Category Archives: Culture

New London woes

Today the Supreme Court ruled on the pressing New London eminent domain case in support of the Connecticut Supreme Court, a decision that I find misguided and dangerous. I can’t say that I like agreeing with either Justice Thomas or O’Connor, who dissented, but in this case their arguments are to my mind reasonable and sane. From my point of view, the court continues its hands-off decisions, assenting to too much authority in the hands of the state over the individual. What follow are some snippets that I find interesting from the case. Links are in original and italics are mine for emphasis. Justice Stevens in his opinion writes this

Those who govern the City were not confronted with the need to remove blight in the Fort Trumbull area, but their determination that the area was sufficiently distressed to justify a program of economic rejuvenation is entitled to our deference. The City has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including–but by no means limited to–new jobs and increased tax revenue. As with other exercises in urban planning and development,12 the City is endeavoring to coordinate a variety of commercial, residential, and recreational uses of land, with the hope that they will form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. To effectuate this plan, the City has invoked a state statute that specifically authorizes the use of eminent domain to promote economic development. Given the comprehensive character of the plan, the thorough deliberation that preceded its adoption, and the limited scope of our review, it is appropriate for us, as it was in Berman, to resolve the challenges of the individual owners, not on a piecemeal basis, but rather in light of the entire plan. Because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment.

The problem that surfaces here is the confounding of eminent domain, “benefits to the community,” the idea of “public purpose,” all in the context of taxes, jobs, and the justice’s “deference.” Further, he writes

Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government. There is, moreover, no principled way of distinguishing economic development from the other public purposes that we have recognized. In our cases upholding takings that facilitated agriculture and mining, for example, we emphasized the importance of those industries to the welfare of the States in question, see, e.g., Strickley, 200 U. S. 527; in Berman, we endorsed the purpose of transforming a blighted area into a “well-balanced” community through redevelopment, 348 U. S., at 33;13 in Midkiff, we upheld the interest in breaking up a land oligopoly that “created artificial deterrents to the normal functioning of the State’s residential land market,” 467 U. S., at 242; and in Monsanto, we accepted Congress’ purpose of eliminating a “significant barrier to entry in the pesticide market,” 467 U. S., at 1014-1015. It would be incongruous to hold that the City’s interest in the economic benefits to be derived from the development of the Fort Trumbull area has less of a public character than any of those other interests. Clearly, there is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose.

I agree that one of government’s jobs is to promote economic development (by staying out of peoples’ way as much as possible, yet restraining behavior that puts the public good in danger), but in the context of the above paragraph, there’s no strong connection being made analogically between the New London case and those cited , which is what I find as the greatest weakness of the 5 to 4. How do Berman, Midkiff, and Monsanto fit; hence, how would a nay opinion be incongruous? The question isn’t whether economic development has something to do with public purpose but whether the State has proven that its needs are greater than those of the individuals in “this” case. Oligopoly and blight aren’t at issue. “No principled way,” the justice writes. Bull. The latitude being given to a principle here is astounding. If Microsoft wanted to buy West Simsbury, proving to the state house that it would generate money and jobs, which I’m sure it would, how does Steven’s standard of judgement provide a legitimate framework for consistency (which to me is a public good)? And it’s not just Microsoft, it’s anyone who has more money than I do who could claim my property.

On the other hand, here’s what O’Connor has to say. She writes

Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded–i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public–in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.” When interpreting the Constitution, we begin with the unremarkable presumption that every word in the document has independent meaning, “that no word was unnecessarily used, or needlessly added.” Wright v. United States, 302 U. S. 583, 588 (1938). In keeping with that presumption, we have read the Fifth Amendment’s language to impose two distinct conditions on the exercise of eminent domain: “the taking must be for a ‘public use’ and ‘just compensation’ must be paid to the owner.” Brown v. Legal Foundation of Wash., 538 U. S. 216, 231-232 (2003).

