Just read Judge Del Muro's ruling in favor of the Mayor and his wife in the volunteer ordinance case. Normal folks should feel free to ignore the legal analysis contained therein and focus on the Judge's conclusion. I laughed out loud. I love it when judges write like this:
However, Section 2-56 limits the authority to terminate a volunteer to the one who has designated that person as a volunteer. The city might do well to consider amending this provision to allow the council to terminate persons regardless of who designated them as volunteers, under the at will doctrine, especially where, as in this case, a volunteer disrupts day-to-day business of the city and/or whose conduct has resulted in litigation at the city's expense.
I have angry thoughts to share about the council's decision to approve the $5000 for the Life Changers conference, but those deserve more time and organization than I can commit to right now. TKC gossip about a third recall effort against Funkhouser, however, I can do off the top of my head.
I didn't vote for Funkhouser in the primary. I didn't vote for him in the general. I actually signed the second recall petition (although I regret doing so for reasons unrelated to my feelings about his fitness to be Mayor). I'm normally a sucker for the good government platform that Funk ran on, I just saw no indication, from the very beginning, that the man had the necessary skills to affect positive change. Fairly early on his administration, I became concerned that his abject failure in the political skills department would be used against every "outsider" who ever dared to run for municipal office in the future. "Remember the Funkhouser!" our overlords would proclaim when we dared to take someone seriously who didn't follow the normal path to power. (Never mind that Funkhouser was not an outsider and never would've come close to the Mayor's office without the unqualified adoration of the KC Star editorial board, he was apparently remotely threatening to some power base and that was enough for people to credit him with some undeserved grassroots outsider status.)
The first recall effort against Funk was a self-indulgent publicity stunt. They didn't bother to read any of the rules or assess the task outside of sending out a pissy press release. Hence, not even having registered KC voters on their formation committee. The second recall effort was, sadly, the closest thing to a grassroots effort I've seen here at the municipal level. The press coverage and elitist skepticism that leaked through made it apparent that the powers that be were going to sit on the sidelines for that one. Some (maybe most?) people think that the second recall effort failed for lack of funds. I'm calling nonsense. The second effort failed because someone somewhere decided to pay people to gather petition signatures and those people did what those people always do -- they wander around high traffic spots asking for signatures without bothering to ask simple things like "are you a registered voter in KC?" The petitioners relied on conventional (money buys success) wisdom and overestimated the number of legit sigs they were collecting. The second effort needed a firmer rejection of money politics and a greater acceptance of grassroots power. It's a stinking recall petition. If you can't get enough signatures without paying people to collect them then your recall is probably going to fail. Unless you consider the voters sheep... in which case. Oh, never mind.
Now, we have a threatened third recall. Enough. Signing that petition is worse than voting for Clay Chastain's gondolas as a solution to our transit problems. Because Clay is obviously a fairly easy to control nut. But whoever would be putting money forward now for a recall petition is going to be a fairly powerful pussy who isn't easy to control at all. I'm at a loss for the appropriate and politically correct term that would describe a person who doesn't bother to commit funds to a recall until they see an underfunded, disrespected effort with a blowhard as a spokesman almost succeed. All I know is that I don't trust that person to have the community's best interests in mind. That person doesn't care about us having a lame duck Mayor. We've got a weak mayor system, governance isn't going to come to a halt if no one is listening to the Mayor. My money is on the notion that whoever would fund a third recall effort would be looking forward to taking advantage of the truncated and chaotic mayoral race that would result from a successful recall. The kind of race that would most benefit an establishment, well funded, ducks lined up, business as usual kind of candidate. I can wait until the next regularly scheduled mayoral election for that. No need to pay extra for a special election.
This is all based on AWESOME TKC TIPSTERS. Which means the third recall isn't so much something that is going to happen, as much as something that someone wants to see happen. To the extent that this AWESOME TIP was a trial balloon, please consider this my insignificant dart directed at it.
Nice to see that Kit Bond is still bringing home the bacon.
The six trucks were made by Smith Electric Vehicles in the United Kingdom, but future all-electric trucks for the U.S. market are expected to come from Kansas City in Bond's home state, where the company set up its U.S. headquarters this year. A new assembly line, in a former TWA hangar at the Kansas City International Airport, is expected to create 120 jobs by next year.
