The Return of the "Dixiecrats"?

Mississippi Democrat Travis Childers won a special election in a seat formerly held by a Republican. His victory is the second in a row by a southern Democrat. Previously, a Democrat won a seat held by a Republican in Louisiana. It was also the third special election in a row won by a Democrat in a district that was formerly Republican.

Today's Southern Republicans are the lineial descendents of the old "Dixiecrats" who first began leaving the Democratic Party when we adopted a civil rights plank in our platform during the 1948 convention. The trickle became a flood after Lyndon Johnson worked for and help produce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. At the time, Johnson prophetically said, "We [Democrats] have lost the South for a generation."

While it is far too early to pronounce a trend, it's interesting to note that the two Democrats who won their election are both socially conservative, white, males, once considered an "endangered species" in the American political world. In Oklahoma, we have such an elected official in Rep. Dan Boren who, interestingly enough, represents the part of Oklahoma known as "Little Dixie."

Today, these socially conservative and economically moderate Democrats are known as the "Blue Dog Democrats." In a closely divided Congress, they wield power in greater proportion to their numbers.

In the past, the Dixiecrats blocked a great deal of good legislation like national health care and workers' rights. How will these Democrats respond to the needs we have for economic justice in our nation?

Miss. Democrat wins GOP-held House seat
Why GOP’s Mississippi House loss resonates

Pearls Before Swine

by Stephan Pastis

This is another of my favorite cartoons. Pastis is a fellow Punster.

Rep. Tom Cole Wants to Feed Our Addiction

Recently, Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole released a column decrying the skyrocketing prices of methamphetamines, which he blamed on excessive left wing government regulation. He called for the government to remove regulations from the meth industry so that the commodity would become more available to average Americans.

Well, that's not exactly what he said. He was talking about oil, but his take on the problem of high energy costs and its solution made about as much sense as it would have if he were talking about meth.

If you want to see the rest of my response to Cole, go to: Response to Tom Cole on our Energy Policy

Highlights from Rev. Meyers Sermon

God giving Adam the divine spark. Detail from Micahangelo's painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Sermon Date: May 11, 2008

Title of Sermon: Original Blessing

Scripture: Psalm 8
Relevant Passage: 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

(Note: Robin calls this his "Signature Sermon" meaning that he believes this sermon covers a topic he considers central to his ministry. The ideas in this sermon will be further explored in a book he will soon publish entitled: Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshipping Christ and Start Following Jesus.)

Sermon Highlights:

The doctrine of Original Sin, that humans are born sinful and sin because its in our nature to do so, has been a disaster for humanity, but great for the church. The church can claim that humanity has a problem and that it has the only solution. This gives the church a franchise on salvation.

The doctrine of Original Sin is not to be found in either the Hebrew scriptures or the Gospels. We largely get the idea from Augustine who wished to take away any idea of Free Will.

What if the idea of Original Sin is not true? What if there is no final judgment? No hell? What if faith is not a matter of believing certain ideas we know probably are not true in order to enjoy a reward we think is probably not real? What if faith is a matter of deep trust in a way of life rather than belief in doctrines?

Jesus wanted followers, not fans.

We must be mindful of our blessing of being born in the image of God, our Orginal Blessing, and the responsbility placed on us because of that blessing.

Original Sin promotes the idea that we all fail. When one projects failure, one determines failure. The person who does not love herself wisely and well will make a casualty of his neighbor.

We use humaness to explain failure. "To ere is human, to forgive, divine."--Alexander Pope. But is not our successes also due to our humanity? If we failed due to our humanity, who were we when we succeeded?

God made you and me, and when God did this, God created a masterpiece.

Each of us is a piece of God. The wonderful Latin phrase for this is the imago Dei. We should live up to our inheritance, not down to our sickness.

