A Little Review

In this one we take a little look back at 2023.

AI-Generated Artwork: "An Oklahoma cat sitting in the red dust next to a 2023 calendar. The wind is slightly blowing. There are clouds in a darkening sky."

There is only one more newsletter this year after this one. The two-week holiday break is getting closer by the day. I’m really not ready for the year to be over. I feel there is so much more that can be done.

Ah, who am I kidding? I’ve procrastinated on things this long. Rolling over the calendar really won’t make much difference. Let’s be honest; it’s just an arbitrary designation. Some old guys in the far past decided what and when Monday, January 1st was. We’re all just marking the days off that made-up thing we call a calendar, one by one, until the inevitable … Tax Day. The rest is just life.

A Little Review

We started 2023 here in the newsletter, talking about the fiasco that was the election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and a major security breach at LastPass. Here we’re going into the end of the year with Kevin McCarthy quitting the House and news about a major security breach at 23andMe.

Here in Oklahoma, it felt like it was all bad news politically as we watched a widening division between Governor Stitt and tribal governments, witnessed a radical right-wing agenda takeover of the Department of Education, and lamented at the State Legislature’s continued attacks on the 2SLGBTQ+ youth. However, in that bad was some good as we saw those same communities stand up and push back.

This year in social media, we saw the fall of Twitter, Mastodon's continued growth, and Threads' beginnings. This was a year of migrations, as people left one service for another or just dropped out entirely. The internet continues to evolve and change, and yet many things stayed the same. Tom is still your friend; he’s on Threads.

Blog Oklahoma

As for Blog Oklahoma, this year, I leaned more into this newsletter and social media than I did the podcast.

Unfortunately, the podcast episode I was working on fell apart. To be honest, what I wrote was so boring. After a few more rewrites to make it more interesting. I just gave up on it. Elements of that script will likely show up here in the newsletter next year, so I wasn’t a complete wash. For the podcast, I feel like such a failure. The beginning of the year was full of promise, and it just didn’t work out that way.

However, this year wasn’t all bad. I successfully completed a #blogmonth challenge in October. I was able to publish some much-needed updates to the Blog Oklahoma and Exploring Oklahoma History websites. I’m happy with the continued growth of Blog Oklahoma on Mastodon and Threads. And, of course, working on this newsletter has been fun, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too.

Speaking of the newsletter. I’d like to hear from you. Do you have any questions, comments, gripes, or suggestions regarding this newsletter? Please leave a comment, email, or message me. In the next newsletter, I hope to answer any of your questions and discuss the future of Blog Oklahoma.

More later. Time to work on the future.

In The News

A look at some of the latest headlines from around Oklahoma and beyond.

• Parole Board Seeks Stiffer Commutation Requirements | Oklahoma Watch

• Oklahoma receives 30,000 submissions for private school tax credits | Oklahoma Voice

• 'Guidelines and expectations': Lawmaker proposes tying state superintendent pay to performance outcomes, OSDE responds | KOKH

• Oklahoma superintendent Ryan Walters rejects ALA guidelines, introduces new information literacy standards | KOKH

• OSSAA One Free Transfer Approval Opens New Door For Oklahoma Student-Athletes | KWTV

• Senate bill targets elimination of Oklahoma income tax | The Journal Record

• A criminal record and protective orders didn’t stop her attacker from having a gun | The Frontier

• Tulsans regrow urban tree canopy after summer’s severe weather | KGOU

• 5 takeaways on McCarthy’s exit from Congress | The Hill

• 23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users | TechCrunch

About Oklahoma: Choctaw County

Choctaw County, Oklahoma

Welcome to Choctaw County.

Choctaw County is in southeastern Oklahoma on the Red River, bordering Texas. The county was formed at statehood from and named after the Choctaw Nation.

Hugo, Oklahoma, located in the center of the county, is the county seat and the county’s largest city.

Other notable towns include Boswell and Soper in the western and Fort Towson and Sawyer in the eastern parts of the county.

• Established: 1907

• County Seat: Hugo, Oklahoma 74743

• Nation: Choctaw

• Map: Google Maps

• Area: 774 mi² (2,005 km²)

• Population: 14,204 (2020 Census)

• Time Zone: UTC−6 (Central), DST observed

• Area Code: 580

• Congressional District: 2

• State House District: 19

• State Senate District: 6

• Weather: NWS Tulsa

• Tourism Region: Choctaw Country

• History: Oklahoma Historical Society

• Historic Places: Exploring Oklahoma History

• More Information: Wikipedia

Extras

Here are some more things I hope you'll find interesting.

The insane VFX of Live Sports | Corridor Crew

A Man Plagiarised My Work: Women, Money, and the Nation | Philosophy Tube

Plagiarism Expert Responds to hbomberguy's Plagiarism Video | Jonathan Bailey

How YouTube BROKE Your Brain! | Film Theory

The Great Evernote Exit? | Keep Productive

Feedback Welcome

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave a comment on Substrack, email me at blogoklahoma@blogoklahoma.net, or connect with me at Mastodon at @blogoklahoma@social.tulsa.ok.us or Threads at @blogoklahoma@threads.net.

Have a great week.

– K.