Opinion

OKLAHOMA CITY – The plight of children across our state often leaves me frustrated and searching for solutions. I am not alone, as many state leaders focus on youth-related programs and solutions to children’s issues.

An idea known as agenda setting theory put forth about a century by Walter Lippman posits that controlling what people think about is one way to control what people think. Learning about that theory decades ago led me to conduct a decidedly unscientific survey to test the truth of that theory.

DEAR ABBY: My husband passed away four months ago, after battling cancer for years. He declined in a month, and we chose hospice at home. (I did not find them particularly caring or helpful.) This was even more depressing because it happened during COVID.

DEAR ABBY: I reconnected with an old flame, “Ollie,” eight years ago. We would see each other and catch up during a weekly event he hosted. We’re both married with kids. We kept it non-physical but connected emotionally. We chatted every day and confessed our attraction to each other while still not engaging in anything more than our weekly encounters among friends.

Dear Abby: A dear friend I have known since we were children was murdered. She was lovely in every way, and I am bereft. I cannot process my grief over her untimely passing because it was accompanied by such trauma.

Last week, President Joe Biden submitted to Congress his budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2023 that plainly states his funding priorities and goals. Like all presidential budgets, it is simply a request and is not enforceable by law. In fact, several policies recommended in this budget stand no chance of passing both chambers or being signed into law. Unfortunately, the wish list reveals President Biden’s desire to double down on his out-of-touch policies and out-of-control spending from his failed budget proposal from the previous fiscal year and the wildly unpopular Build Back Better bill. Clearly, in ignoring the actual priorities of the American people in his dead-on-arrival budget, the president has learned nothing from his first year.

DEAR ABBY: I am a 50-year-old man, married for 25 years. My wife is older than me. In the beginning, it was great, but our relationship slowly started failing, and now we argue about everything. I feel like I’m trapped in a cage. We don’t have one single thing in common anymore.

Political parties have long been seen as good or bad, but these days, they are often just seen as ugly. While political parties are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, they have been part of our political system since the days of President George Washington.