Institute of Justice- Eminent Domain and YOU! Kelo Day

by Loraine Ritchey thatwb@yahoo.com

Recent days have found my inbox filled with stories about “the business of blight” and eminent domain for the sake of “private development” You think it can’t happen to you –You would be wrong!!

All over this country people like Bruce Kanner of Haverstraw, New York. are having their “American Dream” taken from them. You read about Bruce’s plight two years ago , and still his saga continues.

Bruce is not alone, thousands of people all across this nation are suffering the loss of their property and the arguments -it is for the economic betterment of a community -doesn’t usually bear fruit.
The most famous ” the little pink house that wasn’t for sale”:

Like so many other projects that use eminent domain and rely on taxpayer subsidies, New London’s Fort Trumbull project has been a failure. After spending $78 million in taxpayer dollars, the city of New London and the private developer have engaged in no new construction since the project was approved in 2000. Indeed, since the property owners disputing the takings owned less than two acres in a 90-acre project area, the city has always had a vast majority of the land available for development. Yet, no new development has occurred. The preferred developer for part of the site, Corcoran Jennison, recently missed its latest deadline for securing financing for building on the site and was terminated as the “designated developer

Today is KELO DAY please read Susette’s message and donate ( even 5 dollars helps) When “eminent domain” is abused it is comforting to know there are a group of people who will help. Institute for Justice and Castle Coalition
and that you aren’t alone in your struggle .
SOURCE

SUSETTE KELO

My name is Susette Kelo. On Monday, June 23, 2008, I need your help in making a little bit of history.

June 23 is the third anniversary of the infamous Kelo eminent domain case, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed perfectly well-maintained private homes like mine to be taken by the government and handed over for someone else’s private use. Under that ruling, any home could be taken and destroyed to make way for high-end condos. Any small business could be bulldozed to make way for a big box store. And, tragically, that is what is happening in too many parts of our country.

I’d like your help to put an end to that abuse of eminent domain once and for all.

Please go to http://www.ij.org/private_property/connecticut/6_5_08pr.html today and pledge to give some small contribution to the Institute for Justice (IJ) on June 23. (Pledge today and we will email you on June 23 reminding you to donate on that day.)

IJ helped defend my home and my neighbors’ homes when they were threatened by eminent domain for private gain.

IJ continues to defend other homeowners and small property owners in similar fights.

One hundred percent of the money raised on this site (www.ij.org/keloday) on that day will be used to fight eminent domain abuse–the use of eminent domain for private development projects. We recognize that under the Constitution eminent domain can be used for genuine “public use” projects, such as for a courthouse or to build a highway, but when government power is used to take land from one private property owner only to hand that land over to another private person for their private profit, that is an abuse of government’s power.

Our goal is to earn 10,000 donations for IJ on that one day, Monday, June 23.

Leading up to the Kelo argument, the Institute for Justice documented that 10,000 American property owners had their property threatened or actually taken by eminent domain for private use in just a 5-year period. That 10,000 figure inspired IJ and me to seek 10,000 donations from across the country to send a message to those in power that we care about our homes and that the abuse of eminent domain must be stopped.

We are not seeking large contributions on this day: just $25, $50 or $100. Even a $5 contribution will make a difference and add greatly to the ambitious numbers we’re trying to achieve on that day.

And, if you feel strongly enough about this effort and would be willing to forward this to friends who will join us in the fight to end eminent domain abuse, that too would be greatly appreciated.

Together, we can convince policymakers that eminent domain abuse is un-American and must be stopped.
Thank you for your consideration,
Susette Kelo

Note: My posts on Susette and Eminent Domain can be found here
http://thewomblog.com/?
p=586
http://thewomblog.com/?p=524
http://thewomblog.com/?p=515
http://wordofmouthblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/eminent-lorain-business-of-blight.html
http://wordofmouthblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/grassroots-profiles-loraine-ritchey.html
http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=202

IT IS BACKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!

http://www.locophotogblog.com/?p=158
AND NOW NEEDED MORE THAN EVER

Gone Beyond the Pale

by Loraine Ritchey thatwb@yahoo.com

Recently I have made decisons based upon -gone “beyond the pale” ( or at least my “pale” which is admittedly shrinking in relationship to my life, tolerance and patience levels ) and therefore I have removed myself from those situations and certain commenters have also gone “beyond the pale” and they have also been removed. When questioned by some as to why I stated :

they went beyond the pale

When I said that to a “younger” American they said

what does that have to do with buckets?( pail) .

I explained that pale and pail are two different things altogether. This morning as I sat at the computer the “scroll” at the bottom of CNN stated McCain has accused Obama as going “beyond the pale” so just incase people think the statement has anything to do with looking ill or buckets the explanation :

It means an action that is regarded as outside the limits of acceptable behaviour, which is unacceptable or improper. A classic example is in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, dated 1837: “I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct”. The earliest example known is from A Compleat History of Rogues of 1720.
That word pale has nothing to do with the adjective for something light in colour except that both come from Latin roots. The one referring to colour is from the Latin verb pallere, to be pale, whilst our one is from palus, a stake.

A pale is an old name for a pointed stake driven into the ground and — by an obvious-enough extension — to a barrier made of such stakes, a fence (our modern word pole is from the same source, as are impale and paling). This meaning has been around in English since the fourteenth century. By 1400 it had taken on various figurative senses — a defence, a safeguard, a barrier, an enclosure, or a limit beyond which it was not permissible to go. The idea of an enclosed area still exists in some English dialects.

In particular, the term was used to describe various defended enclosures of territory inside other countries. For example, the English pale in France in the fourteenth century was the territory of Calais, the last English possession in that country. The best-known modern example is the Russian Pale, between 1791 and the Revolution of 1917, which were specified provinces and districts within which Russian Jews were required to live. Another famous one is the Pale in Ireland, that part of the country over which England had direct jurisdiction — it varied from time to time, but was an area of several counties centred on Dublin. The first mention of the Irish Pale is in a document of 1446–7. Though there was an attempt later in the century to enclose the Pale by a bank and ditch (which was never completed), there never was a literal fence around it.

The expression has often been claimed to originate in one or other of these pales, most commonly the Irish one. However, the first example known to the Oxford English Dictionary is in a work by Sir John Harington, The History of Polindor and Flostella, written sometime before 1612 but published in 1657: “Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale / To planted Myrtle-walk.” This is rather late if the Irish Pale were the source. Moreover, this example used the word in the literal sense of a boundary or enclosure, not the modern figurative one, so that there’s no conceptual link either.

The earliest relevant figurative sense was of a sphere of activity or interest, a branch of study or a body of knowledge; we use field in much the same way. This first appeared in 1483 in one of the earliest printed books in English, The Golden Legende, a translation by William Caxton of a French work.

Our figurative sense seems in part to have grown out of this, since those who exist outside such a conceptual pale are not of our kind and do not share our values, beliefs or social customs. There may well have been an echo of a literal pale as well, with an implication that civilisation stopped at its boundary.

What constitutes your pale ?