Virus-riding

In the State of Oklahoma's neck of the virus-laden woods the numbers have moved on, at time of typing, to 1,868 positive cases of COVID-19, with 94 deaths. Peak numbers are estimated to arrive, for us, around 21st of April. We have no state-wide shut-in order, the order applies only to seniors and people with underlying health issues - we both fit on both counts.

We remain, therefore, shut-in. We're not finding the experience too demanding and, in all honesty it's not terribly different from the way our our life was immediately before this flippin' virus arrived on the scene. The fact that it's no longer wise for us to go shopping together for food, means that I can't pick my own treats, something I miss. We have options of using an Instacart delivery service from the supermarket, or of using the very early morning, non-Walmart 7 a.m. "seniors only" shopping hour, or 6 am at Walmart on Tuesdays only. Husband tried the 7 a.m. option last Sunday. We can also ask a relative to help out with shopping, leaving items on the front porch. This we did for a couple of items which had proved unavailable on Sunday morn. We are trying to ration items which are likely to become harder to obtain as time goes by, and use pasta, rice and beans-based stuff more often than usual.

I watch MSNBC daily, after many years of avoiding it like the plague - the plague has now sent me there for information! President Trump grows more dangerous day by day. I ask myself, and Himself, why cannot the monster be gotten rid of under Amendment 25 of the Constitution - surely some clever lawyer could do SOMETHING! The guy is unfit in so many ways it's (swearword) unbelievable that somebody cannot do something about it.

Below are a couple of links I saved early on in this peculiar span of virus-ridden time:

Tips from someone with 50 years of social distancing experience


Coronavirus: Stephen Fry's take on managing anxiety

Stay safe y'all!

Deplorably

Anyone who nodded knowingly when Hillary Clinton made her declaration concerning a proportion of supporters of Donald Trump belonging in "a basket of deplorables" should take a look at what Paul Street had to say on Monday, at Counterpunch


Hillary Clinton’s Basket of Deplorables
Snip:

“Deplorables?” How about Madeline Albright, the noxious woman who championed the mass-murderous bombing of Serbia and told the nation on CBS News that the death of half a million Iraqi children thanks to U.S.-led “economic sanctions” was a “price worth paying” for the advance of U.S. policy goals? She is Hillary Clinton’s very good friend and was former First Lady Clinton’s choice as Bill Clinton’s second Secretary of State. She is a fierce advocate of dangerous Western aggression against nuclear Russia. Hillary has put her to work the campaign trail this and last year. She’s dreadful.

Another gone one is Henry Kissinger. “Among the war profiteers, bankers and industrialists that Mrs. Clinton counts, opportunistically or not, among her friends” .........

The author goes on to identify other members of Hillary's own deplorable basket, outlining their deplorability factors: John Podesta, Ken Salazar, Robert Rubin, Tim Kaine and her husband, William J. Clinton.

And, from Mr Street's last paragraph:

I am not so inured to the neo-fascistic evil of the Trump phenomenon and the horrific prospects of a Trump presidency that I would not at least entertain the possibility of following Reed's [Adolph Reed, Jr. ] advice to “vote for the neoliberal warmonger” HRC to block the Donald. Still, whatever I or other radical lefties (a very small part of the total U.S. electorate) do or don’t do on the Electoralist High Holy Day, Democratic politicos will have no legitimate business blaming “the left” if Trump beats the odds and triumphs over the Clintons. The main fault will lay with the Clintons and other deplorable dollar Democrats, who have opened the barn door for right-wing white-nationalist fake populism and who will have given the game away to the rightmost of the two reigning capitalist parties. It won’t be with left progressives who couldn’t bring themselves to mark a ballot for either of the reprehensible major party options in this deplorable double dumpster-fire of a presidential election.

Living in reliably Red Oklahoma, never likely to be a swing state this side of the far horizon, and bearing in mind the peculiar Electoral College system in place in the USA, I have the luxury of "voting my conscience"; yet I cannot do so because neither Jill Stein nor Bernie Sanders will appear on our Okie ballot papers, nor will the opportunity to write-in either of those names. I could choose Libertarian Gary Johnson as a protest vote against the "big two", knowing full well that he has little to no chance of winning. Extra support for Johnson, for Okies the only alternative to Clinton or Trump, might push a message through that the people of Oklahoma are angry about not having the same variety of choices people of most other states enjoy.

There will be no presidential choice I can even half-heartedly support, so simply leaving the presidential choice box empty will be my best plan. Considering the flippin' frustrations I encountered in order to become a citizen of the USA, eligible to vote, the situation itself, in Oklahoma, is deplorable!

Trump ?

 At least someone had  the right idea!

Trump. I can easily understand the thinking behind the divide between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, but Donald Trump's runaway lead on the Republican side remains incomprehensible. At first I did, kind of, understand his appeal. In the early days of his candidacy he came across as someone who had definite leadership potential, certainly more of it than anyone else who stood on that first debate stage. As time has gone on though, what at first was a novelty with some appeal to those who like to hear what they consider to be unvarnished opinion, is now distinctly unpleasant - dangerous even, coming as it does from one who aspires to lead a nation with as much at stake as the USA.

