lighting up the town receive school,...
TRANSCRIPT
FridayDecember 7, 2012
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By Kyle HincHey
General Assignment Reporter
It isn’t the endless danger or the gore he hates the most.
It isn’t the violence or even the low pay.
It’s the waiting. It’s the overwhelming and tedious paper-work he could drown in.
Master Patrol Officer Heath Hall has seen everything from grisly murder scenes to decapitated bodies at smolder-ing wreck sites since he became a po-lice officer 15 years ago. But 15 years of witnessing graphic crimes and accidents has hardened Hall.
His shift, which spans through the evening rush hour Tuesday through Friday, almost guarantees he responds to wrecks daily.
It’s worse when the wreck is in the Highway Patrol’s jurisdiction. One dark and chilly night, Hall responded to an accident that happened on Oklahoma State Highway 51 on the outskirts of Stillwater. He pulled up to the site si-multaneously with an ambulance and immediately realized what happened.
An old beat-up Porsche sped away from Stillwater when a deer found it-self in the car’s headlights. The driver swerved right and lost control, causing the car to flip four times before finally coming to a stop about 40 yards away from the road. By the time it was done, pieces of the car littered the empty field.
Anybody who has known Hall would probably agree he was born for it. Born in Enid and raised in Wakita, he possessed characteristics other kids he grew up with didn’t. He was the strong, silent type, but every word that left his
mouth had meaning. He stayed out of trouble and kept his eyes on the future.
After he graduated from high school, he joined the Navy and rigged para-chutes for four years. The choice to sign up for the military was simple. It wasn’t out of a sense of patriotism but rather a way to gain experience and earn some money.
He started his career in enforcement in Liberal, Kan., in 1998. He lasted four years there. He doesn’t care much for any place other than Oklahoma, but it was the first town to offer him a job, and he was afraid another offer might not pop up. A strong disdain for Kansas and a sense of longing for Oklahoma brought him to the Stillwater Police Department. But it was in Kansas where he discovered he had an unexplainable, mildly disturbing talent for police work.
It was his first year of being an officer, and he responded to a possible suicide. This was his first death-related call.
“It was a 17-year-old male that worked at Long John Silver’s that was upset at his dad, so he snuck into his dad’s room, took his dad’s revolver and placed it on his temple and pulled the trigger,” Hall says.
It’s 15 years later, and he can recall every detail. The bloodstains on the wall. The furniture placement. But the scene never bothered him. It was the first body he has seen on the job, but he didn’t have trouble sleeping that night.
Some call this ability of being calm and unaffected by gruesome scenes a curse. Hall considers it a gift.
Because all police officers deal with these situations so often, Hall’s natural-born gift is not a necessity to survive in this field. Actually, he said if someone stays with it long enough, even the most squeamish of people can build immu-nity.
Social media helps solve crimeOfficer recalls good and bad of law enforcement
HALL
By Allie HAddicAn
Crime Reporter
Solving a crime was only a tweet away for the Oklahoma State Uni-versity Police Department this week.
OSUPD tweeted and posted a picture of a person of interest on Facebook at noon Monday. Police asked the OSU community to assist in identifying the man, according to OSUPD’s Facebook status.
Director of Communications Gary Shutt said the man was sus-pected of stealing a student’s univer-sity ID card.
“The ID was used to fraudulently purchase two books from the Stu-
dent Union Bookstore,” Shutt said. “The books were then sold elsewhere for cash.”
The department obtained the photo from surveillance video foot-age of the suspect.
Shutt said that once posted on Twitter and Facebook, the picture received about 10,000 views in two hours.
“Within four hours we received four separate phone calls identify-ing the same person,” Shutt said. “The four callers were not connected in any way and stated they saw the photo on the social media pages.”
Police submitted a probable cause affidavit to the Payne County Dis-trict Attorney’s Office and anticipate
charges being filed against the sus-pect.
Shutt said that the department has attempted to use their social me-dia site without success in the past.
