This ones for you WES.
FE
http://vimeo.com/7449623
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Texas Homestead Finance Laws
The Lone Star Secret
How Texas avoided the worst of the real estate meltdown.
By Alyssa Katz
Posted Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - 4:01pm
It's one of the great mysteries of the mortgage crisis: Why did Texas—Texas, of all places!—escape the real estate bust? Only a dozen states have lower mortgage foreclosure and default rates, and all of them are rural places like Montana and South Dakota, where they couldn't have a real estate boom if they tried.
No, Texas' 3.1 million mortgage borrowers are a breed of their own among big states with big cities. Just less than 6 percent of them are in or near foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association; the national average is nearly 10 percent. Texas might look to outsiders an awful lot like Sunbelt sisters Arizona (13 percent) or Nevada (19)—flat and generous in letting real estate developers sprawl where they will. Texas was even the home base of two of the nation's biggest bubble-era homebuilders, Centex and DR Horton (DHI).
Texas subprime borrowers do especially well compared with counterparts elsewhere. The foreclosure rate among subprime borrowers there, at less than 19 percent, is the lowest of any state except Alaska. Part of the state's performance is due to the fact that Texas saw nothing like the stratospheric home-price run-ups other states experienced. On average, the 20 metro areas in the Case-Shiller Home Price Index saw their home-resale prices peak in 2006 after more than doubling since 2000. In Dallas, one of the 20, they went up just 25 percent, gradually, and have barely declined.
But there is a broader secret to Texas's success, and Washington reformers ought to be paying very close attention. If there's one single thing that Congress can do now to help protect borrowers from the worst lending excesses that fueled the mortgage and financial crises, it's to follow the Lone Star State's lead and put the brakes on "cash-out" refinancing and home-equity lending.
A cash-out refinance is a mortgage taken out for a higher balance than the one on an existing loan, net of fees. Across the nation, cash-outs became ubiquitous during the mortgage boom, as skyrocketing house prices made it possible for homeowners, even those with bad credit, to use their home equity like an ATM. But not in Texas. There, cash-outs and home-equity loans can't total more than 80 percent of a home's appraised value. There's a 12-day cooling-off period after an application, during which the borrower can pull out. And when a borrower refinances a mortgage, it's illegal to get even $1 back. Texas really means it: All these protections, and more, are in the state constitution. The Texas restrictions on mortgage borrowing date back to the first days of statehood in 1845, when the constitution banned home loans entirely.
"Delinquency and foreclosure rates are significantly lower in Texas," boasts Scott Norman, the president of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association. "The 80 percent loan-to-value limit—that's the catalyst for a lot of this."
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Allman Brothers (again, - love it)
This shot of the Allman Brothers Band was taken in Macon, Georgia, in 1971 for the cover of At Fillmore East. From the left, Jai Johanny Johanson, Duane, Gregg, Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, and Butch Trucks. Now, the interesting part of this story is that I hear there are guided tours of the Lower East Side in New York City that supposedly visit the spot where this shot was taken. None of the pictures on the At Fillmore East album or CD packages were taken at the Fillmore East. Right before we did the shot in Macon, I stenciled "The Allman Brotheres Band at Fillmore East" on one of the cases. For the album concept, I received a platinum record from the Allman Brothers' current manager.”
—Jim Marshall
The Big Banks Own Washington
10 Questions for Finance Reformers
By Barry Ritholtz - March 30th, 2010, 8:26AM
The current series of proposals for reforming Wall Street and bankers are toothless facades of what real regulation should look like.
It seems that each new proposal for reforming Banking and Wall Street is more banker friendly – and ineffective – than the previous one. They are milquetoast, meaningless, appeasing nonsense. The reformers are in a race to see who can offer up legislation that is least offensive to bankers.
In order to legislate reform that will prevent the next meltdown from occurring, I suggest that anyone who introduces new reform legislation must answer the following questions about their proposals:
1. Ratings Agencies: The Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (“NRSRO”) such as Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch slapped triple AAA ratings on paper that was actually high yielding junk. The investment banks paid them for these ratings. The ratings agencies were the prime enablers of the credit collapse.
What does your proposal do about this business model? Does it maintain this unique privileged status? Does it introduce any competition to the ratings business?
