Writers We Like: Philip Roth Honored Again

The literary world this week honored Philip Roth with the PEN/Faulkner Award for his 2006 novel Everyman. It was Roth's third time to win the PEN/Faulkner award.

We haven't read his new work, but our earlier experiences with Roth's book have been memorable. He's not to everyman's taste (pun intended), but Roth has the storyteller's gift and his best work is powerful and profound. And, amazingly, he keeps on writing inventive, provocative novels, well after many of his contemporaries have gone to seed.

The bookstores and online booksellers have old and new Roth novels, many of which we can recommend. He's a great American writer.

Gore's Global Warning: The Glaciers are Melting

Writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben has published a summary of the recently released report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the March 15 issue of The New York Review of Books.

McKibben's article is not optimistic. He notes that the international group of scientists who complied the report sacrificed the most current data for, in McKibben's words, "lowest-common-denominator conclusions that are essentially beyond argument." The sea level is continuing to rise, for example, at rates that are higher than even the IPCC report predicted. The icesheets of Greenland and Antarctic, McKibben notes, appear to be moving more quickly toward the sea.

If the details in the report aren't alarming enough, the New York Review has published two amazing photos of glaciers in Patagonia, Argentina, both from Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

The top photo, taken in 1928, shows a vast sheet of glacier ice stretching from the photographer off to distant mountain peaks. The lower photo shows the same scene in 2004. The glacier is gone, replaced by a large blue lake and a foreground of barren land. It's beautiful, but it's not a happy scene.

Ignorance is Bliss: That's Why Hannity Smiles

We had the misfortune yesterday to hear radio talker Sean Hannity prattle on about Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. As expected, Hannity blasted the Hollywood liberals and former Vice President Al Gore, who was honored by the Academy when his film, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Oscar as Best Documentary.

Always a "red meat" talker, Hannity unloaded on the movie industry and Hollywood people, making clear that the Academy Awards telecast was a dud with the public.

But Hannity was—once again—half-cocked. In fact, television ratings for the show were up slightly over last year with an average audience of 39.9 million viewers. Last year the show attracted an average of 38.9 million viewers. The show also surpassed the season's top-rated entertainment television program, the premiere of Fox's "American Idol," which drew 37.4 million.

On his Fox News television show Monday night, Hannity whined long and loud about Gore and his movie. Once again, however, his grasp of the facts was fast and loose. Hannity commented on the Melissa Etheridge song from An Inconvenient Truth that was performed during the broadcast, noting that blatant "environmental propaganda" was projected on the scene behind Etheridge.

Well, not quite. The projections were, in fact, scenes from the film itself, an call to action that the filmmakers included at the end of An Inconvenient Truth. Hannity didn't seem to know this, of course, not having actually seen the film. (We did.)

We don't object to Hannity's opinions. We object to Hannity's repeated distortions of the facts in the service of his preconceived opinions. It's dishonest, of course, but what good is honesty to a guy like Sean Hannity?

Tulsa People Magazine Sports Clean New Design

Tulsa People, Langdon Publishing's 21-year-old city magazine, has an impressive new look. The March 2007 issue looks, well, great.

We don't claim to be type or design experts, but we are impressed with the magazine's clean, new look, as well as its cover story, "Going Green," which includes a number of useful and informative pieces on environmentalism in T-Town.

In his column in the new issue, publisher Jim Langdon explains that the magazine's new design took several months and was created to make the magazine brighter and easier to read.

As we said, the new design works. We especially like the semi-gloss paper they're using now—it feels good and prints beautifully. Kudos to Langdon and the design folks at Tulsa People.

Beyond the beautiful but old-fashioned world of printing, Langdon also reports that the online edition of Tulsa People is also thriving. The January issue, he writes, received more than 71,000 page views and the magazine sends out some 3,000 e-mails monthly to alert people to its online edition.

You can check out the site for yourself at www.tulsapeoplemagazine.com.

Let the Ladybugs Do the Work: Organic Gardening Workshop Set Saturday at TCC

The good folks at Sustainable Green Country and the Tulsa Community Gardening Association are sponsoring an organic gardening workshop on Saturday, March 3, at the TCC northeast campus.

