If Pain Had A Sound.......................

"We were getting ready to go to bed, just ate supper and got the kids to bed," said Jones. "When I looked up I heard shots and she fell to the ground and I rolled over the bed on to the ground. The kids came in, I got them settled down and I ran downstairs." Corey Jones, husband of Helen Ragan


In a city where killings, shootings, and stabbings, are as common as house sparrows, it takes a hell of a lot to shock the senses. This one delivers a jolt like exposed hot wires in standing water. Helen Ragan was killed by one of several bullets fired into a pair of Town Homes. But sprayed bullets are nothing new in this city. Helen drove a school bus, but being a regular person caught in the crossfire isn't uncommon, it happens all the time. Young, old, innocent, dirty, from gang bangers to Gardeners, dope dealers to convenience store clerks, getting killed either randomly or with deliberate intent is something that no longer shocks us, and barely gives us pause before we move on from one to the next. The area where this thing happened, 116th and Holiday drive is no stranger to crime, violence, and black folks. In the 70's and 80's this 4 or 5 block complex of apartments and conjoined townhouses was mostly occupied by working class whites, it was quiet, clean, and peaceful. On the surface, at first glance, the buildings haven't changed much, but the faces have. When black folk fled the urban core, they went to places like south Kansas City, Grandview, Raytown. Much like their white counterparts, these people soon discovered that you can run but you can't hide. The bad seeds followed the good ones, and like bad seeds are want to do, they grew into weeds that slowly choked the life from everything they came in contact with. The end result, regular working class folks, decent people, with wolves at the door.


It was these hard facts of life that barely gave me pause when I saw the first news reports about the murder of Helen Ragan. Then more info slowly came in . Mother of 4, school bus driver, wife, killed inside her home behind the seemingly safe barrier of walls as warm light spilled from the windows. Still it was just another bit of bad news, certainly nothing new. Then her husband gave an emotional plea to her killers. Turn yourselves in. He might as well have been Jacques Cousteau, pleading with sharks to become vegetarians. Might as well beg the clock to roll back a day. It wasn't his plea that moved me, it was his voice, his face, the pain so deeply embedded in each. Helen's widower, Corey Jones, had this to say "The only thing we heard was gunfire, and when we heard gunfire, she dropped to the floor. She fell right beside me," Jones said. "This is not right for killing my wife like this. She's an innocent hard-working woman."

Jones on the surface looked like a guy who had been toughened by life. Wide trails of tears pouring from tired eyes, shell shocked eyes. His voice deep, and his speech, simple working class with a hint of the south coming through. But there was something else in his voice. An almost childlike tone, it was pain, loss, and bewilderment. If those 3 emotions had a sound, it would be exactly the sound of Jones voice. Even though he didn't speak these words, his voice relayed them crystal clear, " what do I do now?"


Now the speculation begins. Why that house? Who where the shooters sending those bullets to? What was the motive? The moronic comments will come hard, fast, and dripping in vile and ignorance. The comments in the various media websites accompanying the story are already rife with them. Mostly ignoring what matters, a life lost, and turning it into tirades about stop snitching or conceal carry laws, blaming it all on politics or race. Claiming nobody cares because of the victims race, or that it is somehow someones fault other than the killers.


The tragedy more often gets lost among the bullshit. Arm Chair Activists, commentators, journalists, news reporters and bloggers, myself included. We all pile on, point fingers, try to explain away what is unfathomable. In our arrogance, puffed up and full of ourselves, secure we know better than anyone else, the real voice, the one that matters gets muffled. The only voice that matters in the murder of Helen Ragan, is that of Corey Jones. It's the sound pain makes as it comes to a head. We would all do well to listen, quietly, respectfully.

The Daniel Rinehart case....Finding hope in the strangest place.

The Daniel Rinehart trial didn't take long. When you have left a trail of dead babies, and a 20 year old victim/daughter, to attest to the unspeakable acts committed, a jury isn't going to take long in deliberation. The Jury recommended life, and you have to believe the judge in the case will sentence him along those lines. I won't go into all of the sordid details of the case, but for those not familiar, here it is in a nutshell. Creepy white trash hillbilly rapes his own child from the age of 5, impregnates her 4 times. 3 of the babies end up dead, one survives and lives with the victim. Rineharts wife and the mother of the victim delivers the babies, is well aware of what is going on. Rather than react like any decent mother, instead of doing whatever it takes to protect her own child, she remains mute, and jealous of her daughter and the unwanted attention she receives from her father. As if all of this wasn't repugnant enough, enter Rineharts Uncle, who testified as follows.

