School plan raises questions
YUKON school officials recently announced they will close school for November’s general election. Said Superintendent Jason Simeroth, “Educators have spoken at the Capitol and now we will make it much easier for our advocates to express their concerns for those that do not support education, and to support those that do support education by voting.”
So Yukon officials think inconveniencing and disrupting the schedules of parents will increase voting? Or is the message that teachers, unlike other adults who also work on Tuesdays, are unable to vote before or after work or take advantage of Oklahoma’s simple absentee voting process? The implied message underlying this announcement is muddled, at best.
It also ignores the fact that, in many instances, primary elections on June 26 and subsequent runoffs on Aug. 28 will be more consequential than the November elections, since many legislative seats have a strong partisan tilt. While the June elections will occur during the summer break, Yukon is scheduled to start the 2018-19 school year on Aug. 16, so the runoff elections will be conducted after school starts. In many instances, the large number of candidates in districts means more runoffs are likely this year. Why not cancel school on Aug. 28 to “boost” turnout?
And if Yukon officials really think school interferes with voting, then why is the district not cancelling school to “boost” turnout in the spring elections that decide school board races and bond proposals? Aren’t those elections even more important to education?
Age no hindrance
As the saying goes, age is just a number, and that mindset is reflected in recent filings for elective office in Oklahoma. By our count, 27 of those running for statewide offices, Congress, or the state House or Senate are 70 or older. This includes three Republican legislative incumbents — Sen. Frank Simpson of Ardmore (73), and Reps. Bobby Cleveland of Slaughterville (74) and Harold Wright of Weatherford (70). At 77, Gary Richardson of Tulsa is the oldest person in the 15-person governor’s race; Democratic candidate Drew Edmondson is 71. Age isn’t slowing perennial candidate Virginia Blue Jeans Jenner, who’s seeking the U.S. House District 2 seat at age 78. The elder statesman on the ballot is former University of Oklahoma chief legal counsel Fred Gipson of Norman, who at 82 is seeking the Democratic nomination in the race to unseat U.S. Rep. Tom Cole in the 4th congressional district.
Play-Doh folly
While the “stupid crooks” genre is nothing new, the category still provides material that is good for a laugh more times than not. Consider a recent report from Leicester, Massachusetts, where a shoplifter at a department store attempted to evade security by pressing PlayDoh into a security camera to prevent recording. The strategy was partially successful. It did prevent recording of the actual theft. But it also left what was described by a local news outlet as a “perfectly pressed fingerprint” for police. The question is not whether the crook will eventually be caught, but if the criminal will have the brainpower to connect the dots and figure out where this brilliant scheme went awry. The crook may not have much time for such reflections, however, because in the jailhouse pecking order, “failure to buy gloves with PlayDoh” is not going to win you much street cred.
A fitting tribute
At George H.W. Bush’s presidential library in College Station, Texas, many people left books at a makeshift memorial honoring former first lady Barbara Bush, who died Tuesday at age 92. These remembrances were apropos, given Barbara Bush’s long work to promote literacy. She made it her chief cause after her husband was elected in 1988. She helped pass the National Literacy Act in 1991, a law that focused on teaching American adults how to read.
She established a foundation that promotes reading and writing in low-income households. Since 1989, it has helped to raise more than $110 million for literacy programs nationwide.
In her 1994 memoir, Bush also disclosed that she battled depression for a time in the 1970s. That experience, she said in later interviews, gave her newfound empathy for those suffering from depression. As matriarch of a political dynasty, Barbara Bush was classy, forthright and often self-deprecating, providing an example worth emulating.
More campus concerns
At City University of New York, students recently shouted down a speaker who tried to give a lecture to the law school. His topic? “The Importance of Free Speech on Campus.” Josh Blackman, a professor with South Texas College of Law, ran into the same treatment so many (mostly conservative) speakers have endured on college campuses nationwide. As City Journal’s Mark Pulliam wrote, Blackman is more libertarian than conservative and focuses mainly on constitutional law. He also is “not deliberately confrontational but mildmannered, soft-spoken and unfailingly polite.” Pulliam also noted the irony of Blackman’s lecture being given to CUNY law students, “college-educated adults who had gone to the trouble and expense of seeking a legal education.” No matter. Blackman was met with signs bearing messages such as “Rule of Law = White Supremacy” and by shouts of “Legal objectivity is a myth!” You can’t make this stuff up, as much as we’d like to say otherwise.
Political games
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is battling brain cancer. Since the GOP holds only a 51-49 edge in the U.S. Senate, should McCain lose that fight it could have major repercussions. Under current state law, should McCain’s seat be vacated by May 31, a replacement election would be scheduled this year. But
Arizona Republicans, who control that state’s legislature, may change the law to move the date to March 31, which has already passed.
If that change is approved and McCain dies, a gubernatorial appointee would fill the seat until the 2020 general election. (Arizona’s governor is also a Republican.) This is reminiscent of Massachusetts Democrats in 2004, who changed state law to require a special election for U.S. Senate vacancies because the governor at the time was Republican Mitt Romney. Regardless of which party does it, changing the rules of the game purely for partisan advantage only increases public cynicism.
Not such a big deal
The featured speaker at this year’s CBMC Metro Prayer Breakfast was former astronaut Charles Duke, one of only 12 people who has walked on the moon. Duke was part of the Apollo 16 crew in April 1972. Those were heady times for the U.S. space program, although Duke noted that in some respects it was certainly no big deal. He certainly didn’t get rich as a result. “A lot of people think we made a million dollars to go to the moon. That’s not true,” he said. Duke was a lieutenant colonel at the time and received a lieutenant colonel’s pay. But the Air Force considered the moon mission “TDY,” or temporary duty, which included per diem of $25 per day. “A moon flight was 11 days ... that’s 275 bucks, not bad,” Duke said. But NASA’s bill payers said lodging and meals had been furnished, and so too had his transportation, so they deducted those expenses. “So, for that 11 days in space I got paid 13 dollars and 75 cents,” Duke recalled, “and I cashed the check.”