Oklahoma Stuck with 500 Trump Bibles Already Purchased
Oklahoma has ended Ryan Walter’s mandate to place a Bible in every classroom. The Oklahoma Supreme Court in the wake of Walter’s resignation asked the State Superintendent if he wished to continue the current lawsuit defending the mandate. Walter’s replacement, Lindel Fields, withdrew the mandate this last Wednesday.
It appears much that Walters did while in office will be reversed and removed. I prefer not to think of him as having resigned preferring to think him melted by a bucket of water.
Ryan Walters’ controversial plan to put a Bible in every classroom last summer almost immediately met pushback. About a year ago, a coalition of parents, teachers and faith leaders filed a lawsuit against him and the state over the mandate.
The suit is ongoing, but because of Walters’ exit, Oklahoma’s State Supreme Court gave his replacement Lindel Fields, the opportunity to withdraw or resolve the case in the next two weeks.
But he ultimately took much less time. On Wednesday, Fields announced he would withdraw the mandate at the heart of the case.
(This is from a book picturing “The vanished places of worship and cathedrals in France from 1917.”)
Oklahoma like much of the United States is a place of many faiths. The Pew Research Center found that there were Oklahomans who practiced the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu faiths besides a bewildering variety of Protestant sects.
Here in Oklahoma we are leaving this chapter, this episode, of the culture wars to return to the very real problems of low morale among teachers and administrators as well as a tragic lack of funding for education in general. We are the 50th state in per pupil funding and I must reluctantly admit, a national laughingstock.
But stay tuned as various investigations into Walter’s conduct are now ongoing and there may be much, much more to see and hear about what passed for administrative decisions in Oklahoma Education.
In regard to business ethics, this is a cautionary tale of a narrow minded ideologue running wild. It is not the last one we will ever see although we may hope.
Salaries were paid to people who barely showed up, the most pitiful propaganda was adopted as if they somehow qualified as “teaching materials,” and the department was run like a personal fiefdom.
I wish the new Superintendent well and pray for his success.
The people of Oklahoma deserve so much better than what was done and a new beginning is called for.
(A picture from the work, “The Boys’ Book of Battle-Lyrics.)
While the current regime claims we focus too much on the history of slavery, in Oklahoma, the City of Tulsa is continuing its efforts to find the bodies of victims of racial violence.
It’s an effort that could take weeks, Mayor Monroe Nichols said during a press conference at City Hall. Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield and archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck joined Nichols as he gave an update on the city’s progress.
“This groundbreaking work from our archaeological and genealogy teams is a great mark of success and it tells us where we are, certainly in the right place and on the right track,” Nichols said. “The latest report from the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey gave us very detailed information as to what we believe we have left at the Oaklawn Cemetery.”
The destruction of “Black Wall Street” and the deaths of so many of our black citizens deserve remembrance. That such horrors happened are matters of fact and history which we ignore at our peril.
A free and great people does not fear its history. It embraces its past with a willingness to change and improve.
Ethics and Morality demand that we remember the crimes and mistakes of the past in the hope that we are now a better people who have found a better moral compass and a greater responsibility toward our fellow human beings.
Let us pay attention to the great words of one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln:
Lincoln didn’t just talk about having more money but assumed that social and political health were also of great importance. He could not have spoken truer words. While we live in an age of the most disgusting and degrading money grubbing and corruption, he calls us to be a great people with an unwavering committment to doing what is right.
Often on Facebook, I am asked to pray for a number of causes, often a pet or family member, sometimes a cause. I usually comply. When someone or a pet is ill, I would very much like them to get better.
Those prayers are private and I hope they do some good. But you and I both know that much public religion is little more than grandstanding. And here in the United States, many politicians wish the mantle of Christianity. We often, very often, see them fail to uphold the behavior of a follower of Christ.
The Pharisees are one of the earliest practitioners of the “public” prayer. They would go out on the street and pray publicly and loudly to demonstrate their piety. Jesus Christ called them out for their false religion and said they would have their “reward.”
