Say It Ain't So

As you may have seen on my Twitter, I had a dream a couple nights ago where Mitt Romney was trying to defeat me for a political office. I blame this on all the debates, caucuses, primaries and random news I have been reading about the GOP candidates. I'm not really sure what office we were running for, I want to say mayor or something but what was really weird was that I wasn't actually running for office. Mitt, as far as I could tell, was running unopposed but kept trying to drag me into debates and showing up at my house and airing attack ads about me.

Mitt was doing a news conference and said "I would bring jobs and businesses to the city and if I had to, move them brick by brick to relocate them here. My opponent wouldn't do that. He would rather pay businesses to not move here and, in some cases, go somewhere else." Meanwhile, I'm at home screaming at the TV "I'm not running! Where would I get this money to pay these companies not to move here! How do you know who I am?!"

 Are Brutus and Gladys finally going to get that divorce that's been hovering over their head the last five years of their marriage? At least their divorce is expected, unlike these two's divorce:

Stull #25

It was early morning and Frank was already at the Society entering information into the computer. Frank woke up about two hours ago after a nightmare. Frank never went back to bed after a nightmare.

He left a note for Lana, who was still asleep at his place, explaining he was at work. Frank was currently working on a history of Brothel, Ohio, a small town located about a few miles south of Tontzville. On the surface, Brothel was a simple agricultural town with a shocking name but most of the buildings in the central business district were associated with prostitution.

For a little more than a year, Brothel was allowed to operate normally. But then Tontzville began interfering and wanted the town to shut down. Then, one day in April, the town was burned. The fire was put out but nothing was salvageable. It was soon discovered that all the prostitutes had been murdered and left in the buildings to burn.

It was never discovered who killed the girls, the town was dismantled and forgotten. Frank finished typing and read over what he had written before saving it.

The lights and computer then flickered and shut off. There was a loud rumbling and a series of small explosions followed. The glass in the Society's windows and door shattered and pictures fell off the wall. Frank could hear car alarms in the distance. He got up from his chair and went outside. The stairs to the Society were broken and he could see what looked like a fire just a few blocks away.

Frank took his phone and dialed 9-1-1. After one ring, an operator answered. "Yeah, I'm in Stull and I think there's been an explosion."




"Sinkhole"
The sun was now just sitting over the horizon. It seemed as if every deputy in the county was in Stull, every reporter and just about every citizen and firefighter were standing around the massive hole that had formed along 5th Street destroying much of the town between Ohio and Walnut Streets.

Frank, Katie, John and Lana stood near the sinkhole as well, looking at all the rubble and destruction. "So weird. It almost looks like someone dug underneath the town," Frank said, looking into the hole. "It looks like one elaborate tunnel under here."

"Well, whatever caused it, it destroyed Stull's main road, about a dozen houses, two churches and the ruins of the Old Stull Church," Katie said.

"It also damaged a lot of buildings downtown, including the Society," Frank said. "Is the house okay?" Frank asked Lana, pulling her closer to him.

"Some stuff fell off the wall but I think the house is fine," she replied.

"That is a giant hole! Is everyone all right?" Detective Bilko exclaimed as he and Caitlin approached the group.

"We're all fine. The Society is fine and our houses are fine," Frank said. "Look at this. It's like the ground underneath the city was excavated. Doesn't it look like there are tunnels running underneath?" Frank kneeled down and pointed this out to Detective Bilko.

"But who would do something like that?" Bilko asked. "And didn't they know tunneling would weaken the structural integrity of the ground above? I'm not seeing any evidence they used reinforcement for the tunnels."

"I'm going to get permission to go down there and solve this mystery," Frank said.

No. Not Even Close

You know what's interesting about this? This joke hinges on the fact that Phoenicians and Phoenix begin the same way when spelled but when actually pronounced, it's Foe-nee-shuns and Fee-nix, not Fee-nee-shuns or Foe-nix.

What I want to know is how many people in Phoenix actually call the old people there "Ancient Phoenicians."

Four Years, One Day

Did everyone survive Blackout Day? I got a bit of writing done but unfortunately I still had the TV which meant I paid extra attention to what was playing on Cartoon Network. I really like that show "The Amazing World of Gumball." I do feel they show Johnny Test way too much and it's such a loud and seizure-inducing show.

I'm pretty sure your employer can't speak to you in that way but if they can I'd be more up for being yelled at by being called a nincompoop or birdbrain instead of a feeble-minded horse testicle or something like that.

Workplace Gnomes?

