The Subprime Collapse:

Today's hot news item has been all about the collapsing housing market and the faltering economy. According Mara Lee of National Public Radio, "Nationwide, more than 13 percent of subprime borrowers were late on payments in the fourth quarter of 2006." While the subprime market share for housing may be small—about 20 percent of the overall market according to Lee—the effect on the housing market will be to see a general stiffening in the way loans are written for housing. It's going to be harder to get a "friendly" loan to build a new house, further depressing the overall housing market. More than 80 percent of these loans go to persons recognized as members of various minority groups.

The Kicker: Remember when you were told that buying a house was your best investment? Today it may well be worth less than when you bought/built it.

What's a subprime loan?

Generally, subprime loans are mortgages given to borrowers with credit scores of 620 or below. Such low scores result from a history of paying debts late or not paying debts at all.

Because subprime borrowers are seen as "higher risk," their loans carry interest rates that are at least 2 percentage points higher than those offered to borrowers with better credit. So, for example, while a credit-worthy borrower could get a mortgage at 5 percent interest, the same mortgage would cost a subprime customer 7 percent interest or more.

("Subprime Mortgages: A Primer" by Mara Lee)

Pat Tillman Saga Continues:

A memo came to light recently, indicating the Bush administration had every reason to suspect that football player Pat Tillman was killed due to friendly fire long before the knowledge was made public. In other words, the administration exploited the man's death to avoid protest against their war policy, including hiding the facts as long as possible from the man's family.


AG Gonzales' Participation in Firings Growing More Evident:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had knowledge of the controversial firings of eight U. S. attorneys up to two years prior to the time they were actually fired, according to his former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson. The most serious problem at this point for the AG is his continued lying about his knowledge. The next question will be just what action the congress plans to take.

Fall Guy:

It took a long time before former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took the fall for the failed Iraq war. How long will it be before Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales bites the political dust. Unfortunately, as the dismissal of Rumsfeld has shown, chasing the lackeys out of Dodge seems to have little effect in altering administration policy. Today's New York Times reports that Congress intends to expand the scope of its investigation into the recent firings over at Justice. New evidence is coming to light that Gonzales had a much heavier hand in the process than he's previously let on. Does any believe that the AG would have made the move without his handlers direct involvement? Naturally, that doesn't mean that GB would have initiated the action. The big question is whether Dick Cheney or Karl Rove is actually in charge of the White House.

U. S. Attorney Carol Lam: Fired because she failed to prosecute immigration violations, actually ranked in the top 10 percent (7th out of 93); successfully prosecuted Rep. Duke Cunningham for accepting $2.4 million in bribes; at the time she was fired, was investigating Dusty Foggo, No. 3 man at the CIA and a Bush appointee, for money laundering in conjunction with a defense contractor.

Frank Rich's take on the Gonzales' affair:

“I’m not going to resign,” Mr. Gonzales asserted last week as he played the minority card, rounding up Hispanic supporters to cheer his protestations of innocence. “I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids.” Actually, he’s going to stay focused on protecting the president. Once he can no longer be useful in that role, it’s a sure thing that like Scooter before him, Fredo will be tossed overboard.

"Fredo" is Bush's nickname for Mr. Gonzales, who worked for Enron (remember them?) until 1994.

The Myth of Multitasking:

Steve Lohr of The New York Times addresses the issue of multitasking in today's issue. Think you can handle the cell phone while you're driving? And then there's your kid in the bedroom, watching TV, listening to music on the iPod, text messaging, answering his teachers e-mail, and studying for tomorrow's math test all at the same time. Think that A he will get is because he's a brilliant young multitasker? Or is it just your regular brand of grade inflation at work?

Turns out that human beings aren't the wonderful multitaskers we try to convince ourselves we are. Efficiency and effectiveness collapse under the distraction of multitasking. Just ask anybody who's ever tried to shoot a freethrow, much less hit a baseball. The human brain is wonderful at multitasking, just as long as it doesn't require the conscious mind.

The Buzz on the Firings:

So what's the big deal about firing six U. S. attorneys? Heck fire, they're political appointees. The politician who appoints 'em ought to have the right to fire 'em, right?

Nobody's denying that. But when six are fired just before an election, and when during the previous twenty-five years only five have ever been fired, bells start to go off.

Prognosis for Iraq: U. S. pulls out. The country enters a state of civil war. A new dictator much like the last one comes to power, either placed there by the Saudiis/Americans/Israelis or the Iranians. The biggest losers? Probably the Kurds.

