Bleeding in the north country

The demand for backcountry homes, never robust, is shrinking

613 Round Hill Road cut its price today to $2.950 million, down from its starting point a year ago of $3.8 million.

The owners paid full price, $3,999,999 in May 2007, just a few months before the backcountry market imploded. But even then, when all was still supposed by many to be fine, who pays full price for a house this expensive after it’s only been on the market for 25 days?

Poor decision.

Backlot living in the backcountry

Forget the presidency, Joe's too busy running CNN

And then there’s this golden oldie

Oh, dear

Who am I? Why am I here?

Former VP Joe Biden tells a crowd in South Carolina he is "running for the U.S. Senate" and if they don't like him they can "vote for the other Biden." NOT F...

“No no, Mr. President, not the red button!””

In the same speech, he also said this:

“And folks, one of the things I am proudest of is getting passed, getting moved, getting in control of the Paris Climate Accord. I am the guy who came back after meeting with Deng Xiaoping and making the case that I believe China will join if we put pressure on them. We got almost 200 nations to join.”

Deng died in 1997.

A reader asks ...

Back country poser

“Hey Christopher
   By any chance could you recommend someone to build a basketball court ? “

I’ll confess that’s a new one on me; I don’t even know who installs hockey rinks these days. But surely someone out there in the readership pool has a favorite court builder, no? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

So close, and yet so far

4 Mountain Laurel Lane, under foreclosure, is back with a new broker and new price: $2.295 million.

That probably won’t do it (the bank’s considering offers, so feel free to toss at it what you will), but the mystery of why it hasn’t done well with our Greenwich buyer pool can perhaps be explained by the previous agent’s gloss:

“Seems a world away, yet less than ten minutes to downtown Armonk”

In Greenwich, that is not a selling point. Nor, it seems did it strike a responsive chord in Westchester homebuyers familiar with our neighbor to the north.

I had forgotten that this one was still around

Greater Greenwich Mausoleum

282 Taconic Road took a price cut today to $2.795 million. Started at $3.895 in 2015. A trend of mine bought this new, I think, in 1995, and may have made money when he sold it to these owners in 2004 for $3.275. That’s not happening this time.

Aside from the hideous columns supporting er … what?, the house as other difficulties. its pictures don’t do it justice; what seem to be broad, sweeping lawns are actually teeny green swatches of fescue, flanked by swamp. And the kitchen, while modern, is cramped and a bit claustrophobic for entertaining guests. But aside from that, and its location in the northeast corner, to so bad.

Rumblings in the elephants' graveyard

Some long-time residents of the unwanted list are adjusting their prices, again.

329 Stanwich Road

329 Stanwich Road has been marked down to $2.450 million, down from its 2015 price of $3.275.

Sherwood Farm

15 Sherwood Farm Lane, down to $2.575. It’s sort of a back-handed compliment to this house to note that, while it has not been able to find a buyer in nine years, it has a history of renting quickly, at an average price of about $25,000. So plenty of people seem to want to live here, they just don’t want to own it.

(HUGE update: prompted by a couple of readers’ questions, I looked more closely at the previous rentals for this property and saw, as I should have originally, that they were summer rentals. An entirely different kettle of fish. If you’ve already contracted to buy the house based on my error, I apologize.)

25 Selden Lane

And then there’s 25 Selden Lane, $1.899 million. This property, despite comprising two separate building lots in its 7.7 acres, simply won’t sell: not at the $7.5 it asked in 2008, and not at any of the successively lower prices since then. Maybe this cut will do the trick.

Works for me

My theory, a theory that is my own, is that all brontosauruses were skinny at the end, much, much thicker in the middle, then thin again at the far end. That is my theory.*

Marianne Williamson peeks out from behind her crystal pyramid to endorse Sanders

I’d had some quibbling doubts about the man up to now, but okay, then: Go, Bernie!

*for readers under 50, an explanation:

Monty Python - Theory on Brontosauruses by Anne Elk (Miss).

Interesting that the media is suddenly focusing on the cost of Bread Line Bernie's dream; will they also look at the cost of the DNC's approved candidates plans?

Why, it won’t cost anything, it’s all gonna be free!

Anderson Cooper asks the Bern what all this will cost, and the man admits he doesn’t know.

In his Nevada caucus victory speech, Bernie Sanders rattled off — before an ecstatic crowd of college-age supporters — a laundry list of promises: Free public higher education, cancellation of all student loan debt, universal free healthcare, universal “affordable” childcare, minimum $60k per year teacher salaries, and a nationwide $15 per hour minimum wage, among other things.

And not just for citizens, but for the “undocumented” as well.

Anderson Cooper: How much will that cost?

Bernie Sanders: Obviously, those are expensive propositions, but we have done our best on issue after issue– in paying for them.

Anderson Cooper: Do you know how all– how much though? I mean, do you have a price tag for– for all of this?

Bernie Sanders: We do. I mean, you know, and– and– the price tag is– it will be substantially less than letting the current system go. I think it’s about $30 trillion.

Anderson Cooper: That’s just for Medicare for All, you’re talking about?

Bernie Sanders: That’s just Medicare for All, yes.

Anderson Cooper: Do you have– a price tag for all of these things?

Bernie Sanders: No, I don’t. We try to– no, you mentioned making public colleges and universities tuition free and cancelling all student debt, that’s correct. That’s what I want to do. We pay for that through a modest tax on Wall Street speculation.

Anderson Cooper: But you say you don’t know what the total price is, but you know how it’s gonna be paid for. How do you know it’s gonna be paid for if you don’t know how much the price is?

Bernie Sanders: Well, I can’t– you know, I can’t rattle off to you ever nickel and every dime. But we have accounted for– you– you talked about Medicare for All. We have options out there that will pay for it.

No, the answer to our abysmally ignorant students is not higher pay for teachers

Maryland AP History course dares speak truth to power with a unique, never-thought-of-or-spoken-before concept: Orange Man Hitler! (And a commie, but is that so bad?)

According to a report from The Baltimore Sun, a slide used in a presentation in an Advanced Placement history lesson at Loch Raven High School shows a picture of Trump, with the caption “Wants to round up a group of people and build a giant wall.” Underneath that is swastika with the caption "been there" and the communist hammer and sickle symbol with the caption "Done that."

Another caption reads  “Oh, that is why it sounds so familiar.”

Baltimore County Public Schools made the following statement:

“The slide was used as part of a lesson in an AP History course. The topics being discussed included World Wars and the attempts by some leaders to limit, or prevent migration, into certain countries. In isolation and out of context with the lesson, the image could be misunderstood. In our Advanced Placement (AP) classes, which are college level courses, we expect and encourage analysis and discussion around historical and current events even if they are considered controversial. This lesson was not intended to make a political statement. If a student has concerns when discussing a controversial issue, schools have the tools to address the concern and support the student.

Were the barbed wire fences at Buchenwald really intended to prevent Jews from migrating into camp? Was the Berlin Wall erected to keep West Germans from flooding into the people’s paradise next door? Did the Mariel boatlift ferry Cubans from Miami to Havana? And finally, is the purpose of Trump’s border wall built to keep American tourists from invading Tijuana?

Discuss, but among yourselves; your teacher is too stupid to grasp the distinction.