I hope parents of current students are monitoring this

Google and other advertisers, as well as school authorities, are using kids’ take home computers to monitor and record their online activities.

Last year almost 20 percent of all K-12 students were required to use Google Chromebooks, and more than 30 million students, teachers, and administrators used Google’s G Suite for Education. The inexpensive laptop and powerful software have become a very cost-effective solution for schools to teach computer and other skills and to communicate with the students and parents. Kids can submit their homework, take tests. check grades, and collaborate with others using these Google products.

According to an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) report, these Google products also provide an opportunity for Google, the schools, and other software makers to collect students’ personal data. Essentially the products are Trojan horses used by Google to boost their advertising business.

EFF found that many schools don’t provide a written disclosure about data collection or pay much attention to the terms of privacy, and most don’t offer an alternative for the students to opt out. What that means is that students have even less protection than adults do from Google, and Google has taken advantage of the laxity, building profiles and dossiers on the students, and using them for advertising, market research, and other purposes

In numerous lawsuits, Google has admitted to doing this, including scanning and indexing student email messages and directing advertising to YouTube users under 13 years of age.

Google also acknowledged that it collects a wide range of personal information from student users who log in through its educational software. But it’s not only Google. In its survey EFF found other software companies are also collecting students' personal data when students use their products.

Google, which once used the motto, since dropped, of “Do No Evil”, is currently working closely with the Chinese communists to censor internet searches and monitor all that country’s citizens. It’s apparently doing the same thing here, but has chosen to start with our newest generation, presumably to get them used to the process. Has it infected our own school system? I don’t know the answer to that, but our BOE should investigate, as should the parents of any children with a Chrome Book that’s in any way linked to the child’s school.

Beware of new construction premiums

Who wouldn’t welcome a new house, with unsullied kitchen ovens and polished, untouched (except by Canadian sheet rockers and other worker hordes) toilets, but there’s a price to be paid for that privilege. Case in point:

37 Mianus View Terrace, Cos Cob, sold new in 2006 for $2,002,500 million, has finally resold for $1.550, after eight years of trying (with several periods of rentals in between). I usually buy new vehicles by choice, so I certainly understand the appeal of new vs previously-owned, but do know that the depreciation axe will be swinging before you even leave the lawyer’s closing office.

As I was saying

21 Knollwood, purchased for $3.9 million in 2007 and extensively renovated in 2012 is reported as pending, asking price $2.499. It started at $3.495, but when it dropped its price to $2.499 two weeks ago, I suggested that it was a good deal.

Obviously, someone agreed.

Rent, buy, or run away?

Most of the real estate activity these days involves rentals and sales of residences which have taken huge price cuts. The doesn’t surprise me, because I’m reading the same tea leaves many would-be buyers are mulling, and I see nothing good in the future. Personally, I’m tempted to run away.

Connecticut voters have turned control of the legislative branches over to the tender care and mercies of Democrats (and it should concern ordinary property owners here that Democrat Ladies Indivisible helped toss out Greenwich’s Scott Frantz, one of the last fiscal conservatives in our legislature) and the looming $4 billion deficit (plus the $80 billion public pension disaster) will surely put the crosshairs of the taxers on Greenwich. Greenwich first, that is: despite the fondest hopes of our enemies, there simply isn’t enough money to squeeze from our 60,000 residents to spend our way out of this catastrophe, and the taxes will have to spread out. Brace yourself, Naugatuck.

Here in town, the Ladies Indivisible have grabbed control of our Town Meeting, and they will be duplicating the efforts of their Hartford allies to raise taxes and spending. The buildings housing high performing schools like Riverside, North Street and Eastern and Central schools will be allowed to deteriorate, while tens of millions of dollars will be devoted to our failed western schools. That won’t matter all that much: bright students from successful parents will do just fine, despite sub-par teachers and dilapidated structures, just as they always have (see, e.g., lower East Side Jewish ghetto, circa 1910), but the never-ending passion for spending other people’s money will eventually have its effect.

I see a Westchesterization of our town in our future, a town, and county, indistinguishable from New Rochelle, Scarsdale and Bronxville, say — nice houses and neighborhoods, decent schools, and massive taxes. People will still want to live here, because it will offer a nice alternative to Manhattan apartments for families, but any price advantage we used to enjoy over Westchester will be gone, and we should expect to see a drop in home values until they match those across the border.

Oh well, we’ll always have Tod’s Point (until Ladies Indivisible opens it to migrants from out of town), and nice parks.

