An observant Muslim’s memories of Christmas in Kashmir
Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
I learned the mellifluous music of Christmas in Kashmir.
Kashmir with its verdant, rolling hills; sparkling snow topped mountains;
gushing streams;
dew sprinkled meadows in summer and snow flake blanketed meadows in winter;
horses with trappings, sleigh bells, shingled roofs, and the cocooning smell of burning wood in furnaces;
the aroma of pines, firs, and conifers;
a fertile landscape inundated with the alluring ripeness of loquat, cherry, apple, pomegranate trees, firmly denying stagnation or any hint of barrenness;
an unmistakable vitality and zeal for life in the air;
the mellowness of winter that becalms the harried soul;
the lustrous snows of winter that promise to expiate the most egregious sin;
the tenuous throes of infancy in the vibrant atmosphere of spring, with tenderly sprouting flower buds feeling their way into existence;
the unflinching faith of the mystic in communion with the divine; a mysticism that cannot be reduced to history.
I wish all my friends and family a wonderful Christmas!
NOTE: A native of Kashmir, Dr. Nyla Ali Khan is an Oklahoma-based academic, and a widely published author. Her commentaries have appeared frequently in The City Sentinel newspaper and on CapitolBeatOK, an independent news website based in Oklahoma City. Dr. Nyla’s newest book, forthcoming in the New Year, is “Educational Strategies for Youth Empowerment in Conflict Zones: Transforming, not Transmitting, Trauma.” (Springer)
An observant Muslim’s memories of Christmas in Kashmir Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
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Darla Shelden, The City Sentinel
OKLAHOMA CITY – On Monday, January 18, the 2021 Oklahoma City Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Coalition will host its annual celebration. All events will take place virtually online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our 2021 theme, ‘Remember, Celebrate, and ACT’ takes on even greater significance this year,’ said R.L. Doyle, OKC MLK Jr. Holiday Coalition Chair. “A strong show of unity is needed to demonstrate the significance of this Holiday for the entire Oklahoma City Community.
“We have always and will continue to display the virtues that will honor Dr. King’s life and work,” he added.
“The coronavirus and the CDC guidelines have required us all to make changes and adjustments in how we gather and celebrate,” Doyle continued. “Because of the new normal, the 2021 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, holiday activities hosted by the OKC MLK Coalition will be held virtually.”
The day will begin with an Opening Ceremony and Silent March (https://ift.tt/3rmG7VH).
The annual Bell Ringing ceremony will be at 11 a.m. and the Holiday Program at 12:15 P.M. (http://www.okcmlkcoalition.org/event-details/holiday-program).
Oklahoma City’s MLK Jr. Holiday Parade (https://ift.tt/2WGWgqX) commences at 2 p.m. – all events via zoom.
This year’s parade hosts will be international speaker, award winning author and mentor, Wyjuana Mongomery (https://ift.tt/3riYZF4)
along with Deondre D. Chappell, on air personality, mobile DJ and comedian (https://www.facebook.com/deondre.chappell).
“Oklahoma City's MLK Day Parades have been some of the largest in the country, a great tribute to the young ‘sit-inners’ led by Ms. Clara Luper, who ended segregated lunch counters at Katz Drug Store in the 1950s,” said Nathaniel Batchelder, director of the Peace House. “Dr. King's ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, available on the internet, is 17-minutes well worth listening to again today. Everybody can help end racism.”
The OKC MLK Jr. Holiday Coalition has been organizing the parade, the third largest in the United States, and its related events for 40 years.
“We are extremely proud of our record and look forward to many more years of service to our community,” Doyle said. “We welcome all citizens and organizations to join us in honoring Dr. King and in keeping his dream alive in Oklahoma City.”
When available, the program for the event will be made available on the website – https://ift.tt/3rxbkpx .
For more information, contact Parade Coordinator William Jones at 405-306-8440 or Garland Pruitt at 405-473-6152. Guidelines that must be followed for the virtual celebration are also listed on the organization’s website.
They include “various ways organizations can join with the MLK Coalition and other partners to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King Jr.,” according to Doyle.
The 2021 OKC Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Coalition tee shirts are now available online, featuring the 2021 theme Remember, Celebrate, and ACT. T-shirts are $15 each for sizes small to extra large and $16 for XXL and larger. Click here (https://ift.tt/37KxOvl) to order .
Zoom event information will be emailed to those registered and also posted on OKC MLK Holiday Coalition social media platforms. According to the website, participants must
register and pay fees. See here:
https://ift.tt/37IBLjS
“Join us for a virtual Job Fair, Silent March, Bell Ringing, Program, and Parade with your contribution,” Doyle said. “Directions and information on how this will take place will be in the package,” and, he said, on the coalition’s website.
To learn more, visit Okcmlkcoalition.org.
