Posted 8:57 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

A week fighting eminent domain abuse
This whole week was very much about eminent domain, one of the many issues I wish would just disappear. Until it does, however, it threatens all of us. Big Supreme Court case early in the week, with the libertarian Institute for Justice representing the plaintiffs against the city of New London, Connecticutt.

Yesterday, I attended a debate on the subject and took some photos, which I've posted on my website. My No Force articles for yesterday and today were both on that same subject, the 8th and 9th articles about eminent domain. Actually, I used the quandry of eminent domain to question what the real purpose of city government should be, because it, like all other levels of government, has gone so far astray.

Posted 8:48 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Freedom Day is comin'
The 11th annual Freedom Day will happen on May 1st in front of the state capitol building in St. Paul. This year I have more involvement than usual, because the non-profit I head, Liberty Education Fund, is sponsoring it, not with money, but with support, because Freedom Day IS an educational and celebratory event for freedom... right up LEF's alley.

I've created a website for Freedom Day, hosted as part of LEF, and it's announced and linked to from the LEF home page. So... mark May 1 on your calendar... it's a Sunday this year. It's a fun event, with several bands on the program, plus the regular cannon blasts from the Civil War cannons of the New Ulm Battery.

Posted 8:20 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

A snowy day
Here in the upper midwest U.S., it's almost impossible not to take snow for granted. It's just what happens in the winter months. There is a large part of earth whose residents have never seen snow. I think that's unique to snow. I think there is no other aspect of weather that doesn't occur all over the planet. Even in the desert it rains occasionally, but snow just doesn't happen everywhere. Aren't we lucky? Your answer to that probably depends on how much snow removal you have to do. Honestly, I miss not having any shoveling to do. After 15 years of more difficult snow removal than almost anyone else, this is a radical change. Check out my old driveway, plus I cleared the decking too, sidewalks, and a parking space on the alley.

A day like today IS beautiful. Sounds are muffled. Everything takes on a slightly different coloring, and the sight of snow slowly streaming down has a calming effect. There is a steady stream of people walking toward the Hub. I was out this morning and took a handful of photos; a practice I've been following regularly. If you haven't checked Smith's Photos recently, you're missing a lot of new stuff, including screen shots of computer programs I wrote in the early 90's. They're a little klutzy-looking, but screen graphics just didn't look as snazzy then as they have become since then. I wrote most of the programs when I was trying to establish myself as a freelance programmer, so some were demonstrations of my capabilities, and/or learning experiences.

Just added another BabelFish translation capability to my home page (lower left column) that translates any text between languages. I often get emails in Russian and Chinese, and it's fun to read the far-from-perfect translations.

Posted 8:00 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Recording history
One lesson I would love to teach young people is one that I didn't learn until I was no longer considered young. That lesson is a sense of history. One cannot truly understand what exists today without understanding what led up to it. Without that sense, it's impossible to appreciate what we have now. One simple example I've used before is car tires. Most Americans have never changed a tire... they haven't had to. In my youth, tires went flat regularly, and didn't last very long. For a couple of decades now, our tires have not gone flat, not blown out, and have lasted longer than we kept the vehicle. It's a marvel, but one that can't be appreciated unless you've had to jack up a car on the side of a road and change the flat for the spare. Most of us haven't even seen the jack in our car, and may not even be sure we have a spare.

Depending on your age, or where you grew up, examples such as that could be given for almost every aspect of our lives. A question I often ask is "What did this used to be like?"
Every building, every neighborhood, every intersection has a history, and often a fascinating one, but in our haste and busyness, those histories often simply disappear.

I've begun photographing the Richfield areas (and some others) that I suspect will disappear soon and become lost memories. They're mostly "normal" areas, but they are the stepping stones to what will replace them. We may regret their loss, or not, but knowing that they existed is important to understanding what we have at any point in time.

When others look back at photos from my youth, they'll see things that don't exist now, such as small trailers we lived in during the war, places that would be unacceptable now but were a not-unusual way of life then. One might think to ask, for example, if such cheap trailers wouldn't be a good way to house those who are now homeless.

I invite you to check out my photos, at Smith's photos. Such photos will also reveal some things we all drive by and don't notice at all.