Topeka, KS - American Pit Bull Terrier Mix. Meet Sookie a Dog for Adoption.

Finding the hero inside!

Steeped in levels of cultural hero myth! We are, but I'd bet you've not thought that every day, there are moments of heroism, little opportunities, some missed, some fulfilled.

What is a hero... Someone told me a story today. A fellow I knew used to volunteer to be Santa Claus for the civic group he belonged to. He'd done this I guess for a few years and then this event took place.

I'd love to fill in all those beautiful details, make it more like "miracle on 34th Street." I'd love to see the smiling little girl find St. Nick's cane. Knowing he'd been there and made her dream come true. It didn't go down that way.

He told me a story of volunteering, enjoying what he was doing. One day, before him stands a mother with five children. As Santa does, he greets each with the expected, but oh so welcome Jolly Santa smile and laugh, bades them to climb aboard the proffered knee. Each child in it's turn ready to share their secret hearts.

So begins the first round, the normal Santa small talk: "Well little one, Santa's so glad to see you. Come, sit here on Santa's knee. Do tell us, what's your name child? Were you a good boy, (or girl) this year? Obeyed Mommy and Daddy, did you? Well, what can Santa bring such a wonderful child for Christmas?

There's a small, but hesitant pause. The child, looks round a moment, leans over and whispers in Santa's ear. "Santa, what I'd really like is to have a home." This little one wears the expectant excited look of one who still believes in magic. Eyes glowing in a near state of grace. They are enraptured and enfolded in the promise we make to all the little ones in those days before that magic night.

I watch my friend as he relates this story. I stand and see the glint of something forming in the corner of his eyes. He relates making the awkward and painful promise to a child lost in the certainty of the true believer, that Santa will, "Do his best," to see it comes true. That day of miracles and grace for all children now worn like a crown of thorns round this young ones head. How do I know this? I see the pain and hurt in his eyes as he recounts those, oh so long and painful moments, as he fumbled for an answer, for this small one resting on his knee.

Did I tell you there were five children in this family. Each boy, each girl, asking for the same thing, asking each and every one of them, for a home...

Some where, deep inside me, I felt a wail, a pain in my heart as I suffered for those children, and hurt for them all.

In those last few moments as he finished, his eyes welled over, as did mine. I never want to hear a story like this again. Yet I know that there are so many stories out there like this one. How can it be, so many of us are oblivious to the pain of those who are so much like us, as to be us... "Am I my brothers keeper," was the cry of Cain. I can only answer, Yes, I am. Keeper, father, son mother, daughter to all those in my family of mankind.

How much longer my friend continued this I do not know. I am sure that on that day, in his effort to keep that dream alive for those children, he was as much a hero as any of us will ever be. Some how we struggle on to keep the faith, and in doing so help keep the flame burning for others... It's what a hero does!

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Oh yeah: my current site project/finished: http://vmcfalls.wix.com/verploeg-house

Inner City "Representing," or the lack there of...

Marginalizing our people:

I recently read the article regarding the Dillon’s store on Huntoon and Lane. I shop there sometimes. This last Christmas there was caroling there to show community support. We all, Black, Hispanic and white showed up to show support.

The thing that I keep seeing is this though: In every incident I can remember the newspaper has seemed to choose as a representation of the minority communities the same faces over and over again, If at even talk to them at all.

On the evening the two officers were brutally shot and killed at the Dillions, I was on the corner talking to a neighborhood resident. A car stopped at the lights and two older black women, seeing all the emergency vehicles and lights asked what had happened. We explained that some officers had been shot and we believed at least one or both had died. Both the women expressed shock and horror at this and one of them even began to cry. I was surprised, but also moved.

There are many people who live in the area around the Dillions store. Many of course are African-American, Hispanic and more. My question to the news organizations is simply this: Do these people have a voice?

My experience in Topeka over the years has led me to believe that the poor, and minority population have been marginalized. We are not interested in their feelings, thoughts, lives or much else of what they do. One of the few places I’ve seen a diverse mix of people, (like what I’d been led to believe America was about as a child) has been the Democratic organizations around Topeka and the public schools. Other than that, my feeling is that minorities have become invisible.

And by the way, Yes the Dillions needs a make over and expansion in the worst way. They ignore the fact that improvement in the community could be the start of more profits for that store, a better day for the area in general and some real community pride. What better way to anchor the neighborhood development at 17^th and Washburn than with a renovated store at the other end!

Revitalizing the inner city is about reinvesting; you’ve heard that said by some, a few of our council members understand that. With out some pressure and some evidence to show the Kroger Corporation nothing will change. The flight to the “New City of Topeka,” being built between here and Auburn will continue and the inner city will die as shortsighted individuals and groups kill off the city for fun and profit…

I do believe this… media and other groups who might reach out and better represent a picture of a fair and free America are not doing their job. There are a lot of stories out there and a lot of really wonderful people. You might be standing next to one and not know it. Prove me wrong!


