Opinion

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What Oklahoma policymakers can learn from the Thunder

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The NBA Summer League recently concluded, and the Oklahoma City Thunder’s rebuild was front-and-center with a plethora of young talent on the roster.

This talent has many pundits praising the direction of the team and how the Thunder rebuild has been handled.

It also provides our state’s political leaders with an example they could follow.

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Reading and math results alarming

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The surge of inflation under President Joe Biden has given many people flashbacks to the 1970s. Sadly, the latest data released by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) evokes a similar sense of déjà vu.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) administered the NAEP long-term trend reading and math assessments to 13-year-old students from October to December of the 2022–23 school year.

The results provide much reason for alarm.

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Foreign farmland ownership a detriment to national security

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Everyone in Oklahoma is keenly aware that food security is national security. A nation that cannot feed itself cannot hope to defend itself. 

Because of this, it is essential we protect our farmland, especially from foreign adversaries. For far too long we’ve seen entities - Chinese in particular - coming over and buying our agricultural land. That’s why I’ve led on several fronts to address this troubling issue. 

Letter to the Editor: 988 Mental Health Lifeline a valuable resource

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To the Editor:

The term “mental health” is a subject that is not talked about enough in our tribal communities. In my family, I remember the men and boys were always told to be strong and not to cry. This is a mindset I learned to live with until I couldn’t any longer.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve endured traumatic events and grief that I needed to process, but I didn’t know how. When I lost my mother in January 2022, I was lost and broken. I didn’t know how to pick up the pieces of the life I knew until I was told, “It’s OK to ask for help, Zach.”

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The Rosenberg Case is closed. Time to open the books

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The case, many say, is long closed.

It’s been 70 years since the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. It’s been 28 years since the public release of decrypted Soviet cables revealing that Julius Rosenberg was indeed guilty, and at least strongly implying that Ethel Rosenberg knowingly participated in his espionage work -- not just typing documents to hand over to his handlers, but even actively recruiting her own brother into the operation.

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Family focus desperately needed

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U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has declared war on a “loneliness epidemic.” Murthy noted “about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones and support systems.”

According to the CDC, 25.5 percent of adults ages 18-24 reported having seriously considered suicide in the past month.

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The Industrial Revolution: Truth and Consequences

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“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences,” reads the opening lines of “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski’s notorious manifesto, “have been a disaster for the human race.”

Kaczynski, who recently died in prison, blamed that period of history not just for “severe damage to the natural world,” but for destabilizing society, making life unfulfilling and inflicting indignity and psychological suffering on humankind. Perhaps not entirely in fairness, I fancy I detect a similar tone in Peter Bach’s recent “Letter from London” in CounterPunch.

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UFOs: I want to believe, but I trust no one in government

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What differentiates David Charles Grusch -- who claims that the U.S. government has in its possession “intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin” -- from previous people making similar claims?

The big and obvious difference is that his back story seems to check out.

For purposes of comparison: Bob Lazar, a celebrity in “The Truth is Out There” community, claims degrees in physics from MIT and electronics from CalTech.