For the past few years, I’ve tried to start out the month of June by reconsidering the concept of “pride” and what exactly it means to me. This year in particular, it’s become pretty clear-cut, since so many politicians and public figures have stopped even trying to pretend to be decent human beings, and they’re now shamelessly persecuting trans men, women, and children.

As somebody who’s not transgender, but has just a basic level of human empathy and decency, I think it’s appalling, disgraceful, and inexcusable. As somebody who’s gay, and who has mostly kept my mouth shut because I can’t and shouldn’t claim to speak for anyone else, I think it’s especially disgusting to see people trying to drive a wedge between trans people and the rest of the LGBQs.

It’s shameless, because they’re using the exact same arguments against trans people that they used against gays and lesbians during the years of fighting for marriage equality. Now they’re attacking people’s identities — demonizing people not for who they love, but for who they are. When a professional flatulating asshole like JK Rowling claims to have lesbian and gay allies, her hope isn’t just to legitimize her own bigotry, but to encourage now-properly-assimilated lesbians and gay men to join in the attacks on a new minority. “Whew, we’re safe. Who can we persecute next?”

Instead, what it’s done is clarify just how cartoonishly empty and meritless the attacks have been all along. They’ve always been attacking people’s identities. It’s always been disingenuous, bad-faith bullshit. And for me personally, it’s made me regret all the times I tried in the past to treat it as if it were in good faith.

Since I came out, my philosophy around gay rights and marriage equality in particular has always been to stand your ground, but extend grace to the people who want to understand. After all, it took me many years to get comfortable with the idea of coming out, so why should I expect anyone else to just “get it” immediately? Don’t accept anything less than full equality at the governmental/societal level, but be patient at the personal level.

At the time, it seemed to make sense. Even after the political issue is resolved, we’ve all got an entire lifetime left to live around each other. Doesn’t it make sense to try and help people understand where you’re coming from, and how it’s just the most basic question of fairness and justice, instead of letting any question of “legislation from the bench” or “forced tolerance under penalty of law” linger in the background, waiting to cause problems again at some point in the future, as soon as it becomes politically convenient for someone?

The obvious problem with that line of thinking: being patient and trying to make sure that people were comfortable with the idea of tolerance is exactly why it took me so long to come out in the first place. For years, I said that I wished I’d come out in my 20s, but for practical reasons. I could’ve had a lot more life experience by the time I started getting into serious relationships. But now, I wish I’d come out in my 20s because it would’ve given me more years to shed all of the impulses that kept me in the closet.

Which of course is one of the key ideas behind Pride. Having the strength of conviction to declare “this is who I am,” without having to first wait for anybody else’s approval. It requires the realization and acceptance that you will never be good enough. The people who want to find fault with you will always find a way to find fault with you. And the people who actually matter will never think of you as just “good enough.”

That means being a person of integrity, standing up for yourself, and standing up for other people who are being treated unjustly. In my case, it means not staying silent because it’s not my place and I don’t know what it’s like to be trans, but speaking up because I know what it’s like to be human. And it is my place, because a lot of cartoonishly unnecessary bullshit is making life worse for several people I care about.

Back when marriage equality was the wedge issue being used to make people miserable for the purpose of votes and money, we heard an awful lot of clowns complaining about the gay agenda being “shoved down people’s throats.” And we’d mock it, because it was obvious bullshit, but also patiently try to explain in firm but easily-understandable language how that simply wan’t true. People want to be themselves and live in happiness, it doesn’t affect anyone else in any way, and they’re not trying to “shove it down your throat.”

Now, it’s been several years since marriage equality and laws against anti-gay discrimination have spread over the United States. And it’s been proven that it was such a complete non-issue that only the shittiest and least-effectual politicians are even attempting to dredge it back up again as a wedge issue. And yet we’re seeing the exact same bullshit arguments lodged against trans people, with the exact same false claims about “protecting children” from people who don’t give a shit about children, and the exact same capitulation from the Democratic party who still treat basic human decency as a political hot potato that they’re unwilling to touch. So I think it’s long past time for patience or grace for people who don’t deserve it.

I think now, if you’re being true to your identity and someone accuses you of “shoving it down their throat,” the correct response is “Choke on it, asshole.”

