So how come nobody has published the Top 10 Snobbiest Cities in KCMO??? Pull out this Top 11 Worst Dinner Subjects list...and plan your post-dinner road trip thru the Golden Ghetto

Once again, what Tony Botello calls the Golden Ghetto, is winning the war for what is safe to talk about at Christmas dinner.

Read the Top 10 Snobbiest Cities in Kansas list, here:

There are two reasons to print out this list:

To change the subject.
And to drive your overstuffed relatives around, after dinner, to see how the other half lives.

So before you put on your ugly sweater, and attempt to protect it with your napkin, get this list ready.

Pull out the list whenever a relative brings up any of the following topics guaranteed to force you to put the Pepto Bismol on your holiday dinner table:

The Top 11 WORST subjects for Christmas dinner in KCMO:
Is our murder rate making us a little Chicago?
The Toy Train
The downtown hotel's catering contract
Shirley Helzberg's TIF
Hillary v. Bernie
Trump v. Cruz
Muslims, Planned Parenthood and Obamacare
Second Amendment v. Gun control
Former Royals players who ditched us for mega-millions--where are they eating tonight?

Do Black Lives matter more than other lives?

How about those Chiefs...is this Marty Schottenheimer time again??

Then, load up the FamDamily in your Oldsmobile, and take a tour of nine of the Snobbiest Cities in Kansas.  They're all in JoCo.  You can skip Andover, outside of Wichita.  It ain't all that.

Come see ladidah Leawood, where Mayor Peggy Dunn finally let the little boy keep his Little Free Library this year.  All it took was being chided on the Today Show to get Dunn to back off.

And spoiler alert:
There are no mountains in Prairie Village.  Yet.  Heck, they're still figuring out what to do with Meadowbrook Golf Course.

Note, there is more info on our sister site: JocoPost.com.  Please sign up to follow these two blogs. Think of it as your Christmas miracle courtesy of Blogger.

Chute and...techie job ladders = curtains for the Star. Yet another cyber-nail in their coffin as KCNext free tech job portal proves the Star is irrelevant to business community.

Hooray for Chute.  The suits who own KC's technology businesses have now launched the free job portal to recruit the best tech talent to support our Silicon Prairie.

Old paradigm:  (from My Fair Lady, the movie based on George Bernard Shaw's play, in case you don't recall), sing it with me now....
"The rain 
in Spain
stays mainly
on the plain..."

New paradigm:
The suits
from Chutes 
are in kahoots
since the STAR's business coverage 
is kaput... 

KCNext is the technology council of greater Kansas City.
Chutekc.com is their new web site.
(I'd have named it chutes, plural, But they didn't ask me.  Oh well, if you Google 'chutes kc' it takes you there anyway.  Maybe they'll buy the second domain and link it.  They have techies who can figger that out.)

Facts:  Nobody reads the KC STAR, especially folks 18-34.  I'm not talking classifieds, I'm talking news stories, even online.  Free or not.  McClatchey, the owners, clearly just don't care about local coverage. Do we really think tomorrow's leaders are reading their gulag section ?  the  online press release section of the Star?  Right, after playing a fast game of SuperMarioBrothers.

The STAR is really just USA Today for geezers who can't drink enough coffee to have their morning BM without newsprint ink on their hands.

The STAR's business coverage is thinner than Joe Biden's hair.  And as for editorials, does anyone care what Yael Abouhalkah or Steve Rose thinks?  I think not.  The Star used to lead this town.  Not at all nowadays.

Our local tech businesses have stuck a spear in that dinosaur, and invented a far more effective way to share news and recruit tech talent.  Chutekc.com is the fast free way to get news and find jobs.  It also promotes our hipster Crossroads lifestyle for that generation that loves to hunt for a parking space.

(Come to think of it...why doesn't the KCMO City Council allow the vote to stop the Helzberg TIF for an architectural firm, which is what voters will say, and then invite know it all noblesse oblige rich gal Shirley "First Time Developer" Helzberg to pony up and lead: just pay her taxes and build a great HQ for a tech firm instead??)

Here are the FAQ's from Chutekc.com

and:
Lookie here! 15 groups that connect you with tech jobs, w/o reading the STAR

This could be big.  They are rolling out here, but this will spread faster than a new app for deep discounts on Viagra, to every tech village in the US.

Now the only thing left is:

Can KCNext figure out what to do NEXT with the STAR's glass HQ off Truman Road at Grand?  Maybe a Chutes and Ladders style indoor waterpark, ala Schlitterbahn?

Don Pepe--former Onassis chef at Cascone's only Sat. nights; gas pumper at Lenexa Costco six days a week: just grateful to be alive

One of the men I so admire is Chef Don Pepe.  And now you can see him and taste his great food, only on Saturday nights, at Johnny Cascone's, 91st just east of Metcalf.

Many of you recall his delicious cooking at his restaurant in the 80's on SW Blvd: Don Pepe's.  I have no idea how he made it to KC, because for three years, he was Executive Chef on the Christina, Aristotle Onassis' yacht in the Mediterranean Sea.

