Saturday, October 31, 2015

Finally, I agree with Steve Rose: JCCC should drop name of Carlsen Center. Just don't rename it the Cosby Center!

Since I haven't read the KC Star for two years, thanks to Tonyskansascity.com for posting Steve Rose's column.

Read Tony's comments plus Steve Rose's column re Carlsen Center

Finally, Steve Rose and I agree on something.

Steverino loves being called Mister Johnson County.  And 99.97% of the time, he is an apologist for his golfing buddies and the development attorneys and the bankers and Ed Eilert who voted to give HIM that title, so then he supports whatever agenda of tax grabs and land grabs they want to advance.

So I was shocked that he wrote, we should rename the Carlsen Center at JCCC.

Now Steve Rose is not a journalist.  He inherited his millions from his great Dad, Stan Rose, back when we had a Sun Newspapers.  He is a mouthpiece.

So do I think he had this original thought?  Of course I do not.  I suspect Chuck Carlsen and his wife are tired of being reminded of Carlsen's history of chasing women who were his employees.  Rose quotes Carlsen.  Rose does not report.  He shares what he is told to do.

I believe Carlsen WANTS his name removed.  Good.

I believe the elected board of directors of JCCC WANTS to remove Carlsen's name.  And thus, Rose's editorial gives them political cover to finally do the right thing.  Good.

I believe the school newspaper staff and students deserve high praise, because it took great courage when Ann Bullers and her kids published their exposes about Carlsen--WHILE he controlled their budget.  And subsequent staffers and reporters have continued to press this issue.  Good.

Now two things:
the board of JCCC needs to also pass a guideline that henceforth no current employees get to use taxpayer dollars to build a building and then bully the board into naming it after them.

And: just don't rename it the Cosby Center.  Then we're good.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Does your Good Luck Royals T from 1985 roll up above your manboobs like a sausage casing? What's your good luck outfit or superstition that will bring the Royals the pennant?

The last time the Royals WON the World Series was 1985.  (Last year we came in second.  But you knew that, or else you are Isis undercover.)

So here's the question:  What will you be wearing Tuesday during the game?  Do you have a royal blue good luck T-shirt?  And does it cover you?  Or is it so tight, it rolls up, above your manboobs like you are in the discards pile of a sausage factory?


I do have a royal blue rain poncho.  And Gary Lezak et al (including that perky gal, Kalee Dionne, on 41, or Lisa Teachman, the one on KCTV5, with the faux twirly hair that doesn't move even during gale force winds), are all predicting rain.




May I wear that rain poncho, inside my living room?  Will this fool anyone--even my puppies, or the Isis man?

I also have a royal blue hat with a very long feather--it's a church hat.  Who am I kidding?  I'm a fair weather fan.  But still, Go Royals...

I always love those scenes from Silver Linings Playbook, where the co-dependent Mom is making her lucky recipes, Crabby Snacks and Homemades, for her OCD husband, Robert DeNiro.  And her nervous breakdown son, Bradley Cooper.  Because if she doesn't, or she runs out, that entire family believes, the Philadelphia Eagles are sure to lose the game.
and yes, this full service JoCoPost blog brings you the recipes:
     
(Call me and I'll come over and taste them to make sure you made them just right...)

Have we come just three steps out of the dugout of history, the world of Fred and Betty Flinstone?  Is our society still so driven to "invent meaning" and connect the dots that superstition rules us today?  What are your favorite superstitions?

One more thing.  Look up in the sky.  Another full moon.  The one last month was the remarkable red moon, 17% closer to Earth so it appeared huge--and it was the TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE!  First one since 1982, three years before we won the World Series.    And the next one won't be for another 18 years.

One can only imagine if that happened during Game 1 of this World Series.  Some fans would be quite willing to sacrifice their first born son, in a trade to the Gods of Baseball, for a sacrifice bunt.

I hope the Royals win out in four.  Because between my too tight t-shirt (which I will NOT model for you), my rain poncho, my church lady hat and oh yeah, my blue suede shoes with Velcro closures--well I've only got four pieces of apparel to trade for a victory.

Go Royals.  I'll be sitting next to this gal...




Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Simple way to avoid cell phone scam! Buyer beware: online cell phones may be stolen merch that T-Mobile says "no longer exists in our universe"

I know.  I shoulda bought my cell phone from T-Mobile or Best Buy, but not from a third party seller.  And when my choice of Galaxy S6 Edge popped up on Glyde.com, instead of the usual $623, there was ONE for $421.  I'd been shopping for weeks.  I grabbed it two minutes later, like it was the last chocolate cookie.

