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Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, is a city waiting to happen. Contact: David Arthur Walters, Email: empiricalpragmatics@yahoo.com
Saturday, September 08, 2007
"The biggest question is not what title to select, but what we want those titles to say to the community." Jonathan Kemper
This foolish journalist thrice submitted the title The Praise of Folly to Kansas City banking dynast Jonathan Kemper's secretary for his consideration as one of the titles to decorate the jumbo parking garage next to the renovated Neoclassical- and Renaissance-style bank building that will serve as the elegant ark for Missouri's high civilization once the downtown Kansas City Public Library is relocated therein. Mr. Kemper is the motivating force for the conversion of the old bank, dubbed 'Jonathan's building', into the new main library.
I recommended to Mr. Kemper that the alfresco method - in widespread use during the heavily walled Romanesque period, and revived during the early Renaissance - be employed to embed the titles on the outside wall of the library's large parking building, thus making the mural a lasting part of the architecture. I also urged Mr. Kemper to review the names of authors sculpted a century ago on the frieze of Kansas City's second library building, a Renaissance-style building at Ninth and Locust, before considering what he wanted to tell the community a century from today with his titles.
Copies of my recommendations together with several critical articles on the new library project were sent along to librarians at the downtown Kansas City Library. A few of them responded with scandalous information about the goings-on at the library and the governing board. Only one librarian asked that his name be removed from the email list for my periodical releases - 'Criticism of the Policies and Practices of Kansas City Missouri Public Librarians' - stating that the subject was of no interest whatsoever to him. Another individual questioned my recommendation, The Praise of Folly, stating that he has never heard of the book, and that the community might get the wrong message and commit itself to folly. In response to which my favorite moron, namely me, once again quoted Lady Folly's view, that nothing would get done without her, and referred the gentleman to my recent library blog entry 'Mystical Real Estate Development.'
The Praise of Folly has in fact been familiar to book lovers for several centuries. Even those few Lutherans left who still hate scholarly works know the title well; or at least they know the author by name, for Luther once said to his friends, "When I pray, 'Blessed be Thy Holy Name', I curse Erasmus and his heretical congeners who revile and profane God." Erasmus, in turn, said that he, Erasmus, had caused humanists to celebrate Christ, but Luther then appeared and threw his "apple of discord" into the world.
Erasmus, for one thing, blamed Luther for the Peasant's Revolt, and Luther was proud of being the cause of the rebels' deaths. "I, Martin Luther," attested Luther, "have slain all the peasants who died during the rebellion, for I goaded authority to the slaughter. Their blood be on my head." Indeed, he had urged the princes to "stab and kill" the peasants whom he had inspired and who had revered him so greatly as a leader: "Those who rally to the side of the princes will become holy martyrs; those who fail, will go to the devil; therefore let all who can, both in public and private, strike down and strangle these miscreants, bearing ever in mind that there is nothing more poisonous, more noisesome, more devilish, than a man who incites the people to insurrection." Furthermore, "The donkey needs a thrashing, and the brute populace must be governed by brute force." Of course Luther stated Christ authorized the killing with, "I come not in peace but with a sword."
Years before Luther penned De servo arbitrio, his notorious response to Erasmus' temperate missive in favor of the pacific pursuit of reform, Luther believed that Germans should go berserk, "I do not think," he wrote to Spalatinus, "that the cause can be carried to a successful issue without tumult, vexation, and insurrection. You cannot make a quill pen out of a sword, nor change war into peace. God's word is war and vexation and destruction, it is poison. Like a bear in the path, like a lioness in the jungle, it attacks the sons of Ephraim." Yet he advised the authorities to kill the peasants, led by Munzer, flying the rainbow banner of God's covenant. When confronted with his contradictions, Luther attributed them to "God's mysteries."
As for pacifism, the world's greatest bigot and hypocrite at the time wrote to Erasmus, "Let be with your complaining and clamor (for peaceful reform); against such a fervor no medicine can prevail. This war is our Lord God's war. He has unchained it, and never will it cease raging until all the enemies of His word has been wiped from the face of the earth. " And Luther said to his friends, "I intend to kill Satan (Erasmus)" just as I slew Munzer, whose blood is on my head."
Erasmus once remarked of the clerical quibbling, prevarication and hypocrisy of his day, "These words 'Evangel', 'God's Truth', 'faith', 'Christ', 'spirit', are perpetually spilling from their mouths, and yet I see many of them so conducting themselves as if they were possessed of the devil." And, in a letter to Zwingli, Erasmus took issue with the errors of Luther's irrational doctrine: Luther denied the merits of free will; he asserted that all good works are mortal sins; he insisted that justification comes from blind faith in God alone.
