RE: The Colors of Socialism

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From: Antoun Nabhan (antoun@arrayex.com)
Date: Thu Oct 19 2000 - 19:32:45 PDT


I'll vouch for the fact that socialism is alive and well in Cambridge MA.
This is the place that removed rent control at roughly the same time that
it approved zoning measures that require everyone building anything new to
solicit support from everyone in the neighborhood. In Cambridge the stories
all seemed to be old Cantabrigians (don't ask me why they call themselves
that; a little Harvard pomposity seems to have worn off on the whole town)
holding picket signs opposing "the yuppies taking over the
neighborhood" (because of course there aren't any yuppies in Cambridge,
noooooo!) and blocking development of the high-density housing that would
be necessary to reduce the market cost of apartments. Funny to watch, but
not so funny to find an apartment.

They also revoke your car insurance, via revokation of your registration,
if you get too many parking tickets. This one is lots of fun if you move a
lot or you're a student who is away from Cambridge for months out of the year.

The only person I know in Santa Cruz is ICANN-oclast Karl Auerbach, and he
sure as hell is no socialist!

--A.

At 02:48 PM 10/19/00 -0700, you wrote:

> > Old-fashioned red socialism has faded into memory, except in such distant
> > outposts as North Korea and Santa Cruz, California.
>
>:-) Of course, my parents fondly speak of the People's Republic of
>Cambridge (Mass.) I think both cities are nuclear free zones (yes, no
>electrons flow in either place, no radon is found in any home, and no
>carbon-14, which mixes evenly throughout the atmosphere in the rest of the
>world, is found in their fair skies).
>
>But, let me assure you that supply and demand are still alive and well in
>the Santa Cruz housing market (well, except for my faculty apartment with
>its subsidized rent, but let's not go there...)
>
>- Jim

Antoun Nabhan - Arrayex, Inc. * 617.901.8871 voice/page
"We will invent ways to enable freedom faster than tyrants can develop the
means to suppress them." - Eric Raymond


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