Okies apparently don’t like the word “recreational,” but they love the word “medical”—especially when it comes to cannabis. With roughly 400 dispensaries in Oklahoma City alone, you can’t spit without hitting that green demon leaf that once prompted the propaganda film Reefer Madness. Almost 10 percent of Oklahomans have medical cannabis cards, and they are […]
Robin Meyers
Posted inNews
Wolf in sheep’s clothing
If those Jesus Gets Us ads look too good to be true, it’s because they are. My progressive Christian friends have been almost giddy over their apparent emphasis on peace and justice, on immigrant rights, on a thoroughly human Jesus who knows the limits of politics, of family, and of judgmental fear mongering instead of […]
Posted inNews
I alone will indoctrinate your kids.
Oklahoma’s new state schools superintendent is about to take a desperate situation and make it awful. His plans for stamping out “wokeness,” critical race theory, and boys using the girl’s bathrooms sounds nothing like a plan to advance education, and more like a platform to become Ron DeSantis Jr. The irony of this culture war […]
Posted inNews
Dr. King’s “mistake”
I’m writing on the day we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Many people observe the holiday by doing a service project, and I just returned from helping OCU students make a thousand sandwiches for the Homeless Alliance. We mostly remember the “I Have a Dream “ speech King and […]
Posted inNews
Here’s to a less violent 2023
You can’t escape the tears and the outpouring of prayers for Damar Hamlin, a young safety for the Buffalo Bills, who collapsed of cardiac arrest and almost died on the field during a Monday Night Football game. After medical workers worked for ten minutes to restart his heart, an ambulance carried him off the field, […]
Posted inNews
What momentum?
Just after the election of Kevin Stitt for a second term as Oklahoma’s governor, the photo and headline in The Oklahoman said it all: RED WAVE IN OK! Stitt is seen raising his arms high above his head, his mouth open in a kind of sport’s happy primal scream, hoopin’ and hollerin’ over his good-old-boy […]
Posted inNews
It’s the guns, stupid
In 1992, James Carville, a political strategist, coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Three decades later, we need a new slogan: “It’s the guns, stupid.” Not mental illness, which certainly deserves more attention and funding. Not our failures to recognize and help alienated, “invisible” young men before they snap. Not the tired argument that […]
Posted inNews
Thank you, poll workers
On the Friday before election day, I returned to my favorite place to vote, the Oklahoma County Election Board headquarters on Lincoln Boulevard. It conjured memories of standing in a long line with an ebullient crowd in 2008 to vote for Barack Obama. I was certain that the world was about to change, and that […]
Posted inNews
Make America Whole Again
Chances are you are reading this only hours before a midterm election whose stakes could not be higher. Regardless of your party affiliation, your understanding of the role of government, or your position on abortion or gay rights, the decisions we are about to make will determine what kind of country we live in, and […]
Posted inNews
The Great Reversal
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” Republicans and Democrats had very different views when it came to answering an ancient ethical question: Which matters most in a leader, conduct or character? Republicans could once be depended upon to stress the issue of character. Is the candidate trustworthy? Does she have integrity? […]