Prayer of Confession: Lord of Life, we too often forget that each one of us is a child of God. We may be imperfect, but we participate in the Divine Perfection. We have made mistakes, but we are not a Mistake. Help us to remember that we are born, not to Original Sin, but as a part of the Original Blessing. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, our Teacher and Lord we pray, Amen.
Mayflower Congregational Church Web Site

OCHS Honor Societies Help to "Stamp Out Hunger"

Today, members of the Oklahoma Centennial National Honor Society and National Junior Honor Society participated in what I hope will become a regular service project by helping sort food collected by the Oklahoma City Letter Carriers for their annual "Help Stamp Out Hunger" food drive. They unloaded and sorted over 20 mail delivery trucks full of food items. These food items will be taken to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma to be distributed to the many charitable agencies in Oklahoma involved in the fight against hunger.

One of the four tenants of the National Honor Society and National Junior Honor Society is "Service," and the five young ladies who participated in this event. Demika Martin, Audrianna Morgan, LaTreha Jackson, Brittany Horton and Brandy Horton, acted in the best tradition of the Honor Societies. Thank you ladies, you make me very proud to be your faculty sponsor.

Let the Countdown Begin!

A fellow educator once told me that teachers often end up wishing their lives away. We wish for the weekend to come. We wish for the next holiday to come. We wish for the winter break to come, then the spring break, then summer. Finally we wish for retirement.

I try not to do that, especially wishing for summer at the end of the year because I do not want to ever stop being a teacher. But when we get to the last two or three weeks of school, it is hard not to be conscious of the fact that soon the much needed long break is going to finally arrive.

Too many teachers go into a kind of holding pattern during the last two weeks. When you teach high school, especially seniors, it's hard not too because seniors have so many distractions and interruptions happening.

I'm going to try to teach a component on research during this time. I want them to have some experience with things like documentation and using sources before they leave my classroom. I especially want this for those going off to college.

I plan to give them most of the material they will need to write the essay. The essay will be on Immigration since this is such a hot topic in Oklahoma and in the United States. I will see what I can get done with them. At least, they won't be sitting around waiting for it to all be over. Doing nothing is the worst thing a teacher can ever do.

I have my schedule for next year now

All of the high school teachers got our schedule for next year. Of course, this is never final till the beginning of the year, and sometimes, not even then.

I have to admit that I have a good schedule. I am responsible for the English 11 and English 12 classes. I was disappointed. Actually, I was quite upset that we will not be offering Advanced Placement English classes next year. The district does not see the value of AP classes because no enough of our students who take the AP exams pass the tests. (Last year, I did not have any student pass the exam. This was the first time that had happened.)

I find it interesting that our football team was 0-10 last year and 1-9 this year. However, no one has suggested that we eliminate football at our school even though it costs far more than offering Advanced Placement classes.

Ms. Thompson says that she has not given up on offering Advanced Placement. I understand where she is coming from. Our students have great needs, and simply adding AP courses will not meet those needs. I am willing to go along for now and grow the program we will be offering, but I do not want Oklahoma Centennial High School to become a virtual alternative high school for the school district. If we do not offer AP classes, then how will we ever attract the brighter students to our school?

I plan to attend the AP Conference in Tulsa this summer with my wife. I hope I can find some answers from the Advanced Placement people running the conference to our schools situation.

Two Good Cartoons

Candorville
Most people forget that while Dr. Martin Luther King was alive, he was very controversial.
Frank and Earnest
Another cool pun from Thaves.

Had Our First Big Tornado Warning Today

It was shake, rattle, and roll in The Village today. The warning sirens were going for a couple of hours as a big line of thunderstorms packing 70 plus MPH winds came through our neighborhood. There was no damage at our house as far as we can tell, but other places, it seems, weren't so lucky. In Bethany, several buildings were damaged by straight line winds. A funnel seems to appeared over on 39th and Rockwell and damaged some businesses and some of the athletic facilities belonging to my alma mater Southern Nazarene University.
Damage reported throughout Oklahoma County
Funnel brings moments of terror to Bethany

OKC School Board Votes for a Seven Period Day

This evening the Oklahoma City Public School District's Board of Education approved a proposal by the administration for middle schools and high schools to operate on a 7 period a day schedule. Two schools, Classen School for Advanced Studies and Northeast Academy, have been exempted from this change.

