Sunday through the camera lens

On a Sunday evening out and about in Omaha, it's fun to take along a camera, because you never know what you'll run across.

Like summer boaters in the Missouri River, as seen from Lewis and Clark Landing downtown.


OR THE TOWERS and curves of the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, which spans the river to join Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa.


Or leisure boats passing beneath you.


Or, as you stand on the Council Bluffs levee, spying the sun beginning to set behind the trees along the Iowa river bank.


You never know when the sunset will turn out to be absolutely spectacular.


Like this.


See what I mean.


Pedal power amid the hoofing-it crowd.


Moonrise over the city.

Sunset over the site of the new downtown ballpark.


And then we make our way back to the car, parked in the lot under the I-480 ramps.


One-half second exposure, F 3.1, 25 m.p.h. For what it's worth.


The view downtown.


And amid more fun with slow shutter speeds, we're headed homeward down Farnam past the lighting-display store. Say good night, Gracie.

I live in Omaha. . . .

I live in Omaha . . .






. . . because it's photogenic.

Lewis and Clark Landing gets the lead out

Welcome to another in our series of Omaha travelogues. This week, it's Lewis and Clark Landing on the downtown riverfront.

Here we have a magnificent plaza and boardwalk perfectly suited for a leisurely alfresco lunch . . . or for a summer music festival. Mostly, though, people just like to chill and watch the muddy Missouri roll past River City.

Lewis and Clark Landing lies between the riverfront's Heartland of America Park to the south and, to the north, the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge across the Missouri River (shown here). Did I mention this is an excellent spot to chill on a summer evening?

THE LANDING also has a large monument to organized labor, centered on a water sculpture simply entitled "Labor." That's fitting.

Omaha has a rich past as a meat-and-potatoes, blue-collar, union-labor kind of Midwestern city once home to several breweries, some of the largest packing plants in the United States and a massive Western Electric works. And the plot of land where the sculpture sits -- indeed, where all of Lewis and Clark Landing sits -- once was home to this (right).

The ASARCO lead smelter operated on the Omaha riverfront for more than a century until it shut down in 1997 as the company faced numerous lead-pollution lawsuits. All in all, I think we'll take the cool plaza over a bunch of lead-belching smokestacks.

We're funny that way here.

It's an interesting dilemma, isn't it? Nobody wants a poison-belching lead smelter in the middle of their downtown, but getting rid of the bad -- pollution and an ugly industrial wart on your riverfront -- also can mean getting rid of the good as well.

IN THIS CASE, the good was relatively well-paying jobs for the working class. A generation before the ASARCO plant bit the lead-tainted dust, Omaha lost its big meatpacking plants on the south side of town -- thus dealing a devastating economic (and, by extension, social) blow to, for one, the city's African-American population.

What was one of the country's more prosperous minority communities now is one of America's poorest. I wonder what happened to the folks who used to work at ASARCO.

Obviously, we're better off with Lewis and Clark Landing . . . better off in countless ways. But you can be sure there's been a cost as well. Ironically, it's been at the expense of labor.

Speaking of "Labor" -- the sculpture, that is -- the piece actually suggests more of a foundry than a lead smelter -- and the real thing still sits a couple of miles or so to the east, in midtown Omaha.

It's not a huge foundry, but it'll do.

AS FOR OUR relatively new Lewis and Clark Landing, it will more than do. "Our." What do you know -- after a couple of decades in exile from the Deep South, I naturally say "our" when talking about all things Omaha.

Which suggests that if I were to -- as Louisianians would undoubtedly say to me from their perspective -- "come home," I wouldn't be. I'd be exiling myself all over again . . . from home.

The cliché tells us "home is where the heart is." Well, it is. And Omaha -- for that matter, the whole of this exotic, diverse place called Nebraska -- has a way of worming its way into one's heart. Of becoming home.

Or, more precisely, Homaha.

Honk if you heart Omaha

When I moved to Omaha in 1988, the first thing you saw driving across the Missouri River into downtown was a lead smelter.

That and some mostly abandoned historic warehouses.

That's not today's Omaha riverfront.

Today's downtown Omaha riverfront is a state-of-the-art arena. And a pedestrian suspension bridge.

And the Lewis and Clark Landing where the lead smelter used to be.

Today's Omaha riverfront also is the Heartland of America Park -- featuring walking trails, boating on a lake, picnic areas, a river overlook . . . and geese. Lots and lots of geese. (And a lonely mink I spotted.)

It really is amazing the aesthetic -- and economic -- progress a city can make when you have the basics for a strong community in place, then add a solid master plan and the civic will to make it happen.