Of course Erasmus is best known among bookish people for his The Praise of Folly, which was well received by all except the clerics - princes were much amused by being made the butt of jokes by Lady Folly, who gladly served the purpose of a court clown. This foolish cub reporter for Downtown Kansas City was fortunate to stumble over a copy of the book again. Many book lovers have recommended it over the years. For instance, the eminent historian, illustrator, radio commentator, and journalist Hendrik Willem van Loon, best known for The Story of Mankind (made into a movie staring Groucho Marx), admired Erasmus of Rotterdam - Van Loon hailed from Rotterdam.
"I have spent more than a half-century reading books...," wrote van Loon in his prefatory biography of Erasmus, "and now I find myself face to face with the terrible problem of 'What in Heaven's name can I read that I have not already read a dozen times before?' The modern output is like a mighty river. At certain spots it is a veritable Rio de Plata, almost fifty miles wide but so shallow that ever crossing it in a rowboat throws up such quantities of mud that it begins to resemble the mighty Missouri in spring." Hence van Loon returned to the hinterland creeks of his youth to take up the "highly explosive literary dynamite known the last four centuries and a half as The Praise of Folly. So did I.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Compassionate Police
April 29, 2004
Good News! Cops have been seen making arrests in the Compassion Zone! Weapons among other things have been seized. It is great to see the unmarked and marked police cars and the paddy wagons around the neighborhood.
Not that the residents of the Compassion Zone want to see their neighborhood locked down by a police state. It's just that the cops have been too compassionate lately. They have the huge Greater Metropolitan Kansas City area to cover as well; their resources are insufficient, they are spread to thin. Five million more dollars right away would help.
In fact, City Manager Wayne Cauthen recently chopped a million bucks from the police department in the budget he presented to the City Council. He and Mayor Kaye Barnes have been busy raising untold millions of dollars for their pet developments. Of course those projects include, besides a half-billion dollars or more of tax-incentive handouts to favored big private developers, funds for fixing up the infrastructure all over town. Many millions were already available for that purpose but were unused, so the City Manager is hiring private consultants to cut the red tape for him because he lost his scissors in Denver.
Of course the most important part of any city's infrastructure, as we can see from the Iraq debacle, is security. We need a well-funded and effective police department that will serve to protect everyone equally. Incidentally, until the recent revolt in Iraq, the one or two people killed daily there reminded us of the KCTV 5 local crime news - local homicides however seem to be rising with the death toll in Iraq; why is that?
Anyway, Mayor Barnes recently insulted residents of the Compassion Zone, which among other needed things serves as a compassionate concourse between revolving doors of jails and prisons, when she implied the residents were imagining things in their neighborhood, like the knifings, shootings, door push-ins, and so on, things that make even those who really do not like cops very glad to see them around.
The "civic leaders" just do not get it: police security should come first. But the civic leaders and their press putas always put police protection at the bottom of their shopping list, or just above the grocery store, two things the people have clamored for to no avail because the first thing on the civic leaders' shopping list as composed by their press putas is the development of their friend's real estate into expensive condominiums and lofts. Expensive entertainment facilities and stores are at the top of the list too. Then the cops will have something worth protecting besides Vice President Cheney when he shows up at the Marriott.
Of course Compassion Zone residents have their own list. Police protection is at the top of it. Next is a new mayor and a new city manager. After that is a large grocery store and clothing store. Somewhere on that list is legislation to stop the legal graft or land-banking that the power elite uses to curb competition - otherwise the residents would already have the stores and neighborhoods they want downtown.
Of course the power elite, including the vested interests who like to get something for nothing, namely unearned income, would rather upgrade the city, run prices up and run residents of the Compassion Zone off. Many of them have already moved anyway, sick and tired of what is really going on in downtown Kansas City.
Mature Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that there are putas from time to time in the Compassion Zone, barely two blocks away from the historic Metropolitan Kansas City Police Headquarters.
Last winter I encountered 'Pedro' near the Diamond Shamrock. He was panhandling while his puta worked a customer in the big back seat of his dilapidated Lincoln. He also uses the car to deal drugs at the gas pumps from time to time. Maybe he has been busted or went somewhere else more lucrative as I have not seen him around for awhile. But there are usually a puta or two available at any time on the next block east, at the Cherry Inn Motel.
Besides Pedro's puta, I perceived a plethora of virtual putas inside the Shamrock one Sunday morning - I dropped by at 7 o'clock as usual to buy a cup of coffee, a chocolate muffin, a copy of the Sunday paper. The store was deserted but for the cashier and a grizzly old fellow, who was warming up under the pretense of shopping - on Sunday, people do not drift into the Shamrock from the shelters and half-way houses to get their whiskey and play the numbers until around 9 o'clock.
