Will the last person to leave St. Louis please turn out the lights?

Come gather ’round friends
And I’ll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran plenty.
But the cardboard filled windows
And old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty.
- Bob Dylan,
North Country Blues [1963]

City officials here wince reflexively whenever they hear the word ‘census,’ since most demographic news regarding St. Louis has been negative for a long while now. The latest estimates of population flux from the Census Bureau, released last week, must have produced a collective spasm on Market Street. According to the bureau, St. Louis has lost a greater percentage of residents than any American city with more than 100,000 people. Any city. It’s estimated that Detroit lost a higher number of residents, but then, Detroit has more to lose; that is, as Detroit has a higher population, its projected percentage loss is lower.

Detroit will have to try harder to keep up with us.

Our mayor calls the estimate figures “bogus and unreliable,” and points to new building permits (8300 for new or rehabbed properties in the last four years, 3300 for this year) as a counter-indicator. Props to Mayor Slay, who is doing his required job of counter-spin, but his figures don’t speak to the number of people that may be leaving the city. St. Louis’ director of director of planning and urban design says it’s not fair to compare St. Louis and its tiny municipal footprint (61 square miles, or about the size of my back yard) to that of other cities (Atlanta at 132 square miles, Phoenix at over 470 square miles) that have physically expanded through incorporation. The Post-Dispatch, in its editorial on the census thing, noted that the city’s boundaries have been fixed by law for over a century. That would be the legendary edict of the Board of Freeholders, etched into history and the city charter (follow the link for the specs, but look below for the master stroke):

Section 2 City and county declared separated; authority of county court annulled

The City of St. Louis as described in the preceding section and the residue of St. Louis County as said county is now constituted by law are hereby declared to be distinct and separate municipalities, and all authority heretofore exercised by the county court of St. Louis County or any officer of said county is hereby forever abrogated and annulled except for the purposes and in cases as hereinafter provided.

Brilliant idea, guys. Well done. May you burn in hell forever.

So here we are in an increasingly roomy city, so say the census folks. Even though there’s something awfully dodgy about estimates (after all, nobody’s actually counted heads here in four years), you have to acknowledge that St. Louis has a lot working against it. An impoverished and dysfunctional school district, crime and the perception of crime (which can be two different things), a stubborn racial schism that is as much about power and class as it is about race per se, and plain old hard-time economics - this is what we have to work with. The cold comfort is that these open secrets about St. Louis are hardly specific to this city. Many urban areas face the same challenges to some degree or other. The question for us is, of course, what do we do?

The monumental and obvious answer, according to the P-D, is to have the county eat the city. Let St. Louis become the county’s 92nd (!) municipality, merging as, say, Louisville and its surrounding county merged. Okay doke…except that (as P-D columnist Kevin Horrigan put forth a month ago) city residents, black residents in particular, may not especially want to suddenly find themselves a political minority in their own metro area. I once read a quote about powerholders in St. Louis - the origin is annoyingly elusive - that depicted such officials as stubborn “kings and queens of vacant lots.” Evocative, that quote. And, as Horrigan suggests, county residents may be wary of untidy city politics and resent having to bail out the city financially. And I’ll suggest, some of them may be wary of black residents. Just a little. Maybe. Despite all that, Horrigan still pushes for going the way of Louisville, saying that the area’s problems won’t wait. As a matter of cold fact, however, they’re going to have to.

Change comes slowly here in the St. Louis area - which isn’t to say that change doesn’t come at all. We’re talking incremental change that produces its results one piece at a time, and that relies on cooperation between regions. Hence the creation (and admittedly glacial expansion) of MetroLink, and the renewal of Forest Park. But for greater regional efforts, like the holy grail of city expansion, St. Louis must tend to matters within its own confines. A friendlier environment for business, a functional public school system (and good luck in the interim, Mr. Crues), a more streamlined and responsive government, more resources for police officers - and more transparent accountability of the police department to the public. All of it difficult to accomplish on a thin municipal dime, all of it dependent on greater cooperation between groups within the city limits than we have seen, all of it terribly necessary. And all of it up to us.

Just us.