Duh.  That should have sounded the alarm in my head.  Apparently, I don't have an internal brain app for Sucker Deal.  (Well, now I do.)  I went to the T-Mobile store Friday during the Royals game--expecting to be the only customer.  Instead it was like the Turkish border or a German refugee camp for Syrians.  Everything but a row of tents.  Doors lock at 9pm, the hard working staff (who at least do not call themselves geniuses, like snooty Apple does) stays on Fridays till 1 or 2 in the morning if necessary.  Who knew?

The phone was advertised as "Excellent", but Reza Niamat, the manager at T-Mobile in western Shawnee exclaimed, "This thing is brand new!"  BUT THEN REZA SQUINTED.  I should have known then.  Reza's lieutenants had transfered the contacts, and only THEN made the new SIM.  Uffda, as my Norwegian grandmother would have said.

Not only was the phone locked, it was "blocked".  Forever.  Kind of telephone leprosy.  An untouchable.  Or at least not activate-able, ever ever ever.  Believe me, I tried.  Assurant Insurance ladies are nice.  You can hear hundreds of them in a call center, all dealing with this national problem.  I was told the phone had probably been in more men's hands than a cheap hooker.  Maybe 3 or 4 transactions in short order.  From the thief to Craigs List or a bulletin board at a college, or e-Bay. (Altho at least e-Bay lists the seller, and blocks them when they get caught selling stolen merch.)

Or maybe the clueless gal who "lost" it or changed her mind filed a false claim, and thought she'd get to change brands just by paying $175 and then reselling the phone that was never lost in the first place.

Hours of research revealed, when a cell phone is reported Lost or Stolen, and the original owner pays her $175 to the insurance company to get a replacement, then the old phone no longer exists in T-Mobile's inventory.  You can't pay off the insurance claim.  It's shiny new yard art.  Filling America's landfills with "rare earth" and magnets.

Watch Lesley Stahl's story on Rare Earth, how China is beating us

Now here's how to avoid being scammed.  Don't buy a used phone until you look up the IMEI number.  Google it.  A website will tell you if that phone is BLOCKED.

And to Glyde's credit--they worked it all out.  I am sending back the Leper Phone, and they are covering the difference when I buy a legitimate one.  They checked the IMEI number before shipping it.   Good for Glyde.

And they blocked the seller.  Either she is clueless or devious.  At first I was told if she did it AGAIN, then they'd block her.  I responded, that is what is wrong with justice in the US.  Coddling and enabling.  Should we tell a murderer, "Now if you kill a SECOND person, then you're goin' to jail"?

OK, readers.  Soon I will have a great phone for taking videos to send to you.  As Shakespeare said, "All's well that ends well.  Can you hear me now?"


Friday, October 16, 2015

Apple Store genius Trevor reveals crappy sound is AT&T's fault, not your Apple phone! Here's the fix, so you don't have to go into the store.

Have you found it virtually impossible to hear your Apple phone friends when they call?  Because of intermittent kinds of static?  Crackles?  Bad audio?  Dropped calls or ones that make you have them repeat every darn thing they say?  As Bernie Sanders might say, "I'm tired of your damn phone calls!"



Well, guess what.  It's not the NSA--listening in.  It's ATandT's fault.  Finally--the secret is out.  And now, you can tell all your Apple-holic friends how to fix it, thanks to this blog (have you subscribed yet?  Please do so now, top RH corner.  And leave a comment.)

Apple phones of many recent generations have sounded terrible lately.  But Trevor at the Apple store (he's a genius you know)  in Leawood says, it's not Apple's fault.  It's AT&T.


At first I was skeptical.  But he actually fixed the problem, in 90 seconds (during one of those appointments it takes 10 days to get.)  And he shared how you can or your friend can perform this simple fix yourself.  Now.

ONLY AT&T started bundling their cellular signals in one switch, for both data and voice.  Kind of like some of the water pipes in Kansas City, Missouri, where they co-mingle storm water and water full of shit.  (There's a reason they call it Flush Creek rather than Brush Creek.  And that's why it's only out of town tourists who will ride in a boat at the Country Club Plaza. And never step foot in the brown water.)


So all the other carriers were smart enough not to bundle oil and water, or poop and water, or data and voice.

Apple phone owners with AT&T service only:
Go into Settings
Cellular
Disable LTE  (this changes it to data only, not voice and data.)
Reboot the phone.

Problem solved.  You're welcome.

Now sign up to follow this blog, and forward to your friends.  Even if THEY don't use AT&T, with an Apple phone, I guarantee they know SOMEONE who does.

Here's to world peace.  Go Royals.


Tuesday, October 13, 2015

If you see only one movie in next 2 years, make it PK. Thurs. 7:30pm Oct. 15, Standee's in PV. One showing only thx to OmFilmFest.com. Slumdog/ET/BeingThere/GodsMustBeCrazy/Bollywood.




