This Week in Links: Tornadoes unseated as greatest threat to Oklahoma

Sept. 16--Bottles lay spilled on the ground in White's Foodliner grocery store in Pawnee after a 5.6 magnitude earthquake, Sat. Sept. 3, 2016. JESSIE WARDARSKI/Tulsa World

Bottles lay spilled on the ground in White's Foodliner grocery store in Pawnee after a 5.6 magnitude earthquake, Sat. Sept. 3, 2016. JESSIE WARDARSKI/Tulsa World

Welcome to This Week in Links, a new and possibly recurring Friday column reviewing the online news of the week with a gentle skepticism.

Hi, I'm Matt. Reading lots of headlines isn't exactly my job, but I do it a lot for my job. In that sense, it's a crude oversimplification, like saying that an accountant does a lot of addition and subtraction.

More often than not, I see an inverse relationship between a headline's news value and the attention it warrants. That's to say that the dumber, simpler and more easily consumable an article is, the more likely it is to garner pageviews. That's not necessarily bad! There's plenty of room for simple or silly stories here on NewsOK. But it does blow the measure of news value out of proportion, and makes it harder to marshal readers' attention to complicated or nuanced stories that may require them to read critically for more than two and a half minutes.

So here, with this column, I'd like to try to return balance to this out-of-whack relationship between news value and attention, by simplifying complicated stories and substantiating frivolous ones. Also, it's Friday, and nobody really wants to learn anything new just before the weekend. So let's look back on the week's news, shall we?

Sandstone bricks from the side of the historic Pawnee County Bank tumbled to the sidewalk at Sixth Street and Harrison in Pawnee during a 5.8 magnitude earthquake Sept. 3. [PHOTO BY PAUL HELLSTERN, THE OKLAHOMAN]

Sandstone bricks from the side of the historic Pawnee County Bank tumbled to the sidewalk at Sixth Street and Harrison in Pawnee during a 5.8 magnitude earthquake Sept. 3. [PHOTO BY PAUL HELLSTERN, THE OKLAHOMAN]

After enjoying a long, tyrannical reign of infrequent destruction and chaos, tornadoes no longer pose the greatest long-term threat to Oklahomans. That distinction now belongs to earthquakes, according to Swiss Re, a company that insures companies that provide earthquake coverage. From energy reporter Paul Monies' story:

Swiss Re said tornadoes remain the dominant risk for the Oklahoma insurance market in the short-term, but earthquake losses could be more costly for long-term periods of more than 100 years.

This reprioritizing of things trying to kill us of course comes after scientists recorded the largest earthquake in state history, a 5.8-magnitude temblor that shook sandstone bricks off buildings in Pawnee and probably woke you up that morning. One Democratic lawmaker's since publicly called for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to shut down injection well drilling in high-risk areas, while privately, researchers, regulators and industry representatives met in Norman to talk shop.

Scott Pruitt, left, Oklahoma attorney general, and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, right, applaud during a Back the Blue rally to support law enforcement in Oklahoma City, Monday, Oct. 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Scott Pruitt, left, Oklahoma attorney general, and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, right, applaud during a Back the Blue rally to support law enforcement in Oklahoma City, Monday, Oct. 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Speaking of exchanges that are difficult to monitor, our one-man Washington D.C. bureau Chris Casteel peeked into the campaign finances of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is definitely maybe running for public office again. While Pruitt's future as a politician isn't clear --we probably won't know anything for certain until after this November's round of elections shakes out-- we did learn a couple of things from his finances.

1) The Pruitt's campaign spends the bulk of its money on consultants and travel. Not unusual for a politician of his office.

2) Once money gets into political action committees (PACs) and super PACs, it becomes pretty tricky to track because of how PACs can donate money fairly freely among themselves.

3) Among the donors to Pruitt's super PAC was Lucas Oil Products, a company founded by Forrest Lucas, which gave $50,000 in August 2015. Pruitt later traveled to Indianapolis and spoke at an event hosted by Lucas's nonprofit, Protect the Harvest. Nothing illegal there, but it raises a worthwhile question: Why do people donate money to politicians in the first place?

Here at about 3:30 into the video below, Chris discusses his story in greater detail:

Oklahoma State's Justin Blackmon (81) scores a touchdown during the Fiesta Bowl between the Oklahoma State University Cowboys (OSU) and the Stanford Cardinal at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., Monday, Jan. 2, 2012. Photo by Sarah Phipps, The Oklahoman |

Oklahoma State's Justin Blackmon (81) scores a touchdown during the Fiesta Bowl between the Oklahoma State University Cowboys (OSU) and the Stanford Cardinal at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., Monday, Jan. 2, 2012. Photo by Sarah Phipps, The Oklahoman |

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State fan alike oughta give fifteen minutes to Jordan Ritter Conn's empathetic profile of beloved Ardmoreite Justin Blackmon, who's been arrested four times on drug- or alcohol-related charges since 2010. But the real stars of the story are the citizens of Ardmore, who seem as protective of Blackmon as they are frustrated by his behavior:

While we were talking, the bar's manager, Gigi Powell, approached our table and asked me, "Are you taking notes?" When I told her I was, she looked to my notepad, then to my eyes. "I have kicked [Blackmon] out of this bar three times," she said. "We have been in here just screaming at each other. And every single time, he has walked in the next day, and he has come up to me, and he has said, 'I am so sorry.' Every time." Then she paused, and before she returned to the bar, she looked at me and she smiled and she said, "If you write a single bad word about him, I swear?--?I will find you."

But not all former football stars struggle in arenas outside the gridiron. Former Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch went on Bear Grylls's survival show "Running Wild," which aired at the same time as "Monday Night Footall" this week, and, I submit, made for more compelling drama. A sample:

Welp. This takes it right here. pic.twitter.com/eb207gBVFY

-- PDS (@PatDStat) September 14, 2016

Thanks for reading. We're just over 52 days until the presidential election, but just under 47 until Thunder basketball.

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