Still, there’s not a lot to be happy about; that’s the nature of tragedies and their aftermath. It’s also human nature, I think, to seek out those lessons we can learn from the misfortunes of others.

There are the obvious ones, of course, like watching children closely around pets, taking certain precautions, and the like.

As I sat in the waiting area of Jackson County’s family court the Friday after the child’s injury, waiting to go in and watch the protective custody proceedings, I struck up a conversation with Chief Ambrose of the Grain Valley Police Department. We each agreed that, when things like this happen, you find yourself being a little more patient with your own children.

I, for one, noticed myself turning away from my work emails and other “screens” in my house, listening a little more closely to my kids as they tell me about their day, their toys, their books, and whatever else interests them for that fleeting moment. I found myself marveling more often than before at their ingenuity, their creativity, and their senses of humor. Not to mention, that boundless energy that is so often a source of distress to me.

I forgive a little more easily. I take an extra breath or two, turn down my anger a notch before I tell them “no” or “stop”.

The Chief had similar stories. We talked about how much we each value that moment as a parent when you get home, and your kids are excited to see you, so much that they run over and jump on you. It’s a nice feeling, one that is easy enough to take for granted, and of a time in childhood that passes all too quickly.

I don’t know how long this will last, this renewed outlook on parenting. I mean, I don’t believe I’m normally a bad parent; I’ve just been a little better lately (I hope). If I had my way, it would last forever. I’d always be perfect, always make time, always be understanding, and never hurt their feelings or ignore them. But I know that’s an unrealistic expectation.

Fortunately, kids bounce back from these minor slights. And I know it’s the big stuff that matters. But it’s the little moments as a parent that mean so much if we stop and pay attention. I don’t want to lose that focus.

Most of these types of letters have actually been quite respectful of The Pointe; less so of the child’s parents. But there is one I think really stands out, if only because the person who sent it ran me personally through the ringer.

The man, we’ll call him Al, accuses us of doing as the “vast majority of newspaper and tv reporters do, you write for the sensational rather than the truth and facts of the matter.”

He accuses me of not using the word “alleged” in regard to the ferret attack; I did in fact use that term. He said we are typical of all the news people he dealt with in his years in law enforcement, though no one at the paper has ever met him, so how would he know? He says we are protecting the family by leaving their name out. In fact, we were the first media outlet to report the names of the parents (the minors of the home will remain anonymous). He said we haven’t reported their custody situation; we have. I explained all of this to him, and asked if he was sure he was in contact with the right paper.

Best of all, he claims he has “reliable sources” (plural, no less!) who have told him there was no human tissue in the ferret’s stomach following the necropsy analysis, that we reported otherwise, and that our local “police/sheriff” is misinformed. He accuses us of covering up this information. When writing him back, I pointed out that this is impossible because contents haven’t yet been analyzed, even the detective doesn’t have that information, that Alvin didn’t seem to know what arm of the law was doing the investigation, but that I would love to get in contact with his sources. No reply from Al.

After calling us “stupid” for not knowing more about ferrets, he ends the letter in this manner: “But, what should one expect, you most likely have a rudimentary education in journalism and are living and working in a small rural town with limited education and redneck individuals.” Though I needn’t have bothered, I explained that Grain Valley is part of the KC metro area, and hasn’t really been what one would call “rural” for some years.

As for the “rudimentary education”? Well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Occasionally, we see this type of rhetoric from someone who is angry and wants to place the blame with us. It’s the price we pay for being in the business. Sometimes, yes, we make mistakes, but sometimes, we’re a convenient scapegoat for the feelings aroused by the stories on which we report.

We’re not by any means perfect, but if the man lashing out had bothered to read fully any of our articles on the matter, he may not have wasted his time.

Maybe I’m wrong about that. You see, Al owns seven ferrets. He thinks this is a conspiracy against all ferrets, one in which we’re participating. Nothing could be further from the truth, and nothing I say is going to convince him otherwise, I suspect.

But his silence to the response I emailed him speaks volumes.

Occasionally, they are just incredibly tragic and shocking stories, news items that people living in a bedroom community such as this one don’t expect, stories that leave our friends and neighbors in shock. Such was the case in January of this year, as I and many others began reporting on the awful incident regarding the infant who was maimed, purportedly by the family ferret.

It should be noted that none of us at the paper take pleasure in that aforementioned boost in readership at a time like this; we would much rather have the bland events of a typical day than this sort of pain and suffering inflicted upon someone so innocent and vulnerable, to have to report on. And I have to say, as we are currently still a free paper, that boost in readership doesn’t translate to revenue, so it doesn’t behoove us to sensationalize the issue.

This story, as you probably know, has gone national. The New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, CNN, network affiliates nationwide and countless news-gathering and blog sites have picked up the story originating in Grain Valley, most likely due to the fact that it is so shocking and heartbreaking. I have received emails from people all over the country offering opinions and asking questions.

Most of those emails have been positive. They praise the fairness of the articles, or question a statement or two made by someone in one of the stories. The most common threads in nearly all of them are anger at the parents, and impatience for not having all the facts.

I can understand that impatience. I, too, am impatient for more information. Some of the people from whom I seek that information -the investigators, for instance- are impatient. They want the facts I’m requesting that they don’t yet have. They also have to be careful about releasing much of the information they do have in their files; most of it is not public, and making it so could damage the investigation or future prosecution.

