AtticaFlinch

Weird. So you two thought the low prices were intended only to benefit low income residents of just this one apartment complex? That's weirder than the idea that this Walmart is being built to service just Heights residents.

Walmart is more environmentally conscious than many other retailers: link

Sure you have. You've said, in essence, that if an adult volunteers, it was by that adult's choice, and that adult can leave if they so choose. It fails to take into account that coercion, by its very nature, eliminates choice. A coerced adult has no more ability to come and go than a coerced child. That said, you still haven't shown that getting children to think civic-mindedly amounts to coercion.

Everybody finds the coercion of children to be repugnant. It's pretty hard to disagree with that. My point is, getting kids to clean up a park isn't coercive, and certainly no more so than getting adults to help ABC TV to build a house. Children don't have free volition. They're wards of their parents - legally, intellectually and emotionally. If a parent decides for their child that the child is going to clean the shores of the bayou, then the parents acted as a proxy for the child's free volition. And, if the parents were manipulated or coerced, I don't think you would have an argument against that as you've already dismissed the gullibility of adults as being unworthy of concern.

I could easily frame the concepts of guilt and duty as subtle and/or subliminal forms of coercion. As such, ALL forms of volunteerism, or any form of labor without monetary compensation, are the products of coercion. There's always some form of psychological motivation, even if it can't be commoditized, and most especially even if it isn't exploitative.

When I eat dinner as a guest at someone else's house, I'll most likely volunteer my help to clean the dishes afterward. Not because I enjoy working for free, not because I've been manipulated into doing it by the host through some sense of guilt and not because I think once done the dishes will never get dirty again. No, I offer my help out of gratitude for the free meal and because I truly do appreciate the generosity of the host. As such, help in cleaning is the least I can do. On the same token, the same could be said for children cleaning the park. The City has no specific mandate to offer its citizens a safe, syringe-free environment in which to allow children to run free, but they do anyhow. Helping to police it is the least the kids can do in return for the space. Plus, it may serve as an early intervention to prevent the obnoxious point-of-view that anything that requires their labor should be compensated monetarily.

You are the last person I'd expect to give the ol' why-won't-anyone-think-about-the-children defense. Besides, we make children do many things they, and even we, may not enjoy doing. It's part of the learning process, and not merely exploitation. I can think of at least two positive payoffs for children in terms of education: 1) They learn not all manual labor is a bad thing, which may be important for some of them, and 2) they learn civic pride can be a reality. And even if the kids don't care for the forced work now, they'll ultimately appreciate that their parents made them do a thing or two for their community (unless they're little sociopaths).

And doubtless, as an adult, you make all your decisions independent of subtle or subliminal coercion. That isn't the case with most adults.

This still assumes all adults are rational and capable of making decisions independent of subtle coercion while children are incapable of making any decisions on their own. Civic-mindedness isn't the exclusive domain of a community's adults. Hell, I'd say the children have a greater sense of the need to self-police their place considering they still believe they can manipulate the world around themselves. They still view the world positively - before the crushing sense of individual insignificance that hits most of the rest of us around the time of our eighteenth birthday - and they still think the world is worth saving.

Ok, I get what you're saying, but it assumes the people volunteering to build the house are doing so to get laid or otherwise improve their social standing while people picking up garbage are somehow being exploited by some mind-controlling force. What if, and I don't feel I'm stretching reality too far here, but what if the people cleaning the bayou just want a cleaner bayou and the people building the house wanted to do something nice for their neighbor? If that's the case, and again I don't think that reasoning stretches the bounds of reality, then the schlub building the house is the one who's being manipulated while the bayou kids are just doing something worthwhile for the greater good.

Then I'm curious what your take is on the call for more volunteers to help with the Extreme Home Makeover house. At least with these Buffalo Bayou volunteers it can be said they're working for the community at large and their work is a great example of civic pride. With the makeover house, the labor of those volunteers will ultimately be sold for advertising dollars. Sure, a needy family gets a fresh start, but that's not really the true intent of the show's producers. Ultimately, they want this needy family's story to be so pathetic as to bump ratings for those interested in a sad story, and they want the remodel job to be so cathartic for their viewers as to make them go out and buy the wares peddled during the commercial breaks. The needy family is merely a widget to push the producers' actual product. As such, the volunteer labor is merely a stage in production of a commercial product, one in which the workers derive no profit whatsoever. Cleaning up your community seems like a good, productive way to spend an afternoon, but working as slave labor for someone else's economic benefit seems horrific and unjust in this modern world.