“They were more proactive this time in retweeting and reposting the message,” Shutt said.
OSUPD’s Twitter account said they will continue to use social media “as a way of sharing reliable information with the OSU commu-nity.”
Follow OSUPD on Twitter @OkstatePD and like it on Facebook at Oklahoma State University Police Department.
Courtesy of osuPdThis photo led to the apprehension of a suspect in a reported theft this week.
Veterans receive help with school, life
LigHting up tHe town
samantha kurtz/o’Collegiancanyons Malamute Puppies was awarded for best group at Thursday night’s parade.
Parade draws big crowd downtown
See Hall Page 3
By SAlly ASHer
General Assignment Reporter
OSU is trying to support its vet-erans.
The Office of Veterans Affairs at Oklahoma State University, an office within the Office of the Reg-istrar, acts as a middleman between students and the federal govern-ment, Assistant Registrar Paula Barnes said.
Ryan Moehle, specialist in Stu-dent Affairs at the Office of Veter-ans Affairs, said the office supports six chapters of military benefits, but the Post-9/11 GI Bill is the newest, often referred to as “Chapter 33,” which is based on hours served on active duty.
“The entitlement pays for tuition, fees, a housing allowance and book stipend,” he said. “It can be trans-ferred, meaning the veteran earns the entitlement but can, under cer-tain conditions, transfer their enti-tlement to a dependent like a spouse or child.”
After students receive eligibil-ity confirmation from the VA, they submit the necessary benefits paper-work to the university office, which goes back to the VA for verification and reimbursement, Barnes said.
Students who have been recerti-fied every semester for benefits wait about a week for their benefit reim-bursement to appear in their bank accounts, Moehle said.
See Veterans Page 3
By Kyle HincHey
General Assignment Reporter
More than 10,000 people lined the streets Thursday night to watch the annual Christmas parade make its way through downtown Stillwater.
The Parade of Lights began at 7 p.m. and lasted an hour. This year’s theme was “Christmas Carols and Candy Canes,” which encourages participants to decorate their floats and vehicles accordingly.
Only about half of the 30 groups
in the parade followed the theme. The groups that did, however, were award-ed for their creativity.
Judges selected the best-decorated groups and awarded cash prizes. The contest was divided into five catego-ries. Stillwater Parks and Recreation won first place for best float. Canyons Malamute Puppies was awarded first place for best group, and the Perkins-Tryon High School Band won first place for best band.
The crowd surrounded the parade from start to finish. For many fami-lies, watching the Parade of Lights has become a tradition.
This was Stillwater resident Rachel Palmer’s fourth time to attend the pa-rade with her family.
“It’s nice to see the different themes from year to year,” Palmer said. “I think my family’s favorite part is the interaction. The people in the parade are very friendly and always come say hi and pass out candy to the kids.”
For others, such as Ted Porter and his 4-year-old son Kaden, this was their first time watching.
“It’s a great event for everyone but especially for the kids,” Ted said. “(Kaden) has been having the time of his life. He’s just loved the lights and
the music.”Co-coordinator Tom Williams
said crowd participation is the most important part of the parade.
“(Participation) is the only way this thing works,” Williams said. “With-out the crowd’s support over the years, this parade would be nothing.”
For a highlight video of the Parade of lights
visit ocolly.com
videos @ ocolly.com
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emily nielsen/O’COllegianTiffany Bias dribbles against Stephen F. Austin on Thurs-day night. Bias scored eight points and added five assists.
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By KierAn STecKley
Sports Reporter
Oklahoma State had a lot to learn from last Saturday’s defeat in its first road game at the hands of Virginia Tech, yet Cowboys coach Travis Ford found himself thinking of the environment him team just left instead of the X’s and O’s of why his team loss.
“We came out of the game at Virginia Tech and I was very impressed with what I saw from their crowd,” Ford said. “It was unbelievable.”
Several Virginia Tech play-ers stated after the game how much the crowd influenced the game and gave them an edge. Ford said he finds a lot of truth to that statement.
