Newspaper readership has not been the most expansive area of American culture of late, even if recent reports provide some encouraging news. And why is it plummeting? Because papers like the Star make the inexplicable decision to publish a poster-sized photo of Viggo Mortensen while giving you just 409 words of article text on the front page of Sunday’s a&e section. Four. Hundred. And nine. By almost any journalistic standard, this is absurd.

Yes, the release of The Road is a worthy subject to cover. Big stars, based on a best-selling book, etc. But, with all due respect to the Star’s photo and illustration staff, what in the world could possibly inspire you to do something like this? This photo of Viggo looks like one of those Fathead posters of Peyton Manning that adolescent fanboys hang in their bedrooms. And 409 words? That means 5th-graders are writing book reports longer than the amount of text you deemed important enough to include on the first page.

Further, how about the odd decision to include Nicolai Ouroussoff’s review of Rome’s new museum of contemporary art? Do Kansas Citians have a special yearning for such things, particularly when two perfectly good stories about local arts are published just two pages later? And let’s not overlook the fact that this particular review was published in the Times on November 11 — meaning, somewhat astonishingly, that the Star saw fit to use a nearly two-week-old review as front-page arts news.

Look, we understand the pressing exigencies of the newspaper industry. In the wake of reader abandonment, you’re forced to trim costs by shedding expensive local writers and to USA Today-ify the paper: more graphics, larger photos, eye-catching design. But when you cut loose everything that makes your paper locally interesting and applicable, you give local readers no reason to read. Robert Butler is a decent movie critic, even if his reviews are just basic summaries, and his take on the adaptation of The Road is worthy of front-page publication. But the Ouroussoff review? The 11-day-old Ouroussoff review that most of us read in the Times days and days ago? What’s the justification for this?

You want to publish a product that catches people’s attention. That’s understandable. And the Mortensen picture does just that, if only because of its gargantuan size. But beyond that, what’s the point of this photo? It adds no further understanding to Butler’s fairly straightforward article. It doesn’t pique a reader’s interest about anything beyond page one. It doesn’t tell us anything new at all, in fact; it’s just a blown-up publicity still. Further, its Himalayan scale means a great many words of text are forced from the front page, or cut altogether. You can’t attract people’s eyes to a product with giant photos only to decimate the actual text of that product — otherwise, to what are our eyes being drawn? A large photo with an article-as-extended-caption format?

People need a reason to read a local paper. More and more, the local writers who used to be that reason are out the Star’s door. Replacing their work are fortnight-old architecture reviews and colossal photos, apparently. But what’s the connection between the two, Mr. Zieman? I’ll say it again: what’s the point of drawing a reader’s eyes to a product with a mammoth photo if the product itself is a) not worth reading due to reduced text space, b) wholly irrelevant to any local interest, or c) unacceptably dated? The Star is turning into a printed version of a big-budget, effects-laden thriller; but after all the explosions and CGI, what narrative is left to examine?

What’s left to read in the Star, after all the giant photos and oversized headlines are removed? In this particular case, very little. Just an old review and a milquetoast cinema profile. There’s no point in attracting eyes if those eyes are given no product to read. Imagine if KSHB did a 60-second intro to a story, complete with fancy graphics and ominous voiceovers, and then showed you a 30-second snippet of a barely relevant topic? That’s essentially what the Star did yesterday.

It’s a dangerous line to walk. All evidence is that the Star has not yet figured out how to combat the readership slide.

Good morning. Okay, honestly: did a single person in this city believe that the mediocre gridiron crew known as the Chiefs could take down the Steel Menace? Surely not — not on the heels of LJ’s ouster, Bowe’s suspension, and Pittsburgh looking for revenge after the Cincy loss. But hey, it happened.

It was a fairly impressive overtime win, and it was especially delightful to see those insufferable yellow-clad fans pack up their Terrible Towels and head home to their bandwagons. So way to go, Chiefs, for finally getting Todd Haley to smile. Here’s what’s happening today:

Dennis Moore, saying goodbye.
Funk’s not worried about money, ’cause we have tons of it!

Things we’ll be discussing today: the Star’s problems; state reps and the cameras that love them; the Moore retirement. Let’s get this short holiday week started.

Photo politely borrowed from the Star. Credit goes to them.

In the interest of broadening our horizons and gazing upon the new Independence Events Center in all its exurban glory, the State of the Line staff ventured yesternight to an ice-based contest between the Tulsa Oilers and the Missouri Mavericks. It was “Harry Truman Jersey Night,” which meant the local skating gladiators wore garish, stars-and-stripes-bedecked garments depicting our 33rd president. It was actually kind of glorious.