2. Derivatives: The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) exempted derivatives such as CDOs and CDSs from all regulatory oversight, reserve requirements, capital minimums, exchange listings, transparent open interest reporting, and counter-party disclosures.
What does your proposal do to fix this?
3. Leverage: Prior to 2004, Investment Houses were limited to 12-to-1 leverage by the SEC’s net capitalization rule. In 2004, the Bear Stearns exemption was granted by the SEC, giving the five largest investment firms a waiver of this leverage limit. These five promptly allowed their leverage to go up to 25, 30 even 40 to 1.
What does your proposal do about this excess leverage?
4. Insulating Main Street from Wall Street: Glass Steagall separated FDIC insured depository banks from the more risk embracing investment houses. Prior to the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1998, the market had regular crashes that did not spill over into the real economy: 1966, 1970, 1974, and most telling of all, 1987. These market crashes did not freeze credit for the real economy.
How does your proposal prevent the inevitable future market crashes from spilling over to the real economy – especially as applied to real credit availability?
5. NonBank Lenders: Most of the sub-prime mortgages were made by unregulated non-bank lenders. These firms abdicated all lending standards. They pushed the option arms, the interest only loans, and the negative amortization mortgages that defaulted in huge numbers.
How does your legislation deal with these (or similar firms) in the future?
6. Compensation: The banks and investment houses paid many of their senior employees huge bonuses. This encouraged employees to take tremendous risks to generate what we now know were phony profits.
What does your proposal do to address this? Does it allow for clawbacks of stock options, bonuses, and cash payouts for fake profits or future losses?
7. States Rights: Prior to the 2004, many States had Anti-Predatory Lending (APL) laws on their books. These states had lower default and foreclosure rates than the states that did not.
In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) preempted national banks from state laws regulating mortgage credit, including state anti-predatory lending laws. New subprime mortgages were sold in states that previously didn’t allow them. Subsequently, these states saw their foreclosure rates spike.
Does your legislation return to the States the right to oversee and regulate fraud and predatory lending?
8. Whistle blowers: The SEC had numerous whistleblowers identify funny accounting, malfeasance and even outright fraud. Yet they failed to thoroughly investigate most of these problems, including Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme.
What does your proposal do to put a strong police force back on Wall Street ? How does it encourage and reward whistle blowers?
9. Corporate Structure: None of the major Wall Street partnerships got into trouble, as they have full personal liability for their losses. Only the publicly traded Wall Street firms did. This strongly implies that personal liability of senior management prevents them from acting recklessly.
How does your proposal address the issue of personal liability for massive losses by senior management?
10. Fraud: Many families ended up obtaining mortgages they either did not understand or were materially misrepresented.
Does your proposal address consumer education or lender fraud?
If Congress can adequately answer these questions in reform legislation, they can prevent the next meltdown. Otherwise, we should expect the next collapse to be even more severe, and recovery more painful . . .
Does it really matter?
John Rutherford
3-15-06
William Trevor parody
Malena Watrous
The Forty-seventh Saturday Evening
Alan Banfield fell asleep knowing that when the sound of the flapping reel from the little square window behind him woke him at the end of the picture, Mr McCarthy would be in the seat next to him. It will be the forty-eighth, no the forty-seventh time, he thought lazily as his lowering eyelids dimmed the large screen in front of him. The two gentlemen had indeed met forty-six Saturdays ago, when they had found themselves alone in the balcony of the Odeon’s large cinema hall. The movie that day had been particularly awful, and they struck up a conversation after exchanging initial jeers and witticisms directed towards the screen. They had made it a point to meet up for the five-o-clock picture – whatever it was – and heckle quietly from the back balcony row since that first Saturday.
‘Cup of Earl Grey,’ Mr McCarthy instructed the counter assistant, and, once it was produced, ‘Cheers, how much now?’
‘Two and four,’ piped the young girl.
‘You guys been upping the price lately? I thought it was two pence less last week.’
‘I’m not sure, sir, this is only my second day of work,’ the assistant offered, pulling on her red pigtail.
Mr McCarthy grumbled and paid the sum, laying the four pennies out with great solemnity. He left the store for the theatre across the street, and he felt decidedly less peckish than when having entered the shop, he decided.
