Author Archives: Dwight D. Sutherland, Jr.
Sutherland: The Definitive Craig Glazer Sendoff
I’ve spent some time thinking about the “was Craig Glazer really ‘Harley’” mystery… And I’ve come down finally on the “no” side of that argument after talking with several people who knew Craig well. First of all, the evidence for the … Continue reading
Posted in Dwight D. Sutherland, Jr.
Tagged Bill Nigro, Craig Glazer, Dwight Sutherland, Joe Montana
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Sutherland: The Worst Feeling In The World
In June of 1967, I was a fourteen year old, living with my parents in Overland Park… We were watching the Kansas City Athletics baseball team on television one Friday evening when someone called from the Leawood Police Department. My dad … Continue reading
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Sutherland: KC Mayor Funk’s Wife Gloria Unleashes
G-L-O-R-I-A… Hearne asked me to review Gloria Squitiro‘s new book “May Cause Drowsiness and Blurred Vision.” It’s the first volume of the memoirs by the wife of Mark Funkhauser (hereinafter “Funk”), the Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri from 2007 to … Continue reading
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Sutherland: The Best of Times, Worst of Times: A Tale of Two Hollywoods
Time flies when you’re having fun… Reading the novels of Anthony Trollope, an English writer of the 19th century, one is struck by how different society is nowadays from his era. It’s actually not that remote in time from our … Continue reading
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Michael Lynch: Life Imitating Art
(Now it can be told…Michael Lynch – who died two weeks ago – is a Kansas City native and friend of Dwight Sutherland. He wrote this story two years ago but it was never published owing to a dispute over … Continue reading
Sutherland: Dear Star Editorial Board, Anybody Home?
October 19, 2018 Colleen Nelson Editorial Page Editor, K.C. Star 1601 McGee Kansas City, MO 64108 Re: Star Editorial Board Dear Ms. Nelson: I have been a reader of the Star for over 50 years. With my lifelong interest in … Continue reading
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Sutherland: The Best Gift Ever
When I was 12 years old I stayed home sick from school one time… My mother brought me (along with hot soup and cold medicine) plenty of reading material. I still have the books, which followed me through many a … Continue reading
Sutherland: ‘The Phantom Thread’ – Masterpiece in a Minor Key
After a limited run in Kansas City, what Daniel Day-Lewis has said will be his final film has now been released on DVD… It’s his second collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson as director and with music by Johnny Greenwood, of … Continue reading
Sutherland: Death Star II – The Newspaper of Record’s New Editorial Board
One of the best expositions of the way political journalism can be misdirected towards base ends is George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and The English Language.” It contains the following gems: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful . … Continue reading
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Sutherland: I’d Die for You and Other Lost Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The publication of this collection of eighteen “lost” short stories represents a mile marker-if not a capstone-in the field of Fitzgerald scholarship. As I’ve said in a prior column, finding and publishing an undiscovered work by a literary great can … Continue reading
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Sutherland: The Hypocrisy of Steve Kraske & The Kansas City Star
The progressive mindset has long since taken an adversarial posture to society… In fact, the surest way to establish one’s street cred with other members of the liberal/left is to attack the very legitimacy of our country’s traditions and institutions. … Continue reading
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Sutherland: Thought Police @ The Door (Or At least The Downtown Marriott)
Occasionally you’ll read something so powerful and timely it helps you understand things you only partially grasped before… I previously mentioned an essay by a retired Boston University professor,Angelo Codevilla. In the Fall 2016 issue of the Claremont Review of … Continue reading
Sutherland: Pembroke, The Hilltop, Cool Guys, Class Acts & Ruling Class Heroes (Part Deux)
Every school has what the alums regard as a Golden Age… A period when students, faculty, and administration were working in unison to produce a good education for its graduates, with lasting memories and friendships as happy by-products of that … Continue reading
Sutherland: How Wrong Can You Get, Harley?
I have never claimed to be omniscient in political matters… Although politics is my spectator sport, which I follow the way many people do football, basketball, or baseball. There are just too many wild cards, too many variables that can … Continue reading
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Sutherland: (Democratic) Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
One of the all-time classic Twilight Zone episodes starred William Shatner, as a salesman who had suffered a nervous breakdown on a commercial airline flight… After six months’ confinement in a sanatorium, his wife arranges to have him released and … Continue reading
Sutherland: The Intellectual Roots of Trumpism
There has been next to no explanation of where the Trump Phenomenon has come from as far as its ideological provenance goes… We have seen some commentators dismiss it as a classic anti-intellectual right-wing populist movement, akin to the George … Continue reading
Sutherland: Two Different Commencements, Two Different Countries.
Recently, one of the speakers at Harvard University’s commencement exercises caused a nationwide sensation… A young African-American man from North Carolina named Donovan Livingston, who was receiving his masters degree from the School of Education, recited a “word poem” … Continue reading
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Sutherland: Interpreting Thomas Frank’s “Listen, Liberal”
I heard Tom Frank speak recently at the Kansas City Public Library about his new book, “Listen, Liberal”. I’ve known Tom since 2003, when he interviewed me for his earlier book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” His latest book does … Continue reading
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Sutherland: Living in the ‘Guilted Age’
I have been fortunate enough to hear Tom Wolfe speak in person about his writing several times over the last 40 years. The first time was in 1970, when he gave the Carolyn Cockefair Benton Lecture at U.M.K.C. Wolfe talked about … Continue reading
Sutherland: Fanfare for an Uncommon Man
Two months ago one of the most interesting people in Kansas City was laid to rest after a funeral “fit for a field marshall” (in the words of Alec Guiness from the 1959 classic “Tunes of Glory”)… The life of … Continue reading
