Is Oklahoma's Pro-Life Legislation Having an Impact?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released its 2007 abortion data yesterday. University of Alabama political scientist Michael J. New writes:

According to the report, 827,609 abortions were performed in 2007; among the 46 states that released data in both 2007 and 2006, the number of abortions fell by about 2 percent. ...

Interestingly, the number of abortions performed on Oklahoma residents fell by 6 percent between 2006 and 2007, possibly thanks to pro-life legislation passed in 2006. Oklahoma law now includes a parental-consent requirement, allows a woman to view her unborn child on ultrasound before an abortion, informs women that unborn children older than 20 weeks' gestation may feel pain, includes stronger unborn-victims-of-violence provisions, and funds pregnancy help centers. Obviously, more rigorous research needs to be done, but preliminary data indicate that this omnibus bill was effective.

The God that Failed

What we're seeing in Wisconsin, Douglas Wilson writes, are "people who have had, their entire lives, a deep and abiding and religious faith in the state." The idea of their god running low on cash is deeply troubling to them. "Someone who is religiously committed cannot take this kind of thing in stride, and cannot treat it as just another political disagreement."

Homeschooling Has Gone Mainstream in Oklahoma

A recent SoonerPoll (margin of error ± 4.35%) asked Oklahomans this question:

"Many parents prefer to educate their children at home instead of sending them to school. Do you know of anyone that currently homeschools their child?"

A full 56 percent of respondents said yes, while 43 percent said no. By way of comparison, an Education Next-Harvard PEPG survey asked the same question last year and found that, nationwide, only 36 percent of respondents knew a family that homeschools, while 64 percent did not.

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike McCarville for the link. Here is an interesting and timely follow-up.

Budget Shortfall or Not ...

Oklahomans still want to reduce the state income tax.

Are Republicans Squishing Out on Work Comp Reform?

[This Marlin Oil advertorial appears in the February 24 edition of The City Sentinel.]

A recent hearing at the Oklahoma House of Representatives on what to do about CompSource seems likely to result in a drive for either "mutualization" (letting workers' comp policy holders become owners, sort of) or preservation of the status quo, and that's rather disappointing.

CompSource is a public-private hybrid, a two-headed creature where the people in charge say they run a public entity for purposes of benefits and pay, but a "private" business when it comes to things like open records, transparency, and accountability.

Advocates of selling CompSource to the private sector have not given up, and are reminding everyone this would be a pretty good year to get a bunch of cash to shore up pensions or even to accelerate tax reduction. It's been frankly unsettling to watch some Republicans, now that they're in power, organize opposition to sale of the so-called "insurer of last resort" in workers' comp insurance.

Some witnesses and legislators at the CompSource hearing early this month painted bad scenarios about what could happen if workers' comp insurance went to the private sector, where it belongs. Truth is, they can't point to any examples where sale of a government monopoly or near-monopoly like this led to collapse of the insurance market.

In other news, last weekend Governor Mary Fallin said a panel on workers' compensation reform is not going to recommend shifting the state toward an administrative system. OCU professor Andrew Spiropoulos, former Commissioner of Labor Brenda Reneau, and other conservative advocates have long supported getting lawyers out of the workers' comp system, and establishing an administrative structure to implement established precedent.

To sum up where thing stand after the first month of the legislative session, chances to see CompSource sold to the private sector seem to be dimming, but thankfully the idea is not yet dead and buried. Unless the governor gets involved it may be tough sledding to get the government out of the insurance business. The likely sale price for CompSource if it were privatized -- a quarter of a billion dollars or more -- so far doesn't seem enticing enough to get the state out of what should be a private business.

Additionally, the governor and her team have decided to leave the adversarial system of litigation in place for deciding workers' comp cases. That leaves Fallin's fans hoping that she is right and that reform can be gained by tinkering with the process -- bringing greater certainty to judicial decisions affecting workers and businesses in injury cases, limiting the ability of judges and lawyers to tinker with legislative intent and common sense.

In Honor of Tonight's Dunk Contest

Homeschooling ...

... is becoming increasingly mainstream in Oklahoma.

Freedom and Democracy in Egypt?

Historian of liberty J. Rufus Fears has seen it all before. He is not optimistic.

Reflections on Baby (cont'd.)

It's hard to describe my journey these past few years because so much of it is so personal. I knew that Anne Marie would be our last baby. Perhaps if I had been younger I might have thought we would have another baby, but I knew what my age meant. We had hoped and prayed for a long time for Anne Marie -- she was our long-awaited last baby.

