Talk:Oklahoma/Archive 1

Gilcrease Museum

I edited the statement regarding the museum. The previous version stated that it houses the largest American West and American Indian art collection and artifacts. However, according to the museum's official website, this prior statement applies just to the American West collection, even though the American Indian collection is quite impressive. The Gilcrease is such a gem for Tulsa and Oklahoma. We all should be very proud of it.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.207.237.118 (talk) 18:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC).

Panhandle boundary

I'm not sure that this sentence is worded correctly. The sentence starts talking about the panhandle. Perhaps the whole paragraph should be re-wriiten. There is also an unmatched parenthesis.

"The panhandle's southern boundary is at 36.5°N, then turning due south along 100°W to the southern fork of the Red River), completing the round trip back to Arkansas."

Thunderstorms

Article says that Oklahoma has the most powerful thunderstorms in the world...this seems unlikely, is there a citation for this?

I think you're right on doubting this. Dr. Dan Cecil apparently thinks that, while the midwest of North America has strong thunderstorms, South America's are just as strong or stronger (http://uahnews.uah.edu/scienceread.asp?newsID=128). I am changing the text to reflect this, at least until someone can come up with a good reason why Oklahoma should be able to boast the strongest storms in the world. --jackohare 22:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

That link's no longer valid. Was the gist just that T-storms are worse in S. Am? Fustigate314159 21:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it is true about the thunderstorms, I know that the world record wind speed was recorded in Oklahoma with the tornados that hit Moore OK in 1999.

Perhaps Oklahoma is more notable for its tornadoes than its thunderstorm. --JaredChilders 20:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the most powerful thunderstorms produce the most powerful tornadoes—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.187.154.33 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 17 July 2006

Although we Oklahomans may find it hard to believe, the state with the most thunderstorms is Florida. The Gulf coast regions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are right behind. I don't know about the world, though. It would seem like there would be some of the fiercest storms over the ocean. Sorry, but I don't know how to cite my meteorology class notes :) Fustigate314159 21:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

editing

Wondering how to edit this State Entry?
The WikiProject U.S. states standards might help. I live in Oklahoma and we do get some pretty nasty thunderstorms here. But it is also true that most of our thunderstorms do lead to tornadoes, some pretty bad ones too, exspecilly the one in Moore, OK in 99'. 24.117.225.222 06:09, 3 October 2006 (UTC)Sasha

Correction in order of admission to union

I have corrected the order of admission in the text from 47th to 46th, which is accords, correctly, with the boxed matter. --Tim Bovee

Politics Section

I've expanded this section slightly. My intent is to make several adjustments here and then propose it as a standard in the Wikipedia:WikiProject_U.S._States and its discussion. We should also report the State Legislature's make up (Senate and House). If no one else does, I'll look these up soon. Thanks, Lou I 15:37, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Geology

I'll try to add some more content on here about geology and the oil industry as it flavors much of Oklahoman history, but I also would need help. Also, one of the most unique items in our state is the rose rock.

Wikipedia's spanish version

Im looking for this topic just because I have to do a p

The bathroom is down the hall on the left. Don’t forget to flush! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.7.67.207 (talk) 08:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

Strict liquor laws

The rest of the paragraph does NOT support the contention that "Oklahoma has some of the strictest liquor laws in the country." A number of states do not allow private liquor stores; you have to buy bottle liquor at a state-owned store. Most states allow counties to elect to be dry. The only alcohol that requires refrigeration is unpasteurized draught beer. If there's a state that only has one class of liquor license, I'm unaware of it; amusement parks, festivals and arenas commonly only allow their vendors to sell 3.2 because they don't want to deal with drunks. In most states, kids aren't allowed in bars (including the bar of a restaurant). New Belgium only ships to 15 states, so if it's strict laws that are keeping it out of the other 35, that puts Oklahoma in majority.

Texas doesn't object to collecting taxes from Sooners buying alcohol there. What they object to is drunks spreading steel, gasoline and blood all over the highway.

"In April 2005, the state's House of Representatives approved Senate Bill 518, banning happy hour and drown nights. Since the use of the phrase "happy hour" was restricted, many bars and pubs began using alternative phrases, such as "Hour of Happiness" or "Hour of Joy.""

