January 25, 2008

On The Cover

Violence Against Women: An Oklahoma Epidemic

By Frosty Troy

Let 2008 be the year that every Oklahoman pledges to fight the epidemic of murder, stalking, forcible and attempted rape, and domestic abuse of women.

What’s Inside

Frosty’s Notebook: Work Ethic

By Frosty Troy

I was 11 when I asked my Dad if he would buy me a bike.

Taxes And Ethics And Spin, Oh My

By Arnold Hamilton

Will the clock soon strike midnight for Lance Cargill? The House speaker’s Cinderellaesque dream of ascending to the governor’s throne is beginning to more closely resemble Nightmare on Elm Street – not only for him, but also for taxpayers and his own party.

Maternal and Child Care Sadly Lacking

Maternal and child advocates have become increasingly concerned about the lack of access to primary health care services for children and pregnant women.

Oklahoma One Of Hungriest States – Our Food Deserts

Over the past 10 years, the percentage of Oklahoma’s population classified as “food insecure” has risen from 13.1% to 14.6%. Only four states have a higher percentage of their population facing the threat of hunger.

Fiscal Train Wreck In State’s Future

The three new “sin taxes” that Oklahoma voters approved in the fall of 2004 to boost funding for education and health care have generated less revenue than initially anticipated.

State Schools Hit On Funding Gap

By Sandy Garrett

Oklahoma’s public education system scored a 100% in accountability on Education Week’s 12th annual national report, “Quality Counts 2008.”

Music Teacher Is There For Students

By Cristi Miller

A very ugly monster came to my build today. In fact, I thought it was there to swallow me up. Its name was frustration, and I found it sitting in my lap at 10:07 a.m.

Books

Our New Gilded Age Demands Another FDR

By Alvena Bieri

At a recent public forum in Stillwater on the living wage, a speaker suggested that poverty in the richest country in the world is a moral issue. He also said that our government has the power to create and sustain a strong middle class. That would help get 17% of Oklahoma’s population – 587,591 people – out of poverty.

Public Forum

The Real Highway To Heaven? Try I-35

By Karen Webb

I heard it first on Channel 4 in Oklahoma City, but when I read Holy Highway: Evangelicals Pray to “Light” Interstate 35 on the Internet, I knew why I had been feeling so Like a Virgin, touched for the very first time. Like a vir-r-r-r-gin.

Oklahoma’s Illogical Voting Is Inexplicable

By Edwin E. Vineyard

Most of us will recall a little of our earlier education in syllogistic reasoning, limited as it may have been. It went something like the following: All terriers are dogs. All dogs are mammals. Therefore, all terriers are mammals.

Observations

Flunked!

Yet another attempt to allow tiny minorities ballot access in Oklahoma has failed – a whopping 70,000 signatures short.

What Budget?

Little wonder that the legislative powers that be want to restructure state government. The Oklahoma Tourism Department is Exhibit A – caught sequestering an internal audit showing gross mismanagement.

Nursing Homes

It’s a prospect dreaded by those reaching advanced years – the nursing home. Especially in Oklahoma, where they are grossly underfunded.

Dumb & Dumber

A survey by Charles Schwab & Co. Inc. found that American teens not only don’t know much about handling money, they don’t know that they don’t know anything about personal financial literacy.

Bush Tax Cut

From 2001 to 2006, the typical middle-income American received a tax cut totaling $1,855 per family member [over the six years]. But that family’s share of the added national debt burden was $8,936 per person.

Plea

Still have that Christmas spirit? Enid’s Disabled American Veterans chapter will have to foot the bill to replace its van used to transport veterans to Oklahoma City for medical treatment after it was totaled in an accident on Jan. 4.
The accident has put the group into a fundraising bind, needing to raise $13,500 by the end of April. There are veterans who wouldn’t get any medical care if not for the van.
If you want to help, give the DAV chapter a call 580.242.3808 or send your check to DAV Chapter 66, 601 N. 26th St., Enid, OK 73701.