Maybe the problem is they were caught up with World Cup fever and were disoriented by the lack of vuvuzela buzz coming from the bleachers.

It's tough to get worked up about anything on Facebook unless your entire point-of-view can be summarized with the letters O, M and G. The only reason I'm even on Facebook is to show off pictures of my kid to geographically distant family members and write funny stuff on my wife's wall. It's no political outlet for me, and any group assigned for such an action would be a waste of time. I think most proponents of the Walmart are pragmatists and not in support because of the knee-jerk emotional cues that the name Walmart can set off. So, looking for strength in an argument based on Facebook popularity is naive at best. I remember recently some of my less evolved Facebook "friends" were reposting links to a couple Facebook fanpages titled something dumb like "I Bet We Can Get One Million People to Support Banning the Teaching of Evolution in School" and "I Bet We Can Get One Million People to Say Global Warming is a Hoax". And you know what? If I recall correctly, both of those fanpages were pretty close to achieving their membership goal.

What I don't understand, and what I still don't understand even despite all the back and forth in this thread, is why the City is choosing to make their stand in the Heights with mostly residential wood frame houses, especially when it's obvious the neighborhood with the most real historical value is the near East End, directly across 59 from Downtown, which is still full of turn of the century brick clad warehouses. Oh well. At least it's good to see Heights residents getting worked up about something actually relevant to their lives instead of whether or not a Walmart builds nearby.

Far be it from me to be that lowbrow. I wasn't making a joke at all. In fact, I was referring to the all-beef kosher wieners at Katz's Deli. Why, what were you thinking? Probably something as equally erudite, I'm sure. Only children can find genital and scatological humor amusing, and only they would take such a softball opportunity as a thread about wieners in Montrose to make a joke about... well, wieners in Montrose. Only a child would do such a horrific, immature thing. You know I once saw the Oscar Mayer wienermobile in front of Chances. No joke attached to the statement, but it's true. I probably would have considered immature jokes at such a sight, but I was simply too engrossed in thought over important issues like the economic disparity among social classes, pondering the existence of God, contemplating the vagaries of the meaning of life and eating at Der Wienerschnitzel to have considered such crass, simplistic, boorish humor.

What has the world come to when we can get almost 30 comments in on a wiener thread and no one is willing to make the obvious joke? It's a sad day for potty humor everywhere. And rsb, you're in Montrose. The beef wiener options are near limitless.

Precisely. With HOA deed restrictions you have the ability to opt in or out of it by choosing whether or not to buy within a particular neighborhood. If the Historic District laws included a clause exempting grandfathered home owners (from the time legislation was passed), it probably wouldn't bother anyone.

Now that you mention it, the Heights arsonist will probably make a huge comeback should this preservation thing be enacted. If a property owner wants to do a teardown/rebuild but the red tape is too costly and problematic to allow it, you can bet the arsonist will resurface, and this time he'll have graduated from sheds and garages to the entire house.

Bahahaha! I really hope the Walmart gets built now. It may be the only thing that can prevent the Heights from becoming a police state. I may go join the pro-Walmart Facebook page now.

HOAs can sue for breach of contract, as you have to sign one of those contracts when you move into a neighborhood with an existing HOA. I have no idea how this historic district thing would work since it would not only affect new residents. If someone opted not to sign a contract, and because that wasn't a condition upon moving into the neighborhood, it would seem that civil courts wouldn't have much say in this. Perhaps criminal fines (or jail time) could be levied. I don't know. It all sounds so draconian that way, and I think this is yet another one of those ideas that sounds better on paper but falls apart with the details.

I imagine it would work like an HOA and the owner would be responsible for all the costs.

Then I take it you didn't take advantage of JCI's 87¢ chili dogs last Thursday? Too bad. There was a Weinerschnitzel where I went to college. And my opinion is m'eh, they're hotdogs. It's tough to get excited about hotdogs.

The difference is every La Quinta ever built is an architectural gem.

I think the most virulent protesters don't want Walmart nearby because they don't trust their own self-control.