WASHINGTON WATCH: THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

It is a pleasure to be in Cape Girardeau for the holidays. Not just because seeing family and friends is always a treat, but because it is exciting to gauge the region's growth with my own eyes. Reading the Missourian keeps me abreast of expanding business and residential developments, but until I witness the changes in person they never seem real. From the multiplication of homes in the new subdivisions to the West end retail expansion to the flood project and bridge route, area progress is astounding.

Some of the growth is less than desirable, of course. For example, Traffic has become quite a snarl at times, especially during lunch. Still, in context with life in Washington, it remains a paradise here. Driving to the capitol, less than seven miles from where I live, typically turns into an hour-long affair. And that's if there are no bomb threats, twice which have halted traffic at one of the bridges I cross.

I don't believe it has anything to do with me personally, but since I moved to our nation's capital it has turned more than a little wacky there. The attacks upon the White House have been particularly disturbing, not just because threatening the life of a president is disgraceful, but because these lunatic acts have a way of sapping everybody's sense of security.

Two weeks ago I had lunch with a college friend, now senior spokesperson for the Resolution Trust Corporation, a government agency which has gained notoriety the past year thanks to its involvement with the Whitewater investigation. I parked my car a few blocks from the RTC building and walked through LaFayette Park in front of the White House to get there. Along the way I nodded to some of the homeless who pitch their blankets there.

Meeting up with my friend, I asked if she were concerned about an airplane landing on her on the way to the office. It was a joke, but she gave me a humorless shrug and said that it was unnerving at times working for a controversial agency in downtown Washington.

The next day one of LaFayette Park's homeless men, wielding a knife, was shot at the White House front gate. He died a day later. Although initial television hype connected the incident to the president, in fact, the White House was merely the backdrop for an event that happens all-too-commonly in the District. In this case, it ended sloppily and tragically on national television.

We haven't escaped all problems in Southeast Missouri, and any crime is too much crime. But there is a sense that none of our problems are too big for us. That's not the feeling in Washington.

A quick path to big problems locally, however, would be to treat people differently before the law. The recent fulmination over shoplifting basketball players, mayoral pardons and high school discipline speaks directly to this danger. When justice becomes subordinate to position, class or race, social breakdown is never far behind. It has been reaffirming to witness Cape Girardeau's response to those who would bend the rules.

I do have a caveat, however. Although the NAACP helped no one by their ill-considered picketing of Central High last week, least of all the students its leaders professed to champion, the issue of minority teachers at the high school remains a valid one. There should be black teachers there, and it speaks well of the new principal that he has said attracting them is a serious goal. The community should rally around the effort.

I return to Washington at the end of the week, more than a little regretful not to be here longer. Those of us from Southeast Missouri know a charming corner of the world. We should never stop trying to make it better.

Jon K. Rust is a Washington-based writer for the Southeast Missourian.