Meet me in the middle

I’m just going to say it.

I am not political, liberal, conservative, left, right or preoccupied by the sexuality of people around me.

I don’t like it that the head of a company can be figuratively boiled in oil for touting his love for Jesus Christ. And I don’t like it that someone would tout love for Jesus Christ while turning fellow human souls away - from labor, from family, from fellowship - because of who they are or what they do or where they fit in with his thinking.

I don’t like it that gay bashers would use a man’s courage to own his faith as a rallying point to not speak up for Jesus so much as to speak out against someone else, or an entire segment of the population.

I don’t like it that some have decided that if we don’t share their customs we can’t share their higher power.

I don’t like it that some are hell-bent to create God in their own image.

I don’t like it that in some eyes Christianity has become synonymous with rigid narrow mindedness and intolerance. I have met Christians from the far reaches of the world who walk in Jesus’ light, hold their hands out to those in need and drape their arms around the shoulders of those who on the outside appear different, though inside we are all the same.

Some of these Christians are gay. Some are Democrats. Some are left-handed. Some are vegan. Some have tattoos. Some text and drive, though I wish they wouldn’t.

The thing is, no matter how polarized we as humanity allow ourselves to become in response to loud, judgmental and condescending people on any side of an issue, we still are not nor will we ever be the one whose opinion will decide eternity.

I want to live in a world where I can believe what I believe without being bashed for it and live the lifestyle I am hard-wired to live without being condemned for being perceived wrong or scooped onto a sanctimonious pedestal for being anointed “right.” No matter what.

The Jesus in my life led me to believe he and his dad would take care of the judgment portion of the program. My job was to know his love and to share it.

I don’t believe I can practice love and charity in the same breath it takes to march lock-step with the far right or the far left.

You won’t hear me spout my views on these issues very often. That is not who I am. But if you want to find me, look for me quietly living my life here, sometimes alone it seems, on middle ground.

Thank you to our military veterans

Memorial Day has come and gone. This year, it seemed, there was less talk about going to the lake and more talk about paying homage to our military men and women who have given so much to protect our freedoms. That is a good shift in priorities.

At the Stillwater NewsPress we are collecting military stories again for a Courage Under Fire section we will distribute July 4. If you are a Stillwater-area veteran and you want to submit your story in your own words, write it down, dictate it to a friend or family member and send it to the NewsPress. If you want to talk to a reporter/videographer, let us know. This is our third Independence Day to share vets’ stories. We have done similar projects for Veterans Day the past two years.

Our veterans can never be adequately repaid for the sacrifices they have made and for the freedoms they have secured for us. We want to share their stories. If you are a Stillwater-area veteran or want to tell us about a veteran you know or knew, email me at editor@stwnewspress.com.

And to all who served, thank you.

April 19, 1995, on our minds as Woodward digs out

April can be a rough month.

Emergency responders from miles around swarmed in after a tornado slammed through Woodward last weekend. Some of these same emergency responders flooded into Oklahoma City 17 years ago after terrorists bombed the Murrah Federal Building and killed 168 people, many of them children. Our heart still cries for their families.

We cannot let April 19 pass without a nod to these men and women who go where the rest of us dare not go, do what we cannot manage and see what we could not bear. Firefighters, law enforcement agents, emergency medical crews, search and rescue teams of humans and their animal partners go where they are needed, when they are needed, and more often than not without being asked.

My husband – full disclosure here: he is a retired firefighter – has an art print by Katherine Huggins, who for a time was affiliated with Oklahoma State University Fire Service Training. The drawing is of an eagle. Embedded in its outstretched wing is the image of a firefighter in full bunkout gear.

The print says: “To those who fight for it, life has a flavor the protected never know.”

I think of Katherine’s drawing, and the verse, when a soldier heads to war, when an emergency siren sounds, when tragedy strikes and the men and women who have dedicated their lives to saving us, protecting us and helping us, rush to their posts and to our aid.

