Every year since this column debuted as the perfect bi-weekly bird cage liner, I’ve called for a Constitutional Convention to 1) overhaul Louisiana’s regressive, anti-business, anti-entrepreneur tax code and 2) unlock the guarantees that make pretty much everything but health care and higher education a sacred cash cow in times of budgetary slaughter—something we’ll face next year with a projected $1.3-billion-and-growing deficit.
Be honest, in a state that’s alarmingly unhealthy, shockingly uneducated, woefully poor and fast approaching economic irrelevance on the global stage, who thinks our current M.O. is good government at work?
But, hey, we’ve got ethics reform! Who cares if it’s real or perceived?
Despite this grim landscape, the annual response—be it from CABL, PAR and other watchdog policy wonks, or the few politicians still speaking with me, or the public at-large—to a constitutional plea is about the same as what that cockatiel does every two weeks when he splatters my photograph with kaka.
About the most favorable response has been this, “Good idea, bad timing.”
Really?
That answer makes as much sense as the engineer on the Titanic—as Leo and Kate gasp for life and love in the freezing Atlantic—saying, “We’ll deal with the shortage of lifeboats once we dock in New York.”
Well, the few smart, highly educated people this state produces aren’t waiting around; they’re abandoning the S.S. Louisiana.
Two out of every three people who fled the state in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, were not only well-educated but were also in their prime tax-paying years. More alarming is a 2007 American Community Survey that shows 61% of the people moving away from Louisiana were between the ages of 20 and 54—and nearly 27% were in their 20s. Louisiana is the only Southern state where more people are leaving than arriving.
Gov. Bobby Jindal says out-migration is a problem nearly two decades old and reversing the trend is his administration’s “top priority.”
So what’s the plan?
This much is certain: Nothing will succeed as long as we 1) have a tax code intentionally designed to financially pound entrepreneurs and corporate growth, 2) keep perpetuating the myth that Louisiana is a cheap place to live and work [maybe if you discount energy and near-mandatory private school tuition costs], 3) continue to ignore both the economic realities of a global economy and the absolute imperative of focusing on knowledge-based jobs and 4) refuse to get serious about creating a K-12 public education system that not only offers choice but finds a way to reach students in homes where the parents could care less about reading, writing and arithmetic.
And then there are the issues of our reluctance to embrace 5) change, 6) diversity and 7) the notion that young people define “quality of life” different than we baby boomers.
Much is made of the fact we have 90,000 vacant jobs in the state. The biggest explanation is the local workforce lacks the training to fill these jobs. But, as Paul Harvey says, here’s the rest of the story…
Those jobs are open because young, highly educated people don’t want to work in industrial construction or certain segments of the petrochemical industry and they don’t want to be ambulance drivers. They want jobs in the digital media, technology and health sciences sectors. They want to be researchers, not roustabouts.
We don’t have enough of those jobs [for the reasons above] so these young, educated people leave for cities that do have them. And what’s left behind, indeed, lacks the education and training to fill those jobs.
This isn’t to suggest that a Constitutional Convention will solve all that ails Louisiana. But the other solutions are window dressing without one.
So let me ask this: When will the timing be right?
Comments
Posted by Fred on December 2, 2008 at 3:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think the main reason people either don't want to live here or leave is our educational system is terrible. I hear this from more people than any other reason.
On a footnote, it sounds like Baton Rouge is no longer going to be the head quarters for Raising Canes. Seems Dallas has alot more to offer... Sounds like a broken record.
Posted by BRTiger on December 2, 2008 at 4:04 p.m. (Suggest removal)
JR, I have long said that I would vote for anyone running for office who promised a constitutional convention. Our constitution needs a major overhaul. Scrap the protective measures for state programs/agencies so that the governor and legislature have some ability to be rational and flexible when it's time to make budget cuts. Get rid of the consitutional provisions which should be statutory laws. This would force the lag to make decisions and not pass the buck to the voters every time. Let's form an organization to push for a CC. I'm sure there's more support out there.
Posted by pmccarron on December 3, 2008 at 10:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Agree with your article:
Especially the part about "mandatory private school tuition costs"
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 3, 2008 at 10:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The joke used to be that New Orleans is a great place to vacation but you'd never want to live there, and that Baton Rouge is a great place to live, but there is no reason to vacation there. Now, Baton Rouge is rapidly losing it's reputation as a great place to live. NO is losing on both fronts.
