Kansas City News Blog

Watch mountains explode, rivers turn black and grown men cry.

Nope, we're not talking about 2012, but another disturbing movie debuting this weekend about the end of the world.

At least, the end of the world as Appalachian residents know it.

Sierra Club has gone cinematic with their environmental protection in Coal Country, a feature-length documentary that shows in graphic detail that our coal-fired power plants aren't just killing us with the global warming pollution that spews from the smokestacks.

Set in the Appalachian Mountains, the movie investigates mountaintop removal mining -- which is exactly what it sounds like -- and how the earth-scouring practice effects the lives of workers and residents of the surrounding communities.

The national television runs starts Saturday, when the film debuts on Planet Green television at 8 p.m. But Kansas City residents are invited to a sneak preview tonight.

Local environmentalist Kerry Anderson is hosting a house party at her place -- 12123 Goodman St., Overland Park, Kansas -- starting at 7 p.m. The only thing Sierra Club asks in return for the hospitality is that attendees consider writing a letter to President Obama, urging measures restricting mountaintop removal practices, after the screening.

When Jason Miller started Bite Club of KC, the group's focus was squarely on saving the deer in Shawnee Mission Park. But the Lenexa resident is making good on his promise that the organization will target other forms of animal cruelty manifesting in Kansas City.
 
​Last month, a band of demonstrators gathered near the University of Kansas Medical Center to highlight the use of monkeys in brain-function experiments. Tonight their target is the Ararat Shrine Circus.

According to Bite Club:

Shrine Circuses have been notorious for their unmerciful cruelty to elephants, lions, and other forced circus performers. Not only are the circus animals at constant risk of injury and death, but so are those attending the show. Remember, elephants and tigers are wild animals, who have been stolen from their natural environment and placed into a very scary situation.

The protesters are planning to meet at 6:30 p.m. at the main entrance of Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City.

www.peaceworkskc.org

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:  

According to local activists, the deer in Shawnee Mission Park aren't the only animals in need of saving -- monkeys at the University of Kansas Medical Center are in danger, too.

Expect to see these signs at the corner of 39th Street and Rainbow Boulevard tomorrow

​Sunday marked the start of National Primate Liberation Week, a nationwide series of protests organized by Stop Animal Exploitation Now, a non-profit based in Ohio. On Saturday, local supporters will hold a demonstration from 1 to 3 p.m. at KU Med.

Their specific target is the university's "Brain Mapping" research. Conducted by Dr. Paul Cheney, the investigation uses "awake monkeys" to determine which specific neurons in the brain fire to complete various tasks. In a statement about the Saturday rally, the local animal rights group argues that strapping a monkey to a restraining chair and exposing its brain for monitoring is cruel and unnecessary.

"The vivisectors call them trained monkeys, when they are really being starved, while they're also in serious pain and high stress," the statement alleges. "Does this sound like science?"

Yesterday, Jessica Taveau, KU Med's director of communications, didn't have any comment on the impending protest, but she did forward me a statement on the university's research protocols. "All animals involved in research at KUMC are protected by legal regulations and policies to ensure the smallest possible number of subjects and the greatest commitment to their comfort," the outline promises.

Whether it was the light drizzle, crisp temperatures or their military training, the veterans on the big, blue biodiesel bus got right to the point when they stopped at Liberty Memorial last week.

Operation Free bus tour stops at Liberty Memorial

​"Climate disruption is a clear and present national security threat," Rafael Noboa, a former Army sergeant from Colorado, said. "The U.S. cannot afford to wait."

The small crew of military veterans are on a 21-state tour, trying to convince citizens -- and Congress -- that global warming is a threat to national security, just like terrorists or the Taliban. Their group, Operation Free, is a new alliance of former service members pressing legislators to strike against climate change and invest in renewable American energy before the ugly international consequences of global warming become a colossal problem for the U.S. military.

But the Operation Free veterans weren't just blowing through town on their two-week tour. One of the guys who helped kick start the campaign in Washington, D.C., lives right here in Kansas City.

Bite Club of KC members aren't giving up their battle to save the deer in Shawnee Mission Park, but they're putting down their protest placards for a somber moment tonight.

