OKGazette.com - Commentary

Seeking shelter for students -

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Forty-seven lives were lost during the storms that hit our state last month. The death toll could have been lower if suitable shelters were widely available.

God and tornadoes -

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EDT

I handed my driver’s license to the Transportation Security Administration agent in the Manchester, N.H., airport, and she said, “Oh, my God! Oklahoma? My condolences to your state.”

Touting marriage: Why knot? -

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Startling but true: Growing up in a stable, two-parent family is the exception, not the rule, for Oklahoma teenagers.

Death by a thousand cuts -

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 00:00:00 EDT

It’s just a little tax cut. It can’t hurt anything, can it?

MAPS for trauma -

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

In April 2010, I attended an Oklahoma City Thunder playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers and stood the entire game, along with 18,000 others. Our young team made a furious comeback to win. I did not lose my voice that night from cheering; I lost it from screaming.

To be an Oklahoman -

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Do you know what it takes to be an Oklahoman? You probably don’t, because to be an Oklahoman is to be balls-to-the-wall crazy.

No more stalling the Keystone XL -

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Cash Western Store has been a fixture in the thriving community of Seminole since 1939. Now owned by Mr. Bob Berry, it is a small shop, specializing in work boots, Western attire and things people who work on, say, an oil pipeline might be interested in.

No time for pipeline -

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Oklahoma City residents Nancy Zorn and Stefan Warner are among several members of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance arrested for nonviolently protesting construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Opposition to the pipeline and development of the Canadian tar sands is based on a long-range view of tar sands development and its threat to sustainability on earth.

Ogling open government -

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention conducted their deliberations in secret. These were thoughtful men who realized that the decisions they faced — how to design and construct a form of government to maximize the freedoms only recently won in the American Revolutionary War — required a great deal of give-and-take.

College shouldn’t be never-ending -

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

When I was a kid attending college, the general rule was it would take four years to complete a degree.

Common sense about Common Core -

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Being an educator has become like drinking water from a fire hose. Oklahoma City administrators and teachers barely have the time, money or know-how to tackle challenges that must be met, such as improving early childhood education, ensuring that students read for comprehension by third grade and evaluating teachers with rigorous new observations.

Connecting the dots -

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Young students do connect-the-dot worksheets to learn numbers. Students draw lines from a dot to another dot in numerical order and a true picture is revealed. When they don’t, there is no picture, or it’s distorted.

Miracle on 23rd Street: a tax cut -

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 EDT

With the exception of that most beloved Republican activity — the buying, selling, exchanging, concealing, cleaning, carrying, showing, stroking and shooting of guns — members of the party once led by Lincoln are now best known for their genetically driven obsession: cutting taxes anytime, anywhere, any size, for any reason or excuse.

Pump up the volume -

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT

Oklahoma City needs its own Cain’s Ballroom.

‘Local control’ in education -

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT

In the cult movie classic The Princess Bride, Vizzini repeatedly uses the word “inconceivable” as his efforts to evade pursuers fail. Inigo Montoya finally replies, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

OKC, get serious about water conservation -

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT

It’s often said you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. In terms of resources, nothing could be closer to the truth. Oklahoma is blessed with many resources — resources that have helped us build Oklahoma City from the desolate ghost town I remember as a child, during the oil bust, into one of our country’s best-kept secrets for quality of life.

OG&E must move past coal -

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT

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.

Point: Triggering better schools -

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT

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.

Counterpoint: Don’t pull that trigger -

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 EDT

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.

Correction needed for correctional officers -

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 EDT

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?