Andrew Sullivan is understandably upset about what the election results portend for gay Americans. But even culturally conservative people and places are a lot more complicated than you might think. Dallas County just elected a lesbian Latina with a long federal law enforcement career to clean up our mess of a sheriff's department. Her Republican opponent, a department insider, tried to make an issue of her support by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which backs openly gay candidates. The tactic didn't work and it may even have backfired. (It certainly did in the Postrel household, where Lupe Valdez was the only Democrat to get our votes.)
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 03, 2004 • Comments
He lost the vice presidency and didn't help the ticket at all. He gave up his Senate seat, and it went to a Republican.
Most important, a study at Johns Hopkins shows that infection, not lack of oxygen, causes most cerebral palsy in premature babies--making it a lot harder to sue those ob-gyns for big bucks. Here's the NYT report.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 03, 2004 • Comments
RNC chairman Ed Gillespie in on ABC repeating the biggest exaggeration of the night--that this is the "most important election of my lifetime." I don't know how old Gillespie is, but I'm betting he's over 24.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
Walter Olson is live blogging results on the tort-reform measures on eight state ballots, including Florida
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
With Fox News saying the Carolinas are too close to call, things don't look too good for GWB.
Update: Sundry networks are now calling the Carolinas for Bush. But they shouldn't be close.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
Steve and I went to vote at 9:30, figuring we'd avoid the pre-work rush. While the booths were steadily occupied, there was no line. We ran into one of our neighbors, who extended sympathies over our break-in. Though early voting was very heavy in Dallas, there are only a few places to vote early. Things seem pretty normal on election day, despite one of the most hotly contested congressional races in the country and a lot of Kerry voters who want to stick it to their Bush-loving neighbors in the Park Cities. We were voters 318 and 319 at our polling place. My pals at D Magazine's blog have similar reports of line-free voting.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
With the notable exception of Fahrenheit 911, this year's many propaganda documentaries have been box office duds, reports today's WaPost. Meanwhile, those political bestsellers have a dirty little secret, reports Barnes & Noble chairman Leonard Riggio in an informative and entertaining NYT op-ed piece:
Informal polls taken by our store managers indicate that some 70 percent of our customers say they have no intention of reading these books; 15 percent say they will; and 15 percent are undecided. One Kansas City customer said, "I'm buying this book to show people where I stand." Another in New York said, "I'm buying this book because the author agrees with me."
I wonder if the authors care.
Maybe agit-prop movies should take a hint from book publishers and find a way to sell tickets that don't actually require you to sit through the picture--a new application of Fandango, perhaps.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
One of the added bonuses of Tim Cavanaugh's devastating takedown of the molting "liberal hawks" is the link to Chuck Freund's September 2002 article arguing that "the U.S.'s actual intentions in Iraq may have very little--perhaps nothing--to do with the reasons that have been offered by the administration, either before the UN or in the domestic debate. The U.S. may actually be pursuing a strategy it is unwilling to articulate in public." Like everything Chuck writes, it's worth not only reading but rereading.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 01, 2004 • Comments
Here's an election quiz, courtesy of the NYT's John Tierney, whose comedy works include The Best-Case Scenario Handbook. Don't miss question 14.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 01, 2004 • Comments
Joel Achenbach reports on the neighborhood small businesses that expect to be uprooted to build a home for DC's new baseball team. What's good news for baseball fans is not such good news for property owners. (There's even a play about the most infamous case of stadium-related takings.)
Meanwhile, closer to home, voters in Arlington (Texas, that is) will decide tomorrow whether to build the Cowboys a new palace. That stadium, too, would require seizing lots of local property. And, reports the DMN, some property owners are wondering if such seizures are legal--or will remain so for long.
Owners of homes or small businesses in Arlington may question whether it's legal for a city to take their property so that a large business such as the Dallas Cowboys can use it.
Attorneys and property owners fighting in eminent domain cases across the country are essentially asking the same thing: They are attacking the very idea that eminent domain can be used to sweep aside property that is not blighted in the name of economic development.
The power of a government to condemn private property used to be limited to taking property for a public use, such as a road, park or school.
Critics point to a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Berman vs. Parker, which ruled that a blighted area in Washington, D.C., could be condemned so a private developer could remake it, as expanding eminent domain beyond the founding fathers' intent. By 1981, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Detroit could take hundreds of homes and businesses in the Poletown neighborhood to make way for a General Motors plant.
Now the U.S. Supreme Court will revisit the issue in a case that could revise its 50-year-old ruling.
The Connecticut Supreme Court recently ruled that the city of New London could condemn a nonblighted neighborhood so a builder could put in more upscale developments. Attorneys for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking two interlocking questions: Can a city take land from one set of private owners to give it to another private owner? And can it do so when the "public purpose," essentially, is to generate more tax revenue for the city?
In Arlington, for example, there are some properties southwest of Ameriquest Field that city officials have described as "blighted." But some of the structures are merely modest working-class homes or older apartment complexes – buildings perhaps more like those in New London than like blight in Washington, D.C.
For more on the New London case, see the Institute for Justice site here. And, if you're looking for end-of-the-year contributions, IJ is a worthy cause.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 01, 2004 • Comments