Better they should worry about what's being stuffed in their kids' ears rather than their tummies

Darien bans helicopter mommies from invading elementary school’s cafeteria during lunchtime. The moms claim that their midday visits allow them to help open milk cartons, see how their children are faring and “to help them resolve friction with other children”.

Parents ought to be monitoring what’s being taught in social studies and history classes, and leave their precious darlings to figure out how to open a milk carton by themselves.

Rogues Hill woes continue

29 Round Hill Club Road, bought new in 2008 for $16.250 million and originally priced this time , in 2013, at an even $18 million, has been reduced again, and you or your gardener can pick it up for just $12.5 today.

The house and its fate speaks volumes about what’s happened to real estate prices up in Madoff co-conspirator Walter Noel’s neighborhood. Back in 2008, paying $16 million for a Doug Vanderhorn-designed home as the market was crashing was, if ill-advised, at least somewhat defensible in certain circles (an Ogilvy client bought it), and had things continued on their sunny path, this owner might have come close to getting out at a modest loss ten years later. Vanderhorn designs classic, traditional Greenwich homes, with graceful proportions, and it wasn’t that long ago that a 12,000 square foot house (including "garaging for 5 cars”, but no basement - can you say “high water table”?) was a desirable residence, so near to the golf club. Today, it’s a double bogey.

It probably won’t help its chances that Cindy Sikorsky Renfret has been brought in to redecorate it: Renfret and her followers are responsible for all of the worst of the 90s back country decorating schemes, but that style passed ten years ago, and emphasizing the outdated feeling of this house was ill-advised.

All that said, the Vanderhorn design is classic, and someone will come along who appreciates it. The monetary extent of that appreciation remains to be seen.

Renfret’s loaned her Zebra, and even picked up some books at the thrift shop

And two of her leopard seating installations

Heck, Doug even tossed in a spaghetti faucet for the convenience of the caterers (who won’t use it, but never mind)

Yes, it's a concerted attack

Why we hate the media, chapter 12,186. Before I recovered my senses and remembered that Thanksgiving was about gratitude and turkey, not politics, I engaged in a brief exchange on this topic with a family member. We both quickly realized that our love for each other was more important than winning points and so desisted, but I do find it frustrating that the left side of our national discussion has the attention span of a gerbil (is that too harsh?)

Right location, wrong era

5 Parsonage Road has cut its price to $3.775 million — the sellers paid $4.456 in 2005. It’s a fine house, in great condition, and Parsonage is a great street, but 1962 construction is a dead issue so far as appreciation is concerned. A buyer looking for a decent rental alternative for, say, five years, could do well here.

Here's a bit of a surprise

20 Marks Road, Riverside, is pending at $4.195 million. A decent house, on a decent, if compromised lot on a busy street, it was sold, almost new by my favorite NFL player, former little league coachee, John Sullivan (you owe me, John! If I hadn’t been such a lousy baseball coach, you’d never have turned to football and discovered your true potential) for $3.325 million in 2015. The current owners added a pool and spent a large sum, apparently, on some high-powered interior decorating, but pools deteriorate and decorations fade, so I’m not sure where the value is here.

4,000 square feet, with more in the basement, on a 1/3-acre lot. Seems steep, but it went in just 23 days [brother Gideon corrects me: 23 hours for an accepted offer], so what do I know?

It’s somewhat alarming to realize that a grown adult was paid to draw these squiggles on a blackboard to simulate “children at play”

And we're back

A great time with the family in Boulder Colorado; just the four of us, with one guest, so a quiet celebration, but a good one. I’m not sure whether I missed the 30-attendees dinners of the past, but it was certainly different. There’s probably room for both types of meals, alternated.

If it weren’t so expensive — Boulder prices make Greenwich real estate look cheap — I’d be tempted to stay there. Fifteen miles west of the city, the mountains were pelted with 15” of new snow, while the flats below were basking in 50-degree temperatures. That’s a nice combination, and the mountains that frame every view are spectacular, but alas, the Californians have taken over the area, bringing with them their politics and house pricing, so … pass.

96 club road

Upon returning, I see that brother Gideon has inked a contract for 96 Club Road, in Riverside, asking $5.5 million, now, down quite a bit from its 2017 price of $7.5, but that’s the market and, to my wallet, that’s still a chunk of change.

Case in point regarding price shifts, 2 Lauder Way, purchased for $6.2 million in 2013, renovated and placed back up for sale in 2017 at $7.295, has now dropped to $5.295. Nice house, excellent location; the times they are a changing.

2 lauder way