Everyday people can be heroes. We see that in the aftermath of tragedy and catastrophe. Thanks to our heroes, Oklahoma, though forever scarred, is moving on from the horrific bombing that left a hole in our state capital and a hole in our hearts on April 19 - 17 years ago.

Thanks to the heroes at Woodward, whether a rescuer in uniform, a country star like Larry Gatlin taking the stage and reaching out with his song or a neighbor offering a hand, that community’s storm survivors, too, will move on. It’s going to take awhile.

April is a rough month.

Contact J.B. at jbittner05@gmail.com.

Woodward tornado survivors need support, not scams

I didn’t grow up in Woodward, Okla. I moved there as a young adult to be editor of a local newspaper. I married one of her sons and the community welcomed me and let me call her my home. Half my life has been spent there. My family is there still. Now tragedy and devastation, brought on by a massive tornado, have knocked my adopted hometown to her knees. And, 150 miles away, it’s ripping my heart out of my chest to see her pain, her loss, her despair. Our friends and neighbors are trying to salvage rain-soaked wedding pictures and keepsakes that can’t be replaced. They are picking up, cleaning up, clothing their children and helping themselves. They will get through this - together. Because they are tough and they're strong and they have faith, and each other. But today – before Woodward has even had a chance to bury her dead – we hear that crooks and thieves are preying on her people’s misfortune and confusion. People impersonating federal disaster workers are contacting Woodward tornado victims and soliciting money – lying that it’s a part of the process. I can’t even put into words what that makes me want to do. Woodward is a strong, independent community of good, honest, hard-working people. Woodward, Okla., is the heart of the oilfield and the wind industry. Much of the world’s iodine is extracted from the earth there, just north of town. This community’s people are farmers and ranchers, educators, professionals, public servants and manual laborers. They are Hometown, America. They don’t ask for anything and they are ready to give and give and give. Be at Woodward when a child is lost or a house burns or a family needs a roof or a meal or a gift for a child at Christmas. You will know in an instant you have been allowed in to a special place. This is a community that doesn’t know how to take. And now, after Mother Nature has taken so much, shameless people with no conscience are swooping in at the town’s weakest moment and trying to take the little bit its storm victims have left. A country singer from Woodward crooned a few decades back that the people in Northwest Oklahoma are the salt of the earth. Heck, I don’t even know what that means. But I know it’s a good thing. And those good people are battered and hurting. They are looking back on huge losses and looking ahead to enormous struggle. We can’t take back what has changed their world, but we can help them through it. If your heart calls you to donate to Woodward’s tornado victims, do it through a reputable organization, like your church or your civic club or the American Red Cross or the Salvation Army. If you donate through a relief organization make sure you designate the money is intended for the tornado victims in Woodward County and Northwest Oklahoma. Bank of Western Oklahoma in Woodward, 580-254-5525, is overseeing a tornado relief fund to take monetary donations. But if you or anyone you know is even thinking about reaching out to these folks in a way that is anything less than charitable, honest, helpful and sincere, let me paraphrase the video that thunders across the JumboTron at Boone Pickens Stadium when our Oklahoma State Cowboys take the field. If you hurt my homefolks, I’m coming for you. And Hell’s ridin' with me.

Happy birthday, Dad

My dad would have been 96 today. He died a couple months shy of his 90th birthday. My dad and I were not close. I was several rungs down the ladder from his favorite child. That is not to say I took nothing positive away from the relationship. My dad taught me two productive lessons I have adopted as my own. They were useful in our farm life when I was a child and I draw on them still today. “After you go through a gate, close it.” “After you use a tool, put it back in its place.” I might not exhibit much discipline in many areas of my life – I have been known to eat out of the frozen yogurt carton on occasion and the floor of the car can make a good collector of empty coffee cups when I am driving. But I know where to find my hammer when I need it, because I put it in its place after I used it the last time. And if my horses get out, it’s because passing white-tail deer tramped through their pasture fence, not because I left a gate open.