I believe that most of us remain mainly due to a want to be near family.
Posted by MightyFavog on December 4, 2008 at 1:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You never want to say there is no hope, so let's just say Louisiana's chances reside somewhere between slim and none. And the odds grow worse every single day as the exodus continues apace.
My wife (an Omaha native) and I left Baton Rouge for good in 1988. We now live in Omaha, a city that's everything Baton Rouge isn't.
Sometimes, nostalgia and cultural ties get the better of my common sense, and I muse about going back. Mind you, I admit this has nothing to do with logic or common sense.
When that happens, however, my wife sweetly informs me there's no way in hell she'd ever live in Louisiana again. Then I go read the Advocate, or the Business Report (or anything else) and appreciate my wife's sound instincts.
Apart from ties of blood and memory, there's just no percentage in it. And, no, it's NOT cheaper to live there -- here in Omaha, taxes may be higher (and you generally get what you pay for) but utilities are cheaper, crime is lower, and auto insurance is about one-half of what it is in Louisiana.
For God's sake, Baton Rouge, look around you with an outsider's eye! Go anywhere apart from the tonier neighborhoods and downtown, and just LOOK at the decay surrounding you. Look at what dumps so many of your public schools are.
You send your children -- or at least those of your kids whose parents can't afford the private-school tax -- into buildings in which most Americans wouldn't board their dogs. THAT is patently dysfunctional and societally deviant.
Look at the decay . . . look at how much of your city has been literally thrown away -- left to rot -- and tell me whether BR, or Louisiana, can really, truly have a future.
I can't truly express what I see and feel in words. Words aare pretty inefficient at conveying what's in a body's soul. So I did a video.
I think that comes closer to how *I* feel about Baton Rouge, and Louisiana, and better expresses why we ultimately left . . . and why we won't be going back.
Here is the link:
http://revolution-21.blogspot.com/2008/1...
Posted by pmccarron on December 4, 2008 at 8:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Some of u people r 2 negative.
I Love Baton Rouge.
I left for about 10 years and came back. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Yet, agree with JR - that although we like living here - sometimes finding good paying work and having to pay twice for schooling our children makes it too difficult for some of us to afford to live here.
(Once you leave - you realize how great it is living here - and want to come back)
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 4, 2008 at 9:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I, too, left (in 1987) and returned from south Florida with a wife and child in 1996. Family was the big reason for our return. I am a product of BR's public education class of 1982 and an LSU grad.
I watched the blog from MightyFavog and came away with the sick feeling that this guy is totally unaware of what is happening here and is hung-up on a need to feel vindicated for leaving, which is sad. Yes, we do have a lot of blight, yet much of his video is of places that were still productive at the time he left. BR is spread out so much, older parts of town are down, no doubt, but there are some exciting new developments around.
Baton Rouge not uniquely a horrible place as he would have us believe, but is truly a microcosm of the entire US, and really the world as a whole. Extreme wealth, extreme poverty and everything in-between exists here. Central to our woes now is the public school system. BR resisted the mandated changes for integration (30 years ago), and when it was forced to comply, many chose the private school route, and never looked back. We are paying the price now for our backwards thinking then. Parental involvement in our public schools is virtually non-existent now.
Thank you pmccarron for pointing out our negativity. I really do love Baton Rouge, at least my little part of it.
Posted by bob on December 4, 2008 at 11:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Dear JR:
You are correct on this one. Louisiana’s tax system and politically-tilted budgeting process are dinosaurs.
While I applaud attempts at ethics reform, the true reform most needed in Louisiana is in its overall revenue structure.
If this were but a recently emerging problem one could perhaps understand the resistance to a constitutional convention. But, that is not the case.
Two decades ago the then governor of Louisiana, facing a $400 million plus shortfall, attempted to reform the fiscal policies and revenue-related operations of Louisiana. He first went to the legislature and then to the people in a state-wide referendum. Those efforts failed to gain approval.
One year after voting no to fiscal reform, the people voted yes to the lottery. Easy answers to difficult problems are seldom the solution. That $400 million budget shortfall concern of 20 years ago is now estimated to become as high as $1.3 billion next year.