Sweet Christ it is! Probably because the home offices of Veeblefester Incorporated were built on an Indian burial ground. What's more horrifying is that Veeblefester purposely exhumed graves from an ancient Indian burial ground, had them reburied where his company was going to go then began construction on his building thus disturbing the graves twice.

This blog will go dark tomorrow in protest of SOPA and PIPA, the two bills making their way through the House and Senate that essentially stifles creativity on the Internet. For more information, you can learn more here. As for the other two blogs Tauy Creek produces, there will just be no post on either of them.

See you Thursday and I hope to see a lot of websites down tomorrow.

Guard Your Ears...with Gorman's

I, for one, am ready for the FCC to start demanding that commercials cannot be louder than the TV show. Does anyone like it when the TV show is at a decent volume that you and anyone else listening can hear it BUT THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN THE COMMERCIAL TALKING TO YOU ABOUT YOUR DIABETES TEST STRIPS COMES BLARING ON!!!! However I can see TV stations making both the show and commercials louder just to make up for their commercials not being loud anymore.

Ah, the roofie Veeblefester slipped into Brutus' coffee is working perfectly. What Veeblefester plans to do with an unconscious Brutus I am just going to leave to your own imagination.

A Second Opinion? For This?

Rancid Veeblefester is a typical man in his fifties, maybe early sixties, so you have to start thinking that anytime after Veeblefester is finished talking about the strict diet his doctor is recommending, Brutus is going to hear a long, detailed story about his colonoscopy.

002: The Italy of Kansas

The old redwood sign marking Prairie City.
The sign was damaged after storm and taken
down in 2007.

I've written a lot about Prairie City. It is quite possibly my favorite Kansas ghost town, probably because it's almost right in my backyard and there is quite a lot of remainders of the once-bustling town and, up until a few years ago, was well-marked. Preserving Prairie City is number one on my list of Missions I posted a few days ago.

Prairie City had an unusual start. It was founded in 1855 after an argument between Dr. William Graham and Henry Barricklow. The town was also founded by I.F. Greene and Salmon Prouty, who operated the first printing press in Kansas. The printing press was brought to Kansas by Jotham Meeker to use at the Shawnee Mission and then at the Ottawa Mission. The press was sold to Prouty. It is said James Lane was also a town founder but I have not discovered the extent of his involvement.

The Heber Institute

A post office was established in 1856, a Catholic church was started in a stone church on top of Liberty Hill and the Protestant Episcopal Church was planning on starting the Heber Institute. The Heber Institute failed before it started and plans for it to be a Boy's School also fell through. The building was then used for the Prairie City School District. A park was established in the center of town called Eden Park and Prairie City was considered the "Italy of Kansas". For awhile, Prairie City and Palmyra were competitors. Palmyra was on the Santa Fe Trail but John Brown stayed in Prairie City the night before the Battle of Black Jack in 1856 and Horace Greeley was visiting Prairie City when he coined the phrase "Go west, young man" which solidified Prairie City's place in history. However, in 1858, when Baker University was founded just south of Palmyra, Prairie City's fate was sealed. But Prairie City continued to grow, becoming incorporated in 1859 and at its peak had three stores and three hotels.

Hand-drawn map of Prairie City

Baldwin City was founded in 1860 with Baker University centered in the middle. Palmyra was annexed to Baldwin and Prairie City and Baldwin City lived a peaceful coexistence. When the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston (LLG) Railroad was built through the area, a depot was built in Baldwin and Prairie City, with stops at both. Thinking that was impractical, both depots were closed and a new one was built in between and named "Media".  Media was later annexed to Baldwin City as "West" Baldwin. Prairie City continued to be a small community until March 24, 1883 when the Douglas County Commissioners ordered certain alleys and streets vacated.

The only remnants of Prairie City are a few older houses, the ruins of the Catholic Mission, which was closed in 1893 and replaced by a frame structure still standing at the corner of South and Miami Streets in Baldwin, the Prairie City-Mt. Cavalry Cemeteries and the LLG Railroad which is now used for the Midland Railway.

One of the houses still standing is a house on the southwest slope of Liberty Hill. It was built by George Miller in 1860 when he and his family came to Prairie City. The house was named "87" by local teenagers who had trespassed on the property to look at the house and view the two graves located on the southwest of the house. The graves are of George X. and Ignace Meunier. George X. died in 1865 at the age of 1 and Ignace died in 1872, on the day of his first birthday. George was born in 1832 in St. Lawrence County, New York and came to Kansas in 1858, settling in Lecompton. It was there he met Margret Lowery and they got married in February of 1859 and their first child, Adela was born in 1860. George and Margret would go on to have eight more children. George was a stonemason who farmed on 250 acres of land. He would pass away in 1909, with Margret following in 1925. They are both buried in Prairie City Cemetery along with two of their children Julia (1866-1955) and Robert (1874-1949). The Miller plot is marked by a giant stone family marker, probably made by George himself.

