George Tiller, whose Wichita, KS clinic specializes in late-term abortions, was shot to death this morning on his way to church. Tiller was previously shot and wounded in 1995. (previously on MeFi)
posted by mkultra on May 31, 2009 - 698 comments

Metafilter's own Sean Tevis made history with his run for Kansas House of Representatives in 2008. Read more here, here, and here. Sean is back and ready to commence 'Option 4', once again changing the way politics is done in Kansas. From his website "Sean Tevis is visiting more than 50 politicians who can make open government a reality. He wears a different shirt with each politician. Eash shirt is unique and displays the names of 100 people like you. These shirts also have messages on them, which are Twitter-sized: 140 characters or less. The politician receives a copy of this shirt, too, for meeting with Sean. You get an account of this visit."
posted by jlowen on May 6, 2009 - 25 comments

Today Kansas became one step closer to raising its state minimum wage and shedding its embarrassing position as lowest set state minimum wage in the nation at $2.65 per hour. (Kansas minimum wage is lower than Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands, though 5 states currently have no minimum wage whatsoever.) The Kansas Department of Labor estimates that over 20,000 Kansans earn less than the federal minimum wage. After passing the Kansas Senate by a vote of 33-7, will the Speaker of the House allow a vote on Senate Bill 160?
posted by jlowen on Mar 18, 2009 - 72 comments

Metafilter's Own Sean Tevis ran for the Kansas State Legislature using the web as his main fund raising tool. His fund raising was spectacularly successful, raising in excess of $100,000 -- over 70% of which was in amounts lower than $50.00. The Republicans criticized this tactics, and he lost. Although he took no PAC or Lobbyist contributions, some in Kansas politics feel that he's not been transparent enough about who gave to him, so Republican Scott Schwab has introduced LD 2244 (.pdf) - informally known as the Sean Tevis Bill. [more inside]
posted by anastasiav on Feb 12, 2009 - 59 comments

GUILTY! This word, so replete with sadness and sorrow, fell on my ear on that blackest of all black Fridays, October 14, 1887. And so begins John N. Reynolds' The Twin Hells: A Thrilling Narrative of Life in the Kansas and Missouri Penitentiaries, a very detailed and eventful memoir originally published in 1890, archived online in its entirety (including illustrations). [more inside]
posted by amyms on Dec 14, 2008 - 11 comments

Perhaps lost in the well-deserved joy of Barack Obama's victory is the race for the Kansas House of Representatives, district 15. [more inside]
posted by scblackman on Nov 4, 2008 - 51 comments

How One Nearly Forgotten 1920s Publisher's “Little Blue Books” Created An Inexpensive Mail-Order Information Superhighway That Paved The Way For The Sexual Revolution, Influenced The Feminist And Civil Rights Movements, And Foreshadowed The Age Of Information. [more inside]
posted by amyms on Sep 4, 2008 - 29 comments

Sean Tevis Takes On Intelligent Designer with Some Intelligent Design of His Own... Sean Tevis is running for State Representative in Kansas, against an opponent he describes as a proponent of intelligent design. Short on name recognition (and campaign funds) he took it upon himself to use his skills as an information designer to connect to his "constituents" - could he be the first true candidate for a generation that grew up on the Internet? Very clever xkcd-style infographic deployed against the agents of doom... (I donated, couldn't help myself) via BoingBoing
posted by piedrasyluz on Jul 16, 2008 - 252 comments

The [US] National Trust for Historic Preservation has released its 21st annual list of the nation's Most Endangered Historic Places. Among them: Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, (where Linda Brown tried to register for school, resulting in Brown vs. Board of Education); New York City's Lower East Side; California's State Parks; Philadelphia's Boyd Theatre, and several others. The previous 20 years of Most Endangered Historic Places can be found in the Archive. [more inside]
posted by Miko on May 20, 2008 - 16 comments