There's the fact that Trump seems to have little knowledge of how government works in the USA. Leading huge business enterprises (at which he's not as brilliant as he likes to portray) is a whole lot different from leading a country as large, diverse and important (if hardly exceptional) as this is. Then there's the question of that "3 a.m. call". Remember that from the 2008 go-around? Who, in their right mind, would prefer to have Donald Trump answering that call rather than Bernie, or even Hillary or Rubio? (Cruz? -NO! Shhhh don't go there either!)

We drove around parts of our medium sized south-west Oklahoma town yesterday, after voting in Super Tuesday's primary. We saw around a dozen Trump lawn signs, all in some of the poorest areas of town. No other candidates' signs were on show anywhere. Those people, so proudly supporting Donald Trump, are surely not hoping that he, as president, would try to do anything to ease their situation?

Most weird I do get - this I do not!

Husband took a couple of photographs yesterday - one of them might give a hint of hope, others not so much.

UPDATE ~ The above was prepared Tuesday afternoon. We now know that Oklahoma Republicans chose Ted Cruz over Trump. Not sure if that's good bad news or bad bad news! But in the rest of Super Tuesday states Trump held his own... so what's written above holds good.
:-(

Iran Deal now on its way....pause for a lift of spirits, at least on this front. + Open Thread

From a "The Week That Was" post 0n 4 April this year:

And FINALLY...some good news!

Though the deal will not be sealed until later this year, a framework agreement, relating to Iran's nuclear program, was announced in Switzerland on Thursday. Agreement was reached between Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the USA, plus Germany). It could be indication of better days ahead unless, of course, opponents manage to derail the agreement. Nothing is ever certain, but there is now at least room for hope. See HERE.

Things have now been moved further down the road to a "done deal" (see HERE). The agreement reached by P5+1 and Iran has still to be passed by the UN and, in September, by the US congress. Hmm - a possible bump in the road there, eh? How bloody ridiculous can the GOP make themselves on this? Dang!!

As someone pointed out among commentary I read yesterday, the congress vote in September is very important, but even more important still, on the Iran question (and on many others), is who'll be in charge after the 2016 general election.

Ye gods ! ~ Just when I was trying to feel uplifted, here comes more embarrassment for those of us living in OK who claim at least partial sanity:

Protesters Fly Confederate Flags To Greet Obama In Oklahoma
"You know, this flag's not racist. And I know a lot of people think it is, but it's really not."


And today - THIS!! Hellfire!!

The "Thou Shalt Nots...." Issue - Again

Back in January 2014 I wrote about an issue involving the display of a Ten Commandments monument in the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol, and an associated request from another body to erect a different monument in the grounds. Things have moved on a tad since then. Oklahoma's Supreme Court has ruled that the Ten Commandments monument be removed from the Capitol grounds.

The Court Has Ruled: Remove The Monument

The Oklahoman [newspaper] editorial board has weighed in on the Ten Commandments monument controversy with a tortuous and illogical argument that the state should now repeal its constitution..........................
Since then the conservative crowd in Oklahoma has been in a complete meltdown, suggesting everything from repealing the constitution to impeaching the judges who made the decision. Both Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and Gov. Mary Fallin have publicly pledged their support for keeping the monument at the Capitol. One lawmaker has even made the claim that the ruling “could even lead to churches, synagogues, mosques and other buildings used for religious purposes being unable to receive police and fire protection as they would be directly or indirectly benefiting from public monies.”

Freedom of religion (any religion) is supposed to be one of the USA's most treasured rights. I don't see how this squares with emphasis on just one religion: Christianity. An American citizen of any faith, other than Christianity, or an agnostic or atheist (which I am, depending on the day), could be feeling very much an outsider when all emphasis, all the time is on Christianity. This doesn't seem to me to be in the spirit of the Bill of Rights. How can it be morally right to place a monument to some Christian Bible verses in the grounds of a government building, from which a state government supposedly represents all Oklahomans, of every religious shade, as well as those who are non-religious, equally?

As I've written before, more than once, whenever Oklahoma is in the news, it's always for something embarrassing or tragic. In this case it's the former - I'm at least thankful for that.

A tower, a titter, a tyre, and more....

We spent last weekend in Bartlesville, in northern Oklahoma. Main attraction in the town, for us, is the Price Tower, mini skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. There's more about it, and him, in a 2009 post HERE. After gazing at the gem once again, we spent most of our time in nearby tiny towns of Dewey and Collinsville, where antique/junk outlets fill most of the old stores in their main streets.

Click on any photo to see a larger image.

 The Price Tower

A bit of light creative humour goin' on here:

In Dewey their claim to fame is a connection to vintage cowboy movie star Tom Mix. He wasn't born in Dewey, but did work in the area, and his second wife came from the tiny town. See HERE. There's a Tom Mix Museum in town, and the well pictured below.