I've always appreciated Bond's efforts to fill Missouri's trough. It doesn't make me like his politics. Or think it's ok that the Missouri Dems wouldn't seriously challenge him. But I do worry about us losing that service since McCaskill considers herself above such matters, Roy Blunt is a right wing nut, and I have no reason to believe that Robin Carnahan can equal Bond's commitment to the issue. I've resigned myself in the short term to the fact that I can't reasonably hope for a Missouri Senator (D) to represent such wacky notions as the rule of law, but I'd at least like to see some pork.
I've been absentmindedly following the controversy about KCMO giving $5000 to subsidize the recently concluded Life Changers Conference here in town. The LGBT community made some noise about one of the speakers being a big ol homophobe. I assumed the speaker was one of those "pray away the gay" types, shared the objection to sponsoring his appearance and didn't give it much more thought. Casting about for something to write about today, I did a little more digging and now I feel the need to share what a loathsome individual "Prophet" Todd Hall really is. He's not your standard "pray away the gay" type at all. He is a "the homos are demons among us who have no souls and are trying to infect us with their evil so that we will all be condemned to eternal damnation and I'm the only preacher brave enough to say this because the rest of you like cashing their homo donation checks." Seriously.
This is probably going to seem like splitting hairs to many people, not the least those who stand accused of being demons, but I believe that it is possible to distinguish between "homosexual acts are sinful and should be avoided" and "homosexuality is a demonic force that challenges the salvation of us all." I disagree with both statements, but I can at least appreciate the attempt to mitigate the damnation in the former. Maybe Hall really is the standard for christian homophobia, but I don't think so. Watching him at this appearance made in California prior to November election, I was struck by many things.
He's really frank about money. Around the 3:30 mark he says something along the lines of "write me a check for a half million dollars so I can say what I feel." Of course, it doesn't cost $500,000.00 USD to say what you really believe. You can say it for free. And look, there he is with a microphone in front of a big appreciative crowd of people waiting to hear what he wants to say. But first, the plea to the Holy Spirit that someone in that crowd be touched to write him a nice big check. This didn't seem like the normal fundraising plea. He presents it very much as that he will face economic consequences for speaking the Truth about homosexuality... to that well known group of homo-promoters -- black pentacostal christians.
He goes over the top crediting himself with bravery. Again, as far as I can tell, he's speaking to a religious group that separated from the freakin Assemblies of God back in the day over racial issues and has recently made efforts to reconcile with the John Ashcrofts of the world. I know he's speaking in Northern California, but still. He's not preaching it in the streets of San Francisco. I'll give Hall credit for bravery when he delivers this sermon to Bill Hicks in heaven. *
He assumes that the only motivation a person could have for not running homosexuals out of the church is a desire to keep their donations coming. (I didn't write that as pun intended, but it's too whimsical to disclaim). This was one of those, you seem to have failed to grasp basic points about Christianity, moments for me. Either he thinks sinners don't belong in church, or he thinks homosexuals have no soul to save. Either way he's a shame to the message of Jesus Christ.
And then he gets into scripture. Genesis. The story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to be precise. My summary of his re-telling of this story:
God saw that Sodom was full of homosexuals and decides to destroy it. Abraham works a deal out with God where if He can find ten heterosexual men in Sodom, He'll spare the city. Angels show up to hang out with Lot. The absence of heterosexuals is demonstrated by a bunch of men showing up at Lot's house demanding to have homo-sex with the angels. We know this crowd was full of unrepentant homosexuals because when Lot offered up his two virgin daughters for sexual consumption instead of the angels, the crowd turned him down. So Hall breaks it down like this-- if you were given a choice between being killed or having God-approved (but non-consensual) sex with Halle and/or Jada and you didn't bang the hellfire out of those fresh virgins then you are evil. As an aside, note to self: email Todd Hall the information that the internet is quite certain Jada is a lesbian.
