There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house, so I stared at it like Kant at his church steeple for half an hour.

A brewer had built it in the early period craze a decade before. And there was a story that he'd agreed to pay five years

taxes on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw.

Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to

found a family.

He went into an immediate decline.

His children sold his house with a black wreath still on the door.

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

The Great Gatsby. Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton and I recently learned that private property can be legally haunted by ghosts.

As in, you can buy a house, you own the house. It's your house. Nobody's saying you don't own the house.

And yet, legally, you have to adhere to the wishes of some dead guy.

Not because of my arch nemesis,

wegee boards, but because of my other arch nemesis,

zoning. That's right, it's a zoning effort. because of my other arch nemesis. Zoning.

That's right, it's a zoning episode.

I love the stuff.

I apologize for nothing.

I do apologize for swearing.

I dropped the F-bomb a few times this episode, parents if you've got kids in the car,

but that's only because I hate zoning and ghosts so much.

But just in case you're not as fired up about zoning and density laws and ghosts as I am.

...