The signs on the window shown below aren't too clear (better if you click on image). I'll explain: On the left a sign declaring "We support Our Troops". On the right a sign: "Rick's Custom Slaughtering & Processing". Hmmm.
I'm reflecting on that!

And we reflected some more with a glass of iced coffee -

In one of the antique stores, in a corner at the back was a DeLorean motor car! I think it's a DMC12 (See HERE). You don't often see one of these in an antique store - especially not driven by giant teddy bears!

Oh look - we Aquarians have a drum set named in our honour!

On Sunday morning we were about to set off for home when husband discovered a flat tyre. AAA and Walmart's auto repair department to the rescue, and a couple of hours later we were good to go.

On Monday afternoon our air conditioning broke down - refused to work at all. It had been working on Sunday evening. Sigh - more frustration and discomfort as temperature Monday afternoon was nearing 100 degrees here.

UPDATE: 7:30 this morning husband's son (heat & air specialist) was here, he had been out of town yesterday, and discovered problem: faulty breaker. Fixed, for now. All's well that ends well...once again.

EXTREMES

Global warming is making hot days hotter, rainfall and flooding heavier, hurricanes stronger and droughts more severe. This intensification of weather and climate extremes will be the most visible impact of global warming in our everyday lives. It is also causing dangerous changes to the landscape of our world, adding stress to wildlife species and their habitat.
(See here).

While some regions of the USA have been experiencing more extreme weather, it's nothing like the extremes experienced in other parts of the world. In India, for instance, soaring temperatures are killing many hundreds of inhabitants - and people there are not unused to extreme heat.
(See here).

Oklahoma has never been short of some level of weather extremes, but the pendulum has been swinging ever more widely during the past few years, noticeable even during the relatively short time I've lived here (since late 2004). Our local newspaper's headline today was apt: "From the Driest to the Wettest". Texas, our neighbour to the south, is experiencing much the same, and worse in some areas. (See here).

This year's long, colder than usual winter followed a few very dry summer seasons. The state experienced ongoing severe drought conditions. These are suddenly ending with weeks of regular violent storms and torrential rains. I'll not even mention the attendant tornadic activity because that comes with the territory, always has.

In 2015 the annual rainy tornado season is lasting longer, with regular daily storms, heavy rainfall bringing flash floods. Rivers and lakes are filling rapidly, some overflowing. In many ways we are thankful - this is beneficial, much needed.

Yet, one does wonder.

What if this is part of a new pattern? Could the region cope with a regular mini-monsoon season? I doubt it. Drainage systems here have always seemed primitive to me, coming as I did from oft rain-soaked England where they have the drainage issue down to a fine art. Even there, though, flooding occasionally does cause problems.

Will local Okie and Texas politicians ever deign to accept that climate change is actually happening? If they do, eventually accept as much, will they have the gumption to do something about trying to slow down the rate of change?

Sooner Be Somewhere Else

Jon Stewart summed up the latest in a string of embarrassments for those of us unfortunate enough to live in what's known as The Sooner State (I guess that title nowadays is best translated as meaning "sooner be somewhere else").

Video of the Jon Stewart segment is HERE.

What irritates me, in tandem with the ignorance and ugliness displayed by university students, is that people consider these yobbos still to be "kids". To my mind 19-year-old people are not kids. 9-year-olds are kids.

Take a time-travelling trip back to the 1940s in Europe and Asia - we'd encounter 19-year-olds risking their lives every day in armies, navies and airforces. Sad to report, though, as far as American military personnel were concerned racism ruled, whatever the age of those concerned. Segregated units existed, no better than the segregation going on in their hometowns. That is where the cancer originated, it's a cancer that keeps on coming back, no matter how many good people have done their their best to excise it and begin a healing process.

So the two students leading the racist chanting have apologised. They said, as new members of their fraternity, they were taught the offensive chant. Yep!



That's the lamest excuse I can imagine for a 19-year old to give. I'd take that from a 6-year-old maybe ("Johnny taught me to pull the cat's tail and make it squeal"). Dang! FFS, doesn't a 19-year old have the gumption to question what someone is "teaching"? So what would happen if a student being taught a racist chant questioned its content? Has anyone even tried this? No? Why not? The answer stares back at me. Racism has already been taught, at home, from an early age, the lesson was learned; any thought of protesting wouldn't even enter their minds.

Members of the small sensible fringe of folk in this backward state wait, depressed but sure that it will not be long before another embarrassment hits the websites, You Tube, Twitter, Facebook. "Senator takes snowball to congress to explain why global warming is a hoax"; "education department seeks to change history books to put the USA in what they think of as more "exceptional" light...." they keep on coming.

The Rude Pundit posted a story this week, relevant to the above, about his own experiences with members of one of those ridiculously juvenile, elitist, fraternity cliques. It's an interesting read.

Why should America tremble with morons like these in the wings to take over governments, corporations etc. in due course?

Mini-rant, election-wise

I'm not sure my blogging muscle is fully cranked yet, but it is possibly heading the rest. I'm still a bit wobbly in general, but feeling loads better than for the last 5 days. This morning I feel the need for a slight rant.

