Paying for student performance
Take it to the bank
Thousands of Washington D.C. middle school students are getting a chance to take their good grades and behavior to the bank. On-time attendance, good grades and not disrupting class can net students up to $100 weekly – with a maximum of $1,500 per student for the school year. The Washington Post reported that the Harvard economist who created the Capital Gains program isn’t necessarily expecting to close the achievement gap nor is he sure it will prove effective. Still, teachers report the program jointly funded by the school district and a grant has students paying more attention to their behavior and attendance. Doesn’t seem like that long ago that a parent paying a child for good grades was controversial. Some students may soon figure out that a double dip isn’t just about ice cream.
GOP and the state Legislature
Elephant tide?
Democrats have their work cut out for them if new polling results from The Sooner Survey are to be believed. Not only is John McCain still very popular in Oklahoma, but down-ballot races in the state Senate are marching in step with the presidential ticket. In Senate districts said to hold the key to a GOP takeover of the body, McCain is supported by no less than 56 percent of those polled (it’s 63 percent in one district). Republican Senate candidates are doing well in each of these five seats, raising the possibility that both houses of the Legislature will be controlled by the GOP even if the governor’s chair and most statewide elected offices aren’t. This trend has been a long time in coming. In a year that promises to be so good for Democrats nationwide, the party continues to lose ground in Oklahoma, making it more baffling why party officials are focused on petty calls for a probe of the former Republican House speaker.
The future of Sarah Palin
The plot thickens
This whole Sarah Palin deal reminds us of “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” Tom Wolfe’s masterful 2004 novel about big college athletics in the age of the “hookup.” Like the title character, Palin is a small-town girl in flyover country, suddenly thrust into the real world and away from the protection once offered by friends, family and church. They are innocents thrown to the wolves – drunken frat boys and over-adored athletes in Charlotte’s case and TV newshounds in Sarah’s. Like Charlotte Simmons, Sarah Palin is being forced to make choices to accommodate her new reality. Will they stay true to their morals or succumb to a desire for popularity (Charlotte) or political success (Sarah)? Charlotte makes her choice deep into the novel. Sarah is making hers as we write this. Charlotte toyed with the idea of retreat, a return to security. Sarah? The plot will thicken as more voices urge her to close the book on her vice presidential race.
First amendment meets style
Designer’s challenge
We admit to issuing a small chuckle when we heard Oklahoma interior designers were filing a lawsuit citing the First Amendment. Did they not like the colors of ink chosen for The Oklahoman’s new look? The layout? Actually it’s a what’s-in-a-name dispute. The Communications Institute of Justice (CIJ) is suing on behalf of three Oklahoma interior designers for “the right to truthfully describe what they do for a living.” They say their free speech rights are thwarted by Oklahoma law banning interior designers from calling themselves interior designers unless they obtain a license. On one side of the dispute is the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), which apparently likes licensure. On the other is the CIJ, which apparently wants more freedom from government regulation. The ASID is effectively a cartel, the plaintiffs say in a suit drawn up for filing in Oklahoma City federal court. CIJ won a similar suit in New Mexico, that state to the west which offers a designer’s dream in its stunning and colorful array of mountains, plateaus and deserts.
Restaurant smoking rules
Ban of bothers
ADVOCATES and opponents of smoking bans in restaurants have been trading statistics for years over the financial effect of bans.Supporters claim bans have affected the bottom line at restaurants and bars – in a positive manner.Sales and employment at Oklahoma restaurants have increased since restaurants were required to physically separate smoking and non-smoking areas, a report from the state Health Department says. Whether the increases would have occurred anyway is impossible to say.
Since 2006, restaurants that allow smoking have been required to provide separate and well-ventilated areas for smokers. Most restaurants made the decision to go smoke-free, and that decision has apparently not resulted in a loss of business.
Campaigns for and against public smoking have been accompanied by grave predictions of financial declines. A group opposing a smoking ban in Chicago several years ago cited dire financial results of bans from around the globe.
But the Health Department report says that hasn’t been the case in Oklahoma. The report will likely bolster attempts to make the smoking ban inclusive – meaning restaurants that went to the expense of building smoking rooms would have done so in vain. The owner of Cattleman’s Steak House in Oklahoma City, for example, spent $33,000 for a smoking room. That’s not small change. Lawmakers should tread carefully in considering a total ban.
Biden’s television gaffe
Boob tube
Joe Biden’s tendency to commit verbal gaffes is well known around Washington — and becoming better known around the country. In a television interview this week, Biden was making a point about presidential leadership when he mangled his history. “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden said. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’” A couple of problems. First, television was in its infancy in 1929, and not many Americans owned a set. Second, Herbert Hoover was president. Roosevelt wouldn’t take office until March 1933. Other than that, we take Sen. Biden’s point about the need for visible presidential leadership.
Biden’s television gaffe
Boob tube
Joe Biden’s tendency to commit verbal gaffes is well known around Washington — and becoming better known around the country. In a television interview this week, Biden was making a point about presidential leadership when he mangled his history. “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden said. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’” A couple of problems. First, television was in its infancy in 1929, and not many Americans owned a set. Second, Herbert Hoover was president. Roosevelt wouldn’t take office until March 1933. Other than that, we take Sen. Biden’s point about the need for visible presidential leadership.
Striking twice
Among the quirks in the very quirky John Irving novel “The World According to Garp” is a scene in which the protagonist is shopping for a new home when a small aircraft crashes into the upper story. Rather than be dissuaded by the event, Garp wants to buy the home in the belief that it would be immune from mishaps, having survived one already. This notion that lightning never strikes the same place twice (actually it does) was tested this week in Midwest City when a home at a T intersection was hit by a car for the second time in six months. Homeowners Michael and Lindsay Bower were just getting the house back to normal when the second crash occurred. The driver of the car in the latest crash was arrested on a complaint of drunken driving. Perhaps some white lightning was involved in this example of the Garp theory’s limited link to reality.
Striking twice
Among the quirks in the very quirky John Irving novel “The World According to Garp” is a scene in which the protagonist is shopping for a new home when a small aircraft crashes into the upper story. Rather than be dissuaded by the event, Garp wants to buy the home in the belief that it would be immune from mishaps, having survived one already. This notion that lightning never strikes the same place twice (actually it does) was tested this week in Midwest City when a home at a T intersection was hit by a car for the second time in six months. Homeowners Michael and Lindsay Bower were just getting the house back to normal when the second crash occurred. The driver of the car in the latest crash was arrested on a complaint of drunken driving. Perhaps some white lightning was involved in this example of the Garp theory’s limited link to reality.
New phone books
Phoning the future
The new residential white pages being distributed by AT&T in Oklahoma City features a rendering of part of the “Core to Shore” development proposed for the area between the existing Interstate 40 route and the Oklahoma River. This visionary drawing, although future-oriented, is already out of date because its depiction of the downtown skyline doesn’t include the Devon Tower or the actual design of a pedestrian bridge that will spin I-40 once it’s moved. The “SkyDance Bridge,” like Devon’s building, bears a striking design. It’s meant to invoke movements of Oklahoma’s state bird, the scissor-tailed flycatcher. As proposed, the bridge would be 18 stories tall – 36 fewer than the Devon Tower. For many people, the phone book cover offers the first look at the “Core to Shore” plan, an exciting if ambitious vision for what is now a blighted area.
