10th Annual Muslim Day At Oklahoma Legislature

On the morning of Monday, May 13,2024, the second floor of the Oklahoma State Capital structure  gradually filled with people as part of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American Muslim Relations hosted it’s tenth  annual “Muslim Day at the Capital.” Along with the staff of that entity and Imam Imad  Enchassi, the attendees were greeted by several Democratic state legislators, including  Michael Brooks-Jimenez and Representative Ellyn Hefner  and Representative Arturo Alonso, who is one of the youngest members of that body, who apparently knew many of them from previous encounters.  The executive director of CAIR, Adam Soltani, was heard speaking to  all of  them  about the injustice inflicted on the citizenry of Oklahoma in the recently enacted law  that made it a crime for undocumented people to be in the state, and the hardship it will imposed on families that have members who have been criminalized as result. The attendees were given  bags that read “Bear Witness” and Uphold Justice” in accordance with the historical mission of CAIR  that contained the agenda for the gathering. Massod Abdul Haq, the  charismatic  chairman of the CAIR Oklahoma  Board, addressed the attendees and told of how some people feel powerless as they see the oppression being inflicted on others around the world but he said that we can use our dollars and our votes to speak out against  injustice. He further said that he decided to run for office after telling young people to become advocates and than decided that he should follow his own advise  and  has filed to run for the Oklahoma City Council. Imam Imad Enchassi spoke to the attendees of the need for persistence, and that those who speak for justice and peace are persistent. When the first Muslim day at the capital was held, protestors were present, but they no longer come to protest. The Imam spoke of the examples of  Abraham, Moses, and Mary the mother of Jesus who showed persistence in the face of hostility and told of the Interfaith community of Oklahoma who is also their Muslim brethren. He further told of how he looks forward to when his grandchildren, who are of Native American heritage to a degree,  can be  among those who celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the Muslim Day at the Oklahoma  Capital. After a tasty lunch that was catered by Shawarma & Company, The attendees then  made their way to the first floor of the structure where they had an uplifting and inspiring  presentation from a young woman of Palestinian heritage from Georgia,  Ruwwa Romman, who told of how she won election to the Georgia Legislature and has worked with various members of that body of various political persuasions and others from the  Peach Tree State  to enact policy changes to improve the lot of the less fortunate there an how activists in Oklahoma can accomplish similar feats. The Georgia lawmaker was also part of a panel that included Representative Alonso in which those present were told of how that they can make their concerns known to policy makers. And while the Republicans who currently control the Oklahoma Legislature as well as the Governor’s office  appear to be committed to policies that demonize sexual minority communities and  undocumented  residents in the Sooner State while they demand tax cuts for the well to do,  a day at the Muslim Day at the Capital serves as a reminder that there are also officials and activists who are committed to more humane policies. “Kennedy was an illusion, Johnson is the real face of America,” French President Charles De Gaulle  said in a moment of pique. And it may be the future face of  Oklahoma will be found in the good hearted citizens who attended the Muslim Day at the capital and not the pale leaders of the GOP and their misguided and divisive  agendas.

