Originally published 05:03 p.m., February 27, 2010, updated 05:21 p.m., February 27, 2010

The U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed that an earthquake has affected the Norman area.

According to the USGS Web site, a 4.4-magnitude earthquake occured 44 miles East-Northeast of Oklahoma City.

The epicenter is located three miles from the town of Sparks, Okla., the USGS stated.

The earthquake began around 4:22, and effects of the quake were felt in Norman around 4:25.

Employees at the National Weather Center in Norman said they felt the quake, along with students posting "earthquake" on their Facebook pages.

"I was just watching TV, and the whole apartment shook," Deirdra Cook, multidisciplinary studies senior, said about her experience during the earthquake. "I wasn't sure what it was at first."

Cook lives in Traditions Square Apartments East in Norman.

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SPARKS, OK -- A 4.4 magnitude earthquake shook parts of Oklahoma Saturday afternoon, according to preliminary reports from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The epicenter of the quake was three miles ENE of Sparks and 22 miles NNE of Shawnee.

The News On 6 has had reports from a number of people who say they felt their homes shake and saw pictures rattling on the walls.

"It shook really bad. It almost felt like a bomb," said Samantha Cordell, who was at the Prague Community Center at the time of the quake. "It felt like something exploded outside the community center."

No serious damage has been reported.

This is the second earthquake to strike in the last two days.

Friday morning, a 3.1 magnitude earthquake hit a little closer to Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma Geological Survey would like anyone who felt the quake to report it on their Web site.

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The earthquake hit about three miles east of Sparks about 4:22 p.m., the survey said. Sparks is between Chandler and Meeker.

A Lincoln County 911 dispatcher said no injuries and only minor property damage were reported.

"I was actually outside, and I felt our concrete slab move a little bit. They almost didn't feel it inside the building. It came through pretty quick," said John Woods, owner of Ladonna's Grill in Meeker.

"My daughter was at home about a block away. She said she heard it coming. She said she could actually hear a rumble coming, and then it moved east to west through the house. She said it was bouncing the house so hard that it felt like someone was knocking at the door," he said.

Woods said the quake was also felt at his mother's house in Shawnee.

"She said she thought the whole kitchen was going to come down," he said.

"I was just lying down taking a nap. My husband, we have an old tree in the back, he thought the tree had fallen in the house," said Tanya Roach of Shawnee.

Her kids — who were playing outside — were knocked of their feet by the temblor.

"It shook the house ... It sounded almost like there was a semi-truck or something pulling right next door to your house. That's what it felt like," she said.

"It was just so tremendous that it really scared me. Usually, in Sparks, like the ones they've had before, we never felt anything," Roach said.

People also reported feeling the temblor in Norman, Prague, Seminole, and as far as Tulsa.

Amie Gibson with the Oklahoma Geological Survey said the earthquake's magnitude may have registered higher on state equipment. Oklahoma Geological Survey data is not yet available.

Read more: Lincoln County Quake Felt as Far Away as Norman and Tulsa

Twenty-four hours after Joseph Stack committed suicide by flying an airplane into Building I of the Echelon office complex in Austin, Texas, the home pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post had no mention of the attack.

Stack's attack killed Vernon Hunter, a 67-year old revenue office manager for the Internal Revenue Service, but the words "Stack," "terror," and "airplane" were missing from CNN's front page. Only a small headline -- "Austin attack stuns community"-- sat near the top of the U.S. News section, above an equally vague "Colorado mourns education."

MSNBC offered "Plane crash pilot's background probed," under its "more news" tab, and only Fox News had the story at the top of its webpage, asking "Crime or Terror?" managing to ignore the fact that by any definition, the attack was an unambiguous example of both.

Perhaps the shock of a non-Muslim terrorist was too much to bear, or perhaps the lack of a clear-cut left-right, Democrat-Republican angle led to the story being downplayed, despite the fact almost every American blog of note was alive with discussion about the attack. It was very odd to see the mainstream press ignore what may turn out to be one of the most important events of 2010.

Stack's story is fairly clear-cut. According to his suicide note, the software consultant was upset at the IRS and changes in the U.S. tax code, upset at the fact that his efforts to address his grievances through normal political channels were ignored, and upset at the government-enabled transfer of wealth from the U.S. middle class to the elites. His note alluded to one of America's founding creeds -- no taxation without representation -- and urged Americans to revolt against government corruption.

