Kansas City News Blog

​Voters renewed the COMBAT anti-drug sales tax yesterday by a large margin: more than 71 percent of the vote.

But let's be clear about the "overwhelming" support for the tax; less than seven percent of Kansas City's registered voters actually went to the polls (according to The Kansas City Star's report today).

All the glossy mailers and yard signs helped pass the tax, but having an apathetic electorate also didn't hurt.

Author and minor television personality John Hodgman might best be known to your mom and dad as the charming portrayer of PC in Apple's funny, iconic Mac/PC advertisements, but you probably know him as The Daily Show's "Resident Expert" and the author of two totally unresearched, totally untrue almanacs of fake trivia: The Areas of My Expertise and its direct continuation (as proven by the page numbering), More Information Than You Require.

Hodgman also contributes to McSweeney's and edits the humor section of the New York Times Magazine. He played minor parts in Tina Fey's Baby Mama, Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Battlestar Galactica. Hodgman will be in town for a reading at Unity Temple on the Plaza on November 6, and The Pitch spoke with him by phone this week. After the jump, MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE about John Hodgman:

Pat Roberts

​This just in -- the best reporting so far on one of the biggest local mysteries in the health-care reform debate: Where's Pat Roberts?

Even though the quotable Senator from Kansas sits on both the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, he has "No fingerprints on health reform," according to stories published earlier this week by the Kansas Health Institute.

Reporting from Washington, the KHI's Mike Shields writes:

U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas has been colorful, sharp spoken and consistent in opposing the health reform plans currently before Congress, but has he influenced the debate?

After all, he sits on the two most important committees in the Senate, the two that have written the upper chamber's reform plans.

The answer is: Apparently not.

Shields goes on to detail Roberts' role -- or lack thereof -- in the ongoing national discussion about the country's most important domestic issue. In a related article, Roberts talks about his interactions with former Kansas Governor and current Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the issue, and Bob Dole's recent entry into the debate.

In the new-journalism landscape, information sources like the Kansas Health Institute are becoming just as valuable as traditional news outlets -- if not moreso. Shields previously worked as an editor for the Lawrence Journal-World; in June, he told Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy that, at the KHI, he "finds himself in the odd position of having the largest state house bureau as well as being the largest provider of health news in Kansas."

​

Jason Whitlock and friends

​Kansas City Star and Fox Sports columnist and noted fitness expert and master gardener Jason Whitlock apologized to Rush Limbaugh for last week's column in which he used a couple of unsourced quotes attributed to Limbaugh by Jack Huberman in his book 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America. These two to be exact:

• "You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray (Dr. King's assassin). We miss you, James. Godspeed."

• "Let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

Limbaugh denies saying either.  And now Whitlock is sorry for using the unverified quotes. As I pointed out, there's a volume of work for Whitlock to pull from. He didn't have to use these quotes. And he knows it.

What really irritates me about my column last week is that I certainly didn't need the quotes to make my point.

He's right. Even though he apologized, Whitlock didn't back down from his stand that a man with Limbaugh's cache --  a man with the reputation of a little-blue-pill-popping sex tourist -- doesn't belong among the NFL's owners.

The word from Whitlock:

I'd write the exact same column if [Al] Sharpton and [Jesse] Jackson tried to buy a piece of the Chicago Bears.

It doesn't matter that many of the owners enjoy Limbaugh's hustle or agree with his politics. They earned or inherited their money legitimately, and they don't spend three hours a day on the radio trying to stir up racial animosity.

If that's not clear enough, think of it this way: Steve Hirsch, the founder of Vivid Entertainment, is wealthy enough to buy a piece of an NFL franchise. Porn is legal, enjoyed by many football fans and probably a few owners. No one would think twice if the NFL declined to associate its brand with Hirsch. No one would think it unusual or unfair if feminists and sportswriters objected to Hirsch purchasing an NFL franchise.

Solid point. Now can we get back to writing about "strange tang," already? Steve Phillips' sex scandal is calling your name, Whitlock.

Jason Whitlock has banana hammocks on his mind.

