Opinion

To the Editor:

I am writing as a concerned parent and community member regarding the direction of our school system and the standards being set for both our students and staff.

My purpose is not simply to criticize, but to ask difficult questions that many parents may also be asking and to advocate for meaningful change. 

One question I believe deserves serious consideration is this: Why are our teachers and staff not consistently held to the same, or even higher, standards that are expected of our students? 

“We won't be signing off until the world ends,” Ted Turner said in 1980, just before the launch of his latest media venture.

“We’ll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event.”

Turner died on May 6 at 87. The world hasn’t ended yet, nor has his project, Cable News Network, but the latter changed the former in a big way.

How high is too high for the state’s minimum wage?

State Question 832 is more than just a raise to $15 per hour. It goes up every year and never stops. Very quickly the rate becomes unsustainable, and employers will lay off workers or close completely. 

Last year, I was one of the few people who ventured to a theater to see Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson’s mid-century mafia movie, The Alto Knights.

What drew me to the picture was not Levinson’s gimmick of having Robert De Niro portray both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, the rival mob bosses at the center of the plot.

State Question 832 proposes to raise Oklahoma’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2029, while tying annual increases to the cost of living in expensive urban areas such as San Francisco and New York City. These sorts of proposals have been tried in other states with disastrous results for young workers and small businesses.  

We just learned more than 9,000 people came to El Reno recently over a three-day period to watch teens lift weights. 

That should lift your spirits, especially if you operate a restaurant, run a motel or sell Bengay. 

Generally speaking, I’ve always considered myself a “techno-optimist,” sometimes perhaps to the point of Panglossianism.

As a teen, I embraced those new-fangled “microcomputers,” and as a 20-something the World Wide Web, with enthusiasm.

To the Editor:

I am so excited to see the Redlands women’s basketball team having a successful and winning season. 

In 1974, Ken Posey asked me if I would help start a women’s basketball team at the then El Reno Junior College. I love kids and sports so of course I said yes. 

He wanted me to play and be his assistant coach. 

Coach Posey contacted some of the girls that were attending classes at the college that played basketball before and signed them up. 

Last November, New York City voters chose -- from a uniformly awful candidate menu -- “Democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani for mayor.

They’re already starting to experience, and may even learn from, the consequences of that choice.

“Democracy,” HL Mencken wrote, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”