If this story from The Daily news is true (don’t you just love tabloid headlines!), then it has to be viewed as the final straw — one last extraconstitutional power grab — and both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be removed from office. I don’t know if I can say it any plainer.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The state Supreme Court today is hearing (right now, actually — go here) an East Windsor case with widespread implications.
On the surface the case — which pits a group calling itself the Committee For A Better Twin Rivers against the Twin Rivers Homeowners’ Association — seems a local dispute. But the issues — whether residents who move into housing developments governed by homeowner associations sign away their constitutional rights as part of the covenenats they sign.
The case, as The Star-Ledger pointed out in a fairly extensive piece on Sunday, “is expected to reverberate around the country, helping to shape the way associations function and to determine what rights they grant in the future, experts say.”
“This case is so important because these type of living arrangements are simply becoming the reality of modern life,” said Ed Barocas, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Jersey.
Association living has been a growing trend across the country. The Ledger story cited some interesting figures:
The number of Americans who live in association-governed communities has steadily climbed and shows no sign of slowing down. There are now 57 million people nationwide, including 1.2 million in the Garden State, living in these communities.
Monroe is a community with a significant association presence, with eight rather large senior communities (some of which have been engulfed in disputes between residents and community boards), while South Brunswick has a number of townhouse complexes and three new senior communities coming on line. Cranbury also has a senior community.
Residents in all of these developments face the same kinds of issues. Some of the issues — such as community governance — seem best handled by the communities themselves.
But others, like prohibitions on political signs (candidates, pro- or anti-war signs, etc.) , raise serious constitutional questions. Courts have a mixed record on many of these issues, with most deferring to private property rights, though not always. Courts tend to judge these cases using a delicate balancing process — private property v. speech rights.
In this case, I am hoping that the state court acknowledges the changing nature of the housing market. With more and more people moving into privately governed communities — often because they are the only affordable housing available — private governance is becoming the norm. It is imperative that the court act as it did in 1994 when it ruled that private political groups (an anti-war group) had a right to distribute fliers and collect petitions at a privately owned shopping mall. Malls, the court said at the time, have become the new town square. Communities like Twin Rivers are fast becoming towns unto themselves and residents should not have to sign away their constitutional rights to secure decently priced housing.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Third day on the road this week — well, on the treadmill — three-plus miles in about 28 minutes after about an hour of upper-body weight-lifting. I’m taking it slower with the goal of increaing the number of runs per week back to five and boosting mileage, not worrying about pace for now.
I hoped to get three runs in this week with a total of 12 miles, managed 10, and will decide in the morning about tomorrow. Right now, I am considering taking the day off so I can deal with New Jersey Press Association contest entries (they are due next week and they take too much time to pull together — did I mention that I hate contests?).
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The great Patti Smith apparently still has it
— at least according to David Fricke in Rolling Stone. I am a longtime fan, but I have never been lucky enough to catch her live where she apparently brings a level of power and mystery to her work that she can only hit at on records. (Check out the anniversary edition of her seminal Horses, which features a live recreation of the album as a second disc.)
Patti is on the short list of bands/artists I still hope to see, which includes: Blondie,
Tom Verlaine, Pere Ubu, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, X, XTC, the Blasters, Roseanne Cash, Tom Waits, Neil Young — the list is pretty long and grows longer as I find new bands, hear new songs.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
I meant to start this yesterday, when I ran four pretty good miles in about 37 minutes on the treadmill and then spent about 20 minutes doing some deep stretches. But I forgot.
Today I managed three miles on tight legs and a sore left knee. My right foot is bothering me and I got very little sleep last night because I was having difficulty concentrating on my writing (columns for the Post and the Progressive Populist due). But I got through the run in about 28 minutes listening to an interesting mix on my iPod Nano that included Roseanne Cash, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, Artbrut, Bob Dylan, Wilco — well, I think you get the picture.
Tommorrow? I’ll shoot for five miles and then hit the weights — but it will depend on how early I get up.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 