Ye gods!!! What is wrong with Oklahoma? I'd understand a tribe of Hottentots in the farthest reaches of the jungle better than I understand the way this lot think.

They re-elect a state governor, Mary Fallin, who refused to allow the assistance the Affordable Care Act offered for Medicaid in the state, for instance. Maggie Thatcher was a saint as compared to her.

They re-elect Jim (global warming is a hoax) Inhofe - who, his pockets filled by the oil and gas industries, seems happy enough for for his grandchildren to have to deal with results of climate change after he has shuffled off. Looks as though he'll now be leader of some darn military-related committee too, as the GOP have taken the Senate

Even in the minor, very local, leagues, where you'd think people might understand things more clearly, for instance, in our district of OK (4) two judges were up for election. The very concept of the public electing judges is ridiculous, to the English in me anyway. One of them had taken contributions from other lawyers (which, to me is corruption, collusion). He had beaucoup advertising : billboards, TV, flyers, mailing, phone calls, etc. The other came door to door, with just a few signs on peoples front yards, and had taken no contributions. Husband spoke to him at the door and they discussed how wrong those lawyer contributions were. "It's not right, but, unfortunately, it's legal", he said. I'm glad I'm not likely to be coming up in court any time soon!

The whole system is corrupt, top to bottom. Regarding the national result: what can I say? I feel sorry for President Obama (strange feeling for me!)

Killing for Fun in Oklahoma & For Other Reasons Elsewhere

Sometimes, a lot of the time, I absolutely hate this state, its dreadful senator, James (global warming is a hoax) Inhofe, its backward politics, its ultra-religious leanings. I love the land itself, I love to "watch the hawks making lazy circles in the sky". I'll also watch pigeons, a less dramatic species, but still co-inhabitants of this planet. They can be pests, in certain circumstances and so can humans. Pigeons have, historically, been of great use carrying messages in war time. These birds do not deserve to be used for live target practice for the amusement of humans who seem not to have progressed far from primitive European ancestors.

Watch the short video at the link! SEE HERE

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe is facing criticism from animal rights groups over a fundraiser he held earlier this month in which live pigeons were thrown into the air for participants to shoot out of the sky.

Illinois-based Showing Animals Respect and Kindness released video on Tuesday that shows dozens of pigeons being killed by shotgun wielding participants, including Inhofe.

Capt. Tony Woodruff of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's law enforcement division says live pigeon shoots, while not common, are legal in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma deserves better, but a majority its people are too brainwashed or wilfully ignorant to do anything but re-elect their horrendously inept senators and governor. Fallin and Inhofe will be voted back in. Nothing will change.

In other news : an excellent piece this week from one of my early US heroes, Dennis Kucinich:
The Real Reason We Are Bombing Syria

He ends his piece thus:

In foreign policy, the administration has failed. Congress has failed. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have passed the national checkbook to their patrons in the war contracting business. And passed the bill to future generations.

The American people, who in 2008 searched for something redemptive after years of George W. Bush's war, realize in 2014 that hope and change was but a clever slogan. It was used to gain power and to keep it through promoting fear, war, the growth of the National Security state, and an autumnal bonfire of countless billions of tax dollars which fall like leaves from money trees on the banks of the Potomac.

The ("Red") State We're In

While I see the two-party corporate system's stranglehold on the USA as being at the root of many ills, things are as they are (for now). I've had it in mind for a while that something being overlooked, probably deliberately for dramatic effect, is that even though the populations of Oklahoma, Texas and other mid-American states labelled "the red states" are known as being conservative and Republican, in all those states there is a proportion, admittedly minor, but not that minor, who aren't registered Republican, but either Democrat or Independent. These minorities aren't anywhere near as dramatic as, say 90%/ 10% or even 80%/ 20%. From what I can discover the imbalance is more along, very roughly, 60%/40% lines. This being so, why on earth don't we hear more opposing views coming from these states? Why aren't the Republicans confronted more? Why was Oklahoma's current Governor, who makes Maggie Thatcher look positively benign by comparison (and I should know), allowed to get away with refusing the government's Medicaid contribution for her state? It has to be because the Democratic side of the duopoly here either is apathetic - don't care enough, or are too lily livered to speak up. Good grief!

As I live in Oklahoma I'll concentrate on the problems here, similar factors probably affect other "red states".

Wikipedia states that: As of January 15, 2013, there are 962,072 registered Democratic voters in Oklahoma. But, but, but Wikipedia also tells me:

The Oklahoma Democratic Party describes itself as neither liberal or conservative, but "squarely in the center of the political spectrum." The party mission statement goes on to say:

Unlike the far left, we know that less government is sometimes a better government, and that government cannot solve every difficulty faced by our society. But, unlike the far right, we understand there is a role for government to play in finding solutions to our country's problems.

The Oklahoma Democratic Party is made up of conservative, centrist and liberal members. Less than a third of registered Democratic voters in Oklahoma supported President Barack Obama in 2012, due to the larger proliferation of conservative and centrist members of the party.

