Kindle Your Blog

I notice that none of my favorite local blogs are available on Amazon's Kindle, so I'd like to offer you this opportunity to be read by a wider audience and maybe earn some royalties as well.

How to get your blog on Kindle:

First, go to the website below and get yourself a Kindle publisher's account.  You'll need one even if you already have an Amazon account, but you'll need to use a different password.

https://kindlepublishing.amazon.com/

You'll need a screenshot of your blog that is 800x600 pixels at least.  If you don't know how to do that, hold your Ctrl key down and press the button on the top right of your keyboard that says, "Print Screen".  That will copy a picture of your site.  Then go into a graphics program like Paint, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, etc., and paste it.  You might want to crop out the address bar, etc. Save that picture; that's your screenshot.  Make sure it's under 1 MB.

Next, you'll need a Masthead that will show on the top of your blog when it's read on Kindle.  It needs to be no larger than 430x50 pixels.  Kindle is viewed in black & white (grayscale) so you won't need for this to be in color.  If you need help with this, email me and I'll hook you up  :)

Then, at the Kindle publishing site, log in and click the button that says, "Add Blog".  Enter your blog's RSS feed and the information requested about your blog, upload your screenshot and your masthead, click "Save", and then publish your blog.  It might take a couple of days to get it listed on Amazon.

And there you go!  Promote your Kindle blog with on your website with your Amazon Associates ID included, and you can earn a commission on anything your subscriber may also purchase while at Amazon.  It's a win/win, and certainly worth try.

Forward to the Past

Slowly I make my way through the migration from FTP publishing to hosting on Google's Blogger servers.  I'm getting used to subdomains and DNS changes and CNAMES and the like, things I managed to avoid like the plague in my first decade of amateur online publishing. 

Time to move into the 21st Century, right?

Not really.  I struggled and suffered so with the new Blogger format as a way to facilitate bringing the news of the Nineteenth Century to readers today.  Now, those hungry for the latest headlines from 1870 will be able to access them via their feed readers and so on.  Introducing the new and improved...

1870 was a really exciting time in KC history, if one gets excited about such things.  The Civil War was behind them, the railroads and stockyards were thriving, and horse-driven streetcars were facilitating the growth of a young metropolis which wanted nothing more at that time than to be bigger and better than her rivals of Leavenworth and St. Joseph. But one of the biggest changes taking place in 1870 is the grading of the streets.  In 1870 the city was literally being flattened.  Before the streets were graded, buildings along the road used to sit high upon hills and cliffs.  Here's what Baltimore Avenue looked like, for example:

 

After the streets were graded, that same scene looked very much like it does today:

My favorite thing about the news from 1870 is that I'm typing the words from Col. Van Horn's paper, back when he was running the show.  If you click on his name above, you can learn a lot about one of Kansas City's foremost statesman.  My favorite Col. Van Horn story isn't found there, though.  It was taken from his obituary in 1916, concerning the time when he, as Mayor of Kansas City during the Civil War, left town unexpectedly one day:

When Mayor Van Horn left the city the “secessionists” loudly proclaimed that he had fled to avoid the consequences of his well known Unionist sympathies. But when he returned at the head of federal troops and organized a loyal battalion, becoming post commander of the military post of Kansas City as well as chief executive of the civil municipality, a different tune was heard.

The humorous part of the story extends over into the dual personality of Colonel Van Horn who, as post commandant, cordially aided and abetted the efforts of Mayor Van Horn to maintain peace and order. It is doubtful if any mayor ever received heartier support from the military authorities than did Mayor Van Horn at the hands of then Major Van Horn, post commandant.

One of the greatest services rendered by Colonel Van Horn to this immediate community and to the entire West was his action in bringing about the occupation of Kansas City by Union forces, thus saving not only Kansas City from immediate capture by the Confederates but, in the judgment of impartial historians, preventing the overthrow of Kansas itself and its loss to the cause of freedom. Colonel Van Horn himself always modestly minimized his own part in this series of events, but the verdict of history has long been that Kansas City and Kansas owe him a debt which no possible honors that could have been heaped upon him could have ever measurably repaid.

So enjoy the old news from Col. Van Horn's paper, published daily, Monday through Saturday, as I get around to it. 