There are some big questions these readers have: how did the parents sleep through even the first of the baby’s fingers being eaten or bitten off? How could an animal with such a small mouth and digestive tract do what it is said to have done?

There are about a dozen others, but I don’t want to reprint them all; some are more hurtful than others, some rely on broad speculation regarding matters on which, again, we don’t have enough facts.

Impatience. It’s typical of the fast-paced, internet-driven information whirlwind in which we now live. We want answers, and we want them ten minutes ago. People ask me, are you going to follow up on this story? Are we going to get the answers we seek, and when? Will there be a harsh punishment?

To start with, yes, we will be following up on this story, as we have done several times already when new info became available. We’ll probably never get at the absolute truth, partly because it involves a family in the midst of an emotional hurricane. We may not get all of the answers, and there is even the possibility that the answers investigators come up with won’t lead to the type of punishment some would like to see.

I can’t be sure of anything yet. But I can guarantee that when the facts do come out, we will make them public and allow the readers to decide how they feel.

It’s not our place, as the newspaper, to pass judgment on these people. When all those unknowns are in, I may well have more to say on the matter, but I would hate to say much more than this at present: I only hope and pray for the best, for that little baby who was hurt so badly, and I hope that everyone around him, including his parents, has his best best interests in mind going forward. I hope he gets all the medical care and therapy he needs to live the best life he can, and that he is forever safe from now on.

It inspired me, gave me great confidence that this is a community of which I wanted to be a part, and help to grow further.

And the people! Oh, I have met so many good people here, and consider a good many of you friends. Because of all this, the last year and a half have been absolutely heart-rending.

All of my friends here are fighting with each other.

I’m not naive, and regardless of how some treat me, I’m a pretty smart guy. I don’t expect everyone to get along and love each other. Conflict is part of human nature, and it is something that most of us expect. And we deal with it. We overcome, achieve again and move on to greater things.

But not of late. Now I just see lines in the sand.

Even before the last city election, I have watched factions form, and then reform. I have seen people who have been friends for a great number of years at each others’ throats. I have heard vile rhetoric, slander, libel and other unpleasantries about people that would just turn your stomach. New people being alienated for no real reason other than they are perceived as outsiders.

And then there’s the gossip and whispering behind backs. I think that has been the most damaging thing of all; good people turning against other good people.

My friends, it is time for you to listen.

What happened to that unity from years ago? Where did the golden era, as it has been described to me a number of times, of our community go? What happened to not only working with your best friends, but people of all types, with differing opinions and backgrounds? I can’t answer these questions. I’m one of those outsiders I named above. I didn’t grow up here, and I currently don’t live here. I’m just trying to be one of the good guys, putting my time in, volunteering hundreds of hours per year and donating what I can. Plainly said: being an integral cog to our community. Even people like me are treated like pariahs.

We are a community of few real villains. I really don’t believe that something as simple as having a differing opinion makes one a bad person. I don’t think one bad mark ruins a person forever.

Plus, there are some private issues that should remain just that. Any of us can sit all day and CaseNet all of the people we don’t like. But what is that accomplishing? Does all of this divisiveness really generate anything positive? Or does it just fuel our anxiety, and add on more layers of stress to the burden that we all carry?

I truly believe Grain Valley has a bright future ahead of it. We are all not going to agree on an exact direction. Tempers will flare, and heated conversations will be had. When all is said and done , it isn’t the end of the world. The people that disagree with each other end up being alike in a number of ways. Most of us go home to our children, wife, husband, significant other, pet or parents. We eat, sleep, shop, watch TV, go to the movies, read, opine and participate in community functions. We are not so different until we try to nit-pick at all the things that bother us. I’m watching us deflect, and lash out for no other reason but to harm each other.

I believe this angst is slowly rotting our community from within. New people and businesses don’t want to get involved with angry and judgmental people. Alienation leads to isolation, and isolation leads to a community that does not work. I don’t think any of us really want that. I think this isn’t an accurate reflection of what our community really is all about.

Being part of the media is tough. We are judged for every little thing we do. That is the tradeoff we make every time we publish an article. We put our reputations on the line with everything we publish. We get criticized for having friends that are employed by the City, or sit on the Board of Aldermen, or are part of certain organizations, or who have no affiliation at all.

This is a tough situation, because for as long as we have known some of these people, just like the rest of you, we have bonded with over the years. It’s tough not to be friendly with them. We are, alas, human. But, I feel that we are very mature with how separate that from our duty to this community. Many of you don’t realize how much we love this community. We are certainly not doing what we do for money or glory.

Finally, for perspective: a lady stopped in to visit me the other day. She was enraged with me. She had nothing but allegations and innuendo to throw at me. I sat there and listened, commenting from time to time, and then gave her my rebuttal. It ended up being a very civilized conversation, one that had her nearly in tears at its conclusion. Not because I retorted back with vitriol and hatred, but because she realized how very wrong her assumptions had been.

See, I know she is okay with me telling this story, as what she was mad about was something she heard secondhand. Something so very untrue, and quite frankly, crass, that once reason set in, it fell apart under its own weight. She shouldn’t be ashamed. She was reacting in the manner she felt was just.