The workshop will be taught by Mike Appel and Emily Oakley of Three Springs Farm. (Those of you who are regulars at the Cherry Street Farmers Market will recognize Mike and Emily.)

The workshop runs from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and costs $5.

The TCC northeast campus is at 3757 East Apache. Pre-registration is recommended. For more information, call 857-1206 or go to www.sustainablegreencountry.org.

Cheney's Crystal Ball on Iraq: Consistently Wrong

AltTulsa's nomination for Quote of the Day:

If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn’t been right on hardly anything.

--former President Jimmy Carter, speaking today.

When the Gender Police Attack: Tulsa's Girl Wrestler Overcomes the Odds

Remember when cultural conservatives were more interested in personal freedom and individual initiative than in formulating rules for the rest of us to follow?

If you—like us—have a hard time recalling those days, here's a quick reminder of how some right-wingers use their narrow ideology to impose restrictions on folks who stray from the gospel of right-thinking.

Witness the case of a Tulsa high school senior who this week signed a wrestling scholarship at Oklahoma City University. The deal will help the student pay for college.

But wait—the student is, heaven forbid, a girl! A girl who wrestles! Who ever heard of such a thing? Turns out, OCU is one of a handful of schools that now sponsor women's wrestling as a varsity sport. (Canada has 16 colleges that sponsor women wrestlers. Who knew our northern neighbors were Godless heathens?)

Indeed, our East Central High School student, loves to wrestle. It's her passion. The Tulsa World reports that Cheyenne Stokes got her first taste of the sport as a mere 5-year-old when she watched another girl wrestle at a tournament in New Mexico. Her dad was unenthusiastic, but Cheyenne persevered and is now ranked as one of the top female prep wrestlers in America.

But leave it to our friends on the right to see this success as an affront to proper femininity. Women, we are assured, must be modest and stay away from pastimes that are rough, sweaty, or otherwise unbiblical.

At least that's the view of a conservative Oklahoma City activist and blogger, who this week criticized women's wrestling and OCU for straying from the gospel. (Those dang college-educated, libertine Methodists—never know what they'll do next!)

We admit: we don't know God's mind on the issue of women's wrestling. We don't think the critics do either. But we can argue with some confidence that notions of femininity are culturally determined and dynamic, not locked in place, and certainly not locked in the ancient world. It wasn't that long ago, after all, that women right in the the good ole USA were told they couldn't be doctors, lawyers, architects, ministers, journalists, and so on. Those notions of "proper" femininity were wrong.

We support Cheyenne. She pursued her passion and showed initiative. She overcame obstacles. She succeeded. All this seems wonderfully and powerfully American to us.

Bristow Farm Offers Organic Food Plan

Nuyaka Natural Farms of Bristow is offering an innovative plan for locally grown, organic food this year.

The idea, called Community Supported Agriculture, works as follows: Customers purchase shares in Nuyaka's 2007 share plan for a fixed amount. The farm, in turn, supplies its members with weekly "shares" from the farm for a 39-week growing season. From April through December, the folks at Nuyaka will supply their members with spinach, basil, onions, cucumbers, melons, peppers, and much more.

The payoff, Nuyaka says, is two-fold. Members get a rich supply of locally grown fruits, herbs and vegetables, while the farm gets a dependable market for their organically produced, earth-friendly agricultural practices.

It's an interesting idea and a great alternative to the mass-produced, industrial farming that fills most grocery shelves. We wish the Nuyaka Natural Farm well. For more information about the farm and membership options, contact them at 918-752-0628 or e-mail nuyakanaturalfarm @hotmail.com.

Full disclosure: We at AltTulsa do not have a financial interest in Nuyaka nor are we connected with them in any way. We simply like their proposal and think it is a great way to support local farmers. Our information on Nuyaka Farm comes from a brochure we picked up recently at Shades of Brown, our favorite Brookside coffee shop in midtown Tulsa.

