Here's one for the 'Cats

I was at a graduation ceremony for my little sister at my alma mater a few weeks ago and snapped this pic of renovations and expansion of the Vanier Football Complex.

The expansion will include new end-zone seating and scoreboards and video screens for Snyder Family Stadium, a hydrotherapy training center as well as office and locker room renovation. Total cost is projected at $4.3 million with Via Christi Health System donating three quarters of a million ducats.



Here's some more info if there are any interested Wildcats reading.
Oh, yeah. I guess I should say congrats to the Texas Longhorns. Um. Congrats on winning the Mythical National Championship. I'm glad it's back in the Big XII.
tagged: KSU, K-State, college football, hydrotherapy , Rose Bowl

Swing and a miss

While we're on the subject of news media, let's hand it to the national "journalists" for the great way they handled the announcement of 12 survivors of a collapsed coal mine in West Virginia.

Oh, um, er wait a minute, now that you're celebrating, make that 12 dead coal miners.

Sorry for the bad reporting miscommunication.

Bravo, guys. Really, top notch.

tagged: media, miner, journalism

Stop the presses

C.W. Gusewelle is afraid he'll lose his job. And with good reason.

Gusewelle, a long-time columnist for the KC Star, recently wrote about the pending sale of the local fish wrap and how it's the fourth time in 50 years and it's bad for the employees, community, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

As a former cog in the daily newspaper machine, I guess I can sympathize with him. There's a saying that you can make a small fortune in the newspaper business, if you start with a large fortune. And that's why I'm a former cog in the daily newspaper machine. Even eight years ago, I could see the writing was on the wall for the traditional print newspaper.

Don't get me wrong, there's still a place for the printed word. I don't think there will ever be a time (at least in my lifetime) when we won't have printed newspaper.

But there has been a steady decline in newspaper subscriptions for years. The simple sad fact is that newspapers just can't compete with the immediacy of broadcast and the Internet, nor the depth of magazines and books. And while there are still a lot of advertising dollars to be had in newspapers, online and mobile media will continue to erode this revenue base.

All of this doesn't even factor in the growing irrelevance of the content of all traditional media as media consumers become more and more savvy and skeptical of the political and corporate interests at play. And the fact that so-called journalists think themselves important enough to devote 30 column-inches to the plight of the local rag is an example of the pompous audacity that so many of us find off-putting.

So now is a good time for Knight-Ridder to cash in on their investment. As for Gusewelle, I'm sure he'll ride out the storm for a few more years and then retire to a teaching position at a nice liberal arts college.

The rest of Kansas City won't even notice that there's been a change.

tagged: media, newspapers, journalism, Kansas City Star, Knight-Ridder, Internet

That didn't take long

After notching an impressive 127 homicides in 2005, Kansas City, Mo., is off to try to beat that record in 2006.

The first murder of the new year happened just an hour and a half in to 2006. It came in the form of a severe bludgeoning (is there any other kind) in the 1600 block of Topping Avenue on, you guessed it, the city's east side.

But the city does have some catching up to do. By the second day of 2005, Kansas Citians had already killed 5 people. So come on east siders, let's get with the program. Those victims aren't going to murder themselves you know.

tagged: murder, homicide, Kansas City

A good year so far

Happy 2006!

My supermodel wife and I had planned a quit New Year's Eve with our neighbors. We figured their two kids (5-year-old and 2-year-old) would have a good time playing with our 3-year-old daughter while we played cards, watched the ball drop, drank Champagne, etc.

Little did I know that there's no such thing as a quiet evening with my neighbors' kids.

I swear this is not an exaggeration. Within five minutes of the kids coming over, they had every single toy, crayon and stuffed animal my daughter owns out on her bedroom floor. You couldn't walk through the room. You could barely open the door.

Five minutes. It was like the Tasmanian Devil went whirlwind in the room.

Now don't get me wrong, we've got great neighbors. Terrific people, you couldn't ask for better neighbors to live next door to. But man, those kids.

Anyway, a quiet night at home wasn't to be had. But regardless, it has been a good year so far.

tagged: Happy New Year, kids, neighbors

Christmas hangover

Ingredients:

• One SUV crammed with two-months salary worth of gifts for inlaws
  
• One three-year-old
  
• 400 miles worth of open highway to drive
  
• Inlaws (any amount will do)
  
• Four heavy Christmas dinners with all the "fixin's"

Directions: Combine ingredients and set tension level to medium for two days. On the third day, raise tension level to high and allow to boil over. Serve and enjoy.

