Archives: December 2008
Omaha World-Herald publisher lifts Zieman’s column
Yesterday, Poynter’s Jim Romenesko totally busted Omaha World-Herald Publisher Terry Kroeger lifting sections of Kansas City Star Publisher Mark Zieman’s pep talk letter to readers. Kroeger’s December 7 column featured this passage: “To be sure, this year has been difficult for newspapers, including your World-Herald. The economic downturn has reduced our advertising revenue, which has forced us to adjust our…
Celebrate national chocolate brownie day!
Today is National Chocolate Day! I’m a huge fan of this dessert myself, although rather than ordering them in restaurants, I prefer to bake my own (which I once did live, on-camera for KCPT-Channel 19 for some kind of cooking-segment fundraiser). I have to confess, though, that I have a secret weakness for the Brownie Fudge Sundae at Steak and Shake…
Secret Santas and the Nelson-Atkins on NBC Nightly News
Finally! A couple of KC-related stories that don’t involve the words “Funkhouser” or “Squitiro” made national news. On Saturday, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams aired this story (above) about how the economic downturn affects the arts. The Nelson, which cut back its hours, is mentioned around the 1:08 mark. Immediately following the arts story was this short one about…
Kansas City’s Dot Matrix Winter Wonderland
A pixilated leviathan of holiday cheer, this block-headed Santa Claus lords over Gillham Park, at 41st and Gillham, watching over the children and parents who gather for chilly fun during the day and get the holy hell away at night. Categories: News Tags: christmas, Creepy Santa, Gillham Park
Plastic corpses don’t make you smarter
This year Union Station’s Bodies Revealed exhibit was the focal point of a controversy involving bloggers, religious officials, reporters and any shrill voice that could find its way to an online comments section. Now, four months too late for most of Kansas City to pay attention, a reasoned symposium on plastinated corpses — with respected experts from impressive schools —…
Stealing Time: Troll calls Derek Donovan a douche
It’s hard out there for our buddy, Derek Donovan. The Kansas City Star’s reader representative tries to explain why the daily dropped anonymous commenting from its Web site (a good move) and gets promptly called a douche bag. Guess the trolls still take their toll. Did you notice that Lewis Diuguid’s column ended? News to me. Bottom Line points out…
Phoenix Jazz Club Updates
Apparently, the Phoenix is open again. Yeah, late to the game on that, I know. Pastic Sax Bill has twice reported on the downtown jazz piano hoo-ha club’s reopening, and the Star ran an article a month ago on the purchase of the defunct club by Matt Jones, owner of the Dark Horse, Torre’s and the Jaywalker — all sporty…
Starbucks’ strategy goes from open more stores to make people wait longer
Starbucks just can’t seem to get its act together right now. Facing a drop-off in sales this past year — which had to have been at least partly due to people tightening their budgets — Starbucks decided to raise its prices. That strategy has backfired, and now Starbucks’ stock sits at a 10-year low. Given the current economic climate, sales…
People: It’s spelled barbecue
DLC of the always entertaining KC Lunch Spots recently held a poll asking readers to vote for their favored spelling of the word barbecue…or is that barbeque or bbq? Just as there’s not one dominant version of barbecue, there’s not one dominant version of its correct spelling. As DLC notes, no less of an authority than the Oxford English Dictionary…
Pendergast Breaks Up, Writes Band History
Pendergast frontman Anthony Ladesich has announced that his band’s last show ever will be Friday, December 19, at Davey’s Uptown, with Macon Greyson, Brother Trucker and the Cass County Lamenters. Ladesich sent out the following e-mail-slash-eulogy over the weekend. That’s right. This is not a joke. Pendergast’s LAST SHOW EVER is at Davey’s on Dec 19. There will be a…
Bell’s Brewery having an event tonight at Flying Saucer
I’ll be in class taking a written final for my culinary class (I already summed up what I learned here) but if I had $35 hanging around and was free for the night and in the vicinity of Power & Light, I’d probably hit this event. What Pixar is to animation, Bell’s Brewery is to beer — some of its…
Daily Briefs: Caught Between the Devil and a Hard Rain
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Concert Review: Juliana Hatfield at the Record Bar
Friday, December 6 Better than: Having a My So-Called Life marathon at home. At some point early in Juliana Hatfield’s set last Friday, a guy near me observed: “This is so ’90s it hurts.” It was a true statement on every level. As Hatfield strummed alone on stage, in a clingy, leopard-print gown, for a little while, it felt like…
The Download-New Amon Tobin MP3s
photo: 7578.com Along with his exclusive “monthly joints,” Brazilian DJ/musician Amon Tobin has been pretty generous to fans. Yesterday, he posted a live recreation of last year’s Foley Room LP for free via his website. Here’s what he had to say about it: “It’s about the sound and the shared experience of being immersed in waves of bass while dissonant…
Breakfast Buffet: Monday, 12/08
%{}% IA photographic step-by-step recipe that practically guarantees your heart won’t make it to the new year. Maybe eating at big-box bars in the suburbs by yourself is not so bad after all. That is, if you get a blonde bartender. Obama can go a long way to impressing children and voters by upholding this promise and not sneaking a…
Mrs. Sebelius doesn’t go to Washington
So the big political news over the weekend was that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has taken herself out of the running for any possible cabinet position in the Obama administration. Yawn. Now Sebelius says she wants to focus on Kansas’ massive budget challenges rather than joining the Obama administration. That’s a noble sentiment. But I’m inclined to believe the state…
Kline happy with Kansas Supreme Court ruling
%{}% Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline breezed through the lobby of his office about five minutes before his scheduled press conference this afternoon. He did a quick double-take when he saw a friendly face, Kansas Liberty minority owner and newly elected Kansas state Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook, and gave her a quick “Hey.” Journalists had been summoned into Kline’s…
Avenues Bistro Survives Car Crash!
Dana Self, art critic for The Pitch and director of marketing for the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, was eating lunch with a friend at Avenues Bistro in Brookside today. Shortly after her blackened grouper salad arrived (“They say it’s blackened grouper, but it’s really just grilled,” Self says), the sound of shattering glass silenced conversations and the restaurant literally…
Jezebel.com joins in on the co-mayor fun, makes jokes we stopped making a year ago
In this post, Jezebel.com writer Megan Carpentier makes sense of all this silly Funk/Squitiro business for us dolts here in KC, who apparently were so busy feeling sympathy for Funkhouser’s wife that we missed the real reason why Gloria should be dismissed from the mayor’s office: “The problem is that rather than attacking Squitiro for her racist statements or standing…
Kansas Supreme Court smacks down Kline
%{}% Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline has a week to hand over a “full and complete” copy of “all materials gathered or generated” in his investigation of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri to the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled this morning. The high court also ordered Kline and his subordinates to meet with Kansas…
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