The Beginning Of The End Of A Political Career In Tillman County OK

 The Brazilian film “Black Orpheus” won the academy award for “Best International  Feature Film” in 1959, and it set the Greek Myth of Orpheus and his beloved Eurydice, who died after being bitten  by a snake. The movie is set in Rio in Brazil during Carnival, and Orpheus is a  street car conductor and famed Samba dancer of African heritage  who participates in numerous parades there, and after Eurydice dies he begins a laborious journey  through Rio as the festivities are ongoing, and at one location in a scene that is fraught with symbolism, he is advised by a man who is sweeping loose papers  that are floating down a stairs that she is not  there and a dejected Orpheus  makes his way to another place amidst streets filled with  Carnival revelry  where he thinks she may be. And  a somewhat similar scene took place in the Tillman County Courthouse in southern Oklahoma in the 1980’s when a district attorney who was angry at a ruling issued by a district judge on a criminal proceeding threw a file filled with papers down the stairs that resulted in many of them floating down the stairs there. The district attorney, Steven Suttle, was a skilled prosecutor and a man of intelligence and political acumen who some had seen by many observers  as  being destined for higher office, but like many men of promise he had a fatal flaw  that was in his case an  inability to control his temper in public settings. As district attorney he had once delivered a speech that now seems eerily prescient in which he had warned of the dangers of political authoritarianism  and how it could at some times appear attractive to  citizens who were offered seemingly simple solutions to complex public problems. His action was observed by the court clerk officials whose office was adjacent to the stairway, and the court clerk herself, Lois Kent, had a warm friendship with the district judge, Paul Braun. Suttle’s  action was also short sighted in that it became the story that was  soon repeated throughout the community was not that of a lenient sentence being issued to a violent criminal but the district attorney’s inappropriate display of temper.  Braun had formerly held the post of district attorney for that judicial district, and Suttle had served as his first assistant district attorney under him. When Braun spoke of  Suttle’s behavior  after that occurrence he seemed  genuinely hurt that his former staffer had responded in that manner. Suttle, who recently passed away in another state, like Braun before him presided over a four county district and had assistant district attorney in each of them, and was known to be supportive of them individually  when they became embroiled in  difficulties with  criminal defense attorneys. But his displays of anger in public  seemed to grow more frequent over time, and he was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1990.

A New Face At The Granny’s Kitchen In North OKC

   The late Elaine Kauffman, who was the proprietor of the popular “Elaine’s,” in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was eulogized in the obituary that appeared in the New York Times  on December 3rd 1990 as being one of the most beloved restaurateurs in the Big Apple. Her genuine interest and concern for both her staffers and very   diverse clientele, that included numerous celebrities as well as individuals of modest means was noted,  as was the tribute that was paid to her place in the Billy Joel song “Big Shot.” And the community  of Stillwater, Oklahoma, has long had a somewhat similar  restaurateur  in the presence of Mohammad Mahmoud who operates the popular “Granny’s Kitchen” on Main Street there that serves breakfast and lunch as well as mimosas and other alcoholic  beverages to a diverse clientele. The Times’ obit told of how the friendly and welcoming  Elaine herself was one of the primary attractions of her establishment, and the same could be said of Mahmoud;  and  Stillwater attorney and former mayor of that community  Roger McMillian reflected the attitude of many people there when he said “I love Mohammad.” The original Granny’s had opened in the late 1940’s  at a different location on Main Street,  and after he acquired it he moved it to a larger location that featured an outdoor porch  on that thoroughfare and obtained a liquor license for it and decorated it with mementoes from Stillwater’s colorful history, including a portrait of  ‘Pistol Pete,” the cowboy who became the mascot of the Oklahoma State University’s sports teams. The menu was updated with a variety of omelets, crepes and other tasty fare that soon  patrons were ordering on of frequent basis. Possibly inspired by the example of  Eskimo Joe’s, Mahmoud also began to offer what is now known as “merch” that included tee shirts and other items with the Granny’s Kitchen logo embossed on them.   
The success of his place prompted  the industrious Mahmoud to open two other  Granny’s  in Oklahoma City, and he has recently taken a greater role in the operation of the one that is located  at 2121 Memorial Road, and on a recent Saturday morning he was observed there  greeting patrons in  a friendly manner, delivering food to tables,  and asking people about their experience in his place. For a brief time, the Granny’s logo seemed to come to life as well in the presence of a large woman who made her way through the place as patrons looked on in wonder. And one of the patrons inquired if he would be there on the following day, he replied that he  now will spend Saturday at his  North Oklahoma City location and Sunday at his Stillwater place. The Southside Granny’s Kitchen, that is situated on South Pennsylvania Avenue  may be to distant from Stillwater to warrant his presence.  Another Oklahoma City location is planned for the Northwest Highway, and the Memorial Road staffers tell of how it will be operated by Mahmoud’s kinsman, Rami Heljeh, who has served as one of the managers there since shortly after it opened several years ago, who is said to be ready to assume that responsibility with the encouragement and support of Mohammad Mahmoud.

