NYCweboy

Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadows?

Well, I didn't intend to go four days without posting, and my thanks to the 3 or 4 diehards who refuse to give up on me (especially my best friend J, who posted the flowerlude - and can we just say how beautiful his flower photos are - and wrote to make sure I wasn't dead).

I'm not dead... but I'm struggling. Some of it is.... well, personal, and I really won't be sharing it here (that's not my way); some of it is also personal, but part of the political scene as well. So I thought that would be as good a place as any to start.

As you might guess, since I talk about being a Starbuckian, my income is not what it once was, or what it needs to be. No disrespect to Howard intended, but it's hard to get by on a small hourly wage and the kindness of strangers (a/k/a tips). What started as a merely interesting moment of feeling somewhat strapped has gone on to a feeling of being generally destitute. And it's hard, not so much because of all the things I can't have or do - in the end, you come to appreciate that unnecessary things are, well, unnecessary - but because writing (when I am writing) is providing so much joy, it's hard to contemplate giving that up to chase extra income.

So Saturday, I didn't write because Jennifer and I were traipsing around my nab, window shopping... which was very nice, as we both try to enjoy a new spirit of "look, but don't buy", and really, that makes for an entertaining afternoon trying on sky-high Ferragamo shoes at Nieman Marcus. It was blazing hot, and eventually, the whole day was lost to travel and meeting people, and when I ultimately got home it was too late to really blog effectively.

Sunday, I worked, and that's where I - and my co-worker - discovered this awful story on the front page of the Times, Gretchen Morgenson's admirable attempt to tie together the corporate interests in the debt crisis with an actual individual story.  That the story itself was incredibly sad (and a little predictable), only made the sense of identification all the more vivid. A single mom who got herself way too deep in debt, it looks as though she will lose everything... and still owe on her debts.

And she's not alone.  I think the story affected me more deeply than I first thought, because the idea of even writing about it stranded me for another day. Until this morning when I saw David Brooks follow up on his "debt culture" column with another, fairly dead-on assessment of the problem:

On the front page of Sunday’s Times, Gretchen Morgenson described Diane McLeod’s spiral into indebtedness, and now a debate has erupted over who is to blame.

Some people emphasize the predatory lenders who seduced her with too-good-to-be-true credit lines and incomprehensible mortgage offers. Here was a single mother made vulnerable by health problems and divorce. Working two jobs and stressed, she found herself barraged by credit card companies offering easy access to money. Mortgage lenders offered her credit on the basis of the supposedly rising value of her house. These lenders had little interest in whether she could pay off her loans. They made most of their money via initial lending fees and then sold off the loans to third parties.

In short, these predatory companies swooped down on a vulnerable woman, took what they could and left her careening toward bankruptcy.

Other people emphasize McLeod’s own responsibility. She is the one who took the credit card offers knowing that debt is a promise that has to be kept. After her divorce, she went on a shopping spree to make herself feel better. After surgery, she sat at home watching the home shopping channels, charging thousands more.

Free societies depend on individual choice and responsibility, those in this camp argue. People have to be held accountable for their indulgences or there is no justice. As McLeod herself admirably told Morgenson: “I regret not dealing with my emotions instead of just shopping.”

If you go to the online comment section affixed to Morgenson’s article, you see advocates of these two positions talking past one another, one side talking the morality of social protection and the other the morality of personal responsibility.

Brooks goes on to argue that there's a third way to look at this: that our culture helped make being in debt seem the norm, made consumption the objective (mass luxury), and changed our decision making and our behaviors.  It';s a way of saying... we all bear some responsibility in this.

I suspect many people will be put off by Brooks - he's already got a passionate set of detractors - but I think this is a moment where he's getting it right: finding the center, and saying that as much as anything, we need to be a better society made up of better people with a better value system. That's going to seem, to many on the left especially, like a moral judgment about people like Diane McLeod. But the point is... we are all like Ms. McLeod.

