Not to long ago I asked you to take a minute or two to think about a young girl named Kelsey Smith. I asked you to keep her family in your prayers. Kelsey was the young girl from Overland Park who was kidnapped from a Target store in Olathe. They found her body a few days later. She had been badly beaten, raped, and killed. Her body was then dumped in a wooded area just across the Missouri border like a piece of trash. Police charged a man named Edwin Hall a few days later with her murder.
Here we are again. Only this time, the young girl was one of our own. Late last year police found the body of 15- year- old Nacole Winter in a field just east of Lake Shawnee. Last week District Attorney, Robert Hecht announced he was charging 24-year-old Christopher Hall with first degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, and desecration of her body. Once again I’m asking you to keep Nacole’s family in your thoughts and prayers. Once this trial starts, they’re going to need all the strength they can muster.
Do you remember Megan Kanka? She was the 7-year-old girl from New Jersey that was raped and killed in 1994 by a man named Jesse Timmindqus. Her death prompted many states to pass what’s become known as Megan’s law. How about 9-year-old Jessica Lundsford? She was the girl that was kidnapped from her own bedroom while her parents slept. She was repeatedly beaten and raped by a neighbor named John Couey. Once he was finished with her, he stuffed her into a trash bag, then buried her alive. Police found her body in a shallow grave only 150 yards from her house.
Three out of the four girls I’ve mentioned were all raped and killed by a convicted child rapist that was allowed by our court system to go free. Right here in Shawnee County, we have a little more than 300 registered sex offenders. Out of these 300, all but about 50 have been convicted of sex crimes against children.
A few weeks ago I told you about an experience I had with one of these convicted child molesters at Gage Park. Remember that? I told you about going to the police with hopes of getting him away from the kids in the park. I also told you they said there was nothing they could do about it. I haven’t talked about it for awhile. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about it. I’ve been driving through Gage Park a couple of times a week just to see if he’s still hanging around. He’s been there every single time I’ve checked. He just sits there watching the kids.
How many more kids have to die before we finally get off our butts and do something about it? How many more of these perverts are the courts going to turn lose on society because they’re depressed or they had a rough childhood?
Attorney General, Paul Morrison has been busy strengthening our child predator laws. Now, anyone convicted the second or third time of sex crimes against a child will do serious prison time. How about this idea? The first time you’re convicted of a sex crime against a child, you do 40 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole. You do it the second time, you get the death penalty.
Locally, there are a few things we can do. Councilwoman, Lana Kennedy has agreed to try to get a law passed that would make it illegal for anyone convicted of a sex crime against a child to be in any of our City Parks. Let’s take that a step further. Let’s put up an information board in all City Parks with the names, pictures, and addresses of the 300 plus people living in Shawnee County that are on the sex offenders list. This way people will have a better idea who to look out for when they take their kids to the park. This is already public information.
I guess it boils down to this. When are we, as a society going to stand up and say we’ve had enough? How much longer will we remain silent about it? It kills me to listen to the outrage over our taxes being raised. But let one our local kids be raped and brutally murdered and all we hear is silence.
To the family of Nacole Winter. I’m so sorry about what happened to Nacole. There’s no way in hell she deserved any of this.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Coward
Before we get started today I’d like to thank each and every one of you who voted for my column in the recent “Best of Topeka” contest. When you consider the huge advantage the Capital-Journal columnists have in circulation numbers compared to the Metro this was really cool. And needless to say, it made my day.
But it’s about a lot more than just me though. It’s about the Metro editor, Denise Hall, taking a chance on me in the first place. Other than a few letters to the editor, I had never done anything like this. She still doesn’t know quite what to think of me yet though. That’s okay. I’m still trying to figure her out too. It’s about the Metro News itself, and the people who read us. Yeah, we’re a small paper compared to the Capital-Journal, but I believe our readers tend to be more informed and more inclined to get involved. So yeah, it was a team effort by all of us. Thank you.
How about a good monster story today. I’ve heard tales of a monster that lives amongst us all. They say it has nine heads and that the nine heads hate each other and are constantly fighting over who’s in charge. With the heads constant fighting, the monster is always confused. He has no direction. They also say it’s always hungry and there’s no way for it to satisfy it’s appetite. When I first heard this story, I thought the person told me the monster lived on “axes.” Man, that part used to always scare me. What kind of a monster could possibly have nine heads and live on axes? When I realized it was “taxes” and not “axes” the monster lived on I was terrified. But hang on, there’s more to this horror story. The monster has a name. They call it the “Topeka City Council.” If you happen to be in the downtown area on a Tuesday night be careful. They say this is the night it eats.
