Waiting for Primary Results

In a half hour, the exit polls will hit the local news. I'm a-twitter. I feel like a lot is riding on this primary, and I hope at least 20% of my fellow registered voters show up to cast ballots. At stake is more than who controls what house - it doesn't matter - even if the Republicans manage to retain control of the statehouse, it will be with more moderate voices. The far right has gone to far, gutted too many popular programs, marched us over the cliff of oblivion with Matt Blunt. The rural areas that rely on tourism? It's off 30%, and not just because of high petrol prices. In past years, the Missouri tourism trade experienced robust health during periods of high gas prices. Look at a map. We are in the middle of everything. Someone from Iowa will redirect to South Missouri instead of going to the Carolinas or New England and still get a nice vacation.

The problems we are experiencing as a city, a county, and a state are daunting indeed.

I live in a city that does not control it's own police department. Although the state legislature siezed control of the police department over 70 years ago, the KCPD has never, in all that time, been able to get far enough away from corruption to operate under the auspices of it's own governing authority and the city executive. A solution would be to unify county and city law enforcement, and wed the police to the County sherrif's office. Except there's a problem here. The KCMO cops are so bad that the street-level county officers I talk to in emergency rooms about this prospect (either the life has been saved or the evidence has to be collected) don't want a damn thing to do with those "Crooked fuckin' ticket fixen' chicken-shit, bought-n-paid-for KCMO cops." (Those are the words of a Jackson County Deputy spoken to me after a drug slaying, in Trauma 1 of Research Medical Center.)

At the County level, the feds control our jail. The inmates were in charge. It was out of control and the feds stepped in to restore order. Guards supplying all manner of contraband to the inmates. Operating criminal enterprises on (contraband) cell phones supplied by guards and other corrections employees.

At the School Board level, we are finally, after two decades, out from under the control of a federal court after the desegregation suit was finally settled. But just barely. We are in constant threat of being back under the feds. Oh, and the KCMO school system hasn't been fully acredited by the state for several years.

At the state level we have far-right wingers wanting to gut public ed using KC as an example and enlisting the rural constituency - Who with their anti-public schools tax vote against Kansas City hurts the schools their kids attend. (Money doesn't flow rural to urban, by the way - it goes the other direction.)

Anyway, the longer I live here - almost a decade now - the more frustrated I am with the acceptance of the status quo by the local denizens of this burg.

And I'm going crazy waiting for the results. Someone pass me a Valium before my head explodes.