As an extremely passionate fan of (almost) all things musical theater, I do have to honor Oklahoma!'s is milestone status-it is perhaps the most influential American musical ever made. And it was, at least, revolutionary for its time. When it opened on Broadway in 1943, Oklahoma! got rave reviews in almost every paper for, as critic Brooke Atkinson wrote, making "the banalities of the old musical stage … intolerable." And playwright Thomas Hischak wrote "[Oklahoma!] is the first fully integrated musical play and its blending of song, character, plot and even dance would serve as the model for Broadway shows for decades." And that's true: Oklahoma!, Rogers and Hammerstein's [...]

Dispatcher: "OK. County 13 is advising that you can defend your property if you need to." Jackson: "I don't want to have to kill this man, but I'll kill him graveyard dead ma'am." Dispatcher: "I understand." -An 911 operator explaining to 57-year-old Donna Jackson, of Cushing, Oklahoma, that she was within her rights to kill an intruder in her home. Which she then promptly did. "Police said they will not charge Jackson with a crime. Prosecutors said she was justified under Oklahoma's 'stand-your-ground' law." The main downside, it seems to me, is that, now that the intruder is dead, she'll never know why he was breaking in. I guess [...]