Ah, I just made that stuff up. I was just taking a cheap shot at the council, and for the most part, I’ve avoided talking about this mess. I sat out the fight over the helicopter. I didn’t say anything during the fight over the budget. I also stayed out of the City-County fight over the hardware-software thing, mainly because it was all way over my head. I’ve avoided all this because I figured that sooner or later cooler heads would prevail. Maybe not.
Actually, I have a lot of respect for most of our council members. And for the most part I believe they’re all good people trying to do a job knowing that no matter what they do, it’s going to make someone else mad. It’s kind of like being married. No matter what you do, it’s wrong.
You know, I really thought that once we got past the budget process, the City Council could start moving this city forward. Chances of that happening went away last week when one of them gave copies of the recent City Manager’s evaluation to the hosts of a local talk show. You know the story.
I have a pretty good idea who’s responsible for this breach of trust that’s essential for this governing body to function, but I’ll just keep it to myself. It’s not so much what they did. It’s the cowardly way they did it. Personally, I thought the evaluation should have been made public in the first place. Obviously this person thought so too.
So here’s the deal. If you’re going to take a stand like this, at least have the guts to make yourself known. You had your chance to defend your actions. But you decided to take the cowards way out. For this you should, first identify yourself. Then you should resign. There’s no room on our City Council for someone we can’t trust.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net
But it’s about a lot more than just me though. It’s about the Metro editor, Denise Hall, taking a chance on me in the first place. Other than a few letters to the editor, I had never done anything like this. She still doesn’t know quite what to think of me yet though. That’s okay. I’m still trying to figure her out too. It’s about the Metro News itself, and the people who read us. Yeah, we’re a small paper compared to the Capital-Journal, but I believe our readers tend to be more informed and more inclined to get involved. So yeah, it was a team effort by all of us. Thank you.
How about a good monster story today. I’ve heard tales of a monster that lives amongst us all. They say it has nine heads and that the nine heads hate each other and are constantly fighting over who’s in charge. With the heads constant fighting, the monster is always confused. He has no direction. They also say it’s always hungry and there’s no way for it to satisfy it’s appetite. When I first heard this story, I thought the person told me the monster lived on “axes.” Man, that part used to always scare me. What kind of a monster could possibly have nine heads and live on axes? When I realized it was “taxes” and not “axes” the monster lived on I was terrified. But hang on, there’s more to this horror story. The monster has a name. They call it the “Topeka City Council.” If you happen to be in the downtown area on a Tuesday night be careful. They say this is the night it eats.
Ah, I just made that stuff up. I was just taking a cheap shot at the council, and for the most part, I’ve avoided talking about this mess. I sat out the fight over the helicopter. I didn’t say anything during the fight over the budget. I also stayed out of the City-County fight over the hardware-software thing, mainly because it was all way over my head. I’ve avoided all this because I figured that sooner or later cooler heads would prevail. Maybe not.
Actually, I have a lot of respect for most of our council members. And for the most part I believe they’re all good people trying to do a job knowing that no matter what they do, it’s going to make someone else mad. It’s kind of like being married. No matter what you do, it’s wrong.
You know, I really thought that once we got past the budget process, the City Council could start moving this city forward. Chances of that happening went away last week when one of them gave copies of the recent City Manager’s evaluation to the hosts of a local talk show. You know the story.
I have a pretty good idea who’s responsible for this breach of trust that’s essential for this governing body to function, but I’ll just keep it to myself. It’s not so much what they did. It’s the cowardly way they did it. Personally, I thought the evaluation should have been made public in the first place. Obviously this person thought so too.
So here’s the deal. If you’re going to take a stand like this, at least have the guts to make yourself known. You had your chance to defend your actions. But you decided to take the cowards way out. For this you should, first identify yourself. Then you should resign. There’s no room on our City Council for someone we can’t trust.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Personal Responsibility
It’s reassuring to know our elected officials take the time to gather all the facts before casting their votes on issues that can directly affect all of us. Take freshmen Congresswoman, Nancy Boyda for instance. It’s good to know she already knows everything there is to know about the war in Iraq. Why else would she walk out in the middle of three star General John Keane’s Iraqi update? Surely she’s not playing politics with the war, she claims to be above such childish stunts. It’s probably just me, but it looked like a play straight out of the Pelosi, Reid handbook. Is it any wonder that congress’s approval rating is hovering around 19%. When you’re less popular than Bush, you’re in real trouble.
