The Race for the Presidency

Between Shayna's recent posts and an email from my sister, Bethany, I've done some thinking lately about how I'd rank the presidential candidates.

It'll come as no surprise to most people that Ron Paul is my favorite. He's the one candidate who really understands the Constitution and the proper limits of governmental authority. There was a fantastic moment in last night's debate where Paul (finally getting a word in edgewise) pointed out that, for all of the other candidate's talk about how they'd "manage the economy," the government's proper role is to make sure our currency has value and to get out of the way. He's the one Republican who was against the war in Iraq from the very beginning, and he's the one Republican who speaks sensibly about the fact that the terrorist threat is the result of our foreign policy, and we can't expect to end terrorism unless we are willing to change our policies. I disagree with Paul's thoughts on immigration, but on pretty much everything else he's a rockstar.

Among the other four candidates, Huckabee is my second choice. The guy is sharp, and a very effective communicator. I strongly oppose his stance on immigration and the "protection" of marriage, and I have massive reservations about some of his foreign policy stances, but he makes sense on health care, taxes, and I think he's likely to pick at least decent judges.

If one of those two isn't nominated, Obama would be my third choice. I don't think he has the faintest idea of how to pay for the massive social programs he's suggesting, and thus I don't think he has a very good grip on economic matters, but he's good on civil liberties issues, which are extremely important to me. Also extremely important is the fact that I think Obama is unlikely to embroil us in another foreign policy/military fiasco like Iraq.

A good step below these three (sorry, Shayna!) is John McCain. I respect his military service and I think he knows what's up, economically, but he pretty much sucks on civil liberties. Beyond that, he's a wild-card as far as foreign policy is concerned, and I could definitely see him continuing Bush's cowboy diplomacy.

And if the options are either Romney or Hillary? I'll write in Stephen Colbert. As I told Bethany, Romney is entirely too smarmy and oily. I don't think anyone could really predict what we would be getting with him as a president. And Hillary is the caboose of this train, mostly because I think people know precisely what they'd be getting with her as a president.

So that's my ranking of the candidates. Let me know what you folks are thinking!

Bizzare Weather

The day started normally, if a bit warm for January in the Midwest. When I walked out the door this morning on the way to work, it was sunny, with temperatures in the upper-40s. Shortly after noon, when I stepped out of the office for lunch, the temperature had shot up to a balmy 71 degrees!

But it didn't last.

By 2:30, the temperature had dropped back to 50 and a mean wind was gusting up to 45 mph. By 4:00, a driving snowstorm hit Saint Louis, as temperatures had descended into the upper-20s. Now, at 8:00 pm, the temperature outside is at 15 degrees, with a wind chill of below zero.

I've seen days where the weather varied pretty wildly, but this has been the craziest twelve-hour stretch I have ever seen.

Bygones

Jenifer and I are h-o-p-e-f-u-l-l-y in the final stages of selling our Washington, DC, condo. A quick word to the wise: Don't try to sell real estate in the middle of the largest housing bust in decades. It's utterly nerve-wracking and you will frequently think of what you might have commanded for your home only months before.

Still, we will come away from this deal in excellent shape compared to the housing-related trials currently being faced by thousands of people across the country. We are very thankful for that and we recognize how blessed we are to have had a home to sell.

As we've been tying up the loose ends so that the sale would be possible, I've been thinking a lot about all the folks back in DC. While I was never a big fan of living in that city, I was also fortunate that God surrounded me with some truly amazing friends. And as much as I am enjoying Saint Louis, I'm finding today that I really miss the Unusual Suspects.

To be sure, I love all of the DC crew from Fairfax and Clarendon and IJ, so I hope no one feels left out or offended, but I'm especially missing Carl, Shayna, Mike, and Christine. You guys are wonderful friends, and Jenifer and I were so enriched by the times that we all spent together. I love reading what all is going on via your blogs, but it's just not the same as hanging out together on a Sunday afternoon or going to movies and concerts together. So without saying too much more, I just want you to know how much I love you guys. You'd better come see us in Saint Louis sometime. Soon.