Usually folks who migrate from Europe to KC come for love.  Perhaps that drew our "Pepe" here. You'll have to ask him.

Now many chefs have a great gift: cooking.  Not so much with Quicken.  So in the 80's, Pepe lost his way, in the accounting and spending division, and we all lost a great place to eat.  But now, he's back.  But just four hours a week: at Cascone's.

On Saturday nights, in addition to their regular menu, and the live easy listening band, lots of Sinatra, tunes I actually know, the big thing is: Don Pepe comes out of the kitchen, in his chef whites, and tells you about HIS specials, on a separate sheet of paper.  And they are "delicioso".
My Saturday night movie group, from the Glenwood Arts and the Ks. International film festival, KIFF, dines there often, all 20 of us.  And when Pepe told us there were only 24 more servings left of his mega-giant fresh Scallops Spedini, well, 17 of our group ordered those.  I am allergic to garlic (hence my inability to repel single vampire men??) so I dined on one of Pepe's other remarkable specials, Salmon Piccata.  Not overcooked or dry like most restaurants.  Perfection.  With a side of noodles alfredo.  And caesar salad.  So generous I took half home.

But here is the rest of the story on this day of thanksgiving:
The rest of the week, you will find Don Pepe pumping gas for handicapped folks at the Lenexa Costco.  Now many would feel sorry for themselves, if they could only share their true gift from God a scant four hours a week.  Not Pepe.

Five years ago, he had a brain tumor.  And of course, doctors describe all tumors as being either the size of a sports ball, or a fruit.  So, out of respect, perhaps, Pepe's brain tumor was not a softball; it was "the size of a grapefruit".

"Tracy, I am so grateful every day--just to be alive.  The good doctors at KU Med Center saved me.  So wherever I am, here at Lenexa Costco, where I get to enjoy the fresh air and helping people, or cooking Saturday nights, at Johnny Cascone's, where I get to smell the garlic and butter and ultra-fresh ingredients, and feed people--I am always happy.  Come see me.  I'll give you a hug."
--Don Pepe

The Edge of Hell and The Beast are open late--P&L Royals fans can visit after games Sat and Sun nights--support our World Class home town haunted houses too

I used to do the advertising for The Edge of Hell and The Beast--for several decades.  And I know how hard it was on Monty Summers' family owned business, back in 1985--when the Royals were in the I-70 World Series.

These are world class operations--the Summers family, including Monty's brilliant niece, Amber Bequeaith, (yep, she used up all the vowels in Scrabble) have taken the haunted house industry to new heights of technology and psychological thriller entertainment.  They are the best operators of the undisputed best haunted houses in the country.  Just like our Royals team.

When you operate a seasonal business, and your target market is glued to the TV--and even the streets of Kansas City are deserted--it's very hard to survive.Fortunately, Halloween is not the biggest night of the year for haunted houses.  Many families are trick or treating, going for the free candy.

That said, I note that The Edge of Hell and The Beast--plus Macabre Cinema, the third haunted house owned by Full Moon Productions, are all open both this Sat. and Sun. nights.

They do not LIST how late.  (That saves you a phone call.  Trust me, they will keep the doors open as long as there are customers in line.)

I have been down there with Rat Man and BeetleJuice and all those screaming teens until 1am--so if you want some fun, and being scared really IS fun, well, just head from the P&L down the 12th St. Bridge, and show up.

Friday night's game was over at a very reasonable time--gosh, just 9 innings!  And win or lose, it's not like you can just go to sleep.  Royals fans have pent up energy.

Now personally, The Beast has long been my favorite, because getting lost in that Werewolf Forest for 20 minutes really drives up my abandonment anxiety.  They do finally send it staff to escort you to the next path.  And at the Edge of Hell, those vertigo bridges freak me out every time.

Live giant anacondas, hauled here from the Amazon.  Oh and that squeezing tunnel--a real heart-pounder.

Tell the Rat Man that Tracy sent you...

Queen Elizabeth in her Royals suit--and hat! I wonder which grandson got her into social media and baseball?

This picture is worth 1000 treaties.  

I love her special chair, her circle pin with real diamonds.

Her gloves.  Her smile.  Her body language.

We are so fortunate her Canadian subjects in Toronto didn't prevail.

But wait!

There's no way the milliner could have appliqued the KC logo 

atop the bow

on her Phillip Treacy hat.

And that Royals logo splashed across her chest.

Is it remotely possible this was Photoshopped?

And do we care?

Heavens, no.

Go Royals.

Deffenbaugh customers: save $1.50 per week by reading this one post! Instead of buying paper bags, just label a trash can with YW, one per week allowed

I hate paying for those paper trash bags.  So I was thrilled to learn I can put all my twigs and a few leaves in my ratty old trash can, max. 30 gallons, and the third Deffenbaugh truck--the one just for Yard Waste will empty it and leave it.  (So not the black lid bin for trash, and not the yellow lid bin for some recyclables but not glass).  This is the third truck: YW.

