Our lower end of the market continues to flourish

10 Ponderosa Drive, which is across from Central Middle School and not in Montana, priced at $1.350 million, reports a contract after just 28 days on the market. It’s 1979 construction, with just about exactly what you’d expect from that time period and this price range, but a perfectly nice house and location.

Congratulations, by the way, to listing agent Daphne Lamsvelt-Pol, who did a fine job staging and photographing this house. She also nailed the price, as is obvious.

Price cut way up on Round Hill Road

640 Round Hill Road, dropped $400,000 to $2.850 million. The seller, bless his heart saved this wonderful 1725 antique from the wrecking ball and paid $3 million for it in 2006. I have no idea how much he put into its total renovation but it must have been a substantial sum, so today’s price represents a very nice subsidy for the next owner; I’m also pretty sure that the owner considered this restoration as a labor of love, rather than a money-maker.

It’s a great house, but it’s been pared down to just four acres, so farming is out, and I can’t see this a kid-friendly home; not for rearing a family, at least. Maybe a weekend retreat for NYC types? I think that would be fabulous.

As an aside, the previous owner of this house was a Mr. Frank Snyder, whose 2006 obituary can be found here. I never had the privilege of meeting Mr. Synder, but he was quite a man: submarine officer in the Pacific during WW II, UVA Law, one of the founders of Stratton Ski Mountain and, how I came to know of him, a great sailor. Greenwich has its drawbacks, but we do attract some very interesting, accomplished people.

A sale on Pecksland Road

79 Pecksland, sold for $3.2 million. A nice, 1941 house on four acres, when it was renovated in 2002 it sold in less than a month for $5.4 million. That was then.

Reader "Dichotomy" nails it: magical thinking

Commenting on De Blasio’s claim that, by placing Amazon’s new headquarters adjacent to a sprawling public housing slum, tens of thousands of residents are going to win $150,000 tech jobs, Dichotomy observes,

According to this logic, DeBalsio can relocate a top hospital to the projects and suddenly the denizens will become neurosurgeons and nurses. The left does dream big dreams.

De Blasio’s understanding of the world is exactly the same as that of the most naive Pacific Island cargo cult native, someone who believes that engaging in a ritualistic building ceremony of, say, an airfield, will bring material wealth in the form of airplanes suddenly appearing and dropping mana from heaven. In the Mayor’s defense, this same thinking was why Washington spurred the creation of no-cost home loans to the poor during the past decades: our experts observed that people who owned their own homes tended to be middle-class, steadily employed and living in stable families; caused, the savants concluded, by home ownership. Put an unemployed, high school drop-out single-mother of five into her own house and she’d prosper, just like her fellow home owners. It didn’t occur to our tax dispensers that the material object: the house, was the reflection and result of the living habits of the owner, rather than the other way around.

Go, Sully!

One tough eight-year-old, as I recall

There’s a game tonight, LA Rams v. Patriots. My heart’s been claimed by the Patriots, just because they were so kind to my son John when he was terminally ill, treating him and his sister Sarah to a two-day visit back in 2014, including a visit with cancer-survivor Marcus Cannon, who spent an hour cracking chemo-jokes with John and, the next day, putting John and Sarah in front-row seats on the 40-yard line while they dispatched the Detroit Lions. And then went on to win the Super Bowl.

But we also have Riverside’s own, John Sullivan, playing center for the Rams, and who wouldn’t want to cheer for him? He played on a little league team I coached way back when, and daughter Kate was friends with him at GHS. A great family, sadly diminished by the loss of father Rick Sullivan, who would come out to help me on Saturdays when I was doing my worst trying to corral and “teach” eight-year-olds how to play baseball.

I’m torn, but the Patriots have won plenty of these things, and I think John Sullivan’s family would be absolutely thrilled if their baby boy, at 35, won one of those horribly gaudy rings. And so would I. So let’s go Rams!

Don't you hate it when you go to vote …

Not quite sure who to attribute this to, but here’s a link. Somewhere out there, someone’s being funny.

89% of NYC black and Hispanic high school graduates are illiterate, yet De Blasio claims that they’re in line for Amazon's $150,000 headquarter jobs

They’d have stood a chance, but that was then: 1921, this is now

Good luck with that.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Amazon should adapt to NYC's progressive culture in bringing a corporate headquarters to the city, and vowed to "hold their feet to the fire" to reap community benefits out of the online giant.

The Amazon announcement late last year promised to bring 25,000 jobs with an average salary of $150,000 a year, situating the hub in Queens. Yet the backroom negotiations and $3 billion in city and state tax subsidies have prompted progressive protests and discontent among local residents.

