The life of pies
Hostess is attracting suitors for its signature brands, plants and other assets. When news of Hostess’ pending demise broke last month, thousands of Americans mourned the loss of the Twinkie and other Hostess products. But brands, like factories, can be bought and sold.
The Twinkie may live on with a different baking company. Will it taste the same? Remains to be seen. Other famous brands that are likely to survive under new ownership include the Ding Dong, Donettes, Sno Balls, Ho-Hos, Chocodiles and Zingers.
We’re worried, though, that another Hostess staple may be too generic to find life after bankruptcy. It’s those miniature fruit pies that (at least in the minds of mothers who pack school lunch boxes) are healthier than other Hostess offerings. Will someone please pluck the fruit pie from the Hostess tree and plant it in another orchard?
Womb with a view
Syndicated columnist Rich Lowry wrote this week of the Obama campaign’s condescension toward women. He cited the views of early feminists that women are “just as capable of rational deliberation as men.”
He didn’t mention how out of sync Obama’s views on reproduction are with those of some pioneers of women’s rights.
More than 100 years after her death, Susan B. Anthony remains the subject of scholarly debate about her views on abortion. Anti-abortion groups believe Anthony actively opposed the practice; abortion-rights groups claims she had no strong feelings on the subject.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton once wrote of the “murder of children, either before or after birth.” Victoria Woodhall, the first female candidate for president (1872), said, “Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.”
The point of this is that women — including some modern feminists — don’t have a unified view supporting abortion at any stage of a pregnancy or government-mandated contraception. Obama’s one-womb-fits-all philosophy is patronizing and an insult to many American women.
Where’s the harm in judicial ratings?
Injecting class-warfare arguments into nearly every debate is a staple of the Democratic Party machine and its operatives. Even a nonpartisan voter information project involving nonpartisan judicial seats isn’t immune from class warfare.
A Tulsa trial lawyer says the State Chamber’s ratings of state Supreme Court justices is based on cherry-picked cases and “whether big business won or not.” Note: big business. The state’s civil liability system and judicial precedents affect businesses large and small, and by extension the entire economy.
All the chamber is doing is providing information, a small counter to the legal community’s outsized influence on the selection of justices. Although they are appointed to office, the justices must be periodically “retained” by voters.
Many voters are surprised by the retention ballot when they arrive at the polls. What’s the harm of calling more attention to the ballot, regardless of who’s doing the attention-calling? The trial bar’s attempts to keep voters uninformed is self-serving and pathetic.
A twister of fate
Weather trends that set records are sometimes cited to advance political causes such as anti-climate change initiatives. The word “record” is relative because recorded weather data only go back so far. Thus, the 113-degree day in August was a record high for Oklahoma Citybut not necessarily the hottest it’s ever been here and not necessarily an indication that people are making things hotter.
Here’s a “record” you may not be aware of: No tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma from June 1 through the end of September. That’s happened only once before, in 2003. But then the records date only to 1950. Before that, who knows?
Amid all the bad news about the weather this year, we can at least be thankful that the tail end of the spring tornado season wasn’t all that newsworthy.
Rudderless nation
The driverless car is coming, The Wall Street Journal said in a special report Monday. Driverless cars actually have drivers but the car itself does the hard work with robotics. Why not?
We live in a driverless country now. The president is in the driver’s seat but hasn’t been driving the growth of jobs or foreign policy. Leading from behind on Mideast policy isn’t driving. It’s abdication.
The analogy can be stretched only so far because Barack Obama has been driving the health care reform debate (at the expense of economic expansion) and driving us toward a cliff on the deficit. On energy policy he’s driving us in the wrong direction or going 25 in a 70-mph zone when it comes to energy independence.
The country needs a new driver. The car of the future may tool down the road while the driver watches a video, but countries need someone behind the wheel who can steer, brake when needed and pass slower-moving vehicles.
So far, so weird
Two old jokes came to mind when reading that a Tulsa woman accused of pushing her husband out of a high-rise apartment window is suing the apartment building’s owners.
One is the line about a man who jumps from a high-rise and is asked midway down how things are going for him. “So far, so good” is the reply. The other joke is about the guy who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy based on his status as an orphan.
Amber Hilberling is charged with second-degree murder for her alleged involvement in husand Joshua Hilberling’s 17-story plunge on June 7, 2011, which prosecutors say resulted from a domestic fight. She’s suing the apartment owners, claiming the window glass was thin and substandard.
