The 7th Annual Bad Penny Awards
That which doesn’t kill a state makes it stronger (well, we’ll see)
Who else cuts taxes, while facing massive budget deficits; hassles Planned Parenthood, while being the worst in the nation for female health; refuses free federal money for healthcare, while 632,000 residents go without health insurance; blocks cities and communities from raising the minimum wage, while gutting assistance programs; executes people (or tries to), while passing fetal heartbeat legislation; cuts education funding, while keeping tax rates on horizontal drillers lowest in the nation; and blames the federal government for overreach, while spending welfare dollars to promote the benefits of marriage?
Oklahoma … Non-union Labor omnia vincit.
And while many were qualified in 2015 to take home the coveted bad penny—Governor Fallin, Attorney General Pruitt, State Senator John Bennett (R-Sallisaw), lines one, two, and three— there was only one man who fully embodied Grandma Sylvia’s vision of stonewalling, obstinance, defensiveness, pride and atonal arrogance.
Ably assisted by Robert Bates, Clark Brewster, a hands-off county commission, daily obfuscation and martyrdom, Glanz was a unanimous selection in 2015 (and not since retired Judge Donald Thompson has that happened). He was the wrong man at the wrong time making the wrong decisions and surrounded by the wrong people giving the wrong advice (Terry Simonson, hello!).
P.S. Anyone else notice how quiet Representative Sally Kern was in 2015?
So many pennies, so little time.
Let’s begin.
Maybe?
Aside from everything else with 2015 Bad Penny Winner Stanley Glanz, the wife and daughter of his attorney, Clark Brewster, neither of whom were state-certified appraisers, received close to a million dollars appraising houses for the sheriff’s office. Said Glanz, “I’m sure there’s maybe a perception problem, but I don’t consider it one.”
The mind, she boggles.
If we told you once, we’ve told you a 1,000 times. When medicating bovine, focus!
Police Captain Denton Morgan of Enid was fired after reportedly pointing a green laser multiple times at Enid Woodring Regional Airport. Morgan said he and his wife were medicating cattle with a dart gun, which had a green laser attached to it.
Bad Penny Winner (Inanimate Division)
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Moses didn’t have this much trouble // The Ten Commandments monument, placed in front of the state capitol and paid for by Broken Arrow State Representative Mike Ritze, came to an ignominious, tumultuous end in 2015. Erected in 2012, it contained spelling errors, suffered a hit-and-run, was rebuilt, threatened with the company of a prankster satanic group’s statue of Baphomet (an idol with a goat’s head and legs, human arms and torso, angel wings) with—this is my favorite part—two children gazing in adoration nearby, ruled unconstitutional and ordered removed about 16 times and then eventually hauled away in the middle of the night. Et tu, Oklahoma Highway Patrol?
Mamas, don’t let your Christians grow up to be cowboys. // A group of Christian cowboys from Wichita Falls, Texas, including a pastor Christian cowboy (the jokes write themselves) brought a miniature 10-Commandment Plaque to OKC and presented it to the governor, who called it art and promised to keep it in her office. The pastor, John Riggs, said even though the 104-mile trek by horse was made difficult because of the rain, he wasn’t ruling out doing it again. And the horses wept.
What are the Jews, chopped liver? // In celebrating yet another 10 Commandments statue, this time in Rush Springs, Duane Gibbs, a business owner, concluded, “They are beautiful. I think everybody in Rush Springs is probably a Christian. Or at least they are a veteran or Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian.”
But they did find Jimmy Hoffa’s body in Housewares and a clearance bin filled with “I survived Jade Helm” ’15 shirts.
There were rumors the Wal-Mart at Admiral and Pine, which had been closed due to plumbing issues and/or to punish unions, was actually being used by the federal government in preparation for Martial Law. And everyone knows, control East Tulsa, control the nation.
Hey, Rand McNally, OPEC headquarters are in Vienna
“Make no mistake, the vast majority of the challenge we face ahead of us started at the OPEC building in Saudi Arabia, not at this building,” —Oklahoma Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger
Was honestly tough to know which way to root on this one.
Kevin Calvey, R-OKC, said if he were not a Christian, he would douse himself in gasoline and set himself on fire because state judges weren’t stopping more women from getting abortions.
That sound you heard was God’s big hand smacking God’s big forehead.
