Local News

A young woman from a nearby suburb is assaulted, kidnapped, and killed. This is a town where almost nothing big ever happens. It has a Wal-Mart, a couple used clothing stores, and a few restaurants. Farms and bitty houses. Green Acres meets inner city. It's a way out from Kansas City, so it draws people who can't afford a house in the nicer suburbs, but don't want to live in the city. If you could imagine Farmer Joe's grandkids without the farm to work on, living in a rural slum, this would be the town.

The schools are dreadful. There is a big drug problem out that way.

I know one family that moved there from my suburb because the land was cheap. She said since she's homeschooling, she doesn't have to worry about the crummy schools. And since she takes her children to a church near my suburb, she doesn't have to worry about her kids getting the wrong friends, either. I have to say I understand this thinking as, although I live in a modest middle-class neighbourhood, we've had our share of hoods on the block. NO WAY my kids are hanging out with them. Things got better. Things can always change.

I'm just chatting with you. The news story is very vague on what the murdered woman was doing to "turn her life around." Turn it around from what? Just the mention that it happened in Excelsior Springs makes me think it's drugs. The mention of her being in her early 20's with two children that don't live with her, and her owing some guy $500, and her being attacked by three people and stuffed into a trunk? It's a strong possibility we're talking about drugs.

I know there has been a lot of death in the news of late, and stories of violence. When I read stories like this, I think we're not really fighting the war on drugs and terrorism like a real war. But then I think that maybe we are, and perhaps there are thousands of stories I'll never hear about brave men and women fighting against these things... but the editors somewhere think it isn't interesting enough to publish, or it cannot be published because the fight is ongoing.

Well... I just read the news, and I get sad sometimes.