The legislature can enact some of the needed changes but a properly charged constitutional convention could solidify a revamped tax code that would encourage businesses, entrepreneurs and our well-educated prime tax payers to invest their lives and resources in Louisiana.
Bob Munson
Posted by fourx5 on December 4, 2008 at 12:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It's good to reassure yourselves about all the good things Baton Rouge has to offer, but what's holding the region and the state back is the misplaced pride of those who think anyone with something critical to say about Louisiana is "bitter". I can assure you that while I am disappointed at how my experience was treated by Baton Rouge employers when I lived there briefly, I'm not bitter, and would like the area to progress.
When you look at all the obstacles to living a convenient and modern life in the Capitol region, it's easy for those of us accustomed to other climes to shake our heads and say "you just don't get it".
Baton Rouge has 25% the population of San Jose, where I moved in 1995 to take an internship at a software company. Yet Baton Rouge has 75% of the number of property crimes as San Jose, and 84% as much violent crime as a city fully four times its size. On a per capita basis, Baton Rouge's murder rate is at least five times as bad as that of San Jose.
Even if you ignore the great climate, ocean, mountains, etc., why would a college graduate pay more to stay in a dangerous and congested city that has raw racial and class divisions and moribund leaders like Baton Rouge? We don't hate Baton Rouge, we're just concerned that the region _still_ hasn't got its act together.
You simply don't drive past blighted neighborhoods here. We have decent mass transit, so I don't need to spend two hours a day in a car if I choose not to - but my carpool takes only twenty minutes to go sixteen miles on our most congested routes, so I drive. There are hundreds of little things you notice after a while, like being able to walk to the store on a sidewalk instead of using the car, or almost never having to wonder if you'll walk into a "bad" neighborhood. Our taxes are a bit higher than yours - but we get a lot for our money.
My experiment with living in Baton Rouge showed that it's actually got a higher cost of living than suburban San Jose, once the stratospheric car insurance, poor wages, and private school requirements are factored in.
Decades ago, other cities and regions did all the hard work Baton Rouge would rather ignore, and are benefitting from those initiatives. Twenty years ago, San Jose started downtown redevelopment; the office and residential towers have multiplied, and storefronts, restaurants and more crowd downtown San Jose's walkable, parklike streets. Where would Baton Rouge be if it had started revitalizing downtown twenty years ago?
I'd love to bring the benefits of years of software development and project planning in high tech back to Louisiana so I can be closer to family while making a living, but there are no jobs for me there. JR "gets it" but no one seems to listen to him. Becoming a more successful city doesn't mean losing what you love about Baton Rouge - it simply means opening your mind and your eyes, and being willing to try something new, even if it doesn't work.
Posted by fourx5 on December 4, 2008 at 12:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
For clarity's sake. In my previous post, I wrote:
"You simply don't drive past blighted neighborhoods here. "
That's because there are very, very few of them. The rising tide brought by investment in education during the 60s, 70s, and 80s brought many talented people and skilled jobs here. Remember: Fifty years ago, Silicon Valley's economy was more like New Iberia's - farming and mineral extraction. By spending tax dollars wisely and by investing in infrastructure and strategic plans (rather than upending everything every 4 to eight years) this region made the same kind of switch that Louisiana needs to.
Posted by MightyFavog on December 4, 2008 at 12:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Liberated Tiger writes:
"I watched the blog from MightyFavog and came away with the sick feeling that this guy is totally unaware of what is happening here and is hung-up on a need to feel vindicated for leaving, which is sad. Yes, we do have a lot of blight, yet much of his video is of places that were still productive at the time he left. BR is spread out so much, older parts of town are down, no doubt, but there are some exciting new developments around."
===============
I "watched" Liberated Tiger's comments here and came away with the sick feeling that he needs to get out more. Frankly, if my two choices were South Florida and Baton Rouge, I'd pick Baton Rouge, too.
My choice of places to live, however, weren't so limited. I am furthermore quite aware of what is happening there, visit at least every other year and feel no need to be "vindicated for leaving."
Leaving was a no-brainer. The hard thing -- no, the IMPOSSIBLE thing -- is to justify moving back.
