Larry Johnson reports back to work on Monday. His suspension will be over, and the news about his homophobic slurs and criticism of his coach will be forgotten and everyone will kiss and make up.
Uh, probably not.
Fans are banding together to keep LJ on the sidelines and away from the Chiefs' all-time leading rusher record.
They're circulating a petition/letter to general manager Scott Pioli, asking him to keep LJ off the field and 80 yards shy of the record.
But where were these fans when LJ was acting like a dick but playing well? That's what Comment of the Week winner Rampage asked on this post:
So Larry Johnson is an immature jerk. Well the K.C. fans help him get
that way. All the adulation when he was performing well. The times he
committed his off field offenses, the Chiefs and their fans welcomed
him back with welcoming arms. Who cares if he become the Chiefs leading
rusher? Just trade him at the end of the season. Maybe holding the
Chiefs rushing record will make him more valuable in a deal with some
other team.
As of earlier today, 28,892 people had signed the petition. Maybe they'll get what they deserve.
Stop being so touchy-feely with first responders. In Peter Rugg's feature, "Stop Hugging Us," Kansas City psychiatrists with experience from one of Kansas City's worst disasters -- the Hyatt skywalk collapse -- tell grief counselors to back off and stop making first responders talk about what they've seen.
Ann Suellentrop of Physicians for Social Responsibility
Anti-nuke activists turned out to protest this morning's meeting of the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, whose board voted unanimously to approve a development agreement to build a new weapons facility at Highway 150 and Botts Road. The National Nuclear Security Administration Campus will replace Honeywell's 60-year-old factory on Bannister Road, which manufactures 85 percent of the non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons under a contract with the U.S. government.
During the public comments period, representatives from several peace organizations, including Physicians for Social Responsibility and PeaceWorks KC, voiced their disapproval. Ron Faust, a minister with the Disciples of Christ, read a poem he'd written. Then, Theodore "Priest" Hughes and Desmond "337" Jones, a pair of spoken-word artists who call themselves The Recipe, performed a piece called "Self-Destruction." I found a video of the duo performing the same piece at another event; try to imagine this happening in the stodgy context of a board meeting:
UMKC's production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia closes this Sunday, before our next issue goes to press. Because it's a fine production of a play touched with greatness, we're running a review here, now. Also, the review doesn't mention lights or sound or costumes, which all were fine, because, Christ, have you ever tried to summarize Arcadia?
Kristi Lewczenko
Zachary M. Andrews and Anna Safar
Just a year or so back, when UMKC's Graduate Theatre Department often outdid the Repertory Theatre with which it shares a building, no theater event would get me worked up as much as the department's annual visit of faintly notorious director Barry Kyle of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
These days, the Rep is at last boxing in its weight class, but a Kyle show remains an event, a rousing education not just for his grad students but for anyone who appreciates ambitious theater.
Taking on Arcadia, Tom Stoppard's heady stab at a theory of everything, Kyle forgos his grand flourishes and instead contents himself with setting in motion a little galaxy. His cast circles about debating truth and beauty, thought and feeling, order and chaos, sometimes reckless and human but by the end waltzing along like the spheres of the ancients.
For all his daring and the relative lavishness of his productions, Kyle distinguishes this show by force and clarity of movement, by the way each stride or pause is a small revelation.
In his chronicle of walking from Kansas City to Helena, Montana,Patrick Dobson proves that in literature, as in life, there's a fine line between cozy and boring.
The premise of Seldom Seen, Dobson's first book (released in September from the University of Nebraska Press), is promising because it's at once universal and escapist. We've all been -- or known -- the antsy guy who's uninspired by his blue-collar job and knows he's got precious little time to experience something worthwhile. And we've all dreamed of giving up the 9 to 5 and disappearing down a long road bound for who-knows-what.
OK, maybe not everybody dreams of quitting their job, leaving their young daughter and hoofing it across the Great Plains. But that's how Dobson decides to confront a crisis of identity -- and anyone who picks up this book is going to be eager to see what will happen.