“I think that might have been one of the differences (in the game),” Ford said. “We had a lead most of the time and they hung around. It got loud in there a couple of times.”
So Ford took it upon him-self to help bring that kind of atmosphere back to Gallagher-Iba Arena.
“We do a lot of things to try and get the fans but one the plane ride back, I decided I’m going to make the com-mitment, there will be no more excuses,” Ford said. “I don’t want to hear that I don’t get out enough so I spent Monday and Tuesday in the student union passing out fliers.”
Marcus Smart and Le’Bryan Nash joined Ford in the stu-dent union. All three walked around and personally encour-aged students to pick up their season tickets, redeem their vouchers, or purchase tickets for Wednesday’s game versus South Florida. The trio also took to Twitter to persuade the student body to “bring the rowdy back” to GIA, which was named the best college gymna-sium by CBS SportsLine.com in 2001.
“We did a lot of things the
last two days to try and give, es-pecially students, an opportu-nity to get in this game,” Ford said. “We’re a top-25 team at this point, 6-1, so hopefully we can start packing this place up. I know it would really help be-cause we have one of the best arenas in the country.”
Students answered the call adequately for Wednesday’s game. The student section was mostly filled and remained active for the entire game. After the game, Ford and his team made a point to person-ally thank as many fans as they could for showing up.
“I thought they responded very well,” Ford said. “They were here early and they were loud. It wasn’t the most excit-ing game to watch but hope-fully they enjoyed watching us win.
“Hopefully we can continue to get some fans at the games.”
Big Phil-in
The Cowboys are slowly bringing back starting center Michael Cobbins from his big toe injury. A major reason OSU has the luxury of not forcing Cobbins in the lineup is the play of Philip Jurick. He is recovering from an injury himself, a torn Achilles he suf-fered last year, but has stepped in for Cobbins and is an early candidate for most improved
player on the team. Jurick is coming off his best
performance of the season. He grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds Wednesday, despite battling South Florida’s Jor-dan Omogbehin, who is 7 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 334 pounds, for parts of the game.
“What I loved about it, is you should have seen the guys in the locker room--how ex-cited they are for him,” Ford said. “When we can get a per-formance from a big man like that, because we have some of the best guards in the country, I believe, then that just helps our team be that much better.”
Ford admitted he ran some plays for Jurick, something he had not done before.
“We’re trying to build his confidence up, because I tell him he does lack confidence,” Ford said. “We believe in him more than he believes in him-self.”
Jurick’s confidence is com-ing around, however. He cites the support of his teammates and coaches for the turnaround.
“Coach (Ford) told me be-fore the game to be more con-fident on the offensive end, and I think that goes a long ways,” Jurick said. “Knowing that my teammates have a lot of con-fidence in me helped out a lot too.”
COrie wilkinsOn/O’COllegianMichael cobbins shoots against USF in Gallagher-iba Arena. cobbins saw significant minutes against the Bulls for the first time since injuring his foot early in the season.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2012 THE DAILY O’COLLEGIAN PAgE 2
By Nancy BlackTribune Media Services(MCT)Today’s Birthday (12/07/12). Carve out alone time this year. Review diet, exercise and balance practices, and prioritize vitality. Family and loved ones have your attention and care; put your oxy-gen mask on first. Romance and partnerships advance before June. After that, career and finances heat up.To get the advantage, check the day’s rating: 10 is the easiest day, 0 the most challenging.Aries (March 21-April 19) -- Today is a 7 -- A great idea regarding money comes from afar. Review instructions. Friends connect you to a new associate who could become a valuable partner. It’s getting romantic.Taurus (April 20-May 20) -- Today is a 6 -- Focus on work today and tomorrow, including paperwork. It’s getting busy, so stick to practical basics. Express your thoughts freely at home. Friends speak well of you.Gemini (May 21-June 20) -- Today is a 9 -- Romance blossoms for a while, with a few hurdles. Set long-term goals with your sweet-heart. Be sure you have all the information. Take notes. You’re gaining support.Cancer (June 21-July 22) -- Today is a 9 -- Get the opinions of close family before proceeding. You’re entering a more domestic phase. Gather information. Keep your financial situation confidential. Invest in success and gain respect.Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) -- Today is an 8 -- Use the secret sauce. Put in the extra effort, study and ask questions. Believe you can. Accept the coaching. Don’t push yourself too hard. Any forward momen-tum counts.Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- Today is a 7 -- Work hard and make lots of money. Talk over ideas with co-workers. Provide leadership. Fin-ish an old task and profit. Gather resources together.Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) -- Today is an 8 -- Prepare mentally, and then adapt as needed. Use your power responsibly. They’ve been waiting for you to say the word. Check your course with friends, then full speed ahead.Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) -- Today is a 5 -- Deadlines are looming; better get back to work. Slow down and think it over. It’s getting introspective. Friends help you go farther. Use your imagination. Repay a favor.Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) -- Today is a 9 -- Use your powers of observation. Work with close associates today and tomorrow. A loved one offers excellent advice. Listen closely, and hold your comments until asked.Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- Today is a 7 -- Begin to develop the necessary resources. Get current accounting data, and ask for strategy updates from your teammates. Advance your career while you’re at it. Angels guide your actions.Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) -- Today is an 8 -- You’re making a good impression. Don’t get presumptuous. Concentrate on studies, and conditions are better for travel now, too. Ask provocative questions.Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) -- Today is an 8 -- Attend to financial matters for the next two days, and turn your plan into the perfect thing. A co-worker and a loved one are your best allies.
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Friday, december 7, 2012 THE DAILY O’COLLEGIAN Page 3
“I could take any person off the street and expose them to enough graphic images, and they’ll eventually become numb to it,” Hall says.
It’s a sobering truth, and Hall says it’s unfortunate people must get used to these traumatic experiences.
They may not be his princi-pal concerns, but the risks of injury and death fill Hall with anxiety. He has undergone five surgeries and is on his third car, but Hall is tough to bring to his knees. Hall effortlessly takes down kids more than half his age. He is 39, and he has never lost a foot pursuit.
Crooks may not pose much of a threat, but the environ-ment is a different story. It was Hall’s third year in Still-water, and he was patrolling outside of Eskimo Joe’s as the bar closed. A man in a black Acura swerved across lanes, and Hall flipped on his lights to his Ford Police Interceptor with the intent of peaceful ne-gotiation.
The man wasn’t having it.
A chase began and came to a crashing halt in a dry creek bed near East Third and East Virginia avenues. The man hit a railroad trestle and nose-dived into the creek bed. He crawled out of his Acura and ran, but Hall was right behind him. Disaster struck when Hall’s foot became lodged in a gap, and he heard a deafen-ing snap.
“It didn’t break it, but it tore all the cartilage in my knee and tore off all the cartilage in the ball of my hip,” Hall says. “But I continued chasing him, got him and took him to jail.”
To his dismay, his injury kept him out of the job for a year. He received pay, but it didn’t matter. A year without doing what he loves is a year gone to waste.
The camaraderie he shares with his fellow officers helps keep him going.
Stillwater Police Depart-ment’s evening shift only has
seven officers on patrol. Sgt. David Duncan has grown especially close to Hall. They spend a large amount of time on stakeouts and on patrols together.
“This is the excitement of police work right here, just waiting for the call about the man with the gun,” Duncan says. “Ninety-eight percent of the time we’re bored to death, and the other 2 percent we’re scared to death.”
Saving a life is his favorite feeling in the world. He has lost count of how many times he has performed CPR.
He isn’t always successful, but it doesn’t slow him. He compares his persistency to a free swinger in baseball.
“Like a baseball player might swing at a 1,000 pitch-es, you’re still going to keep swinging and just hope for the home run,” Hall says.
Hall: A local police officer is used to life on the job.
From Page 1
Veterans: Office helps students with their bill payments.