This will mean that we will see our students every day during the term rather than on alternating days as in the present schedule. Teachers will have 5 classes each day, a "planning period", and a "collaborative period" reserved for meetings, professional development and tutoring.

I have been advocating a daily schedule for some time. The present block scheduling doesn't work for our students. However, I am a bit leary as to what the district has in mind for the collaborative period. My fear is that the district will want to require us to use it to remediate failing students, especially those taking the core subjects of Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science. Since every teacher has a "hard core" group of students who perform poorly in class, usually because they won't do their work, this "tutoring" could turn into a 6th class for us to teach.

The district says it is willing to work with the our union, the American Federation of Teachers, to resolve potential problems, but I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts. And this may turn out to be another Trojan Horse.

NALC Food Drive this Saturday, May 10th

National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive

On May 10th, the National Association of Letter Carriers will hold their annual Food Drive. Please put a sack of non-perishable food items by your mail box for your local Letter Carrier to take to the collection points in your community.

In Oklahoma, all food donations will go to the Central Oklahoma Regional Food Bank to work against hunger in our community.

Food Drive

Real Mowing with a Reel Mower

Talking about geting back to grassroots, this Saturday, I decided to get out the nand powered reel mower we bought a couple of years ago and try it out. Cat and I were pretty satisfied with the results.


You might be able to tell that a hand mower won't produce the "putting green" lawn many Americans seem to want, but it does make the lawn look presentable.


If I can keep the lawn mowed and trimmed regularly, I should be able to continue using the reel mower. I even use a scissor style hand trimmer and a hand edger. I don't have a very big lawn, about 250 square feet in the front and 300 or so in the back, so this is doable for someone like me if I keep it up.
Me and My Reel Mowever

I can feel very self-righteous about this on several levels. Not only am I reducing my "carbon footprint" (in this case), but my mower is American made!!! (Note also that Cat uses a clothesline to let the Oklahoma sun and wind do our drying!)

Grassroots Rally

Oklahoma Democratic Party "Grassroots Rally"
Oklahoma County Democratic Party Secretary James Baggett gets into the spirit of things.
Part of the crowd at the "Grassroots Rally"

John McCain was in Oklahoma City Friday just long enough to collect campaign donations and run, about an hour in all. Contributors paid $2300 for the priviledge of shaking his hand and $1000 to get their picture taken with him.

Oklahoma Democrats met at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union Hall for a Frank n' Beans "Grassroots Rally" for which we paid $2.30. For an extra dollar we could get our picture taken with Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama (represented by life size cut outs.)

Frosty Troy did his usual great job of rallying the troops. He pointed out that McCain, owner of at least 8 houses, said that the solution to the current mortgage crisis was for the homeowners who faced foreclosure to "get a second job."

African Trade Unions Stop ‘Shipment of Death’

Arms boat headed back to China.
Solidarity among African trade unions and human rights and faith groups blocked a Chinese ship packed with rocket grenades, mortar rounds and 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition from delivering its cargo destined for strife-torn Zimbabwe. After dockers and truckers from the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) refused to move the cargo in Durban, the ship moved on. But with worker and human rights groups mobilized, the ship could not find another port. The weapons were likely to be used against those demanding democracy in Zimbabwe.

AFL-CIO Blog

Welcome Seattlelites

Post Card from the Seattle World's Fair of 1962. Key Arena is in the foreground to the right.

I wrote about my blog on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer forum on the Sonics, and some from the Emerald City have been visiting.

When I was in the 4th grade and living in Kansas City, Missouri, Seattle hosted the World's Fair which gave the city the Space Needle. It was very exciting for all of us.

We had a family reunion in Seattle and had a meal together in the Space Needle restaraunt. The meal was a bit average and way over priced, but the view was magnificent.

Key Arena was also a result of the World's Fair. Now it's a part of the fight between Seattle and Oklahoma City over the relocation of the Sonics basketball team. What not many know, excepting those in Seattle, is that the reason the team name, "Super Sonics," was chosen because Boeing had been awarded a contract to built the SST, or Super Sonic Transport aircraft which was to be America's answer to the Anglo-French Concord.