Nicole Reinertson

Jason Miller with Victoria, the dead deer head

​As early as today, police sharpshooters will begin harvesting hundreds of deer in the Johnson County park, and animal rights activists intend to commemorate their four-legged friends with a gesture more common to mourn murder victims. Starting at 8 p.m., Bite Clubbers will gather for a candelight vigil at the main entrance of Shawnee Mission Park.

"Bring your own candles, signs, flowers and anything else that you think would fit our theme of a memorial for the deer," Jason Miller, founder of Bite Club, writes in an e-mail to supporters. "We suggest votive candles." 

That might not be the only activity at the gate, though. Miller also hints: "We have one more big surprise to unleash before the slaughter." Will it involve a dripping deer head? A road blockade? With Miller, nothing's inconceivable.

On Saturday afternoon, when law enforcement officers informed Jason Miller that he couldn't use an amplification device on the grounds of Shawnee Mission Park, the animal rights activist politely crossed the street with his megaphone, continuing to protest in a legal manner.

Carolyn Szczepanski

Jason Miller (with megaphone) tried to close Shawnee Mission Park

​But between his calls to save the deer from the impending harvest in the 1,200-acre Johnson County green space, Miller confided that Sunday would be different. He had an action in mind that would likely lead to his arrest.

At 4:30 p.m. the next afternoon, a dozen Bite Club members gathered in the parking lot of a nearby Wendy's. Anticipating he'd be arrested in a defiant act of civil disobedience, Miller left his car and hitched a ride up the hill with another activist. Again, in the interest of caution, the caravan parked on a side street (ignoring a neighbor's demand: "Get off my lawn, dumb shit!").

But when the activists unfurled their 10-foot banner and stood in the middle of a street leading into Shawnee Mission Park, the cops had no interest in hauling Miller to jail. As a dozen Bite Club members tried to "close the park for cruelty," the police officers calmly diverted traffic to avoid the activists.

Here's the activists' video. Read more about Jason Miller and Bite Club in the October 8 issue of The Pitch.

​As cows and horses paraded to the American Royal downtown Saturday morning, a group of animal rights advocates marched through Country Club Plaza, intent on ensuring more farm critters live out their natural days in bucolic peace, rather than biding their time before the slaughterhouse.

The annual walk, one of dozens across the country held each fall, raises funds for Farm Sanctuary in up-state New York. For the event organizer, that green expanse prompted a moment of conversion.

​In 2001, a California psychologist came up with a cross-dressing concept to raise awareness about domestic violence: Have men shove their bulky feet into petite, women's footwear and hoof it for a whole mile.

The national Walk a Mile in Her Shoes campaign sauntered -- and stumbled -- across the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus last night. Dozens of professors, students and fraternity members donned high heels to raise money for the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project and the UMKC Violence Prevention and Response Project.

Never thought you'd catch Kansas City Star columnist Lewis Diuguid sporting a pair of black pumps? See pictures after the jump.

​Remember the crying baby elephant statue that PETA was trying to gift to the city to protest the circus's treatment of animals? Well, that didn't work out. Instead, they got a permit to display Ella PhantzPeril, as the thing is called, on the corner of Grand and Pershing. Not exactly the city's busiest corner.

"We were hoping for a spot with more foot traffic," said Jill Oakley, a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals intern from British Columbia, Canada. When I saw her at 5:30 p.m., Oakley had been on shift since 1 p.m. She said she'd handed out about 50 fliers, but given the loneliness of the street corner, it looked like PETA's action against the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus amounted to a protest of one.

Still, Oakley was giving out gruesome DVDs documenting alleged animal torture as filmed by one of PETA's undercover operatives, and doing what she could to change minds about going to the Over the Top circus.

She also said PETA had something in mind for tomorrow's elephant walk (no, not the one you were forced to do as a fraternity pledge), which will parade from Union Station to the Sprint Center.

​In June 2008, the Section 8 workers at the Housing Authority of Kansas City voted overwhelmingly to join the Service Employees International Union.

More than a year later, they still don't have a contract.

Yesterday, Section 8 workers and supporters gathered outside the HAKC office, accusing the housing authority of bargaining in bad faith and using federal tax dollars to bust their union. 

One of the first things Josh Stieber does during his presentations is ask his audience to repeat after him.