This paragraph makes it look like nothing has changed - but it has. Even if they call it "Sweet Hour of Prayer", licensees now cannot legally deliver two drinks to someone at once, they now cannot legally offer reduce prices for certain times or certain days, they now can not have all-you-can-drink pricing, they now can not offer discounts to a person or a group, they now can not increase the alcohol content without charging proportionately more, they now can not have drinking contests, and they now can not award drinks as prizes. You could look it up at http://oklegal.onenet.net/statutes.advanced.html by searching on "happy hour". Senate Bill 518 became public law §37-537. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 15:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if OK has particularly strict liquor laws, but the legal distinction between 3.2 and other beers is unusual. You claim that amusement parks, etc., choose to sell 3.2 beer, but this is not at all consistent with my experience. I know that Missouri restricted beer sales on Sunday to 3.2 (i.e., "Sunday beer"), but aside from that, I don't know any other state that differentiates between 3.2 and other beer. (I'm not an expert on these matters!) In this respect, OK's liquor laws are interesting. Phiwum 19:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

When I lived in Ohio, you could buy 3.2 at 18, other beverage alcohol at 21, and only 3.2 could be sold on Sunday. Cedar Point only sold 3.2, and the Indians made their vendors switch to 3.2 after they had troubles with drunken fans. When I visited my brother in West Virginia, they didn't allow 6.0 beer or malt liquor at all. They allowed 3.2, wine and liquor. I'm not sure whether they allowed creme ale or not in WV. OTOH, WV allowed beer cans and bottles to be smaller than 12 ounces, and Ohio didn't allow that, although they allowed creme ale in smaller bottles and cans. Pennsylvania, like Ohio, has state stores, but you have to go to a beer store to buy beer; you can't get it in grocery stores.

Oklahoma allows restaurant patrons to take home recapped wine in a doggy bag. Many states don't allow that, although a number are passing laws to allow that. (Kids are starving in Europe, right? But better they take it home in the bottle than in the driver's belly, right?) In Indiana, you're allowed to hold an open container sitting next to you while you're driving, even if you're the only one in the car, but you're not allowed to drive barefoot. Bizarre. In most states, you can't have an opened alcohol container in the car; a cop in Ohio told me that technically, you're violating the law when you take empty beer cans to the recycling center. In some states, passengers are allowed to drink on a tour bus, and in other states, not.

Most states' liquor laws are interesting - or perhaps sad. In years past, many beer laws were passed because of anti-German sentiment. Germans liked to sit and drink beer on weekends, and that offended others. The wine laws were aimed at French and Italians. These days, nobody cares about the French, the Italians, or the Germans, and the politicians are promoting anti-hispanic sentiment; I saw something on the news about someone trying to bar cheap mexican restaurants from opening in their town, on the theory that it promotes illegal immigration. I note that the 9/11 kamikazis arrived in the US legally, but no matter; I expect to see proposals for tough new anti-tequila laws soon. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 22:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see that this section holds any relevance whatsoever, and if by some strange reason it does, then it defintely does not belong in the History section. If it were left up to me, I'd completely remove the section. Roygene 01:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Trivia: you can't buy bottle openers in Oklahoman liquor stores. Fustigate314159 22:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

History Section Needs Own Article

Just reading through this article is a nightmare. This is way, way, way, way too much information for one page. Besides just creating a history article, we should probably look at the possibility of cutting some of the sections down, or nominating a few other sections to be moved to their own articles. Roygene 23:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Even though its not yet October 14, I'm going to go ahead and move the section. It clearly needs to moved and the article will be much, much more readable it we dice it up. Roygene 02:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Edit Log

I forgot to give summaries for my edits so I'll write down what I did here. For the past several weeks, I have been scanning Oklahoma related articles and cleaning them up (several of them have been almost unreadable). I just finished cleaning up this article and enhanced its readibility. This article was a nightmare; there was absolutely no coherence whatsoever (it was worse than the Neighborhoods of Oklahoma City article). There was no organizational structure, no predictable pattern, and the general level of it was low. So, basically what I did was restructured the article and rearranged the layout, fixed several instances of redundancy, and performed general massive cleanup. I still believe that the History section should be moved to its own article; please respond. If no one responds by 8:00 p.m. CST on Saturday, October 14, 2006, I'll go ahead and move the section. Roygene 01:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Number of Native Americans

This article says Oklahoma has the second-largest number of Native Americans of any state. The Native Americans in the United States article says it has the third largest, after California and Arizona. Can anyone confirm either of these? Rojomoke 15:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It is hard to pinpoint, because in California, many Natives speak Spanish, and I guess could be classified as Latino, even though the are native to California.