​
Jason Whitlock jams his latest "NFL Truths" column full of mental images that'll have you shoving a No. 2 pencil into your ear for relief. Drop your pencils, and join our misery. What's the most disturbing passage from the round mound of revulsion's latest Fox Sports column? Tell us.

Dan Margolies

​The bad news at The Kansas City Star keeps coming. Business reporter Dan Margolies is leaving the Star to join Reuters' Washington bureau.

Margolies' new title with Reuters: senior correspondent, financial crimes.

Margolies tells us that he'll be covering the fallout of the recession and the bailouts as well as civil and criminal prosecutions and investor lawsuits.

If that wasn't enough, Margolies writes in an e-mail: "I'll also be helping to lead a team of financial crime correspondents in multiple states, traveling to cover cross-border stories in places like London, Zurich and Hong Kong, and working with Reuters' journalists and editors abroad."

Sounds like the A-Team of financial reporters. So he's going to be really, really busy.

Margolies' last day at the Star is October 23.  By the way, if you haven't read Margolies' Kansas City Star Magazine piece about competing in the 32nd annual American Crossword Tournament, give it a read. It's pretty great.

Best of luck, Dan!

Holly Starr and one lucky dog.

​Who's hotter? Holly Starr's dog or Bryan Busby's cats? I have no idea. But Wayside Waifs' Hot Tails of Kansas City has pitted well known locals pets against each other to raise money for the shelter. Starr and Busby are lending their names to raising bucks for Wayside Waifs (each dollar counts as a vote). So far, Starr hasn't raised any money. Busby has received $70. The leader so far is Bailey Allen, Kansas state Sen. Barbara Allen's dog, with $1,225.

Wayside Waifs' goal is $50,000. So far they've raised $2,165. Voting ends October 22.

Credit Wayside Waifs for finding ways to use social media and the Internet to raise money.

Windy and Gary Lezak

​Catching up with the Best of Kansas City 2009 Readers' Choices over lunch, you guys' choice of Best Media Personality -- KSHB Channel 41 meteorologist Gary Lezak -- struck me. Lezak's worthy of the honor (we picked Twitter machine and KMBC Channel 9 morning anchor Kris Ketz) and hard to dislike.

Plus, I remembered my tour of Weird Stuff Antiques last week when I stumbled across an autographed photo of Lezak -- and his old weather hound Windy. Not sure how old the photo is but it's from Lezak's days at Fox 4 -- and when he had a full head of hair. I'm kicking myself for not asking how much for the photo.

Lezak personalized the photo, writing "To Marilyn," which is a nice touch. Definitely something we'd expect from the Best Media Personality.

Chris Stigall, thinker

​Art Modell once joked that NFL owners were Republicans who acted like socialists. Yet conservative talk-show host Chris Stigall insists that liberals can't be true football fans.

Dissecting the most recent Chiefs' debacle with play-by-play man Mitch Holthus on KCMO 710-AM, Stigall described spending the weekend in Chicago. Being around so many Bears fans and so many Democrats put Stigall's little brain in motion. He came up with this shiny theory:

"If you're a sports fan, particularly an NFL football fan, you cannot be liberal and look at the model that is the NFL and be a liberal. It doesn't work."

Ed O'Brien

​If you've ever heard a promo for an upcoming KCTV Channel 5 investigation -- especially during sweeps months -- you've heard the voice, urging you to watch tonight's story at 10, because it will change your life. It goes something like, "Tonight on KCTV 5, we reveal an investigation that will blow ... you ... away."

The voice belongs to Denver resident Ed O'Brien, whose conversational tone is actually quite pleasant. Channel 5 is the only station that can use O'Brien's voice in this market, but he has a dozen or so other accounts, including stations in Houston, Los Angeles and Cleveland. He generally records two or more customized pieces daily that stations download as MP3s.

