Rewards adults, Ignore the Kids - Tulsa's Sad Model

In a story that only Scrooge could love, the corporate world rules with a heavy hand when it comes to adults getting the new toys and the children getting absolutely zilch. Is this story occurring in your city? See if this scenario is happening in your city or town.

The city of Tulsa has a wonderful minor league baseball park . The parking is spacious, the ballpark is clean and in great shape, the park attendance hovers at about 1/4 capacity. But this otherwise ideal situation wasn't good enough for the city leaders (both Demo and Repub) who went into a frenzy looking for ways to find erect a new ball park with a horrible location, pitiful parking, and a cost of about $20 million.

The cost will be more than the $20,000,000 (I am sure you knew this was coming). Yep, in order to help the city recover from the tailspin in revenues the decision just had to be made to save money and, by God, the kids will have to do their share. How's that? Of the 23 public swimming pools only 7 will be allowed to open this summer. All summer camps will be closed including the only one that brings joy to special needs children. But, yeah, the corporate icons will have a ballpark paid for by Tulsa citizens in the form of taxes. And, yes, the corporate sponsors will get huge tax exemptions.

I am quite sure one could carve a better mayor and city council out of a bunch of bananas.

Good News About Oil Reserves: In the Trillion of Barrels

The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in 2008 (where was the press on this one?) on how much oil was in North Central region of the U.S. in a basin known as Bakken. The Energy Information Administration (who the hell is this group?) estimates a starting base of over 5oo billion barrels of oil with a worth in the trillions. Additionally, scientists say there is over 2 trillion barrels of untapped oil beneath the Rocky Mountains.

Okay, I can hear your question from here: Why aren't we going after it to rid ourselves of foreign dependence? Short answer: Somewhere in Congress someone has an agenda with the Mideast oil producers.

Okay, you don't like that answer, try this one: Oil companies could be flooded with oil right up to the CEO's executive suite but it wouldn't lower the price of gasoline or oil products because we haven't built a refinery in over 25 years. The oil execs offer up the "EPA makes it impractical to build refineries due to all their rules and regs" as if to say it should be okay to inhale all their carcinogenic carbons. Therefore, the fewer the refineries the greater control over supply. Control over supply equals (hold your breath) higher prices.

The Prez Scores Mightily In Europe

After all the fatuous statements by pundits regarding Prez Obama's failure to achieve much success after his kiss-and-makeup tour with European leaders, it's pretty clear that he got what he went after....a starting point for continued dialogue; a promise to meet often; a vow to really listen.

The talking heads on the conservative radio/TV programs went after the Prez with hammer and tongs basically saying he didn't have a spine and that wimpy Euro leaders couldn't bring much muscle in the World Wrestling Arena on Nuclear Power. They hinted that he should stop Kim ll sung and that we would be absolutely stupid to drop production of the long-range interceptor missiles, never mind the fact that such hubris could easily create another scary brinkmanship campaign that kept this nation on edge during the Cold War that almost went hot.

I'm in the Obama's camp on this one. It took us eight years to totally incense the European nations. Eight years of referring to them as cheese eaters, monkeys, wimps, etc., we shouldn't expect them to trust us overnight. Just because we have a new man in the White House doesn't mean they are ready to embrace him until they know what he's up to and developing trust doesn't come with a social visit.