My Day At the KC Royals’ World Series Victory Parade

November, 4, 2015 by nicedeb

An estimated 800,000 Royals fans came out to celebrate their beloved boys in blue, Tuesday – an impressive number given the city’s population is only 470,000.

In case you missed it – the Kansas City Royals won the World Series Sunday, beating the Mets by a score of 7-2 after 11 innings.

The last World Series win for the Royals happened in 1985 – 30 years ago! In the decades following that win, the Royals sort of lost their zip. Year after year, the team ended up at the bottom of the MLB standings – the stadium nearly empty for most their games. Those were 30 long, dry years for a city that loves baseball.

The tide began to turn for the Royals in 2013. That year, the team finally won more games than they lost and came in third in their division. That was a huge improvement for them. In 2014, they made it to the play-offs by the skin of their teeth in the wildest of Wild Card games. And they almost went all the way – losing to San Francisco in the 9th inning of the 7th World Series game.

This year, they beat the Mets in 5 games.

Redemption. #Crowned https://t.co/VUTVELP9iG

— Royals (@Royals) November 2, 2015

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Long suffering Royals fans are ecstatic – and so are those of us who lost interest in baseball during those dry years. The city is united in their love and appreciation of this amazing team and everyone wanted to come to the victory parade on Tuesday to celebrate.

The kids were even off school because of election day. So it was a perfect storm for the ultimate turnout.

I headed toward downtown with my teenage daughter shortly after 9:00 for the parade that was set to start at noon. The parade route was the 2.3 mile stretch between the starting point at the downtown Power and Light District, down Grand Ave to Union Station.

I naively thought that I would be able to park in either the Union Station or Crown Center parking garages, as I *thought* I was getting a good start, but it soon became obvious that that was a fool’s errand. As soon as I turned onto 71 heading into the city, it was bumper to bumper, barely moving traffic. Luckily I know my way around town pretty well, so I decided to try an alternative route. No way was I going to stay on 71 at that rate, so I got off on Hickman Mills and took Troost north toward the city. Traffic was heavy – but we were moving. As I got onto Main Street and headed North through the Plaza, I could see that a large number of Royals fans had already parked their cars at the Plaza, to walk the rest of the way to Union Station – more than 20 blocks away!

I thought I could do better, and finally settled on a spot about ten blocks away from Union Station – but further away from our final destination – which was at the beginning of the parade route where my other daughter was. She and some friends had gotten a room for the night at the Downtown Hilton. Smart thinking, all things considered.

My commute from Lee’s Summit to Crown center usually takes about a half an hour. Yesterday it took over an hour. But we did better than a lot of folks.

It took some people hours to travel a few miles into downtown. Some even abandoned their cars to walk to the parade route.

Fans turned highway into parking lot to get to #RoyalsParade via @Jhelmuth WATCH: https://t.co/aaBv0heI3c pic.twitter.com/6GGny6puHk

— 41 Action News (@41ActionNews) November 4, 2015

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KCTV5 video showed cars along Interstate 35 that people had dumped to walk to Union Station. It looked like an apocalypse with the abandoned cars and the thousands of people herding towards the parade route.

Kevin Hanson and his family listened to Monday’s advice from the Kansas City Sports Commission to carpool and arrive early.

“I’ve been here since 6 a.m. standing right here. Had one glass of water and I won’t tell you where the rest of it went, but I’m having an awesome time,” Hanson said.

6:00 a.m. Are you keeding me? Dude.

A lot of people were relying on public transportation to get downtown for the festivities. Each location for the free shuttle pick-ups had lines that stretched around blocks. At the Olathe, KS, location, hundreds if not thousands of eager fans waited for a seat on one of the buses.

“We live in Bonner Springs so this was the closest as opposed to driving all the way downtown. We figured it’d be easier this way,” James Lawson said.

When some were tired of the long lines or the long wait times or were turned away, they gave up and either chose alternate means or went home.

“We’ve never done this before, obviously. We had no idea what to expect. We only have a certain number of buses, we ran our normal schedule today,” said Shawn Strate with KCATA.

In retrospect, I think we did extremely well.

After parking, we began our long walk down Main Street toward the parade area. There were many people – hundreds of them – doing the same thing.

This was at around 10:30 a.m. The parade was beginning on the other end of town (where the tall buildings are) at 12:00.

Outside Crown Center, we walked into a massive throng of people. All of a sudden we were packed like sardines and could see nothing but people clad in blue in all directions. We needed to get through that to meet up with my other daughter and friends about eight more blocks away. But we couldn’t seem to budge. Very gradually we pushed our way through the crowd until it had thinned out enough that we had room to walk. We headed toward McGee – which runs parallel to Grand, to walk to the beginning of the parade route.

It was impossible to get onto Grand because the crowd was too thick. On McGee, there were several food vendors set up and even though they were off the parade route, they were doing brisk business. We decided to resist temptation and keep walking.