Once you move to a place where government generally works and people generally give a damn, the one thing that you're forced to confront pretty quickly is how incredibly parochial and incredibly clueless folks in the Gret Stet can be.
Just answer two simple questions: If things are so great back home, why are so many people (particularly the young and educated) hauling butt the first chance they get? Why has this been going on for more than a generation?
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 4, 2008 at 1:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
MightyFavog: Clearly, your "body's soul" has serious issues, after all these years, to have created a website and music video to showcase your hometown to the world in such a negative way. As an ambassador to LA's Travel and Tourism department, I just officially disowned you here.
Also, I am very happy for you that you were fortunate to have so many choices of places to live. But with all of your unlimited choices you gained while living here, you decided to live near your wife's family in Omaha. That's not really a choice. That's we what used to call being PW'd.
BTW, I've got a few photos of stereo-typical drunken indians on a reservation that I'll send you for your next video. See you at the CWS.
Posted by fourx5 on December 4, 2008 at 1:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"That's we what used to call being PW'd. BTW, I've got a few photos of stereo-typical drunken indians"
Thus proving your inability to understand Favog's respect for his wife's wishes and throwing in a perfect example of the mentality that keeps Baton Rouge in such bad shape*.
Seriously - answer his question. If things are so enviable in Baton Rouge, why are so many of the smart young people leaving?
*Part of the problem "on the Rez" is the resentment against people who leave and do well by those who stay behind and change nothing.
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 4, 2008 at 1:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Fourx5: It's called sarcasm.
Posted by fourx5 on December 4, 2008 at 1:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
LT: Forgive me for misunderstanding your intent. When I hear a term like "p-whipped" it reminds me of high school attitudes and behaviors.
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 4, 2008 at 2:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
4X5: You are forgiven. More sarcasm...
I guess his comment to me insinuating that I need to "get out more" and that my choices of places to live were more limited than his, brought me down to the high school level. My original comments must've touched a nerve too.
Nobody here has said that living in BR was enviable. My family moved back to be closer to our families. That is what is most important to us. I pay for private schools for my kids and live in a neighborhood where I feel my family is safe. My kids know their cousins and get to see their grandparents often. Not everyone is willing to pull up roots and get out of town forever. I don't consider our situation as staying behind.
MF: I, too, saw Herbie the Lovebug at the Broadmoor theater and grew up in that part of town, but the fact that it is now run-down doesn't make me feel differently. Neither does your video.
Posted by MightyFavog on December 4, 2008 at 5 p.m. (Suggest removal)
LiberatedTiger writes:
"As an ambassador to LA's Travel and Tourism department, I just officially disowned you here."
That's supposed to be a bad thing for me? I am supposed to care . . . why?
As to the sophomoric "PW'd" crack, where exactly do you think I met my Nebraskan wife? In Louisiana? I don't think so.
I met her in Nebraska . . . the first time I got the hell out of Louisiana. I returned only to finish my last 27 hours at LSU. Then we left again -- for Missouri -- came back for a couple of years, then left for good.
Nebraska wasn't where *she* wanted to be, it was where *we* wanted to be. Now her family is almost all dead or are elsewhere, and we're still here. Why? Because it's home. Because we love it here.
Still, it's sad to see my home state continue to implode and my hometown fail to grasp what dogs instinctively do -- you don't sh*t in your own bed. That, Baton Rougeans have been doing for a long time now.
And everytime I go back there, it seems to be getting worse.
Yeah, downtown looks nice. Yeah, Perkins Rowe and Towne Center are great. That only leaves a good 60 percent of the city looking like Port au Prince. You don't see that kind of widespread blight in Omaha . . . you just don't.
That's probably because you and your kind -- the kind who can look at a raggedy-ass city day after day and be OK with that -- don't live (or vote) in Omaha.
Really, what kind of city tolerates public schools that look like what I found when I visited my alma mater, Baton Rouge High, last year? People are OK with teen-agers learning in places you wouldn't board your dog? Really?
People are OK with a school board that lets its properties get so run down they end up having to rebuild most of the campus . . . to the tune of $62 million? Gee, maybe if everyone hadn't long fled to Denham, or Prairieville, or to de-facto "seg" academies, you wouldn't have a school system that's been thoroughly "New Orleansized."