So, I hope you enjoy these photos I shot last Sunday while the missus and I spent a picture-perfect summer evening in one of the city's picture-perfect green spaces.

OK, so I'm a sucker for skyline shots at sunset. And, yes, it's a pretty big lake.

Likewise, I'm a sucker for pictures of kids feeding waterfowl.

And the Deep South is not the only place you'll find cypress trees . . . and cypress knees.

Honk!

The Bob

What I love about Omaha is that if you can't find something to do on a nice summer Sunday evening, you just aren't trying very hard.

Yesterday, a picture perfect day just cried out for taking a leisurely stroll to Iowa. So the missus and I did . . . brand-new Nikon Coolpix camera in hand.

And thanks to the new Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge across the Missouri River, you now can walk from downtown Omaha to Council Bluffs, Iowa, without the hassle of drowning in the Muddy Mo or dodging big rigs on the I-480 bridge.

Plus, you have the extra, added advantage of some really nice views of the Omaha skyline from the Iowa side of the bridge. I've been told this is what Council Bluffs wants to be when it grows up.

Of course, some refuse to focus on the advantages of a peaceful walk to our neighboring state, as opposed to a hair-raising, traffic-dodging, legally questionable scamper across the river on the Interstate.

Or the whole sinking and drowning thing on the river, sans boat.

And I think I really like the new digital camera.

The Omaha Cubs

I think we've just found a new baseball team for the new downtown Omaha Baseball Stadium TD Ameritrade Park.

And it's major league.

ACCORDING to The Chicago Tribune:

After nearly two years of intrigue, the billionaire Ricketts family has emerged as the winning bidder to purchase the Chicago Cubs from Tribune Co. for about $900 million, a source close to the winning bid said Thursday evening.

The family will now complete negotiations with Tribune Co.

The family edged out Chicago real-estate investor Hersch Klaff and New York private-equity investor Marc Utay, a Chicago native, for the chance to follow Tribune Co., the Chicago-based media conglomerate, as owners of the storied yet hard-luck franchise.

The Ricketts family effort, led by Tom Ricketts, who lives in the Chicago area, still has a number of hurdles to cross before taking ownership of the Cubs, including receiving approval from 23 of the league's 30 owners.

Cubs officials have said they hope to have sale completed by the start of the new season in April.

The deal would represent a return to family ownership for the Cubs. Before Tribune took control of the team in 1981, the Wrigley family, founders of the chewing-gum company, owned the Cubs for 65 years. The clan sold the team and Wrigley Field to the media company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, for $20.5 million.

In Chicago, the Ricketts family is hardly as well known as the Wrigleys, or any of the current owners of the city's major professional sports franchises, but certainly that would change quickly for the new custodians of one of the country's best-known teams, as well as one of its most storied stadiums. Along with the Cubs, the Ricketts are buying Wrigley Field, and a 25 percent stake in a regional cable sports network.

The family patriarch, J. Joe Ricketts, grew up in Omaha and started a discount stock brokerage. In the 1990s he transformed the company into an Internet trading powerhouse now known as TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. He is ranked among the world's billionaires, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion. Shares of the company are also owned by his wife and four children.

I THINK THE CUBS will be a perfect fit for Omaha. After all, the ol' cowtown has long experience with crappy baseball teams, most notably the Omaha Royals, Triple-A farm club of the sub-woeful Kansas City Royals.

Compared to that, it's going to look like we landed the World Series champs.

And people thought the new ball yard might sit vacant for much of the year. Heck, just to show the Windy City there's no hard feelings, we'll let the Cubs play in old Wrigley Field when our shiny new stadium is playing host to the College World Series.

After all . . . it's the World Series! Gotta hold on to that.

I mean, it's not like the Cubs will bring one home to Omaha any time soon.

It's not a stadium. It's an opportunity.

Omaha's powers that be -- after long musing about the prospect -- this year finally decided to carpe diem, build a new downtown ballpark and lock in the College World Series for a long, long time.

But now that the ink is dry on the contract and construction is almost ready to begin, it looks like city fathers have just had a "What in the world have we done?" moment and, according to the Omaha World-Herald, decided maybe they've carpe'd more diem than they can chew.

OOPS.

One thing that’s likely to be missing from the final stadium plan is a major commercial area. Though initial concept drawings included shops and a restaurant in the stadium structure, Jensen said concerns about the project’s cost and how often the public would frequent the businesses nixed the idea for now.

That change is a disappointment to Jason Kulbel, one of the developers of the Saddle Creek Records complex near 14th and Webster Streets. He said he is still holding out for a retail area near the stadium along Webster.

He said that’s essential to generating foot traffic, which is what Saddle Creek developers envisioned when they invested $10 million in the area.