Now, the story of Lot is plenty messed up without Hall's imagination getting involved. You've got a father offering up his daughters for rape out of a sense of hostly obligation. You've got daughters getting their dad drunk and then having sex with him in the hopes of getting pregnant and repopulating the world. I'm no biblical scholar, but I don't think the offer of virgins was a God approved test of the heterosexuality of the populace. And there's no reason to believe that the crowd had any idea that they were facing a "pussy or death" choice. So Hall's version is pretty stupid even if you accept the premise that Sodom was destroyed as punishment for teh gay sex.
But it's even dumber when you don't accept that premise. Those nice boys at the Vatican, real life biblical scholars, were kind enough to annotate Genesis 18:20 of my bible with the following:
Isrealite tradition was unanimous in ascribing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to the wickedness of these cities, but tradition varied in regard to the nature of this wickedness. According to the present account of the Yawhist, the sin of Sodom was homosexuality (Gn, 4), which is therefore also known as sodomy; but according to Isaiah (1,9; 3,9) it was lack of social justice; Ezekial (16, 46-51) described it as a disregard for the poor; whereas Jeremiah (23,14) saw it as general immorality.
Seems like a pretty weak basis from which to argue that homosexual members will result in the destruction of the church.
Life Changers might have had plenty of admirable things on the agenda. But Preacher Todd Hall understands that there are financial consequences for being an idiot bigot. And Life Changers needs to understand that there are financial consequences for inviting idiot bigots to speak at your conference. Even if you agree that the funding doesn't amount to funding religion (I don't agree), at a practical level, it seems like the least we can do is deny money to a group that is sponsoring a guy who thinks our LGBT neighbors are demons. It's not like the entire event was depending on city money and without our funds there would be no health screenings. Even if you think homosexuality is wrong, can you at least grant that homosexuals have souls?
* If heaven were a physical space, I'm convinced it would have a bar where the likes of George Carlin, Hunter S. Thompson and Bill Hicks could hang out for all eternity cracking each other up and God would drop in every once in a while and say "you guys thought you were so smart, but you didn't expect this, did ya?"
KCPD is accepting applications for the Citizens Police Academy. I won't apply, but I probably should. The idea is to give ordinary citizens a behind the scenes look at the structure and operation of the police department so when they're at a cocktail party defending the actions of a cop that tasered someone's grandma they have better credentials to argue that it's hard being a cop. Really. You have no idea what these guys go through.
Fortunately, it is possible to be both cynical about (one of) the purposes of the Academy and appreciative of what it does. It is a good idea to have ordinary citizens be more familiar with the workings of the police. It is a good idea for ordinary citizens to see the costs of maintaining public order. And it is a really good idea to have ordinary citizens interacting with law enforcement as ordinary human beings and not as the guy trying to arrest you or as the gal in charge of saving you. Cops, for the most part, are neither heroes or villains. They're ordinary human beings performing an often-times difficult job. Like everyone else, they need support and they need boundaries.
I should apply for this because it would better my sense of what support and boundaries are appropriate and/or reasonable. But for now, I'll keep working my way through The Wire via netflix and holding out for a Rent A Cop Friend program where you can pay somebody to show up at your parties and tell crazy stories.
and then slowly remove his clothes if he looks like Keanu.
I see that Bottom Line Communications is upset that the KC Star published an editorial applauding improvements in the park system without giving Mayor Funkhouser credit for the improvements. BLC didn't link to the Star editorial, so I had to track it down myself. Doing so, I came across a link to another Star editorial where I, personally, suffered the same churlish lack of credit at the hands of the Star editorial board. In that other editorial, the Star criticizes the City Council for not settling the Bates case last December for less than a quarter of the price they approved last week. As demonstrated on this blog within the past few days, I made the same criticism of the Council last December. None of this 20/20 hindsight bullcrap. In real time, man. But do you see my name and the journalistically necessary "told you so" in that editorial? I. Thought. Not. Shame on you, Kansas City Star.
(In case anyone reading was unaware, the above sarcasm is an indication of why I am considered "sometimes obnoxious." Of course the same point could be made without the snark. But it isn't as much fun. And we should try to squeeze as much fun from life as we possibly can.)