What exactly have the Democrats accomplished since regaining power? Oh yeah, endless investigations. Take the firings of the U.S. attorney’s for instance. Regardless of what you think of Bush, he was well within his legal rights to make such a move. The Democrats have acknowledged this. But they continue to harass everyone in this administration, hammering them with the same questions over and over again. Different Senators will ask them the exact same questions, only they’ll rephrase it in an attempt to trip them up. Once someone gives a little different version of something they said to someone else three or four years ago, they’re a liar. And lying to Congress is a crime. You’re going to prison. Think I’m exaggerating? Watch C-Span sometime.
You have to give them credit though. By raising the minimum wage they’ll end poverty in no time. That is, unless you happen to be one of the thousands that end losing their jobs because their employer had to make cuts in order to stay in business.
Who do you think the real winner here is? Let’s say you’re raising a family of four on $17,000 a year. Now what are you going to make, $20,000? And because of this, everything is going to go up. What have you gained? Nothing. So who wins here? The Government. The more you earn, the more taxes you pay. With your additional wages, the government will collect a little more of your weekly paycheck. A few more dollars might not seem like much, but multiply that by a few million paychecks and eventually you start talking real money. Everything they do revolves around taking more of our money. How about the universal healthcare talk going around? Do you really think the government can manage the healthcare of hundreds of millions of people? They want to make sure every child is covered. On the surface it sounds like an honorable thing, after all it’s for the “children.” They cry that it’s our responsibility to make sure all children are covered, and to do otherwise would be a disgrace.
You’re going to think I’m just a heartless old man here. But why is it my responsibility to make sure these kids are covered by healthcare? At what point is it the responsibility of the parents? They can’t afford health insurance because they work for minimum wage. In my view, this is a choice they’ve made themselves.
I read a letter to the editor a couple years ago that dealt with this exact topic. The writer said people live in poverty because they choose to. At the time I thought his comments were out of line. But you know what? He was right.
Of course you can’t raise a family on a minimum wage job. Everyone knows that. So why do people try? A lot of them can’t get a decent job because they dropped out of school or because they won’t put down the crack pipe long enough to pass a drug test. Why is this my problem?
Here’s the deal. There are decent jobs out there, but you have to get off the couch to find them. At some point people are going to have to stand up and take responsibility for themselves. This old guy is sick and tired of everyone having their hands in my wallet.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net
What exactly have the Democrats accomplished since regaining power? Oh yeah, endless investigations. Take the firings of the U.S. attorney’s for instance. Regardless of what you think of Bush, he was well within his legal rights to make such a move. The Democrats have acknowledged this. But they continue to harass everyone in this administration, hammering them with the same questions over and over again. Different Senators will ask them the exact same questions, only they’ll rephrase it in an attempt to trip them up. Once someone gives a little different version of something they said to someone else three or four years ago, they’re a liar. And lying to Congress is a crime. You’re going to prison. Think I’m exaggerating? Watch C-Span sometime.
You have to give them credit though. By raising the minimum wage they’ll end poverty in no time. That is, unless you happen to be one of the thousands that end losing their jobs because their employer had to make cuts in order to stay in business.
Who do you think the real winner here is? Let’s say you’re raising a family of four on $17,000 a year. Now what are you going to make, $20,000? And because of this, everything is going to go up. What have you gained? Nothing. So who wins here? The Government. The more you earn, the more taxes you pay. With your additional wages, the government will collect a little more of your weekly paycheck. A few more dollars might not seem like much, but multiply that by a few million paychecks and eventually you start talking real money. Everything they do revolves around taking more of our money. How about the universal healthcare talk going around? Do you really think the government can manage the healthcare of hundreds of millions of people? They want to make sure every child is covered. On the surface it sounds like an honorable thing, after all it’s for the “children.” They cry that it’s our responsibility to make sure all children are covered, and to do otherwise would be a disgrace.
You’re going to think I’m just a heartless old man here. But why is it my responsibility to make sure these kids are covered by healthcare? At what point is it the responsibility of the parents? They can’t afford health insurance because they work for minimum wage. In my view, this is a choice they’ve made themselves.
I read a letter to the editor a couple years ago that dealt with this exact topic. The writer said people live in poverty because they choose to. At the time I thought his comments were out of line. But you know what? He was right.
Of course you can’t raise a family on a minimum wage job. Everyone knows that. So why do people try? A lot of them can’t get a decent job because they dropped out of school or because they won’t put down the crack pipe long enough to pass a drug test. Why is this my problem?
