Wichita has an image problem — one that starts at home among locals. So news that Katrina evacuees wouldn’t be coming to Wichita and Century II after all got us thinking about how Wichitans might take this perceived snub personally, if they chose to. Some possible explanations: No casinos. Too high taxes. Too much bad press about evolution and abortion. Fear of BTK. Fear of tornadoes. Fear of roaming buffalo. Fear that Kansas is in black and white. What other discouraging words might Gulf Coast evacuees have heard about Kansas?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
56 Comments
How about that black households here have the lowest median income within a 600 mile circular radius, according to the US Census?
If people who have lost everything they owned are turning down a place to stay becuase of the things you listed Rhonda, then they are the ones with the problem not us.
Beggars cant be choosers.
Good Grief Rhonda!
Are you trying to be thick or does it just come naturally?
Do you think that these evacuees have a place they go to with little brchures like a travel agency? Do you think they pick and choose where they go?
“Look here Violet! Wichita don’t have no casinos! How do dem peoples live? Hand me that brochure on Memphis. How’s the BBQ there? Maybe Detroit is cooler this time of year.”
Hank
Hank learned everything he knows about African Americans from listening to “Amos & Andy.”
Real nice . . .
Lawdy, lawdy! Maybe dem folks don no wheh Which-ita be at.
Ah Galahad,
You race-baiting-liberal nitwit! You just assumed I was making fun of ‘African-Americans’. To make such an assumption makes you the racist, not me.
I have ex-inlaws in Pascagoula, MS and Mobile, AL. They all talk worse than I imitated in my post. And they are white. (If they survived that is, my ex-mother-in-law never left when Camille hit and we haven’t heard from her since Katrina.) As far as the poor Blacks in NO, you can’t understand most of what they say. I wouldn’t even know how to imitate them.
As far as Amos and Andy goes, I do miss the days when Negros had a sense of humor. (I don’t remember the democrats ever having one).
Sincerely,
Hank
Why I be damned, Honky, er..umm, I meant Hanky, you’re a BAMA!Who’d of ever guessed?
Roll TIDE
Hank
I guess it’s bad enough being down and out. No use making it worse by being down and out in republican Kansas. Judging from some of the selfish and hateful things I’ve read in OP and the editorial page, I don’t blame them.
Amos & Andy were white, Hank.
Unbelievable . . .
Dear Galahad,
Not on the television version, you race-baiting liberal democrat!
Sinerely,
Hank
Rhonda, maybe you should tell the evacuees about progressive Park City. I’m sure they will be beating down the doors to stay there. Maybe special temporary gambling sites could be built to “help them out”.
They don’t look white to me:
http://www.thevintageplayhouse.com/amosandy.htm
After the Carr brothers I would have thought that raping, looting, gun toting, low IQ negro savages would have found Whichita to their liking.
On the original radio show they were white.
Hank, NoJo meet Ian. You have a lot in common.
Ahahahahaha! Primo, Galahad!Toche!
Galahad,You’re Ian and you know it, Liar!
(The above is a demonstration of Galahad’s obsurd paranoia and his only game plan – insult anyone who has an oposing point of view)
Liar
(here’s the typical follow-up insult by Galahad)
Galahad, worst blog poster ever!
EVER!
NoJo, you’re getting a little shrill. But you might as well admit it. Ian is one of yours. The only difference is, he says in print what you ALL think.
Pack of racists.
The least I can do is to be honest!
Dear Galahad,
So what if they were white? You’re still the white bigot that brought race into tis BLOG.
You can’t reduce every thing to race and get away with it. You’re boring and predictable.
Hank
ATTENTION ALL!!!!!I just busted Hank. He’s Nathan! the proof is on the thread,
“Does Pat Roberts still think Saddam sought uranium?” Go read it for yourself!
Heh, NoJo,
Take a pill, dude. You’re gonna blow a gasket there.
*****
I have only used the liar attack on one person. He was posting under different names so at first I didn’t know he was the same douchebag.
Ahmad, Gail, IQ, Scribe and Question are some of his more recent monikers.
We’ve got our own name for him–Puny, for obvious reasons.
*****
Why don’t you go out and mow the lawn really fast or whatever you petite-bourgousie do there in your all-white surburbia to blow off steam . . .
Seriously, XXX,
Nice score.
Hank was being so self righteous about only posting under his own name.
Hmmm . . .
Getting back to Rhonda’s original post — Wichita does have a few perception problems right now. Dennis Rader and the whole BTK thing didn’t help. But more than that, we are really far away from water. A lot of these people were born and raised on the gulf coast. Why is it so hard to see that they might want to remain closer to home?Being born and raised in Wichita, I personally feel that some of the evacuees might have been able to find a better life in this part of the country. Wichita is a fine community with a lot to offer. Maybe this is our opportunity to help our own homeless population now.
