Archive for March, 2006

The Congressmen from Big Concrete

Friday, March 24th, 2006

Comes now the morning newspaper, with news that Mayor Cornett has endorsed Congressman Istook who is attempting to get the Republican nomination to run for governor later this year. 

The mayor professes “disappointment” that the state hasn’t come up with any money for the Crosstown Freeway project, which seems to be his major concern because that is the primary rhetoric behind his endorsement for Istook.  He says we wouldn’t have the project if it wasn’t for Istook, who is also praised for being our congressman during the “renaissance” of Oklahoma City, as if there was some connection between those events. 

So it looks like our man Cornett wants to be the next congresscritter to represent “Big Concrete”, because that and the trucking industry are the only beneficiaries from the Crosstown I-40 relocation project.  It is not a matter of economic development for Oklahoma City, it is a colossal mis-allocation of resources, a classic Washingtonian boondoggle where good money is continually thrown after bad.  It benefits only those who are getting the construction checks, major welfare queens like highway construction companies and engineers.

The losers are many, starting with the people dispossesed for this federal stupidity, the residents of the Riverside and Walnut Grove neighborhoods.  ODOT put one resident of Walnut Grove into a house without any heat!  with plumbing that didn’t work! 

The people of central Oklahoma are also losers, because the new road will roll right over the railroad switching yard of Union Station.  This is important heritage transportation infrastructure that the City and the State and the Feds are just flushing down the toilet.  With that interchange, plus the existing rail lines, we could have a commuter rail system on the fast track for a much lower cost than the price if we have to build everything from scratch.  They say the Crosstown is falling apart, but in fact, all we need to do is route truck traffic around downtown on I-240, I-44, and the Kirkpatrick Turnpike and then we could just repair the I-40 Crosstown Freeway and it would be fine.  We could do that for a fraction of the cost of this gold-plated freeway they are building.

But those ideas are too simple, logical, and rational for the big brains at ODOT, City Hall, and Congressman Istook’s office.  Save money, be frugal, don’t piss on our ancestor’s graves?  “What quaint thoughts you have, Bobby Max,” say these politicians.  “There’s no money to be made for our friends the highway and concrete contractors in your ideas about frugality and social justice.”  And what about the common good? sez that fool Waldrop. “Well, the only good we care about is what is good for us and our friends who give us such large campaign contributions. How can it be otherwise?”

So it goes.  Good, old fashioned, Oklahoma political corruption. The Crosstown freeway will be finished about the time that gasoline gets to six bucks a gallon and Oklahoma City will be in dire need of an efficient and extensive public transportation system WHICH WE WON’T HAVE thanks to leaders like Istook and Cornett who care more for the fortunes of wealthy contractors than they do about the common good of the people. 

 

Posted in Good and Frugal Government | No Comments »

Whole Wheat Biscuits, Rolls, and Chocolate Cake

Friday, March 24th, 2006

I have just added new recipes to the recipe page for whole wheat biscuits, rolls, and chocolate cake.  When I say “whole wheat chocolate cake”, people always give me these odd looks, as if to say, “that sounds intolerably pious, Bobby Max.”  And given most people’s experience with whole wheat cooking, their skepticism is warranted.  I tried to bake with whole wheat flour for 20 years and never actually made anything that I thought was worthy to serve to company.  I could have gone into the billiard ball bidness with some of those biscuits.

But then along came the Oklahoma Food Cooperative (http://www.oklahomafood.coop) and folks such as the Callen family of Kiowa County and Springhill Farms, and John and Kris Gosney of John’s Farm/Cattletracks in Fairview.  They offer certified organic whole wheat flour and that made a wondrous difference in the quality of my whole wheat baked goods.  And THEN I found out that much of what is sold as “whole wheat flour” in grocery stores isn’t actually whole wheat flour.  It’s white flour that has been colored brown with food coloring and has had some bran added to it so it legally qualifies to be sold as “whole wheat flour”.  But of course, it isn’t whole wheat flour.  It is white flour masquerading as whole wheat flour.  Since whole wheat flour doesn’t sell as fast as white flour in most stores, there’s an added issue of it being old.