O'Brien was born in Kansas and lived in Kansas City in the late '60s and early '70s. He worked as a disc jockey at rock station KUDL in Fairway, where Rush Limbaugh -- then known as Rick Stevens -- was the all-night host; O'Brien hosted during the day. He also worked for The Kansas City Star during the controversy over the Pentagon Papers, though he was more researcher than reporter. "Back in those days, the byline was 'Staff Writer,' not your name," he says.

After moving to Denver in 1980, he formed a promotions company with Roger Thompson and Beau Weaver and was hired by Liberty Media to help create cable franchises like A&E and the Discovery and History channels. In that capacity, he says, he also helped transform the way that television news is read.

"We set the template," O'Brien says. "Back in those days, Walter Cronkite was the news voice. Walter, extemporaneously, could be very heartfelt, but mostly he was just delivering the news. He was Grade A, but he didn't invest himself emotionally in what he was saying. Somewhere along the line, myself and a couple of other people decided that you can invest yourself emotionally and still deliver the news. The news voice can still have gravitas, but not be particularly grave. We made them [news promo pieces] sound interesting and entertaining, but also different than what everyone else was going to promote that night."

Has anything he's recorded for KCTV 5 made him feel ... dirty? He laughs. "I will say [to a TV producer], 'I think you've crossed a boundary, and I'll tell you why.' When you say something out loud, you can sometimes have an unintended antithetical ...I try to catch that and say, 'That's going to sound creepy as hell, don't do that.' ... It's not that I won't say what they tell me to say, it's that ... I want to give the producers more ammunition than they'll ever need to fight for the intellectual truth in their work."

Nick Sloan

​Nick Sloan is the new publisher of the Kansas City Kansan.
 
Sloan took over the Kansan from Gatehouse Media, a New York-based newspaper chain, earlier this week, and the Kansan is now a one-man show with Sloan writing copy in the mornings and selling advertising in the afternoon. He works wherever he can get a wi-fi connection -- the library, coffee shops, his apartment.

"I'm really excited about this," Sloan says. "It's going to be a great challenge  ... I just want to see if I can make an online model work, and I might as well do it in my backyard."

Sloan has already made changes online. He's switched the Kansan's Web site back to a blog format, which will allow him to do commentaries and opinions. But Sloan says he'll focus on hard news.

"I'm really hoping to turn the Kansan back into a community Web site, back to a community news source where people can submit their own news, comment, submit their own posts," he says. "My goal is to create conversation about Wyandotte County."

His first major goal is to get an office downtown.

"I really think it needs to be in the downtown area for it to work again," Sloan says. "To me, when the Kansan left downtown on 9th and Armstrong, that's when things started to slide."

So he's looking.

Social media Mayor of Kansas City Mark Funkhouser was really "excited about being able to use new tools to communicate with my constituency." That's what Funkhouser tweeted on April 10 when he opened his Twitter account.

By April 12, Mayor Funkhouser was apparently done with Twitter. That was his last attempt using this new tool to communicate with his constituents.

Fail. Gloria's tweets would have been far more fascinating.

Hat tip to The DLC (and here) for the heads up.

​The Kansas City Police Department has opened up a Twitter account. Nothing interesting up yet but the police say updates at http://twitter.com/kcpolice will include "breaking crime and traffic news, missing person alerts, press releases and more" so stay tuned.

Here's what Chief Jim Corwin had to say in the release: "With Twitter, we can leverage technology to keep the public up to date with breaking information."

So far, they're up to 20 followers.

Matt Damon in The Informant!

​In Steven Soderbergh's new movie The Informant!, Matt Damon plays Mark Whitacre, a bio-chemist at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) who sets off an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into allegations of price-fixing at the agricultural industry giant. Whitacre suffers from delusions of grandeur (among other things) and is all too eager to make the feds' case by recording insider conversations. He imagines that when it's all over, his grateful bosses will promote him to the top of ADM. The movie is based on a true story, in which local FBI agent Bob Herndon is played by actor Joel McHale (most recognizable as the host of E!'s "The Soup").

After the jump, nine questions with Special Agent Herndon, a 23-year veteran of the FBI who works in the FBI's Kansas City Division. Warning: spoilers ahead!

