Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023
BONNIE & CLYDE
Pg. 8 Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022
Volume 120, Issue 15
VISTA The
“OUR WORDS, YOUR VOICE.”
OKC incumbents retain seats; dark money flows Quinn Daugherty Reporter
Oklahoma City’s Wards 2, 6, and 8 each reelected its incumbent Oklahoma City Council members while Ward 5 will participate in the April 4 general election. Ward 2’s James Cooper won with ease, securing 76.9% of the vote in his bid for re-election. During his re-election campaign, Cooper promised to make Ward 2 more walkable, connect neighborhoods with reliable public transportation, and link city services to the people. Students of the UCO African Student Association won an award at the Edmond International Festival Mark Stonecipher will serve 2021. (Provided/ uco international student council) his third term as Ward 8’s councilman after winning 53.1% of votes. Stonecipher promised to finish the MAPS 4 projects, increase neighborhood patrols by police, maintain the city’s AAA bond rating, and bolster Ainsley Martinez infrastructure. really talked about quite that basically assume or trust that Editor-in-Chief much.” the food that we’re eating is Republican Maressa Treat and Roach said while some criti- safe and edible, and won’t cause Democrat Derrick Scobey will A train in East Palestine, cize the media for new coverage disease. That’s a result of good face off in the general election Ohio derailed, sparking con“always being negative,” these regulation that most people can for Oklahoma County Clerk versations about the United events often impact people the agree on.” after winning their respective States’ environmental practices most. In 2018, the Trump adminprimaries. Treat received enand impact. However, some When the train’s operator istration repealed a 2014 safety dorsements from U.S. Senators suggested news organizations Norfolk Southern conducted rule for high-hazard cargo James Lankford and Markdid not cover the incident to a controlled burn of hazardtrains. wayne Mullin in January and the greatest extent. ous materials, including the “This is what happens when served in both Lankford’s most Travis Roach, an University flammable vinyl chloride, it you have more deregulation. recent re-election campaign and of Central Oklahoma environreleased the fumes into Ohio We’ve taken off some of the in his personal office. mental economics professor, and bordering states. Locals guardrails,” said Roach. JoBeth Hamon of Ward 6 said other events, specifically reported experiencing headIt comes down to policies won re-election against chalthe Chinese-operated balloon aches and eye irritation, and and the overproduction of ma- lenger Marek Cornett, tallying sighting in the U.S., overtook approximately 3,500 fish were terials, such as plastics, Roach 54.4% of the votes. Hamon coverage on East Palestine. killed by acidic water. However, said. drew attention in the runup “That kind of sucked the a reporter was arrested on-the“I just hope that we pay atto election day during a Feb. 8 oxygen out of the room,” Roach scene for attempting to cover tention to the people who were debate against opponent Marek said. the derailment. He was released impacted,” Roach said. Cornett when she referred to However, the lack of and no charges were filed. He mentioned 911, and the Fraternal Order of the Poenvironmental coverage did Roach said the environmen- the first responders who had lice as “one of the most extreme not start with the Ohio train tal effects of the derailment on serious health effects. He said groups in our country.” derailment. Roach said this has Ohio residents are concerning. it took celebrities going to “They have some of the most been happening for years. While regulations have been Congress to gain support for power to wield in this country, “In Oklahoma, we’re used stigmatized in recent years, financial aid. and the things they do with it to seeing this,” Roach said. Roach said, these policies are “This is not nearly the same are to protect bad actors that “You can have a very large scale essential to public safety. scale of an event,” he said. abuse their power and hurt tornado that causes terrible “It’s become such a political “It’s going to be hard to gain people in our community,” she damage and changes lives and football to fight, but we forget support for the people who said during the debate hosted livelihoods for a lot of people, about some of the mundane have had to live through this by NonDoc. “It’s hard for me and unless you live within that ways in which regulation helps by no fault of their own. They to imagine finding common state or within that community, us,” he said. “We can go to just happen to live in this part ground with folks that say it doesn’t get covered. It’s not a restaurant and eat and we of Ohio.” something like, ‘Public safety
Derailment highlights a lack of environmental media coverage