It's also so hard to describe how God slowly began to breathe life back into me when I felt so dead. The deadness came not only from being so sad over Anne Marie, but because in the midst of it there were times when God seemed so silent. I recall so many nights in the quiet, dark night, begging God to help me and He just seemed to be gone. I remember praying, "Don't you see me? Can you see that I am falling deeper and deeper? Please, just help. Please!" And still, silence. Of course, now I know that He was always there, but at the time God's silence was so loud. But slowly He began to speak to my heart, and what I heard the loudest was that He loves me. And it was joy unspeakable to know that God loves me; in the midst of my greatest sorrow I could also have great joy knowing God's love.

And so the months passed and I tried to adjust to a new kind of normal. I was doing the same things I had always been doing -- homeschooling, going to church, taking care of things at home, driving kids places, and so on. And yet things would always be different. And as I've blogged before, I struggle not only with saying goodbye to Anne Marie, but also with hopes for another baby.

During this time I also began the process of volunteering at The Children's Hospital at the OU Medical Center. Many months after we got home from Dallas it was something I started looking into and really wanted to do. While we were in Dallas, there were so many people at the hospital who went out of their way to help us. I guess I felt like I wanted to be able to do that for someone else. I had spoken to the volunteer coordinator at OU Children's, and a volunteer position as a NICU cuddler had opened up. Basically, what a cuddler does is just hold the babies in the NICU, or if the babies are too delicate to hold the cuddler just stands by their beds and strokes them. During all of my interviewing and training, I found out that so many parents with babies in the NICU can't be there. Some live in small towns several hours away and have to work, some are perhaps in prison or have lost their parental rights, some have other children they have to care for and no one to help them, and various other reasons. I thought about the hours and hours I had stood at Anne Marie's bedside just stroking her little arms and legs and head, and I couldn't bear to think of her never knowing that touch. I knew being a NICU cuddler was something I truly wanted to do. So I began the long process of becoming a volunteer -- interview, drug test, background check, recommendations, training (learning everything from being in the NICU to HIPAA policy), double TB testing, and immunity testing.

Finally, after a few months I had completed almost all of my training and I was going to be able to go to the NICU floor on my own. I couldn't wait. The only thing I had left to do was get an MMR vaccine. I was supposed to start on a Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. after getting my vaccine in the hospital clinic. So, before the weekend arrived I called to make a 7:30 appointment for my vaccine. The nurse on the phone asked if I had gotten the information about the MMR vaccine, and one of her last reminders was to tell me that I couldn't get the vaccine if I was pregnant. "Yes, I know," I told her, knowing that wasn't a problem.

Well, I'm sure you know how this story ends. Over that weekend I started thinking and realized things were a little "off," so I decided to take a pregnancy test just to be sure. When I saw that positive sign there was a mixture of emotions -- shock, joy, fear -- so many things all at once.

I still don't begin to understand God's ways. Our homeschool Bible lesson this week began:

Upside down, and backwards! Sometimes it seems that's the way God does things. In Isaiah 55:8, the Lord says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways." Even when you don't understand what God is doing, He always has a plan, and it's always good.

There are so many things about God's plan that I will never understand. I don't know why He took Anne Marie. There have been several times during these past few months I have asked why. Yes, I am so, so grateful for this baby, and yet I still ask, "Why? Why didn't you let us keep Anne Marie? Why this way?" And I have had to ask God to forgive me for questioning His ways and, as always, to ask Him to teach me to trust that His ways are perfect.

We found out in late October that we were pregnant, but decided to wait before we told anyone. We told our kids first, after our 13-week ultrasound, and then told our family and some close friends. I am almost 18 weeks along now. On Monday we had another ultrasound and our doctor said everything looked good. He said we have "a beautiful baby."

15-week ultrasound pictures

Reflections on Baby

For several reasons, my blog posts have been sparse lately. We have just been so busy with school, filling out all the paperwork that comes with having a senior in high school, and our normal day-to-day family activities.

Another reason (which I can finally share) is that for several months I was wiped out -- literally sick and tired. Normally a night owl, I was ready for bed by about 7:00 and I only had energy for the bare minimum. Homeschooling and trying to keep things running at home won out, and everything else seemed to fall by the wayside (sometimes even keeping things running at home fell by the wayside).

So, here is a little catch-up on what's been going on.

