Commentary
Whitney Pearson
Over the past few years, our nation has taken great strides toward reducing the enormous health burden posed by toxic coal-fired power plants and transitioning America to a future powered by clean energy.

Commentary
State Sen. David Holt
This state legislative session, Sen. Jabar Shumate, D-Tulsa, Rep. Jason Nelson, R-Oklahoma City, and I proposed legislation to give parents a new tool to affect positive change in their student’s underperforming school. Senate Bill 1001 would create the Parent Empowerment Act, a version of a “parent trigger” that has been enacted in at least seven other states. It passed the Senate, but limited support in the House means it will be laid over until the 2014 session.

Commentary
Gene Perry
In the 2012 film Won’t Back Down, a single mother stands up to a villainous teachers’ union and school administrators to take over her child’s school. The film was produced by Walden Media, a company belonging to Oklahoman owner Philip Anschutz. It seeks to dramatize “parent trigger” laws being pushed across the country by organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Commentary
Sean Wallace
Are you willing to supervise as many as 200 inmates by yourself? To assess and react appropriately to extremely violent situations such as rapes, suicides and stabbings? To work with inmates who have communicable diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis or hepatitis?

Commentary
Todd Lamb
After the tragic events in Newtown, Conn., last December, Senate President Pro Tempore Brian Bingman and House Speaker T.W. Shannon asked me to chair the Oklahoma Commission on School Security (OCSS). As a former U.S. Secret Service special agent, I have a background and training in security. As a state senator, I was the principal author of the Oklahoma School Security Act.

Commentary
Kurt Hochenauer
There’s enough extreme ideological legislation floating around the state Capitol right now to make a decent reality television show.

Commentary
Bob Burke
Workers’ compensation is again on the front burner at the Oklahoma Legislature. In my 32 years of representing injured workers, it is the 19th attempt to make major changes in the law that governs the delivery of benefits to workers injured on the job.

Commentary
Jonathan Small
Oklahoma’s system for handling workers’ compensation claims is badly in need of reform. So much so that it is time to replace the system altogether.

Commentary
Mary Ellen Jones

In her State of the State address, Gov. Mary Fallin is to be commended for the inclusion of mental health when talking about health and for proposing increased funding for mental health programs. Mental illness is a medical condition of the brain, an organ of the body, and should be treated like any other organrelated malady.

Commentary
Dr. Dana Stone
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

Commentary
Mike Brake
The renewed push to legalize the medical use of marijuana in Oklahoma takes the same misguided approach used by other states, including California. If, indeed, there is legitimate therapeutic value in pot — a contention with limited anecdotal evidence — setting up an ad hoc network of authorized growers and dispensers is the wrong way to go. Medical pot, if it’s ever legalized, should undergo rigorous clinical trials and be carefully regulated like every other drug

Commentary
Bill Bleakley
Tuesday is election day for choosing the chair and two members of the Oklahoma City Public Schools School Board. Many believe the school elections are set in the middle of winter and not in conjunction with regular elections to subdue voter turnout and strengthen the political power of education special interests. The usual voter turnout in these elections proves them right.

Commentary
Steve Hill
He looked like rock ’n’ roll.

Commentary
Marilyn Davidson
Our public schools are the most important resource in our community — they truly should be the heart and soul of every community. As parents, we should care about what happens in our schools, and as taxpayers, we should be able to access schools for community use.

Commentary
Joey Senat
Gov. Mary Fallin doesn’t want you to know what advice her 14 Cabinet members give on running the state.