Greensburg, Kansas was destroyed by an F5 tornado in May, 2007. The city council and Governor Sebelius decided to rebuild as a "green" town while Leonardo DiCaprio produces a 13-part series for Discovery channel affiliated (this flier is showing up around Greensburg now) Planet Green in June. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Mar 3, 2008 - 8 comments

Larry Schwarm is best known for his photographs of prairie fires and landscapes in the Flint Hills of Kansas. On May 5, 2007, he visited his hometown of Greensburg, Kansas to take photos of what was left after an F-5 tornado leveled the town the day before. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Jan 18, 2008 - 12 comments

The Wizard of Oz [more inside]
posted by The Ultimate Olympian on Nov 15, 2007 - 57 comments

Now that the "World Series" is over, you can enjoy Joe Posnanski's coverage of the Japan Series in the Kansas City Star (on account of Nippon Ham Fighters coach Trey Hillman going to coach the KC Royals in 2008.) It's great to see Posnanski's perspective of Japanese baseball as he compares and contrasts American and Japanese baseball. It's also interesting to see American mass media cover Japanese sports when the Japanese mass media is going ga-ga over the US World Series (due to 3 Japanese players, Matsuzaka, Matsui and Okajima being in the finals.)
posted by gen on Oct 29, 2007 - 20 comments

Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton was coaxed by her sister at the age of 68 to take a blind contour drawing class in Ottawa, Kansas, in order to possibly help alleviate her 35-year bout with clinical depression. By the time of her death in 1993, her work (article includes quicktime link of Elizabeth discussing her work and photo gallery) had been shown in several museums, including the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, and celebrated as an honest depiction of aging, mental health, and feminist issues (google book link) in the US. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Oct 4, 2007 - 15 comments

The Benders were a family of German immigrants who opened a store and restaurant in the newly formed state of Kansas in the late 19th century. Led by the spiritualist Kate, they also were some of the United States first serial killers. [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Sep 25, 2007 - 37 comments

Orphan Trains of Kansas. A collection of histories, personal stories, newspaper accounts, pictures and other references. Beginning in 1854, charitable institutions in New York City began sending orphans on trains to the west to find new families, feeling that the children would fare better out west than on the streets of New York. Orphan trains arrived in Kansas between 1867 and 1930, and some 5000-6000 children were placed in Kansas homes.
posted by amyms on Sep 22, 2007 - 30 comments

The Harveyville Project, located in Harveyville, Kansas, is a small town and getting smaller: There are only about 250 residents, and most are elderly. But after an artist bought an abandoned school to live in two years ago, there are some colorful new faces in town.

Conveniently located at the corner of No and Where. Nary a McDonalds nor Starbucks as far as the eye can see, but still a comfy drive from civilization. Housed in two mid-century school buildings on nine acres on the edge of a tiny rural town, the Harveyville Project offers a quiet, secluded, distraction-free environment to jumpstart your creative work.

Such a cool idea. If I was still single I'd move there in a second to soak up the creative vibe.
posted by Hugh2d2 on Jun 5, 2007 - 71 comments

You've heard of Oskar Schindler. You've heard of Raoul Wallenberg. But you've probably never heard of Irena Sendler (or Sendlerowa). Sendler, who turned 97 in February, saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust. She doesn't think she's a hero, but she's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, largely due to the attention brought to her story by four girls from rural Kansas.
posted by cerebus19 on Jun 4, 2007 - 36 comments

Went To Kansas: Being A Thrilling Account Of An Ill-Fated Expedition To That Fairy Land, And Its Sad Results. A personal account by Mrs. Miriam Davis Colt (based on her daily diaries) about her family's move from New York to Kansas in the 1850s, and the tragic story of the Vegetarian Settlement Company, which sold cheap land to settlers (if they signed an oath swearing they would never consume alcohol, tobacco or animal flesh) along with the promise of a prairie utopia.
posted by amyms on Jun 3, 2007 - 26 comments