Galahad — I believe you were the one who brought up the whole race issue here. Why assume someone is racist because they disagree with you? I disagree with you, and I can assure you, I am not a racist. I suggest that you post without hatred… if that is possible. You seem to have a lot of anger.
Like anybody knows anything about Kansas, it’s politics, or the enivorment.
Let us just say, that New Orleans will be coming back much sooner then they thought. Many have already made it back to New Orleans cleaning up and trying to rebuild.
They wanted to stay, because there is no reason to leave at this moment. It is time to rebuild.
Blacks have never “BUILT” anything, they never have and they never will!
You are so good a figuring out who posts what, but have you figured out why the Eagle Op Ed posts are so lame?
Sure Elvis….it’s because they’re lame.
If the evacuess KNEW about Wichita I could understand their not wanting to come!
All fun aside, Wichita resonded fantastically for these folks. Much aid was sent and funds raised. The efforts to shelter them if they did come were nothing less than heroic. In the end I think it IS that they wanted to stay close to home now that those means are FINALLY and tardilly available. Frankly I never understood these mass re-locations anyway.
Bernie makes a good point. We have shown what we can do in the face of crisis. Let’s explore how we can better do that locally and on an ongoing basis.
If the evacuess KNEW about Wichita I could understand their not wanting to come!
All fun aside, Wichita resonded fantastically for these folks. Much aid was sent and funds raised. The efforts to shelter them if they did come were nothing less than heroic. In the end I think it IS that they wanted to stay close to home now that those means are FINALLY and tardilly available. Frankly I never understood these mass re-locations anyway.
Bernie makes a good point. We have shown what we can do in the face of crisis. Let’s explore how we can better do that locally and on an ongoing basis.
Ian — how sad it must be to live with such a narrow, bigot’s view of the world. I hope you never find yourself in the position the people of New Orleans are currently facing.
JR — Thanks for saying that my comments made sense. I agree that Wichitans responded to this tragedy with much heroism. As I said before, this is a great community (with the exception of maybe a few folks who post here…). I hope we continue to show love and compassion for those in need — regardless of race or economic status.
The sad thing is, Wichita isn’t a bad place at all (you should see my hometown, LOL). I like it here. But Kansas has such a bad rep outside of the state. I really hate to tell people where I’m from when I travel.
Why be ashamed of where you come from, just because others have a skewed viewpoint? Why not be proud of all the good things about Kansas? We may not have all the attractions that other places have, but we have some extremely genuine and generous people here. We are blessed. There is nothing to apologize for when you travel.
Did everyone miss it? Right before XXX’s post of outing Hank/Nathan, there was another example of a Hank signature with Nathan listed as the poster.
Which one is the alter-ego? That’s what I’d like to know!
There are 2 reasons why the refugees never came.
1. The problem in NO is much less than hyped by the bad news mongers/
2. They read the comments on these blogs.
Sheesh…you people need to be led by the hand to the correct answer. The real reason the refuges refuse Witchita’s help is this: Dorothy is really named Don, and the yellow brick road is really a polluted river.
You’re right, Bernie / NoJo.
I’m hopping mad that we’re bogged down in ANOTHER Vietnam after getting lied into it.
I’m totally steamed that the Republicans have cut taxes to the rich and let the poor sink further into poverty.
If you’re not mad, you’re not paying attention.
Galahad! Can you explain a tax cut for everybody, including the rich makes the poor sink further in poverty?
Was the tax money collected by the rich suppose to go directly to the pockets of the poor? I’m not getting it? Please explain to me!
Joe–thanks for finally admitting it: you “don’t get it.”
Under four years of Bush, the poverty rate has gone up every year to over 12 percent. Under Clinton, it went down every year.
Under four years of Bush, the median family income in Kansas has gone down, after going up under Clinton.
The poverty rate in this country is twice as high as those “socialist” European countries you love to denigrate.
Of course, what conservatives forget is that when poverty goes up, so does crime. That means more prisons for which taxpayers shell out some 30,000 a year per prisoner. Along with the highest poverty rate, we also have the highest percentage of people in prison.
There is a cause and effect relationship between spending taxes on war (1-2 billion a WEEK!) and lowering taxes on the rich–the cause–and having less money for social programs (like education funding, head start and after-school funding, and free lunch programs which the president has slashed)–the effect–which leads to poverty, despair, crime and drugs.
You can either spend money on the child or you can spend money on the criminal justice system.