The night began with a long trek from our hipster enclaves in Midtown out to Sarah Palin’s real America: eastern Jackson County. This will be good for us, we thought — we latte liberals could use a dose of reality once in a while, especially if it takes place outside of our standard zone of social operation (roughly 5th St. to 75th. St., and State Line to Main St.). We figured it’d be good for our heathen, city-dwelling souls if we mingled amidst the Carhartt jackets and work boots that make up so much of this metro area.

The trip to the I.E.C., for those of you who live similarly cloistered urban lives, is a fascinating one. Exit 17 beckons you with its neon-emblazoned suburban signifiers, urging you to stop and revel in the chain restaurants and mammoth gas station/retail stores. Mongolian Barbecue! Buffalo Wild Wings! Hooters! Come, stop, play! among our carefully crafted, cholesterol-soaked eateries and watering holes.

Our target, however, lay just west of the assembled rows of commerce. Though aesthetically underwhelming — it’s pretty much just a large beige structure that would feel equally at home in any other Midwestern ‘burb — the I.E.C. reeks of newness, of that spit-polished and clean-scrubbed manifest destiny expansion that exemplifies so much American building. Sure, there are other entertainment venues in the metro, but we needed a new one — as George Santayana observed, American’s don’t solve problems; they leave them behind. And so we’ve left behind the crumbling Kemper Arenas of the world and built ourselves a shrine to alleged economic stimulus. The I.E.C. thrives in its unsullied allure, and on this night was calling all A&F jeans-clad youth and bedazzled-sweatshirt’d middle-aged women, all drawn by the siren song of that most elusive of creatures — the New, Exciting Weekend Activity! — and captivated by the frequently staggered margarita stands and easily accessible seating plans.

As tonight was a night to honor our native president, Harry S. themes were everywhere. For the SOTL staff, this meant that “the puck stops here” jokes soon supplanted our “Hockey! Puck yeah!” jokes, and we marveled at our own cleverness and condescendingly wondered how the Truman Library, a game sponsor, could have missed the opportunity to use the line in the game’s marketing. We received our inevitable comeuppance when we stopped at the Truman Library table, where the friendly staff informed us that the clever line in question was, in fact, the theme of the second intermission contest. Somewhat defeated, we nonetheless got the staff to let us snap a photo of Cardboard Harry wearing the evening’s designated clothing.

Ouch. Good thing Har didn’t wear this when he fired MacArthur; the general would’ve laughed him off.

A dismaying fact about journeying to a Mavericks game is that English usage rules seem to take a backseat to… well, to pretty much everything. Signs and documents at the game are frequently rife with things like “Cheer for the Maverick’s” and “we love our fan’s”; and, astonishingly, at one point the hypercreepy mascot held up a sign that read “LET’S GO MAVES.” The Examiner, that “newspaper” out in Independence, got in on the action with this gem:

Good editing, Examiner.

We were also unaware that Truman himself would be in the crowd. And even though I could only capture this blurry photo, which may render our claims apocryphal, we’re pretty certain that was the Man From Independence himself leaving section 101.

Off to end the Korean War, no doubt. Worth noting at this point is how extraordinarily creepy the team’s mascot is. This emotionless semi-centaur roamed the crowd all night, sometimes stopping to awkwardly rub people’s backs, vamp a bit in that party-dancing way, and, in one particularly horrifying moment, force himself into a photo with your correspondent, snout placed squarely atop my cranium, breathing heavily and Darth Vader-y into the ear of the visitor, who remained frozen with terror and pretty much rooted to the spot until the terrible equine, with one last dead stare, ambled out to pasture. Here he is prowling the ice.

Lest ye think that Mavericks games are solely the province of mindless entertainment, though, consider this: the game featured an in-game trivia contest, in which one lucky fan (not one of us) was asked to answer a brain-buster for a fabulous prize. The question? “What is the main organ of the circulatory system?” Before you cry foul and say the question is too hard, realize that options were given:

Despite a brief dalliance with “the lungs,” our contestant eventually picked the correct answer and revealed herself as the Fermi of the arena.