Compared to other Democratic factions, Centrist members of the Oklahoma Democratic Party support the use of military force and the use of deadly force in self-defense. They are more willing to reduce government welfare. Many Oklahoma Democrats are socially conservative and support the United States pro-life movement. The Oklahoma Democratic Party tends to support moderate to conservative positions on gun control and open carry.

Oh, I see! Democrats here are really Republicans at heart. "A rose by any other name" etc. Well, that accounts for a lot! Obama lost all 77 counties in Oklahoma in the 2008 election, and many of them in 2012. Even in the most urban area of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City-based Oklahoma County, Obama took 42 percent of the vote - 42% isn't too far from half (50%), so not insignificant.

From a 2012 string of commentary under a Washington Post article I've gleaned from commenters who either live in, have lived in, or have close family ties to Oklahoma, that though there are a good number of registered Democrats in Oklahoma still, "many of them haven't voted for a Democratic president since Johnson. They just don't bother to change their party." (LoraJay)

And....

......every newspaper panders to the Repub party! Obama stickers have been clawed off my Jeep with fingernails in WalMart parking lots! Plus, with the vivisection of our educational system by the overwhelming Repub government, it's easier to keep 'em stupid and down on the farm! Most of all, and I was born and raised here, it's blatant RACISM! (geraldhwestby)

And...
.....I've gained a pretty solid background with/knowledge of this State. So it pains me to see the low level of base mentality it/its population have subsided to; as reflected in both this blind, mindless expression of hatred, combined with such easy manipulation by the hate mongers in this nation. It's truly pitiful.
I offer yet another, & far more over-riding, rationale: And this is born out in the (Washington Post's) article's reference to their disdain for the Obama Administration's tentative/delaying actions on the highly debatable merits of the proposed Keystone Pipeline project.

For, in point of fact, the will & spirit of OK - along with the lightweight Rick Perry's TX & supported to some degree by LA gov'ts - has simply been "bought out - lock, stock & barrel" by the Petroleum Industry!

This basis is further manifested in the blind refusal of virtually ALL of their elected officials - who's political campaigns are pretty much conducted on Petrol Co Credit Cards - to even consider, let alone accept, ANY element or measure of the possibility that the World Climate Change/Global Warning scientists & alert activists could be correct. These totally secular - & reactionary - positions are held by elected officials as tightly, firmly, adamantly as is the Biblical tenets of their largely fundamentalist Evangelical religious beliefs.

Thereby Logic; "Seeing is Believing"; Rational Discussion - ALL are totally useless & lost on this group: Because IF they were to deviate & admit to even a SCINTILLA of truth, to ANY aspect of climate dangers this nation/the world are now confronting, they would surely be seen as essentially UNDERMINING THE HARD LINE & POSITIONS OF THEIR SPONSORS!

Thus, in effect, OK (& this entire multi-state population) has been conditioned - in much the same way as "brain washing" was used by the North Koreans on my colleagues taken prisoner in the Korean Conflict - by these very special & "deep pocketed" interests: From Top to Bottom, in their educational, social, religious, commercial & even health institutions, the hard-held & counter-intuitive views of their long-seniority elected officials prevails over everything else.

Their towns thereby wind up with "Stepford Wives"-like citizens: Total "conformists", & not able to think (let alone ask/say) outside these very narrow "conformity" boxes. They've NO TRUE Reps, as those they constantly re-elect are only Puppets, thereby having NO real voice in gov't, beyond what their "Puppet Masters" want! (seamusboy)

Part of another comment from seamusboy-

.........Only waking up; & realizing that you & all Oklahomans are being used & manipulated for the good of people who regard you no more highly than yesterdays garbage. You are totally expendable; and they will expend as little as possible to educate & protect your health, safety & life; simply so that they can profit more, & live like royalty. OIL is their true God; and you folks aren't even considered their livestock: Cattle, Sheep, Pigs & Goats get better care, feeding & attention than do most of you! So they program you to hate & be against everything that counters their will &/or costs them another nickel of their vast wealth accumulations. ...................

Oh my! How to depress myself in one easy lesson! From my own knowledge, which is fairly scant even after almost ten years living here, I can find nothing in the above commentary with which to argue strongly. The racist accusations might apply in some areas of this state more than others. I haven't seen evidence of it in our south-western sector. We've had an African American town mayor for almost as long as I've been here - that has to say something. It's oil, money, greed, a steady diet of brainwash via bought-out media that's at the core of our state's redness nowadays, I've no argument on that whatsoever.

How could this situation ever be changed? Possibly by the awakening of the Okie masses by some major tragedy stemming from fracking/injection wells and consequent earthquakes; or severe water/food shortages and/or some kind of epidemic resulting from increasingly rapid climate change.

I've tried to see a positive side, but really and truly, for Oklahoma itself and its younger inhabitants, there isn't one. For myself, I'll probably have shuffled off the planet before the worst happens - and though that is not something to which I look forward, it's the most positive thing I can come up with.

