Inauguration Reflections

The inauguration of Barack Obama was immensely emotional and a source of pride to many including yours truly. It was hard not to be swept away by both my coworkers and citizens of Cambridge watching his swearing in and address. It's more than a truism to me that electing an African American President means that we have come a long way.

I remember the segregated South that I moved to in 1959. There were signs posted by the KKK welcoming travellers to North Carolina. At my Greensboro school, a schoolyard game was called "nigger pile" where all the boys would chase down some unlucky victim and all pile on him. Ironically, I remember in 1964 when the schools were to be integrated one of the toughest kids on the schoolyard told us that we couldn't call our game "nigger pile" any more. He didn't want "no trouble". A bit crude but "blessed are the peacemakers". We still played our same old game but without a name. With equal opportunity, white and black boys unlucky enough to be caught suffered through this schoolyard hazing.

Today, Greensboro, North Carolina, the site of the first Sit Ins and KKK shootings, has a brand new Renaissance Park in the center of its downtown. It's peaceful and full of citizens of all colors in what has become a destination location in the city. No, it's not utopia, but we really have come a long way.

The President's address was powerful. He didn't hide the fact that we are entering very dangerous times and this certainly wasn't a Reaganesque "morning in America" moment. Yet, like Reagan, his words were uplifting. I along with those around me for that moment felt assured that he was going to lead us through these tough times.

As he pointed out, we certainly do need to once again find strength and enter a new era of personal responsibility. For it is also "we the people" through our excesses who share blame for the problems we face.

Good feelings aside, parts of his address concern this old lover of the America of constitutionally limited government. Despite his assertion to the contrary, the debate about whether government is small or large enough is hardly over. This is a question as old as the Republic and a core concept of our Constitution. While I appreciated the President's insistence that poor performing programs would be cut, he doesn't seem to understand that ever growing government entitlements undermine the other pillar of his program and vision. The greatest enemy of an era of new personal responsibility IS ever expanding government. This was the harshest lesson from my own urban activist days in Philadelphia. There, every program under the sun was available but there it was also increasingly more difficult to organize people to fend for themselves. The natural energy of the free citizen willing to take personal responsibility for their problems had been sapped by the very programs meant to empower them.

This President is brilliant so it's hardly an over site. Many think that the time of limited government is past. After eight years of the "conservative" Bush administration expanding the federal government beyond even LBJ's wildest dreams, these folks may have a point. Also, electorally, tax consumers (reinforced by the now likely amnesty for illegal aliens) may soon OUT VOTE tax producers. What do folks who don't pay taxes care about the future of limited government? More taxes mean more programs for them. There is a flaw in this picture, however. Only the most brute force of a rapacious tax revenue hungry majority could sustain this scenario for a while. Ultimately it would collapse like the Soviet Union because it would be the best example of the worst kind of "taxation without representation".

So here I am conflicted, proud of America's great accomplishment, and yet concerned about the future of its greatest accomplishment, our Constitution and the concept of limited government supported by sturdy self reliant citizens.

Farming On Town Lots

Not too long ago a suggestion about amending our town's very restrictive animal ordinance (passed in 1967 and bans about everything) was the subject of ridicule. The subject came up at a town planning meeting when a member of the commission (me) found nothing wrong with vegetable gardens in front yards. "The next thing you know people will want chickens in their yard too" came the response from one of our public servants. Well, yes; that too. In the meantime, we have put a garden in our 4th st. front yard, and would seriously entertain the possibility of chickens, and even a goat. In fact, the goat ranks higher with me, as a very affordable lawn mower.

We live in an agricultural zone. Small animals are cleaner that dogs (Ridgely allows kennels) and not only appropriate, but increasingly a means to cut costs of burgeoning food budgets. No one is advocating pigstys. (However, pet pot bellied pigs should be given a reprive.)

Anyhow, action on animal restrictions is now happening around America. One of the places where I spent a number of years, Greensboro, N.C. (population 238,000), has caught up with its citizens and amended its ordinances. Can Ridgely be far behind?


Credit: Robert Franklin / News & Record
URBAN FARMING
The Greensboro City Council's newly adopted poultry and bee ordinance:* prohibits adult roosters* requires chickens to be penned* requires poultry to be kept in backyards* establishes a 25-foot setback requirement for lots between 7,000 and 12,000 square feet and odd-shaped lots that cannot meet a 50-foot setback, as long as chickens are housed 50 feet from a neighboring residence* limits residences that use the 25-foot setback to one hen per 3,000 square feet and one bee colony per 2,000 square feet* bans poultry or bee keeping on lots smaller than 7,000 square feet

GREENSBORO - Chicken lovers are in cluck.
The Greensboro City Council voted to loosen the rules and allow chickens and bees on small residential lots.

The unanimous vote also will provide a little peace for neighbors of the urban farmers. The new ordinance bans noisy adult roosters and limits the number of chickens and bee colonies on any one lot.

Chicken owner and Lindley Park resident Brian Talbert worked with city staff to amend the poultry and beekeeping ordinance after he learned that his lot did not meet the city's 50-foot setback requirements.

Talbert's backyard coop became a problem after his rooster, Elvis, rattled neighbor Sherry O'Neal with a 4:15 a.m. wakeup call.

On Tuesday night, Greensboro's chicken owners said they keep the poultry for the eggs, but they consider them pets.

Billy Jones, who spoke on behalf of the amendment, has four hens and one rooster named Gus. He said his neighbors enjoy the eggs, but he promised that if the rooster bugged them, he would take care of it.

"I promised them, if we did have a problem with the rooster, I would fry it," Jones said.
O'Neal, who spoke against the amendment, said she was concerned about the noise and the farm smells in her neighborhood, where the lots are small and residences are close together.

Under the newly amended ordinance, residents can keep bees and chickens on lots as small as 7,000 square feet, as long as they are housed at least 50 feet from any neighboring homes. The new rules also limit urban farmers to one bee colony per 2,000 square feet and one hen per 3,000 square feet of property for lots that don't meet the setback requirement.
"I think that is a reasonable request, particularly if we limit the number of hives," Talbert said. "We limit the number of hens."

The City Council requested that city staff give some consideration for roosters that already live in neighborhoods but will soon be banned.

"We don't want to get Gus fried," Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small said.