The action on the ice is interesting, of course, and at times borders on “riveting,” but this visitor found it hard to maintain concentration on the game when corporate-sponsored interruptions bombard you every 30 seconds. It seemed there was a corporate sponsor for virtually everything, and the announcer used every break in the action to plug local businesses. Moreover, taking a cue from minor league baseball, the Mavericks have made their games a true fan experience by staging commercialized promotions at every turn. A sampling:
The Back Yard Burgers Six Goal Shoot-Out
Chuck-a-Puck (charity sponsor was the Independence School District, somewhat depressingly)
Chipotle Burrito Attack
Chik-Fil-A Minute of Madness (allegedly a solid 60 seconds of raucous cheering at the commencement of the third period; at this game, the yelling lasted approx. 11 seconds)
Dental Arts Smile Cam
Examiner Stick Kid (about which your guess is as good as mine)
Firehouse Subs (a second period goal meant free subs for every fan in section 107, which, suspiciously, seemed to be the epicenter of every promotion)
Harry S. Truman Library Jersey Auction (more on this later)
Hooters Hot Winger of the Game (prize unspecified; imaginations ran wild)
Kryger Glass Section (this section — again, 107 — got special shout-outs all game, for no apparent reason other than to drop Kryger’s name again and again)
Mazuma Credit Union Little Saver of the Game (description, sic: “Maverick Fan’s is your little Mavericks fan interested in becoming a ‘Little Saver of the Game’?”)
Missouri Lottery Shuffle Game
Oasis Tan Promotional Team (this young, bronzed crew of females roamed the arena all night, eliciting many a leer from the older males in attendance, who were perhaps encouraged by this undeniably unsettling phrase in the Mavericks literature: “be sure and take a second look at your Oasis Tan Promotional Team”)
Papa John’s Pizza in Your Seatzza (never announced, but given credit by your correspondents for having an awesome name)
Pest Management Professionals Pest of the Game (again never announced, but widely mocked as distasteful)
Rib Crib Dance For Your Dinner (this dance contest lasted about seven seconds, never fully giving the more inebriated guests a chance to showcase their terpsichorean skills)
Silverstein Eye Centers (asks you to keep an eye out for pucks gone rogue)
SportClips Cut of the Game (description in full, sic: “You won’t want to miss the ‘Cut of the Game’. Shown on the video board at all home games, Maverick Fans you will enjoy viewing the ‘Cut of the Game’ time and time again.” We have absolutely no idea what this means, and we never found out.)
Why Our Team Trivia (no idea where the name comes from)

But in the middle of all the shilling, the players somehow found time for fisticuffs:

Very exciting.

Also exciting was the interesting turn the game took next. We’d taken note by this point of two gentlemen seated in front of the glass who seemed particularly vocal in their support of the Mavericks. This support did not take the form of encouraging cheers or polite applause, though — it revealed itself as manic pounding on the glass at every possible chance. As one man wore a red plaid shirt and the other man wore a black stocking cap, they were soon rechristened by us as Lumberjack and Stocking Cap, and they became a spectacle in themselves.

We took it upon ourselves, then, to devote our cheering to Stocking Cap and Lumberjack; this led to rousing shouts of “Tell ‘em, Stocking Cap!” and “Hit that glass, Lumberjack!” from the SOTL contingent. It only encouraged them.

Hard though it may be to believe, their enthusiastic pounding actually weakened the structure of the glass itself, necessitating a trip by I.E.C. staff to do some quick repairing of the havoc Stocking Cap and Lumberjack had wreaked.

The best part, of course, is the contrition expressed in Stocking Cap’s lowered head. Worth noting at this point is that he had two cups: one for beer and one, delightfully, for spitting tobacco juice. Seriously. And though you can’t tell, his shirt reads “Non Employee of the Month.” Of course it would.

Perhaps the best part of the night was that our Lumberjack-and-Stocking-Cap-obsession soon spread to our entire section. Their interest piqued by our frequent shouts, a group of teenagers next to us soon joined the catcalling and yelled encouragement, and the next thing we knew, the whole of section 101 was imploring Stocking Cap to keep up his enthusiasm and his relentless pounding. If it hadn’t been for a late Tulsa goal (giving them the game), I’d strongly contend that we were on the verge of a “STOCK-ING-CAP!” chant.

The post-game action consisted of a very special auction of the game-worn Truman jerseys, and was presided over by two elderly auctioneers who combined all the best elements of a tent revival and fraternity-row shout-fest. The jerseys went for an average of, somewhat stunningly, $550, and clearly the scintillating action was too much for these engrossed attendees.

We have video of the event, and we’ll post it if we can successfully navigate the labyrinthine screens of YouTube, but for now we’ll leave you with a picture of someone who successfully won the bidding for one jersey. And then he promptly terrified everyone in attendance.

All told, we called the evening a tremendous success. We weren’t sure what to expect and thought we might not fit in among the teeming masses of Countians, but our group left with all smiles and declarations of $13 well spent (the cost of each ticket, plus gas money and one small Sierra Mist). Regional sports teams long ago realized the need to market games as spectacles, and it’d be a severe understatement to say the Mavericks succeed. Even with all the misspellings, all the pervasive corporate influence, and all the disturbing mohawks, it’s safe to say we had a great time.

