[PEN-L:8766] Re: the NFL and urban development

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ellen wrote:
>Another tale from the Massachusetts NFL deal.  After the state
>legislature agreed (in a back room deal - public opposition was
>high) to give the Patriots $70m in state funds for a new stadium it
>came out that the construction plan would require the
>demolition of a trailer-park, home to dozens of families.  ...

One solution is that instead of subsidies and below-market loans, the
cities should say: okay, if you -- the NFL fatdogs -- want our money, you
have to give us equity (i.e., part-ownership) in exchange. After all, we're
taking a big risk, so we should be treated like other risk-takers.

Of course, this solution is as likely to be put into practice these days as
Michael Perelman's chance of publishing a best-seller. (BTW, why do we have
to buy his book before posting our glowing reviews? If Bob Dole or Rev.
Dobson can review movies without seeing them, why not...)

BTW2, to Peter Bohmer: I was posting the fragment from SLATE about the fact
that US/NATO propaganda during the Grand Patriotic War Against the Serbs
(the OAF) was being currently being contradicted by reports from Kosov@
simply because I wanted to reinforce a point I made on pen-l recently that
this agit-prop is _often_ contradicted soon after its made (with much less
of a splash and thus much less of an impact on public opinion). Also, most
if not all pen-lers don't read USA TODAY, the source of the story. I think
it's really bad that the Serbs (along with the US/NATO) killed or chased
out large numbers of ethnic Albanians from Kosov@ (though it's probably not
as bad as what NATO's Turkey does to the Kurds). You may note from my long
comment yesterday to Louis P., I am no fan of Serbian so-called "socialism"
and no apologist for that (or any other) government or nationality.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html