A man, poorly dressed, short, with black hair, about thirty years of age, burst into the store in an agitated state.
"Call the police! I've been mugged!"
"Where?" asked the cashier.
"Right outside! Right there! A Mexican guy mugged me. I'm a Mexican too," he responded - I thought the Mexican references were rather odd.
"Hurry up, he'll get away, he took my wallet," the Mexican insisted.
"I'm calling now," responded the clerk, phone in hand.
"No good to call them, they won't do anything," said the grizzly old man. "I'm an Indian, veteran of the Korean war...."
"You don't know nothing. You aren't the police," said the Mexican.
"I'm an Indian and a veteran of the Korean War, and I'm telling you, it does no good to call the police here, they won't help you even if they come," the Indian declared.
"Leave me alone, you puta!" the Mexican was getting really hot under the collar.
"Don't you call me a puta, you puta!" yelled the Indian.
"Puta!" the Indian responded.
"Puta!"
"Puta!"
The cashier spoke to the police and hung up the phone. The angry exchange between the Mexican and the Indian continued, but it did not phase her one bit. It was an ordinary event for the Shamrock in the Compassion Zone. That's why we refer to it fondly as the S---- rock. It's the only place open when the sidewalks are rolled up and almost everybody goes back to the burbs after work. Some people who live in the area want it torn down since it attracts vagrants and predators. As far as I'm concerned, it should stay, more people should move into the area, more stores should be opened up, and maybe the cops will look after the neighborhood around their headquarters then.
Anyway, having had enough of the childish but amusing exchange, I left behind another flurry of hot putas and exited into the frigid morn.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
April 5, 2004
Most of my neighbors have stopped going to the Shamrock even though it is the only place open in the neighborhood on Sunday. Just the sight of poorly dressed men lined up for half-pints, six-packs of quarts, cheap smokes, and lottery cards scares them away, not to mention the aggressive panhandling at the counter, against house rules, especially when you have change coming from a ten or twenty. But I still drop in there almost every day. Usually it is not what goes on inside that is alarming, but rather what might be waiting for you on the way to and from the store.
Last Sunday an ambulance and fire truck were just leaving as I walked in. There had been a seizure outside, I was told. The store was not busy, just a half-dozen customers. I got my Sunday paper, a purchase I regretted after I went through it - the Sunday edition is usually excellent, but not this one. Of course I picked up an empty paper cup and lid from the counter so I could get coffee from the machine in the back of the store - I confess that I take extra creamers and sugar. Also a sugar-coated sort of bun-thing in cellophane - it was disgusting. There goes almost four bucks. A cleanly dressed young man - he looked like a college kid - wanted some of my change at the counter, and he was told he could not panhandle in the store. Several people were standing in front of the place and sitting on the wall alongside the store as I exited - two men eyed my bag intently: slim pickings.
It was a gorgeous day. As I crossed the parking lot between the old library and Old St. Patrick's Church on my way back to my cave, a large pit bull started barking, and ran towards me. As it struggled to squeeze through a barrier on the edge of the lot, I figured I would give the disgusting frosted roll I had already taken a bit out of to the dog if it charged me. The barking did not seem particularly threatening, and just seemed to say, "What are you doing here? Who the heck are you?" Well, the pit bull did not come to the attack. Such is life.
Later in the day, Bob pointed out some blood splattered about a dozen feet along the 8th Street side of Old St. Patrick's, saying it was quite red in color when he first noticed it. I made like a member of CSI, with an imaginary flashlight, swab and test tube, and said it was human blood, and it appeared to have originated from a bloody nose, maybe after a fist fight, or something innocuous. Whatever. At which point a young couple got out of a Volkswagen, stared at the Cosmopolitan Condominiums, got back in their car and drove away. We hung out for awhile with an elderly couple outside of the University Tower next door, exercising "extreme caution" as advised by the property manager.
Bob said he admired me for even going to the Shamrock during daylight hours, and for being so gregarious with everyone in the area, considering how dangerous the situation is. I said that the mayor was right, the Compassion Zone is not as dangerous as some people think it is, although it is more dangerous that what others believe it to be. As for me, I said I prefer to know who is around, and feel a lot safer when I do.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
On Multitasking Stupidity
Multitasking or doing several things at once is the craze in all walks of life in this fast-paced age. For example, former Denver mayor Wellington E. Webb went to Kansas City, Missouri, in December of 2003 and advised the Downtown Council, a landlord organization, on how to revitalize the downtown.