But that reaction was wrong, as it was a by-product of all that I have spoken about above. My friends, this is the crux of my point: all of this is now beginning to affect everyone. We shouldn’t have to sit there and explain away every little piece of innuendo that someone else made up. Good people, as I believe most of us are, are being hurt by this.

Let me say that again: people are really being hurt.

I recently asked someone here in town, someone I still consider a friend, what will be left after the town burns up with all this anger? This someone who has genuine reasons to be angry, but we disagree with how they are dealing with it. We still do to this day.

Like most of you, they would be welcome to my home or business. I have not turned my back to them. A disagreement, to me, is not the end of everything. Being able to hold various opinions is one of the things that makes this country so great.

I’m going to step off my soap box now; I am exhausted by all of this. I’m not mad at any one person, but I’m frustrated. We are better than this. This town deserves better.

I’m saying all of this because I genuinely care, and I’m trying to intervene before it’s too late. Please, do not misread what I am saying. It’s fine to be angry. It’s fine to disagree with others.

But please, do not let your anger infect everyone around you as well. Please, be mindful of your judgments on others. Don’t hurt people just for the sake of hurting people.

Please, heal.

Between the usual headaches- sick kids, bills, scrapes and bruises, bills, home improvement projects, and bills, it seems as if everything in our lives has decided to break down or spring a leak in recent weeks.

It appears that there is not a plumbing outlet or inlet in our house that hasn’t decided to give up the ghost. Between the joys of getting to turn a toilet upside down to replace a wax ring to twisting around underneath a sink to install valves and a new faucet, I am learning a lot about my ability to stifle curse words while a nearby four-year-old decides to “help” me with his plastic monkey wrench and hammer, and his two-year-old sister insists on running off with the flashlight.

All the plumbing repair activity also brought to my attention a drip in the main shutoff valve in my utility closet, which otherwise could have gone unchecked for some time.

Then there was the sad state of our kitchen appliances- they were just old and falling apart. The ice maker in our refrigerator hadn’t worked in years, and the fridge itself had been repaired to limp along in its cooling capacity some time back, with the understanding that the next time it failed would be the final nail in its coffin. At least one burner on our old stove was no longer in service, and the dishwasher had begun to make some items dirty as it shed rubberized coating from its prongs, exposing rusting metal to clean dishes.

When the refrigerator died for good, we pulled the trigger on all three new major appliances, painful as it was to our bank account. And then I got to install those items.

As a result, my car had to suffer its cracked CV boot a while longer. This was affecting its alignment, forcing me to fight with the steering as I drove, and ultimately wearing down my front tires. Add an unexpected flat to my wife’s car tire, and suddenly, several hundred dollars more would need to be excised from the family budget.

A computer crash here, a dryer breakdown there, a lawnmower self-destructing, it really has felt like nothing in my life, our lives, has been working of late. Except my wife and and I; we seem to be working harder than ever to keep up with it all.

I don’t write this expecting sympathy, I promise. For one thing, I’m pretty sure everybody goes through rough periods like this, where the universe seems to be piling it on. And for another, I know people with troubles that make mine seem like a pleasant vacation. Deaths in the family, divorce, health problems. And that’s just the people I know; pay attention to what’s going on in Haiti and Thailand and Indonesia and the Gulf of Mexico and Afghanistan and myriad other places on on earth, and it kind of puts my complaints into perspective.

Compared to a few thousand dollars in repairs and upgrades, those things seem like actual real problems.

But it usually doesn’t take even that much deep thought to make me appreciate my life. I have a wife who seems to appreciate the work involved in keeping up with our disastrous state of affairs, and helps where she can. And as I mentioned above, I have a support system of fake plastic tools and loving children to wield them, They make me laugh every day, or, in their less commendable moments, they make me stifle a smile so as not to encourage them in their orneriness.

This weekend, as our family prepares to celebrate our little girl turning three, I think I’ll be enjoying myself by managing to remember that, although my wallet may currently be empty, my life is pretty full.

Will those around me ever hear me complain again? Sure they will! But if I’m honest, those few hours at the end of the day, on those few days where something doesn’t need immediate fixing, make it all worth it. Celebrating this special occasion with my daughter, and our family and friends, makes it all worth it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find my socket wrench.

The third coldest winter on record brought snowfall amounts not seen in decades over the endless winter, and it seemed like things were no less precipitous in this community during the campaign season. Relations at City Hall were downright frosty by some accounts, with board of aldermen members at odds over issues great and small, several key staff members getting fired or quitting, and mayoral candidates criticizing each other openly.

As we settled in for a deep freeze more than once over the past four months, we have heard plenty of rumors to go around; almost no one running for office has escaped the biting winds of innuendo.

To start with, two candidates filed improperly, setting off fights and criticism from all corners. At least three candidates have been called crazy in several ways, another has been called an alcoholic; some have been accused of lying while out campaigning, some have been accused of conspiring to enable and serve each other’s agendas. There has been speculation about staff changes and city jobs on the line if one or the other of the mayoral candidates wins, we’ve seen financial items that paint at least three candidates in unflattering light, personal attacks have been leveled across the board, even the ridiculous accusation of an affair between two people who can barely stand to be in the same room with one another.

