We are beyond excited to kick off Season Two with our episode, Las Vegas: Bright Lights, Big City, Small Town. The episode takes you away from the Strip that is so synonymous with the city and into the heart of the community. One of the stories actually goes beneath the casinos and the glitz of the Strip where another world exists. In the tunnels built as a flood channel several miles beneath Las Vegas, several hundred people make their home. We speak with members of an organization, Shine a Light, that go into the tunnels and work with the people that have made them their home in an effort to get them out.

Listen to our Las Vegas episode.

Stephen Maman's Las Vegas Design

Look Good, Do Good!

SOTRU has teamed up with clothing line and record label, Ropeadope, to produce a line of T-shirts that captures the essence of locations that we’ve visited, designed by celebrated artists from the area and benefiting a local charity. Las Vegas is our first shirt and part of the proceeds go to Shine a Light.

Find out about all of our shirts and artists and charities involved.

To purchase a shirt, you can visit Ropeadope.

When you visit our Las Vegas page, you’ll be able to listen and download the full episode and check out some of the additional collateral like Letters to the City, images and links to the organizations that helped make the episode possible. There is also a place to comment about the episode. We would love to hear what you have to say about it!

As I watched the spontaneous celebration outside the White House Sunday night, I was struck by how much how attitudes about patriotism and the military have changed since I was young. The unembarrassed, flag-waving patriotism of the people in DC and New York was contagious. It wasn’t a “red versus blue” crowd. It was a “red, white and blue” crowd.

During the Vietnam years, support for the military reached a low point. Then there was the anti-anti-war reaction of the 1980s, when Hollywood revenge fantasies like “First Blood” turned vets into superheroes and anti-war activists into villainous stereotypes.

American culture was a roller coaster ride during those years. Patriotism was on the rise, but it was a peculiar kind of partisan patriotism that pitted one side of the political/cultural spectrum against another. Are we now experiencing the birth of a new kind of “post partisan” patriotism? Hard to say, but if you want to see one version of what a “new patriotism” might look like, you should check out this article in Time magazine about Fayetteville, North Carolina, “America’s most pro-military town.”

The story goes back to the bad old days of the Vietnam War era, when the local army base, Fort Bragg, was a major stopping off point for soldiers bound for Southeast Asian. Being an Army town during those years was a mixed bag. Most of the draftees who went through the town were not happy about being there. Nor were the townies always thrilled. Strip clubs, cheap bars and tattoo parlors proliferated downtown, earning a new nickname that stuck for years, “Fayette-nam.”

Flash forward to the year 2001 when Fayetteville, like much of the industrial south was languishing economically. Per capita income was stagnant. Few jobs were being created and young people who grew up there had to look elsewhere if they wanted to find promising career paths.

A community improvement effort known as Greater Fayetteville Futures came up with an idea. Why not turn the community’s Army town identity, once considered something of a liability, into a major cultural and economic asset? Members of the community actually voted online to adopt their new slogan, “History, Heroes and a Hometown Feeling.” Fayette-nam rebranded itself as “the most patriotic town in America.”

This was in part a canny form of pure economic development. In 2005, Fayetteville opened its North Carolina Military Business Center, working with local businesses and individual to garner defense industry contracts. Instead of attracting strip clubs and cinder block taverns, the city would bring in high tech companies and defense industry entrepreneurs.

But it’s not all about marketing. Residents were encouraged to fly flags and say “thank you” to service men and women they pass on the street. Local organizations were formed to help military families find housing and jobs. There was a local baby boom-let a few years ago when 22,000 members of the 82 Airborne returned from Iraq, so the town threw a mass military baby shower for all the hundreds of expectant mothers.

The results have been impressive—more than 5000 jobs and $586 million invested and a housing market that is booming—this according to the city’s application for All-America Award. Per capita income growth is the second highest in the country. Tourism is also on the rise with a convention bureau that touts the military-friendly posture to vets planning Army reunions and other events and local attractions like the Airborne and Special Operations Museum and the soon to open Veteran’s Park downtown.

