FUTURE WORLD, Tulsa (11/15/2009 3:35:00 AM)

And Dusty, you should be in bed at this hour. You know we have an early hunt in teh morning. And at your age. I can stay up late, I'm a lot younger.

Ron Ballew, Lawton (11/15/2009 1:06:29 AM)

Happiness comes from within, not from without. If you are not happy in Oklahoma you will not be happy in any State.

Government has the power to tax the people, so the Government has access to unlimited funds.

Politicians think they were elected to spend your tax money, so they more they spend and the more they collect, the better they think they are doing their job.

myownguy, Tulsa (11/16/2009 11:47:34 AM)

Wow, so many people that hate Oklahoma but still live here. Wonder why they do not leave? Maybe it is not as bad as they let on.

If any of you negative people want to truly leave Oklahoma and promise to never come back and never make bad comments about this state again, I will gladly pay your bus fare to another state.

You would be happier and the State of Oklahoma will be better off. They you can live in your own misery and wallow somewhere else. I bet the social programs here would probably appreciate it, also.

As Dusty commented about this state being the 2nd dumbest, I would like to know where that info came from. And, I would imagine that his inane posts contribute to that ranking. Heck if you were a "football star", I am sure your reputation precedes you. You would probably be very welcome in many states that value people like you.

You love to bring people down to your level because as the old saying goes: "Misery loves company."

Many of us think Oklahoma is one of the BEST places to live. So we welcome your departure. Couldn't be quick enough for us.

dustyoutlaw, Tulsa (11/14/2009 7:41:23 AM)

In rebuttal to the Tulsa World's "approved by the voters". That is true. At the same time, a competent, aware city council and mayor should and could suspend some pet projects funding once in a while and divert that money into recession needs instead of always diverting general fund money to cronies loans and pie in the sky ideas.

dustyoutlaw, Tulsa (11/15/2009 12:21:12 AM)

I don't like Oklahoma. I'm sorry I moved back here. I did so thinking it would be cheaper to live in semi retirement. It is not cheaper. Housing is more affordable but food is more expensive, the sales tax is outrageous, car tags cost more, insurance is more, everything except housing is more expensive than Los Angeles.

The roads are the worst I have ever seen in more than 30 states.

The priorities of city and state govt are unbelievable. You have a full blown recession and you're wasting money on court fights over the 10 commandments on state property and abortion reporting. This is INSANE!!!

Recently I drove by the new ballpark. Millions and millions of dollars for a minor league park in a rundown, poor business area. It's like they're building a ballpark in a ghetto right around it.

When I left Oklahoma in 1964 this was a racist state. The sophistication level of dancing around the issue has grown but 7 of every 10 whites I meet are fairly open about their racism against Latinos and Blacks. And I am white but the best people I have met in the last 20 month here are Latino and Black.

And the extremism of the white far right political base here is unlike I have ever seen anywhere else in my entire life. Worse than Albama. Worse than Louisana. This is one right wing Extremist state.

And for you right wingers who will say "Oklahoma love it or leave it" I respond with this.

I am working as hard as I can and saving every dime to get the blue blazes out of here. After an absence of 43 years I expect this state to have made some progress. But you haven't. Not in education, not in salaries, not in anything that matters to me. You rate in the top 10 worst in virtually every category that comes along.

And most of you just don't care. I was born here. I was raised here. I was one of your high school "football stars". I wanted to come home to a place that I could live out my remaining years with a little bit of "southern hospitality".

But that was a pipe dream. Most of you don't care. You really don't care how badly you are lacking in human compassion, family values that are real, religious mandated tolerance. Nothing that you claim to stand for do you practice.

You'll be glad when I'm gone but not half as much as I'll be.

dustyoutlaw, Tulsa (11/15/2009 1:31:10 AM)

Whatever Ron. That's a stretch in this state since the far right is so determined to press anyone not just like them even to the point on this site of ganging up like a street gang using the justification "you deserved it because this is OUR turf.".

Real hard to be happy in a situation where people are so flagrantly racist the first change they get when they think you are "ok". When people are in your face all the time about "morality" and then mass reporting and acting like jackbooted thugs.

I have never in my entire been impacted by those outside my personal life as I have here. This is nothing but fascism. Anyone not like the majority here, be the moderate or liberal, gay, non white, any little excuse will do, verbally brutalized by some of the most ignorant thinking possible. And this is not just my opinion. Oklahoma is so backwards that it's become the laughingstock of the nation.

And it's no wonder this state was rated as the second dumbest in America. I honestly wonder how it escaped dead last.

You are wrong. Happiness does not come from within regardless of circumstance. The parents of those kids killed needlessly in Iraq are not happy. But their unhappiness was not created within.

dustyoutlaw, Tulsa (11/15/2009 1:44:38 AM)

Well you know Centrist, I finally matured to the point that I realized I'm not perfect, I don't have to be in a "gang" be it on the street or the TW to be "liked". I don't have people working with me to get rid of you no matter what I think of you.

