I Read The News Today, Oh Boy… (6/5/16)

June 3, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

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The 2016 Legislative Session is over, more or less – although we’ll be suffering from the fallout for at least another year.

If you’re aware enough of what’s going on statewide to be annoyed, but haven’t had the time or inclination to read up on every issue, here’s the Blue Cereal Guide to the Latest Oklahoma Clusterfoolery – State Budget Edition. You’re welcome.

The State Budget / Tax Polices

Because “throwing money at a problem doesn’t solve it,” our legislative leadership argues, eliminating all revenue and funding for constititutionally mandated functions MUST be the solution. Oklahoma Logic.

‘Behind Smoky Doors’: Last-minute bills breed public distrust – David Blatt, Oklahoma Policy Institute (6/2/16) – “In May, most of the rules go out the window. Brand-new bills can be introduced, amended, and approved with lightning speed, with little if any opportunity for the public – and most legislators – to understand what’s going on.”

This part of the budget deal may be the greatest threat to Oklahoma’s economy – Gene Perry, Oklahoma Policy Institute (6/2/16) – “The link between education levels and state prosperity is clear. That’s why it is especially troubling that the long-awaited budget proposal from the Oklahoma Legislature and Governor Fallin would decimate funding for higher education.”

Two Things: Not A Flat Budget; Please Vote – Rick Cobb, OKEducationTruths (5/31/16) – This… “budget” our legislature finally threw together at the last minute is a mess, and not even faking it very well.

Oklahoma Makes the Poor Poorer – The New York Times Editorial Board (5/28/16) – Our legislature this session was embarrassing and horrifying enough to grab attention in NEW YORK. Think about that for a moment.

With colleges and universities taking harshest budget cuts, leaders worry about future of higher ed – Kathryn McNutt, The Oklahoman (5/29/16) – Why? Because these schools have been reckless and irresponsible enough to bank some of their resources. Fiscal responsibility is UNFORGIVABLE to the Oklahoma Legislature of 2016.

Where next year’s shortfall starts: Budget counts on $600-$750 million in one-time revenues – David Blatt, Oklahoma Policy Institute (5/27/16) – “Ultimately, the Legislature failed to make those hard choices and instead slapped a bunch of band-aids onto gaping wounds.”

New details: State budget agreement slashes funds for school activities and textbooks – Andrea Eger, The Tulsa World (5/27/16) – And before you ask, yes you can teach w/o textbooks. But that means you need other resources or tech instead – the sorts of things schools usually buy with – wait for it – “textbook money”.

Republicans Willing to Let Oklahoma Burn – Arnold Hamilton, The Journal Record (4/28/16) – The entrenched right wing is willing to take a few lumps if it means clinging to their faith in destroying all public sector spending for their fiscal overlords. It’s almost a religion for them.

Ten Things: OCPA Math – OKEducationTruths (4/19/16) – If you simply make up stuff and choose numbers that sound like they fit, things are actually going pretty well…

The Best Resources For Understanding Why Money Matters To Oklahoma Public Schools – Oklahoma Education Journal (4/20/16) – A links page specific to an important topic, with just enough info to help you find what you need? What a great idea!

The Facts About Oklahoma Education – Oklahoma Education Coalition

Just Teach the Curriculum (Leave That Other Stuff At Home) – Blue Cereal Education (4/16/16) – My take on all this ‘wasteful spending’ on ‘non-teaching positions’ schools are doing, according to those needing a few more distractions.

Oklahoma’s Revenue Options for the Budget Emergency – Oklahoma Policy Institute (4/11/16) – Here’s a crazy place to start: PUT DOWN THE SHOVEL.

Aides, supporting positions proliferate at Oklahoma public schools – Ben Felder, The Oklahoman (4/10/16) – WHY do schools keep hiring people who don’t actually TEACH?! It turns out there are some pretty good reasons…

Why tax increases would be less harmful to Oklahoma’s economy than budget cuts – Gene Perry, Oklahoma Policy Institute (3/7/16)

Oklahoma’s Real Gamblers – Rob Miller, A View From The Edge (3/2/16) – Hint: they’re the ones playing games with YOUR money…

The tax shift rears its head – Gene Perry, Oklahoma Policy Institute (2/16/16) – When tax cuts for the rich don’t work, cut taxes for the rich MORE and go after the poor. What could possibly go wrong?

10th Amendment & #OklaEd – David Burton, Idealistically Realistic (2/11/16) – With States’ Rights comes States’ Responsibilities… this is one of my favorite posts EVER on the subject of state government and public education

Oklahoma state agencies give raises despite executive order – Randy Ellis, The Oklahoman (2/7/16) – This was the trigger for a complete and meltdown on my part. But I was right.

