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Miami Herald
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
MAGA Superintendent Ryan Walters Hits Out at Porn Claims
Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters has hit back after colleagues alleged they saw images of nude women on a TV during a meeting in his office. Walters, a Republican, issued a statement on X on Sunday denying the claims as an investigation into the matter is reported to be underway. Newsweek has contacted Walters for comment. Walters has spoken out against showing what he deems to be "pornography" in schools and has pushed to remove books he says contain sexual content, including Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. He also made headlines for his endorsements of pro-religious policies in Oklahoma's public schools, including putting Bibles that mimicked the "God Bless the USA Bibles" endorsed by President Donald Trump in 2024, into classrooms. Two board members who attended the executive session of the Oklahoma State Board of Education on July 24, chaired by Walters, told The Oklahoman that images of naked women were displayed on a TV screen. The allegations came from Ryan Deatherage of Kingfisher and Becky Carson of Edmond, who described the ordeal as "really bizarre." The newspaper reported that it was not clear who was responsible for the alleged images, and that Deatherage said Walters was sitting with his back to the TV screen, so it wasn't in Walters' direct view. The superintendent allegedly turned off the TV after Carson alerted him to the matter. On X, Walters said the claims were "politically motivated attacks" as he is leading the charge for a "bold overhaul of education" in the state. "Any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false," he wrote, adding that there was "absolutely no truth" to the allegations. Earlier, in a statement to The Oklahoman, Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for Walters, described the story as a "junk tabloid lie." "Any number of people have access to these offices. You have a hostile board who will say and do anything except tell the truth, and now, the Woklahoman is reporting on an alleged random TV cable image," he said, using a term for the newspaper often adopted by Walters. The closed meeting was being held to discuss teacher licensing, student attendance appeals and other sensitive issues, the newspaper reported. "I was like, 'Those are naked women,'" Carson told The Oklahoman. "And then I was like, 'No, wait a minute. Those aren't naked, surely those aren't naked women. Something is playing a trick on my eye. Maybe they just have on tan body suits. … This is just really bizarre.'" "I saw them just walking across the screen, and I'm like, 'no.' I'm sorry I even have to use this language, but I'm like, 'Those are her nipples,'" she continued. "And then I'm like, 'That's pubic hair.' What in the world am I watching? I didn't watch a second longer." Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters wrote on X: "As I lead the charge for a bold overhaul of education in Oklahoma, putting parents back in control, rejecting radical agendas, and demanding excellence: it's no surprise to face politically motivated attacks. "Any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false. I have no knowledge of what was on the TV screen during the alleged incident, and there is absolutely no truth to any implication of wrongdoing. "These falsehoods are the desperate tactics of a broken establishment afraid of real change. They aren't just attacking me, they're attacking the values of the Oklahomans who elected me to challenge the status quo. "I will not be distracted. My focus remains on making Oklahoma the best state in the nation, in every category." Board member Becky Carson said in a statement, according to KOCO 5 News: "I was appointed to the State Board of Education to serve Oklahoma students to the best of my ability. The images that board members were exposed to yesterday in this meeting were inappropriate to say the least. There has to be accountability." Board member Ryan Deatherage said in a statement, according to KOCO 5 News: "As an appointed member of the Oklahoma School Board, it is my top priority to protect the well-being of Oklahoma students. We hold educators to the strictest of standards when it comes to explicit material. The standard for the superintendent should be no different." An investigation is underway into the matter, according to reports. Related Articles Christian MAGA Singer Vows To Continue Despite Canada ProtestsDonald Trump's Odds of Completing Presidency Fall Amid Epstein UproarFull List of MAGA Influencers at Odds With Trump Admin Over Epstein FilesDonald Trump Reacts to Hulk Hogan's Death 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Newsweek
