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The Front Runner

I'm hoping that I can use this post to make a point that doesn't seem to fundamentally clash with a previous one: while I still don't think Hillary Clinton is inevitable, I think it's fair to say she's out front and in the lead.

One measure of that front runner status is last night's debate on MSNBC, the usual horror show of Tim Russert's annoying questioning style, and the obsessive insistence on simplistic answers to complex questions.  I can't even begin to discuss Chris Matthews.

Clinton is getting heat today for one of those "yes/no" situations: does she, or does she not support Eliot Spitzer's proposal to issue some sort of Driver's License that would be available to otherwise undocumented (or illegal) immigrants?  Clinton's answer... well, see for yourself:

Let me say again, I have my issues with Clinton, and with her non-answer answers; but here she seems to be making good points. We wouldn't be here if there was comprehensive immigration reform, and the problem, which Chris Dodd admits exists but offers no solution for is that illegal immigrants drive, license or not.  And by leaving them no licensing options we set up enormous risks: about insurance, about safety, and about making people whose lives are already quite tough that much harder.

Before The Parade Passes By

First, an apology to the people who come here -I know you're out there - looking for serious thoughts.  I realize I've been on something of a shallow kick lately (or at least, a not especially deep one) and I regret not having deep political and controversial things to say... if only because they increase readership, I think.

Second, for the possibly larger number of you who know me well and/or personally, this has not been a good day and not necessarily a good week, either.  And it's hard to write at all, much less deep thinking stuff, when I feel like I'm in major upheaval.

All of which may explain why I'm going to tell you about today at work.

And I'll Go To My Grave As The Wizened Old Man...

... but I'm not dead yet.  I just need to rush off to work.

In the meantime, though Red makes me sound like I'm 75, I still without hesitation urge you to go over and check out her thinking on activism and developing broad-based coalitions.  This is one of the "big picture" things that Red cares deeply about, and the post is well thought out; I will probably have more to say on some of it later (see my comment over there).  In the meantime, she also references this post of mine about intergenerational tension, where J and I have been debating the "blame the Boomers" mentality I bring to such things.  Chevk it out.

And then, seriously, go read Red.  See you later this afternoon.

Next Up: Page 3 Girl, The Magazine... Oh Wait.

Traveling back and forth has kept me from really engaging in anything in-depth - I have this long rumination on The Kurds and Iran and how everything in Iraq is going down the drain... but well, you knew that, and I haven't had time to pull it all together.

So, I am place saving with shallow and silly. :)  Well, okay, with Sox snark and sibling rivalry, really, but it's close to the same thing.

In any case nothing will be salvaged by this post on... The New York Post, and Page Six, the magazine.

Curses, Foiled Again

I still think it's a cosmic plan that will ultimately force Sox fans to feel that much worse... but hey, they won it fair and square. And here we are... without Torre and a new stadium on the horizon.... the Mayor who failed us, and those Steinbrenner kids. Who's cursed? Tell me again? :)

The Heir And The Spare

(5:30 PM UPDATE: He's here! 7 pounds, 10 ounces.  Mom and baby doing fine...)

We just got the news this morning - as I write this, my sister is in labor with Nephew #2.

We are pleased.

The Most Adorable Nephew in the Universe is quite excited.  None of this "sibling rivalry even before you were born" for him; I think, though, he's mostly excited about something he can boss around.  Boy, is he going to learn.  But his excitement is touching - the Prince wants a fellow royal.

My sister has everything under control, naturally.  That is her way.  Both kids have come on time, essentially on schedule, and so far, perfectly smoothly.  "Textbook," as she told me the other day, pointing out that someone, after all, must fit the textbook profile and it's her.  And so it is, of course.  I have felt protective of her since she got here - my little sister, the most wondrous thing ever created.  We have our tensions (stealing her french fries was only the beginning), but we remain strangely (my word) bonded.  We accomplish a lot with silent looks and a few well chosen words.  Positively, I mean. :)

No, I still don't know what to call the new guy - MANU has taken to calling him "Scooby", which we all like. But we shall see.  I'm just glad to have another one.

The Awful Truth

Spent yesterday catching up on the cable world - oh how I'm going to miss this - and something occurred to me just now as I was waking up: this renewed emphasis on "the truth" that we all need to see.

David Horowitz - a/k/a "Mr. Subtle" - invoked the notion yesterday to Neil Cavuto, complaining about his treatment on some college campus (which, really, is more like what Red and I were saying about Ahmadinejad's recent visit than an example of "what happened under the Nazis", but as I said... Mr. Subtle).  Horowitz is convinced that if college kids just knew "the truth about Islamofascism," they'd become the same diehard supporters of Bush's War that he is.

