Missouri's lack of conflict of interest rules for its teachers' pension funds creates predictable problems [more inside]
posted by reenum on Oct 2, 2009 - 25 comments

"Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals? Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break." Missouri State Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon) is staking out a strong position on child hunger: she's for it. (via).
posted by ornate insect on Jun 20, 2009 - 92 comments

Dennis Skillicorn was sentenced to die in 1996 for the murder of businessman/good Samaritan Richard Drummond and two other deaths in connection with a 1994 crime spree. Yesterday morning, local news outlet Missourinet, with a slight time delay, tweeted his execution. Elyria, Ohio's Chronicle Telegram is discussing plans to tweet an upcoming execution, but they are not sure if they should.
posted by cashman on May 21, 2009 - 42 comments

Jim, The Wonder Dog. During the height of the Great Depression, a "plain black and white setter" entertained and mystified the citizens of Missouri with his "extraordinary cleverness" and his seemingly inexplicable ability to foretell the future. [more inside]
posted by amyms on Feb 21, 2009 - 5 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

Meet Dora DuFran and her cat house of Deadwood; Perle De Vere and the working girls of Cripple Creek; Annie Chambers of Kansas City; and Squirrel Tooth Alice of Sweetwater. In the wild west, prostitution was one of the few career options for women. Western history is filled with many colorful tales of shady ladies and legendary madams. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 21, 2008 - 15 comments

"Q: What the hell is this site about? This is a site about urban exploration in the Ozarks." Abandoned water slides, underground tunnels, abandoned buildings and half-demolished malls throughout Missouri were all once fair game for this blog, and remain fair game for those who post in Underground Ozarks' forums.
posted by limeonaire on Jun 16, 2008 - 25 comments

Beware the San Francisco values! [more inside]
posted by serazin on May 24, 2008 - 46 comments

When the town of Excelsior Springs, Mo. decided in the 1930's to create a shrine to its renowned mineral waters, they turned to the WPA, which built an Art Deco masterpiece, the Hall of Waters.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Nov 10, 2007 - 17 comments

Kaskaskia: The western Illinois town stuck in eastern Missouri. First state capital, bustling economic center and a leading town in the state. That is, until the flood of 1881 cut a new river channel, destroying most of the town and leaving the remnants on the Missouri side of the Mississippi. Whether or not the disaster was due to a murdered lover's curse, the (remaining) residents petitioned that the state line be kept along the older riverbed. The town's population, once about 7000, now consists of a meager nine. [wiki]
posted by luftmensch on Mar 30, 2007 - 11 comments

Loving v. Missouri: In February, Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit because they have three children and are not married. "This ordinance is outdated. We are a family," says Shelltrack, 31. "There's a mom, there's a dad, there's three children. We are a family." Whether Shelltrack, a stay-at-home mom, and Loving, 33, who works for a payroll-administration company, are married "should not be anybody's business, if I pay my taxes, if I'm able to buy the house," she says.
posted by dash_slot- on May 17, 2006 - 50 comments

It's Time To Get Back To The Basics In Missouri: "A year after Republicans took control of state government, conservative lawmakers are promoting a wide range of social legislation designed to rein in sex and unshackle the Bible." One proposed bill, for example, would recognize a Christian God as the deity for most Missourians. Other bills deny alimony to ex-spouses who live with a boyfriend or girlfriend, ban all abortions, allow pharmacists, insurance companies, doctors and hospitals to deny treatment if the procedure or medication offends their moral values, and require sex education classes to teach that life begins at fertilization and that an unborn child has “sensory awareness” long before birth. Rep. Cynthia Davis, Republican and sponsor of several bills, said conservatives are tired of an overly permissive society in which high school students are taught how to use condoms. "...if the state starts paying for contraceptives we will have more babies than if we just teach people to not expect free prostitution from poor people. "
posted by Secret Life of Gravy on Mar 30, 2006 - 73 comments