Nothing's new under the sun.

Respecting Diversity—The Dilemma of the Left:

The political left claims to want diversity to be respected, but what happens when that diversity includes the subjection, even the dehumanization of women? Yesterday's New York Times carries an article addressing the issue of polygamy among African Muslims in the New York City area. It seems "don't ask, don't tell" is the solution often subscribed to even when those one might wish to protect are harmed in the process.

Must Read Stories:

Now that we're all living in terror of identity theft, hard working diligent and honorable citizens that we are, here's an interesting take on the situation from today's New York Times: "Illegal Worker, Troubled Citizen and Stolen Name."

On the one hand, we have the American citizen (drug addict, sometimes jailbird, daughter of an incarcerated drug dealer, who has yet to hold a job in her life, and whose identity may have been "stolen" as many as twenty times). On the other hand, we have the Mexican illegal (who has been a good, if illegal, worker for more than ten years, raising her children under difficult circumstances but always turning in a good day's work at the plant where she is employed).

Guess which one is in jail. Hint: it ain't the drug addict.

Naturally, those who like to whip up fear will claim that you can always find an exception to the rule and this is just one story, but since when has this country not focused its attention on "the exception to the rule"?


The Silver Bullet:

You need a silver bullet to kill a werewolf, and the Democrats know exactly where it is, but they can't lay their hands on it. Congress, under the new Democratic majority, is going after their own deadly wolf, but the silver bullet they need has been hidden. They've gotten their hands on e-mail concerning the Justice Department's actions surrounding the recent firings of U. S. Prosecutors, except for e-mail between the dates of November 15 and December 7 of last year, the critical period. For some (uh-hum) reason there seems to have been no e-mail traffic during that time. Oh, really? (See The New York Times article.)

Iraq—The Short War—Four Years and Counting:

On the day that President Bush announced that the U. S. would invade Iraq, the price of Halliburton stock was at $20.15 per share; just two days ago, adjusted for a split, the value was $64.12. We shore took care a them WMDs, I reckon!


Exigent Circumstance:

Say that twenty-five times while holding your breath! It's a mouthful all right, and typical of bureaucratic linguistics used to cover up incompentancy. The FBI, those fellows who insisted that the Mafia didn't exist and who infiltrated peace movement groups only to insite them to greater and greater levels of violence so that they could boost their arrest records, has been at it again. This time the story has to do with inappropriate wire tapping. (That's when the federal police listen to you talk over a shopping trip with your mother-in-law.)

For two years, the Fibi, as I prefer to call them, practiced "flawed procedures involved the use of emergency demands for records, called "exigent circumstance" letters, which contained false or undocumented claims" ("Amid Concerns, FBI Lapses Went On," The Washinton Post).

This isn't breaking news, as you probably realize, but the story just keeps unraveling. The FBI, quite naturally, were trying to impress their boss over in the administration, that they really and truly were trying to prevent another terrorist attack. They hoped that George Bush would also be impressed.

It certainly does feel like this administration is suffering from serious constipation and could stand a thorough purging.

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men …

More than thirty years ago a tall, slender, fair skinned government official testified on the inner doings of the Nixon White House, and, well, you know the rest. Yesterday, Valerie Wilson, looking like she had walked off a Hollywood set, testified that “My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White House and the State Department,” and the White House “jeopardized and even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents, who in turn risk their own lives and those of their families to provide the United States with needed intelligence. Lives are literally at stake.” She further added, “It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover,… from purely political motives” (MARK LEIBOVICH and NEIL A. LEWIS).

The Democrats, armed now with the power to subpoena, are beginning to ferret out the machinations of the Bush White House. Will it be too little too late to re-bottle the genie? It's hard to imagine that our legistators will not want to spend as much time as possible with their new witness.

The Economy:

As the housing market goes, so goes the economy. When I was growing up, all we heard was "GM"; what's good for General Motors is good for the country, we were told. GM had the fourth largest economy of any entity in the world at the time, larger than that of most countries. We now know how that ended up.

Lately, the news has been all about the housing market. For many months now, economists have been debating the housing market. Why was it holding strong when nothing much else was? When would it collapse? In the meantime, MacMansions were springing up everywhere you looked. Now the hammer is apparently coming down.