The emphasis here is going to be on the concept of public use and providing a strict standard for its definition. O’Connor comments on the relevance of Steven’s earlier examples

The Court’s holdings in Berman and Midkiff were true to the principle underlying the Public Use Clause. In both those cases, the extraordinary, precondemnation use of the targeted property inflicted affirmative harm on society–in Berman through blight resulting from extreme poverty and in Midkiff through oligopoly resulting from extreme wealth. And in both cases, the relevant legislative body had found that eliminating the existing property use was necessary to remedy the harm. Berman, supra, at 28-29; Midkiff, supra, at 232. Thus a public purpose was realized when the harmful use was eliminated. Because each taking directly achieved a public benefit, it did not matter that the property was turned over to private use. Here, in contrast, New London does not claim that Susette Kelo’s and Wilhelmina Dery’s well-maintained homes are the source of any social harm. Indeed, it could not so claim without adopting the absurd argument that any single-family home that might be razed to make way for an apartment building, or any church that might be replaced with a retail store, or any small business that might be more lucrative if it were instead part of a national franchise, is inherently harmful to society and thus within the government’s power to condemn.

Furthermore

Even if there were a practical way to isolate the motives behind a given taking, the gesture toward a purpose test is theoretically flawed. If it is true that incidental public benefits from new private use are enough to ensure the “public purpose” in a taking, why should it matter, as far as the Fifth Amendment is concerned, what inspired the taking in the first place? How much the government does or does not desire to benefit a favored private party has no bearing on whether an economic development taking will or will not generate secondary benefit for the public. And whatever the reason for a given condemnation, the effect is the same from the constitutional perspective–private property is forcibly relinquished to new private ownership.

. . .

Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.

It seems to me, despite the problems with the relevance of Midkiff et al, that the majority failed to live up to the simple test O’Connor brings up here: how far should we go in loosening the standard for defining public use as well as problematicizing the roles of individuals, private owners, and the extend to which the state should act on the behalf of either. I agree with O’Connor about the question of power here. Can we simply allow a tranfer of property from one holder to the next, even if a new holder could show “benefit”? I water, keep the lawn up, do some gardening, and pay my taxes. Certainly, though, some other owner could turn my property into a chicken farm and sell loads of fresh eggs. We could argue that neighborhoods and quality of life go hand in hand, but ultimately thats too arbitrary for the court. Here’s Thomas’ concluding statement

The Court relies almost exclusively on this Court’s prior cases to derive today’s far-reaching, and dangerous, result. See ante, at 8-12. But the principles this Court should employ to dispose of this case are found in the Public Use Clause itself, not in Justice Peckham’s high opinion of reclamation laws, see supra, at 11. When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution’s original meaning. For the reasons I have given, and for the reasons given in Justice O’Connor’s dissent, the conflict of principle raised by this boundless use of the eminent domain power should be resolved in petitioners’ favor. I would reverse the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

I agree.

Back to the notion of order

For the past couple of weeks in lit we’ve been talking a lot about the notion of order and chaos, taking I guess the Hegelian dialectical approach to clashing notions, an approach that goes pretty well with Antigone, Sophocles’ play. It’s not the end all of course. Nevertheless, the idea that something must be resolved in Antigone is palpable, and always relevant to contemporary politics and culture (the play always reads fresh because something about Antigone–her resolve, energy, and anger always touch a cord with the audience. Something must be resolved may appear dull || obvious, but in the play the fundamental notion that things are falling apart and must be stopped is central to the tragedy. What’s the problem, though, in the play? Why doesn’t Antigone simply accept Creon’s decision for Polyneices’ body? Why doesn’t he retract sooner than he does? Why does he react as he does in the first place? Why doesn’t Haemon kill Creon when he has the chance? And what about Ismene, who declines her sister’s request. Then again, why doesn’t anyone ask the question about Polyneices’ actions vs Eteocles’ choice to suspect transition of the right to rule?