African Artist Wengai Kahuni In Yukon, OK

On a recent Saturday the melodious Shona language of Southern Africa was heard in the Oklahoma City suburb of Yukon. The occasion was a craft fair that was held on the grounds of the downtown Methodist church that had brought artist Wengai Kahuni from Abilene Texas to its grounds, and he  was accompanied by  a colleague who is also a resident of the Lone Star State but is a native of the African nation of The Congo, and it was explained that he had mastered the Shona tongue while he was a resident for several years of a refugee camp that was located in Zimbabwe, where it is spoken by a majority of the population.  Kahuni, who was formerly a resident of Oklahoma City, began working with discarded  pieces of metal and transforming them into works of art  as a child in both Zimbabwe and  neighboring South Africa, and brought his talents to the US decades ago. His  metallic creations, many of which bore the insignia of the  beer and soft drink companies  that they were made out of, gleamed under  a brought blue sky  on a series of tables that had been set up for that purpose, and they soon began to attract the interest of the overwhelmingly  white patrons who made their way into the event. Kahuni  has long  constructed   African animals made out of beads and wires and  those creations have made their way into homes and offices throughout the state of Oklahoma through his participation in previous  art events, and in recent years he has begun to make biplanes and buffaloes  and flowers  and other items that my reflect  the environment of Oklahoma and Texas, including a wire metal wagon that had the initials “OU” emblazoned on it. The variety of his offerings  had many people  examining them in detail and inquiring on how he made them, and he was soon  exchanging some of  them for currency and on occasion placing credit cards into the device that he apparently has recently acquired.  Next to his stand were found two children’s bounce houses that occasionally featured young children squealing with delight as they  entered them. Also in close proximity was a small gated area that contained two small goats, one of whom had a saddle on that indicated that he or she was a   service animal, and they were tended to by a young man who wore a worker’s tunic that was similar to the one that was worn by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in his public appearances. Items were offered  for purchase that   had been made out of goat’ milk next to their cages. As the event drew to a close, Kahuni reported that he had made an impressive number of sales, and that he looks forward to attending similar  gatherings in the future.