This chart shows why Oklahoma schools are broke… – Lucas, The Lost Ogle (1/26/16) – It’s sad when the humor sites make so much more sense than the ‘experts’ and those in power.

Teacher Pay / Teacher Retention

One way to deal with a shortage of teachers is to crash and burn the budget so we can’t afford more than one adult for every hundred or so kids – not MY favorite solution, but it’s something.

I’m bewildered that the state had to form a 60-member commission to study this issue for a year in order to come up with a few common sense measures (make it easier to move your certification here from other states) and some truly inane ideas (how about some ‘How Great It Is To Teach!’ flyers w/ pictures of happy educators on them?) That’s nothing compared to the ridiculous slew of promises from the Governor and any number of legislators this session that TEACHERS were all getting this GINORMOUS raises because they just LOVE us SO MUCH! It’s prettty hard to insult Oklahoma teachers more than the state leadership normally does, but that pretty much did the trick.

NO EDUCATOR ANYWHERE IN THE STATE believed for three seconds that any of this was even remotely plausible. Now, it’s always difficult to tell when our elected leaders are being cynical to the point of viciousness and when they’re simply so delusional that they probably shouldn’t be left home alone – at least not without removing all sharp objects and turning off the gas. But I for one grew weary of that particular brand of salt being constantly rubbed into our other wounds.

State Could Fall to Bottom in Average Teacher Salaries – Jennifer Palmer, Oklahoma Watch (5/27/16) – “Boren and other supporters acknowledge that a higher sales tax is not the preferred solution to education funding, but say they have no other choice because state lawmakers refuse to address an education crisis that could harm the state for generations.”

Cuts to education spending hurt more than just our children (Guest post: Christiaan Mitchell) – Christiaan Mitchell, Oklahoma Policy Institute (4/21/16)

Teacher pay raise proposals probably going nowhere this session – David Blatt, Oklahoma Policy Institute (2/18/16) – Which is probably better than “we’re cutting your insurance and charging you for rolling chairs but on paper we’ll be able to claim you make more.”

A Plan to Plan to Plan – Rick Cobb, OKEducationTruths (1/25/16) – A $10,000 raise for teachers without any new taxes? That’s… that’s… not how numbers work.

Teacher recruitment legislation not enough to fix Oklahoma’s teacher shortage (Guest Post: Jennifer Job) – Jennifer Job, Oklahoma Policy Institute (12/17/15)

Oklahoma’s teacher shortage is not just about salaries (Guest Post: John Lepine) – John Lepine, Oklahoma Policy Institute (12/14/15)

I know it’s a lot to process, and you don’t have to read it all at once, but this is YOUR money, YOUR state, and YOUR kids’ future – short and long-term. Have a friend do the same, then talk about it and see if you’re coming up with the same interpretations. Heck, get a little circle together and divide them up – an adult version of the ‘jigsaw’ strategy every teacher knows in some form or another.

GET INVOLVED. GET THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU INVOLVED. VOTE LIKE IT MATTERS.

Because, you know… it does and all.

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Open Letter to Legislators: Should You Legislate the Bible?

May 24, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

This post is addressed primarily to Oklahoma legislators or other office-holders in my poor, dysfunctional state. Since most of them won’t openly admit they read this blog obsessively – although obviously they must – loyal readers should feel free to send it to them or ask them these questions when calling or visiting their offices. I suspect some of our colleagues in neighboring states might find it relevant as well.

Ask not for whom the blog posts; it posts for thee.

Any Oklahoma politician – current, previous, or aspiring – who wishes to respond is welcome. The comment section is always open, but if you have more than a few hundred words, I welcome you as a Guest Blogger – whether I agree with you or not.

Dear Legislator:

Should you legislate the Bible?

I ask because it seems every time we read about something controversial being pushed through the legislature, the story is accompanied by a quote from the bill’s sponsor blaming God.

We’ve been told that Jesus is against handgun registration, that the Bible frowns on people of different genders using neighboring bathroom stalls, and that while God doesn’t want young ladies to know where babies COME from, He DOES insist they know how magical and special the little critters are up until they’re born, at which point He loses complete interest in them.

Jesus never did like children, as I recall.

Just last year we were assured that God wanted us to fudge our own history in order to play Him up – that He’d overlook our failings if we’d only brag about our national infallibility a bit more boldly. As it says in His Word, “Pride cometh before even more things to be proud of.”