Whole wheat flour should be refrigerated, but you never see whole wheat flour in the refrigerator cases in stores.

So all this leads me to say, if you are going to try these recipes, make sure you get REAL whole wheat flour, not fake flour.  It should be recently ground, not 3 or 4 months old.  If you don’t have access to recently ground whole wheat flour from your area, you may want to invest in a grain grinder and buy whole wheat and grind it as you need it.

Anyway, the new recipes are on the recipe page, simply click on the link at the top of this page.  As we say down at the food co-op, “Y’all bon apetit, you hear?”

Posted in Oklahoma Living | 1 Comment »

What really happened with Tonkawa and Blackwell’s natural gas supply?

Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

It has been front page news for two days now in the Daily Oklahoman: Tonkawa and Blackwell are out of gas, natural gas that is.  Both towns’ natural gas supply seemingly evaporated.  Today there are two stories being circulated as to why.  In the Daily Oklahoman, the Corporation Commission is saying that there was a “freeze’ in their natural gas pipelines.  I have had private email from someone who says that Tulsa media is saying there was a major “break” in a pipeline somewhere.

 Hmmm.  I am still wondering: What happened to the gas supply for those towns?  It doesn’t seem to me that it would have been cold enough 2 nights ago to freeze a natural gas pipeline.  And if there was a “major break”, which sounds to me like gas rushing out of a broken pipe somewhere, where was the brealk?

 What’s the real story here?  Is the company guilty of deferring too much maintenance? Or did they simply, literally, run out of gas? As in “too much demand, not enough supply”, so they simply cut off supply to two towns in rural Oklahoma. 

 Natural gas supplies are in even worse shape than oil supplies.  North American natural gas production peaked several years ago.  As the price has risen, so has drilling activity. The last two years are described in energy publications as the “greatest natural gas exploration effort in history”, yet the industry has not been able to reverse the decline. 

 Tonkawa and Blackwell may be omens of things to come.  Now is the time to retrofit for passive solar.  Let the sun heat your home!

Posted in Environmental Sustainability | No Comments »

Wheelchairs in the street and Edmond Power

Friday, March 17th, 2006

+ While driving to work earlier this week, made a right turn from NW Expressway onto Rockwell and immediately had to get into the left late to avoid a man in a motorized wheelchair who was moving up the street in the right hand lane.  I stopped at church to get my check, and headed back out to the bank, and the same man was going west on Britton, which is a 2 lane road.  This area has no sidewalks.  I guess that Oklahoma City’s urban planners just plain forgot that not everybody drives a car.  I wonder how many more people will get killed in the area before Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation get around to installing pedestrian crosswalks and sidewalks.  We probably shouldn’t hold our collective breath.

+ Thursday’s Daily Oklahoman has a nice article about Edmond Power, which is owned by the people of Edmond.  It has a power reliability rating of 99.9%. It is the most reliable power company in the state. One factor contributing to their success is the LARGE PERCENTAGE OF UNDERGROUND ELECTRICAL LINES in the city.  The article quotes an official of a regional municipal power company saying that underground lines experience only 10% of the outages that overhead lines experience.  “Most private utilities have about onelineworker for every 4,000 to 5,000 customers. Edmond run about 2,000 customers per lineworker.”

In May, Oklahoma City residents will have the opportunity to vote on extending the franchise of the privately owned Oklahoma Gas and Electric company.  I recommend a NO vote as the first step towards getting municipal power for Oklahoma City.  Municipal power is an essential aspect of our energy security for Oklahoma City.  I encourage people to contact the Mayor and City Council about this issue.

Posted in Good and Frugal Government | No Comments »

Why is Oklahoma City harassing elderly African American women?

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

Today’s question is — why is Oklahoma City harassing elderly African American women?  I have a friend in NE Oklahoma City.  She is an elderly African American woman, 87 years old, born outside of Boley, Oklahoma.  She used to live in the Walnut Grove neighborhood, until ODOT forced her to move due to the stupid I-40 Crosstown Freeway project.  They put her in an old house, with many problems. (But that is another story.)  She recently was issued a code violation by Oklahoma City because the paint on the wooden trim of her brick house was peeling.