Sunshine Week: Keep the sun shining on government

Government business is best conducted in the light of day, with all eyes open. Today launches Sunshine Week, a time set aside to spotlight how important open government and freedom of information are to not only those of us who cover the news, but to all who are affected by the business of government. Voters select the people they feel are best for the job, or at least those who best represent their positions on issues of the day. Then how the city, county, state and country are run is left in the hands of the elected. It is a system that is not without its faults but one that we believe remains the best in the world. But giving a vote to a candidate is not the same as giving over all power. You as individuals and we as the media have the right to monitor what elected officials do with the power to govern they’ve been handed, how they spend the public’s money, how they perform as stewards of the public trust. To exercise that right, the public must have access to information, records and the decision-making process used by city councilors, county commissioners, state legislators and all others in public power. Not only is transparency in government a necessity, it is the law. Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Law provides only a few listed exceptions to the mandate that the people’s business be conducted in public. The law extends not only to government bodies but to other boards and groups, like school boards and regents, that have been given the privilege of overseeing public business and spending public funds. Sometimes those who are the overseers of the public’s business forget, at least temporarily, their role. They decide that tax dollars being spent are theirs to dole out without recourse or oversight and that records belonging to the public are their own property rather than simply entrusted to their care. When those memory lapses hit, we in the media are obliged to step up and say let the sun shine on government. We are committed to keeping the veil pulled away from the face of the public’s business. When those in government don’t remember the law, or simply don’t follow the law – in ignorance, in defiance or for whatever reason – the people must remind them. If the media are lax in standing up for open meetings and open records, it will be no time at all before the people will be lax in demanding transparency as well. When no one watches, when no one complains, when no one takes up the cause of righting wrongs and holding tight the rights we own, then those rights are placed in jeopardy. When the people’s rights concerning how they are governed, how their tax dollars are spent, how public decisions are made, erode even the slightest then the next time it becomes easier to say no and more difficult to conduct business in the open. It can be something so slight as a birth date removed from a criminal charge that otherwise would have let your neighbors and business colleagues know the defendant is not you but someone else with the same name. It can be something so simple as a city commission vote on an item not on the meeting’s agenda. It can be something that seems so little. And yet it means so much. Open government and freedom of information are on our minds, as community journalists, 52 weeks a year. This week, we remind you how important they are to your lives year round, too. Let the sun shine. J.B. Blosser Bittner is Stillwater NewsPress editor.

Voter turnout not so super for Super Tuesday

Stillwater’s mayor election drew a whopping 4,863 voters, most of them showing up to elect Councilor John Bartley to become the city’s next mayor.
Bartley indeed won big, with more than 81 percent of votes cast. But Bartley’s 3,968 votes represent only a tiny sliver of the voter pie in Stillwater, Okla.
With 22,978 registered voters in Stillwater, that means Bartley was elected by less than 18 percent of registered voters. That’s a sad commentary on our population’s use of the rights we have. I suppose having the right to vote means also having the right to not vote.
I will be interested to hear someone explain that position to the Stillwater soldiers coming home from Afghanistan in the coming weeks. They just spent the past year away from family -- and fighting terrorism. Most of Stillwater just spent election day doing anything but voting.
Thank you to our military men and women who put my freedoms ahead of their own lives. I voted today. You didn’t tell me how to vote. You simply stepped up to defend our way of life so that I could.

Spring gardening can wait - until spring

Neighbors are raking and pulling and mowing and clearing a winter's worth of yard litter. Or is it simply the debris of a very long fall?
I am slow to join the swarm of early March gardeners. I picked up a few limbs, raked a handful of crumpled pecan shells and took a run at a 6-inch layer of sycamore tree leaves hobknobbing with the aftermath of a full grown oak. 
With temperatures more May than March we feel the pressure to pluck and prod and plant and prune. It will come. It will come.
But not today. 
Today is feet up, iced tea, favorite jeans, a nearby dog belly craving a scratch. I love Sunday afternoon.

