Rep. Paul Fitzwater, chairman of the Missouri House of Representatives’ Corrections Committee, which oversees the state’s prison system, says that group plans to make major policy changes this legislative session regarding the treatment of prison employees.Fitzwater tells The Pitch that the overhaul is a direct result of an article the newspaper published in November regarding widespread discrimination and sexual harassment…
A Twitter account has been created on behalf of one of Kansas City’s most iconic streets. The account posts a one-word reply each day to the question “Bike Lanes on Grand?”The answer is always “No.”The account reflects the frustration of urbanites who think that Kansas City, Missouri, has been too slow to develop a bikeway system. They see Kansas City…
For the past couple of months, everything has been a little off.Last Friday morning, for instance, should have been like any other Friday morning: I stopped by my favorite café and ordered an Irish-cream latté. But last Friday was Inauguration Day, so the barista thought I wanted my drink made with liqueur. I stopped him just before he dumped a…
Last weekend’s Women’s March — by some estimates the largest demonstration in American history — was a loud shout against what one can only assume will be four years of steady and relentless normalization of Trump-like attitudes toward females. (See: Trump, yesterday, flanked by several other stern, old white men, signing an anti-abortion executive order.)In Missouri, where the political tides…
Celebrated PBS chef, restaurateur, Eataly empress and lovable Nonna Lidia Bastianich will be on site at Lidia’s Kansas City (101 West 22nd Street) Thursday, February 2, to host Carnevale de Venezia, a celebration of the time before Lent. Bastianich plans to spend the day with her employees and guests at the restaurant before signing cookbooks. (The dinner is $50 a…
“Remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams famously implored her husband, John, in 1776, as he represented Massachusetts at the Continental Congress. “Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.”One lady not remembered enough: British chemist Rosalind Franklin. Earning a doctorate from Cambridge University in the 1940s (her father disapproved of her science studies), she went on to make significant insights…
Three years ago, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed a scary piece of legislation known as a health-care compact. Pushed by Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook of Shawnee and other fringy lawmakers, it was designed to allow Kansas to basically secede from federal health-care programs and do its own thing.The law created a flurry of concern from groups like AARP, who pointed out…
The Kansas City Star’s new editorial board is off to a lethargic start.Staff-written editorials resumed in Sunday’s edition, after the purge led by rookie publisher Tony Berg. If Day 1 is a guide, Berg and Colleen McCain Nelson, the new vice president and editorial page editor, are not going to be up to the task of providing a bulwark against…
Eighties-synth pop-loving, pure-pop U.K. act the 1975 will grace KC with a Starlight Theatre performance on Tuesday, May 9. The appearance is part of a lengthy tour to promote the band’s second album.Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, January 28, via Live Nation’s website. %{}% Tags: starlight theatre, the 1975
The Kansas City Royals confirmed that Yordano Ventua, who signed with the organization as a teenager and pitched brilliantly during the team’s dash to its first World Series in 29 years, died in a car crash in the Dominican Republic. He was 25.”Our prayers right now are with Yordano’s family as we mourn this young man’s passing,” Royals general manager…
Movie critic Joe Bob Briggs is known for his reviews of drive-in movies, even if there aren’t all that many drive-ins around these days. He’s become something of a go-to guy for films with exploding heads, car chases, nudity, and all aspects of action, be it kung-fu, car-fu, or chainsaw-fu. While he was once best known for his hosting duties…
Steve Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, is currently going through the confirmation process. Today, he appeared before the bipartisan Senate Finance Committee to face questions. Unlike, say, education secretary nominee Betsy Davos, who seems to have no idea what that job even entails, or Rick Perry, who has said he doesn’t think the Department of Energy, which Trump…
Just over a year ago, Laura Voss, a physician who lives in Lone Jack, traveled to Jordan and got herself within a few miles of the Syrian border. Like countless people around the world, she’d been moved by a singular image: a small child, lying on a beach, lifeless, washed ashore like driftwood. That photo has come to symbolize the…
Royal TeethThere’s something irrepressibly youthful about Louisiana’s Royal Teeth and its sugar-coated power pop. the band’s latest release, Amateurs, is a refreshing romp through cheerful synths and foot-tapping beats; singers Nora Patterson and Gary Larsen play their harmonies off each other just enough without getting too cute. Friday, the band will do its best to get you dancing. Nashville singer-songwriter…
With spring tours on the horizon, the announcements are coming in waves. Random, random waves.Iron Maiden hits the Sprint Center on July 11 as part of its “Book of Souls” world tour. (We enjoy this promo photo very much, by the way.) Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. next Saturday, January 28, via LiveNation’s website; you can get in on…
Think of your mother. Think of your late mother. Think of your late mother, whom you miss. Think of your late mother, whom you miss, without crying. Think of your late mother, whom you miss but who did not leave you unwounded. Think of your mother and cry.If those were the stage directions in a screenplay about someone reckoning with…
Watching the actors of Card Table Theatre rehearse the beginning of Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 play, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, you get an immediate sense of the work’s gravitas. From the back of the ballroom inside Lawrence’s Eagle’s Lodge #309, you see the all-female cast move around as they work out Brecht’s menagerie of “the underworld’s most-fabled malefactors.” As…
From the Department of Nothing Gold Can Stay:After 30 years on the County Club Plaza, Houston’s restaurant (4640 Wornall) is closing, after its owner, the California-based Hillstone Restaurant Group, was unable to reach a lease-extension agreement with its Plaza landlord. Apparently, even chains struggle to make rent on the Plaza these days. Here is Houston’s Facebook announcement about the closing: Come by for…
This afternoon, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley and Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft — both freshly elected Republicans — teamed up for a press release to trumpet a $864 million settlement with Moody’s Investors Service for its role in the events that led to the 2008 financial crisis. As one of 21 states that, along with the Department of…
Thursday, January 19“I don’t think clowns are needed as much since the world has become so clownish,” says Zack Galifianakis in the trailer for Season 2 of FX’s wonderfully eccentric comedy Baskets. %{}%This is of course coming from Paris-trained, routinely shat-on rodeo clown Chip Baskets — a role so ridiculous on paper that only Galifianakis’ exquisitely deadpan delivery could ever…
New Gov. Eric Greitens on Tuesday night described his plans for Missouri as “a strong and bold start” for a state that has been languishing.But Greitens, the fresh face in Jefferson City, actually presented a warmed-over platter of ideas that have been kicking around the Capitol for years in his first state-of-the-state speech. He started out vowing to kneecap unions…
Britten Bolenbaugh leans forward in her seat as we talk inside a suburban coffeehouse in eastern Jackson County. She’s a yoga and Pilates teacher — never one to sit still for very long — but the movement she’s telling me about is different from any she has undertaken before.Bolenbaugh this week leads hundreds of Missourians to the Women’s March on…
Kansas City’s Emmaline Twist plays angular rock and roll, swirled through with post-punk influences. Think Interpol, had that band listened to more Wire than Joy Division. And the band’s own pedigree benefits from an eye-catching diversity of talent. Singer and guitarist Meredith McGrade comes from Admiral of the Red, bassist Kristin Conkright from Onward Crispin Glover, drummer Jordan Knecht from…
Twitter handle: @genewillis Hometown: Kansas City, Kansas. Proud product of Third and Quindaro. Current neighborhood: Roeland Park What I do (in 140 characters or less): Strategic marketing/PR, helping athletes and the “team behind the team” to make good decisions about substances of abuse and performance-enhancing drugs What’s your addiction? Every Tuesday night on Twitter, I ask the world five questions, using the hashtag…
