Is This Kansas City, or Taiwan?

We are giving the Asian city-state a run for it's money in the fisticuffs-politics arena. Remember a few years ago, it was common to see video of the Taiwanese parliament and members would be slugging it out - literally? I seem to recall video of a female Taiwanese legislator beating furiously on a male of the opposition with one of her high-heels.

Well, last Monday the Jackson County legislature - the body nobody ever thinks about for any good reason - got our attention, as they do every few years, except that this time it was for something besides corruption and kickbacks and federal oversight lawsuits of everything from the school district to the foster care program because let's face it, Jackson County Missouri is run by a team of jokers worthy of the vaudeville circuit.

At the meeting of the county legislature Monday, the tension between Dan Tarwater and Bob Stringfield went to the next level, so to speak. It started with Stringfield punching Tarwater and ended with deputies wrestling Stringfield to the floor and dragging him away in cuffs.

And in light of this development, what is Kansas City's main concern? That the voters might turn down millions of dollars of improvements to the Truman Sports Complex! Female voters might be offended by physically brawling legislators and either stay home or vote "no" in April...Here's the deal, in a nutshell: If KC will spend a hundred million or so now on a rolling roof for Arrowhead Stadium, the NFL will promise us three hours of football at some point between 2012 and 2021.

I will tell you right now that I won't back spending one god-damned dime on stadium improvements for some future super-bowl that isn't guaranteed, especially with so much real need in the community. It costs twenty bucks just to park out there for a game. They need a tax to build the roof? Lamar Hunt is one of the richest men in America, and he lives in Texas where he doesn't have to pay a state income tax, even though his team is in Jackson County Missouri. Screw it, he can build his own damned roof or take his overgrown androgen-cases back to Texas. I'm sure to catch hell for this, but it is not possible for me to care less about football. I think it's stupid to spend the obscene amounts of money that is spent on professional sports and then have the teams come to us hat-in-hand begging for tax abatements and increases to save the team. Screw the team. Let 'em go. Worry less about professional sports and more about getting kids educated well enough to assume professional roles that really matter in their communities.

And turning to baseball, the Royals are a bush-league team with bargain-basement talent and no budget to buy new talent or retain the talent they manage to luck into recruiting. They are literally the Wal-Mart team, owned by David Glass. (Ewing Kauffman is spinning.) They had Johnny Damon, they had Jermaine Dye, they had Carlos Beltran. Now they have Mike Sweeney, and the only reason anyone knows him is because teenage boys and Johnny Dare can't say his name without collapsing into fits of giggling.

No, if Kansas City is going to spend a hundred million or more on anything, I can think of two other projects, both bearing Truman's name and it would be money better spent for our community. How about repairing Truman Road? The main east-west route from KC to Independence is a washboard - I know first hand because for a long time I drove it every night of the week from Hospital Hill in Midtown KCMO to Independence Regional Health Center. I know every pothole on that road and every washboard-like stretch that will throw a small truck sideways. I vividly recall a trauma that came in to IRHC one night. About three hours after I was unable to get into the other lane because of traffic, and almost lost it; a teenager did lose control and roll on that same patch of bad road. She was paralyzed from the waist down, which is just one more reason that parents shouldn't buy 16-year-olds Mustang Convertibles, but that's another rant...Let's just say that fixing Truman Road would be money well spent.

But an even better expenditure of a hundred million or so would be in making a hundred million in capital improvements to Truman Medical Center. TMC serves a huge and diverse population of underserved and uninsured. They are the lifeline that saves many in this community. In conjunction with the Swope Health and Samuel U. Rodgers clinics, they provide millions of dollars worth of uncompensated care to tens of thousands of patients.

As wounded vets return from the local Guard and Reserve units that have been called up, many of the wounded will be shunted to the public health system. And should these veterans prove unable to provide for their families at the same level as before, the families too, will be cared for by the already over-burdened public health system. (Public health was one of Governor Blunts favorite targets when he started flailing wildly the budget axe last year.)

Flog me for heresy on the Eve of Super Sunday if you want, but I can think of a lot better, more grown-up things to do with that amount of money.