KC Confidential

From first to worst?

There’s a reason Kansas City will not be getting the 2016 Republican Convention and it’s a lousy one, insiders say. Because KC mayor Sly James – a Dem by any other name – kicked “public affairs and corporate campaigns expert” Cathy Nugent – a Republican – to the curb in the city’s bid to land the big dance for the Cowtown.

“I don’t think Kansas City has a chance in hell of getting the Republican Convention now because of the way they played the game,” says one prominent civic leader. “They didn’t play the game ethically. They took an individual who spent two years trying to get the Republican Convention for Kansas City and then the mayor fucked up and got somebody else and took the process in house with another local Democrat and hired Kit Bond‘s wife to be a token Republican.” Continue reading →

Guilty as charged…

Regular readers know every now and so often I saddle up and take a look at what’s left of Kansas City’s one-and-only alternative newsweekly, The Pitch. And, full disclosure, I did lead the charge during the Pitch’s key formative years evolving it from a record store rag into a news and entertainment weekly prior to a certain someone breaking their word and hanging me out to dry.

However those days are long gone and at this stage of the game there continues to be a genuine concern for the well-being and survival of The Pitch, and thus the future of alternative news and entertainment journalism in KC. Oh sure, we’ve got the Internet and me and Tony and Greg Hall and Jim Fitzpatrick and a smattering of comers and goers here and there.

And while that’s likely the future in some sense, none of us – not even all of us combined – come close to providing the wide spectrum of more comprehensive, quality reporting and content that even what’s left of The Pitch provides.I say, “what’s left,” because at only 36 pages a week and a scant 16 pages of what appear to be paid ads (well under the 50 percent minimum needed for survival), the handwriting’s on the wall.

Continue reading →

Think clash of the titans…

For more than 20 years inventor dude Mike Valentine‘s radar detector the Valentine One has more-or-less been the undisputed champion in the speeding ticket avoidance industry. An industry that came of age during the Richard Nixon administration in 1974 via the The Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act which required states to enact a 55 miles-per-hour speed limit to receive federal funding for highway repair.

Now suddenly, according to a Car & Driver magazine’s latest radar test, the company Valentine helped start, Escort has overtaken the longtime champ.

Or has it?

“This magazine’s recent comparison of radar detectors reached an odd conclusion- that the elimination of false alarms ‘provides a higher level of real-world protection’ than you’d get from detailed information about those alarms,” Valentine writes in a full page ad in the April issue of Car & Driver. “I disagree strongly. Here’s why. GPS false alarm blocking systems fail the Murphy’s Law test.” Continue reading →

“It’s like this, guys. You gotta bunk in the old place.”

Keep this under you hat, but Bill Self‘s $17.5 million luxury apartments complex just got whacked…

What, you didn’t read any news stories about it either? The first mention of the whacking – from $17.5 million down to $10 million or less – came in the form of an editorial in Sunday’s Lawrence Journal World.

Which is kinda funny, cause when KU’s athletics department wanted to wipe the egg off its face after getting embarrassed by the Kansas Legislature recently, it put out enough press releases to get coverage about a “lead donor” being found for the Fieldhouse Apartments that it was even mentioned in the Washington Post.

But now that they’re going halfsies on the deal, mum’s the word..now here’s why.

Forget about women’s sports and Title IX insuring that “no person be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

The reason KU athletics is running quiet is they’re running scared. Continue reading →

The Eloi

Because a truly forward-thinking, progressive city needs a serious, take no prisoners news organization to help lead the way. To inform and inspire the citizenry. Which even given its many flaws, the Star does.

You think KC Confidential or Tony’s Kansas City can deliver those goods? Please.

Absent the above, you risk living in a town like Lawrence, Kansas.

Don’t get me wrong, Lawrence is a charming, little burg, bustling with college kids and profs, a sprinkling of aging hippies and beatniks, the odd local oddball and a hard working, hard partying core population.

It’s also a rudderless town of 95,000 and change, populated by people who remind me of the Eloi in the 1960’s sci fi movie The Time Machine. Continue reading →

Maybe former Chiefs quarterback Steve Bono was right after all…

There are so many goofy surveys out there and year-after-year we fall for ’em. Best city to party, retire, bike or find romance in. The fittest, fattest, funnest – there’s no shortage of topics. And usually it’s a magazine or website hardly anybody really reads that puts these local media magnets out in an effort to garner attention and try and remain relevant.

Long ago pretty much everybody figured out one of the best ways to make a splash is to put out a list that purports to bestow awards (however dubious) on as many different cities and towns as they can. Knowing that the local media will pounce on said surveys and act like they actually matter. You know, that we really are the best, worst or fattest. Continue reading →

Blarney, anybody?

Just spin, baby…

What to do on the heels of the Kansas legislature’s embarrassing snub of the KU Athletics Department after it shot down a request to fund KU’s lavish $17.5 million luxury apartments for basketball recruits…

Especially with KU  basketball deity Bill Self poised to clinch his 10th Big 12 title. After all, Self had shinnied out on a limb shilling for the pricey project, telling basketball devotees it was necessary to keep up with college powerhouses like Kentucky.

And trust me, nobody at the University of Kansas (or in Lawrence) dares disappoint Bill Self. Could cause him to eyeball one of those king-sized NBA paychecks lurking in the shadows.

What was the athletics department to do? Continue reading →

Curiouser and curiouser…

On the heels of not hearing back for several days from a jeweler rumored to be under investigation by authorities, intrepid reporter Paul Wilson was dispatched this afternoon to the offices of said jeweler in an to attempt to set the record straight…one way or another.

Here’s what Wilson found.

“I went by the building the jeweler occupies,” Wilson says. “And there was a sign on the window of the office suite door apologizing for being closed and saying they’ll be back Monday.”

There’s more. Continue reading →