Josh Stieber

​"I went down to the market where the women shop / Pulled out my machete and began to chop / I went down to the park where the children play / Pulled out my machine gun and began to spray."

It's a cadence the Maryland resident used to sing with his Army unit, while he was deployed to Iraq in 2007. It's the kind of moral disconnect that caused him to question, well, just about everything he believed.

"I grew up in a kind of evangelical mega church, which linked a lot of religion to nationalism and militarism," Stieber says. After 9/11, he wanted to defend his country. He bought the idea that the U.S. was justified in invading Iraq. But that notion didn't last long. He found himself ripping up Iraqi's homes, rounding up and detaining family members. He found himself singing songs that glorified violence.

"How do go from being concerned about your family to saying words like that?" he says.

He posed that question to students in Kansas City yesterday.

​Democrats immediately seized on the hypocrisy of a Republican health-care forum at Children's Mercy Hospital today. Across the country, conservatives have flocked to town hall meetings to jeer and deride Democratic policymakers because health-care reform is going to bankrupt the country and, uh, unravel all that is good about America.

Apparently, Sen. Kit Bond wasn't interested in hearing liberal advocates assail his opposition to a public option. The Missouri Republican, along with  Senators Mitch McConnell and John McCain, came to Kansas City this morning but gave audience only to a group of invited citizens.

But that didn't stop a small band of activists from voicing their opposition outside.

As Judy Ancel interviewed Edgardo Napoleon Valeriano on August 14 the welts on his back were still bright red and patches of shaved hair exposed angry crimson gashes on the top of his head. The day before, the 55-year-old doctor had attended a rally in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, demonstrating against the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya.

Trade union members protest in Honduras

​"I was chased and ran until I could go no farther," he told Ancel. "The police caught up with me and five policemen beat me with their clubs. As they beat me they asked how much I was being paid to demonstrate. They stole my watch, my wallet, my cell phone and my glasses."

Ancel, the director of The Institute of Labor Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and president of the Cross-Border Network, transcribed and translated stories of Hondurans like Valeriano earlier this month. Part of an observation team from Global Exchange, Ancel and fellow Kansas Citian Alice Kitchen spent a week in the Central American nation to understand the circumstances of Zelaya's removal and witness the aftermath for the Honduran people.

"What's reported in both the Honduran media and the U.S. media is very distorted," Ancel wrote of her experience with the observation team. "Zelaya, who was kidnapped in the middle of the night by the head of the army, whom he had just fired, is in fact quite popular among the working people, the poor, and the peasants of Honduras -- in other words, the vast majority. The group watched a grass-roots social movement of tens of thousands demonstrate in the two major cities. We saw brutal repression by police and military, and interviewed the victims."

Read the group's full report after the jump.

Protester Jim Cass

​Mike Egan's opinion wasn't well received by the emotional crowd that packed the meeting of the Johnson County Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners last night. Facing an audience filled with animal rights' activists from Bite Club of KC, Egan was the lone voice supporting the commissioner's plan to cull the deer in Shawnee Mission Park. As he stood at the microphone, more than 20 people stood up angrily and left the room shouting.

"Murderers!"

"Killers!"

"How do you sleep at night?"

Jason Miller, the founder of Bite Club, said the activists' animated presence at the meeting was just the first step in creating "a public relations' nightmare" for the board.

​The Sprint Center is no stranger to protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Last year, a young lady wearing nothing but bikini-bottoms, pasties and a whole lot of orange body paint, crouched in a cage outside the venue to show the activists' disdain for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

This year, the animal rights' organization wanted to make a more lasting impression about the alleged mistreatment of circus animals. But the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department wanted no part of its 800-pound idea.

A small group of quirky protesters took to a Bannister Road median last Friday to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Ideology and small-scale theatrics marked the event, which took place outside the National Nuclear Security Administration/Honeywell facility in 95-degree, rush-hour hotness. Protest organizer Ann Suellentrop welcomed the heat, saying it would make her face paint drip like real blood. The Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technology plant on Bannister Road makes non-nuclear components for the nation's nukes and is a key component of what protesters called the national "bombplex." Plans are underway to expand operations in KC.

No Nukes Protest from casey lyons on Vimeo.