Here’s the deal. There are decent jobs out there, but you have to get off the couch to find them. At some point people are going to have to stand up and take responsibility for themselves. This old guy is sick and tired of everyone having their hands in my wallet.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Lone Duck Campground
Have I ever told you about “Lone Duck“ campground? It’s in Cadorado. That’s how my grandson used to pronounce Colorado. You see, we’ve taken a family vacation to Colorado every year for the last ten years now. When I say family, I mean a lot of people. My wife and I, our three kids, a son and daughter-in-law, and two grandkids. My son’s best friend, Fred hardly ever missed a year. There’s my nephews, Matt and Aaron. I can’t forget to mention my really cool, eight year old niece, Lisa. It took a caravan to get us all out there. I’ve always pulled the trailer. We’d borrow a car trailer from Fred’s dad and my son used it to haul the jeep and usually a four wheeler or a couple motorcycles with his truck. Everyone else rode in my daughter’s car. Trust me when I say, there isn’t a rest area or gas station in between here and there we don’t know on a personal level.
The reason we found Lone Duck in the first place is because of my brother Aaron’s inability to follow simple directions. Because he was living in Dodge City at the time we agreed to meet at the rest area just east of Wakeeney around noon. We waited about two hours and finally drove into town to call his wife. She said he’d left early that morning and should have been there hours ago. We drove back out to the rest area in case he showed up. Finally, around five o’clock we gave up. Just about the time we pulled back onto I-70 we spotted him coming from town looking for us. To make a long story short, he thought I meant the City Park in town. He’d been there since noon. What a dork.
Because of our five hour delay, we didn’t get to Colorado Springs until ten o’clock that night. The kids were fighting, I was tired and my nerves were shot. If you’ve ever taken a similar trip, you know what I mean. Anyway, we stayed on the hi-way through town and pulled into the first RV park we came to. It was a huge park, but it was more like a huge parking lot with this really big laundry-mat. I told my wife we’d just stay there for the night, and find a better place in the morning. She had this huge fit, saying she hadn’t made this hell trip to stay at some lousy laundry-mat. Fine, I told her. But we’re staying at the next place we come to. We headed west.
It was about eleven by the time we pulled into the Lone Duck Campground. I went into the office only to find out they were closed. But there was a note on the counter saying to pick any open site and come see us in the morning. I knew then they must be good people. The site we picked that night, campsite #72 became “our” campsite for the next ten years.
Oh the adventures we had. We got the tourist stuff done in the first couple years. For the most part we just explored the seemingly endless jeep trails around the Woodland Park area. You wouldn’t believe some of the places we’ve found. The best part of every day was getting back to camp, we always tried to get there before the evening thunder storms moved in. For the next few hours we’d roam the campground. The kids used to have these contests to see who could jump across the stream that runs through the place. Afterward they went to the pool. My wife and daughter, the biggest kids of all headed straight to the pin-ball machines. Their favorite games are “Fish Tales” and “Taxi,” they’d spend hours on them. The best was yet to come. The fire. We ended every night with a camp fire. We’d sit around it to talk about the adventures we’d had that day and where we were headed tomorrow. We poked fun at each other, we argued, cussed, and discussed it all. And so it went year after year.
I knew the day would come when the kids couldn’t make it. It seems that my daughter and daughter-in-law are both pregnant and are both due in November. Okay you two, I’ll let you use that excuse this time, but next year I don’t want to hear it.
My wife and I spent a couple days in the area last week. We stopped by Lone Duck to say hi and let them know we wouldn’t be making it this year. It was good to see them. But a little sad too. We did notice that our campsite, #72 was sitting there open like it they were waiting for us. Nice Touch Steve. Hopefully next year we’ll have a couple more grandkids to spoil.
If any of you are looking for a wonderful place to spend your family vacation, check out their website at http://www.loneduckcamp.com/ I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.com
The reason we found Lone Duck in the first place is because of my brother Aaron’s inability to follow simple directions. Because he was living in Dodge City at the time we agreed to meet at the rest area just east of Wakeeney around noon. We waited about two hours and finally drove into town to call his wife. She said he’d left early that morning and should have been there hours ago. We drove back out to the rest area in case he showed up. Finally, around five o’clock we gave up. Just about the time we pulled back onto I-70 we spotted him coming from town looking for us. To make a long story short, he thought I meant the City Park in town. He’d been there since noon. What a dork.
Because of our five hour delay, we didn’t get to Colorado Springs until ten o’clock that night. The kids were fighting, I was tired and my nerves were shot. If you’ve ever taken a similar trip, you know what I mean. Anyway, we stayed on the hi-way through town and pulled into the first RV park we came to. It was a huge park, but it was more like a huge parking lot with this really big laundry-mat. I told my wife we’d just stay there for the night, and find a better place in the morning. She had this huge fit, saying she hadn’t made this hell trip to stay at some lousy laundry-mat. Fine, I told her. But we’re staying at the next place we come to. We headed west.
