Steve Lackmeyer has a really strange article over at NewsOK.com. It's quite short, yet all over the map and doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. At the beginning of the article, Lackmeyer reveals that he's part of an e-mail list that features "Oklahoma City's wealthiest and most powerful residents." Strangely, we at The Lost Ogle have yet to be invited to join this list, so if one of the rich and powerful out there could drop us a line, that'd be great.
Apparently the genesis of this e-mail list was the desire to come up with a catchphrase for OKC, a way of attracting out-of-staters to the city. This is, of course, a horrible idea. Nicknames and slogans cannot be invented like this. They have to be organic, not forced. Chicago is called the Windy City, and to this day historians debate whether this is because of the actual wind or politicians who wouldn't shut up.
The first suggestion from one of these OKC power-players was: "Oklahoma City: The best of what America used to be... and can be again." This is perhaps the worst idea for a slogan that I have ever heard in my life. It's at least seven or eight words too long, makes it sound like OKC hasn't moved into the 21st century, and has a friggin' pause in the middle of it. When coming up with a catchphrase, I've found that it is generally beneficial to have it actually be catchy, and also it's better not to be incredibly condescending to the rest of the country.