“We’re hoping,” Kulbel said, adding, “I feel like we’re fighting the battle of our lives.”
Kulbel said he plans to make that case before Omaha’s urban design review board, which will review the plans at a public meeting at 3 p.m. Dec. 18. The meeting will be held in room 702 of the City-County Building, 1819 Farnam St.

The board was created in 2007 with the help of Omaha By Design to review and approve major city construction projects, thus ensuring uniform design standards. The board, which includes an architect, an engineer, a planner and a citizen representative, could ask for changes in the plans. It must sign off on the design before the city can issue building permits.

Jensen said a small amount of retail space is included in the stadium design. A store at the ballpark could sell team memorabilia, for instance.

However, in developing the final ballpark plans, Jensen said those involved determined that a stadium would be unlikely to draw retailers and feared that large commercial spaces would sit empty.

Condos and loft apartments, on the other hand, draw retailers, Jensen said.

The Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, which runs the Qwest Center, is overseeing the stadium’s design and operation.

Roger Dixon, MECA president, said the stadium plans most likely will be further tweaked before the Jan. 21 stadium groundbreaking.

“What has been filed with the city is the design at this point in time,” Dixon said.

OMAHA, I KNOW times are tough and getting tougher. And that's exactly why now is the wrong time to go all wobbly on us.

You can't have a big stadium sitting in the middle of North Downtown (NoDo), eating up real estate but generating no economic activity for most of the year. That's insane -- but with no retail and no Omaha Royals, that's what you're going to have.

The folks from Saddle Creek Records stuck their necks out to jumpstart NoDo's development and -- to mix my metaphors -- the city is about to kneecap them. This is a game where you're either all in . . . or you fold.

OK, so a full-bore retail development might not be the smartest thing at this time. But the stadium site needs some retail -- and a relocated Zesto's. Seriously . . . Zesto's. The mom and pop hamburger stand is as much a part of the CWS as cheesy organ music and overpriced bratwurst.

But what else might draw foot traffic -- and car traffic, too -- to the new ballpark year round? What might keep the NoDo momentum going in tough times?

How about this? Pick one retailer and make it a larger one. Choose a niche market that's underserved downtown, but one that's wholly compatible with the College World Series. See whether the store could be part of a comprehensive naming-rights package for the stadium.

RIGHT NOW, I'm envisioning Cabela's Stadium with a scaled-down retail store focusing on product lines not featured at the retailer's big-box stores but which could be part of its online catalog -- say one part American Eagle clone and two parts athletic and team apparel. And I'm seeing "Official merchant of the NCAA Men's College World Series."

If the deal is sweet enough, they just might put up the scratch to build it.

The other thing I'm envisioning is even more important to the economic viability of NoDo and all its retail establishments. And, on a grander scale, Omaha itself.

It's all about synergy and joint ventures. Bear with me here, this will take some explaining.

IN THIS NEW MILLENNIUM, we find all our traditional media in a state of upheaval amid a digital onslaught. This isn't necessarily a crisis. Except. . . .

There's this rather large question hanging over the Internet's conquest of all media: What happens to the Fourth Estate as the digital revolution overruns the positions of local television and radio . . . and especially the hometown newspaper? What's the economic model for local media in an Internet world?

How do local media -- particularly news media -- transition to the 'Net and still make enough money to keep the doors open and the public informed? What would become of a city, its civic culture and democracy itself if local news media became shells of their former selves or, God forbid, shriveled up and died?

How could that be good for anybody?

Who, in a coordinated way, is trying to work the problem? Is the working media effectively partnering with academia to, for one, develop new ways of doing journalism and, for another, effectively prepare tomorrow's reporters, producers and editors?

Obviously, the task is overwhelming. There's nothing but bad news on the doorsteps of newspapers today. Ditto for radio and TV stations.

And in a looming age of budget cuts to academia, what school or think tank is in a position to comprehensively tackle the problem?

THE OBVIOUS ANSWER is it's time to put heads together. We need joint efforts. We need cooperation. We need coalitions. We desperately need public-private partnerships.

And if the partnering is done right, there's something in it for everybody.

So . . . what if (for example) the Omaha World-Herald were to join with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Creighton University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Nebraska Educational Telecommunications to form a Midwestern journalism think tank and media laboratory?

What if it became an integral part of the journalism curricula of the three participating universities? What if it became a focus of innovation and invention for an entire industry?

What if it became an unmatched resource for each participating entity, one that would be completely out of reach for any of the partners acting unilaterally? What if it became a source of valuable year-round interns for the World-Herald and NET . . . and precious year-round internships (and practical experience) for mass-communications students from the three universities?