Link to video: Christmas Caroling @ Dillions (:30)
http://bit.ly/YVJ7XX 

Slavery: Why it's so ingrained and why we still attempt it.

Slavery: Why it's so ingrained and why we still attempt it.

I wanted to briefly address the issue of Slavery.

It was called to my attention today by an article pointing out how a speaker (kari Ann RInker) from NOW had angered a panel (what specific members were never made clear w/ the exception of committee chairman Steve Brunk) by her use of a rubber stamp to symbolize the ready acceptance by a largely conservative legislature of Anti-abortion measures.

Brunk went on to complain of how Ms. Rinker had impugned the integrity of the committee by her implication of their ready acceptance.

I have this to say in her defence: Western, mostly conservative religious males are the status quo here in the United States. These same men fought for years to ensure that women would have no rights, to vote, to own property, or much else with their overt approval. In the few years past I have had, (thanks to CSPANN) the opportunity to watch as legislator after legislator trotted out many of the same tired bon mots to prove their points regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” legislation and it’s repeal.

We live in a society that has it’s roots in English law. A system of law in which women were property, children were property and could be bought, sold and given away at the whim of a man when ever he wished. Have we forgotten about the horrific conditions of child labor, indeed slavery imposed on the lower classes in England. These very same laws and views were imported to the United States where women, minorities and children labored and died by the thousands under them for hundreds of years.

Slavery, that’s what we are talking about. A form of slavery imposed on women by men, and by religion. A form of mind control that says life is so precious that only men (or those properly initiated) may make the call as to what can be done with it. This need to control has been a part of the American mind set since the nations inception.

Downtown, where all the lights are "Bright?"

At a point early in my life, I learned a lot about people, neighborhoods, city politics and what people can and will rally behind when  they believe in it.

A neighborhood is still a collection of people's lives and the interrelationships between themselves and select others. Chance, convenience, time and affinities carve out a niche for each of us, and for those we bond with.

In days gone by many used to have an opportunity to better know who lived around them. People walked from home to home, visited and learned what made the other guy, (and gal) tick. Sometimes to the chagrin of a significant other, but here I digress. We had people in the neighborhood who needed looking after, we did. There were those sometimes in need, so we took care of it, (hopefully with grace, love and respect) 

I am not going to go into, (I promised myself) the supposed decay and general lack of manners we have fallen into these days. I realize there are numerous distraction, such as, Face book, or "don't bother me, I'm blogging," hmmmm, or, Hey come watch three and a half men with me! Or, "Honey! Big Bang is on!" I generally deplore to much television watching. To be truthful  though I can become very involved in a movie. 

There is a point to this rambling. I have a very curious nature regarding what other people are about. I like to talk to them. Most of them, that is. I am particular and perhaps a bit peculiar as to who I want to spend time talking with. It a commodity for me and I can be very stingy with my time.

So... I am not ready yet to grasp the significance of this artificial alteration of the land and people around me.  I know that people and neighborhoods change. I also know that the forces that are acting on them range from economics to self interest to really good marketing by bankers, builders, developers and the like. There's gold in them thar' hills and those good business people of my city are determined to dig it out. I think they are determined to do so, regardless of the cost to the center of our city, and what was a pretty decent place to be at one time. 

The current joke, (I'm beginning to believe it will be a reality) is that the east side of my town which was at one time a very normal and vibrant middle class (prior to Urban Renewal," or "Negro Removal," as Mom called it.) is slated to become a giant industrial park. Mostly minorities live there now. It looks like the area around a university hospital. That's strange that University Hospitals always seem to be in run down areas.  Anyway a lot of the inhabitants believe that. I think I may believe it to. This brings up the comparison to the recent movie "District 9," for those of you who like science fiction.

My city center has become run down and broken. (Much because of vacancies ) It's as though no one cares that people still live there anymore. I am inclined to believe that the idea was always to suck out as many who could afford a house in those wonderful places out side the city limits. ("Tasty Meadows, comes to mind. A fictional development of Jane Wagner & Lilly Tomlin) in a movie, called: "The Incredible Shrinking Woman."  

Of course we have places like That here, "Deer Run," where you never see a deer anyway. If you did they would be running, away! 

Well, as I said downtown Topeka is beginning to look like Detroit or east St. Louis.  ( It is coming back some,) but commerce on the internet is still killing everything...

In the interim, all those people who live in the city, (and probably don't make as much "take home," may be subsidizing the life styles of those suBurbank, "Tasty Meadows," inhabitants.

