On the Oil Front, Some Good News (Finally)

What goes up must come down—right? In the case of crude oil and gas prices, the last several months seemed to contradict this old saw.

But the last few days have indeed seen a decline in oil and gas prices. Prices were down on the oil markets Tuesday and Wednesday, continuing a minor trend that began last week.

We have no way of knowing what will happen in the oil business next week, next month, or next year. But we'd like to see a strengthening of the dollar and more stabilization in international oil markets.

In any case, Okies have it better than the citizens of the other 49 states. According to today's Tulsa World, the average gas price in Oklahoma was $3.83 a gallon, the lowest in the nation. The national average was $4.05.

Oklahoma County's Very Scary Gays Threaten, Ah, Somebody (Again)

Here we go again. First Rep. Sally Kern, now an Oklahoma County commissioner.

The latest Republican goofball to find dangerous gay people threatening the Oklahoma way of life is Brent Rinehart, an incumbent Oklahoma County commissioner.

Reinhart, who is facing a tough reelection battle, is so desperate for votes that he played the "gay card," a favorite tactic of the state's right-wing knuckleheads.

Rinehart's election-year gimmick is a crudely produced (and poorly spelled) comic book he's mailing to GOP voters in his district. In it, angels are on Brent's side (of course!) and Satan (who else?) is supporting those evil gay people.

Speaking on CNN, Rinehart claimed that the gay agenda is an issue in Oklahoma County, right up there with roads and bridges. Notably, he provided no evidence of this claim and offered no examples of the gay threat to his district, Oklahoma County or the state. (Apparently, their secret powers will cause us all to turn gay. It happens all the time!)

Asked if he was homophobic, Rinehart said he wasn't sure what sure what that word meant, as if that was a sufficient explanation for his gay-bashing comic.

Let's hear it for Brent Rinehart, yet another example of Oklahoma's conservative leadership, condemning (in God's name, of course) people it doesn't like since 1907.

Talk Radio's Savage Goes Off on Autism

The always overzealous right-wing talker Michael Savage, heard locally on Tulsa's KRMG AM 740, is at it again. This time, Savage's big mouth is making medical pronouncements without benefit of, well, actual facts.

Hey, it's a lot more fun being a conservative gadfly when you don't have to deal with pesky things like facts, fairness, or truth.

The incident in question concerns autism, which Savage last week claimed was pretty much a phony medical condition. Nearly every child diagnosed with autism, Savage declared, is "a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out."

Today, Savage told the New York Times he stands behind his remarks and refused to apologize to autism advocates and parents, who are none too happy with Savage's latest goof. They want the guy canned and are pushing broadcasters and sponsors to dump the Savage show.

Savage is the third-ranked AM radio talker after Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, both of whom have their own continuing problems with facts. But they are occasionally entertaining, even when they're wrong.

Savage, on the other hand, is a daily train wreck. KRMG ought to get off before the tracks before they get run over.

News to Cheer: A Bad Guy Gets Caught

In a world filled with too much turmoil and chaos, it's nice when something good happens. So we're pleased that a truly evil political leader was arrested today and will likely have to face his accusers. 

Here's the lead of the story from Reuters: 

BELGRADE, July 21-Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's most wanted men for his part in civilian massacres, has been arrested in Serbia, President Boris Tadic's office said on Monday. 

On the Surge, McCain Plays Fast & Loose

Another unfortunate McCain Moment, courtesy of Mickey Kaus of the political blog kausfiles: 

So when Obama opposes the surge it's potential "chaos" and "disaster," according to John McCain. But when [Vietnam vet and Republican] Chuck Hagel opposes the surge, it's an "informed decision? 

Bush Economy Continues to Slide

In the final months (thank goodness!) of his failed presidency, George W. Bush remains as clueless as ever. Deregulate the banks and financial institutions, the GOP leadership argued, and prosperity will break out all over.

Well, no. Not at all. Today's evidence, this dire prediction about short-term economic prospects, courtesy of MSNBC.com:

Treasury Chief Warns of Hard Months Ahead

Recent Reading: Raymond Carver's Stories

In the heat of Tulsa in late July, the readers over at AltTulsa like to hide out in an air-conditioned space with a good book.