Oklahoma City MLK Jr. Holiday Coalition 2021 events to take place virtually Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
Oklahoma City — Two organ donors and one donation healthcare hero will be representing Oklahoma in the 2021 Tournament of Roses TV Special on New Year’s Day. Mariee Mena and Kolby Crum will be honored as organ donors, and Luci Pham will be recognized as a Healthcare Hero.
Each year, LifeShare of Oklahoma helps sponsor the Donate Life Float in the Tournament of Roses Parade to spread the message about organ, eye and tissue donation to a nationwide audience.
The Pasadena, California, association announced in July that it was canceling the 132nd parade because of the risk of spreading COVID-19 infections among its large audience and participants, but viewers will still get a show with a two-hour television special on New Year’s Day.
This year, in lieu of a parade, the Tournament of Roses will have a floral sculpture that honors donors and donation health care professionals.
LifeShare Oklahoma is a nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) dedicated to the recovery of organs and tissue for transplant purposes.
The 2021 Donate Life Rose Parade floral sculpture themed, “Community of Life” will feature a vibrant floral bee honeycomb, that will reflect the message that we are stronger when we work together as a community.
Twenty-one hexagonal memorial portraits of donors will be interwoven within the bee-style honeycomb, symbolizing the life donors give through organ, eye and tissue donation.
Similar to the families and donors who have given the gift of life, bees represent a harmonious community that helps and benefits others.
Donation healthcare professionals devote every day to make donation and transplantation possible. The names of six health care professionals will be featured within the floral sculpture.
This year’s Donate Life Rose Parade will include a total of 27 participants from around the nation – three of which are Oklahomans.
This January, Oklahoma will be represented by the following individuals:
Kolby Crum (https://ift.tt/3rnAKpp), an organ donor, always cared about others. Not really into sports, Kolby wanted to be on a team and joined cross country. He finished in the top 2 percent of athletes in the 2019 season. He worked hard himself, but also ran alongside others to encourage them.
Kolby enjoyed board and card games, particularly “Magic the Gathering,” which he played with friends from around the city.
A silent leader, Kolby was hard working and encouraging and younger students looked up to him. He had plans to attend college on a cross country scholarship in pursuit of a degree in psychology.
When getting his driver’s license, Kolby registered to be an organ donor knowing he could give hope and life to others.
Just months later, Kolby and his cross country teammates were struck by a vehicle driving more than 80 miles per hour in a school zone. Kolby was one of three who lost their lives in the tragic incident.
After all efforts to save Kolby’s life had been attempted, his family wasn’t surprised to learn that he was a registered donor. Since Kolby was 18 and was registered, his parents supported his final wish to give to life to others by donating his organs.
Kolby will be honored on the Rose Parade structure, in one of 21 floragraphs, which is a floral portrait made out of organic materials, such as rice, farina, coffee, flax seeds and cinnamon.
Organ donor Mariee Mena (https://ift.tt/3plc92M), was a star softball player at the University of Oklahoma, the daughter of two proud parents, a loving sister, and a caring cousin. As a member of a sports loving family, Mariee pursued softball.
By the time she entered high school, Mariee had established herself as a star player in softball, volleyball and tennis.
Her performance and awards at Escondido High School earned her a scholarship to play softball at the University of Oklahoma, where she began her first season in 2003.
Because she enjoyed her four years on the OU Softball Team so much, Mariee became a softball coach like her father. She also began tutoring and was soon hired as a teaching assistant.
One evening, two police officers arrived at the Mena residence in California to inform Mariee’s parents that she had been involved in a motorcycle accident. The Mena family quickly traveled to Oklahoma where they would learn that Mariee would not recover from her injuries.
The entire family was allowed to stay with Mariee in the ICU room designed for two visitors. “The nurses were wonderful, they took such good care of her," Marlee’s mother recalls.
Over the next three days, all of Mariee’s friends came to see her, where they would play music, sing for her, and say good-bye – an outpouring of love that was comforting to the Mena family.
Mariee will be honored in one of the 21 floragraphs on the Rose Parade floral structure.
Always fascinated by science, Luci Pham (https://ift.tt/3rrpatt), a Donation Health Care Professional from Oklahoma City, originally aspired to be a marine biologist. However, her fear of open water would cause her to instead pursue a career in respiratory therapy, where she worked four years at a hospital.
While working, she met a LifeShare staff member who explained the gift of donation, which made a real impression on her work experience.
Luci has worked at LifeShare since November 2016, where she started as an Organ Recovery Coordinator. She is now an Advance Practice Coordinator, taking administrator calls and performing special procedures as needed.
For Luci, working at LifeShare is not only a meaningful career, but also a calling that is much bigger than she could have imagined.
Since working as an Organ Recovery Coordinator at LifeShare, Luci says she has developed an even bigger passion for donation and enjoys the aspect of her work that allows the donor’s families and friends a form of closure that comes from a tragic situation.