The problem with the debt and mortgage crisis story, I've thought all along, is that it brings out the distinction makers - "I didn't do that," "that's not me," "those people should have known better." Myself. I think people who amassed massive credit card debt really should have known better, but with mortgages I think many people were swindled by banks and lenders who did not explain in enough detail what these mortgages meant to people who did not understand what they were signing on for. But in any case, what's already happening is that, on the margins, in the shadows... people are starting to lose everything. And if we don't get conscious to the problem soon, we will all be facing it.

Notes on New Orleans

I just got home from six nights in New Orleans - a mix of business and pleasure (the city would have it no other way), traveling with the man and meeting with non-profit folks and public housing resident-activists.  On my first morning there I joined several residents and activists in solidarity at another's hearing at NO's Criminal Court.  Some thoughts on that are here.

My relationship with New Orleans is a tense one - the intensity of the inequity is something this uptight, machine-politick-reared New Englander cannot abide.  My work there takes me through a morning at the Criminal Court, and I pass another listening to another former resident weep over the loss of her home and sitting with her through one family crisis after another.  In an effort to escape from the despair, I trundle over to Magazine Street and spend hours wandering the boutiques full of relatively inexpensive, funky and fun dresses (I marvel at the affordable and independent designs they have down there - I'm not aware of any equivalents up here in MA).  But it's difficult to overcome the cognitive dissonance of watching families cope with trauma and injustice and then pay an excessive amount for two sandwiches and glasses of wine with the man at an overpriced (if delicious) bakery shop decked out in fantastic pinks and blues.  Surreal is often a word folks use to describe their experiences in post-Katrina New Orleans, and they're not wrong. 

I finally verbalized that one of the things I can't stomach about the city is its lack of government - I live in a city with a strong mayor and a city and state with a long history of liberal patronage and paternalism (we have our own public housing up here, for example).  This sentiment, of course, made me feel both like a loser and a teeny bit fascist - but at every turn it seems like there's a new outrage - and the civil and non-profit sectors can only do so much.  I hope Pelosi et al. are listening slightly more carefully than they've been during this whole FISA nonsense.

But despite my links o' grief above, with each passing day I relax a little bit there.  Drinks with friends help.  As does excellent food.  And hot, humid weather (I may be alone on this one) and lush parks and foliage.  And the endless little new stores opening up here and there.  And the sheer breadth of experience I have there, in a way that my rather cloistered world here in MA cannot match - for better and worse.  It's a rarefied city, and writing about it off and on for three years now (I know, I'll never be from or of there!!) - well, I'm starting to feel a little cliched.

August 29, 2008 is the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  The city is slowly returning, but unevenly and precariously.  The Democratic Convention ends on August 28. Gulf Coast organizations and their national allies are pressing Sens. Obama and McCain and the Democratic and Republican Parties to prioritize Gulf Coast recovery in the upcoming administration.  Because while the scale of Katrina's devastation is exceptional, its physical and social aftermath is strikingly less so.

I leave you with an excerpt from a Times-Picayune piece on New Orleans volunteers helping out after the Iowa floods:

Unlike the brackish water that surged over the New Orleans area, the Cedar River's fresh water spared the green grass and flowers. Except for the vegetation, though, the vacant neighborhoods could be Gentilly or Old Metairie or Meraux after Katrina.

In the Cedar Rapids neighborhood of Time Check, named for merchants' 19th century practice of honoring the postdated paychecks of railroad workers, references to the 2005 hurricane are ever-present.

"I sat at home. I watched TV. I saw the pictures of Katrina. But you just don't get it until you're actually living it," said Janette Schorg, who drove last week from Davenport, Iowa, near the Illinois border, to help her parents muck out their two-story home of 40 years.

It just angers me every time I drive into Cedar Rapids that it goes from beautiful to a war zone," Schorg said.

Some residents admit the recent flooding has forced them to reconsider their notions of New Orleans.

"We all watched during Katrina and said, 'Why would people live in a bowl?' " said Bill Polton, whose 85-year-old father lives just three blocks from the levee that runs along First Street Northwest, on the Cedar River's west bank.