What if that kind of synergy between media outlets and academic institutions became a magnet for the best minds in media and academia? Right here in Omaha.

Fine, now what in the hell does this have to do with a downtown baseball stadium and NoDo development?

I'm glad you asked.

WHY NOT MAKE such a joint-venture institute -- complete with a state-of-the-art digital newsroom, audio/video production facilities and classroom/office space -- an integral part of the stadium site plan? Put the studios where some of the canceled retail space would have gone. Add a satellite-uplink facility, too.

ESPN would love it.

The visiting media would love it.

The NCAA would love it.

Mass-communications students and their professors would love a learning experience as big as the CWS every year . . . on their campus.

Wouldn't the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau love it if, say, not only were there two weeks' worth of televised CWS games live from downtown Omaha, but perhaps two weeks' worth of SportsCenters as well? If you build the facilities, at the stadium, with a built-in labor pool, just maybe they'll come with half the network.

How many millions in advertising do you think that would be worth every year?

And what economic impact, do you think, would a college campus -- and maybe hundreds of students and professionals -- have on NoDo and downtown year round?

I mean, as long as we're building a big, new stadium, why not make it a field of dreams? And new realities.

Why I'm here . . . and not there -- Part 2,378

Below, I want you to take a look at an unremarkable snapshot before someone tucks it away in the Omaha scrapbook.

From the Omaha World-Herald:

Imagine a streetcar ride from downtown to the Henry Doorly Zoo along a transformed 10th Street boulevard.

At 10th and Bancroft Streets, a fountain would be the centerpiece of a new roundabout. Signs would help visitors decide whether to go to the zoo, get on Interstate 80, stop at Lauritzen Gardens or head to the new north downtown baseball stadium. Tenth Street would be renamed Parkway 10.

For now, it's all just a pipe dream.

But it's the vision that was shared Monday by Mayor Mike Fahey, City Councilman Garry Gernandt and a number of south Omaha neighborhood leaders.

The first step toward improving the corridors along 10th and 13th Streets is setting new rules and regulations that will preserve the area's character while enhancing it with new lighting, landscaping and attractive development.

The city now has limited control over the type and look of commercial development along those entryways to downtown.

Monday's announcement in the mayor's conference room seemed to demonstrate that Fahey had made amends with the south Omaha neighborhoods. After months of controversy over plans to demolish Rosenblatt Stadium and build a new downtown ballfield, Fahey stood with many of the people who had condemned him earlier this year.

"All was forgiven months and months ago," said Jason Smith, the former Save Rosenblatt leader.

Even as the Rosenblatt fight raged on, neighborhood leaders and the Fahey administration were simultaneously working on the plan for 10th and 13th Streets.

Fahey said that in the seven years since he and Gernandt were elected, Rosenblatt has been the only issue that caused significant disagreement between the two. They have worked together to improve the 24th Street business district, build the new South Omaha Library and construct the Salvation Army's Kroc Center, Fahey said.

"Support for south Omaha has always been an administration goal," Fahey said. He said he remains committed to "improving the look and feel of the entire city."

"WELL," SAYS ANYONE from around these parts. "So?"

Exactly. Here, we had a fairly boilerplate lead story in today's evening edition about cool things the city hopes to do in south Omaha . . . hand in hand with politicians and civic leaders it, two months ago, battled in a nasty guerrilla war over the fate of the neighborhood ball yard.

Albeit a ball yard that seats 23,000 people.

And you know what else? I'll bet these pie-in-the-sky plans actually come to fruition in a few years. Unlike pie-in-the-sky plans regularly floated in other municipalities of my intimate acquaintance.

Working and playing well with others. It's a concept proven to work in contexts other than bribery and kickbacks.

Baton Rouge: Now I remember why we left

Well, the comments on my "Dear Baton Rouge" post have been, uhhhhh . . . enlightening.

For instance, now I remember exactly why Mrs. Favog and I left, and were glad to do so. And also why -- even though I sometimes get wistful over home -- we'll be moving back over the dead body of my Omaha-born wife.

I can't blame her. I really, really can't. Like folks often say, Baton Rouge is one of those places it's really interesting to be from. . . .

AS I SAID, the comments on that previous post over the past couple of days have been interesting. And they've pretty much convinced me that, once again, my old man inadvertently told the truth one fine day, via one of his typical dyspeptic rantings.

Indeed, when it comes to my hometown, "Dey ain't no hope!" Or so it would seem by the rednecks and wannabe Ku Kluxers who crawled out of the swamps and into the Revolution 21 combox.