From Page 1
Veterans Affairs Office Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: 322 Student Union
For new claims, the time between application to the VA and receiving reimbursement is much longer, Barnes said.
“A new claim can take 30 to 45 days to be processed,” she said. “If they’re a continu-ing student, the average wait time would be, without degree changes, seven to 10 working days.”
If a student makes any de-gree changes, such as dropping or adding classes or changing majors, the paperwork for each change must be submitted and processed individually and each change adds to the wait time for students expecting reim-bursement, Barnes said.
Academic advisers must ap-prove courses for certification, which must come from the stu-dent’s degree plan, Barnes said.
The campus office reviews the students’ forms to be sure all courses are approved for VA purposes and contact the stu-dent if a course is not approved, Barnes said.
Students sign an agreement they will pay attention to the courses they enroll in and take responsibility for courses that
may or may not count toward their benefits, she said.
In the event students do not receive their reimbursement and housing stipend in a timely fashion, Barnes said the office takes measures to ensure the student does not lose his or her housing.
Skylar Williams, a student worker in the university VA office, said she has never had a problem getting her benefits from the VA and the university.
Josh Blevins, another stu-dent worker in the university VA office and member of the Marine Corps, said some stu-dents don’t understand the requirements of the program, but its benefits are good for students.
“We have students that come in sometimes who sub-mit paperwork to get funding for last semester,” he said. “The VA will still pay that.”
Amanda Siegersma, a fourth-year architecture stu-dent who gets her benefits from her father’s military service, said she has always had trouble get-ting her funding.
“It’s a really long and drawn-out process to get it,” she said. “Once paperwork gets turned in, it usually takes a couple of months for it to kick in. I usual-ly start accruing interest on my bursar bills that are supposed to be paid through the VA.”
Money for each month’s
tuition and housing expenses come at the end of the month instead of at the beginning, Siegersma said.
She has had to struggle with the VA office to get her money every semester, Siegersma said.
“I have to hound them,” she said. “Every time, I have to go in and be like, ‘Why isn’t my paperwork done? I turned in (my paperwork) before school started.’And I’ve had my pa-perwork lost once. It was put in the bottom of a pile it didn’t belong in.”
Students are welcome and encouraged to stay in close contact with their academic advisers and the university VA office when they have questions or concerns, Barnes said.
“We’re here to serve our vet-erans and their dependents,” Barnes said. “That’s our mission statement and that’s what we’re about.”
‘It didn’t break it, but it tore all the cartilage in my knee and tore off all the cartilage in the ball of my hip. But I continued chasing
him, got him and took him to jail.’HeatH Hall,
Master Patrol Officer
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Friday, december 7, 2012 The Daily O’COllegian Page 4OPiniOn
I would like to use this column to respond to Evan Woodson’s article concerning the government and how my view of history is skewed.
When I said “separate but equal should never have been passed,” I was referring to the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson that established the doctrine of “separate but equal.”
I don’t think I will find much opposition when I claim that separate but equal was not equal and that this court case only promoted segregation.
I would also like to further elaborate on my claim that “blatantly racist” schools would shut down due to lack of fund-ing. This claim was made on the assumption that we would be operating in a free market, and those schools that were cited (Tulsa, Dallas, Chicago) that continually gain funding only proves my point further. Gov-ernment schools receive fund-ing, no matter what. If a school is perpetually awful in the pub-lic system, they continue to op-erate, whereas in a free market, no such thing would happen. If racist schools did exist, then so be it, as long as they are private-ly funded of course. You cannot outlaw racism as long as aggres-sion is not involved.
I have a difficult time believ-ing those who graduate from openly racist schools would do well in a search for a career.
I also stand by my original statements referring to seces-sion as a very American thing. A secession is a break from a political tie, so yes, our break from Great Britain was a seces-sion. Our founders, especially Thomas Jefferson, realized se-cession as a necessary right of the states if the nation were to be sovereign.
