Kansas City News Blog

BULLETED WHATEVER IN BRIEF:

• Recreational drinkers at La Cygne Reservoir in La Cygne, Kansas will have to conceal their cans of malt liquor in paper sacks from now on, pending the enactment of some unfun new regulations.
• A Baptist minister in St. Joe learned the hard way that all preteen girls on the internet are actually police officers with an interest in Hannah Montana and Juicy brand couture.
• Pirates are not actually charming androgynous rogues, it turns out.
• The Midwest is studying at night to get its degrees in computer programming, network administration and Web design! 
• Missouri voters continue to support zombie candidates for political office.

Hair Club for Commandantes en Jefe: U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, he of the miraculous advancing hairline, has come back from a life-changing diplomatic trip to Cuba and determined that we can take years off the appearance of the U.S.-Cuban relationship by covering the "bald spot" of the 50-year-old U.S. embargo with the "microscopic follicular unit hair transplant procedure" of increased diplomatic ties. Henceforth, everything I write about the political career of Emanuel Cleaver will be framed in the marketing terminology of the hair replacement industry.

"We meet with despots all over the world," Cleaver told the Kansas City Star, running a hand through his luxuriously thick head of hair. "What we've done in the U.S., which is tragic, is we've let some Cubans who left Cuba in the 1950's dictate national foreign policy," he added before diving into a pool and swimming confidently to the opposite side. Personally, I'd like to blame all the world's ills on people from the 1950s, with their stupid Big Bopper records, their Cialis prescriptions and their coming-of-age memories about hiking through the Maine countryside to see a dead body. Let's blame everything from global warming to nuclear proliferation on Fonzie and move toward some kind of mini-micrografting solution that nobody will notice, no matter how close they get.

Centaur Bodies Revealed: Union Station will host a traveling exhibit based on C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia in an effort to attract families. I never saw the new films, but I remember watching an animated version on TV when I was a kid and being subsequently disappointed to discover that Edmund Pevensie had betrayed his siblings in exchange for the second filthiest-tasting candy I'd ever eaten, Turkish Delight. The filthiest-tasting candy I ever ate was a tamarind lollipop covered in chili powder. In an effort to trick children into eating tamarind candies, I'm going to write a young adult fantasy novel in which one of the main characters sells his entire family into slavery in exchange for an everlasting tamarind gobstopper lollipop covered in chili powder, and if I can win myself a fancy Newberry medal in the process, believe me when I say that I will wear that fucker everywhere I go. Because nothing says "Safe for Kids" like an embossed Newberry medal pressed into the dust jacket of a book. I assume the same thing would be true for a dude wearing a Newberry medal, or even eight or twelve, like a confidence-inspiring Michael Phelps of excellence in children's literature. Having gained their trust, I will then sell those children short-term, high-interest loans and make a million dollars, the end.