Here are excerpts from every single comment, except for a couple of deleted ones from a guy who was getting obsessive and, finally, obscene:

From Colleen:

And now I want to see Omaha. My own home state of NJ had Asbury Park infamously in ruins for a decade or two there, but it is on the rise again. I'm not sure what caused the turnaround but I did hear mention of the real estate trend of "follow the gays." I believe this is also known as "follow the artists," and if you can follow some gay artists to where they're settling, that place should really be booming soon.

From GO:

You nailed that one...Omaha does it with multimillioniare philanthropists, and you're mad because Baton Rouge can't do it?

What you're really mad about is that Baton Rouge doesn't have lots of millionaires...

From GO:

The school systems of Ascension, Livingston, and the private school system in Baton Rouge are THRIVING and getting GREAT MARKS on standardized testing and achievements...The reason? Nobody, not a millionaire, not a middle class state employee, not a married college student with school aged children, wants to send their kids to a system that has been run for FOUR DECADES by the NAACP and a ridiculously senile old judge, acting as a puppet at the behest of the prosecution in a desegregation case...

Seriously...a judge that takes 40 years to decide a case? FORTY YEARS? In the balance was our community's school system...

Do you HONESTLY think anyone with half a brain wants their kids in a system like that? Being run like that? Under that sort've weight?

Oh, wait a minute...NONE OF YOU REALIZED THAT, did you?

(snip)

The community got its school system taken away, and then they realized it might not ever get given back to them...At what point-DURING A FORTY YEAR DESEG CASE-does the community just give up? The judge & the plaintiffs never wanted to give it back...So why dump money and resources, nevermind time and volunteering the resources many had available, to a system that was being run not by the community, but an organization and a judge who were both proven to have smashed it to bits...

The community isn't to blame for our school system...Catholic, Redemptorist, PBS, CPS, Livingston, & Ascension's collective systems and growth are almost DIRECTLY attributable to the NAACP, and that idiotic old bat of a Judge Parker, and their completely inept bungling and gumming up of the works of that system...

From GO:

What we're talking about is how the community lost control, and a motivated (politically? ethnically?) community group held it hostage with quite possibly the dumbest man to ever wear a robe and call himself a judge in history...For 40 years, guv-u-nuh...

That wasn't the COMMUNITY holding it hostage...That wasn't WHITE PEOPLE holding it hostage...That was a judge and a community group.

There is no wrangling, no tangent you can spin off on while raging once again about a machine you want to blame someone else for building...

Own it. The truth shall set you free...

From GO:

So the community is supposed to subject itself to the machinations and the posturing during the case...

For 40 years?

That's what a "progressive" community does in your eyes?

(snip)

What's hilarious is that you IGNORE the fact that the community lost control of its school system. It was no longer their own.

Would you pay a child support for children that aren't your own? Would you pay someone else's car note without being able to drive it?

Of course not...Yet you are excoriating the same community for not passing taxes to fix a system they had absolutely no control over...

No taxation without representation, m'friend...You talked about not escaping, I showed you how the community did exactly that.

From Anonymous:

Two numbers, Omaha 80% white, BR 46% white. No need to post any more statistics.

From jamarco:

You have proved his point. Deseg. and busing really worked? right? Just like mom used to say, "you can't bring your friends up, they will only bring you down". Same goes with the schools in BR. Mamma was right. Now all the public schools in BR are in the same shape. And guess what, the money is still there, in BR. Have you been to Perkins Rowe or the Towne Center? When is the last time you drove down highland road, went into the back gate of the country club of Louisiana by giving the guard a Bigmac? or waited for a table at Louisiana Lagniappe for better than hour, or Better yet have you driven down Airline to Ascension Parish?

If you want to look at some real good numbers look at Ascension Parish. It compares very well to your Omaha.

From Anonymous:

It's not about white flight. It's about a large black population, that is uneducated, unmotivated, and that will continue to vote for democratic politicians who perpetuate the problem for their own benefit.

From Anonymous:

When a city has over 100,000 blacks who are granted majority black districts and elect judges like Don Johnson, and Senators like Cleo Fields, and councilmen like Bones Addison, you are screwed. Just move the hell out as soon as you can, and find somewhere like Omaha or some other western or midwestern state with demographics that don't look like ours, and you'll never regret it.

From jamarco:

you keep losing your own argument. If you live in a place with a broken toilet, and no mater how much money you throw at it just can't be fixed. Most sain people have two options replace the broken toilet (private schools) or move to another place with working toilets (ascension-livingston). Why would you want anybody to live in a place with a broken toilet, I don't. When you look at the racial makeup of omaha, how did the busing work, you took a very small number of black students and bused them to white schools right? and probably closed the black schools, that plan did not work here, we bused blacks to white schools and whites to black schools. I lived it!