“I’d rather not get into that because my thoughts for Ashley are not for on TV,” said James Gallup, Danial Rinehart’s uncle. “There were a lot of variables in it,” Gallup said. “Like I was telling you, she could have said no. She could have went to her mother, right? "


And there it is, because there is always some knuckle dragger who wants to blame the victim. Gallups statement also gives you a pretty good idea of the type of stock Rinehart comes from. The thing about this case that strikes me as most unfair, the victim can never really escape the scumbag who abused her throughout her childhood. The child, the living breathing evidence of what happened, will always be with her. She can't possibly look at her child without thinking of the man who victimized her. But there is another side to the coin, and it is some consolation in a case that shows the darkest side of humanity. The young woman loves this child. All indications are that she intends to raise the boy, just like any young single mother, and probably better than most of them. It would be understandable if she wanted nothing to do with the product of being raped and abused for so many years. I doubt anyone would find fault in her for giving the child up, trying to move on with her life, put it all behind her. Instead she has risen above all of the pain and shame, placing the child first and foremost in her life. Despite being abused from the age of 5, despite seeing 3 of her children disposed of, one left in a cooler in an old garage, despite her own mothers lack of humanity, this young woman wants to raise , protect, and nurture, the child.


If you can get beyond the horrible crime and its details, there is something awe inspiring to be found. A mother, doing what mothers are meant to do. In spite of it all, she just wants to care for her child as best she can. The Rinehart case first destroys your hope for humanity, then this young woman, victim, and mother, restores it.

The Plaza semi riot........Melrose Place meets The Wire....mayhem ensues.

I wasn't going to come out of my self imposed period of weekday silence just to utter forth on the Plaza melee that took place over the weekend. I already know how this one ends, as does anyone who has been paying attention. But I figure one more opinionated prick needs to weigh in, so here we are. For you out of town/state /country folks , and you are legion, here is a brief synopsis of what took place on the Country Club Plaza, and a description of the CCP itself. The Plaza is a Kansas City landmark, shopping, dining, drinking, type destination. You can eat some overpriced food, buy some overpriced designer apparel, then cap off the night at an overpriced drinking joint. Hell, if you are lucky you might even get a lung cookie spat in your face by an overpriced football player. (see Larry Johnson) We light the plaza up with colored lights every year from Turkey day to sometime in January. There are fountains, statues, and breast implants as far as the eye can see. I've lived in Kansas City since Christ was in short pants, and I've never bought a single item at the Plaza, never drank or dined in a single Plaza spot, other than Winsteads, in all my life.


This isn't a knock on the folks who do spend their coin there, it's just not my kind of place. The people who do frequent the Plaza are a kinder, gentler, more refined people than yours truly. Out of towners always visit the Plaza. On a good day it's a nice place to visit. Fountains doing their water thing, music piped from magic speakers, and if you are really lucky, local beggar Cheeseburger Jerry might ask you for money then follow you down the sidewalk calling you a cocksucker at the top of his lungs. What is certain, the Country Club Plaza is full of money. As in any city, town, or burg, money talks and bullshit walks.

This past Saturday night a group of young people, said to range in age from 11 to 20ish, allegedly 700 to 1000 deep, descended upon the Plaza in what is being described as either a riot, or just kids being kids, depending on who you ask. Now, the local media has gone out of their way to leave out one pertinent fact about this pack of wild ones. Don't get me twisted, the media has talked on this incident every day since it took place. But they have danced around a particular non PC detail. We have heard how these little shit heels groped women, flashed gang signs, pounded on cars, pounded on bystanders, pounded on one another. There were robberies, beatings, and vandalism, oh my! Police fired teargas, people went to jail, madness, mayhem, and foolishness ruled the night. But the media hasn't really bothered to mention that this group was overwhelmingly made up of Black youths. Not for nothing, but I'd say the majority of patrons on the Plaza any given time, are white folks. See where this is headed?


People, especially media people, don't want to give airtime to the racial element in this thing. At least not until someone files suit for racial discrimination or profiling, and trust me, someone will in the not to distant future. Now comes the litany of excuses, philosophizing, and minimizing of what was a serious issue, one that landed at least a couple of folks an AMBLANCE ride.
(1) The kids don't have anything to do.
(2) It's not a racial issue.
(3) 900 of the kids were just strolling with thier dates peacefully, and the mayhem was the work of a couple dozen rabble rousers.
(4) MM is a race baiting old ofay.


Now lets examine the above list.

(1) Bullshit. Kids have plenty to do, they just don't want to do it. Most kids today, whatever color or economic bracket, have tons of shit to occupy their time. One of those things is texting, which is how they managed to get so many people to congregate in one spot.
(2) Bullshit. Of course it's a racial issue in large part. If you think it's not, then you are an idiot, or just being a disingenuous prick. Send 900 young white kids from Pembroke and Rockhurst to the Jazz district, let them start acting a fool.....okay, bad example. 900 white kids east of troost would be 900 crime victims before they made it to Paseo. My point is, these kids intentionally picked a sedate white enclave to show their collective ass. Besides, if there was no racial element, the NAACP wouldn't be jumping into the fray.
(3) Bullshit.
(4). You got the OLD Ofay part right, otherwise, bullshit.

