The EEZ is ba-a-a-a-ck

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: My husband and I like to use old phrases, just to hear them and keep them going. So we might say “you’re closing the barn door after the horses are gone” when we mean “It’s just too late for that action” or “strike when the iron’s hot” when we mean “you can accomplish that goal if you do it right now.” Today the headline on the newspaper was “EEZ map abandoned: New map based on 2010 census.” The story explained that the Fulton Area Development Corporation needed to use the 2010 map to build their inventory of land where they could offer corporations special tax deals. The old map included our neighborhood, which is a quiet rural neighborhood with most people enjoying the green space around us—the cows, the corn, the ponds—and we don’t want to see it paved over. So we objected, and so did a lot of other people in the county, some in the EEZ and some out of it. The arguments generally went, “well, if part of the county is in the zone it will affect the rest. Property values will be all over the place, mostly in a bad way.” Now that FADC has abandoned the old map, my sweetie said, maybe they’ll abandon the plan. “No way.” I said, and this is the old-phrase part, “They’re like a dog with a bone.” He looked at me in a puzzled way. “You know,” I said, “It means they won’t give it up. They’ll keep it until it’s all gone. Like that.” “Oh,” he said, understanding, “You mean ‘like a cat with a rabbit.’”