Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Oklahoma newspapers:
Stillwater News Press. Nov. 26, 2017.
It seems like a bygone era, when we furrowed our brow at a baseball player who threw a glove or a bat. It’s pretty common now, and often goes without comment to see a major league baseball player, fresh from striking out, enter the dugout and punch the water jug or knock equipment all over the place.
Did the game change? A little, because, of the MLB records for most strikeouts by a batter in a season, the top 20 have all come after 2005. But, that should also mean that ball clubs care less and less about how much a batter strikes out as long as he can hit it a really long way when he makes contact.
Here’s the thing, sports have not become more competitive. What we put up with has gotten more ridiculous, and sports is just a part of it.
Using Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield as an example, because, of course we would, the surprising thing is not so much his actions as it is those among us so quick to defend them.
Something the 2016 presidential election and the 2017 Heisman race have in common are the public allusions to private parts. Jokes on the campaign trail and very visible antics on a sideline watched by millions. The jokes didn’t hurt election chances, and the antics likely won’t hurt the Heisman chances.
We justify actions by saying it’s an emotional game or politics are a dirty business. But, was it any different so many years ago? Sports have always evoked emotion. Politics have always been a dirty business.
It’s the viewer that has decided to put up with the increasing nonsense.
When you speak up you’re called a “snowflake” or accused of pearl clutching. Maybe we’ve entered a realm of post political correctness. But are we post decency?
We are certainly strong proponents of the first amendment and free speech, but obscenity is sort of in the eye of the beholder. Are we willing to change our values to that of the person leading our team, our party and our companies?
We are allowed to choose our role models. That doesn’t have to be a title that is automatically forced unto someone by the position to which they were placed. If that happens to be the case, then future generations should aspire to the position without necessarily emulating the person.
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The Oklahoman. Nov. 27, 2017.
When state lawmakers voted in 2001 to provide tax breaks to films shot in Oklahoma, proponents hoped the state would become a hub of moviemaking and the resulting films would benefit Oklahoma’s image. By those measurements, the program’s impact has been less than hoped.
Oklahoma’s program offers direct rebates to filmmakers for in-state expenditures on Oklahoma goods and services, wages and fees. Filmmakers can obtain rebates of 35 percent and perhaps slightly more in some specific circumstances.
When the state Incentive Evaluation Commission reviewed the program last year, it concluded, “There is no evidence that the Oklahoma film industry has strengthened during the time period when the rebate has been available.” The commission found that the “effect on Oklahoma’s image nationwide is unclear, but likely limited.”
One reason for those findings is that many films made in Oklahoma have been seen by few people.
Jay Chilton, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism, recently reviewed the movies receiving Oklahoma tax breaks and found that most “garnered little exposure due to their limited release and many produced no box office ticket sales.”
The movies receiving Oklahoma tax breaks include “The Jogger,” ’’Rudderless,” ’’Mekko,” ’’The Veil,” ’’Southern Tale,” ’’Monday at 11:01,” ’’Pax Masculina,” ’’Heartland,” ’’Let Me Make You a Martyr,” ’’Great Plains,” and “Mankiller.” Few Americans will recognize those titles.
That’s not necessarily a reflection on quality. Even good movies can fail to attract an audience. But given the state’s financial challenges, it’s not shocking that some question if the millions expended on this program are worth the benefit.
That’s even true when a movie filmed in Oklahoma does break through. “August: Osage County” received $4.6 million in Oklahoma rebates, and went on to gross more than $37 million. Yet that film also caused many lawmakers to reconsider the rebate program. The state House actually killed the program at one point in 2014 before subsequently reauthorizing it after much debate. Former Rep. Don Armes, R-Faxon, conceded that the family portrayed in “August: Osage County” was “crazier’n a bunch of cut rats.” And Armes was a defender of the program. Others believed the film’s subjects did nothing to enhance national perception of Oklahoma, and much to advance negative stereotypes.
Recently that film has also become controversial because it was produced by the Weinstein Company. So that leaves some people uneasy with the fact that Oklahomans indirectly gave money to a man, Harvey Weinstein, who has now been accused of serial sexual harassment and even rape.
At the same time, states are engaged in an arms race to attract film projects. Even California, home to the film industry, feels compelled to offer incentives. This month, California awarded $62 million in tax credits to 11 films. Oklahoma’s program is capped at $5 million annually.
The state’s film program began with high hopes. But the odds of Oklahoma reaping outsized benefit may be comparable to the chances of every actor who heads west hoping to become a star - some success stories but a great many that end in disappointment.
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Tulsa World. Nov. 28, 2017.
Congratulations to Gov. Mary Fallin for matching the drive for more education funding with one for fundamental education reform: consolidation.
Before the Thanksgiving holiday, Fallin signed an executive order setting the stage for administrative consolidation or annexation of school districts that spend less than 60 percent of their budget on instruction.
In a separate executive order, she told the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education to develop a plan by December 2018 for the administrative consolidation of universities, colleges and branch campuses.
We would encourage an even more aggressive line in both cases. While administrative consolidations of school districts and institutions of higher education are good ideas, actual consolidation is an even better one.
Tiny public schools are not only financially inefficient, they are educationally stunted. Schools that can’t show they have the resources to offer their children the math, science and arts education needed in the 21st century should be combined for the good of the children.
Meanwhile, Fallin is absolutely correct to demand that the state’s higher education system deal with the debilitating legion of college campuses created by pork-barrel legislation over the decades. Somehow that crazy-quilt logic resulted in a graduate-level university in Goodwell (and two-year colleges in Tishomingo and Wilburton), but no four-year public college in Tulsa.
Will this mean the state will be able to avoid higher taxes to get to an adequate level of education? Certainly not. The state has undercut its tax base dangerously, and no amount of consolidation - and certainly not the half-way measure of “administrative” consolidation - will buy a way out.
Public schools and higher education consolidation aren’t about saving money, although it might save some. It’s about making sure the money we’re spending is going to the right places and having the desired effect.
Make no mistake: Both of these antiquated, wasteful systems are the way they are because the Oklahoma Legislature - through the way it has acted and failed to act - wanted it thus.
The forces of inertia will push back hard. They already have. But it’s a fight worth having.
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