Lagniappe Mobile Blog

Nostalgia is a disease affecting millions of Americans, and leading experts say there may be a correlation between trips down memory lane and age. What this has to do with a hustler named Bobby and the old Mobile Greyhound Bus Station is inconclusive, but this exclusive Lagniappe column may unlock clues local historians have long sought in their efforts to pinpoint the exact location of twenty-seven mile bluff and dissect a published slight against persons residing in West Mobile.

The famous glint of fiscal determination returned to the eyes of Merceria Ludgood on April 14 in a stand-off with a city contractor who held her ground in a campaign to reverse Mobile’s eight year long technical brain drain. Bring the smarty boys back home to, as they pronounce it in Seattle, “Mo-bull.”

Engrained in our charming lexicon: TK, EADS,NG, Airbus. With tax-abated breath, with timid bank accounts we await our capitalist heroes. In anticipation, BPM’s “Come Back to Mobile” campaign has been soliciting resumes , but so has another group, Mobile Works, and Commissioner Ludgood squared off with Jane Birdwell of Birdwell Photography & Multimedia over proposed amendment to the BMP contract to add 200K. . .

Also showing: News about The Cimarron Club, irrate home owners re: two new subdivisions, Home insurance reform in south Mobile county, braying over a brood of mounted horses and awards to Lamar Advertising and Clear Channel Radio for you’ll never guess what . . .

While the editors kindly rejected ( with snickers , I heard) the above headline for my latest “County View” in the hard copy of the paper, their efforts to control free-roaming spirit of my creativity in the online version, my blog, have miserably failed. Rob sent some guy who sleeps on his roof over to my house to kindly remind me that as far as Lagniappe was concerned I was still as green as a vined tomato and there were “limits” to expression even in the world of something extra. Ashley was quoted as saying “Preston, it just doesn’t make sense. Sure, it’s cute and vogue and shows that you are trying to be different, but the world is now full of people clamoring to shine with off the wall expressionism. We write the headlines, you try and see if you can eek out 950 words of readable copy, okey-dokey?”

As you can read, my freedom of expressionism prevailed. I got my headline. That 950 words of copy I eeked out contains such Nobelish literature as these:

Naturally I commandeered the proceedings and argued the county should write me a check for only $5K and I would camp out in NoMo and produce a 200-page study called: “Community Assessment Needs and Recommendations for North Mobile County, Alabama.”

* More Americans were killed in motorcycle accidents in one year, than total American military personnel killed in Iraq in five years.

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Seafood, not Peefood
Sophisticated urbanites give little or no thought to sewer or septic, but people living outside the city limits, in Mobile County, do. Two passionate women made their case against the location of a new sewer treatment plant in Bayou la Batre.
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Dope to un-trepreneurs who prefer to operate meth labs and other non-traditional biz and activities under the cover of dark:

And 800 more words here . .

Well, stranger things could happen in a city that was founded on a 27 mile bluff over 300 years ago. Would you like to know where Mayor Sam Jones was on a certain Monday last month and what street is being renamed Thyssenkrupp Drive, and what’s going to happen to the Animal Control Shelter on Otis Street and - hey, wait a minute I’ve got an idea. You can read all about it, and other Mobile County news here . . .

As Mobile grows most agree she’s gonna need bigger britches, and now there’s talk of new tunnels and causeways, which causes me to shudder thinking of what happens to traffic when the roads are filled with guys holding stop and go signs, orange flags waving in the asphalt dust . . .but about that GW Tunnel. Is there really a problem with the tunnel itself or could the matter be with a lot of the folks driving thru it?  If I were a shrink I might say some of those drivers speed up once inside the tunnel because they can’t wait to get out.  They might have tunnelitis - fear of driving in a tunnel. Or it might be cellphoneitis - fear of call being dropped while you are driving thru a tunnel. But I would like to see a Golden Gate Bridge spanning our great catfish pond, connecting the city with eastern shore . .. maybe we can build one along side the causeway, leaving the causeway for those who have . . . you guessed it, bridgeitis  . . . and if that’s not corny enough for you . . listen to this . . .