Texas Monthly Weighs in on the Bush Legacy

It's not a pretty picture. Texas Monthly, the award-winning magazine published south of the Red River, has published a cover story on the legacy of favorite son George W. Bush.

The magazine asked a group of 15 scholars and political observers to weigh in on the President's performance. Predictably, the Republican pundits are much more sympathetic than the Democratic writers.

Nevertheless, there's a definite theme to the proceedings: the Bush legacy is in trouble.

Here are a few samples from Texas Monthly's March issue:

You can have a phony pretext for for, but you've got to win. By not winning in Iraq, President Bush has very little legacy left to stand on.
--Douglas Brinkley, presidential scholar and professor of history at Tulane

I am unable as of now to escape the feeling that George Bush has done what is, for a president, a very dangerous thing. He has surrounded himself with people who have the same way of looking at the world as he does.
--Robert Caro, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer

Will Bush be in the top rank among presidents? Obviously not. Will he be seen as an average president? Possibly not.
--Robert Dallek, presidential biographer

The things that he chose to have happen—cutting taxes and going to war in Iraq—were not decisions he had to make at all. He decided to do these things utterly on his own. The fact that he got them both wrong is going to really tell against his historical reputation.
--H. W. Brands, University of Texas professor of history

Bush is a risk taker, and we all know that risk takers will sooner or later bet the house on a bad hand…. In the end, it's one of those tantalizing stories of greatness in some measure spoiled by one bad call.
--Niall Ferguson, Harvard history professor and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution

As we said, it's not a pretty picture. Even long-time Bush supporters are depressed about the president's record. Marvin Olasky, the UT journalism professor and conservative writer who coined the term "compassionate conservatism," found little to celebrate in the Bush years. Reviewing Bush's efforts on behalf of the poor, Olasky concluded that the president has been "moderately weak."

Iraq War Vet Steamed about Hospital Conditions

Iraq war veteran Paul Rieckhoff is ticked off. Writing as a "special guest blogger" today on tpmcafe.com, Rieckhoff joins the chorus of critics concerned about conditions for some wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

The uproar over substandard housing for wounded vets comes after a long investigation by the Washington Post, which published the story last week. Since then, army and Pentagon officials have apologized and promised to improve conditions at Building 18, an roach-infested, mould-ridden site where many outpatient veterans were housed.

Rieckhoff, author of Chasing Ghosts, a well-regarded memoir of his days in Iraq, now heads a veteran's organization and is a frequent critic of the Bush Administration's handling of the Iraq conflict.

Anti-War Petitioners Overwhelm Rep. Fallin's Office

If the polls are right, Oklahomans are increasingly opposed to George Bush's war in Iraq.

Rep. Mary Fallin discovered that herself Thursday when about two dozen anti-war activists piled into her Oklahoma City office, attempting to deliver letters opposing the president's troop buildup.

According to the report we saw, Fallin's staff ordered the activists to leave. They did.

A Fallin spokeswoman said the order to leave was a misunderstanding because the office workers were overwhelmed by the crowd.

Fair enough. But we hope that Rep. Fallin, a Republican who supports the troop buildup, got the message.

Dubious Distinction: We're No. 5 in Heart Disease

Oklahoma hearts are not as healthy as they ought to be. That's one unhappy conclusion we can draw from a study released recently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC study showed that Oklahoma ranks fifth in the nation in the prevalence of heart disease, with 7.5 percent of state residents saying that they have suffered a heart attack, angina or coronary heart disease.

Why does Oklahoma fare so poorly in these health numbers? According to sources cited by the Tulsa World, we have high rates of obesity, diabetes, and smoking. Not surprisingly, the risk factors are higher for men than for women, and higher for Native Americans than for whites, blacks, Hispanics, or Asians.

Fifth in the nation—hard to see much good in this ranking. But at least we're ahead of four other states: West Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee.

Egyptian Blogger Jailed for 'Insults'

We at AltTulsa believe in free speech. It's a good thing, we always say, when citizens can criticize their government, government leaders, and other powerful institutions and people without fear of reprisal.

