At Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, where he taught zoology and biology until retiring in 1996, he’d ask students to pull down a shade where there was no window. It’s all about helping students relax, he said. Today, Kirkland, 76, teaches animal biology as an adjunct for Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City. The classroom is […]
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State park showdown
The man, Sandlin Matthews Smith, 46, of St. Johns County, Fla., allegedly was involved in setting off a pipe bomb at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida in May 2010, and had been tracked to northwest Oklahoma by the FBI. No one was hurt in the blast. According to The Associated Press, Smith had pulled […]
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Sucker punch!
Convicted murderer Emanuel D. “E Man” Mitchell, 33, apparently understood only steps one through two. On May 2, an Oklahoma City jury found Mitchell and Anthony D. “Black” Morrison, 44, guilty of first-degree murder. In 2009, the pair allegedly solicited two teenagers as accomplices in a Reliable Discount Pharmacy robbery. The botched robbery ended with […]
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OKC rapper Nymasis flexes his skills
“A lot of these cats, they come with premeditated stuff, but I come with the essence of true battle rap,” said Nymasis (pronounced “nemesis”). “There’s no one here who can mess with me.” The rapper, legal name Anthony Tee, recently proved his words with a win in Oklahoma City’s “Hottest on the Scene MC” battle. […]
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Freddie vs. all
Freddie Gibbs’ story is one like many rappers before him: He was a 20something who had taken up drug dealing … and wound up a convicted felon, before music saved him. “It gave me something to focus on, something I love. That had always been my problem … I just didn’t have a passion for […]
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Mind games
The sophomore album is always an uphill battle, and God bless Telekinesis’ Michael Benjamin Lerner for getting through it with all the other obstacles that popped up along the way. The stress of following up his critically acclaimed debut, “Telekinesis!,” was compounded by a litany of other problems: a serious car wreck, a breakup, depression […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Barney’s Version
Opening Friday at AMC Quail Springs Mall 24, it’s a Canadian film based on Mordecai Richler’s 1997 novel, detailing the entire adulthood of Barney Panofsky (Giamatti, TV’s “John Adams”), who, despite being wildly successful as a soap-opera producer, fails spectacularly in his personal life. It takes him three marriages to get it right, and even […]
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Poster art
Photography capturing candid scenes of city life and major motion pictures are essentially the same thing, according to Steven Poster. The cinematographer should know, having worked on cinematic touchstones like “Blade Runner,” “Donnie Darko” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” “The act of making a photograph, as opposed to the art of shooting a […]
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Trouble in the OKC
We’ve got trouble in Oklahoma City. Trouble with a capital “T.” And that rhymes with “P” and that stands for “pool”! No, but seriously. Who knew “The Music Man” was right all along? This classy story comes to us from NewsOK.com. We’ll give you a few minutes to put on your fanciest readin’ glasses before […]
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Victims of the same disease
The Tucson, Ariz., shooter appeared to have suffered from schizophrenia. Schizophrenia often affects young people of college age. After living in Norman for more than 50 years, I have seen it destroy the minds of many students who come here with such high hopes for their future. I have also watched a couple of my […]