"Well, here we are sitting in almost the same scenario," Polton said. "Nobody realized how far the flood plain would go."

- Redstar

Hot Stuff

I think it's the heat.

The string of heat waves this summer have done a lot to sap my brain power, and make almost any distraction from writing look appealing. I think the heat has also made news a bit stupid, too: precious little of any real import is leading the news - even though the serious stuff that's happening is pretty awful and serious - making Christie Brinkley's divorce settlement somehow seem deep.

So, while I've been pretty silent, I haven't been completely out of the loop. Here are the things I've been following, in short form. I'm thinking a summary approach may help me jump start my writing again... plus it doesn't take so much energy.  Plus... with the rain this morning, it's also a little bit cooler. So here goes:

• FISA Follies - I'm sort of fascinated at how the FISA story won't go away, and how it's become something of a rallying cry for a new disillusionment with Obama. What's really disheartening is that all the protesting won't amount to a hill of beans.  And PS, funny how Clinton wound up on the right side of that one... and hilarious how the Hillary Haters just couldn't admit she'd gotten it right without some caveat...
• Testicular Fortitude Theology - I think anyone's slow slide into irrelevancy after years in the public eye is a sad, painful thing to watch. Still, it's a real car crash moment with this whole Jesse Jackson "cut his nuts off" comment, ain't it? I mean can't look away, can't help but feel a little sorry for the guy... the whole bit. Still, what an amazing, spectacularly inappropriate thing to say - and on a live mike! - and while some want to try and hang an Obama critique on it... I'd say... best not to go there. Jackson's notion of his own importance is such a lost cause, and his irrelevancy so apparent at this point... I think it's best not to draw more attention to him.
• Mediscare - One of the somewhat overlooked stories of the past couple of weeks is the collapse of... er... testicular fortitude when it comes to dealing with the healthcare crisis. Paul Krugman suggested - and Ezra Klein approvingly noted - that Congress' decision to raid Medicare HMO funds to fund a softening of cuts in doctor's fees under Medicare fee for service was a good thing... but it's totally not. Aside from the fact that Medicare HMOs are proving to be a positive step in delivering care to some seniors the fact that no one wants to address spiraling healthcare costs in any serious way is the biggest indication that the talk of "healthcare reform" is almost entirely talk (for the best explanation of this, check out wisewon's comment in Ezra's post; wisewon is one of the smartest people I read on healthcare issues, a doc with a great understanding of the issues). Krugman points to the notion that a united Democratic front can defeat GOP intransigence... but when that united front is in place largely to give gifts to doctors... that doesn't seem like a good place to be.
• Fannie and Freddie - One very large hen came home to roost this week, a two- headed monster called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The two semi-private mortgage banks have been in free fall as the extent - and depth - of the mortgage crisis became all too clear in the last few weeks. Though "too big to fail" may turn out to be true, the real problem with Fannie and Freddie is not that they are part of the mortgage crisis... it's that, with some 50% of all mortgages tied to them, they are the mortgage crisis. It's easy, as some have done yet again, to blame mismanagement at both firms; there's definitely loads of scandals still to come. But this is also a problem 70+ years in the making, as a reasonably well conceived and intentioned notion of providing government support to some home buyers gradually morphed into a system of purchasing every mortgage under $400,000.  Now the two lenders have some 5 trillion dollars worth of potentially wrecked debt that the government may have to assume... which will double the national deficit overnight. And for once, the Wall Street Journal is right: this was avoidable, and it's astonishing how stupid people have been in letting Fannie and Freddie grow beyond all reason.
• Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today - oh come on, you know you looked at the Christie Brinkley story too: and what earthly good to drag each other through a week's worth of embarrassing revelations (worse for him... but who wants a psychiatrist's testimony that you need therapy for your lousy taste in men?), to reach a settlement that almost everyone knew was pretty much where they'd wind up anyway? And while Cook may look like a total loser while Brinkley hangs on to most of her fortune, one of the interesting side notes was the fact that she's sitting on some 18 properties in the Hamptons; which, given the disastrous real estate market out there and everywhere, may not be the gold mine some think it is.