He’s apparently uninterested in our tax policies, health care, or how we treat widows and orphans, but was QUITE worked up about Common Core for fear that someone at some point might read a dirty book – something inconceivable under existing guidelines. There’s simply no good reason to write about lust, rape, family dysfunction, or other perversion; such things suggest we are a fallen people in need of redemption. Better we stick to wholesome, happy stories like those in the Bible.

Our Legislators seem to have difficulty distinguishing between Yahweh, the “I Am”, and Tinkerbell, whose very existence hangs by the thread of our applause. Other times they treat the Lord Their God as a sort of corporate sponsor, demanding more patches and stickers pushing His brand or He’ll withdraw His funding. Neither makes sense to me based on the Bible I remember from my days of faith, so I’m hoping you can help me clarify.

Should you legislate the Bible?

If not, would you maybe briefly address what role faith should play for public office-holders in an intensely religious state such as ours? After that, thank you for your time – we’re good.

If so, would you please explain how this is consistent with the First Amendment and established Case Law regarding separation of church and state? How do you justify citing the Holy Book of one specific faith – one whose meaning is regularly debated even by those who accept it as divine – to make secular law?

How do you reconcile your Oath of Office (“I… do solemnly swear… that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Oklahoma…”) with elevating your personal theology above either constitution? Did you lie when you took the oath, or do you consider yourself above keeping your word? If you believe the Bible is a higher authority than secular law, shouldn’t you have objected to taking this oath as a matter of principle?

If you support legislating the Bible, could you give us an idea of which parts you believe are appropriate to be written into secular law?

There’s been quite an obsession lately with having the Ten Commandments posted at the Capitol. Maybe we could start there.

One – “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” Should this be secular law? No ‘gods’ before the Jewish god? How might we enforce that?

Two – “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…”

This one’s tricky. God isn’t apparently opposed to statues in general, only those which become objects of such obsession that the symbol takes focus off relationship with the divine – ceremony over substance, as it –

Oh! Um… guess I answered my own question there.

Awkward.

Three – “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” For some reason this is commonly interpreted as exclusively about swearing. Sounds to me it pretty clearly includes those who claim to be acting in God’s name for selfish ends.

Four – “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns…”

Why is this not law? This one would be so easy. And obviously it’s important to God – he made sure this was one of the TOP TEN, while stuff like homosexuality or handgun regulation didn’t even make the list. I assume you’re working on a bill of some sort…?

Five – “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” I’m open to suggestions on this one.

Six – “You shall not murder.” Hey, this is a good one! This is already against the law, right? Score one for the Commandments!

Seven – “You shall not commit adultery.” Biblically this includes divorce and remarriage. How many of your peers in the legislature are on their second spouse? How many have had pre- or extra-marital sex? I’m asking because, as with stores being closed on Saturdays, God obviously considered this one WAY more important than some of the stuff being legislated in His name. I just wondered why this one keeps getting skipped.

Eight – “You shall not steal.” Too many easy jokes to be made here when the state is involved. Instead, we’ll count this one as another win for Commandments as Secular Statute. That’s what, two?

Nine – “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” So… lying about someone else? Like, how you get elected, I guess? Or the various political games which are considered the norm ‘round those parts? Or the way various demographics or professions are caricaturized across the state and the nation, not because it’s true but in order to justify mistreating them?

Hello?

Ten – “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Coveting is like desiring, or lusting, yes? But in a negative way? I’m not sure how you legislate away want. We seem intent on creating it, actually.

There are entire books in the Old Testament dedicated to rules and laws – would you clarify which you believe should be enforced today? Incest is in there, and still a ‘no-no’ all these years later. Eating shrimp is also a severe offense – why are we letting that slide? Homosexuality is arguably frowned on in the Old Testament, as is wearing mixed fabrics or allowing women to go about their business in the community while they’re on their period. Should we pick and choose, or just put all three into one bill?

Finally – and please, pardon my ignorance – why is it that nothing from the New Testament ever seems to be cited as justification for state legislation? Do we not believe the New Testament any longer, or is there something else I’m missing?

Liberals love to talk about Jesus’ treatment of children and the poor and such when it’s time to make public policy, at which point we’re firmly assured by those in power that such issues are best left to the church, the home, and private agencies. Could you help me understand why the ‘Thou Shalt Not’s are so essential, while anything helpful to the hungry, thirsty, foreign, poor, or sick – are clearly off-limits?

I wish there’d been professional law-makers and interpreters around while Jesus was physically walking the earth. They could have had these sorts of conversations and – assuming someone was willing to devote some papyrus and ink to recording them – we’d have a MUCH clearer understanding of how this whole law/grace balance is supposed to work.