a day ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
MAGA Superintendent Ryan Walters Hits Out at Porn Claims
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters has hit back after colleagues alleged they saw images of nude women on a TV during a meeting in his office. Walters, a Republican, issued a statement on X on Sunday denying the claims as an investigation into the matter is reported to be underway. Newsweek has contacted Walters for comment. Why It Matters Walters has spoken out against showing what he deems to be "pornography" in schools and has pushed to remove books he says contain sexual content, including Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. He also made headlines for his endorsements of pro-religious policies in Oklahoma's public schools, including putting Bibles that mimicked the "God Bless the USA Bibles" endorsed by President Donald Trump in 2024, into classrooms. State Superintendent Ryan Walters speaks to members of the State Board of Education at a meeting in Oklahoma City on August 24, 2023. State Superintendent Ryan Walters speaks to members of the State Board of Education at a meeting in Oklahoma City on August 24, 2023. Daniel Shular/Tulsa World via AP What To Know Two board members who attended the executive session of the Oklahoma State Board of Education on July 24, chaired by Walters, told The Oklahoman that images of naked women were displayed on a TV screen. The allegations came from Ryan Deatherage of Kingfisher and Becky Carson of Edmond, who described the ordeal as "really bizarre." The newspaper reported that it was not clear who was responsible for the alleged images, and that Deatherage said Walters was sitting with his back to the TV screen, so it wasn't in Walters' direct view. The superintendent allegedly turned off the TV after Carson alerted him to the matter. On X, Walters said the claims were "politically motivated attacks" as he is leading the charge for a "bold overhaul of education" in the state. "Any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false," he wrote, adding that there was "absolutely no truth" to the allegations. Earlier, in a statement to The Oklahoman, Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for Walters, described the story as a "junk tabloid lie." "Any number of people have access to these offices. You have a hostile board who will say and do anything except tell the truth, and now, the Woklahoman is reporting on an alleged random TV cable image," he said, using a term for the newspaper often adopted by Walters. The closed meeting was being held to discuss teacher licensing, student attendance appeals and other sensitive issues, the newspaper reported. "I was like, 'Those are naked women,'" Carson told The Oklahoman. "And then I was like, 'No, wait a minute. Those aren't naked, surely those aren't naked women. Something is playing a trick on my eye. Maybe they just have on tan body suits. … This is just really bizarre.'" "I saw them just walking across the screen, and I'm like, 'no.' I'm sorry I even have to use this language, but I'm like, 'Those are her nipples,'" she continued. "And then I'm like, 'That's pubic hair.' What in the world am I watching? I didn't watch a second longer." What People Are Saying Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters wrote on X: "As I lead the charge for a bold overhaul of education in Oklahoma, putting parents back in control, rejecting radical agendas, and demanding excellence: it's no surprise to face politically motivated attacks. "Any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false. I have no knowledge of what was on the TV screen during the alleged incident, and there is absolutely no truth to any implication of wrongdoing. "These falsehoods are the desperate tactics of a broken establishment afraid of real change. They aren't just attacking me, they're attacking the values of the Oklahomans who elected me to challenge the status quo. "I will not be distracted. My focus remains on making Oklahoma the best state in the nation, in every category." Board member Becky Carson said in a statement, according to KOCO 5 News: "I was appointed to the State Board of Education to serve Oklahoma students to the best of my ability. The images that board members were exposed to yesterday in this meeting were inappropriate to say the least. There has to be accountability." Board member Ryan Deatherage said in a statement, according to KOCO 5 News: "As an appointed member of the Oklahoma School Board, it is my top priority to protect the well-being of Oklahoma students. We hold educators to the strictest of standards when it comes to explicit material. The standard for the superintendent should be no different." What Happens Next An investigation is underway into the matter, according to reports.