The contract was later cancelled. So this town too has had its (pun alert!) ups and downs. We will see how this latest sports opera plays out.

Question about E-Mails

I have a question about subpeonaed e-mails. Can deleted e-mails be recovered?

When I delete e-mails from my in-box, I usually go to the deleted e-mail files and delete them again just to get them out of my e-mail system altogether.

Now, Howard Shultz' suit against the PBC to get the Sonics back seems to rest on some discovered e-mails they got from Clay Bennett and others. So did Bennett just not delete the e-mails? Could he have? Should he have?

Someone who knows how this stuff work please enlighten me on this.

OKC V. Seattle

Oklahoma City V.
Seattle

The way our city and the city of Seattle look at the Sonic situation interests me. The latest twist in this "Sports Opera" is that Howard Shultz, the former owner of the Sonics and founder of Starbuck Coffee (sic), has followed through on his promised lawsuit to void the sale of the team to the Professional Basketball Corporation headed by Clay Bennett. The headline in The Oklahoman, the newspaper in OKC, reads "Ex-Sonics owners follow through on lawsuit threat".

In The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the headline is "Bennett knew he could "flip" team. The story discusses how e-mails discovered through Shultz lawsuit allegedly indicate that Bennett was not interested in owning a team in Seattle, and that had the move to OKC not worked out, his group would have sold the team to another group of owners and used the proceeds to buy a team he could have moved.

Both articles carry the same facts, but from the outset, our paper emphasizes the "ex-owner" who is making a threat while the Seattle paper focus on Bennett personally and his motives for owning the Sonics.

It's a well known ploy in politics that if you can make your opponent the issue, you have gained a major upper hand in your fight. Looks as though both papers are doing their part in the battle.

Tomorrow is Earth Day

I am going to ride my bike to school which is rather easy for me right now because it is only about 6 blocks away.

Chess Links

Ben Frnaklin's Chess Set

I've added some links to a couple of sites where one can play chess on-line either by way of a "real time" game or a correspondence game where one has time to think about the next move.

Let me know if you want to play, and we'll arrange a game.

New Oklahoma AFL-CIO Union Hall

Last Thursday, we had our monthly meeting of the Oklahoma Central Labor Federation at the new AFL-CIO state headquarters so we could see a video about health care and the coming election.

Central Oklahoma Labor Federation Meeting
Oklahoma Labor Hall of Fame: Woody Guthrie
Oklahoma Labor Hall of Fame: Peter Hanraty, OK Territory United Mine Workers President and V.P. of the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention. Labor Omnia Vincit ("Labor Conquers All Things") is the state motto of Oklahoma.

The Sonics (or whatever they will be named) Are Coming to OKC

Matter of When?
I feel very ambigous about this. I have family who live in Seattle. I think that Seattle is the most beautiful city in the USA. I really wish the team we are getting was from some place like Los Angeles. At least that way we would be paying back the Californians for the way they treated Oklahomans during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl migration.

On the other hand, this is a step forward for the city where I have spent all but 9 years of the 56 God has granted me. We will have our own major league franchise.
Oklahoman article "The NBA says yes to OKC

In this Zero Sum Game, however, we must remember that our joy comes at someone else's pain. Here is a video put up by a Sonics fan. You Tube: Save Our Sonics

Our Chess Club is a part of the OSCO

The Oklahoma Centennial Bison Chess Club is now officially a part of the Oklahoma Scholastic Chess Organization. You can see our listing here: List of Member Clubs. I don't want to make a bigger deal of this than it is, but this represents a small step for our student chess players. Thanks OSCO!

Lincoln Updated

by Gene Mora

You can see Gene Mora's comic along with several others at Comics.Com

Testing Begins Today

Today is the first day my students take their mandated state tests or End of Instruction tests (EOI). Today, my juniors take their English writing tests. Wish them good luck.

