The Battle Is On

By now it's becoming apparent that Barack H. Obama is every bit as radical as many of us warned. I argue in tomorrow's Oklahoman that, as the anti-Reagan tries to reorder the relationship between government and the private sector, it's crucial that some Reaganesque leaders emerge -- not only in Washington, but also at NE 23rd & Lincoln.

A Blessing in the Sighs

"The LORD bless you and keep you," the famous benediction goes, "the LORD make his face shine upon you." That's a classic, to be sure, calling to mind Father Mulcahy's observation that it's hard to go wrong when you've got good material. But I really like another, less well-known blessing established for our use throughout the church age: "May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!"

You'll recall that Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh ("For God has made me forget all my toil and all my father's house") and his second son Ephraim ("For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction"). Thus, in this blessing, "one is asking God to cause one's negative past to be forgotten and his future to be fruitful," one commentator says.

This morning 40-year-old Susie and her 42-year-old husband were blessed to see and hear the heartbeat of a baby who's roughly half the size of my fingernail. Six-year-old Jack Henry, with a tip of the hat to Isaac's nonagenarian mommy, helpfully informed Susie: "I bet you're the second-oldest person ever to have a baby."

Providentially, the sermon on Sunday was on Psalm 127, which teaches us that children are a blessing: "Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD; The fruit of the womb is a reward."

"It is no small gift of God for a man to be renewed in his posterity," Calvin says, "for God then gives him new strength, that he who otherwise would straightway decay, may begin as it were to live a second time."

Apparently Calvin's Influence in Switzerland Remains Strong

The Oklahoma City Thunder's Thabo Sefolosha, the first Swiss-born player in the NBA, has a tattoo that reads, "The Game Chose Me."

Hope and Change (Pyongyang Remix)

History in the Making

When Blake Griffin's National Player of the Year honor "becomes official in early April, it'll mark the first time that a school has produced the Heisman and National Player of the Year winner in the same year," writes FOXSports.com senior college basketball writer Jeff Goodman ('Sooners stars Griffin, Bradford on verge of history').

Goodman quotes Oklahoma State hoopster Obi Muonelo, a childhood friend of both Sam Bradford and Blake Griffin, as saying: "I still can't believe those two guys are going to be the Heisman Trophy winner and the Player of the Year. Who would have ever thought?"

Quote of the Day

Joseph Epstein, in the current issue of The Weekly Standard:

"Want to help the environment?" young people on neighborhood street corners with petitions in hand not infrequently ask me. "Why?" I answer. "What did the environment ever do for me?"

Yes, Keep Going

Mr. Jim Adams of Hobart, Oklahoma has a brief letter to the editor in today's Oklahoman:

Ron Reese (Your Views, Feb. 16) thinks President Bush gets too much blame for "the economic meltdown" and that it's really due to "the 60 or so years of our movement toward socialism." Which of the current socialistic policies would Reese like to eliminate? Medicaid? Medicare? Social Security?

Politicians Should Appreciate Homeschoolers

The Heritage Foundation, citing Susie and me as examples, points out that homeschoolers are saving politicians big bucks.

Public School House Rock!

Roiling Mass Of Snakes to Receive $160 Billion in Government Stimulus

More stimulus news.

College Daze

A college student in California is suing the college over an incident in which a professor called him a "fascist bastard."

No word yet on whether college student Obi Muonelo is getting any ideas.

Prohibiting the One Thing Which Could Actually Spur 'Corrections'

"The Oklahoma Department of Corrections' refusal to allow a Christian ministry access to send Bibles, books about Jesus Christ and other religious materials to inmates has sparked a federal lawsuit," Bobby Ross Jr. reports.

Wingspread Christian Ministries, headquartered in Prairie Grove, Ark., and operated by Illinois-based Evangelists for Christ Inc., filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Muskogee.

Prison restrictions on prisoners' correspondence violate the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and Oklahoma's Religious Freedom Act, the 12-page lawsuit petition claims. ...

Wingspread sends similar religious materials to prisoners in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, New York and Texas but "has not encountered restrictions upon and impediments to its ministry similar to those encountered in Oklahoma," the lawsuit states.

Promises, Promises

Surreal McCoy

Valentines Day 2009 with All-American defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, shown here wearing Cupid wings.

Obama's 'Transparency'

Sorta How I Feel About the 'Stimulus'

That's adorable.

The Super Bowl Ad That NBC Rejected

I think you'll see why our friends on the left don't like this ad.

West Point Cadet Plans 24-Hour Run at Yukon High

David Swanson, a 2006 Yukon High School graduate and current cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, plans a 24-hour run around the Yukon High School track to raise dollars for the Wounded Warrior Project, a non-profit organization that supports soldiers wounded in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Calling his project the 24 Hour Brigade, ultramarathoner Swanson invites area runners, walkers, mothers with strollers -- virtually anyone -- to join him in his effort to raise money and support America's heroes with the Wounded Warrior Project. He is also soliciting sponsors to pledge dollars per mile that he and others run during this 24-hour period, from 5:00 pm on Friday, March 20 to 5:00 pm on Saturday, March 21, 2009.

