Louisiana elects a Band-Aid, buys a little time

A New Orleans blogger apologizes for saying Louisiana governor-elect Bobby Jindal was "a right-wing nut job." He, apparently, should have said Jindal "seems like a right-wing nut job."

Well, we all have our opinions. And calling somebody a nut job, in the realm of politics, is definitely a venial sin.

Me, I think -- looking south from up here in Omaha, Neb. -- that Jindal might be a lot of things, but "nut job" isn't one of them.

I am not a right-winger, and I'm not even a Republican. The last New Deal Democrat standing . . . maybe.

BUT IF YOU ASK ME -- which you haven't -- Louisiana is in such bad shape that I don't think standard politics, or standard political thinking, cuts it anymore. I mean, I pretty much deplore how Jindal toes the Bush party line in Congress on many things. And I say this as someone who's the oddest of political birds, the Socially Conservative Political Progressive.

Jindal, however, passed the Who'll Run Louisiana Test on three counts:

1) He has a brain . . . and something of a plan,

2) He has a strong reputation of not being "ethically challenged," and ran on an ethics-reform platform,

3) He's not your typical Louisiana knuckle-dragging, good-ole-boy incompetent.

IN THE SHAPE LOUISIANA'S IN, that's all that matters.

The Crescent City blogger (Editor B, whose site I greatly enjoy, by the way) is disturbed by Jindal's seeming support for the "intelligent design" approach to "origin studies"-- which, by the way, is distinct from "creationism" ("science" slathered over a literalistic approach to the Genesis account of creation).

I can appreciate how that might be of interest. On the other hand . . . so what? As a Catholic, I (with my Church) am agnostic on how God created the universe and life on earth. If scientific evidence points toward evolution over billions of years, fine.

(My problem with "intelligent design" isn't that I think it ultimately is untrue, it's that I think it's philosophy, not hard science.)

BUT I DIGRESS. "Intelligent design" isn't an issue, because it's not gonna be taught (the courts will see to that), and Jindal has bigger fish to fry than trying to make it so.

The bottom line is whether Jindal can make any difference in bringing effective governance to what pretty clearly is a failed state. The problem with Louisiana is the same as it was 140 years ago (and more) -- a deeply deviant civic culture.

Simply, Louisianians have had serious, serious problems figuring out this self-governance thing ever since Thomas Jefferson bought the place and imposed democratic rule. Louisianians, I am ashamed and sad to say, have had serious, serious problems in crafting government capable of fostering an overall standard of living on a par with the rest of the First World.

FOR A WHILE NOW, I have referred to my home state as high-functioning Third World. And New Orleans might not even be that.

In a situation as desperate as that, all the fine points of political haggling go out the window.

There is no such thing as a messiah in politics, but Louisiana simply has no chance whatsoever (and it is down to its last chance before descending to some sort of permanent American Chechnya) without a critical mass of competent, visionary and honest leaders.

I think Jindal came closest to that standard, and I'm glad that Mitch Landrieu will keep his job as lieutenant governor. Frankly, faded country-music star Sammy Kershaw would have been an embarrassment the state hardly could have afforded.

BUT EVEN WITH SOMEONE like Jindal as governor, I think the state still faces extremely long odds. And I think I've found the near-perfect "little story" that illustrates the "big story." (You've heard this before, but it's worth repeating over . . . and over . . . and over again.)

Go to these links:

* Home is where the heartbreak is

* More scenes from 'America's next great city'

* Disbelief in Omaha, or No Frame of Reference

* When we let our kids' schools deteriorate into dumps, is it a human-rights violation?

THESE POSTS contain pictures of my alma mater, Baton Rouge Magnet High, that I took last month when I was back home on vacation. I suspect there are schools all over Baton Rouge -- all over Louisiana -- that don't look much different.

This doesn't look like the United States. This looks like a rural school in a poor Chinese province -- I know; I just saw one last week on the NBC Nightly News. That poor Chinese school looked like a tiny version of Baton Rouge High.

What does it say about Baton Rouge, or Louisiana, when conditions most American communities would deem unfit for stray animals are thought to be perfectly OK for children? And when such has been deemed OK for children for a very long time?

After all, it takes a couple of decades of complete neglect for a school to turn into the kind of dump BRMHS is now.

Trust me. When I graduated from Baton Rouge High in 1979, it was the nicest public school I'd ever attended. (My entire school career was spent in Baton Rouge.) Back then, BRMHS was nice. All the other public schools I'd gone to were varying degrees of dumps.

Now, this is what the city's "flagship" public school looks like.

And this is exactly what a failed state looks like.

If the electorate doesn't care any more than that for public-school children -- for their own children, and for the children of every family that can't afford private school -- all is lost.

BOBBY JINDAL CAN'T FIX THAT. He can't make Louisianians give a damn or even pretend like they belong to a functioning civilization. Only Louisianians themselves can do that.

But until they do, Jindal is the only slim hope of even postponing the day when the rest of the country gives up on Louisiana for good.