My wife was due to give birth to our second child on our first child's birthday, April 11. Mildly gripped by Highway 40 syndrome, we decamped to her parents place in Town and Country which was just down the road from St. John's where we were due to deliver.
While we were there. Our daughter, Sarah Ann, got to spend time with her great-grandmother.
She wore her new spring dress.
One week later the baby still hadn't arrived. We went to a baseball game.
At some point during this week, someone broke into our house. They took a TV, but incredibly left the master tapes of the Dave Drebes Players. Fools had no grasp of value.
The next week we were still at my in-laws waiting for the baby. It was my wife's birthday.
That night we finally went in. And met baby Benjamin.
The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself
Immigrants who leave everything for a chance at a better life have my unwavering respect. The essence of America is seeking a better life.
As far as the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, I don't get it. They’re not law-breakers anymore than my forebears were.My ancestors came to this country without asking permission from the people here. They showed up on the shore. They didn’t speak the language; they didn’t have a job waiting for them; and this country welcomed them.That’s America. Or the way it's supposed to be.
I understand not everyone shares my view of the American spirit. Okay.
What really aggravates me is watching the religious right pick on immigrants.
Especially because scriptural words are unequivocal. It’s impossible to read the Pentateuch and not be struck by the continual repetition of this point. Over and over and over and over – treat the stranger and the citizen the same.
I scanned through those first five books and noted where the commandment - there is to be one law for the citizen and stranger – is found.I found 21 instances. You can’t read the Bible, and not get this point.
A true scholar would no doubt find more verses, but that’s not the point. The point is that any self-professed Baptist, Mormon etc knows that it’s wrong to treat immigrants, “legal” or not, differently than we treat our own citizens. That goes for wiretapping, for medical assistance, for freedom from intimidation and for the pursuit of happiness.
On February 5, I plan to take a Democratic ballot and vote for Joe Biden in the presidential primary.
When I’ve mentioned this to my friends who follow politics, their reply has been disbelief. Could I really be so naïve to believe that Biden will survive until February?There’s no way he’ll still be around.
Yet I continue. I like Joe Biden, and I hope I get the chance to vote for him. I think he’d be the best president.
I was working on my laptop the other day at a coffee shop and a young (Gen Y, she proclaimed) Republican girl was next to me working on hers, sharing the outlet. I finished a phone-call; she’d eavesdropped and surmised that I followed politics. She said she’d worked on Talent’s campaign.She said all of the things that you’d expect a young Republicans to say – Hillary Clinton is a socialist, Social Security will be bankrupt etc.
But when it came to the war in Iraq, she really nailed it: there’s no point in arguing about whether we should have gone there; we’re there; we can’t leave; we have to win.
It was amazing. This unemployed (she going back to school), obviously bright Gen Y girl had succinctly articulated the position on Iraq into which the Republican Party has collapsed.
Things aren’t much better on the Democratic side. It’s true, Democrats have been able to admit they were wrong. Republicans are too fixated on staying the course to do that.Still within the Democratic Party, there have only been two positions. There’s the left position of withdrawing the troops without a firm timeline because of concerns that Iraq will descend further into chaos. And there’s the far left position of withdrawing the troops, and not worrying about Iraq.
The two views are both fantasy. One says, I want to bring them home, but I don’t know how; and the other says I’ll bring them home, and let’s just not look over there, okay?
Biden is the only thinking Democrat who has a real plan. A federalist Iraq, it’s been called. It might work or it might not, but for god’s sake, the guy thinks!
I watched a debate the other night and the issue of global warming came up. And the candidates are yammering about their respective positions on emission caps, or an energy tax.And Biden looks bewildered. When it’s his turn, he shakes his head and says, Look, China and India are building a new power plant every week. This is a global problem. To solve global warming you have to engage Asia.
He’s the only candidate up there that approaches the problems with serious thought, analysis and vision. We could use a president like that.Join me and vote for Biden on February 5.If he’s still in it.