Justice (or, Perhaps, the Lack Thereof)

Today Jenifer and I attended the arguments in a very important eminent domain case in front of the Missouri Supreme Court. This case matters because Missouri is one of the worst states in the nation for allowing cities to take one person's private property and give it away for someone else's profit, rarely, if ever, paying even remotely what the property is worth. Even if a city doesn't forcibly take title to someone's home, business, or house of worship, many people don't have the time, finances, political influence, or emotional energy to fight to save what belongs to them. Thus, they feel like they have no choice but to take what little they are offered and hope they won't have to move too far away from what was once their neighborhood.

I got really angry today at both the city's attorney and several of the judges. The city's attorney had previously (and, unfortunately, correctly) written to the court that recent legal decisions have allowed these governmental abuses of power. The attorney started off his argument by reinforcing this idea, effectively saying, "Focus only on the very limited legal notions that support my position; just ignore all those people trying to show the history of the underlying principle and real-life devastation to which it has led." And several of the judges seemed content to do just that. While the questions asked by judges in these cases can sometimes be misleading as to their ultimate disposition on a case, it appeared that more than one of the judges would rather permit injustice to continue than to rock the jurisprudential boat.

As a nation and as individual states, Americans adopted Bills of Rights in order to make sure that certain essential liberties would never be subject to restriction or elimination. Among those freedoms is the assurance that governments have no right to take away someone's property unless it is required for the construction of a road or public building. The real-life consequences when the government does take someone's property fiercely illustrates why this power must be tightly limited.

Eminent domain is rarely threatened against wealthy people or those who can fight back. Instead, the usual targets are communities composed of minorities, the poor, and/or the elderly.

In the middle of the 20th century, cities so regularly used eminent domain against black neighborhoods that the practice was commonly referred to as “Negro removal.” That offensive label eventually fell out of use, but poor, black communities continue to be condemned far more frequently than white communities. A 1989 study estimated that of 10,000 families that Baltimore displaced in the name of removing blight, fully 90 percent were African-American. Mindy Fullilove, an expert on the impact of eminent domain on minority communities, estimates that more than 1,600 black neighborhoods have been destroyed nationwide.

But then there are elderly people. In New London, Connecticut, where I helped represent homeowners in the now-infamous Kelo v. New London case, Wilhemina Dery was an 87-year old still living in her family home, in which she was born. All she wanted was to live out her final days in those beloved, familiar settings, but the United States Supreme Court held that her property could be taken from her and replaced with luxury condominiums. She eventually did get her wish, but only because she died before the city got its chance to kick her out. Our clients in Norwood, Ohio, included the Gambles, an older couple who received their condemnation notice just days after they were finally able to retire. They were uprooted from the home in which they had raised their family and built their American Dream, separated from their nearby family and friends and forced to move into a small apartment miles away. After a grueling three-year legal war, the Ohio Supreme Court vindicated their rights, but the stress drove Carl to his grave and left Joy is such delicate health that she couldn't return to the home she had sacrificed so much to save. Just today a friendly reporter in Missouri told me about an elderly couple in Rolla who simply couldn't physically deal with a move when they were threatened with eminent domain. The wife had Alzheimer's disease and the husband was terrified to complicate her dementia by moving her to an unfamiliar environment. Unmoved by their plight, the city tried to make it look like they were just holding out for more money and one councilmember said they should just move to a nursing home.

It just makes my heart hurt. Someone's home represents their stability and shelter, both in physical and emotional ways. It is the centering location in their life, the place to which they should be able to return each day and know that they have their own place in the world. These things are especially important for people who can claim ownership of very little else. And instead of protecting their rights, both courts and legislatures are content to sacrifice them in the name of "progress" or, more coarsely, so they can be replaced with a wealthier class of people.

It is not just unconstitutional -- it is unjust, immoral, and abhorrent.

Little Pleasures

There are a lot of things that I enjoy about living in Saint Louis. I love the space that we have in our house, being able to come home before 6:00 on most days, our new church...

But you know what I have been surprised to find that I enjoy more than most anything else? Cooking.

When I was young, I frequently helped out around the kitchen, chipping in when my mom was making dinner or occasionally making snacks, cookies, or pies. But even when I moved out on my own and had the time and facilities to cook, I never dedicated much time or effort to it. Sure, I showed off every now and again by cooking for some girl I was trying to impress, but I took very little pleasure in it.

That has all changed since Jenifer and I moved to Saint Louis. Most every week I go to the grocery store, and I really enjoy choosing items that I know I'll be able to incorporate into something tasty. I've spent a bunch of time perusing our cookbooks to hunt up recipes that look especially enjoyable. And I have come to find it so relaxing to spend a half-hour or so most evenings to prepare meals for us.

