped up in a personal vendetta gone bad.
Will the volunteer force crash and burn? It already has! I would never allow one of my children or other family members to volunteer to serve in the military under its current leadership. I’d try to talk anyone out of volunteering to serve in an organization that’s governed recklessly and based on fiction.
Michael Marsh, Oklahoma City
BTW, Oklahoman editors: I think you mean “foundering.”
CST just announced it’s 22nd Season. For this kind of theatre, with the kind of work it offers, to last that long is quite remarkable. CST seems to be comfortably funded, and housed gratis at the arts center, I think (at any rate they were funded well enough to blow off my volunteering offers when I first moved here in 2003). Which is good (the funding, not the blow-off), because they can concentrate on the work.
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ChannelOklahoma.com syndicates the amazing Hearst White House columnist Helen Thomas. Good for them!
Kurt at Okie Funk has great post about how Oklahoma progressives don’t know each other, with some ideas for how that can change.
I pretty much agree with what he says, except I don’t plan on working the Dems to do anything. I totally support those who take up that work, but for me, I’d rather agitate from outside the political duopoly.
BTW, Kurt is the author of an amazing series of profiles on Okie Progressives, which (so far) includes Woody Guthrie, Will Rogers and Ralph Ellison, among others. Highly recommended
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