“Quiet On Set” Documentary About Nickelodeon Network

As detailed  in a recent documentary  “Quiet On Set,” the Nickelodeon  Network hosted a popular television show  that was directed at children  in the period  from 1994 through 2020 that was titled “ All That” that often featured a character known as “Pickle Boy.”  It was said about him on the show that “he likes to hurt and tease pickles,” and he was often in scenes where he was carrying enormous plates of pickles that he would offer to others. The character was played by actor Brian Peck, an Indiana native who would later serve as a dialogue coach on several of the other Nickelodeon productions that were made by Dan Schneider, who oversaw  the creation of a variety of shows that became popular with adolescents in the US and other nations. One of the young actors on “All That” was Drake Bell, who would later star  in the popular series “ Drake and Josh.” As  reported in that documentary, which is currently being run on several different networks, Peck was popular with virtually everyone on the set, but gradually begin to shower  Drake Bell with interest  and lessened his attentions to other members of the cast. In time the degree of interest he expressed towards the 14 year old actor became a matter of concern to  the senior Bell, who was often on set, and he  saw fit to express his misgivings to the personnel department of the studio, but   was advised that while Peck was openly gay and liked to touch those he worked with, he was not a danger to young people and that his concerns may be the result of the  lingering homophobia  that is found in society . But as it turns out, the  elder Bell’s  concern were well founded, and in time Peck wormed his way into Drake’s life and began to sexually molest him. In time the child actor revealed to the  Los Angeles Police Department what he had been subject to at the hands of Peck, and the former Pickle Boy entered a plea of no contest to three counts of sexual abuse of a minor child and was sentenced to 16 months in prison as a result. As told in the documentary, the younger Bell’s identity was not revealed,  and in an era before social media, the entire story received little attention, and after Peck’s release from prison he would serve as a dialogue coach on the Disney Television series “The Suite Life Of Zach And Cody” that also featured young people in starring roles. While the film is justifiably  critical of Dan Schneider in numerous instances, the younger Bell tells of how Schneider was supportive of him and said that he would be willing to help him in any way after he became aware of  Peck’s molestation. Another young person who was part of Schneider’s acting crew tells the audience of how the entire set attended a birthday party at Peck’s home where they saw many disquieting  things, including   letters that the  Pickle Boy had received from  serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who murdered young men after he had sexually molested, that included a painting that Gacy had had made for him. The younger Bell tells of how he was unable to deal with the pain that he felt as a result of his molestation and for years struggled  with substance abuse issues  and other personal problems as a consequence. One would hope that after the “Me Too”  movement that led to, among other things, of the revelations of the  transgressions of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, that there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect the young and vulnerable people who are in the entertainment field.

Young Beau Bishop’s Artwork And The Bells Of St. Eugene’s Catholic Church

 In recent days the New York Times and other international   media outlets have reported on the citing outside of London in the United Kingdom  of several  pieces of street art created by the mysterious artist Banksy. His true identity  and age are not known, but his street art, that has been found in a variety of locales outside of the British capital, including on sidewalks and walls in  New York City and New Orleans, Louisiana, and those discoveries  often result in it   being photographed and the resulting images being  distributed on social media on a massive basis  and occasionally being removed from its original location and placed in upscale art galleries for sale to wealthy patrons. He is believed to be a British citizen since much of his work has been done in the United Kingdom. And   like many artists, his work often comments on political events and controversies,  such as the ongoing violence in Gaza and the  misdistribution of wealth in both the US and the United Kingdom. In the Oklahoma City suburb of  The Village the work of a somewhat less mysterious artist, a three year old little  boy who answers to the appellation of “Beau,” was recently discovered on the refrigerator door of his beloved paternal  grandmother who resides in that community.  Like Banksy, Beau often uses different colors in his work and occasionally creates art on public places such as sidewalks, and he keeps a supply of    colored chalk and stencils  at  a secured location at his grandmother’ home. The work would fall into the category of abstract art, and contains bright colors of the type favored by artists who labor in that field.   While no overt political has been found in his work to date, they often display an exuberance that is indicative  of a friendly nature, and he has spoken of including his cousin Enzo who is several years his junior and resides in Denver, Colorado in his artistic endeavors.
 The Cockneys of East London are a colorful lot, and are known for their  distinctive    accents and rhyming slang, and it has been said that an individual who is born within earshot of the sound of St. Mary le- Bow’s Church’s twelve  bells, which was founded in 1088 and  is located on Cheapside, one of the oldest thoroughfares in the British capital, is a true Cockney. And the East   London Tube station that is situated in close  proximity to the  childhood home of   the late famed movie maker   Alfred Hitchcock, who was of Cockney heritage,  features images from some  of his most famous films, including “Vertigo,  “Rear Window,”  and “Psycho.”  And it is possible that one of the indicators of being a resident of  The Village is being  coming of age within the sound of the chiming bells that are found in the St Eugene’s Catholic Church on  Hefner Road there.  Those somber chimes fill the air at regularly scheduled intervals,  and the young  artist   Beau  smiles broadly when he hears  their sound, and in future years he may recall their  reassuring sounds as part of his childhood.

