By CHRIS PACKHAM
Giving with one hand, taking with the other: The Kansas Department of Revenue intercepted $1.2 million in economic stimulus checks meant for Kansas residents to pay back taxes.
Missouri collected $3 million. On the one hand, my check arrived OK last week, but on the other hand, it wound up back in state coffers anyway, in the form of $600 of "Lucky 7" scratchers I picked up at Grand Slam, which I'm still working my way through with a quarter and a whole lot of elbow grease. If I win any jackpots, my plan is, first, to get treatment for scratcher-induced carpal-tunnel syndrome, and second, to write a self-help book called Scratch Your Way to Prosperity. If I don't hit any jackpots, I plan to continue telling my girlfriend that my check still hasn't arrived and I have no idea why. After the jump, a few words about the ancient ruins we used to call Kansas City infrastructure, which then trail off into an abrupt ending because sometimes you're working on a paragraph when you realize that, emotionally, you've simply moved on. Get in touch with your feelings by clicking here, or on Dr. Leo Buscaglia:She's my sister! Smack! She's my daughter! Smack! So, a group of big-city mayors, including Kansas City's own imposing Mayor Maximark McOvermuch, spoke to Congress Thursday about all the overwhelming infrastructure needs in their respective crumbling American cities — so at least it's not just us! "We're having a quiet collapse of prosperity,'' Funkhouser said, in what I assume was a sad-sack, basset-hound voice, referencing Kansas City's Civil War-era sewer system and the $6 billion worth of damage we've managed to do to the area's infrastructure by just ignoring the problem. Here's the complete text of Funkhouser's statement to Congress, which, at a dispiriting 1,300 words, speaks loud and clear to the crumbling infrastructure of his crowd-pleasing sense of showmanship. Although I would like Kansas City's sewer system to be federally subsidized, please, no matter what The Kansas City Star's anti-mommy-state E. Thomas McClanahan has to say about it.
I'm definitely Kansas City's most stridently anti-anti-mommy-state, day-labor intellectual. Every morning when I step out of the Labor Ready office and jump into the bed of my editor's pickup truck, I'm bringing my mommy-state advancement plans one day closer to ultimate fruition. And if you have any doubt about my intentions, let me assure you that not only do I want a France-style mommy-state whereby everything — food, education, French lessons, clothes, all the way through to early retirement and diabetic supplies delivered right to your door — is provided at no cost by the government; I actually want the citizen/mommy-state relationship to be unhealthy and weird, like Chinatown.
Somebody besides smart-asses had to say it: Slate, the center-left Web magazine for people who appreciate ugly, unusable web interfaces — like me! — comes right out and asks the question about Sen. John McCain every other news organ dances around: "How might the senator's mind deteriorate over the next eight years?" What follows is a summary of age-related cognitive symptoms, from declines in the "Stroop interference" test to physical reductions in brain mass, and how they might affect someone with access to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sure, I can make jokes all goddamn day about the "wandering" behavior exhibited by presidents with senile dementia, but the problem is very real. However, I just read about a British retirement community that solved the problem by — swear to God — installing a fake bus stop on the hospital grounds. Alzheimers patients would wander out and wait at the fake stop until hospital attendants came to retrieve them. This is such a cheap and simple solution to the problem that I think it should put to rest any possible fears about President John McCain's ability to remain within the confines of the White House complex.
Just a reminder: Michelle Obama is awesome.
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