From jamarco:

i didn't want to point this out not being a racist and all, but of the ten places taht Kiplinger ranked as best places to live not one has a majority black population.

From Lee High Rebel:

Dear Flavor Flavog,

No federal judge destroyed the Baton Rouge School System. The black "students" single handedly destroyed the Baton Rouge School System. You see they destroyed the physical property, buildings, grounds etc. of the schools that they attended. No one wanted to teach there or go to school there so those schools suffered. Then there was desegregation, and as there nature requires, the black "students" then physically demolished the new schools that they attended. This in turn demolished the spirit of learning in the system and anyone who actually wanted their kids to get more than just a free lunch had to send their kids to a private school or leave the parish. That's how the Baton Rouge school system was destroyed.

From jamarco:

nope, i will be around for awhile, will attempt to leave a bit of wisdom EVERY day, even after you stop posting them. I may even attempt to leave comments on some of your other topics also. And by the way us "rednecks" from the great state of looseiana are coming if LSU can pull it out! I have in the past spent lots of money in your town...and i guess you can tell that I had several black english teachers in highschool and at least one at LSU, so my grammer and command of the English language leaves you wanting...

From KingHueyDeweyLouie:

You must have been a kid when you moved, or else you never lived in Baton Rouge, maybe your wife did, I don't know. A lot of people don't know these things are in baton rouge even people that still live in Baton rouge don‘t. But there are some very small businesses along the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, they are easy to miss, like I said a lot of people don't know they are there, as a matter of fact when one blew up several years ago people thought is was an earthquake...big plants and I don't mean alocasias or colocasias I mean, petrochemical plants! Just sit back and take in some clean Nebraska air (if you can stand the smell of corn, although I understand that a lot of corn is now grown in cotton and sugarcane fields around baton rouge) and imagine the amount of money that is generated by the millage taxes that these buggers pay to the city-parish. By the way I don‘t think the $75,000 homestead exemption applies. So there is a lot of tax money in baton rouge. As a side note, Jamarco calls it as he sees it, you shouldn’t resort to name calling and making fun, he types fast and he slept through most of his English classes, I know, I wrote most of his papers. And by the way, he is not a redneck, he hasn’t been on a tractor in years and he doesn’t cut his own grass, some guy named Pedro does (now he really is a redneck).

From Lee High Rebel:

The truth isn't hatefulness or kindness, it's just the truth. I watched the truth unfold from 7th grade through 12th grade. Now I make my money in the construction industry rebuilding and repairing the damage that is done to the schools by the "students", and I'm good at it. I wouldn't be where I am today without those little demolition experts, God bless them.

WHAT'S INTERESTING (and troubling) is that racial scapegoating erupted from something as simple as my making a point about how Omaha, a city with many similarities to Baton Rouge, really has made remarkable progress in the time I've lived here -- such progress that it's being noticed nationally, and is appearing in lists of "best cities."

Really, how do rants about the injustice of school desegregation logically arise from my noting that in many respects, Baton Rouge -- my hometown -- still struggles, and that the difference lies in the realm of "civic culture"?

I opined that Omaha has an extremely strong one, and Baton Rouge . . . not so much. Likewise, I noted the rundown condition of my alma mater, Baton Rouge Magnet High, and the existence of large tracts of crumbling and blighted property -- the old Bellemont Motor Hotel, for instance.

Many things I might be, but naive isn't one of them. I fully expected that lots of Baton Rougeans would be angry that I'd "dissed" their city. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if lots of Baton Rougeans gave me the Scott McClellan treatment, calling me a disloyal little rat who hauled butt, then dumped on my hometown in front of damn Yankees and everybody.

Of course, if you're gonna crack on me for leaving Louisiana, and if you're going to be fair about it, you're going to spend the rest of your life ripping me and a few hundred thousand other folks a new one. And you -- to your dismay -- will find the list is an ever-growing one.

ANYWAY, all this I would have expected.

What slightly surprised me, but oughtn't have, was that after the first positive comment, not only did things go negative and nasty, but that the unifying theme was that Baton Rouge's problem is as plain as black . . . but not white. That Baton Rouge would be just fine if it weren't for federal judges, the NAACP and a city-swamping Negro menace that has destroyed the schools and God knows what else.

Really. That's the gist of people's complaints . . . that I'm some sort of Yankeefied turncoat who just refuses to see that Baton Rouge sucks because it's no longer white enough. The bile lies pooled above, for you and all the world to read.

Now, the question remains regarding how representative these comments might be. After all, this is the Internet. Throw a news story or a blog post out there on the Information Superhighway, and it's going to attract combox nutwagons like a windshield attracts love bugs.