Troy Newman

​Operation Rescue's Troy Newman didn't need to borrow money for his fund-raising mailers (as he claimed in a letter sent to supporters and the media on Monday). All Newman needed was to claim that his anti-abortion organization was "broke" and on the verge "of shutting everything down if emergency help doesn't arrive soon."

The media -- local and national -- did the rest, broadcasting and printing Newman's plea with dire headlines -- each a variation of the one before, "Operation Rescue says it's broke, may shut down."

There's no way to independently verify whether Operation Rescue is really on the verge of permanently parking its Truth Truck. Its charity status was revoked in September 2006; without having to report how much money is on his organization's books, Newman can claim whatever he wants. His word is all we have. 

Newman told the Associated Press that Operation Rescue is down to four paid employees (from nine a year ago) and donations had dropped by more than 30 percent. Newman even claimed that he hadn't been paid in two months.

In his e-mail plea, Newman blamed the Operation Rescue's financial straits on the assassination of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller and the bad economy. The combination brought "our financial support to nearly a halt," Newman wrote.

Coincidentally, this "financial crisis" came as Operation Rescue was on the verge of launching "the most ambitious and most significant project in our entire history."

Damn the timing.

​
Poor Jason Whitlock. The Kansas City Star and Fox Sports columnist can't even get quoted correctly in his alma mater's newspaper.

Last week, the Ball State Daily News reported Whitlock had claimed he wasn't getting paid shit but was a patriot for not living large while serving his country by writing his sports columns and challenging authority.

Here's how Whitlock's quote originally played in the Daily News:

"The sacrifice I'll make is that I'll never be rich," Whitlock said. "I thought that this was really the most patriotic thing I could do: challenge the authority. Our country was built on that; America exists because some of us told England to go fuck themselves. We have to have people like that to take on that challenge."

We called bullshit, and Poynter's Jim Romenesko featured Whitlock's quote on his blog. Uh, about that. The Daily News' editor wrote a letter to Romenesko explaining that Whitlock had been misquoted ... a lot.

Our online story erroneously implied that Whitlock said his current feeling is that he's making a sacrifice through his journalistic efforts and will never be rich.

In fact, Whitlock indicated in his talk that this was his attitude as a young journalist. Whitlock in his talk indicated that he is justly well compensated. He indicated his motivation remains, however, to challenge conventional assumptions and to challenge those in power.

The Daily News also got its facts wrong on a story Whitlock told about witnessing a fight between two players on the football team. Whitlock told the students that he challenged the coaching staff (he was a member of the team) for punishing a black student but not the other student involved in the altercation. The student newspaper claimed Whitlock had written about the incident. He hadn't.

If only he'd lectured about "strange tang." I bet the talk would have been so memorable, no one could have misquoted him.

​
In a speech at his alma mater, Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock told students at Ball State University that he serves his country by being a good journalist. USA! USA!

Here's the Whitlockian word as reported by the Ball State Daily News:

"The sacrifice I'll make is that I'll never be rich," Whitlock said. "I thought that this was really the most patriotic thing I could do: challenge the authority. Our country was built on that; America exists because some of us told England to go fuck themselves. We have to have people like that to take on that challenge."

Yeah, go fuck yourself, power structure. Too bad the kids in the crowd missed the hefty teachable moment before them: calling bullshit on a non-voting columnist who, at last word, was pulling in a salary in the middle six figures for his Star and Fox Sports jobs.

Yeah, Jason. You're totally a common man in your "custom-made, black linen, crepe-weave shorts with a matching Tommy Bahama-style button-up shirt, black dress sandals and black Kangol hat." 

Via Poynter.

Walter Cronkite

​During Walter Cronkite's memorial service in New York yesterday, President Barack Obama made a point of mentioning how the CBS newsman worked hard to get the story right. His example: A story Cronkite tells in his book, A Reporter's Life, about getting fired from a Kansas City radio station because he refused to go on the air without confirming the story first.