Dr. Donald Suggs defines the modern urban civil rights movement. While a large contingent of the African American civic leadership has remained rooted in the past, searching for the next Selma, Suggs’ editorial voice has grasped and articulated the fact that civil rights in 21st century is about economics and education.
Others have become stars of “calls for action” that faded within hours of packing up the press conference podium.Suggs, through his paper the American, has been different. He’s been truly counter-cultural, bucking the easy blow-horn politics of racial division.Instead he’s provided a vision of the justice that can be seen in a growing and thriving black middle class.
There is earthy wisdom to the crass pursuit of economic gains. Honest analysis admits that 4% growth in the local economy will do more to improve quality of life in the urban African Americans than the parade of protests against the indignity du jour.
When someone of his sensibilities, who’s taken up the mayor’s flank in successive unpopular endeavors – charter reform, school reform – writes a scathing editorial, serious political watchers must take note. On the matter of Sherman George, Suggs’ frustration seems to have boiled over.
Two political conclusions seem evident from the editorial. The first is the preeminence of mayoral chief of staff, Jeff Rainford. He has ascended to head boogey-man, a full partner in Slay’s misdeeds.
The second is about the Mayor’s political future.
The fall-out from the demotion of Fire Chief Sherman George is not a recall of Mayor Francis Slay. In fact a recall effort based around this issue would be a boon for Slay. It would energize his base, and alienate the central corridor.
Nor is the George fall-out likely to result in electoral defeat for Slay in 2009.License Collector Mike McMillan is Black St. Louis’ best hope to unseat Slay.
In addition to McMillan’s famous cautiousness, there are three strikes against Mike in ‘09. First is money. His golden rolodex draws heavily on the business and development community. If those donors are forced to choose between the mayor and McMillan, they’ll choose the mayor.
Second, despite winning a city-wide contest, McMillan doesn’t have a city-wide organization.Without money, you need field.Field can be built, but it’s not there right now.
Finally the ultimate power in black-white contests is still the central corridor. The fire chief is hardly a central corridor cause celebre. Regardless of the unfortunate upsetting of the liberal impulse for racial parity, asking a Fire Chief to have leadership in the field is simply good government.
The fall-out from Sherman George is a difficult third-term for Slay.
The third term will begin with the departure of Jeff Rainford. He’ll go and make some money. Still even after that pound of flesh, Slay will find his third term conforms to the pattern of St. Louis politics where his friends dwindle, and his enemies circle.
Little things he pushed through easily will become struggles and laborious. And so his eye will turn elsewhere.
Assuming the Slay administration has financed its way out the pension sink-hole and set its various development projects chugging through their calendars, the third term will be about foreign policy.
The city agenda will become a regional agenda.Slay will exert serious effort with County Executive Charles Dooley and find the places where the city and county can merge their services.Rather than arm twisting and coalition building, the effort will be wonk heavy.It’ll be position paper driven and typical to Slay’s style won’t sound particularly bold.
As he eases toward retirement and candidates emerge to replace him, voters will seek the anti-Slay. Competence and hard work will be tedious attributes; vision and charisma will carry the day.
Every year, we get the band back together.The Dave Drebes Players. (Originally we were going to be called Dave Drebes and the Dave Drebes Players, but that seemed a bit much.)
The first year, I did it by myself, layering sounds into an eight-track.The second year. Kurt Groetsch and Jenna Bauer joined on guitar and bass.The third year Jeff Smith joined on drums and Fred Hessel on guitar. And it really feel like a kickin band. Last year, the fifth year, Kraig Schnitzmeier took over durms and Matt Siemer replaced Groetsch (who went to China) on guitar and Brian Werner joined with his mandolin.
I spend the first six months of the year writing music, trying to find five or six songs.Now is the point where we get together and start to work on the songs. Rehearse and record them.Then we usually play one show.