The Hindu
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
The characters one lives through
'I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked... I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.' — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar No one captured the daunting feeling of choosing who to become more eloquently than Sylvia Plath. The fear of regret from selecting a wrong path is often so strong, it paralyses us into inaction. We remain on the sidelines, hoping not to make a decision at all, until ultimately the regret we experience is not for having chosen poorly, but for not having chosen at all. By the time the realisation of a life wasted sinks in, it's too late. All we can do is watch our life pass by like a missed train, while we stand on the platform, unable to move. So is the cruelty of nature. It offers us a million possibilities but the capacity of picking only one. But man is a cunning being. He devised ways to achieve the privilege of multiple lives, a privilege reserved only for the gods. He created stories. He built worlds. He wrote books. Man found ways to slip in and out of lives through the pages of novels he wrote. Books might be man's greatest creation yet. They let him taste the grief of a father losing his son, the longing for a partner that was never truly his, the thrill of falling in love, all encapsulated in a tiny piece of paper and ink. In them, he could live and die a thousand times, without ever leaving the quiet of his room. It's beautiful, I suppose, the quiet rebellion of it, like a whispered defiance against the tyranny of a single path. Books, like any other art forms, have always represented escapism, but novels go beyond and define another world to escape into. They have always been portals, not just mirrors. In them, we don't just reflect our lives, we rewrite them. We imagine who we could have been, and sometimes, who we're too afraid to become. I've been Amir in The Kite Runner, living in Taliban-occupied Afghanistan. I've been Nora in The Midnight Library, I've felt the ache of unlived lives. I've been the nameless protagonist in Rebecca, navigating my identity in a world dominated by men. I've been Patroclus, lover of Achilles, doomed to love in silence and to die for a war that is not mine to fight. Through them, I've grieved, yearned, fought, fled, fallen, and found myself again. These characters are not strangers on a page, they are echoes of all the lives I might have lived. And in reading them, I have lived a little more than one life, and that, I think, is a kind of salvation. ananyasaraff142@
Indian Express
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Who is Leila Aboulela, the Sudanese-Scottish writer who just won the 2025 PEN Pinter Prize?
Sudanese-Scottish author Leila Aboulela was named winner of the 2025 PEN Pinter Prize, on Wednesday, joining a prestigious list of writers who, in the spirit of Harold Pinter, have cast an 'unflinching, unswerving gaze upon the world.' The announcement was made at English PEN's annual summer party in London, where Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner, 2007) and Amira Ghazalla (Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, 2017) brought Aboulela's work to life in moving readings before an audience of writers, publishers, and cultural figures. Calling the honour 'a complete and utter surprise,' Aboulela said the award brings expansion and depth to the meaning of freedom of expression and the stories that get heard. 'For someone like me, a Muslim Sudanese immigrant who writes from a religious perspective probing the limits of secular tolerance, this recognition feels truly significant,' she said. Aboulela will formally receive the prize at a ceremony on October 10 at the British Library, where she will also announce the Writer of Courage, an individual persecuted for their work defending free expression, with whom she will share the honour. The title has previously been bestowed on figures such as British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah (2024) who was persecuted for 'spreading false news' and Uyghur folklore expert Rahile Dawut (2023), who was was reportedly sentenced to life in prison by Chinese authorities on charges of endangering state security. Born in Cairo and raised in Khartoum, Aboulela moved to Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1990. Her work explores the themes of migration, faith, memory, and the interior lives of Muslim women navigating the intersections of culture, belief, and belonging. Her novels, including The Translator (1999), Minaret (2005), and most recently, River Spirit (2023), have earned critical acclaim, have been translated into 15 languages, and are now studied in universities. Aboulela was the first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing and has won both the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award and the Scottish Book Awards. She is an Honorary Professor at the University of Aberdeen and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. This year's judges, Ruth Borthwick, Chair of English PEN; poet and author Mona Arshi; and novelist Nadifa Mohamed, praised Aboulela for the force of her storytelling. 'Leila is a writer for this moment,' said Borthwick. 