Senator Obama, I’m glad you prefaced your remarks against the award to Northrop-Grumman and Europe’s Airbus by saying you haven’t yet looked at the whole thing carefully . I trust you will take an opportunity from your very busy campaign schedule and come back with a statement that is more reflective of this award.

The aerospace industry is not just a United States industry, and it is such an important one to our country - especially when it comes to something most Americans cherish, and that is a strong military. I’ll be frank and say I’m not a military man myself but I’m not dumb either, so we’ll just leave that at that. I’ll also point out that I live in Mobile, Alabama, but I nor any of my family or close friends are involved in the aerospace industry. I am a Realtor so of course I look forward to new residents buying homes in our area.

My understanding is the Air Force considered this contract award over three years before making a decision. So . . .one of my questions is, why can’t we put trust in their ability to make a decision about their own business, on behalf of our country, knowing they did not rush into it, and explained why they picked NG/Airbus?

I am on the front lines to keep jobs in America, to buy American, to support our country, but I am a realist, a pragmatist and also knowledgeable of our history and current efforts to grow America in respect to jobs.The fact is every month we read about another major company moving operations to Asia,  expanding their presence in China, moving their technical support desks to India. They point-blank say why: cheaper costs. Americans for the most part seem to understand and deal with that, even though we aren’t happy about it.

France and Germany are two of our strongest European allies and some of the finest workmanship ever has come out of those countries in other industries, and Americans are the first to make  purchases of those products.

I also don’t think one company should de facto have a monopoly on any industry no matter how many decades they have been the only one or the best. How would you like it if a bunch of people decided and voted that only men with the last name of Bush could be President of America, and since they have been doing such a great job (wink) we don’t want anyone else awarded the contract?

Sir, you’d be out of a future job.

It’s not like Boeing is going to close it’s doors over this contract. In fact it will hardly make a dent in their international operations. And it’s unfortunate in their bid they did not quote enough fuel tankers, even if decisions were made at the last minute. As you know there are about 500 tankers in all to be built so there will be other contracts and other opportunities for them to bid. Maybe next time they will be more careful in their calculations. Could it also be they might have been a little careless, feeling assured they would be awarded since they always have been in the past? I don’t profess to know I can only speculate.

Mobile is a city that has received a lot of recognition lately, and we’re also fortunate to have been selected by Germany’s Thyssenkrupp to construct a steel plant here. Seems to me other American’s would welcome our good fortune and recognize that it’s a reflection on our entire country, a positive economic sign at a time when we need all we can get. To insinuate to these European corporations we don’t want to work with them if it means losing some American jobs, could be something other companies over there notice and duly note. It could affect future contracts in other industries, in other parts of America, so I don’t understand why we are slapping the hands that feeds us so to speak? I’m sorry for the workers in Washington State and elsewhere who are affected by the loss of the contract, but somehow I don’t think Boeing is going to put them out of work. Someone had to lose the contract, right?I can’t speak for all of Mobile of course but I can say many of us if not most welcome this opportunity, and the pleasure of working with not just the folks in Los Angeles but those in Germany and France as well. All the great minds and backbone of the aerospace industry are not ensconced in one location in the world - they are as in most industries spread across this great world of ours, and this I trust will be one fine example of how fantastic things can happen when people from all walks, everywhere, work together.

Forget water coolers and cubicles - - all the talk everywhere is and will be for sometime the landing of the Airbus contract on our Brookley Field. The economic impact not just for the City and County but for the entire State will be enormous.  It seems Mobile has become a money magnet and the Europeans apparently have a thing for us. We are kind of cute, aren’t we, stretched out on a tranquil bay, our arms around two beaches?  Congratulations to all who worked diligently over the past three years to assure the Air Force, NG and EADS that our city is worthy of such a big contract. Fingers crossed that Boeing’s expected protest will heard but not listened too, and that other businesses will begin to pay closer attention to Mobile ( I expect the Disney folks are already here scouting around for a lot of acreage and that I-65 is backed up all the way to Atlanta with the corporate exodus from there to here -LOL). Having traveled quite a bit I am sometimes flustered having to say “Mobile,Alabama” when asked from where I hail - instead of just “Mobile.” It seems we are moving much closer to being a City instead of just a city.  March really did come in like a lion! Hope to cover this and more in my Lagniappe County View column.