Shameless Self-Promotion: Redstar Election Edition

While Weboy prepares for tonight's movie extravaganza (he likes to arrive early, get settled, there's a post in here somewhere in which he lays it all out) - I thought you all might want to take a look at the brilliance I've been leaving behind at The Hillary 1000.  I'm not sure how many of you are partisan enough to pop over there regularly.

Check out this post about that Boston Globe article criticizing public-private affordable housing developments done on Obama's watch in Chicago and how it relates to Obama's donors failing to live up to his pledge to help retire Clinton's primary debt.  I found the Globe piece "salacious" and overreaching, but also think it, along with this donor problem, points to a problematic lack of follow through by the Senator.  (There's also a worthwhile link in there re: Obama's urban policy proposals.)

Check out these two pieces breaking down Obama's campaign donors, by gender, organization and industry. 

And my H1K co-blogger Red Queen and I were interviewed by The Black Snob about our preferences for Obama as former Clinton supporters.  The Black Snob just won The Best New Political Blog and The Best Political Blog Overall by Black Politics on the Web, so you might want to leave her a shout-out while you're over there. I LOVE TBS, though clearly she wasn't up against our man Weboy in that race!

- Redstar

The GOP Continues to Starve Cities

This article is chock full of infuriating bullsh*t about GOP machinations to stall a much overdue housing relief bill. Congress expected to have it on Bush's desk by now, but now the GOP wants to investigate Dodd's mortgage from Countrywide and the White House has threatened a veto based on $4M in grants to cities to deal with neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates.

Seriously, it's like Bush doesn't even live in this country, or have a basic understanding of our political economy. He claims that banks will benefit and not homeowners, forgetting that many of these neighborhoods have struggling homeowners living alongside - effectively trapped - foreclosed and abandoned properties that can trigger a downward spiral in (often, already struggling) communities. Aid to cities and towns to provide upkeep and oversight of these neighborhoods is a terrific component of these housing bill, and something some municipalities have undertaken already. (Yep, that link is 15 months old, and Bush wants to veto this bill over a paltry, desperately needed $4M. WHAT. AN. ASSHOLE.  Sigh.  Par for the course.)

I hope Barney Frank, MA's righteously awesome, out-and-proud (and Clinton supporting) Representative forces the GOP's hand on this and gets this thing moving, but frankly, I've got little reason to feel optimistic.  How about you?

- Redstar

But You Can't Stay Here

I don't really talk about my actual paying job much; I'm one who thinks its best to separate the blog from the rest of a personal life.

That got a little harder last week, when Starbucks announced it was closing 500 more stores, bringing planned closings to 600.

I found out the night before it hit the papers, because we got the press release posted to the in-house web page, and I was working.  That night and the next morning were all about answering the "is it you guys" questions from friends, family, and, most touchingly, customers.

It's not us. It may not even be any store in my district. We are all performing pretty well (though the "underperforming" criteria was left rather vague, so no one's actually sure what the criteria is), and all of that has to be viewed in the context of a weak economy.

It's the broader economic implications that are really worth writing about. I don't think I've ever worked for a company that held the place of "stand-in for the larger economy" before, even at other retailers. It's an interesting place to be. It's why, I think, you get pieces like last Friday's in the New York Times, which blamed poor real estate choices for what realy is a story about broader economic trends.  It's also I think why David Margolick's profile of Howard Schultz (yes, we all just call him Howard) seems so sour and less than flattering. Howard is supposed to solve everything for everyone... or he's failed. That seems like an outsize level of expectation, if you ask me.

Lower 9th Ward Photo Essay

I'd been wanting to write about LA's Gov. Bobby Jindal, who's been popping up around the intertubes lately as a possible VP candidate for McCain, a former biology major who's performed exorcisms, and the leader of the state that just passed by a landslide the teaching of intelligent design in local schools.  But honestly, you should just read this post at Firedoglake.  It's got all details of the horrendous, humorless, dangerous irony of Jindal's Reaganesque conservative rise against the backdrop of Katrina.

