Listen in to my interview with Bill Strickland, CEO of the Manchester Bidwell Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Manchester Bidwell is an arts and job training organization in inner city Pittsburgh that Bill started in 1968.

Bill has a new book out, Make The Impossible Possible that I highly recommend. In light of my conversation with Andy Crouch earlier this week, I would say that Bill is a leading expert on "culture making". Every city needs a "Bill Strickland" who eschews conventional wisdom and just goes about the business of helping people and treating those who are often ignored with tremendous respect.

In last week's New York Times, I found a fascinating article about Congressman Charles Rangel and newly released information about his home in New York. I was particularly interested because Rangel's home actually consists of four rent stabilized apartments in Harlem.

As many of you may not know what rent control and rent stabilization is, here is a quick primer. From Wikipedia: "Rent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on the renting of residential housing. It functions as a price ceiling." Actually the original premise of rent control is founded upon good intentions; the idea being that in a city we should be able to provide a stock of affordable housing for lower income families. If only good intentions won the day!

So let's consider a number of things. How likely is it that Congressman Charles Rangel heads a low income family? Well, according to the NYTimes article, his net worth is somewhere between $566k and $1.2 million. Not Bill Gates worthy but certainly not low income. How did Rangel come to acquire not just one rent-stabilized apartment, but FOUR? Certainly there is some sort of income requirements in order to qualify for rent stabilized apartments? Nope. Actually there isn't. So how does one acquire one of these coveted apartments? According to my friends that live in New York City, there are three ways that one acquires a rent stabilized apartment: inheritance, by knowing someone, or by paying what is referred to as "key money" (which, while illegal, is not uncommon). And so how likely is it that low income families acquire rent stabilized apartments through these means? Almost never.

I was checking my comments tonight on the site and found the following comment spam:

Inside I recognized a lot of friends. It is good to know them, when I was bullied by other people; they always came to help me the first time. They said they have no Goonzu money, or they would give me. In this way, I would become a little terrible. I did not know from the beginning of the day, one day, I as usual medicines, upgrade practice that she suddenly appeared in my side. I did not know why I would shout out:” wife!” shouted after my heart was strange, of course she did not know I felt at this moment, and then she laughed at me. Then she ran.

Fairly typical spam with a link that I have removed.

Then things get really interesting. I checked my Sitemeter logs and discovered the culprit.

Domain Name 163data.com.cn ? (China)
IP Address 218.93.19.# (changzhou communist consolidated aliance office)
ISP Data Communication Division
Location
Continent : Asia
Country : China (Facts)
State/Region : Jiangsu
City : Changzhou

So why is the Chinese Communist Party putting comment spam on my blog???

Update: Ha! And now they are trying to add the comment spam to this post!