Fencing Liberty Memorial? Is the Civic Irony Meter on the Fritz?

You need to be a hyped-up brand of clueless to propose a fence surrounding something named for Liberty, but the private Liberty Memorial Association wants to spend $1.4 million to do exactly that. (Yes, these are the same people who reacted to a minor spending cut by threatening to "douse the flame" on the Liberty Memorial.)

To justify their ironic request, they cite a fear that "undesirable activity" could take place at the park. They also claim that "the memorial, as a national historic landmark and home to the National World War I Museum, deserves the protection of a fence." If anything "deserves" fencing, I doubt that Liberty leads the list.

The open approach to Liberty Memorial, when viewed from the North or the South, is one of the visual splendors of our city. For a private group of elites to rob Kansas City of that vista just so they can keep out "undesirables" is an affront to common sense, good judgment and liberty itself.

112,000 Brave Americans

I've written before about my opinions of airline security, but I've never filed an official complaint about it. Yesterday, I read this well-written blog post on the topic, and learned that 112,000 brave Americans have actually dared to complain.

My hat's off to those brave souls. So are my shoes, my belt, and anything else the TSA people feel like telling me to remove . . .