Giving the Life Magazine a break, we continue onto the May 1914 issue of the Rotarian Magazine which was largely dedicated to Kansas City. Filled with photos and articles where mustachioed men took turns extolling the virtues of Kansas City, its businesses, theaters, schools, real estate and architecture. If you are bored at work a fan of Kansas City history, you should be reading this magazine already. 1914 was the year when the Kansas City Union Station was opened and the magazine dedicates the cover and several pages of photographs and essays to the “largest Union Station in the world”.
I went to the library today with an idea to look up some articles about the streetcar battles of the olden days, and even though the article was there, the quality of the scan, or most likely the paper itself was not that great and I couldn’t easily make a readable copy. So I gave up on that idea, but the time was already wasted invested and I continued to ogle women scan the old papers.
*all images should be more or less readable when clicked.
Few clips are from 1882 and the rest of them are from the Kansas City papers from exactly 55 years ago, April 2, 1957.
This ad shows some effort – both sides of the column spell the name of the subdivision.
I would like to thank many readers of this blog, people who thought enough of my writing to stop by and leave a comment, and many others who know me on Twitter, Facebook and in real life (there are about 4 or 5 of the lucky ones). I hope you all have a great year, stay healthy, employed and sexually active happy.
This is an old (1956) Soviet song – “5 minutes til the New Year”:
A little historical aside before I get to the subject.
If you ever drive on I-70 past the sign “Historic Downtown Rocheport” don’t waste your time getting off the highway. Here is a 1-second tour of the place.
Now get back on the road, you still have a couple of hours to go.
St.Louis Japanese Festival is one of the better-organized, meaningful and entertaining festivals in the country. I visited it once before and enjoyed it so much that I didn’t have any reservations about going there again.
The Japanese Festival is once-a-year occasion when otherwise shy Americans release their inner Japanese, normally hidden deep inside, wrap themselves in shower curtains and prance around in uncomfortable wooden flip-flops pretending to like weird-looking food.
My favorite Japanese traditional entertainer Masaji Terasawa was there once again making spun sugar sculptures, origami figures and making fun of the public.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6RRdVvMny8
I have few clips of his performance.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEmquClM-zw”
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU1bMlBNrg”
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om4ZSP6CBUc”
The Sumo demonstration was probably the highlight of the day since we decided not to stick around for karaoke.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kyfYldKDQM
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KteGdvDOQE
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0butoszJB6c
On the way back I was tempted to get some “Free water in the name of Jesus” but decided against it, just in case it turns into wine and causes me to get a DUI. I wasn’t so sure I could count on Jesus to pay the ticket.
Today’s Stuff White People Like brought up a subject of political prisoners. Strangely, I probably know more about American political prisoners and dissidents than many of you. Soviet propaganda machine loved to get the people involved in a cause of standing up for a political prisoner. It served many purposes, not the least of which was to show the Soviet people that the grass wasn’t that much greener on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. Growing up in mid-seventies and early eighties I recall a few campaigns when millions of “outraged” Soviet people of all ages wrote letters and collected signatures to free some unjustly imprisoned victim of imperialism.
According to the Soviet press, Angela Davis was arrested for her progressive views and the government fabricated the charges of her being and accomplice in a murder case. Her arrest was supposed to “discredit and hurt the Black Panther movement and start a misinformation campaign against the Communist Party of the USA”. Thousands of people signed petitions to “Free Angela Davis” and Soviet school kids participated in a “Million Roses for Angela” drive where they were mailing postcards with hand-drawn roses and their pleas for Angela’s freedom to the American president. As a special touch they weren’t attaching any stamps so that evil bastard President would owe the missing postage. In reality Angela Davis was arrested when her gun was used in a hostage situation and a shootout and she was charged as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide. After 18 months in prison she was acquitted and released, clearly as a result of the White House being flooded with a million postcards; she went on to visit the USSR and meet L.I.Brezhnev and is presently working at UC, Santa Cruz.
Leonard Peltier was imprisoned by the military-industrial complex and imperialist murderers from the CIA for being an outspoken advocate for the rights of the Native Americans. The Soviet people stood up in his support with another letter-writing campaign, meetings and demonstrations but failed to get him released. One central newspaper was printing out pre-filled petitions which were supposed to be cut out, glued to a postcard and mailed to the (still an evil S.O.B) US President. In reality Peltier was arrested and convicted of killing two FBI agents and although the allegations had been disputed they were never overturned.
Charles Hyder is hardly known in this country but his name is familiar to anyone who grew up when his name was mentioned daily on the Soviet TV and in the press. Dr.Hyder was a progressive American astro-physicist who used to work for NASA. In 1986 he protested against the use of the nuclear weapons and the arms-race by staging a 218-day fast in front of the White House. All of the progressive humanity (except of course the heartless imperialists in this country) watched in awe as the aging professor was weakening by the minute for the cause of detente. Soviet TV broadcast daily updates on his health condition while that callous S.O.B President Reagan let this hero waste away. Gorbachev wrote a personal letter to Hyder and the Soviet people expressed their strong support for his cause and even offered to send him food and money. In reality, the consensus was that Hyder was cheating, either eating at night or sneaking food somehow because no one survives 218 days without food even to prove a point. In addition, it turned out that his doctor ordered him to lose weight due to a health condition. A Soviet correspondent faked the daily reports by changing his clothes and filming up to five updates on the same day. Dr. Hyder died in 2004.
There were some others that I don’t personally recall like Assata Shakur or the ones where the person was not a dissident but just a victim of capitalism like a fake homeless guy Joe Mauri.
The common thread was the forced enthusiasm with which the Soviet people stood up for anyone, anywhere, for any reason. Propaganda, constant barrage of falsified information and mandatory attendance of these “spontaneous” events created an impression, an impression is what we were after in the first place.
I’ll conclude with an anti-American poster from the olden days.
Leonard Peltier was imprisoned by the military-industrial complex and imperialist murderers from the CIA for being an outspoken advocate for the rights of the Native Americans. The Soviet people stood up in his support with another letter-writing campaign, meetings and demonstrations but failed to get him released. One central newspaper was printing out pre-filled petitions which were supposed to be cut out, glued to a postcard and mailed to the (still an evil S.O.B) US President. In reality Peltier was arrested and convicted of killing two FBI agents and although the allegations had been disputed they were never overturned.
Charles Hyder is hardly known in this country but his name is familiar to anyone who grew up when his name was mentioned daily on the Soviet TV and in the press. Dr.Hyder was a progressive American astro-physicist who used to work for NASA. In 1986 he protested against the use of the nuclear weapons and the arms-race by staging a 218-day fast in front of the White House. All of the progressive humanity (except of course the heartless imperialists in this country) watched in awe as the aging professor was weakening by the minute for the cause of detente. Soviet TV broadcast daily updates on his health condition while that callous S.O.B President Reagan let this hero waste away. Gorbachev wrote a personal letter to Hyder and the Soviet people expressed their strong support for his cause and even offered to send him food and money. In reality, the consensus was that Hyder was cheating, either eating at night or sneaking food somehow because no one survives 218 days without food even to prove a point. In addition, it turned out that his doctor ordered him to lose weight due to a health condition. A Soviet correspondent faked the daily reports by changing his clothes and filming up to five updates on the same day. Dr. Hyder died in 2004.