This morning on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, de Blasio said he's not worried that Amazon will decide to cancel the move.

"We went through a long negotiation to ensure that New York City would gain 25,000 jobs minimum, could go as high as 40,000. These are good-paying jobs in the technology community, the kinds of jobs that we want for our public school students, our CUNY students starting out their life, and for public housing residents," de Blasio said. "Remember, one of the biggest public housing residences, in fact the biggest public housing development in America is a walking distance from the Amazon headquarters site. And there is going to be an intensive effort to make jobs available for folks in public housing. This is exactly the kind of thing that we need for the future of this city."

Even counting “white” students, 80% of the graduates (and ignore the drop-outs) spewed from NYC’s high schools can’t read, write or add. There will certainly be union warehouse jobs awaiting them as De Blasio also promises, but six-figure incomes? Only when Maduro inflation hits.

De Blasio, like his predecessors, sees education as a political base for teacher unions, not a source of advancement for children. He’s a charter school foe, supports violence in classrooms — no discipline for bad actors because that “targets” black malefactors — and has condemned yet another generation of kids to poverty and reliance on state welfare. All is going exactly as planned.

But he did receive generous campaign funding from Amazon.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that Howard Schultz, of Starbuck’s fame, is a product of public housing. He came out of that environment, grew a single coffee house into a multi-billion-dollar fortune and is now being savagely attacked by Democrats for daring to suggest that he might have something to offer to the national dialogue. The Democrat’s current darling, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, says America shouldn’t have an economic system that “allows” such a thing to happen, and according to polls I read, 70% of her generation agrees with her. In fact, the term “America is the land of opportunity” is now considered a “micro-aggression” on college campuses, and anyone expressing that thought subject to discipline. I assume that the correct thought is that “opportunity” is something offered by the state, rather than self-discipline, determination and intelligence.

I’m glad that I’ll be shuffling off this mortal coil sooner, rather than later, but I do despair for my girls.

When will the "truth to power"people demand the same tolerance from Muslims?

Duke University joins other Methodist institutions in demanding that the church welcome all believers, regardless of their sexual preferences

Absolutely nothing wrong with this petition, in my opinion: it mirrors my own belief.

Joint Statement of NASCUMC Member Presidents
On the Called General Conference and the Subject of Human SexualityJanuary 5, 2019

Embracing the United Methodist Church’s core religious and humanistic values that allpersons are of sacred worth and equal standing, the 93 United Methodist (NASCUMC) affiliated colleges/universities and their respective presidents serving over 260,000 students strongly affirm access and inclusion of all students, faculty, and staff on our campuses regardless of their race, ethnicity, creed, national origin, gender, gender identity/expression, or sexual
orientation.

Noble aspirations from an institution that, bowing to pressure from another constituency, permits a Friday call to prayer from its Muslim students, who preach exactly zero tolerance — when may we expect them to turn their attention eastward, or at least to their own campus?

Al-Tirmidhi (1456), Abu Dawood (4462) and Ibn Maajah (2561) narrated that Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Loot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.” Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Tirmidhi. 

The Sahaabah were unanimously agreed on the executing of homosexuals, but they differed as to how they were to be executed. 

Some of them, such as Abu Bakr al-Siddeeq and ‘Ali ibn Abi Taalib (may Allaah be pleased with them) thought that they should be burned to death. Some of them, such as Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) thought that they should be thrown from a tall building followed by stoning. Some of them thought that they should be stoned to death, which was narrated from both ‘Ali and Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with them). 

See: al-Mughni (9/58). 

The reason why the one to whom such an act is done should also be executed is because he is a partner in the sin, because this sin can only be committed if both parties take part, so it is only just to carry out the punishment on both of them. Similarly in the case of zina (adultery), the punishment is carried out on both the man and the woman. Moreover there is nothing good to be gained from letting the one to whom it has been done remain alive, because of the great evil that has befallen him and because of the great evil that may result from his presence. 

It says in Mataalib Ooli al-Nuha (6/174): Even though adultery and homosexuality are both immoral deeds and are both evils that go against the wisdom of Allaah in His creation and His command, in homosexuality there are innumerable evils and it is better for the one to whom it was done to be executed than to let him repeat that evil action, because he has been corrupted in such a way that there is no hope of reform for him, and there is no goodness left in him, and after that he will not feel shy before Allaah or before His creation. The sperm of the one who did that will affect his heart and soul as poison affects the body, and he does not deserve to be guided to anything good, and every time he tries to do something good, something will happen to spoil his good deed, as a punishment to him. Hardly ever do you see one who was like that in his youth but he is the worst he can be when he grows old. He does not gain any beneficial knowledge or do any righteous deeds, or repent sincerely, in most cases. Once this is established, the evil consequences of homosexuality are among the worst of evil consequences, so its punishment is one of the most severe of punishments in this world and in the Hereafter. 