You also write:
"BTW, I've got a few photos of stereo-typical [sic] drunken indians [sic] on a reservation that I'll send you for your next video. See you at the CWS."
Niiiiiice. "Sarcasm" or not, that just reeks of the kind of "class" my hometown is infamous for. Maybe BR would be a lot more attractive to business (and new residents) if you and all the rest of the "good old boys" stopped trying to "vindicate" Randy Newman's 1974 album.
Enjoy the CWS. There are reasons Omaha has been able to play host to such an event for the better part of 60 years, while Baton Rouge couldn't pull it off in its wildest dreams.
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 5, 2008 at 8:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
MF: Anyone that reads your Revolution-21 webpage can see what I see. A sad individual truly obsessed with dogging BR, its citizens and making fun of LSU fans to a pitifully small internet audience (I noticed a lack of comments on your blogs). You say that you don't hate BR? I think your actions speak louder that your typed words. I doubt these deep-rooted feelings have anything to do with synchronized traffic signals or public education. And since you hate BR so much, please do us all here a favor and move on after 20 years, and spare us the sentimental, douchey hometown-in-ruins music video crap. It's is a weak attempt at rubbing salt in the wounds of the people here for your perverted enjoyment and professional benefit. Try something more constructive to do with your time, energy and money.
Not sure why you took your wife to BR from such a great place in Nebraska in the first place. You said that you and she left BR in 1988.
Also, while you're at it, you can quit asking for the care packages from home of Community Coffee and Tony Chachare's each month. The yearly king cake too.
To the rest of the blog here, my sincerest apologies for my rants. I also apologize to all the drunk indians I offended (this is a joke people, get off your high horse). This guy has just royally ticked me off. I feel better now. I guess I love BR more than I realized!!
Posted by MightyFavog on December 5, 2008 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
LiberatedTiger:
That I seem to have gotten under your skin so says a lot more about you than about me.
The reason I've written as I have about Louisiana and Baton Rouge is that it's damned hard to watch, from a distance, your people hold a gun to their collective head and not be able to do a damned thing about it. Of course, the problem is that if you go back, they're holding the gun to YOUR head, and you still are unable to do a damned thing about it.
What is further interesting is how, whenever anyone says anything critical about Louisiana or Baton Rouge -- slamming many of the things Louisianians constantly bitch about to one another -- the vehemence of their indignation is inversely proportional to the amount of time and energy they put into actually trying to improve things.
In other words, your collective whining and mau-mauing grew tiresome long, long ago. I don't buy it, and you'll increasingly see the rest of the country doesn't buy it, either.
And, I love this part: "Also, while you're at it, you can quit asking for the care packages from home of Community Coffee and Tony Chachare's [sic] each month. The yearly king cake too." It's like there's an Official Louisiana Umbrage template, and that's the key part.
The sad thing is, it really seems *that's* the best thing my home state can come up with to recommend itself. "Oh YEAH??? Well, I'm not gonna let you have no coffee and no king cake and YOU'LL be sorry!"
Uh . . . I think we can manage.
But what's funny is you have just pointed out how completely parochial you are -- you really haven't a clue about what goes on north of Shreveport, have you? Here's the thing: In Nebraska, we have these things called supermarkets. In almost all of these "supermarket" things, one can buy all the Tony Chachere's one wants.
In some of these "supermarkets" -- wonder of modernity that they are -- one also can buy . . . Community Coffee. And in many of these things, not to mention other wonders called "bakeries," one also can purchase a king cake.
And if all that fails, one can season stuff like grandma used to, with cayenne, garlic, salt and pepper. Or one can go to his neighborhood coffee shop for an espresso.
And if a body is feeling really radical, he can get his ass into the kitchen and bake his own king cake. Homemade is pretty good!
I mean, really. You claim to love Louisiana so much, and coffee, sweet bread and a seasoning mix is all you can come up with for why Louisiana matters? Damn, at least you could have thrown in oil and gas, because we up in the Great White Nawth actually NEED that.
While you're mulling that over and building up to a new fit of pique, answer me this question: What in the world is Louisiana going to do now that some analysts are forecasting $25 oil next year?
Posted by lifelonglearner1 on December 5, 2008 at 1:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
J.R.,
I've long appreciated your "straight to the heart of the matter" style! PLEASE keep up the good work!. Louisianans need to hear the truth.