I've found a handful of quick, fairly simple recipes that have had really great results. For example, last night I fixed pan fried pork chops with a peach-dijon mustard sauce, served with a side dish of green beans, chopped onions, and tomatoes. Man, was it good! The way the peach and mustard flavors blended was really unexpected, and Jen and I agreed that if we didn't know what had gone into it, we might not have even been able to guess that peaches were the sweet element of it.

So this post doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of substance, but I hope y'all will appreciate just this little window into our life in the STL.

One More Thing...

I thought I would dedicate a separate post to announcing that Jenifer and I have (finally) found a new church home! For the past several months we have been visiting a number of different churches throughout the Saint Louis area, and in the last few weeks we had narrowed it down to a decision between two very cool congregations.

The Journey is a church with a dynamic worship service geared primarily to young professionals, although there were a fair number of middle-aged folks there as well. We loved the music and the relavent, thoughtful, and scripture-intensive sermons, and we felt like it would be a place where we could really be fed, spiritually and intellectually.

But ultimately we have fallen in love with New City Fellowship. This congregation is so exciting in so many ways! It's extremely diverse, with large minority and immigrant populations, and accomplishing reconciliation across racial, social, and economic lines. They have several amazing ministries, including The Freedom School, a private Christian academy with a special heart for children of immigrants, refugees, and economically disadvantaged parents. They also sponsor missionaries in Africa, Peru, and England. Ultimately, we see in New City Fellowship a place where we will not only be fed, but where we will be able to serve God in ways that just wouldn't be as available elsewhere.

So we're just really excited and we feel tremendously blessed to have a new church family to get to know.

Post-Holiday Roundup

Jen and I have finally settled back into our schedules after the holidays, so I figure I'll let y'all know how it all went.

We started off by spending several fantastic days with the in-laws in Mexico, Missouri. Jen's siblings came the weekend before Christmas since we had promised the actual holiday to my family. Lucky for us, we had a white "Christmas"! Snow rolled in the night before our big celebration so when we woke up in the morning the fields were covered in a beautiful icy blanket. While, as most of you know, I generally prefer not to receive gifts, I have to say that Jen's family always does an exceptional job of finding things for me that I will really enjoy. This year, in addition to a generous donation to Heifer International, I received several books that I've been planning to get for a long time. In the meantime, Jenifer also got lots of fun stuff -- incuding her new Nintendo DS. She already has roughly three times the number of games for it than I have for my PS3...

On Christmas Eve we lit out for Knoxville to celebrate the holiday with my family. We got to share Christmas morning at my little sister's house with her, my parents, and my niece Abbie. It was a real simple affair and we all had a really nice, relaxed morning. That evening we went over to my grandparents' house for a big dinner with the extended family. It's kind of funny, because before my parents moved back to Knoxville, every time I went I got to spend lots of time with my granparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since my parents moved, however, it's just kind of natural to spend most of my time at their house, meaning that I see everyone else less frequently even though I'm in town more often. That said, I really cherish getting to hang out with them all.

Most of the rest of the time in Knoxville was devoted to a special legal project for my dad, but all of my sisters, nephews, and nieces came up for our big nuclear family celebration on the Friday after Christmas. Let me tell you... I love all the young'uns in the family, but when you get together seven kids all under seven years of age, only one word describes it: CHAOS. Man, there were kids everywhere, usually hollering or crying. Jen and I have decided that we'll wait a few more years to have babies of our own.

Now, Jen and I had agreed that our big Christmas present to each other this year would be a trip to a bowl game. Since Missouri was ranked higher and was playing in the Cotton Bowl, which is conveniently located close to one of my best men, we opted to head there rather than down to Florida for the Outback Bowl. We lit out for Dallas the day after the big family celebration, but I ended up knocked out by a 24-hour bug and we had to overnight in Little Rock. Once I recovered and we arrived in Dallas, the party was on! Chris and Tracy were wonderful hosts, and we had a lovely New Year's Eve with them... until Jenifer came down with an illness similar to the one I had. Unfortunately, she hadn't recovered by New Year's morning, so we had to abandon our plans to attend the game. But it was an adventure! And we did have a very good time, whenever we weren't feeling physically ill.

So that catches you up on the current happenings in the Roland household. Hope everyone is doing well!