Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Mon, Jul 11 2005
Blight: The Other Tax Meat
I lived in the Twin Cities area for a short time in the early 1980s, and I recall that there was a growing Hmong population settling in that area. Our church congregation rented our building to a group of them for awhile, since they needed a place to worship while they saved money for their own house of worship. Since I've been very upset over the recent Supreme Court's (narrow) decision on eminent domain I noted with interest a blog post by Al over at Old Whig's Brain Dump. It seems that the eminent domain decision is already being touted as a precedent in U.S. cities, including the Minnesota community of Brooklyn Center.
From now on the term "blight" is probably going to be one of those words pulled out of the proverbial top hat any time a city wants to build up its tax base a bit. It will become a developer's favorite word. Homeowners will see it as a bulldozer to be used against their individual interests and a battering ram to be used by collective homewowners (or business owners) to force undesirables out of the 'hood. So attorneys will now be hard at work to make the term "blight" mean as many different things as possible for their client's interests, while holding the other side's interests to as narrow a definition as possible.
posted at: 10:29 | category: /Politics | link to this entry
I lived in the Twin Cities area for a short time in the early 1980s, and I recall that there was a growing Hmong population settling in that area. Our church congregation rented our building to a group of them for awhile, since they needed a place to worship while they saved money for their own house of worship. Since I've been very upset over the recent Supreme Court's (narrow) decision on eminent domain I noted with interest a blog post by Al over at Old Whig's Brain Dump. It seems that the eminent domain decision is already being touted as a precedent in U.S. cities, including the Minnesota community of Brooklyn Center.
From now on the term "blight" is probably going to be one of those words pulled out of the proverbial top hat any time a city wants to build up its tax base a bit. It will become a developer's favorite word. Homeowners will see it as a bulldozer to be used against their individual interests and a battering ram to be used by collective homewowners (or business owners) to force undesirables out of the 'hood. So attorneys will now be hard at work to make the term "blight" mean as many different things as possible for their client's interests, while holding the other side's interests to as narrow a definition as possible.
posted at: 10:29 | category: /Politics | link to this entry
Jethro Would Have Loved This
Joe Gandelman gathered comments from the blogsphere regarding the fact that Karl Rove has now been identified as the anonymous source in journalist Matt Cooper's fact-gathering.
The whole "double super secret" phrase keeps making me want to giggle in the midst of a really serious mess. It always sounds like very young children trying to play by emulating what they perceive to be grown-up ways of handling the real world. And then there's always that one kid in the group who can't resist bragging about having inside information.
The security issues themselves aren't funny, and the fact that real people's lives have been horribly affected isn't funny. But the idea that certain individuals have begun to twist and cross their arms and point at people on either side of their own bare-bottomed cheeks makes me want to laugh. I keep remembering the character Jethro Bodine from The Beverly Hillbillies and all his chatter about wanting to be one of "them double nought spies".
posted at: 08:20 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Joe Gandelman gathered comments from the blogsphere regarding the fact that Karl Rove has now been identified as the anonymous source in journalist Matt Cooper's fact-gathering.
The whole "double super secret" phrase keeps making me want to giggle in the midst of a really serious mess. It always sounds like very young children trying to play by emulating what they perceive to be grown-up ways of handling the real world. And then there's always that one kid in the group who can't resist bragging about having inside information.
The security issues themselves aren't funny, and the fact that real people's lives have been horribly affected isn't funny. But the idea that certain individuals have begun to twist and cross their arms and point at people on either side of their own bare-bottomed cheeks makes me want to laugh. I keep remembering the character Jethro Bodine from The Beverly Hillbillies and all his chatter about wanting to be one of "them double nought spies".
posted at: 08:20 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
