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 on Oct 29, 2007 - View this thread

"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 on Mar 22, 2007 - View this thread

This gem got me thinking: Songs about a place. Some are more evocative of the geography, some of a tangential longing merely rooted in a place and others -- while about a place -- are really rooted more in a time. Some places immortalized in song you want to visit, others you don't , and others don't really exist at all, though we may know somewhere like it. But near or far, border to border, coast-to-coast (from the west side* to the east side and somewhere in the middle as well, there's musical pins all over the map. [links go to videos] *no direct link, second entry
posted on Mar 3, 2007 - View this thread

“Not only is it illegal, but it's becoming increasingly dangerous,” Leggio said of underage drinking. How dangerous? Well apparently dangerous enough that one affluent Kansas City community has decided that it is best to have police spy on teens during high school basketball games. Oh it gets better, apparently a carload of teens is enough for a Lenexa cop to follow you! So the parents should be up in arms right? Nope, they encourage the police, even calling them ("she told dispatchers that when she called home to check on her son, it sounded like a party was going on"). Yet surprisingly, despite this almost police-state like mentality against drinking, attitudes are slow to change.
posted on Jan 2, 2005 - View this thread

A movie theater in Kansas City, MO now prohibits children under 6, and requires children between 6 and 16 to be accompanied by an adult. They no longer show movies rated G or PG, instead deciding to go with "adult films, independent films and films geared toward adult audiences." There's even a VIP lounge where adults can sit in recliners and drink alcohol while watching the film. Speaking as someone who actually goes to movies to see the movie, not use it as a place to park brats for two hours, this is a revolution, but I can understand why parents would feel discriminated against.
posted on Jul 6, 2003 - View this thread

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 on Sep 26, 2002 - View this thread

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 on Jun 4, 2002 - View this thread

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 on May 27, 2002 - View this thread

More disturbing mismanagement in Kansas City This time at the VA hospital: A recent report in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine said that the hospital in Kansas City was overrun with flies and mice in mid-1998. Nurses even found maggots growing in the noses of two comatose patients. Both patients, astoundingly, were in the intensive-care unit.
posted on Mar 28, 2002 - View this thread

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 on Mar 22, 2002 - View this thread

In death, J.D. O'Neal leaves few with fond memories “Jerry Dow O’Neal II owned The Current News, a small gay magazine. [...] By last month, when J.D. O’Neal committed suicide to avoid prosecution and shame, hardly anyone in Kansas City considered him a good friend. The 37-year-old white-collar crook and gay-rights opportunist had created enemies throughout the community. [...] ‘It was important for [J.D.] to appear successful.’ [...] ‘I’ll believe he’s dead when I see the body’ ”
posted on Nov 24, 2001 - View this thread

Kansas City's Secret Santa has been handing out cash in hundred-dollar bills to needy individuals and random people during the Christmas season for the past twenty-one years. He's completely anonymous, preferring to give joy without getting any credit. He tries to find people with specific needs and surprises them in their homes or at their jobs with the cash they need. He gives out well over ten thousand dollars every year.
posted on Dec 22, 2000 - View this thread