Mostly Martha
The winner of our discontent: I deplore Kendrick Blackwood’s snide tone and disrespectful treatment of UMKC Chancellor Martha Gilliland in the September 12 issue (Kansas City Strip). Blackwood owes her belated congratulations on her receipt of a Hubert H. Humphrey Award from the Policy Studies Organization! The PSO is a 29-member-strong international association that splintered off from the 13,500-strong American Political Science Association in 1970. Thus, the PSO appears to be growing at the phenomenal rate of almost a member per year!
He attempted to detract from this recognition by pointing out that the chair of the selection committee was a UMKC faculty member and on the chancellor’s cabinet. The fact remains that Gilliland joins the lofty ranks of other PSO HHH award recipients, such as Walter Beach — a member of the PSO! On many occasions, the APSA has picked the same individual for its HHH award as the PSO (or maybe the other way around). Thus, Gilliland joins former APSA HHH award recipients such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Donna Shalala!
Gilliland is highly deserving of this award. In her August 30 press release, Gilliland noted that “we are in a most fragile time for ideas and truth” and implored people interested in seeking knowledge and truth to be brave. Obviously, the chancellor has been highly effective in communicating that message, since her own school of biological sciences faculty recently passed a vote of no confidence in her administration.
That resolution stems from damaging and threatening actions taken by Gilliland and her cabinet. Perhaps if the faculty had known how much prestige is attached to the PSO award, they would have reconsidered.
As Blackwood noted, the APSA sadly failed to follow the PSO trailblazers this year and instead picked Maryland Governor Parris Glendening as the 2002 recipient of the Hubert H. Humphrey award. Governor Glendening could not be reached for comment.
Michael Ferrari
Prairie Village
Machine Shred
The frying game: Thank you for Charles Ferruzza’s wonderfully funny, insightful, biting reviews. My wife and I rush to his column each week to see where he and Bob have ended up (and what he has to say).
In his review of the Kansas Machine Shed (September 5), he again had us rolling with laughter, but it was really too easy, don’t you think? How/why in the world did he ever end up at a franchise chain like the Machine Shed in the first place? That’s one train wreck that I think most Pitch readers by nature would steer well clear of without his help.
Looking forward to next week. Thanks again!
Darren Roubinek
Kansas City, Missouri
Heavy Heart
Scrap metal: I have to applaud Andrew Miller. In one review he managed to prove why all who love loud and heavy music STILL have a reason to generally despise the rest of the music culture (Around Hear, August 29). In his attempt at savvy, “oh, look at the poor dumb metalhead” humor, he does little more than display his own obvious hatred of the style of music, not the quality of the music itself.
Try to find a real music journalist to cover shows, eh? Perhaps someone who can look past their own biases and actually give real coverage, not a badly written humor piece in the form of a concert review.
J.J. Julian
La Verne, California
Take Note
Jazzed up: Kudos to the Pitch for an outstanding story by Andrew Miller on the Blues and Heritage Festival (“That’s the Spirit,” September 5). It was the most comprehensive, fair and balanced story about blues, jazz and zydeco EVER by any Kansas City news organization. It is of critical importance that these types of stories be told, especially in light of the Kansas City Star‘s declaration of the death of jazz and the absolute quiet by most radio and television stations regarding the local music scene.
Historians know that our American art forms (blues, jazz and zydeco) grew up and out of Louisiana and Mississippi at about the same time (approximately 1900-1930), and it is extremely important that Gen-Xers learn of the history and support the bands financially — or, as Dan Aykroyd said in the Blues Brothers film, “in the future, the music will exist only in the classical record section of your public library.” I say that not to single out the generation younger than myself but to point out that many of us in the forty-to-fifty-year-old range understand the importance of saving festivals, nightclubs and the bands that play there. Yes, most of the bands were national recording stars, but the event was an educational experience for newcomers who need to know you can see the same quality musicians all over town 365 days a year.
As a past board of directors member for the Blues Society and the Jazz Ambassadors, I beat my head against the wall trying to get local news media to understand this concept, but to no avail. Now, with Andrew’s article, I can go put ice on my head and hope we hear of encouraging ticket sales totals from the festival front office, so we may enjoy another festival next year.
Bill Williams
Kansas City, Missouri
