By Sheridan on 12/12/2008 2:16 PM

As you go to the Holiday in the Park enjoying the festive cheer of holiday lights, don't mind me. I'll just be dying at your side. If you read today's (Friday's) paper, you've seen that the City of Lawton has embarked upon another round of its War on Prairie Dogs. (and you thought the War on Terror would never end). This time instead of turning our tunnels into gas chambers, this time the preferred method of execution is poison bait. "Oh look, a tasty, chewy confection of unknown origin... gack"...

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By Sheridan on 11/29/2008 10:06 PM

First the jeers.Boo, hiss to our new scrooge of a cable company. Who would of thought a company could be worse that the Drewry bunch? But here you have it, the hillbillies from Missouri who won't ante up to Fox Sports South to get the Oklahoma Thunder NBA package? Yes, the Thunder stink, but they are Oklahoma's first big-league team and they are only 90 miles away, but now we don't get the Mavericks or the Thunder. I'm no huge NBA fan, but this stinks mightily.I never thought I'd give the cable Nazis...

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By Sheridan on 11/6/2008 12:34 AM

In a state that voted 2 to 1 for McCain, you would think that there would be quite a bit of gnashing of teeth at the nationwide results Tuesday. But there are good reasons for Oklahoma Republicans (which, statistics tell us, most of you dear readers are) to be happy.1. Taking over the state Senate.For the first time since statehood, the entire legislature is in GOP hands. 2. Nationally, Democrats didn't get the Congressional landslide they hoped for.It looks like no more than Senate seats will be...

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By Sheridan on 10/6/2008 8:22 PM

It has been a little more than a week since the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Marcell Johnson by LPD Officer Luis Pagan after a nighttime traffic stop. These facts are known. Johnson tried momentarily to flee the traffic stop but finally stopped. Some cocaine was found in his car, but no weapon. Johnson was shot in the neck and chest and died at the hospital. Given the absence of a weapon, it is easy to say that Officer Pagan was never in danger, but we also remember that Nik Green stopped and unarmed...

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By Sheridan on 9/23/2008 2:43 PM

So, we're painting a crosswalk from Memorial Hospital across Gore Boulevard so that the daily exodus of nurses who prefer Subway to the hospital cafeteria are less likely to get run over. Good idea.Doing it in the middle of the day. Bad idea. Have you ever noticed that many cities do streetwork at night so as to avoid the sort of congestion we're seeing in the Cameron area, which is arguably to worst traffic area in Lawton? A little 1 a.m. work might be healthier for city crews than having cars whiz...

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By Sheridan on 8/10/2008 5:13 PM

NBC has promised thousands of hours of Olympic coverage on 6+ networks. But not so in Lawton. First of all, two of the networks, Oxygen (a women's entertainment channel) and MSNBC are not available at all on Fidelity Cable (formerly Lawton Cablevision). Keep in mind, this is the only town I've ever seen that didn't have MSNBC. But alas, even the coverage on CNBC is shockingly unavailable in Lawton. It seems that CNBC is playing normal financial shows on a feed for cable companies who don't play ball,...

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By Sheridan on 7/18/2008 5:14 PM

This is unofficial, but the Seattle Times has a map showing the rumored closings. seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/businesstechnology/ locationsofstarbucksstoresclosingacrossthenation.html

It shows the Sheridan Road location as closing as well as the Altus location. These make sense, as Starbucks has said closures would be of stores opened 2006 and after. If it's not true, Starbucks is getting what they deserve. By saying 600 stores are closing, but not saying which 600, they are leaving everyone to guess, so such conjecture is very predictable. It is as though they wanted people to think their store was closing.

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By Sheridan on 7/16/2008 9:50 PM

Longtime KSWO chief meteorologist Pat Walker is blowing out of town, making an interesting move to Independent News Network, a shop in Davenport,Iowa that creates news content for TV stations in small cities that can't afford a full newsroom. In an industry of tornado chasing blowhards (see Eric Law), Walker was a fresh breeze of understatement.

Replacing him will be David Baxley, an Alabamian who leaves WAKA in Montgomery, a larger market, to come to Lawton. I wonder if he's related to Bill...

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By Sheridan on 7/2/2008 2:33 PM

So Starbucks announced that it is closing 600 underperforming stores that opened in the last two years. That no doubt sent shockwaves up my spine. You don't know how serious some of us here in the catacombs are about our caffeine. That said, on the positive side for Lawton, most of the stores to close will be located near other Starbucks according to a corporate statement. Our new Starbucks location is indeed not very far from the Cache Road location. On the other hand, urbanites know that in big-city...

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By Sheridan on 5/23/2008 4:58 PM

Have you seen the workers at Ramada Inn on 2nd Avenue busily adding a new facade? Ten will get you 20 that they're not doing much to the interior. Hmm. I wonder why Ramada would update the exterior. It wouldn't have anything to do with Lawton's urban renewal plans, calling for the motel to be bought out and converted for the multi-use, residential retail (read Target store) development city planners have in mind, would it? The owners probably think they can shake an extra $50K out of the city by making the building look better. It's a horrible location for a motel anyway. And if you check the reviews at places like Tripadvisor.com, most guests hate it.

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