jmcgready’s misc universe

I’ve been really busy getting the mereBreath website up and running, so I haven’t had time to post here.

The season’s getting off to a good start - great first rehearsal.

Kind of nuts @ work, though….
apparently the auditors went through our transactions and found things they really didn’t like,
so they they let our managers know, and they let us know (you know how that goes).

On top of that, we’re getting ready for inventory this weekend…

I think we’re suffering from the Paradox of Excellence:

The basic idea is the better you do your job, the more invisible you become to everything - but bad news. The longer you do a good job, the more your perceived value erodes because customers lose sight of the pain you originally relieved.

Technorati: Retail Lexicon, tags

Heather Wilhelm on Eminent Domain on National Review Online

“For seven years, Reverend Roosevelt Gildon has preached the gospel at the Centennial Baptist Church in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. His congregation, around 50 strong, is like a small family. The elderly members, and those without cars, often walk to Sunday services.“Rosey,” as his friends call him, figured he’d go on preaching in the tidy steel structure
for years to come. That was, until the government told him they were taking his church away.

Since the Supreme Court’s controversial Kelo decision last summer,
eminent domain has entered a new frontier.
It’s not just grandma’s house we have to worry about. Now it’s God’s house, too.

“I guess saving souls isn’t as important,” says Reverend Gildon, his voice wry,
“as raking in money for politicians to spend.”

The town of Sand Springs, Oklahoma, has plans to take Centennial Baptist —
along with two other churches, several businesses, dozens of small homes, and a school —
and replace them with a new “super center,” rumored to include a Home Depot.

It’s the kind of stuff that makes tax collectors salivate.
It’s also the kind of project that brakes for no one, especially post-Kelo.
“I had no idea this could happen in America,” says Reverend Gildon,
after spending Monday morning marching in the Sand Springs Martin Luther King Day parade.

…It makes sense on one level.
Churches don’t generate any tax revenue for the government to spend.
They don’t “stimulate” the economy.
They often, much to their peril, occupy prime, envied real estate.

With the supercharged powers granted by Kelo, be very, very afraid.

What’s most egregious about this application of eminent domain is that there’s already plenty of room for development, even if the pesky church sticks around. Many community residents were happy to sell their property. Two other churches in the area decided to move to Tulsa. Other structures in the area were dilapidated and ready for the deal. The way things are now, Centennial Baptist Church could easily live side-by-side with new stores, houses, or businesses. Yet Centennial remains in the crosshairs — even though two nearby national chains, a taxpaying McDonald’s and a taxpaying O’Reilly’s muffler shop, have been left alone.”