But we have in our modern age, “Thoughts and Prayers.” This is a media strategy to divert criticism from a total and complete lack of action most often in regard to firearms. While children are being stacked up by so much bullet riddled cord wood, the solemn intonation that they have the thoughts and prayers of a prime recipient of National Rifle Association votes and money are solemnly reported by a compliant media.
Do the children, dead and wounded, deserve prayer? Yes, absolutely. What kind of prayer? Why don’t we see what a professional says?
The first US pope in history, a native of Chicago, spoke in English as he prayed for the victims of last week’s shooting during a Catholic school mass in Minnesota which saw two children killed and others seriously injured.
“Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school mass in the American state of Minnesota,” he said. “We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.”
Michael Sainato writing for the Guardian reports in an article entitled (and quoted from just above this passage) Pope Leo demands end to ‘pandemic of arms’ after Minnesota school shooting
The Pontiff didn’t just offer “Thoughts and Prayers,” he addressed the root cause of all these small dead bodies. He’s calling for action, constructive and intelligent action to stop this kind of violence.
Let me explain about meaningful prayer. If you want children to be fed and they are nearby – like outside your door, feed them. Prayers is just spoken nonsense when you know what needs to be done and you don’t do it.
Prayer is never to be used as an excuse or substitute for action. We are justified in the eyes of God by what we do or fail to do. Your faith in God is demonstrated by works. What you do shows what is in your heart.
And using “thoughts and prayers” as political cover is horribly impious and wrong. James Alan Pilant
It is truly depressing to write about this show. I own many classic Doctor Who episodes as well as some of the more modern ones like the Matt Smith era.
(Looking for a new doctor?)
Over the last few years, a program designed to interest young people in science has become a bizarre experiment in bad writing.
Stunts like the first female doctor and then the first black doctor and then Billie Piper as the latest permutation of the doctor are failures to do good writing or naturally and logically continue the series. Before you insult me as disliking women and minorities, I am very much a fan of female characters, the women who played The Master and the Tardis would have made grand Doctors. Idris Elba would have been a wonderful doctor. It is not race or sex, it is the choices.
When you choose a doctor, getting a rise out of the audience and creating controversy is not what you’re supposed to be doing. You are supposed to be casting a strong actor who will convey the essence of the character — and continue the BBC’s stated goal of encouraging young people to engage in science.
Far more significant than opinion I might express are the ratings. You might think I’m mistaken in my dislike.
But do you think the fans are mistaken when the ratings border on tragedy? Does the opinion of those who in huge numbers found other things to do and other shows to watch matter? I think they do.
How few people have to take the time to watch this before the fat lady sings?
And I have to confess after the decisions made by the show runners over the last few years, I can’t help be fear what they are going to do next. I mean just what kind of nutty, illogical nonsense are they going to pull out of their hat given new episodes to play with?
The BBC claims that the show will continue. What is interesting is that they made no commitment to who will run or act in that show and what form it would take. The only guarantee is that we would see the Tardis. Remember the devil is in the details.
Michael Savage writing for the Guardian reports that Doctor Who will continue, BBC reassures fans
It has been attacked for running “woke” storylines and criticised for falling ratings. Its leading actor made a surprise departure at the end of the last series. Yet the BBC has now issued a reassurance to Doctor Who fans worried about the future of the show: “the Tardis is going nowhere”.
Speculation around the show had grown in recent months after Ncuti Gatwa played the eponymous Doctor for only two series before departing in the finale of the programme’s 15th series in May.
Since then, both the BBC and Disney+ – which has co-funded the last two series – have been tight-lipped over the show’s future. However, speaking at the Edinburgh TV festival, the BBC’s content chief, Kate Phillips, told anxious fans it had a future, whether or not Disney+ stayed onboard.
What is the business ethics here? Well, let’s say a hypothetical program that was once a ratings blockbuster was re-designed to attract a very small niche audience depriving its regular fans of their entertainment and their wishes. Hypothetically. Would that be wrong? I think there might be circumstances under which that could be justified. If political points of view are important enough to overtake a show’s original purpose, I believe that is a legitimate choice.
As for those who like the original program, they have other viewing choices.
But if the ratings show failure, should the show change course or end? I think those are also legitimate choices.
