Oklahoma
updated
2:47 p.m.
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A ltTulsa doesn't have a lock on political truth or wisdom. Try as we might, we aren't always right or as smart as we'd like to be, a fact we freely admit. But we do take pride in being familiar with, and connected to, verifiable facts and some broadly agreed upon version of reality, which means we usually find private, secret realities highly unlikely. That's one of the problem over at ...
Alternative Tulsa - 2:47 p.m.
R ight here in the Reddest of the Red States (read: Oklahoma), we love our guns. Every Sooner oughta have three or four for huntin'— or just in case. But as the New York Times pointed out this week, the 2008 election didn't turn out so well for the pro-gun folks. After November, the gun lobby's vaunted political clout may be waning , at least beyond the borders of Soonerland. The Nationa...
Alternative Tulsa - Wed 8:49 p.m. - 4 clicks 
H ey , it could be worse . We could live in Texas or, heaven help us, Louisiana. We're talking about a study released today from three national health agencies, a study that ranks the states from the most healthy to the least. Vermont is #1; Louisiana is dead last, # 50. Oklahoma is in relatively poor health, ranking only #44. The Sooner state is just behind Arkansas (#43) and ...
Alternative Tulsa - Wed 8:49 p.m. - 2 clicks
(or how I learned to stop going to chains and love eating out again) also posted to Sinister . This post is directed at Oklahoma readers, but I'm sure those of you not in this part of the country can also relate to my arguments. I'm sure a lot of people really do enjoy going to Applebee's. It's easy, it's cheap, and the service and food are safe and predictable. It's the sam...
DailyKos (Oklahoma) - Wed 12:49 p.m. - 5 clicks
One of the reasons Oklahoma leads the nation in the number of women in prison on a per capita basis is that judges and juries continue to hand out harsh sentences for drug crimes committed by non-violent offenders. These non-violent offenders should receive treatment for substance abuse and basic educational rehabilitation and job training, not long prison sentences, which cost state taxpay...
Okie Funk - Wed 11:41 a.m. - 3 clicks
I trust I am doing this correctly—it's my first time to post, but all I want to do is share this as a diary: the anguish of a "young" Oklahoma student journalist as sad adult truth sinks in, comforted by a high school mentor whom she now shares it with. In the vein of droogie's "What's the Matter with Oklahoma?" , every other ex-pat Sooner I know has been similarly affected by the...
DailyKos (Oklahoma) - Tue 7:03 p.m. - 7 clicks
I n an age of digital media , traditional newspapers (that is, the ones printed on paper) are having a hard time landing new readers. Kids— they seem to want everything delivered online these days: news, entertainment, ads, even friends (that is, Facebook and MySpace), and so on. So it's not a huge surprise that the Tulsa World unveiled today a new and improved website for it...
Alternative Tulsa - Tue 3:27 a.m. - 8 clicks
Over at my own blog, I've written a fairly extraneous preface to these awards, and a more pertinent rationale for each choice, which you can read here . Woody Guthrie Award - for best ambassador for Oklahoma to the wider Netroots droogie6655321 blogging at Daily Kos Mason Jar of Red Dirt Award - for best Netroots ally outside the state Down With Tyranny! Buffalo Stampede Award ...
Blue Oklahoma - Mon 12:51 p.m. - 8 clicks
Title: Dissolution (Forgotten Realms: R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen, Book 1) Author: Richard Lee Byers Publisher: Wizards of the Coast I didn’t have much success finding any books on the Enlightenment at the Norman library, so I decided to try out this book. Someone at work loaned it to me and said it was really good. So far it’s okay. The Forgotten Realms series is ...
Oklahoma Lefty - Mon 7:43 a.m. - 4 clicks
Rena has announced the Peace Arena Oklahoma Netroots Awards. I decided to do a freeform category, based on blogs/sites that have impressed me this year, basing the name on whatever niche or contribution the owner has made. Keep in mind these are just my opinion, based on my own biases/interests and factored by what has crossed [...]...
Okiedoke - Mon 7:28 a.m. - 7 clicks
My request for a translation of a post on the Estonian blog “Oklahoma” has been answered. And by the author himself no less. Hi Okiedoke and the others there in REAL Oklahoma! My name is Jaanus, I live in Estonia. I am “native” Estonian (white male), but almost all of us here have mixed blood. “Estonian people” - [...]...
Okiedoke - Mon 7:28 a.m. - 8 clicks
As a dedicated Sooner basketball fan, I wouldn’t even post this if I weren’t so shocked and disgusted. Now we know what this was really all about: Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin Outrages Public Decency in Norman I always suspected cops in Norman wouldn’t charge a regular guy for just peeing in the bushes. But the worst thing about it [...]...