She also cares deeply about the recipient families, friends and colleagues who have more time with their loved ones because of the donation.
One memorable moment at work for Luci was when she experienced a tragic situation with a pediatric donor, in which the doctors were able to recover a tiny heart saving another child’s life.
Luci grieved for the donor’s family for the loss of their child. After the recovery, the transplant surgeon was able to send a video of the heart beating in the recipient’s chest.
Luci’s name will be one of six Donation Health Care Professionals displayed on the Donate Life Floral structure.
“In a year of uncertainties, the need for lifesaving transplants continues. Transplants would not be possible without our generous donors and their families, who, in the midst of tragedy as they lose a loved one, find the courage to save lives,” Jeffrey Orlowski, President and CEO of LifeShare said.
“These individuals honored in the floral sculpture will not only be representing the importance of donation, but will serve as representatives of Oklahoma and the approximately 600 citizens of the state who are awaiting a lifesaving transplant.”
LifeShare encourages everyone to watch the Rose Parade Special on New Year’s Day.
LifeShare works closely with four transplant centers and 145 healthcare organizations in Oklahoma to facilitate donation. In addition, LifeShare works to raise awareness for organ, eye and tissue donation and transplantation through public education.
For more information, visit lilfeshareok.org .
Oklahomans to be Honored in Tournament of Roses 2021 Event Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
Darla Shelden, The City Sentinel
OKLAHOMA CITY— CVS Health has formally launched its COVID-19 vaccination program for long-term care facilities. Residents of these facilities have been disproportionality impacted by the pandemic.
Beginning Monday, December 21, CVS Pharmacy teams administered the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in facilities across 12 states, and the company expects to vaccinate up to four million residents and staff at over 40,000 long-term care facilities through the program.
In Oklahoma, this includes 176 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities with an estimated 27,204 patients due to be vaccinated in these locations.
“Today’s rollout is the culmination of months of internal planning and demonstrates how the private sector can use its expertise to help solve some of our most critical challenges,” said Larry J. Merlo, President and Chief Executive Officer, CVS Health.
“I’m grateful for the herculean efforts of everyone involved, including our health care professionals who will be deployed throughout the country to bring peace of mind to long-term care facility residents, staff, and their loved ones.”
CVS Pharmacy teams will make three visits to each long-term care facility to ensure residents and staff receive their initial shot and critical booster.
The majority of residents and staff will be fully vaccinated three to four weeks after the first visit, depending on which vaccine they receive. CVS Health expects to complete its long-term care facility vaccination effort in approximately 12 weeks.
Starting Dec. 21, CVS Health will administer COVID-19 vaccinations in the following states: Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Vermont. Vaccinations will begin in 36 more states, as well as the District of Columbia, on December 28. Puerto Rico will activate on January 4.
The long-term care facility vaccination effort is a precursor to the eventual availability of COVID-19 vaccines at all CVS Pharmacy locations throughout the country subject to product availability and prioritization of populations, which will be determined by states.
Vaccines in a retail setting will be offered on an appointment-only basis via cvs.com
or through the CVS Pharmacy app. There will also be a dedicated 800 number for people without online access.
CVS Pharmacy will have the capacity to administer 20 – 25 million shots per month.
“Vaccinating one of our most vulnerable populations is the latest milestone in our multifaceted pandemic response, which includes testing more than 10 million people for the virus since March,” stated Karen S. Lynch, currently Executive Vice President, CVS Health and President, Aetna, who will become the company's next President and CEO on February 1.
"The eventual availability of COVID-19 vaccines in communities across the country will bring us one step closer to overcoming the most significant health challenge of our lifetime,” Lynch added.
More information on steps CVS Health has taken to address the pandemic is available at the company's COVID-19 resource center (https://cvshealth.com/), which is updated frequently.
With over 300,000 employees, CVS Health’s commitment to responding to the COVID-19 health crisis includes administering nearly 10 million COVID-19 tests at more than 4,300 testing locations in 33 states and the District of Columbia.
CVS Health begins administering COVID-19 vaccines in long-term care facilities Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
Ray Carter, OCPAThink.org
Following the 2016 presidential election, reports of Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election process prompted numerous congressional investigations and bipartisan efforts to better protect election security, U.S. Sen. James Lankford noted.
But the Oklahoma City Republican sees less interest in addressing many concerns raised about election integrity following the 2020 presidential election — even though he said those concerns are just as valid.
“After this election, all kinds of issues have come up and said there are potentials for problems, and everyone seems to be saying, ‘Move on,’” Lankford said. “The only reason I can think that that would be different was because the election outcomes seem to be different. And one side is now saying, ‘Let’s just move on and ignore this.”
Lankford made his comments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXminByXWq4&feature=youtu.be) during a U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing titled “Examining Irregularities in the 2020 Election.”