During the writing process, there’s usually one song that helps me define the year’s project.Last year the song was Blue. The mandolin made the song whole and bringing in a new instrument helped the band I think. You can hear Blue here.
Blue
Driving down the highway to where that river is,
Drop by drop I slowly lose the night.
Even in my sleep I swear I never can forget
The random punishment that’s in this life.
I was sleeping in the waiting room I was
Waiting in my sleep.
I stayed up all night just to hear some news
Couldn’t help but circle back to those thoughts I shouldn’t think like
I was the cause of this happening to you.
Blue’s the color of my ink.
I sketch you even in my sleep.
I write it down
I write it down in blue.
Blue’s my love and blue’s my mourn.
Blue’s my shape I’ve become
Deformed.
Everything I do I do in blue.
This year the song that has me mildly captivated is called Goofin. And I think a banjo would juice it up a bit. If you play banjo, or know someone who does, send me an email dave@archcitychronicle.com.
After decades of public service, Senator Jack Danforth has one more present for St. Louis.
Ten years ago, he turned his monsterous family fortune inward. They changes from trying to solve the problem of education around the nation, to trying to solve the problem of St. Louis.
Enter 2004, a Danforth bet that was more handsomely placed than rewarded. The effort spawned a new upper-middle class of organizers and consultants, and inadvertently installed a shadow government to rival the Bosley administration.Many of the lofty goals never took off, others fell victim to the usual St. Louis turfism.
The successes however can still be seen. In particular Great River Greenway, and moving the fate of Downtown to center stage.
This latest plan continues on the success of Downtown’s rebirth. It’s pretty simple: Use the Arch Grounds better.
As simple as it is, as I’ve spoken with people about the proposal, I’m surprised at the resistance.
The Arch is deep in the St. Louis psyche and talk about changes to the ground on which it stands rustles the St. Louis attitudes.
For all the 2004 boosterism, the burgeoning loft district downtown, the reversal of population losses, the fabulous restaurants that endless spring up around town.For all of this, St. Louisans just can’t brag.And just can’t bring themselves to believe that there really is “gold in them thar hills.”
Often it’s the architecture that’s overlooked. In this case, it’s the river.
The Mississippi River.
Count the songs, read the books, imagine its history and future. That river is a muse, a work-horse and the reasoning that we are where we are.
You hear St. Louisans talk about it and they just don’t get it. They won’t acknowledge its power.They won’t believe that it’s special. “Nah, it’s just the Mississippi.”
And maybe that’s the fault of our planners. The river is separated from the city, by barriers.We don’t see it. We take it for granted. We forget it's even there.
But the Danforth plan is clear, we need the Arch grounds to make the river more accessible, to see and experience the river. The Arch is a civic treasure. But so is the river. We need to use both.
It’s a no-brainer to me. Use the land. Make the Arch more friendly experience and make the river another reason that St. Louis is a special place.
I first met Ed at a party with lots of people I didn’t know. We ended up in a shouting match.
For those of you who don’t know me, that’s doesn’t happen to me much. Actually it may have been the first and only time that’s ever happened to me.
I was part of a group Metropolis and we’d had a speaker from Planned Parenthood talk about leadership at one of our meetings.Ed thought that was an outrage. I thought he was an outrage. We argued until we shouted.
A couple of years later I was publishing Arch City Chronicle and Ed emailed me out of the blue.He offered to write a conservative column.From the tone of his email, we were old chums even though at this point our only interaction had been shouting at one another at a party.
Reconciliation is always preferable to enmity.
And we did needed a conservative voice, and Ed couldn’t be a bad guy, he’s a friend of my brother-in-law.
So Ed was in. And he was controversial. He went after the judges; he went after the school board; he went after anything that moved. He generated more letters to the editor than the rest of us combined.That’s the thing about Ed – he calls it the way he sees it; and he doesn’t apologize for speaking the truth – as he sees it.