Relying solely on the Star editorial about the parks and BLC's response to same, I guess I'm missing why Funkhouser deserves credit for this. The parks were in bad shape in 2003. Funkhouser, as auditor, produced an audit demonstrating that. The parks board pushed for a program that appears to have helped. We spent more money on maintenance of community parks and less money on the more touristy things (Zoo and Liberty Memorial). Neighbors of the parks spent more time and effort lobbying for park improvement and for private funds. All of this sounds reasonable and plausible. BLC's case for giving Funhouser credit is that he was the auditor who produced the report and that he appointed a new parks board in 2007.
Since nothing I've read indicates that no one previously noted problems with the parks, or that no improvement happened until Funk's appointees came on, or that Funk proposed specific changes as auditor that were then followed by others at that time or executed during his term as Mayor, I'm not seeing the grave injustice being done to Funk by the Star. I find it entirely plausible that he would've recommended limiting funding to the Zoo or Liberty. But BLC doesn't bother to mention if that were the case or any other specific details. Under the circumstances and given facts (he was just auditor, with the power to recommend but no power to execute) it would seem unfair to place the mantle of glory on Funk's shoulders.
To the extent that Funk's prior acts contributed to the current improvement, that seems like the job of the Mayor's communication office to promote, not the Kansas City Star. And I'm afraid that this BLC post is supposed to be that equivalent. Listen, I'm open to giving Funk credit. And most people are open to watching politicians claim credit for things that they were tenuously or remotely involved with. It's how politics works. But, Funkhouser folks, you need to do some of the packaging here. It's insulting to the press and to the community to expect us to do all of the work. Maybe shoot a press release over to Prime Buzz explaining in detail the changes Funk suggested back then that have made a difference today and then following up with what the current parks board is doing to build on these gains? I'm no expert, but I'd find that more compelling than BLC whining.
Scott Cannon's article about "reverse discrimination" has many points I could respond to, but I'm going to focus on a pretty basic one.
America, it seems, isn’t over race after all.
Rather, now the race card is being dealt in every direction.
Race is not a card. And conceptualizing it as a card makes it difficult if not impossible to have a constructive discussion about race. It's not even clear what people mean when they say "playing the race card." Sometimes they mean using race like a "get out of jail free" card. Other times its more like the penalty card in soccer. But it always stands for a disruption of some sort. And that's why it's harmful to discussions about race. It makes slightly more sense than saying that someone who just fell down is playing the gravity card.
Anthropologists and biologists alike agree that race is a social construct. Which is to say, it's not real. Except that it is very real. A long time ago, people decided to categorize "the Other" by the color of skin and we still do it. Most Americans seem to desire a "post-racial" society, but have no idea what that looks like if they think we are anywhere near it. Race shouldn't matter, but it does. And it's not something that goes away if we ignore it, despite all the good intentioned white people who think otherwise.
Someone "playing the race card" is someone disrupting that desire to pretend that race doesn't matter. And our current public discourse treats discussions about race as distractions or derailments from the "real" issue. If we can't acknowledge that race does matter - that it is deeply embedded in our institutions and our culture - then we will not be able to move forward towards the post-racial society that people claim to want. I don't think humanity is capable of having a "post-racial" society. I also don't think I'll ever be perfect, but that doesn't stop me from trying to be better. It's taken conscious effort to strip racism from our laws. It's going to take conscious effort to strip it from our culture.
On the bright side, it should be considerably easier to get white folks to recognize white privilege and racist cultural programming than to get americans to challenge the notion that we're entitled to enjoy such a disproportionate share of the world's resources. I'm crazy liberal and I can't even begin to honestly get my head around the latter even though I can see how from the outside people might think we have some explaining to do that goes beyond the primal "well, we've got it and we've got the power to keep it."
In the last post I mentioned that I hadn't figured out yet how to create a hyperlink that opened in a new window. A commenter kindly provided the appropriate code. When I first saw the comment, I thought it was my very first comment spam and I felt all grown up like a 13 year old with her first hickey. Then I had a caveman lawyer moment of staring at the brackets before I realized what it was. Then I was grateful. And then I felt google guilt.