My Principal Supports Our Chess Club

Me and a Bison Chess Club Member

Today, my principal, Carol Thompson, presented our school chess club with 5 tournament quality chess sets. It is so good to work for someone who really supports me when I try to do something a little bit off the beaten path.

Thank you Principal Thompson!

Principal Carol Thompson at her school birthday party

Highlights from Rev. Meyers' Sermon April 13, 2008

Mayflower Congregational UCC Church
Sermon Date: April 13, 2008, 4th Sunday of Easter

Sermon Title: Christianity and the Common Good

Sermon Text: Acts 2:42-47

Relevant Passage: "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need." Acts 2:44 (NIV)

Sermon Highlights:

Normally, when people think of Acts 2, they think of "Pentecost", not communism.

The early church seems to be following the teachings of Karl Marx, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

The vast majority of the early converts to the church probably came from the ranks of the poor. (Some scholars believe that 90% of the people in Palestine at the time of the story were poor, many abjectly poor.)

The bread they ate when they fellowshipped might very well have been the only mean they would have had that day.

When we pray what we call "The Lord's Prayer", the requests that are made include food and debt relief, something that has resonance in our world today.

We are headed towards an internation food crisis. There are already food riots taking place in India and other developing nations.

We are spending $5000 a second fighting the war in Iraq.

Currently, we only provide Food Stamps in America to last 3 weeks in a month. We could provide the 4th week's food for far less than we spend fighting in Iraq.

Our tax dollars should go to feel and heal rather than to kill.

Today, the largest churches in our community are those farthest away from the poor.

The early church believed in something we once held to be a part of our national committment: a concern for the Common Good.

The Common Good means that we are responsibile for each other because we share a common humanity.

The members of our church who feed the homeless in OKC known as the "363 Group" spend about $20,000 annually out of their own pockets to help with the program.

This last Saturday, several members of the church participated in a program known to us as "Christmas in April". This program helps to repair homes for those too poor to do so on their own. (One teen in the program called it the "Mayflower version of Extreme Makeover.") The members spent thousands out of their own pockets to provide furnishing for the target family they helped.

We must rediscover the community. No gift or virtue can develop in isolation from the community. The idea of that there is no salvation outside of the church is not a statement of arrogance. It is a statement of reality. All love, grace, and hope must be realized within our community of faith.

(Rev. Robin Meyers' Sermons can be heard every Sunday in Oklahoma City on KOKC (AM 1520 at 9:30 am.)

Mayflower Web Site

Dusty Day in OKC

On Thursday, we had a major dust storm in the city on Thursday. The wind was blowing around 30 mph with higher gusts. Not as bad as the Dust Bowl days but certainly a reminder that those days can return if we are not very careful. What the sky looked like. The reason for the dust. The sun in the afternoon. Here is the kind of dust storm my father knew as a child growing up in western Oklahoma during the 1930's. Dust Storm 1930's

DUST BOWL LORE

Met with Congregational Based Organizing Group

From the IAF Web Site
Last night I and a group of about 20 others met at Mayflower Congregational Church with Kris Ausdenmoore of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a Congregational Based Community Organizing group. The IAF brings together churches with a social justice concern for the purpose of community action. Much of what she said sounded very much like something we should be doing in OKC.

Kris has spoken to several faith groups: Catholic, Jewish, Congregational, Methodist, and Unitarian among others. We have a woman in our church, Karen Spradlin who was recently commission as the "Justice and Witness Organizer" for the Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the United Church of Christ. Karen is a top rate personal with a passion for justice and faith. So if she is for this, then this is something we probably ought to be doing.Industrial Areas Foundation web page

Detailed Analysis Shows Why Obama Lost Texas and Ohio

Sent to me by Darwin Waterman from another Blog
Okay, Okay, I know that Obama technically won the delegate count in Texas, but still this is pretty humorous.

I Thought They Would Throw Flowers In Our Path

Payne

To Hell with War
To Hell with Those Who Crave It
When Masters Rule the World No More
We'll Need No War to Save It!
--Eugene V. Debs

Love that Free Enterprise System!

