Duly Noted

I’ve been long away from the Internet.  Fear not; more posts are a-brewin’.

In the meantime, a couple points of interest:

1.  NPR takes on the notion that popular art and bad art are necessarily related.

2.  Rebecca Solnit observes the changing face of San Francisco.

3.  A fascinating look at a new potential application of eminent domain: a use in which it serves not the private sector (which has pressured cities to deploy eminent domain in its favor in the past (See the infamous Kelo)), but actually benefits the public.  The plan is audacious enough that it may never actually come to pass, but even by being popularized it might help to reframe eminent domain – which, in theory, is only to be leveraged in the name of “public good” – from something which serves moneyed interests (be they Pfizer or Robert Moses) to a tool employable against those same interests.  It is by far the boldest and most significant intellectual effort to fight the foreclosure crisis yet put forth, and Wall Street is reacting accordingly.  Interesting to see how it will play out.