By Tom Bogdon

Michael Burke’s interest in the Missouri River goes back at least to the 1980s and his service on the Kansas City Port Authority.  That interest led to his leadership in the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration in 2004, and continues with Riverfest, the city’s largest 4th of July observance that will bring 50,000 people this weekend to Richard L. Berkley Park.

“The Missouri River is beautiful,” Burke, an attorney and likely mayoral candidate, said in an interview this week. “All great cities have developed on bodies of water, and Kansas City is no exception. But most other cities would die to have a waterfront with the potential ours has.”

By Cleon Rickel

OTTAWA, Kan. -- One of the most important economic stimulus packages for Kansas -- the an-nual winter wheat harvest -- is under way. And for many parts of the state, the harvest will be economically stimulating.
   

“Agriculture is the most important component of the Kansas economy,” said Bill Spiegel, wheat farmer and spokesman for the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers. And wheat is one of the most important components of Kansas agriculture, he added. “Wheat supports a lot communities, and not just small ones,“ Spiegel said.

In most parts of the state, the quantity and quality of the wheat has been good, he said. Accord-ing to the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service, at an average yield of 40 bushels per acre, the Kansas wheat crop for this year will be more than 430 million bushels.

By Debbie Coleman-Topi

Growing up, Nick LaBruzzo never tired of watching the 1950s-era movie Hollywood Knights. In fact, he estimates he's viewed the flick, centered on the characters' adolescent pranks, more than 50 times. When opening a restaurant about 20 years ago, it was only logical that the Gladstone man would name the eatery after the movie's hang-out, a drive-in named Tubby's.

A Kansas City restaurant at 3756 Broadway owes its beginnings to LaBruzzo, and its present existence to his owner-operator sons, Vito and Nick. Hungry visitors encounter an eatery steeped in 50's decor, from the black-and-white checkered floors to the vinyl, bench and booth style seating beneath walls covered with vintage photos of movie stars and singers.

 Opinion by Tom Bogdon

While there has been some quibbling in the blogosphere, Star reporter Matt Campbell was right on the money this week in reporting U.S. Census Bureau figures showing the population of Omaha may surpass Kansas City, Missouri’s population in the relatively near future.

Let’s face it: Kansas City is no longer the “Paris of the Plains” that it had the reputation of being back when in the 1930s when Boss Tom Pendergast and his Jackson Democratic Club built skyscrapers and big public works projects and threw the city wide open for great music and high-rollers. Kansas City was among the 20 largest cities in the country then, ranking 17th I believe.

  By Steve Shapiro

  

In the beginning may have been the word, but if so, the image was not far behind. We talk about the world around us using images and visual metaphors. Photography takes the connection one step further; the photographic image combines (and sometimes contrasts) the language of seeing with the language of making sense of an image. In the arresting oeuvre of Fazal Sheikh’s black-and-white photography, a small portion of which is on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum as part of a touring exhibition curated by Joel Smith of the Princeton University Art Museum, the images are immediately familiar yet extend an air of mystery.

By the AFL-CIO Staff

The 437,000 jobs lost in June were spread throughout most U.S. industries, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). 

Manufacturing employment fell by 136,000 in June, while employment in construction decreased by 79,000.  Job losses in professional and business services shot up in June, with the industry shedding 118,000 jobs. Retail trade employment was down by 21,000 in June.

Education and health care employment increased by 34,000, and employment in government dropped by 52,000 in June.

By Cleon Rickel

 Both Missouri and Kansas will submit applications for federal    economic stimulus money for high-speed rail; and bot applications would help keep Kansas City’s Union Station on track to recover some of its past passenger rail glory.
   

The Obama Administration released it's guidelines for applications for the money last week and transportation officials in both states have been poring over the more-than-60-page document.

By Karen Land

Wherever I travel, I’m always keeping my eyes and ears open in search of two of my favorite things - new hiking paths and good dog stories.

Last weekend when I was visiting Harlowton, Montana for the Festival of the Wind I stumbled across a real find. A shirt displayed in the window of Passage Creek Design boasted a large picture of a retriever-looking mutt holding a pipe in his mouth. From the cab of my truck, I could make out the words, “Smoking Boomer.”

I just had to find out more.

Elle Molique

If a man’s tongue could vibrate, women would talk less.