Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

I find this to be very troubling. I understand that there may be reason for government to acquire property, but it should be limited in its ability to do so.

WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling — assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America — was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue."

The majority ruling took a tack that in concept I can agree with, that of the local leadership having a better grasp upon what would benefit a particular area, but I still find this to be troubling.

Writing for the court's majority in Thursday's ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens said local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community. States are within their rights to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened, he said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue," Stevens wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer.

"It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area," he said.

O'Connor, who has often been a key swing vote at the court, issued a stinging dissent, arguing that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

Homes should not be taken just for the personal gain of someone and that is my concern, that this will be abused and misused.

Some might argue that compensation for the property should help to mitigate the damage but I am not sure that there is any truth to it. In the current real estate market it is questionable whether owners would receive enough to purchase a home of equivalent value and aside from that there are things that money cannot buy.

Do You Stand "In Line" or "On Line"

I am a native Californian, born and bred within the fine city of Los Angeles. During my travels to different places around the country and the world I have had to wait to get on planes, into movies, walk through airport security and been a member of lines to get into any number of places.

Most of the time I have had to wait "in-line" in spite of the attempts of some people to get me to wait "on-line" but I most definitely have never been part of the queue.

I have to say that I just don't like the term, "on-line" that is. When it comes to having to wait to enter somewhere it just feels awkward and unnatural to say that I am waiting "on-line" unless of course I am surfing the net.

To My Children

Dear children,

This is one of many letters that I am going to write to you about my experiences and thoughts about the journey we all share called life. Right now you are both quite young and this will not mean anything to you yet, but the time will come when you will see a need to read this.

I hope that when that time comes you will find hope, help, comfort and sustenance in this because I am forever your daddy and love you with a passion that I cannot ever adequately express.

In time you will both be in school and you will encounter the meat grinder we call peer pressure. Your friends and classmates will spend time telling you about themselves and their lives. Some of them will do it in a friendly, open way and others will not.

Some of them will try to influence you to do as they do, to dress as they do, speak as they do and act as they do. Sometimes this can be a good thing and sometimes it can be a bad thing. One of the most important things you can do is learn how to think for yourself and learn how to swim against the tide.

It won't always be necessary nor advisable to go your own way. Sometimes the smart course of action is to do what the majority does and sometimes it is absolutely the worst thing that you can do.

Your mother and I are not going to be there to hold your hand, so you have got to learn how to use your judgement. If we do our jobs you will be able to make those decisions, good, bad, hard or indifferent.

I want you to always remember to never stop learning. A solid, balanced education is critical. It is among the most important things that you can do because it will help provide you with tools that you can forever use.

In the future we are going to talk about your college education and what you need to do to be successful. But long before we get to that point I want you to remember something. Where you start is not as important as where you finish.

That means that if you go to a community college and then transfer to an Ivy league school no one will know that you spent any time at the community college. And for that matter there are advantages to going that route, but we'll talk about that later.

Something else to remember is that reputations are nice but they do not always live up to the hype, there are a lot of factors to consider. By this I mean the reputations that some schools get. They are not always deserved, but again this is a discussion for a later time and place.

For now I look forward to watching you grow and sharing your lives with you. I love you very much.

-Dad

Do You Represent All Jews

This was a 600 word rant that I just nuked because it wasn't flowing the way I wanted it to, so I started over. The question I posed in the title is Do you represent all Jews also known as do non-Jews make their evaluation/judgement of who Jews are based upon their experience with you.

It is an old discussion and one that in general I find to be very distasteful. There is something very wrong about basing an opinion about a group of people based upon the behavior of one person.

For example, it is wrong to judge all Black people based upon your opinion of Michael Jordan or for that matter Michael Jackson. I wouldn't do it and I am teaching my children to develop their thoughts/feelings/opinion about people based upon the person and not some shallow observation.

Yet it seems that all too frequently I have been engaged in a discussion by fellow MOTs about our responsibility to show the world who we are and what we are like. That if we act poorly, if we do not serve as a good dugma we are hurting other Jews.

It just irks me to no end. I'd say that I hate it but that is far too strong a word so I am not going to use it, but it gives a sense of just how distasteful I find this to be.

And now my sad confession. If I am reading the newspaper or listening to the news and I hear/read a Jewish sounding name I take an extra moment to find out what the story is. If the person that they speak of is a suspect or has been convicted of a crime I cross my fingers and hope that I find out that I am mistaken and that they are not a M.O.T. And of course if it is something cool than I want to hear that they are part of the tribe.

It is a bit of a contradiction, but that is part of being human, the desire to pick and choose, the will to take the good and eliminate the bad.

In a utopian society this dialogue wouldn't exist because we would not judge each other based upon anything but the merit/actions of the individual. Even though we do not live in that world now, there is no reason that we cannot work towards it.

We do not plant trees for ourselves, but for our children, grandchildren and the people that come after us.

(Cross posted on The Jewish Connection)

Grandfather kills leopard with his hands

If only Dr. Doolitle had been there to translate.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A 73-year-old Kenyan grandfather reached into the mouth of an attacking leopard and tore out its tongue to kill it, authorities said Wednesday.

Peasant farmer Daniel M'Mburugu was tending to his potato and bean crops in a rural area near Mount Kenya when the leopard charged out of the long grass and leapt on him.

M'Mburugu had a machete in one hand but dropped that to thrust his fist down the leopard's mouth. He gradually managed to pull out the animal's tongue, leaving it in its death-throes.

"It let out a blood-curdling snarl that made the birds stop chirping," he told the daily Standard newspaper of how the leopard came at him and knocked him over.

The leopard sank its teeth into the farmer's wrist and mauled him with its claws. "A voice, which must have come from God, whispered to me to drop the panga (machete) and thrust my hand in its wide open mouth. I obeyed," M'Mburugu said.

As the leopard was dying, a neighbor heard the screams and arrived to finish it off with a machete.

M'Mburugu was toasted as a hero in his village Kihato after the incident earlier this month. He was also given free hospital treatment by astonished local authorities.

"This guy is very lucky to be alive," Kenya Wildlife Service official Connie Maina told Reuters, confirming details of the incident."

Giant Popsicle Floods Manhattan

And they say that weird things happen in Los Angeles.

"NEW YORK - An attempt to erect the world's largest Popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film — but much stickier.

The 25-foot-tall, 17 1/2-ton treat of frozen Snapple juice melted faster than expected Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with kiwi-strawberry-flavored fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.

Firefighters closed off several streets and used hoses to wash away the sugary goo.

Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world's largest Popsicle, but called off the stunt before it was pulled fully upright by a construction crane. Authorities said they were worried the thing would collapse in the 80-degree, first-day-of-summer heat.

"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News. "It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."

Snapple official Lauren Radcliffe said the company was unlikely to make a second attempt to break the record, set by a 21-foot pop in Holland in 1997.

The giant pop was supposed to have been able to withstand the heat for some time, and organizers weren't sure why it didn't. It had been made in Edison, N.J., and hauled to New York by freezer truck in the morning."

A New Post on The Jewish Connection

Hi kids,

Just put up a new post for the Members of The Tribe to read. If you are MOT it might just tickle your fancy.