There were a lot of people who – like us – were walking North on McGee to find the perfect spot on the parade route.

We finally settled on 16th and Grand because we couldn’t get cell service to make calls or even text Lizzy to find out exactly where to meet up. We caught up with them after the parade.

Hey @espn @MLB @MLBGIFs @SInow @SBNation check out this drone video of #RoyalsParade https://t.co/1Pet5S56bA pic.twitter.com/s2kUSeq64p

— KCTV5 – Kansas City (@KCTV5) November 3, 2015

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We watched the victory rally – which was held at Union Station – on a big screen TV at the Downtown Hilton Drum Room.

Our hands down favorite speech was from a new Royal who didn’t get to play any post season games, but still contributed mightily to the team, Jonny Gomes:

You can read my write-up on Gomes – an American original – at PJ Media.

Here are some sights and sounds from the parade (that I took on my iphone):

Christian Response To Charleston Atrocity Confounds The Racialist Left

June, 23, 2015 by nicedeb

The Christian community that was targeted by a white supremacist in Charleston earlier this month, has from the first moments, handled the massacre of nine fellow churchgoers with dignity and grace. No race-baiting. No calls for political reforms. No lashing out at political enemies….All that has been done. But by professional race-baiters and the Community Organizer in Chief – not the people of Charleston.

That has been the one blessing that has come out of this horrific incident.

David Forsmark at PJ Media thinks “Obama seems awfully disappointed by how Christians in Charleston have used the Charleston atrocity to glorify God from the pulpit of Emanuel AME Church instead of looking to his Bully Pulpit.”

(And Obama really knows how to put the “bully” in the bully pulpit.”)

He and his Soros-funded shock troops were ready to exploit the hell out of this tragedy in the name of the nine victims. But the community had other ideas.

In fact, the president got so pathetically desperate for attention this weekend that while people in Charleston were praising Jesus, he went on Marc Maron’s cult podcast and dropped an N-bomb.

There, THAT ought to get everybody’s attention!

However, it really didn’t. Even the president doing a professorial version of Snoop Dogg became a side issue, as the only speech that riveted the nation this week, about how we all ought to act as children of God, came from Rev. Norvell Goff of Emanuel AME Church.

Democrats spent the weekend trying to get the focus back on Obama and their agenda, where they think it belongs. Congresswoman Donna Edwards on Fox News Sunday lamented that it would be a shame if all that came out of the Congress after this event was “a moment of silence,” while on Howard Kurtz’s Media Buzz, Joe Trippi lamented at the unlikelihood of any legislation coming from this.

And while the Sunday hosts were uncomfortable directly addressing concepts of Christianity (even as they broadcast the church service at Emanuel), they too tried to turn the topic to politics with the family members who were their big “gets” for the day as interview subjects.

But it was to no avail. “Today is not about politics,” came the firm answer in one form or another from all of them. And while the families of the murdered Charleston Christians meant it for the glory of God, it was unintentionally directly opposed to the agenda of Barack Obama.

Charleston’s Bridge to Peace march was a profound and grace-filled event. Unlike the extreme Left who embrace a culture of division and hatred, this bunch in Charleston embraces love and unity.

“It’s not black lives that matter anymore. ALL LIVES MATTER,” a black speaker said to thunderous applause.

Wow.

I wonder if the gentleman understood how politically incorrect those words were? Hillary Clinton got lambasted today for having the presumption of saying those same words at a church in Florissant, Mo.

See Twitchy for the (almost comical if it wasn’t so sad) unhinged reactions of racialist lefties on Twitter.

The Twitter hashtag #GoHomeDeray trended over the weekend as #BlackLivesMatter activist Deray Mckesson (of Ferguson, New York, Baltimore and McKinney fame) brought his toxic, race-baiting roadshow to Charleston.

Steven Miller, The Wilderness: Red Flag: The Cowardice of the Media and the Courage of Charleston:

Charleston turned their back on hate, and did so without occupying a park, torching a business, smashing up a single cop car, or burning a single American flag. It’s a country we aren’t used to seeing anymore, which is why the images from worshippers joining hands and embracing each other in faith felt so viscerally moving to so many. It’s something we haven’t seen in awhile and it’s not something the far left wants us to see. Progressive and network media were happy to wrap themselves in a biased political narrative about an outdated flag. The rest of the country wrapped itself in the of the arms of the victims, their families, and the congregants of Emanuel A.M.E. Church, and let it be known loud and clear that they were not alone. Charleston, like New York or Boston, is not alone.

That is the country we are.

I would never have guessed that a white on black mass-shooting in a Southern church would be the impetus for people to turn away from the toxic, racial grievance industry – but that seems to be what’s happening. God surely works in mysterious ways.

After 6+ Years, W Finally Unloads on Obama

April, 26, 2015 by nicedeb

It’s interesting that he would come out now to criticize Obama. One wonders what finally set him off, or if this is political posturing for his brother.