We are so blessed that Johnson County is a better film community even than Denver.  So while we read up and make our choices out of 80 docs and narratives and shorts for KIFF, Nov. 6-12 at Glenwood Arts (kansasfilm.com), we can go this Thursday for the final encore showing in this market of the best film I've seen in 30 years: PK.

Thanks to Jerome van Wert at OMFilmFest.com, (who had a sold out showing of PK in September at Cinemark on the Plaza, there will be one final encore showing of PK.  I've never been to Standee's in the Prairie Village Shops, but I hear it's super.

Did you love The Gods Must Be Crazy?  ET?  Being There?  Slumdog Millionaire?  PK is Bollywood's biggest hit, so big that Disney bought the US rights, and locked this up with their princesses.  You can't buy it on DVD, nor see it on Netflix.



So I hope to see you there Thursday 7:30pm at Standee's.  It will make you laugh, and open your heart.  Promise.  One of the few films that actually hits its dramatic arch.

OK, SMSD: follow Chris Kemper's lead at KC Public Library: get OUR libraries to use student ID's as library card, and allow 24/7 access.

Kudos to the Kansas City Library system, so ably led by Chris Kemper.  It took 3 years to pull off, (which is crazy) but now KC Public School students log in online to the library, using just their student ID.


Saves a huge waste of plastic, admin time and as the boy in the Micheal Mahoney/KMBC.com story says, a whole lot of time on the bus.

Watch Ch. 9's Mahoney's story on national first: students use library with just their student ID

I can't believe it took Chris Kemper, (R. Crosby Kemper III) the scion of United Missouri Bank, now graciously and wisely serving the public like a Medici-in-residence, to accomplish a first for the nation.


Good for him.  Now it's time for Shawnee Mission School District to follow suit.

Just what is the problem, anyway?  Isn't there an app for that?!  Someone write a computer program, to accept all verified student ID numbers the same way they accept all those old "library cards" on plastic, that either have to be made by hand, and held at the desk, while we wait in line, or mailed by snail mail.

Our libraries are one of the most archaic and obsolete institutions.  They need to completely reinvent themselves--or lose their tax subsidy.  Google and Wikipedia are far better than the World Book Encyclopedia my family paid $399 for in 1957.  (Remember when the molecule was the smallest particle?  I do!  I wrote a paper on it in 1958--and got an A from Miss Mangan.)

How quarky was that?  OK, Shawnee Mission.  You filed your amicus brief, pleading just how broke you are, the day after you walked on $1 million in a TIF for Meadowbrook Park's "Recreational Welfare just for the citizens of PV" plus a subsidy of some luxury homes.   You gave all our students laptops and tablets.  Now get to work: hook em up to the library.

Maybe some students will use their access to brush up on economics.  And the distinction of socialist welfare.

Friday, October 9, 2015

SMSD cries wolf: feigning poverty day after walking on $1 million in taxes. Did they violate KOMA? Can Steve Howe subpoena their Ouija boards??

SM Schools --you can't act all rich on Wednesday, then file an amicus brief with the Kansas Supreme Court the next day, claiming poverty.



SM is talking out of both sides of its mouth.

So Wed. at 7:30am, the SMSD met.  The public was not allowed to speak.  And the hoped for moment, when someone dared to stand up to Ed Eilert's shenanigans and deceits, and refused to hand over $1 million in rightful property taxes to the county--for the purpose of funding Recreational Welfare: a FREE community center for PV--at the expense of every taxpayer in JoCo.

I was proud of Cindy Neighbor and Patty Mach, two board members, for even DARING to suggest ths goofy "reverse TIF" for a car dealer, was, as Commissioner Michael Ashcraft of Olathe admitted on PVPost.com, "a bad deal for SM Schools".  After all, the school board members, who work for free, are elected to protect our property values.  Not kiss up to Ed Eilert and his buddies.

It's not just to provide good schools for those of us who have kids.  But also to protect our single biggest investments, our homes.  And when our schools fail to compete with Blue Valley, we can easily lose $20,000 when we go to sell our homes.

But alas: this was the first round.  And when it came time to vote, there was no vote!  So, if the public's business must be conducted in public, then exactly how did Superintendent Jim Hinson discern that there were insufficient votes to even HOLD a vote, to possibly VETO the TIF?  And why is he so afraid of a vote, on the record?

Over the past week, before the vote, did he and the BOCC and the panicked Mayor Laura Wassmer of PV and the school board members all communicate using their district-issued Ouija Boards?


Gosh, we know emails are fair game.  Is ESP via Ouija board a violation of the KOMA?  Can DA Steve Howe subpoena every Ouija board hidden behind the librarian's desk there at every SM school?  (We knew about giving a tablet or a laptop to every student in September.  These Ouija's somehow slipped past our attention.)