That saves any smart homeowner $1.50 per week.  At least during what they call "yard waste season" which is everything except January thru March.  Nine full months, same as a full term baby!

Now you might wonder, why not January thru March?  Don't we all have brush and twigs from winter winds?  Of course we do.  But a little know fact I gleaned when I was on the Shawnee City Council for five long years, was this:  Many workers at Deffenbaugh are Mexicans, not US citizens.  They are allowed to come here on temporary visas.  They live in very bare bones communal housing, often small homes, ten workers to a home, ringing the landfill which is in Shawnee.

And their visas are stored in the company safe.  That was all set up by Dennis Moore, when he was Ron Deffenbaugh's attorney, long before he became the Congressman representing Johnson and Wyandotte Counties.

And the Mexicans must return home for three months, and then return, like monarch butterflies.  So, they go home January through March each year.  (And who wouldn't like a vacation in a warmer clime?)

So Deffenbaugh's staffing is down, every year in first quarter.  And that is the secret reason why no yard waste pickups, other than their special Christmas tree collection.  If there is an ice storm, cities make extra provisions for a special "drag it to the curb" pickup.

Of course, it depends on exactly what contract you or your HOA have with Deffenbaugh.  Forget the website, save time and just call and they look up your address.  913/631-3300.  

I am grateful for Deffenbaugh's Yard Waste trash can policy.  It keeps some people from cheating--eg hiding yard waste in a black bin.  The supervisor explained, you can even use a little five gallon bucket for twigs--but if you don't use a marker to write YW on the side, for YARD WASTE--then you won't get your bucket back.

This is in fact my happiest trash time of the year.  From October thru December, here in Shawnee I can leave a total of 10 yard waste items, rather than the usual eight.  So, nine bundles of limbs (I am a champion lopper) plus my dependable turquoise YW trash barrel.

Life is good.  Thank you, Deffenbaugh.  Miss you Ronnie...

Greatest movie in 30 years, the hit of OmFilmFest.com, one final showing this year: 7:30pm Thursday Oct 15, Standees in PV: the Slumdog/ET/GodsMustBeCrazy/BeingThere/Bollywood extravaganza comedy adventure for thinking people. Thank you Jerome van Wert for wrassling Disney to allow just one more encore showing.

"PK" has emerged as the highest-grossing Indian film of all time.  No wonder Disney bought the US rights. "PK" was the first Indian film to gross INR 6 billion worldwide.  It took heroic efforts by Hyde Park's Jerome van Wert to wrangle the rights to show it one last time this year in KC.  Don't miss it: Thursday 7:30pm, Standees in the Prairie Village Shops, $10.  OMFilmfest.com

This movie is Hindi with English subtitles.  But worth it!!  Riotously funny and engrossing and moving.  If you loved Slumdog Millionaire, or The Gods Must Be Crazy, or Being There, or ET, this is for you.“A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, P.K.'s innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting-go.”

“PK (PeeKay) movie is a political satire, hitting out at corruption in the country.”

“P. K. is a comedy of ideas about a stranger in the city, who asks questions that no one has asked before. Innocent, child-like questions, but they bring about catastrophic answers. People who are set in their ways for generations, are forced to reappraise their world when they see it from PK's innocent eyes. 

---

I saw this in September at OMFilmFest, on the Plaza--and am going again--have never visited Standee's in PV, I hear it's special.  You can't buy PK as a DVD and it's not on Netflix, to my knowledge.  Disney has the rights all locked up like one of their princesses. So hooray for Hyde Park's Jerome van Wert (of the famed art patron duo 'Steve and Jerome') for negotiating this encore.    KC is so blessed to have the OMFilmFest each September, plus KIFF, with its 80 docs, narratives and shorts, which is Nov. 6-12 at Glenwood Arts.  (kansasfilm.com).  And now this encore final airing of PK.  

If you see only one movie the next two years, make it PK.

Hooray for Chris Kemper--first in the nation to use school ID for access to the public library

Chris Kemper set an example for the nation.  Hooray!  And it took three years, but as director of the Kansas City Public Library, he finally got the library's log-in system changed, so kids in the Kansas City Public Schools can do their homework, online, and just log in with their school-issued and verified ID number.  

No need for a stupid and easy to lose library card!  Thank you to Tonyskansascity.com for alerting me to Michael Mahoney's story on KMBC.com.

See Mahoney's story on student ID access to the Library, online and in their buildings.

We can send Matt Damon to Mars, in four years.  But it only took three years for Kemper to be first in America to let school kids into the library without a separate card.

Of course, Chris Kemper is super smart.  He didn't attend KC Public Schools; he went to Pembroke.  And beyond, Yale I believe.  As R. Crosby Kemper III.  The scion of United Missouri Bank wealth.  Now serving out the rest of his life as Kansas City's modern day Medici-in-residence.

