A Call For Corporate Taxation and a Required National Wage

An economist warns that "advances in technology and automation are set to wipe out up to half of all jobs in the developed world."

RBS Warns: Sell Everything

A small bit from the article:

RBS economists have urged investors to sell everything except high-quality bonds, warning of a “fairly cataclysmic year ahead.”

If that isn't a call for a national, base wage to all citizens, I don't know what is.

Also reason why all corporations should pay a minimum tax and not be able to deduct their way out of paying any taxes or, worse, get a rebate or, worse yet, offshore profits or be able to.

Another good, related article:

There will be chaos: Big Oil's collapse and the birth of a new world order

The current rout in oil prices has obvious implications for the giant oil firms and all the ancillary businesses — equipment suppliers, drill-rig operators, shipping companies, caterers, and so on — that depend on them for their existence. It also threatens a profound shift in the geopolitical fortunes of the major energy-producing countries. Many of them, including Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela, are already experiencing economic and political turmoil as a result. (Think of this, for instance, as a boon for the terrorist group Boko Haram as Nigeria shudders under the weight of those falling prices.) The longer such price levels persist, the more devastating the consequences are likely to be.

If anything like or near these "worst case scenarios" take place, governments and corporations the world over may HAVE to give and require a minimum payout to their citizens, just to keep the economic world spinning.

Here's a perfect example and it's from a current article.

Chinese factory replaces 90% of humans 

with robots

A nation of more than 1.4 billion people and the companies, the corporations replaced, as the headline shows, the vast majority of the employees with machines.

If corporations and nations don't give a minimum payout to their citizens, who will be able to buy the  products that keep this whole merry go round turning?

Why Senator Sanders Is Right For America

It's not just that Senator Sanders stands for things and stands for the right things and isn't taking money from the big PACs, though those are all big factors in his campaign.

It's that he stands for so many RIGHT things and that he stands for the people and that he's his "own man."  His views set him so apart, so simply but clearly, distinctly and strongly apart from ALL THE OTHER candidates in this presidential race and that it's basically the same stances he has taken FOR YEARS.

It's clear he's for us. It's clear he's been for us, for the people, for years.

Finally, it's clear he's genuine. It's very clear he's the "real deal."

As president, he wouldn't be and won't be "perfect" and solve all the nations ills, no more than our current president has or did. 

But he's the right man for the job and with a Democratic Congress, a lot of our intrinsic problems in the nation, in and of our government, could and would be addressed, repaired and changed for the better.

Links:  Bernie Sanders - Mayor, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator

Bernie Sanders - Wikipedia

Meet Bernie Sanders

Entertainment Overnight -- SOTU

Best version of last evening's State of the Union speech I think there is.

On This Day in American History -- A "Two-fer"

On this day (from today's New York Times:

It took more than 100 years after the Civil War for an African-American to join the presidential cabinet, and even longer for one to be elected governor. Both milestones happened on this day.

Robert C. Weaver was appointed secretary of housing and urban development by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, and L. Douglas Wilder took the oath of office as governor in Richmond, Va., in 1990.

Weaver, who had three Harvard degrees, was the great-grandson of a slave and an expert strategist in the civil rights movement. “Fight hard and legally,” he said, “and don’t blow your top.”

His government service began during the New Deal, when he tried to harness benefits for blacks from the domestic spending programs. Weaver has been followed by 19 other African-Americans in the cabinet.

Mr. Wilder, a grandson of slaves, won the governorship in the onetime capital of the Confederacy with 50.19 percent of the vote. History was made only after a recount.

His margin of victory lagged far behind those of his Democratic running mates, suggesting that many Democrats did not vote for him.

Only one other African-American has been elected governor of a state: Deval Patrick, a Democrat who led Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015.

Links:  Robert C. Weaver - Wikipedia

Robert C. Weaver - Britannica.com

Robert C. Weaver: First African-American Cabinet Secretary

Douglas Wilder - Wikipedia

Douglas Wilder - Governor, Mayor - Biography.com

L Douglas Wilder - Encyclopedia.com

Thoughts On a Huge Powerball Lottery Jackpot

So many thoughts come to mind on tonight's huge Powerball jackpot lottery, worth 1 and 1/2 billion dollars, in pre-tax jackpot prize amount.  Herewith:

--Hopefully not just one person wins it. (Well, unless it's me, of course).  To say it's a huge sum of money is blatantly obvious, even an understatement. The likelihood one person could handle this is slim. Possible and unlikely but slim.