Here's a snip from Obama's tribute:

Even in his early career, Walter Cronkite resisted the temptation to get the story first in favor of getting it right. He wanted to get it first, but he understood the importance of getting it right. During one of his first jobs in Kansas City, Walter's program manager urged him to go on the air reporting a massive blaze -- and we just heard how much he loved fires -- a massive blaze at city hall that had already claimed lives. When Walter reached for the telephone, his boss asked, "What are you doing; get on the air!" Walter replied that he was calling the fire department to confirm the story. "You don't need to confirm it," the manager shouted, "my wife is watching the whole thing!"

Needless to say, Walter made the call, and even as the program manager took to the air himself to broadcast the unfolding tragedy, Walter discovered that it had been nothing more than a small fire that hadn't resulted in any injuries. He lost his job -- but he got the story right.

Obama was nice enough not to name the station, but I'm not. The station that fired Cronkite: KCMO, home of teabagging enthusiast Chris Stigall.

Via Prime Buzz.

​Fox 4's Skyfox helicopter is glued to the ground from here on, TV Barn reports. Sounds so familiar. Oh yeah, the station clipped the chopper's wings in January while it looked for a sponsor. Guess Fox 4 didn't get one. The reasons are what you'd expect: money and new technology.

Poor Fox 4iors. No copter. No coffee. Mike "environmentalists are kinda like Hitler's minions" Thompson still works there. Is there no justice on this God-protected "resilient earth"?

Abigail Blunt

​Politico named Springfieldian Abigail Blunt one of the "Top 50 Party Animals" in Washington, D.C. Blunt is the wife of turd in Michael Steele's crapper Roy Blunt.

Here's what Politico says makes the lobbyist for Kraft Food a D.C. party girl:

Together, they [Abigail and Roy Blunt] are part of the old-school Georgetown social establishment, which keeps them in the pages of Washington's glossy society magazines. (They even lived in one of JFK's first homes.)
...

A well-connected and gracious social figure, she has hosted high-profile events, such as a lunch in honor of former White House social secretary Lea Berman. Held at the Four Seasons, the event's co-host was Debbie Dingell.
...

Blunt and the congressman drew sharp criticism while dating, but the couple married in October 2003. Although her husband's Senate campaign could keep them away from the social scene for a cycle, they'll never fall completely off the grid.

Look at her eyes. They're as black as the creepy followers of Maryann on True Blood. Think her D.C. parties are as fun?

Via Fired Up! Missouri.

​Matt Fraction moved to Portland? Didn't know that until I read this Los Angeles Times interview with Fraction, the author of Marvel, er, Disney's(?) Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men.

It's a good interview in which Fraction talks about writing dialogue for the Iron Man 2 video game, dropping out of school and finding inspiration in the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Covering a lot of ground there.

It always sucks to hear that one of Kansas City's most creative and interesting people has moved. KC misses you already, Matt.

​President Barack Obama plans to speak to high school students nationwide Tuesday in a speech simulcast in U.S. classrooms. The message: Stay in school. Work hard. Oh, and stay in school.

Pretty much what you'd expect, right? And pretty much unimpeachable as a reasonable concept. You tell your teenage kid to have a good day, then send her off to school, confident in the knowledge that today, the president of the United States will help you convey the idea that success starts with education.

But wait -- Obama is president of a crass talkocracy, so, thanks to calls and e-mails from "concerned parents" inflamed by right-wing broadcasters and columnists, districts in several states, including Independence here in the metro, have said the address won't reach kids in their schools.

Our local flaming pundit: Chris Stigall, quoted by The New York Times this week (with a line that made it as far away as Australia):

And Chris Stigall, a Kansas City talk show host, said, "I wouldn't let my next-door neighbor talk to my kid alone; I'm sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone."

Thanks, Chris, for keeping KC on the dipshit watch list.

Update: The Kansas City, Missouri, School District will have it both ways, according to a press release that reads, in part:

More than 25 of the District's 54 schools will show the president's live back to school message during their school day. Students who do not want to view the president's message will attend class.