When times were tough at Boeing (a company with which we are familiar) thirty-odd years ago and people in Seattle were laid off by the truckload, people fled that city en masse. In 1971, some anonymous soul put up a billboard message that was half a joke, half a cry for help: “Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the lights?” Things have changed in Seattle since then, for better and worse, but at least the city managed to exchange one set of problems for another. There are few people in St. Louis - that of us that are still here, that is - who wouldn’t mind doing the same.

P. S. - The image accompanying this post was taken from Rob Powers’ Built St. Louis, a wonderful resource featuring images of architecture from the various neighborhoods of the city. Go visit.

One reason to root for the Yankees

In best blog echo-chamber fashion, via Prometheus 6, originally from Steve Gilliard: Yankee fans boo Dick Cheney.

During the 7th inning stretch at Yankees Stadium, they play God Bless America and show on the big screen pictures of anyone famous who’s in the audience that night. Dick Cheney is apparently in the audience, and as soon as his face went up, the entire crowd started booing! As my friend Michael tells it, this is the blue-collar Bronx we’re talking about, and Cheney is still getting booed - not a good sign for the Bush-Cheney ticket. As soon as the camera guys realized Cheney was getting booed, they quickly switched the picture on the screen to someone else.

Gilliard says the story is confirmed by ESPN. God bless the Bronx.

On “lightening up”

As I drove home after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 last week, I tried to console my wife, who had broken down in tears after we left the theater. We spoke fitfully about the film - more precisely, we spoke gingerly around the subject, not quite ready to directly approach the thing itself. About halfway home, some of her grief had metastasized into a baffled anger. “I wasn’t duped,” she said, staring straight ahead at traffic. “I mean, I don’t know as much as these experts and senators, and I wasn’t duped. Why did they - why did these people sign on with Bush? Why did they support invading Iraq?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. There were things that I could have said, political rationalizations, but they all seemed very thin, not the kind of response you give to a tearful wife. So I didn’t say anything. I just squeezed her hand, and drove us home.

I thought about that night as I read Kevin Drum’s request that opponents of the invasion of Iraq “lighten up” on criticism of those liberal hawks who are belatedly expressing reservations about the invasion - second thoughts based more on the administration’s incompetent handling of the occupation rather than a realization that “democracy-though-invasion” was a failed concept from the start.

Should we “lighten up” on them?

Ask my wife.

Doing your bit. Again.

The Army is preparing to notify about 5,600 retired and discharged soldiers who are not members of the National Guard or Reserve that they will be involuntarily recalled to active duty for possible service in Iraq or Afghanistan, Army officials said Tuesday.

It marks the first time the Army has called on the Individual Ready Reserve, as this category of reservists is known, in substantial numbers since the 1991 Gulf War.

The move reflects the continued shortage of troops available to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to fight the ongoing war on terrorism as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom.

This was inevitable…but just imagine how the families affected feel about it all in the wake of the Iraqi handover.

The article states that the Pentagon has been combing its list of individual reserves for people to fill “certain high-priority skill areas like civil affairs.” Doesn’t sound like front-line duty. Even so, let’s hope the soldiers stay as safe as they can.

On a related note, a little harsh humor from last year.

Safari and RSS

Steve Jobs is busy touting the next iteration of Mac OS X - that’s the fifth version in four years, for those of you scoring at home. This one, slated for release in 2005, will be called Tiger. I thought that Apple could only go so much longer with these carnivorous feline product names, but apparently they’ve got others lined up. I’m not sure how they’re goping to get away with using Lynx; I thought that was spoken for some time ago.

Anyway, the interesting bit about the new operating system was the planned addition of newsfeed capability to Safari, the Apple web browser. That’s good news, at least for those of us who would rather use one Internet application for our web dealings rather than several. Not everybody shares this view, and I’m not entirely sure why. Surely switching back and forth between aggregators and browsers can’t be that much fun. Sooner or later, all browsers will implement newsfeed reading. Why on Earth wouldn’t they?