--Hopefully a person of small means, the middle or lower class wins it---one who, again, could handle it. I heard a report on the radio news that said when lottery jackpots like these get bigger, more wealthy people buy tickets. Let's hope someone who isn't already "loaded" wins this thing.

--Better yet, it would be great if a group of people won it and again, it didn't mess any of them up. That's hoping for a lot.

--As I write this, the jackpot is officially 1.5 billion dollars. By the time this comes up as a post, I feel certain it will be valued at 1.6 billion, at least. Not that it isn't already an insane amount of money. Possibly for one person.

--Huge as this jackpot is and as much good or bad as it could do for someone and for a group of people---thinking their family and friends---my personal hope is, for the good of anyone and everyone involved with this thing, hopefully it's won tonight. I can't begin to imagine how big it will be if not won tonight but 2 billion dollars does seem entirely possible. In that case, and the bigger it gets, all the more likelihood it would screw up yet more lives.

--The real winners on this thing? The person and people atop the business that is Powerball. It's like Vegas. The only real winners are the ones who own the casinos and machines themselves.

--It's gone a bit international, this Powerball:

Canadians flock to U.S. border towns 

in frenzy for Powerball tickets

Now people are talking about building a wall to keep Canadians out but for completely different reasons.

It's gotten even bigger, however. I spoke to a Facebook friend yesterday, from England, and he says they can buy and are buying them there, online and that he was going to:

Powerball lottery: Questions about legitimacy of online ticket brokers not stopping Canadians

--The winner would be helped and greatly if they are from one of the states where you don't have to declare who you are if you're the winner.  Like Kansas. (hint, hint).

--When a person does finally win this thing, besides solving financial issues for them and giving them great vacations, SO MUCH GOOD COULD BE DONE and for so many, many people across the state and nation and even the world, literally, and for the rest of that person's long, healthy, happy life and even beyond, really. Here's hoping that's what happens.

So there you are. Some thoughts, random thoughts on this huge, crazy Powerball jackpot drawing tonight.

Good luck to anyone and everyone out there, playing the thing.

You'll need it in at least a few different ways.

Links:  How the Powerball rules were tweaked to make the game an even bigger ripoff

The Biggest Powerball Jackpot Ever

The Fascinating Math Behind Why You Won't Win Powerball

24 Things That Are More Likely Than Winning the Lottery

Dear Powerball Winner: Take Our Advice and Take the Annuity

Everyone Is Freaking Out About The $1.5 Billion Powerball

Notes on the St. Louis Rams

You likely saw the breaking news on the St. Louis Rams NFL team:

Rams relocating to Los Angeles

First, this is certainly, absolutely no time to gloat, as a Kansas Citian.

Sure, we're happy to have our team but no way do we want to put down St. Louis for losing theirs. No way. That's just ugly.

Second, it's got to hurt. And in so many ways.

--It's the 2nd NFL team the city has lost.

--It hurts tax revenues.

--It hurts the city's image both internally and externally--how they see themselves and how the nation might.

--It's got to hurt their downtown and business and businesses and hotels and restaurants, you name it.

That said, I have to admit, I was hoping they could keep the team. I just wasn't for a new stadium for them.

Sure, if they wanted to pay for it themselves, have at it. I wasn't for them keeping their team at any price. I specifically wasn't for Missourians, statewide, having to pay any state taxes just so wealthy people could have a new stadium.

But all of us pay for it?

No way.

So now this is settled. For them. Now. And it hurts and it's ugly but so be it.

What occurs to me now, however, is that, next time the owners of either our Royals or Chiefs want us all, again, to cough up hundreds of millions of dollars for stadium renovations?

Oh, hell no.

My position remains the same for us, as well.

If the wealthy want a new stadium or stadium upgrades...   they can darned well pay for it themselves.

On the Two "State" Speeches Last Evening

A few brief notes on the two State speeches last evening--Kansas' Governor Sam Brownback's State of the State speech and President Obama's final State of the Union speech.

What got me about Governor Brownback's speech is that he spent so much time attacking President Obama.

??

First thing---why?

Why would a governor from a state in the United States attack the leader of the nation? Why spend any time at all attacking the president?  Isn't it assumed he's on our side? Isn't it assumed he wants what's good for the nation? Isn't it assumed he wants more jobs and a stronger nation?