He noted Oklahoma was one of 27 states that concluded vote-counting on the night of the election.
“There was much less opportunity for accusations of fraud because all of our ballots were in,” he said.
In contrast, a week after the date of the presidential election he noted officials in other states were “saying things like, ‘We don’t know how many more ballots there are left to count.’”
He said such a lengthy process and officials’ professed uncertainty “gives opportunity for fraud and questions and problems.”
Lankford said it is “reasonable” to question if the election system in such states is secure, and to question many other practices witnessed during the 2020 election in various states.
“It’s reasonable to be able to ask if people can drift around and gather ballots from other people and do ballot harvesting—and in some states that’s legal,” Lankford said. “Does that provide an opportunity for fraud? I think the obvious answer is yes.”
He said it is reasonable to ask if fraud potential exists “if you mail a ballot to everyone in the state even if they didn’t ask for it,” adding that concerns are especially valid if “the state did not first purge or verify those addresses and they sent thousands of ballots to people that no longer live there.”
Lankford said he has spoken with one Nevada resident who had multiple ballots mailed to that individual’s residence “for people that no longer live there.”
“That’s a problem, and we should at least admit that’s a problem,” Lankford said. “And for some reason the other side was very focused on, ‘We’ve got to fix the potential for problems from 2016,’ but in 2020 when there is potential for problems in things that have been shown, everyone seems to say, ‘Move along. Let’s not discuss this.”
During the hearing, Jesse R. Binnall, a partner in the Harvey & Binnall, PLLC law firm,
testified (https://ift.tt/37EaizZ) that in Nevada more than 42,000 people voted more than once, saying officials developed that figure by “reviewing the list of actual voters and comparing it to other voters with the same name, address, and date of birth.”
Binnall said at least 1,500 dead people are recorded as voting in Nevada, “as shown by comparing the list of mail voters with the social security death records.” Another 19,000 people voted “even though they did not live in Nevada,” he said, adding that those voters were identified “by comparing the lists of voters with the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address database, among other sources.”
Binnall also said about 8,000 people voted in Nevada “from nonexistent addresses,” based on cross-referencing voters with the Coding Accuracy Support System, and that more than 15,000 votes “were cast from commercial or vacant addresses” with that estimate devised by analyzing official U.S. Postal Service records “that flag nonresidential addresses and addresses vacant for more than 90 days.”
“All in all, our experts identified over 130,000 unique instances of voter fraud in Nevada,” Binnall said. “But the actual number is almost certainly higher. Our data scientists made these calculations not by estimations or statistical sampling, but by analyzing and comparing the list of actual voters with other lists, most of which are publicly available. To put it simply, they explained their methods so that others could check their work. Our evidence has never been refuted, only ignored.”
Lankford noted 30 states participate in the Electronic Registration information Center (ERIC system), which allows election officials to verify if people have moved and are now registered in two different states.
“Only 30 states use that,” Lankford said. “Other states are not and even of the 30 states that use it not all of them are actually using it. They are literally on the system but they’re not actually purging their rolls when they know there are people that have moved out of their states and have been informed of that. Just this last year in the ERIC system they identified 91,000 people that are registered voters that are dead — 91,000 that that one system had recognized.”
Given such practices and problems, Lankford said citizens have reason for concern about election security: “There are problems in the system.”
NOTE: Ray Carter is director of the Center for Independent Journalism, based at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, where this news story first appeared (https://www.ocpathink.org/post/lankford-voter-fraud-concerns-are-justified).
Lankford: Voter fraud concerns are justified Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
The Oklahoma Ethics Commission has temporarily tabled a proposed rule that would require lobbyists and nonprofit organizations to report when they provide certain “informational materials” to state lawmakers.
Commission officials said the rule was intended to prevent the use of rare books as legislative bribes, but a wide range of critics warned the regulation was overly broad and would effectively curtail free-speech rights.
“I am weary of coming before this body and spending the precious nonprofit resources that are given to us to hire attorneys to defend ourselves against rules that are proposed by this body that ultimately end up finding their way to being illegal in court or struck down by the Legislature,” said Jonathan Small, president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. “Instead of resources that the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, the NAACP, the Sierra Club, the ACLU, the Red Cross — you name it, you pick your favorite nonprofit in Oklahoma — being spent on serving those individuals that we are intended to serve, they’re being spent having to deal with and pay general counsel to analyze yet another proposed rule from this commission.”
The proposed Oklahoma Ethics Commission regulation (https://ift.tt/3peoDco), which was considered during the group’s regular December meeting, states that “books, written materials, electronic, audio and/or video materials, and similar informational materials” may be provided to the governor or members of the Legislature, but only “provided such informational materials are related to the recipient’s duties as an officer or employee of the State of Oklahoma.”
The regulation requires those who provide “informational materials” to executive- and legislative-branch officials to report those activities to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission in many instances.
