SPECIAL ELECTION FOR SENATE DISTRICT 47

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ SPECIAL ELECTION FOR SENATE DISTRICT 47
++ WAITING ON SUPERMAN - THE DOCUMENTRY
++ 2 NOMINEES FOR THE JOSEPH GOEBBELS MEDIA AWARD

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, November 24th will be held at
Italiano’t restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our speaker this
week will be Matt Pinnell, State Chariman of the Republican party.
When Gary Jones filed for the office of State Auditor and Inspector,
the Republican party’s State Committee elected Matt to serve out
Gary’s term in office. Matt will stand for election next spring at the
Republican State Convention. I have asked Matt to relate his vision
for the party, both in terms of electing even more Republicans, but I
also want him to talk about what is a conservative and what he might
think about the caucus system rather than a primary system or a blend
of both.

++ SPECIAL ELECTION FOR SENATE DISTRICT 47

With the successful election of Todd Lamb to the Lt. Governor’s post,
a special election will be required to fill Todd’s vacated senate
seat. Todd just informed Governor Henry that he would formally vacate
his senate seat on January 10th. That has allowed Governor Henry to
set in motion the filling period and the date for the primary election
and general election. Governor Henry has determined the filing period
will be December 13, 14 and the 15th. The primary election will be
held on January 11th and the general election, if there is one, will
be held on February the 8th. The OCPAC interview process will be held
on Wednesday, December 22nd.

So far, 4 Republicans have announced their intentions to run for the
seat. They are: Gregg Treat, (R-OKC) a former aide to then Lt.
Governor Mary Fallin, also Senator Tom Coburn and the man that headed
up the GOTV (Get Out The Vote) effort this year for the state
Republican party. Another candidate will be Carol Hefner (R-Edmond) a
speaker for at least 1 of the OKC tea party events, though she has
indicated she is not necessarily the tea party candidate. Steven
Dobbs, (R-OKC) a former Oklahoma City Councilman, and Kenny Goza an
attorney with an amazing success story are also running. Kenny went
from being passed around in foster homes to adoption, then the
military and then law school. Following law school he has opened law
offices in several of Oklahoma’s larger cities.

There may be other Republicans who file, but due to the very short
time period, unless they already have a high name identification or a
huge pile of money they will be at a serious disadvantage as these
candidates are already working hard toward winning. So far no
Democrats have announced. This is a safe Republican seat and any
Democrat who files will become a sacrificial lamb. If no Democrat
files and the race would boil down to a Republican verses an
independent candidate, the independent might get 16 to 22 percent of
the vote. If a Democrat files, and an independent runs, the
independent might get 2 to 5 percent of the vote. We will soon know.

++ WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, THE DOCUMENTRAY

This past Thursday afternoon, I attended a special showing of the
documentary, Waiting For Superman, sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and hosted by the State Chamber of Commerce. The movie
chronicles the poor condition of education in America. It also had its
emotional pull as it chronicled the lives of 5 children locked into
inner city schools, often referred to by educators as low performing
drop out factories.

The basic solutions offered in the documentary to fix the problem were
better teachers and of course school choice. There are two basic
school choice options other than parents taking it on their own to pay
tuition for a private school or to home school. Those choices are
either a voucher plan or a school tax credit plan. I don’t believe
anyone is talking about a tax deduction plan. There is a group in
Oklahoma that I believe is called the Coalition for School Choice,
which is basically working toward the tax credit angle. I believe the
leader is Bill Price, a former U.S. Attorney and Republican candidate
for Governor in 1990. He was also the candidate I chose to support for
U.S. Representative in 1992, a race eventually won by Ernest Istook.

The special showing was the 3rd time in Oklahoma and well attended by
lawmakers as well as other movers and shakers and parties interested
in education. Following the showing there was a Q&A session with a
panel which included, Janet Barresi, the ultra liberal David Blatt,
Bill Price, Fred Morgan as moderator, the Principle of the OKC KIPP
school, the union boss for the AFT (American Federation of Teachers)
and a lady with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA). It was
shown in one of the large theaters at Quail Springs and was about 80%
full.