Singer's death sparks childhood memories

I was way too young to think about boys.
But there he was. Those eyes, that smile. And when he talked - ahhh.
I oh so carefully mounted his picture on the wall above my dresser. I was in heaven.
And now, no doubt in the minds of grown up little girls around the world, Davy Jones is in heaven, too.
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Jones.

What is going on with this weather?

Mild weather, sunshine, a little green cropping up in the lawn.
What is February trying to do to us? Don’t mess with us, winter. You tempt us with spring and then you will taunt us with snow.
We’re on to you. Behave yourself. Give us spring when we deserve it. And don’t snatch it back with icy precision.
We have dogs to walk and hills to climb and waves to ride and trails to traverse in the open air. Do not mess with us.

OK, I've been Christmas shopping

I am not the most joyful giver. There, I said it.
Maybe it is because I am not the most joyful shopper.
My Christmas shopping is unplanned, ill-prepared and involves a significant amount of huddling next to the bicycles and texting grown nephews and nieces to solicit toy preferences and t-shirt sizes of their little darlings.
Is Barbie in? Are Legos out? I can't keep up.
I stuck a Fashionista Barbie in the shopping cart only to have my eyes drawn oddly to her spindly plastic legs. Creepy, creepy knees. Back on the shelf with that one.
And is there honestly anybody in America who believes that brown-haired doll looks like Justin Bieber? Really?
I like to give books. Maybe it's because I love books and think everyone should. Do people read books with real paper pages and not electronic pixels? I do, but who else?
Books are difficult to select for gift giving unless you plan to share a title you've already read or the work of an author you particularly like.
Some book titles turn off my attention. Ever notice how many bibles there are out there? I don't mean King James and New International Version. I'm talking about people billing their books for every imaginable thing as the bible on the subject. This is the recognized bible on getting out of debt, or selecting a new car, or getting your kid into college. No, it isn't. The Bible is the bible. Get your own name.
My shopping isn't finished. I don't know when it will be. But I've pretty much exhausted the toy section with my aversion to creepy doll knees.
And if you are looking for the Biebster in your stocking, I hope you recognize him when you see him.

Black Friday behind us

As soon as the Thanksgiving leftovers were tucked away, it became official. Christmas shopping season is upon us.
I don't do the Black Friday frenzy. I'd rather sleep in, have pumpkin pie for breakfast and think about dragging the Christmas tree out of the garage. The contemplating comes early on. The action comes later.
I got one of those forward to everyone you know or you don't love America emails that advocated leaving the China imports on the shelf and reaching out to local businesses to meet our gift shopping needs.
I admit I am the first to delete mass emails. They suck away my time, clog my inbox and frankly are usually perpetuation of myth, faulty logic and/or outright bs. What prompted me to skim this one instead of promptly hitting delete, I don't recall.
The gist was an idea of giving gifts of local services and goods to those on our list, to provide a useful and meaningful - and often needed - gift while contributing to the economic health of local businesses. Keeping those businesses and local services alive helps us by meeting our needs, helps them by supporting their livelihood, helps provide jobs for the people our demand for their business helps them employ, and on and on.
Some ideas: Buy a manicure/pedicure gift certificate for an aunt; monthly car washes for a nephew; grocery store gift cards for seniors on a fixed income - you get the drift.
Why not?

Oklahoma State Memorial

Gallagher-Iba Arena is filling up with the orange and black most familiar here at Oklahoma State University.
More black than orange today.
Students, staff, alumni and fans gather to remember women's basketball coach Kurt Budke, assistant coach Miranda Serna and alumni Olin Branstetter and Paula Branstetter.
All four died in Arkansas Thursday after the Branstetters' plane nose-dived into a hillside during a recruiting trip.
Gov Mary Fallin, an OSU, alum, will attend the memorial. She also is asking the state's universities to review their travel policies. A decade ago 10 people affiliated with OSU men's basketball died in a plane crash in Colorado.

