Personality Test

I'm a O84-C89-E42-A8-N11 Big Five!!

This means I'm high on openness to experience, and conscientiousness. I'm low on agreeableness, and neuroticism. I'm in the middle on extroversion.

Oklahoma the Red State

The five most dangerous intersections in Oklahoma have been identified. All five of them are in Tulsa. State Farm lists the ten most dangerous intersections in all of the United States. Two of them are in Tulsa (the only city on the list with two). I blame motorists talking on cell phones while driving their enormous SUVs and minivans. They are a major hazard, but, unfortunately, make up about 75% of the drivers in this city.

Last week, the car in front of me on a major Tulsa artery had the following bumper sticker: “Guns don’t kill people. People driving while talking on cell phones kill people.” When I pulled along side to see the driver, it was a man talking on a cell phone!

There are lots of dangerous drivers in Tulsa. Oklahoma additionally has the honor of being near the top of the list of states with unwanted teenage pregnancies, divorce rate (Tulsa is second in the nation, behind Reno), and early marriage. These are probably linked. Oklahoma insists on “abstinence based” sex education, and abstinence pledges. A recent study of 15,000 young people nation wide found that 88% broke their pledges. Eighty-eight percent!

These are the ones who engage in premarital sex without a clue of how to prevent pregnancies, and little opportunity to acquire birth control devices. They are more likely to get pregnant, marry early, and, as a causal result, divorce.

I blame Oklahoma public education. It seems that Oklahoma education, like Oklahoma law, is based primarily on “faith based” beliefs - which means fundamental Christian beliefs.

I overheard one of my students the other day say “How can you say you’re a Christian, and not believe that homosexuality is wrong? It says it’s wrong in the Bible.” I noticed that she was wearing a polyester blend track suit. According to that same Bible, wearing clothes of two different fibers is a sin. Working of the Sabbath (Saturday) is a sin. But it IS OK to own slaves, provided you don’t treat them harshly.

I’m sure my student, as most of my students do, simply dismiss anything disturbing presented in my class as scientific evidence as “just your opinion.” They tell me they don’t often agree with my “opinion.” Even the Dean of Instruction says that we faculty should allow discussion of creationism in our classes to provide balance of “opinion.”

These are “red staters.” People who no doubt voted for that “murderous moron in the White House.”

The current administration was able to come to power and stay in power by pandering to the religious and patriotic illusions of the common folk. While telling them the dangers of homosexual marriage they slip through tax cuts for the rich. While impugning the integrity and patriotism of a decorated veteran opponent, they launch a mindless war in the Middle East. I firmly believe that the administrations minions are all fully aware of their hypocrisy, and they can say with full confidence “The rules for the rubes don’t apply to us.” Thus, the rampant corruption.

A national poll this week shows only one American in five thinks the country is headed in the right direction. I'm surprised that there are that many. Probably most of them are from around here.

The day before yesterday I saw the following bumper sticker: President George W. Bush will protect you, even if you don't want to be protected.

Who's going to protect me from George W. Bush?

My Extended Family

Here’s the story of my extended family:

They are working class people with working class values. That means they don’t think much of formal education and thrill to the “bad boy” image a la Dale Earnhart. My cousin Billy is two years younger than I am. He was a very problematic child. The uncles and grandparents would tell stories about Billy and his misdeeds for hours on end. Always with a gleam in their eyes and a chuckle in their voices. He was the favored grandchild because of his mischief in ways that I would never dare be. It was Billy who joined the Marines (but never went overseas) and later became a mailman, it was Billy who had two boys, one a Marine himself and a college flunk out on a wrestling scholarship, the other a convicted felon who married a black woman. Being a convicted felon has a lot of bling with these people (marrying a black woman does not). The kids in the mountains wear their pants without belts so that they bag down below their underwear - this is called the jailhouse look, and is considered cool. Being a college graduate is close to being gay.

By objective standards my maternal grandfather was a drunk who had a couple of deranged and alcoholic/drug addicted brothers, one of whom was mean enough and stupid/drunk enough to get murdered in an argument where he attacked an armed man barehanded. Another died in his 80s in a car he’d just stolen - the body wasn’t found for a couple of days with the car sitting in the heat with the windows rolled up; “There’s some good news and some bad news. The good news is we found your stolen car. The bad news...”

My maternal grandfather once told Billy and me that he would buy us each a rifle when we reached the age of 16. One summer I was pestering him to buy me one even though I was only 14 at the time. He declined. My grandmother said “Why don’t you buy him a gun? You already gave one to Billy.” Pappy looked like he wanted to kill her. How do you think that made me feel? I’ve always been the outsider even in my own family.

Of course, my mother grew up in this dysfunctional mess, and my dad’s family was only marginally better. Both of them became seriously flawed adults who should have been in prison or in managed mental care rather than become parents. At my father’s funeral his nephew Jack was eulogizing my father and admitted “He was not a perfect man.” My father made fun of my education, my life choices, even my Porsches and Mercedes. He could never accept that I was better than he was in any way or that I made a lot better choices in my life.

One of the last conversations I had with my mother was when she told me “You shouldn’t have married the woman you did. She was a bad choice for you.” I remarked that we had two wonderful children, and she replied “That didn’t have anything to do with you, it’s because of your mother-in-law.” Right.

Several people who came to know me well before they ever met my parents have said word-for-word the same thing, “I don’t know how you turned out as well as you did.”