I personally believe that show should go on hiatus while they develop a new creative team and select new actors starting from scratch.
That is what I think. Here is more about the ratings.
DOCTOR WHO Ratings Plummet Amid Reports That The BBC Has Axed Ncuti Gatwa As The Time LordBy JoshWilding
A big-money deal with Disney+ was meant to bring Doctor Who to a global audience, with Russell T Davies considered a safe pair of hands to put the franchise in after he successfully relaunched the show in the mid-2000s with actors like Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Billie Piper.
However, his “woke” storylines have drawn widespread criticisms, with even longtime fans feeling that the show has become too heavy-handed and preachy with its messaging. Ncuti Gatwa, meanwhile, has supposedly been axed from the series (the BBC responded to those claims by calling it “pure fiction”).
This newest report has analysed the seven-day viewing figures for the first half of Gatwa’s second year in the TARDIS, and they don’t make for pretty reading.
To summarize, the ratings are worse than dismal. The fans are voting with their watching habits and they are not watching Doctor Who.
That is a legitimate concern for all of us.
If you love the core ideas that made doctor who a classic, then let us advocate for a strong show that continues the tradition.
After I went through three News Networks I came up with twenty eight business ethics topics that merited my comment and analysis.
There are all current, happening now. There are not subjects on long term business ethics tragedies like global warming or the collapse of the moral order in the current administration or the cowardice of our major institutions and our ruling class.
For the love of a Merciful God, what has happened to this nation and the larger world?
When I started writing this blog almost twenty years ago, I could depend on two or three topics a day. This wasn’t a gradual collapse of national morality. It is tied directly to the 2016 election of Donald Trump and his unfortunate re-appearance in 2024. There was a massive acceleration in business ethics problems and it continues to accelerate.
Twenty-eight sounds like a lot of topic but you must understand I haven’t completed my usual gazette of news sources. I still have the financial news and the foreign press as well as some specialty publications on tech and science.
I can easily be looking at sixty to seventy-five topics after my usual examination of the news.
One of the parables in the New Testament is about the absence of the necessary workers to harvest the crops, a thinly veiled reference to spreading the word of God. It concludes with the exhortation to pray that the Lord sends more help.
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Well, we need a hundred business ethics writers to cover this amount of material.
If the United States and its democracy end as so much evidence indicate is happening, it will not matter if there are any writers or any concern over business ethics.
We will just have a gangster government. Money and influence will eclipse any moral values. Those at the Heritage Foundation and the writers of Project 2025 will have attained their goals in creating a nation when a tiny minority of depraved self-interested ideologues make decisions for the rest of us.
If democracy survives, those of us who believe in the promise of the United States, the importance of actual Christ based Christianity and morality, will be more important than ever.
There will be much to repair, much to recover and many, many to be brought to the bar of justice and punished for their crimes.
I had to read the article below twice because I found it hard to believe that some one would replace real life vegetation like grass with a sort of artificial carpet.
What makes this even more bizarre is the fact that I have been writing and advocating for natural lawns of wildflowers and other alternatives to the carefully mowed lawns which cost so much in fuel and environment degradation. I had come to believe that there was a generally broad movement to a genuine appreciation of nature and then I see this man acquire an artificial lawn.
(It turns out I am little short of pictures of grass. So, this lion is sitting on “grass” and has expressed his lack of satisfaction in the Astro-Turfing as you can see. jp)
The article is highly critical of the practice and it doesn’t appear to save money or retain its “attractiveness” over time.
The article linked to below is entitled Homeowner sparks backlash after showing off newly landscaped yard: ‘Why would someone voluntarily live this way?’ and is written by Sarah Winfrey. It is from The Cool Down.
According to Clean Water Action, artificial turf poses health risks due to the plastics and other potentially damaging chemicals it contains.
Artificial turf and other plastic-based gardening solutions leach chemicals and toxins into the earth, which is harmful to human health and can contaminate soil for decades to come.
Per Real Homes, fake turf can be a deceptively high-maintenance approach to lawn care and landscaping, requiring significant maintenance to keep it presentable. On top of that, it can burn in the sun, and constant exposure to the elements degrades it over time.