Falling in Love with Tony Curtis

Though I am a life-long fan of old movies, Tony Curtis didn't really hit my radar until a few years ago, when I saw this brief video tribute he made to Cary Grant (another of my life's few true loves) for Turner Classic Movies. I became a super-fan that day. Watch this; it's good:


There is an "up" side to falling in love with old movie stars (besides a wealth of cinema classics to be discovered and treasured) ... it gives me more people to look forward to meeting up in Heaven, when my work is done here. Between visiting with my lost loved ones and friends, Sam Lieberman, the Princess of Wales, my ancestors, and a countless list of historical characters and dead celebrities (in that order), I shall be very busy on the other side of the Pearly Gates. It's just as well I will have all of eternity to undertake this.

Rest in Peace Tony Curtis.

Chance meeting

I only saw him once and it was only for a little while. I was trying not to eavesdrop on a conversation he was having with someone else. After a few minutes I gave up the ruse of pretending not to pay attention and I listened, wide-eyed, to his tales of life in the boxing ring. When the conversation was finished he approached me and said, "I've been noticing you. You look really sweet. Would you like to go out sometime?" and I said, "Ummmm.... maybe?" and since I didn't have anything to write his phone number on I handed him a book that I carried around all the time and he wrote his name and his phone number on the front page.

Every time I opened that book (which was every time I needed a laugh, aka, every day) I saw the name and the number and went through the usual should I/shouldn't I routine. To be honest, I was pretty intimidated by the man's size. He was literally a heavyweight boxer, and it showed. 6' 5" and 250+ pounds of muscle. My Aunt Patty would always say, "Call the boxer!" and I can't count how many times I chickened out.

For years, long after the book had been left behind and the phone number (but not the name) forgotten, I kicked myself regularly for not at least striking up a friendship with the guy. Many times I looked for him online. I could always find his boxing stats, but not the person.

Fast forward to modern times.

Baited breath. I define that as the three or four seconds between the time I click on the link that says "Obituaries" until the page loads and I can reassure myself that nobody I care about has gone away.

And there it was. The name written in my treasured old book. The age was right. The nickname was right. I didn't even know the man but the knowledge of his death took my breath away. No mention of his boxing career in the obituary, no mention of the death of a local boxer in the newspapers, but it was him, and he was gone.

And again I kick myself, because I had the chance to be his friend and I blew it.

No doubt he forgot about me ten minutes after he autographed my book, but I never forgot about him, and I never will. When one contemplates their own death, can they possibly imagine how many lives they touched, or how many people will be sad about the world losing them?

Extreme regret on my part.

Rest in Peace Brian Scott.

No Forgiveness, No Mercy

While I've never given a care about Kansas politics, a political ad I just saw on TV shocked me. The candidate, Jerry Moran, is a Republican, a member of the party that constantly panders to and counts on the vote of the Religious Right, yet his message is most un-Christianly. He's criticizing his opponent for supporting amnesty (aka mercy, forgiveness) for undocumented immigrants. Take note of the sharp barb on the wire fence at the end of the video clip:

Now, I never presume to know the mind of God, outside of what is written, so I can speak with confidence and references about the religious perspective of the above political ad.

Here's God on the subject of immigrants:

Leviticus 19:33-34 When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

Exodus 22:21 Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.


Exodus 23:9 Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:19 And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

Here's Jesus on forgiveness and mercy:

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

So you see, we don't need to wonder about how God wants us to treat immigrants, regardless of how they came to be in their new land. And we don't need to wonder about how Jesus feels about Amnesty. It's written in plain English, above.

The "NO AMNESTY" crowd would rather see families torn apart, they'd rather see children who were born American citizens deported to the other side of a border where drug war violence and poverty is rampant, they would like to deny health care to sick children whose parents came to our country the only way they could, they want to deny education to children who grew up in the United States, albeit without the proper paperwork. If the Religious Right, the mainstay of the Republican Party, doesn't speak out against "NO AMNESTY", then they need to start calling themselves the Religious Wrong, because their God and their Savior are very clear on the matter. I guess we will find out after the primary election votes have been counted.

And maybe someday politicians will be willing to take on the root of the "immigration problem," i.e., NAFTA-induced economic disparity and the futile War on Drugs, that cause human beings to flee their homelands in search of the American Dream the only way that's realistically possible for them.