Forgive my not being more up-to-date on my Bible scholarship. I’m sure there are good reasons to ignore Matthew 25:31-46 while focusing on the extensive time Jesus spent worrying about bathrooms, sexual immorality, handgun restrictions, and inadequate border patrol. That’s why I’m asking.

The most likely explanation is that I’m missing something obvious to you and your legislative peers. Otherwise, the rhetoric coming for OKC over the past several years would be nothing but a stream of self-serving cynicism, glaring contradictions, and rampant hypocrisy.

I look forward to better understanding this complex and emotional issue. Thank you for your time.

Across The Aisle

May 19, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Since late December, I’ve been doing my best to profile sitting legislators and introduce education-friendly candidates running for state office in 2016. My critiques of sitting legislators have been diverse, but I’m pretty much only highlighting new candidates I support.

This may not be ‘fair’, but I’m not a news source – I’m an education blog. I advocate. Like a mofo.

Several of you have noticed that this sometimes means profiling or linking to multiple candidates in the same district. Occasionally they’re even in the same party – competitors in the State Primaries next month, on June 28th.

Am I that confused? That unbiased? Pulled that many different directions?

I won’t argue with confused, and I’m definitely biased. But the issue isn’t different directions – quite the contrary. I’m all about One Direction.

I want candidates who are likely to be good for public education. I don’t know all of them personally, but I’ve read through their rhetoric, their promises, their backgrounds, and made the best calls I can. I’ve allowed many of them to respond in their own words to questions related to education and funding – even poodles, if I can draw them in on that part.

Whatever else you can say about the folks trying to kill public ed in Oklahoma, they don’t disguise their intentions very well. Once you get past ‘I Just Loooooove Smurtness!’ their rhetoric screams ‘ALEC Paid Me To Say This’ and ‘I Still Haven’t Realized That Glenn Beck Is Satire.’

It’s certainly possible we might not get exactly what we’ve paid for with every edu-candidate successfully elected this November, but I feel good about my choices overall.

Sometimes there are no candidates in a district about which I feel very much hope. Other times, there are several. After the primaries, there will be fewer. It’s just how things work.

Senate District 37 is one of the districts in which many people are running. Seven, at last count. Of those, I’ve profiled two – Lloyd Snow, Democrat, and Brian Jackson, Republican. I wholeheartedly endorse BOTH of them for purposes of state primaries. If they both make it through – and I hope they do – we’ll go from there.

Why? Because while they disagree on many other issues, they’re both strong advocates for public education in Oklahoma. They both consider it a priority. And they both know what they’re talking about when it comes to teachers, kids, and edu-slation.

So yeah – I support them both. As do they.

See, Jackson and Snow have actually campaigned together a number of times, knocking on doors and talking to voters. Their campaign Facebook pages and Twitter accounts regularly send shout-outs to one another. They’re even nice to each other when no one’s watching.

I realize there will eventually be limits to this warm fuzziness. At some point someone will win that seat and six other people won’t. If they were both in office (from different districts), there would be bills over which they’d disagree – perhaps vigorously. There would be times their parties would play reindeer games in order to accomplish some greasy goal or other. It’s the nature of the beast.

But is it SO crazy to hope that offsetting these differences are areas of genuine cooperation and understanding? Was it SO long ago that legislators were able to debate across the aisle, then drink across the barbeque grill while their kids tore up someone’s yard and ruined their new cargo pants?

Some apparently think so. One of the other candidates from that district posted this on her Campaign Facebook page a few weeks ago:

While I’m normally humble and demure, I found this, well… horrifying.

Barely polite words were exchanged.

I don’t think Ms. Patterson is a bad person. She wasn’t even the one initially responding on her account. But that last phrase really captures something familiar to those of us weary of political realities, doesn’t it?

Supporting public education, or generally agreeing with someone in the other party about even a single priority, is “forfeiting.” It’s “unethical” and “deceiving to the whole community.”

We all know that nationally, partisan vitriol overrides all other considerations. President Obama could discover a cure for cancer tomorrow, made only out of discarded potato peels, and Congress would shut it down out of spite. I have no doubt a Democratically-controlled Congress will be just as contrary when President Trump tries to free us from the ridiculous constraints of the first 19 Amendments.

But surely we don’t have to emulate that at the state level? I don’t want to trot out all the Pro-klahoma clichés that come up every time someone needs a hand from the community, but come on – this is the freakin’ Midwest. Let’s not be dillweeds about everything.

The conversation continued, more or less civilly, until I wrapped it up with something I thought was both pithy and hilarious.

My wife hates it when I’m so obviously amused with myself like this. That’s unfortunate, because it happens A LOT.