The proposed regulation was advanced following a preliminary injunction issued in July by Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti that barred the Oklahoma Ethics Commission from enforcing a similar rule. That case focused on the Institute for Justice’s plan to distribute a $15 book to officers and employees of the state’s legislative and executive branches.
The Institute for Justice argued the Ethics Commission rule violated the organization’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by restricting the ability to distribute informational materials to state officers and employees and petition the government.
In his order, DeGiusti wrote the Institute for Justice had demonstrated “a sufficient likelihood of succeeding on the merits.”
While the Ethics Commission argued its ban on informational materials in that case is similar to limits on campaign-speech through contribution limits, DeGiusti wrote that “the relationship between the distribution of informational materials to public officials and what is traditionally understood to be ‘campaign speech’ is simply too attenuated.”
DeGiusti noted that the case “involves something much different than financial campaign contributions. ‘Bottleneckers,’ the book in question, is meant to inform and educate public officials about a topic of public policy; this is not something that squarely falls under the typical ‘campaign speech’ categories — such as contribution limits, expenditure caps, and political funding disclosure requirements.”
Critics of the Ethics Commission’s latest proposed regulation said it contains many of the same flaws identified in the regulation at the center of the Institute for Justice case.
“This rule can only be constitutional if it is narrowly tailored to preventing corruption or its appearance,” said Shauna Peters, an official with the Oklahoma Society of Professional Advocates, a statewide group of lobbyists and government affairs professionals. “This rule is anything but narrowly tailored to that legitimate interest at this time. The rule sweeps a broad array of speech that has nothing to do with preventing corruption.”
Under the rule, she said it would be illegal to provide a pamphlet on judicial philosophy to a judicial-branch official.
“The rule severely burdens speech by requiring an enormous level of reporting,” Peters said. “The rule is so broad and the definition so elusive as to be virtually limitless in scope.”
“My concern is just ‘information materials’ is such a broad concept,” said Josh McGoldrick, general counsel at the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. “I mean, essentially anything or almost anything can be a legislative or informational material.”
He noted the agency routinely provides summary documents for legislation and proposed bill language, and said it appeared any of those documents could fall under the proposed rule.
“We just don’t want to be in a position — and the way it’s drafted, it sounds like we might be — to where we have to report on every email we provide to a legislator,” McGoldrick said.
Attorney A.J. Ferate said the proposal is “far too grand, far too large, and frankly, reaches even farther than the previous regulation that the judge has declined.”
Ferate said the commission should focus on “not only doing its duty, not only fulfilling the mission, but not attempting to overreach and create new regulations in new places where, frankly, there may not have been any sort of issue in the first place that needed to be addressed other than someone thought it was a good idea.”
“This is an attempt to expand this body’s regulatory power in an area that a judge has already had to step in and smack you all down,” said Trent England, David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.
Numerous other officials submitted written comments opposing the proposed regulation.
Don Spencer, president of the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association, wrote that the proposed rule “appears to completely ignore our First Amendment right and has the full intention to prohibit free speech and related activities.”
John Tidwell, state director of Americans for Prosperity, called the proposed rule a “vague and ambiguous” measure that “advances no legitimate governmental interest and would do little to ensure ethical conduct. He warned the regulation “would impermissibly infringe on the constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech” and “insofar as it dissuades citizens from engaging in the political process and creates a disincentive for distribution, could damage the quality of political discourse.”
Attorney Geoffrey D. Long wrote, “Lobbyists, lobbyist principals, and any other interested party should be free to broadly provide informational materials to the legislature that relate to the legislature’s purpose and function. Restrictions and burdensome reporting requirements are inconsistent with the freedom of interested parties to petition their government and advocate for their policy positions.”
Howard L. (Bud) Ground, a lobbyist, noted that lobbyists routinely provide lawmakers position papers and talking points about legislation.
“These informational materials are worth only pennies and the burden on a lobbyist to report these materials would be enormous,” Ground wrote.
In response, Ashley Kemp, executive director of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, said similar regulations have already been applied to state vendors, but not to lobbyists, and that critics did not understand the regulation.
“There’s this blurring of ‘written communications’ and ‘informational materials’ that’s going on,” Kemp said, adding that “those items are separate and distinct.”
The website Law Insider defines “informational materials” to include “press releases, advertisements, brochures, flyers, handouts, web pages” and similar materials.
Commission officials also said the intent of the regulation was to bar the gift of expensive books as a form of bribery.
“If a person, a lobbyist, gave to a legislator a unique book that had been purchased at Sotheby’s for $10,000, would you say that the Ethics Commission doesn’t have any right to regulate that?” asked Commissioner Charlie Laster, a former state senator.
“If that’s the reason for this, that legislators are being bribed with expensive books, this is not what you’d write,” England responded.