Jefferson said in his first in-augural address, “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union … let them stand undisturbed as monu-ments of the safety with which error of opinion may be toler-ated where reason is left free to
combat it.”For some peculiar reason,
people have come up with the notion that the Union is some-thing to be worshipped and those who disagree are to be cast down as traitors. The idea of individual states was empha-sized by our founders, and the Declaration of Independence even refers to free and indepen-dent states.
When the Constitution was ratified, a vote was not taken by the country as a whole, but votes were taken by individual states. This implies the choice of whether or not each state wants to associate with the Union is just that, a choice.
The United States was in-tended to be a mere collection of societies: each with individ-ual sovereignty, bound together for convenience.
The right to secede is pro-tected by the Constitution. The Constitution is meant to out-line the powers of the federal government and any power not enumerated to the federal gov-ernment is given to the states.
The Constitution does not give the federal government the right to deny the states the right of secession.
Why is it that the consensus is if the United States cuts down on land mass, for some reason everyone’s head would explode and the world would collapse? Why can’t we understand that secession is just a practice of freedom, and if a state chooses to do so, they should be left to their own devices without a war breaking out?
To those who claim the Civil War solved this issue, there is a flaw in your logic. I will use an example that historian and se-nior fellow of the Mises Insti-tute Tom Woods used: if your kid came home from the play-ground all bloodied up from a fight, as the parent you would not say, “Well kid, you were clearly in the wrong. Look how bloodied up you are!”
Just because the central gov-ernment is winning does not mean they are right. This model remains today: war is too often used as an excuse to infringe on our rights and liberties.
I feel that I am fairly com-petent in regards to America’s past, and if freedom is the goal, perhaps freedom should be used as the means to attain that goal.
Jake Park is a psychology sophomore.
When we think about his-tory and about famous peo-ple in history, it is tempting to think in black and white terms. George Washington was “good,” Martin Luther King was “progressive” and Hitler was “bad.”
While this way of thinking can be comforting, it ignores the complexities of history and politics.
Opinion Editor Trenton Sperry, myself and fellow op-ed contributor Jake Park have been writing articles about Abraham Lincoln lately, and I’m afraid our discussions of American history have be-come clouded by political per-suasions.
Sperry is an outspoken lib-eral, and he’d be the first to tell you so. On the other side, Park is a libertarian.
Simplistic characteriza-tions of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator or “an enemy of equality” can never dem-onstrate the viewpoints of such a complicated historical figure. Was Lincoln’s perspec-tive comparable to that of a modern day civil rights activ-ist? Absolutely not. He was a 19th-century president of a nation deeply divided along racial lines. He held different viewpoints at different times, like many politicians.
But to condemn him as “an enemy of equality” and say that he killed 600,000 Ameri-cans is also not consistent with history and common sense. Is Lincoln solely responsible for the carnage of the Civil War? How can a president who did so much for African-Ameri-cans be qualified as “a racist?”
While I think Sperry’s characterization of Lincoln in his article “Lincoln’s vision for America remains” is overly simplistic, I am more dis-turbed by Park’s characteriza-tions of Lincoln in his recent article “Lincoln: An enemy of equality and the Constitu-tion.” After talking to Park on Twitter, I understand that he
is a strong libertarian and be-lieves the South was justified in seceding.
In addition, he believes slavery would have died out in the South without the Civil War and that Lincoln should have let the South secede.
Park can believe whatever he wants in private, but I want to challenge him on two of his public assertions: that Lincoln is to blame for the deaths of 600,000 Americans and that Lincoln was a racist.
Perhaps because of his dis-approval of Lincoln’s politics, Park seeks to pin the blame for the war on Lincoln. In my conversations with Park, he insisted Lincoln didn’t really free the slaves and that actions like signing the Emancipation Proclamation and promoting the 13th Amendment were results of political pressure and not representative of what Lincoln genuinely desired. According to Park, Americans (like me) whose ancestors were slaves shouldn’t celebrate Lincoln because he wasn’t re-ally the one who liberated them. This is strange, consid-ering how he seems to blame Lincoln for the deaths caused by the war.
