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In honor of the upcoming patriotic holiday, here's our list of local people and places that, for better or worse, constitute hallmarks of quintessential Americanness.

10. George Brett. A hall-of-famer in the great American pastime, hero to many a baseball-loving kid, turns out to be insufferable in real life.

9. Kris Kobach. This UMKC law professor, former head of the Kansas Republican Party and current candidate for Kansas Secretary of State, made a name for himself in the classic American tradition of opposing a certain kind of immigrant.

8. Honeywell's Kansas City Plant. The plant makes "non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons" (as if that "non-nuclear" specification makes our city somehow less a part of the arms race); it's slated for a $673 million upgrade.  

A faint but strong heart beats for 18th and Vine. That much was obvious last Tuesday night, when a crowd packed the lobby of the Gem Theater to take part in what might sound like one of the most boring activities of good citizenship: a city planning meeting.

At least a hundred people showed up to hear what City Hall had in mind for the district -- and  listening to City Hall talk about 18th and Vine can be emotionally risky. After all, it's been a long time since Emanuel Cleaver's administration, when we dumped the first $20 million into the district's rehab (with tens of millions to follow). If City Hall had delivered on the promise back then, 18th and Vine would have been jumping for years now.

"In the past, there have been a lot of plans and initiatives," Chris Cline, one of the people working on the plan, told the audience. This one, he said, would be different. The new Black Heritage District Economic Development Plan will incorporate all of those past efforts "into a strategy that can see things built."

...we feel compelled to say so. Especially since we are so often obligated to point out the senator's faulty intelligence, as David Martin does so well in his column this week.

Yesterday, Brownback announced that the Senate had passed a resolution apologizing for "the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans."

Brownback had sponsored the resolution along with Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. In his speech, Harkin pointed out all of the ways in which the U.S. government had perpetuated the unjust legacies of slavery:

Numerous states and even corporations such as J.P. Morgan and Aetna have apologized for their role in slavery and Jim Crow. But slavery and Jim Crow, and their continuing consequences are not the historical baggage of one state, one region, or one company. They are an enduring national shame. It was the nation that enshrined slavery in the Constitution and Congress that passed laws such as the Missouri Compromise and Fugitive Slave Act. It was the nation's Supreme Court which bolstered slavery and affirmed segregation in Dred Scott vs. Sandford and Plessey vs. Ferguson. This resolution acknowledges and apologizes for a past collective injustice. And it is long over-due.

Brownback, meanwhile, focused a bit more on Kansas -- where, at the moment, he appears certain to be the next governor.

Recently, a controversy down in Springfield provoked some strong language.

As the mayor and city council struggled with cutting the city budget, one service they thought could be eliminated was city's Human Rights Commission, which investigates discrimination complaints. Earlier this month, the council cut the commission's funding from $68,000 to a measly $1,000. During that meeting, the Human Rights Commission's executive director, Kathy Clancy, begging the council to save her agency, said that "Springfield is seen as one of the most racist cities in Missouri."

Knowing nothing about Springfield, I can only imagine Clancy's reasons for giving her city that ignominious distinction (her official press release provides some insight).

But it made me wonder whether Springfield really was the state's most racist city. Because I've always thought Kansas City could be a contender for that designation.

Health and Human Services Secretary (and former Kansas Governor) Kathleen Sebelius worked the Sunday morning talk-show circuit yesterday. The topic was health-care reform. ABC's George Stephanopoulos thinks the "news" he got out of their conversation was that "the secretary wouldn't commit to a presidential veto on health care reform legislation that adds to the federal deficit." He seemed most concerned about how Obama plans to pay for covering everyone. More helpful, however, would be some serious discussion about what exactly the administration means -- and doesn't mean -- by a "public plan."

Stephanopoulos noted that there's some congressional resistance to "any public plan" -- one in which the government would help cover people who don't have insurance.

Last week, the local Republican talking-point-trio of Reps. Roy Blunt, Sam Graves and Lynn Jenkins weighed in with an "As I See It" opinion piece in The Kansas City Star. Headlined "GOP offers constructive options to improve access to health care," the piece promised constructive conversation but offered only alarmist rhetoric that Republicans really, really want you to believe.

