rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

man. job hunting is a motherfucker.
I can’t find anythying, and I’m looking. no joke. maybe I’m not looking in the right place. I’ve never been exactly proactive about job hunting; for instance, I’ve never been one to apply to a company/organization that hasn’t posted anything. maybe I should be doing that. lots of maybes.

edit: with that said, there’s a pretty sick job for a copy editor posted suddenly, for DC. this would look kickass on a resume, though I don’t know if I can handle another editing gig like this. I guess it would be dumb not to apply for it.

this ran in the paper yesterday.
gist of it: the county allows landowners massive tax breaks if they agree to place their land in a conservation easement. that way, they curb sprawl. developers don’t just start putting buildings up everywhere.
sprawl sucks. countryside is nice. I agree. but the guys interviewed for this story, eh.

Rich Collins led a contingent of 20 University of Virginia graduate students down a rocky path into the middle of a bucolic 154-acre field in Albemarle County.
“Ooh! Look!” exclaimed Collins, a UVa professor of urban and environmental planning. “There’s a pair of nesting geese.”
A few moments later, UVa history professor Stephen Levine strolled up, leading his nervous donkey Neftu.
“She’s taking her time,” said Levine, the property’s owner. “This is all new for her.”
The grad students are part of Collins’ class on the legal aspects of planning. They spent Monday morning in Levine’s field — located at a convergence of the north and south forks of the Rivanna River — to learn about how conservation easements are protecting hundreds of thousands of acres of rural countryside across Virginia.

and then:

Virginians who donate land that will be protected in perpetuity are allowed a tax credit for 50 percent of the land’s fair market value. The tax credits can be used to offset taxes for up to five years or sold off for cash.
For the general public, conservation easements provide scenic beauty and quality of life. In a sense, the public pays for them via forgone tax revenue.
The easements are proving to be an increasingly popular tool throughout Virginia and in the Charlottesville region for preserving rural character, environment and culture. As many of his students intend to eventually work as municipal planners, Collins wanted them to gain insight into how conservation easements work.
“It’s basically a gift to the general public,” Collins told them. “Think of it like donating a piece of artwork to a university.”

I just want it to be known that I get it. I understand easements. and anyone who has spent any time, at all, in northern Virginia understands that unchecked development will turn your once-livable towns into a soulless web of shopping centers and planned communities.
but ‘it’s basically a gift to the general public?’ give me a fucking break. it’s almost like this was planned to sound like a stereotypical liberal telling you what’s good for you; a couple of wealthy university types – who own large tracts of land - get to play farmer in Albemarle County while getting sweetheart deals on their property taxes. taxes that would go into county coffers, you know, for fucking roads and schools and other such utilities. but it’s cool, because these assholes get wonderful unobstructed views from their restored 19th century farmhouses, and they get to pat themselves on the back for contributing to how aesthetically pleasing they’ve made the countryside.
as far as it being a gift to the community, that’s not true. the community gets less tax revenue so it can be pretty and faux-rural. it’s not a gift if you’re paying for it.
and that’s fine, maybe it’s worth paying for. have you ever been to Manassas, Va.? talk about sprawl. it’s just nothing but shopping center after shopping center after gridlocked traffic light after shopping center. so maybe Rich Collins and this ‘gift to the community’ is the way to go. there’s a ton of people in this town already, easements are probably just holding everything in check.

that’s all. I had a very visceral reaction to this story as I laid it out. but as far as tax easements go, I’d also like to mention that 1) they seem to be an ultimately temporary solution to stopping sprawl and 2) they accheive their stated objective, and I don’t have a better idea.
oh, and 3) almost all of you probably don’t have any idea what the hell I’m talking about.