The holidays this year were rough. Last year I think I was in a fog and seemed to be sort of on auto-pilot through the holidays. I honestly don't remember much about my Christmas last year. I know my kids had gifts on Christmas morning, but I don't have much memory of how they got there. I do remember Christmas day and remember being happy and sad at the same time. Just being with my children made me happy and grateful, and yet I was sad because Anne Marie was missing. I also remember going to Bartlesville last year and being so glad just to get away and be with family. I think most of my memories from last Christmas are from the pictures I took.

This year the holidays were different. The fog of last Christmas had lifted and I seemed to feel everything that I was numb to last year. I think I've tried to explain before how the sharp, stabbing pain of losing Anne Marie slowly gives way to a deep pain -- one that will always be with me. The initial pain is fierce, breathtaking -- so sharp it made me wonder if I would truly survive. The deep pain comes with a knowing that, yes, by God's grace I will survive. It also comes with the knowledge and acceptance of the fact that there will always be an ache deep in my heart that will never go away, and that I will miss Anne Marie every day for the rest of my life.

And this Thanksgiving and Christmas I felt that deep ache. I missed her. I missed her when I was surrounded by my family at our Thanksgiving dinner. I missed her when we decorated our tree and hung our stockings. I missed her when I would be out and about and see something that I would have gotten her for Christmas. And I missed her at our Christmas Eve service. I cried so hard holding my candle during that final hymn. I just wanted her with us.

But just like last year, God brought me through and gave me joy in Him as we celebrated Christ's birth. I remember one particular time when I was driving and thinking about how much I missed Anne Marie. God reminded me that I was actually the one "missing." Yes, there will always be an empty space at our dinner table and a knowing that our family isn't complete, but Anne Marie is feasting at the table of the Lord. She is where she belongs and I am not. I am the one missing at the Lord's feast. The empty spot is for me and all who belong to Him but who are still here in this fallen world. I love the words of our former pastor: "Through death, Anne Marie has come to see Jesus face to face and she now knows a joy that dwarfs our own." One day I will know that joy and I cannot wait.

So Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went and we started school and all of our activities again. There was basketball and ballet and homeschooling and filling out more college paperwork. And there was our news that we weren't quite ready to share yet.

To be continued ...

Here's Jack Henry opening his Sam Bradford jersey for Christmas. You think he was excited?

The kids at Thanksgiving

Ballerinas

Here's Jack Henry playing for his homeschool basketball team, the Storm.

Jeb to the Rescue

"Last spring, it looked like the Oklahoma state legislature was going to reject a school-choice bill to provide vouchers for learning-disabled students," John J. Miller reports in the cover story of the newest issue of National Review.

Earl Sears, a Republican, announced his opposition on May 19—a bad blow, because Sears is a former principal and several of his GOP colleagues take their cues from him on education.

Around 9:30 P.M. the next night, Sears’s phone rang. Jeb Bush was calling. "Excuse me, you mean the governor Jeb Bush of Florida?" asked Sears. The two men didn't know each other and had not spoken previously, but they talked for 35 minutes. Bush urged Sears to support the bill, pointing out that an almost identical piece of legislation had become a successful law in Florida. "I tell you, he made an impact on me," said Sears on the morning of May 21, when he described the conversation in a speech to fellow lawmakers. He switched his vote from no to yes. Hours later, the bill passed. "We couldn't have done it without Sears," says Brandon Dutcher of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank. "So it's safe to say that we couldn't have done it without Jeb Bush."

Be sure to pick up a copy of the February 21 issue, and come hear Gov. Bush on March 30 in Oklahoma City. (Oh and, by the way, Mr. Bush isn't the only ex-governor who likes Oklahoma's new special-needs law.)

'It Is Good to Hope for the Best'

"It's hard to let go of a desire," a baby-less Susie wrote last year. "Hard to say goodbye to a yearning that is so strong. It's hard to be content. Hard to accept God's plan."

Yes, it is hard. Commenting on the third chapter of Lamentations, Matthew Henry points to "a struggle in the prophet's breast between sense and faith, fear and hope; he complains and then comforts himself, yet drops his comforts and returns again to his complaints."

I am often guilty of that myself. Guilty of faithlessness masquerading as "realism." Guilty of undue pessimism. I remember when Anne Marie was in the hospital in Dallas. Everywhere you looked there were these little hand-sanitizing dispensers (pictured at right). I kid you not, I read those words in pink and my first thought -- instantaneous, unbidden -- was: "Yeah, but it's that other .01 percent that'll gitcha." Truly, sometimes I make Richard Lewis look like Norman Vincent Peale.