Regarding the issue at hand, I truly appreciate your comments. I, too, have strongly considered leaving Louisiana, as the state I love continues to regress. The only reason I remain here is to complete a second master's and doctorate degrees, which I anticipate completing within two years.
I was born and reared in Louisiana; many of my family members (immediate and extended) live here. However, my brother and two sisters had to leave in their early 20's over 20 years ago after graduating from universities to find good jobs. One sister returned 10 years ago; however, she is strongly considering moving to the East Coast. She and I both love our state and are active in our communities and churches. Yet, it is difficult at times not to become discouraged with the long-term, continuous regression.
Thank you.
Posted by scoot5267 on December 5, 2008 at 1:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
MFG,
Spare us your hand wringing for poor ole Louisiana. If you're not going to get your hands dirty trying to help out, get your a** out the way for those who will!
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 5, 2008 at 2:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
MF, you and I will never agree on anything and I am tired of arguing with you. I am here, you are there. Congratulations. *NEWSFLASH* Hometown kid made good and got the hell out of Dodge (and wants to rub it in a bit). Go ahead and beat your chest and claim it to the world everyday (for the next 20 years, if necessary) on your website. Maybe someone will listen and think you're cool. I guess that is your therapy. I doubt the sincerity of you saying that our troubles are so "damn hard to watch." In some sick way, I believe you actually revel in it.
I love BR Jimmy-boy, but you, after leaving some 20 years ago, have made a sadistic art-form out of bashing and humiliating all that I still love here and, while I am not proud of some things here, I feel the need to defend my city in the best way that I can. I am shocked that there is an audience for your kind of work.
You get the last word, really.
Posted by MightyFavog on December 5, 2008 at 3:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
OK, I'll take the last word.
You accuse me of "bashing and humiliating," but it seems to me you're the one who -- lacking an argument -- resorts to armchair psychoanalyzing, bashing and attempts at humiliation . . . all lame.
Indignation, I'm sure, is satisfying (especially when that's all you've got), but it not only doesn't fix what ails BR and Louisiana, it retards efforts to acknowledge the problem and then start fixing it.
It's a Southern thang, and some Louisianians seemingly have perfected the artform.
Trouble is, indignation led to catastrophe before, during and after the Civil War. It helped a cancer spread and resist treatment during Jim Crow and the civil-rights movement. It's helped to keep Louisiana poor, corrupt and uneducated over many, many decades.
And, I gotta tell you, it ain't exactly working wonders for the Gret Stet now.
Posted by fourx5 on December 5, 2008 at 4:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Re: Favog's comment: "In other words, your collective whining and mau-mauing grew tiresome long, long ago. I don't buy it, and you'll increasingly see the rest of the country doesn't buy it, either."
That encapsulates part of the frustration some of us expatriates feel. Why do people in the Baton Rouge region keep complaining while they tolerate the same behind-the-scenes old guard types when nothing to truly advance the city and parish and state ever seems to come to fruition?
Folks, if you want change - JR, I'm talking to you, too - you gotta buck up and make that change happen. Those of us who love Louisiana but who can't make a living there are hoping it will change, and JR's call for a Constitutional convention is a good one. Cut the populist crud out of the state's constitution and build a framework for an affordable, attractive place to do business and raise a family - raise the tide that will lift all boats and stop trying to bail the Titanic.
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 9, 2008 at 8:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Before you pack your U-Haul-It for Omaha....
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=27...
We all need to strive to do better.
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 9, 2008 at 8:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
As for San Jose, I guess it's all in your point of view (or your race):
http://www.siliconvalleydebug.com/story/...
People, don't believe every thing you're told about the grass being all that much greener. Anyone else have another shining city on a hill to compare to BR?
Still, no good excuses for not cleaning up our own mess.
Posted by MightyFavog on December 9, 2008 at 2:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Liberated Tiger, you are as disingenuous as you are ignorant. The difference between Baton Rouge and Omaha isn't that Omaha lacks problems, it's that Omaha, as a community, tries to do something about them (and that the Omaha World-Herald devotes that much space to pointing problems out).
Here, however, are some things you pointedly DID NOT link to:
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=27...
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=27...
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=27...
http://buildingbrightfutures.net/vnews/d...