I don't whine to other people about you.

From the day I typed the first word on this site and approached this site as the moderate that I am I have been called commie and liberal and socialist pigdog and far worse from HOUR ONE.

You don't see what there is to see because you are part of the problem. Now report me again.

dustyoutlaw, Tulsa (11/15/2009 6:30:45 AM)

Ohhhhh Centrist went to get some "backup" just like always. This web site and the right wingers are starting to remind me of an old rap called "gangters paradise".

Elusive, the burbs (11/15/2009 1:04:00 AM)

It looks like the Editors note pretty shot down your letter Bob.

You must run in the wrong circles dusty. I don't know any of those people you are talking about and have lived her all my life. Everyone I know that visits here think Tulsans are very friendly.
It's true the ballpark was put in a blighted area of downtown but it takes time to make progress. This is only the beginning for this part of town. You have to start somewhere. You can't rebuild several city blocks in 6 months. Yes the roads are bad and Tulsans do want that fixed but now you complain on another thread about the inconvience of the road reconstruction.

I can't imagine LA having better family values and more educated kids. Parents are generally the predictor of a childs success and yes we do have many that succeed, graduate from college and successful careers. My two kids did and I'm sure many on here would say the same.

Elusive, the burbs (11/15/2009 2:01:41 AM)

Well said Ron "Happiness comes from within, not from without."

Corvetteguy, Tulsa (11/14/2009 9:23:33 PM)

RGM,

I am going to nominate your post for consideration of being named the most convoluted post in TW web history....you may get a first place award.

One finds every race known to mankind represented within these city limits, as well as informed estimates that there may be as many as 25,000 illegal aliens here. But we have a "lack of diversity"......huh?

Corvetteguy, Tulsa (11/15/2009 10:32:10 AM)

an important note to anyone reading dusty's dessertation about how he hates his former boyhood home of Oklahoma,..... yet poor old dusty hasn't been able to scrape up enough money to move back to that "paradise" called Los Angeles.........

I personally offered dusty $1,000 to move back to California. Not a loan,...a gift. The only catch was that it was a permanent move, and also a side stipulation that he would need to move his constant bashing of his fellow man to those wonderful open-minded moderate newspapers out in paradise.

dusty could heap praise on the "moderate" values in LA that has held their city budget deficit down to just a $405 million dollar shortfall this year, in the LA Times. He could talk about those stupid Oklahoma hicks.

Or, discuss how progressive LA has handed crime issues such as: ........... "After plummeting for the last decade, bank robberies in parts of Southern California have increased during these tough economic times.

Los Angeles County saw a jump in robberies in 2008, a trend that gained momentum in January. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 42 for the one month of January"

yes folks.....that's not a misprint....that's 42 bank robberies in one month, according to FBI records.

or discuss how the LA police cannot go into a seven mile square section of south central LA, because it is too dangerous for even heavily armed swat teams to enter. Or he could talk about Watts, and it's far superior racial relations over "stupid", "racist" right-wing Tulsans.

so, the next time you hear dusty say: "I am working as hard as I can and saving every dime to get the blue blazes out of here.".........
don't just think about how dusty is on the TW blogs posting up to 12 hours a day, instead of working.......
think of how we can band together, raise some needed "moving expense" for dusty, and help out this fellow human being get back to paradise in Los Angeles. Away from the "stupid racists" he detests in Oklahoma.....

I think onservative should band together and help their fellow "moderate" get back home to paradise......after all, sales taxes are soooooo much lower out there. Tulsans are "stupid" on high taxes....

"Sales and Use Tax Rate Increases on April 1, 2009
Effective April 1, 2009, the state sales and use tax rate increases by 1%. In addition, if you are in a city or county that has a voter approved local Los Angelese district tax rate increase effective on April 1, 2009, your overall tax rate increase will be higher. Please see the Special Notice included in this mailing. The combined statewide and district tax rates that apply as of April 1, 2009, are listed on the reverse side of this notice." Current rate is 9.25%......

Tulsa's of course, is the "higher" 8.517% rate....

.....let's all band together and help dusty get back to paradise.

Corvetteguy, Tulsa (11/15/2009 4:16:59 PM)

dusty,

good morning...
...congratulations on 3,000 posts in just seven months.

Thunder196, Tulsa (11/14/2009 10:45:24 AM)

RC1396
Then why aren't are streets fixed. How many times have we voted in money to fix them.
.
It has been siphoned off for other things. Don't say they can't. They do.

Dr. Strangelove, Tulsa (11/14/2009 6:39:45 AM)

Astounding ignorance.