Huffaker

Will Our Planning Time Be Cut in Half?

A Teacher's Responsibilities

On Monday a group of Regional Education Directors will present to the Oklahoma City School board a plan to lower high school credits from 28 to 26. This is being done in order to implement a 7 period day as opposed to the 4 period a day “block scheduling.” The Regional Education Directors, REDs for short, are "super principals" who oversee the high schools and their "feeder patterns," the schools that send their graduates onto the high schools.

Presently, high schools use block schedules where classes meet every other day for around 80-85 minutes. The new schedule would call for 5 instruction periods, one planning period, and one "collaborative" period. It's the last part of this proposal that has me fuming, but first, I need to address the move away from block scheduling to a daily schedule, which I favor.

I've never thought that block scheduling is good for high school students. In the modern, "over-stimulated" world of adolescents, I find it difficult for them to remember concepts we have covered during a class period much less those covered the day before yesterday. It is also difficult to schedule tests to see how much the students have learned in a unit since invariably some students miss a class and complain that they did not get a chance to cover the material being tested. Also when they miss a period, they have missed at least a day and a half of instruction.

Meeting students daily is more difficult and stressful for teachers, but far better for students. We get to review daily. Scheduling homework and tests can be a matter of routine. You can tell your students to expect homework during the first part of the week and a test during the latter part (or even vice versa), and the students will know what to expect. Since one has less class time, students can be focused on one or two concepts to be taught and reinforced on a daily basis. I applaud the idea of going to daily classroom instruction.

I oppose having half my planning time being taken away from me without so much as a "by your leave." When I first taught in the district, we were on a 6 period day with one period being my planning time when I had no classes. Planning time is needed to grade papers, contact parents, set up instruction, catch a breather, and, oh yes, plan lessons. Going to block scheduling increased my planning time and decreased my daily instruction load by two classes. Good for teachers, bad for students, in my opinion.

However, with the 7 period schedule, the REDs want us to teach 5 classes in 45 minute periods (a bit short in my opinion), have one planning time, and one hour for "collaborative" work. Usually, this would mean a period for department meetings, committee and team meetings, and professional development. However, the devil, as they say, is in the details. Principals could use this period in any way they feel they can use it such as for doing hall duty, detention duty, or covering and teaching classes. More teachers may be needed to implement this schedule change, and in light of state budget problems, we may face greatly increased class sizes come fall.

Some principals have said that they would not abuse the collaborative period in their buildings, but they may not have a choice given the fact that they may not be given the staff to handle their school's increased responsibilities. And that is hardly the point. The point is that the REDs (one person who works at the Admin building told me the REDs are "running amok" in the absence of a real superintendent) want to cut teacher's planning time in half and increase our load and stress.

I would be more than willing to have 2 of the 5 collaborative periods be used for meetings and professional development opportunities. However, using all 5 would be tantamount to adding an extra period of instruction and/or responsibilities to our day. Classroom teachers are under increasing stress due a host of state and federal mandates, most of them woefully unfunded. The district should not "collaborate" to heap more stress on our workload.

The school board needs to look closely at the details before they unloose this devil on the classroom teachers in this district.

News from the Chess Front

I have not blogged in a while, so I thought I would report of the developments with our high school chess club. First, I went to my first ever chess club which meets at one of our Barnes & Noble coffee shops on Wednesdays. Roger and Steve who are two of the mainstays of the club welcomed me and then proceeded to "school me" on chess. I mean that in the literal and slang since. They talk me some of the finer points of the game while they proceeded to wipe me off the board!

I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I don't have much invested personally in the game other than I want to learn how to play better so that I can teach better. So I will take my lumps for a while and try to be the sort of pulpil I ask my students to be. Teachers can make horrible students, but I am going to try to take some of my own medicine for a while.

We had our first after school chess club meeting on Thursday. We had one student so up. I had several say they wanted to come, but they did not follow through. I have a feeling that this will be a long term process for which we will have to make many adjustments. But we have started, and this is good.