Three weeks ago I posted about the breaking scandal which has embroiled the Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz and his department. Since then undersheriff Tim Albin has resigned, reserve deputy Robert Bates has been allowed to go on vacation to the Bahamas despite facing charges of second degree manslaughter, Sheriff Stanley Glanz had stated although he…
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Saigon in memoriam
President Nixon’s achievement of “Peace with Honor” with North Vietnam came crashing down with the Fall of Saigon forty years ago this week. Three North Vietnamese Army regiments seized the South Vietnamese capitol virtually unopposed and crashed the gates of the Presidential Palace soon after the U.S. diplomatic contingent evacuated the embassy along with as many South Vietnamese citizens as…
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Movie review: The Water Diviner
War is definitely the gift that keeps on giving. It was appropriate that The Water Diviner, a fictional post-World War I historical drama, opened the day before the 100th anniversary of the start of the military campaign which inspired it. Russell Crowe directs and acts in the lead role and seems to gain a measure of redemption…
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The death grip on the death penalty
Death by nitrogen hypoxia. That is the latest modality now legally available to the State of Oklahoma to carry out death sentences. Governor Fallin signed off on HB 1879 last week after it wound its way through the legislature and was placed on her desk. The bill’s author is Representative Mike Christian from HD 93 (South…
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The Oklahoma Standard endures
Like many of my fellow Oklahomans, I have a list of memories of the Oklahoma City Federal Building long before it became the center of the universe twenty years ago for the worst of reasons. Like most other people I know, I never knew its namesake, Alfred P. Murrah, was an old federal judge until…
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Pay-to-play law enforcement?!?
Sadly it is not my imagination that my beloved home state and home town cannot seem to stay out of national and international limelight of tragedy and shame. Again, this is one blog post that I have had to stop myself from making more than once since this story broke last week and I may…
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Ex-Republicans in charge
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her formal announcement on Sunday that she was a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States. Image by HillaryClinton.com Hillary Clinton, once the President of the Wellesley College Young Republicans, enters the fray with another ex-Republican. Democrat Jim Webb, the former Virginia Senator,…
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Appomattox + 150
One hundred fifty years ago today marked the end of a period of national blood letting. At the home of Wilmer McLean in Appomattox, Virginia, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Federal Army of the Potomac effectively ending what is now known in the parlance of Americana…
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The misery of living in Obama’s America, April 2015 update
Oh, the misery of living under the tyranny of responsible leadership! Are things perfect? Hardly. My question is would anyone care to return to where we were economically at 12:01 PM EST on 20 January 2009? Anyone? Behold where we are now: Obama’s Numbers April 2015 Image by FactCheck.org History will not judge President Obama…
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Fundamental differences in leadership
Spring has arrived in an odd non-election year which means the major political parties in this, the most conservative stretch of Old Route 66, are preparing for County Convention in each of the Sooner State’s 77 counties. Being a civic minded soul and an officer in my local precinct, I have begun to think deeply…
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