If we take the sequence of events in the Oedipus cycle and consider (for limited time) the notion of fate as a force fluid in the plays, then the above questions become even more interesting to the underlying drama and to the general course of anagnorisis (revealing). The play is filled with powerful questions and incredible sense of “dramatic” telling.

But the original issue keeps coming back to me: something must be resolved. But what? More to come on this.

Too many books, too little time

Both Susan Gibb and Daniel Green are remarking on the state of the book publishing industry. Daniel Green writes

I don’t say that too many people want to be writers or that readers should have to make do with whatever books a selected number of book publishers wants to give them. I only say that if you’re relying on the “book business” to make your career as a writer you’ll be sorely disappointed. (For additional evidence of how the oversupply of books makes it difficult for lesser-known books to even get stocked on bookstore shelves, see this post by Maud Newton.) The “book business” described in M.J. Rose’s post is not your friend. As long as you continue seeking entrance to the “book business,” as opposed to simply doing good work and perhaps looking for alternate modes of publication, you’ll be contributing to the mess the publishers have made of literary production and ensuring that not so many years from now there won’t even be a book business to kick around anymore.(links in original)

Susan writes,

So to just about everyone except some celebrity with a sizzling sex life, the old advice stands firmly: Don’t give up your day job.

It’s an important conversation to have–as book publishing is one thread in the narrative of readers, writers, and the culture of reading. The sense of this “overloaded” or stuffed market has been germinating for a while. I’ve had the experience, and this was years ago, of walking into the book store and staring at the stacks of novels for sale and the whole daunting hump looked like a mound of hay. The fact of the matter is I haven’t read a lot of new books in a while, yet I keep coming back to the stories and poems in the lit mags, and really only read what I’m interested in reading, hypertext fiction, comics, and the old standbys. I have to say that I no longer have the patience to “look” for interesting novels unless someone points one out to me and I’ll read it, well, at least some of it, as Neha will remind me. (Then I’ll keep the book in my office and keep forgetting to give it back.) I must say though that it’s a great era for blurb writers, who all claim that the novels they’re commenting on are “tours de force.” Nevertheless, a good novel is always something to be shared.

I agree that the saturation of the market diminishes all of the work and opens the novel and the act of writing the novel to a strange obscurity. But reading persists and the work persists and, importantly, the alternatives to Knopf and Norton persist. The novel in whatever form, I would argue, needs to be written even more so these days despite the market. I recall a saying from Carlos Fuentes in his novel The Campaign that went something like: people need god more than they need the church. The same may be said of the mainstream industry of books. Anyway, the above links are worth further reading.

Games and tax credits

This found via Gamasutra

The Louisiana Senate Bill 341, an initiative to grant tax credits to companies setting up shop in Louisiana to produce video games and related interactive entertainment, has passed the Senate, according to online reports. The vote was 33-0 in favor of the bill, which means its passage to the House Ways and Means Committee is now clear.

The bill offers a tax credit of 10 percent of state income tax for companies who invest anywhere from $300,000 to $8 million in a Louisiana-based operation. Investments of over $8 million will earn a 15 percent credit. Any credits can be traded or transferred, but a failure to remain in business in the state for one year after credits are granted would result in penalties such as a loss of the credit.

Bird flu news

More bad news from The Guardian

Bird flu has ravaged poultry farms across 10 Asian countries since late 2003. It has also jumped to humans, but nowhere has suffered as badly as Vietnam, where 36 of the 51 confirmed human fatalities have occurred. As well as transforming medical practices, challenging traditional methods of farming and rewriting countless restaurant menus, the H5N1 virus has ravaged the rural economy.