It was about eleven by the time we pulled into the Lone Duck Campground. I went into the office only to find out they were closed. But there was a note on the counter saying to pick any open site and come see us in the morning. I knew then they must be good people. The site we picked that night, campsite #72 became “our” campsite for the next ten years.
Oh the adventures we had. We got the tourist stuff done in the first couple years. For the most part we just explored the seemingly endless jeep trails around the Woodland Park area. You wouldn’t believe some of the places we’ve found. The best part of every day was getting back to camp, we always tried to get there before the evening thunder storms moved in. For the next few hours we’d roam the campground. The kids used to have these contests to see who could jump across the stream that runs through the place. Afterward they went to the pool. My wife and daughter, the biggest kids of all headed straight to the pin-ball machines. Their favorite games are “Fish Tales” and “Taxi,” they’d spend hours on them. The best was yet to come. The fire. We ended every night with a camp fire. We’d sit around it to talk about the adventures we’d had that day and where we were headed tomorrow. We poked fun at each other, we argued, cussed, and discussed it all. And so it went year after year.
I knew the day would come when the kids couldn’t make it. It seems that my daughter and daughter-in-law are both pregnant and are both due in November. Okay you two, I’ll let you use that excuse this time, but next year I don’t want to hear it.
My wife and I spent a couple days in the area last week. We stopped by Lone Duck to say hi and let them know we wouldn’t be making it this year. It was good to see them. But a little sad too. We did notice that our campsite, #72 was sitting there open like it they were waiting for us. Nice Touch Steve. Hopefully next year we’ll have a couple more grandkids to spoil.
If any of you are looking for a wonderful place to spend your family vacation, check out their website at http://www.loneduckcamp.com/ I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Kevin McGinty can be reached at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.com
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Getting There
Cool, another brave soul . Mr. Ice, thank you. Just so everyone knows, Iceman is a friend of mine from work. He dresses funny but he's a good guy.
Why is it that no one else wants to talk about this? It's the same on our local talk radio show. Jim Cates has been pushing this issue for the last week. There have been a few scattered calls. But for the most part there is silence. I think the Ice Guy hit it on the head.
Just to let you know. Linda and I just got back from Colorado. We donated to Colorado's economy by spending two days in Cripple Creek. Tuesday on the way home we stopped by Lone Duck campground to say hi to our friends Steve and Lisa. They own the place. This is this first time in ten years we haven't hauled our trailer out there. It was so good to see them. I met a really cool guy in Manitou. We stopped by one of those places that sell the bears that are carved out of a lof with a chainsaw. He did the work himself. We had a good talk about vetrans and the war in Iraq. It's funny that we can be 525 miles from home and have the exact same conversation with someone I just met as I would have back home.
We stopped by Frank and Ruthie's Tuesday afternoon. Linda cracked me up on the way to their house. She wanted to stop by Burger King. After all these years, she still doesn't understand my family. I assured her Ruthie would feed us. Sure enough, within two minutes they had both emptied the fridge. They set up a virtual buffet of sandwich fixings, canalope, watermelon, steawberry Jello, and a pumpkin cake. How cool was that?
Both are looking good, but I think Ruthie is lonely. Give her a call if you get a chance.
Why is it that no one else wants to talk about this? It's the same on our local talk radio show. Jim Cates has been pushing this issue for the last week. There have been a few scattered calls. But for the most part there is silence. I think the Ice Guy hit it on the head.
Just to let you know. Linda and I just got back from Colorado. We donated to Colorado's economy by spending two days in Cripple Creek. Tuesday on the way home we stopped by Lone Duck campground to say hi to our friends Steve and Lisa. They own the place. This is this first time in ten years we haven't hauled our trailer out there. It was so good to see them. I met a really cool guy in Manitou. We stopped by one of those places that sell the bears that are carved out of a lof with a chainsaw. He did the work himself. We had a good talk about vetrans and the war in Iraq. It's funny that we can be 525 miles from home and have the exact same conversation with someone I just met as I would have back home.
We stopped by Frank and Ruthie's Tuesday afternoon. Linda cracked me up on the way to their house. She wanted to stop by Burger King. After all these years, she still doesn't understand my family. I assured her Ruthie would feed us. Sure enough, within two minutes they had both emptied the fridge. They set up a virtual buffet of sandwich fixings, canalope, watermelon, steawberry Jello, and a pumpkin cake. How cool was that?
Both are looking good, but I think Ruthie is lonely. Give her a call if you get a chance.
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Solo Expedition...
I haven't really talked about it much but every other weekend I usually head out by myself. It's usually the day I seek out new fis...
