Cave-in

Setting the bar: I thought the going rate for an attorney was $250 an hour (David Martin’s “Sky High,” June 23). But I guess if you work for the city, you can make up any fee. Fifteen-minute phone call to the mayor? Oops, that’s an hour. Lunches are charged as business luncheons? Hmm, two hours. Oh, man, pencil tip broke and I’ll have to resharpen my pencil: one hour. It’s an “I’ll rub your back, you rub mine.”

Take, for instance, former Mayor Emanuel Cleaver. He got a car wash in Grandview for rubbing his comrades’ backs. So really it’s not what you know, it’s “who you know” in City Hall. So if she didn’t hire attorney Bryan Cave, who else would she have hired?

Howard Carson

Kansas City, Missouri

Shades of Gray

Rebel without a cause: Tony Ortega has single-handedly ruined the Pitch‘s journalistic integrity with his story “Rebel Hell” (June 23). Why should anyone believe anything else that the Pitch publishes from now on? Very bad move.

Rebecca Regan

via the Internet

Faux hawk: You guys sure took me for a ride. I pick up your magazine from time to time and expect to find articles on controversial subjects or that give a different spin to issues that are important to me. This article was simply irresponsible. I circulated copies of it to co-workers and discussed it with neighbors because I was led to believe our city wasn’t telling us the truth.

I thought I could trust you folks to publicize truthful and newsworthy material. Looks like you proved me wrong. I’ll think twice before picking up your magazine next time.

Dylan Kruger

Olathe

Arena balled: I think you came up with a great way to point out that, once again, KC voters were hoodwinked into taxing themselves for a project that never will live up to its billing (the same cynical sleight of hand used for Union Station and attempted for the failed Bi-State II). The fact that so many at City Hall took the article seriously would be amusing if it were not so sad.

John Kultgen

Overland Park

Pitch it: I assume that you pride yourself on the excellent investigative pieces which generally make up your feature articles. In one incredibly stupid moment, you have undermined the credibility of all that.

“Rebel Hell” is totally inexcusable. I am left wondering how much of “Blood Simple” (June 9) was made up to help “spoof” Missouri’s death penalty. Can I ever trust an investigative piece by Pitch again? The editor should NOT get a slap on the wrist; she should be looking for work by Monday, and hopefully not work that requires judgment. She has made a decision for which the Pitch will be paying for years.

Name Withheld Upon Request

Reading is fundamental: I have read about the controversy surrounding this “Rebel Hell” article. This is another obvious example of people who are too lazy to bother with reading an entire article before commenting about it.

Granted, the beginning of the article sounds like it could potentially be a serious story. However, by the end of the article, no one of sound mind could honestly believe that it is anything but a joke (a pretty funny joke, by the way). And while I don’t have that much respect for our boy governor, I do respect Mayor Barnes, and I know that she would not opt to make the arena a tribute to prostitution in order to counter Confederate supporters’ demands (although there are lots of phallic design options to support that theme).

I only have one suggestion to those with a problem with the article … READ, PEOPLE, READ!!!

Name Withheld Upon Request

Stars and barred: As if there weren’t enough reasons why I shouldn’t read your paper …

Michael Montague Jr.

Kansas City, Missouri

Soldier on: You fooled me! I missed all the very subtle jokes in the article.

Great job. Don’t let the humorless at The Kansas City Star, City Hall and the KU School of Journalism get to you. Stick to your guns.

John Minnick

Kansas City, Missouri

Because of win, Dixie: Your hoax of an article contained enough facts and near-facts to seem real. Name-calling by politicians is hardly a giveaway for a hoax. I did miss the David Bowie thing.

At least four of my ancestors were involved in Gen. Sterling Price’s campaign in 1864. All were Union men but one. My great-great-grandfather’s brother has a grave at the Confederate Soldiers’ Home in Higginsville, Missouri. The Confederate flag has been flown underneath the Stars & Stripes and the Missouri state flag there for several years, since it became state property. It was never an issue until former Gov. Holden had it removed to assist the presidential campaign of Dick Gephardt. I am not proud of my great-great-uncle’s connection to the secessionists, but I am proud that he was willing to give his life for his country. To dishonor such men is to dishonor all of us.

Of all the issues facing us today, why must you pick a scrap of material that was flown over a cemetery as the subject for a “hoax”?

Mike Shaw

Centerview, Missouri

Bull run: What were you idiots thinking when you published “Rebel Hell”? As if you don’t gleefully slam the city of Kansas City, Missouri, at every opportunity, now — on what evidently was a slow news day — you’re making up stuff wholesale.

I always thought the Pitch had questionable ethics. After that phony-baloney story disguised as news, it’s clear that you have none at all.

Richard Lovett

Kansas City, Missouri