To say that she was “beside herself” because of this would be an understatement.  The City’s code violation notice is very threatening.  It is “unlawful”, the City roars, “to own, to occupy, or to permit another person to occupy, a property that does not comply with the property maintenance code.”  It says that if she doesn’t abate the above-described violation by the date indicated, she may be cited with a CRIMINAL violation for every day that her property is not in compliance.  “FAILURE TO CORRECT THIS VIOLATION MAY RESULT IN CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONIN OKLAHOMA CITY MUNICIPAL COURT,” the notice thunders.

Fortunately, she has friends, and over the last week we managed to get the trim scraped and painted, thanks to the help of students from Creighton University in Omaha and St. Scholastica University in Duluth, Minnesota, who were here for “social justice alternative spring break” experiences. 

But I have to wonder.  Why is Oklahoma City harassing an elderly African American woman?  She is old enough to have lived most of her life under segregation, mandated by Oklahoma government, and ruthlessly enforced by Oklahoma City. Why threaten an 87 year old woman who lives alone with no family with CRIMINAL PROSECUTION because there’s some peeling paint on the trim of her house.  Doesn’t anyone have anything better to do down at City Hall? 

I understand people want to keep neighborhoods from looking run down, but if in pursuit of that worthy goal we have to cause needless grief and anxiety to the elderly, then that’s proof that we have an INCOMPETENT city council that is more interested in process than in justice.  If Oklahoma City can’t figure out a more just way to deal with issues like this, then nobody is trying very hard to do the right thing down at City Hall. 

And that’s a sad thing to say about Oklahoma City government.

PS. I worry about other elderly folks out there who may be victims of over-zealous code enforcement, who do not have younger friends or family handy to help them.  What happens to them?

Posted in Social Justice | No Comments »

The Day After: hootenannys and politicking potlucks

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006

If I had known the watch party would be so much fun, I would have run for office years ago here in Oklahoma City.

We had a grand potluck hootenanny celebrating the fact that I didn’t win the election but nevertheless began the process of calling together a new political movement rooted in social justice, environmental sustainability, energy conservation, and local economics. About 50 people drifted in and out during the evening, including a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman. It was a very diverse group.

It was a balmy spring evening, so all the windows were open, and as the crowd grew I turned on the ceiling fans. Global warming indeed. As the evening wore on and the libations continued to flow, we gathered around the piano for an old fashioned hootenanny and sang a few old favorites from including multiple choruses of “Solidarity Forever” (which is to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic) and a poignant song from the “Little Red Songbook” of the IWW to the tune of Auld Lang Syne called “Renunciation” (text below, it may become our “anthem”.).

There was roast leg of lamb and gyro meat we made from the lamb we got last fall from the Clear Creek Monastery. Fried chicken. Potato salad. Cream cheese rollups made with roasted garlic and habanero salsa. Two different scalloped potato dishes. Saurkraut and sausage. Deviled eggs. “Church dinner punch” (which tasted really good with the Jim Beam). Whole wheat rolls and whole wheat chocolate sheet cake, the flour from John and Kris Gosney’s farm. (Don’t grimace. It’s as moist and light as any cake made with white flour. Wagon Creek Creamery yogurt makes that possible.) Seven layer dip. Home-made tortilla chips. Wine. Jim Beam. Christian Cheese from Kingfisher. Well, you knew there would be interesting food at a party at my house, didn’t you?

Today’s paper reports that I received 8.2% of the vote, coming in 2nd in a field of 3, with 1,157 votes. There were a total of 14,000 votes cast out of a population of 556,000 for Oklahoma City. Our newly re-elected mayor was on the 9 PM News last night informing all that good times were here and even better times were coming soon. He looked excited and happy, as he should be. But I am thinking this morning, reviewing the news from across the world, that as time passes, events are more likely to run in the direction of favoring my positions than his.