When Eric Kirkendall and his wife, Mary, moved to Gardner in 1990 they found an idyllic little farmhouse built in 1870. The couple intended to live there until they retired. But eight years before that date, Kirkendall found out their quiet property might soon be sandwiched by the mammoth warehouses of a huge transportation hub.

BNSF intermodal

​The distressed homeowner threw himself into researching the effects of intermodal facilities, sprawling complexes where freight is moved from railcars to diesel trucks and shuttled to regional cities by highway. He created a website outlining the possible environmental and human health effects of the 400-acre project in Gardner proposed by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

In 2007, Kirkendall traveled to a conference in California, where experts discussed the impact of the massive intermodals that service places like the Port of Los Angeles. Last night, Kirkendall brought the California experts to Johnson County. They painted a disturbing picture of what Gardner might become.

In the marathon controversy over the expansion of the coal-fired power complex in Western Kansas, environmentalists have argued the new facility would be a giant, climate-change-accelerator, coughing up ungodly amounts of the carbon dioxide gas that leads to global warming.

Holcomb 1 power plant

​But the latest legal filing from Earthjustice and the Sierra Club lays out another reason the monster power plant in Holcomb could be a disaster. Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, the company that wants to build the plant, has a disturbing history of racking up massive amounts of debt -- and leaving taxpayers holding the bag.

​How's this for some math that doesn't quite add up?

Missouri's Department of Social Services keeps track of 9,000 kids in foster care, investigates 75,000 reported cases of child abuse annually and provides 43,000 children daycare while their low-income parents go off to work.

To do that -- and more -- the Child Division takes up just 3 percent of the state's multi-billion-dollar bank account. Now, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says he needs to cut $60 million from the state's 2010 budget to make ends meet. But 20 percent of those proposed cuts could be aimed at that already tiny pot for kids.

Last night, at least 100 Kansas City residents packed the empty lot across from Operation Breakthrough to demand Nixon protect the state's most vulnerable, rather than put them first on the chopping block.

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver

Standing with a group of protesters outside U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's office on Friday afternoon, Matt Ullman worried that his sign -- "Born free. Died waiting for health care" -- sent a mixed message.

"I picked that one, and now I'm kind of wondering if it reads right," he said.

Ullman was troubled that motorists who passed Cleaver's office on W. 31st St. might think he wanted the federal government to take a more active role in the administration of the nation's health care. He does not.

A recent Gallup poll indicates that most Americans want Congress to overhaul health care. The 40 or so protesters outside Cleaver's office represented the minority opinion.

By most measures, the U.S. gets a poor return on the vast fortune we spend on health care. So why preserve the system?
 

According to the Sierra Club and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, a peaceful float down Missouri's most scenic rivers isn't all that different than elbowing through a packed amusement park at the height of summer.

National Park Service

Ozark National Scenic Riverway

Every year, two million visitors -- and their boats -- flock to the Jacks Fork and Current rivers, part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverway in south central Missouri. Environmental groups suggest the 80,000-acre national park isn't being protected from overcrowding and pollution. Now the public has a chance to weigh in and, hopefully, return the area to a more pristine state.

The feds are revising the way they manage the Riverway and soliciting comments from residents on their new guidelines. The Sierra Club hopes to drum up some river-saving spirit from eco-minded Kansas Citians tomorrow with a rally and presentation at the Discovery Center. The event starts at 1 p.m. with a movie screening and panel of speakers, both of which will outline the history and challenges facing the Show-Me State's largest national park.

More info here.

A crowd gathered outside U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback's office yesterday evening with a seemingly simple request: They want access to the same health care coverage their tax dollars provide the Kansas lawmaker.

Rally organizers Kathy Cook (right) and Mary Kay Zeigler (left)

Buoyed by debate in Congress about health care reform and the addition of a public option for private citizens, several dozen demonstrators gathered at the corner of 95th Street and Nieman Road in Overland Park. Each had their own experiences that, they say, make a government-sponsored insurance program a common-sense solution to the nation's health care crisis.

Think again.

Yes, Governor Mark Parkinson signed a backroom agreement with Sunflower Electric Power Corporation to build a gigantic new coal-fired power plant in western Kansas, but environmentalists aren't giving up yet. Last week, the Kansas Sierra Club and EarthJustice sent a strongly worded letter to Rod Bremby, Kansas' Secretary of Health and Environment.

