Everyone in this town knows about this, even people like me, who came here years after it happened.

The Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse was a collapse of a walkway that occurred on July 17, 1981, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others during a tea dance. At the time, it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history.

Just a few pages from the Kansas City Times and Kansas City Star issues in the days after the accident (should be mostly readable if clicked).

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I wonder if there is a rating scale for potholes similar to the F-Scale for tornadoes or the Richter Scale for earthquakes. If there isn’t one, I’d like to propose a Kansas City Pothole Scale to commemorate this City’s contribution to the subject of road damage. I’ll leave it to the scientists to decide if potholes should be rated based on their size or on a potential vehicle damage from a minor bump (K-1) to a complete disappearance of the vehicle as described in the Bible “and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up” (definitely a K-10).

Every day I have to maneuver around this crater of a pothole on my way to work, wondering if one wrong turn will send me on my way to the center of the Earth, or at least a little closer to it.

As you can see, there are visible remains of the previous handiwork done by the highly trained professionals working for the City.

It’s hard to tell but the tape measure in the photo is extended to almost three feet to give you some dimension perspective.

It’s not just a hole in the ground. There seems to be a cave underneath it. Maybe it’s an old mine, or an unknown entrance to the abandoned underground tunnel, or an end of the secret escape route leading to the Mayor’s office.

I didn’t feel like spelunking my way down there on a gray Saturday morning.

Few days ago someone placed an orange warning sign around this pothole but it swallowed the City property overnight. You can see the remains of the sign deep down in the abyss.

During my annual griping about the KCMO Earnings Tax, someone never fails to point out that it’s only fair that I pay my fair share for the roads and wonderful amenities I am using while I am in Kansas City. Stupidity of this argument aside, I think I paid enough during my 10 years of employment to fill this hole with cash.

This article explains that you may have a small chance of the City compensating you for the damage to your vehicle caused by a pothole; coverage may be provided by the Missouri Public Entity Risk Management Fund. Obviously I am not qualified to provide any advice, do your own research.

In the meantime, please exercise caution on this intersection of the 6th and Cherry, you’ll find the giant pothole next to the property tax-free building.

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One wrong move and you may accidentally discover the next steamboat Arabia.

Mr.Gorbachev Mayor Funkhouser! Tear down this wall! Fill up this hole!

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Recent post by Scott Adams described his vision for the future of public transportation in the new economy.

Suppose the government enacted laws that made it legal for anyone to be a taxi driver in his own car without a special taxi license. And suppose the income was non-taxable. The result would be cheap taxis and high availability. Every time you wanted to run an errand, and had an extra minute, you could choose to pick up a rider and cut your own driving expense in half. Technology will make it easy to match amateur taxi drivers with riders. And the market would keep prices low.

This is very similar to the system that existed for years (and still alive an well) in the USSR and countries that followed it. In addition to pretty well developed system of public transportation and state-owned taxis, a person could just stand on the street, raise a hand and flag down a private car. Both sides benefited equally: a passenger received a semic0mfortable ride for a price comparable to a cab (general price/distance ratio was common knowledge) and a driver made some extra money without making any extra effort. Some people liked it so much that they made it into a part-time job. Others just picked up passengers on the way home or wherever.

Imagine yourself standing somewhere on the Lenin Street (each city had one of these), you raise your hand and soon one of these beauties stops to pick you up:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Soviet Union had its own “Big 3”: GAZ, AutoVAZ, and AZLK; ZAZ in Ukraine produced some of the ugliest and the most unreliable even by the Soviet standards vehicles. Due to the shortage of cars and years-long waiting lists people were happy to get anything with wheels. Sometimes, when at the end of the month autoworkers were rushing to fulfil quotas so they can get their bonus, a lucky buyer would find a bucket of uninstalled parts inside his new vehicle. Despite these cars being 20-30 behind the rest of the automotive world when they came off assembly line, many of them are still on the road closing in on 40 years. Soviet people invented ingenious ways of keeping them going and they turned out relatively easy to fix and maintain.

My current situation does not easily lend itself to carpooling: I don’t always go straight to work and don’t always drive straight home. The other problem is potential emergency situations that happen rarely but still have to be planned for. In this city I don’t have a reasonable way of getting home from work without my personal vehicle, so I would welcome an opportunity to get a ride from someone who is already headed in the same direction. The only issue  is that when I was growing up© people getting into a stranger’s car were not afraid to be later found in the woods in a block of concrete; drivers were not generally scared of being robbed, killed or raped. Once I hitchhiked almost 200 miles  from where I was stationed in the army to my hometown, changing 5 or 6 cars in the process and never felt any danger; I was wearing my uniform and no one ever asked me for any money. (if some window pops up, just click “return to map”) I don’t know if I would have the same trust now, but if sharing a ride was commonly accepted practice I would probably give it a try.

If you are ever so lucky to get a ride in an old Soviet Car make sure to try this, it will make you instantly popular:

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Soviet citizens of various ages often engaged in letter-writing campaigns. Whether they were supporting various political prisoners, protesting against Israel, or just wishing for the world peace, the dwellers of communal apartments and tireless builders of communism spent their time writing group or individual letters to anyone with a mailing address. When I was growing up® the sincerity of these letters was questionable and they became one of the many semi-mandatory activities in schools and pioneer organizations. Lack of sincerity wasn’t an obstacle when such important things where at stake.

Below you will see a few pages from a kid’s magazine “Murzilka”  which was very popular and widely subscribed by the Soviet children.

Murzilka has been asked by the children of the Moscow Region to publish this open letter.

To The President Of The United States Mr.Reagan.

Mr.President,

We, the Soviet girls and boys are sending this message of protest against the war through the magazine “Murzilka“. You are telling the whole world that the Soviet people are preparing for war. That’s a lie! Our mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers – everyone is fighting for peace. We know that the majority of the American citizens also want peace, and we ask – don’t deceive the people!

Peoples of the world remember that our country defended peace in the Great Patriotic War (WWII), millions of people died for peace. But you are manufacturing rockets, neutron bombs and other dangerous weapons. This is not very nice on your part. You are destroying the peace!

We don’t want kids to die in El Salvador or any other corner of the Earth. We are asking you to stop your policy because it’s the worst policy in the world. We are calling on all the children in the world to say “No to War!” together with us. We support the Soviet government and everything it does for peace.

We ask you, Mr.Reagan to accept the proposals made by the leader of the Communist Party and our State Leonid Illyich Brezhnev. We demand the end to the arms race.

We need peace!

Signed by the 3rd grade students of the middle school in Moscow Region.

I am pretty sure Mr.Reagan went to his grave without reading one issue of Murzilka.

And now the song: “Before it’s too late” with lyrics “to the sunny peace – yes, yes, yes; to the nuclear explosion – no, no, no!”

httpvh://youtu.be/PMHfoH6Ukjc

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I didn’t realize that my Independence, MO theme weekend coincides with the Truman Days.

Today’s old photo trivia question is: Where was the Medicare bill signed?

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