Oklahoma’s education debate spends a lot of time on a few familiar subjects: education funding vs. tax cuts, vouchers and charters vs. traditional public schools and high-stakes testing vs. letting teachers teach. What’s too often missing from these debates is any consideration of the needs of real students. We’ve lost sight of the reasons kids […]
young
Posted inNews
Face value
The issue has created a stir among several neighborhood associations that claim property values are declining because of the 12,000-plus vacant homes and buildings located throughout the city. As a result, the council on Dec. 3 approved the creation of a registry that will require owners of all vacant homes and commercial buildings to register […]
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LETTERS
I’m not sure who these unhappy socialists are whom Mr. Rixmann obviously knows so well, but the World Happiness Report this year listed the countries of Norway, Denmark and Switzerland as the top three happiest nations on earth. All three countries have what I assume would be labeled “socialist” economies by Mr. Rixmann’s standards, and […]
Posted inMusic
Go Limp
“We wanted to make a band that was so over the top and ridiculous and over-confident that no one could possibly take us seriously. So we had to throw an ode to Limp Bizkit,” singer Taylor Young said. “There’s nothing more punk rock than misspelling a word like Bizkit or Wizurdz and talking about skinning […]
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Stone cold country
Stoney LaRue isn’t much of a studio junkie. The Red Dirt pioneer has only produced two studio albums since he began playing bars around Stillwater and Norman more than a decade ago, and there was a six-year gap between his debut The Red Dirt Album and 2011 hit Velvet. Yet the Oklahoma native routinely sells out many of the […]
Posted inMusic
Young Lyons — Crash Course EP
Just as things started to get really good, “Buddy Holly” came on the radio. I paused to turn it up, killing the moment and any chance of advancing my quest any further. After dropping my date off, I went to Wal-Mart, purchased The Blue Album and that, as they say, was that. The experience filled me with […]
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Various artists — Never Give Up: Celebrating 10 Years of The Postal Service
With the 10th anniversary of Give Up — being celebrated with a re-release, festival headlining gigs and the first tour in nearly a decade, The Postal Service is right back at the forefront of indie music, so there’s no better time to pay tribute. Music blog Independent Clauses wrangled 22 different artists wanting to do […]
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Royal rush
For the guys of the Nashville-based Blacklist Royals, 2012 was a bad year. “2011 was really good for us,” said Nat Rufus, lead singer and guitarist, noting the group was coming off its debut disc and the Warped Tour. “And then 2012 happened. We had all these new songs written and the plan was to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Young at art
Photo: Carl Shortt Oklahoma is filled with young, talented artists, yet many of them will never be recognized because they simply don’t know who to talk to or where to go to get their works displayed for the public. Since 2002, the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s annual Momentum show has worked to remedy such circumstances. […]
Posted inMusic
At bat
Curtis Grimes’ life reads like your classic country narrative: A promising baseball prospect ditches his chance at a shot in the big leagues for a girl, only to come away heartbroken a short while later. But instead of picking up the bottle, he picked up a guitar, and what sounds like the character in so […]