Oh sure, they spent the first five paragraphs sounding reasonable. But that was only a wind-up for their scary main point:

Breaking non-news in a statement from Sen. Sam Brownback, who met with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor yesterday:

I asked for and appreciated my meeting with Judge Sotormayor today. I wanted to hear more from her as I have serious concerns about her philosophy as it relates to an activist judiciary. Unfortunately I did not hear anything in our meeting that allayed those concerns. As Chief Justice Roberts said, a justice should be an impartial umpire, not a player in the game. I am afraid Judge Sotomayor wants to be more of a player than an umpire.

No details on how Brownback came to that conclusion, though he promises to elaborate in a floor speech "in the near future." What are the chances he'll say what he really means: We like a judicial activist when she's on our side, but when she's on the other side, judicial activism is bad, very bad.

Until then, he says "There are still questions about her rulings on the 2nd Circuit" -- but again, no details, only an argument that "the timeline for her hearing is too soon. To give this nominee proper consideration, senators from both sides of the aisle should be given ample time to effectively and completely review her record."

Way to sound deeply serious and thoughtful, senator.

Kansas Sen. Jim Barnett at his day job.

The Wichita Eagle reported yestserday that Kansas Sen. Jim Barnett, a Republican from Emporia, will run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Although competition will likely be fierce for the seat currently held by Jerry Moran, Barnett's entry into the race is good news for Kansas. Barnett is moderate, smart and respectful -- Washington badly needs Republicans like him.

I got to know Barnett while working on an April story about Kathleen Sebelius' efforts at health-care reform in Kansas. Barnett, who is a physician, did the best he could amid a legislative environment that's generally hostile to anything approaching real reform.

Here's wishing him luck. He'll need it.

Business was booming on Monday at the Liberty Memorial and the National World War I Museum, where people who were serious about observing Memorial Day came to pay their respects. One of the long weekend's events was a panel discussion on "The Relevance and Importance of African Americans in World War I."

Speaking that day were history professors Pellom McDaniels of UMKC and Chad Williams of Hamilton College in New York. McDaniels may be more widely known in Kansas City as a defensive lineman for the Chiefs in the 1990s, but these days he's a scholar and an educator.

On Monday, he started off with a few thoughts on The Flying Ace, a 1926 "action" movie whose hero is an African-American fighter pilot, just back from WWI, now working as a railroad detective charged with recovering $25,000 in missing money. The film's director was a white guy named Richard E. Norman, who, McDaniels noted, sought to create authentic representations of African Americans -- as doctors, lawyers, bankers. "The community as it was, not as it was imagined," McDaniels said.

In doing so, McDaniels said, Norman created a "site of memory, recalling the participation of African-American men during the great war, imbuing them with the character of a fighter pilot, with their integrity and heroism." Only one problem: "There were no African-American fliers during World War I."

When I heard the New York Times was planning a piece about our mayor, I expected something deep, probing, thoughtful. When I read Saturday's story, I couldn't figure out why they even bothered. If you're editing the national paper of record, and your financial situation is bleak, why devote precious resources to a story about Kansas City if you can't find a way to make it relevant to your national audience?

The mayor looked appropriately outsider-y in the New York Times photo.

Seems to me a New York Times story about Mayor Mark Funkhouser's troubles could at least set it amid the same tensions that trouble other major American cities. Funkhouser exacerbated longstanding, unresolved racial issues when he appointed Frances Semler and tried to fire Wayne Cauthen -- but the Times devotes less than a sentence to each of those crucial points in Funkhouser's tragic tragectory. And what about our inner city's decimated landscape -- other major cities suffer the same sort of blight, while tax breaks supposedly meant to heal the wounds of neglect instead just prop up privileged places (the Plaza, Briarcliff). Funkhouser promised to help with the sort of basic infrastructure problems that make this city so frustrating to live in. I'll give him credit for getting a lot of metal plates off of the streets, but one of the most frustrating things about his administration is that, at this point, it's pretty obvious he won't be able to bring prosperity -- or many new curbs -- to long-ignored neighborhoods. The Times' Kansas City story could have been a cautionary tale for idealistic yet politically unskilled "outsiders" in other cities across the country; instead, we mostly just get more Gloria.

From its emotionally distant perspective on our town, I'd hoped the Times might tell us something we didn't already know. I guess we already know too much.

In case anyone's still worrying about those Guantanamo Bay prisoners (more likely you're worrying about ditching work for the long holiday weekend), here are a couple of Friday-afternoon videos that pretty much sum up the level of political discourse on that issue this week.

Ironic:


Wish it was ironic:


Thanks to Glenn Greenwald at Salon for bringing them to our attention -- and for agreeing with us, only much more articulately.