Her criminal trial is scheduled for next March. No trial date has been set for the civil case.
Two-way street
The city councils of Tulsa and Oklahoma City held a historic joint session on Sept. 6, two months before Tulsa County voters will decide the fate of a $748.8 million captital improvements plan. At the meeting, the Tulsans sought advice from their Oklahoma City counterparts on how to replicate what three MAPS inititiatives have done to enhance the quality of life here.
Tulsa is catching up with the capital city in public investments and, unlike MAPS, major capital improvements plans in the Tulsa area are handled countywide rather than citywide.
Also of note is that Tulsa County has a model jail while Oklahoma County faces a federal takeover of jail operations unless expensive improvements are made. A countywide initiative is needed to address the jail here. Oklahoma County is nearly alone among counties in this state without a sales tax.
Perhaps leaders here could use some advice from Tulsans on how to pass a countywide sales tax measure for the jail.
Give respect where it’s due
Nearly a quarter of state voters are registered Democrats who don’t support Barack Obama. Keep this in mind when election results roll in Nov. 6. If Obama loses all 77 counties, as he did in 2008, it won’t be solely due to Republican voters.
Keep this in mind as well if the 2nd Congressional District seat switches from Democratic control (incumbent Dan Boren declined to run again) to GOP control. The district is a traditionally Democratic Party stronghold. And keep this in mind when viewing the continued popularity of Republican Gov. Mary Fallin.
Sooner Survey reported last month that Fallin has a 70 percent approval rate among Oklahoma’s registered Democrats who dislike Obama. That’s higher than her overall rate. In Little Dixie, Fallin enjoys the support of 61 percent of voters.
The governor’s GOP national convention speech, largely drowned out by the networks covering the convention, gave Fallin a platform to extol Oklahoma values. She drew a sharp contrast between Obama’s central planning philosophy and the pioneers who settled this state using their own grit and determination.
For this, she was reminded by her critics in the sneering class that the federal government played a starring role in white settlement: It owned the land and provided policing services. So what? Washington didn’t clear the land, plow the fields, nurse the babies or can the vegetables. Yes, Mr. President, the settlers did that.
Their descendants, including a lot of Democrats, favor politicians who give respect where respect is due. Fallin does. Obama does not.
Tree Bank Foundation and its boss deserve congratulations
For a quarter of a century, Mary Gilmore Caffrey has made the Tree Bank Foundation her branch office. Pun intended.
Caffrey has announced her retirement as the foundation’s executive director, effective Sept. 30. She’s overseen the planting of more than 200,000 trees on public grounds in Oklahoma and the distribution of more than 108,000 seedlings for others to plant.
Concurrent with her retirement, the Tree Bank Foundation is celebrating 25 years of adding trees to the landscape, trees valued collectively (at maturation) at nearly $250 million.
The foundation was started in 1987 and seeded by volunteers dedicated to planting and distributing trees. It joined with Oklahoma Forestry Services for the Centennial Witness Trees program that was part of Oklahoma’s 100th birthday celebration in 2007. More recent projects include the planting of native tree species at Oklahoma City University and a reforestation project in Atoka County following the April 2011 tornado outbreak there.
Chances are you saw a Tree Bank tree growing somewhere along your route to work or school this week. Recipients of Tree Bank plants don’t just get the trees. They also get instructions on how to care for them.
Trees are not only nice to look at. They provide shade and reduce air pollution. So we congratulate Caffrey and an organization with a lot of bark that’s taken a big bite out of a tree-challenged landscape.
Chirp and whine
If only crickets could eat a lot of mosquitoes.
Blame the mild winter on two outbreaks, one of West Nile virus transmitted by mosquito bites and the other of crickets.
The cricket explosion is blamed on ideal breeding conditions for crickets and less-than-ideal breeding conditions for the insect’s natural predators. Mosquitoes need water for breeding but not for living or for biting. The hot weather has actually spurred their development; it won’t stop until freezing temperatures hit.
West Nile symptoms typically start appearing three or more days after the bite from a carrying insect. The virus has taken the lives of five Oklahomans so far this season. Being forewarned means protecting your forearms and other body parts from mosquito bites as summer rolls into fall.
As for the crickets, they’re a nuisance but at least they don’t foster a dread disease.
