Building 920: Much, much more than just "Really unfortunate"! (Updated, 03/26/2019)

The March 6 edition of our local newspaper, the Parsons Sun, included an eye-opening, front-page color photo-supported article titled, “Blaze hits Great Plains building.” A very important reminder of fire’s destructive potential and the special challenges faced by firefighters during freezing temperatures.

As reported, half of Building 920, an approximately 50,000 square foot facility at Great Plains east of Parsons, was a total loss from an accidental fire the evening of March 4. As a matter of perspective, Bob Wood, Great Plains board chairman, reportedly stressed, “It was one of the best buildings that we had at the plant. It’s really unfortunate that we’ve lost it. It’s a big loss.” Mr. Wood also noted that the lessee of Building 920, Parsons Fertilizer, “wants to continue work with Great Plains”; “we have other buildings”; and “the board will continue to support the company.”

Respectfully—the reported loss of half of the relatively massive Building 920 facility is much, much more than just “really unfortunate.” For what has been lost, as reportedly the result of an accidental human-caused fire, is a structure left standing after years upon years of prior Kansas Army Ammunition Plant operations. An array of heavily human-intensive operations that once supported World War II; the Korean War; Vietnam War; Gulf War; and more recent Global War on Terrorism; etc. A Building 920 facility that after some 77 years was, until the evening of March 4, 2019, still available to support important job-creating efforts for Parsons and surrounding area.

Therefore, before the file is closed on this matter, those having a vested and/or otherwise community interest in the activities of Great Plains are clearly due further review and public reporting that, as a minimum, addresses the following concerns:

(1.) In keeping with the reality that “accidents don’t just happen, they are caused”—what corrective and preventative safety measures have been taken to ensure, for example, that other “best buildings at Great Plains” are not hereafter destroyed by other accidental fires?

(2.) The source of funds used in past and future-planned Great Plains Board support of Parsons Fertilizer?

(3.) Further public explanation of the reported “loss”—e.g., regarding the monetary value, insurance coverage, ownership status of the Building 920 facility, and specifically “to whom” does the experienced fire damage and related expenses ultimately represent a “monetary loss”?

Related Follow-up Notes:

(1.) On March 08, 2019 the above narrative was submitted as a Public Mind article to our local newspaper, the Parsons Sun, but not published. Thereafter, above narrative was put in formal letter format and, on 03/16/2019, U.S. mailed to Mr. Bob Wood, Great Plains Board Chairman, with copies to Labette County Commission and Parsons City Commission.

(2.) The March 19, 2019 edition of the Parsons Sun included a related article titled, “Company hasn’t submitted financial info,” reporting in part that, “Parsons Fertilizer LLC has yet to provide financial information needed to continue its property tax abatement with the State Board of Tax Appeals . . . .”

(3.) The March 26, 2019 edition of the Parsons Sun included a related article titled, “County gets more details about Great Plains fire,” reporting in part that: (a.) the fire was caused when “A worker was pouring fuel in a generator and spilled it, . . .”; (b.) Parsons Fertilizer leased 48,539 square feet of space in areas 903, 904, and 920 . . . as was reported by the Sun in 2017 when the lease was announced; (c.) Parsons Fertilizer received a 10-year property tax exemption and was to file paperwork with the county to start the second year of that exemption but the paperwork was not completed; (d.) feedback from March 11 inspection of site by a Kansas Fire Marshal and Sheriff’s Deputy is still pending; (e.) as the result of the fire, the site is now contaminated with friable asbestos, a health hazard for those who would work at the site; (f.) Great Plains Property Manager has sent out Requests for Proposal, due April 4, for site clean-up; (g.) regarding liability insurance coverage, Mr. Bob Wood, Great Plains Board Chairman, reported that Parsons Fertilizer “was supposed to have it,” but “He didn’t have it.”; (h.) Commissioner Mr. Doug Allen suggested a lawsuit to help recoup cleanup cost; Mr. Wood asked that issue be discussed in closed session; but, since third-parties could not attend a closed-session, Mr. Wood said he could call Mr. Allen and discuss issue with him; (i.) “For now, Great Plains will pay for the cleanup.”