I feel a bit sorry for companies like Ranchero Software, makers of the nifty NetNewsWire aggregator for the Mac. They make a good product. Third-party developers often find themselves left in the lurch when platform companies decide to incorporate new functions into the OS. Microsoft’s been doing that for years, and without apology; I guess Apple figures that it must follow suit. The third-party guys are just going to have keep looking for those niches that the platforms overlook, and exploit them.

Second best Onion headline ever

“As the Coalition’s rule draws to a close, the numbers show that we have an awful lot to be proud of,” Bremer said Tuesday. “As anyone who’s taken a minute and actually looked at the figures can tell you, the vast majority of Iraqis are still alive?as many as 99 percent. While 10,000 or so Iraqi civilians have been killed, pretty much everyone is not dead.”

Sometimes they hit the mark, sometimes not. But the Onion has been on a roll lately. (Ouch. Bad pun. Sorry.)

Irony never takes a holiday

This handwritten note from Condoleezza Rice informed President Bush of the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq. The scrawled message in bold ink - “Let freedom reign!” - is Bush’s response.

Remember this note. This is going to be the “Mission Accomplished” banner all over again.

Handed over

Oddly, the first thing I thought upon learning this morning of the surprise early handover of sovereignty in Iraq was that the various news networks would have to scrap their annoying Countdown to Handover: Five Days Away-type graphics. An event’s not an event unless it can be packaged, you know. Oh, well. The networks will just have to save those graphics for the next occupation.

The next thing that struck me as I watched reports of the initial transfer ceremony was how shabby it all seemed. A handful of bureaucrats in a nondescript room, pressed by expediency, working in secrecy and haste. And fear - unless you really believe that the decision to jump the handover gun by a mere two days was made on Ayad Allawi’s whim. As metaphors for diminished expectations go, I’ve seen worse. We’ve come a long way from aircraft carriers.

There’s going to be a lot of understandable scepticism expressed in various quarters about the manner of the handoff, but we’re better served by thinking down the road, something there’s been too little of regarding Iraq. One of the great hopes surrounding the handover is that the level of insurgent violence will decrease. It would be nice to think so, but if the new government is widely viewed as a pawn of American interests, such a downturn is unlikely. The “all decisions are ours” refrain will be beaten like a drum by government officials; it may not be enough to convince much of the public. And in any event, the metamorphosis of the insurgent movement - shifting from a goal of repelling Americans to that of forcing a radicalized Islamic state - fairly insures that fanatical violence will continue. The Ministry of Defense and those touted new Iraqi police officers are in for a stiff test, and the imposition of martial law (even partial and localized) is all but certain.

Needless to say (though I’ll say it anyway), the continued presence of American troops in country - for a year, a year and a half, however long - will serve as a conspicuous reminder of American authority, and a highly visible target for terrorists. Not that there’s any real alternative to those troops being there; it’s just a fact of life. Another fact is the challenge of divided authority over security. We’re told that the coalition military will serve as a backstop for the Iraqis, but what does that mean in practice? When you have the chair of the House Armed Services Committee telling the Pentagon that it’s important “that we don’t have American military commanders who feel that they’re compelled to do certain things because there are Iraqi requests to do it,” you get the feeling that no one in Washington has really gotten ahold of the daunting logistics and negotiations the situation will demand. Perhaps the military commanders on the ground have a better grasp of the situation. Let’s hope so. An “eyes wide shut” approach hasn’t served us well in Iraq so far.

We haven’t even touched the prospect of elections. George Bush has long tied the success of his Iraq gambit to the establishment of democracy there.

“America has no intention of imposing our form of government or our culture,” Bush said, speaking in one of the largest communities of Iraqi-Americans in the nation. “Yet, we will ensure that all Iraqis have a voice in the new government and all citizens have their rights protected.”

