The astounding thing about this four minute video is the level of ignorance among city council candidates in Hopkins, Minnesota. That’s the home of one of the nastiest HOA disputes in the country. But most of these candidates are clueless about what goes on in these gated communities.
In Florida, it’s an HOA turf war. St. Augustine turf.
Many HOAs mandate the stuff even though it soaks up water, isn’t native to Florida, demands pesticides and dies anyway. But if your St. Augustine gets a little bit brown there’s likely a big fine in the works by the Homeowners Association. Many homeowners have been begging for the chance to plant more environmentally friendly lawns, but the arrogance of many HOA boards is beyond description.
“You knew the rules before you bought into this HOA,” they scream. We’ve all heard that. We all know that. But if the EPA ever declared Homeowners Associations to be an illegal toxic chemical many of us would be a lot better off.
(link to Florida story on battle over grass)
Whew! The racket coming from Clay County, Florida is pretty funny. The county is considering an ordinance that would allow homeowners to own up to four chickens apiece, just no roosters.
Backyard chickens are a growing fad all over the country. But three Homeowners Associations on Fleming Island are kicking up a fuss. They don’t mind chickens elsewhere, but just no chickens where gentrified people can see them. The excuses they give (in the story linked below) are pretty amusing. They’re afraid if a dog sees a chicken and jumps the fence it might injure a child. (Huh?) They’re also afraid a county ordinance would supersede their contractual covenant rights. (It won’t.)
But the squawking and henpecking is really something to behold.
I’ve got a great solution for chicken lovers. Just release a truckload of chickens and roosters into the middle of these HOAs. If you’ve ever vacationed on Kauai you’ve undoubtedly seen some of the tens of thousands of chickens and roosters running wild. Seems a hurricane or two knocked down their pens and they’ve been breeding faster than anyone can hunt them. The screeching and crowing is beyond description.
To me, that sounds like it would be a hoot!
(link to story on Florida chicken controversy)
All of a sudden, the boy arrested and kicked out of school for bringing a homemade clock to school is generating wild comments from columnists on both sides of the political aisle. “Racism!” yell some. “He deserved it!” yell others.
I’m among those who are appalled that this youngster was treated so harshly. And even though I was actually one of the reporters who covered the 1999 Columbine massacre in Colorado, I still think reactionary politicians are trying to create a national police state starting with our schools. Heck, when I was growing up we didn’t even get an annual school visit from Officer Friendly. Today, there are cops at every school doorway and inspections of every lunch box before kids can get to class. What gives? Is our society really so violent that we have be such knee-jerk fear-mongers?
It got me thinking: How quickly is school violence growing in our country? I thought readers of this blog might be interested if I could show a graph of how rapidly school violence is escalating. That’s what Wiki is for, isn’t it?
Well, I guess I was surprised. I actually found a pretty thorough list of school shootings dating all the way back to the 1700s! Keep in mind that there are currently 100,000 public schools in this country. Look at the number of school shootings and ask yourself, “Is it possible that this country is massively overreacting to the raging torrent of over-hyped headlines?
(link to list of school shootings in America)
You be the judge.
HOAs raise my blood pressure. But this story really hit hard. A 14 year old budding genius named Ahmed took an invention of his to school. It was a digital clock he made as an experiment. But something caused school officials to think he’d made a bomb and they called police. Ahmed was handcuffed and led away in front of schoolmates while the bomb squad dissected his science experiment.
I’m no science genius, but in 8th grade some 50 years ago I built a robot which I took to school. It was a three or four foot long ‘monster’ that I covered with a red bedspread and maneuvered down the school hallways. It looked for all the world like a huge stupid-looking lady bug. It even had eye holes and when fellow students looked down the eye holes the ‘bug’ spit ping pong balls at them. For that stunt I should have been arrested. But instead I got a science fair award.
Ahmed? Unlike me, this kid is going places in science. The school officials who had him arrested should have to spend a little jail time themselves. Shame on any system that rewards sloth and damages those who really try to make something of themselves.
(link to story on Ahmed’s arrest)