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A question that seems worth asking:  When Great Plains pays for the clean-up . . . who's money is being spent?

    —William James Moore     03/19/2019  (Updated 03/26/2019)

"Why Grandpa Carries a Gun" and "A Little Gun History" . . . lest we ever foget!

This is a “Two-Part” Must Read by all who value Liberty and Freedom:

(1.) “Why Grandpa Carries a Gun; followed by (2.) “A Little Gun History.”

Please take the time to read both, and pay particular attention to “A Little Gun History” which is more aptly a crucial “World History Lesson” . . . lest we ever forget.

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(1.) WHY GRANDPA CARRIES A GUN:

A world history lesson . . . lest we forget; and perfect reason why Grandpa carries a gun. Please take time to read this and pay particular attention to "A Little Gun History" which follows.

Why Carry a Gun?

My old Grandpa said to me, "Son, there comes a time in every man's life when he stops bustin' knuckles and starts bustin' caps and usually it's when he becomes too old to take a whipping.

I don't carry a gun to kill people; I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don't carry a gun because I'm evil; I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the World.

I don't carry a gun because I hate the government; I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don't carry a gun because I'm angry; I carry a gun so that I don't have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.

I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone; I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a man; I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.

I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate; I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.

I don't carry a gun because I love it; I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.

Police protection is an oxymoron: Free citizens must protect themselves because police do not protect you from crime; they just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take a whoopin'!

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(2.) A LITTLE GUN HISTORY:

PLEASE DON'T THINK FOR A MOMENT, THAT THIS COULDN'T HAPPEN IN OUR COUNTRY ALSO!!!

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In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control: From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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In 1911, Turkey established gun control: From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Germany established gun control in 1938: From 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

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China established gun control in 1935: From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Guatemala established gun control in 1964: From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Uganda established gun control in 1970: From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Cambodia established gun control in 1956: From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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56 million defenseless people were rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control.

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You won't see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians disseminating this information.

Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun control laws adversely affect only the law abiding citizens.

With guns, we are 'citizens'; without them, we are 'subjects'.

During WW II, the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew most Americans were ARMED!

Gun owners in the USA are the largest armed forces in the World!

If you value your freedom, please spread this anti-gun control message to all of your friends.

The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either.

SWITZERLAND ISSUES A GUN TO EVERY HOUSEHOLD!

SWITZERLAND'S GOVERNMENT ISSUES AND TRAINS EVERY ADULT IN THE USE OF A RIFLE.

SWITZERLAND HAS THE LOWEST GUN RELATED CRIME RATE OF ANY CIVILIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!

IT'S A NO BRAINER! DON'T LET OUR GOVERNMENT WASTE MILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS IN AN EFFORT TO MAKE ALL law abiding CITIZENS AN EASY TARGET.

I'm a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment!

If you are too, please forward this. If you're not a believer, please reconsider based on these and other facts and not on emotional anti-Second Amendment agenda untruths and distortions of reality.

This is factual history; not the anti-Second Amendment propaganda being shown on TV and shamefully sanctioned by our illustrious delusional so-called “servants of the people” in Washington.

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--- William James Moore (Courtesy of Jim & Helen Lorenz, JD’s Gun Shop, Parsons, Kansas)

The Ever-Growing Arsenal of the Radical Political-Left

The Radical-Left’s U.S./liberty-destroying arsenal continues to be ever-growing. Among their latest sought after weapons—a voting age lowered to 16.

You know . . . that once assumed “impervious” and “knowing-it-all” age, when I (and likely a sizable number of others) were actually consumed with terminal cluelessness and an overabundance of often publicly revealed irresponsibility. That exceptionally hormone-driven stage of youth; “five-years-younger-than” the golden age of 21, which state after state and city after city still today declare to be the mature enough age to then purchase tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, or a rifle or pistol, etc. And, even two years younger than the age permitted to join the military without parental consent.

Yes, in keeping with the Radical-Left’s unrelenting battle for “votes” to preserve positions of self-serving power, influence, and control—we must now add the “Voting Age of 16” to their already over bloated vote-assuring arsenal.