Spiro Agnew And The Possible End Of The Trump Era

 “A Heartbeat Away, The Investigation and Resignation of Vice-President Spiro Agnew,” was authored by journalists Jules Witcover and Richard Cohen, in 1974, and it told the tale of how Spiro Agnew was compelled to vacate his office after pleading guilty to tax evasion for his failure to pay income tax on the numerous bribes and kickbacks that he received while governor of Maryland and vice-president of the US. He had been elected to that office on the GOP ticket headed by Richard Nixon and had taken office in 1968 and was reelected in 1972. Agnew had been a divisive force in American politics, and had attacked Democrats as being what he termed “radical liberals” and members of the media as “nabobs of  negativity.”  He spoke of what he termed “positive polarization” as he denigrated those who had opposed Republican policies and the continuing  Vietnam War and he was considered to be a strong candidate for the GOP  presidential nomination in 1976. But as Witcover and Cohen pointed out, there had long been rumors of the seemingly righteous  and moralistic  Agnew having taking bribes and extorting money from those who had contracts with the state of Maryland. And as MSNBC host Rachel Maddow  told in a more recent  podcast account of Agnew’s resignation titled “Bagman,” hundred dollar bills were not widely in circulation in  that time, and  the then vice-president   used them on a frequent basis in his purchases when socializing with Frank Sinatra and other celebrities of his ilk  that served to arouse suspicion as to their origins. The US attorney’s office in Baltimore, Maryland, began an investigation and in short order located several businessmen and architects who had contracted with that state when Agnew was it’s chief executive and had extorted cash from them, and that several of them were still making payments to him in his office in Washington DC. They  documented how the sitting vice-president had been through in his demands for kickbacks from state vendors, and how even the companies that that operated the cigarette and other vending machines in state office buildings were required to make personal payments to him for the privilege of doing so. When news of the investigation became public, Agnew stated that he was confident that he would be exonerated, and defiantly said that he would not resign his office even if he was indicted. But resign he did, on October 10th, 1973, as he entered a plea of nolo contendre to one count of tax evasion in an agreement that spared him jail time in exchange for his resigning,  but also released all of the evidence that the government had amassed that documented his guilt. The author’s document the dramatic scene in which Agnew entered his plea before the presiding federal judge, and observed that as the jurist asked him the questions that are asked of all defendants who enter such pleas in which he said that it was voluntarily given, and he had not been subject to pressure to do so, and was not under the influence of narcotics or drugs when he signed the plea deal. As he stood up to answer to each question posed to him, Witcover  and Cohen said you could sense  his power and authority  ebbing out of him,  and soon people were saying that Agnew, like many criminal defendants before him,  had “copped a plea.” And a somewhat similar process may be played out in a criminal court in Manhattan, where former president Donald Trump is being subject to a proceeding  in which he is not in control of and can not bully the judge who is presiding. The testimony that has been taken to date includes the underhanded arrangement that David Pecker detailed  in which the Enquirer  praised Trump in it’s coverage of him but also wrote fictional stories concerning  his political opponents in the Republican  presidential primary and later about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. It has been said that criminal defense attorneys  often encourage their clients to have family members  and friends present in the gallery  to  indicate to the juries in their cases that there are people who care about them. But Trump’s family and friends do not seem to be in attendance at his trial, despite the fact that his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner  profited greatly off of his presidency, and as reported in the national media, Kushner is unabashedly cashing in on the international connections he made during his time in the White House  as his father in law runs for the presidency again.

Coffee And Tea At The Jawhari Home In Edmond

 George Washington Cable was an author based in New Orleans, Louisiana, who wrote about the French speaking Creoles who lived there after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803  and how they adopted to the new customs and procedures that the Americans who flooded into that city after that transaction. Several of his short stories were collected into a work entitled “Old Creole Days,” and one of them, “Belles Demoiselles Plantation,”  told the tale of an elderly Creole of historic and aristocratic   French lineage who lives on a plantation outside of New Orleans with his beloved seven daughters. Like many of Cable’s characters he is a proud man, who has run through much of his inheritance through gambling, and he has a relative of mixed French and Native American heritage who owns real estate in an affluent part of what is now known as the French Quarter of New Orleans that he would like to acquire.  Cable describes how the family would gather in the garden of the plantation with the daughters “chatting and jesting with the ripple of laughter that comes so pleasingly from a bevy of girls ……The father would be found seated in their midst, the center of attention and compliment, witness, arbiter, umpire, critic, by his beautiful daughter’s unanimous  appointment, but the single vassal, too of seven absolute  sovereigns .” And a sojourn at the Jawhari residence in Edmond, Oklahoma,   has a somewhat similar air, where  Mr. Mohammad  Jawhari sits with a bevy of his daughters and his wife  who display a similar affection and reverence for him. A visitor is plied with offers of coffee or tea and plied with a variety of  Levantine sweets as the women speak to one another in a combination of French, English, and their apparent mother tongue of Arabic. “A light that was going out,” is how French President Charles De Gaulle described his wartime colleague Winston Churchill in his final visit with him in the 1960’s, and  a somewhat similar observation could be made about   Mr. Jawhari, who battles several maladies that afflict the elderly, and told a recent visitor that he is now unable to walk  without assistance. He, along with his family,  had operated a  clothing store in an upscale  neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon, decades ago, that bore the name “Splendid,”   at a time when that Mediterranean  port city was known as the  “Paris of the Middle East.” His somewhat rheumy eyes  shine with pride when he tells of his business there, and the recent mention of it prompted one of his daughters  to enter a room and return shortly with a plastic bag that had it’s name embossed on it and proudly showed it to the guest who had inquired about her father’s establishment. A recent story about the legacy of Russian dissident  leader  Alexi  Navalny noted that he and his wife   Yulia were a  good looking  couple, and that his pretty and poised  widow may emerge as his successor  as leader of the opposition to the Putin regime. Rina Jawhari, who is one of Mr. Jawhari’s daughters, bears a striking resemblance to Ms. Navalny and displays a somewhat similar poised presence. And along with his immediate family  the senior  Jawhari often enjoys the company of his two beloved granddaughters who are the children of his son Mohammad, who operates a retail  car dealership  in Oklahoma City. And the impulsive  generosity that Mohammad Jawhari has said to be known for throughout his long life, that is found throughout the Arab world,  apparently remains in place despite his infirmities,  as a visitor is given  a dress shirt that seemed to appear out of nowhere  as  he prepared to depart.