I might as well mention that my views on immigration veer toward the fringe. In fact, I’m so far left of Ed on immigration that I might even be to the right of him, if you know what I mean. I believe in open borders. I believe that the cornerstone of free society is the freedom to come and go as you please. Combest will call me “hippy-dippy”, but the land is God’s, not ours. “The land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me.” And we have no right to tell people they can’t come and live here.
My untimely position aside, Ed’s comments were seized on, piled on, and painted around. Then they mounted the charge that his comments were so disrespectful that he must resign.
That’s absurd.
The idea that we should force public servants to resign when they make politically incorrect comments during policy discussions is ridiculously misguided. It would mark the sinking of serious policy discussion, leaving participants handcuffed to cautious and calculated language, with little room beyond accepted group-think assumptions.
Yes, Ed’s full of bluster here and there. But these are big issues. I’ll take table thumping over meekness any day – even when I disagree with it.
On the matter of emails, well, there’s no defense for that. Ed should keep his emails archived, no big deal.
The Distressed Area Land Assemblage Tax Credit Act has two deep problems.First, the process in which it came into being was a textbook case of collusion between high government and fat capitalism.
The other problem is scale.Large scale developments in urban areas result – inevitably – to social injustices as they always involve the removal of poorer populations to achieve the “urban renewal.”By contrast, smaller-scale development produces an organic development which is sounder, supporting greater economic diversity and creating fewer casualties among the more vulnerable.
Why It’s Not Terrible
Well, it's $100 million in tax credits which the city could use. And the problems are not insurmountable.
The first problem is troubling, but irrelevant to where we are today.In fact greater light, more media and stronger scrutiny has been focused on this legislation now than almost ever other legislative piece of the last session.More I would bet than even the MO HealthNet.
The second problem has remedies.The easiest would involve lowering the acreage necessary to participate in is the tax credit program to one or two acres from the current proposal of 50 acres.Two acres of land is still a significant assemblage in a dense urban environment. Don’t believe me? Ask the lawyers who worked on the ballpark deal.
Lowering that amount would open the area to competition and foster multiple small-scale developments that would transform north city without violating its character in a wash.
The other potential remedy would be to explicitly legislate that the Board of Aldermen is the municipal authority through which any development plan would have to go.Such an amendment would endow the aldermen with near supreme power and control over the development.The aldermen could safeguard against a plan which is in disharmony with the vision of the area, or a plan which is injurious to the residents.
The Kill It Coalition
The most disheartening part of this experience has been the response from the local leadership.They have fallen into a Kill It Coalition that squanders the potential $100 million in tax credits.
This coalition demonizes Paul McKee. I don’t know the man; he may indeed be a demon. But the speed with which the talk turns to how he disrespected them – by not meeting with them, by not maintaining his properties – bothers me.
It looks like the raison d’etre behind the Kill It Movement is a clutch of slighted egos. True leadership wouldn't dwell on the disrespect. It would go to the mat try to find a compromise to land that $100 million of development incentives.
Players in Particular
One must wonder how all this strikes Lewis Reed? He campaigned on bringing development to places in the city that have missed the broader city renaissance. Here is $100 million aimed directly at that place. Yet instead of the moderate position, which would sharpen the tool for proper local use, he’s caught in the Kill It Coalition.
Kill It is fine for electeds whose revel in demagoguery. But for the truly progressive like Reed, whose ideology is simply progress, it’s got to be a painful prison.
Finally I would note that while Rodney Hubbard has borne the brunt of the ire, no one can ascertain Maida Coleman’s position.My phone-calls have gone unanswered.Her assistant Amber Boykins doesn’t know.
Maida Coleman is the city’s senior senator. She is the Minority Leader of the senate. The area is in her district. Still, she has no position?
I haven’t spent any time try to determine which is worse – the Kill It Because He’s Mean Movement or the invisible senator routine.But it doesn’t really matter; they’re both bad.
ghter, Sarah Ann, got to spend time with her great-grandmother.