Via Josh Rogin, Bloomberg:

In a closed-door meeting with Jewish Donors Saturday night, former President George W. Bush delivered his harshest public criticisms to date against his successor on foreign policy, saying that President Barack Obama is being naïve about Iran and the pending nuclear deal and losing the war against the Islamic State.

After reportedly expressing his distaste for re-entering the political fray, Bush started blasting Obama on Iran:

Bush said that Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He also said the deal would be bad for American national security in the long term: “You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the deal.”

Bush then went into a detailed criticism of Obama’s policies in fighting the Islamic State and dealing with the chaos in Iraq. On Obama’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of 2011, he quoted Senator Lindsey Graham calling it a “strategic blunder.” Bush signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to withdraw those troops, but the idea had been to negotiate a new status of forces agreement to keep U.S. forces there past 2011. The Obama administration tried and failed to negotiate such an agreement.

Bush went on to call the rise of ISIS, al Qaeda’s “second act” and chided Obama for not coming up with an effective strategy to deal with them.

He also hit Obama’s sore spot – his complete lack of credibility at home and abroad.

“In order to be an effective president … when you say something you have to mean it,” he said. “You gotta kill em.”

Read the whole thing at Bloomberg. Josh Rogin doesn’t resist the temptation to throw in a little gratuitous dig at President Bush at the end, but other than that, it is a good piece.

MORE:

Via Instapundit;

ON TWITTER, A BUNCH OF LEFTIES ARE BLAMING BUSH FOR DESTABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST, WHICH PROBABLY MEANS BATTLESPACE PREP FOR STILL MORE TERRIBLE NEWS.

It also means they read Josh Rogin’s article and are howling in fury. Hahahahahaha. Good.

But, but, but Bushhh….(essentially Rogin’s weak, closing dig.)

So remember, as late as 2010, the Obama Administration was bragging about how stable and successful Iraq was. And, of course, when Bush left office Syria, Yemen, Libya, Egypt were all stable. But they’ll blame Bush as long as they can get away with it, because it’s better than admitting that Obama has been an absolute disaster in foreign policy.

But, you know, the problem for them is that Obama has been an absolute disaster in foreign policy.

Memories Pizza Reopens To A Full House After National Uproar (Video)

April, 10, 2015 by nicedeb

Memories Pizza reopened to a packed house, Thursday, after a torrent of left-wing threats and intimidation forced them to shut down.

Earlier this month, the owner of the northern Indiana pizzeria had said his religious beliefs wouldn’t allow him to cater a gay wedding – spurring a manufactured 2-minutes-of-hate campaign that ended up backfiring badly.

Via Washington Times:

A crowdfunding campaign started by supporters raised more than $842,000 with donations from 29,160 contributors in 48 hours. O’Connor said he hasn’t received the money yet, but said he plans to give some to charity and use some money to make improvements to the restaurant.

The family reopened Thursday “to a full house of friends, regulars and people wanting to show their support.”

“It’s a relief to get going again and try to get back to normal,” said Kevin O’Connor, owner of Memories Pizza.

Jeanne and Ken Gumm from outside LaPorte, about 20 miles northwest of Walkerton, said they had been waiting for the pizzeria to reopen so they could show their support.

“We couldn’t wait to get down here,” said Ken Gumm, 66, a tank truck driver. “To us this whole thing isn’t about gay marriage. It’s mostly about freedom of religion.”

The Washington Times reports that there were no protests as of 7 p.m. Crystal O’Conner told Sean Hannity, Thursday night, that other than a couple of (presumably harassing) phone calls she had just received and hung up on, there have been no other threats.

It would seem that the Gaystapo finally realized that they were hurting their cause more than helping it.

Meanwhile, another crowd-funding campaign has managed to collect nearly $4,ooo in five days…

“They were running”: Hundreds of Moore, OK Residents Run Westboro Freaks Out of Town

April, 7, 2014 by nicedeb

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church were in Moore, Oklahoma, Sunday, to spread the message that a vengeful God sent the tornado that devastated the town nearly a year ago. Westboro had a permit to picket the junior high school that has been housing the elementary school students whose school was destroyed. 24 people died in that tornado, including 9 children, 7 of them at the elementary school.

Hundreds of Moore residents lined the street across from Junior high, ready to confront the WBC clan, and some crossed the street to go after them.

Amanda Eccles said, “It’s just sic kening. You know, it’s just innocent kids that lost lives and it’s sickening for them to even think that way.”

Kristy Hensley said, “They’re judging us because they think that, you know, we deserve what we got you know. But you know, their judgement day will come.”

Westboro’s permit to picket was for half an hour.

They had been there a mere eight minutes when several people took matters into their own hands.

Dan Eccles said, “I was afraid of a riot really. I didn’t know how long Westboro would stay, which they were smart to leave.”

Police held the Moore residents at bay while the Westboro bunch fled the scene.