_The 3rd Man_, Vienna (11/14/2009 9:45:31 AM)

YES WE CAN!

Gasp, tulsa (11/14/2009 10:28:50 AM)

World history, spelling!! Jobs do not come to Oklahoma because we know world history or can spell. We have spell check for spelling and world history is not important for 99% of the jobs in Tulsa. What is relevant is math and science and yes evolutionary science for bio-research. We need to face reality. Our AP classes are sending kids to other places. Most do not come back. Please do a report on the Oklahoma School of Math and Science and OU's national merit program to see how many have come back or invested in Oklahoma. I personally love these programs but don't think they are of local benefit. No our money should be targeted to what business needs. And one thing that attracts business is entertainment and sports venues and dog parks to attract and keep good management.

RGM, Tulsa (11/14/2009 6:58:01 PM)

But - if the government spends money to try to entice jobs then the conservatives start screaming socialism! If the government DOESN'T spend money to entice jobs, then the conservatives start screaming that the government isn't doing it's job. MAYBE Tulsa and Oklahoma could get more jobs if we got rid of all the conservatives? Well, maybe not all, tradition is important. Maybe just the extreme conservatives.
OK...... I know I worded it facetiously, let me re-word. Any state where every county went the same way in a national election (like what happened in November) shows a lack of diversity. Many companies, when they are expanding, are doing so because of the diversity of their workforce and the new ideas / methods / procedures / products that this diverse workforce can create. The lack of diversity in Oklahoma shows that, although many of us may be capable of "think outside the box", we will tend to think outside that box in a similar fashion to everyone else in our area.

J C OK, Tulsa County (11/14/2009 3:56:36 PM)

It is crazy to open DOG PARKS, BICYCLE AND WALKING TRAILS, and teaching ILLEGALS ENGLISH.

It would help our schools if they sent all illegals back home and many of our schools would have need of fewer classes.

redstatefeminist, Broken Arrow (11/16/2009 10:48:23 AM)

Perhaps if the state, in its infinite wisdom, would stop hoarding the 600 Million dollars it has stashed in the state's "rainy day fund," and use that money to help keep the teachers in the classrooms teaching, and police and firemen on the streets doing their jobs, as well as to keep the other state employees on the job, things would improve,at least for those individuals, and the people they serve.
Oklahoma is scheduled to receive 2 Billion dollars in federal stimulus money to create jobs, so why don't they create jobs with it? Jobs could be created to repair and improve the state's cumbling infrastructure--like the bridges that collapse all-to-often, and to improve the condition of the streets and roads that so many
complain about on almost a daily basis.
What, exacly, does the Oklahoma legislature view as "a rainy day?" I'd say we're there, so why won't they use that money? Ganted, those are state funds, but the city's in Oklahoma a part of the state, so what gives? Obviously not the Oklahoma legislature!

RC1936, St. Robert (11/14/2009 8:55:19 AM)

No they can't! If the people voted the tax for one purpose it cannot be diverted for another. Diverting general funds is a different matter altogether. But taxes approved for one thing must go to that one thing.

lizzy, Tulsa (11/16/2009 2:21:24 PM)

Dusty, are you having a bad day? I googled California sales tax, and it looks like in the L.A. area, it ranges from 8.75 - 9.75.

Car tags? I find it difficult to believe they're lower in California. Particularly if you add in the cost of regular emissions inspections.

I've eaten in California--don't remember that being particularly cheap, either.

There are plenty of things Oklahoma needs to improve upon, but the cost of living is one of the reasons I stay here.

D R Sparks, Yukon (11/15/2009 10:03:29 AM)

Dusty,
My story coincides with what you have found. I was born here, educated here and traveled to other places...and back when rearing a family....left after they were grown and on their own. Stayed away until retirement and the biggest mistake I have made was coming back to my "home" state. Half my family have moved away and will never be back and I would be leaving if I weren't so darn old. I cannot believe how absolutely out-of-touch and ignorant my neighbors, my old school friends, my public officials are. This place is more 50s than it was in the 50s!!! Even some of the roadways were in the same condition yesterday that they were in 1955!! Sadly, the people are in worse shape. They dislike anyone walking who has an orignial idea...they will ostercize anyone quoting Shakespeare....because he isn't OKIE! They think you're perverted if you enjoy the art of the masters....they paint nudes, you know. They profess to follow Jesus Christ and they won't feed a hungry person UNTIL AFTER THEY PREACH. Excuse me, but that isn't Christian and the saddest thing is they do not know that! They quote scripture but they do not understand it. Their minds are not only closed but they are pad-locked. 1% of the population owns 98% of everything in this state and they intend to keep the natives in servitude as they have for the past 100 years. Without good newspapers and other media telling them truths and preachers telling them lies,there really isn't any hope for the future in this state. Just look at our Congress men to know that's the best they will ever do! Gag!