The blow-back has hit those not running for office as well, including city staff, business people, and, of course, those of us in the media. I don’t want to dwell on this point, but not a week has gone by in the past five that we haven’t heard accusations of favoritism and special treatment. The reason I don’t dwell on it, other than the charge being baseless and inconsistently equal in scope, is that I am able to remind myself that I wouldn’t want to trade places with many of the candidates who have had to endure through it all.

To say all of this is not to say that none of the rumors about candidates were true; some of them are, or may be. And it’s not to say that none of them are relevant. Some of them are, or may be. Opinions would vary from person to person as to that point. As an institution, we’re not allowed the luxury of printing all unverifiable assertions.

But it’s all been ugly.

The ugliest rumor of all was aimed at Reed Chambers, the candidate challenging Bob Headley in Ward 3. He was the target of what he calls a “whispering campaign”. It came to our attention in January that his name appeared on a sex offender registry with the Missouri Highway Patrol, and the man in the photo looked, much to our chagrin, like Reed Chambers. We at The Pointe were floored, devastated. We swore secrecy until we could satisfy ourselves as to whether it was or was not Reed. To quote our publisher Zachary Pross, “we’re not in the business of ruining people’s lives.”

Before I go any further, let me state emphatically that there is no truth to the accusation. The man is Reed’s older brother, who was convicted in the mid-80s in Texas and served a number of years in prison.

It took several days for me to figure that out; Texas’ criminal database isn’t as easy to navigate as Missouri’s, but they have one advantage; the Missouri Highway Patrol shows an offender by any alias he has used. Therefore, the fact that his brother may have had Reed Chambers’ library card on him when arrested meant that doing a a search on Reed’s name would produce a head shot photo of a man bearing a striking resemblance to him, with the details of the crime outlined. Texas’ prison system, at least, was clear on who they had held in lock-up all those years-Robert, not Reed.

We decided there was no good reason to write about it, although Reed’s brother now lives with him and is the caretaker for their father. I could tell you that it was an honorable decision, and in some ways it was- I’m not a believer in the adage that all publicity is good publicity, and having your name mentioned in the same sentence as the term “sex offender” never helped anyone win an election. In fact, Chambers believes it sunk his election chances. He refers to it as an “active political smear campaign” by political enemies, and never asked for this kind of publicity.

But we’re journalists at heart, and had it been true, I would have been forced to question Reed Chambers about it, and report on the result. Front page. Above the fold. It would surely have been news, and our responsibility as a newspaper.

But I have to be honest, it didn’t occur to me, as it did over at The Examiner last week, to run a story explicitly explaining that Mr. Chambers was not a sex offender. Don’t take that as a criticism; when they received an anonymous letter from someone making the claim, they had no choice but to follow up on it, and may have done Chambers a favor by verifying the truth. Again, he doesn’t think so.

At the time we privately disproved the claim, we weren’t sure how widespread the rumor was. The only people I knew (3 of them) who were aware of the story all understood it to be false, and that’s what they told me when we spoke about it. The candidate who brought it to my attention later on also understood it to be false, and was angry about it.

The point being, we felt it might do more harm than good to comment on the fact. Don’t read that as favoritism, either. This is someone’s life and very reputation we were considering.

The Examiner chose to run the story and we did not. I think there is a good enough argument for either approach, but I’ll leave it to others to decide for themselves if they prefer one course of action over the other.

I hope the outcome of Ward 3’s election, as with all the others, is based on the merits of candidates’ ideas and priorities, and not on who told the best whopper about someone else.

But it’s over, for now, isn’t it? After a lively “Meet the Candidates” forum last week, we sit and wait to see what we are left with on Wednesday morning; we report on it, and we move forward. By the time most people read this commentary, the results will be in.

When that rain came through last week, it made me think of a term I had used earlier in the day, “after the dust has settled”, in respect to this week’s elections. We all know what this term refers to, the end of an ordeal. This campaign season has been an ordeal, or a series of ordeals. Some of it has been fun to write about, I’ll admit, but it’s incredibly important to us at this small business that the city itself gets back to business with this new board at the helm.

That term, “after the dust has settled”, doesn’t suffice this spring season. Dust once settled can be kicked up again and again. What we need is what we had last week; a righteous rain to come in and clean out the gutters, wash all the detritus into the sewers, and remind us that we are alive and in need of forward motion. A reset of ideas, emotions, and relationships.

April showers, they say, bring May flowers. And there were some buds of hope springing up last week: city staff in negotiations with national developers to bring businesses to town, a groundbreaking ceremony, depicted in this issue, for the school district’s new Early Childhood Special Education facility. Also pictured this week are voters going to the polls on Tuesday morning.

I have no idea how the election is going to shake out, but after the dust has settled, let us hope for, nay, demand, a righteous rain to wash away the ugly brittle remnants of last season’s vitriolic partisanship and rivalry. Let us hope for that rain to give a clean slate and a fresh start, and a willingness to cultivate anew.

In truth, most people don’t get an honest education in history until we pay for it. I used to wonder, after taking three history classes in college, if my public education had been a complete sham. Were my teachers really that misinformed? Or were they being intellectually dishonest?

The truth is, neither answer fits. Teachers are given a curriculum to teach, and textbooks from which to educate. They don’t have a whole lot of choice as to what materials their students read.

The Texas State Board of Education, with a hefty and unapologetic majority of conservatives, some say “ultraconservatives” made the decision last week that it was time for textbooks used in the state’s school to reflect a version of history that, while not entirely accurate or inclusive, hewed more closely to the narrative they want children to swallow.

