KC Confidential

Small town media types like few things more than rewriting history…

Like bringing down legendary local icons such as Plaza developer J.C. Nichols. Or recasting a business bully like Sporting KC owner Neal Patterson as a jolly good fellow.

Why confine yourself to the mere writing of news when you can try to record what passes for history?

Make no mistake; Patterson was a giant among men, who loomed especially large given the context of his rise from the ranks of red dirt tenant farmers.

As for comparing Patterson to iconic local businessman and political firebrand Jim Nutter who died the same week, not even close.

Nutter may have wielded a heavy hand in his behind-the-scenes efforts to shape the local business and political landscape, but he was a genuinely nice guy with a comparatively deft touch.

Patterson on the other hand was a mean spirited bully who did not play particularly well with others when he failed to get his way.

Naturally, the Kansas City Star glossed over the most vivid example of Patterson’s rude, crude manner of leadership in writing that, “in 2001 he made national news when his strongly-worded email to employees complaining that they were not working long enough hours was leaked and picked up by the New York Times.”

Talk about an understatement…

Check out this far more vivid and accurate take on Wikipedia:

“Patterson is infamous for an e-mail flaming managers for not coming to work before 8 am and leaving before 5 pm, now a prominent example used when discussing e-mail  etiquette,” it reads. “On the day that the email was posted to Yahoo, the company’s market cap fell by over 22%^[5] from a high of $1.5 billion USD.”

How harsh was it?

“The only things missing from the office memo were expletives,” the New York Times wrote. “It had everything else. There were lines berating employees for not caring about the company. There were words in all capital letters like ‘SICK’ and ‘NO LONGER.’ There were threats of layoffs and hiring freezes and a shutdown of the employee gym.

“Now, Neal L. Patterson, the 51-year-old chief executive, a man variously described by people who know him as ‘arrogant,’ ‘candid’ and ‘passionate,’ says he wishes he had never hit the send button,” the Times added.

“Mr. Patterson went on to list six potential punishments, including laying off 5 percent of the staff in Kansas City. ‘Hell will freeze over,’ he vowed, before he would dole out more employee benefits. The parking lot would be his yardstick of success, he said; it should be ‘substantially full’ at 7:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on weekdays and half full on Saturdays. ‘You have two weeks,’ he said. ‘Tick, tock.’ ” Continue reading →

Anybody wanna join me in calling for the closing of Thomas Jefferson’s Library and tearing down of Monticello?

No?

Well then, how about we start by following Kansas City Star freelance columnist Steve Kraske’s suggestion to rip the name of “visionary” Country Club Plaza developer Jesse Clyde Nichols off the J.C. Nichols Fountain that bears his name.

After all, everyone knows Jefferson owned slaves (and mated with them for crying out loud) and that African Americans were discriminated against across the board in Kansas City and just about everywhere else in this country until the mid to late 1960s.

But does that mean every other notable achievement anyone ever accomplished in their lives should be denigrated and erased from the history books in the interest of the current media wave of over-the-top political correctness?

Why waste millions of dollars sprucing up the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas given that the 34th President reportedly cheated on his wife and issued an “anti-gay executive order” some 60 years back?

Or how about we kick out the southern states that seceded from the Union leading to the American Civil War?

Or at the very least, remove those state’s stars from our flag in a symbolic recognition of their wrongheadedness?

Seriously though, is this the best the Star’s Stevie Wonder can come up with in the way of column ideas? It’s a classic case of Jason Whitlock-style race baiting. Continue reading →

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns…

I uttered a few words recently over the not yet cold, dead body of the American Royal and its arguably only remaining prized possession, the World Series of Barbecue.

The latest:

In lieu of doing something halfway meaningful to help keep KC’s biggest meat meet alive and kicking, the marketing brains behind the Royal stuck up a giant billboard with a 50 foot long, 8 foot tall three dimensional rack of fake ribs to promote this year’s Labor Day cookout.

Here’s the deal.

Not only is the freakish-looking monstrosity borderline grotesque, in no way does it do anything to encourage somebody to trudge out to the Kansas Speedway in KCK in sweltering heat to watch a bunch of yahoos send up meat flavored smoke signals. Continue reading →