Our most recent volume was a old paperback collection of Raymond Carver stories with a great title, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Carver, an Oregon native who died some years ago, was also a poet and his stories are as spare and tightly constructed as haiku, suggesting much more than they say.

We should say, too, that Carver's stories are often bleak examinations of American life in the last decades of the twentieth century. A lot of his characters are unhappy or desperate, clinging to some idea or thing in hope of redemption from the emptiness of modern life.

Yet the characters and their lives offer their own kind of redemption, which makes Carver's stories worth re-reading. For instance, we were taken by the story of Holly and Duane, the couple who operates a motel in "Gazebo." Theirs is a relationship teetering on the brink, fueled by too much booze and Duane's sexual interest in Juanita, one of the maids at the motel.

One of Carver's successes in such stories is his ability to develop vivid characters and intense scenes in a short space, and to make us care about these people. More often than not, Carver leaves the reader on the edge, wondering where these lives are headed.

As you can tell, there aren't many happy endings in Carver stories. But the lessons here are worthwhile and sometimes haunting.

Another Carver collection with an intriguing title: Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?

The Texas Turkey, former Sen. Phil Gramm, Resigns from McCain Campaign

Ex.-Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas has a way with words. Just the other day, for instance, he told the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, the underemployed, victims of predatory home loans and every other American that they are simply "whiners."

These losers, Gramm's logic went, were suffering from a "mental recession," not a real one at all.

Apparently, this broad brush name-calling didn't go down well with Sen. McCain and his Republican supporters, not to mention the Democratic opposition, which roasted Gramm at every opportunity.

Tonight we learn that Gramm, an economist and our favorite Texas Turkey, has stepped down as McCain's campaign co-chair and (wrongheaded) economic adviser.

This is bad news for the blogosphere, since Gramm was always an easy target.

Bush the Appeaser: Our Man George Flip-Flops on (Yikes!) Talks with Iran

When it comes to foreign policy, George Bush has no problem saying one thing, but doing another.

Only a few weeks ago, Bush made an overheated speech to the Israeli government comparing talks with Iran to 1930s appeasement of Nazi Germany. GOP operatives made sure to link Bush's comment to Sen. Barack Obama's earlier statement that his administration would be willing to sit down with Iran.

This week the Bushies flip-flopped on Iran talks, sending a senior diplomat to meet with an Iranian representatives in Geneva. Who's the appeaser now, George?

Here's an account of the flip-flop (that Condi Rice swears is NOT a flip-flop) from the Christian Science Monitor:

In a surprising development in the tense American-Iranian relationship, the US announced this week that it would send a high-level State Department official to attend talks with Iranian nuclear negotiators in Switzerland over the weekend. This unexpected policy turn comes after a tense, saber rattling summer during which the US, Israel, and Iran have traded threats, staged war games, and tested weapons.

More on McCain's Judgment: Promoting an Unnecessary War

George Bush's Iraq war, an ill-advised and unnecessary invasion of a country that did not attack us, has been a foreign policy disaster of the first order.

In contrast to the administration's repeated claims, there were no weapons of mass destruction, no ties between the Sept. 11 terrorists and Iraq, and no imminent threat to U.S. national security. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, and a host of Neocons led the nation into war on false pretenses.

And where was Sen. John McCain when this public relations campaign was going on? Cheerleading the war effort, of course.

Here's a telling McCain quote we found, published Jan. 10, 2002, in the New York Daily News:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) visited the Roosevelt yesterday and shouted, "Next up: Baghdad!" from the carrier's bridge.

McCain has been pushing the administration to make Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein, the next targets in the war on terrorism.

Pentagon officials and Powell have cautioned against focusing on Baghdad, but McCain said yesterday that Iraq poses "a clear and present danger" to the U.S.

"I think Iraq is going to have to be considered," he said.