Taylor Swift now owns “all of the music I’ve ever made,” she says in a letter posted on her website on Friday. Swift has purchased the masters of her first six albums back from Shamrock Capital, which owned them after entertainment executive Scooter Braun sold them to the company.

“All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy,” Swift says. “I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me.”

Swift says she was able to buy back the music because of the support for her re-recorded Taylor’s Versions albums and for The Eras Tour concerts. She also now owns her music videos, concert films, album art and photography, and unreleased songs. “I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now,” Swift says.

Braun took ownership of the masters when he acquired The Big Machine Label Group in 2019, which Swift at the time called her “worst case scenario.” Swift said that “for years” she had “asked” and “pleaded” for “a chance to own my work,” but Big Machine said that she could “earn” one album back for each new one she completed.

Braun sold the masters to Shamrock Capital in 2020 for around $360 million, which is “relatively close” to what Swift paid to buy them back, Billboard reports.

Harry S. Truman would scarcely recognize today’s technological wizardry and business advancements, 80 years after his instrumental role in the Allies’ victory in World War II.

But the former U.S. senator and president from Independence, Missouri, helped lay the groundwork for some of the pillars still fueling the Kansas City-area economy, including components of a defense industry that his successor in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower, warned against in his 1961 farewell address.

Eisenhower, another son of the Heartland, from Abilene, Kansas, acknowledged that the U.S. could no longer rely on an “improvisation of national defense” where the country scaled up to address a threat.

“We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions,” he said. “Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

But Truman had other thoughts when he was in office, said local historian Bill Worley. 

“He viewed his job — whether it was county court presiding judge or U.S. senator or, for that matter, even as president, but particularly while he was senator — to essentially bring in as much business and economic activity to the state of Missouri as possible,” Worley said.

Truman had a hand in many of the large projects brought to the region in the 1940s, including: the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant in De Soto, Kansas, Bendix Corporation in Kansas City, and the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri.

“Because he lived in the Kansas City area, which, of course, laps over the state line, he was interested in projects that would possibly be in Kansas, but would overlap, in terms of workers and that sort of thing, in Missouri,” Worley said.

Around the same time, the North American Aviation B-25 Bomber Plant and the Midwest Research Institute also played roles in the region’s growth.

Many of these businesses have carried forward to today.

The Midwest Research Institute, now MRIGlobal, has expanded its scope internationally from its headquarters near the Country Club Plaza.

Lake City Army Ammunition is the world’s largest small arms ammunition plant.

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And after a series of business acquisitions, Bendix Corp. is now Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies LLC, with its Kansas City National Security Campus in the southern reaches of the city.

While the North American Aviation bomber plant and the Sunflower Army Ammunition plant are closed, their sites are home to major industries — the former bomber plant is now the General Motors Fairfax plant, and a portion of the Sunflower site will soon be a Panasonic plant producing electric car batteries.

Dave Pack is disappointed that the U.S. has ignored Eisenhower’s warning.

He is the board chair for PeaceWorks Kansas City, the local affiliate of Peace Action, a national organization working to end wars and prevent the use of nuclear weapons.

“One of the concerns is the resources it (military-industrial complex) consumes and the inability to use those resources to deal with the real problems in terms of people being fed, housed, and generally cared for,” Pack said. “When you are spending the enormous amounts of money that we do on the military, you limit what you can do to take care of the real needs.”

In 2024, the United States spent $997 billion on defense, which is more than the next nine countries’ spending combined, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which focuses on long-term fiscal challenges for the U.S. and promotes solutions to ensure a better economic future.

“I have often used the term ‘real security,’” Pack said. “Where does people’s real security lie? It’s in their health and in their ability to live in a house and to have food, and the military-industrial complex uses up so many resources that could be used in so many other ways to provide for people’s real security.”

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Winning the War: Recalling the ‘Instrument of Deliverance,’ Pondering the Future of Democracy

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Though Truman advocated for Bendix Corp. to settle in Kansas City, making non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons, he wanted to avoid further use of the weaponry.

Shortly after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Truman told a U.S. senator that, “I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the ‘pigheadedness’ of the leaders of a nation, and, for your information, I am not going to do it unless absolutely necessary.”

He also refrained from using nuclear weapons during the Korean War, though he kept the possibility open to prevent a “major military disaster.”