2020 in Oklahoma ?

Looking through my WordPad index for something else, I found a snippet I'd saved in 2012, from a thread of comments at Common Dreams under an article by George Monbiot headed "Stop This Culture of Paying Politicians for Denying Climate Change".
NC Tom's imaginative comment I'd stumbled across again, two years on, rings ever more insightful by the month. At present, in our drought-ridden south-western section of Oklahoma, outdoor watering of grass and gardens is restricted to just two designated days and must be done before 9 am. A complete ban on outdoor watering waits in the wings.

Comment written by NC Tom in 2012:

The year is 2020. 86 year old [James] Inhofe is up for re-election. Perryton and Woodward Oklahoma have been abandoned because of lack of water. The only farmable land is near the state's lakes, where they can be used for irrigation. The meager rainfall the state has been receiving for the last decade has not been able to keep those lakes full, and their level noticeably drops every year. The situation is unsustainable.

At a mid October campaign rally, the still defiant Inhofe railed against those "ecology nuts" that said man made climate change was getting so bad that within 10-15 years the heartland of the country would be uninhabitable. "What the hell do those idiots know?" He yelled as loud as his old man lungs would allow so he could be heard over the bank of fans that were doing their best to keep him cool. "This is just 'La Grande Nina'* causing this little heat wave. Plus it's mid October, and it's supposed to be hot!"

That first Tuesday in November most of Oklahoma was experiencing daytime temps of 140 − 145 degrees F. For safety reasons it was decided to hold the election at night, when the temps got down to the tolerable mid 90s.

Turnout was better than expected because everyone who went to the polls would get a free hand held fan with the image of none other than Jesus Christ himself on it, with the slogan "Jesus Cools" sprawled across the top.

The next morning the election results were no surprise, Inhofe won hands down. His campaign platform of "Don't let the environmental wackos, take away your pickup." was hugely popular.

Later that day a representative from Koch Industries congratulated him on his win. Inhofe thanked them for all the money they had given him over the years, and he also thanked them for the retreat they had built for him and his family in northern Alaska, called "Tulsa Two" or 2Ts for short.

He chuckled over the phone, "I don't know why everybody is whining about the weather around here, up there at 2Ts things are just fine..."

*Note: La Grande Nina was coined by the Heritage Foundation, in an attempt to explain away the high temps.

Then there's this, from Tuesday this week:

Oklahoma Being Swamped by Earthquakes, But It's Probably Just A Coincidence There's All This Drilling Right Nearby

A series of earthquakes rocked Oklahoma over the weekend - six Friday night alone - thus continuing an alarming trend: Already this year, the state's 252 quakes have "crushed" last year's record of 222 quakes.

Hmm.
“What you’ve got to understand, son,” says the doctor, “is it’s all the fault of the alien space bats.”
(Cory Doctorow, The Rapture of the Nerds: A tale of the singularity, posthumanity, and awkward social situations.)

Craven Images

Any time our home state, Oklahoma, gets itself into the news it's always for something either horrific, or vaguely embarrassing! This time, thankfully, it's the latter. It's a variation on the old controversy about depictions of The Ten Commandments being displayed in State buildings or on State property. If I recall correctly The Ten are displayed in the foyer of a public building in our town - the courthouse, I think. I remember doing a "tsk tsk" as I walked past last time we were in there. It wouldn't rankle half as much if those displaying The Ten would live up to 'em. "Thou shalt not kill!" that one didn't take, did it? And what about the warning against graven images - could it not be argued that a sculpture or any display of The Ten is nothing more than a graven image?

This latest news has a lighter side to it - it's another "if you didn't laugh you'd cry" moment. From The Daily Mail:

Satan worshipers want 7-foot-tall statue of devil put at Oklahoma state Capitol

The New York-based Satanic Temple formally submitted its application to a panel that oversees the Capitol grounds. The application includes an artist's rendering of Satan as Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings and a long beard. They want it to sit where a Ten Commandments monument sat in 2012. In the rendering, Satan is sitting in a pentagram-adorned throne with smiling children next to him.......................

The push by the Satanic Temple has rankled elected leaders in this conservative state known as the buckle of the Bible Belt, who say such a proposal would never be approved by the commission.

'I think you've got to remember where you are. This is Oklahoma, the middle of the heartland,' said Don Armes, Republican representative for Faxon.

'I think we need to be tolerant of people who think different than us, but this is Oklahoma, and that's not going to fly here.'

While Greaves acknowledges the Satanic Temple's effort is in part to highlight what it says is hypocrisy of state leaders in Oklahoma, he says the group is serious about having a monument placed there.

Wonder how it'd go down if I put in an application to have a sculpture in the Capitol grounds depicting the ecliptic with signs of the zodiac ?

A Local Murder

My husband has this on his Thinks Happen page today:

 Click on image for bigger version

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Perhaps that is true. But often a picture still doesn’t tell the entire story. Sure, here is a small memorial, growing along a main street in a residential area. You’ve seen these before. Someone died here.