But through the years, God in his mercy is changing me. I have been pleasantly surprised by this. Here's Matthew Henry again:

We must never say, "We will go to our grave mourning," because we know not what joyful days Providence may yet reserve for us, and it is our wisdom and duty to accommodate ourselves to Providence. We often perplex ourselves with imaginary troubles. We fancy things worse than they are, and then afflict ourselves more than we need. Sometimes there needs no more to comfort us than to undeceive us: it is good to hope for the best.

It is good to hope that in five and a half months Susie will give Lincoln, Lillie, Mary Margaret, Jack Henry, and Anne Marie a new sibling. Because that's what is scheduled to happen. And if today's ultrasound is any indication, all is well with the baby.

How do you think the boys reacted when they opened this box and saw that the cupcakes were blue, not pink?

We're Proud of You, Son

Brandon and I are proud of all our children. One dictionary definition of proud is "pleased" -- we are so pleased with the way God is working in their lives, pleased with the fruit we see, and pleased just because they are ours. It is true that "children are a blessing," and more and more we see how truly blessed we are. I also hope I can be proud of my children without being prideful. That kind of pride would be foolish because I know that any fruit I see in my children is only because of God's grace and mercy, not because of any parenting skills on my part. I know that I can do nothing as a parent without God's help, and I am grateful for his help every day.

It was in this spirit that our family went to lunch yesterday after church to celebrate with Lincoln. On Saturday, we got the news that he was named a National Merit Finalist. As his mother, I am so proud of him -- pleased with his hard work and diligence. But, mostly, I am just so grateful. Grateful that he is my son.

Lillie (age 15), Jack Henry (8), Lincoln (18), and Mary Margaret (12)

Liberal Hate-Speech Watch

Amid the many wonderful tributes to Ronald Reagan (including one from Patrick McGuigan), comes now a dissenting view from one Travis Grogan, a University of Oklahoma student majoring in political science and communication.

Writing for the student newspaper, Mr. Grogan avers that The Gipper is an "incompetent swine" who is on the "long way down to hell." And for good measure, "this cretinous vermin ought to have had his casket chucked into...surging rivers of waste."

OCPA Budget Reorders Priorities, Cuts Taxes

[This Marlin Oil advertorial appears in the February 10 edition of The City Sentinel.]

Last week, Governor Mary Fallin told members of the Oklahoma Press Association to expect 3 percent cuts in protected state agencies like the Education Department, public safety, and health and human services. Other agencies, she said, can probably expect cuts in the 5 percent range or higher.

While the chief executive is being realistic, her outline was not as aggressive as some fans had hoped. The outline of her budget -- with details coming all this week -- could be described as restrained.

On the other hand, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs has put into the debate a bold plan for actually reducing state spending, and reordering priorities. Most impressively, the OCPA budget includes a cut in state income tax rate from 5.25 percent to 4.25 percent, effective next January.

While all the right people are complaining about OCPA's budget, the truth is it makes only a 10.28 percent cut in total government funding.

After looking through the entire OCPA budget and interviewing Jonathan Small, fiscal policy analyst for the free-market think tank, Pat McGuigan of CapitolBeatOK reported some details:

Programs facing zero direct funding, in the OCPA approach, include the Arts Council, Educational Television Authority (OETA), Physicians Manpower Training Commission, Teacher Preparation Commission, Space Industry Development Authority, Human Rights Commission, Conservation Commission, Consumer Credit Commission, Horse Racing Commission, J.M. Davis Memorial Commission, Will Rogers Memorial Commission, and the Rural Economic Action Plan Fund.

No direct state appropriations would go to the following agencies, meaning they would have to rely on fees to finance operations: the Insurance Department, Workers Compensation Court, and the Secretary of State. In the latter case, the office could draw on its revolving fund for operations, Small said. Both the insurance agency and the comp court also have income streams from unappropriated dollars. ...

Bottom line: The OCPA budget would actually reduce state government spending, and that makes sense in light of the revenue picture over the last three fiscal years. At the same time, it establishes a time frame for further income tax rate reductions, continuing the progress of recent years in ridding the state of the number-one impediment to business relocations and retention of taxpayers with resources.

The context to the dueling budget visions is important. Many agency heads ignored the requests of state leaders to lay out cuts in the 5 to 10 percent range, and instead showed up with requests for budget increases totaling 25 percent, some $1.5 billion. Basically, the bureaucrats showed up with requests for increased spending when the revenue gap is expected to come in around $600 million.

Although indications from Fallin's team given last week could be described as conservative, somewhat disappointing was the governor's hint that most budget cuts will be across-the-board and not an aggressive start to real limits on the size and scope of government. The details in the executive budget laid out this week will be crucial, and proposals in the first week of the legislative session rarely reflect the final product in May.