Now that we have sifted through the bullshit, lets get to to the heart of this thing. What took place on Saturday night is a sign of things to come. This city has worked diligently to create a racially divided and hostile environment, and now all that hard work is coming to fruition. It's going to be a long hot summer. Joblessness, idle minds and hands, culture, fear, racial tension, all combine for a big double decker soup sandwich of a summer. While I don't believe what took place on the Plaza was technically a riot, it was a pretty good start to one. If this shit is allowed to continue, then come July or August, I believe we will have one. You need look no further than comments in the Star or Tonys Kansas City's gully mouth breathing commentators to see where this shit is headed. There is more than a little talk about concealing and carrying, and what happens when some minority youth gets a little to aggressive with a gun toting Bernie Goetz type. It's not a big stretch to imagine what might take place should someone feel threatened, especially if that someone is packin heat. Let one of these out of control kids or young douche bags catch a bullet, and this city will implode.

So whats the answer MM?

I'm not sure there is an answer. At least not one that will satisfy everyone involved. We have a school district that has been a training ground for anti authoritarian behavior. When brawls break out in the halls of our schools, it speaks volumes about the mindset of the kids. When 1000 kids, some reportedly as young as 11, are out running amuck on a Saturday night, it begs the question, " Where are the parents"? When those same young black kids target an area that is chock full of easily frightened white suburbanites, don't try to convince me it isn't an intentional race related intimidation tactic. It is, and unless people have the balls and honesty to call it what it is, then that only hurts, denial never helps. The police and Plaza merchants are doubly fucked. If they crack down hard enough to stop this shit in it's tracks, they are going to be called racist, and get their pleated dockers sued off of em. If they handle this thing with politically correct kid gloves, the problem won't go away, but the money and business will. You could start up some community based programs, sort of like the one on the Westside from a year or two back. The one where kids from the eastside brought guns and trouble to. The one certainty in all of this, we as a collective city, have ignored problems in the urban core. We moved away, we disengaged, we ignored the plight of our less fortunate. Now it's all coming home to roost. As I mentioned last year after a rolling gun battle made its way through Waldo. The line that separates this city is an invisible one. It isn't a line that keeps folks out of one side or the other. And Troost is just minutes from Brookside. I don't know what solution will fix this thing, or if there is a fix at all. What I do know is that white Kansas City has turned a blind eye to the crime east of Troost, and a large section of black Kansas City has turned a blind eye to their young people. Now we all get to share in the end result.

Fast Eddie Friday.......The Star hates Kansas City....

This is my first post in a couple of weeks. There's plenty of topics I could go with. The ongoing murder rate, the minuscule number of voters who turned out for the school board vote, health care reform and all that goes with it. Each an important topic in their own right. But these all pale in comparison to the insidious attack on this city by it's paper of record. The Kansas City Star hates it's namesake city. For some inexplicable reason, the Star is going out of it's way to turn KC into ground zero for douche baggery. No I'm not referring to Mike Hendricks latest column, or any of Hendricks columns, although they do stink of douchiness.
I only wish that this attack on the city I love was confined to a single hack columnist, but this shit runs deeper than one pasty JoCo Columnist. Half way down the KC Star websites main page you will find this heading

Party Pics | Outlaw Jim's birthday at Brewtop Pub and Patio

Accompanied by this photo. Is that Outlaw Jim? I have no idea. What I can say is that I've known some outlaws, I've been an outlaw, done time with outlaws, this guy is no outlaw.

The Star likes to show Kansas Citians at their worst, and I wish that the couple above was as bad as it gets. A hippy looking dude in some kind of African print shirt and ridunkulous hat I could live with, if that's as bad as it got. But it isn't, it's worse, and it's my moral obligation to point it out. So I struggled through one painful slide show after another. Without further ado.
The shot above is of 3 examples of the douchiness that pervades the P&L district. I believe that this trio of nimrods are riding the new trolley that is supposed to transport drunks from the P&L district to Westport. I may be off on how far north and south this thing travels. What is certain, it's full of everything that is wrong with the world today. Seeing faded white boys in backwards ball caps flashing the Metal horns, always makes me sad. The middle age white mans burden, is knowing the next generation is dominated by tools wearing their hats backwards. Notice the woman in the background who looks like she is about to gack jello shots all over the new trolley.
Lone black guy on the same shuttle of drunken white folks, doing his best Hootie impersonation. He looks like a deer in the headlights, probably because he can hear the people behind him whispering about how he resembles those wanted posters all over Waldo. The woman sitting next to him is calling her Sorority sisters to gloat over bagging her first black guy.
Then again he might be looking at this hot mess.............
Nothing will make your parents prouder than doing the splay legged hoochie dance on a bus full of drunks. Even odds she ends the night roofied out, or tossing chunks in the parking garage, or both.

Once the bus deposits you at your party destination , you can look forward to seeing ........The Tragically Hip.

.......Pictures speak louder than any words I could write.....


And finally, the blissfully ignorant reason why being a hipster should be outlawed.......

So whats it all mean Double M? Well I'll tell you what it all means. The Star hates Kansas City. There is no other logical reason for showing this shit on the front page of a newspaper website.
Kansas City, more fountains than Rome, more Boulevards than Paris, more douche bags than Seattle...............or something.

See you next week.