And Another Thing....

Not in my backyard

My mom and I were coming back from the movies when she gestured toward a commercial building off Stewart Avenue.

"See that there?" she said. "They're trying to turn that into affordable housing." My mom--and now me, too--lives in a Long Island, New York suburb that is 93 percent white and mostly upper middle class. There are 22,000 people and three country clubs.

"Good," I said. "Garden City needs it. You could barely afford to live here when you got divorced."

"Not good," she said. "It's run by ACORN. That means that there will be mostly blacks and Hispanics living there. They'll go to the schools. There are already six black families in Garden City. If they can afford to live here, then they can live here."

Well, no.

It turns out that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, sent black, white and Latino testers into Garden City real estate agencies. Over 90 percent of white testers were told that apartments were available to rent; over 50 percent of black and Latino testers with the exact same income were told nothing was available and steeered toward other towns.

Garden City is trapped in 1950. There are very few black and Latino students in the schools. There is no gay/straight alliance. Pillars of the community still tell racist jokes. People who live here---not everyone, but some people--seem terrified of our colorful, diverse world.

Affordable in the community may be just the thing to show Garden City residents that people unlike themselves aren't scary---they're just people who want good schools for their children and good homes for their families. All they want is the American dream.

Jon Benet Ramsey suspect apprehended!

So a suspect has been found in the Jon Benet Ramsey murder.

In Bangkok.

Right.

What are the odds that this mysterious guy will also turn up as the suspect in the Nicole Brown Simpson murder? Guess it depends how much he's getting paid.....

The only way I'm going to believe this is if the suspect is actually Jon Benet's dad.

london plot

so the absolute strangest thing being at michigan fest every year is having no access to news---only rumor.

so until i left the land, what i knew about the london plot was this:

1. maybe it wasn't in london. maybe it was in chicago.

2. Terrorists were trying to use hand lotion to blow us up.

two thoughts.

First. It was interesting to me that the level of hysteria was high when people thought the planes were based in chicago--and low when it was learned that they were actually from london.

i've got news for you, people: PLANES FLY. Where they come from matters a lot less than where they go to.

Second. Mr. Terrorist, did you really need to target liquids? Really? Long haul flights are torturous enough. But now I can't bring water or hand lotion. Thanks a lot.

Hey, maybe that was the idea. We all live, but we live agonizing, air traveler lives.....