You can either use federal power to help those who already have much or for those who have too little.
In both cases, Bush has opted for the latter.
Oops, in the last case, Bush has opted for THE FORMER. My mistake (but you know what I meant).
If you can make sense out of Bush’s Spin-glish, you should be able to figure out what I MEANT to say, heh . . .
So what should the tax rate be? What is considered fair?
Anybody making over $1 million a year, lets say 90%?
The bottom 80% of wage earners would be tax, let say 10%. Since the bottom 50% of people don’t pay taxes at all, they are exempt.
Is that a fair rate? Since government is the answer and more money to government means better prosperty, less crime, and better education, we should be taxing the hell out of the rich shouldn’t we?
Galahad, You finally presented something without personal attacks (except the (you)”don’t get it” crack, but that’s mild for you).
I would like to see some evidence of what the “rich” pay in taxes as compared to other levels. Do you have some?
Don’t forget that 9/11 played a major part in forcing people into poverty – Wichita was one of the most depressed areas due to the fact that no one wanted to fly in airplanes and thus aircraft sales plumeted.
Well, thanks, NoJo, I’m glad I finally met your high standards.
No wait . . . that was me just trying to be nice. I really don’t give a crap what you think.
Have a nice day.
Joe–I don’t know how you define “taxing the hell out of somebody” but I think for starters we should at least repeal the massive Bush tax cuts to the rich.
Going back to what we had under Clinton would be a huge improvement.
Joe–
The bottom income earners don’t pay INCOME TAXES. They pay all kinds of other taxes however.
Gasoline taxes, check.Sales taxes on food, check.Car tags, check.Sales taxes on all merchandise, check.Educational fees, check.Highway tolls, check.Phone bill fees and taxes, check.Gov’t imposed car insurance, check.Property taxes, check. (Even if they don’t own a house, they pay through their rent.)Social security payroll taxes, absolutely yes.Medicare payroll taxes, yes.
So you can really stop with “the poor don’t pay taxes” line, can’t you?
Tax returns give them their money back. Poor people don’t pay the rent, the government does under section 8, Sales taxes are reimbursed by the State. Poor people do not drive cars, so no gasoline tax, insurance, nor toll road taxes.
Poor people recieve Social Security through disability, known as SSDI, one of the largest government programs next to the military. They also recieve Medicare/Medicaid, so they don’t pay those taxes. You also have to work to pay those taxes, many poor people do not work.
Galahad,if that’s your real name, you are a witless liar. Nobody gives a crap what you think either.
I participated briefly in blogging here, but I see that the Wichita Eagle is not apparently trying to generate fruitful discussion, but controversy for the sake of interest. Each blog is started with a controversial, short “editorial”, designed to bring out the worst in everyone. Frankly, given the level of this discussion (which is generating a great deal of heat, much name-calling barely worthy of grade-school brats, and little light), I’m surprised that it hasn’t been concluded. Then again, if the only purpose is to generate controversy and a sort of morbid interest, I guess the Eagle has succeeded.
For some reason, I thought (or hoped) that the editorial board, as journalists, would be above that sort of thing. But I guess allo they need to do is ring the bell, and watch us salivate and attack one another like pit bulls. I guess it’s great entertainment, but it seems that no one truly wishes to discuss when its so much more fun to simply insult one another. Maybe THAT’S why the evacuees don’t want to move here. They are at a point in their lives when they need solutions, not hot air.
I’m signing off. This is no longer worth the time or effort.
Joe–
You never heard of the “working poor”?
You think that 12.7 percent of the American population is on SS disability?
The vast majority of poor people work way harder than you or I have ever had to . . .
soulfyre, You have been one of the better bloggers here. You summed-up the problems with the WE Blog well.IMHO, people here participate in extreme left-wing or extreme right-wing radio call-in shows, message boards, and blogs and bring the crap from them with them to this blog. If extreme left-wing or right-wing ideologies were to rule this country, the country would head down the drain.
NoJo–
So you’re saying that the Bush Admin. is “middle of the road”?
O-kay . . .
Wow, I wouldn,t want to be “middle of the road”, especially in Wichita. Somebody would run over you. But what the heck. Middle of the road kinda gets run over on these blogs, too.
The only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow streak and dead armadillos.
Angry populist Jim Hightower.
Damn right, Jim.
Actually, I see extreme left and extreme right as those narrow curves on each side of the street, while the two lanes make up the middle – where most people in this country are. Each side of the road discusses matters in a civil manner and can see the other side’s point of view without calling names and spewing personal insults. The yellow line in the middle can be crossed. It is not seen as a dead-end to ideas and dialogue.