Because I know damn well how to google "html code." And I've been reading blogs long enough to know what I like to see on a blog that makes it more reader friendly. But as I'm getting this started, I'm more focused on generating content on a regular basis than messing with format or doing obvious things like creating a blogroll or all the other fun sidebar stuff. So if there's some format type detail you don't see here but would like to, feel free to consider me lazy and speak up in the comments.
According to youtube, this video has been viewed 243,283 times. That strikes me as about a hundred million views short. Approximately. This video should be required viewing in schools starting in 3rd grade and repeated until people get the point.
It's from a hip hop video blog, so I can forgive myself for not seeing it earlier. But this guy is so smart, funny and wise I want to have his children, or at least spill some of his seed. If it's possible to embed the video, I couldn't figure it out.* So click on through. Because it applies to Gloria. It applies to Gates. It applies to just about every conversation you've ever had about racism.
Then go to the guy's site and listen to him talk about Miss California and "no homo," and tell me why I shouldn't think he's the one of the coolest guys in America.
* I also haven't figured out how to create links that open in new tabs, so right click and work with me.
I believe we did. I don't think the settlement amount is going to change anyone's mind about Mayor Funkhouser and his handling of this entire affair. But people really should be holding it against the City Council that had the opportunity to settle this for $135,000 back in December. At the time, I thought it was a stupid move for the Council to reject the settlement offer unless the Mayor dropped his legal challenge of the volunteer ordinance. No one could seriously expect the Mayor to agree to that condition and the costs of moving forward on the volunteer ordinance were predictable and minimal, whereas the exposure on the Bates case was difficult to predict and potentially quite high.
Following the case, most of the reporting has been political gossip, not facts relevant to the actual claims. Reading the depositions, the discovery process also seemed oriented around the politics and not the specific claims. How did they manage to depose Joe Miller without anyone asking him if he took any retaliatory steps against Bates? The woman is claiming retaliation, personal details about her are leaked to the media, you've got the former director of communications under oath and no one asks him about it?
To be clear, I believe that Bates felt genuinely aggrieved and pursued her claim in good faith. But this case has been much bigger than her. And what it mostly has been is an endless stream of embarrassing details. The City Council owed it to the citizens to pull the brakes on this slow motion trainwreck a long time ago. But they preferred to have the already weak Mayor further weakened. They sat back and let the discovery process be used as a scavenger hunt for nepotism charges. And all this delay and exposure had the rather predictable effect of making the prospect of a jury trial an even greater nightmare for the city. The Councilmembers who voted against settlement in December (and even more so yesterday) should be ashamed of themselves and held to account for their poor stewardship through this mess.
One more thing... could someone please take Jim Wirken off the list of attorneys eligible to receive public funds as outside counsel? How did someone not put a stop to that after he charged the County several hundred thousand to defend a declaratory judgment action?
p.s. I really wanted an over the back shot of Winona scribbling in her diary "Must kill Heather" but I couldn't find one. Very sad.
Now that I've sent a link to this blog to one friend, I'm going to get out in front of the flood of comments.
Use of pseudonyms is encouraged. Even more so if I know you in real life.
I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever. I don't anticipate many comments at all, certainly not ones that I'll want to delete. But I like to be prepared, so there you go: I am tyrant of the comments.
I don't know if anyone else has taken a swing at this softball, but it'll be news to my mom, so here goes. The Star reported today that Priest Holmes recently attended the NFL Broadcast Bootcamp in the hopes of transitioning to a career in broadcasting. The article is a comical example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
It opens with the clever conceit of handing football players playbooks with complete words rather than simple X's and O's. Having prepared us for the herculean tasks we are about to witness, Randy Covitz tells us that the players are staggered by the volume of instructions and tips involved in sports broadcasting. What are these behind the scene mysteries revealed to our aspiring analysts?
Know the players’ names.
Know their numbers.
Their colleges.
Their strengths and weaknesses.
And say it clearly, quickly and intelligently.*
For real. I realize NFL players aren't reputed to have the best minds around. But I'd like to credit them with basic observational skills and having watched a ton of football games on tv. Maybe they only watch game tape on mute. I don't know, and I wouldn't blame them. I do know that this is a list of instructions and tips grade school children would be able to produce with little prompting. I'd like to think that this is Covitz putting a patronizing spin on things and that the players aren't really staggered by this information.
