Utopic Communities: Paulville

(adopt-a-texan.net)

I don't know very much about Ron Paul, besides that he is a Libertarian, and that I was once told that he is so conservative he is now considered by some to be liberal. Whatever that means.

His supporters have a dream, and it is Paulville. Here's from their website:

"The goal of Paulville.org it to establish gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty.

The process is forming a co-op of people buying shares in the community and these people would be granted land use at a minimum of 1 acre per share, for as long as they homesteaded the land. The community would be privately held by the co-op to establish private property for the general community thus preserving the community is 100% freedom and liberty lovers. The community votes on all community efforts, such as utilities etc. However no one is forced to consume these utilities and or pay for them, AKA people can be off grid on their share of land. This is in line with the ideals that you're free to live your life the way you want and not be forced to do or pay for other people's life styles you may not agree with."

Apparently a community already exists in West Texas (Ron Paul is a Congressman from Texas, something else I didn't know). You can read about the community in West Texas (here).

Thanks to Marion for this.

"I'm going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come": brief review of Kansas City and Lawrence, KS

emmy, patrick, and I in front of the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum

So, being lame, I went to Kansas City for my last spring break of my college career. I had the lowest expectations possible for any city on planet earth. I have been raised in St. Louis, and so have been raised with the lowest of views of Kansas City. They are smaller than us (metro area: 1.9 million vs. our 2.8 million), have a crappier airport than us, do not have Forest Park, do not have the Cardinals, do not have the City Museum, do not have our history (Gateway of the West, Lewis and Clark, etc.), and generally suffer from an inferiority complex that is pitiful.

However (and this pains me greatly to say this), after this spring break I think Kansas City is better than St. Louis. While St. Louis has very cool parts of town, they are all 20-minutes away from each other. St. Louis is very fragmented, each county harboring a suspicion of all the other counties. Never will I give up on St. Louis, but KC's downtown and midtown are in far better states than St. Louis' right now. Their Power and Light District that is being built looks super-cool, they have more gay people, more art events, more hipster kids (how I love those hipster kids), and as sad as their Royals are they still love them, which is cute.

It is almost as if the ego of St. Louis is standing in its own way. As I'm looking forward to moving to the great city on May 18th (maybe for good), I am trying to figure out exactly what St. Louis' problem(s) is/are.

One problem is the stubbornness/corruption of the city politicians. They don't like change. (as can be seen in this article about the Metrolink).

Another problem I want to find out more about is how the city is split up, tax-wise. Somehow, the tax money from the counties does not reach downtown. Why? This adds to the cultural/geographical/psychological fragmentation of the city. We are a house divided and we don't let our kids go downtown.

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Also, another blow to my city-love ego came when I found out that Lawrence (home of the hated Kansas University) has an Urban Outfitters downtown and is generally cooler than Columbia. Go ahead and stab me in the heart.

Columbia Peace March

Here's the KOMU coverage of the 1,000 strong march for peace today in Columbia.

And...Julie and I are in the video (briefly). I think this is the first time I've ever been on TV, pretty exciting. And for a good cause.

Here are some of my pictures:

Shaking and drumming down 9th Street.

There were Journalism kids from Mizzou everywhere. I swear, everything in Columbia is very well documented because of the J-school. At one point he was hovering near a woman and she started yelling and riling up the crowd, almost because he was there. It reminded me of a part in Don DeLillo's White Noise, when there's a disaster somewhere but no news crews come and one of the characters says something like "Where were all the cameras? It's like it didn't even happen this way!"

Flood in the Grand Canyon

An article from Yahoo! on why they did it (here).

Dirk Kempthorne, the Secretary of the Interior, reminds me a lot of Bush. One of the first reasons he states for why they're releasing billions of gallons of water into the Grand Canyon is for "the visual effect." It'll look cool, let's do it.

Wow, SNL loves them some Hillary

Yeah Nader

kcbs.com

Although I will probably not vote for the guy, you gotta respect him for all that he has done and for sticking it to the man this long. Way to go, Nader. And he's running for the Green party again. There a good NPR article on Nader's campaign for president in 2008 and how it wasn't his fault that Bush won in 2004.

Wikipedia article on Ralph Nader (here).

Billary* at Mizzou

With little less than 36 hours notice, Bill Clinton came rolling into Columbia to campaign for his lady. He oddly came to our (fantastic) rec center instead of a more reasonable place like the Mizzou Arena, or even the Hearnes Center. Whatev. I mostly went because, well, it's Bill Clinton. I've always heard of his magnetism and phenomenal public speaking. Also, he was President, and that should count for something.

And he was good. He spoke for a whopping 40 minutes. He started out talking about the Mizzou basketball season, made a comment about Mizzou beating Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, and kept on using "country" cliches like "three bricks shy of a full load" and referred to our state as"Missourah," which, my friend Jenna pointed out, only politicians and 80-year-old men from Mexico, MO, say.

Another funny line came from the dude standing behind us. When Clinton was talking about the economy and Bush's proposed plan for economic stimulus, he was explaining how most of the money went to the top 10%. The guy behind us said "...like you."

He talked about the environment, jobs, health care, the mortgage crisis, automated medical records, preventative care, Iraq, foreign policy, and increasing college scholarships. He made jokes about being politically correct, about being president, and I left liking him.

Later that night I was at a going-away party for my friend John, who is being deployed to Iraq. John's one of the most knowledge-hungry guys my age I know. He's absolutely fabulous. He told me that he's been hearing that Bill campaigning for Hillary has actually been hurting her more than helping (Truthdig article). In the middle of Bill Clinton's speech, a phone rang behind me. The guy picked it up and said, "We're at the Bill Clinton rally..."



*thanks to Ailsa for that.

Honestly how the election will probably be won.

Finally politicians are lowering themselves to actually marketing to the illusive non-voting 18-24 demographic. I don't know whether to be disgusted or to shrug my shoulders at the inevitable. It is kind of funny though. I'm still going with Obama.