President Bush came to Wichita yesterday. The ostensible reason was to appear at the dedication of a new Boys and Girls Club building built by a group run by Russ Meyer, former CEO of Cessna Aircraft. The club is one of those community favor things to help soft-peddle the effects of a larger urban renewal project, meant to cut a cordon sanitaire on 21st St. through the old Wichita ghetto. 21st is the main east-west street through Wichita's north side, extending east past Andover and west past Maize. Closer in, it connects Wichita State University to I-135, a stretch that can now be traversed without recognizing that you're in an overwhelmingly black neighborhood. Further developments are planned heading west, offering the same courtesy to predominantly Mexican neighborhoods, with enclaves of Vietnamese. When complete, 21st will be Wichita's "multicultural" business corridor.

What Bush gets out of this is a photo-op with bunches of black children and a chance to rub shoulders with his base. The latter took place at a $500/plate fundraiser for Sen. Pat Roberts, where Wichita's haves got a chance to give thanks to their staunchest advocate in Washington. Given Roberts' critical role in squashing any Senate investigation of Bush's Iraq War intelligence, Bush had reason to give thanks as well. The local media covered the visit as a big deal, even to the point of recognizing local antiwar protestors. The Wichita Eagle caught the spirit: the front cover featured a color picture of Bush surrounded by smiling black kids, while inside they gave half a page to pictures of well heeled white folks lining up for the trolley to the Roberts fundraiser.

Warren Theatres, the big local chain, closed their Premier Palace theatres this week. For the last five years that's been the main place in Wichita to see what they call Art Films -- movies with low budgets and passable intelligence. Half of the movies I've seen in the last five years were viewed there. Supposedly, they'll show some similar movies in their large Warren East complex in the future, but the promise of "one or two" theatres is a big drop from the eight they've just closed. Warren runs all but one of the movie complexes in town, so they pretty much have a stranglehold on the art here. You can chalk this up to the dumbing down of America even if you don't know what's happening to the Premier Palace buildings, but I might as well tell you: they've been sold to a small Baptist church, which currently has 175 members but expects to grow with their new space and more suburban location. When Bill Warren first announced his plans to sell Premier Palace, he cited "higher use" as the reason: he was making money there, but figured the land was worth more than he could make showing movies, so he could sell it profitably and move his business elsewhere. At the time I figured that meant converting the space to a car lot or a mini-mall with some high-end chain restaurants. But this church deal is bizarre, even in its economics. We live in strange, unfathomable times.