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PrintBarry Friedman at large
All Charlie, all the time
Until we have definitive proof he didn’t, let’s not dismiss this entirely. When Charlie Sheen tweeted, “I invented Tulsa, OK ... in my sleep,” everyone laughed, called him insane, but considering some of the insanity that goes on around here, it’s as good an explanation as any.
But even Charlie awake couldn’t come up with this. On the same week the Oklahoma Senate passed a bill making texting while driving illegal, it also approved legislation allowing anyone over 18 to carry a gun in the state without a license or training. Our legislators apparently feel that a teenager with a Samsung is more dangerous than one with a Smith and Wesson. The sponsor of the gun legislation, Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City, said, “The Second Amendment does not say it comes with a conceal-carry permit or training classes.” For comparison purposes, Warren Burger, who attended the University of Minnesota William Mitchell College of Law and had a job as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (giving him a tad more credibility on the issue than Russell), had this to say about proponents of more gun ownership: “The Second Amendment has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public.”
Eavesdroppings Watching the man from Terminix enter a Tulsa Thai restaurant, the woman in the car commented, “This can’t be good.”
And in a circular driveway, a parable At East 15th Street and South Delaware Avenue, under the Wisdom Ministries message board that read “How to have success in troubled times,” was a Rolls-Royce ... for sale.
In response, Jose Cuervo officials released a statement: “Sure, blame the tequila. But maybe she was nuts before she opened the bottle?” A woman arrested in Rogers County for biting her 10-year-old son told deputies she doesn’t remember that exactly but does remember “playing and wrestling” with him after drinking a pint of tequila and taking Prozac.
Traffic update: Thoughts while pounding the dashboard with both hands on the detour to Peoria Avenue … Millions spent on road construction and you still can’t head west on Interstate 44 from Riverside Drive.
But he was strangely silent on concerns about Charlie Sheen’s involvement in the place. Visitors to Tulsa International Airport for the NCAA tournament were met with an announcement from Mayor Dewey Bartlett apologizing for all the road construction.
Why, in the good old days, we let kids who were going to die of whooping cough, die of whooping cough. We didn’t waste taxpayer money saving them from that or other things that could kill them, such as old age and random gunfire from untrained teens. This is Gangster Government, I tell you, socialism, making parents do this. Because of an outbreak of whooping cough in Texas, Oklahoma officials are now taking the sane position that all seventh-graders must have a tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis vaccine before attending school. Disadvantaged children will get the shots for free.
Rule 81: You have a 93-percent better chance of making it in the Tulsa Persian rug market if your name begins with an “A.”
The terms of agreement were this: I would stop writing about him if he stopped acting like Charlie Sheen. Former District Judge Donald Thompson, convicted in 2006 for using a sexual device during trials, was arrested in March for allegedly stalking a woman who had previously filed protective orders against him.
Ups and downs
DOWN … The fake beard on the man who robbed a local Bank of Oklahoma last month.
DOWN … Sen. Ralph Shortey, R-Oklahoma City, for introducing legislation requiring all presidential candidates to prove their citizenship. He said, “My goal ... is to ensure all presidential candidates adhere to our constitutional requirements for eligibility.” Whew — that’s a relief. For a minute, we thought it was just his feckless, cynical pursuit to de-legitimize the Obama presidency. (Incidentally, this DOWN is also given to all state legislators who voted this past session to restrict stem cell research, derail puppy-mill legislation, cap pain and suffering awards, allow almost anyone to carry a gun and needlessly increase regulation on abortion providers.
UP ... The City of Tulsa, particularly on an 80-degree day in March, when there’s parking near and water in the Arkansas River.