I can almost convince myself that it's Covitz's spin. Holmes makes comments reflecting his newfound appreciation for avoiding "dead air," which is the kind of thing that seems obvious but is much harder to do than it looks. (Avoiding, not appreciating.) But then it gets silly.
[Holmes] benefited from some lessons from Dick Vermeil, his former coach with the Chiefs, who has had a distinguished career as an analyst.
“He talked to us about preparation,” Holmes said. “They were giving him credit as the one who invented the flip board, where you have the offensive and defensive (depth charts on each side) and can use it for tidbits about each player.”
Maybe I'm not appreciating the complexity of the flip board, or the insight necessary to create it. The way I'm reading it, it didn't occur to NFL broadcasters to use cheat sheets until Dick Vermeil came into the booth. I don't want to disrespect the particular skill set necessary to be a good broadcaster. And I guess it isn't news that NFL broadcasting is full of stupid. But the tone of the article presenting the easiest and most obvious parts of the job as these terribly complex and challenging things amuses me.
The article takes on a more dignified tone as it gets down to the real business at hand - promoting Priest Holmes as a candidate for a broadcasting job. I wouldn't exactly disagree with the nice things Dick Vermeil says about Holmes' potential. I've always been skeptical of claims that Holmes is a deep thinker. I know he can teach busty blondes how to play chess,** and that seems like a good transferable skill for an NFL broadcaster.
Holmes might be great, but I'm not particularly excited at the prospect. He gave us some great years at RB, and I always loved when he'd dive into the end zone. But then he just sort of collected a paycheck from Texas and showed zero interest in the team until the last crazy comeback. In my perverted and impotent sense of fan justice, I'm tempted to withhold my (meaningless!) support for him for awhile.
* The secret of Shannon Sharpe's broadcast career is not revealed.
** This cheap shot should not be taken as an endorsement of the belief that all large breasted blondes are stupid. Just the ones who dated Priest Holmes. Sorry, ladies.
Blogging is hard work. But after years of dumping my thoughts in assorted comment sections, I'm going to give it a try. I don't want readers all up in my business. I'm not going to share my hobbies with you. Unless you count ranting as a hobby. I'm going to blog about KCMO, my beloved hometown. I will feed off the sickly corpus of the KC Star and the herpetic member that is TKC. I'm interested in the politics of KC and the community. I will share my thoughts here in the hopes of encouraging others to share their viewpoints so that we all, hopefully, end up with a better understanding of the place in which we live. I also hope to make my readers laugh, or better yet, smirk on a semi-regular basis.
Why Sophia?
Because Renee was already taken in French class. I dunno. It's a pretty name and I'm a woman, representin on the internet. Nagged from the darkness of anonymity on BlogCCP it's what I went with. Then Cardarella called me out for choosing "wisdom" as my handle. So, for the root watchers among us, my name isn't a claim to divine wisdom or the eternal feminine.
Why League of Extraordinary Nobodies?
Because the KC blogosphere is apparently full of readers who think only important people read and comment on blogs and that every comment is from a person of significance advancing some larger agenda, rather than, you know, some ordinary person with zero name recognition that felt the need to share their observations or opinions. I think of this as the "Hi, Phil" phenomenon. League of Extraordinary Nobodies occurred to me when I was dealing with an anony commenter at Gone Mild who was convinced that I was Phil Levota. The title is my way of signaling that Important People who require a certain degree of accomplishment, credentials, authority or willingness to put your REAL NAME on the internet before they will take a person's comment seriously will not have their needs satisfied here.
I ditched the definite article in the title out of respect for some alternative hip hop artist (white guy in brooklyn) who produced a song of the same name. I'd never heard of it before. I read the lyrics, it's very J. Alfred Prufrock. I didn't listen to the song, so I don't know if it's worth respecting. I just felt the need to disassociate.
Oh yeah, I liked how easy it is to shorten -LEN. I hate long names on the internet.
Links, better formatting and Priest Holmes blogging to follow.
