Yahoo News had a piece from People that had dug some digging on one of the accused. According to the piece someone pulled his court records and found a couple of marijuana convictions and a allegation of domestic violence from a divorce proceeding. Being people & Yahoo they covered it in the most salacious way imaginable. Character Assassination at its most vile. It is, at least, original reporting. All that anyone else has done in any of the press that I've seen is go over the details of the indictment again and again.
The details are shocking. If you haven't read it I would recommend doing so. It's from a grand jury proceeding so it's easy to read. It is not those shocking allegations that really interest me though. Those are going to be proven or dis-proven in court. Some may not even be included in the ultimate arguments made toward conviction. Right now they represent the opening salvos in a battle between lawyers. We've all seen enough Law & Order (Original) to know where this is going.
One thing that does interest me is the fact that the State of Kansas had no regulations governing Amusement Parks and waterparks prior to the tragedy at the heart of the court case unfolding in Kansas City. They do now. Partly because such regulations are almost always reactionary. Partly because the victim in the case was the son of a state representative. The latter in my opinion because of our absurd polarized politics.
Ironically the alleged murder occurred at a day where the park was closed to the general public but open to members of the elected State Government and their families. Such occasions are obviously prime opportunity for lobbying. I'm certain such days are used to lobby the State of Kansas into ensuring that the regulations remain such that the parks get to self-regulate. Of course, if they dared build a murder-machine a murder-charge would surely follow. And has. With conviction bankruptcy presumably thereafter. So who would do such a thing? People magazine suggests a pothead might.
I think that the very fact that Schlitterbahn had produced a record-breaking attraction in record-breaking time-frame was only possible with the flexibility allowed by self-regulation. I know the park is pretty small. The huge slide is clearly the main attraction and there is some nearby competition. Across the expressway is an outpost of an indoor water-park chain, Great Wolf Resorts, and across town admission to Worlds of Fun, a Cedar Fair property, now includes admission to Oceans of Fun too.
Schlitterbahn is a concept park. The "lazy" rivers are what set them apart from the cookie-cutter competition. It's a winning concept but they have to get people through the turn-styles and into the free inter-tubes. Sure, word of mouth is great, but having the worlds tallest waterside is better.
No comments:
Post a Comment