The more liberal-minded minority on the board did little but throw up their hands after worrying about the small details and not the larger implications of the debate.

I’ve been reading Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”, a book he wrote to counter what he disliked about those victors getting to tell just their side of the story. He didn’t like that the little people are largely left out of history, and that wealthy slave-owning warlords are regarded with mythical, godlike status, their sins largely unnoticed.

He saw that this was at best a retelling of half-truths, and he did his readers the favor of uncovering the other half, an equally ugly and inspiring story of the triumphant human spirit that is as much the story of this nation as any mainstream text. It is written in the spirit of Dee Brown’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”, the depressing and thorough history of Native Americans during westward expansion.

Texas dentist Don McLeroy, a dentist who describes himself as a “Christian fundamentalist”, is one of the board members in Texas who has unabashedly admitted that he and the board wanted to insert “conservative values” into history education, which they believe has become increasingly liberal in its bias.

I think, by looking at the changes they made, that we know what conservative bias is. It’s not crediting the civil rights movement to those who fought for change, disregarding the huge deficit and inflation that Ronald Reagan left in the wake of his presidency while pretending that there was only one political party during that era, skewing the message of Islam to fit a political agenda (something terrorists are also fond of doing), de-emphasizing the importance of Jeffersonian philosophy because of his Deism, ignoring the impact of certain aspects of black culture, and editing out the role Tejanos played in defending the Alamo and dying for the United States.

It’s funny that somehow these are the values of one end of the political spectrum at all. Revisionist history doesn’t serve anyone. The Germans, who love Germany as much as we Americans love America, would consider it a crime to ignore or gloss over the Holocaust. Sure, most of them would just as soon forget it, but as a country they recognize the danger in altering or ignoring what happened under the Nazi Party.

No ideologue or group of ideologues should be allowed to have such a prominent role in shaping the minds of children.

One man’s “Christian fundamentalist” slant on history was aired recently and serves as a reminder of why I don’t want any “fundamentalist” guiding students in this country, Christian or otherwise. He is the Reverend Pat Robertson, host of TV’s The 700 Club. When that awful earthquake struck Haiti recently, killing hundreds of thousands and leaving the rest in peril, Robertson chose to use his broadcast to distort the history of the island nation, rather than use some of the ample material in the Good Book to comfort those who might be listening.

The Haitians, said Robertson in his broadcast, “were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ “

“You know,” Robertson continued with his “true story”, “the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

True story? Let’s take a brief look at the history of Hispaniola, the island upon which Haiti sits. It is one of the first places Columbus visited when he came to the New World, and what he wrote about it tells us much about the type of people who came, saw and conquered here. The following is quoted from Columbus’ journal in Zinn’s book:

“They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.“

“With fifty men we could subjugate them all…” And subjugate they did, for he believed there was gold on this lovely island. When the Arawaks on Hispaniola gave everything to the Spaniards, Columbus insisted they give more. When the gold he had promised to Isabella and Ferdinand did not materialize despite forcing the indians into the mining trade, he rounded up 500 of them and took them to sell as slaves. 200 died en route back to Europe.

But Columbus needed gold more than slaves; there was more profit to be made. So he ordered all indians 14 or older to come back each month with a certain quantity of gold. Since there was very little actually in existence on the island, this was an impossible task. Without a copper medallion hanging around one’s neck to signify they had met the requirement, one’s hands were cut off and they bled to death.

The writings of a priest named Bartolome de las Casas, who participated in the conquest but later wrote of the natives’ suffering, had this to say of the people the Spaniards had subjugated:

“Husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides … they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation…. in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . .. and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile … was depopulated. … My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write. ..“

According to La Casa, here were 60,000 people living on the island in 1508. Including the Indians; from 1494, the year of Columbus’ conquest, to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines.

Read that number again. The Arawaks of Hispaniola were completely extinct long before the ancestors of modern-day Haitians and Dominicans settled there. It was not uncommon for one of the natives to be run through with a sword just to test the weapon’s point. It’s abhorrent for us to think of treating animals this way, yet men had no problem treating these giving, welcoming people with darker skin in such a manner.

Native Haitians did defeat French colonists in 1804 and declare independence. They experienced poor leadership and a series of coups throughout the latter half of the 19th Century. They were occupied by the U.S. in 1915, at war with the Dominican Republic in the 1930s, and led by dictators from 1957 to 1980, plus there is the scientific fact (ignored, of course, by Robertson) that Port-au-Prince sits on a fault line.

But Robertson wrote his own storyline, and there are some out there dumb enough to believe it. And now a generation of children may be forced to learn the Texas school board’s storyline, because they are a large purchaser of textbooks, so states like ours may receive book catered to their preferences. And some students will believe, reasonably, all that they read.

I love this country of mine, despite the horrors described above and the many that came after. We have our flaws, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be. But let’s not confuse national pride and patriotism with the concept that our leaders are and have always been right and just. Let’s be honest with ourselves and strive to understand our past, so we can always work to become better and more perfect in the future.

The Texas state school board fired a shot last week across the bow of truth, making grab for the hearts and minds of children across the land. Who’s going to answer that attack? All it takes is a modicum of rationality.