"A bad way to make a living." A series on the history and ecological impact of strip mining in southeast Kansas during the early 20th century that includes articles, photo galleries with sound files, and video slideshows about the region. The area, known as the "Little Balkans," because of the large Eastern European population that worked the mines, was a large mining community that has given the US the second largest electric shovel in the country, a home to one of the largest socialist newspapers in the country (called Appeal to Reason and founded by Julius Wayland) as well as the Little Blue Books series started by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius in 1919. Oh yeah, it was also --second paragraph-- the place that most of the bootleg alcohol that fueled the Kansas City Jazz Scene of that time was from as well. Of course, if you should ever find yourself in SEKS, and you eat meat, go to either Chicken Annie's or Chicken Mary's [transcript] since they're only a few miles apart in their modern incarnation. The legends you hear growing up there aren't always true, but it doesn't matter because the onion rings are fantastic. And yes, in some ways all Kansas has left is history.
posted by sleepy pete on Mar 22, 2007 - 9 comments

Judge blocks damaging articles, bloggers republish them in defiance here and here. Will the Kansas City utility board sue them, too?
posted by nospecialfx on Mar 5, 2007 - 57 comments

Haters! The Libertarian candidate for the 24th District of the Kansas House was canvassing the local Mission, KS Arts and Eats festival, speaking with attendees and distributing campaign literature. Suddenly, a councilwoman approached him with a police officer and informed him he had to leave and would be charged with trespassing if he returned, an action which the Mayor has publicly denounced and has launched an investigation into.
posted by deusdiabolus on Sep 30, 2006 - 31 comments

Whereas: Dada is a virgin microbe which penetrates with the insistence of air into all those spaces that reason has failed to fill with words and conventions. .

The mayor of Lawrence, Kansas proclaims February 4, April 1, March 28, July 15, August 2, August 7, August 16, August 26, September 18, September 22, October 1, October 17, and October 26, 2006 as International Dadaism Month.
posted by billysumday on Feb 28, 2006 - 58 comments

The one room school house project - stories, photos, and documents.
posted by Wolfdog on Dec 10, 2005 - 2 comments

Don't mess with Kansas. Professor at the University of Kansas decides to offer this course, is beaten by unknown assailants, withdraws the course. Add "no sense of humor" to what's the matter with Kansas? [more inside]
posted by Dormant Gorilla on Dec 6, 2005 - 118 comments

"If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without...let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves. Men are then divided into the wise and the foolish, the philosophers and the common men, and atheism becomes a guarded, esoteric doctrine--for if the illusions of religion were to be discredited, there is no telling with what madness men would be seized, with what uncontrollable anguish."
posted by empath on Dec 6, 2005 - 75 comments

Intelligent Design. Traces of this epic masterpiece of creation can be found in all religious writings and traditions. It is to them that Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed referred. It is now time to welcome them. To your child's classroom.
posted by Otis on Nov 18, 2005 - 12 comments

Flying Spagetti Monster expelled from Kansas The Kansas School Board has decided that it knows much more about the origins of life than the combined intelligence of all the scientists on the planet, and that fiction can be taught as fact. But seriously, if you don't even understand the scientific method, what business do you have setting academic policy?
posted by gallois on Nov 8, 2005 - 187 comments

“Matthew Limon, the gay man at the center of a Kansas law struck down by the state Supreme Court, was freed late Thursday night, but his ordeal may not be over.
posted by halekon on Nov 4, 2005 - 67 comments

Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that homosexuals cannot be treated differently. In what conservative homophobes decry as another instance of judicual activism, the Kansas Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law that punished underage sex more severely if it involved homosexual acts, saying "moral disapproval" of such conduct is not enough to justify the different treatment. In the decision the court ruled: 1. K.S.A. 2004 Supp. 21-3522 violates the equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and § 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights. 2. The equal protection violation inherent in K.S.A. 2004 Supp. 21-3522 is cured by the severance of the words "and are members of the opposite sex" from the statute.
posted by three blind mice on Oct 22, 2005 - 66 comments