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GOP Effort To Take The OBA Out Of The Oklahoma Judicial Appointment Process

 “If the United States did not exist Fidel Castro would have had to invent it,” French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once sagely observed. The French intellectual  had at one time been an enthusiastic supporter of the  Marxist Cuban regime that Castro had imposed on that Caribbean isle nation, but had soured on it after he saw how Castro had jailed artists and others and often did so on the grounds that the US, which had sponsored an invasion of Cuba shortly after Castro had taken power, was still intent on toppling his regime, and that anyone who opposed him was an agent of the US. In the early 1980’s, when Soviet Premier Gorbachev began the policy known as “Glasnost” that  served to open the Soviet Union and it’ s satellite states in Eastern Europe to people and ideas from the West,  the citizenry there  became more aware of the freer lives enjoyed by Westerners and historians now credit those interactions with serving to erode support for the Communist systems that they were living under. And advocates for a lessening of the US blockade of Cuba, which had originally been put in place under the Eisenhower administration, argued in the pages of national publications that allowing Americans to visit there would have a similar effect in time. In 2017  the Oklahoma Bar Association hosted a seminar in Cuba, and a publication of the right wing Oklahoma Council On Public Affairs, has recently run a story criticizing it for doing so, and argued that it is one of the reasons that the Bar Association should lose the role that it has in selecting candidates for judgeships in Oklahoma, despite the fact that holding a gathering there did not constitute in any way an endorsement  of the Marxist government there. The Cuban government cruelly harasses and monitors  dissidents, and one wonders if their repressive security apparatus was placed on alert  when a conference  regarding the rule of law in an American jurisdiction was held there. The article goes on to cite in support of it’s position that the fact that one judge in Oklahoma County had to resign after it was revealed that he had had sexual relations with two attorneys who had appeared before him, and another jurist in Creek County was removed after utilizing a penis pump while presiding over judicial proceedings. Scandalous, to be sure, but do two  miscreants warrant the jettisoning of a procedure that has been in place since the 1960’s? The story does not address how the Bar’s involvement came into being. In the early 1960’s after a scandal rocked the Oklahoma Supreme Court when it became public that several judges were taking bribes as part of their decision making process on the cases that they heard, and in effort to restore public confidence in the judiciary the current process whereby a panel , the Judicial Nominating Commission, that includes members appointed from the Bar Association as well as several others who are not attorneys. That reform was approved by the Oklahoma electorate more than a half century ago.  The Republican Party is the ascendant political entity in the state, and the proposal  that is currently before the GOP controlled legislature in the form of Senate Joint Resolution 34 would allow the governor to make his own choice regarding vacant judicial posts without input from any other source. In effect, the Republicans wish to turn the clock back to the way it was before the Supreme Court scandal. The story further documents how many prominent members of the Oklahoma Bar exercise their right to donate money to candidates on the Democratic ticket, as if that is an example of political waywardness  rather than their knowledge of public affairs and concern for the state and the direction it appears to be taking.