Neither side of the political aisle has a right to indoctrinate the open minds of innocent children in a free society like ours. As our education system continues to lag compared to those of other countries, we need to redefine our priorities, or we commit to leave our children further behind.

There are plenty of good arguments to go around over this plan. On the one hand, some residents care about their ability to choose their service provider, their ability to fire said provider if they are dissatisfied, and most of all, their ability to make a decision for themselves, no matter what it costs. Many strongly oppose any government body encroaching on their exercising of that choice. On the other hand, the city staff touts those cost savings: it spent $49, 765 on the recycling center next to City Hall last year, the plan would save over $134,000 in recycling costs with the three-year initial contract. City staff figures it would save residents a combined $714,600 over three years by reducing their service costs. They believe street repairs costs would be reduced, but how much is debatable. That number notwithstanding, the total savings for residents is projected to be over $1.5 million in three years. These reasons, along with reducing the headaches caused by heavy truck traffic and the likelihood of accidents involving those trucks, they feel, work in in the plan’s favor.

MAybe you want to hear an opinion from this writer on the issue, preferably one that coincides with your own opinion. I am sorry to have to disappoint you, but we at The Pointe want to see the process work without our interference. It is up to the citizens of Grain Valley and their representatives to decide, ultimately, what is the best outcome.

What I will issue here is a call for cooler heads and less rhetoric. Upon attending the board of aldermen meeting Monday night, I witnessed two types of people at the meeting; those in support or opposition to municipalization with valid concerns, questions, or statements to make, and those who used this instance to make sweeping accusations toward the board and city staff.

I congratulate both sets of people for choosing activism over apathy, and going out on a cold and windy night to participate in a vocal democracy. But to the second group, I’d like to point out that, despite those who called the plan “socialistic” and “taking away my freedom” and to those who hinted at larger conspiracies; you, too, were participating in the representative democracy. You weren’t silenced, you don’t face retaliation, and, to answer one woman’s question, near as I can tell, the city isn’t planning to tell you who your cell phone carrier can be.

As with the larger conversations we’ve seen recently in this country, such hyperbole serves no real purpose but to muddy the waters of an otherwise healthy debate.

Like I said, both sides have valid points; I mean that. Far be it for me to tell you what to think or how to feel. But to say that the city is trampling on your rights when you haven’t been guaranteed those rights, to act as if the board is steamrolling over the U.S. Constitution, the Missouri Constitution, or its own ordinances just does not reflect reality.

City administrator Gary Bradley may not have been telling the assembled what they wanted to hear when he said at the board meeting that choosing one’s trash service is “not an inalienable right” but rather “an ability” currently held by residents. But he is semantically, technically correct; in the same way that we are not guaranteed a right to drive as fast as we want or park our cars in their yards or to choose our water and sewer providers within city limits. We are, in fact, governed by rules when our legislative bodies decide upon them.

Missouri’s state statutes, which rely heavily upon and are beholden to the liberties granted us by the U.S. Constitution, allow for municipalities to make these types of decisions if they so choose. Were it not so, cities like Belton and Greenwood, neither of which can be accused of being socialist or even progressive, would have been forced long ago to overturn their similar trash service plans.

Missouri’s laws, which supersede those of any individual city, not only allow for the mayor and board of aldermen to enact this ordinance (if they so choose), but it actually prohibit them from delegating that responsibility to the citizens in the form of a public vote.

The city administrator and his staff serve at the pleasure of the board of aldermen. They were instructed to investigate the possibility of municipalization several years ago, and this was reported in our paper as well as The Examiner, has been publicly debated, has been documented online and made available to the public in one form or another for some time. It is not new, and has not been kept a secret.

There is no conspiracy by the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) to make all cities fall in line with similar plans; were it so, say some at City Hall, it would be far easier to wait until all surrounding communities had made that change rather than be out front with it.

The fact that Mayor David Halphin holds an ex officio position on the Solid Waste Management District with MARC, sorry to say, means nothing. There is no conflict of interest in him being on a board that mayors and appointed officials from every local city are and have always been a part of, simply by the virtue of the city government position they hold. Being on a committee that discusses recycling as a measure to reduce waste at landfills used by local communities is not a vast socialist conspiracy, it’s a dollars and cents issue with environmental considerations. The position is not meant to be MARC’s representation in Grain Valley, it is the other way around, representing cities like Grain Valley with MARC.

It is the job of the city administrator and his staff to find ways to save the city money. Even if you don’t believe this trash plan will do that, it is still something the board asked them to do. They are simply doing their job.

Question the plan, by all means. Question the practicality, the implementation, the process of awarding contracts, the wisdom of the whole thing. Fight it, if that is what you feel is right.

But that can all be done without attacking the values, patriotism, and lineage of staff members who are just doing their jobs. I would go so far as to say it actually hurts one’s position, since people have a tendency to stop listening to the outrageous in favor of the rational.

At a meeting of concerned citizens on Saturday morning, I had to bite my tongue when a man at the meeting used the appellation of “Little Hitler” to describe the city administrator. Our worst enemies in all of life, whomever they may be, do not deserve that name. I’ve said it before in my blog and I’ll say it again- using the name of Hitler to describe someone who disagrees with you weakens your cause, does a disservice to democratic dialogue, and disrespects the victims of the Holocaust. To their credit, some showed and voiced discomfort at this statement, but I would have liked to see the two representatives of the city- two aldermen who were good enough to come and listen- at least speak in defense of their employee as not actually being like Hitler.