 

Kemper also weighed in on the crazy downtown hotel issue, attempting to get the city's secret report showing that it will never pay for itself.  To date, that project is still incomplete, but at least he is leading!  Good for you, Mr. Kemper.

Did SM Schools use Ouija boards to secretly violate Open Meeting Law re Meadowbrook? Why do their lawyers claim they are broke, when they just walked on $1 million in taxes?

The Shawnee Mission School District needs to learn from the Kansas City School District--you can't lie to the public and the legislators about your finances.  Because when your district starts to slide downward, homeowners will vote with their feet.  That's why many families, especially whites, originally fled decades ago to SM.  And are now migrating south to Blue Valley.  Not just for the "children", but for the resale value of their homes, even retirees.

So this week, SMSD got caught talking out of both sides of their mouths.  On Wednesday, they failed their elected duties to protect the finances, by refusing to VETO the goofy "reverse TIF" for Meadowbrook, PV's free Recreational Welfare Rec Center.  They walked away from over a million dollars of property taxes the next 20 years.  Saying in essence, "We don't really need the money."

The very next day, their lawyers filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in Kansas, claiming that the state funding formula has unfairly tied their hands, canceled important classes and increased class size.  "We need millions more in money!"

Shawnee Mission honchos: you can't have it both ways.  Either you're too rich to need the money, or you are broke.  Chocolate or vanilla: choose.

  Click to read PVPost and amicus brief

Hats off to Cindy Neighbor and Patty Mach on SMSD who at least TRIED to force a veto vote on the Recreational Welfare.  But they must have read the tea leaves, or received a ration of crap calling them out, so when the Wed. 7:30am meeting bell rang, they'd been muzzled.  Put in Time Out. Silenced.  And I do mean silenced, since the public was not allowed to speak.

My question is, was KOMA violated?  By whom and how often?  How many secret conversations ensued in the last week?  District Attorney Steve Howe would be inundated if he had to review all the emails and texts from elected officials from BOCC, Ed Eilert, Hannes Zaccharias, to the commissioners, Mayor Laura Wassmer (who was reportedly so gobsmacked at any hint of opposition to her free community center that her page boy came uncurled), the lawyers for the VanTrust car dealers who snagged the TIF, and then the SMSD staff and school board members.

My guess?  Of course there were violations.  Or else how would the district folks have known, walking into the meeting, that they HAD the votes to defeat the proposed veto?  Unless they had secretly counted the votes in the back room and over their I-phone 6's???  (of course they have 'em.  They gave tablets and laptops to every kid in the district this September.  Trust me, these folks have Frequent Flier Miles at the Apple store.)

On second thought: I bet Superintendent Jim Hinson just discerned the vote using ESP!  (The Ouija boards are hidden behind the librarian's desk at every Shawnee Mission SD library.)

Not every greedy mayor lives in KCMO. Now PV Mayor/Welfare Queen Laura Wassmer is in bed with developers, hurting SM schools and property values.

Over in JoCo, the county and now the City of PV have learned from Sly James, in KCMO, how to deliver the bacon, to their friendly developers.

Remember Van Chevrolet?  They turned developer.  First they failed to invade the Plaza, when Polsinelli got a better deal around the corner, when they convinced Sly to bail out both Bob Bernstein and Terry Dunn--and lease it to them.  Now VanTrust has become a JoCo developer. So they bought Meadowbrook Country Club, 9101 Nall.  And in classic car dealer style, they took it as a "trade in" and are now double dipping profitably on TWO deals!

We at VanTrust keep the good land, and sell off the rest to JoCo,
who must build us a free detention pond.
BOCC then gives the clubhouse away for free to PV,
in return for approving this deal instead of building a new courthouse!
(plus it rewards Ron Shaffer being swing vote on King Louie...)
Would you like a free hotdog?

Now VanTrust wants to build upscale senior housing in PV--but waaaaaahhh--- they don't want to pay their property taxes!  But not even JoCo voters would fall for a TIF giveaway to a car dealer.  So,VanTrust is "parting out the car".  Parcelling off the interior half of the land, and foisting it off on JoCo government, with the first ever "reverse TIF".  Instead of jamming that property tax money into their own pocket, they used the three shell game trick.

  

VanTrust is stuffing the abated taxes into the pocket of JoCo Parks and Rec.  To cover the taxpayers' cost for the back half of this trade-in.  But ONLY if the SM Schools fall for this game.  And the big vote is this Wed.

So how does JoCo then pay off the swing voter, new Commissioner Ron Shaffer, former mayor of Prairie Village?  Brilliant!  JoCo Parks & Rec is gonna turn an aging Meadowbrook Clubhouse into the first city to receive a FREE community center, at the expense of ALL the county's taxpayers.  For the win: Prairie Village! 