“In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, ‘You know what this is?’” he said, holding up a snowball. “It’s a snowball, from outside here. So it’s very, very cold out. Very unseasonable. Catch this.” —Senator Jim Inhofe, climate change denier, shortly before lobbing a snowball on the Senate floor.
The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun outside a “Muslim-Free” gun store is karma. The man, along with others in his “platoon,” was protecting—wait for it—the Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gear Store from Muslim shoppers, when he accidentally shot himself in the arm after his gun fell out of his holster. // Okatah Sheriff Charles Pearson summed it up thusly: “The way they were holding their weapons,” he said, “with the fingers on the triggers, you can tell a couple of these gentlemen have no idea about weapons safety. It’s like the Clampetts have come to town.” // A little unfair to the Clampetts, perhaps, but we’re feeling you.
Weep for the bird, not for thee // Three men were caught in Major County, when authorities discovered they had marijuana buds, a pipe, and a dove out of season.
It’s not that we hate the poor. Okay, that’s exactly what it is. // Plans for Iron Gate, a downtown food pantry, to move to 3rd and Peoria were voted down by the Tulsa Board of Adjustment after area business owners complained about its effect on the neighborhood. Really? 3rd and Peoria? It’s Fallujah. A soup kitchen would actually gussy up the place.
Among all these were 700 chosen men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair and not miss —Judges 20:16 // Not for nothing, but if I were a hair, I’d move to Okemah, where one of the town’s pre-K teachers forced a 4-year-old left-handed student to write with his right hand because, as she said in the letter home to the boy’s mother, “the devil is often portrayed as a left-handed, and people throw salt over their left shoulder to ward off the evil spirits that live there.” The teacher resigned after other students, also left-handed spawns of Lucifer, came forth with the same complaint, but not before Okemah Superintendent Tony Dean said the teacher in question doesn’t have anything against lefties and that her husband is left-handed. Hypocrite, traitor … stone her!
Before liberals crammed political correctness down our throats, donning a KKK robe and burning a cross was just harmless holiday fun. // So the police chief of Lahoma, Oklahoma (does anyone think of these names beforehand?) donned a KKK robe last Halloween, went out trick or treating, burned a cross and everyone got all upset. As the police chief’s wife, who also happens to be the mayor, said, “This is ridiculous. It was a Halloween night.” Yeesh, sheeple, lighten up. He didn’t do it on a major holiday.
Maybe, lad, this isn’t your sport. // A 16-year-old Tulsan shot himself twice during a three-month period in 2015, both times in the leg. Authorities said they weren’t sure how the teen got the gun after the first accident or why he was so pissed at that particular leg.
IN SPORTS
OU-OSU. It’s Bedlam and anything can happen. But usually it doesn’t.
We’re not emotionally involved here, but in football, OU leads the series 85-18-7, including 13 of the last 15, so let’s lighten up on the competitiveness of the rivalry. Watching these two play is like watching a ROCKY sequel.
And we complain about 6-year-olds getting participation trophies.
TU, 6-6, and with a losing record in the American Athletic Conference, went to the Camping World/Independence Bowl in Shreveport to play Virginia Tech which also went 6-6 and also had a losing record in the Atlantic Coast Conference. // Virginia Tech won 55-53, so TU finished the season under .500. Worse, they had to spend Christmas in Shreveport.
QUOTE OF THE YEAR
“It’s not like suffocating. People won’t be gasping and fighting for air. They’ll be breathing normally, and then they’ll be dead.”
—Michael Copeland, a criminal justice professor at East Central University, talking about the state’s new execution protocol.
2016 PREDICTIONS
First District Congressman Jim Bridenstine is named Secretary of Defense by President-elect Ted Cruz.
George Kaiser, deciding the piecemeal approach isn’t working, buys all of Tulsa and leases it back to us at a handsome profit.
The greatest minds of the city, county, and state get together and after a 6-month, million dollar study conclude that highway lights are more effective when they’re turned on.
New parking meters are installed downtown which ask even tougher questions than do the current ones.
Dewey Bartlett wins a third term as Tulsa’s mayor, confounding those who still aren’t sure how he won the first two times.
All local road construction ends. Begins again.
WE'LL MISS
Dr. Jerome E. Block
The Ritz Cabaret
For more from Barry, read his piece on "sport praying."
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