Mind you, it’s not just some residents who engage in this type of verbal combat. There are aldermen, other than those two I just mentioned, who could use a dose of civility when dealing with their constituents and each other. When someone takes their time to interact with, yes, even to challenge, the board, it should be treated for what it is: an admirable exercising of one’s rights as a citizen, deserving of respect. Sometimes, it even takes a bit of courage; public speaking doesn’t come naturally to everyone.

From what I heard at the board meeting last week, there are people in favor of the plan and there are people opposed. That means at the end of this process, there will be one group of people that is not happy with the outcome. The anti-municipalization people will say, “look, we got more residents to show up at the meetings”. The pro-municipalization folks will say “that’s because people usually only show up when they strongly oppose something, the low turnout overall shows support or no opinion from most people”. Meanwhile, the city survey last year showed around a fifty-fifty split on the issue.

The point is, only one group, at most, half of the people, will get what they want. Whichever side that is, I hope the other side doesn’t feel that democracy wasn’t served. When you vote for a candidate or have an opinion on an issue, and it goes the other way, that’s still part of democracy. Not everyone is wise enough to agree with you and me all the time.

As for me, I see democracy more alive than ever in this town, when people come out to a city meeting, say their piece, and stay through to listen until the end. I’m pleased as punch that we at The Pointe get to report on it. I just think the debate is best served when it is engaged with facts, figures, and mutual respect between those who disagree.

Grain Valley City Administrator Gary Bradley

At Team Trivia night.

Quite frankly we’ve had it up to our ears with our tyrannical City Administrator.  First he has the gall to critique something or another that we did at some point in time I can’t even remember.  Then he gets the entire population up in arms with his bizarro plan to annex the moon.  Lastly we find out that he joins a trivia team that is collecting the best and brightest minds of Grain Valley.  Did our phone ring with an invite to said trivia team?  Yeah, you know the answer to that.  Lord Bradley, you are a cruel one.

I encourage all to get involved with this event coming up Saturday night, February 20.  You can read all about it here or even here.  It is definitely shaping up to be a highly entertaining evening full of questions most likely dealing with obscure banking protocol and city ordinances.  Or, maybe, just maybe, Cthulhu, I mean Gary Bradley, hasn’t wrapped his tentacles around the fine people organizing the event.  Maybe justice will triumph and the power of the press will vanquish this Sauronian menace.  And, most importantly, it’s for a good cause.

Keep an eye out, fair readers, I’m sure this story will develop over the next month.

p.s. To all attending, I highly encourage you to bring your digital motion capture devices, and most importantly snacks!  We intend to show no mercy, and that will enhance our appetites.

In my world, fair criticism is a good thing, and something I have benefited from many times in the past. When it’s a fair point, it keeps us on our toes and makes us better. But I just can’t stand by and allow certain baseless impressions of our newspaper to go unchallenged.

This publication we call The Pointe is a labor of love, a product of the hard work and sweat and sleepless nights of a handful of people with skill and integrity to spare, and the investment of some great community advocates. You’ll have to forgive me if I am a little protective of her, and I can only take so much when I hear a certain small number of detractors speak of that which they do not know.

A few weeks back, I ran into a gentleman I see out in public from time to time, an outspoken but well-intentioned fellow who makes a point to tell me, each time he sees me, about the special interests to whom The Pointe caters, about who he thinks owns the paper, who runs it, who tells me (and my writers) what stories to cover, whose bidding we’re doing, and so forth. Hearing it for the umpteenth time was enough, I snapped back with some witty repartee, and we got into a heated conversation.

Ultimately, a couple days later, the man and I shook hands and saw eye to eye, thanks mainly to an introduction from our publisher; and the understanding that the ownership of the paper is not what he thought it was. It didn’t hurt that we found a way to be respectful of one another despite our differences.

Two others who have made some of the same criticisms to me over the last couple of years were there, and while I may not have convinced them completely, I believe they have a better understanding of what goes on here than before. At least I hope so.

I felt a little better, until I got a call that week from another person who wanted to complain about something they read in the paper, which they felt we had reported upon with bias. She disagreed with the way we reported on the cost savings announced for the Grain Valley-Blue Springs sewage treatment plant upgrade. Our writer related that the public works director of Blue Springs announced that bids came in at just over $22 million, a $6 million savings below the original estimate. Along with an interest rate of 2.02 percent, we quoted the director as saying that the news was “extraordinary” and “spectacular.” We don’t, as a practice, insert our opinions into a piece of reporting, these were his words. That being said, it’s hard to argue that a necessary upgrade coming in at $6 million less is a bad thing.

Still, the woman told me about how high Grain Valley’s “monthly payment” would be, how it was all being done to benefit Blue Springs and not Grain Valley, how it was being done for the developers, naming two in particular, and how we were in their pockets.

She kept me on the phone for an hour, but when I called back the next day and followed up on some of her questions with reasonable facts, she had little time for me; less than a minute. I invited her to write a letter to the editor or a longer opinion piece. She said she would, repeatedly, but here we are nearly a month later, and I have yet to hear from her. Still, I’m glad I did all that legwork for her and spent so much time on the phone with her; she certainly seemed to appreciate it (read that sentence in a sarcastic tone).