But Cindy Neighbor on the SM School Board is opposing the TIF.  Wants to veto it Wed. night. How dare she!!!   Welfare Queen Mayor Laura Wassmer is furious!  She is trotting out Kay Barnes, the giveaway queen of KCMO,  and former Mayor Roe Talliaferro, everyone except Bernie Sanders. 

Roe Taliaferro, flanked by former Kansas City, Mo., mayor Kay Barnes (left) and
Prairie Village Mayor Laura Wassmer at a presentation earlier this year,
is encouraging PV residents to contact their representatives on the SM School Board.

 Wassmer is calling SM Schools need to collect property tax to keep competitive with Blue Valley Schools a "short term concern"!   Who is Wassmer's speechwriter?  Sly James??? 

The fact is this: The citizens of Prairie Village are now being lobbied by BOCC Commissioner Ron Shaffer, their former mayor who is trying to deliver the bacon, millions of dollars of JoCo tax dollars, to provide PV with a FREE community center. That is RECREATIONAL WELFARE. No other community got a free community center paid for by ALL of JoCo taxpayers. Not Shawnee, not Lenexa, not even the big dog, OP.  (They are getting one mold-filled room for yoga classes inside King Louie.  By one vote, the BOCC paid $4.5 million for the ugly asbestos filled building. A year later it appraised at $430,000, before pouring $32 million into rehabbing that pig. King Louie is smack dab between Matt Ross Community Center and the vacant Metcalf South.) 

Your home is often your single biggest asset.

Your public schools protect your property values.
So it doesn't matter if you have kids.
Bad schools, eg KCMO, equals lower resale value.

A rec center with subsidized day care COMPETES with private industry, which is well capable of offering yoga or pilates classes and day care. 
If you want the economy to improve, (so your kids and grandkids can get a job and move out of your back bedroom) then stop allowing your governmental lackies to transfer private tasks to public tax financed efforts.

SM Schools should STOP allowing businesses to demand TIF's.
The Meadowbrook TIF is a shell game.  Pretends the tax is for the county not the car dealer, when it is just an account transfer.
By one vote, the JoCo Commission refused to negotiate, and let a car dealer set the inflated price, sans appraisal.And because the car dealer is building things that don't generate much property tax, 
the TIF is a fake: it will likely never be paid off.
It's a gift disguised as an incentive.

This is a Trojan horse.  VanTrust is sneaking into NE JoCo to build what they want,
on the GOOD land, while sticking the county with the worse half, the interior in need of a giant detention pond, and then using Kay Barnes and Welfare Queen Laura Wassmer to hustle for it, 
and now trying to guilt trip the SM Schools into taking it in the yoga shorts.

If PV wants a community center, they should pay for it, and not demand RECREATIONAL WELFARE from every resident in Johnson County.
The SM School Board, led by Cindy Neighbor of Shawnee, should demand their property taxes. Period. VETO THE TIF.  

JoCo, did you learn NOTHING from KCMO???  When you go to sell your home, you don't want to have to lower your selling price by $20,000 to compete with a homebuyer who might not even have kids but wants to move to the Blue Valley School district...for the RESALE VALUE.

What is more important? Resale value of your home? Or putting on your lycra yoga pants and going to the Meadowbrook Welfare Rec Center?

Of 3 Exit Strategies for Hillary: Take Door #1, Cancer Diagnosis, Real or Fake. It Allows You to Save Face.

You read it here first on www.KCMOPost.com, in a blue state, from a feminist: Hillary Clinton will not run for President, and if she does, she will not be elected.  She just needs to select the exit strategy that allows her to save face.  Here are the top 3:

1.   She will be diagnosed, by a trusted friendly doctor, with cancer.  Real or fake. And leave immediately.

2.   She will manifest another medical issue, eg a stroke or something affecting her cognitive abilities.  Her family will make the announcement for her.

3.   Or the Nuclear Option-- if she keeps refusing to listen: Bill Clinton will step out on her SO publically with his decade long friend, divorcee Julie Taubor McMahon, known by the Secret Service as the ‘Energizer’.

     That WOULD be humiliating.  She will suffer a crisis of confidence, perhaps a nervous breakdown.  Since all the polls are saying she cannot win, out of concern for future control of the Supreme Court, the real issue for the D's, she will reluctantly and bravely withdraw from the race and bestow her support on someone else.  Her farewell speech and even her dress will be like Elaine Paige as Evita Peron.  But she will be singing, “Don’t Cry for Me, Bernie Sanders…” 

Watch and listen. Elaine Paige even resembles Hillary

Someone has to tell Hillary: It’s over.  I don’t think she is listening to Bill.  So--it might as well be me.  I was for her in 2008.  Even tho I am now a Republican in Kansas, I knew then that Sarah Palin was a ditsy broad—illiterate and brash.  So as banged up as McCain was, I just couldn’t vote for Palin to be one breath away from chatting over the snow fence with Putin.  (And now she wants folks to “speak American.”  Many Republican men I know may fantasize sleeping with her (or sharing a pizza).  But Palin is a low-integrity perky prom queen who quit her last job halfway through her first term, then quit her TV show and now hopes to be named Secretary of Energy so she can close the agency down.) 

