Author Archive

Holiday month begins Sunday. April Fool’s Day, Easter bunny, Passover seder, IRS people, Hitler’s birthday, Don’t Go to Work Unless it’s a Fun Day, Holocaust Day, Ex-Spouse Day, Earth Day, National Humor Month and April 4 is Hug a Newsman Day.

Boxing expert, author and commentator Bert Sugar has passed away.  He once ran The Ring magazine with former St. Louis Browns’ owner Bill Veeck. Ranking Mike Tyson dead last on his list of  “the top 100 boxers of all time,” Sugar wrote, “To perplexing questions like ‘Why does Hawaii have interstate highways?’ and ‘Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?’ can be added another:  ‘What the hell happened to boxing kamikaze pilot Mike Tyson ?’”. . .Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine, which contains Brad Herzog’s piece “It’s how you play the game” about high and low points of sportsmanship.  It recounts the University of Colorado football team’s 1990 two point win over the Missouri Tigers after mistakenly being awarded a fifth down on the game’s final play.  Asked afterwards if he’d forfeit the game, Colorado coach Bill McCartney, a former Mizzou player, said no, charging that the Missouri administrators deliberately caused a sloppy, slippery playing field. . .Two St. Louis prelates will reunited in Manhattan next week, according to well-connected Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo.  Cardinal Tim Dolan,  Palmo tweets, has invited Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia to St. Patrick’s to preach on Holy Thursday.  Given the scandal in Philly under Rigali,  SNAP is upset with the move and accuse Dolan of “rubbing more salt into already deep and still fresh wounds of hundreds of church clergy sex abuse victims and thousands of betrayed Catholics.”  The group is urging Dolan to replace Rigali with Winona Bishop John Quinn , who, earlier this month warned his flock about a notorious, defrocked serial predator priest, Thomas Adamson who moved back into the area recently (and who was the first child molesting cleric that current Archbishop Robert Carlson had to deal with years ago).

The columnist’s weekend began with a jaunt to Pam and Pete Rosciglione’s Italian bakery in St. Charles to get a looksee at daughter Gina’s dazzling  designs on Sicilian centerpieces.  Replete with a marzipan lambs, surrounded by mini chocolate eggs and jelly beans, the tantalizing treats are going as fast as the proverbial hotcakes. P.S. Even Gina’s brother, Peter, Jr., has been S.O.S.’d to serve the crowds, interrupting his chores as a door-to-door horse shoe maker.

It’s a no tax increase solution to protect crime victims, our courts and our kids. Despite a 500% increase in case filings the County Courthouse and Family Justice Center have not been improved since Vice President Spiro Agnew dedicated the facilities in 1972. Today, these buildings are more reminiscent of the facilities found in third world countries than courthouses found in the most powerful first world countries.  The Clayton Fired Dept. declared the buildings “a great risk” that fails to meet minimum standards.  Due to the absence of sprinkler systems the buildings are a serious fire hazard waiting to happen, and if you can believe it, HAZMAT-trained workers are required to remove 40 years of excessive amount of asbestos from the Family Justice Center before normal maintenance can be done.  The facilities also fail to meet the Missouri State Constitution’s requirement to provide “reasonable protection” for crime victims because overcrowding forces those victims to sit within a few feet of their attackers while awaiting legal proceedings. Disgruntled litigants have free access to judges’ chambers and back hallways, while long lines caused by post-9/11 security turn the buildings’ single security checkpoint
into a chokepoint.  Worn out mechanical systems require constant wasteful repairs and the courthouse electrical systems cannot accommodate 21 ^st century technology.

PROPOSITION S Solves these problems with a no tax increase, $100 million general obligation bond that will save taxpayers almost $1 million a year in band-aid fixes that don’t solve the long term structural problems.  By voting yes on S taxpayers’ dollars will be saved.  The County Courthouse will be renovated into a modern, hazard-free, safety conscious workplace with improved reliability and more than enough space for all who use the courthouses. A new Family Justice Center would concentrate critical service providers within a single facility to counsel kids and adults in need.
To learn more about Prop. S, volunteer on election day, or to make a contribution, visit the campaign website www.SafeCourtsAndKids.org .    

