South Bend zoning news for May 2006

From today’s South Bend Tribune:

  • The Board of Zoning Appeals has approved of a request by the South Bend Catholic Worker to have their house at 515 S. St. Joseph Street be a group residence.
  • The BZA has denied a request by Opus Dei to raze a building, replace it with two smaller ones, and change the zoning. The article cites a laundry list of objections, but the one that leaps out at me is that the change would conflict with “neighborhood redevelopment plans.” Woe to anyone in South Bend who would make use of a lot in some way not envisioned by the neighborhood redevelopment plan. What would Jane Jacobs think of this foolishness?

And an unrelated item:

Mitch Ratcliffe speaks against increased surveillance of the American public. He acknowledges that some will accuse him of having a “pre-9/11 mentality”:

For all his good intentions with regards the security of the United States, President Bush suffers from an idealism that is much more dangerous than the pre-9/11 mentality, because he apparently ignored the 20th century. He has repeatedly said that he can look into the hearts of others and determine whether they are good or evil, the same kind of niavete that led Neville Chamberlain to appease Hitler at Munich. He actually suffers from a pre-Auschwitz mentality that refuses to acknowledge the critical lesson of the 20th century, the extraordinary depths of evil man, especially when left unrestrained by law, can acheive.

(Via Jon Lebkowsky)

Tea: I never find anything good to post about coffee, so here’s a nice drawing related to tea.

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