Palm trees and a white beach stretched across the poster advertising the five-o-clock. ‘Stranded’ was the title. Mr McCarthy drank half of his Styrofoam cup of tea as he examined the poster and the list of actors featured in it, then paid for his ticket at the window – the same cheap price as always, he noted.
He found Alan Banfield dozing in his usual spot and sank down in the red cushioned seat next to him. Relief pulsed through Mr McCarthy’s veins and, appreciative of this, he sank lower in the seat. It was always a relief to talk with Alan Banfield following his afternoon at Mavie’s, where he always had to be on guard with his lies and keep them straight. Mavie had started prying, too, today, trying to imagine a Mrs McCarthy in the bedroom. But it was worth it, he thought, imagining her ribs under his hands again. And he got to go to the pictures afterward.
The credits finished rolling for the previous picture and the screen flashed bright white as the film came off the spool and flapped around in a circle. Alan Banfield awoke with a start at the noise and, looking to his right, managed a greeting between his yawns and stretches.
‘Hullo, Alan,’ returned Mr McCarthy. He waited for his friend to settle and finish rubbing his eyes. ‘My Mavie asked about Mrs McCarthy today.’
‘Oho, did she now? Well, you’ll have to do something about that, won’t you, mate? Slap your rag doll honey around a bit if she does it again.’ Mr McCarthy dropped his jaw, but could not contain his smile. ‘Don’t bloody her lip or nothing, just grab her wrist hard and slap her smart on her britches. She’ll forgive you quick enough, you got her on your finger.’
Mr McCarthy guffawed at his friend’s misogyny, enlivened by the political incorrectness of it.
‘That’s why I’d never get married,’ mused Alan Banfield. ‘Can’t keep women where you want them, so you have to waste all your time putting them back in place. I don’t even know why you pretend you have a wife.’
‘Oh you know why, I’ve told you before. Otherwise Mavie wouldn’t think this was special and daring. Oh, she can only handle a small bit of excitement.’
The reel had been changed, and ‘Stranded’ sputtered and flickered to life. The pair quieted. The opening scene panned across the same beach shown in the poster.
‘Reminds me of Panama,’ whispered Alan Banfield. ‘Went there with the navy.’ Mr McCarthy nodded eagerly. They had conversed extensively about Alan Banfield’s time in the navy, and Mr McCarthy had listened in awe of his exploits – his quick rise to officer status, his victory in the fleet-wide bare-knuckle boxing tournament, the destruction of a merchant pirate ship. ‘Had two girls at once there,’ he added, lowering his voice.
‘Two girls? You mean two girlfriends?’
‘No, no, in the same night, at the same time!’
The idea dawned on Mr McCarthy slowly. ‘How…how do you manage that? What do have to you say to them…?’
Alan Banfield gave a mischievous look and said, after a dramatic pause, ‘You don’t have to say a single thing.’ He laughed and turned back to the screen.
Mr McCarthy stared in admiration at his friend’s profile. His weekend endeavors with Mavie seemed like petty change compared to the adventures – sexual or not – of Alan Banfield. Mr McCarthy had found early on in their picture-going relationship that he could tell him the most personal of secrets. Things about Mavie, about childhood pets, about his thoughts on religion and politics, about his insecurities. He had never been so honest with anyone. There was some sense of trust he found in this man, deriving most likely from his gallant personality.
The picture was predictably was bad, filled with b-rate actors whom Mr McCarthy and Alan Banfield had seen in past Saturday pictures. They exchanged comments and barbs throughout, growing bolder and louder towards the end, so that some theatregoers looked up towards the balcony to see where these insults were flying from.
Upon the conclusion of the final scene, Alan Banfield excused himself of his friend before the lights went up, mentioning that he had his own Saturday appointment to keep. He gave an exaggerated wink and softly punched Mr McCarthy on the shoulder. Mr McCarthy wagged a finger at him, laughing to himself as his friend disappeared up the stairs. He thought of the Saturday night fling Alan Banfield would have. He would perhaps take his lady to a fancy restaurant, and have something better than mackerel in a garlic custard sauce, then woo her to bed after a witty and suggestive conversation about jazz. He imagined him seducing a second girl while waiting for a cab, so easily, and the three of them heading back to his apartment. His eyes lingered on the chair where Alan Banfield had just sat, trying to take in the last remnants of his enormous presence. ‘He is a great man, a man’s man. I am lucky to know him,’ Mr McCarthy thought. Behind him, the loose end of the film flapped unceremoniously.