That wraps up another week at the State of the Line offices. We’re still getting back into the groove around here, so by all means keep sending us your constructive criticism/helpful suggestions/declarations of how unfunny and unoriginal we are. This week saw various controversies surrounding two prominent Marks — one a Mangino and one a Funkhouser. The week in review:

Floridagate gets all Orwellian.
Fare thee well, drink-spitter.
It’s ’cause he’s fat, says Whitlock.
Slowly going the way of the dodo.
A sober assessment.

Tonight: a very special State of the Line field trip, with photos to be posted tomorrow.

***

Thanks, as always, for reading. Stay tuned for irregular updates, and we’ll resume the normal schedule on Monday. Have a great weekend, and remember that we’d change your sad rags into glad rags if we could.

Details of the palace coup play-by-play are starting to emerge.

This weekend sees the staging of the National Catholic Youth Conference here in Kansas City, in which 21,000 young Benedict fans will gather in our fair city to pray, party, and honor J.C. by hanging out in the Purple People Eater. The name of their area in Bartle Hall? The “Reign Forest.” Actually… that’s kind of awesome.

According to the Star, this will be the third-largest convention held in Kansas City this year, so here’s hoping it provides downtown businesses (the wholesome ones, anyway) with a fiscal shot in the arm — though the early forecast for that is grim. In any event, the kids themselves are pumped.

“NCYC!” they shouted, calling out the abbreviation for the three-day National Catholic Youth Conference, which will end Saturday. “Christ Reigns” is the theme.

One girl crossed Grand Boulevard as the light turned yellow, pumping her hands in the air as she ran. “Woo for Catholics,” she yelled.

Outside of Genghis Grill and Chef Burger, one group shouted: “God is good!”

“All the time!” responded a passing one.

“There’s a lot of screaming, a lot of pride, I guess,” said Cillisha Knight, a freshman from Washington, D.C. “You know how a lot of people represent for the Ravens or the Redskins? We be representin’ for Christ.”

Indeed. Team Jesus is always the best team to be representin’.

Nothing wrong with a little harmless, religious fun. It’s refreshing to see adolescents enthusiastic about something, particularly during opening weekend of that lovesick mopefest starring Cedric Diggory. So have fun and be safe, you crazy kids, and enjoy your time in Kansas City.

Incidentally, I have no idea whether or not that’s a Cadillac. I know nothing about cars.

Photo via the Star.

Literary ambitions seem to have taken over in the local Missed Connection listings. Yesterday there was that novella about a vixen at the Neko Case concert, and today… well, today there’s something else entirely. Heartbreak in verse, in fact. Know ye not, fair lady of JoCo/That you’re no better than that gal Yoko?

This local Coleridge has taken to semi-rhyming couplets to express just how disgusted he is with his lost love:

Sometimes I wonder will it ever come to me again…
The love, the warmth, something I am now wonderin,

Will I ever be able to look at someone like that again,
I beg the lords of above, and I’m only asking please just say when

I hurt so much because I never wanted it to end
Something that made me feel so alive again

The warmth, the caress, your touch
There is nothing that could replace it, nothing such

I trusted you to meet my kids and I let you into my life,
I loved so strong that honestly I wondered if one day this person would be my wife…
What did I really just do, it was because the love I gave was very much true

You showed me that love, a love so strong,
But it ended in a way, a way very wrong

You lied to me, you broke my heart
And now I sit here and wonder,
“was it a lie from the start”

Nothing worse than knowing that your love was nothing more than a lie,
it hurts so much, it makes me sick, it makes me want to cry

One thing I promise not to do,
that is too waste ONE teardrop on you.

You are not a good person, You’re not someone that is true,
I DARE YOU TO look in the mirror and ask to see the REAL you.

One day you will look back say, I wish I could go back and fix that day
Until then, this is the end,
Because of you my heart is broken once again

Just in case you are wondering who you are, YOU DRIVE A WHITE CAR, that’s your only clue….

Man. You really did a number on this sensitive poet, madame. You can just take your WHITE CAR and go torture some other city’s male residents, if you please.

So yeah, this whole thing about the guy not being a snitch is pretty crazy. But more importantly, check out this comment from “Hitman2366,” who uses the incident as a springboard for… something. Is this really about Obama?

Yeah! “get a job Bum !”

Yesterday’s drive-by-firing of city manager Wayne Cauthen, and the subsequent upholding of his ouster by a band of secretive rebels on the City Council, was the culmination of a multi-year feud between Cauthen and Mayor Mark Funkhouser. It doesn’t quite make our fine metro area a banana republic — but it does reveal everything that’s wrong with interest group politics and municipal government.