How he intends to do that is something of a mystery. As a practical matter, the level of American influence over the shaping of the Iraq government can only plummet from here on out. You can’t say “the Iraqi people have their country back” and turn around and meddle in their elections - at least, you can’t do so with without provoking bitter resentment and increased violence. But they say that nature abhors a vacuum; as American influence over political matters wanes, some other force must ascend. From here, that force looks an awful lot like Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The preeminent Shia religious leader has garnered praise for having taken an apparently moderate, “quietist” stance during the occupation. But Sistani has definite goals in mind - the establishment of direct elections, the full and proportionate representation of the Shia in an Iraqi parliament, and the rooting of that parliament in religious law. He has exerted his will and considerable social authority to move events toward those goals. Middle East scholar Juan Cole has written an excellent overview of just how effective Sistani has been, specifically regarding the United Nations resolution which granted legitimacy to the interim government:

The resolution did not mention or endorse the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) or interim constitution adopted last February by the Interim Governing Council and based on the notes of Paul Bremer. The Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had written Kofi Annan forbidding the UN from endorsing the TAL, on the grounds that it was illegitimate and contained provisions harmful to majority rule.

The Kurds on the other hand were absolutely furious that the UN did not mention the TAL, which they see as their safeguard against a tyranny of the Arab majority. It stipulates that the status quo will obtain in Kurdistan until an elected parliament crafts a permanent constitution in a year, and that the three Kurdish provinces will have a veto over that new constitution if they do not like it. The Kurdish leaders threatened in a letter to President Bush on Sunday to boycott the elections this coming winter if there is any move to curtail their sovereignty or to rescind or amend the interim constitution. As a result, the Kurdish street is anxious about the future, feeling insecure and deserted.

This entire process is a big win for Sistani. It is now often forgotten that the Bush administration had had no intention of involving the UN in this way in Iraq. The original plan was to have stage-managed council-based elections in May, producing a new government to which sovereignty would be handed over by the US directly.

It was Sistani who derailed those plans as undemocratic. When the involvement of the UN was first broached last winter by Interim Governing Council members, the Americans were said to have been “extremely offended.? It was Sistani who demanded that Kofi Annan send a special envoy to Iraq. It was Sistani who insisted that free and fair elections must be held as soon as humanly possible. It was Sistani who insisted that the UN midwife the new Iraqi government, and not the US and the UK alone. It was Sistani who insisted that the UN resolution not mention the Transitional Administrative Law.

So with the extra point, it’s Sistani 7, Kurds nothing. And while it’s only the first quarter, you can imagine that the Kurds are feeling pretty glum about their propects. They are about to be disappointed - for the third time - by an American president:

Kurds point out that even the United States has twice left them in the lurch. The first time was in 1991 during the Gulf War when the first president Bush encouraged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam and then stood aside while he crushed them. The United Nations responded later that year by implementing a no-fly zone patrolled by U.S. and British fighter jets to effectively place the Kurds beyond Saddam’s reach. The second time, in 1996, came when the Clinton administration short-circuited Kurdish plans to spearhead a coup against the Iraqi dictator.

The Kurds want veto power over the permanent constitution. They want an autonomous Kurdistan. They want the province of Kirkuk. They want the Mosul oil fields. They are likely to get, or keep, exactly none of those things. While Cole states that Sistani has spoken in the past of the need to assuage the feelings of the Kurds, he goes on to describe Sistani’s stance toward Kurdish demands for safeguards as a minority as “completely unsympathetic.” He adds: “The potential for Kurdish-Shiite violence is substantial in the coming years.”

We may not have to wait years to see it.

Such are the wages of preemptive war, and of acting without an eye towards consequence.

But other than that - hey, as Bush said, it’s a great day for the Iraqi people.

Let’s celebrate.

Night lights

By the way: in case you missed them, the fireflies were out tonight.

Watching them beats thinking about Bush. By a long shot.

No comment

You may have noticed - though perhaps not - that the commenting option has been turned off here at Waveflux. There’s no way to explain the reasoning behind the move that doesn’t sound downright churlish, and that’s probably appropriate. It’s most economical to say that there are blogs that are public sandboxes, and blogs that aren’t. This is one that aren’t, and that fits the original notion I had of this blog as a journal or notepad or some such. Please understand that I never received a comment here that was either unkind or unfair. It’s not about that. If anything, it’s about what Charles Dickens said about dealing with people when he was working: “The mere consciousness of an engagement will worry an entire day.”

Well. Thanks for reading just the same. Feel free to use the “contact” link (up top) as you will.

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