May, 2008 archive

A house down the street just sold after being on the market for about five months. The owners, who were old, had already moved.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the sales on the street on the county website (remember, a real estate transaction is a Public Record–I was surprised what you can find on the county website, including the really bad year when I was late on my sewer tax. “Honey,” said the lady with the county, “Don’t worry. They ain’t gonna turn off your sewer.”).

A few notes:

• The street was built in the mid-50s and has fewer than 30 houses. Some–a dwindling number–of the houses are still occupied by persons who bought them when the street was first opened.
• Most of the other houses have been occupied by the same families for 15 or 20 years. There’s not a lot of turnover.
• Even given normal changes and alterations (garages turned into family rooms, partition walls removed or moved, porches and patios added or changed), most of the houses would pretty much fall into the same price range.
• The house that sold on September 25, 1992, had been neglected because owners had become physically unable to keep up with it. The new owners have fixed it up nicely.
• The sales in June 1996; November 2002; and June 2007 were sales on the same house. In 1996, it had a number of unfinished renovations, including an expanded second floor. The “unfinished” part, though, kept the price slightly lower than market. By 2002, when it sold for $189,900, all those renovations were complete and it was–and is–probably the nicest house on the street right. In 2007, when it sold for $345,000, it was pretty much the same house as at the previous sale. It was, nevertheless, hardly almost twice the house it had been five years before.

The most recent sale probably reflects the current ballpark value of houses on the street much more realistically.

The new owners of the nicest house on the street house got a nice house in a quiet, safe neighborhood. But they clearly got bubbled on the price.

Earlier today I heard this from the Current Federal Administrator:

“Today, we gather to honor those who gave everything to preserve our way of life. The men and women we honor here served for liberty. They sacrificed for liberty. And in countless acts of courage, they died for liberty. From faraway lands, they were returned to cemeteries like this one, where broken hearts received their broken bodies — they found peace beneath the white headstones in the land they fought to defend.”

They died for liberty.

Except for those who have died–are still dying–for a lie.

Does the man have any concept of the contrast between his words and his deeds?

Those who think there is somehow virtue and justice in pursuing an unjust war based on a lie might want to listen to the Fresh Air interview with officers whose job is to deliver the news of soldiers’ deaths to the soldiers’ next of kin and ask, “Why must they do this job for a lie?”

Go to the website and click “Listen Now.”

Bring handkerchiefs.

Duncan looks at the Walk Score of his neighborhood.

My address got a 35, but the calculation doesn’t seem to include the bus stop at the end of the street.

I was not a big fan of Bobby Kennedy.

As far as I was concerned at the time, he pretty much stabbed Gene McCarthy in the back. Senator McCarthy had the courage to get in front of the crowd on the issue of the Viet Namese War and, when Kennedy saw McCarthy’s success, Kennedy jumped right in.

Nevertheless, Bobby Kennedy did seem to have a true concern for justice and for the little guy.

Therefore, all I can say is that this is just pathetic:

Hillary Clinton cited the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy in justifying her decision to keep campaigning for president in videotape released today.

It’s like Britney Spears doing something in honor of Benny Goodman.

The Booman, in contrast, thinks it is just massively stupid.

Addendum, the Day After:

I am so naive and trusting, so unwilling to think the worst of someone until I have been shown that they deserve it, that I did not even conceive of the most sinister implications of this remark until I heard Daniel Schorr’s commentary this morning.

Guess I need to work on being more cynical.

In certain areas of Left Blogistan, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth that Senator Clinton has not, as the Senator expected to do, waltzed uninterrupted to the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

In those quarters, her failure to march triumphantly to the convention is being interpreted as a result of prejudice against women.

It is also giving rise to conspiracy theories as screwy as Republican policies. Phillybits has been doing a pretty good job keeping track of them here and here and here and here.

Senator Clinton’s supporters have also claimed that she has been mistreated by the press. When pressed, they offer up the same two or three culprits, most notably Chris Matthews. Yet, as Suzanne Smalley pointed out on today’s Radio Times, half the reporters on the campaign bus are women (go to the website and search for today’s date or listen to the show in Real Audio format here).

A couple of days ago, Howard Fineman, shilling his new book on that same show, said that he thought that there perhaps had been some coverage that betrayed sexism on the part of the reporter, but not a significant amount. He also pointed out that there’s a reason 75% of the word news is n e w, and Senator Obama is new. (Listen to the show in Real Audio here.)

(Aside: These generalizations do not apply to political blogs. Look not far to find enough racism and sexism to keep you gagging for a week.)

Senator Clinton’s double-x chromosomes do not make her more virtuous than Senator Obama’s x and y make him, despite what some seem to believe. Nor does it make her less virtuous.

Senator Clinton entered the campaign expecting, not a nomination, but a coronation. She unexpectedly found herself facing a competent and energetic challenger. Then she started to, well, behave badly.

Senator Clinton’s failures are her own failures. They don’t belong to anyone else. They are failures of strategy, such as running an incompetent campaign in Iowa (and elsewhere). It is her conduct and her behavior, not her sex, that has backed her against a wall.

It is her vote in favor of the fraudulent War in Iraq, in contrast to the vision of an opponent who recognized from the git-go that it was a fraud.

It is her lame claim that everything she has done since she got her law degree is somehow “experience in governance,” when most of it was experience in corporate law.

(And, as I have demonstrated, experience in governance is irrelevant to effectiveness as President. Hell, look at all those in the Current Federal Administration who have spent almost their whole working lives in the government, the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, the Ashcrofts–based on their performance, one can argue that experience in governance should actually disqualify persons from high office).

During the campaign, it has been her choice to pander to the worst American instincts, rather than to search for the best, that has seen her sink. And, at this point, she has shown that she can attract voters in the Appalachian states, whereas Senator Obama has shown that he can attract voters everywhere else (and don’t talk to me about Indiana and Ohio; anyone who has spent significant amounts of time there, as I have, knows that their south and central areas are pretty much nothing more than northern Kentucky).

And, as her prospects have become dimmer, her conduct has become–er–screwier.

Now, do not mistake me. If, through some combination of luck and political muscle and skulduggery, she gets the nomination, I will certainly support her.

The Current Federal Administration has proven to me that any Democrat is superior to every Republican. The political discourse can continue from that point.

Nevertheless, it’s not because Senator Clinton is a woman that she looks to be a sure number two in the race for the nomination.

It’s because she has shown herself to be a jerk.

And, sadly, some of her most fervent supporters over here in Left Blogistan have followed her lead.

Hillary Clinton gives me the willies.