Keith Gaddie

My friend Scott Buchanan says, “When we rode trains, we were more civilized.” I recently tested his proposition, riding a train home from a conference in Houston. If you’re in a hurry, don’t take the train. I’ve often used trains, but this was my first “local” trip. And the train is a trip.  There are […]

Over the past month, I’ve run a pair of columns on political blogs in the state. I noted the limited penetration of those blogs; the tendency of blogs on the right to get engaged in internal ideological struggles, while those on the left engage in external ideological struggles; and the fact that the quality of […]

When last we visited, I discussed conservative Oklahoma blogs, how small and narrow their readership was, and how much blog conflict takes place in a largely empty echo chamber. I also observed that the fragmentation of the media allows readers to consume information narrowly, and allows writers to skip editorial control and publish “automatic to […]

There’s an old saw in campaign politics that goes “politicians think everyone knows them because they only go to places where they know people.” Fragmentation allows readers to consume information narrowly. The Internet allows writers to skip editorial control and publish automatically to the people. In local politics, Web sites of ideological and journalistic diversity […]

The “tea party” crowd can be a force in Oklahoma politics. To do so, they need to do more than protest the status quo, which inexplicably emerged before their eyes this past May after eight years in the driver’s seat of the Bush administration. The tea party’s real issue is corporate America, which is capable […]

Jan. 1, 2010: 31,000 University of Oklahoma football fans show up at the El Paso International Airport asking for their charter to Los Angeles. Sun Bowl promoters sold out the game by telling Sooners fans that it was a scrimmage before meeting Alabama.Jan. 6: Bob Stoops turns down Florida coaching job in exchange for being […]

MAPS 3 passed. Now, what does this vote tell us about Oklahoma City? The first lesson is that voting majorities in Oklahoma City continue to be willing to invest in the public space. If you look at the list of projects in the MAPS 3 proposal, they are largely what are called “public good” or […]

There is an old Southern tradition that says you should have your opponents speak at your funeral, because they know you better than anyone, and they will try to do you justice in your passing. I come to speak for E.Z. Million. E.Z. hunted me down 10 years ago, when the media first started contacting […]

There is an old Southern tradition that says you should have your opponents speak at your funeral, because they know you better than anyone, and they will try to do you justice in your passing. I come to speak for E.Z. Million. E.Z. hunted me down 10 years ago, when the media first started contacting […]