Damn it's good to be home. 4 Christmases in 5 days is way too much holly freakin' jolly for me. I just settled in with a nice glass of eggnog that I make out of bourbon and nothing else.

Anyway, I have a lot of Christmas horror stories, some of which I might share. Actually, though, it wasn't all bad. I did get a few things from my wishlist. Plus I'm still on vacation for a few more days, so I've got that going for me.

Well, here's to wishing you all a happy post-Christmas recovery.

tagged: Christmas, hangover, bourbon

Hello? It's your big brother calling

Here’s one that will send shivers down the spines of the paranoids.

A New York judge has granted the government its request to be able to track the position of cell phone without first getting a warrant.

I can see Dan going into convulsions already.

In related news, the government has also declared 2 plus 2 to be 5, War is now Peace, Ignorance is Strength, and Freedom is Slavery.
tagged: cell phone, spying, Big Brother, news, George Orwell, Government

Even in New Jersey

I saw the governor of New Jersey wasn't happy with the state's new slogan, "New Jersey, we'll win you over," for which they paid a consultant a cool quarter of a million tomatoes.

Meh, it could be worse. But in an effort to get more entries, N.J Governor Richard Codey announced a contest open to NJ residents to come up with a new state slogan. Unfortunately, he didn't count on the sarcasm of his constituents.

The slogan committee has already had to weed out suggestions like "Come to New Jersey: It's not as bad as it smells."

Luckily, being from Kansas I have some recent experience with this sort of thing, so I’ve taken it upon myself to add a few of my own suggestions. Just PayPal me the $260,000, Gov. Codey.

• New Jersey: Keeping it in the Family
  
• New Jersey: Everyone’s a Soprano
  
• New Jersey: Neither New, nor a Jersey
  
• New Jersey: More than just a turnpike
  
• New Jersey: The State Shaped Like an Appendix

tagged: New Jersey, Kansas, state motto, news, Sopranos

Give my regrets to Broadway

All right. Enough is enough. You're having a little trouble with your commute. We get it.

But it's not a national news story.

I think I can speak for the vast majority of North America when I tell the spoiled public transportation brats of New York that I'm tired of hearing about their problems all the time.

For the last few days in the news it's all "Transit strike snarls NYC for 2nd day"-this and Judge fines NYC transit workers $1 million a day"-that.

Well, here's a news flash for New Yorkers.

"Most of country has own problems to deal with."

Here in KC we've got a skyrocketing East-side murder epidemic, they've got wings falling off of airplanes in Miami, and let's not forget about the dire plight of European Union relations.

So sorry, NY, if I'm not that sympathetic with the fact that you'll have to walk a few blocks to get to that fancy Italian bistro. You're just going to have to deal with it. I mean, fer cryin' out loud, this isn't France.

tagged: New York, transit strike,commute, news, Miami, Kansas City, European Union

Black talk

Sunday night I watched an interview of actor Morgan Freeman on 60 Minutes. Not my usual Sunday night viewing fare, but I was too busy clipping my toenails to change the channel.

Anyway, Freeman made a comment that was spot on something that's been going through my mind a lot lately. Interviewer Mike Wallace asked the tough question about what Americans should do to end racism.

Freeman's answer? "Stop talking about it."

"I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn't say, "‘Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace."’ You know what I'm sayin'."”

I do know what he's sayin'. It pretty much goes against the politically correct left, that segment of society that says in order to respect other races we must make sure to recognize (label) them.

This is something that was on the forefront of my mind a few weeks ago when my alma mater announced a new head football coach. University bigwigs and media mouthpieces alike proclaimed that KSU's hiring of former University of Virginia assistant Ron Prince was a seminal moment in college sports.

Newspaper articles proclaimed "KSU hires black head coach" and "KSU makes Prince 4th black head coach." Columnists wrote about the great opportunity and pressure on this black head coach.

Unfortunately, the theme couldn't be around "KSU new young head coach" or "KSU's promising new head coach."

Maybe someday we'll get to a point where race truly doesn't matter, when there won't be any black Americans, Asian Americans, Latino or Hispanic Americans. Maybe someday, we'll all just be Americans.

But I think in order for that to happen, we'll have to take Freeman's advice and stop talking about it.

tagged: race, black, Morgan Freeman, 60 Minutes, KSU, Ron Prince