Alan Banfield checked his watch on the way out of the theatre, squinting his eyes against the bright light. Four minutes, he could make two and a half blocks if he hurried. He caught the bus just as it pulled up. He calmed his breathing as he sat down, and chuckled at the new lie he had created. Alan Banfield had told Mr McCarthy more lies than he had ever told anyone else. He didn’t know why he had always lied to Mr McCarthy, and why his playacting had made him appear to be someone so different from himself; most likely he had used it as a defense mechanism initially, and couldn’t stop. It was entertaining, he reasoned, and harmless. The bus let Alan Banfield down in a residential neighborhood. He felt in his pocket for his keys and counted the decreasing apartment numbers as he made his way down the street. He arrived at his door and opened it with a latchkey. His wife greeted him, a big, dark woman, along with his young son and two dogs. She upbraided him playfully for leaving the grounds in the coffee maker that morning, for which he apologized as he followed his son to the entertainment room to play Battleship, as always on a Saturday evening.
3-15-06
William Trevor parody
Malena Watrous
The Forty-seventh Saturday Evening
Alan Banfield fell asleep knowing that when the sound of the flapping reel from the little square window behind him woke him at the end of the picture, Mr McCarthy would be in the seat next to him. It will be the forty-eighth, no the forty-seventh time, he thought lazily as his lowering eyelids dimmed the large screen in front of him. The two gentlemen had indeed met forty-six Saturdays ago, when they had found themselves alone in the balcony of the Odeon’s large cinema hall. The movie that day had been particularly awful, and they struck up a conversation after exchanging initial jeers and witticisms directed towards the screen. They had made it a point to meet up for the five-o-clock picture – whatever it was – and heckle quietly from the back balcony row since that first Saturday.
‘Cup of Earl Grey,’ Mr McCarthy instructed the counter assistant, and, once it was produced, ‘Cheers, how much now?’
‘Two and four,’ piped the young girl.
‘You guys been upping the price lately? I thought it was two pence less last week.’
‘I’m not sure, sir, this is only my second day of work,’ the assistant offered, pulling on her red pigtail.
Mr McCarthy grumbled and paid the sum, laying the four pennies out with great solemnity. He left the store for the theatre across the street, and he felt decidedly less peckish than when having entered the shop, he decided.
Palm trees and a white beach stretched across the poster advertising the five-o-clock. ‘Stranded’ was the title. Mr McCarthy drank half of his Styrofoam cup of tea as he examined the poster and the list of actors featured in it, then paid for his ticket at the window – the same cheap price as always, he noted.
He found Alan Banfield dozing in his usual spot and sank down in the red cushioned seat next to him. Relief pulsed through Mr McCarthy’s veins and, appreciative of this, he sank lower in the seat. It was always a relief to talk with Alan Banfield following his afternoon at Mavie’s, where he always had to be on guard with his lies and keep them straight. Mavie had started prying, too, today, trying to imagine a Mrs McCarthy in the bedroom. But it was worth it, he thought, imagining her ribs under his hands again. And he got to go to the pictures afterward.
The credits finished rolling for the previous picture and the screen flashed bright white as the film came off the spool and flapped around in a circle. Alan Banfield awoke with a start at the noise and, looking to his right, managed a greeting between his yawns and stretches.
‘Hullo, Alan,’ returned Mr McCarthy. He waited for his friend to settle and finish rubbing his eyes. ‘My Mavie asked about Mrs McCarthy today.’
‘Oho, did she now? Well, you’ll have to do something about that, won’t you, mate? Slap your rag doll honey around a bit if she does it again.’ Mr McCarthy dropped his jaw, but could not contain his smile. ‘Don’t bloody her lip or nothing, just grab her wrist hard and slap her smart on her britches. She’ll forgive you quick enough, you got her on your finger.’
Mr McCarthy guffawed at his friend’s misogyny, enlivened by the political incorrectness of it.
‘That’s why I’d never get married,’ mused Alan Banfield. ‘Can’t keep women where you want them, so you have to waste all your time putting them back in place. I don’t even know why you pretend you have a wife.’