New York Style Bagels In OKC And Now London

 As  reported in the New York Times on March 5^th of this year, bagels are believed to have been invented in  Germany  centuries ago.  and later made their way to Poland.  They were   first  referenced  in writing in 1610 in a document issued by the Jewish Council of Krakow, but the Times’  story quotes a food historian who concluded that they were centuries old by that time. Bagels  were brought to the United Kingdom capital of London in the Nineteenth Century by Jewish immigrants who settled  in the Whitechapel area of East London where they were known as ‘beigels,” and  several shops in that area still bear signs and menus with that spelling.  And the recipes that those immigrants brought with them produced  a drier and less soft commodity than their counterparts in New York City,  and were usually  only served in the three categories : plain, sesame, and poppy seed. But those limitations are gradually being eroded, according to the Times’ food reporter, by the recent arrival of New York style bagels there in a series of stores, many of whom are operated  by expatriates from the Big Apple. Apparently during the coronavirus pandemic in London  some Americans began to   experiment with baking New York style bagels at home, and sharing them with friends and neighbors who encouraged them to open bakeries to commercially distribute their creations.  And the older shops who prepared them began to alter some of their centuries old recipes  to create a   more flavorful product in response to their new competition. One of those recent entrepreneurs is quoted in the report as saying that on a daily basis she is asked by customers to explain what an  everything bagel is and that the words “sesame, black sesame, poppy, garlic, onion and salt” now come effortlessly off her tongue in response. But some of those bakers say that they can never truly replicate New York Style bagels due to the  difference in the waters of New York City and the British capital. According to students of the Oklahoma  food scene, New York type bagels were first produced in the Sooner State  in large numbers in  a series of shops that were first opened in Stillwater in the 1980’s   by three   young male  New Yorkers of Italian heritage who soon brought their concept to Oklahoma City and Tulsa.   They were in turn succeeded by several young native Oklahomans who had worked in their establishments before their closures  who christened their enterprise “The Old School Bagel Café” in a nod to their  innovative predecessors Their first operation  was based in what had been at one time a movie theater in the Quail Plaza Shopping Center on May Avenue, and that establishment remains their flagship as they have opened more stores across the state and placed their corporate headquarters on what at what time was the theater balcony.  Their diverse types of bagels  have long been the type that Londoner’s have just recently gained access to and a sojourn at any one of their places is indicative of how New York bagels have become a staple of the Oklahoma food scene.

Witnessing A Great American Political Tradition At Michael Brooks-Jimenez Law Firm In OKC

 On July 21^st, 1588, a massive fleet of vessels began to depart from   the Portuguese  harbor of Lisbon, and since it included 141 seagoing vessels 10,138 sailors and 19,315 soldiers as well as 2500 cannons, it took to days to leave  the port.  It would be known to history as the Spanish Armada, and it soon made it’s way to the English Channel to confront the Royal Navy and then planned to invade England. It’s ostensible purpose was to overthrow  the Protestant monarch  Queen Elizabeth I  and restore the Catholic faith to the British Isles,  but the fact that the Spanish Empire did not allow England to trade with it was a fact as well.  Elizabeth rallied the citizenry to battle the Armada, and the pessimistic philosopher Thomas Hobbs, who famously  and grimly observed that “life is short, nasty, and brutish,” attributed his negativity  due to the fact that the Armada was off the British coast when his mother went into labor with him. But the English vessels proved to be more mobile than the Spanish galleons, and succeeded in sending the  remnants of the Armada back to Spain in defeat, which served to  make  England the dominant European power and Shakespeare’s plays as well as the work of other English authors  would  help to make England an ascendant cultural power as well. And on recent  Saturdays  a land borne Spanish Armada of sorts has  made it’s way out of the prominent  Michael Brooks Jimenez Law Firm on South Western Avenue in Oklahoma City propelled not by sea winds  or religious fervor but rather  the enthusiasm of youthful  Spanish speaking volunteers who are knocking on doors and distributing literature on behalf of several candidates of Hispanic heritage that include attorney  Sam Waldin Grimaldo, who is seeking election to the Oklahoma State Senate  and is an associate of that law firm, and  Scotty Hernandez, who was unsuccessful in his efforts to win a open seat on the Oklahoma City School Board. Another candidate for that post, Jessica Cifuentes, who has also  been a recipient of the canvassing directed from that location, will face the voters on April 2nd of this year. Brooks Jimenez is currently a member of the Oklahoma State Senate. And those efforts are part of a great political tradition in the US in which new arrivals to our shores  make their way into the American mainstream through education, hard work, as well as the ballot box. The volunteers  who gather there display a uniquely American optimism in the viability   of our political institutions despite the recent efforts by a variety of malcontents in both public life and the media  to sow division and mistrust  regarding them. It was said that when Cuban refugees made their way to Miami, Florida in the early 1960’s once the true nature of the Castro Regime became apparent that they were in a sense “voting with their feet.” And the young people  who are emerging from the  Michael Brooks Jimenez law firm  are voting with their feet  as they traverse sidewalks and roadways to tell citizens about the candidates that they support  and by implication  are also  displaying  their commitment to the maintenance of democratic government.                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                     

