Sympathetic Vibrations | Kansas City of Music

Creative City delegates from 180 cities — including Kansas City — convene in subgroups to share ideas with other designees in Krakow and Katowice, Poland, this week. (Photo courtesy Jacob Wagner)

A few quietly celebrated last fall as Kansas City was officially designated a “Creative City of Music” by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. And though the UNESCO announcement met little fanfare, that hasn’t dampened the spirits of an excited delegation from KC that traveled to Poland this week for the next phase…

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To Preserve the Species, Eat It

one of the bison

A decade ago, Leawood native Amy Dunn was living in Kansas City, Missouri, and selling books at Barnes & Noble. And even though she was apprenticing as a horse trainer, she was no more country than a suburban horse. Her boyfriend, Michael Billings, wasn’t much different. He was a city-dwelling software engineer who also boarded…

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‘We Know That There Are Some Choices That Are Better’

A beach with a visible smokestack in the background

In advance of Earth Day, we hear from Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.” Kolbert warns in her book that unless we change habits soon, the Earth and climate will reach an irreversible point, creating conditions unsuitable for organic life on Earth and starting the sixth extinction. Although grim this tale…

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‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ Backstory

the henning family in California

Ruth Henning couldn’t find the one book she wanted to read. So, like a lot of writers before her, she wrote the book herself. That book, “The First Beverly Hillbilly: The Untold Story of the Creator of Rural TV Comedy,” is a newly published memoir of Henning’s husband, television producer Paul Henning, who grew up…

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