Landmark Desecrated

I can't say I was ALL THAT SURPRISED, but I certainly wasn't thrilled to see a swastika and the words "white power" spray painted onto the historic Kress building here in Baton Rouge. Morons will be morons, and a society that glosses over Ronald Reagan's 1980 speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi (which celebrated brotherly love in 1964 by killing three civil rights activists), should expect garbage like racist nutjobs spray-painting ridiculous things on walls. Of course, the city is also showing a certain lack of respect, having all but given up the property to the wrecking ball--to be replaced by, you guessed it, a parking lot.

Can--or should--the Kress building be saved? I'm not a construction expert, so I don't know the details, but I'd like to suggest that the last thing Baton Rouge should do is turn its back on its history, be it good or bad history.

And the idiot(s) who painted the racist graffiti will meet the same fate as all of us one day.