The Brave Women Of Enid Who Are Seeking to Oust A White Supremacist Commissioner

Histories of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa detail the courageous work done by an organization composed primarily of middle class white woman that became known to the press as the “Black  Sash” due the fact that they wore such attire at the public protest meetings they held.  It was founded in 1955  in Cape Town South Africa, and was originally known as “Women In Defense Of The Constitution.” In the  Constitution that was adopted in 1910 the rights of the citizens of mixed race  in the Cape Province  to vote had been enshrined, but by a series of  legislative  measures of dubious legality the Nationalist Party government had stripped them of that historic right. They also publicly protested  the imposition of the Pass laws on the nonwhite majority of the nation that required them to carry passes at all times to show that they had the legal right to in the areas in which they lived and worked. When the apartheid government finally collapsed and the first all race election was held there in 1994. Nelson Mandela and others who had fought for such rights praised the women of the Black Sash for their courage and decency. And it would seem that the community of Enid, Oklahoma, has women of similar   bravery and determination in the persons of Connie Schmidt Vickers and Nancy Presnall who have mounted a recall effort to oust Enid City Commissioner Judd Blevins, an individual who won election  to that post by a very modest margin and has since been revealed to be a white nationalist  who has been involved in several  racist organizations. There is a photograph of him extant that had been  taken at the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia carrying a torch and  chanting along with the other attendees “Jews will not replace us.”  Under the alias “Conway,” as reported by NBC News, he posted numerous racist messages and  also praised  the work of German dictator Adolf Hitler. It was further reported by that network that when his affiliations become public in Enid, he was asked by the mayor of the community, Republican David Mason, if he was still active in those organizations, he tellingly replied “I don’t have to answer that.” The recall election will take place on April 2nd of this year. British statesman  Winston Churchill once observed that “You can judge the vigor of a man by the venom of his enemies,” and judging by the vitriol and animosity  that have been directed at both Vickers and Presnall, who knocked on thousands of doors in Enid to win signatures for their recall petition by    white supremacists  their collective vigor and determination can not be challenged.

Cleta Mitchell’s Unfounded Allegations About Undocumented Aliens Voting In The Presidential Election