What's morbidly fascinating to me is how people like yourself in my hometown will devote untold energy to cherry picking the 'Net in an effort to convince themselves -- and the gullible across America -- that everywhere is as big a s***hole as the one they've dug in their own back yard. Yet, time and treasure always seems to be in short supply when someone suggests it might be more profitable to clean up their own s***hole instead of running around like misery looking for company.
So, where is Baton Rouge's equivalent to Omaha's Building Bright Futures? Where is BR's cadre of civic-minded, activist business leaders trying to make real improvement in the plight of the disadvantaged?
For that matter, what happened to that bond issue that would have made the city more economically competitive during challenging times (not to mention give the cops and firefighters headquarters that wouldn't be falling down around them)?
And where's your city's functioning mass-transit system . . . the one that's falling apart as Omaha, meantime, considers putting in streetcar lines to enhance its and serve as an economic-development tool?
Oh . . . before I go, could you please explain why, even though Omaha is nearly twice as big as Baton Rouge (430,000 vs. 230,000), Baton Rouge has had MORE murders so far in 2008 -- 45 vs. 40? (And we Omahans have been extremely worried about the 40 . . . we had a record 42 last year.)
Long story short, you're not fooling anyone. And neither is Louisiana, which I guess is why people keep leaving.
Posted by longtooth on December 9, 2008 at 2:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Become politically active and demand better govt. from city and state leaders (it's the only way to do it). We need more progressive citizens to step up and be more involved in building BR. Everybody bitches about this place, but right now we are one of the few recession proof areas in this country (A giant positive). We are a conservative area, but we (Louisiana in general) recently voted for the 1st. Indian American governor as well as other political firsts that represent us as progressive to the rest of the nation.
I am in the creative industry and have managed a pretty good career here, and I am seeing increases in these types of jobs. Sure people that leave the state may want Mountains and beaches, etc. but we can't do anything about that can we? We need to focus now on building quality, and not so much on more growth, if we plan to keep & attract smart people and private industry to Louisiana. Intel (and similar tech icons) will NEVER move here if there is no recreation beyond fishing and hunting, period! However, we do have plenty of potential in that realm which is being overlooked and ignored. And I'm not just talking about the food, or mardi gras...
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 9, 2008 at 2:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ad hominem attacks now from you? Well, everyone check this out:
http://www.metafilter.com/66256/Black-po...
I repeat: "We all need to strive to do better."
Admit it. You have gone too far. BR is not a "s***hole." You may want to check your population figures also.
Posted by fourx5 on December 9, 2008 at 3:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
LT:
I assumed you'd deal in good faith, but holding up a weak example like that cartoon as commentary is pretty sad. Baton Rouge has a very serious crime problem, and apparently it's easier to play "but so are you".
Forum 35 pretends to be a forward thinking group like BBF, but my firsthand experience places it somewhere on the scale between a Greek house reunion and the junior league.
Posted by MightyFavog on December 9, 2008 at 3:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
LiberatedTiger writes:
"You may want to check your population figures also."
OH MY GOD!!! You're Kip Holden! Mr. Mayor-President, shouldn't you be, like, running the city or something instead of . . . well, whatever it is you think you're doing?
Posted by LiberatedTiger on December 10, 2008 at 8:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
MF comes on this site and gleefully spouts BR's problems and how the he lives in a paradise. "Omaha, a city that's everything Baton Rouge isn't." Well, I have shown that they have their own problems to deal with. Everywhere does. We know here that being "Number 1" in some things isn't always good.
I know we have a ton of issues here, but we now have some good people in elected offices (the Mayor, Governor, newly elected Metro Council) that, I believe, love BR and are working hard to correct the problems. We have not passed the point of no return. New developments are popping up at a rate I have never seen here before. Obviously, I was angered to see the MightyFavog devoting his Revolution 21 blog to pointing out the worst of our city and it's people. When I casually point out Omaha's issues in a non-constructive way, he get very angry too (rightly so). I wonder how he'd feel if I dedicated a website to cherry-picking Omaha's dark side.
I hate to see him waste that BR High and LSU education in this way. I don't know what I should have expected though, he even uses weekly phone conversations with his own "Mama" and other family members to get his negative message across. However, if the characterizations of these individuals are 1/2 true, I can't blame him for not coming back here very often.