So Lincoln wasn’t respon-sible for freeing the slaves, but he was responsible for all the lives lost during of the war? That doesn’t make sense. We can’t have it both ways. Re-sponsibility for the massive loss of life must be shared by all the important figures of the Civil War era, not just the U.S. president.
In his attempt to demon-strate “how racist Lincoln re-ally was,” Park presents quotes with insufficient context. While it is undeniable Lin-coln held beliefs that would be considered racist today (want-ing to deport Blacks so that they could form a separate society, for example), labeling him as “a racist” is historically ignorant and illogical.
What is worse is interpret-ing history through the lens of a particular political perspec-tive, as Park has done.
In the same way we view the Founding Fathers, past presidents and civil rights leaders, we must try to under-stand Lincoln within the con-text of his own time.
Evan Woodson is a history and sociology senior. [email protected]
Opinion Columnist
EVAN WOODSONOpinion Columnist
JAKE PARKFrom Andrew Smith
I am writing in response to Jake Park’s article “Lin-coln: An Enemy of Equal-ity and the Constitution.” It seems that Park, a psychol-ogy major, thinks himself qualified to criticize Lin-coln after reading one book about him. It is a dangerous thing to read one source and learn just one perspective on a subject.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s argument on Abraham Lin-coln has enamored Mr. Park. Note that DiLorenzo is not a historian, but an econo-mist. When he tries to be a historian, he is not a very good one. I would advise Mr. Park to draw on estab-lished scholars the next time he tries to write about a dis-cipline in which he does not have sufficient background. Park copies DiLorenzo’s thesis that Lincoln was a terrible president, although to his credit, DiLorenzo for-mulates a better argument.
It would be prudent to offer Mr. Park a lesson in how to study history and how to determine a compe-tent historical work. Histo-rians rely on primary sources to make arguments. For a 305-page book that makes as many contrary claims as The Real Lincoln, DiLoren-zo only has eleven primary sources. DiLorenzo is in-consistent in his interpreta-tion of Lincoln’s words. He makes sweeping inflamma-tory statements that he fails to substantiate.
Incredibly, DiLorenzo follows a line of reasoning that asserts that if Lincoln had allowed the South to secede peacefully, the Nazi Party may have never ex-isted, which strongly implies that World War II may have been prevented. In short, DiLorenzo accuses Abra-ham Lincoln of facilitating the Second World War. This statement severely under-mines the credibility of his work. It is theory and con-
jecture without facts.The blame for Mr. Park’s
poor argument does not lie entirely with DiLorenzo. Park is correct that the Southern states seceded to protect their rights. Howev-er, the right that the South-ern states feared was in jeop-ardy was the right to own slaves. One cannot divorce the Civil War from slavery.
If Mr. Park has stud-ied history, then he should know that, initially, the Civil War was fought to keep the Union together. After Lin-coln’s Preliminary Eman-cipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, the Civil War became a war to end slavery. These were the important issues at hand, and any others were second-ary. If nothing else, Lincoln was a shrewd politician, per-haps the best politician ever to hold the presidency.
While Lincoln did not start the effort to abolish slavery, he was not “pushed” into supporting the Thir-teenth Amendment (see Michael Vorenberg’s Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment). I have seen Spielberg’s Lin-coln, and thought it excel-lent. Established and well-respected historians James McPherson and Eric Foner have also praised the film. The “myth” that Park says Spielberg based his film on is historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Team of Ri-vals.
Perhaps Park should read Goodwin before he accuses her of having “no evidence.” While Park made some cor-rect assertions, he should check his facts before slan-dering one of America’s most revered presidents.
Andrew Smith is a graduate student
in the history department specializing
in the Civil War era. [email protected]
We must remember Lincoln in context
Constitution grants right of secession
Potrayal of Lincoln, history off the mark
THE REAlFOUNDERS
The Daily O’Collegian Friday, December 7, 2012 Page 5
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The Daily O’CollegianPage 6 Friday, December 7, 2012 This page produced and paid for by OSU Communications and Marketing.