I am left with that feeling like many had when they discovered that Beyonce didn't really sing the national anthem. (She did, but Fox news is full of whiners.) The city fathers, in the name of progress, (insert here: helping the wealthy get wealthier," really don't give much of a damn about me or you. It's all about the goodness to be sucked from the marrow of the city by those that call themselves the cities elite. ( makes wish humans had a longer life span, they'd be more cognizant perhaps of their impact?)

Now, about the Fat Free Donut: There is a town east of us a bit, that we are always really tired of being compared to, but perhaps we ought pay more attention to the comparisons just the same, Lawrence, KS. home to University of Kansas and the Jay hawks. A lot of other stuff as well. 

It's a large group of people who have gentrified the entire city, have too much money and call them selves liberals because they still have a bit of a guilt complex about doing the dirty deeds and actually screwing the pooch along with the poor. 

Yes, they have become a very well heeled shadow of what they were 20 or 30 years ago. Well meaning and sincere. 

Money, (and the promise of lots of it) has tainted their souls a bit, and that bourgeois beat has become the sound that drowns every thing else out! But I suppose it could be worse!

All this being said, they have managed to do some things that made sense before they began the process of taking their own destroying their souls, and becoming the zombies that are the end product of too much of every thing. Rotting from the inside out in a most fashionable manner.

The downtown... for so long the gem of the city, is... still the gem. Somehow, with all the monstrous growth, the traffic and bodies, the restaurants that are there one week and gone the next, they did something right. Either because of the well entrenched profit, the common sense body politic or habitation by a higher alien symbiont, they have managed to not kill their down town.

They have built out the city at a very rabid, (did I say that?) rapid pace. There is an entire new city of Lawrence, complete with it's own new high school west of what used to be the western frontier of Lawrence. It's looks suspiciously like the neighboring county to the east, Johnson county with its thrilling (or grueling  pace of life and soccer moms (and dads) who could be high on meth, but are just high on cash, credit and an unlimited orgy of ever present places to shop. 

Lawrence has a new mini Overland Park attached to it's old retail body like a giant tumor attached to the liver of an elderly alcoholic. Albeit a well dressed one. (Thank you, Gap, J. Crew, etc.)

With all this they still have managed to make the Fat Free Donut. Donuting often refers to what happens to a city when it decays from it's centers to to it's edge. Later, it's resurrected anew amid a glorious riot of strip malls, big box stores, and night blotting lighting, effecting the entire countryside!

In Topeka, we have a new city growing rapidly, (and vacuously) relentlessly toward the setting sun. In this case I think the sun sets in Auburn, but I need to consult a map. We some how missed the opportunity to have the Fat Free Donut. The city core is in shambles. There is obviously no money, (and no need as far as the elite are concerned) to fix this. After all, ya' gotta' make your money some how. Moving em' on out to the country, that's the ticket. Think Greens Acres, "Arnold Ziffle," in a Hummer and a 12 thousand square foot house. Sooooeeee, Baaaby!

Preservation, noooo! Preservatives, yes, preserving the ability of those with the cash to make more of it while doing nothing smart to keep the old cities heart beating. Rip it out, were transplanting to the outskirts of town. Were building the new Mecca. Who wants to go downtown and see the wino's or occasional hooker anyway. The "Lamp Dancer's" audiance and fame continue to spread. Take that, elitie psuedo cosmopolitan Topekans!

I'd like to think that there is an innocuous reason for us having gutted our town. Like, maybe we just forgot, it slipped our mind in the heat of it all. No... It was all about the sham of building out the community, with out rebuilding the core. 

Why spend money on the cow when you've already drunk all the milk anyway? So all those souls who frequent TPAC, (when there is a show high brow enough for them) during it's now rare bouts of culture. No opera mind you, but Bill Cosby or some other act that doesn't threaten their ability to sleep undetected, during the show and still be able to recite a line or two, (memorized at a drunken back room poker game) later on for the unfortunates who could not subsidize TPAC, or afford a one hundred and thirty dollar ticket. I should be fair, ticket prices have gone down and "Larry the Cable Guy," has become a staple.

Lest I feel that I have not generated enough late night vitriol, I stress again that as much as I decry what Lawrence has become, I congratulate them because they were at least able to preserve the downtown. They may have set out to generate a cloned Johnson county shopping environment on their west side, the "New Lawrence," but they managed not to place the down town on the alter of commercial sacrifice.

So, while we generate our own little bit of urban sprawl in Shawnee county, (with our "Walking Dead" downtown) some of us in the capitol city can still point to Lawrence and say, See, they really are smarter then we are. I don't know that would be to hard to be. Given the need for the growth and greed, with little risk, we reap what we sow.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our donut, dripping w/ glaze.

Next time I'll bore you talk about what might be done to help this situation.