Clothes Encounters
More than likely, the "stripper-clothes guy" was actually a stripper-clothes sales guy. Many clubs let folks exercise their entrepreneurial spirit by setting up shop outside the dressing room and selling the girls the bare necessities they need to look great onstage. A girl's gotta shop, after all.
Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson,
Grand Rapids, Michigan
"Holiday in Greensburg," June 7
Twistered Facts
I am a police officer at a Johnson County police department and recently volunteered to spend a week in Greensburg assisting with the relief effort. I was joined by dozens of other volunteer officers from all over the state. We responded to a call for assistance from the authorities there. Some of the main things that we were asked to do was to keep out sightseers, those who truly wished to help but only taxed the already nonexistent resources of the area, and those who had darker intentions.
One of the groups that we dealt with while I was there was the Lawrence anarchists who were recently featured in your paper. These people came to Greensburg to conduct a self-directed and oh-so-self-important "fact-finding" mission. In this case, "facts" would no doubt be anything that fit into their paranoid, skewed worldview.
The main difference between our presence in Greensburg and that of the anarchists is, of course, that WE WERE INVITED — by the authorities and the citizens of Greensburg.
While the anarchists see a conspiracy behind every government or police action, here is what I saw in Greensburg: police officers taking a week or more away from their families and normal lives to help out people they had never met; police officers enduring a hazardous environment, asbestos-filled air, mosquitoes, several days of severe weather and other inconveniences to assist the shattered town; police officers climbing, unbidden, onto the roofs of houses to help complete strangers spread tarps to keep out rainwater; some police officers who, despite not being paid overtime, were working 12-hour daily shifts.
While in Greensburg, we dealt with the anarchists (although they were really more a source of amusement than an actual issue to be dealt with); looters; copper thieves; con men; and a group of neo-Nazis who showed up to "assist" by doing nothing more than standing around giving the heil-Hitler salute to an empty FEMA trailer.
While in Greensburg, my fellow officers and I received nothing but praise and thanks from the residents that we spoke to. I sure as heck didn't see any "oppressing" going on. I know that I and the other officers I worked with would not have signed up for Greensburg just for the supposed sheer fun of going there to oppress and harass the citizens. We went there to help. Personally, I don't care to have my efforts and good intentions questioned by a bunch of unemployed, self-important, Birkenstock-wearing, ganja-smoking, semiregular-bathing social misfits whose only validation and authority come from within their own twisted minds and a couple of second-rate Oliver Stone movies. Name withheld by request
The Pitch
Radio Waves
I keep checking out the Pitch, and I never see anything mentioning The Red Wheelbarrow on KKFI 90.1. You know that Kent plays more rare local bands than any other show in the city, right? Anyone who supports the local acts like he does deserves some credit. Spread the word that The Red Wheelbarrow plays music that your friends and neighbors are making.
Chris Kincaid, Lee's Summit
Correction: David Martin's June 14 column, "Crossroads Cruetly," incorrectly identified Jim Leedy's daughter. Her name is Stephanie Leedy.
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In a letter to the Pitch, an unidentified police officer form Johnson County writes to raise objection to an article about members of the Lawrence based organization, Kansas Mutual Aid, that traveled to Greensburg to do relief work after the devestating tornado there.
The writer of the letter completely misses the mark, and concludes his letter with basless name calling and the traditional sarcastic bite of someone who feels threatened by the words of others. I want to make several things clear that were misrepresented by this letter.
Kansas Mutual Aid was indeed invited to Greensburg by members of Americorps, the Mennonite Disaster Services, and especially residents of the city. We had already been in Greensburg the week before we were escorted out of the city by police, and while we were there had been requested to bring more volunteers to work on two houses directly. What is particularly interesting about this situation is that police officer Ty Moeder from Olathe was told this repeatedly, and he responded repeatedly that "it doesn't matter."
Kansas Mutual Aid has spent the last weeks interviewing and speaking with residents of Greensburg who, themselves, have been kicked out of the city by the police from Johnson County and other areas. The truth of the matter is, that far from being the heroes that this officer tries to paint them as, the police have been the enforcement arm of FEMA.
The officer also repeatedly claims that the police are volunteering to be there. While you may have volunteered to go, you're also getting paid. None of the relief workers that went with KMA on any of our three seperate trips were paid by anybody. All of our funds to go came out of pocket, and the tools came from our own houses and neighborhoods.
By the way, every single one of us who were thrown out of the city is employed, was wearing shoes, takes showers, and none of us are hippies. It would be best if the ridiculous stereotypes that the police officer advanced through his jock humor were put to rest. We're all tired of hearing them.
While the police officer who wrote this letter sits back in Johnson County trying to make himself out to be a hero, Kansas Mutual Aid is continuing to go back to the Greensburg community, and to make a real commitment to the evacuees of the storm. And we'll keep going back because we keep getting invited back.
In a letter to the Pitch, an unidentified police officer form Johnson County writes to raise objection to an article about members of the Lawrence based organization, Kansas Mutual Aid, that traveled to Greensburg to do relief work after the devestating tornado there. The writer of the letter completely misses the mark, and concludes his letter with basless name calling and the traditional sarcastic bite of someone who feels threatened by the words of others. I want to make several things clear that were misrepresented by this letter. Kansas Mutual Aid was indeed invited to Greensburg by members of Americorps, the Mennonite Disaster Services, and especially residents of the city. We had already been in Greensburg the week before we were escorted out of the city by police, and while we were there had been requested to bring more volunteers to work on two houses directly. What is particularly interesting about this situation is that police officer Ty Moeder from Olathe was told this repeatedly, and he responded repeatedly that "it doesn't matter." Kansas Mutual Aid has spent the last weeks interviewing and speaking with residents of Greensburg who, themselves, have been kicked out of the city by the police from Johnson County and other areas. The truth of the matter is, that far from being the heroes that this officer tries to paint them as, the police have been the enforcement arm of FEMA. The officer also repeatedly claims that the police are volunteering to be there. While you may have volunteered to go, you're also getting paid. None of the relief workers that went with KMA on any of our three seperate trips were paid by anybody. All of our funds to go came out of pocket, and the tools came from our own houses and neighborhoods. By the way, every single one of us who were thrown out of the city is employed, was wearing shoes, takes showers, and none of us are hippies. It would be best if the ridiculous stereotypes that the police officer advanced through his jock humor were put to rest. We're all tired of hearing them. While the police officer who wrote this letter sits back in Johnson County trying to make himself out to be a hero, Kansas Mutual Aid is continuing to go back to the Greensburg community, and to make a real commitment to the evacuees of the storm. And we'll keep going back because we keep getting invited back.
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