He was a visiting Australian athlete, out for his afternoon run. The story so far is that he was shot by three teen age boys who “wanted to see someone die.”

Does this hit you where you live? It is less than a minute from my home.

The site of the shooting is literally just around the corner from where we live. It's a very quiet neighbourhood, right on the edge of a quiet Oklahoma town. The young man murdered was a visiting baseball player from Australia.

NBC report HERE

Report from an Australian newspaper Herald Sun HERE.

What compels young men to act out their apparent disaffection in such violent and pointless ways? According to a piece in the Huffington Post back in April at the time of the Boston Marathon tragedy: as of 2006 in the US boys accounted for 83 percent of arrests for violent crimes. By the age of 17, over a quarter of boys report having carried a handgun. In 2010, there were an estimated 756,000 gang members throughout the country.

Curmudgeonly thoughts lead me along the lines that a mandatory draft into public service of some kind is needed, to try to plant some sense into young heads. Other thoughts remind me that young men from the USA and UK, not far from the age of these youths were fighting and being killed in World War 2, in the hope that their sacrifice would bring about a better world - and this is within my lifetime. What on earth has befallen us?

We seem to be well down a slippery slope towards something I don't even want to contemplate.

Silly Seasonal Snips

From the China Daily(!)
h/t Dependable Renegade

Silly flippin' season indeed.....a federal appeals court said Tuesday that an Oklahoma pastor can sue the state over its Indian "rain god" license plate, ruling that the depiction of a noted sculpture on 3 million license plates could be interpreted as a state endorsement of a religion. Oklahoma pastor sued a number of state officials in 2011, arguing that Oklahoma's standard license plate depicted Native American religious beliefs that run contrary to his Christianity. U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton dismissed the lawsuit in May 2012 but the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it Tuesday. (Associated Press).

The sculpture represented on the car license plate is Sacred Rain Arrow by Allan Houser (1914-94):
"This monumental piece depicts a young Apache warrior shooting his arrow towards heaven with the hope of carrying a prayer for rain to the Spirit World. Houser represents the strength, dignity, beauty and spirituality of his people."
(HERE).

"How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it." --Edward Abbey

h/t DIVINE BREEZES

Atheism Alive & Well in Oklahoma & Prayer or Mind Power

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer interviewing Moore tornado survivor Rebecca Vitsmun, mother of a 19 month-old son :

"Well, you’re blessed. Brian, your husband, is blessed. Anders (your son) is blessed,” Blitzer said. “We’re happy you’re here. You guys did a great job. I guess you gotta thank the Lord, right? Do you thank the Lord for that split-second decision?"



"I-I-I’m," then she laughed, "I’m actually an atheist."

"Oh, you are? All right," Blitzer said with a chuckle. "But you made the right call."

"Yup – we are here," she said, laughing again. "And, you know, I don’t blame anybody for thanking the Lord."

"Of course not," Blitzer responded.

CNN's Video of the exchange can be found all over the net, I'll not include it yet again here.

I thank Blitzer for ham-fistedly and unintentionally providing a nice reminder, on national TV, that the people of Oklahoma aren't all bible-thumpers, and at least one isn't shy of saying so on camera, and retaining poise and grace in so doing.

Wolf Blitzer did show himself in a less flattering light. He must have held the perception that all Okies conform to stereotype. That's a perception I came across many times as I scanned threads of comment relating to the Moore tornado. I added my own comment in a couple of places, pointing out that we're not all the same, didn't all vote for the two horrendous Oklahoma senators, Inhofe and Coburn, are not all church-goers, or Republicans or even Democrats - writing these words is a socialist and atheist who happens to live in Oklahoma.

On a loosely related matter: while I'm not religious, I have often wondered what is at the heart of the concept of prayer. If the minds of huge masses of people were all to be focused upon a single "wish" or "direction", perhaps the combined power of mass minds could have some kind of effect on reality/events. It's something we do not yet know, something that hasn't ever been adequately tested or investigated, but I wouldn't totally discount the notion. So, if I were ever to find myself in a life-threatening position, along with many others, I might concentrate my mind very pointedly on thoughts and hopes of survival, my own and that of all others, while the religious would be doing what they call "praying". The only difference would be that my own faith would be in some unknown physical or mental power that might possibly reside within ourselves, while they would be calling on action by an overall deity.

FRAGILE

With sincere wishes for peace of mind, and a return to normality and comfort soon, to the people of Moore and Newcastle Oklahoma, around 70 miles to the north of us. They have suffered devastating fatalities, the count still rising, and huge losses from a powerful tornado which hit their towns yesterday afternoon. This was the second major tornado to hit Moore, the previous one, equally devastating hit in May 1999. There but for the grace of .....etc! All we had to "suffer" were around 6 hours without electricity due to what I guess was a much smaller tornado landing in open ground a few miles from town.

