For this week's cover story on the California tax revolt and its national repercussions, TIME'S correspondents and editors had to deal with a maze of figures about property taxes, assessments and the often stunning jump in real estate prices. For some correspondents, the statistics were academic and provoked only a mild incredulity. But for Los Angeles Bureau Chief William Rademaekers and Correspondent Joe Kane, the figures were a grim reality: as recent initiates to the California housing scene, they shared the experience and understood the bristling anger of many of the residents they interviewed.
Rademaekers had a typical Southern California tale of...