‘Oh you know why, I’ve told you before. Otherwise Mavie wouldn’t think this was special and daring. Oh, she can only handle a small bit of excitement.’
The reel had been changed, and ‘Stranded’ sputtered and flickered to life. The pair quieted. The opening scene panned across the same beach shown in the poster.
‘Reminds me of Panama,’ whispered Alan Banfield. ‘Went there with the navy.’ Mr McCarthy nodded eagerly. They had conversed extensively about Alan Banfield’s time in the navy, and Mr McCarthy had listened in awe of his exploits – his quick rise to officer status, his victory in the fleet-wide bare-knuckle boxing tournament, the destruction of a merchant pirate ship. ‘Had two girls at once there,’ he added, lowering his voice.
‘Two girls? You mean two girlfriends?’
‘No, no, in the same night, at the same time!’
The idea dawned on Mr McCarthy slowly. ‘How…how do you manage that? What do have to you say to them…?’
Alan Banfield gave a mischievous look and said, after a dramatic pause, ‘You don’t have to say a single thing.’ He laughed and turned back to the screen.
Mr McCarthy stared in admiration at his friend’s profile. His weekend endeavors with Mavie seemed like petty change compared to the adventures – sexual or not – of Alan Banfield. Mr McCarthy had found early on in their picture-going relationship that he could tell him the most personal of secrets. Things about Mavie, about childhood pets, about his thoughts on religion and politics, about his insecurities. He had never been so honest with anyone. There was some sense of trust he found in this man, deriving most likely from his gallant personality.
The picture was predictably was bad, filled with b-rate actors whom Mr McCarthy and Alan Banfield had seen in past Saturday pictures. They exchanged comments and barbs throughout, growing bolder and louder towards the end, so that some theatregoers looked up towards the balcony to see where these insults were flying from.
Upon the conclusion of the final scene, Alan Banfield excused himself of his friend before the lights went up, mentioning that he had his own Saturday appointment to keep. He gave an exaggerated wink and softly punched Mr McCarthy on the shoulder. Mr McCarthy wagged a finger at him, laughing to himself as his friend disappeared up the stairs. He thought of the Saturday night fling Alan Banfield would have. He would perhaps take his lady to a fancy restaurant, and have something better than mackerel in a garlic custard sauce, then woo her to bed after a witty and suggestive conversation about jazz. He imagined him seducing a second girl while waiting for a cab, so easily, and the three of them heading back to his apartment. His eyes lingered on the chair where Alan Banfield had just sat, trying to take in the last remnants of his enormous presence. ‘He is a great man, a man’s man. I am lucky to know him,’ Mr McCarthy thought. Behind him, the loose end of the film flapped unceremoniously.
Alan Banfield checked his watch on the way out of the theatre, squinting his eyes against the bright light. Four minutes, he could make two and a half blocks if he hurried. He caught the bus just as it pulled up. He calmed his breathing as he sat down, and chuckled at the new lie he had created. Alan Banfield had told Mr McCarthy more lies than he had ever told anyone else. He didn’t know why he had always lied to Mr McCarthy, and why his playacting had made him appear to be someone so different from himself; most likely he had used it as a defense mechanism initially, and couldn’t stop. It was entertaining, he reasoned, and harmless. The bus let Alan Banfield down in a residential neighborhood. He felt in his pocket for his keys and counted the decreasing apartment numbers as he made his way down the street. He arrived at his door and opened it with a latchkey. His wife greeted him, a big, dark woman, along with his young son and two dogs. She upbraided him playfully for leaving the grounds in the coffee maker that morning, for which he apologized as he followed his son to the entertainment room to play Battleship, as always on a Saturday evening.
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Rage Is Not About Health Care
I don't always agree with Frank Rich, but, I think he nails this one. We've talked about this topic as well, pre-RP-BP days...
The Rage Is Not About Health Care
by FRANK RICH
Published: March 27, 2010
THERE were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber — instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.
But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.
No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause. The historic Obama-Pelosi health care victory is a big deal, all right, so much so it doesn’t need Joe Biden’s adjective to hype it. But the bill does not erect a huge New Deal-Great Society-style government program. In lieu of a public option, it delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers. As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.
Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.
When Social Security was passed by Congress in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, there was indeed heated opposition. As Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, Alf Landon built his catastrophic 1936 presidential campaign on a call for repealing Social Security. (Democrats can only pray that the G.O.P. will “go for it” again in 2010, as Obama goaded them on Thursday, and keep demanding repeal of a bill that by September will shower benefits on the elderly and children alike.) When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association.
But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.
The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.
That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.
In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.
If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.
They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.
If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats). But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts. We know the end of that story. And they can’t pretend that we’re talking about “isolated incidents” or a “fringe” utterly divorced from the G.O.P. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 16 percent are aligned with Democrats.
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.
Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.
The Rage Is Not About Health Care
by FRANK RICH
Published: March 27, 2010
THERE were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber — instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.
But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.
No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause. The historic Obama-Pelosi health care victory is a big deal, all right, so much so it doesn’t need Joe Biden’s adjective to hype it. But the bill does not erect a huge New Deal-Great Society-style government program. In lieu of a public option, it delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers. As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.
Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.
When Social Security was passed by Congress in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, there was indeed heated opposition. As Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, Alf Landon built his catastrophic 1936 presidential campaign on a call for repealing Social Security. (Democrats can only pray that the G.O.P. will “go for it” again in 2010, as Obama goaded them on Thursday, and keep demanding repeal of a bill that by September will shower benefits on the elderly and children alike.) When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association.
But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.
The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.
That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.
In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.
If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.
They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.
If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats). But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts. We know the end of that story. And they can’t pretend that we’re talking about “isolated incidents” or a “fringe” utterly divorced from the G.O.P. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 16 percent are aligned with Democrats.
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.
Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Keeping it in Perspective-SETI
The SETI Institute's Jill Tarter makes her TED Prize wish: to accelerate our search for cosmic company. Using a growing array of radio telescopes, she and her team listen for patterns that may be a sign of intelligence elsewhere in the universe.
This touches on our earlier discussions on our place in the Universal scheme of things, "Einstein on the Beach" looking up into the night sky. Zen's theme of universal oneness. Dylan's analogy to Dust in the Wind.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Friday Night Jazz - Bill Evans
This is dedicated to Estragon. (aka Tarragon, Gogo, Adam). Maybe he will come out to play again.
Waltz for Debby
Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Jazz and Classical Improvisation
Waltz for Debby
Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Jazz and Classical Improvisation
Hello, my name is John and I ride a bicycle
 Hello, my name is John and I ride a bicycleMy bicycle is worth more than your car and has Shimanogears which are the best. Every weekend and mostweekdays, I ride my bicycle to the local cafe to meet otherpeople who ride bicycles and we talk about bicycles.The frame of my bicycle is made from a titaniumcomposite alloy such as NASA uses on the space shuttle.The bicycle was named after its inventor, Robert Bicycle,a Dutch man who, dissatisfied with having to walk tothe cheese shop, created the first two wheeledhuman-powered vehicle in 1992. Due to thenon-existent petroleum requirements that the bicyclepresented, its use quickly become popular withsocial workers and crystal healers and withinjust a few years, the smell of patchouli oil becameinescapable even within the comfort of one's caron the freeway. Although primarily regarded asa woman's hobby, bicycle riding has gainedpopularity world wide. |
Riding a bicycle has many advantages. As you do not
have to register bicycles or obey any road rules, I am
currently constructing a four person family bicycle
which consists of two bicycles welded together with
four armchairs in between. Due to the extra weight, I have
added an engine and am devising a roof, doors and
storage area at the back allowing us to
ride in all weather conditions and take it shopping.
Sometimes when I am riding my bicycle I feel like I am
the only person on the road. If I have my earphones
in and the iPod turned up really loud, I cannot hear the
car horns and people yelling "Get off the fucking road."
Little compares to the exhilaration of listening to Queen's
'Bicycle' while riding in the centre of a lane at half the
speed limit with several hundred cars
banked up behind me during peak hour traffic.
Riding a bicycle is also an excellent way to
quickly go downhill.
Correct bicycling speed and position
I am often asked why my Spandex® bicycle riding costume
features eight hundred and thirty corporate sponsorship
logos even though I do not actually have a sponsor.