The deets of the amicus brief are all covered on PVPost.com, which has done an excellent job, as usual, of reporting.  And Tonyskansascity saw merit and linked to it--for which we are grateful.

Click here to read PVPost story re amicus brief, feigning poverty

SM School District: It's not nice to fool the Kansas Supreme Court.  If you can walk away from TIF's, then maybe you don't really need more funding from the state of Kansas or us taxpayers.

This was just Round 1.  The taxpayers lost.  Cindy Neighbor and Patty Mach get it.  Hooray for them.  Now we need a few more to wake up.  In about two months, the SMSD will actually FORMULATE a policy on TIF's.  Hopefully, they will Just.Say.No.  Especially to Recreational Welfare.

Personally, it doesn't take a policy or being a Rhodes scholar to be able to make a sound financial decision.  And represent the people who put you there.  Or to be consistent in one's messages, to the car dealers and the courts.  So I am disappointed in our school board.

But then, (I was a teacher in a private school), we must remember:public education was never designed to promote critical thinking.  It was officially intended and still serves one purpose for a better work force of compliant workers: Public education teaches kids to shut up, walk in a straight line--and all hold hands.  Apparently, the SM school board got an A on learning that lesson.





Monday, October 5, 2015

PV's mayor Laura Wassmer advocates RECREATIONAL WELFARE at Meadowbrook: the only free community center in JoCo: Demands SM Schools lower our property values and boost Blue Valley's.

Oh brother. PV's new mayor, Laura Wassmer is urging residents to lobby the SM Schools before the big vote to veto the Meadowbrook TIF Wednesday night. And get her preposterous spin: calling SM Schools need to collect property tax to keep competitive with Blue Valley Schools a "short term concern"? That is insulting logic. Where did Welfare Queen Wassmer learn reasoning? Hopefully not in a classroom in a Shawnee Mission School. The fact is this: The citizens of Prairie Village are now being lobbied by Ron Shaffer, their former mayor, now BOCC Commissioner, who is trying to deliver the bacon, millions of dollars of JoCo tax dollars, to provide PV with a FREE community center. That is RECREATIONAL WELFARE. 



No other community got a free community center paid for by ALL of JoCo taxpayers. Not Shawnee, not Lenexa, not even the big dog, OP, altho they are getting a stupid one room yoga studio inside the $32 million King Louie, (we paid $4.5 million for the ugly asbestos filled building and a year later it appraised at $430,000.) which is seven blocks south of the functional OP community center, Matt Ross.
Our schools protect our property values.
So it doesn't matter one whit if you have kids.
Your home is your biggest single asset.
A rec center with subsidized day care COMPETES with private industry, which is well capable of offering yoga or pilates classes and day care.
If you want the economy to improve, (so your kids and grandkids can get a job and move out of your back bedroom there in PV!) then stop allowing your governmental lackies to transfer private tasks to public tax financed efforts.
SM Schools should STOP allowing businesses to demand TIF's.
The Meadowbrook TIF is a phony head fake--pretend the tax is for the county not the car dealer, when it is just an account transfer.
By one vote, your inept JoCo Commission, including Ron Shaffer, allowed the VanTrust car dealer to set an inflated price, sans appraisal.
And because the car dealer is building things that don't generate much property tax,
the TIF is phony, because it will likely never be paid off.
It's a gift disguised as an incentive.
So like a Trojan horse, but now with 8 cylinders and 350 HP, VanTrust is muscling its way into NE JoCo to build what they want,
on the GOOD land, while sticking the county with the worse half, the inside, in need of a giant detention pond,
and then using former mayors and Welfare Queen Laura Wassmer to brand it as "long term good"
and now trying to guilt trip the SM Schools into taking it in the shorts.

PV Mayor Laura Wassmer wonders:  Where do I sign?
To get SM schools to give $12 million of our PV property taxes away?
Forget your declining resale values.   I want my name on a brass plaque
at my new Meadowbrook Recreational Welfare Center!  

Personally, I think if PV wants a community center, their residents should pay for it, and not accept RECREATIONAL WELFARE from the rest of us in Johnson County.
I think the SM School Board should man up and demand their fair share of property taxes. Period. And if you agree, and are getting to that point where you will want to sell your home, you will realize, you don't want to have to lower your selling price by $20,000 to compete with a homebuyer who believes they absolutely must move to the Blue Valley School district...for the RESALE VALUE.
So, PV taxpayers, it's your call.
What is more important? YOUR resale value of your home? Or dressing in your yoga pants to go to the Meadowbrook Welfare Rec Centerin PV instead of 30 other private health clubs?

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