Many years ago, I befriended Charles Guggenheim who was later to accept an Academy Award for one of his documentaries. Through the ensuing years, I worked for a number of Hollywood producers including Darryl F. Zanuck,  who was preparing for release of his epic, “The Longest Day.”  As riveting as the films were, they clearly eclipse the one based on the disastrous tornado that struck Joplin.  Stirring in its overtones and vitality of the unsung heroes,  it has all the expected ingredients of newspaper headlines.  The film is an historical drama that achieves the high-water mark for its deftly calibrated production values.  Not only has Orr Street Productions turned out a highly-polished product, but there’s the haunting music by Sandra Levy Smith .  First person bites of the Joplin Globe’s reporters ring out amidst shots of the actual devastating storm following a school’s graduation ceremony.  No aspect of the tornado’s strike was left untouched including the surviving 561 pets.  “Deadline in Disaster”  traces the devoted work  by the staff of the Joplin Globe.   

There’s a poignant human angle to the haunting theme music behind the new documentary, ‘Deadline In Disaster,’ about how The Joplin Globe coped with last year’s tornado. Documentary originator  Scott Charton’s co-producer, Beth Pike, tells the colyumnist: “Sandy Levy Smith, who composed the film, is also a recent tornado survivor herself. Her family’s St. Louis home was destroyed by the tornado that ripped through parts of the metropolitan area on New Year’s Eve of 2010 – less than six months before the more severe EF-5 twister destroyed much of Joplin. Composing the music became very personal to Sandy, as she lived through the terror of a tornado and the aftermath of rebuilding. She told me it was very cathartic to work on the film, and it became a labor of love. I think her professional nuances in composing the music, particularly “The Globe Theme, ” had just the right touch and evoked the appropriate emotion to the story telling.” First public premiere of “Deadline In Disaster” is at 7 p.m., May 3 at the Missouri Theater in downtown Columbia, Missouri, hosted by the Missouri Press Association as a benefit for Joplin’s planned tornado memorial. A 6 p.m., silent auction and reception precedes the film, and Globe staffers featured will have a panel discussion with the audience after the premiere. It’s worth the short trip west on I-70 to Columbia for this one!

It is expected that the young adult Lionsgate film will approach $400 million worldwide. If so, it will eclipse the box office take of the finale of the “Harry Potter” series that drew $380 million and “Sorcerer’s Stone” which grossed $317 million.

Two touching photos of former Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan (one including Crystal City native and ex New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley ) are part of a new Washington Post photo essay titled, “Changing the Face of Power: Women in the Senate” by Melina Mara.  Curiously, however, there are no shots of incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill . . . Actor Val Kilmer will be given an honorary degree by Fulton, MO’s William Woods University on May 5 at its graduation ceremonies.  Kilmer, who is working on a movie in which he’ll star as Mark Twain, will also visit the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal which is coincidentally marking its 100th anniversary.  His credits in past movies include “Batman Forever” and as Jim Morrison in “The Doors”. . .In the April issue of GQ magazine 2011 Cardinals World Series hero and third baseman David Freese is “given a style boost fit for a champion.”  He models in a $1,995 suit by Yves Saint Laurent, a $295 shirt by Ralph Lauren and $550 Tom Ford shoes.  Accompanying article points out Freeze once owned an ’01 Acura, handed down by his pop and his stylist was a Great Clips beautician.  G.Q. also indicates our town’s haberdasheries were by-passed, but Baldwin’s in the K.C. ‘burb of Leawood was tapped as one of America’s top 25 clothing stores for men. . .Liberals and conservatives are embracing the first installment of “The Hunger Games” for different reasons, according to pols. . .In the wake of George Zimmerman’s tragic and controversial killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, The Daily Beast has ranked all 50 states in order of per capita gun ownership, and Missouri comes in as the 15th most heavily armed. . . That’s Congressman Russ Carnahan’s mug gracing a full page ad in the Webster-Kirkwood Times.  “Thanks for Protecting Missouri Motorists and Highways” by blocking longer and heavier trucks, says the Coalition Against Bigger Trucks. Speaking of political ads, a new conservative group called American Doctors for Truth is buying TV spots in Texas and Florida that are over the top – literally and figuratively.  They show President Obama pushing an elderly woman out of her wheelchair and over a cliff.