Saturday, November 18, 2006

Calendar of Events



January scary
February worry
March of the Lemmings
April Fools
May but probably won’t
June swoon
July to die for
August not so robust
September to remember
October all over

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Golf Courses = Racism?


Once again if look hard enough everything is race based:
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0612/investigations/golf.shtml

"[D]evelopers have turned to exclusionary amenities, which remain unregulated. The amenity of choice for the last two decades has been a residential golf course, Strahilevitz believes, because “golf participation functioned as a better proxy for race than income, wealth, or virtually any other characteristic.”

I have been told I am white. I live on a golf course. I bought in the 90's.

Here is why I bought:
Lot size. Other neighborhoods offered 1/4 acre or far less.
Quality of construction.
Early 1990s price squish-down" that made much better properties only slightly more expensive.
Land-use assurance. Golf courses don't go smart growth" or "new urbanist" or "transit oriented development" or "blighted urban upzoning" or ...
Taxes. No HOAs, no assesment districts, no Mello-Roos.
Privacy/traffic. Cul-de-sacs and winding tertiary dendritic narrow roads.
Potential for retained value/appreciation.
High civic participation.
Good schools.

Yep, racism just oozes from my list. And I'm sure that if someone of color had offered $100k more at the time it would have not mattered because what was impotant wasn't the green but the black/brown and white.

The author mistakes cultural factors for racial considerations. That makes them the racists in this situation.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Political Fallout


"__________"


"...the core goal of conservatism is to conserve the existing power structure."

I consider myself sympathetic to what was called conservative and I'm getting really tired of it being associated with the current Republican administration. Conservative is not deficts and spending. Conservative is not foreign adventurism. Conservative is small govt, constitutional authority, devolution of powers. Rightfully decry the current and impending power structure but please don't involve conservatism in the process.

Recall a time, ancient in the current political cycle but recent in the history of modern democracy; "The Conscience of a Conservative" by Goldwater was one side and JFK another. Today JFK couldn't even get the Republican nomination because of his extreme conservative positions.

What we have now is capitalism running ahead (evolving faster) than its democratic checks and balances in the field of economics. To compound the error we have politics outrunning its traditional constraints.