Posted by MightyFavog on December 10, 2008 at 12:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
LiberatedTiger:
You know, I don't know that I've "wasted" my Baton Rouge High and LSU education "in this way." After all, I've gotten you pretty worked up and thinking about things down there.
Face it, if my posts at Revolution 21's Blog for the People (http://www.revolution21.org) were just ad hominem attacks constructed out of whole cloth, you'd be laughing too hard to get upset, and they'd be about as effective as the electoral smear-job against Kip Holden was. No, what has you all up in arms is the truth in those posts -- thus your psychological need to disprove that Omaha is a paradise and that the dysfunction of BR and Louisiana is completely normal.
Well, any number of national rakings and compilations of U.S. census data shoot down that notion right quick.
Your categorization of my writings on the blog and here as "gleeful" couldn't be more wrong. Cher, that ain't gleeful, that's heartbroken and pissed.
No, Omaha isn't paradise, but living here has shown me how much farther BR is from "paradise" than Nebraska's largest city is. In 20 years, the city of Omaha alone has gained about 100,000 in population. The city of Baton Rouge has gained what . . . about 10,000? And that's accounting for the "Katrina effect."
Why is that?
Every time I go back to Baton Rouge, it becomes apparent that life there is a "zero-sum game." It seems that for every area of town that is nicer (e.g., downtown, all the new retail developments), there must be a corresponding increase in "suck" for whole other swaths of town (e.g., old South Baton Rouge, Government Street, most of Florida Boulevard, North Baton Rouge, Airline north of Florida, the Gardere area, the whole North Sherwood area).
Maybe this isn't all that apparent as it unfolds in slow-motion for BR residents, but it's apparent as hell when you drop into town only every couple of years. My wife and I coined a term for it -- "Port-au-Princification."
Omaha may not be perfect, but that kind of thing doesn't happen here on anything near that kind of scale.
Pray tell, how does a city let its public schools get in such shape? Do people not realize that decent schools are the backbone of EVERYTHING good a city might hope to accomplish?
How does a city allow its best public high school to get in the physical shape Baton Rouge High is in -- which I personally documented? After seeing what I did last fall, I was close to tears.
And then I got mad. The pictures I had previously seen didn't begin to convey what you see in person. Convey what hits you when you see teen-agers amid all that, going on like it's normal.
(continued)
Posted by MightyFavog on December 10, 2008 at 12:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
(continued from previous)
People, it's *not* normal. Maybe it is in BR, but not in Omaha, and not in most of the United States. That quickly leads to the question "What the hell kind of government -- what the hell kind of *people* -- will send not only their own children, but ANYBODY'S children into that for eight hours a day?"
I am happy that BRHS is scheduled for renovation and rebuilding. But the question remains, what kind of city let it get into such shape that it needed to be *completely* renovated, and parts of the campus razed and rebuilt?
Was that, ultimately, good stewardship of your tax dollars? Does this show the world a city that cares about its kids?
No, as you point out, Omaha is not perfect, but that kind of crap doesn't happen here. I have been in schools here (my wife's alma mater, North High, for one) in the worst part of the 'hood that, frankly, are palatial compared to just about anything in Baton Rouge. Palatial and well-maintained. And a damned good school.
And the high-school in our neighborhood (Westside) has been expanded, rebuilt and has facilities better than many colleges. And it's a damned good school.
Our tax dollars at work.
You can go and look up Omaha's and Nebraska's average ACT scores and graduation rates.
People in Omaha, basically, have no frame of reference for the kind of decay (particularly in schools) that Baton Rougeans have come to regard as normal. Likewise, Baton Rougeans (most of them) have no frame of reference for a place like Omaha, where government generally works and people generally care. (And when it comes down to it, people caring is why government generally works.)
In that respect, it's only natural you'd assume most places are as screwed up as Louisiana. But they ain't.
There's a reason Louisiana keeps shedding population. Yet you refuse to address it.
So, get mad at me all you want. I don't live there, so it's no skin off my nose. But you'd be wise to take that anger and turn it into some hard thinking about whether you're mad at me or at yourselves because what I say is true.
*That* is the first step to making Louisiana, and Baton Rouge, the kind of place everybody would want to live.
Even me.
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