Showing category "Commentary" (Show all posts)

WITH APOLOGIES TO DICKENS: AN ELECTION EVE CAROL

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, November 4, 2022, In : Commentary 

While having dinner out this past Saturday night with my family, I happened to run into my old friend Julian Frye for the first time in what seemed like forever. 


He looked a little green around the gills and wasn’t acting like his usual flamboyant, “I’m the world’s last authentic playboy” self - and as anyone who has known Julian for as long as I have will almost certainly quickly attest, such behavior on his part is always cause for alarm.


“Why so glum, chum?” I asked him. ...


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"IF WE ARE EACH FREE TO LIGHT OUR OWN FLAME..."

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, December 22, 2021, In : Commentary 

Well, it's that time of year again.


I refer, of course, to the perpetual hullabaloo that has been raging for a number of years now over the use of the phrase “Happy Holidays.” 


To the best of my memory (which I’ll be the first to admit is quite often questionable at best), the brouhaha began when some well-meaning Christians started voicing their displeasure over the use of “Happy Holidays” by retailers during the gift-buying season. 


Their argument, as I understand it, was that ...


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LOOKING FOR DÉTENTE IN THE BATTLE OF THE GENERATIONS...

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, In : Commentary 

I wish I knew what I thought I knew when I thought I knew everything…


At some point - generally around the time its members hit adolescence - every generation comes to believe that it is smarter, better and/or more “with it” (whatever THAT means) than the generation that preceded it. And all too often, that belief is expressed in a way that leaves members of the previous generation confused, hurt and/or angry.


We’ve all been guilty of it at some time or another, whether or not we want t...


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‘SHHH, BE VEWY, VEWY QUIET… I’M HUNTING BIGFOOTS’

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, January 28, 2021, In : Commentary 

To be honest, I still haven’t quite decided how I feel about the whole thing.


This proposed “Bigfoot Hunting Season” legislation that’s been filed at the state capitol, I mean. 


For those of you who may have actually missed the news (it seems unlikely, I know; but you’d be surprised, there’s always one or two): Oklahoma House Bill 1648 - filed last week by State Rep. Justin Humphrey (R-Lane) - seeks to establish a Bigfoot hunting season. The bill would direct the Oklahoma Wildlife C...


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"All animals are equal, but Trumps are more equal than others"

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, November 12, 2020, In : Commentary 
Ran across a post a little while ago in which a friend’s observation that “the ‘radical left’ just wants everyone to have food, shelter, healthcare, education and a living wage” was met with a stern rebuke by an obvious Trump supporter who states that such ideals are “the same ideals that Vladimir Lenin used and ended up killing 60 million. Same views as the Nazis.”
(An aside: This right-wing tendency to lump Nazism and Communism together always makes me chuckle; the fact is t...

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About Me


John Allen Small John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996). Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.) John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something. In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems. He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.

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