Oklahoma City Oklahoman Columnists

It is raining in Oklahoma. As we move closer to the legislative session, state revenue collections remain well below projections and the prospect of a recovery in the near future does not look promising.

Current shortfalls have resulted in the loss of $660,000 to the Norman Public Schools in the first four months of this school year.

WASHINGTON — While military officers wait for President Obama to conclude his agonizingly slow review of Afghanistan policy, they’ve been reading a paper by an Army Special Forces operative arguing that the only hope for success in that country is to work with tribal leaders.

This tribal approach has widespread support, in principle.

WASHINGTON — What city contributed most to the making of the modern world? The Paris of the Enlightenment and then of Napoleon, pioneer of mass armies and nationalist statism?

Congress is considering Senate Bill 1147, the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act. This widely supported bill is good for Oklahoma’s residents, retailers and the state budget and is worthy of Sens.

The 19th-century American writer Henry Adams said the descent of American presidents from George Washington to Ulysses S. Grant was enough to discredit the theory of evolution.

On his recent trip to Asia, President Obama found China, Japan and South Korea — like many nations these days — in no mood to hear more American lectures.

Beijing is worried about owning so much American debt.

It would be hard for anyone not to admit that Oklahoma City is on a roll. We have the lowest unemployment rate in the country and hardly a week goes by that we aren’t named on another top 10 best list of cities.

WASHINGTON — Calm.

That’s not a word one hears much these days, but calm is what some are urging in the wake of a new federal report on breast cancer screening.

Released Monday, the report has caused a stir with its recommendation that women in their 40s don’t need annual mammograms and that self-exams no longer should be part of a doctor’s instructions to female patients.

WASHINGTON — For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed.” And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 — not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York.

We’re celebrating NBC’s Green Week here at Rockefeller Center.