The house has been abandoned since at least the 1970s. It's still in decent shape however it is estimated it would cost roughly one million dollars to make livable again. I have been to the house several times, and my most recent time, I specifically went to get pictures. I took pictures of every room and tried to get as much of the essence of the house and I am sure I missed some of it but I need to go back soon.

I originally found out about the house when on a ghost-hunting kick with my friends. We would go out to the house, wander around and speculate around how the children died. When I found the graves listed in the Complete Tombstone Census of Douglas County, Kansas it just said the children died due to the harsh Kansas living. I tend to believe that and don't think there was actually anything wrong with the children. After visiting a couple of times I became interested in what the history of the house and the family was. I am still doing research on the family but I think I have done all I can with the history of the house.

Catholic Mission Ruins

The dilemma I am finding with the history of Prairie City is that it is hard to see if you are not looking. There used to be signs noting Prairie City along East 1575 Road, the Catholic Church Ruins along North 200 Road and the Heber Institute at the intersection of North 200 and East 1575. None of those signs remain and the last one standing is along the railroad tracks and points out the location of the Prairie City store, depot and post office. I was lucky enough to get a picture of the Prairie City-Heber Institute sign but the other signs are now lost.

Another abandoned house near the Miller House.

Prairie City Cemetery is also a good reminder that the town used to exist but it is a quarter mile east of the townsite and some people may not know that a cemetery may exist. I plan on working this summer on getting donations to erect a new sign telling the history of Prairie City and showing a map marking the location of houses, stores, hotels and past streets of Prairie City. I feel that with all the history surrounding Baldwin City with the Battle of Black Jack, Baker University, Signal Oak and Hickory Point, Prairie City is one area that is getting lost in the shuffle.

Playing the System

I am not a Frazz fan. I used to like but over the last couple years it has become pretty condescending and Frazz has become...how do I say this nicely? Kind of a douche. Thinking he's better than everyone else. Anyway, today's strip shows us that Frazz taught the students whose vomit he cleans what the "Native American work for 'elk' is."

According to my research, wapiti, comes from the Shawnee and Cree word waapiti, which means "white rump." No where did I find that wapiti means "big white behind/rump" or that the Shawnee and Cree are the only Native American tribes. Way to generalize, Frazz. Way to generalize.

Nice try, Brutus. Actually, not nice try. Terrible try. No employer would let you do that but I would attempt to use my sick days and basically use them as vacation days. And neither my boss nor HR would be none the wiser.

Not-So Mister Teriffic

DC Comics has announced six new titles for the second wave of the New 52. New titles include Batman Incorporated, Earth 2, Dial H, Worlds' Finest, G.I. Combat and The Ravagers. But with these six titles comes the cancellation of six original New 52s. Men of War, Mister Terrific, OMAC, Static Shock, Hawk and Dove and Blackhawks will be coming to an end.

The only one of those titles I read is Mister Terrific because I like the character and it had a Justice Society connection that wasn't even mentioned during at least the first five issues. But what got me about Mister Terrific was that, unlike most of the other New 52 series, you never heard anything about Mister Terrific. In fact, with the exception of Men of War, OMAC and reading about Rob Liefeld's terrible art in Hawk and Dove, none of the titles being canceled made the rounds at the many comic blogs out there. I don't recall reading anything about Mister Terrific except someone complaining about how Power Girl was reduced to being Mister Terrific's girlfriend. I also saw something about how the backgrounds were being done by computers instead of an actual artist starting with issue #3, which is about the time most of the other titles ran into artistic troubles.

So how would I have handled Mister Terrific? Mister Terrific is the third-smartest man in the world and really, really rich making him essentially Batman without all the darkness. I would have explored how Mister Terrific is different from Batman and, if allowed, explored his possibly having a bigger role in the new universe and that may still happen as Earth 2 is supposed to feature the Justice Society, which Mister Terrific was once a member of, and Worlds' Finest features Huntress and Power Girl trying to get back to Earth 2 so Mister Terrific may play a big role in these titles as well.

Mister Terrific and the others will end with issue #8 in April.

"You're eating a salad for lunch? How could you do something like that? I mean, I just can't comprehend how you can be doing this! Are we in the Bizarro World or something. A salad?!"