United Nations Association of Greater OKC to hold spring event

mbr.una-okc 04/05/2011 Uncategorized Central Oklahoma, international, oklahoma, Upcoming events, youth No Comments

The Oklahoma City Chapter of the United Nations Association will hold its annual meeting and spring luncheon on Saturday, April 23, at 11.45 at the McDaniel University Center on the campus of Oklahoma City University.

In observance of the International Year of Youth, the program will feature youth in our community involved in the Model UN of the Southwest and the Walk the World initiative of the World Food Programme. Lieneke Mous, lecturer in dance at the University of Oklahoma, will discuss the topic “Healing through the Arts”, specifically in relation to the artistic needs of refugees and asylum seekers and the benefit of dance to underserved adolescent females.

Tickets to the luncheon and program are $20. High school and university students are invited to reserve and the cost will be covered by UNA-OKC. For information on reservations, visit www.una-okc.org, or email Luis Daniel, luisdaniel(at)gmail(dot)com.

This is an excerpt of an article originally published by Oklahoma Citizen.

Congressman Lankford Town Hall Meeting Schedule

Blaiz 03/17/2011 Politics Central Oklahoma, James Lankford, OK-5, oklahoma, Oklahoma politics2, town halls No Comments

From an email to constituents, a list of opportunities to meet, listen to and question the new congressman from Oklahoma's fifth district:

Monday, March 21 | 7:00-8:00 PM
Seminole State College, Haney Center Lecture Hall
2701 Boren Blvd, Seminole, OK

Tuesday, March 22 | 9:00-10:00 AM
EOC Technology Center
4601 N. Choctaw Rd, Choctaw, OK 73020

Tuesday, March 22 | 7:00-8:00 PM
Francis Tuttle Technology Center, Building #7
12777 N Rockwell, Oklahoma City, OK 73142

Thursday, March 24 | 2:00-3:00 PM
Southern Oaks Library
6900 South Walker Ave, Oklahoma City, OK 73139

Thursday, March 24 | 6:30-7:30 PM
Capitol Hill Library
334 SW 26^th St, Oklahoma City, OK 73109

Friday, March 25 | 9:00-10:00 AM
VFW
4400 SE 9th, Del City, OK 73115

For more information contact 405.234.9900
Visit www.lankford.house.gov

More info on Lankford in Congress:

Project VoteSmart summary page

Project VoteSmart voting record for Rep. Lankford

Campaign donors

You can track your congressperson's votes with a weekly email from Megavote, a service of congress.org.

Keep up with congressional business at Congress Matters

This is an excerpt of an article originally published by Oklahoma Citizen.

Respect Diversity Foundation art exhibit now open, annual gala on March 29

Blaiz 03/17/2011 Uncategorized Arts, Central Oklahoma, diversity, oklahoma, Rights and Freedoms, Upcoming events No Comments

OKLAHOMA CITY—Science Museum Oklahoma's tenth annual Respect Diversity Symbol Exhibit will be open to the public from March 11 – May 11, 2011. Young people throughout Oklahoma are celebrating diversity in creative ways as they explore issues of cultural diversity, human rights, and global peace through the arts. The exhibit features approximately 100 collaborative works of art and poetry by students of all ages.

One of the displays, “Go Wild…Compassion for all of G-d’s Creatures, is a bench painted and collaged by campers at Camp Chaverim in OKC. Information about this work of art and all entries for the state wide Respect Diversity Art & Poetry Contest will be displayed at the exhibit.

Science Museum Oklahoma visitors will have an opportunity to read a framed information card about the motivational factors behind this and all other contest entries on display at the Respect Diversity Symbol Exhibit. (Photos and information about past entries are available by e-mail.) Teachers throughout Oklahoma who register to attend the exhibit’s gala will receive Multicultural Professional Development Points.

The Tuesday, March 29, 2011 gala for this exhibit begins at 5:00 p.m. with a program in the Eleanor Maurer Theatre. State Superintendent Sandy Garrett and Lyn Adams, Director of the OKC Children’s Theatre, will present awards to winning schools. Musicians from Westminster School and from Western Oaks Academy will perform for the gala’s 750 guests.

Sponsors for the Respect Diversity Symbol Exhibit include MetroFamily Magazine, Oklahoma Natural Gas, the Jewish Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City, Walmart Stores, Mohamed Christian Goldberg and the Respect Diversity Foundation.

Gala - Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Program: 5:00 p.m. in the Eleanor Maurer Theatre

Desserts by Starbucks and friends!