Left with no choice, I thus supported Hillary to be our first woman President. I even mailed her 7 checks.  Only tokens.  I am not rich.  They totaled $247 I think. The last five checks were in odd amounts like $18 or $27: mirroring the percentage points by which she beat Obama in a particular state’s primary.  Then the black Manchurian candidate boxed her in as “pro-war”, branding himself as the only anti-war candidate.  He lied about being anti-war, promising to close Gitmo immediately and get us out of Afghanistan.  It was over then. 

And yes, I was proud, at first, of her taking the world’s worst job, Secretary of State. So many frequent flier miles.  So little sleep.  Hillary is a hard worker; we all give her that.

But remember after Benghazi, Congress wanted her to testify, so she claimed she “hit her head” and her doctor wouldn’t let her leave her house?  Nation!  That was your first clue.  When the going got tough, Hillary called her doctor.  Got a note like her Mom used to write: “Hillary cannot come to class today.  Or the next three weeks till your hearings are over.”

Hillary, dear unlikeable one: It’s just not in the Akashic record this lifetime for you to be President.  I think you already knew that.  As First Lady, your girlfriends invited the great Jean Houston to the White House. She conducted a past life regression.  Honest to God, look it up, folks.  Hillary wanted to contact Eleanor Roosevelt.  I believe they ALL told you, even Eleanor: Not in this lifetime, sorry.  But you didn’t listen.

   

And remember the CNN debate, when Obama said, "You're likeable enough."  

Ouch.  Well, you are much less likeable now.  Your voice is even more shrill.  You sound defensive and desperate. This new softer "heart and humor" act is so forced.  Like ceramic nails on a chalkboard. You are trying way too hard.  And since the doctor cut back on your estrogen, (they all do that when you turn 65, to avoid heart attacks)—well, you have aged greatly.  And not for the good.  I know.  It happened to me as well. 

 At least Ronald Reagan’s handlers were smart enough to prep his throat gobbler before his appearances with that secret facelift product: Preparation H.  Indeed.

And I picked a good photo of ya.

Hillary, your act is stale.  Your jokes are horrid, as in, “What—wipe the hard drive, like with a cloth?”  Who is your joke writer?  Bobby Jindal??  Sinbad??

And this week, I notice you are hoarse.  Have you been crying?  I bet. I would, too.  You are trying to put on a brave face for your “reset”.  I bet the Labor Day huddle with your staff was brutal.  Bill and the staff ringed the room with posters of the polls.  Those numbers are falling faster than the closeout sale of shriveled plants in the garden department at your nearest Walmart: “Beware of falling prices!” 

So here is my coaching:

Hillary: Take Door #1.  Get a cancer diagnosis. Real or fake. Any organ will do. Get out of the race and go home. Take treatments, have a miraculous healing.  Perhaps in December, 2016.  Being an object of pity is better than an object of scorn.  Be an awesome Grandma to Charlotte.  You’ve had a great run.  But like Sunset Boulevard, you are Norma Desmond.  You are NOT ready for your closeup.  The game changed.  You lost in 2008.  Pack it up.  Accept it.

By selecting Door #1, you save the most face.  And preserve your legacy. Nobody wants you to die.  They just don’t want you to be President.  You can still earn money, make speeches and be a leader at the Clinton Foundation. 

Door #2 is really not a choice—but considering the stress you are putting on yourself, might be your body’s way of telling you to leave the campaign.  That’s how diseases work: symptoms are their morse code.

And Door #3 would be sad for all of us.  You married Likeable Bill.  You are Less Likeable.  If he has to get your attention by stepping out on you with the Energizer, well, it’s just gonna get so awkward.  Seating charts for Thanksgiving? The Seder dinners with Chelsea’s husband’s family?  Christmas in Chappaqua?  And working at the Foundation…with recipient Julie?  So definitely…Door #1.

Don’t kill the carrier pigeon,

Tracy Thomas, former supporter, former VP of Greater KC NOW. Publisher of KCMOPost.com

KCMOPost.com salutes the late Dr. Wayne Dyer--major fundraiser for KCPT. Watch his movie, The Shift, online for free all this MONTH.

Many in Kansas City watched KCPT-Ch. 19 fundraiser weeks, year after year, and got to know Wayne Dyer that way.  He generously gave away so many books and movies in support of educational television.  KCPT had many years of fundraiser hosts, including a violinist conductor who looked, to me at least, like a pirate.  But I believe Wayne Dyer's presentations generated the most revenues, which have happily kept KCPT on the air and growing.

Wayne's interviews with a woman he discovered, and got her story published by Hay House, Anita Moorjani, were especially moving.  Moorjani had a very vivid "I came back from the dead" story and the two of them told that to the world.

You may also recall that Dr. Dyer shared how he was diagnosed about five years ago with leukemia and was given 7 months to live.  Instead of traditional medical treatment, he took a spiritual healing treatment from a celebrated holy man, John of God, in south America.  And, according to Wayne, he was healed.