I don't remember another State of the State speech by any governor in the nation where that governor attacked the president in their speech.

It seems clear Governor Brownback is doing what so many Republicans in the last many years have done and are still doing and that is, putting their political party and their success and their interests ahead of the interests and success and successes of the nation when the nation should come first.

Additionally, here is this Kansas Governor, taking time in his speech to attack a President when his own policies have put his state in the very likely position of having a $200 million deficit in the coming year? How do you do that?

And then he went on to attack Planned Parenthood.  If that isn't demagoguing a topic for partisan, political purposes, nothing is. Planned Parenthood's status is surely, for most Kansans, a side issue. The main issue is the state's financial and economic status, something he can no way brag about after what he and the Republicans in Topeka have done and been doing the last several years. Not once in his speech did he mention the State's budget shortfall they've all created. There's a shock, huh?

Other details:

--The Guv said he would fight to keep President Obama's prisoners from Guantanamo out of Kansas. Again, not a terribly huge concern. There aren't that many and since when can't America handle prisoners?

--He called for more funding for schools. Seriously. Not once did he say from where the state could or would be able to find this funding, given the fiscal shape they're in, thanks to him and the Republicans over there.

I think the Star clearly had it right in today's op/ed piece on it:

Gov. Sam Brownback’s State of the State had it all: braggadocio,scare tactics and bad ideas

In sharp contrast, President Obama's speech started out with a little light humor and then pointed out his and the nation's actual successes over the last 7 years. He went on to call on Americans to pull together, work together, not operate on fear and to work for better days, never once attacking anyone else.

Media host Michael Smerconish last evening asked a great question on Facebook:

If the Dow, unemployment and gas prices were the same as today but with a President Romney, would people not be saying wow, what a success he is?

It's hard to disagree with that. 

In summary, the two speeches last evening were the dark and the light, the negative and the positive, the hopeful and the pessimistic, frankly.

Sorry, Kansans but you did bring this on yourself.

Link:  Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback proposes cuts to highways, children's programs to close budget gap

Republicans in Jefferson City, At It Again

Image: Think Progress

Yessir, Republican legislators in Jefferson City are at it again. They're writing and trying to pass very self-serving legislation, all in the guise of "protecting our vote." Here it is.

Missouri voter photo ID measures pass 

House committee

Never mind that it's been proven, time and again, that there really is no significant problem with vote fraud of any kind.

How Voter ID Laws Are Being Used 

to Disenfranchise

Never mind that the costs of voter ID far exceeds any value obtained in keeping voting rolls any more clean and accurate than they already are.

How Republicans Rig the Game 

This is yet more un-American, Right Wing, Republican vote suppression and disenfranchisement of Americans. It helps them get and keep the poor, blacks, Hispanics, the elderly and physically-challenged, at minimum---read: possible Democratic Party voters---from voting.

It's not just wrong but deeply wrong and we need to fight this, we need to end it in America. They've been pushing these "voter ID" laws and gerrymandering for far too long. It all needs to end and we need to get started on it. We can and should tolerate this no longer.

Links:

Texas Voter ID Law Is Unconstitutional and Discriminates

Federal Court Rejects Texas' Voter ID Law As Unfair

Dartmouth Study: N.C. Voter ID Law Unfair to Black Voters

What Was Governor Brownback Thinking?

There are so many times when one could have asked, in the last several years this precise question---Just what was Kansas Governor Sam Brownback thinking?

Like what was he thinking when he cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations in Kansas and put more of the burden on the middle and lower classes in that state as just one example? The list goes on and on from there.

US President Barack Obama speaks with Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (C) alongside Topeka Mayor Larry Wolgast (L) upon arrival on Air Force One at Forbes Field Airport in Topeka, Kansas, January 21, 2015. Obama is traveling on a 2-day, 2 state trip to Idaho and Kansas following his State of... Show more

January 21, 2015| Credit: SAUL LOEB

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EMBED

LICENSE

But now, with his choice of giving the Kansas State of the State speech on the same day as President Obama's State of the Union speech?

Really. What could he have possibly been thinking?

The two speeches occurring on the same day brings automatic comparisons and contrasts you wouldn't think  the Governor would  want nor would want us to make. After all, we've got a successful president, in so many ways, and a Governor that's overseeing horrible state budgets, school budgets and other state budgets slashed, debt downgrade, deep unpopularity and on and on. It just seems to make even more clearly how really awful the Kansas Governor and his Right Wing, Republican, "trickle down" economic policies are and have been for the state and people.