Bremby is the one who has to sign off on Sunflower's air permit and the Sierra Club doesn't want him to simply rubber stamp the deal brokered by Governor Parkinson. Because three years have elapsed since Sunflower submitted its original permit and since the new plant is an entirely different configuration than the original proposal, the group want more public hearings.

"The public must be given the opportunity to comment on all aspects of a new draft permit," the letter argues. "The review process for a different facility conducted years ago cannot satisfy KDHE's legal obligation to provide public process for this permit application."

Stephanie Cole, an organizer for the Kansas Sierra Club, says KDHE has agreed to review and consider their request. In the meantime, if you're inspired to write your own letter to Bremby, here's his address: Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Curtis State Office Building, 1000 Southwest Jackson, Topeka, KS 66612

Large demonstrations met by heavy-handed police action have become a near daily occurence in Tehran, as thousands of Iranians gather in record numbers to protest the shady results of the June 12 presidental election. At least 17 citizens have been killed in the resulting violence.

Today, Iran's Guardian Council announced that a partial recount of the ballots confirmed the controversial victory of current leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Tonight, Kansas City's Iranian community will host a candlelight vigil, the second in the past week. The group will gather at J.C. Nichols fountain near the Plaza from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

From a distance, the elderly gentleman with two hearing aids and a rainbow-covered wagon looked like another festive participant in Omaha's Gay Pride parade. That's what Kendra Konrady thought, at least.

KC volunteers at the Omaha Gay Pride Parade

On June 20, the Kansas City resident traveled to Nebraska as a volunteer with the Human Rights Campaign, a national advocacy organization that pushes gay and lesbian equality issues. She was walking along the Gay Pride Parade route, handing out stickers with HRC's emblematic equal sign, when she got close enough to read the words on the man's mini-float: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord."

A few seconds later, she was in a headlock.

The urban guerrilla arrives by bike, his plaid, farmer-like shirt unbuttoned and his hair matted with sweat from the near-100-degree heat. The dirt under his nails indicates that he's a gardener. But he's doesn't want to reveal too much about his efforts greening the city.

He will speak only on condition of anonymity.

His nom de guerre: G3.

His tactic: hijacking public land for undercover food production.

www.atomicbombmuseum.org

Bannister Road Kansas City Plant

When the feds sell a project, by God, they really sell a project.

Representatives from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the General Services Administration dropped by City Hall yesterday to ask for the Planning and Zoning Committee's final blessing on the Kansas City Plant's move from offices on Bannister Road to a new facility in what one presenter called "the industrial heart of the 6th District." In doing so, they threw around so many million-dollar figures that Lil Wayne ought to remix the meeting's Channel 2 audio into his next club banger.

The meeting was the public's last chance to comment in support or opposition to the relocation of the Kansas City Plant, which is the U.S.'s primary site where the non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons are manufactured, assembled and procured.

Ann Suellentrop, a registered nurse and member of Peace Works KC and Physicians for Social Responsibility, spoke out against the plant along with a representative of the Sierra Club. But the other testimony was a parade of yeses: from the South Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, the Kansas City Port Authority, the Heavy Constructors Association, the project's architects from HNTB, and the project's development team of Zimmer Real Estate Services LC and CenterPoint Property Trust of Chicago.

An impromptu rally gathered Sunday morning at the J.C. Nichols Fountain, with demonstrators displaying oversized images of a 16-year-old girl, blood on her face, killed on the streets of Tehran.

In the wake of the disputed elections in Iran earlier this month, historic crowds have assembled to protest, what many consider to be, a fraudulent process, rigged in favor of current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In Kansas City, several dozens Iranians echoed those sentiments, carrying signs that asked "Where Is My Vote?" and calling for peace and justice in their home country.

Back in October, Home Depot co-founder, Bernie Marcus, called the Employee Free Choice Act the "demise of a civilization." Yesterday, a large crowd of workers, advocates and local politicians circled the sidewalk under one of Marcus' big, orange signs to protest big business' opposition to EFCA and call for the passage of the union-friendly legislation.