Daily Briefs: Light Rail, Smoking Ban, Of Holes and Glory
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By CHRIS PACKHAM
• This morning on KCUR 89.3, I heard President Bush yammering about his proposed economic stimulus package, and for the first time in seven years, I noticed that when he tries to say “principles,” it comes out as “prince-uh-bulls.”
• Yep. There’s a new smoking ban for bars and restaurants. The smoking ban’s rules are as baroque in their complexity as any random paragraph from McSweeney’s. My personal theory is that the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council really likes A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and they’re totally kissing Dave Eggers’ ass.
• The headline “Kansas Lawmakers Consider Bluegill Bill” tricked me into thinking that the Kansas Legislature was going to hear testimony from a friendly old coot named Bluegill Bill who lives by the lake and wears pants made from rabbit pelts. Here’s a picture of ol’ Bluegill Bill:
As it turns out, they’re just thinking about making the bluegill the goddamn state fish. Which story do you think would have been better? This would officially be the most boring link of the week if I weren’t ending this sentence with a link to a story about Missouri state Sen. John Loudon’s proposed legislation to make the ice cream cone Missouri’s official state dessert. How much boredom can you absorb? Click it and prove you’re as manly as Bluegill Bill.
• Erotic City is eliminating its video booths and upstairs strip bar, closing the gross, sticky book on an era of Kansas City journalism that saw newspaper editors and local anchors dancing clumsily around a term made by combining the semi-innocuous word hole, and the exciting, triumphant word glory.
• More people are riding the bus in Kansas City, but according to the Star, “rail gets more riders elsewhere,” meaning in places that have rails. The point, though, is that nationwide, people are increasing their use of mass transit. All of which provides further ammunition against libertarian group the Show-Me Institutes’s denunciative report about light rail in Kansas City. At this point, I think we can agree that light rail in the metro needs a closer look and that the libertarians need to stick to their core “prince-uh-bulls” of auditing their Thetans and achieving “clear.”
• Three top executives are leaving Sprint.
• Somebody used a chain to haul an ATM off its concrete foundation in the 11100 block of North Ambassador. Police speculate that the thieves used a bulldozer or a backhoe. Suspects include outgoing Sprint executives and L. Ron Hubbard-worshiping libertarian freaks.
• On his radio show, Fox host John Gibson had hilarious fun with Heath Ledger’s death, mocking the actor with a paraphrase of Brokeback Mountain‘s “I wish I knew how to quit you” line, which was actually uttered by Jake Gyllenhaal. COMEDY! But it’s the rare combination of comedy and journalism, because John Gibson is a very, very serious journalist. Except when he’s making the funny jokes of hilarious comedy.
Because, look: Ledger played a homosexual gay in that movie, and do you even realize what those people do? Anyway. For some reason, after two days of defending his comments, funnyman Gibson now feels compelled to apologize. All of which reminds me that, although the word “douchebag” is past its expiration date, no one has yet developed a suitable replacement. Therefore, I’m founding a new think tank with the core mission of generating new terms with “douchebaggy” impact, about which more later.
