January 18, 1943: In a winter offensive, the Soviet Red Army drove westward, capturing Velikye-Luki on January 1st, near the border of the Byelorussian S.S.R. This offensive resulted in the relief of Leningrad after a 17-month siege by Axis forces.
Youth of the City of Lenin!** Let our selfless work help the Red Army to crush and destroy the enemy!Continue reading →
When you tell people you’re going to Detroit they often give you that “are you crazy?” look and wish you to come back alive or at least unhurt. Pictures of abandoned and destroyed post-apocalyptic Detroit’s ruin-porn make their rounds on the internet, interspersed with scary crime statistics and sad economic news. A person with common sense would probably avoid Detroit, but clearly I am not that person. During a college visit to the nearby Ann Arbor, I set aside two days to check out Detroit because how could I not. Detroit is awesome. And we came back alive and even unhurt, if you don’t count a parking ticket, which did hurt a lot.
I am not a fan of baseball, it’s a seemingly never-ending boring game, interrupted only by an occasional bloody action in the stands or a non-lethal hot-dog drive-by. Baseball promoters tried to combat the dreadfulness of the game by creating sources of distraction, like bringing a herd of sheep for the 1963 Kansas City Athletics – Yankees home opener which was played on April 8th and lost 8-3 by the Kansas City team.
The following book excerpt talks about the 1963 season (scroll up and down inside the window):
Now that the ETAX got extended for at least another 5 years, Kansas City,MO won’t have to scramble to find alternative sources of revenue for some time. While I am clearly not a supporter of the Etax and have outlined my reasoning in multiple posts and comments, I think that the City and its residents should spend the next 5 years making the Etax more palatable to the non-residents (and even themselves) who currently contribute 40% to 50% of it.
1.Dial down the hate and resentment.
Whatever you might think of Johnson County (ironically not the only county who contributes the Etax,but the one which gets the most hate), it is the source of a large part of KCMO revenues, both in the form of Etax and various economic and philanthropic activities. Johnson Countians and other non-residents contribute by spending on food and entertainment, patronizing P&L district, Plaza, Sprint Center, other venues that you are so proud of. Additionally, multiple sponsorships and contributions come from the other side of the State Line to support the arts and causes based in Kansas City. Sprint center carries the name (and sponsorship) of an Overland Park,KS company, and the major benefactor and the Chairwoman of the Center for the Performing Arts lives in Mission Hills. There is a significant number of Friends of the Zoo, Nelson-Atkins sponsors, theater supporters who live outside the KCMO. I don’t even have to mention the Chiefs and Royals fans, who pay for the tickets, parking and every logo item they can get their hands on. You don’t have to like us, but you might consider stifling yourselves a little.
