As the nation grieves the worst single act of gun violence in our history, there is one topic that the corporate media will not let us discuss rationally: gun control. Less than 24 hours after the carnage, before a single funeral, as the bodies were being tagged in the morgue, FOX News already was […]
Commentary
In with the old
Oklahoma Republicans were disappointed when presidential candidate Mitt Romney canceled plans to be keynote speaker at the Republican Convention April 14, but the events of the convention itself more than compensated the delegates to the state GOP. Gary Jones, who stepped down as party chairman a year ago to run unsuccessfully against the embattled […]
Point: Preserving our heritage industries
Last year, the United States borrowed approximately $320 billion to import oil ” nearly $1 billion per day. Significant portions of these funds are used by hostile nations to finance and perpetuate hatred of the West and its philosophies. Therefore, it is critical that American leaders, policy makers and private industry search for ways to […]
Counterpoint: The ethics of ethanol
Addiction, it is said, often blinds those so afflicted to the moral and ethical considerations of behaviors intent on satisfying their habits. In our present oil addiction, we so fervently have embraced corn ethanol as one solution to our petroleum dependency that we have neglected to question the ethical and moral propriety of using food […]
Don’t you love me anymore?
Will Rogers observed that “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” To watch our own state government in action of late, I expect that Gov. Brad Henry is thinking a lesser-known Rogers aphorism: “There ought to be one day ” just one ” when there is open season on […]
Pretending to live green
Sen. James Inhofe caught lots of flack recently for his objections to plans for holding Al Gore’s Live Earth concert on the west side of the U.S. Capitol. The concert, scheduled for July 7, is intended to gain support for the fight against global warming. “There has never been a partisan political event at the […]
Purchasing a presidency
The 2008 presidential election is more than a year away and campaigns are already in full swing. The candidates will spend about $1 billion trying to get elected. It’s no coincidence the best-financed candidates have won eight of the last 10 contested primaries. New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada have their primaries or caucuses […]
Death by lying
Once upon a time, a “straight-shooting” Texas oilman without a single accomplishment to his name decided to run for president as God’s chosen one. Proud of being a C student, and clumsy of speech like Moses, he would nevertheless lead us all to the promised land. He promised to “restore honor and dignity to the […]
The real Ralph Nader
In the Sixties, I inherited my dad’s Chevrolet Corvair and drove it all over Austin, Texas. My younger sister then drove it till it died somewhere between Waco, Texas, and Dallas. We had fun with that little car until we read in Ralph Nader’s groundbreaking book that it was “Unsafe at Any Speed.” The […]
Five stages of voter grief
If the 2006 election cycle has proven anything, it is that Oklahoma voters are sick and tired of the status quo and that they are tired of the wicked nature of political attack ads. So much so, it appears as though the electorate has begun to recognize that the experiment in self-government we call democracy […]