I sat next to Jenni White of ROPE (Reform Oklahoma Public Education)
and on the other side of me was a Superintendent of the largest school
district (it shall remain unnamed) in a rural county that is now down
to 10 school districts. I feverishly picked his brain before the
showing and during the Q&A session. He basically was in favor of any
change in the law that would make it easier to get rid of bad teachers
(they do exist) and wasn’t necessarily opposed to consolidation of
school administrations.

Our most interesting conversation was about school choice. I asked the
following line of questions. If some kind of school choice legislation
was passed which produced 2 or 3 private schools in your district
within 5 years after passage and you lost 10% of your students to
those schools, how would you cope with that knowing you would lose
funds, but would also have less students to educate? His answer was
that it would be very difficult as he probably couldn’t reduce the
number of teachers. I then suggested my public school experience had
me in classes that always had 32 to 36 students and I proposed the
education I received in the 50s and early 60s was better than the
education received today with much smaller class sizes. He agreed on
the quality of education, but said it was ingrained in the minds of
the public that smaller class sizes are better. He also agreed that
when it comes to lecture type classes, it would be much better to have
a child sit in a class of 150 or 300 before an inspiring teacher with
great communication skills rather than be in a class with 10 students
taught by a dunderhead.

Following the Q&A session, I approached a headmaster of a large
private school and related this conversation about class size. I was
told by this private school leader that student teacher ratio, or
class size, is an incredibly small factor in educational success.
Changing the thinking in the minds of Oklahomans on this issue will be
key to reducing the costs of education in Oklahoma. It will also be
key in putting more students before good teachers and getting rid of
bad teachers.

When H.B. 1017 was passed in 1990, it set class room size standards
and forced the state to hire an additional 3,500 teachers. I was
actually a regional coordinator at that time in the effort to overturn
that legislation. I spoke in several settings and was also on channel
9 news in opposition to the measure. It was then and still is my
contention that the only reason the unions supported 1017 was that the
additional teachers would make the education industry, controlled by
the unions, more wealthy and especially more politically powerful. I
said then that 1017 would not improve academic performance and it has
not.

There were a couple of things I did not like about the documentary.
First, there was no mention of the importance of spirituality in
education. I believe that teaching based on the foundations of the
Bible and its Judeo-Christian principles are the most important
component to a good education and more importantly a healthy society.
The best way to understand this is to view David Barton’s DVD, Four
Centuries of American Education. Second, it had this misleading
suggestion that it would be less costly to society to spend a little
more money on education rather than spending so much to incarcerate
large numbers of criminals.

While it is true, that many criminals are greatly lacking in
education, it is not because the education was not available to them.
People in prison are rebels and or have serious character flaws. By
kicking God out of the government schools and teaching from the
religious viewpoint of Darwinian humanism, we have greatly increased
the number of people in prison and many more need to be there, they
just haven’t arrived as yet. If education prevented crime, then tell
me why it is almost a weekly event that some teacher, principle,
superintendent, college professor or university president is arrested
and charged with some kind of crime. Remember, every one of those I
just mentioned is educated to at least a primary degree in a college
or university.

If Jesus Christ is not allowed in the government schools, then God
bless all those Christian teachers who go into those schools and try
to make a difference in spite of the bad curriculum and a system which
works against a good education. However, if I am a Christian parent, I
don’t want my children in those schools during their formative years.
This is the time parents should be working to establish a spiritual
foundation in their lives. To put those children in today‘s government
schools, means parents are playing Russian roulette with the
spiritual, moral and academic lives of their children. Some kids
survive, many don’t.

++ TWO NOMINEES FOR THE JOSEPH GOEBBELS MEDIA AWARD

Joseph Goebbels became Adolph Hitler’s propaganda minister in 1933 and
used his intelligence and speaking skills to shape the thinking of the
German people to participate in and create a horrible society. I would
suggest he was a change agent, cleverly working to change the mores,
values and thinking of society.

Therefore, I suggest we create an award for the media outlet which
best typifies a modern day change agent, working to change the
morality of Oklahomans. Perhaps this year we should call it the Joseph
Goebbels Propaganda Award for Sodomy. So far, I will announce two
nominees.

