Red Flags

The Strip wonders: Is it really possible for a Pitch writer to convince the people of Kansas City:

* That its new downtown arena will be redesigned as a memorial to Confederate war dead, complete with a Confederacy Hall of Fame and a new façade in the style of a Southern plantation?

* That Confederate heritage groups plan to re-enact the deaths of six rebel soldiers killed at the hands of angry Kansas City prostitutes?

* That "Clem Bradshaw," the man behind these confederate groups, had at one time convinced the governments of Puerto Rico and Guam to allow live-ammunition Civil War re-enactments?

* That a University of Kansas "professor" who authenticated the histories of the dead soldiers for the Pitch was known for a book on the zits and blackheads of rebel troops?

* That Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes would be fighting the redesign of the arena by insisting that it reflect the city's illustrious sex-trade past?

The surprising answer, judging by the reaction to last week's satirical cover story "Rebel Hell," is that it is possible to convince at least some of your friends and neighbors of the verity of these fantastical facts.

Of course, we have to admit that not everything in the piece by "Cesar Oman" was impossibly far-fetched: The dull new arena design the city recently unveiled already resembles a contraceptive sponge, which only reinforces that the still tenant-less arena is a prophylactic public-works project.

And Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, the one who capitulated to Confederate heritage groups and allowed the flying of the Confederate battle flag over state land on June 5, really is turning out to be a bigger dumbass than we expected.

But is that any reason for the Pitch to get those points across by inventing a 3,500-word fabrication?

Sure. Why the hell not?

For those readers who were shocked, shocked, that a managing editor who each week channels the political musings of a steak patty would make up a cover story out of whole cloth, we can only offer this suggestion:

Buy a six pack of beer. Open one up. Sit down and stretch out your legs. Take a long, cool sip.

And chill.

This meaty sirloin is hearing from plenty of Pitch readers who did exactly what we expected them to. After reading a few paragraphs or a few pages into "Rebel Hell," they noticed that something wasn't right. Maybe it was the name of that book KU professor Fletcher Gray was known for: Rebel, Rebel, Your Face Is a Mess: Hygiene in the Armies of the West, 1861-65. Or maybe it was the startling notion that in only a two-month period, the remains of six Confederate soldiers would be discovered under the old UMB Bank branch, exhumed, studied and identified -- without a word to the public. Or maybe it was the over-the-top Clem Bradshaw, who declared that six whoremongering soldiers were "brave boys" who deserved to have an arena dedicated to them. Whatever it was that made readers skeptical, it sent them checking out the validity of the story.

Heidi Schallberg, operator of the smart blog "Me, My Life + Infrastructure," found soon after our paper hit the streets last Wednesday that it took almost no time at all to Google our cover story to shreds. Fletcher Gray? Didn't exist. Neither did Clem Bradshaw or his group, "Friends of the Confederacy." And for good measure, Schallberg even exhumed Cesar Oman's older "brother," Antoine, who is memorialized at the debunking site Snopes.com for penning a 2002 spoof about a supposed NBC reality TV show featuring vulnerable teens trying to escape raving sexual predators. Antoine's parody of bad television was published in a Los Angeles newspaper and briefly roped in several media organizations, including the Drudge Report. And if Schallberg had kept looking, she might have discovered that a third Oman brother, Rubén, created concern in Phoenix in 2003 over the fate of five fictional desert tortoise babies.

Soon after Schallberg debunked "Rebel Hell," other bloggers linked to her site, and the jig was up before most copies of the Pitch had even left their racks. Reality had set in at City Hall as well, but not before a frantic morning when, we hear, a Kansas City Star reporter hounded City Manager Wayne Cauthen for information about the nonexistent Confederate remains.

By late Thursday morning, word of the parody's true nature had spread far and wide, and the Star phoned us up as it prepared to do a story on the hoax. Poor, put-upon Cauthen, meanwhile, did Mayor Kay's dirty work and put out a press release slapping us around. Baby Blunt, meanwhile, chose to play the bully. He not only issued a press release condemning the Pitch for its fake story but also called for an advertiser boycott of the newspaper.

How pro-business of him.

Mayor Kay displayed more savvy, playing off the prank like a good sport on a Friday-morning radio show. And this impertinent porterhouse received phone calls from plenty of others who showed a healthy sense of humor after initially being taken in.