 

"Freedom of choice is a hallmark of this country, and the District does not want to simply dismiss the desires of our community members regarding this event," said Dr. John Covington, Superintendent. "Our schools were given the option of participating in this event, and we'll support those that choose to host a viewing of President Obama's message. However, we want to also ensure that no student misses out on vital classroom instruction."

 

​Writing at FoxSports.com, prominent sports media figure Jason Whitlock has returned to a favorite subject: prominent sports media figures.

Erin Andrews' Oprah interview finds the full-figured Kansas City Star contributor thinking back on his own turn on O's star-making couch. In the piece, Whitlock mock-imagines what fellow travelers in the world of attention-seeking sports commentators will have to do to be invited to Winfrey's set.

The premise allows Whitlock to ridicule Mike Lupica for being short and Rick Reilly for being overly well remunerated. Deadspin.com wonders: What does Whitlock's turn as an insult comic portend?

Preying on the civic competitiveness that compels us to click on such arbitrary rankings, Forbes recently released a list of "America's Most Stressful Cities." Surprisingly, Kansas City fared pretty well.

​The ranking took into account unemployment, property values and even the number of sunny days in each city. Based on Forbes' number-crunching, Kansas City landed at number 36 of the nation's 40 biggest metros. (And, yes, St. Louis is more stressful, coming in at 23.)

Yeah, some dude pulled a knife while robbing a Best Western on the Plaza last night. Sure, the number of vacant lots in the urban core has doubled in the past year. And the political fireworks over how to manage our ambulance service are enough to spark a spectacular house fire.

Hmmm. Guess we must have a lot of sunny days.   

via Gawker.com

​Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, so chances are she's seen pictures like the one to the left, which were just published by Gawker.

via Gawker.com

​

The senator has been tweeting her reactions to the news that some of the guards at State Department facilities in Afghanistan allegedly treated their posts like they were on spring break, Kabul. A whistleblower informed the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan nonprofit, that employees of ArmorGroup North America were drinking booze out of each others' ass cracks, abusing the locals and generally making a mockery of the company's 5-year, $189 million dollar contract with the State Department.

ArmorGroup North America is a subsidiary of a ginormous contractor named Wackenhut. Wackin' hut, indeed.

From Clairecmc:

We had hearing in June on security contract at our embassy in Afghanstn.Today new info out that confirm serious problms w/this contractor.about 1 hour ago from web

Once again whistleblower is a key to accountability.Another contracting scandal.I've sent letter to State asking for full investigation.38 minutes ago from web

Testimony given in front of my sub comm on contracting appears to be misleading at best.  28 minutes ago from web

POGO once again earns its reformer stripes. #ChippedArmor23 minutes ago from web

McCaskill wrote a letter to Patrick Kennedy at the State Department, saying if the allegations are true, they "raise questions regarding [ArmorGroup's] performance of the contract and the Department's management and oversight," and asking for a thorough review of ArmorGroup's performance.

Oh and hey! Wackenhut's hiring! I dare someone to show up to the interview in a coconut g-string.

​Yesterday's Kansas City Star did not land on doorsteps with the authoritative thud of Sunday papers from late Augusts past. The Star's multi-sectioned football preview weighs in this year at 6.2 ounces, a slimmer size than 2007's 9.2-ounce colossus.

The reduction surely says more about business of running the Star than it does about the passion for football. Newspaper revenues are off by almost a third from this time last year.

Missed the 46-page section? Here's a recap:

Walt Bodine

​Today is octogenarian radio icon Walt Bodine's 89th birthday. We didn't get Walt anything, but we'd like to wish him a good one anyway.

Bodine is broadcasting live on KCUR 89.3 from 10 to 11 a.m., talking today about "coming of age" tales in literature. Feel free to call in (816-235-2888) and wish him well.

Earlier this year, Bodine donated a handful of historical tapes to the Marr Sound Archives, including Bodine's coverage of the 1951 Kansas City flood, the 1957 Ruskin Heights tornado and the 1968 riots. The tapes also feature interviews with Robert F. Kennedy.

By the way, nice tributes from Present Magazine and Bottom Line.