The point I was trying to make, potentially humorously, was that by making claims with which we both agreed, Ms. Patterson (having eventually seized the keyboard from her minions) had violated her own standards of political legitimacy. That’s an absurd measuring stick, of course, which was where the whole exchange started.

The entire conversation was deleted shortly thereafter. Too bad – I thought it was interesting.

I have nothing against Paula Patterson. She’s probably in the majority on this one. She took a cute shot at something her opponents were doing which seemed silly, and this crazy interloper on Facebook (me) made a big thing of it and OMG-who-lets-these-people-on-social-media-anyway?!

Politics and game-playing shape everything at the national level, and far too much at the state Capitol. I’m not a deeply entrenched insider, but I catch enough of the behind-the-curtains shenanigans to know that parties jump ship on their own bills, politicians vote against their own ideas, press releases are press released and statements are stated OFTEN just to mess with the other party or manipulate public perception.

It’s ridiculous. And maddening for the handful of folks up there trying to do real good.

I don’t expect it to stop just because we get a few educators elected. I certainly don’t expect it to change just because I write about it and do my best to rile up all Eleven of my Faithful Followers.

But we can fight it, at least. We can occasionally step away from it and try to model how things COULD work. How they SHOULD work.

It’s not selling out your party or your values to hear what the other side is saying. It’s not deceptive to agree on a few fundamentals. Both parties, for example, are against murdering someone for cupcakes. I mean, I assume – it’s not in their platforms or anything. But as far as I can infer, neither side thinks killing someone in cold blood for baked goods is acceptable behavior.

Is that a partisan issue? An unethical compromise? Is that another example of ‘big government overreach’? Or is it simply something so fundamental that they don’t feel the need to argue about it?

Public education should be a priority for every candidate from every party. We can argue about how to best make it more gooder – consolidation or testing or pay raises or charters or magic. We should be arguing about it – that’s why we have a two-party system.

But how amazing would it be if we could at least all agree that it IS important? That it’s WORTH arguing about? That we’ve not done a very good job on this topic legislatively, and it needs a major revisit?

How awesome could it be if we’d agree that what matters most is helping all Oklahoma students, whatever their color, religion, or income level, and without concern for their parents’ political persuasion? How much good could we accomplish if we started with ‘what are your ideas and why do you think they’ll work?’ instead of ‘what’s your party?’

That’s all Snow and Jackson are doing. They’re not campaigning to conquer their opponents, or to better serve their fiscal overlords, or to lay foundations for their future political careers.

They’re campaigning – sometimes together – because they believe our kids matter. Ethically, economically, culturally, and inherently – our kids matter.

Is that truly so very controversial?

RELATED POST: #OklaEd Call To Action (It’s Time)

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy… (5/15/16)

May 14, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Sometimes your mind and your emotions reach a point that they click ‘off’ as a sort of survival mechanism. That’s what happened to me this week as I sat at Mom’s Family Diner (41st & Mingo. Oh My-Baby-Elvis-in-a-Manger IS IT GLORIOUS!) catching up on the week’s news.

Clearly I should have been drinking something stronger than coffee. Then again, it was 6:30 in the morning.

A film about Oklahoma oil giant and later governor E.W. Marland is coming out this week. An earlier version was scrapped after the Marland Estate discovered the filmmakers had juiced up the plot a bit.

For those who don’t know, Marland had made and lost a fortune before coming to Oklahoma in the 1920s. He negotiated unheard of concessions from local tribes in order to drill, controlled 10% of the world’s oil supply for a time, built a mansion on the Oklahoma praries, brought fox-hunting and other upper-crust vanities to the plains, instituted health coverage and other worker benefits decades before anyone DID that, and then fell prey to a hostile takeover by J.P. Morgan and his financial machine, losing everything. He later came back as the Governor who brought the New Deal to Oklahoma.

Not intriguing enough? I left out that he and his first wife adopted the son and daughter of her sister. After his wife died, Marland had the adoption of his daughter, Lydie, annulled so that he could MARRY her. It was quite the scandal. Not Kardashian enough for Hollywood, though. *sheesh*

The new one is apparently much more on target, for those of you hung up on facts and reality. Unlike, for instance…

Our State Legislature, which is having trouble coming up with a solution to having so much of the weird crap they pass declared unconstitutional.

No, no… they’re not going to start writing constitutionally viable legislation – don’t be stupid. They’re trying to change the process so that the current bi-partisan Judicial Nominating Committee has only a symbolic role, and the legislature itself gets to pretty much pick appellate judges across the state.