Let me be upfront here. I live in an apartment and the only thing around this building is cement. But I live in a community with many homes and lawns. I live near parks and nature tracks and there is good sized federal park north of here.
I do appreciate nature and I want you, my kind readers, to make good choices so let me even thought I don’t have a lawn recommend a good lawn choice for you.
I have written about this a couple of times. Being something of a maverick, I often don’t agree with the majority.
But the disconnect between what Americans want and what the government does has grown increasingly dramatic over the years. It seems to me in 1960, that the government and the people were very much aligned whereas now the government generally just ignores public opinion and serves oligarchs and corporations – and whoever coughs up enough dark money.
But here is one more example of the government and the people having different points of view.
Most Americans believe that all countries should recognise Palestine as a state, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests, as public support for Israel in the United States continues to plunge amid the atrocities in Gaza.
A majority of respondents – 59 percent – also said that Israel’s military response in Gaza has been excessive.
I may be very much a maverick, but that is how I feel too.
I was cruising the news and commentary sites looking for a significant business ethics subject to write about today. I wanted to avoid talking about the “Stanford Swimmer Who Raped Unconscious Woman” story. As the media buzz accumulated I felt that there were plenty of people writing about it and my two cents weren’t needed. But then I read the father of the criminal had called for mercy saying his son had only got “twenty minutes of action.”
At first when I read it this morning, it was annoying like a fly buzzing about my consciousness but by this afternoon, it had morphed into an angry dragon and I knew what I was going to write about.
There is so much wrong here.
First, we have the usual two tiered system of justice which I have written about before. A privileged youth is given a sentence which seems totally out of proportion to the crime. This is definitely one of those cases.
This crime is vicious. He raped an unconscious woman. And yet the judge found that, “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him,” – Yes, I suppose it would. Prison is supposed to do that. But the judge gave the rapist six months in jail and probation as opposed to the prosecution’s recommendation of six years.
Second, he doesn’t seem to have gotten the message that he did something wrong and far worse, he doesn’t seem to care.
Third, we have the father’s statement from the probation pre-sentencing report. Many commentators have focused on the “twenty minutes of action” comment but I tend to focus on the first line: “As it stands now, Brock’s life has been deeply altered by the events of Jan 17th and 18th.”
It gives the impression that his son didn’t do anything but was the victim of some natural event like a rainstorm or a stiff breeze. A more honest statement might have read – “My son, Brock has severely damaged his future prospects by raping an unconscious woman.” But no. You can read the entire statement without getting the impression that Brock did anything wrong until you think about the implications of the “twenty minutes of action.” It is possible to perceive that Brock may have chosen to spend that twenty minutes unwisely.
But the father’s statement gets even better if we go down about two thirds of the way. You’ll love this line. I did. “He has no prior criminal history and has never been violent to anyone including his actions on the night of Jan 17th 2015.”
He raped a woman without violence? How does that work? Was it a soft, pleasant assault? I am going to go with – No, it wasn’t. It was a rape, an act of violence.
There is no responsibility here. As far as I can tell, the family is running with the idea that there are two victims both assaulted by un-indicted evil monster of binge drinking. Drinking does not and will never excuse rape. Not to mention the fact, that Brock was sober enough to run away when caught.
There is only one victim, the woman who was violated. And there is not another victim but a criminal, a criminal who did everything under the circumstances to evade justice. And this criminal and his family have failed to own up to what has been done.
And yet, the father does not feel his son should be imprisoned because Brock “is totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity.”
That’s right. Brock is now a sort of missionary carrying a vital message to his fellow youth that people should avoid large quantities of alcohol and sex. Except Brock isn’t a victim of alcohol or promiscuity. Brock took advantage of an unconscious woman to perform an act of violation. Brock is a convicted felon, a criminal who did the unthinkable.
No man of decency or with a shred of honor could bring himself to violate a sleeping woman much less a drunk or incapacitated one. A gentleman’s duty when confronted with an unconscious woman is one of protection and help. He must insure her safety and get her assistance.