Vol. 24 No. 14 December 7, 2012
News from OSU Communications
Construction is being com-pleted on the Cowboy Wind Farm near Blackwell. The 60-megawatt wind farm will generate more than 65 percent of OSU’s electricity beginning Jan. 1, 2013. The wind farm, which includes 26 turbines each towering over 350 feet, is the result of a 20-year agreement signed last December between OSU and OG&E and approved by the Oklahoma Corpora-tion Commission.
Ridin’ the Wind
OSU to launch first of its kind app center on campus
Cowboy Technologies, LLC is working with the Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Scholars program, corporate sponsor AAA Oklahoma
launch an app center at Oklahoma State University. The idea originated from OSU alumnus Steve Wood, Cowboy Technologies
CEO and endorsed by fellow alumni Neal Krueger, CEO of AAA Oklahoma
Kayvon Olomi, founder of AppTank.“The center will be a space and activity that fosters concepts and creative
app ideas across Oklahoma State University’s ecosystem,” Wood said. “The
app development needed to launch viable app ideas into practice.”CIE Scholars Caroline Diedrich, Jagdeep Podichetty Thribhuvan and Ashish
Singh are working to develop a successful business model for the App Center.
to be engaged in the app development process and to provide a unique service to companies by connecting them with students in new ways to develop apps.
The App Center will provide a space at OSU where students can transition their app ideas into functioning web and mobile applications through campus wide collaboration in the app development process. The App Center will house all the necessary equipment and programs to facilitate this process; these re-
connect to corporate sponsors and businesses needing apps. “This project not only focuses on creating synergy on the OSU campus
through app development, but also brings students, faculty, alumni and com-panies together in a unique way,” said Diedrich. “It is exciting for our team to be involved with an initiative to create something that does not exist at any other university and the support we have received to do so already has been invaluable.”
The center will be located in the lobby of the Henry Bellmon Research Center and is projected to launch during the 2013 spring semester.
Pictured in the lobby of the Henry Bellmon Research Center – the future home of the OSU App Center – are (from L to R) VP for Research Stephen McKeever; CIE scholars Jagdeep Podichetty, Caroline Diedrich and Ashish Singh; CIE scholars adviser Bruce Barringer; and Cowboy Technologies CEO Steve Wood.
Oklahoma to see more jobsOklahoma is expected to see
continued job growth in 2013 as the state continues to bounce back from economic struggles in recent years, Oklahoma State University economist Dan Rickman said Wednesday during the 2013 Oklahoma Economic Outlook Conference.
The conference is hosted each December by the Center for Applied Economic Research in the Spears School of Business. This year’s conference, held at the Metro Technology Centers at Springlake Campus in Oklahoma City, included discussions of economic conditions and prospects for Oklahoma and the United States.
Rickman projects that more than 26,000 jobs will be added to the Okla-homa workforce during the 12-month period beginning Jan. 1. The majority of those jobs will be in professional and business services (with more than 5,000 new jobs created) and construc-
tion (more than 4,000) industries.
Other industries in which major job growth is forecast are in state and local government
(more than 3,700), the leisure and
the wholesale trade sector (more than 2,700), said Rickman, Regents Profes-sor of Economics and Oklahoma Gas and Electric Services Chair in Regional Economic Analysis.
“Employment growth across the nation has become much more even in recent months and Oklahoma’s growth is expected to only slightly exceed the nation’s growth in the upcoming year,” Rickman said. “Energy-related employ-ment appears to have peaked with the moderation in oil prices. Other states hard hit by the recession have begun to recover more robustly.”
Within Oklahoma, Rickman fore-casts growth in small remote (non-adjacent) counties that are not farming counties. The counties where he sees the most employment growth include Alfalfa, Beaver, Beckham, Canadian,
Logan, Love, McClain, Murray, Osage, Pittsburg, Rogers, Stephen and Wood-ward.
Rickman concluded by noting that “growth nationally and in Oklahoma depends critically on the nation not
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