Abandon hope

Here's a bit of Monday's Channel 2 news from home -- "home" being Baton Rouge.

Some other news involved downtown Baton Rouge becoming something of a free-fire zone -- toll so far, two dead, one wounded -- a local school system allegedly in violation of state contract-bidding laws, the question of whether or not Hawker-Beechcraft will up and move its aircraft plant to the city from Wichita, the state's ongoing fiscal nightmare and the ongoing dismantling of Louisiana State University and the rest of higher education.

THIS is what people care about, however, and thus it led the evening newscast:


ABANDON HOPE all ye who enter Louisiana.

Or, as Kenny Rogers says, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away and know when to run."

Forget that lede. Baton Rouge is home in the sense I was born and grew up there. In that, I had no choice. I do, however, retain just enough affection for the home of my youth to be furious at what I observe from the safe distance of 1,100 miles.

And though Baton Rouge is "home," I live in Omaha now -- a Nebraskan by choice for more than two decades. There are reasons for that (see above).

And I am home. Unabashedly, unequivocally and without quotation marks.


UPDATE: Originally had the wrong clip for the second video. That's fixed now.