And in his farewell address to the American public on Jan. 15, 1953, Truman noted that the world was living in the eighth year of the atomic age.

“We are not the only nation that is learning to unleash the power of the atom. A third world war might dig the grave not only of our communist opponents but also of our own society, our world as well as theirs,” he said. “Starting an atomic war is totally unthinkable for rational men.”

Truman’s reticence did not extend to expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal, with many of the non-nuclear components produced at the Bannister Federal Complex, where Bendix Corp. was located.

Today, Honeywell reports that the Kansas City plant produces about 85% of the non-nuclear components used for nuclear weapons.

After 34 years, Bendix merged with Allied Corp., in 1983. Just two years later, the company would merge again, this time becoming Allied-Signal, Inc., expanding its aerospace, automotive, and engineered materials functions.

Allied-Signal acquired Honeywell in 1999 for $14 billion, retaining the Honeywell name.

Gauging the Impact

In just one example of how companies spawned by World War II continue to impact the regional economy, the Kansas City Area Development Council says that the GM Fairfax plant is part of an automotive manufacturing industry that generates about $21 billion in GDP for the region.

The region’s thriving engineering sector — an outgrowth of companies like Bendix and MRIGlobal — is another post-war legacy, said economist Chris Kuehl, managing partner and co-founder of Armada Corporate Intelligence in Lawrence.

“You’ve got these core industries that set up in Kansas City and then spawned other industries,” Kuehl said.

That ripple effect makes it difficult to quantify the current overall economic impact from the industries started back in the 1940s, he said.

For instance, he said some of the engineering expertise might have ended up at Garmin, the Olathe-based company that specializes in GPS navigation and wearable technology. Garmin also does business with the military, Kuehl said.

It is also hard to track the movement of workers who switched careers after being drawn to the region by a company like Honeywell, Kuehl said.

“There are a lot of aspects of that development that go unnoticed because we don’t really connect it with the military-industrial complex,” Kuehl said. “The interstate highway system originated with the military saying, ‘We need better internal transportation.’ Now, we don’t think about it, it’s just the highways.”

The military example illustrates the general effects of a dynamic economy.

“What you see here is that you get an innovation in one company, and then it triggers an innovation in another,” Kuehl said. “You see it all over the country.”

Margaret Mellott is a freelance writer and photographer in the Kansas City area, primarily covering government and education.

The post World War II Left Lasting Economic Imprint in the Region first appeared on Flatland.

Since coming home after nearly 30 years in prison, everyone asks me what the biggest adjustment is. And the answer is easy: the dominance of technology in everyday life. 

As I walk down the streets in awe of the sights, feeling like a tourist in my own city, everyone else has their eyes focused on their phones. They are talking and walking, texting and walking, posting on Instagram and walking. When I’m in a club, I see young women setting up glamorous selfies, while barely talking to who they are with. They are almost like zombies. The only difference is that they are entranced by their phones. 

In other words, while I notice the deep pink of the magnolia trees, the vibrant graffiti, and the little kids’ chalk drawings on the sidewalk, everyone around me is missing it, because their eyes are glued to their screens.

You see, I am still in that stage in which everything is new and fun. Walking down the street is fun. Riding on the metro is fun. Even taking out the trash is fun. Literally, everything is fun…because I am FREE! And technology is not yet the crutch everyone else uses as a shortcut to everything.

Once, when I was still in prison, I was on a call giving my friend some numbers to call for me. He responded in surprise, “Where are you getting all of these numbers from so fast?” I told him, “Where do you think… from my head,” as if he was crazy. I couldn’t fathom how anyone wouldn’t be able to recall their most important phone numbers. He just laughed and said, ‘Man, if I lost my phone I would be dead.” 

And now, I get it. In fact, the other day I accidentally left my phone on the metro and I immediately went crazy. It felt almost like I had left my right arm on the train. But, thanks to technology (Apple’s Find My IPhone app), I was able to sound an alert and it was found by the conductor of the train. I felt giddy with relief. 

One of the good things about my “newness” is that I’m able to recognize both the dangers and the benefits of this rapid evolution of technology. You see, because everyone is so addicted to their phones and social media, they aren’t really in tune with the small joys of life. There seems to be so little real communication. It’s almost like we as a society are losing our social skills. For example, my former cellmate and I have a deep bond because we sat in our cell for hours at a time and just talked. (We had nothing else to do!) This rarely happens out here, because people’s attention span has shrunk, distracted by various types of screens. People in society aren’t listening that deeply. It’s all surface level.