But still. You also can count on a fair number of reasoned, and reasonable, respondents along the road. Everywhere but here . . . when the conversation turns to what's wrong with Baton Rouge (where I used to live), what's right with Omaha (where I now live), and what the former might be able to learn from the latter.

The law of averages tells me this is a fluke. Having been born and raised in Louisiana tells me I shouldn't be surprised. And William Faulkner tells me that, in the South, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past."

SO SHOULD I BE surprised that, two decades since I last lived there, my hometown -- at heart -- is still a churlish little backwater, riven between black and white, unable to work and play well with others but (as always) hiding behind a delusional "Laissez les bon temps rouler" façade?

Ought I really be shocked, shocked that the reality of Baton Rouge might, to a large extent, hinge on a critical mass of bitter little George Wallace wannabes who -- though rendered incapable by the feds of literally standing in the schoolhouse door and proclaiming "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!" -- still find it within their means to segregate themselves in white-flight schools and in comparatively white communities . . . to hell with the commonweal?

To tell you the truth, that's as good an explanation as any for a state where Medicaid, social services and education (both higher and elementary-secondary) are always the first things the budget ax whacks. It's as good an explanation as any for a school system going from something like 67 percent white to 83 percent black in 28 years.

And that looks like a likely culprit for why not only did voters not approve any school-bond issues for three decades, but also for why no one cared enough to hold "the bad, awful school board" accountable for its actions . . . or inaction . . . or outright abdication of its responsibilities. Or whatever.

While I'm thinking of it, do murders in the 'hood -- unless they're especially grisly or sensational -- still end up reported as briefs inside The Advocate's Metro section, while slain white folks more than likely end up on a section front? Just asking.

Mayor-President Kip Holden likes to refer to Baton Rouge as "America's Next Great City." Really? What I see in my comments box, the abject dump I saw when I visited my alma mater and the plethora of rundown and abandoned properties any traveler will see surely suggest that the good mayor might suffer from "America's Next Great Disconnect From Reality."

ONCE AGAIN, as Abandoned Baton Rouge blogger Colleen Kane -- a New Jersey transplant -- so reasonably asked at the end of one of her posts on the ruins of The Bellemont motel, "Baton Rouge, kindly explain thyself."

I don't pretend to know how Baton Rouge would explain itself. All I know is how I would explain it, as someone who was born, raised and educated there. And as someone who worked there, then moved away from there.

But I do know how a lot of folks in these parts see my home state . . . and my hometown.

They see it as an exotic, bizarre and fascinating place they wouldn't mind visiting. But no way in hell would they want to live there.

Sadly, I can't say that I blame them. Because, when it comes right down to it, neither would I.

You're illustrating my point, Baton Rouge

My readers in Red Stick write, and one illustrates my point so well that I just cain't hep mahsef but to pull that sucker out of the combox and make a post out of it.

REALLY, perhaps there's something in what belches out of the Exxon refinery and chemical plant that acts on neurological function or something:

GO said...

What's hilarious is that the readership of this blog are-once again-putting on display an absolutely dazzling lack of perspective, and ONCE AGAIN bemoaning problems, without wondering about either A.) Solutions, or B.) The context within which these problems sprung up.

The school systems of Ascension, Livingston, and the private school system in Baton Rouge are THRIVING and getting GREAT MARKS on standardized testing and achievements...The reason? Nobody, not a millionaire, not a middle class state employee, not a married college student with school aged children, wants to send their kids to a system that has been run for FOUR DECADES by the NAACP and a ridiculously senile old judge, acting as a puppet at the behest of the prosecution in a desegregation case...

Seriously...a judge that takes 40 years to decide a case? FORTY YEARS? In the balance was our community's school system...

Do you HONESTLY think anyone with half a brain wants their kids in a system like that? Being run like that? Under that sort've weight?

Oh, wait a minute...NONE OF YOU REALIZED THAT, did you?

Otherwise, I'm sure such a germane and illuminating point would've been brought up by people who seem to be most adept at COMPLAINING ABOUT a problem...

We had issues that created a completely different context to complain about this problem...

The minions of the NAACP & a completely inept judge kept the school system under a consent decree for FORTY FREAKING YEARS...You think that might have people at the Capital and folks in the community turning a deaf ear or blind eye to its plight?

Who wants to try to help a system that's basically imprisoned by folks who purport to be after the best interest and the better angels of our nature, but clearly did far more harm than good...

I mean, its REALLY REALLY REALLY easy for all of you to sit here and complain about the state the system's in, but who wants to send their kid into it? None of you did, none of you would, most of you will try your best...