First, the Oklahoma Gazette (I pronounce it the Gay - Zette) for this
week’s cover story titled: MODERN OKLAHOMA FAMILY - NONTRADITIONAL IS
BECOMING MORE TRADITIONAL. The front cover features one prominate
white guy, his white partner and two young black children that one of
these homosexuals has adopted. Mixed racial adoptions is not an issue
with me or most Oklahomans, it certainly is not a sin in God’s eyes.
The problem is with the homosexual issue.

While the picture portrays the 2 men and 2 young boys as very happy
and well balanced, I am of the opinion that these 2 children are being
raised with a warped view of right and wrong and no matter how much
they may be loved or cared for by these 2 men, it will never find
acceptance by Christians who hold to Biblical standards. Government at
various levels, may some day with the propaganda help of publications
such as the Gazette, make marriage legal. Government has already made
it legal for a homosexual to adopt, but it will never be accepted by
God as anything other than sin, nor will it ever be acceptable to
Biblical Christians. This publication is on the stands until Wednesday
or Thursday. May I suggest picking up a copy and read the article for
yourselves to help you cast your vote. Then bring your copy of the
Gazette to the OCPAC meeting when you are finished with it as I will
deliver your used copies to a paper bin that sells paper to help fund
a Christian school that teachers a proper understanding of families.

Second, the November 2nd election day issue of The Journal Record had
its front page story titled: UNDER THE RAINBOW - IN OKLAHOMA, GLBT
CANDIDATES FACE FEAR, BIGOTRY AND SABOTAGE. If the Journal Record is
nothing more than a publication of commentaries, that is fine, but if
they want to be considered as a newspaper, it was one of the worst
cases of yellow journalism I have seen in a while.

The article was by M. Scott Carter. I believe he joined the Journal
Record some time back when he came from the very liberal Norman
Transcript. On the front cover is a picture of an official with the
homosexual organization, the Cimarron Alliance, a homosexual city
councilman from Norman and Brittany Novotny, the candidate recently
defeated by Sally Kern.

Here is why the article was propaganda and yellow journalism. These
three people and Jim Roth, the homosexual who was defeated 2 years ago
by Dana Murphy, were all quoted or their side of a story was told.
However, Sally Kern was mentioned in the paper, but in checking with
Sally she was never contacted for an interview to get her side of the
story. I was mentioned in the story, but I was never contacted for my
side of the story and though Dave Mehlhaff was not mentioned by name,
he was referred to in the story. I checked with Dave and again he was
never contacted to give his side of the story. Folks, that is one
sided propaganda, it is advocacy journalism, not news reporting.

When I wrote about Brittany having had the sex change operation and
suggested the result was a “confused it” channels 9 and 4 interviewed
Brittany and then contacted me for an interview to get my side of the
story. Michael McNutt with the Oklahoman contacted me, again to get my
side of the story, that is news reporting, not propaganda, not yellow
journalism. If you are writing a commentary, then there is no need to
contact a person, though it might be wise to do so, but if the Journal
Record wants to be recognized as a news organ, then it must use the
principles of good journalism and stop being a propaganda piece for
the homosexual agenda or perhaps other special interest groups. I will
post these 2 articles at our meeting, give them a read and cast your
vote at to which paper will earn the Joseph Goebbels award for
propaganda for sodomy.

One more thing along these lines. Two years ago, Sally’s opponent was
not homosexual, but was supported by the homosexual community. Sally
won that race with a 58 to 42 percent majority. This election cycle,
Sally’s opponent was an aggressive supporter of the homosexual agenda
and had undergone the sex change operation. Though Sally was probably
outspent 2 to 1, she won this year with a 66 to 34 percent margin of
victory.

One of the reasons the Democrat label is dying in Oklahoma is the
association with the homosexual community. Many Christian Democrats,
especially in rural Oklahoma, are leaving the party and becoming
Republicans who, for the most part, don’t hate homosexuals, they just
don’t approve of that sinful lifestyle. I will give credit to Brittany
for calling Sally and congratulating her on her victory. That is more
honorable than Jason Murphey’s former opponent, A.J. Jones who, to
this day, still has not contacted Jason Murphey to congratulate him on
his victory.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday and may everyone have
a blessed Thanksgiving.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com