KC Confidential

This is what Kansas Citians used to love (or hate) about Jason Whitlock…

Aside from pimping local sports fans in the pages of the Kansas City Star, Whitlock regularly delivered the pro white guy goods to the newspaper’s mostly non-black readership. These days he’s poking holes and obliterating political correctness online, like his column on the mainstream media’s current fave, the George Floyd mythology.

It didn’t really take that much, but Whitlock’s perspective on racial politics carried more cred given that a black dude was doing the honors. And despite the ups-and-downs of his career in the decade since he left KC, it’s made “big sexy” a popular Fox News guest for Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson and the like.

Because almost without fail, Jason loves to debunk phony racism claims.

Usually skillfully, I might add.

Case in point, London Daily Mail’s recent release of the dramatic body-camera footage of George Floyd’s arrest.

Unfortunately, the way mainstream news organizations like USA Today and CNN covered the story, they mislead readers by casting police in a bad light so as not to contradict the media narrative that Floyd was a innocent victim of police racism.

Yet anyone who bothered to watch the video – like Whitlock did – can see that the cops were polite and unlike USA Today’s report, the officer did not approach Floyd’s car with his gun drawn. Only after repeated requests for Floyd to raise his hands did the officer briefly take his gun out, holstering it when Floyd finally complied.

The online headline for Whitlock’s column pretty much says it all:

“Leaked Video Exposes George Floyd’s Death as a Tragedy & Race Hoax Used to Divide Us” Continue reading →

Long time, no sports talk from former WHB powerhouse Kevin Kietzman…

Ah, but come September Kietzman will rise like a sports phoenix via a midday daily podcast covering not just sports but politics and life itself.

In the meantime, inquiring minds want to know, does Kietz think the Chiefs are going to have a full season?

“I believe so,” he says. “I can’t think of any reason not to. Did anybody notice the Kansas Shrine Bowl game – the annual Kansas high school seniors all-star game – was played last week in  Topeka and they had 5,000 people there? And you’re telling me we couldn’t have had 5,000 at the Kansas Speedway last night. It holds 100,000 people, they could have easily put 20,000 in there. But the crazy people on the left didn’t/t know there was a football game last week, so it didn’t get any coverage.

Put another way, Kietzman thinks there will be live fans at Arrowhead. Continue reading →

Seems like only yesterday when you could hop on a cheap thrill Iceland Air flight and head for Europe…

Remember?

On top oof which you could take an extended layoff and party in Iceland penalty free.

Those were the days.

The latest:

“Did you hear the latest on Iceland Air,” asks KCC travel dude Jack Poessiger. “They’ve had problems with their unions and they were going to get rid of their flight attendants and have the pilots do some of their duties.”

He speaks fluent German and has been a movie critic here since the earth cooled…

I’m talking about Jack Poessiger, of course, the author of Jack Goes Confidential and New Jack City here on KCC.

So has Man Jack unleashed his last Jack Goes to the Movies movie review?

“Well, we’ll see,” he says. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. It’s had a long run, but right now it’s on hiatus. But I’m not going to do Jack Goes Streaming or Jack Does Netflix. That’s not my bag.”

What about reviewing the new Tom Hanks war movie Greyhound?

“You mean, like Jack Goes to the Apple Mart,” Poessiger quips. “They sent me a link, but I’m not going to review it. I’ll leave that to Shawn Edwards.”

The high point of Jack’s movie reviewing career? Continue reading →

The above quote is the final paragraph of a recent column in the Kansas City Star.

Which is around the 4th or 5th story by the sinking newspaper that was just sold at a bargain basement price to bring them out of bankruptcy.

Seems to me the main one suggesting to change the name or branding elements of the Super Bowl Champ Chiefs is the Star. 

The suggestion of course, is part of the popular movement to change the names and acts of anything that can be interpreted as having the slightest hint of so-called racism.

First off, as most serious Chiefs fans know, the Chiefs name was selected to honor former KC mayor H  Roe Bartle, who helped convince the Dallas Texans to choose Kansas City as their new home.

And branding elements like the chop, Warpaint, the war drum and arrowhead seemed fitting to help solidify the Chiefs in the hearts and minds of Kansas City sports fans.

Speaking of Kansas City and the surrounding area, there are any number of other examples of honoring Native Americans in the area.

Let’s review a few.

Shawnee Mission: named after an Indian mission just west of the Plaza (FYI, there are some horrendous stories about the man who started the mission).

The Kaw River: Named after a local Indian tribe:

Kansas City: Named after the Kansa Indians (another name for the Kaw Indian tribe).

What about grade schools like  Cherokee, Apache, Indian Creek and Indian Valley?

Should we tear down the landmark Indian Scout statue that overlooks Penn Valley Park?

We have Tomahawk and Indian creeks and Indian Hills Country Club.

Had.enough?

The point being that much of Kansas City’s heritage is tied to Native American Indians.

Continue reading →

Jackson County Legislators are leaving the decision whether to remove the statues of Andrew Jackson to Jackson County voters…

Their decision was 6-2 in favor of putting it up for a vote – with both black county legislators against putting it up for a vote and the white legislators in favor of letting locals decide.

County Executive Frank White’s take: “The people elected us for these decisions”

That said, I think that the elected legislators should not make these kinds of decisions, as they tend to bow to social pressure.

It should be left up to the people to vote.

My argument is supported by the erroneous decision of the Kansas City Council last year to change the name of The Paseo to Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard. Continue reading →

…Which came first, Trump or the internet?

Once again, music was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption.

Music has been disrupted, we’re at the end of the line of technology, we’ve got an on-demand system where you can get everything in the history of recorded music for one low price.

(As for those quibbling about availability, these are the same people buying tracks and talking about the minor tweaks to technology yet to come…IGNORE THEM!)

So, now it’s about software, about the music.

And what have we learned?

A hit is smaller than it’s ever been in our lifetimes.

The media still trumpets the Top 10, but most of the audience, the public, has not heard these tracks.

We have a codification of what is supposedly successful, the Spotify Top 50, but it does not comport with the listening habits of the public at large.

What big media says – newspapers, TV outlets – also means less than ever before and has less impact upon the populace than ever.

Even though those involved deny this, if they’re even aware of it.

The internet has turned us into a Tower of Babel nation.

In the ’80s we lived in a monoculture. One story for everybody. MTV. Reagan. There was a distinct narrative, and unlike in the 60s, there were no contrary voices, none that got any real traction.

No one was prepared for the internet and the blowing up of the paradigm, where everything became granular instead of singular.

At first only college students had high speed connections.

The public at large was on AOL. And then everything splintered into a zillion factions and it hasn’t been the same since.

Sure, Trump was built by television, a paradigm that cannot be replicated, but he spread because of the internet.

Not that platforms are unimportant. Continue reading →

To be or not to be…

That is the question in regard to this year’s 2020 Renaissance Festival in Bonner Springs.

With everyone from the Kansas City Chiefs on down wrestling with if and how their seasons might go down in light of Covid-19 conditions, this year’s Ren Fest is full speed ahead in offering discounted advance tickets.

So will this year’s fest go down?

Good question.

While the Ren Fest website has a Covid-19 “overview,” it’s majorly promoting advance ticket sales with a $4 savings on adult tickets over  gate admission prices.

The Covid warning:

“With the safety and well-being of our patrons, participants and staff at the forefront of our preparations, we are eager to welcome you to the 2020 Kansas City Renaissance Festival. Please review this page for our latest opening information.”

Followed by an asterisk sentence that reads:

“In the event the 2020 Festival can not occur, all tickets and passes will be forwarded to the 2021 Festival.” Continue reading →