The Golden Legacy Of The Late Cathy Cummings Of OKC

In recent days, the national media has been reporting on an ongoing occurrence in the Oklahoma City area in which restaurateur Sean Cummings has been paying off school lunch debts of underprivileged students at local schools from funds that have been donated to honor his late wife Cathy, who passed away several months ago at the young  age of 62. Cathy Cummings also operated a restaurant, “Vito’s Italian Ristorante” that was attached to Sean’s Irish pub on May Avenue in Oklahoma’s capital city. In addition to being successful restaurateurs, Sean and Cathy Cumming’s were also committed political activists who ran for political office on the Democratic ticket and where fixtures at that party’s gatherings  where they advocated for humane and inclusive politics that sought to bring people together in a time of rancorous division.  In addition to those students relieved of debt for lunches, her legacy also includes a younger generation of   Democratic Party candidates who may have been inspired by her style of leadership who  are seeking elective office in the Oklahoma City area and  are offering  less divisive approaches to public policy issues that are designed to bring people together rather than to foster division. On recent Saturdays a group of young people have departed the law office of   Senator Michael Brooks Jimenez  armed with leaflets that tell of a young attorney affiliated with that firm, Sam Wargin Grimaldo, who is currently a candidate for the Oklahoma State Senate District 46 post, and the policies that he advocates and would pursue as a member of that legislative body. They include a proposal  that would allow all residents of the state of the statutory age to obtain driver’s licenses, and as his campaign literature points out, many other states across the nation have already done so, and that car insurance rates have dropped precipitously for those  jurisdictions as a result.
 During the height of the Cold War an intelligence officer in England who was tasked with routinely reviewing Soviet propaganda productions for the purpose of possibly unearthing clues to Russian spying, saw fit to stop and rerun a scene from a  grainy Soviet newsreel  that   had featured a   celebration of the anniversary of the  fall of Berlin in 1945. The  ceremony had  included Russian military and diplomatic officers from throughout Europe, and the alert British intelligence officer had noticed that a Russian ambassador had saluted a diplomatic official  who held  the more minor post of an attache to a European state, and she deduced from that the attache, despite his minor posting, was in fact a Soviet KGB officer who outranked ambassadors in the Soviet hierarchy, and the discovery of his actual identity led to the unmasking  of  a high  level British intelligence officer who was in fact a Russian agent. And a somewhat similar discovery was made by a woman in Enid, Oklahoma, Connie Schmidt Vickers, who was watching a news report  of the infamous gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia in which torch bearing right-wingers had defiantly chanted “blood and soil” and realized that one of the participants had recently been elected to the Enid city council, and she and several of her colleagues had  immediately begun a recall effort that eventually resulted in his recall by the citizens of his district. And hopefully leaders such as Grimaldo and Vickers will in turn inspire another generation of leaders of a humane and tolerant approach to the issues that confront us as a society.

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.

The Late Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev’s Fondness For Cufflinks

 “Berlin is the American testicle and I’m going to squeeze it,” a belligerent Nikita Khrushchev bellowed at his American counterpart President  John F Kennedy at a Cold War summit conference  convened on June 4^th, 1961 in Vienna, Austria, and it was reported that the president’s American interpreter   diplomatically translated the phrase as “ Berlin is the America big toe and I’m going to squeeze it.” Kennedy was initially  surprised at the Russian’s belligerence and later said to him “ Your attitude is what is  mine is mine and what’s yours is well, we’ll negotiate.” The Soviet premier was clad in ill fitting plain off white suit during that encounter, and was similarly attired when he later made a state visit to the US, with his family and Hearst columnist Dorothy Kilgallen would offend Soviet sensibilities and feelings when she wrote that Khrushchev’s wife Nina was dressed ‘Like a Russian peasant woman.”  Khrushchev’ predecessor, Joseph Stalin, only wore a worker’s tunic  in his  official appearances or a military uniform during the Second World War, and his Chinese counterparts,  Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong  and Premier Zhou Enlai also wore such  drab tunics in their official appearances as does the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un today. But in his recorded recollection of his summit conference with Khrushchev’s successor Leonid Brezhnev former President Richard Nixon recalled that while he faced  Brezhnev who was clad in a tailored dark suit, he suddenly realized that  he was wearing gold cufflinks, which was somewhat surprising for a leader who claimed to be the leader of the international Communist movement  that was ostensibly committed to leading the world’s worker to victory over the capitalists. And it was reported that the British authorities thought that the Soviet Union was undergoing significant change  when Brezhnev’s eventual successor as leader Mikhail Gorbachev, did not ask to be brought to the site of Karl Marx’s grave in High Gate  Cemetery in London, where previous Soviet had made reverential pilgrimages,  but instead asked that he and his wife Raisa be permitted to visit the upscale Harrod’s Store in the  British capital instead, and Gorbachev would later have suits made for him by famed English tailor Alexander Mc Queen who also made clothes for Prince Charles. And an individual who often appears in court in the Oklahoma City area  recently asked  the staffers at the Pinpoint  Fine  Wear Men’s Store  at Fifty Penn Place in Oklahoma City if they thought that he should wear  cufflinks in his office or for his court appearances and jury trials. One staffer,  an older man named Dwight, who was wearing a pinstriped suit with gold cuff links, replied that he thought that they were always appropriate. But a younger salesman, who was addressed as “Angel” despite the fact that he was not a winged seraph did not think that cuff links were in order for the well dressed man of today. The owner of the establishment, Chris Khrais, said that he continues to sell cufflinks to men of all ages who wish to present an image of success and sophistication. In the classic novel “The Great Gatsby” a shady character who is a business associate of Jay Gatsby, Meyer Wolfsheim, and is said to have been the individual who fixed the World Series games of 1919, was described by author F. Scott Fitzgerald as wearing cufflinks that appear to have been made out of human molars. While it is not known if the current Russian leader Vladimir Putin, wears cuff links it would seem that similar style of them would be appropriate for him and his murderous regime.                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                     