It should actually be a fun, rather enlightening, political day.

Just, for Governor Brownback, not a positive one.

Links:  What time is Obama's State of the Union?

Viewer's guide to Tuesday's State of the Union Address

Obama's last State of the Union will try to counter electorate's anger
Obama's State of the Union Address Seeks to Frame 2016 Race

St. Louis-area residents to attend Obama's State of the U

Microsoft CEO Scores a Front Row Seat to State of the U

Obama invites 'Humans of NY' refugee to State of the Union

Meet the Special Guests for Obama's Final State of the Union Address

On Tonight's State of the Union

I have read no other, better, brief summary of President Obama's 2 terms as President and their relative success, like it or not, than what I saw last evening on Facebook from Professor/economist Robert Reich:

Tomorrow night will be Barack Obama’s final State of the Union – the last time he addresses a joint session of Congress. So it seems like an appropriate time for a few thoughts about his presidency.

First, I think historians will judge it to be among the most successful – saving the U.S. economy from a second Great Depression, enacting the first almost-universal health insurance system (something neither FDR, nor Truman, JFK, LBJ, or Clinton could get done), finding and killing the person who engineered the worst terrorist act ever to occur on American soil, and, all the while, holding at bay the most disciplined, adamantly right-wing Republican Congress in history. The Obama administration has played the long game, and mostly won.

Second, Barack Obama as a person has exhibited extraordinary coolness under fire. No president in my lifetime has come under such relentless, scathing, disrespectful (often thinly-veiled racist) attack from political opponents and opportunistic pundits, and yet he has never wavered from the dignified tone he set for himself and his presidency at the outset.

Third, this administration has not been marred by scandal – no revelations of self-dealing by high officials, no sexual exploits, no illegal political payoffs, no secret and illicit deals. To laud a presidency for its lack of scandal may be a sad commentary on our era, but given the harshness and meanness of politics it is nonetheless a significant achievement.

It is not all roses. I won’t easily forgive the mass deportations, the early emphasis on deficit-reduction, the compromises on civil liberties, the absurd Trans Pacific Partnership, or the failure to put tough conditions on Wall Street banks that got bailed out. The Administration has been way too kind to big corporations and Wall Street. Fifty years ago we would have considered Obama a liberal Republican.

But given the times and the circumstances, he has done remarkably well. That’s a provisional verdict, of course; there’s still a year to go.

So State of the Union?

Bring it on.

Link:  Yes, He Did: Why Obama Is the Most Consequential Second-Term President Since FDR

Entertainment Overnight -- Rest in Peace

How To Read Your Powerball Ticket

From--where else?--FB

On This Huge Powerball

This isn't actually possible because of taxes being deducted and their math, honestly, is WAY off and incorrect but something like it certainly makes more sense.



The payout in Missouri, if you take a lump sum payment, after taxes, is $572,260,000. That means it really would be possible to give more than 1 million dollars 572 Americans across the nation, anyway.

This would make FAR more sense and for all the following reasons:

--It would be far less likely to mess up one person or even a rather small group, if they were to win it as is.

--It would spread the money out over the nation and do far more good, across all the cities, counties and states. It would be far better for all these economies, as well.

--It would certainly be far better for the entire nation. It would strengthen state and federal tax coffers, as a side benefit, too--something heaven knows Kansas needs just now (eh, Governor Brownback?).

At worst, if it did or does mess up any lives---and it inevitably would--it would have a smaller destructive effect and the person or people would still have had some fun and done some good in the meantime, while blowing their own 1 million dollars.

Hey, we can dream, can't we?

(Meantime, poor Mr. Andolini. He's apparently put his name on this chart, it's bouncing around the interwebs and it has horribly incorrect math on it and attributed to him).

Links:  Powerball Jackpot Analysis

Powerball's $1.3 Billion Swindle Of Americans

Here's What To Do If You Actually Win The Lottery

An Article Nearly Everyone At The Star Should Read

There's an excellent article---no surprise---in today's Sunday Edition of the New York Times that, as I said, virtually everyone down at our own Kansas City Star should read. It is:

A Year of Challenges in the News Business

It's mostly all about what their newspaper---and virtually every newspaper--should do given our changes to how people are reading and accessing news and what used to be newspapers now.