"I love America, and I love to run," said Swanson. "I have been impressed for some time now that I should use my love of running and ability to run long distances to benefit the young men who volunteered to join the fight for freedom around the world, and have paid the price in that fight.

"I've found the Wounded Warrior Project, and am excited to support that cause through this effort," he continued.

Swanson says he can't reach his goal by himself, though.

"I have an audacious goal of raising $10,000 for the WWP," Swanson said. "In order to do that, we'll need to enlist the help of anyone and everyone who appreciates the sacrifice of our armed forces, and who can put one foot in front of the other.

"Anyone can do this, whether it's one mile or one hundred miles."

"I'm asking Oklahomans from all walks of life to enlist sponsors -- no amount per mile is too small -- and join me on the Yukon High School track to support our wounded warriors," Swanson says.

Those who want to participate or sponsor Swanson or another runner can enlist for this mission here.

Shooting Hoops on a 74-Degree February Afternoon

Public School Results at Casady Prices

The actual cost per pupil in Oklahoma's public schools: $10,942.

Quote of the Day

"[I learned] from my great-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools, and to have had good teachers at home."

—from The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antonius

HT: David Deming

'The Impending Obama Meltdown'

"Obama is becoming laughable and laying the groundwork for the greatest conservative populist reaction since the Reagan Revolution," writes Victor Davis Hanson. Read the whole thing here.

OU Lobbying for Anti-Petroleum Legislation

Oh yeah, donors are gonna love this.

The University of Oklahoma will join hundreds of institutions from across the country for the "National Teach-In" to show the President and Congress that people are ready to pass a bold climate and energy policy that prioritizes renewable energy, green job creation, and an aggressive cap on carbon emissions. This event is meant to open a dialogue and ask questions concerning our current path of policy. OU students, staff, and faculty will learn about their options and what they can do locally to find real solutions today.

Just one more reason (as if we needed another) for state lawmakers not to tap the Rainy Day Fund for higher education.

The Confusion of Barack H. Obama

Craig Ladwig, editor of the Indiana Policy Review, corrects our Harvard-educated president:

The president remarked last week that the sight of himself standing behind the official seal would "confuse" Gen. Robert E. Lee. It was a reminder that American history has been taught only selectively these past 20 years, even to the Harvard-educated.

General Lee never expressed the view that blacks would not achieve equality. In fact, it is not recorded that he ever spoke disparagingly of blacks, something that cannot be said of his Union counterpart, Ulysses Grant, or even Indiana's favorite son, Abe Lincoln.

General Lee was emphatic that slavery was "a moral and political evil." He believed that American slaves would be free one day, and a decade before the Civil War he freed the slaves inherited by his wife. His decision to join the Confederacy was based on his and the founders' conviction that states should be sovereign over a federal government.

So, what would confuse Lee about modern life? A good guess is the dearth of liberty for even free men and women living in the reconstructed nation -- blacks, whites and all others.

Who, for instance, would like the job of explaining to the general that equality of opportunity had been suspended along with the Rule of Law in the pursuit of equality of results?

Or that it is common in 2009 for a middle-class professional, black or white, to live without owning real property, indentured to a hopeless mortgage, without savings, sending her children to schools on loans that will never be repaid?

General Lee would want to know how such a situation came about. He would have to be told that taxes and regulations now take as much as half of an average worker’s payroll allowance.

At that point one could only pray that the general did not ask the obvious next question: Where does all that money go? The answer -- that spending bills are so large that nobody really knows -- surely would be too much for his noble soul to bear.

In any case, it would be necessary to go further -- taxes on savings, income and capital gains, abortion rights, federally mandated state and municipal regulations, socialized medicine , restrictions on gun ownership ... The poor man’s heart would surely break.

Bringing the general fully up to date, he would want to know that Congress had in effect ordered banks to issue loans expressly to those who could not afford to pay them back and that Wall Street had learned to invest in an enterprise not on the basis of its productivity but on its political favor.

But who would want to tell him that taxes on a man's property make private ownership only theoretical? Or that the U.S. Secretary of the Treasurer took office even though he made tens of thousands of dollars in "mistakes" on his own tax returns? That the nominee for Secretary of Health thought his limousine was tax-exempt? That there is a Secretary of Health? That there are limousines?

Who, finally, would want to introduce the general to Barney Frank? Nancy Pelosi? Rod Blagojevich?

Confused? That might not be a strong enough word, Mr. President.

Original-Sin Watch

Chesterton once remarked that original sin is "the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved."

But isn't it amazing how we deceive ourselves? Two stories in The Oklahoman last week caught my eye.

A serial rapist who was sentenced to 1,015 years in prison (it probably didn't help when he told the judge, "I don't have any remorse") averred in a taped confession: "I'm not a bad person."

And former state Auditor and Inspector Jeff McMahan, who got eight years in the pokey for taking bribes, insisted in court papers that he "remains, at his core, a decent individual."

Lost in Translation?

The state's largest newspaper recently frowned on a state senator's "ill-advised proposal to crack down on homeschoolers," and today the paper took note of my recent letter to the senator.

Yo Mama's So Fat She Got Her Own ZIP Code

Well, uhh, yeah, I suppose this could be considered geography.