Okiedoke - Mon 7:28 a.m. - 2 clicks
P eggy Noonan, a columnist for the conservative Wall Street Journal , is praising the leadership of Barack Obama. Unlike some of her wild-eyed and unhinged Republican allies (including some in Oklahoma), Noonan pointed out this week that Obama has not turned out to be a "redistributionist" or secret socialist. Here's how Noonan put it a couple of days ago: Mr. Obama's cabinet picks...
Alternative Tulsa - Sun 4:47 p.m. - 7 clicks
We are starting a Drinking Liberally chapter in Oklahoma City and will be meeting every Tuesday night at the Bricktown Brewery, 1 N Oklahoma Ave (downstairs bar) 5PM-7PM starting on December 2, 2008. You can get additional information on Drinking Liberally at this link; http://livingliberally.org/dri... We have a group that has been meeting there every week for over two years and we decided to...
Blue Oklahoma - Sun 2:23 a.m. - 12 clicks
A recent blog post of mine made in jest… Such language in an Oklahoma blog November 22nd, 2008 I don’t understand what some folks dare to say about our new President-elect. Take Jaanus, writing in his blog “Oklahoma”. Baracki-karisma Honestly, I just don’t get it! One interpretation. … has now put me on a quest. But I need help. The quest began when [...]...
Okiedoke - Sat 11:20 p.m. - 8 clicks
A ltTulsa missed the local John Birch Society meeting a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately for Tulsa and Oklahoma politics, almost everyone else missed the meeting too. The Tulsa World sent a reporter at the meeting, however, and he reported a grand total of 20 or so at the Birch meeting . That's an extraordinarily poor turnout in a county that went heavily Republican earlier this month, ...
Alternative Tulsa - Sat 11:20 p.m. - 12 clicks
Here's a snippet from Saturday's issue of the Oke. As always, the Oke's editorials speak entirely for themselves. By any other name... What's in a name change? Not much if it's the newly dubbed "OKWatchdog." The Oklahoma Foundation for Consumer & Patient Rights, a trial lawyer front group, says the new name "more clearly reflects" the organization's purpose, which we would argue is to keep...
Blue Oklahoma - Sat 12:03 p.m. - 8 clicks
Here is an excellent column from the OU Daily. Money Quotes -- I suddnely realized I had been brought up in a community that forbids original thought. And I realized my small community was a microcosm of the state of Oklahoma and that, as long as I stay here, the fact that I am a moderate who sympathizes with some — though definitely not all — liberal viewpoints will cause others to question...
Oklahoma Lefty - Sat 8:26 a.m. - 16 clicks
I hate to admit the guilty pleasure I had in seeing the state's metro dailies go at each other recently over the amount of money Tulsa and Oklahoma City hospitals receive for indigent health care. The Oke started the volley: "We have advocated for a stop to claims that Tulsa's been treated unfairly when it comes to indigent-care spending. ... This issue shouldn't be yet another bedlam competiti...
Blue Oklahoma - Fri 11:29 a.m. - 14 clicks
Okies know that living in Oklahoma exposes one to an onslaught of ridicule and hate. -… Oklahoma sucks -What a sad state and state of affairs. -Did the people of Oklahoma City gather round the rubble that day in April and yell, “Let the mudderfucker BURN”? -Is k-12 education required in OK? Or do they just stop requiring it [...]...
Okiedoke - Nov 27 - 13 clicks
Y ou'd think Oklahoma's conservative bloggers would have more sense. Common sense , we like to think, is a sturdy Oklahoma value. But no. Some folks who should know better keep falling for conspiracy theories concerning President-elect Barack Obama's phony birth certificate. In the fantasy world of right-wing nonsense, this means that Obama can't actually be president because he isn't ...
Alternative Tulsa - Nov 26 - 19 clicks
So this is the sign Oklahoma banks are urged to display: Oklahoma Bankers Association But … it was only after moving to Oklahoma that I even began wearing hats with any regularity. And what about native Okies? “A lot of bank customers were born with a hat on their head and that is just a part of who [...]...
Okiedoke - Nov 26 - 9 clicks
The Oklahoma Foundation for Consumer & Patient Rights is now OKWatchdog. As the state's leading voice for consumers and patients, we think the new name more clearly reflects our purpose. We intend to be Oklahomans' eyes, ears and conscience at the Capitol, in communities and in the public forum. What makes us unique is that we are focused on Oklahoma. Ordinary Oklahomans need a voice. Our missi...