So I am happy to report to all the skeptics out there: that Wayne Dyer died.  And not from leukemia!  He had a heart attack.  A much more electrical exit from this plane of existence.
 
He went out like a firework.  So here is the link to Katy Perry's song, Baby You're a Firework.  It has been viewed 613 MILLION times.  Pretty amazing video and the entire set of lyrics really echo what Wayne was always talking about. "You don't have to feel like a waste of space...some day, like a lightning bolt your heart will blow....   "

Baby, You're a Firework

Some of you may find me, in particular, a bit dark in my writing some days.  But I can assure you, I am motivated to nudge all of us to speak out and make Kansas City a much better place.   I launched this second blog, KCMOPost.com, (sister to JoCoPost.com) out of a burst of anger at the 1%'ers (like Stan Kroenke, this week's Public Enemy #1, who keep making tax grabs.  I am committed to devising strategies and organizing the silent majority into stopping those practices that are destroying the middle class here.  It won't always be pretty.  We will name names.  But I hope that it will make a difference.

My former minister at Unity of Overland Park, Rev. Mary Omwake, now lives on Maui.  She often went to the movies with Wayne, and Deepak Chopra.  She hangs with some pretty cool company. And is a confidant of 84 year old Ram Dass, also on Maui.  Mary emailed yesterday that a gathering spiritual team there on Maui is at work organizing big sendoffs for Wayne--around the world, including a big event in New York Nov. 14.

Not bad for a kid whose single mother sent him and his two brothers to an orphanage at age 3.  At age 50, Wayne quit his tenured professor job--walked away from a job for life that did not light him up.   He drove to Alabama to visit the grave of the father, who had abandoned the family--and FORGAVE him.  That day, he 'invented a more empowering interpretation' for what happened to him and his brothers.  That decision to affirm rather than to resent, is what  allowed Wayne to say that his father's abandonment was the greatest gift he ever received.  It launched the whole second act of his great life.

Just now I learned that through his publisher, Hay House, (thank you, Louise Hay and Reid Treacy) they are allowing the world to view Wayne's most popular movie, THE SHIFT, online FOR FREE NOW THRU SEPT 30.   (Originally it was just for a week, now extended.)

So even if you watched it years ago, it's worth another viewing. Or sharing with a loved one.   Since it is more auditory than visual, I listened to the voice track while writing this post.

Watch Wayne Dyer's movie, The Shift, online for free thru Sept 30

And may you find the courage to do something outrageous this week.  Insist on living a life that lights you up, until you, too, burst into sparks, LIKE A FIREWORK.

Thank you to Tony at Tonyskansascity.com, for linking our Sly James story today--and sharing with many more people

Tonyskansascity.com shares with several thousand more readers

We are gratified, since this is a brand new blog, not even a website till later this week.

And thank you to Tony's commenters. Go easy on me, please.  I just want to make a difference.   I didn't quite get the one about someone being a snail, but then I am from Iowa, and we don't talk thattaway.

I did smile at being termed a "socialite".  I would say that I am "sociable". An extrovert who loves people.  Especially artists and writers and movers and shakers and voters.  But I am not from the Sunset Hill class of people.

I grew up in Des Moines, had only one outfit with a recognizable label in it.  I got it on sale but was so proud that it was a Bonnie Bell.  Grosgrain ribbon trim down the front of the sweater.  Oooh, ahh...it was like my blankie.  Made me feel good walking around the square at Roosevelt High School before class, when all the soshies ignored me.  I wore that turquoise sweater and skirt to public high school all three years, three times a week, by rotating the polyester blouses I bought in the bargain bin at Sears.  While one of my friends wore Ferragamo shoes; I wore shoes from Bakers (like Payless).  I was a violist who played Beethoven string quartets every day during fifth hour.

I had two or three dates in high school...if you count Sadie Hawkins Day.  I was a great student, very active in my 6000 member church downtown, (I rode the bus there every Wednesday).  I was a civil rights advocate.

That is not my actual photo.
My glasses were much uglier.

Rather than miss "the" supposed social event of my entire young life, going to prom, I finally asked Judy Levine, my Ferragamo friend, to please make her little brother take me.  I wore a princess cut organza sheath dress. My Mom and I invented how to layer two pieces of fabric for a shimmery wow factor.  We considered that pretty snazzy for Norwegian Lutherans.   She sewed it up from a McCall's pattern.  I splurged once in my life and had my pointy kitten-heeled fabric shoes from Bakers dyed to match.  Since my date was in the 10th grade and could not drive, Judy and her older sister Linda drove us four for pizza at Noah's.

Judy and Linda then drove us to the school gym, and waited in the parking lot in their Dad's Lincoln, while Michael and I danced three dances to show off my dress and corsage.  To no one, basically, because the soshies of course still ignored me.  No after parties for me.  We were all home by 11.  At least I could say I had been to prom once.  So, Tony, I am hardly the socialite!