During a lengthy discussion period, members of the commission voiced support for making significant revisions to the proposed rule to reduce its scope. Kemp often argued against making those changes.
Laster said the proposed regulation should be rewritten to make its purpose clear.
In response to public feedback, Commissioner Jarred Brejcha suggested the reporting requirements should be removed.
“Unless that information material is the $10,000 book, I don’t know why we’re worried about it,” Brejcha said, “because it seems to open up so many other problems and issues.”
He suggested officials should only have to report items as gifts that have a specific monetary value.
“If we’re going to say this isn’t really a gift because it’s informational material, and it doesn’t hold some kind of economic value that’s going to create an ethical dilemma with the giver and receiver, then I don’t know why if we’re not going to regulate it why we need to monitor it either,” Brejcha said.
Kemp pushed back against that suggestion and argued for mandatory reporting of informational items as a form of “public transparency.”
“The reporting aspect becomes important because, while citizens of Oklahoma may not care if a state officer or an employee receives a book or a manual that explains something that’s related to their job because it assists them in fulfilling their responsibilities to the state of Oklahoma, I think they very much do care if they receive a first edition book that then can be sold for $10,000,” Kemp said.
She also said reporting of lower-value informational materials was needed for the commission to determine if a gift was job-related or not.
“From an enforcement standpoint, if it’s not being reported, how would you know whether or not it was related to their responsibilities as a state officer or employee?” Kemp said.
The commission set aside the regulation but is expected to take up potential revisions at a special meeting.
NOTE: This news story is reposted, with permission, from a report first posted at the website of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (https://ift.tt/3nDD5KF) . A veteran journalist, Ray Carter is director of OCPA’s Center for Independent Journalism.
Ethics Commission targets ‘information material’ Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
Molina Heathcare is providing financial support for Catholic Charities' Sanctuary Women’s Development Center. Sanctuary offers homeless and low-income women and children resources, providing support and advocacy to alleviate the effects of poverty within the community and providing tools to overcome homelessness.
“Catholic Charities is pleased to partner with Molina Healthcare in ensuring the most vulnerable in our community have access to the help they need,” said Patrick Raglow, Executive Director of Catholic Charities, in a press release sent to The City Sentinel, CapitolBeatOK and other news organizations. “This gift to Sanctuary Women’s Development Centers is just one way Molina seeks to partner with local service agencies to strengthen our community by working together. We look forward to working with Molina Healthcare to help our clients achieve the success they seek.”
Sanctuary provides social services to homeless and at-risk women and their children including resource referral and assistance accessing services such as daycare and Early Head Start, vocational and employment development, solution-focused advocacy, and a self-efficacy group.
Staffan entered Sanctuary in 2018 after being homeless for one year and ten months. She had been living in her car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. “I felt hopeless, despair, sometimes I didn’t feel at all; Sanctuary gave me hope,” she said. Staffan entered Case Management at Sanctuary in order to establish goals and get her life back on track. “I met women from all walks of life and it gave me strength,” she said. Through Sanctuary, she was able to find employment and housing and is now living on her own.
Catholic Charities assists people of all cultures and to rise out of poverty and overcome barriers to self-sufficiency. The agency offers a broad range of programs such as adoption and pregnancy services, counseling, disaster support, family supportive services, homeless support, housing assistance, refugee services, and immigration legal services.
About Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City: Guided by Catholic teaching, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City serves those in need, regardless of their faith, through transformative, empowering and dignity-affirming social service programs that seek to eliminate material, emotional and spiritual poverty across Central and Western Oklahoma. To learn more, call 405-523-3000, visit ccaokc.org, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Catholic Charities receives support from Molina Healthcare Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
Joe Dorman, Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy
The 2021 legislative session is fast approaching, one more sign that 2020 is almost in the rearview mirror. Now is the time for child advocates to begin preparing for what likely will be a very interesting year at the Oklahoma State Capitol.
I am reminded of the ancient curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
With the likelihood that a COVID-19 vaccination will not be ready in time for the second of the four phases of distribution, the first half of the session might look much like last year when legislators met virtually and voted in small groups.
The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy (OICA) worked with lawmakers to ensure priority bills supported by our team were submitted before the bill-filing deadline on Friday, December 11.
Last month, nearly 200 child advocates met virtually during our 2020 Fall Forum. The advocates learned about issues in child advocacy and how the pandemic has impacted services. These advocates also worked in various sessions to help shape a series of recommendations for lawmakers’ consideration.
Advocates focused on four policy areas important to children’s futures:
• Modernization and technology usage for child advocates;
• Economic challenges facing Oklahoma families;
• Student health and well-being; and
• Health care and insurance issues.
Each session had dozens of policy experts discussing how Oklahoma measures up in each category. The dialogue produced a document we intend to help direct policymakers at the State Capitol and within state agencies to improve conditions faced by our state’s youngest residents.
