Kay O'Connors Secret Diaries

March 28 It's been a nasty month up in the ghetto. Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Carol Marinovich is running for reelection against a man -- several men, actually: Councilman Elmer Sharp, whoever it was who put up all those anonymous but entertaining "No More Marinovich" billboards and David Carson, that brave truth-teller who edits The New Observer. (He hasn't quite been able to get the property records for Marinovich's house in Shawnee -- or is it Prairie Village? Anyway, there's obviously some sort of conspiracy going on at the Wyandotte County assessor's office. They must be handing out fake records to the Star reporters who try to check the mayor's residence.) It's truly a shame they have to make such a big fuss over votes up there. Where I come from, you just say how you feel, and you get elected.

April 3 Marinovich got reelected. There she was, with her husband, judge Ernest Johnson, swearing her in. Then she gave him a hug and a kiss, as if it were a favor he'd just done her. Their relationship just seems all wrong. In my marriage, I'm the heart but Art is the head. With those two, I can't tell who's who.

I will say one thing and one thing only for Marinovich: I can't wait until Nebraska Furniture Mart opens out by the racetrack. Art and I have been looking all over the place for matching plaid La-Z-Boys.

April 23 Shocking developments in the Kansas City school district today, as if anything from that public-school cesspool could surprise me anymore. First the board fires Superintendent Benjamin Demps; then Judge Dean Whipple issues a court order reinstating him. Now, today, the weenie resigns. There he is, weeping on television. Well let me tell you, bub, I have no sympathy. This whole thing wouldn't be going on if kids just had vouchers.

Note to myself: Have Parents in Control send out another fund-raising letter.

April 24 Poor Elma Warrick. Her quotes have obviously been misrepresented. Nobody could be so stupid as to call Missouri Reps Tim Van Zandt and Marsha Campbell "rural, rednecked racists." Elma knows Van Zandt and Campbell aren't rural rednecked racists; they're Brookside communist twinkies. Now everybody thinks she should resign, but at least she's holding her ground, letting everyone know she never said such a thing. I can't believe the media in this town.

April 26 Never mind. Apparently Elma was that stupid. She ought to know that, as an elected official, every little thing she says will be scrutinized to death.

May 24 It's another dark day. Kansas State University scientists have cloned a calf. That's just one more scientific advancement.

June 21 Mayor Kay Barnes should have known better than to ask the Kansas City city council for a strong-mayor form of government. Led by that big teddy bear Ed Ford, the council members made quick work of her idea today. I'm happy that a man's good sense is prevailing over there.

July 30 Lord in heaven, what was Barnes doing in Westport in the middle of a Saturday night? She said she was observing the crowd, but doesn't she know women have absolutely no business being out that late?

August 7 Kansas Citians voted down light rail, as well they should have. What a colossal waste of taxpayer money that would have been. Besides, if women absolutely must go to work -- and circumstances often force them to, I know -- they can just take the bus.

And didn't we conservative women know how costly the Equal Rights Amendment would be? Even without the ERA, Kansas City must pass a sales taxes to provide women firefighters with special sleeping quarters and bathrooms in firehouses! Supposedly, those old, falling-down buildings were infested with cockroaches and mice, but if those women had been doing their jobs down there with dust mops and Lysol, they never would have needed that sales tax. What a mess!

August 20 It's been a terrible day. George W. is in town to talk to senior citizens in Independence tomorrow, but tonight it was all a hush-hush private dinner at the Peppercorn Duck Club with those moderate bluebells Bill and Linda Graves.

Why wasn't I invited?

August 29 I was disappointed this morning to read that the Kansas City Zoo is about to lose its accreditation. One of the big reasons is because its ape house is falling down. Just seeing those monkeys' pictures on the front page reminds me yet again of the Kansas school board's evolution debates. I don't ever want to see my state being the butt of Jay Leno's jokes again.

September 11 Holy smokes! Can't think of much else to write today.

September 12 Somehow I have this feeling that if our morality hadn't been flushed down the toilet, if the homosexuals and feminists and League of Women Voters types hadn't taken over, all this might not have happened. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

September 18 Read in the Weekly World News today that a frog baby was born to a Kansas woman! Maybe there's something to that evolution business after all.