“Our Tools For Business” Gathering At Hudson Hall In Altus OK

 Histories of Las Vegas, Nevada tell of how a transplanted New York City gangster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, who was living in Los Angeles happened to stop in what was then a sleepy small desert  community and had a vision of transforming it into a gambling mecca that would bring people from around the world to it. And a somewhat similar vision may have gripped two more reputable individuals, husband and wife Brendon and  Sidney Tyner of the southwest Oklahoma community of Altus, when they viewed what was then  a largely moribund century old structure  on the Town Square in that locale. The couple envisioned it transformed into a place that could host a variety of  events such as civic gatherings and cultural events that would enrich the town. The couple embarked on that herculean project several years ago, and as documented in the local media as the siding that covered it’s original façade was pulled away a large sign was revealed that told of  the structure’s original purpose as  the Russell   Department Store and the  faded lettering on the upper floor windows  that were encrusted with decades of dust and grime told of  medical  and law offices that had previously been in place. Like many   of those who  bravely mount such undertakings, the couple  experienced frustrations and disappointment as they were advised by  craftsmen that certain things could not be saved,  but also were surprised by the often meticulous attention to detail that was shown by the original builders that was uncovered as old wallpaper, flooring, and  ceiling spaces were stripped away by workmen. When the  transformation was finally completed several years ago,  and the structure was christened “Hudson Hall” in recognition of the thoroughfare that it is located, citizens  began to tour the place that told of the community’s past as well as it’s future as adjacent structures  have also began to be revitalized  with the assistance and encouragement  of the Altus Main Street program that is affiliated with the Oklahoma Department of Commerce in Oklahoma City.  The civic functions  being performed by Hudson Hall  is  made evident in a bold undertaking that is taking place there on February 22^nd, from 4:00 PM until 7:00 PM l with the assistance of Altus Main  Street  that will provide an impressive array of experts to those in the  community are currently operating a business or wish to open such an undertaking. That entity is led by the dynamic Lynna Morris Wilmes, and she has detailed the representatives who will be present such advise, that include representatives from local banks, law offices, the Oklahoma Small Business  Center, the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the ABLE Commission, and several local governmental entities whose approval must be obtained to open and operate a public place. “Our Tools For Business”  is what the gathering is titled, and in recognition of the changing demographics of Altus and much of Southwest Oklahoma,   Spanish translation will be provided as needed. Decades from now, it is possible that residents of Altus will tell of how their family business  was spawned by a dream that their parents or grandparents had that was provided guidance  and  form   in part as a result of an afternoon that they had spent at Hudson Hall  in the company of experts  who had gathered there for that purpose.