I earned spending money to go to college on a full four year scholarship to Wichita State--by babysitting--for 35 cents an hour.  I still know all the multiples of 35 cents x 1 hour, hour and a half, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 hours.  A babysitter's wage then was definitely not $15 an hour!  Tho I do know a woman with four unruly adopted foster kids here in Shawnee-- and she pays $30 an hour to her sitter.

Oh well, life worked out great.  And on the plus side, I am also not a socialist.  I don't like Bernie Sanders, and I gave up on Hillary in 2008, tho to my mind, she still would have been better as President than Obama.  She at least grew up Republican, before marrying Bill.

Mayor James--Governor Sam Brownback's secret eco-devo hero!!!!

Hosannas and praise to Sly James, Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri.  You are doing MORE with your left-handed bungling than even Kansas Governor Sam Brownback thinks he is, to support the stalled economy in Johnson County, Kansas!!!

Sly James --the mayor who does not even own a home here, commenced his second term in August, kissing up to a local push from an organizing group of people all wearing red T-shirts to raise the minimum wage, just in KCMO, to $15 an hour.

Sly loves anything in a red shirt.  Just like he donned a red KCMO Firefighters button down shirt the night that JJ's Restaurant exploded and killed a worker--the night the KCMO firefighters drove away without turning off the gas leak, themselves, claiming (with a perhaps falsified FAX), that was somehow justified or prudent, because of some preposterous goofball policy that the "gas company had it covered"...no need for the Fire Department to actually do their tax-supported job.

So Mr. Big Red Jacket, we all know you love being on the news.  And so you supported the $15 an hour organizers, as well.  You made the news.

But that puzzled me.  Because Mayor James has a day job, as a lawyer.  It is illegal in Missouri for a city to pass a law controlling the minimum wage.  It must be a statewide thang.  So shouldn't he know better?

But oh well.  Details are not Sly's thang.  Like how to build a hotel downtown, without violating securities law, because your secret research report told you and the council that it won't pay for itself.
As of August 29,2015, the City of KCMO is claiming they don't have to release the secret research report, "because it was embedded and bundled inside a request for a sealed bid".  So even tho the taxpayers PAID for the report, they can't see it.  Details.  "It's a secret!"   (More on that soon.  What we need in this town is an Edward Snowden to leak the report.)

Another pesky detail this week:  Sly James now is scheming to borrow money from the Zoo Bond Fund to pay for a completely different project.  Might that be the same downtown hotel?  But wait.  The ballot issue promised the taxpayers when they voted for the penguins that the money would only go to the Zoo?  Details.

So when I read that Sly was grandstanding for the $15 an hour minimum wage, I just smiled.  Four years as a mayor is a LONG time for him to campaign to replace Congressman Emanuel Cleaver in Congress.  (Unless Sly knows something we don't, and is expecting Cleaver to resign early.)  Mayor James is gonna need alot of free headlines.  Like Donald Trump's race, it's far too early for details.

But now the news is reporting that Sly apparently read the state law, and perhaps had a "duh moment".  So now he is joining hands with union workers in St. Louis, and the new battle cry is "Raise the minimum wage across all of Missouri--to $15 an hour."  Coming soon to a red T-shirt near you.

To my mind, Sly James' campaign is the best news that Johnson County has had in a long time. Because every business that CAN migrate across our itty bitty and oh so close State Line Road--into Kansas for regular minimum wages--will do so.

The truth is this.  The economy has not recovered from 2008.  Businesses large and small are doing everything in their power just to survive.  And they are holding off on actual hiring.  Because we don't trust Congress not to jack up the tax code and the labor laws even worse.  And let's not even go there regarding Obamacare.  It's too big to repeal, too hard to repair and too soon to tell.

The second Big Truth is: newbie workers are not worth $15 an hour.  Period.  It doesn't matter if you exclude kids, late teens.  A greeter at Walmart is not worth $15 an hour.  They don't earn their keep. I don't want my prices raised.  Do you?

A new kid out of college, just learning their trade as a copywriter?  Not worth $15 an hour.  A new kid out out college, learning how to load up sod or trees at the Home Depot next to Linwood Costco? Not worth $15 an hour.  A newly hired empty nester Mom, seeking her first job in 18 years, anywhere, since the kids went away to college?  Not worth $15 an hour.  She might be, soon.  But not on Day 1.  So the entrepreneurs and the franchisees in Johnson County or KCMO or Branson are not going to lose money, they just won't hire anyone starting out at $15 an hour.  Including the marcher carrying his sign UPSIDE DOWN!

So please, Sly James.  LET THE MIGRATION BEGIN.  You keep wearing your red T-shirts and your red KCFD button down shirt.  And send ALL your businesses over to Johnson County--it's in the Red State.

Hugs,

Tracy Thomas, publisher of JoCoPost.com
New publisher of KCMOPost.blogspot.com