Truman Capote's Blood Work Two soon-to-be released films on Truman Capote's life, Capote and Have You Heard? begin as the novelist drops into rural Kansas to begin work on what became "In Cold Blood". More inside.
posted by matteo on Aug 18, 2005 - 11 comments

"Set your irony meters on maximum." All this week, a three-member subcommittee of the Kansas State Board of Education is holding hearings on how to teach science. [background] Creationists, er, advocates of "intelligent design," are using it to bootstrap their claim that evolution through natural selection and creationism are two sides of a story. While many scientists are boycotting what one newspaper is calling "Barnum on steroids," IDers have brought out the big guns -- including one Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish, Muslim, newspaper columnist with a Masters in history and a close associaton with a group that presents evolution "as a conspiracy of the Jewish and American imperialists to promote new world order and fascist motives." Get your official scorecard to the Scopes Trial II here!
posted by docgonzo on May 10, 2005 - 125 comments

An open letter to the Citizens of Atwood. This past week, the residents of the small town of Atwood, Kansas voted 984 to 113 to deny gay couples any rights for their relationships (including hospital visitation). Now, the man who set up the town's newspaper website has not only left Atwood, but taken down the website and posted a (mostly) measured response to the town in place of it. Will putting a human face on those being discriminated against ever change the minds of some people, or is one passage in the bible enough for some people to keep justifying their bigoted ways?
posted by almostcool on Apr 12, 2005 - 111 comments

In Topeka, Hate Mongering is a Family Affair. As the city of Topeka goes to vote on Tuesday for annual city council elections, one race is attracting national attention. Tiffany Muller, head of the Kansas Unity and Pride Alliance and first openly gay council member, is running against Jael Phelps (granddaughter of Fred Phelps), of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church. Add an ordinance that would call for specifically discriminating against gays and you have one of the most interesting local elections seen in decades. [this excellent post provided by a new member]
posted by mathowie on Feb 28, 2005 - 33 comments

[Resolved, the Kansas Dept. of Education is hereby directed to collect comments from the public regarding the various proposed changes to the Science Curriculum Standards, either contained within the Science Curriculum Standards Draft or contained within the minority report.] Kansas Citizens for Science are arguing that the intelligent design folks are just trying to put religion in the schools. But are the proposed changes in the minority report really pro-religion, or are they just pro-"raise kids to be inquisitive"? I, for one, am honesty not sure.
posted by bingo on Feb 24, 2005 - 56 comments

In Cold Blood. Forty-five years ago today, the bodies of four members of the Clutter family were discovered in Holcomb, Kansas. The killers made off with $40 and a transistor radio. This New York Times report inspired Truman Capote to write what he called the first "non-fiction" novel. There are other accounts of the murders, including one that says the book is not honest. In 1996, Capote and George Plimpton discussed creative journalism and the book in a long interview. (Plimpton's own biography of Capote details some of the liberties Capote took.) [All links SFW.]
posted by kirkaracha on Nov 15, 2004 - 19 comments

"Just for the record, do you believe the Sun goes around the Earth or the Earth goes around the sun?" : Ages before "Intelligent Design", a bold PaleoCreationist pseudoscientific gobbledygook - embodied by Tom Willis, Creationism's man in Kansas and head of the Mid Atlantic Creation Research Society - strode the Earth. The AAAS dissected the mess in "Lions, Tigers and APES, Oh My! ; Creationism vs. Evolution in Kansas" ( Google cache) and one writer concluded : "The War between the creationists and the public schools is over. The creationists appear to have won" : now, in a Kansas that's scientifically proven flatter than a pancake, Mona Lisa is as happy as a clam, and Kissing Frank's ass and appeals to mysterious watchmakers predominate, while on the national stage, God is a real estate developer.