The companions of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) agreed unanimously that the homosexual is to be executed, and none of them differed concerning that. Rather they differed as to the method of execution. Some people thought that this difference means that they disagreed about executing him, so they narrated it as a matter concerning which the Sahaabah differed, but it is a matter concerning which there was consensus among them, not a matter of difference. 

(While you’re waiting for campus advocates to denounce the Muslims in their midst, indulge in this bit of black/homosexual/privileged talk from a Duke student:

Madeline Reyes, a first-year master’s student in the Divinity School, participated in the student protest in March and was one of four queer women of color who interrupted Heath’s speech. 

“Duke is a historically and presently very Methodist and white school, so the culture of Duke is inherently white supremacist and oppressive to LGBTQ people,” Reyes wrote in an email.

The Divinity School currently has five black faculty out of a total of 59 faculty. Duke Divinity also does not have any faculty who are openly out.

“We were feeling frustrated about black faculty leaving before we even got here, then finding out that more black faculty would be leaving,” Harris said. “We weren’t sure what the school’s plan was to hire more people. Now it’s spring 2018, and at the end of the day, no black faculty have been hired.”

She added that there are no queer theologians at Duke and no queer theology courses. Peer institutions, such as Harvard University, offer queer theology courses.

Harris and other students previously identified a Ph.D. student who would be able to teach a queer theology course. They followed the formal process of setting up the course and obtaining over 200 signatures for the course. But the course was denied last semester, Harris said this was because they started the setup process too late. The Divinity School said they could take queer-focused classes in the gender studies department. 

“In the end of the day, we felt silenced. We felt like our needs were not being met," Harris said. "We were not just going to sit back and let them wait us out until we graduate." 

After the student protest in March, the protesters released a list of demands. Harris said that of the five immediate demands, the first three have mostly been met, but demands four and five have not. Of the five short-term demands to be met by Fall 2018, none of them have been met, although there is some work being done on the fifth demand. 

The diversity issues within the Divinity School have taken a toll on the mental health and wellness of students, and some have been physically sick, Harris explained. She said that it has been “terrible” and “tragic” that they have spent so much of their time planning and organizing, which takes hours away from their study time.

Reyes said she is considering leaving Duke altogether.

“The climate, the backlash from the protest, and the general act of being a queer person of color in such an oppressive Christian space is having an impact on my health, my mind, and my spirit,” she wrote.

She explained that the diversity issues have made her experience harder than those who can choose to not deal with the problems. 

There is not one day where she does not experience a microaggression, Harris said. One particularly problematic class was her first-year mandatory spiritual formation class, where a small group of students shared their personal spiritual thoughts. She said she experienced a lot of emotional trauma from the class by having to sit and listen to people say things that were harmful and hurtful to her. 

“We deal with inappropriate comments from faculty, staff, peers,” Harris said. “There are people who are non-affirming, and there are people who are silent about it, which is just as harmful. Constantly feeling invalidated and constantly feeling silenced takes a toll on our wellness.”

Harris said she is disappointed in the education she was hoping to receive at Duke. She explained that she pays a lot of money to attend this school, and it is not wrong to expect a top-tier school to fit her academic needs. 

Her ultimate goal is that the Divinity School hires a queer, trans, woman of color. If Duke Divinity was able to create a climate where a black, trans, femme person could thrive, then all marginalized students would be liberated, Harris explained. She also wants scholarships for queer people and people of color, and she hopes for more summer placements in black and queer communities. 

I’m not a violent person, so no, I’m not (very) tempted to smack this silly, stupid woman upside the head, but I do wish she’d just shut up.

A bridge for no one

Atlanta spent $23 million building a pedestrian bridge to its Super Bowl stadium, but will bar access due to security concerns.

You’d think the city’s politicians would have puzzled out that problem before building the bridge (which came in at twice-over-budget, as all such projects do), but government spending doesn’t work that way. First, reward your friends, then worry about details.

Lay off him!

Love me, I’m a Democrat!

Republicans are calling for Virginia Governor Ralph, “Al Jolson” Northam to resign, but no, no, no: his Democrat peers are already doing that, and, while no politician can afford to actually support him, the last thing Republicans should do is pile on. Northam is the perfect protective blanket for every Republican, from Trump, to Justice Kavanaugh, to the lowest Republican candidate for dog catcher, against every charge of racism a Democrat lobs their way. Stand back, hold your breath, and hope he remains in office.

Oh, what fun. And tonight only, Amazon’s offering a deal on popcorn.