Sunday, September 02, 2012

A thousand miles and a country away


This is the Louisiana state capitol in Baton Rouge.

As you can see, it's roughly the same age as and slightly resembles another of the United States' few skyscraper capitol buildings (below).


This is Nebraska's state capitol in Lincoln.
It's a little shorter, a little cleaner of design and a little older than Louisiana's, but similar nonetheless.


BUT OF ALL
the inscriptions on both states' sky-reaching statehouses, this one on the Cornhusker State's is one you'd never find in a million years on Louisiana's. This sentiment is fundamentally alien to the culture of the latter and, thus, to how it is governed.

You'd also never find a statue of Abraham Lincoln on the capitol grounds in Louisiana, but that's not important now.

Anyway, the thought occurred to this transplanted Louisianian as I was snapping some photos at Nebraska's capitol Saturday. I just thought I'd share because of another thought that came to me some time earlier.

You see, in those 1,100 miles between where I live now in Omaha and where I was born and raised in Baton Rouge lies a night-and-day difference in cultures, concepts of self-governance and -- for all intents and purposes -- countries. All that in a couple of days' drive and a lifetime's worth of mindset.

Funny, isn't it?

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