The Poet Was In

At the farmers' market last Sunday, I saw a table with a sign, "The Poet Is In," and so came to meet the Poet Laureate of Arlington, Katherine E. Young, and no, I hadn't realized that Arlington had a Poet Laureate. We got to talking; she's a translator from the Russian as well as a poet, and I bought a copy of her book, Day of the Border Guards.

She wrote a poem for me, "In the Patent Office, for Nicholas Rosen," which runs:

By day, the patient crafting of letters
responding to applications
for this or that process
to perfect and sell
the uneasy American dream.

By night,
the gas-lit shimmer of jeweled Victorian prose
as Henry George constellates
the moral universe.

Georgist Conference in Orlando, Part Eleven

After the panel discussion on trade, we had lunch, including a mini-meeting of some Robert Schalkenbach Foundation people (I'm on the board). Then, Tuesday afternoon (August 16, 2016), we had the book launch for "RENT UNMASKED: Essays in Honor of Mason Gaffney." Ted Gwartney, Nic Tideman, Polly Cleveland, Fred Forldvary, and Frank Peddle participated. There is theory, empirical evidence, and actions to take.

There was video of Professor Gaffney a few weeks before, where he mentioned surviving in academia as a Georgist; he's proud of that.

Ted Gwartney said that Professor Emeritus Gaffney would have a stent put in his artery shortly, so keep him in your prayers. He expects to live to be over a hundred (he's currently past ninety). He's still writing, and he has recently moved to a detached house in a senior center.

There was a Fred Harrison video. Universities were endowed by robber barons. For example, Leland Stanford, who made a fortune from railroads and the land grants given for his railroad, endowed Stanford. The University of Chicago received large benefactions from John D. Rockefeller. Cornell was the beneficiary of funding from Ezra Cornell, who had made his money stringing telegraph wires behind General Grant.

Understandably, the economics departments of these institutions were not friendly to Henry George's ideas.

To be continued.