Elected officials.

Someone needs to update the elected officials. Mary Fallin is no longer the LT. Governor, and I think that some of the others listed in the Executive Branch have chnaged since the November 2006 election. Johnppd24 11:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Be bold and fix those yourself. I'm surprised those were overlooked. I did a lot of updates myself during the election, but I guess the Oklahoma page may have been overlooked.--NMajdan•talk 22:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Famous People

Why do famous people from states like Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, leave and dont come back, Bill and Hillary Clinton are from Arkansas, after they got to the White house they are in New York,Garth Brooks lives mostly in San Diego, Carrie Underwood...gone, Will Rogers...Moved to Malibu, I wonder why...?:)

If the anonymous soul who authored this question would like to posit some theories on why those foolish famous people choose not to live in the state of their birth, please do so. If you are just trolling for comments from those of who do still live in what we believe is a nice place, I guess you succeeded. As for Garth and Carrie, they're free to stay away, but I'd like to have Will Rogers back. --Crispyinstilly 21:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Religion

Why is 'no religion' listed as 40% of the population!? I know that's not right. Would somebody please fix this. --Wgbc2032 17:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The number is correct, kinda. Oklahoma religious affiliations says 1.43 million are Evangelical Protestant, 453k are mainline Protestant, 2.9k are Orthodox, 169k are Catholic, 40k are "Other", and 1.35m are "unclaimed". The website explains "unclaimed" to be "those that are not adherents of any of the 188 groups included in the Church & Church Membership Data. This number should not be used as an indicator of irreligion or atheism, as it also includes adherents of many groups not included in the data.". It seems to be that "no religious affiliation" is not the correct verbiage to describe the category "unclaimed". Probably a good way of describing this category is "Other or no religious affiliation". It's less useful saying "Other or no religious affiliation", but it's also more accurate so I'm going to change the wording. If you can think of something better, go ahead. -- Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 19:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I also commonly hear people define themselves as merely "Christian" without any particular denomination attached. -- Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 19:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I bring this up for two reasons. Firstly, Oklahoma is part of the Bible Belt and although I'm no expert on religion in America, I can guarantee you with a fair degree of certainty that that number is wrong, probably very wrong. Secondly, according to this very website, Washington has the highest number of non-religious people, with 25%. This statement isn't sourced, so it could be wrong, but it nontheless contradicts the figure shown here. If I had to guess, I'd suggest the number shown here is primarily non-denominational Christians, or Christians belong to churches unaffiliated with the major Protestant denominations. The current change is a mild improvement, but a new chart needs to be found. --Wgbc2032 23:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The number of 1.35m outside of that 188 group is probably reasonably accurate, it's just whoever originally put in the numbers just mistook "unclaimed" to mean "no religious affiliation". A source that took into consideration "no religious affiliation" would be nice as opposed to one that has one big category for people outside of some 188 denomination list. At least this portion of the article is more accurate now. If you find a better source, feel free to replace this one (2000 year data is a bit old by now anyhow). -- Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 23:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This website says the percentage of Oklahomans who identify as non-religious is 13-14% --Wgbc2032 23:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to work this into the article. -- Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 23:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing Ash. I live in Oklahoma and I know there a lot more worship conscious that the first figure. I'll have a look to doublecheck. Arlen Wilps 12:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Centennial

Information about Oklahoma's Centennial needs to be added immediately to this article or added to a separate article See the official website, here. Real96 06:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Church of Satan

Can someone explain the religion section to me? I mean seriously...

Vandalism from this morning; fixed now. -- nae'blis 23:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

More info should be added about Oklahoma's rural flight

I think it should get a bit more than a mention in the Trivia section. Although I don't believe it has Rural Flight due to it not being part of the Midwest farm states, it was affected by the Dust Bowl and still suffers somewhat slow population growth because of it.

"Migration within the country produced a net decrease of 15,418 people."

I think that's evidence enough that people would rather live elsewhere. No offense to any of you Oklahomans.

7FlushSetzer 02:36, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Everything in the trivia section needs to be merged into the actual article. Secondly, the Dust Bowl happened 80 years ago and in no way has any correlation with population trends today. Therefore, the article shouldn't imply that it does, but any statement like that would need to be cited anyway. Thirdly, Oklahoma hasn't had a net population decrease for over 50 years. In fact, the state's population growth between 1990 and 2000 was ranked 26th, ahead of 24 states. see:[1] Okiefromokla•talk 04:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)