Here are a few things to put in your pipes and smoke…And as the drill sergeants used to tell us in basic training: “Smoke ’em if you got ’em, and if you don’t, get ’em from your squad leader.”
:: For the last two years the Oak Place Apartments have stood, empty and forlorn, like acne, on the UMKC campus.
It was clear from the time the apartments closed (about 10 years after they opened) that they would have to come down. In March 2018, nearly 200 students were forced to move out of Oak Place after the school found significant plumbing and mold issues in some of the apartments.
After that, the MU curators filed a lawsuit against two prominent Kansas City firms — Gould Evans Associates architects and JE Dunn Construction — claiming the firms were reckless in the design and construction. The lawsuit is pending.
Oak Place
This has been a major embarrassment all around, for UMKC, for Dunn and for Gould Evans. I don’t know why UMKC administrators waited two years to announce, as they did Wednesday, that the apartments would be razed, but I have a theory: I think a big reason was simply to let the story and the embarrassment subside somewhat.
Indeed, the story did get stale, so, instead of The Star plastering the story on its front page, it placed it on Page 4 in Thursday’s paper. In announcing the razing, Chancellor Mauli Agrawal said he had authorized a student housing study to determine what is needed.
If my theory about UMKC wanting to save face by delaying is correct, the MU system will pay a significant price for the time lost. During that two-year delay, design and construction costs have gone up, and having that big blemish on its campus sure didn’t boost UMKC’s image, already tarnished by two big scandals in recent years.
:: For those of you (those few of you) you still take The Star’s print edition, tomorrow’s print edition will be the last Saturday edition you will ever see.
You’ll remember Star President/Editor/Publisher/Keeper of the Backdoor Key Mike Fannin’s upbeat announcement in December that the Saturday print edition would be phased out in favor of bigger and better weekend editions. In his note to readers, Fannin said the change was “another step to make progress” toward the goal of The Star providing “independent, fact-based news and solutions for local businesses that help us all thrive and grow for many years to come.”
…These ridiculous less-equals-more announcements have become really old the last decade or so, and they have contributed to The Star’s significant downturn in credibility.
In addition, since Fannin’s December announcement, The Star’s parent company, McClatchy, has filed for bankruptcy, and a New Jersey hedge fund is poised to take over The Star and McClatchy’s 28 other daily papers.
A fine kettle of fish this is.
George Will
:: Syndicated columnist George Will of the Washington Post Writers Group had a very witty and pointed column on The Star’s Op-Ed page Thursday. The headline on the piece was “Biden doesn’t hate the U.S. like Sanders and Trump.”
Comparing Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, Will wrote…
Joe Biden has little to say that is remarkable and he says it in a remarkably meandering manner, but grant his request: Don’t compare him with the almighty; compare him with the alternative. Florid Sanders, with his relentless, arm-waving, high-decibel depiction of America’s history and present as a sordid story of injustices, resembles the woman in the Anthony Trollope novel who scolded “frightfully, loudly, scornfully, and worse than all, continually.
When I read that sentence this morning, I was sitting in the optometrist’s office, waiting for the optometrist, and I laughed so loud that a medical assistant walking by the room looked in at me curiously.
:: And now I have a public service announcement…Can everybody hear me over this cheap, tin-sounding loudspeaker?
On the way home from the optometrist, whose office is way up in the Northland — like 94th Street north — I stopped by the North Kansas City License Office at 24th and Burlington to apply for my “Real ID.”
I love the NKC office because they almost always have four to six clerks (all friendly, in my experience) working, and although you have to stand in line, the line keeps moving. I’ve never had to wait for service more than 30 minutes, even twice when the line stretched to the front door.
As you probably have heard, Missouri residents will need a Real ID to board airplanes and enter federal buildings beginning Oct. 1, 2020. (The airlines, and I presume federal buildings, will also accept a valid passport.)
I had all my paperwork in order today (you can see which documents you need here), and, to my amazement, only one person was in line ahead of me. I did notice, however, that about a dozen people were seated in a row of chairs next to the stand-up line, and I wondered what they were waiting for.
After confirming I had proper documentation, the clerk told me the wait would be about an hour…All those people sitting down were waiting on the one clerk who was processing Real ID’s. I thought about leaving, but the clerk told me the line was typical and I’d probably have to wait an hour just about any time I showed up.
I decided to stay and asked the clerk if I could go to lunch and come back. “Sure,” she said. So, I went over to Paul & Jack’s at 18th and Clay and had a grilled chicken sandwich and did some reading. I got back to the license bureau about 45 minutes later, and only two people were ahead of me to be processed. (You don’t get the ID on the spot; you get a temporary, and the real one is mailed to you.)
Almost exactly an hour after I had pulled into the lot, I was pulling out and heading home.
So, here’s my public service announcement: If you haven’t applied for a Real ID yet, find out what documents you need and get to one of the license offices. The lines are going to get longer. This summer, I’ll bet, we’ll be seeing horror stories about three- and four-hour waits.
Oh, and take your checkbook; the fee today at the NKC office was $12.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Smoke um if you got um!!!
Bum um if you don’t!!
This is the 1971 update.
I don’t remember hearing that version at Fort Polk (LA) in 1968, Vernon. I imagine the ditties varied from place to place and, as you suggest, evolved.
On the end of the Saturday Star, I was thinking this morning that next Saturday is an odd time to end it. The Big 12 tournament is in town and I would think that would help sell several thousand extra copies to those here for the tournament.
So I guess maybe it never was that big of a sales bump or the local management chose not to push back to top management about keeping the Saturday edition for an extra week.
And thanks on the Real ID info. I have my paperwork together, so I guess I just need to plan to go sit for an hour to get it.
If they had it to do again, Bill, they might have taken the Big 12 tournament into consideration. A lot of out-of-towners will be here in the hotels and at the restaurants and bars, and some would have picked up Saturday papers at Quik Trip or other stores. But maybe they did take that into consideration and decided, “Screw it.”
No Saturday Star? What’s to become of the Olathe News, now an 8-page weekly tabloid that comes tucked inside my Saturday Star and which I pay for with a separate subscription?
Fitz, or should I say Specialist Fitzpatrick, I never knew, or at least don’t remember, you ever being in the Armed Services. I think some coverage in your blog of those days would be interesting. I too was at “Fort Puke” and “Fort Sam” (Country Club of the Army) during 1968-1969. The saying I best remember from Fort Polk was from a drill sgt. who warned not to try any antics by saying “You are SLICK, but I are SLICKER!”
When I was helping my friend with his Star route a few years ago, he was always complaining about the Saturday paper, which he hated to have to mess with, saying The Star should quit putting out a Saturday paper. Well, his wish has come true, of course. In the good ol’ days of the ’50s and ’60s, the Saturday papers were great. I particularly remember the Saturday Star because it had all of the religious items in it just ahead of Sunday’s worship services, and there were so many classified ads in it that there were always at least a couple of face-to-face pages that made a good backdrop for a coloring project (when I was much younger and was regularly doing coloring).