Love Letters/Hate Mail

Replay, Please

(In response to "Lights! Camera! Take Action!" in the August 25-31 issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly)

Several years ago I went to a matinee showing of The Prince of Egypt at what was then, I believe, the only $1 theater in Tulsa. During the final reel, the parting of the Red Sea, the framing changed, and I was seeing the bottom of the picture at the top quarter of the screen.

No, I didn't complain or ask for my $1 back. A few years later, I wanted to see Star Wars: Episode 1 on the "big" screen one more time before it was taken off. Again, a matinee at the same $1 theater. I had just enough time to see the movie before I had to be somewhere else.

One employee was handling ticket sales and concessions. I finally got my ticket and sat down in my seat. The movie was late in starting, and the houselights did not go off. I waited, maybe five minutes, and finally went to the lobby to inform the single employee.

I returned to my seat, and five minutes later, the house lights finally went down. 20 or 30 minutes in, the second reel was spliced in upside down and running backwards! I saw someone go out to the lobby, and a few minutes later, the screen went dark and the house lights came up. I just got up and walked out, promising myself I would never go to that theater again, but not telling the solo employee (I should have asked for my $1 back just to make a point.)

A couple of weeks ago, I relented and allowed myself to be dragged to that same theater, and there were no real problems. I have noticed, however, at these second-run theaters, that while the center of the picture may be in focus, it seems to get a little blurry on both the left and right sides of the screen. Are they using the wrong lens?

--Don Rush, Jr.

Well Reform

The party line concerning the individual mandate is indeed that people would otherwise wait to buy insurance until they're sick. The real reason there's no individual mandate with Obamacare is because otherwise no one would buy it.

Companies terminating employee health benefits in lieu of a government plan "hasn't happened" in Massachusetts?

According to the Boston Globe, small companies are dumping health plans in droves. Expect that rate to pick up, especially if we go into another recession.

Check the numbers on Mass-Care again. Massachusetts Health care has cost Massachusetts an additional $4.2 billion and broadsided small businesses with the increased costs. Insurance premiums have risen 12 percent in the last two years. Yes, more people have coverage, but over time, the costs aren't containable, and the only possible way to sustain it is to keep raising costs on employers and employees, curtailing amount and type of coverage, and eroding the quality of care. And we're going national with this train wreck?

Governments don't create "better functioning markets" -- they create market dysfunction.

--Todd Kreigh

Job Description

Boy can we pick em! Our U.S. Senator Inhofe recently said he comes home every weekend because there is a bunch of weirdos in Washington DC. And wasn't it so long ago that our U.S. Representative John Sullivan said during his election ad, he comes home every weekend to hear what his constituents have to say?

Well isn't that dandy! Point is they wanna gripe about spending money and what do THEY pay to fly back each and every weekend. There's a good chance they don't fly with you and I, and they're up there getting wined and dined in 1st class.

And how much yearly does it cost us to pay for it? Oh yeah, Mr. Inhofe was recently flagged by the FAA, for landing his airplane on a closed runway. We really need an ambassador to our state, with directions like that in Washington. I really hope the FAA suspends his license. Now as for flying back here every weekend; are these the only ones from our state that do that?

Sooo, where do they find time in their busy travel schedules to get anything done in DC?

--Larry Nuding

Growing Pangs

It has been apparent for a long time that the funding mechanisms for the City of Tulsa are insufficient to pay for the governmental goods and services that the voters of the City reasonably expect to receive.

The City occupies something like 185 square miles with a population of about 390,000. That means there are only about 2,100 residents per square mile. This is one of the lowest population densities of any of the 50 largest cities in the United States. The population density of Los Angeles is something like 7,500.

Because of its size, Tulsa has more square miles to police. The buildings that the Fire Department provides protection to are strewn over a disproportionally very large area which means that the City has to have more fireman and equipment to respond in an appropriate time to fire alarms. Additionally, Tulsa has more miles of streets per capita than other more densely populated communities with a disproportionate cost per capita to keep the streets maintained.

Because of Tulsa's dependence upon sales taxes to produce the income, it was fiscally challenged before the decline in the economy began in 2008. The maintenance of our streets had been short changed for years in favor of the police and fire funding. Tulsa was and is simply geographically already too big.

So, what does the Mayor propose? He wants to make it bigger. The idea seems to be that the proposed new land area will someday be the location of new businesses that will produce tax income of sufficient amounts to justify being included inside the city limits.

Adding additional square miles to the City's already oversized land area should not be increased on the hope that it may sometime grow its population in the annexed area; to justify the cost is not well thought out and should not be approved [by] the City Council or the electorate.

The City needs to [be] smaller with a higher population density, not larger with a lower population density. The City's shoes are already too big for its feet and the Mayor wants bigger shoes. Not a good idea.

--Kent Morlan