Without context or an actual grasp of WHY the system came to be where it did, how in the world can any of you with a straight face talk about how sad a situation its in...

The community got its school system taken away, and then they realized it might not ever get given back to them...At what point-DURING A FORTY YEAR DESEG CASE-does the community just give up? The judge & the plaintiffs never wanted to give it back...So why dump money and resources, nevermind time and volunteering the resources many had available, to a system that was being run not by the community, but an organization and a judge who were both proven to have smashed it to bits...

The community isn't to blame for our school system...Catholic, Redemptorist, PBS, CPS, Livingston, & Ascension's collective systems and growth are almost DIRECTLY attributable to the NAACP, and that idiotic old bat of a Judge Parker, and their completely inept bungling and gumming up of the works of that system...

YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, CAP. It's all the nigras' and da gummint's fault.

And you think it's acceptable that people ought to pay multiple thousands of dollars to "escape" the educational suck? To pay for separate but unequal school systems? I've got news for you.

You. Can. Not. Escape. It.

Every day and every way, you can't escape it, and Baton Rouge can't escape it, and Louisiana can't escape it.

The story is in an illiterate-ass workforce that Corporate America won't touch with a 10-foot bullfrog gig. The story is in a sky-high crime rate.

The story is in high insurance rates, and in spending more, more and ever more for prisons and cops.

The story is in jobs across the trade- and service sectors being filled by people who are manifestly unqualified to do what they're doing -- and it shows in the lousy service you encounter day by day.

But -- Hey! -- the white-flight schools are doing well.

And Louisiana is emptying out.

You know what, I went to legally segregated schools in Baton Rouge until fourth grade, when the court ordered the "neighborhood schools" plan as a deseg remedy. And I'm here to tell you that the East Baton Rouge Parish public schools were just as full of violent little dumbasses when the only black faces you saw were those of the janitors and the lunchroom ladies.

And the two black kids at Red Oaks Elementary caught hell from everybody. Most especially from the teachers.

Likewise, you seem to assume that Baton Rouge was the only city to ever endure a decades-long deseg case. You need to get out more.

Lots of cities did, including Omaha.

The difference is that it took a dysfunctional backwater like Baton Rouge to f*** deseg up that badly.

Congratulations. You're now New Orleans. Without the Quarter, or the streetcars, or the brass bands, or the second lines through the neighborhoods.

You must be so proud.

Thanks for writing. You illustrate my point so very well.

Dear Baton Rouge: I've been trying to tell you

If you're in my hometown, Baton Rouge, and if you haven't already gotten all pissed off and stopped reading this humble web log. . . .

I told you so.

I TOLD YOU that if you want some clues about how one goes about fixing Baton Rouge, come to Omaha. Similar size metro area . . . college town . . . transportation hub . . . had a downtown that was sucking air two decades ago.

And now, look at this best-cities ranking in Kiplinger magazine:

Don't pigeonhole Omaha as insurance, Warren Buffett and mail-order steaks. This one-time Great Plains pioneer town has a stereotype-busting cultural scene. Walk through north downtown and discover the indie-rock club Slowdown next to Film Streams, a cinema art house. In Old Market, red-brick roads run past open-air restaurants, galleries and chic boutiques.

Funky, yes, but the city's success is defined by its midwestern values. People preach and practice a strong work ethic and modest lifestyle. They also believe in giving back to the community, and that includes the chief executives of the five Fortune 500 companies headquartered here.

Consider the 175,000-square-foot Holland Performing Arts Center. Built with private funding from corporate executives, philanthropists and civic leaders, this $100-million facility is a symbol of 21st-century urban modernism. A 2,000-seat, state-of-the-art concert hall -- with chiseled acoustic panels -- is the place to experience the classics, performed by the Omaha Symphony Orchestra.

LIKE I SAID . . . I tried to tell y'all so. But to summarize why Omaha thrives -- bustles even, with excellent schools, a thriving arts scene and strong business community -- it all comes down to having the kind of strong civic culture that Baton Rouge lacks. That right there is why Gov. Bobby Jindal can't save Louisiana . . . even if he appeared to be of a mind to do it.

Bobby Jindal can't build a functioning civic culture. Baton Rougeans . . . Louisianians can. But only if they're willing to change.

The difference? Well, you don't see much of this in Omaha:


Or this, found on the Abandoned Baton Rouge blog:


THE LAST PICTURE is what's left of a room at the abandoned eyesore that used to be the upscale Bellemont Motor Hotel. At the end of her second post on the ruins of the Bellemont, Abandoned Baton Rouge blogmistress Colleen Kane made a quite reasonable request of my hometown:

Baton Rouge, kindly explain thyself.