Getting Kicks On Route 66 In The Britton District Of OKC

 In the recently published  “Following Caesar,” author  John Keahey tells of how an ambitious young  man in Rome, Julius Caesar, assumed responsibility of what was an even then  old thoroughfare, the Via Appia, in 66 BC, and later used it, along with  a related  road, the Via Egnatia, to conquer much of Gaul  and the Balkans. And in that work  Keahey  relates of how he travelled those historic roads and tells of  the often colorful and interesting  people he encountered in the course of his expedition, and also relates how   much of the history of Rome was connected to it. And another historic road,  Route 66, that ran from Chicago Illinois and ended at the Santa Monica Pier at the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles California   and meandered through parts of Oklahoma City, is also being celebrated by a variety of people from various locales around the world for the role it played in the US when it was often  described  as the “Mother Road”  by those who were heading west in pursuit of better lives and later by those who came to see it’s historical significance in  American culture.   An area of Britton Road that is in what  has been  designated the ‘Historic Britton District” that was part of Route 66  is sometimes referred to in the accounts   penned by individuals  who have seen fit to travel it’s length and later written accounts of those they met there. On a recent gray morning artist  Lisa Lampton Allen, who  owns and operates the popular Hideout Art Gallery there, was open for business and was offering her inspired and eclectic canvasses at reduced prices to grateful patrons, told of how she is continuing to host the individual painting parties in which she  teaches people how to paint modern art with  paint is spread with a trowel on canvases.  Several of the colorful and vibrant works that were available, she explained, were the work of her friend Bryan Anderson who was present, along with his pretty young daughter, and he said that he  now works as a chef at the upscale Ranch Steakhouse that is located on Britton Road close to Lake Hefner. The popular Zero Tolerance Coffee And Chocolate, that formerly adjoined her gallery, has moved several doors down to a much larger location in response to the increasing number of clients who gathered there for their coffee and tasty fare that is said to be including  Italian gelato very soon. Coffee from various parts of the world were available for purchase there   as a young man who was playing a guitar  and gently singing into a microphone to  tables of patrons who listened  with obvious interest. Several religious icons that heralded Orthodox Christian saints that were in place there  were a reminder of the strong  Ukrainian Orthodox faith of the couple who own and operate the place that seems to have been strengthened by the unprovoked Russian invasion of that state. It’s former location is now shuttered, but an intriguing sign with the  redundant words “Lucky Lucky”  inscribed on  it was recently put in place on it, and Lisa Allen reported that it will be soon be the home of an Asian eatery that will serve egg rolls and dumplings that were formerly served from a food truck of that name whose owners have long hankered for a stationary bricks and mortar location to offer their popular fare. It has been said that Route 66 is the only thoroughfare that in time became a destination in  itself, and a sojourn  on the part of it that includes the Britton District  serves as a reminder of the interesting people and places that  travelers encounter there.

Campaign Event For Scotty Hernandez At The Law Office Of Michael Brooks Jimenez In South OKC

On a recent windy Saturday morning the law office of Michael Brooks Jimenez on South Pennsylvania Avenue  was the site of a gathering of supporters of Scotty Hernandez,  who is a candidate for the Oklahoma City School Board.   Some of those present availed  themselves of the literature that was in packets for distribution to   those  who would be knocking on doors on behalf of the candidate,   while others manned  a series of phones on his  behalf. The attendees included Arturo Alonso, a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives whose dynamism and intelligence has impressed many of those who  have come in contact with him in the halls of the legislature, and Sam Wargin  Grimaldo, an attorney who is affiliated with the law office who is seeking election to the Oklahoma State Senate. The candidate himself appeared for a time carrying a large amount of yard signs with his name embossed on them. Democratic  Senator Michael Brooks Jimenez, an Oklahoma State Senator whose district includes much of  South Oklahoma City, hosted the event, and greeted the guests in a  characteristically gracious manner.  The advocate spoke privately  of how in recent legislative sessions  he has sponsored bills that would have allowed undocumented residents of the Sooner State to acquire driver’s licenses, and told of how  that he believes that the decision to bestow driving privileges on residents should not be tied to a Federal immigration system  that many now see as a failed system.  He told of how his proposal would allow  undocumented resident’s  who have filed Oklahoma  income tax forms and have an individual tax ID number  to obtain drivers licenses, and according to figure that he obtained from the Oklahoma Tax Commission would result in an additional 28,215 licensed drivers on the state’s thoroughfares. The lawmaker told of how after Utah saw fit to create such a program, the uninsured rate for drivers went from 28% to 8% in the year 2012, and after Connecticut followed suit hit and run collisions went down by 15% and the policy holders in the  Nutmeg State  saved $43.5 million  in premiums on their individual policies.  The proposal  has won the support of a diverse group of entities, including the Oklahoma State Trooper’s Association, the Sheriff’s Association, the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, and the Association of General Contractor’s of Oklahoma. Brooks Jimenez said that it’s adoption would result in a reduction in insurance rates  currently being paid by residents, and would not impose any additional costs to taxpayers. In addition, the  bill as written would ensure that those driving licenses could not be used to register to vote in elections held in Oklahoma. The lawmaker’s son was also present with several of his classmates  from Mount Saint Mary’s High School, and he directed the guests to the refreshments that included coffee and chicken sandwiches that were available in an adjacent place that serves as the break room for the office as the senior Brooks Jimenez looked on with pride.