 In the mid 1980’s, what may prove to be a prescient warning about the dangers of authoritarianism was delivered at a civic function that was held in the rural community of Duke Oklahoma. That admonition  was contained in a speech delivered by Steven Suttle, who was the district attorney for Jackson County at that time that included Duke. The elected official  quoted  the British statesman Winston Churchill, who said that “Democracy is the absolutely the worst form of government except for any other form of government that has ever been tried, and that went on to point out  that the supposed efficiencies of authoritarian governments are often unfounded, and said that the statement often made in support of the fascist government of Benito Mussolini in Italy that it made the trains  on time was unfounded. He further cautioned about leaders who offer simple solutions to complex problems  and seek to blame minorities for society’s problems and to divide people. Suttle’s   concerns regarding the subject may have stemmed in part from the fact that his wife’s parents had been a Jewish couple who had managed to escape Germany shortly after the Nazi government took power there.  Suttle had long been an activist in the Democratic Party in Oklahoma, and was a supporter of Michael Turpen when he had sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1986, as was Representative Cleta Deatherage, another Democratic office holder who represented Norman in the Oklahoma Legislature and the OU campus from which she had previously received an undergraduate and a law degree. Deatherage had been a McGovern delegate to the Democratic Convention that had nominated him for the presidency, and had been a supporter of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. She subsequently made an unsuccessful effort to obtain the Democratic nomination for the position of lieutenant governor, and subsequently relocated to Washington DC after her husband Dale Mitchell was convicted of bank fraud in federal court in Oklahoma. She subsequently became an occasional guest on news shows where she was identified as being a Republican and generally took conservative positions on  political issues. But more recently she has become aligned with Donald Trump in his efforts to reverse the election results of2020, and could be heard with Trump in the Oval Office on the recorded phone call in which he sought to have the Georgia election officials to award him with sufficient vote to give him the Peach Tree  State’s crucial electoral votes and was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the  RICO indictments that charged Trump and several of his associates with racketeering. Several days ago, it was reported that Mitchell was working on efforts to challenge election results in state’s that Biden carries in November’s electio, and has written a memo in which she asserts that the Biden administration is intent on have undocumented arrivals vote for him in  the election. 
  “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and human affairs;” British Parliamentarian Enoch Powell once observed. And it may be that Cleta Mitchell  believes that she can reinvigorate her political career by aligning herself with an authoritarian figure  who has said that he would like to be “a dictator for one day” and has boasted about  how he will punish his enemies with the full force of the federal government if he is returned to the presidency.

Steven S Suttle, Requiescat In Pace

 The movie  “Citizen Kane” is often found on lists of the greatest American films, and anyone who has taken a college level course on American cinema has probably seen it and become familiar with the detailed story it tells of a Charles Foster Kane, who is a thinly disguised American press baron William Randolph Hearst, who claws his way to great power through his chain of newspapers but his ultimate ambition to achieve public office is thwarted  due to his personal failings. The movie was made by a very young Orson Welles who plays Kane, and also featured as his mother Agnes Moorehead, who would be known to a future generation of Americans as Samantha’s mother in the television show “Bewitched,” who in the film operates a boarding house and subsequently becomes incredibly wealthy when she inherits from a  former boarder a stake in a mine. As a little boy Kane has a small sled with the word “Rosebud” embossed on it. “He did not like  the real world, so he created his own,” one of the characters says of Kane who builds himself a castle in Florida and fills it with art works and wild animals that  he purchased from around the world just as the real life Hearst did in California. “Rosebud” Kane mutters as he dies, and much of the narrative is focused on what that word may have meant to him. After his passing, some of the items that he had acquired that were deemed to have little value were being burned in a large fireplace in the structure, and one of them is  his boyhood sled with that word on it that slowly dissolves in the flames.  Citizen Kane was recently shown on the TCM Channel and when one Oklahoma city resident who had formerly served as an assistant district attorney for Steven Suttle, who was a two term Oklahoma district attorney based in Jackson County   was watching the final scenes of  it received a phone call from a former colleague who told him that Suttle had passed away the day before  in New Mexico at the age of 75. Suttle resembled Charles Foster Kane in some respects in that both of them were men of talent, intelligence, and ambition, and they also shared  failings that would ultimately thwart their political ambitions. Both individuals where collectors of art, and Suttle had collections of political memorabilia, Native American art and Volkswagen beetles. Suttle was a skilled  and conscientious prosecutor who cared deeply about protecting the public from crime, and would strongly support  his assistants and other staffers if they became entangled in controversies with opposing defense attorneys. Gertrude Stein said of  young Ernest Hemingway that he was surprisingly sensitive in nature, but sought to conceal it through a façade of boxing and violence, and Suttle had a similar sensitivity that he sought to  camouflage through often angry outbursts directed at  others that accounted in large part for his  trouncing  in his bid for reelection decades ago. After his defeat the former officeholder constructed a new life in New Mexico with his wife and daughter and served as a assistant district attorney and assistant attorney general there, “I hope that you never have to see what I have had to see,” Suttle once told a civic group as he recalled pictures from crime scenes that included murdered children and knives protruding from dead bodies. A statement that Shakespeare made about a character in one of historical plays may also apply to Steve Suttle; “His faults lay gently on him.”