St. Louis just hit the $1.5 million dollar jackpot with money to make jogging trails…or possibly more adequately named: muggable surface area. Any new paths for people to walk, unguarded, in to shady areas with iPod strapped to their arms sure makes things easy, which can only help St. Louis’ single largest export: People that don’t want to live here anymore. Cha-ching!

Nixon said he had no problems allocating funds for trails in tough economic times for the state. The money is from competitive federal grants, he said.

“The economic challenges and budget constraints don’t mean Missouri isn’t going to continue to compete and reward excellence, whether it’s in schools, police or parks.”

…and out of that list, you chose to help the parks?! …which actually were already pretty nice. Our police can barely keep the lights on despite the fact that Governor Nixon still wants to control them, for some reason, and our schools are so bad, transfer students are forgetting how to read soon after arriving.

Yeah, this is a great plan. Thanks Governor Nixon! You’re like that dead beat dad that shows up every once in a while to look like a hero only to give you $15 bucks stuffed in a card for your birthday, and when you tell him you don’t want to have him be in charge of making sure  you make it to soccer practice, he gets all pissy about it and then still forgets to pick you up every Tuesday.

via STLToday and our tipster!

mjschultz, a user on the popular news sharing site Reddit, that happens to have a pretty great little St. Louis section, decided to put together a handy little iCal Calendar for easy importing in to whatever it is you use (Google Calendar, Apple iCal, your 5 year old flip phone) so you won’t miss any of the cool stuff that goes down in Forest Park.

I’m not sure how many people are interested in this, but I’ve made an iCal calendar file from the official list of events in Forest Park. It isn’t perfect, but neither is the input file. So you can use either the iCal Calendar File [or the] RSS Feed

Great work on a fantastic idea!

…we noticed that the calendar is missing the “running of the bums that ask joggers for spare change despite the fact that no one that jogs carries any money on them” but we’re not picky since that isn’t an “official” event.

via Reddit

St. Louis is being attacked by lightning! …Is there some biblical situation going on we aren’t aware of?

First on Monday, two people were struck by lightning. One person, someone STLToday called a “seasonal laborer”, in Forest Park by the Jewel Box and the other Chouteau.

A seasonal laborer was reportedly struck at the Jewel Box in Forest Park, Capt. Michael Pickett said. The worker was conscious and alert when paramedics arrived but was taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital for evaluation. Pickett said it appeared to have been a secondary strike that may have hit the ground first.

[A] man, 54, who was working on a building at 2017 Chouteau Avenue. The man was using a rotary tool that touched a water pipe during a lightning strike, Pickett said.

Just yesterday, we learn of the news that our town’s beloved City Museum has been damaged by a lightning strike (move  your lookin’ balls right)!

What the hell is going on? Have the St. Louis brass jailed some greek god’s mortal son? Have we angered the man upstairs in some way?  We sacrificed our classical music station for you! What more do you want dammit?!! What’s that? …You want another sacrifice? You want the perfect scalp of KSDK’s Mike Bush? Jesus. Um…I mean “dang”. But God, if you take our Mike Bush who will report the four “good” news stories each night? We’ll make you a deal: KSDK’s Leisa Zigman and KTVI’s Charlie Marlow instead of Bush. You think about it.

Until then, Paul McKee told us to tell you that if you level a few buildings by lightning strikes in North City that would be awesome.

via KSDK and STLToday

A family (not pictured) stumbled across a tied up and nearly dead woman laying a creek bed in Forest Park last week. Though if you ask the Post Dispatch, its clear they think the father was the star of the show here, and even mentioned about 100 times that he is a Boy Scout Master. Who cares? Freaking girl nearly died, why do I care why the people who found her were in the park for? People go to Forest Park all the time, I don’t need each of their life stories.

A Boy Scout leader, his wife and two daughters happened upon a frightening scene this morning in Forest Park: A woman tied up and left for dead in a creek.

At about 7:20 a.m. today, the Scout leader and his family found the woman near Union and Summit drives in Forest Park. She was about 30 feet off of Union Drive in a creek, surrounded by weeds about two feet high, said Joe Mueller, a spokesman for the local Boy Scouts.

A spokesman for the local Boy Scouts? A woman is found nearly dead, bound in a creek bed and our local media calls Boy Scouts PR for a quote? Do we not have cops any more? Did the cops show up and some giant guy in sun glasses and a Boy Scout uniform show up and say, “Excuse me officer, but this is a Boy Scout matter.”?!

The Scout leader and his family were in the park this morning to help promote ScoutQuest 100 in the central fields at a climbing wall. They were helping to demonstrate the climbing wall for a local news program.

Ok so there is a Boy Scout thing going on…to us that seems like a second story, you know, because a woman was raped and left for dead.

ScoutQuest 100 is the 100th anniversary celebration of the Boy Scouts. The celebration in Forest Park will be today, Saturday and Sunday. Thousands of scouts and their families are expected to attend. The event will feature activities from rock-wall climbing to canoeing.

What the hell is this story about exactly? The Boy Scouts now?! What the hell is going on?

Mueller said he has no doubt the park will be safe for the scouts.

Oh well thank god! We now have assurances from the Public Relations guy for the local Boy Scouts that the park is safe. Did this guy get a merit badge in criminal investigations? …did he get another in “Public Safety in Forest Park for June 2010″? How does this make any sense? Has rape and murder become so every day in St. Louis that our local media feels they need to jazz up the violent crime stories so people will read them…maybe do a little “Man on the Street” see what the average guy thinks of public safety in the light of a heinous crime like this? Pretty much what’s going on here.

Police?! Hello?? Can get an update on the actual crime and not a story on an unrelated but adjacent event?

Sex-crimes detectives are trying to find out if the woman knew her attacker and where the attack took place.

Oh well there you go. God I feel better.

Just a thought for whatever police department or youth organization that is handling this, but if you raped and left a girl for dead, “finding” her with your kids and wife as you were checking out the park for your Boy Scout thing would pretty much be the perfect alibi…except when you find her still alive. “What do we have here?…Oh my god! Honey call the…wait. Shit. Let’s come back in an hour.”

via STLToday

Signs!  That’s the ticket…the fix to all our troubles! More signs!

That’s pretty much the reaction of the city when finally pushed to do something about the amazing traffic jams that surround Forest Park every time its nice and above 60 degrees.

After last week’s park congestion, Forest Park, the Missouri Department of Transportation, St. Louis City Streets Department, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the park institutions met to work out a plan to improve traffic flow in Forest Park.

New signage plans are being discussed both on the highway and within Forest Park. These plans are unfunded at this time. The electronic message boards and temporary signs will be used to guide park visitors for now.

If the signs that tell people where to enter and park don’t help, the city plans on changing the signs to simply say “Go Away”.  If that doesn’t get the job done, Park Officials will release 12 homeless black men in to the park near certain attractions to ask for money and scare away all the West County families.

via Globe Democrat