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 […]
Commentary
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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? […]
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Cutting costs
It’s easy to hate our regional electricity mammoth OG&E. There are bland lines we repeat to one another just like talking about the weather or Saturday’s score: OG&E is expensive, the power goes out too often, they chopped down a beloved tree… Even reading that is boring because we’re always saying these things. OG&E is […]
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Heartless
Four years ago, Adam Serwer wrote an article for The Atlantic entitled, “The Cruelty Is the Point.” It made the disturbing claim that Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear. In the fall of 2018, the administration began what Serwer called the ethnic cleansing of […]
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Student loan forgiveness and hypocrisy
No sooner had President Biden announced his plan to forgive a portion of student loans, especially for middle class and poor families, than Republicans started lecturing all of us on the importance of paying back what we owe. Never mind that this was a campaign promise, or that the cost of higher education has made […]
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Crying wolf: why lying destroys everything
America is an endangered country. Our democracy is on the verge of collapsing, our freedoms are being revoked by people who believe in rights but not responsibilities. Our sacred belief that tomorrow can be better than today is fading in a haze of despair and mental illness that we lament but do not treat. The […]
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Dear Oklahoma weathercasters: Please tell us the truth.
Most of us watch the local news for the weather, so to say that meteorology has come a long way would be an understatement. We have corporately-sponsored helicopters whose pilots are heroes, storm chasers with household names and gazillion-watt radar systems dueling with other stations to be the most precise, powerful and fantastic. In Oklahoma, […]
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Can we start a new conversation?
For more than a decade I wrote a regular column for Oklahoma Gazette. It was a progressive second opinion for those who needed something other than the suffocating orthodoxy of a straight, white, Baptist, Republican Jesus. Based on the letters to the editor that always followed those columns, I was often accused of Oklahoma-bashing. If […]