Singing to the choir

RW Hampton slung an acoustic guitar over his shoulder, dusted his boots across a dirt arena and stepped by way of a bale of grass hay onto a flatbed trailer doubling as a stage.
The crowd was finishing up the last bites of a chuck wagon dinner when Hampton eased up to a microphone to share the kind of songs he places under the uncluttered heading of cowboy.
There was a little Merle, a little gospel, a little bit of story telling set to chords.
And as Hampton played to a crowd of folks perched on folding metal chairs at the Payne County Expo Center, toes tapped, heads nodded and hands clapped.
Hampton's show was a little about being a cowboy, a little about being a Christian and a lot about music and family and faith and God and country.
And when the rugged wrangler with the boots and big hat offered up his flavor of country hymns and gospel standards, his audience was ready to put hands together. When RW Hampton vocalized about a higher power and a home in Heaven and the faith of fathers before him, well, in this cowboy church gathering, he was preaching to the choir.

Be careful out there

Area firefighters have been busy battling wildfires. Incredibly dry conditions turn vegetation to fuel for wildland fires. Add low humidity and a brisk Oklahoma breeze and catastrophe is just a spark away.
There are things we can do to prevent fires. Keep cigarettes and ashes inside the car. Maintain vehicles to prevent sparks and backfiring. Don't park in tall grass and weeds. Hot engines and exhaust systems can ignite dry grass. Adhere to the ban on outdoor burning. Avoid anything that causes sparks outside.
Firefighters also can offer tips on how to protect our homes and property from a wildfire that could encroach. Clear dead branches, weeds and grass away from houses and outbuildings. Is this winter's firewood stacked beside the barn or by the back door? Move it. Check with your area firefighters for more tips. They will be happy to advise - if they can keep off their fire trucks long enough.
And they are always there when we need them. Ever notice that? In the interest of full disclosure, I will say here that my husband is a retired firefighter and public education officer. He spent decades battling fires under all conditions and also teaching people, mostly kids, how to prevent fires and fire-related injuries.
Firefighters are there whenever we need them, putting their lives on the line every day. Let's keep in mind the threat to the people who fight fires. Maybe that will help us remember to take extra steps to prevent fires. Be safe.

Breast cancer threatens more than humans

The past two Octobers, the NewsPress has honored breast cancer victims and survivors with a daily series sharing their stories, their struggles, their obstacles and their triumphs.
Several months ago I learned that breast cancer does not prey only on humans.
My Welsh Corgi Scampi was diagnosed with breast cancer last fall. After surgery she was cancer free for the rest of 2010. But with 2011 came more cancer.
On June 25, the cancer won. Scampi went outside and scurried beneath the porch my husband built to ease her outdoor adventuring when the existing doorstep proved too much of a challenge. And there, she drew her last breath.
As much as I have mourned the passing of my loving Corgi, I also have resolved to spread the message. Spay your puppies. Our veterinarian says early spaying drastically reduces the chances of female dogs developing breast cancer.
I didn’t know.
And now she is gone at an age she should be curled up beside my chair.
We urge people to have their pets spayed and neutered to reduce the number of animals that suffer from neglect, abuse and homelessness.
And now I know spaying puppies can also reduce the number of premature deaths to breast cancer.
Do your friend a favor.

Goodbye, Betty Ford

America is saying goodbye to one of the strongest women - no, one of the strongest people - ever to occupy the White House.
Betty Ford was a first lady who shared her strength, her family, her weaknesses and her humor with her country.
Women too young to remember Betty Ford need only look around at the strong women influencing today's world and see her legacy.
Betty Ford was a feminist, a women's rights advocate and a symbol of strength. And she was willing to share with the world when challenges tested that strength.
She faced substance addiction and the Betty Ford clinic became a well-known center that served those whose
own addictions previously had been kept hidden.
When Betty Ford developed breast cancer, she let the world know. And she survived, empowering women everywhere.
Our world is a little less right now, it seems, with Betty Ford's death.
But our world is so much more because she was in it.