While not everyone will agree on each point of consideration, we hope those in power will keep an open mind to the proposal submitted by those working for children all across our state.
To read our proposal – the 2021 Children’s Legislative Agenda (https://ift.tt/2WvuoWH) – go to https://oica.org . There you can read this document, see the list of press releases we have issued, and review a host of other materials focused on our efforts to make Oklahoma a better state for its children.
While you are there, consider signing up for our next training. For years, OICA and other programs considered developing a training session for advocates. The goal is for advocates to better understand the legislative process, allowing them to be more effective in working with lawmakers.
OICA will expand the scope of the training we traditionally sponsor on the first day of the annual legislative training to meet that need.
In 2021, OICA will conduct our legislative training over four days, virtually on the Zoom platform. Using that format will allow our traditional workshops on the legislative process while advocates have a chance to learn specific nuances of the House of Representatives and Senate operations.
The Legislative Learning Lab (https://ift.tt/3h3mNIh) will be on the final Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of January. The lab will conclude on the first Monday in February, the first day of the legislative session. The Legislative Learning Lab will be “the freshmen orientation lawmakers and advocates need but have never received.”
To review the schedule, which will look at the timeline for considering bills, the appropriations process, redistricting, practical discussions with the media, coalition building, and much more, go to our website. There, you also can sponsor and register for the first Legislative Learning Lab.
We hope this training will allow advocates like you to present a stronger voice in 2021 and help us fulfill our role as the voice for Oklahoma’s children.
NOTE: Joe Dorman’s commentaries and news summaries often appear on CapitolBeatOK.com, an independent news service based in Oklahoma City, and occasionally in the locally-owned community newspaper, The City Sentinel. Dorman is executive director at the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.
Children’s Legislative Agenda Set, Advocate Training Slated for January Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center (OVAC) has announced that the Momentum Spotlight Artists for 2021 are Amber DuBoise-Shepherd of Shawnee, Andrea Duran-Cason of Norman, and Marium Rana from Tahlequah.
The selection of the Momentum 2021 Spotlight Artists was made by OVAC’s inaugural Curatorial Fellow, Pablo Barrera and the Emerging Curator artist, writer, designer, and educator Kristin Gentry, from a highly competitive pool of submissions.
Through Momentum Spotlight, the three selected artists will receive an honorarium of $1000 each to create new artistic projects for Momentum. They will also receive three months of guidance from Barrera and Gentry, to support their practice and refine their projects.
OVAC’s Momentum annually features Oklahoma artists ages 30 years and younger, working in diverse media.
OVAC presents Momentum 2021 in partnership with MAINSITE in Norman and Living Arts of Tulsa. The program is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, George Kaiser Family Foundation, Kirkpatrick Family Fund, and the Oklahoma Arts Council.
In an effort to reach audiences safely, selected works for Momentum 2021 will open at MAINSITE in Norman and travel to Living Arts of Tulsa as month-long exhibitions, as opposed to the usual weekend-only party.
Debuting in Norman on March 3, 2021, the show will be displayed at MAINSITE until March 27. Opening at Living Arts of Tulsa on April 2, the second showing will remain up until April 23.
In addition to the Momentum exhibitions, Spotlight Artists will have exhibit their works at the 21c Museum Hotel in Oklahoma City from February 22 through August 27, 2021.
“I am very thankful to OVAC and this year’s Momentum curators for this amazing opportunity to be a Spotlight Artist,” said DuBoise-Shepherd (https://www.ovac-ok.org/art/Amber-DuBoise-Shepherd).
“I was so excited to receive the call that I was accepted and am looking forward to the challenges and opportunity to represent my art and my Native American people.”
Amber's proposal involves creating three pieces of original art, audio files, videos, and educational resources correlating to her tribal affiliations of Navajo, Sac & Fox, and Prairie Band Potawatomi. With the help of her family, she will use the languages, music, and knowledge of traditional art-making to share her Native languages with others.
“Momentum is a crucial program for Oklahoma’s young and emerging artists,” said Krystle Brewer, OVAC’s executive director. “For many of them, they are exhibiting and selling work for the first time.
“This equips them with the skills and experience to apply for more exhibition opportunities in the future,” Brewer added. “It is also a great platform to see who are Oklahoma’s next rising stars and to show our support early in their careers.”
Interested OVAC general survey applicants can visit momentumoklahoman.org (https://ift.tt/3papnPL) free resources as they are putting together their applications, which include a guide for photographing artwork at home and examples of an artist resume and image list.
“Momentum is an opportunity to connect with creatives who have their own beautiful voices to share,” said Spotlight Artist, Marium Rana (https://ift.tt/2Khlhq9). “It is a chance to connect to an audience and be grounded by our shared human experiences of solitude, togetherness, and longing.”