For the record, we rent our offices from a developer; like many, if not most, businesses in town, we have a landlord. He once was part owner of the newspaper, but is no longer affiliated with it.

But for some reason, it is assumed that renting from his business makes us beholden to him. Even when he was part owner, he never passed down any orders to myself or others (except for our publishers to try and be profitable). I’ve never been ordered to slant a story to his liking, nor have my writers. Most of them don’t even know him. I wonder if all businesses who rent space are subjected to the same suspicions?

Nearly all publication owners have diversified interests. Like the current ownership, his interest in the newspaper was that Grain Valley have its own newspaper. He had bigger fish to fry, and has never had the time nor the desire to micromanage our copy.

Every single paper west of us in Jackson County, not to mention Clay County, is owned by larger companies from outside of town. Witness The Kansas City Star (McClatchy Newspapers- California), Lee’s Summit Journal (McClatchy), Blue Springs Journal (McClatchy), The Pitch (Village Voice- New York), Liberty Tribune (NPG-St. Joseph), The Examiner (GateHouse Media-New York). That makes The Pointe fairly unique to my mind; that the owners all live and/or work in the city their newspaper covers. Their investment in the community is more than the simple bottom line, it’s their families and their futures.

Now, I can’t be honest about the newspaper without remarking upon our failings over the years. As I said, the people here have integrity, and it would be dishonest and a disservice to them and you were I not to admit this fact: The Pointe has not always been a great newspaper, and certainly has not always upheld the standards of journalism toward which we presently strive.

In eleven years, ownership has changed more than once, as have publishers, editors, writers, and the standards to which all were held. I know, because I have been with the paper at different points in its evolution, though I never had any real say in the overall mission of The Pointe until I returned to it in late summer of 2007. Staffing and the composition skills of contributors were often problematic in that era.

At the beginning, The Pointe was a “community newsletter”, a way to share information and a sounding board for anyone who wanted to contribute. It still maintains that function; we rarely turn down contributions from anyone who takes the time to participate. But it couldn’t be called a newspaper in the truest sense of the word until much later. In a small town where there wasn’t a plethora of controversy, there was even less to be seen in this little (monthly, then bi-weekly) publication.

Was there a pro-city bias, 11 years ago? Absolutely. Was there a pro-school district bias at the time? Sure. Pro-business? You bet.

But there was an absolute value to what the original investors did. They got this thing up and running in a town that’s too close to and had always been too dependent upon neighboring cities for their business needs (read: advertising dollars). They started a publication that could focus more closely on what is going on right here in town than the bigger newspapers in the area.

Eleven years later, look at the state of newspapers. As they shed reporters left and right, there is more of a need than ever for The Pointe to be here with writers on the ground, at city hall, at the school district, at the chamber, and everywhere else we need to be to keep the community informed. That wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the groundwork laid by those few brave souls who began this adventure.

We’re a strong weekly now. The current publisher is one of my best friends, Zachary Pross. I’ve known him for over a decade; we even lived together when we were younger. The Pointe has never had a publisher better suited to carry out the mission I’ve described. He has integrity, a plan and, God willing, the paper will thrive under his watch. More important, he isn’t beholden to any special interest. For these reasons and a few hundred I won’t name here, I trust his opinion, even when we differ, on matters editorial. I may not always do what he thinks is best, but we respect each other enough to listen, to argue, and to produce.

So let’s look at the facts now. Does the paper have a pro-city bias? If that means catering to the city and repeating all that their representatives say as fact, as the only side to a story, then no, we don’t. If it means that we want the city to always be at its best in serving the community, including us, then yes, we want what’s best for the city and its citizens.

Do we have a pro-schools bias? If that means we agree 100 percent with everything the district does and slant our reporting that way, then no, we do not. But if it means that we support the young people in the community and want them to succeed, and see the value of a good education, then yes. We tell the stories of many promising young students in the district (including the successes of the children of the woman I mentioned above).

Do we have a pro-business bias? If that means looking the other way when a company or an individual breaks the rules or acts unethically, then no, we certainly don’t. But let’s face it; we are a Grain Valley-based business, and we do want our fellows in the business community to thrive, to profit, to, dare I say it- advertise. We’re not going to turn a blind eye, but we’ve always prided ourselves in trying to help businesses around us succeed by spotlighting them in feature articles (including the business of the gentleman I mentioned above).

But I get really angry when someone who has not walked in my shoes deems to tell me what my day is like; when they can simplify my job, my blood and sweat, into what they think goes on behind closed doors here (metaphorically, that is- our doors are actually pretty much always open).

This paper and its commitment to the community, even our detractors, is beyond question. If you haven’t worked here, you haven’t seen someone agonize over a word or a sentence or an image, over how to tell all sides of a story when not everyone wants to talk, over how to pursue truth when everyone has a different version of truth, how to separate fact from rumor and innuendo.

We put ourselves out there, on the line, to be read, appreciated, and criticized by anyone and, ideally, everyone.

Are we perfect? Far from it. Are our detractors? Hard for me to say; I haven’t read their work.

You can’t judge someone’s world from the outside; you have to step in, ask questions, see what it is they do and how they get through the day. I know this, because it’s my job and that of my staff to do just that. If you need more convincing, come by and see us some time.