Norman Van Cott, an economist at Ball State University (a public university in Indiana), won’t make any friends with his university’s administrators by comparing them to Ahab and Jezebel. In the biblical story, when a vineyard owner refused to give up his vineyard, the couple created a kangaroo court, convicted the owner of a crime, had him stoned to death, and got the vineyard. While Ball State isn’t stoning anybody, it has decided to use the power of eminent domain to take over a printing business on property that it wants but whose owner refuses to sell. Legalized theft, perhaps? asks Van Cott on the Pope Center site.