But an Egyptian blogger named Abdel Kareem Soliman this week discovered the limits of free speech in Egypt. According to the BBC News, Soliman was sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egypt's leader, President Hosni Mubarak.

The trial—if you can call it that—took all of five minutes.

Soliman is the first Egyptian blogger to be prosecuted, the BBC reported. His offenses included criticism of the nation's top Islamic institution, al-Azhar university, which Soliman called "the university of terrorism." Soliman referred to Mubarak as a dictator.

Amnesty International, the BBC reported, called Soliman's prosecution "yet another slap in the face for freedom of expression in Egypt."

We know little of Egyptian life or politics, but even in an authoritarian country with restrictive laws and customs, a five-minute trial and a four-year prison term are extraordinarily unfair and unjust.

The only good news in this situation comes from a fellow Egyptian blogger named Amr Gharbeia. He told the BBC that other Egyptian bloggers would keep up their criticism. We hope he's right. If he's not, he may end up in the cell next to Soliman.

Abu Ghraib Documentary Film Comes to HBO

A few weeks back, we recommended the documentary film, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, then playing at Tulsa's Circle Cinema. It's a powerful and damning exploration of the people and policies that led to the mistreatment and, yes, torture, of prisoners at the infamous Iraqi prison.

We see today that the film, by Rory Kennedy, will be broadcast on HBO tomorrow night, Thursday, February 22.

We recommend the documentary, not because it's pleasant viewing, but because it helps explain some of the many mistakes made by military and civilian officials in the conduct of the Iraq war. It also gives a human face to some of the prisoners and some of the soldiers whose lives intersected at Abu Ghraib.

See the film. Nobody comes out unscathed.

Boy Soldier's Memoir on Sale in Brookside

We blogged last week about Ishmael Beah's book, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Beah was a teenager in Sierra Leone when he was pressed into service and exploited by the nation's army in its fight against a rebel group.

After years of violence and combat, much of it fuelled by army-administered drugs, Beah and other boys soldiers were rescued by Unicef. Beah ended up in the U.S., where--against all odds--he became a college student and a writer.

We picked up a copy of Beah's book the other day at the Starbucks in Brookside. (From what we could glean, Starbucks is promoting the book as a part of a humanitarian effort in Africa.)

We've only read excerpts of the Beah's story, but it's a gripping and terrible tale. It's also a small miracle that Beah survived the ordeal in his right mind and he has turned his horrifying experience into a story American readers can appreciate.

Tulsa Republicans: We've Got God

It's too bad that we missed the Tulsa County Republican Convention on Saturday. Based on the report in the Tulsa World, it was a very interesting meeting—part political rally, part tent-revival service.

Besides the usual calls for less government regulation, repeal of the income tax, and other such political proposals, local GOP officials apparently took a detour through Sunday school. World reporter Randy Krehbiel noted that the conventioneers approved a statement of principle that, in the words of the statement, "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge."

The wise, God-fearing Republican leaders also supported the teaching of creationism, as well as the posting of the Ten Commandments and "In God We Trust" in all public schools. Finally, the Tulsa Grand Ole Party expressed support (as if we had any doubt) for Judeo-Christian values, "while maintaining freedom of religion for the individual."

There's a lot to ponder in this list of pro-God resolutions. And frankly, we're jealous. We thought we could be pro-God too. Yet the Republicans seem to have God squarely in their corner. They have no doubts. They know full well, for example, that God rejects modern biological science, no matter what the biologists say. They know, too, that school children will never misbehave or cheat on math tests again if God's Word is tacked on the schoolhouse wall. (If only God worked this way!)

And though we see no actual evidence of God's preference for the GOP, we suppose it's possible that God really is a Republican. We just don't know which kind of Republican God really is: A born-again evangelical Republican like Pat Robertson or James Dobson? A Mormon Republican like Mit Romney? A Catholic Republican like Rudolph Giuliani? A Methodist Republican like George W. Bush?

We like to think that God is above partisan politics. And that God might be somehow available to Oklahoma Democrats, independents, libertarians and other back-sliders who don't follow the official gospel of the Tulsa GOP. But then again, we could be wrong.