"You have to be in a hurry, and you can be thorough while you're in a hurry, but you have to do more than one project at a time," said Webb, after advising the Downtown Council to just ignore naysayers. "Don't wait a long time to get everybody to buy in." (1)
Kansas City's Mayor Kay Barnes and its City Manager Wayne Cauthen took Mr. Webb's advice to heart - before his arrival in Kansas City, Mr. Cauthen was Mr. Webb's assistant in Denver. All sorts of projects funded largely by the public were subsequently approved in Kansas City over the objections of the naysayers, whose protests were unheard via mainstream media unless they had a great deal of money for advertising.
Kansas City Star Sports Columnist Joe Posnansky was more single-minded than the scatter-brained multitaskers. He urged real estate developers and the Mayor and City Manager to focus on building a new arena downtown. He said the old Kemper Arena down by the tracks (the Bottoms) just would not do for the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments - among other things, he said Kemper Arena had a narrow selection of pretzels, and the plumbing was leaky . He said civic leaders should not be pulled in 12 different directions because of other, less important items on the plate: bad roads, bad schools, bad zoos, and inadequate indigent health care. Those sort of things will be around forever, he said, hence the leadership should focus on the golden opportunity to build a new arena. (2)The arena proposal was approved after an acrimonious public campaign: the naysayers were heard this time because Enterprize Rent-a-Car, the largest car rental agency in town and the country, objected to it - Mayor Barnes, with the help of Sprint CEO Gary Foresee (Sprint got the naming rights to the arena), defamed Enterprise for being a St. Louis corporation with ulterior motices. Even a couple of Kansas City Star columnist, ordinarily big boosters for multiple big-corporation projects via the TSF (tax slush fund), advocated a less multitasked approach to revitalization.
Occasional protest from some prominent naysayer shall never serve to dampen enthusiasm for multitasking, not in sprawling, scatterbrained Kansas City, the city where newcomer Edwin J. Shannahan in 1911 coined the phrase "Heart of America" for the Kansas City booster spirit. The further the city is spread out, the more difficult it becomes for a city slicker to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, so it becomes increasingly important to just ignore naysayers who do not appreciate perpetual boodling and boondogling, fast-paced fleecing, and, worst of all, because of its aggravation of public stupidity, multitasking.
Workplace newspaper columnists who write employer litany for the CareerBuilder section may talk up multitasking until they are blue in the face, but not every resident of the Great Blue Country (Missouri) is keen on the subject. Still, people can not just say nay to their employers, not if they want to eat. Bank Midwest's advertisement for a financial analyst/accountant must have had enthusiastic responses from self-motivated applicants; one important requirement:
"Must be able to hand multiple tasks concurrently." (sic) (3)
Take note that good grammar must not be employed in headlines, advertisements, and resumés. Complete sentences, with personal pronouns, and repetition of the person's proper name, are much too personal for resumés.
Alas, when are people going to wake up to the obvious fact that multitasking is making them stupid? Of course that is a stupid question. After thousands of multitaskers read the warning in the Wall Street Journal (4), they went right back to multitasking!
"A growing body of scientific research shows that trying to save time by doing two or three things at once actually can make you less efficient and, well, stupider. Multitasking can take longer overall and may leave you with reduced brain power to perform each task," quote the WSJ. According to David Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, chronic high-stress multitasking is linked to short-term memory loss. If you do not believe that, read the study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, or ask Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University - see the study published in Neuroimage, or just take a look around the office boxes.
The stupidity of people inside of the box is of course more obvious to anyone who has actually been thinking outside of the box for some time, probably because she is unemployed, so there is evidence that the stupidity acquired from multitasking is reversible. We have all heard this stupid cliche from inside of the box: "Think outside of the box." To think outside of the box, one has to crawl out of the box made by multitasking and fast-pacing and the like, and concentrate on priorities.
That being said, never mind. Multitasking might work out for Kansas City on the whole if everyone will focus on doing their little part of the great revitalization task.
(1)'Denver's ex-mayor shares expertise', The Kansas City Star, December 3, 2003
(2) 'KC suffers from arena envy', The Kansas City Star. March 13, 2004
(3) Help Wanted, The Kansas City Star, March 14, 2004
(4) 'Multitasking can make you stupid, study finds', Health Watch, Wall Street Journal, c. 2002
Monday, January 31, 2005
Enroute to the Final Solution
Abandon your sick joy, Kansas City,
These tears of mine you see
Speak not to coup d 'etat
But are as mist on wintry seas
I must forever sail.
I came to you as refugee,
A stranger in your midst
But in your towers that so search the sky,
There is no place for me,
Nor in your modern streets.
I'll dream of you, I'll dream of you,
The beauty of your hills.
But when I wake I'll wake to Truth
And walk away from you
(Though not entirely free)
For I'll be guided to the Compassion Zone
By Compassion Zone police.