Not that everything is all roses in Fayetteville. It never is. There was a controversy earlier this year when the mayor asked a local Quaker group to participate in a celebration of Vietnam era vets and some of the veteran groups objected.

But the military people interviewed in the Time article and other news reports seem to like the sense of welcome in town. And the local group Fayetteville Cares plans to hold its second “Boots and Booties” event for military moms June 25 at the city’s events center. Apparently a large number of Fort Bragg soldiers returned from a deployment late last year, setting off another baby boom-let in Fayetteville.

Also in June (15-17), the All-America City Awards in Kansas City, Missouri, and Fayetteville will be there as a finalist.

Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring.

Mike’s posts will appear every Thursday on the State of the Re:Union website.

Photo by Greg Henshall - Greensburg Twelve Days after the Tornado Hit

Today is the fourth anniversary of the tornado that devastated Greensburg, Kansas. In our radio episode, Greensburg – To the Starts through Difficulties, we discovered the resiliency of the residents there and that altruism is alive and well in the country. And beyond resiliency, we discovered the innovative spirit that guides Americans to build anew, in both financially and environmentally sound ways. Visit our Greensburg page to not only listen to the episode, but to discover some of the incredible organizations that we had the opportunity to learn about that are leading the way in rebuilding both the infrastructure and the culture of the area. Below you’ll find a post by Tina Antolini that she wrote shortly after leaving Greensburg, about the vast amount of historical artifacts lost in the storm, how residents came to terms with that, and then carried on.

Ed Schoenberger shows SOTRU host Al Letson some of what remains of his collection of old Greensburg photos

There’s a red, white and blue sign in front window of the house where Ed Schoenberger lives in Greensburg, Kansas. It says “Rebuilding Greensburg with Pride.” This is certainly true for Ed, who has lived in this town for decades, and cared for its history with equivalent pride for just as long. Ed is the caretaker of the cemetery in Greensburg, and is also the curator of the town’s historical museum—that is, before the museum blew away, along with most of Main Street, in the tornado that hit Greensburg in May 2007. It took most of Ed’s treasured artifacts with it, whole rooms of lovingly assembled displays, depicting Greensburg in its early days, as frontier town. He’s managed to salvage bits and pieces from the wreckage of the museum, and some of it has now taken up residence in his home. Out on the front porch, he’s got a beautifully painted tin panel that was once part of the ceiling of the old art deco Twilight Theater. A ledger book filled with the names of Greensburg’s earliest leaders sits on his kitchen table. But, for all his fondness for this memorabilia, Ed has now lived through what’s arguably the most important even in Greensburg’s history: the tornado. He and his wife huddled in their basement, as the winds destroyed the house around them.

Today, more than two years later, he clearly grieves for what was lost—not only his home and those of most of his friends, but decades of history, written into the buildings, the landscape, as well as what was stored in the museum. When Ed and the rest of Greensburg chose to rebuild, they did so stripped of most of the evidence of what had come before. That’s especially hard to a man—and a region—that prizes roots and tradition, a part of the country that changes only gradually and with unease. But, for all his love of the past, Ed has done what much of his town has: mourned that loss, and made his peace with it. He lives in a different house now, one that’s newly fixed up. He talks with excitement about a group that’s just formed called “Greensburg 2020,” which aims to have the town’s population reaching 2020 by that year.  In some ways, Ed says, it’s like Greensburg has become the frontier all over again—this time, as it works to become a model green community.

“It started back in 1884;” he says. “We had basically nothing; Absolutely nothing no water tower, no city buildings, we had nothing. We had streets, but that’s about it. It’s just like starting all over again… But, you know, I can say I’m part of it. “

Photo By: Brian Kusler

It’s dominated the news and probably a good deal of your conversations. I was shocked and had resigned myself to believing that Osama bin Laden would somehow always elude us and be one of those mysteries, a historic enigma that everyone had their own theory about. But that’s not the case, justice was served and that particular manhunt has real closure. I recognize there are those that don’t believe this is justice and that there is no death worth rejoicing over. Fair enough, but that’s not what this post is about.