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
(Sting)

BANDITS! (Real and Imagined)

This weekend marks the anniversary of the death of a woman known, in the USA, as The Bandit Queen: Belle Starr. She was murdered in Oklahoma on 3 February 1889, two days before her birthday, 5 February. (Photograph of the Belle Starr statue in Woolaroc, north-eastern Oklahoma. Hat tip to The World Rebooted website)

From Texas Originals at Humanities Texas website

When Belle Starr was shot to death in 1889, a newspaper declared her to be "a most desperate woman." Her killer was never identified. Many suspected her son, whom Belle had recently beaten for mistreating her horse. Her unsolved murder was a fitting end to a life that was a whirlwind of violence, crime, and legend.

She was born Myra Maybelle Shirley in 1848, and at the age of sixteen moved to the North Texas town of Scyene. She kept company with notorious criminals, including Jesse James. She married three times to three different outlaws and even spent time in prison for stealing horses.

Though she was ruthless to her enemies, she had a great capacity to make friends, and she even mingled with the Dallas elite during the brief periods when her gunfights and thievery gave way to respectable living.

But it was only after her death, at age forty, that her legend grew. The National Police Gazette invented new stories about her, and her embellished reputation continued to inspire popular novels and western films long after her death.

Stories circulated depicting Belle as an elegantly dressed woman riding atop a black mare, in a feathered black sombrero, toting a Colt .45 pistol that she called "my baby."

Instead of being remembered as a desperate criminal, she became a romantic symbol of the disappearing American West, known as "Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen."

Her story, as briefly told, but in more detail at This Day in History. See also BELLE STARR The Bandit Queen by Maggie Van Ostrand at Texas Escapes. Hat-tip to that website for the photograph below: Belle Starr and notorious outlaw Blue Duck.

More photographs, including of one of Belle Starr's weddings can be seen at The Ellison Collection.

I see that Belle Starr was a quadruple Aquarius with Sun Mercury, Neptune and Moon (if born before 7 PM) all in Aquarius. Sun in Aquarius and Uranus (the rebel planet) in Aries were helpfully blended via a sextile aspect. Ms Starr presents a good advert for the textbook, rebelliously eccentric, type of Aquarius some astrologers and textbook authors love to peddle. Sun Aquarians like Belle, though, outside of textbooks come few and far between - for which we should be truly thankful!

Above was an example of the real - now for an example of the imagined, from the vintage photograph collection, pen and vivid imagination of my husband aka anyjazz:

Link to husband's Flickr page where this photograph and narrative appeared originally some 5 years ago.

The Notorious Butterfat Gang

This is the last known photograph of the notorious Butterfat Gang of Seven who terrorized the dairy industry in the mid 1930’s. Harlan Underln, standing, center, led the gang in raids on milk trucks and neighborhood Rubber Baby Buggy Ice Cream wagons throughout Iowa and County Cork

The Butterfat Gang of Seven, (actually there were five or so members, but none of them could count) all descended in some way from lineage of the infamous robber, Dennis Moore of the 17th century in England. Highwayman Moore was noted for lupin(e)s and doing something completely different.

The method of the Butterfat Gang was simple. They would stand in the road and stop dairy delivery trucks. Eight or nine of the gang members would circle the truck and stand lookout. Three or four other members would then insist the driver sell them what ever stock was carried on the truck. The driver would then be obligated to return to the dairy and restock for the morning deliveries. This certainly confounded dairy owners not to mention the trauma experienced by many cows.

Their last caper was said to be the carefully planned robbery of the 2:40 AM milk train. It went awry when most of the gang members overslept. No one knows how many actually showed up as none of them could actually count. The engineer refused to stop the train anyway.

Throughout their reign of confusion, none of the gang was ever caught. Actually no one ever looked for them either. They all lived well into their fifties and died overweight

Heppel Whitsig, (seated, with cigar) invented the combination creel and picnic basket and went on to a successful retirement in poverty. He never married. His twin brother, Wimpole, (also seated but no cigar) was either the youngest or the oldest in the gang, depending on which account of his birth was accurate. His mother could not seem to recall the event.

Fred (too tall) Herringbun was not on the Titanic when it tragically struck an iceberg. He married young and his wife dressed him funny.

Gable Snoot, seventh from left in this picture, worked briefly as a store window model for suspenders (or braces). He was spotted there by a Hollywood movie director who went into hiding and was never seen again.

The rest of the gang is pretty much unknown but perhaps someone will recognize a relative or a neighbor here.

These events rarely get a notation in history books although some say the gang activities accelerated the research leading to the invention of the milking machine.

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Note from your blogger: It's a real tragedy that the birth dates of the gang members remain unknown, for they would have greatly enhanced astrological data banks.....if the gang hadn't first held 'em up (the banks that is) and demanded a recount. None of the Butterfats ever got beyond that "one two button my shoe" business - "too high-falootin' for us country folk", they claimed.

My favourite gang members are Gable Snoot: hand on hip,at far right - or as anyjazz puts it "seventh from left" - Gable obviously had an inner urge to show-off - definite Leo-type; and Fred (too tall) Herringbun, far left was very obviously a docile and biddable lad married to a dominant fashionista: I'd guess Fred was a Pisces-type, except on Fridays.