Thanks, KCTV Channel 5, for never letting the facts get in the way of some good, scary hearsay.

Nicole Reinertson

​
After teasing Monday's 10 p.m. newscast with the onscreen graphic "Overland Park woman raped in parking lot" (that's a paraphrase, but consider the CSI: Miami audience hooked), Channel 5 opened its broadcast not with that or with coverage of Sen. Claire McCaskill's health-care town hall that evening. Instead, last night's lead story was that the Lil Wayne concert already under way at Starlight Theatre had just a little less security than Johnny Cash's gig at Folsom Prison.

What a relief.

But wait -- why the increased protection and limited access to Starlight's sector of Swope Park?

Channel 5 put expert Matt McDevitt on camera to explain. "There's quite a few fights outside after," the Lil Wayne fan told Channel 5, flashing his $125 tickets on his way into the venue. He said last night would be his seventh Lil Wayne gig and that, at previous outings, he'd seen some trouble. "I was right next to a fight -- they had knives," McDevitt said.

Starlight Theatre President Craig T. Nelson Denton Yockey did his part to reassure Channel 5 viewers that all was well.

A quick Nexis search does indeed reveal a couple of Lil Wayne kerfuffles. There were fights reported, including two beer-bottle stabbings that didn't seriously injure the victims, during a long wait before a Panama City Beach concert in Florida this year. That was back in March. A year before that, fighting among audience members at a Lil Wayne show shut down that gig. In London. London, England.

Back in the United States, the Scranton, Pennsylvania, Times-Tribune, in an otherwise excited review of the same tour that parked here last night, noted that "Lackawanna County Sheriff's deputies and pavilion security were seen dragging dozens of attendees away throughout the night." The headline on that story: "Lil Wayne show brings out fans' best, worst."

After getting the lowdown from McDevitt, Channel 5's Jeanene Kiesling turned to a couple of other camera-ready white Lil Wayne fans, father-daughter pair Rick and Kayla Herman. Rick said he'd "thought about that [safety] on the way here." And as Channel 5's video package moved from a close-up of Kayla's face to footage of Lil Wayne grabbing his package onstage, Kiesling narrated, "Kayla Herman had just one thing on her mind, and it had nothing to do with past problems at previous concerts."

Does anybody watch this stuff before it airs?

And no, pervs and Channel 5 editing crew members, the thing on young Kayla's mind was the concert itself. "It doesn't bother me," she said of the (as KCTV puts it in its online story) "beefed up" security, "because I get to see Lil Wayne."

Hear that, Kansas City? Channel 5 doesn't really want you to be afraid of black rappers adored by America's white, female youth.

Rhiannon Ally

​So glad the air show is over. Can't stand the planes blasting over downtown (especially my apartment). Even heard them booming while watching the really damn good Inglourious Basterds at the Crossroads Screenland (the recliners make everything amazing). But I'm grumpy and not just because of noisy fighter planes. Today is an end, of sorts. Rhiannon Ally is leaving KCTV Channel 5 for Better TV, per Bottom Line. Mornings just won't be the same.

Anyway, while we were away:

1. The Kansas City Star ran its annual haunted-houses-are-hiring story. Same as last year's story. (I'd link to last year's story, but the Star's online archives suck, and you'd be reading the same damn story.)

2. The Chiefs lost to the Vikings (and Brett Favre). It was not Super Bowl IV.

3. Twenty-five of you had a really shitty Friday night.

4. Four guys were charged in connection with the murder of Steven Bertling, the Independence man who was beaten to death while playing basketball with friends in a church parking lot.

5. A jury found a Wichita mother guilty of prostituting her 5-year-old. She faces life in prison, which isn't long enough. So does Reggie Stafford, the 51-year-old man the woman offered her daughter to in exchange for whiskey and smokes. Bastards.

6. A teen is on life support after being shot in the head, and a man was shot five times in the stomach on the East Side. And there was even more bloodshed that we'll talk about later.

More to come. Welcome back.

​We'd be fucked. But read all about it.