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

"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

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