Which would be, arguably, unconstitutional. Our state constitution has this whacky idea about three branches of government, balancing one another in some convoluted way. It wouldn’t matter, though, because – well, you get the idea.

I realize the courts and all those civil liberties are a nuisance. How are we supposed to get anything done if we have to remain consistent with our founding values? Speaking of which…

Sally Kern gave her farewell speech this week. She’s term-limited, along with dozens of other current legislators. I don’t know if they all make dramatic exits, or just the most loathsome of them.

Kern wanted to make sure to emphasize one last time that gays are worse than terrorist. That the ‘gay agenda’ (also known as ‘The Bill of Rights’) has destroyed more lives than, say, Timothy McVeigh.

There are 19 undersized chairs not far from where she gave this speech representing families who might disagree.

She trotted out the usual “public schools spend all day every day trying to turn your kids into trannies” argument. No wonder they resent funding us.

I particularly liked this bit:

“The problem is we’re trying to change the definition of what sin is, when God is not changing the definition.”

That, in a nutshell, is the mindset of far too many of our elected leaders. But it’s not their job to define sin and write it into or out of law. There is no scenario in which a governmental body in the United States has any business claiming to act on God’s behalf; our legislature does it with such regularity that it hardly even registers.

I’m telling you, religious folks – it’s not doing your faith any favors to sign it over to a bunch of small-town rodeo clowns. Surely the Lord made some sort of provision for you to find your eternal way besides the legislative brilliance of Josh Brecheen or John Bennett?

While Kern & Co. are condeming the gay community in the name of the public good, one prominent lesbian was instead doing public good. Ellen DeGeneres checked in with her favorite librarian this week – Kirby Mackenzie at Union’s McAuliffe Elementary – to learn more about the slashing and burning of public ed in Oklahoma.

Yes, once again we’re making national news for something horrifying.

Ellen gave McAuliffe $25,000 to help keep their summer reading program going. Of course we know what’s really behind this – liberals and their *shiver* books. Books are worse than terrorism.

You know the rest of the news.

We’re cutting teachers. We’re cutting activities. We’re cutting support positions. We’re destroying what was a struggling educational system to begin with, all so we can maintain the cascading series of cuts for the wealthiest across the state – cuts which are still deepening as the pillaging and burning increase.

In case you haven’t noticed, the prosperity hasn’t yet “trickled down.”

Don’t worry, however, that our state legislators are feeling the slightest burden or concern over the destruction they’ve wrought – because American Ninja Warrior is coming to the Capitol!

Thank God Oklahoma is currently so prosperous and problem-free that our legislature – with very few days left in the handful they’re actually expected to work – has time for this. I’d hate for there to be any, like… issues distracting them right now.

And yes, I am hostile about it – thank you for asking.

From The Oklahoman:

The show got a free permit to use the public grounds outside the Capitol. A state tax credit will help defray some of the production costs. There are about 200 people involved in the shoot.

We’re paying them to come here and shut down the Capitol for a week to use as a playground. What a comfort to all of those kids who can no longer take art, band, or athletics – at least SOMEONE still gets activities and playtime at taxpayer expense. They’re just much older.

“This brings a lot of people and a lot of investment into Oklahoma City and that’s good in itself, but I think the real value is the exposure this continues to give our city around the country,” Holt said.

I’m trying to think of a nice way to put this. A professional way. A family-friendly way. One that doesn’t start with a ‘B’ and end with an ‘ullsh*t’.

Public education is an “investment.” Infrastructure is an “investment.” Time spent actually dealing with the issues you were elected to deal with is an “investment.”

This is a state-financed circus for legislators who’ve destroyed the economy and refuse to take the least bit of responsibility, instead shifting the fallout onto children, the elderly, and the poor, in order to maintain their groveling obeisance to their fiscal overlords. “Investment?”

I got into a bit of a Twitter argument with Senator Holt over this. He was a bit condescending, but not everyone sees me as the lovable, provocative, voice-of-the-people type I really am.

He insists a few shots of the Capitol in the background will make people want to vacation here and stuff. He then told me if I’d read the papers I’d see that our legislature is working plenty hard to revive the economy without doing so almost entirely at the expense of the weakest members of society.

He and I must read different papers.

“There’s no down side to the show being here,” said Sue Hollenbeck, director of sports business for the Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It’s a family friendly, positive show. It’s about good quality competition. It’s about fitness.”
She said it even feels a little “Land Run-ish.”
“You’re running as fast as you can to get what you can.”

Did we seriously just compare this Ninja Warrior TV show to the Land Runs? I mean… I suppose there are a few similarities.