Born in Long Island, New York, Rana's proposal documents her experience as a Pakistani-American artist, who has also lived in Florida, and Oklahoma. Her project will be a triptych (https://ift.tt/2J2IqvP) , a three paneled display, suspended from the ceiling; one side of which will be filled with her memories growing up in America and the other which will show Pakistan in three different time periods.
Andrea Duran-Cason's proposal investigates human and animal hybridity as a result of personal and corporate pollution, corruption, and ego. Her project will use transparent canvas and light to illuminate the "merging" of human and animal bodies, asking viewers to question when the body stops being an "animal" and becomes "food."
"I am thrilled and honored to be a Spotlight Artist in Momentum and given the platform to be a voice for the voiceless through my art,” said Duran-Cason (https://www.facebook.com/andrea.duran.50). “I hope that my work can spark empathy, thought, and consideration for animals so often left out of conversations of equality and justice.”
An Allied Arts member agency, the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition grows and develops Oklahoma’s visual arts community through education, promotion, connection, and funding.
OVAC is currently seeking submissions from Oklahoma artists, ages 30 and younger, to participate as General Survey Artists in their Momentum 2021 exhibitions. The application, which opened October 1 will close January 14, 2021.
For more information regarding Momentum 2021, visit here: https://ift.tt/38lov3I
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OVAC announces Momentum 2021 Spotlight Artists Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK
Christian Bale returned as Bruce Wayne – The Batman – in Christopher Nolan’s film, “The Dark Knight Rises.” The trilogy Nolan crafted ended on a high note in 2012, with the best installment yet.
Ultimately, nearly every performer with face time on screen contributes to the end result.
The film’s most significant characters include Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake, a beat cop turned detective and Gary Oldman reprising his stellar presentation as Commissioner Gordon. Two favorites leaven this for viewers of “a certain age” – There’s Morgan Freeman as Lucius the entrepreneur who keeps the flame of Wayne greatness alive, and Michael Caine in his finest performance yet as the faithful man-servant, Albert.
These foregoing words sketch less than half the brilliance of this motion picture’s stars.
Tom Hardy is the villain, Bane, a sinner so seemingly unrepentant and a brute so deliriously evil that we cannot possibly find in his character a spark of sympathy – and yet by the end we do.
Two powerful female performances emerge in this 164-minute movie – worth every minute (even in broadcast renditions lingering at four hours).
French actress Marion Cottilard as Miranda, for a time the focus of Wayne’s reborn affection for life, and Anne Hathaway as Selina is a cat burglar without peer, and every bit a match for The Batman’s brains and skills.
Hathaway delivers arguably the most intriguing character in the story full of complexity and layers.
The film script is faithful to the duality that has marked this series in each installment – the fight between good and evil is in every nation, every state, every city – indeed in every human heart. The effects, widely noted in the early reviews, serve the story ably.
It remains a mystery that a graphic novel – an edgy modern comic book series – inspired stories that echoed realities St. Paul described in Scripture, and which the Russian patriot Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn evoked in his narratives: “The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.” Theologically, this is dangerous territory, yet it matches the tenor of our times. (“The Road to Perdition” is another excellent film rooted in the graphic novel tradition.)
Rarely has a movie intended as popular entertainment more deftly captured the sorrow and joy of life, the tension between liberty and license, between order under justice and tyranny under chaos.
A brave young cop sets aside the structure and order that comes with a law enforcer’s badge – yet with good humor we were offered at least a hint that another story might have been lying “out there” in Nolan’s fertile mind and magnificent technical ability.
How many stories have evoked Charles Dickens’ masterful closing lines from “A Tale of Two Cities”? Too many, perhaps – but in this case, well done.
If you love great film-making, the technology of modern cinema at its finest, see “The Dark Knight Rises”. It was worthy on the Big Screen, but is no doubt also awe-inspiring on the latest big screen televisions.
Regardless of the medium in which a first-time viewer watches, if you admire and appreciate spectacular performances by some of the finest women and men that Hollywood offered in modern times, check out again these stellar characterizations.
If you love to see a tale that matters, well told, entertaining and yet edifying, keep an eye on Paramount cable or another of the channels where this movie appears regularly. See for yourself why it was among the most successful movies of the modern era.
The story has it all: spirit and flesh, love and hate, glory and ignominy, revenge and pity, mercy and justice, righteousness and venality, cowardice and courage, condemnation and redemption.
“The Dark Knight Rises” was among the best films of the past decade, and arguably the finest of 2012.
Note: This review is adapted from with minor revisions from its publication in The City Sentinel newspaper in the summer of 2012.
Batman’s “Dark Knight” trilogy concluded in glory: Christian Bale’s final turn was among the best films of 2012 Click on the headline to read the full article at CapitolBeatOK |
Pat McGuiganThe dean of all Oklahoma Journalism, Mr Patrick McGuigan; has a rich history of service in many aspects of both covering the news and producing the information that the public needs to know. Archives
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