The climate around the country since the news broke, has been somewhat reminiscent of the days after 9/11. People have gathered in patriotic and emotional displays throughout the country in what feels like a celebration of closure, on that chapter at least. Although some talking heads have already resorted to completely politicizing the event, if feels good to have a common rallying point. The times where we can breathe a collective sigh of relief are certainly few and far between. Realistically, it won’t last long, likely to disintegrate and make way for the partisanship that naturally surrounds an election.

There’s an AP article by Dan Balz discussing how bin Laden’s death has created a moment of national unity. I’ve noticed celebrations taking place in both blue and red states and across political, religious and class lines. Everyone knows that this doesn’t bring an end to terrorism and the threats of violence that exist in a geopolitically shaky globe, but it’s such a refreshing interval. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all enjoy this space, this emotional release for a little longer than normal?

We Want to Know:

• Can you recall an event that occurred during your lifetime that became a rallying point and brought your community together?
• Did you participate in a celebration upon hearing the news about Osama bin Laden?
• How long do you think the refrain from bitter partisanship will last or has it already come to a close?
• Do you feel more camaraderie and more patriotic when events like this happen?

When hearing about these types of victories, it’s easy to forget there are still soldiers putting their lives on the line. Please continue to remember them in your thoughts and prayers.

Start the discussion below!

Oh, the glories of Facebook. Intimate connection to people we know and those we don’t, procrastination device, and collecting ground for all sorts of digital materials that might not otherwise cross our paths. Some of these are idle entertainment (see: poodle playing piano), but others, well, they might just resurrect your sense of the possibility for peace and understanding in what often can feel like a hopelessly brutal world. Yes, a video can do that. For an afternoon’s length of time, at least.

image courtesy of www.playingforchange.com

The concept of the video that inspired this in me is quite simple: a band of musicians jamming on a blues riff in the key of G. Doesn’t sound so revelatory? How about if each of these musicians is in a different country, each playing their own instrument—from sitar to Japanese shamisen to New Orleanian washboard—and the song they create is a multicultural hybrid, a testament to both the awesome diversity of human musicality and the commonalities that, in the end, root us all together. The video I’m talking about is Playing for Change’s “Groove in G” (and, yes, you can watch it if you scroll down, but why not read the rest of the blog post first?).

It includes a Malian rock band, a flamenco player in Spain, the American blues guitarist Keb’ Mo’, a Brazilian berimbau player (that’s a single-stringed percussion instrument that looks like a giant bow with a gourd at one end), a variety of Indian percussionists— the list goes on. What struck me was not just the world tour of musicians that the video provides, many of them playing outdoors wherever they live, but how seamlessly their music weaves together. Whatever our musical background, a blues chord in G is a blues chord in G. And this is the deeper idea behind Playing for Change, a project that’s been crisscrossing the globe for years now, recording street musicians:  that, as their website says “music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race.”

And so, through the shared ground of a song—or just a series of chords—a community is formed among people who have no common language beyond that musical one. (Of course, it helps that the Playing for Change gang has a slew of sophisticated recording equipment to help foster the dialogue…) Whatever nuclear meltdowns, Middle Eastern wars or Congressional bickering might be going down, I find this a comfort. Plus, the blues they came up with is just pretty bad ass.

Watch “Groove in G”:

To read more about Playing for Change, and watch their international cover of “Stand By Me” featuring street musicians from Santa Monica to South Africa, go here.

Refugees, entrepreneurs, visionaries—these are the historic roots of Oakland, California. The city has long been home for people building new lives and imagining even better ones. But dreams deferred also haunt this place, in its empty post-boom skyscrapers, its infamous homicide rates and deep budget cuts. In the face of entrenched problems, though, the people of Oakland characteristically answer back with diverse, revolutionary solutions.

We would love to hear what you think about our newest episode, Oakland – The Self-Made City. Go ahead, give us what you got! Simply comment below to get the conversation started.