Earth Day - why not every day?

We need to take this earth thing seriously.
Recycling isn’t a fad. It’s a necessity. There will never be any more land than we have on this earth at this moment. And we are filling it up with trash. We have alternatives we can do every day in painless ways. Sort the plastic and the glass and the paper and the cans and see how they add up. When you heft them to the collection center look at their bulk and realize you saved that much space in a landfill.
A filter on a faucet eliminates mountains of plastic water bottles and provides the same clean water we find in a bottle. Filter your faucet water, fill up your favorite reusable container and go.
If your cabinet or broom closet is overflowing with plastic supermarket bags – hate to throw them away - there is an alternative. A favorite canvas tote bag or a reusable shopping bag marketed at any of dozens of stores gives you a handle on strong-arming those groceries without adding to the waste pile. Keep it in the car.
Our attention needs to go further than material things – in life and in protecting our Earth.
An appliance that is unplugged when not in use, a shower shortened by a minute, a thermostat 2 degrees up or down, a phone charger disconnected from the outlet when the phone is not on it – these reflect little earth-friendly things we can do and stay in our comfort zone.
When it comes to saving our planet, it’s great to go big. But until we are ready to go big, we can at least go small.
Let’s make every day Earth Day.

Martha Stewart knows her meatballs

How do you get your meatballs to blip the radar of Martha Stewart?
She told a recent studio audience that she sent her staff members out and about in New York to taste a basket of meatballs all over the city and report back.
But you don't get meatballs on the Martha Stewart Show solely on the vote of a Stewart staffer.
Ms. Stewart - may I call you Martha? - says she sampled the finalists to select several chefs to prepare their signature meatballs on a show in January.
Good day for me to be in the audience during a recent trip to Manhattan.
We tasted chicken meatballs spiced to present a forkable alternative to the finger licking that accompanies the traditional buffalo wing.
We tasted a family recipe that was nearly as big as a baseball and we tasted a ball with scrumptious cheese injected. OMG. There were no losers.
Sitting in the studio audience of the Martha Stewart Show was a guilty pleasure. I have not an ounce of craftiness in my body. I don't sew. I have no eye for color and design. I can prepare a couple of dinner dishes with limited confidence.
In short, I'm not Martha Stewart.
But darn it, I like her. I like that she is strong and talented and determined and independent and she takes charge and she accepts responsibility.
So, I signed up for a ticket. Easy enough to get. Go to her website - where you also will find information on her new ReMarthable giveaway.
And fill out not just a request but a section about yourself. It's the place the Martha faithful can list their special Martha-esque talents and interests. Despite my lack of any Marthaisms to recount, my ticket request was accepted.
Then a few days later came an e-mail with just a few little instructions. Wear bright colors. Martha likes bright colors, the Audience e-mail confides. OK. Jewel tones. OK. And be on time - which is nearly two hours before showtime. OK. And no photos during filming. OK. And don't haul in your luggage. Ah, those pesky tourists.
What did I learn about Martha Stewart during my few hours in her New York studio? No secrets. No revelations. Just the no-nonsense, all-business Martha Stewart we all see every day.
And that's what I came for. That and the meatballs.
And a cookbook. And a can of olive oil I wasn't sure I could get home in my checked travel bag. But I did.
Nothing short of ReMarthable.

Expecting a super Super Bowl?

Ah, the Super Bowl.
College football has been on hiatus a month. Wrestling is under way. Basketballs are pounding the hardwood. Major League Baseball players are thinking about packing for camp.
It must be Super Bowl time.
Green Bay? Pittsburgh? We'll know Sunday night.
Millions of people will tune in - most for the game, some for the commercials.
While you are watching football with all those millions of people, think of this. More people read newspapers than will be watching the Super Bowl Sunday night.