To lay the basis for a better future of limited government and economic growth, the governor and legislators should carefully consider incorporating some of OCPA's ideas into the policy mix. There will never be a better year than this to "right-size" the government of Oklahoma.

Poster Child

Okay, so the mailman brings the latest issue of SI, and we're told right away that a certain 21-year-old is posterizing the NBA.

SI's Chris Ballard takes us behind the scenes with some of these "unwitting background performers" -- "Blake Griffin's Poster Boys" -- and says "there are enough of them to form a support group." Let us begin with "Victim #172: Zack Novak, March 21, 2009."

It is the second round of the NCAA tournament, and Griffin's Sooners are playing Michigan. ... In the second half Griffin catches an outlet pass on the right wing. Racing down the middle of the court is Novak, a freshman guard for the Wolverines. No slouch, the 6'4", 210-pound Novak was all-state in high school and has enough hops that he will win the UM Midnight Madness dunk contest seven months later. Still, like Griffin, he was coached by his father, so he knows that taking a charge is more valuable than blocking a shot. So Novak sprints with a mind to intersect Griffin's path in the key. There's only one problem: Griffin is too damn fast. "When I get to the three-point line, I start thinking, Why am I doing this?" remembers Novak, now a junior. "I'm in foul trouble, I'm not going to get there, and he's got this look in his eye like he's going to abuse me. I step in late and start to fall back, kind of flop it, hoping to maybe get lucky and get the call. Next thing I know his feet are at my face."

To Griffin, the dunk was merely "pretty good," but to Novak it became, for lack of a better term, a case of fame-by-posterization. Sure, he was disconsolate at first, mainly because his team lost, and for the first year or so he got sick of hearing from friends who, whenever Griffin's name came up, would say innocently, "Hey, isn't that the guy who dunked on you so hard he lifted you off the ground?" But now Novak sees it differently. "I see what he's doing to NBA guys, and it's cool to look back," he says. "My mom's a high school teacher, and she actually has the picture up in her room." Novak laughs. "I mean, one day it'll be proof that I got dunked on by Blake Griffin."

Moving right along, we encounter "Victims #299 and #300: Timofey Mozgov and Danilo Gallinari, Nov. 20, 2010."

The slam over Mozgov is the more preposterous of the two, Griffin launching himself off the 7'1" Russian's forehead before throwing the ball down at the rim from a height roughly equal to the mezzanine of Staples Center. It is so emphatic, so emasculating, that Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni is only half-joking when he beseeches the media, "Don't say anything to him." The coach says of his reserve center, "Just keep it quiet."

The Gallinari dunk is the more telling, though, for not only does Griffin display his leaping ability and power, but he also includes a beautiful spin move in transition, at full speed, that likely no other big man in the league could execute. This, Griffin says, is his favorite dunk ever ...

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Oklahoma superintendents are rolling in it.

Ronald Reagan at 100

Pat McGuigan's tribute, complete with personal stories, is well worth reading.

What, You Didn't See This on the News?

White political ralliers call for the lynching of Clarence Thomas.

Ever Wonder Why Lasik and Contacts Keep Getting Cheaper?

Writing about tonight's repeal vote ('Obamacare In Serious Condition'), Brian Darling tells us that "Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) argued for free market health care reform and discussed how Lasik eye surgery and the cost of contacts have gone down because of competition." Dr. Paul said:

With regard to the specifics of the health care bill, there are some problems in health care. As a physician, I’ve seen some of the problems. You know what the number-one complaint I got? It was the expense of health insurance, the rising expenses. The federal takeover of health care did nothing for that; in fact it has increased expenses, you see premiums rising. When you see problems there are two directions to go ... You could say: do we need more government or less government? From my perspective as a physician, I saw that we already had too much government involvement in health care. I saw that what we had going on limited competition. You need more competition in health care if you want to drive prices down. You need to allow insurance to be sold across state lines. You need to allow competition in prices. One of the surgeries that I did was lasik surgery, where you correct someone’s eyes so they don’t have to wear glasses. No insurance covers it. You think maybe this body will get together and force people to buy insurance for lasik surgery? You know what? Without government getting involved competition drove the prices down on lasik. The prices were driven down because the consumer was involved. The same way with contact lenses, you can buy a contact lens for $4, maybe $3. It used to be $20 or $30. Competition works.

Appropriators, Take Note

Oklahoma colleges violate our gun rights and our free-speech rights, all the while contemptuously poking Oklahoma taxpayers in the eye.