Things that are past...

There was once a Dead End Kids movie where, at the end of the movie, the good looking Dead End Kid was going to get out of Hell's Kitchen and go to where life was good: Somerville, New Jersey. I think it was Tommy who was going to go live on a farm, which featured an apple orchard, in Somerville. Needless to say, there is not an apple orchard in sight these days. However, it is not apple orchards that I want to talk about: it is old houses.

Recently, I began a walking program to maybe lose a little weight and to gain a little physical fitness. My walks have taken me around the west side of Somerville, and I have begun to really pay attention to the buildings I am walking past. (Mea culpa: I have lived in this town for over ten years, but I have never really given a great deal of thought to a lot of the older buildings on West End Ave., High St. and Cliff Street.) The majority of buildings on these streets are now commercial in that they house offices, but their beginnings were as private residences. And they are mostly Victorian.

In a way it is sad. I would much rather see these stately old buildings once again housing families, but I know this will not happen--economics militates that this does not happen. There are only about four blocks in the West End of Somerville where some older houses still serve their original function. A major factor in this lies in New Jersey's property tax structure. Here in Somerville, which is a county seat, our property taxes are almost 1/3 again as high as those in neighboring towns. And when you compare the property taxes here with those in Pennsylvania, well, let's just say there is a reason for all those Pennsy license plates on New Jersey roads these days. As I said in the beginning, it is sad to see the change...

Venezuela's Chavez tells Washington "go to hell" - Yahoo! News

If I were looking at this (Venezuela's Chavez tells Washington "go to hell" - Yahoo! News ) in a vacuum, with no concern about context, I would assume that Chavez is a total asshole. Well, it turns out that he is just that, but it is also true that a lot of what he complains about vis-a-vis George Bush is also true. S0, here we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and it turns out that they both suffer from overwhelming hubris. To tell you the truth, if I were a Latin American, I would resent how my country and those around me were treated by this administration. I also don't have a lot of problems with taxing the upper classes: they enjoy a much higher standard of living than the rest of their fellow citizens therefore they have a higher responsibility to share the wealth. That's just the way it is. Also I don't have a great deal of problems with Chavez raising the price of gasoline to something a little more in line with its true costs. What I do have problems with is legislation by decree and unlimited presidential re-election. Both of those are the tools of a dictator and not part of a free, democratic society. When push comes to shove, Chavez is not much more than a Banana Republic Dictator of the kind grown throughout Latin America for decades. The only difference between him and the thugs we have supported is that he spouts the Marxist line while our lapdogs paid some sort of lip service to capitalism. I cry for Venezuela and its citizens. Chavez has managed to pack the legislature with his Brown Shirts, so his "reforms" (especially the national police force--read NKVD or Gestapo) are almost a lead pipe cinch to pass. So Venezuela will have themselves a Castro to deal with for the foreseeable future...at least until some group gets the where-with-all to either kill him or stage a successful coup.