Meanwhile, a new group proposes better zoning bylaws : Scientists and Engineers for Change
posted by troutfishing on Sep 30, 2004 - 22 comments

The real Vatican is in Kansas. "On July 16, 1990 the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church elected David Bawden as Pope Michael, ending an almost 32 year long interegnum."
posted by eustacescrubb on Sep 21, 2004 - 26 comments

After twenty five years of silence, BTK (Bind Torture Kill) has resurfaced in Wichita, Kansas.
posted by Captain_Tenille on Mar 28, 2004 - 19 comments

In 2000, 18-year-old Matthew Limon was tried for having sex with a 14-year old. Under Kansas state law, the consensual, though illegal, act merited a maximum 15-month sentence. Except the 14-year old was also male. Last week, the Kansas appeals court ruled that because of this, Limon posed a "greater danger to the sexual mores of society," and ruled as such it was fair to sentence Limon to 17 years in prison. State prosecutors applaud the decision as a victory against "the potential attack on Kansas' ban on gay marriage."
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Feb 2, 2004 - 42 comments

Pancake. Kansas, flatter than.
posted by srboisvert on Aug 10, 2003 - 23 comments

And now, from the news of the weird..
It appears some weird pranks have been played on some people in Kansas City

The items used in these pranks:
A TV, A bag of trash, A Tire.

And, the link between all these:
They were all painted white and the Elvis song "Return to Sender" was playing on a recorder from all these items.

Weeeeeeeird...
posted by RobbieFal on Sep 26, 2002 - 18 comments

What do a 17th-century Swedish warship, an opulent Chicago theater and a Kansas City hotel "skyway" have in common? All met catastrophic ends—and they have important lessons to teach today's innovators.
posted by Irontom on Jun 4, 2002 - 24 comments

Kansas City invaded by giant fiberglass teddy bears. "Usually, teddy bears are soft and cuddly; these things are hard amorphous blobs. Nobody's openly ridiculing them, though, because no one wants to badmouth a project that benefits kids, some of whom are sick."
posted by bingo on May 27, 2002 - 12 comments

"Choose Life" license tag gets tentative nod from Kansas House. You pay an extra $25 for the tag when you register (hopefully it's optional), and the money goes to "crisis preganancy centers." Isn't this a bizarre, and rather vague, way to advance the cause?
posted by bingo on Apr 8, 2002 - 23 comments

The Kansas State Legislature has reversed the decision that the state's supreme court made last week about a different kind of reversal. They've let evolution back in the schools, but they aren't quite ready for transexual marriages -- at least not when the widow(er?) would walk away with millions.
posted by milkman on Mar 15, 2002 - 12 comments

Who says drugs have to be legalized to collect taxes? 'Kansas law requires all dealers of illegal drugs to buy the stamps and attach them to their product. They almost never comply.' What a shock! However, this article will let you know how to comply with the law, and where you can buy the tax stamps for your own business needs. (Courtesy of Indigo, who is having trouble posting.)
posted by jennaratrix on Jun 6, 2001 - 13 comments

"If you've got ovaries, you're a female. I'm just old fashioned."
Acknowledging that there may be more to sex than chromosomes, a Kansas appeals court has overturned a lower court's ruling invalidating the marriage of a transsexual to someone of the (now) opposite sex. Some in the Kansas legislature think this is just some gay radical's way of skirting the same-sex marriage ban. There's an opposing Texas precedent that the Supreme Court refused to hear last year, so this one may go all the way. Sadly, it'll probably fall under the much-maligned equal protection clause. Anyone think this poor woman has a chance?
posted by Gilbert on May 11, 2001 - 14 comments

Kansas Evolves Yet some school board members still have doubts about the science behind Darwin's theory of evolution. Can't we do an emergency air drop of Cosmos for these folks?
posted by ritualdevice on Feb 14, 2001 - 32 comments

Evolution resumes in Kansas. Two of the three state school board members who de-emphasized evolution in the science curriculum have lost in primary elections. Survival of the fittest is a bitch, ain't it?
posted by rcade on Aug 2, 2000 - 2 comments