Thursday Arch Series

An American Airlines Boeing 757 heads north over the Mississippi just behind the Arch. Soon it will turn left, descending to the west into Lambert St. Louis International Airport. Nobody here has a clue who Lambert was. You could look it up, I guess.

We're a secondary hub for American Airlines, which is not so bad. We can get to most of the world if we transfer in Chicago or Dallas-Fort Worth. Back in Lambert's glory days, it was the main hub for TWA, with 425 departures a day including non-stop service to London, Paris, Mexico City, Vancouver, Anchorage and Hawaii. No more. Nevertheless, my wife and I are skilled players of AA's frequent flyer program. It gets us where we want to go.

TOMORROW: Valentine, A Day Late and a Blossom Short

I Crashed the Barge

Always be alert for interesting things in unexpected places. When my wife and were out searching for eagles along the icy Mississippi a few weekends ago, we stopped at a huge lock and dam where the birds were reported to hang out. It had a fascinating museum about the river and inland transportation systems. One of the cool things was a video game in which you had to steer a big barge flotilla safely into the lock. There were three controls: left and right engines, variable for power as well as forward and reverse; and the rudder. These things were not engineered by BMW. They were tough to control. You had 300 seconds to get the barge into the lock from a bit upstream. As you can see, I crashed it into the left bank in 68 desperate, clumsy seconds.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series

The Chase Park Plaza

The Chase Park Plaza is a St. Louis institution, a grand old hotel at the northeast corner of Forest Park. There are actually two connected buildings. The Chase is the tower in the center of the picture. The Park Plaza is half as tall and you can just see its top to the Chase's right. The mid and upper floors of the Chase itself have been converted into luxury condominiums, breathtakingly expensive by local standards. (New Yorkers would probably scoff that they are bargains.)

PS: I love my Lensbaby.

TOMORROW: I crashed the barge.

Across the River

What we call the Poplar Street Bridge is the main vehicle crossing of the Mississippi River, carrying Interstates 55, 64 and 70. The span is functional, not beautiful, but the scene looks pleasant in Golden Hour light and big, gentle cumulus clouds.

I am curious about our visitors reactions to my posts of the last two days regarding the Kirkwood murders. As I write this late Sunday evening, no comments were posted about the day's pictures and comment, although there were a considerable number of visits. We usually try to show beautiful, arresting or humorous images on our CDPB blogs but I don't think that tells the whole, true story of our cities. Each town has beauty and squalor, joy and tragedy, celebration and quotidian routine. When I can, I'd like to show a variety of views of St. Louis, and not just pretty ones. It's just life here.

How does that approach make you feel? Does it seem uninteresting or uncomfortable, or does it intrigue you? Share your thoughts about this.

Kirkwood, Part 2

The Kirkwood police station is closed for ordinary business. A purple drape hangs over the door. The first picture below is a detail of the door. Note the signs that say "Free Gunlocks Available Here" and "No Firearms Allowed." The last photo is a paper sign put up by the community. Click on the picture to read the detail.

Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch's lead editorial is a meditation on philosopher Hannah Arendt writings on "the banality of evil." It speaks about this incident and others, including the recent murder of a retired Post-Dispatch journalist during a botched burglary in her home in a middle-class suburb. Although the editorial is not optimistic about the human condition, it is worth the time to read.

Another murder of a Kirkwood policeman affected me in a small way. Three years ago, a twenty-year veteran of the force was murdered while investigating a report of illegal fireworks. While questioning three juveniles in his car, a man came to the window and shot him three times. The officer managed to drive a short distance, seeking help. The assailant came back and shot him dead.

The gunman was charged with capital murder - the death penalty. 160 potential jurors were called. I was on jury duty that week and was among the first people interviewed by the lawyers and the judge. The prosecutor asked if anyone would never vote for the death penalty, no matter how horrible the crime. I raised my hand. Murder by an individual and murder by the state are equivalent to me. The judge quickly dismissed me, along with several people who shared my view and others who said they would vote for no penalty other than death. The murderer was eventually convicted and sentenced to die by lethal injection. That's how it is here.

Tragedy

Americans and guns. Again. On Thursday night, an enraged man approached the government buildings of Kirkwood, a pleasant suburb of St. Louis. He was carrying a large handgun. The man shot and killed a police officer, taking his weapon. He then walked around the corner into City Hall, where a council meeting was taking place. Upon entering the council chamber, the assailant opened fire with both guns, killing another policeman and three city officials. The mayor was critically wounded. Other Kirkwood police officers rushed into the room and shot the gunman dead.

The event has dominated St. Louis news and was reported nationally, such as this New York Times article. The shooter was a small contractor who was in constant conflict with the city. He had disrupted previous council meetings, been arrested for disorderly conduct more than once and had recently lost a lawsuit against the city in which he claimed that his constitutional right to free speech had been violated. And he had a gun. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

I took pictures around the Kirkwood City Hall and the police station this morning. This kind of public outpouring of grief and sympathy is common in the US. Back in April, I reported on similar expressions when a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher died in an auto wreck while extremely intoxicated and driving at high speed. There is no question that these feelings are genuine but the decorations in front of City Hall today seemed somehow festive, full of bright colors and the Valentine's Day decorations now in stores.

The police station was something different. There were fewer people people and flowers, but still the Valentine's hearts. A single police officer stood alone across the street next to his car. His face was empty. He covered his eyes with black sunglasses. I wanted to be a good photojournalist and approach him, talk about how he was feeling and ask if I could take his picture in that setting. I've been trained to do this. I couldn't.

Afterwards, I drove downtown to my office as I usually do on Saturday. As I approached the Mississippi, the sky was cloudless. The steel gleam of the Arch was exceptionally bright.

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I'm working on several other pictures I took this morning. Some of them will be posted here on Sunday.


TOMORROW: More from Kirkwood.

Support Our Troops

I don't know about Carnival celebrations in other countries, but at what we call Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday in the Christian calendar), the people riding the floats throw strings of cheap, shiny plastic beads at the crowd. People line the parade route screaming, pleading beeeaaddsss!, as if the nobility were dispensing gold coins to the peasants. What exactly happens to all these baubles over the next few days is a bit of a mystery.

In this photo, a spectator is using a ploy that is either fraudulent or just weird, a sign begging "BEADS FOR THE TROOPS." "Support our troops" signs and stickers are common in the U.S. these days. Even those of us who are horrified by Bush's military adventures have respect for the men and women in the field. Does the man holding the sign intend to send box loads of trinkets to soldiers in Iraq? Is there a more selfish reason? Either way, it's pretty strange.