More on terminology: “Mommy Wars”

In a comment in my post on what I thought was typical journalistic conflation, Trixie of Distracted Diva writes

The term “Mommy Wars” is an interesting bit of rhetoric. It is commonly used to describe the imaginary schism between stay-at-home mothers and mothers who work outside the home. Groups who are not supportive of women’s rights use this term to create a perceived discord between these kinds of mothers, painting each as hostile to the other, and to then present this image as a reality to the culture at large. This also creates a no-win situation for mothers, who are not supported by the either/or ideology implicit in this rhetoric, and allows the culture at large to focus on a fictional “catfight” rather than on the real issues affecting mothers’ ability to care for their children.

This is well stated. Trixie rubs this coin to the understuff, revealing the “emptiness” of media-common terms, which may be anything preceeding the word “war.” But here’s another related issue. We talk a lot about “values” in the commons. But rarely do we drill down into the notion of what constitutes value.

Swift even on the road

Mark Bernstein responds to my comments on responsiveness and jobs well done. Is there a potential for backfire? He writes

But there are costs, too. One worry is that, when I’m on the road (like I’ll be in the coming weeks) and the office is shorthanded, we’re bound to be slower than usual. Unavoidable, but bad.

Perhaps, but Mark’s earned the respect.

Here’s an example from the edu-front. Typically I try to have student work back a few days after it’s been turned in for evaluation. So, when the crunch comes and things are delayed, say, British Literature research papers, students get a little antsy and start to clamour. When good habits are the norm, we often take them for granted. When they aren’t the norm, we adhere to the standard. For example, one of the things that tickles me are 1) email bot responses from companies acknowledging receipt 2) then the week’s lag response afterward that doesn’t address the original query. This happens a lot from my service provider, McAfee, Dell, and others. This may be a question of global convenience. Dell must get many thousands of email a day (if people can find the email). Everyone wants their question addressed; and there may be serious issues. But they sell the computers along with Platonic tech support. I remember going through the huge Dell Truemobile meltdown a few years back when wireless base stations just quite working after Comcast took over @Home. What a mess with DHCP, and yonder works the replacement by “guess who.”

Anyway, here’s to jobs well done across the board.

Especially now with grades in the pipeline and no time to work on Stoning Field.

Urbanization and slavery

Christopher Coonce-Ewing writes on urbanization and its influence on slavery in New York. Here’s his claim

While claims have been made that it was the American Revolution that sparked the drive for abolition and manumission of the enslaved Africans in New York, slavery increased within the state after the Revolution. In fact it was the urbanization and manufacturing development of New York combined with the immigrations of large numbers of Europeans providing inexpensive labor that lead to the end of slavery in the Empire State.

Read the rest here.

Politics, culture, and war

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the “Mommy Wars”

“We heard mothers talking about the kind of hypersexuality that’s out there, about violence and disrespect, about body image, all the things that are not exactly news, but cutting across a huge and diverse sample of mothers,” says Martha Farrell Erickson of the University of Minnesota, lead researcher on the study, released by the Institute for American Values in New York. “What they would really like to see is mothers and fathers joining forces more effectively to take on some of these issues.”

Politics did not come up naturally in these mothers’ group conversations; they see the solutions more through the avenue of personal and community action, rather than dumping these problems on the doorstep of government. But there is a stark political fact that strategists from both parties are keenly aware of, and which could telegraph a major theme in the next presidential race: the “married parent gap.”

Does the Monitor force the plotting of national politics here? If real people are concerned about the rush of influence into the family circle, why is the news thrust a “strategy” issue? “Mommy Wars”?

Just a question.

Sqeezing into school

Neha at Wanderlust uses her fingers on the subject of college entrance

What is it exactly that gets the students into college these days? Nothing short of cut-throat competition. Talk about living in a dog-eat-dog world. If AP classes, SAT’s, college prep courses, high profile grades, co-curricular activities and the admission essay weren’t enough, now students have to start thinking about spending their summers in the most exotic locale possible, suffering to the highest degree possible by working in a wheat field in Vietnam, and developing a 10 unit lesson plan at least a year before they apply to college.

And talk about Cindy wanting to get it done as quickly as possible.