Which is why I am as happy as can be about the results. On one hand, they show us how far we have to go, but on the other hand, things were said in public here that have never previously been said about our local politics. Political heresies were openly spoken! Personal responsibility! Energy conservation! Municipal power! Destruction of low income neighborhoods for urban renewal purposes as a social evil! The sunset of the natural gas industry! The coming crisis in energy! Urban agriculture! Local economics! As events move in the direction that I am predicting, these positions will seem less radical and more responsible and necessary. Mayor Cornett and the rest of the City Council are firmly mired in the 20th century. They won’t have a clue what to do as energy prices continue to climb. They are like the French aristocracy of the 1780s, speeding down the road, running over the children of peasants, oblivious to the pain and suffering around them, advocating that the poor eat cake if they have no bread. The “Ancien Regimes” always seem so solid, so in control, so on top of things, so confident, as they approach their sunset daze. But like a giant tree riddled with disease, they are rotten to the core and the day will come when a stray moderate breeze will come along and topple them to the ground. And people will stand around, scratch their heads, and wonder, “What took so long?”

Our job is the be there, “the firstest with the mostest” when people start awakening from the mindless daze of gluttony and greed in which we are presently mired, and start looking for better answers. To be there the firstest with the mostest, means that we must be organized in every precinct, and ready, willing, and able to get a message to their doorsteps when time is of the essence.

This is where this campaign goes now. Anyone who thinks that it is over on this “The Day After” is wrong. The springtime of hope for Oklahoma City I wrote about Tuesday morning is not destroyed by a late night-time freeze, it is only just beginning. This election was only the first phase of an organizing campaign that will go on for years.

Stay tuned to the website, www.bobwaldrop.net . I am reworking it as a commentary blog devoted to local issues in central Oklahoma. You can expect to hear more about the issues I raised in my campaign, and the ideas I have for the growth of a new grassroots movement for democracy, responsibility, and sustainability. Today it is only a handful of tiny seeds that are placed in the ground. But as the years pass, they will grow and become in time a mighty forest of trees.

My inbox this morning is full of email from all over the world expressing appreciation for the campaign. Thanks again for these many expressions of support and hope To everything indeed there is a time and a season, and this is a time for work and for hope.

Bob Waldrop

PS. The potluck/hootenanny/political discussion was so much fun we will probably do it again next month, and maybe make it a regular feature of this on-going organizing campaign.

“RENUNCIATION”(Sing to the tune “Auld Lang Syne”)

By Joachim Raucher

When hungry millions are unfed

And the little orphans weep,

I cannot eat in peace my bread,

Nor sing my grief to sleep.

When thoughts arising from the heart

Are hampered in their flight,

I cannot sit and muse apart

Upon a dreamy height.

When craven lies oft seek to blind

The eyes of blazing Truth,

I cannot turn my maddened mind

To songs of love and youth,

Nor can I sing in lyric strains

Of private, little woes,

When Greed is reaping golden gains

From bloody seeds it sows.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

A springtime of hope for Oklahoma City.

Tuesday, March 7th, 2006

Social justice. Energy conservation. Environmental sustainability. Local economic development. “What kind of whacko candidate are you, Bob?”, a good friend gently teased me after reading my website. Indeed, it says something about the modern political context that these simple, common sense, and pragmatic ideas are considered irrelevant to the present era.

If you want to know where I come from, you have to go down to southwestern Oklahoma and back in time a bit. My grandparents went through the Depression and the Dustbowl years as farmers in Tillman County. They didn’t get through those hard times by being foolish. They raised nearly everything they ate. They were frugal with their money. They pitched in to help friends and family in time of need. The ideas of conspicuous consumption and the “throw-away society” were not part of their vocabulary. Many years ago, I was at my grandparent’s house – a home built by my grandfather Glen Waldrop and his brother Fred – and I threw an empty glass jar into the trash. My grandfather picked it out of the trash and said to me, “Bobby Max, you already paid for that jar, why would you want to throw it away?”

I wouldn’t have anyone believe that those days were perfect, even in the retrospective view of memory. Tillman County wasn’t Walton’s Mountain. Racial segregation was a blot on the honor of the community, and the poverty was so deep it ground people into the dust. But the seeds of overcoming lay in the fertile soils and people not only survived, they prospered.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and those basic ideas seem almost quaint in their simplicity. We fancy ourselves as much more complex these days. We are far beyond ideas like local food security and energy conservation – we think – in our 24 hours a day, seven days a week “busyness”. But are we actually happier? Are we more secure? Are our prospects as hopeful as theirs? Somehow I don’t think so.