The Land Runs were promoted as events of amazing opportunity, when in reality they primarily served those already in power. Much of the best land was pre-claimed by surveyors, soldiers, and other government employees who used their connections and power to beat the system. We don’t celebrate that part as much, other than adding ‘Sooner’ to ‘Boomer’ in that song, but 3 out of 4 people who ran went away empty-handed, often thwarted by those who’d never broken a sweat. They didn’t need to – they were already hooked up by the folks making the rules.

As The Lost Ogle documented, our Congress is similarly giddy over the chance to use even more of your tax dollars getting private tours of the set and meeting sweaty people in tights. If there are a few leftovers, they’ll allow a few members of the public to somehow benefit from this spectacle.

Like the show, the Land Runs celebrated the fastest and the strongest – but especially those willing to step over anyone between them and what they wanted. They were in some ways the ultimate homage to the Social Darwinism of the times – to hell with the community, I’m getting MINE.

That’s fine for a game show, or a sporting event, or whatever this is. I wish it weren’t such a celebrated norm for the folks supposedly representing the rest of our state.

The Oklahoma Constitution (Part Four)

May 10, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’ve been working my way through the Oklahoma Constitution, and it’s as much work as I’d feared. We may have to fast-forward a bit so I can be finished before the elections!

You can read my Introduction in Part One and my brilliant analysis of Articles I & II in Part Two. We made it through Articles III, IV, and V in Part Three – mostly talking about the powers of the Legislature.

Time for the other two branches, and then some.

Section VI-1: Executive officers enumerated – Offices and records – Duties.
A. The Executive authority of the state shall be vested in a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Auditor and Inspector, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Commissioner of Labor, Commissioner of Insurance and other officers provided by law and this Constitution, each of whom shall keep his office and public records, books and papers at the seat of government, and shall perform such duties as may be designated in this Constitution or prescribed by law.

The Superintendent of Public Instruction is specifically mentioned in the very first paragraph of Article VI, the Executive Department. There are only eight other offices called out by name here, two of which are the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

That suggests that public education is not only a potential function of state government, but an expected, demanded, prioritized function of this state’s government. It’s not charity, or governmental overreach, or some sort of New Age liberal plot to subvert the REAL values of the state. It’s one of SEVEN functions, along with things like State Treasurer and Commissioner of Labor, to be named specifically in the State Constitution as part of the Executive Branch.

We’re SUPPOSED to prioritize public education, along with those other things. It’s in our constitution, unlike many of the things people undercutting schools are prioritizing instead – often in the name of ‘fidelity’ to founding values.

The rest of Article V is about the logistics of elections, vetoing or signing legislation, and creating a few other commissions and positions necessary to keep things running. Nothing too exciting.

Articles VI & VII establish the court system and how judges are chosen. This one has changed quite a bit since the original, but none of that is particularly relevant here. So let’s move on, shall we?

Article VIII is about impeachment of state officials. Entertaining, I know, but also not what we’re looking for at the moment.

Article IX is about Corporations. It establishes a sort of ‘mandatory cooperation’ between completing railroads, pipelines, telegraph and telephone companies, etc. – things which might be considered essential public services.

There’s a real ‘love/hate’ relationship with railroads which is amusing. Article IX, Paragraph 13 prohibits railroads from giving free rides to anyone (presumably to prevent buying political or business favors this way), EXCEPT…

…its employees and their families, its officers, agents, surgeons, physicians, and attorneys at law; to ministers of religion, traveling secretaries for railroad Young Men’s Christian Associations, inmates of hospitals and charitable and eleemosynary institutions and persons exclusively engaged in charitable and eleemosynary work; to indigent, destitute and homeless persons, and to such persons when transported by charitable societies or hospitals, and the necessary agents employed in such transportations; to inmates of the National Homes, or State Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, and of Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Homes, including those about to enter and those returning home after discharge, and boards of managers of such Homes;
to members of volunteer fire departments and their equipage, while traveling as such; to necessary caretakers of livestock, poultry, and fruit; to employees of sleeping cars, of express cars, and to linemen of telegraph and telephone companies; to Railway Mail Service employees, post office inspectors, customs inspectors, and immigration inspectors;
to newsboys on trains, baggage agents, witnesses attending any legal investigation in which the railroad company or transportation company is interested, persons injured in wrecks, and physicians and nurses attending such persons… {or anyone} providing relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence, or other calamitous visitation…

OK, this has nothing to do with public education. But it amuses me nonetheless, for at least three reasons.

1. Our state constitution has a long list specifically delineating precisely to whom railroads are allowed to give free rides. That’s messed up in ways I can’t even elucidate properly.

