Presidential election years have always been a time of a months-long media circus featuring all manner of campaign soundbytes of pandering, insults and over-the-top hyperbolic rhetoric in candidate ads, stump speeches, caucuses and conventions. Despite its pitfalls and occasional shortcomings, the thing that has kept America electing its leaders via democratic process from its beginning…
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Faith in the growing number of “nones”
Here along the most conservative stretch of Old Route 66, the characteristic of religiosity commensurate with the values of the political majority comes with the territory. I can personally attest that a strong religious atmosphere in Tulsa was the norm of my childhood and adolescence. Even as a young boy, the open competition among the…
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Sounding the call to serve once again
Last month when I signed up for a job to be a poll worker there were positions available for some 400 applicants to serve the needs of all the Election Day voting precincts in Tulsa County. For there to be that great a need for so many is a fairly new phenomenon and one which…
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Looking back on Journal Volume 49 and 2023
As most regular readers know, this blog was established nine years ago as largely an extension of the Personal Daily Journal of Yours Truly. It has become a tradition during this, the last few hours of the calendar year to reflect on the twelve months gone by and recall fondly or not-so-much as the case…
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Kansas: Still rocking it at 50
Although it may seem a repetitive sentiment, it is true that the more things change the more they stay the same. I say this because despite making a unique sound of music for half a century, the progressive classic rock band Kansas still sounds the same as I remember them upon being intoxicated by their…
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Oklahoma’s Big 12 Conference farewell tour
It truly has been a wild ride. All those years ago it was received as a wonderful idea to merge all of a league which has been a stable fixture in the regional collegiate athletic landscape since its original founding in 1907 with the upper tier of one that had been existing on borrowed time…
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Messaging misery of miserable messengers
Marketing and sales are two endeavors which are eternally intertwined. Each requires the ability to effectively communicate and both rely on amicable relations with clientele to achieve a desired purpose, that being the sale of a product whether it be a tangible item, a service or an idea contained in either a tacit or actual…
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Retribution coming home to roost
Eight years ago this week a piece was published on this blog containing a detailed analysis of the candidate who had emerged as the GOP frontrunner for the 2016 Presidential Election. Regular readers may remember the August 2015 posting entitled The appeal of a narcissist. Probably the most pertinent and prophetic statement contained therein was…
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A year of leading the way
Beginning the 1st of July of last year and ending with the 30th of June, it was a year of leading from the front for Yours Truly. Yes, I have completed a one-year term as President of the Rotary Club of Tulsa Will Rogers. Commonly known as Will Rogers Rotary, it is one of the…
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Half a century of all-volunteer service
In the prelude to America’s entry into World War II, President Roosevelt signed off on the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 on September 16th of that year. That act of Congress with multiple amendments resulted in the compulsory military enlistment of over ten million American men ages 18 to 44 between October 1940…
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