One of the most pointed paragraphs:

The biggest change is probably that so many of them read The Times now not just in digital form, but on a smartphone. That means that visual journalism — including video offerings — must become more central than ever. It also means that even more journalism must be presented with digital tools at the forefront, not as an afterthought.

And this:

“We have to keep asking ‘what’s the best way to tell this story?’ ” Mr. Baquet said. That means that the newsroom itself needs to change — substantially.

Here's hoping this is the direction The Star is headed.

It doesn't seem so but here's hoping. I certainly wish them well.

The Powerball Lottery Just Now

So a couple of notes on the Powerball Lottery right now.

No one won last night's drawing. It was the largest jackpot prize for them ever. Seems it got up to 949.8 million dollars.

No Winner for $949.8 Million Powerball Jackpot

Crazy, no?

So now? What's the jackpot prize going to be for this Wednesday evening? Glad you asked.

No winning Powerball tickets sold; jackpot hits $1.3 billion

There is an entire likelihood, a strong possibility one person could and would walk away with a 1.3 billion dollar jackpot prize this week, before taxes. Someone who previously didn't have much money.


There are people in poverty---starving, in fact, literally----all over this planet.

We have a lottery with a prize of 1.3 billion dollars up for grabs this week, very possibly for one person to claim.  At 2 dollars a throw.

According to the USA Mega website, the cash payoff for this will be $572,260,000 after taxes. So that would mean if this were distributed more wisely, 572,000,000 people could be millionaires. Instead, one person will quite possibly get all of this.

It's like our business community. The heads of companies and corporations can and do take home hundreds of millions of dollars in pay while millions of Americans work full time jobs and aren't paid enough to make a sustainable living.

I'm just glad we, as a people, as humanity, as a nation, have our priorities straight so we can make this world work for everyone. I'm glad we figured out all that fairness and equality and justice and common sense, so long ago.

Aren't you?

Link:  USA Mega | Powerball and Mega Millions Lottery Results

Powerball Jackpot Analysis

Entertainment Overnight -- So Pure

And so beautiful

On That Huge Powerball Jackpot Tonight

Once again, I am reminded of my two favorite quotes on millionaires.

"I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position." 

 --Mark Twain, US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

and 

"I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it."

--Dorothy Parker US author, humorist, poet, & wit (1893 - 1967)

Good luck, y'all.  Have a great weekend. Regardless.

Link:  $900 Million Prize, 1 In 292 Million Odds — And A Few More Lottery Numbers

Great and Fair Question for the Republicans and Right Wing

Could they be more hypocritical?

Another Historical Presidential Election

Just think of it.

Our last President, meaning our current one, the first black President of the United States.

Fantastic.

I wish I'd had the presence of mind a friend of mine had when he was first elected. He and his wife knew they wanted to be on hand for the acceptance speech in Chicago that November.

Now?

Now we're on the cusp of electing either the first woman President or the first Jewish, Democratic Socialist.

And some people say our best days are behind us. 

Bah.

Fascinating NASA Study

Report today of a study by NASA on civilizations.

NASA claims: Dozens of advanced ancient civilizations collapsed before us

I know, right? I thought they just studied the stars.

Anyway, they studied why civilizations collapse, what takes them down. You'll find the entire study at the link below.

The study came to the conclusion there are two key social features that contributed to the collapse of every single advanced civilization from the past:

“...the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”;

and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]”

These social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,” in all such cases over “the last five thousand years.”

So I ask you, does any of this sound familiar, folks?

Link to original study: 

Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality

The Republican Congress Is At It Again

Did you see this breaking news in the last 24 hours?

Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan

Congress Attempts to Repeal Affordable Healthcare Act for 62nd Time

Do you realize how really insane and irresponsible this is? Think about it.

Not only have the Republicans in Congress thought and worked and voted on this, repealing Obamacare 62 times.

And of course President Obama is going to veto it. They know that. They don't care if they're wasting their--our--time. And money.

U.S. Congress sends bill to gut Obamacare, 

to certain veto

Keep in mind, however, the original goal for enrollment and participation of Americans in Obamacare was 7 million.

7 million people insured.

Do you know how many have signed up?

At least 20 million.

20 Million Americans Get Insurance 

Under Obamacare

Nearly 3 times more Americans have signed up with Obamacare than what the original goal was. And if this were to be taken away now, on what plan would these people be? What coverage would they have?

