The Top 100 Oklahoma Embarrassments have come and gone. So far, the criticism has been pretty minimal. In fact, the only real complaint about the list came from a blogger posting a comment at Dustbury. She also made a similar post here. Her name is Lynn.
Lame. I think the guy should probably move. Actually, some things and people on the list are cringeworthy (Tom Coburn, Steve Largent, Oral Roberts) and there are a lot of people on it that I don't know anything about but mostly the list just makes me go "Huh?" Also, I expected that noodling would make the list although I find that more amusing than embarrassing.
Personally, I would have included "People who don't know the difference between 'there' and 'their' and "People who mis-use apostrophes" but I guess those are not limited to Oklahoma.
Granted, her criticism had more to do with our lack of basic grammar skills and her lack of Oklahoma knowledge, which is probably what you would expect from a lady who's blog highlight is a post about Doritos marketing. But her post does make me wonder:
Is the scathing opinion of a random 50-year-old blogger the best we can do?
Right now it is, and we really need to fix it! If you get a chance, please leave a comment or two about some of the fine Oklahoma Embarrassments we may have missed. Just make sure that it has nothing to do with noodling or our grammar.
Also, starting next week, we will begin our next countdown: The Lost Ogle's Top 100 Ideas for the Oklahoma 100 Ideas Initiative. According to the organization's website, the 100 Ideas Initiative is a commitment to listen to the state's citizens, to be guided by their ideas.
That's perfect for us. We have some pretty good ideas. Hopefully, most of them will make Lynn go "Huh?"