My contribution? A dear friend's work-in-progress photo essay of the "recovery" of the Lower 9th Ward, captured from January 2006 through August 2007 (and the second anniversary of the storm).  It will be updated next month.

I guess LA school children will be learning how God leveled New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina to punish those homosexuals after all. 

From McCain/Jindal '08, may G-d save us all. 

- Redstar
x-posted at The Redstar Perspective

In Obama's Speech on Cities, its 1996 Again

In his speech at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting, Sen. Obama spoke of the need for a “new” approach to urban policy, but he failed to offer any. Instead, Obama embraced 1990s metropolitan rhetoric favored by centrist, neoliberal DC groups ($) such as the Brookings Institution. (In 1996, Brookings re-christened its urban policy group the Metropolitan Policy Program. )

Metropolitan policy, now the dominant mode of urban thought in DC, responds to the reality that poverty, an aging housing stock, and other traditionally “urban” problems are spreading out into “inner-ring” suburbs. Yet, metropolitan rhetoric sprung from persistent urban challenges such as concentrated poverty that reached record levels in the early 1990s. Policy solutions, in their efforts to make cities attractive to the tax-paying middle-class, sacrificed large numbers of urban households struggling to cope. Solutions included “de-concentrating” urban poor communities and “revitalizing” those areas by providing mixed-income housing and proximate amenities, and theoretically positively influencing the fewer remaining low-income residents with middle-class values and models.

Research on almost two decades of de-concentration has been mixed at best.  Residents who move out nonetheless remain in high poverty areas, many who are relocated are lost in the process so their outcomes are unknown, relocation is always disruptive, and it has a disproportionate negative impact on young boys. (Some research shows positive impacts for young girls, due to increased safety from physical and sexual violence.) No doubt, some programs can be done well.  The Seattle Housing Authority provided a one for one unit replacement when they redeveloped their projects, which is a good start. But HUD discourages this kind of expensive attempt at equity and since their HOPE VI mixed-income housing programs were launched in 1992, tens of thousands of deeply affordable units have been lost nationwide.

No wonder poverty is spreading to the suburbs.

Beat Down

After an hour on the phone with the man, I'm realizing as this day comes to an end how beat down I'm feeling by the subtleties of discrimination in all its nefarious forms.

This election season has driven home with brutal force what most of us who are non-white-able-bodied-straight-affluent-men experience on a regular basis: the subtle dismissals, devaluations, and discounting of our worth.  Clinton has been martyred for the rest of us, and many still want to debate whether there was sexism in the campaign, and if so, how bad was it really, anyway?  C'mon now.  I'm sure "likable enough" is just arrogance, pure and simple, not couched in a gendered context in a patriarchal society.  And surely Whoopi wasn't talking about colorism on that coffee-klatsch The View?  Is that what I just heard?  Colorism?  What's that?  Aren't they just gabbing, those black and white ladies?  We do live in a color-blind society, right?

Daddy Loves You... Daddy Loves You...

I have to admit that part of the reason I am a sucker for Country Music is the "Daddy songs" - play me "That's My Job" or "Love, Me" and I just break down and weep. Seriously. In the car, driving along, tears streaming down. Good times.

Similarly, Will Smith caught me short when he released "Just The Two Of Us" - his reworking of the Bill Withers song as an ode to his son Jaden, culminating in exhortations of "Daddy Loves You, Daddy Loves You".

And now, here I am, tearing up as I write this.

Last year, at this time, I wrote about my Dad. He died almost twenty years ago (there's another country song to cry to - Kenny Rogers' "Twenty Years Ago"), and he and my Mom had separated years before that. My mom worked really hard to raise me and my sister, and the sacrifices she made were tremendous. It would be easy for me to say Father's Day is about my Mom... but that's not true.