This criminal failed in his duty and directly harmed a helpless woman. There should be punishment befitting this crime.
What is the lesson we can derive from this sorry mess of a case? Very simple. If you have money, position and power and can make a statement blaming your crime on a climate of binge drinking and promiscuity, you can evade many of the consequences for your actions. That’s wrong.
That is not a lesson I am content with but it is the one we have.
Seth Mnookin: The Autism Vaccine Controversy and the Need for Responsible Science Journalism
Last January, Andrew Wakefield, the discredited British gastroenterologist whose 1998 paper sparked the first wave of fears that vaccines might be causally connected to autism, was further disgraced when the editors of the British Medical Journal declared his work “an elaborate fraud.” (By that point, Wakefield had already forfeited his medical license for a litany of moral, ethical, and professional misdeeds — including an incident where he paid children at his young son’s birthday party to donate their blood for his experiments.) With little left to lose, Wakefield seemed to fully embrace the fringe: In June, he headlined a rally titled “The Masterplan: The Hidden Agenda for a Global Scientific Dictatorship” with a cohort of 9/11 Truthers, One World Government conspiracists, and anti-fluoridationists.
So, how are the mighty fallen. This is one of the slender reeds upon with the anti-vaccination movement rests? Has the movement slidden into Internet Conspiracy Theory? (JP)
Do the American People Need to Become Re-introduced to Science
I’m beginning to wonder.
Last winter, I was getting my haircut during a snow fall and one of the clients said “I guess that global warming is going to get us all; the he hee-hawed like a jackass.
The evidence is clear. Get some bad research, a couple of bogus think tanks and compliant media with give you equal credit with internationally renowned scientists. Using this tool, you can confuse enough of the population to keep necessary legislation or in the case in the article above vaccinations from taking place.
I’ve been in college with students studying to be scientists. (My degree is in criminal justice and speech, and I have a law degree.) I was always amazed at how hard they worked to be precise in their conclusions. Their dedication was amazing. For many it was a love of learning, of discovering, and of making a difference. That’s why they became scientists.
Hearing and reading them described as some kind of international plot to disdain God and make people give up their cars is a pretty miserable experience. It’s like hearing a good friend maligned.
Let me tell you something. I was raised in a fundamentalist church. Do you know how many times I was lied to in their literature; how often the material was simply made up whole cloth? Do you know how often when I went and studied history and science and discovered that the things they told me were non-existent or distortions of the facts? It was a regular experience.
When I compare that to the number of times that scientists have deliberately misled me in my lifetime, there is simply no contest.
You make better decisions with facts and science than you do with wishful thinking. Whether it be secondhand smoke or global warming, I’ll line up with the best knowledge available.
Four Percent of Americans think that the U.S. is winning the war on drugs.
The number of Americans who support the War on Drugs is getting lower and lower. In the most recent poll by Rasmussen, only four percent said they think the United States is winning the War on Drugs. That’s down from 7 percent in November. The number who think the United States is losing remains steady at an overwhelming 82 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
The so-called “War on Drugs” declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971, has turned out to be an expensive and violent international prohibition endeavor, that, more than 40 years later, is partially to blame for the United States’ bloated prison population.
Americans continue to overwhelmingly believe the so-called war on drugs is failing, but they are more divided on how much the United States should be spending on it.
Just four percent (4%) of American Adults believe the United States is winning the war on drugs, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Eighty-two percent (82%) disagree. Another 13% are undecided.
I’m puzzled. Four percent still don’t get it? Did they misread the question?
Of course, it is important to note how many Americans do get it, do realize that this is a doomed endeavor that on any cost benefit analysis has been a loser for a very long time.
We’ve packed prisons that we built with desperately needed tax fund. Tax funds that were diverted from colleges, universities, schools, roads, parks, social services, etc. We’ve taken our police who we have taught our children should be treated as friends and transformed then into semi-mercenaries dressed like commandoes in a B move. Kevlar armored, camouflage uniformed, black helmeted, soldiers carrying automatic weapons do not conjure up pictures of Andy Griffith as sheriff of Mayberry. They look remarkably like soldiers on a mission. That’s not police or policing.