Springfield, Missouri the place mobsters go to die. John Gotti, Anthony Corrado, "Fat" Tony Salerno, Vito Genovese, Tony "Ducks" Corallo and now Vincent "The Chin"Gigante.
posted by flatlander on Dec 19, 2005 - 25 comments

Missouri Botanical Gardens Rare Books: The Illustrated Garden
This collection contains seventy seven 18th and 19th century botanical books and these are just a small sample of the 3000+ beautiful illustrations contained within. (via)
posted by peacay on Aug 23, 2005 - 18 comments

Wacky World Animal News Round-up: Fat males refuse to mate in China's crocodile farm, Stray dogs hunt and kill gazelles in Missouri, and Coyote, kangaroo, or Chihuahua, what is that thing in Texas?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy on Oct 23, 2004 - 3 comments

Talk about tough: These guys throw themselves out of 50-year-old aircraft into burning Siberian forests. Unfortunately, the entire article isn't available on line, but the pictures, and the brief text, and the writer's notes are worthwhile anyway. Or you can go listen to the stories told at Idaho's Smokejumper Oral History Project. Or get the history from the National Smokejumper Association. And really, you can't beat Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire, which metafilter dug up a while back, but is well worth revisiting.
posted by weston on Apr 3, 2003 - 5 comments

Meanwhile in Small town news, the city of Independence, Missouri is holding a battle on adding fluoride to the water. Don't say you didn't expect odd quotes from people: "We have the best water in the area as far as solids and softness go, I myself have been drinking this water for over 30 years, and I have every tooth in my mouth that God gave me, except the four the Marine Corps took away from me years ago.", I, myself, trust one authority on this, Jack D. Ripper. ;)

So... Fluoride: good, bad or neither?
posted by RobbieFal on Sep 4, 2002 - 40 comments

Schoolchildren Strip-Searched for Lost $5 This, from the same school district that overruled a teacher who failed cheating students. I dunno about you, but making a bunch of 3rd graders get naked in school seems a little out of bounds. Feel free to tell the school board what you think of this little exercise in pedophiliac totalitarianism.
posted by dejah420 on Mar 22, 2002 - 56 comments

The Bad Taste Tour of Branson, MO. "Branson is a strange, kooky place nestling deep in the Ozarks. One of those quaint, old-fashioned American country towns where ... the menus in the restaurants have Biblical quotes next to the appetizers and where people walk around wearing orange duck beaks. "
posted by grabbingsand on Feb 5, 2002 - 22 comments

Trailer Trash get their own website. Those living in doublewides get their own community. Slow to load but an enjoyable read.
posted by darren on Feb 28, 2001 - 1 comment

I thought it was lame that Missouri was introducing measures to rename a stretch of highway in response to it's adoption by the KKK, but Kentucky drafting a measure requesting an apology from Craig Kilborn? I mean, sure, the show is bad, but it's not "Kensucky" bad.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe on Feb 10, 2000 - 2 comments

The Today Show really pisses me off. They never have links to the stories I want to pull up (like the head of the KKK in Jackson saying "why is everyone so bigoted and full of hate when it comes to *us* trying to preserve our heritage"), but they do have stories like Allowances, sleepovers and street crossing... Is your child ready to take that next step?     Regarding the KKK piece, the story was about a Missouri Legislator planning to introduce a bill to rename a section of road "Rosa Parks Highway" in response to the KKK's participation in the Adopt-a-Highway program. While it seems pretty obvious to me that the KKK would just move to another section of road, I was a) offended by the comments of the KKK spokesman, and b) irritated by the State Legislator's lack of preparation for the interview. Why didn't he directly respond to the accusation of hate and bigotry? Why didn't he have facts on hand about the 'heritage' that the KKK was trying to preserve? Why didn't he have information about it's past and present activities and mission? Why didn't he point out that membership in the KKK is in and of itself sufficient to get you booked on the Jerry Springer Show? These things always bug me, because it's clear that groups like the KKK do quite a bit of preparation in fact distortion and spin control, but the Voices of Reason seldom do any prep work at all.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe on Feb 9, 2000 - 3 comments