Science Museum Oklahoma
2100 N.E. 52nd Street, Oklahoma City, OK

To be placed on the guest list and to be admitted free of charge R.S.V.P. 359-0369 or rdfrdf@cox.net

To learn about projects of the Respect Diversity Foundation visit: www.respectdiversity.org; write to: rdfrdf@cox.net or call: 405/359-0369.

This is an excerpt of an article originally published by Oklahoma Citizen.

Do the Writers at the Oklahoman Know What a Transit Hub Is?

Fannie Bates 02/13/2011 Uncategorized Central Oklahoma, Daily Disappointment, fixed guideway study, oklahoma, Oklahoma politics2, transit hub No Comments

The Daily Disappointment doesn't seem to have a clue as to what a "transit hub" is.

Here is Tom Elmore's response to their most recent efforts to tackle this topic:

From the Desk of Tom Elmore:

It (the Oklahoman's discussion of a OKC transit hub) is the work of people who hire outfits like Jacobs Engineering (Carter-Burgess Engineering's new name) -- and pay them with the public's money only on the condition that they hold the truth about what a real transit hub is strictly off limits. That's precisely what they did in the laughable "Fixed Guideway Study" -- and they're clearly doing it again right now.

The old Katy freight yard that lay for many years along the south side of Reno in what is now called "Bricktown" (but will likely more accurately have to be called "tilt-up town" in the near future) might have made an acceptable transit hub -- but the big Katy freight house "mysteriously burned to the ground" late one night (soon after the old Central Oklahoma Railfan Club started talking about purchasing the facility to become the Oklahoma Railway Museum) and then they turned the miles of rail comprising the yard into useless scrap. Now they "really believe" they can wedge something even vaguely resembling a "transit hub" into "Bricktown?"

Is that what the destruction of OKC Union Station's magnificent, virtually-ready-made potential rail hub was really all about? This is their substitute for that 8-block-long, 12-track-wide yard and its 55,000 square-foot terminal building and spectacular arterial street underpasses?

It would be truly unbelievable if this sort of penny-ante nonsense was not so completely characteristic of what passes for "leadership" in Oklahoma City.

This is an excerpt of an article originally published by Oklahoma Citizen.

Author/Activist Exposes "Ex-Gay" Myth – Presentation by Wayne Besen in OKC

Blaiz 02/10/2011 Uncategorized anti-gay, Central Oklahoma, glbt2, oklahoma, religious right, right-wing extremism, Rights and Freedoms, Upcoming events No Comments

On Tuesday, February 15, Cimarron Alliance kicks off our 2011 LGBT 411 Series with a very special presentation by Wayne Besen, the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. This nationally known speaker will demonstrate the lies behind "reparitive therapy" and the so-called ex-gay industry. This event is free and will be held at Church of the Open Arms, 31st and N. Penn in Oklahoma City. Bring your friends, esepecially parents of young LGBT people. 6:30-8:00 p.m.

A noted author, speaker, and LGBT activist, Besen made international news when he photographed "ex-gay" poster boy John Paulk cruising in a gay bar in Washington, D.C.

Besen is a former spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group. He has appeared as a guest on leading news and political talk shows including: the NBC Nightly News, The Roseanne Show, CNN's Talk Back Live and The Point, Fox's O'Reilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes, Hard Copy, MSNBC News, PAX's Faith Under Fire and Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Wayne has also spoken at many leading universities, including Vanderbilt, Harvard Law School, John Hopkins, and the University of Florida.

In 1992 Besen co-founded Sons & Daughters of America (SDA), a gay and lesbian public awareness campaign based in Fort Lauderdale. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, an organization founded to combat the 'ex-gay' myth and right wing propaganda.

Besen graduated from the University of Florida with a B.S. in broadcast journalism in 1993. He is a native of Fort Lauderdale, but has also lived in Houston, Washington DC, New York and graduated from Kaiser High School in Honolulu. His hobbies include playing and watching basketball, traveling, reading and writing.

The information that Wayne Besen presents is critical, particularly in Oklahoma, where religious parents often push their LGBT children into so-called ex-gay ministries and therapies. Besen says not only do these not work, but they can have lifelong damaging effects on children and adults alike.

Like all presentations in the Cimarron Alliance LGBT 411 Series, this is a free event and open to all. Please invite your friends to join you at 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday, February 15. For more information please call the Cimarron Alliance office at 405-495-9300.

This is an excerpt of an article originally published by Oklahoma Citizen.