But instead of diving into a revelatory travelogue, the reader sinks into overwrought sentiment and encounters a cast of characters that might confirm outsiders' disregard for the fly-over communities Dobson so desperately wants to romanticize.
We're getting reports of planned alcohol and snack consumption this weekend in honor of two anniversaries: the 150th of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species and the 10th for Kansas Citizens for Science.
Among the celebrities expected to show up: Josh Rosenau, the science blogger who distinguished himself as one of the nation's best (even more impressive: He was our Best Blogger) while writing Thoughts from Kansas during the 2005 "debate" about evolution. He's now the Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California.
Tonight at Johnson County Community College, Rosenau joins biology professor Paul Decelles and retired economics professor David Burress for a panel called "150 Years On, What's All the Fuss About Evolution, Science Education and Church and State?" It's moderated by Harry McDonald, a former Blue Valley biology teacher.
Tomorrow, Rosenau's homecoming tour continues when he helps the Kansas Citizens for Science throw a party in honor of their ten years promoting decent education.
We got Rosenau on the phone to reminisce.
What were some high and low points for Kansas Citizens for Science during the last decade?
I got to Kansas and started grad school in 2000 -- right after the first bout on the school board [in 1999, the Kansas Board of Education approved state science standards that included no mention of evolution]. Everyone was really embarrassed. I'd be looking at apartments in Lawrence, and I'd say, "I'm here to study ecology and human biology," or I'd say I was in the biology department, and people would say, "Oh, we're so sorry. That'll never happen again" -- and five years later it did.
In 2000, people had gotten very fired up and involved across the political spectrum. The governor at the time, [Republican] Bill Graves, was opposed to the changes, and when the science standards [reinstating evolution] passed the school board, everyone sort of said, OK, we're done, we don't have to worry about it. In 2004, Kansas Citizens for Science still existed, but its membership wasn't as engaged as it had been. People had stopped paying attention.
Yesterday's massacre at Fort Hood was a nightmare scenario. A fellow soldier allegedly turns on his own, killing 13 and wounding 31.
One of the injured was Keara Bono of Olathe. The 21-year-old was reportedly shot in the shoulder.
The Kansas City Star has a chilling story about Keara Bono's experience.
Her family said she was on the phone with her husband, Joey Torkelson, when the shooting started. He heard shots, and then screams, and then the phone went dead.
Thankfully for the Bono family, Keara Bono is expected to make a full recovery.
Councilwoman Cindy Circo chairs the steering committee. Campaign records indicate that her campaign paid KC Consulting five payments of $4,000 over the first five months of 2007, the year Circo won her seat.
Three people have been charged with kidnapping Carol Thomas.
Excelsior Springs police say 23-year-old James P. Reardon, 21-year-old
Jennifer L. Saling and 29-year-old Erik R. Zimmerman have been charged
with felony kidnapping in Clay County.
A red Grand AM that authorities believe was
used in the kidnapping was found torched near Lawson -- about
20, 25 minutes away from Excelsior Springs.
Thomas' body was found yesterday in rural Ray County.
These appear to be Zimmerman's Facebook and MySpace pages. His last login was October 11. His mood is set to "frusterated" and his page is headlined with this: "Things have got 2 change before i snap-out and get real stupid." His profile says he's a "proud parent," and there are several photos of a toddler.
A Johnson County judge denied bond yesterday for Jill Conaghan, the 19-year-old woman charged with involuntary manslaughter and driving under the influence in connection with the hit-and-run death of an Overland Park woman.
The Kansas City Star reports
that the judge refused to lower Conaghan's bond due to her history of
drug abuse. The judge even said her abuse of drugs left him "genuinely
concerned about public safety."
Meanwhile, Conaghan's defense attorneys argued in favor of allowing her to finish an out-of-state, drug-treatment program.
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