Blue Oklahoma - Nov 25 - 9 clicks
Really, how hard can it be to abide by the Constitution? The Oklahoma Supreme Court has thrown out a new law addressing issues ranging from trade, to trusts, to organ donations. The court struck down the law on Monday. It said the 2008 Legislature violated a constitutional provision requiring bills to embrace only one subject. I [...]...
Okiedoke - Nov 25 - 6 clicks
Well, at least Oklahoma’s congressional delegation can ideologically agree with the President-elect on one thing: Obama promotes fiscal restraint, big spending Obama is already starting in the red. The federal government reported a record deficit of $237.2 billion in October, which reflected only a portion of the $700 billion Congress approved last month to rescue the financial [...]...
Okiedoke - Nov 25 - 4 clicks
W e know that the election is over. Obama and Biden won, though not in the reddest of the Red States , good ole Oklahoma. Time to move on. Still, we couldn't help looking back at some of the foolishness that came out of the Republican National Convention . Searching through cyberspace, we found Tulsa mentioned in the New York Observer of early September. It seems that an Observer r...
Alternative Tulsa - Nov 23 - 5 clicks
M orton Kondrake is not the sharpest pencil in the box, by our lights, but he knows a festering political problem when he sees one. And this week he identified one in the person of Rush Limbaugh . And Sean Hannity . And Laura Ingraham . They are right-wing radio talkers, of course, and Kondrake is putting them on notice. The headline of Kondrake's column in today's Tulsa World put it plai...
Alternative Tulsa - Nov 22 - 3 clicks
There's a lively discussion going on at Daily Kos about Oklahoma's election results. Check it out . ...
Blue Oklahoma - Nov 20 - 5 clicks
S ince nobody else is going to do it, AT wants to wish itself a happy birthday today (actually, yesterday). That's right, Sooner fans, the AltTulsa blog began two years ago . Since that time, we've been busy. We've made more than one thousand posts in two years and received many thousands of hits from all across Oklahoma and points beyond. We'd like to think that our posts have s...
Alternative Tulsa - Nov 20 - 5 clicks
D ead Wrong and Proud of It. That bold statement is the headline atop an opinion piece in this week's Oklahoma City Gazette , the state's largest weekly newspaper. The writer, Robin Meyers , takes Oklahoma's conservative voters to task for sleeping through the last 25 years or so. Here's a portion of Meyers' editorial blast: The world wept for joy; Oklahoma spat defiantly. The glory tra...
Alternative Tulsa - Nov 20 - 7 clicks
Get involved in the growing movement for civil rights for GLBTQ citizens. National http://www.freedomtomarry.org/ http://jointheimpact.com/ http://www.soulforce.org/ http://www.aclu.org/lgbt http://www.hrc.org/ Oklahoma Join the Impact! Oklahoma http://www.okeq.org/ (Tulsa) http://www.cimarronalliance.org/ (OKC)...
Blue Oklahoma - Nov 16 - 6 clicks
(Below you will find media information submitted to blue oklahoma or found on http://peacearena.org about tomorrow's rally. I have made minor editing changes.--Kurt Hochenauer) The Oklahoma Impact! rally, in conjunction with National Protest for LGBT Rights , will be taking place on November 15. There has been another location adjustment made. It seems we were double booked for the st...
Blue Oklahoma - Nov 14 - 7 clicks
(I made a minor editing change to this post because the location for the rally has changed. Check out the above post.--Kurt Hochenauer) The Oklahoma Impact! rally, in conjunction with National Protest for LGBT Right s, will be taking place on November 15. There are also rallies planned for Tulsa and Stillwater -- follow link above to find details. Needs and guidelines below the fold. ...
Blue Oklahoma - Nov 12 - 8 clicks
Forgive me for just posting a link, but it's 1 AM and I'm too tired to repost. I just want to point to a post I just made on my own blog about something wonderful I heard on the radio today which I think Blue Oklahomans will also enjoy. Studs Terkel interview with Mary Owsley and Peggy Terry about Oklahoma City during the depression ...
Blue Oklahoma - Nov 9 - 4 clicks
This op-ed appeared yesterday in The Edmond Sun. If you've read all there is to read about the presidential race but still need your progressive fix, please read on. Texas tort reform not so alluring Jeff Raymond November 04, 2008 11:56 pm - The allure of Texas to tort reform backers is unmistakable. It also has proved a red herring. You've probably read about how Proposition 12, Texas' 10-...
Blue Oklahoma - Nov 6 - 6 clicks