The exeunt-ing of Cauthen is making headlines all across the city, from the Star’s indignant condemnation to, oddly, Mike Hendricks’ perplexing interpretation of the situation. And it goes without saying, of course, that Funk-opposed blogs are having a field day with the unexpected and poorly executed firing. So what are we to make of all this? Is Hendricks right when he says this?

Say what you will about the guy and whether he made the right move in ousting City Manager Wayne Cauthen, but two-plus years in office, numerous humiliations and, finally, some outside political help have proved to be of some benefit to Kansas City’s klutzy mayor.

A klutz no more.

Thursday’s move to suspend, then can Cauthen — he actually lined up the votes in advance, for a change — shows Funkhouser finally has a grasp of this mayor thing.

The motivations of aw-shucks columnists aside, this line of reasoning is fairly specious. Yesterday’s events can be described not so much as a move of Tweedian expertise as a blunder of a politically inept leader. The mayor needs the loyalty and cooperation of at least a certain number of Council members, and with this latest action he has alienated — perhaps permanently — the remainder of the bloc he didn’t already lose during Mammygate. The blustery Terry Riley isn’t just speaking for himself when he says that this attack a) came out of nowhere and b) will have lasting repercussions. An elected leader derives his power not just from the consent of the governed but from the smooth operation of his lawmaking/-executing body, and the mayor has lost that crucial component of governance.

Non-natives like me may not have the most firm of grasps on this city’s political gadgetry, but what seems immediately evident is that serious dysfunction arises when traditionally entrenched interest groups go to great lengths to maintain their grip on a narrow slice of power, and when leaders fail to take that reality into account. The Semler flap was proof not just of Funkhouser’s lurching and awkward management style — rooted solidly as it is in the tin ear school — but of the absurdity of power clenches among narrowly composed municipal groups. To think that Semler would allow her (admittedly disquieting) Minuteman views to affect her work on a municipal parks board is just the height of dubious logic, but local groups came together not just to denounce Semler but to demand that her views on a totally unrelated subject did in fact cloud her judgment over… city parks. Semler may have reprehensible views about immigration and diversity, but the lesson of that XYZ Affair was quite clear: you challenge the city’s power structure at your own risk.

Funkhouser fancies himself a righteous crusader, a strictly by-the-numbers guy who could enter the province of mayoralty and run the city as an efficient business. Never mind that he joins the long list of policy wonks who failed crucial interpersonal tests (cf. Al Gore, Bob Holden, Gray Davis et al; there’s a reason Cass Sunstein isn’t a politician) — this instance says more about his confrontation with traditional lobbies. The mayor styles himself as one who would stand up to these lobbies because of his devotion to accounting principles and unbiased fiscal discipline, but what he never seems to take into account is that this city’s operation is nothing like a balance sheet.

The reason interest group politics survives is because said groups appeal to people’s emotional identity, not their sense of debits and credits. When we speak of “the black community” or “the Latino community,” we’re talking about hybrid power structures that satisfy people’s desire to identify with a particular movement or culture. This is of course fine, and should be encouraged. But when the mayor thought he could ignore that emotional identification, he made a strategic error. Funkhouser may have looked at Semler and seen a capable bureaucrat, but his tone-deaf style and incapacity for recognition prevented him from ever considering that other people might view Semler differently. It’s in this vein where Funkhouser has made his most crucial mistakes.

The Cauthen debacle is just the latest incarnation of the mayor’s unsettling inability to read moods and reactions. The man may have a high IQ, but he lacks the skills borne of a high EQ; emotional assessment, particularly of people with whom he must collaborate, is almost totally foreign to him. That’s the reason the situation with his wife spiraled out of control: he lacks the sense to recognize how and why others may interpret an action. In other words, he lacks the basic skills of a politician. Sometimes such a dearth can be overcome by solid management and efficiency, but Funkhouser has not advanced that front either.

Running a post-industrial Midwestern city is a complex and challenging affair, and the mayor grasps that. But if he continues to think that a basic economic analysis of the situation will be sufficient, and if he continues to fail to take into account how people will react to his machinations, then his administration will continue to founder. Ousting Cauthen may have been the right thing to do; it will take some time for all the facts to come to light. But what will be confirmed is that the manner of the suspension and confirmation was epically incompetent, and that speaks volumes about Kansas City’s operation.

It may be too late to save this administration, but surely it cannot be too late for an honest self-evaluation by Mayor Funkhouser.

The Mangino-as-crazy-person sideshow keeps on steamrolling. Now we’re basically dredging his past.