So Much for McCain's Foreign Policy Expertise

Sen. John McCain and his supporters like to tout his foreign policy expertise. Sadly, McCain keeps making mistakes like the one we found in this deadline:

For fourth time, McCain references country that doesn't exist

Bush-O-Nomic Update: Prices Way, Way Up

Nobody ever accused George W. Bush of mastering economics. More proof of that sad fact can be found in the retail sector, which is where we found this AP economic news summary:

Washington—Consumer prices shot up in June at the second fastest pace in 26 years with two-thirds of the surge blamed on soaring energy prices.

Dr. Z Out as Tulsa School Leader

Breaking news tonight: Dr. Michael Zolkoski, the embattled superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools, will leave his position in October.

The decision was announced tonight after a meeting of the Tulsa School Board. TPS will pay Zolkoski a cool $400,000 as part of his contract termination.

As readers of the Tulsa World know, Dr. Z's tenure at TPS has been marked by a number of failures, including the out-of-control alternative school that Zolkoski set up but failed to oversee.

Dr. Z's fate had been predicted in some TPS circles. Among other things, he had been criticized for his know-it-all attitude and a failure to take advice from, well, anyone.

Sen. Coburn Paints Himself Into a Corner

Oklahama's junior U.S. senator, Dr. Tom Coburn, prides himself on his principles. Like his Oklahoma senate colleague, former Tulsa mayor Jim Inhofe, Coburn is nothing if not stubborn in support of his ideas, even when he's wrong.

That's the latest dilemma for Dr. Coburn, who finds himself now tagged as "the senate's least powerful man." Unfortunately, the label fits.

The problem is Coburn's flagrant overuse of the Senate "hold," a procedure that allows a single senator to stop action on a bill. As a Tulsa World points out today, Coburn is the czar of the hold, blocking bill after bill, including bills nearly everyone else agrees on.

For instance, Coburn has blocked a bill that would address the high suicide rate among veterans. He's blocked a bill to fund breast-cancer research. He's blocked a bill to assist paralyzed people find better treatments.

We're sure Dr. Coburn can rationalize every one of these positions in the name of saving the taxpayer money. But the truth is that Coburn doesn't play with others, a major flaw for a member of "the world's greatest deliberative body."

The World got it right when they described Coburn as "not just arrogant," but "aggressively arrogant."

Coburn's tactics have backfired, and—surprise!—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now planning to run over the Oklahoma senator, rendering Coburn more isolated and ineffective than ever.

Coburn is supposed to represent an entire state—not just his personal agenda— and do so in a reasonable manner. Oklahomans deserve better.

Dr. Z's Prospects Look Dim in Tulsa

We have no inside information, but the Tulsa School Board may be ready for a change at the top.

We're talking about embattled TPS Superintendent Michael Zolkoski's future as Tulsa's public school leader, which may be winding down. That's because the Tulsa School Board will be meeting Monday night behind closed doors to discuss Dr. Z's future.

According to a story in today's Tulsa World, the Monday agenda includes a "possible action item" on the superintendent's employment.

Here's some of the language of the Dr. Z agenda item: "discussion, consideration and vote to approve, and authorize its due execution, or not approve a written agreement between the District and the superintendent regarding the superintendent's continuing employment with the District."

This is bureaucratic language, to be sure, but it's also language that's broad enough to terminate the superintendent. Given the mess he created at the Tulsa Academic Center and numerous reports of his failure to listen or take even helpful advice, we won't be surprised if it's the end of Dr. Z in Tulsa.

GOP Woes: Even in the Red State of Kansas, Republicans Not Entirely Safe

It's no longer earth-shattering news, but the Republican brand continues to suffer, a victim of the incompetent and arrogant Bush Administration.

As evidence, we present this piece from the Kansas City Star, which found dissatisfaction even in the very Red State of Kansas, where Bush loyalist Sen. Pat Roberts is facing a challenge:

Kansas hasn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the Great Depression.

Through 13 presidents and five wars, Republicans have held its two seats for 76 unbroken years -- the longest streak in the nation.

But today's political climate could weaken their grip.

"The Republican brand is really bad in many parts of the country, with Kansas being better than many, but still not good," said Scott Bensing, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "It's not a top-tier race, but it's one of those where, should Democrats come into a bunch of money, it'd be a race."