--by Ruth--
Parole in the Compassion Zone
June 24, 2004
I have lately encountered many parolees chatting in the back of a bus that goes up and down Main Street. I was listening in on a lively discussion just yesterday, and heard an ex-convict say that he did not like the "honor system" very much, that prison-life was better than living in the half-way house.
Another fellow said that was nonsense, because if a man serves his whole time and has no place to go when he gets out, he is dumped on the street in the cold with nothing but a few bucks, and when that is gone, he has no choice but to steal, maybe mug some old man or woman walking out of the convenience store, or hold up the store itself. But if he is in the honor system, he has a place to stay, and some help with finding work.
"That's right," remarked another fellow, "and don't run away, because that will get you a couple more years on your sentence."
Although I have never served time, I joined the discussion. I said I was running into a lot of parolees downtown, and wondered why there were so many.
A parolee declared that the prison business and the honor system business are very profitable businesses. He said lots of legitimate companies feed off crime. The state has twenty-some prisons, he figured, and in this state you can get thrown into prison for almost anything - lots of people are sent up for some minor first offense. He said he drew a four-year sentence after his estranged wife called him up and told him to come get his property out of the house. After he did just that, he claimed that he was arrested for violating the restraining order prohibiting him from coming within so many feet of her. She testified for him at the trial, to no avail. It was his first offense, but he mouthed off to the judge, and he was sent up. What upset him the most was the loss of his $50,000 job as a computer programmer - the company will not take him back. At least that was his story.
"Well, what are some of the rules for parole?" I asked him.
"First of all, you can't leave the state."
"Even worse," chimed in another man, "you can't drink or do drugs."
"What? Not even a beer?" I asked.
"There's a way to work it, a way to have a drink once in awhile, but better not do drugs," a heavilly tatooed man chimed in. "The tests vary to pick up different kinds of drugs. If you have been smoking or otherwise using nicotine, you have to take cessation classes."
"You're kidding!" I said.
"No, that's the God's truth, but smoking cigarettes can be worked into the schedule."
"Is there any help getting jobs?"
"Yeah."
"Housing?"
"There are half-way houses at first, then housing assistance if you qualify."
"Good grief!" I exclaimed. "I think I qualify for parole. I don't drink, don't smoke, don't do any drugs except caffeine, can't seem to get out of the state, could use some shelter and work - so where do I apply?"
"You have to commit a crime first, get busted, serve some time, then you can get benefits."
"Aw Shucks!"
April 3, 2004
As I walked through the Compassion Zone at 4:30 pm on Friday, I thought about how nice it would be to hang out at the Plaza or other pleasant spots on a Friday evening. I did just that on two evenings after my arrival in Kansas City, but I learned my lesson the hard way: on both occasions I was harassed on my return to the Compassion Zone, the first time by a man armed with a pistol. By the way, I like to walk, and I cannot afford a car.
As I approached the beautiful old library on Ninth and Locust, I noticed that there were no Yellow Jackets around. Now the privately employed Yellow Jackets, or "safety ambassadors," do a good job keeping the neighborhood relatively safe when they are about; but they do not work at night, and would not if they could: "It is too dangerous at night, and we are not cops," one said.
Sure enough, there were numerous groups of two or three vagrants on the street. Since I had not dressed way down, I stuck out like a sore thumb, and many pairs of eyes stared at me. I was greeted by two aggressive panhandlers - the panhandlers are usually lone wolves. One just waved, smiled and said Hello: he was a regular, a professional hustler, and he knew me; the other man asked for money. I continued on my way, observing how pitiful some of the vagrants looked. Which reminded me that I had noted some time before that Mayor Kay Barnes, at a faith-based community meeting, had not advised Christians to go out and bring a "homeless" person home.
If the mayor had thus advised the followers of Christ to just bring home some homeless person off the street, they would have been ill-advised unless they were excellent judges of people and were prepared to sacrifice their lives in some cases.
When I arrived at my guest room at the University Tower Apartments, I found a paper had been slipped under my door. I scanned it as I entered the room, and noticed the following:
IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ CAREFULLY To all Residents of University Tower Apartments:April 2, 2004
NOTICE
Please be advised that an incident occurred.... A female adult was attacked.... The victim was taken for medical treatment at Truman Medical.... No one can assure your safety.... We request everyone including guests to exercise extreme caution when outside the building.... Your security is your responsibility and that of the local law enforcement agencies.... Call 911.... Respectfully.... Property Manager
Heaven forbid, again! I thought, and recalled the little going-away party in the library the Tuesday previous, for a little old lady who had lived in the building for several years: she had had her door pushed in by the "cookie salesman," was assaulted and robbed, so she decided to move. That sort of thing is happening all over the city even in well-secured buildings; and lightning seldom strikes twice in the same place; but we understood why she moved. In fact, I came several thousand miles to Kansas City for the express purpose of moving my father out of the dangerous Compassion Zone; that being accomplished, I seem to have replace him!