equals policing,’ because I don’t think a lot of people believe that.” On her Facebook, Hamon said she was grateful to the hard work of volunteers and the generous contributions of donors. Hamon said her campaign received $11,500 total in donations. “We put so much work into this campaign and the negative ads and text messages added an additional layer of exhaustion (especially emotionally),” she said about the campaign process on her Facebook. “Particularly as someone who is pretty shy and introverted, it’s been hard to process my image and words plastered on screens across the city, with my words taken out of context and used to spread fear and frustration instead of to spark hope and conversation.” Hamon was the target of a series of digital advertisements labeling her politics as “anti-military” and “anti-jobs”. The ads were produced by Catalyst Oklahoma, a nonprofit in the state about which very little is known. Because of its nonprofit status, under the Citizens United ruling, Catalyst Oklahoma does not reveal its donors. Catalyst and organizations like it are becoming an increasingly common fixture of the Oklahoman political landscape, more frequently using their capital, referred to as “dark money,” on attack ads, canvassing, and political marketing. A Dec 6 article from the Frontier revealed that $33.6 million was pumped into the Oklahoma election cycle during 2022 from outside groups. It was determined from data from the Oklahoma Ethics Commission that political nonprofit groups with hidden donors (dark money groups), spent more than triple the amount that was spent in 2018. Voters may recall Governor Kevin Stitt claiming dark money entities spent $50 million in ad buys.
UCO prepares for student government elections Kelanie Robertson Contributing Writer
Elections for student body president are taking place March 21, and students planning on running are already getting a head start on preparing their campaigns. Few students see the planning that goes into creating an entire campaign for candidacy, even if it’s just for college. The “Barry and Berry” duo offer a peek into what they are doing to prepare for the upcoming election. Izabel (Izzi) Barry is a junior majoring in political science on the pre-law track and minors in leadership and women’s, gender and sexuality studies. She is involved in Leaders of Tomorrow, founder and president of the Historical Film Club, and a part of several other organizations on campus. “As a commuter student, I really understand the struggles associated with finding ‘place’ on a college campus, and non-traditional student involvement is an area that Lauren Berry and myself would really like to see more opportunities for on our campus,” Barry said. “Furthermore, international students are an integral part of our campus community and we will prioritize engagement and collaboration in creating the best campus for our international
students.” Lauren Berry is a senior majoring in psychology who is also involved with Leaders of Tomorrow and has served in UCOSA for multiple terms. “As the upcoming election approaches, Izzi and I are programming a few ways to get our names and platform out across campus,” Berry said. “As we want to reach as many communities at UCO as possible, we plan on tabling, attending meetings, and fostering a close relationship with the student body so as to uphold our standards of transparency, teamwork, and trust.” The team has worked with senior strategic communication major Meg Davis to create a marketing campaign. With Interim President Andrew Benton joining the UCO community at the beginning of the month, Barry and Berry see their candidacy as a great opportunity to work closely with Benton to strengthen the campus as a whole. “Transparency, teamwork, and trust are the keys to developing a successful community that thrives on diversity and inclusion,” Barry said. Emails will be sent to all eligible UCO student voters detailing how voting will take place.
(Provided/ Ted Hsu / Alamy Stock Photo)
UCO professor responds to artifical intelligence Kaleb Gonzalez Contributing Writer
An English professor at the University of Central Oklahoma is revamping English writing courses this semester to adapt to advancements in artificial intelligence, like Open AI’s ChatGPT. English professor Laura Dumin is the director of the technical writing program at UCO and works with the compositions and rhetoric master’s program. Dumin is running
an Institutional Review Boards study to learn how ChatGPT will affect her students’ learning this semester. Dumin said they are looking at this critically. “I think it is important that, even if we are going to have students use it or not, we know that they are using it, and we have to help them think critically,” Dumin said. According to the AI’s own description, ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI.
“I am designed to understand and generate human-like responses to natural language input,” the AI, or its programmer, said. “It is not actually sentient,” Dumin said. “I think that is where people need to remember that it is not going out and finding the best answers for us, but it is using predictive modeling to put together the answers that it thinks fit.”
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