After World War II, the government financed the ideal of every man (and woman) deserved his castle. My father benefitted from such a program, buying a one hundred-year-old home, with a low interest home. I was twelve years old at the time, and he had to accrue a serious down payment in order to qualify. It took months to work the deal out, and there were times when my parents didn't think they were going to qualify for the loan, despite my father's four years of service in the military during the war.

In recent years, qualifying for a low interest loan has been much easier. Financial institutions have been throwing money at practically anyone who asked, with only a few minor caveats, like the interest on the loan would go up in a couple of years, after you were sunk into the house. And if your credit record goes south for any reason, like you lose your job, then the interest rate will go up again.

For a time, people didn't let these simple qualifications deter them from buying the home of their dreams as soon as they had the slightest idea that they might want to marry and set up house keeping. After all, you could easily declare bankruptcy and get out from under all that debt. But low and behold, the government changed those rules recently.

Now the name of the game seems to be "foreclosure." EDUARDO PORTER and VIKAS BAJAJ address the issue in today's New York Times Business Section: "Rising Trouble with Mortgages Clouds Dream of Owning Home."

Technology:

Coming to a desktop near you: a computer desktop that looks and functions like a real desktop. Check out what the people at Bumptop or working on in a YouTube presentation. I know somebody whose executive assistants will have a great time with this, and I'll bet our good buddy Alan does too.

Hydrogen cars? Just how far off in the future are they? Check out BMW World's site. We may be closer than the petroleum industry is letting on.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design): Looking for something to do with the best and the brightest? The next TED conference will only cost $6,000 per ticket to attend in person. You can get a taste of the conference at CBS News.

Browser Wars 3.0:

Coming to a screen near you! Yes, that's right. It might be starting up again. IE's share of the browser market—is there such a thing since browsers are free?—has dropped below 80 percent with most of that share going to Firefox, a direct descendant of, you guessed it, Netscape Navigator.

Blake Ross, a teenager who worked as an intern at Netscape, developed Firefox along with a Mozilla developer named Dave Hyatt. The idea would be to develop a browser that would be slim and fast. Obviously, the succeeded.

Now for the fun part. Back in the early days of browser wars, the thing that pushed Microsoft into developing its own browser was the realization that Netscape was moving toward developing a web browser that would take the place of the computer's operating system. The user would be able to run programs right within the browser itself.

Sounds farfetched to us non techy types, but it scared the be-jeezies out of Microsoft. Well, take a guess at whose working on that very same scheme as we speak. Blake Ross. He's now employed at a company called Parakey, which is working on creating a Web-based operating system. You can read about it at EWeek. This should be fun to watch.

Stories Too Good to Pass Up:

"Indian Internet Addiction" from Salon.com: Your kids aren't the only ones who spend too much time on the Web.

"Bigotry That Hurts Our Military" from The Washington Post: A former Republican senator speaks out on why gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. Point number three—"there are not enough troops to perform the required mission."

And Slate chimes in on the gays in the military issue as well with "Don't Ask" by Nathaniel Frank. The military is the only place, it seems, where it ain't cool to be openly gay. Certainly gay soldiers have served aplenty in the military, sometimes with distinction, like any other group. Are Republicans about ready to admit the fact and vote to allow gays to serve openly? There just might be enough desperate office seekers in the next two years. (Are those pulpits I hear aquiver?)

And for you YouTube/MadTV fans: You don't want to pass this one up: iRack.

Bush Lost in Latin Labyrinth!

This just in: An undisclosed White House source has disclosed that President George W. Bush has disappeared into the imaginary country of Uruguay. (Go ahead, find that on a map of the Middle-East!)

The president, who was accidently given a one-way ticket to visit South America, was reported to have found a kindred spirit in Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez. However, it is well known that Uruguay is a fictional country that exists only in the mind of a certain political theorist living in a rent controlled apartment on the Lower East Side (a fictional neighborhood of New York City). At this point, it is no longer clear who is running the country; however, nothing much seems to have changed. (Please note that in the NYTimes' article—see link above—Uruguay's population is stated to be half that of New York City. Do you need any more proof that Uruguay is actually located in New York City? I actually met a Uruguayan about twenty years ago. He lived in New York City.)

The D. C. rumor mill is grinding away. It is said that Veep Darth Vadar is behind the plot; having become infurriated with Democrats for not impeaching Bush, he hatched the plan to exchange Bush's round trip coach ticket with a one-way first class airfare. The Bush team, excited about the opportunity to get out of Washington during the bleak winter months, giddy as co-eds on their first spring break (See "Girls Gone Wild" episode 137), failed to notice the difference in tickets and were led to believe that they had simply received an "upgrade."