I went down to the lobby after reading the NOTICE to get the scoop on what happened. The manager had gone home by then, so I tuned in to the gossip. Not much was known except that a forty-year old woman from Lawrence, Kansas, had invited a male guest into an apartment on the floor above mine, where he stabbed her. Her liver was penetrated; she was bleeding out badly. It was unclear where she had met the attacker, but it was thought to be at a bus stop. The police have a description and a video tape.
Maybe the predator had hustled her nearby, said he was hungry or whatever. We do not know. We have seen nothing on the news about it. Rumor has it that bad news in the building is virtually blacked out to protect the interests of Time Equities of New York in the University Tower's sister-building next door, Metropolitan Condominiums - formerly Pinnacle Tower.
Time Equities recently closed a deal for the purchase of properties in the core downtown, City Center Square and the Jones property, key components of the huge Kansas City Live District, a seven-block downtown revitalization project pressed by Mayor Kay Barnes and approved by the City Council - nearly one-half billion dollars of tax incentives will reimburse the developers for about eighty-percent of the cost. Time Equities also bought the Pinnacle in the Compassion Zone, and converted it into Metropolitan Condominiums. Kansas City officials at one time wanted Time Equities to make a larger commitment to the blighted Compassion Zone, but the firm refused albeit the "blighted" area consists of very few buildings. The New York developer coveted the University Tower, but the Texas management company held out for a higher price than the city had appraised the property at. The property is presently under an intention to purchase agreement with another buyer.
Both towers mentioned, along with the gutted-out tower behind the two, the Vista Del Rio tower on Admiral Boulevard, were once the three towers of a retirement residence complex established by the University of Missouri. The complex has long been the subject of gossip including allegations of real estate fraud and tax fraud in which city officials allegedly colluded with impunity; there are so many tall tales bandied about the neighborhood that it is difficult to ascertain exaclty what is going on.. In any case, the effect of the events on the senior-citizen community, including the recent Time Equities takeover, have been tragic, thus the properties have a terrible reputation with every social worker who has been around the city for awhile.
After hearing numerous complaints from old people in their 80s and 90s, about the allegedly "criminal" conduct in respect to the original Vista Del Rio retirement complex over the years, I contacted Kansas City Star Kevin Collison, the business reporter who reported on the assembly of the Kansas City Live District project and other city-supported developments. I asked him to look into the allegations since there might be quite a story there; he was not immediately interested; but the Metropolitan Condominium project has been covered, and pre-construction advertising now appears in the Star.
As for the allegations of a bad-news blackout in the Compassion Zone , I doubt they are true. Crime is widespread over the Metro area and police and news reporters are thinly spread over same; residents of other neighborhoods have told me they knew of unreported robberies and murders in their neighborhoods.
A police source informed me that the Compassion Zone is not regularly patrolled because the downtown area is just too dead to warrant much attention except for routine drug stings at the Cherry Inn - which security guards in the area would like to see turned into another parking lot. Residents know better not to come out at night, so that keeps the crime rate down. I unwittingly stayed overnight the Cherry Inn during a brief 1997 visit with my father; there was a gun battle outside my room that night, near the pay phone used by the drug dealers - I had my brother come and take me to Lawrence.
Yet another police source told me that the Compassion Zone is a sort of unofficial sanctuary for vagrants; they are not harassed there so they will stay away from the property of major landlords a few blocks west.
The historic City Hall and Police Headquarters are located in the historic Civic Center at the heart of the Compassion Zone - the most dangerous "blighted" area is three to six blocks away from the Police Headquarters and City Hall. The mayor, city manager, and police chief attended a February community meeting to appear to listen to the concerns of beleaguered downtown residents who have little political clout because they are so few in number. Many residents who moved downtown moved away because of the lack of police security and amenities such as grocery and clothing stores. When the subject of police security was raised at the meeting, Kevin Collison reported that the police chief greeted it with disappointing platitudes; the mayor said the downtown was not as dangerous as residents perceived it to be: "I do believe we have a safer and more secure downtown than many people believe." City Manager Wayne Cauthen was relatively quiet at the meeting, but said he had "taken note of things you have mentioned and will be certain they're taken care of in due time. A few weeks later he cut the police budget by a million dollars.
After I digested the information about the murder attempt in the Compassion Zone, I risked venturing over to the only store open in the zone, the Diamond Shamrock convenience store, to buy a phone card. I did not feel as much compassion and pity for the people loitering around the streets under the dull yellow sodium lighting as I had felt earlier, at 4:30 pm. One of them was yelling at me from a half-block away; he walked toward me, but I did not recognize him because he was in a very dark spot, so I walked briskly towards the store - he followed me for a half-block.