And we know the answer is none. They would have no health insurance coverage and health insurance companies could--and no doubt would---continue to keep jacking up the costs, the premiums, every year.

And what about the people with pre-existing conditions coverage that Americans have now that would very likely go away if Obamacare were eliminated as the Republicans keep working for and wasting their and our time and money? Who would cover all those probably hundreds of thousands of people with their pre-existing illnesses and issues?

We know the Republicans have no solutions. They've said as much. They only want to take away this coverage, this partial solution to our healthcare problems and crisis, this Obamacare because, after all, it was initiated by President Obama. And they hate all things Obama, America and American people be damned.

Are they working on the shrinking middle class? Oh, heck, no. They're trying to kill Obamacare, instead. Heaven forbid someone in the opposing political party should have a successful time in office in the White House. 

Their political party's success is FAR more important than that of the nation or the people in it.

Quote of the Day -- On Guns

"I respect the right to bear arms... but all of us can agree that it makes sense to do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of people who would try to do others harm."

--President Barack Obama

Today's Kansas City Star. And What's Wrong With It

I saw this morning's, today's Kansas City Star and just looking at the front page and then through it shows you, easily, quickly, precisely what's wrong with it.

If you have one, if you saw it, you know the biggest part of the entire page was one big picture. That's all.

Mind you, it was in color but that was it.

And that story?

It was a sports story.

Sports. On the front page.

You'd think that might be in---what?---the sports section? Maybe a small teaser about it on the front page and then the huge pic and story there?

Nah. It's the Kansas City Star.

Then, after that, what's up? What else is on the front page?

What caught my eye and what likely caught the average reader's eye was a rather large title to the left declaring "The Star gains a new leader."  (For a moment, I thought it read "reader." We all know they're pretty desperate).

What got me and gets me about this is that their big news for the city is----ta daa!----all about them.

I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, does anyone besides the people at the newspaper and the person's family and friends truly care or bother themselves with who, exactly, is the publisher, new or otherwise, at the local newspaper? I know I don't. Well, not unless he or she could somehow save it all.

From there, the front page has yet another color picture, this one on the standoff by the domestic terrorists in Oregon and it takes up about 1/4 of the page.  After that, is has a small teaser about North Korea's leader possibly setting off a nuclear warhead. Something trivial like that. You can open up the paper and check that out if you want.

So of all that, what DOESN'T the front page have?

It doesn't have any local stories on local topics that are important to Mr. and Mrs. Kansas City in the area. You know, you and me.

Nothing on City Hall. Nothing on Mayor James. Nothing on any of the city's larger issues and problems. Nothing.

Of course, that's what you get when you slash your budget and lay off so many of your local reporters and writers.

What's in most of the paper?

Articles on the nation and the world that come off reporting wires like the AP.  Things you can get anywhere. Things that people do, in fact, get anywhere. Like the television and their computers.

If you don't have local stories with local problems and possible solutions and local people and stories with local color, why have a newspaper? Indeed, why GET the paper?

And that is what is wrong with any and every newspaper in this nation, if it's struggling. It adds to their problems of people turning away from these things anyway.

People are, as I said, already turning away from newspapers. Why really chase them away because you don't cover local stories and local people? You have to have good writing on interesting, even important, compelling stories that matter to the residents or there's really no reason for you to exist.

I said it here before, as the Star transitions from newsprint to the computer, as all media is, it would behoove the organization to get people with cameras out in the city---still and moving video---for local stories and local events. It would give people reason to go to their sites.

But if the printed paper cannot and does not give local writing and reporting, it only hastens the decline of the paper, it increases the numbers of people not taking or buying it and it only brings on the demise of the paper that much faster.

It seems obvious, to date, where the Kansas City Star is headed.

I don't hope or wish for it but it surely seems certain. This star is setting. And pretty quickly. Sadly.

Side note: What's both ironic and really pretty awful is that the cheap, sleazy, "yellow journalism" exhibited daily, nearly hourly over at "Tony's Kansas City" blog probably does a better job of covering local stories, especially at City Hall, and across town, than the Star.  Even with his tabloid journalism techniques, his ALL CAPITAL LETTER headlines, his repeated use of the same, tired photos for story after story, his blatant sexism and his allowing deeply racist, really ugly, even hateful people to post comments on his site, it, tragically, probably reports more local news better than the Star.

If that isn't enough to make one almost nauseous about local media, nothing will.