Then I caught a few minutes (finally) of An Inconvenient Truth, which has finally made it to Showtime, and there's Al Gore (still sounding like that annoying know-it-all) telling a Japanese audience that if people just told "the truth" about the science of Global Warming, everyone would understand.

There's a lot of this lately - this conviction that there's some obvious, unassailable "truth" that is being withheld or hidden, and were it revealed, everything would be different - the truth about the War, the truth about S-CHIP, the truth about Hillary Clinton... if we only just knew.  Or if they only did.

Here's an idea - this notion of "the truth" is the problem.

Looking Without Seeing

Sorry for the delay - another whirlwind travel day, and I'm back blogging at my desk in Boston.

Last night Jennifer and I caught Lagerfeld Confidential, a new documentary on the master of fashion, "Kaiser" Karl Lagerfeld. Lagerfeld, a German-born designer who initially came to prominence in the seventies, has become quite possibly the fashion world's nerve center.  From his perch at Chanel, Lagerfeld reaches into all elements of the fashion world - designing additional collections for Fendi and his own name, photographing Chanel's ads and other fashion editorial, and serving as impromptu advisor to editors and others. Jennifer, with her love of all things Chanel, of course worships the man (if we can call him a man - demigod may be more accurate).  I tend to agree that he's a genius, if certainly rather odd.  But then, Jennifer and I also had the opportunity to see him speak at a New York Times event last year, and he comes off in person as surprisingly normal and of the world.

And Jennifer and I agreed: if the purpose of reviewing Lagerfeld Confidential were about reviewing Lagerfeld then we'd both be raving - Lagerfeld, what we see of him, is constantly on the go, always thinking and creating, and quite fascinating.  However, what we're reviewing is a film, and the film, sadly, is a bust: despite his fairly unprecedented access, director Rodolphe Marconi squanders virtually every opportunity to really help us find something within Lagerfeld.  His camera looks without seeing; he probes without understanding, and in the process, an already opaque fashion master becomes even more so.

Miss Perky's Spawn

Life without cable... is hard.

If anything's been thrown off the past few days here at Mom's, it is my morning routine. Partly, it is the ability to sleep in and not have to get up at 4:30 to open the 'bucks, but it's also the dearth of morning tv options.

I'm old enough to remember when the Today show was less fluff and more news.  It was Jane Pauley and Tom Brokaw and they did things like interview President Sadat about Mideast peace and I felt informed.  This was when I had to be out of the house by 7:30 to get the bus (or in junior high, all I had to do was cross the street to be there by 8).

By college, much of that routine had fallen apart.  I suddenly found myself appreciating Johnny Carson and David Letterman and their celbrity guests.  I learned what all the hype about that "Saturday Night Live" thing was all about. I was a late night guy.

Bank On It

After a couple of days of attempting to reverse course, the stock market gave in again to bad news - today's news that existing home sales fell in September to their lowest rate since 1999 being yet another indicator of how deep and wide the bad loan story is.

That was coupled with the announcement that Countrywide, in partnership with Neighborhood Assistance Corp of America (NACA), would be offering refinancing to thousands of subprime ARM mortgage holders which would help to hold their payments at consistent levels.  Countrywide would offer this to borrowers who had consistently made their payments, showing a commitment to repay. NACA will help to calculate what payment the loan recipients can afford. 

What this amounts to is Countrywide eating its margins on loans made to customers who didn't qualify for low rate loans based on their credit history.  The alternative would be the significant increase in defaults that would happen for these customers when they hit the rate rise, where we already know that defaults are increasing.

The Countrywide decision was part of today's lead editorial in the Wall Street journal - whose editorial page has been conspicuously silent as the mortgage mess has unfolded.  Today they decided they were in favor of banks voluntarily rewriting loans:

The dilemma for the big mortgage lenders is whether to restructure those loans on better terms, foreclose on them, or beg politicians to bail them out.

On this score, the most sensible proposal we've heard is from Sheila Bair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the federal bank regulator. Ms. Bair is proposing that the mortgage companies (Wamu, J.P. Morgan Chase, et al.) voluntarily rewrite these mortgage contracts. Specifically, she suggests converting subprime loans that are still performing into fixed-rate loans at the lower variable rate.

Yes, the banks would have to accept a lower income stream, but that's better than taking the writeoff from a foreclosure. As many as a million borrowers nationwide might benefit from such treatment, and for hundreds of thousands it could mean keeping their home.