You see, police work with the support of the public. They defend and serve. When talking to regular citizens who are not committing crimes they are respectful and can even be kind.
Soldiers maintain order and their power doesn’t come from respect except the respect accorded the barrel of a gun. They don’t talk to you. They order you.
And the regular police have become more and more militant as a result of our failed drug wars. They are now much more violent in their own “defense,” that is, shooting family pets.
The really sad thing about the police shooting of dogs is how little time it took me to come up with that many.
Let’s call an end to the war on drugs, license them, regulate them, tax them – let’s do something else. We don’t have to live in a militarized society afraid of the police and under surveillance.
The war on Drugs intensified during the Nixon Era.
In 2010, about 200 million people took illegal drugs. The numbers have remained relatively constant for years, as has the estimated annual volume of drugs produced worldwide: 40,000 tons of marijuana, 800 tons of cocaine and 500 tons of heroin. What has increased, however, is the cost of this endless war.
Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration pumped about $100 million into drug control. Today, under President Barack Obama, that figure is $15 billion — more than 30 times as much when adjusted for inflation. There is even a rough estimate of the direct and indirect costs of the 40-plus years of the drug war: $1 trillion in the United States alone.
In Mexico, some 60,000 people have died in the drug war in the last six years. US prisons are full of marijuana smokers, the Taliban in Afghanistan still use drug money to pay for their weapons, and experts say China is the drug country of the future.
From the web site, What’s the Truth? (I used almost half the post and I fell guilty about using that much. I hope the site owner will cut me some slack!)
Let me start this out by saying I don’t do drugs, I have no interest in doing drugs. With that said, it is none of our business if other people want to do drugs. Whether their drug is alcohol, weed, or even the heavier stuff, the fact remains they made a choice to do them, and the we can not tell them how to live their private life. When the only victim of the crime is the person committing the crime, it isn’t a crime. That’s would be like saying eating too much is a crime.
According to the federal database on crime, in 2011, over 20% of the people in jail were there for either drug possession or drug distribution.
Percentage of State and Federal Prisoners
Offense
1974
1986
1997
2000
2008
2010
Violent
52.5%
64.2%
46.4%
47.2%
47.3%
47.7%
Property
33.3%
22.9%
14%
19.1%
17.0%
16.7%
Drug
10.4%
8.8%
26.9%
25.3%
22.4%
21.7%
Public-order
1.9%
3.3%
8.9%
7.8%
11.9%
13.4%
Other/unspecified
2.0%
0.9%
3.7%
0.4%
1.2%
0.6%
1/5 of the prison population are in there for a victim-less crime. There were over 2 million people in total incarcerated in 2011. 1/5 of 2 million is 400 thousand. According to this chart it costs on average about $47,000 to jail each prisoner. So if you do the math, that means America spent over $18 BILLION on non violent, victim-less crimes. Seems like a waste to me. Prisons shouldn’t be used for social engineering. You cant use it to change people, and scare them out of using drugs. Despite the threat of jail time over 15 Million still smoke weed. Now some of those people smoke weed for medical reasons, but a lot of them smoke for recreation. Clearly people aren’t threatened by the idea of going to jail.
From the web site, The Fix. ( I, too, fine the militarization of the police and the use of military forces for police work to be troubling phenomenon. When does the defender of the public become a soldier and what does that imply for we, the citizens?)
When 150 New York state troopers, U.S. Marshalls and local city police officers rounded up 52 suspects in a massive multi-city drug raid in the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 27; five members of the New York National Guard Counterdrug Task Force gave themselves a silent pat on the back for a job well done.
The New York National Guard provides law enforcement agencies with equipment and staff to help with intelligence and surveillance. According to the NGCTF website (yes, they have a website), they’ve assisted in raids that have confiscated about $68 million of cash and contraband, and led to the arrest of “just under” 950 people. That yields about $72,000 per person arrested. This assistance includes the use of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft equipped with infrared cameras. Infrared cameras use heat emitted by objects to create an image. Heat signatures can give away the location of drug labs, grow operations, and illegal plants hidden amongst legal crops.
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