President Fidel Castro, in a show of magnanimity, offered to ship the Bush team Chinese made bycicles for the return trip. Castro, as everyone knows, has been in negotiations recently with the Disney people to turn Cuba into a theme park. Exactly how this fits into the conspiracy is not quite clear.

Speaking of Labyrinths: I have it on excellent authority than back in the 1970s the late Argentine writer, Jorge Borges, visited a Mid-Western university where he was the guest speaker. The univesity folks were justly proud that the great man had come to visit them, and they decided to hold a feast in his honor, serving only the very best Latin American and Spanish dishes. They hired an excellent chef, who was supervised by a Spanish woman of nobel birth, and the feast was truly magnificent. However, Borges, having long since gone blind and being in his eighties at the time, when he arrived at the great meal, refused to eat any of the delicacies that had been prepared. It seems that at this later period in his life he simply preferred to eat only canned soup, tomato soup. The fact that my source was a defrocked monk should in no way decline our acceptance of this story. Facts are facts, after all.

Today's definition: Post-modernism—the state of existance in which reality is routinely manufactured. See also French literary movement founded after World War II, in which French intellectuals discovered that, while they felt deeply moved, actually had nothing to say.

On Books:

One of the pleasures in reading the selected works of a poet who has lasted 50 years of publishing is watching the progression of his or her career. Last year, BOA Editions published W. D. Snodgrass's Not for Specialists, New and Selected Poems, which I've just finished reading.

The book opens with a poem from Snodgrass's first collection, Heart's Needle (1959):

These Trees Stand …

These trees stand very tall under the heavens.
While they stand, if I walk, all stars traverse
This steep celestial gulf their branches chart.
Though lovers stand at sixes and at sevens
While civilizations come down with the curse,
Snodgrass is walking through the universe.

I can't make any world go around your house.
But note this moon. Recall how the night nurse
Goes ward rounds by the mild, reflective art
Of focusing her flashlight on her blouse.
Your name's safe conduct into love or verse;
Snodgrass is walking through the universe.

Your name's absurd, miraculous as sperm
And as decisive. If you can't coerce
One thing outside yourself, why you're the poet!
What irrefrangible atoms whirl, affirm
Their destiny and form Lucinda's skirts!
She can't make up your mind. Soon as you know it,
Your firmament grows touchable and firm.
If all this world runs battlefield or worse,
Come, let us wipe our glasses on our shirts:
Snodgrass is walking through the universe.


And from this point on we inhabit Snodgrass's vision, which includes sections from his intriguing poetic take on the last days of World War II through the imagined and sometimes real words of Hitler and his compatriots from the bunker in The Fuehrer Bunker, the cycle of poems first published in 1977 and finished in 1995. These poems continue Snodgrass's playfulness in language brought to bear on serious topics, demonstrating the value that comes from a master investigating his topic, his characters through a series of works, not unlike Updike and Faulkner in their novels and short stories. There is a reason we celebrate those writers who approach a topic or characters at more than one front, although we might not be able to place our fingers precisely on why this is so appealing to us.

The book ends with

Invitation

Come live with me and be my last
Resource, location and resort,
My workday's focus and steadfast
Distraction to a weekend's sport.

Come end up with me, close my list;
Blank my black book, block every e-mail
From ex-loves whose mouths won't be missed;
Let nothing else alive look female.

Come couch with me mit Freud und Lust
As every evening's last connection.
Talk to me; prove the day like Proust;
Let what comes next rise to inspection.

Come, let old aftermaths get lost,
let failures and betrayals mend,
Cancel repayments; clear the cost;
Once more unto the breach, dear friend.

Come lay us down to sleep at least,
Sharing this pillow's picture show.
Who's been my braintrust and best beast?
Who else knows what I need to know?


Snodgrass may be one of our least appreciated truly important poets. Thanks to BOA Edtions, a non-profit publisher, his work continues to be available to us. Maybe not all is wrong in the publishing world after all.

Taxpayer Financed Sex Campus:

A few years ago, states decided that people convicted of sex crimes might need rehab before they were reduced into society. Sounds like a good idea. Guy commits some sex crime and goes to jail for fifteen years, he's going to need some adjusting before we can trust him back in society, and those fifteen years in jail, all too often, do nothing to dissuade him from reverting to his bad behavior after he gets out. (So much for the learning curve where punishment is concerned.)

