Today was significantly more crowded around campus than yesterday. Not sure why; was Monday the tail end of a three-day weekend? Anyway, it’ll be interesting to try to get a read on the traffic patterns in the next few days and weeks. It seemed as though a lot of the people out and about today were tourists and townies. The townies in particular (for good reason) seem intent on claiming their space (it is their space, after all) as emphatically and for as long as they can. I saw a couple of people in caps and gowns get video shot in front of landmarks, so there must have been some peripheral ceremonies going on. All in all, still way less claustrophobic than a school day. It only took me about 10 minutes to get from State and William to Industrial after work tonight.

I read on one Okie blog that respondents to a poll on that site voted that computer access and refrigeration are more important than indoor plumbing.

Let’s just say that it was an unscientific poll and leave it at that.

After all, my ancestral state has far bigger problems than little polls. « The Daily Oklahoman just wrote an editorial bemoaning the expansion of Oklahoma higher education in the state »:

‘Last we checked, Oklahoma had 13 publicly funded comprehensive and regional universities, a dozen two-year colleges and two higher education centers. From Goodwell to Durant and points in between, college students have no shortage of choices. Now they may soon have yet another. The state House of Representatives gave final legislative approval last week to a bill that would make Duncan the home to a branch campus of Cameron University. Cameron is located in Lawton, which is just 30 miles from Duncan. … Under House Bill 2624, by Rep. Jari Askins, D-Duncan, a learning center in Duncan will be used to offer lower- and upper-division courses and master’s-level graduate courses. Askins says no additional state funding would be needed to operate the campus. We’ll be interested to see how long that lasts. Askins is in line to become House speaker if Democrats retain their control in November, so it’s unlikely Gov. Brad Henry will want to buck his colleague on this. But he should weigh it carefully. There’s no question Oklahoma needs more college graduates, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it needs more college campuses.’
—The Daily Oklahoman

Couple of problems here. First, Duncan has had a higher education center in partnership with my alma mater, Cameron, for several years now. This represents just an expansion of its mission and offerings.

And second, as someone who spent five years of his life commuting on Oklahoma’s terrible two-lane roadways that 30 miles between Duncan and Lawton that the Oke seems to think is piffling, well, let’s put it this way: ‘Hey, Daily Oklahoman! Bite me!!!

The condescension, arrogance and petulance in the editorial is just amazing, particularly on this subject. Bringing the opportunity to get a college degree to more and more Oklahomans is a great thing and the Daily Disappointment should be leading the cheerleading instead of trying to snark negative political points against Jari Askins and the Democratic governor.

Shame on them.

Former rightwing attack shill David Brock has « a new website, Media Matters », ostensibly dedicated to combating the same Fascist claptrap he used to produce.

How the worm turns.

Still, donkeys are flying; let’s not criticize them too much and see how far they fly …

« Here’s how our Tough-on-Terror Boy Emperor is protecting us from evil »:

‘The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden’s and Saddam Hussein’s money, documents show. In addition, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said that between 1990 and 2003 it opened just 93 enforcement investigations related to terrorism. Since 1994 it has collected just $9,425 in fines for terrorism financing violations. In contrast, OFAC opened 10,683 enforcement investigations since 1990 for possible violations of the long-standing economic embargo against Fidel Castro’s regime, and collected more than $8 million in fines since 1994, mostly from people who sent money to, did business with or traveled to Cuba without permission.’
—Yahoo News

Yup, that’s the Boy Emperor’s Cabal for you … always and above-all is the ideology, while they pretend to do the opposite.

Don’t you feel safer?

The Boy Emperor’s twin ideological tenets, tax cuts for wealthy people and privatization of everything so that those wealthy get even wealthier, is « trickling down all over »:

‘This summer, when backpackers, hikers, and families—with kids in tow—pony up to get into America’s national parks, they could be in for a rude and crude awakening. Due to dramatic budget cuts some parks may be cutting back their hours, hiking trails may be un-passable, educational programs may no longer exist, and even some bathrooms may be shut down. Over the past few months, the National Park Service (NPS) has quietly imposed a hiring freeze, abandoned maintenance projects, cut visitor services, and reduced park hours at a number of America’s national parks. In response, according to Ski magazine, “Forest Service officials appear to be leaning toward a policy change that would allow more visible displays of sponsors, whose logos, names or ads could appear on items they underwrite.” The NPS believes that “its private partners in the tourism industry can help stem the decline in park visitation through aggressive efforts to lure more paying customers into the parks,” says Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness, a Bend, Oregon-based environmental advocacy group.’
…
‘The National Park Service used to be one of the most dependable government-run outfits, Silver says. “From its earliest days, the idea behind the agency was that our national parks would be to America what the Cathedrals and architecture of Europe were to those countries, and most NPS officials cared a great deal for the parks and did a good job managing them.” … during the mid-sixties, the tourism industry begun to sink its claws into the NPS and “the process of Disneyfication” had become well-established by the time George W. Bush took office. Now, “politics rule supreme within the Department of Interior and it appears that when the leadership of the NPS is not misdirecting the media and the American public, they are speaking out of both sides of their mouths,” Silver told me in an e-mail exchange.’
—Working For Change

Sounds like the Boy Emperor’s administration: Mortgage our future, rape our past, make our present as Orwellian as possible. The depredations of snowmobiles in Yellowstone will be looked upon nostalgically in a few years when we have to pay Dreamworks a fee to look at Old Faithful, which will only erupt after the captive audience has seen seven previews of upcoming movies starring the Olsen Twins, Jim Carrey, Angelina Jolie and William Hung.

Says Pat Boone, « ‘Censorship is healthy‘ »:

‘A healthy society needs censorship to survive, 1950s musical icon Pat Boone said yesterday. He added that he would welcome strong content restrictions governing movies and other artistic works. “I don’t think censorship is a bad word, but it has become a bad word because everybody associates it with some kind of restriction on liberty,” said Mr. Boone …’

Censorship is NOT a restriction on liberty, I see. This is a joke, right? Not exactly:

‘A more serious meeting of celebrities was when Mr. Boone was invited to a private screening of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” “After the screening was over, I turned and said, ‘Mel, you’re an apostle,’ ” said Mr. Boone, who has appeared in 15 films. “An apostle is one commissioned by God to tell the story and you are telling it more powerfully than it has ever been told or will ever be told, and you are therefore an apostle.” “I consider it the most important film ever made. It is a film that is not only of gigantic proportion but one that changes life, that affects people’s eternal destiny.” It is all the more significant, he said, “because Hollywood has an open antipathy toward Christianity itself.”’
—The Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times

Mel Gibson, an apostle and The Passion the most important film ever made.

Well, I think I might actually find myself in agreement with Pat: Censorship just might be desirable … so somebody slap some tape on his mouth.

After all, shutting Pat Boone up isn’t a restriction on liberty, right?

Doing some catchup as to what’s going on around the world:

Since it was in the Village Voice, it wasn’t much noticed, but « James Ridgeway noted how … slick the ties are between the Royal Bushes and the Royal Sauds » in fact, the two familes are ‘locked together.’ Yeah, locked together in an unholy alliance that could make things very higgledy-piggledy for the rest of us:

‘If the Saudis decided to let the so-called free market take over, flooding the globe with crude and sending oil prices into a steep dive, then the U.S. would be faced with a true nightmare. Lower prices would finish off not only smaller international companies that had been enticed into the oil play by high prices, but could wipe out the domestic oil companies in the U.S., causing sheer political hell for … Bush in his little oil bastion of Houston.’
—The Village Voice

Look out. This October Surprise could get very interesting.