Commentators on blogs spanning the political spectrum highlighted the fact that Stack's grievances resonated for a number of Americans, and terrorism expert Shlok Vaidya went as far as to call Stack's attack "the canary in the coal mine." Judging by the online response thus far with a number of impassioned debates on forums and blogs, the effects of his attack are potentially far more dangerous to stability in the U.S. than anything that al-Qaeda or any external enemy could presently generate.

Although only an extreme minority may see domestic terrorism as an answer to their political grievances, the online reaction to his note suggests that many agree with his take on the American political and economic system.

Despite his vulgar language and his heinous act, Stack struck a nerve, and his thoughts have found a wide and at least partially sympathetic audience online, especially when the note departed from his own story to the broader problems facing Americans:

"Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it's time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?

"Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country's leaders don't see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political 'representatives' (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the 'terrible health care problem.' It's clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don't get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in."

So, considering that his message and his arguments have already spread online and found a somewhat captive audience, what will happen next? Will there be copycats? Will this be a wake-up call for America's ruling elite?

Judging by the muted official response and by the reaction of the mainstream press, the former may be more likely than the latter; something that should worry all of us.

Why aren't we calling what Joe Stack allegedly did an act of terrorism?

It's been interesting to watch and listen as reporters, news anchors in radio and television, bloggers, and even Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo stumbled over themselves to avoid using the word terrorism, assuring us that what happened in Austin was a criminal act, not a terrorist act.

Why?

If the pilot were named Nidal Hassan, would we be more than willing to call it terrorism?

Stack writes in his 6-page manifesto that his action was designed to deliver what he called a pound of flesh to the Big Brother IRS.

If he wanted to leave a pound of flesh behind for Big Brother, why not just stay home and burn to death? Why fly the plane into a building, which he certainly knew would be occupied? Because he wanted to perpetrate an act of terrorism. He wanted retaliation against the government and the society he felt wronged him. He wanted to deliver his message. He wanted to terrorize us.

In his suicide note, he says, "Violence is not only the answer; violence is the only answer."

Why we can't bring ourselves to call that terrorism is beyond me.

At first, when you begin reading Stack's 6-page letter, you think he's going to recount some egregious case of the IRS or the United States government somehow exceeding its authority, unfairly driving him beyond the point of despair.

But Stack was not victimized by the IRS. He was a product of his own undoing. He writes that he didn't file a tax form in 1994, which you are required to do under American law. In specific years he either didn't pay or disagreed with what was classified as income. In one case, he didn't report $12,700 in income from his wife, which he claims he knew nothing about.

We're supposed to believe that because the IRS asked him to a) report all the income he and his wife earned, b) file his returns on time, and c) pay his taxes on time, that makes them the bad guy and him the good guy?

You do realize that when someone doesn't pay the $12,700 they owe, you and I pay it. Are you happy about that? Are you willing to alibi it?

Yet some are willing to make excuses for the man. Newly-elected Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown told Fox News that people are frustrated, almost suggesting he understood Stack's actions. Really?

Stack committed a series of mistakes, inadvertent or deliberate actions, which the IRS, as it is charged to do, ordered him to remedy. Instead he flies a plane into a building. Sen. Brown, are you suggesting that's a reasonable outlet for his frustration, or did you misspeak?

This man attempted to inflict as much damage as he could on those who represented the government he hated. Why is that not terrorism?

"Nothing changes unless there's a body count," wrote Stack. "By not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change."

Wrong. What's insured, and what Stack will never know, is that despite body counts and property damage, nothing changes for you after your dead, and nothing is going to change because of what he did. The IRS will continue to carry out our laws, collect taxes and be vilified for it.

Meanwhile, members of 15 families are adversely, even irretrievably, damaged, while the cost of property damage will be passed on to many more fellow Americans.

I'm at a loss to understand why there is any question about what this was, except that he had a common, anglicized name. If only he'd had a strange sounding Middle Eastern name, maybe we'd have felt a little more comfortable calling him a terrorist. But no, we won't do that if he's just plain old Joe Stack.

To suggest that because the American people are frustrated, the murderous actions by a domestic terrorist named Joseph Stack are somehow either acceptable or understandable is outrageous.

No one's making any excuses for Maj. Nidal Hassan, certainly not up in Fort Hood. Nor should they.

But let's call this what it is. An act of violence perpetrated against America in protest of her government is an act of terrorism. Period.