But here's the problem, it just ain't working. The New York Times has been running a series of articles, including one today, exposing what's all too often really going on behind these closed doors:

Inside a privately run treatment center here for pedophiles and rapists who have completed their prison sentences, where they are supposed to reflect on their crimes and learn to control their sexual urges, bikini posters were pinned to walls.

Two men took their shirts off, rubbed each other’s backs and held hands, while others disappeared together into dormitory rooms. Some of the sex offenders appeared to be drunk from homemade “buck” liquor secretly brewed and sold here.

And some of the center’s employees, who openly ignored the breaking of rules (“As long as they are happy, we let them go,” one explained), reported that a high turnover rate among staff members was mostly because of female employees leaving their jobs after having had sex with the offenders.

This is the description of one facility in Florida.

So what's actually happening here? Well, the cost to taxpayers, it turns out, per prisoner/ex-prisoner is three times higher in rehab than it costs to keep them in prison. So, a guy is convicted of a sex crime, spends a number of years in jail, and then goes to rehab for an—get this—an indefinite period of time (until he's rehabilitated and fit for society) and then let out. Ooops! As it turns out, very few of these men are let out. It's just way too profitable to keep them in rehab. Not for the taxpayer, of course, but for whoever is receiving the $100,000 or more per prisoner/patient received while the guy's in rehab.

To make things perfectly clear, nobody is being rehabilitated. Got that? The deal is that states set up a program that appeals on paper at least to both conservatives and liberals, but the only thing that transpires within these programs is the transfer of taxpayer funds. And in the meantime, our sex offenders enjoy their sex camps, on our dime.

Is this just too good to believe or what?


In Other Domestic News:

The price of gasoline is climbing again, and it isn't even summer. Up 32 cents a gallon around my neck of the woods. Look for Exxon Mobil to announce new record profits soon. Yes, the current administration has done an excellent job. Could it be payback of the Oscar Gore got? (Nothin' like a good conspiracy theory, and when it comes to oil companies, there's always a likelihood of some truth in them.)

How We Got That Way:

If you haven't yet, you might like to check out Salon.com's excerpt from Andrew Cockburn's Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy. Thanks to one of our reader's for passing this along. Here's a preview—the article's title is "When Rummy tried to nuke Russia." It would be funny if it weren't for all the dead and maimed this man has helped bring about while living out his fantacy.

Another Telling Moment:

When historians look back on the Bush administration, in addition to the fiasco in Iraq, the corruption here at home within the Republican party will stand out as a major issue in assessing the presidency. Likely, historians will debate the quality of Bush's leadership skills based on his connection with what is currently going on in the Justice Department, among other things.

Just how much does Bush know about what is going on with the politicization of the Justice Department. The recent firings of eight prosecuters, ostensibly for poor performance, but actually because they had either prosecuted corrupt Republican officials or because they had refused to go after Democratic politicians, speaks worlds about the man in the Oval Office. Is he behind the firings? In favor of the political motivated hirings? Or so inept that the powers that are actually running the precendency can do whatever they want without any serious concern about Bush's interferrence?

My guess is that it's the latter. Although people who have been close to Bush claim is actually an intelligent man, the truth seems to be that he willfully maintains a level of ignorance that is startling in someone who has been so ambitious.

If anything, this speaks to the man's background. He is apparently smart enough to figure out what he wants to know, but his life of extreme privilege has accustomed him to ignoring how things get done when they are out of his direct view. Here is a man who has had his whole life smoothed out before him by a large cadre of courtiers who have been able to inhance their own power by smoothing out the bumps in his road. Sixty years of living that way makes it awfully easy not to pay too much attention to how things get done as long as they run smoothly for you. Likely, that explains a good deal about why the man was such a failure in his life before becoming the governor of Texas.

Note: See today's New York Times editorial on the Justice Department situation.

For more details on the firings, see today's Washington Post article by John Solomon and Dan Eggen. Republican Pete Domenici from New Mexico is one of the driving forces behind the firings. He was pressing the White House to make the firings before last falls elections in an effort to keep Democratic office holders from retaining their seats.

At least five (5) of the eight prosecuters were overseeing prosecutions into public corruption at the time they were fired.


Today in History:

Sixteen years ago today George Bush the elder was president and Rodney King was dragged from his car in LA and beaten by police. Thus was born the new journalism, everyone as reporter.