During my stroll back from the Shamrock, it occurred to me to make a constructive suggestion to Mayor Kay Barnes: improve the lighting in the area, install surveillance cameras and face-recognition software. Then the cops could keep an eye on the area, and eventually identify wanted criminals and track those on probation. Wherefore I will send this journal entry over to the mayor and to the city manager and the City Council.
http://www.metropolitancondo.com
Thursday, January 13, 2005
The Unemployment Corner: the Ideal Resume
It is crucial for unemployed people who want off the Unemployment Corner to study the employment market to determine what employers are looking for in employees and to draft their resumes accordingly. I happen to be a generalist, so I studied the want ads, found out what employers generally want, then wrote the resume below. I sent out 6,000 copies yesterday, and am looking forward to the results.
Good Man Desperately Seeking Work!
Extremely well organized, detail-oriented, self-starting, fast-talking, highly self-motivated and ambitious career-minded player with can-do attitude and excellent communication skills seeks key place on winning team. Energetic self-starter, eager to roll sleeves up and hit the ground running to meet deadlines for cutting-edge, rapidly expanding, fast-paced company. Works best under pressure with hands on. Dynamic, multi-tasking, customer-driven, high-expectations environment preferred. Loves constant change and long hours. Willing to make sacrifices, up to three chickens a week - will sacrifice wife when married.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Once Land of Liberty,
Of Thee I sing.
Land of the millionaire;
Farmers with pockets bare,
Caused by the cursed snare -
The Money Ring.
Blaming Kemper
I am just a greenhorn in Kansas City. If I am to believe everything I hear from the steers around here, someone named Kemper is to blame for everything that is wrong with Kansas City - never mind the mayors, city managers, police chiefs, prosecutors and judges, for they do as they are told.
Of course there are a number of Kempers in the Kemper Dynasty, but urban lore reduces them to a single, representative Kemper, the one who is to blame. Never mind the Hall Dynasty, for what's not to like about a Hallmark Moment? or the Crayon Center? No kidding, Crown Center is a beautifully designed, heart-warming, all-of-a-piece mini-city, with cars neatly tucked away out of sight; but Kemper's downtown Kansas City is a chaotic mess of towers and historic gaps, all because cautious Kemper held up progress downtown - that is what Unnamed Sources say. Kemper could always make a killing elsewhere while also making a tidy gain downtown, they say, by personally buying up blocks here and there and selling them off piecemeal, hence that gutted-out, downtown look - alas, the architects went from Classicism to Modernism, skipping the Gothic. Rumor also has it that Kemper's banks would not loan money to the buyers of his real estate, for that would be a conflict of interest, and that Kemper did not believe in the projects anyway, so why take the risk?
At least that is the dirt on the street. I verified it at the downtown library. For instance, I found a confirming photocopy of the April 1967 issue of Fortune in the Missouri Valley Room. Jeremy Main wrote that, "With some justification, several of the city's other businessmen accuse the Kempers of failing to use their wealth and influence to stimulated the growth of Kansas City. Says a local real-estate developer, 'Banking in this town has sat on its rump.' "
The author mistakenly states that the Kempers "rarely attract attention even in Kansas City." He says, "The Kansas City Star seldom mentions them."
That is not quite true. Everybody talks about Kemper on the street. He was a Pendergast police commissioner; he was the National Democratic Committeeman for thirty to forty years; he ran for several offices; he created quite a fuss with his peers from time to time - that is all on the public record. Of course when critics are quoted by the Star, they turn out to be Unnamed Sources whether they praise or blame Kemper. "A friend" dares not be identified lest he be blamed for something; and that is as it should be, for Kemper must be blamed for everything.
"If it weren't for Kemper, we would have had an arena downtown years ago. The plans were already drawn, but he wanted it in the Bottoms," said one of my own unnamed sources. "Kemper killed the trolley," quoth another unnamed source. "Kemper won't let us have a grocery store or a clothing store downtown," said another. And, "Kemper doesn't like bars so we don't have much entertainment downtown."
So Kemper is to blame for everything gone wrong with downtown Kansas City. And he doesn't really care what we think because he knows he is right. He has solved everything himself: he does not have to ask or listen, he can dismiss us and walk away. Thus sayeth certain unnamed allegation alligators.
So what? What every local beefhead knows is hardly newsworthy, although the herd would buy more papers from Baron Nelson aka Colonel Nelson (founder of the Star) if he bothered to hire a competent gossip columnist to talk dirt and use a few fighting words.