A Radical-Left sustaining arsenal already including such weapons as, to cite but a few: open borders, uncontrolled immigration, illegal alien drivers permits, political correctness (denial of truth), racist-labeling, victimhood, deserving, entitlement without contribution, income inequality, climate change, socialism/communism, un-inclusiveness, counselor staffed safe-spaces for offended youth, taxpayer funded pet puppies/kittens for over-anxious students, liberal-biased educational institutions, liberal-biased news media, liberal-biased “deep state” of Washington DC career bureaucrats, and the anti-conservative policies and blocking algorithms of Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Not to mention the host of taxpayer funded “Freebees,” such as: food, clothing, housing, healthcare, transportation, smartphones, Internet access, legal representation, etc.

Therefore, ranking most high on the scale of delusion and irresponsibility would be any move on the part of America’s so-called adults in the room, to turn the fate of our country over to our nation’s immature youth, by way of our nation’s elections or otherwise.

Generations of youth who, for example, in unsettling numbers, actively engage in shouting down the free speech and rightful expression of others who they disagree with. As many have been led to believe that the preservation of their liberty and freedom rests with fascism, socialism, and communism. While growing numbers march in the streets demanding delusional protection from “climate change”—as in ignorance they turn their heads away from the real threats posed by nuclear weapons, radical-militant Islam, Sharia law, female genital mutilation, socialism, communism, the anti-U.S. governments of Iran and North Korea, corruption in our U.S. government, and liberal-biased educational institutions that fail to help prepare America’s youth for the realities of life.

Realities including, for example, the fact that criminals, terrorists, and others hell-bent to do harm to others could care less about laws, gun-free zone signs, or about offending someone. As well as other inescapable realities, such as, nothing is ever truly “Free”—because someone, somewhere, somehow, at some point in time, must ultimately do the “paying” . . . even for one’s precious liberty and freedom, now too often abused and dangerously taken for granted.

It seems Abraham Lincoln was unsettlingly prophetic when reportedly stating, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

                                                 —William James Moore 

Personal Responsibilty---at what age?

The March 05, 2019 edition of our local newspaper, the Parsons Sun, included an informative front page article titled, “City makes tobacco 21 more restrictive.” In which it was explained that on March 04 the Parsons City Commissioners voted 3-1 to eliminate exemptions in an ordinance that made it illegal for most people under 21 to buy tobacco or vaping liquid.

Adding but another chapter, so-to-speak, to the city’s seemingly never ending struggle to define to the satisfaction of all, the “age of personal responsibility” within the city limits. A no doubt well-intentioned struggle by all concerned, that none the less appears to have to date unduly discounted or minimized some meaningful perspectives, such as:

(1.) Within referenced Parsons Sun article is one City Commissioner’s acknowledgement that “. . . adulthood starts at 18 and the city shouldn’t take away an adult’s rights.”

(2.) The Twenty-sixth Amendment prohibits the federal government from using age as a reason for denying law-abiding citizens, at least 18 years old, their right to vote;

(3.) Our nation (including the city of Parsons) permits our law-abiding youth to join the military at age 18 (and at age 17 with parental consent);

(4.) The State of Kansas, for example, allows our youth, after reaching age 15 and having held an instruction permit at least one year, to apply for a restricted driver’s license; and at age 16 and a half to be issued a full license; and without parental consent take on the responsibilities of marriage at age 18.

Some seem to find logic and peace of mind in our law-abiding youth being “old enough” to drive a potentially deadly vehicle; vote in our nation’s elections; be put in harm’s way in our military; and get married—but not “old enough” to purchase and/or possess, for example, a hand gun, rifle, alcoholic drinks, or tobacco products.

Some feel otherwise. Some continue to ponder if it is truly age 21 (or ever), when many among us become able and willing to demonstrate good judgement regarding use of tobacco products, or in making other of life’s many choices, especially those affecting not only one’s self, but also others.

Personally, I have found that most if not all of my most poorly executed judgements were not carried out when I was 15, 17, 18, etc.—but after reaching so-called adulthood. And, looking around, it seems clear that my experience is by no measure uncommon.

Somewhere in our quest to control human behavior, is an often muted cry for common sense to prevail. 

                                                            —William James Moore