Search this site
Matching entries from BatesLine
Tulsa's Gathering Place sues Shawnee coffeehouse
See the end of this post for an update with the lawsuit's resolution. Tulsa's Gathering Place, LLC, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against a family-owned coffeehouse in Shawnee, Oklahoma, 90 miles away. The trademark complaint, filed on Friday, September 24, 2021, in the Western District of Oklahoma, claims...
Remember and Rise cancelled over survivors' reparations demands
Stage for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission's cancelled "Remember & Rise" commemorative event, set up in the middle of ONEOK Field. May 28, 2021. Copyright 2021 Michael D. Bates. All rights reserved. Omar Villafranca of CBS News reports this morning that the cancellation of Monday's "Remember and Rise"...
An open letter to Tulsa visitors on the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
To journalists, photographers, and visitors, pilgrims this week of the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: Welcome to Tulsa. Some context may help you interpret what you see and hear this week.
Time for protesters to run for office; time for Tulsa leaders to read the Riot Act
A young friend of mine was incensed at the attitude of older folks about the incident on the North Detroit overpass of Interstate 244. "The point of a protest is this: How does it feel to be powerless?" So it was fine, in the eyes of this homeschooled, Christian young...
Is SQ 780 enabling your neighborhood thief?
In 2016, Oklahoma voters approved SQ 780, which extensively amended the criminal code to reclassify some felonies as misdemeanors and to eliminate stricter penalties for repeat offenders for certain crimes. Earlier in 2016, the Legislature had made changes to the criminal code with the same aim -- control costs by...
New BatesLine advertiser: G. N. Taylor, Oklahoma artist
BatesLine is proud to welcome a new advertiser: Durant-based artist G. N. Taylor, whose website offers paintings of scenes from Oklahoma history and the American West. Neal Taylor is an accomplished sculptor and painter. A bronze sculpture by Taylor, "The Spirit of '89," was presented to President Ronald Reagan and...
Boston Beer Garden, 1937-1983
Found while looking for something else: In the Tulsa Library's growing digital archive, a December 22, 1983, Tulsa Tribune, story about the the Boston Beer Garden, destroyed by fire in the wee hours of December 21, 1983. The fire took the life of the bar's janitor and night watchman, Lennis...
Vision Tulsa: North Tulsa perspective -- a 93.4% rotten apple
One of the joys of this campaign has been getting to know some valiant community leaders that I had not previously met. Tracie Chandler, a leader in the North Star neighborhood, was instrumental in getting the city to do a small area plan covering the 36th Street North corridor between...
Lee Roy Chapman <em>curriculum vitae</em>
What follows is mainly from Lee Roy Chapman's LinkedIn profile. I thought that his list of accomplishments and the tributes from the people who worked with him needed a more permanent location. (You can read my tribute to Lee Roy Chapman here.) I will be adding to the list and...
Oklahoma adopts strong anti-SLAPP law
There's one more reason for Oklahomans to celebrate April 22. Last Tuesday, on the 125th anniversary of the Oklahoma 1889 Land Run, Gov. Mary Fallin signed HB 2366, the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act, giving Oklahomans valuable protection in the exercise of their First Amendment rights. From the bill: The purpose...
The Brady name game
The debate over purging the name Brady from Tulsa streets and landmarks has made international news. Tulsa City Council researcher Jack Blair discovered a December 24, 1907, street-naming ordinance that shows that Archer, Brady, and Haskell streets had different names in the initial draft -- Archer was Atchison, Brady was...
Mary Fallin: What's holding her back from bold leadership?
Here we are, the reddest state in the nation: Republican governor, overwhelmingly Republican legislature. (36-12 in the Senate, 72-29 in the House.) But instead of tightening the state's belt, as their constituents have had to do, instead of cutting tax rates significantly so that Oklahomans will be able to keep...
Blogging and the search for significance apart from God
From the official C. S. Lewis Facebook page: What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could 'be like gods'--could set up on their own as if they had created themselves...invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And...
The battle for FreedomWorks
Mother Jones, a left wing magazine, has been reporting on a feud at FreedomWorks between former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, and his allies on one side, and FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe and his supporters on the other. Kibbe and Armey co-wrote Give Us Liberty: A...
State exchanges unwise? Probably. Blameworthy? Maybe not.
I learn all sorts of interesting things at blogger conferences, and some of the most interesting are incidental to the official program. And sometimes you have to go a thousand miles away to learn about something in your own state. Back in April, I was at BlogConCLT, sponsored by FreedomWorks...
Future of Journalism Summit
This weekend I was invited to Providence, Rhode Island for the Future of Journalism Summit, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Heritage is a well established national policy think-tank, while the Franklin Center is only about three years old, founded in response...
Protect Your Voice
The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity has launched a petition drive to ensure that citizen journalists and bloggers enjoy the same legal protections that cover traditional news media. The initiative is called "Protect Your Voice." It makes sense for a group interested in public integrity to get involved...
What will become of Wilson Middle School? Public meeting Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tulsa Public Schools is holding a public forum on Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 6 to 7 pm, regarding the sale of Wilson Middle School, one of 14 school buildings closed at the end of the last school year as part of the district's cost-cutting plan. The forum will be held...
<em>In tenebris</em>
(There are a fair number of stream-of-consciousness reminiscences in this piece, so to simplify matters, the main thread of last Friday's story is in normal text, and the flashbacks are in italics.) My feet hit the floor at 4:15 a.m. Eastern time Good Friday morning; pitch black outside. After a...
Tulsa Area Race Relations and History Survey online
The John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation has posted an online survey for Tulsa area residents on race relations and history. By way of explaining what it covers, here's the text from the first page: Thank you for your willingness to help improve our understanding of perceptions about race relations...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching 'Franklin Center'. [What is this?]