'She tells us rarely heard stories that make us think anew about who lives in our neighbourhoods and communities.' Arshi noted the 'subtlety and courage' with which Aboulela brings silenced lives to the forefront, while Mohamed lauded her for examining 'the interior lives of migrants' and writing with 'a commitment to make the lives and decisions of Muslim women central to her fiction.' The judges emphasised how Aboulela's work, spanning novels, short stories, and radio plays, provides 'a balm, a shelter, and an inspiration' amid global tumult and displacement, particularly poignant given the ongoing conflicts in Sudan, Gaza, and beyond. Named after the late Harold Pinter, the Nobel Laureate whose fierce moral clarity defined much of post-war British drama, the PEN Pinter Prize honours writers who exhibit what Pinter called an 'unflinching, unswerving' gaze upon the world. Since its inception in 2009, the award has recognized writers such as Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie (2018), Arundhati Roy (2024), and, Salman Rushdie (2014), who have consistently challenged political complacency through literature. The tradition continues in Aboulela's work. Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
Indian Express
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
My Father and I: Writers on books and bonding
'Some of my most cherished memories are of the family trips we took together to Nainital, Nepal, Mussoorie, Pachmarhi, Jabalpur and other places.' These were not just holidays, but deeply anchoring experiences: 'Travelling with him and my mother, discovering new places, and just being together as a family gave me a deep sense of security and joy.' That sense lingers still: 'Even now, those memories evoke a warm nostalgia and a quiet smile.' Former diplomat and author Vikas Swarup with his father Vinod Swarup. (Source: Express Photo) As years pass, so too does the curiosity deepen about who our parents were before they became our parents. 'I often wonder what he was like as a young man, before life happened. We never really had that kind of conversation, and I wish we had.' But timing, always elusive: 'He turns 90 this year, but I doubt he would want to have that kind of conversation now!' He suggests two that resonate. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini — 'which captures the silences and complexities in father-son relationships.' And The Road by Cormac McCarthy — 'though bleak in tone, is a haunting meditation on the bond between a father and son.' (Vikas Swarup, former diplomat; author of Slumdog Millionaire, The Accidental Apprentice, Six Suspects; host of the podcast Diplomatic Dispatch) On a favorite memory: 'Let me show you some photographs, each one encrypted with voices and stories,' she writes. 'Old black and white photographs of my parents and me, held in place by neat cardboard corners in the stiff black pages of a vintage family album. My father, mother and me. In the active periphery of my childhood there were aunts and uncles and grandmother, each one a strong presence. But the nucleus of my world was the three of us.' She remembers a summer evening when she was three and a half, and seized by a sudden desire to become a 'Sahib'. 'Not a memsahib but a Sahib. Maybe inspired by a picture in some book my father read out to me… In the absence of a tail-coat I demanded my green winter frock-coat and in default of the fitted breeches I shrieked for my green woollen dungarees with the red embroidered squirrel on its chest-flap.' The trouble was — it was June. 'These were winter clothes, packed away with dried neem leaves and camphor balls in the heavy metal trunk, and the timing of my impassioned fantasy had fallen on a hot June evening!' Her mother tried to resist. 'My mother threatened me with a slap, several slaps and imminent hammering but I gritted my teeth and persisted.' Then came her father: 'That long-suffering man of imagination, came to my rescue and reasoned: 'The child is deeply involved in some creative make-believe. We must not shatter it. Take out the woollen clothes and dress her.'' 'So, hatted and booted, in thick woollen clothes, swaying a stick, a child walked down the Colonelgunj road… and into the triangular park! My Dad walked with me with a very straight face, fully co-operating with my inner life. We must have made a curious spectacle that hot June evening… I remember taking a turn or two round the park before the heat and oppression of my heavy woollen clothes put my fantasy to flight.' 'How can I ever retrieve my father in words? A lot of people who knew him used the word 'genius'… Musician, mathematician, physicist, linguist, philosopher, educationist. He was all these things… I am in no position to measure him. He was my father, playmate, refuge, counselor.' She remembers how he let her scrawl on walls, pile toys on his bed, sketch elephants, and hold captured flies in his palm before gently releasing them. 'His very first sentence, on seeing me a few minutes after I was born, was: 'This daughter is more to me than seven sons can be to their fathers. And I shall teach her seven languages.'' She reflects now: 'The one thing I wish I could tell my father (who passed away in 1990) is: Dad, it hasn't been an easy life for me but I discovered that I had hidden reserves of strength in me, thanks to the depth of security you provided me as a child.' 'Off-hand I can recall To Kill A Mockingbird.' (Neelum Saran Gour, author of 'Sikandar Chowk Park', 'Virtual Realities', and 'Messrs Dickens, Doyle and Wodehouse Pvt. Ltd.') 