Twinkle, twinkle, little Star,
Bright and gossipy you are;
We candidly hear you speak,
For a paltry dime a week." (1)
But try wait! While the steers were butting heads and kicking up dirt, maybe the Star missed the really big, international story under foot, that Kemper may be a major cause of the War on Iraq! The facts are there - all one has to do is to remember the conservative law of thermodynamics and follow the watering holes and the Kaw to Kawsmouth.
Think about it. Why did Kemper marry a Crosby and move from Kansas, popularly known as the Great American Desert, to Kansas City in Missouri, the Great Blue Country? Go figure. The Kempers made cannon balls for General Washington, and the Crosbys established sound banking, meaning conservative banking. War and Money: a good match.
"Come Kansas City, make your story brief;
Here stands a city built o' bread and beef."(2)
Now consider the Legal Conservation of Energy. Seed plants that stand together in patches like wheat and corn convert energy into seed. If it were not for catastrophes such as floods and high winds to spread the seed, that would be a bad strategy for survival - other plants stand together and diversify their energy investments according to a division of labor that stabilizes the vegetation. Cultivation of seed crops amounts to a controlled catastrophe or regular revolution by means of plowing and irrigation. The human population explosion resulting from the supply of the concentrated energy source created a much greater demand than the good old cultivation methods supplied; wherefore the so-called "green" revolution. Outside energy had to be brought in to grow the crops; namely fertilizer - also good for making bombs. A lot of the seed crop is used to feed livestock. Of course a great deal more energy is needed to manufacture and employ the machinery used in cultivation, processing, and distribution.
To make a long story short, it takes at least one calorie of oil, and more like ten calories, to produce one calorie of processed food. If everyone on Earth ate like Kansas Citians, who weigh on the average ten pounds more than other urban dwellers because they drive more and exercise less, known oil reserves would be depleted in about ten years. That is why various plans to seize the oil fields in the Middle East have been in place for many years. Kemper could very well be in on that conspiracy. Think about it.
Advocates of such nefarious plans speak in Social Darwinian, Machiavellian and Hobbesian terms, in terms of world-power-state politik, real politics, neoconservative or pseudo-conservative, anti-liberal politics, and so on. They deliberately advocate deception as policy: hypocrisy, prevarification, outright lying. Their hackneyed phrases are legion: survival of the fittest, might makes right, Invisible Hand, and other anglo-american-saxon barbarisms - they abuse the pagan term for the deity. Of course sentimental humanism is despised. Patriotism is preached while the Constitution is subverted. Social programs taxing the wealthy must be gotten rid of. The poor are poor because they are weak, the wealthy are strong because they are wealthy. Greed is good. The business of government should be business unrestricted by democratic and even representative government, that deregulation may prevail until there is no competition left. Most of the strength is inherited nowadays, in the form of wealth, not moral or physical worth, thus we find a race of highly educated morons in high places.
Now, then, the Great American Desert is the Bread Basket of America. One does not need a neoconservative brain-washing to link the Heart of America and its bankers with Iraq and the Bush War on Iraq. Did not Kemper move from Kansas to Kansas City with a banker's daughter a century or so ago to get into the grain-mill business and to establish sound banking? And would not regional economics eventually require him to be a neoconservative; to wrap himself in the flag, to join the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies; to write a book about how fascism influenced him; to be a member of a vast right-wing conspiracy; to support a right-wing authoritarian government (OED: 'fascist'); to otherwise support the survival of his fortune by any means possible, including the Bush War on Iraq? And if all that were not his destiny, why did he not stay in Kansas and become a bank-hating radical?
Oh, Kansas fools! Poor Kansas Fools!
The banker makes of you a fool...." (3)
Excuse me, I got carried away. No insult to Kemper intended. Kemper cause the Iraq War? How absurd! Or, rather, what a great man if he did! We need to eat, so secure that oil and let the crumbs trickle down! Vast right-wing conspiracy? According to the Star, Kemper scoffed at the notion of a "nefarious right-wing conspiracy." So what if members of his group took pivotal positions in the Bush administration?The positions were well deserved. The economy is recovering and adultery and sodomy, the conservative's worst nightmares, are declining, or we hope so.
Of this we can be certain: wherever evil is found some good will also be found. Of course this is not the place to mention all the wonderful things Kemper has done for Kansas City. Maybe next time. Instead of blaming Kemper for everything, we should ask Baron Nelson to have one of his journalists provide us with a fair and balanced book on Kemper's major deals since he and Charlotte arrived in Kansas City with their son in 1893. After considering the circumstances of them all, maybe Kemper would get more praise than blame.
1) by Eugene Field
2) by C.L. Edson
3) popular song during the Populist movement c.1890
