Love Letters/Hate Mail

(In response to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Republican Galaxy" in the Feb. 24-March 2 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

Odd Man Out

I grew up here, and have since lived on both coasts, in Texas, and abroad. Now I'm back, and something my friends from elsewhere almost always ask me is why I've decided to return to the backwaters. Of course, it's mostly because my parents are here, but as far as the political scene is concerned, it's honestly kinda fun to be the rare pinko/pants-wetting liberal on the scene, mucking up the works for all the good ol' boy rednecks and red voters who just can't understand why I think women should control their own bodies, or that we all ought to have access to affordable health care.

For instance, my House Reps in Massachusetts (where I lived when I turned 18, and the first place I was registered to vote) and California may have been totally in-line with my views, and one of them was even openly gay, but they both saw no threats to their seats.

Here, I get to volunteer and advocate for not-a-chance-in-hell candidates whose ability to, say, spell and think means they won't get elected but we sure all do have a good time fighting for them. It builds character.

--GeeGirl

Facetious Rebuttal

(In response to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Republican Galaxy" in the Feb. 24-March 2 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

Liberals never disappoint. Instead of engaging in a respectful dialog, they unfailingly resort to sarcasm and insults.

Despite liberals' incessant accusations to the contrary, there are many intelligent conservatives who simply do not agree with liberal ideas. However, it is easier -- and safer -- to hurl insults about "rednecks" and imply that conservatives cannot "say" (I presume this meant "speak"), "spell," or "think" than to confront the differences of opinion that divide us.

As a conservative, I am sympathetic to many of the liberal perspectives on issues, but, ultimately, my values lead me to a different -- yet, reasonable -- conclusion. I value a woman's right to control her body, but I believe a fetus is a life that should not be ended unless the mother faces imminent death from the pregnancy.

I appreciate the idea of "social justice" and help for the poor and disadvantaged, but I struggle to see that taking one person's property by force of government to help those disadvantaged is "justice." Of course, I'm just a "dumbass" who has fallen victim to the "pandemic" that is conservatism, so what does my opinion matter? (**Irony of sarcastic last line is noted**)

--My Perspective

Painting a Picture

The U.S. House of Representatives is on track to cut $43 million from the National Endowment for the Arts' budget of $167.5 million. That's a 26 percent cut -- the deepest in 16 years!

Our Senators should prevent these deep cuts from happening when they take up this legislation at the end of this month.

The arts mean jobs!

Many school systems and non-profits are having to cut their budgets at the cost of arts education and productions. It has been proven that music helps children learn. When an audience leaves a music, dance or theatrical performance they walk away in a better frame of mind.

Federal funding for the arts leverages private funding. The NEA requires at least a one-to-one match of federal funds from all grant recipients--a match far exceeded by most grantees. On average, each NEA grant leverages at least seven dollars from other state, local, and private sources. Private support cannot match the leveraging role of government cultural funding.

--Phyllis Wilson Guinn

Cost of Learning

(In response to "Red River Revelry" in the Feb. 24-March 2 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

After pounding away in column after column about the critical need to fund education at the regional average, Arnold Hamilton has finally won me over to his argument. I see now our only choice to improve public education in Oklahoma is to spend vastly more on it than we do now.

Vast spending on public education will allow us to do two things. First, we can take away all those confusing choices for parents who want to get their kids out of a failing public school, because papering over a school's problems with lots of money can't help but fix things. No more need for charter schools, private schools, or home schooling. Second, we can raise all teacher salaries to well over six figures, and at least double that for administrators. That will insure awesome teaching and administrating.

However, I'm wondering if the more we spend kids will keep getting dumber and dumber anyway. My mom got a great education from a one-room rural school. I think they spent about $10 per year per pupil back then, which adjusted for inflation, works out to around $200 per pupil in this present age. Two hundred dollars is about $6,300 less per year than Oklahoma is spending per pupil right now. Does more mean less?

Parents can still throw wild celebrations over their children's academic achievements. Except instead of rejoicing over acceptance to MIT, Stanford, or one of the service academies, it can be when your 19 year old finally learns to spell "cat".

Of course we still need to set the bar for education. We just need to re-target where we set the bar. Like on the floor, so to speak.

Less is more!

--toddkreigh

Finance Games.

The economic certainty fact is that Republicans and Libertarians know nothing about the dynamics of national prosperity -- the theories that you never raise taxes on the rich during a recessions and the trickle down is a lie by fools for fools.

The only thing that will break a recession is to put money into the hands of the lowest income denominators who will spend it. The source of money must come from either the dead pool money supply of the rich or from the government.

When the rich hoard money that stagnation causes poverty to spread bottom upward into the middle class and creates reckless money rolling on Wall Street -- always has and always will.

When the government is forced to put new money in the economy it increase the deficit until the money trickles back up from the taxes on the working population again -- about 18-24 month delay frame. Money like love must be spread around to do any good for people and the economy.

Profits on Wall Street do not generate profits on Main Street -- again only bottom up prosperity works for all of US. The public must be educated that conservatives only work for the top two percent of the income pyramid -- too much for too few will never do. The rich make out and the rest must make do is a formula for economic failure.

Republicans and Libertarians are not just stupid -- they do not know they're stupid and voters too that that repeatedly step in their crap and track it into the House and Senate.

--J.R. Hunt