'As a child, I had a deep fascination for trains. I must have been three or four years old at the time. My father would take me to the Ghatsila railway station just to look at trains and listen to their piercing whistles. We used to go up on the foot overbridge and see trains passing beneath. When an engine honked loudly, I used to be so frightened I would grab my father's hand and hold it tightly.' The railway station then was still cloaked in colonial-era architecture — 'that sturdy structure of bricks and lime' — but to the young Sowvendra, 'this just added to my sense of wonder and awe, and my father was my companion in this adventure.' 'I come from a space where fathers are still figures of authority. Everything that fathers say are correct. We don't usually oppose them. So to think that I would have something to say to my father is quite unlikely.' And yet, he offers: 'Perhaps, only an apology for the disappointments I may have caused him and to tell him how much having him as my father has meant to me.' The Small-Town Sea by Anees Salim. 'This is a favourite of mine. I will recommend it to everyone but my father though.' (Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, author of The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey, The Adivasi Will Not Dance, and Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire) 'My father and I have always loved furniture-gazing in vintage shops.' It began in childhood in Calcutta — 'in the auction houses in Park Street or Russell Street or in the dingy but incredible shops of Gopalnagar near New Alipore.' Their shared passion was less about purchasing and more about the romance of discovering: 'Our budgets seldom matched our vision. (Of course, for my father, the true joy was uncovering a jewel from a dump. A set of nested tables that turned out to be rosewood: the shopkeeper did not change the original price he'd quoted as a salaam to my father.)' Later, in Delhi, this father-daughter ritual continued. 'He and I have worn out the soles of our shoes in and around MG Road and Amar Colony. There was one memorable trip to the land of Punjabi Baroque, Keerti Nagar, though we didn't buy.' Their ultimate favourite? 'Sharma Farms in Chhatarpur.' But even when purchases were made, they weren't necessarily practical: 'Our desires have always exceeded the sizes of the homes we have to furnish at any given moment. And sometimes our purchases end up giving off a whiff of grandiosity which is perhaps a little comic.' Still, the act is rich with meaning. 'Baba and I have filled mansions without owning them — and had robust disagreements about the placement of pieces in said mansions (for instance, where would one place the gorgeous corner piece with the four giant flying cherubs, in the most fine-grained of mahogany?).' 'It is glorious. It is mad. It is a regular weekday afternoon jaunt. We are pros after all; we won't go to any of these places on the weekend, when people who want to buy furniture (not dreams) come.' 'My husband hopes that our daughter will do the same with him in Defence Expo one (Devapriya Roy, author of Indira; The Vague Woman's Handbook; Friends from College, and The Heat and Dust Project) 'My father, Pran Chopra — eminent journalist, super intelligent mind.' For much of her life, he remained emotionally reserved, and their relationship, tinged with distance. 'He was always reserved about his emotions and I was a bit formal with him.' But in the twilight of his life, a profound reversal occurred, not just in memory, but in relationship. 'Towards his last days, as that intellect wore away with age related dementia, he began to think of me as his mother and talked of his childhood, his love of me, the comfort I gave him.' In that final unraveling of mind, there was a gift of connection. 'He passed away in my arms, his head in my lap.' 'Oh dad, I loved you so. I hope you knew the comfort that you gave me.' (Paro Anand, author of Like Smoke, Nomad's Land, Being Gandhi, and I'm Not Butter Chicken; recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puruskar) 'My father passed, unexpectedly, when I was barely ten.' What remained was the ache of absence, softened only by fragments of memory: 'He was a very good humored man and my parents were very much in love. So his death tore us up. I can still feel the void.' The grief was early and searing, leaving her trying to hold on to something real. 'I remember trying to keep my eyes fixed on his feet throughout the time his body was kept in our house before the cremation, hoping that the sight would be etched in my mind forever that way.' In the years that followed, her longing became layered with speculation, of what might have been. 'It is hard to grow up without a father. I know that I probably would have disagreed with him when I grew up on many important things but I wish I had both my parents.' She offers a metaphor for the kind of nurture lost: 'Growing up with loving adults caring for you — and in our context those are mostly your biological parents — is like a sapling sprouting. By the time the sprout is ready to grow, the skin has to soften. Maybe my father would have softened by the time I was ready to leave.' (J Devika, historian, feminist, translator; author of Engendering Individuals and Kulasthreeyum Chanthappennum Undaayathengine?) Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