I realized a few years ago that I was becoming my grandparents. In our youth oriented culture, some might be horrified by that thought, but I wasn’t. I found myself thinking, “This is the way things should be.” I am grateful that their basic virtues, including a deep and abiding love for the land and the soil which gives all of us our daily bread, were part of my own life, despite many of my personal efforts to escape that cultural legacy.

Outside of my windows, the peach and the apricot trees are blooming, and asparagus shoots are coming out of the ground, promising a feast of abundance in the future. Spring is a time when farmers and gardeners look forward in hope. The cold of the winter is past, the heat of the summer has yet to come, the wheat is growing, the peas and spinach and potatoes and turnips have been planted. Promise is in the air. It is said that to everything there is a time and a season. Thus, I dare to dream of a springtime of hope for Oklahoma City, a time to put aside the politics of division and hatred, a time to open the doors and welcome all to the table of plenty, a time to remember the virtues of our grandparents and to understand their importance and their utility for the 21st century.

Victory in this election is less an issue of my actual election as mayor and more a realization by people that they can take personal responsibility for their lives and live them with great intentionality and that doing so is a way towards a life of joy and abundance and hope and security. Going along to get along will get us nowhere but the ash-heap of history. Greed and gluttony are the roads to ruin. A secure, prosperous, and vital Oklahoma City calls forth the opportunity for people to do what is right, irrespective of the occupant of the mayor’s office or what the city council may or may not do. It doesn’t take a city ordinance for people to get out of their cars and walk, ride a bicycle, or take public transportation more often. It doesn’t take a mandate from City Hall for people to buy food from Oklahoma farmers, to shop at locally owned stores, to plant fruit and nut trees in their yards and grow their own tomatoes and carrots, to eat at locally owned restaurants, and to put their money in locally owned credit unions and banks. Every person who does these things is participating in the springtime of hope for Oklahoma City and is doing more than all the politicians added together to build a secure and promising future for themselves and their children.

Today is not the end of this campaign. It is only the beginning.

PS. Thanks to everybody for the wonderful support for my campaign. Don’t forget to vote! And don’t forget to invite your friends and family and co-workers to vote! Don’t forget to plant some fruit trees this spring! If you can, come by our watch party tonight, starting at 6:30 PM at 1524 NW 21st (that’s the southeast corner of North McKinley and NW 21st. There will be lots of good Oklahoma food on the menu. Bring a dish to share with friends. For more information about the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, visit http://www.oklahomafood.coop . For more information about simple and sustainable living, visit http://www.bettertimesinfo.org . If you need help with energy conservation, go to http://www.energyconservationinfo.org . If you are concerned about local transportation issues, visit http://www.oklahomacityrail.org . If you are a fabric artist, and sew clothes or quilts or other items for sale to the public, I would be happy to list your business for free at http://www.oklahomaclothing.org . For more information about the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House, visit http://www.justpeace.org .

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TUESDAY IS ELECTION DAY!

Monday, March 6th, 2006

Hello folks,

Just wanted to remind y’all that the polls for OKC Mayor are open tomorrow from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

If you are registered to vote and do not know your polling place, call the Oklahoma County Election Board at (405) 713-1515. They’ll need your name, address and birthday and then can look up your polling place within minutes.

If you do not have transportation to get to your polling place tomorrow, please call me at 476-5620 and I’ll see what I can do to get you ride.

And if you know any undecided voters, encourage them to check out this website and then offer to give them a ride to the polls!

Thanks,
James Branum
Proud supporter of Bob Waldrop

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

OKC.about.com has a nice write-up about the mayoral campaign

Monday, March 6th, 2006

http://okc.about.com/ the About.com guide to Oklahoma City, has a nice write-up about the election campaign.

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KGOU Interview

Friday, March 3rd, 2006

KGOU aired a good interview with me twice today.  I was also interviewed by KTOK Radio.  I have an mp3 of the KGOU interview at http://www.bobwaldrop.net/waldropkgou.mp3 . 

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