On the other hand, I am blown away daily by all the ways that technology can do work that used to take hours – or that wasn’t even possible to do. While some people warn about the creeping takeover of artificial intelligence, l think ChatGPT is the most amazing invention ever created. I love the fact that I can ask it anything and then tailor the answers it produces to fit my needs. It’s an indispensable tool that I now use all the time to produce slide presentations, develop budgets and tailor grant proposals. Yes, customization is still important, but puts so much expertise at everyone’s fingertips. I call it the great “democratizer.” And, for most uses, it’s free!

The challenge, of course, is finding the right balance between becoming a slave to technology and being a smart user of its benefits. The longer I am out in the world, the more I realize I must find that balance for myself. 

Here is one solution I have found: When I am out with my mother, or someone else important to me, I put my phone on silent and tuck it away in my backpack. Or, when capturing the experience on camera is important, I put it in airplane mode. Everyone who “wants a piece of me” can wait a couple of hours. I challenge you to do the same.

In this video, a writer named Hannah shares an experiment her Intro to Psychology professor ran on her class. Here’s a transcript:

It’s 11 years ago, I’m in a massive university Intro to Psychology class. Everybody in my 250-person lecture is freaking out because it’s the last class before the exams and none of us are ready. Professor says, “you know what, you guys seem stressed. I’m just gonna give all of you a 95%, blanket across the board — but you have to vote unanimously on it.”

He puts the poll on the board. We vote. 20 people say, “nope, I don’t want the guaranteed 95%”.

He puts another poll up that’s just like, why? Option A is: I selected the 95% because I want it. B: I think I could do better. C: I don’t want a grade I didn’t deserve. D: I don’t want somebody else to get the same grade as me even if they didn’t study as much. And all 20 people who didn’t want the 95% didn’t want it for that last reason.

The professor said, “this is the most important psychological lesson I will teach you this semester. I’ve been doing this experiment on classes for the past 10 years and not one class has agreed unanimously because there’s always somebody who doesn’t want someone to have what they have because they don’t think they deserve it. Statistically only 10 of you will get a 95% or above.” Because in life, greed will always hurt you more than it helps you.

This explains the people who are mad about student loan forgiveness. Seems like that 8% is who’s running the country right now.

Tags: psychology

Microsoft is starting to open Windows Update up to any third-party app that needs to be updated. The software giant is now allowing developers to sign up for a private preview of what it calls the Windows Update orchestration platform, that will enable Windows Update to support any update for apps or drivers in the future. It’s focused largely on business apps, but it will be open to any apps or management tools.

Windows Update is largely used to update the core parts of Windows right now, alongside key drivers for devices and even install some third-party management apps for peripherals. “We’re building a vision for a unified, intelligent update orchestration platform capable of supporting any update (apps, drivers, etc.) to be orchestrated alongside Windows updates,” explains Angie Chen, a product manager at Microsoft.

Most apps on Windows are updated independently, using update mechanisms that developers have created themselves. Microsoft’s new Windows Update orchestration platform will let app developers take advantage of scheduled updates based on user activity, battery status, and even sustainable energy timing.

Developers will also be able to hook directly into the native Windows Update notifications, and be listed in the app update history part of Windows Update. Microsoft will support MSIX / APPX packaged apps, and even some custom Win32 apps. Any apps that are part of the Windows Update orchestrator will automatically get future improvements to the underlying Windows Update platform, too.

Microsoft has tried in the past to convince developers to list their apps in the Microsoft Store, where the store can handle updates or developers can continue to use their own update mechanisms. While the store on Windows has greatly improved in recent years, there are still some missing apps and businesses prefer to update their own line of business apps independently.

Microsoft’s Windows Package Manager has also tried to solve some of the problems with installing and updating apps on Windows, but it’s not a widely used way to install and manage apps outside of power users and developers.

Integrating more app updates into Windows Update certainly makes sense for a variety of apps, and it will be interesting to see whether this will be used primarily by businesses or if big developers like Adobe might move over to the Windows Update system instead of a separate installer that runs in the background.