Photo courtesy Tulsa World / Michael Wyke / file Wheels in the suit are again grinding as state and federal laws continue to collide. Recently, all four, with their attorney, Don Holladay, filed paperwork with U.S. District Judge Terence Kern requesting he rule in their favor. They also said the Oklahoma law violates their constitutional […]
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Contraception empowers women
It was nearly half a century before the United States Supreme Court, in the landmark 1965 opinion Griswold v. Connecticut, overturned bans on the sale of contraception to married women. Seven years later, the Supreme Court would recognize this same right on behalf of unmarried women. More recently, the Obama administration, under the Affordable Care […]
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Remembering segregation
In those days, I was a teenager working as a waitress in the bus station in Checotah. When African Americans got off a bus and came up front to the restaurant section of the bus station for food, I had to tell them, “No.” They had to eat at a counter in back, behind the […]
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Flatlined
Hundreds of Oklahomans in need of free dental care packed the Oklahoma Mission of Mercy in Lawton last month. Photo: Clifton Adcock On a cold February evening at the Comanche County Fairgrounds in Lawton, a steady stream of people entered the building and walked between the cattle gates erected on either side herding them to […]
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From board to booked
District Attorney David Prater Photo: Mark Hancock Mack Martin, an attorney for the board members, called the charges unfair. “What they did is not a crime,” he said. “That’s my opinion, and my opinion is just as important as David Prater’s.” But the D.A. contends he had no choice after he offered not to pursue […]
Posted inMusic
Perfect situation
Haters will hate, but of bands established in the 1990s, Weezer remains one of the most recognizable due to its sound: wailing guitar solos, harmonies owing as much to The Beach Boys as punk rock, and lyrics dripping with all the nostalgia and self-obsession teenagers could possibly muster. If fans, however, would rather not drop […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Justified: The Complete Second Season
Fresh off an Emmy nomination for his starring role, Timothy Olyphant owns his character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens to such a degree, it just may prove to be the one that defines his career. In short: He’s badass. Givens remains in his godforsaken hometown of Harlan County, Ky., a backwater, redneck-ridden hellhole that he […]
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End academic segregation
Sadly, Oklahoma continues to practice a less obvious, but equally pernicious, form of segregation — one based on school size and inadequate academic offerings. Worst of all, recent legislation to address this injustice has been sidetracked by objections from the usual suspects who seem to resist every worthy school reform: the school administrators themselves. They […]