KC Confidential

Dedicated reader Chuck Lowe weighed in this morning with the following piece dedicated to Veteran’s Day…

“This Veteran’s Day we honor those who in peril on the sea, in harms way on land and guarding us from above, serve with distinction, bravery and dedication in the unceasing and necessary effort to protect our families and the families they left behind,” Lowe begins. “On far away beaches, mountains and deserts, under duress, under fire, under the weight of America’s hopes for a better world, we are there with them and they are constantly in our prayers.

“May a benevolent God, in wisdom and compassion, bring our sons and daughters home safe and sound in mind, body and spirit. God Bless America and God Bless You.”

It probably won’t surprise many of you that I can be a little cynical at times. Continue reading →

Was a time massive tropical storms that could kill as many as 10,000 people would have been but a blip on the local news radar…

No mas.

Kansas City may not enjoy the majesty of mountains or the allure of oceans, but when it comes to massive sea storms, it’s kinda nice being an inlander. That said, the combination of globalization, staff layoffs and outsourcing has driven the epic international tragedy in the Philippines to the doorstep of 18th and Grand and the Kansas City Star. Continue reading →

Seeing was believing…

And unless you’d witnessed the estrogens fueled wilding by the women of Kansas City who stormed Stanford’s Thursday night, you might not have believed it. Short of a full scale riot with multiple arrests, it was about as over-the-top as it gets. Never mind bullhorn toting Nazis, there ladies weren’t fooling around.

“It was insane,” says Stanford’s main man Craig Glazer. “Way beyond what I ever imagined. We sold out and we turned away women. At first it was just a mob scene outside the club, and I’m not used to that. Usually it’s just dates and married couples, but Thursday it was all women.”

From start to finish the “50 Shades of Men” show was a well-oiled machine.

“They have it down to a science,” Glazer says. “They come out before the show and sell autographed T-shirts and calendars, then they go in and we seated the room. And the girls were bouncing around like they were at a rock concert and they hadn’t even seen anything yet. We could barely seat the room because they weren’t paying attention, they were just screaming.”

So what was the crowd like? Continue reading →

It’s hard to write a correction when it’s someone else’s mistake…

That said, Mary Sanchez’s Monday column, “No Racial Agenda To ‘Slave’ Rollout” sure looks like a correction for a bogus letter that slipped through the Star’s editorial safety net late last week.

In it letter writer Denise Claiborne of Overland Park calls out local movie exhibitors AMC and Dickinson for racism for not screening Brad Pitt‘s movie “12 Years a Slave” in the company’s Johnson Country theaters .

“Olathe AMC 30 and AMC 20 Town Center informed me that depending on the reviews the movie gets, they will consider it,” Claiborne writes. “The Palazzo will not be showing it at all. I can’t believe in this day and age we are still acting like this but we are. This is not the first time.”

Claiborne goes on to allege that when “The Butler” was shown earlier this year, security was posted in the lobby of “one theater” where a lot of “elderly blacks” had come to watch the movie.

“How many all-white cast movies have these theaters shown with awful reviews or that went to video after a few months?” Claiborne asks. “They’d rather their prejudice make them miss out on huge profits that ’12 Years a Slave’ could bring. We are going to use social media to let everyone know Johnson County is showing its true colors.”

Hold it right there… Continue reading →

Not everyone at 18th and Grand wants to wait around until it’s their turn to take a bullet…

To the ranks of volunteer newspaper exiters, Joe Posnanski, Dan Margolies & Bill Dalton, add the name Lee Hill Kavanaugh. The touchy-feely, trombone-playing writer has reportedly shocked her editors at the Kansas City Star by giving them the kiss off.

“I think she got fed up, but there’s no official word,” says one Star staffer. “This was totally her decision and I do think (everybody) was quite surprised.” Continue reading →

Once upon a time, it was the Stone Age…

Nobody knew nothing about newspapers in driveways…or driveways even. No one drove Fiats. And what passed for social media back then was probably something akin to some caveman dude clubbing a Raquel Welch lookalike and dragging her back to his hole in the ground for a bit of body painting.

And five buck greeting cards like the one I bought at Urban Outfitters Sunday? That was back to the future stuff.

Unfortunately for hometown card company Hallmark, what goes around comes around and the company’s business model seems to be headed in the direction of those bygone days. Because only the Fred Flintstones of today (and me once, maybe once or twice a year) still buy greeting cards.

The rest of society – under 50 – has mostly moved on, like George Jetson.

Leaving the card counters at Hallmark up you-know-what creek. Continue reading →