2. I had to look up “eleemosynary.” It means “of, relating to, or dependent on charity.” I wonder what distinguished “eleemosynary institutions” from “charitable societies” in the language of the day? It’s also interesting that we used to value taking care of people, albeit through the filter of private companies giving them free transportation. It’s at least indirectly promoted via foundational legalese.

3. I love the phrase “general epidemic, pestilence, or other calamitous visitation.” Not sure what they had in mind, but at least we’d be able to ride the train for free.

“Calamitous visitation” – *shiver* – !!!

Article IX goes on to establish the state Corporation Commission, which regulates industries determined to be ‘public services’ – utilities, transportation, oil & gas, telephone, etc. When we study the Populist Party of the late 19th Century and I ask about lingering impacts, this one counts as a really good answer.

There are a lot of details here. The Commission is given substantial powers, and even its own internal court system for punishing wrongdoers.

It was a very regulate-y time, one of substantial distrust towards both government and big business. The authors of our state constitution wanted to do whatever they could to provide protection for individual citizens against money and power.

The very existence of a Corporation Commission – written not simply into law, but into Oklahoma’s freakishly detailed Constitution – strongly suggests that a primary function of state government is to regulate and supervise industry in such a way as to ensure that profits and growth are balanced by the public good.

Let me say that again.

Written into our state’s founding document are extensive guidelines seeking to ensure that big businesses don’t use their power and status to take advantage of the little people. Granted, the primary concern was that they’d overcharge for poor service, but it nevertheless runs contrary to the sort of ‘free market’ ideal we hear trotted out ’round these parts lately. In it, Adam Smith and his Eve, Ayn Rand, are tempted by the Serpent of Giving-A-Damn-About-Anyone-Other-Than-Yourself to partake of the Fruit of Socialism, from whose juices flow only sweet, sugary destruction.

But… in such a brutally laissez-faire ideal, problems like those the Corporation Commission was created to address are self-correcting. If you don’t like the conditions at the train station, don’t take the train. If you don’t like the taste of the water, don’t drink the water. Unhappy with fracking and earthquakes? Dip into your secondary 401K and spend more time at your ancestral villa in Rome.

It seems our state’s framers knew that sometimes the power of capitalism, for all its wonders, requires a balancing power looking out for the collective good. Sometimes the market which is so good at producing amazing phone options or gluten-free Oreos doesn’t do a very good job of making sure there’s nothing weird in Tonya’s gas, or that the electric company doesn’t charge more in areas which tend to have more outages due to weather. So, they tried at the foundational level to balance growth and profit and corporate freedom with the practical needs of a thriving populace.

That’s not Socialism. That’s a primary function of state government. Capitalism can flourish without morphing into unfettered Darwinism. If we can avoid creating mobs of the Factionless and Disenfranchised, it might flourish BETTER.

“States’ rights” isn’t about the elimination of all functions of government; states’ rights is an argument that the states can and should be doing many of those functions better than the federal government. Historically this has led to some major problems related to civil liberties, but that in no way eliminates each state’s obligation to maintain a DMV or support public schools. The current faux patriotism of ‘to hell with basic government functions’ is misguided at best, and delusional beyond measure.

There’s even a hint that government oversight and protection has room to grow:

Section IX-25: Reports and recommendations.
The Commission shall make annual reports to the Governor of its proceedings, in which reports it shall recommend, from time to time, such new or additional legislation in reference to its powers or duties, or the creation, supervision, regulation or control of corporations, or to the subject of taxation, as it may deem wise or expedient, or as may be required by law.

Growth of government as a founding Oklahoma principle. Who would have guessed?

Here’s a bit from Paragraph 34 I found interesting:

The provisions of this Article shall always be so restricted in their application as not to conflict with any of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and as if the necessary limitations upon their interpretation had been herein expressed in each case.

It should go without saying – whatever the subject covered in a state constitution – that subsequent supporting legislation cannot conflict with THE Constitution.

I’ll spare you my rant on THAT for the moment.

Section IX-40: Influencing elections or official duty.
No corporation organized or doing business in this State shall be permitted to influence elections or official duty by contributions of money or anything of value.

How did we NOT include out-of-state “think tanks” in this?! Oh, right – those weren’t a thing back then.

Next: Revenue & Taxation, State & School Lands, Homestead Exemptions, and – finally – Common Education. I know, right?! GET READY.

RELATED LINK: The Oklahoma Constitution (Part One)

RELATED LINK: The Oklahoma Constitution (Part Two)

RELATED LINK: The Oklahoma Constitution (Part Three)

RELATED LINK: The Blaine Game (Updated)