The reason for this is simple. For every thirty male
bicycle riders there is one female
bicycle rider and, as in nature where the most adorned
peacock gets the peahen, the male bicycle rider with
the most brightly coloured Spandex® and most corporate
sponsorship logos gets to mate with her.
Things that are almost as good as riding my bicycle:
1. Looking at my bicycle
2. Talking about my bicycle
3. Watching television programs that feature people
riding bicycles
4. Cheese
Road safety is an important component and basic
precaution needs to be undertaken. Once when I
was riding my bicycle at great speed, I developed
speed wobble and was thrown, rolling several times
and sliding several metres, towards a busy intersection.
I was lucky enough not to enter the flow of traffic
thanks only to friction. As bicycles
do not come with safety airbags, I now carry an
inflatable raft and pump with me at all
times. A lot of people choose not to ride a bicycle
because they are too embarrassed
to wear a crash helmet but by painting the helmet
light brown, it can easily be disguised
as a large mushroom.
A. Seat constructed by a team of physicists using the largest and
most expensive laser on earth.
B. Titanium composite alloy frame such as NASA uses
on the space shuttle.
C. Tyres made from rubber collected from a rare tree in
the Amazon forest by tribal elders.
D. Handle bars made from Polycarbonate fibre from the future.
E. Brakes made from Pretanium, a metal not yet discovered by man.
F. Shimano gears because they are the best.
G. Pedals formed by pressure in the lower atmosphere of Jupiter.
People often say to me "That's a nice bicycle John" and I reply,
"Yes, it is made out of a titanium composite alloy such as NASA
uses on the space shuttle and it has Shimano gears which are
the best." Just a few weeks ago, while I was taking a
rest from riding my bicycle on a park bench, a man walking past
said to me "That's a nice bicycle, can I take it for a ride? I will
bring it right back" and I said "Sure, but be careful because it
is made out of a titanium composite alloy such as NASA uses
on the space shuttle and it has Shimano gears which are the best."
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Mortgage - Housing - Debt Bubble
More Foreclosures, Please . . .
By Barry Ritholtz - March 25th, 2010, 7:15AM
The latest actions from Washington as well as Wall Street banks include all manner of mortgage mods, foreclosure abatements, and other extend & pretend measures. These are not only ineffective, they are counter=productive. From a moral hazard perspective, the reward the reckless and punish the responsible. Worse still, they are yet another example of penalizing middle America for the sake of Wall Street banks.
Our story so far:
It started with the ultra-low rates of 2001-04. It was aided and abetted by an abdication of traditional lending standards, mostly by non-bank lenders. These Lend-to-Sell-to-Securitizers pushed lending standards ever lower to increase the pool of potential mortgage buyers — credit worthiness be damned.
The net result of all this was a credit bubble. My estimates of the changes to mortgage requirements was that somewhere between 10 and 20 million marginal new home buyers came into the real estate market during the past decade. This drove prices to unsustainable levels, and created a huge boom and bust cycle in housing.
Prices have since fallen about 30% nationally as the artificial demand created by this free money and accompanying gold rush psychology collapsed. Despite this, prices remain elevated by historical metrics. The net result has been 5 million foreclosures, and counting. One in four “Home-owers” are underwater — meaning, they owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. There are probably another 3-5 million foreclosures coming over the next 5+ years.
What are the net result of this grand experiment?
What the real estate market needs is to allow the price normalization process to continue. Even though home prices have fallen dramatically, they have yet to reach their historical means relative to income or the cost of renting. This is to say nothing of the usual careening past the median towards under-valuation that typically follows a massive misallocation of capital.
Why should we allow these foreclosures to proceed unimpeded? Consider the following benefits of foreclosure:
• Increasing Economic Activity: The areas of the country with the greatest foreclosure rates have seen a big increase in real estate activity. Look at California and Florida — they have seen enormous upticks in RE activity versus the lower foreclosure states.
When someone purchases a home they actually can afford, they end up spending quite a bit of money on additional goods and services. They do renovations, hire contractors, make durable goods purchases, they paint and repair, they buy cars, they spend money in the local community.
The people who are hanging on by their fingernails, however, do none of these things. They end up paying a vastly disproportionate amount of their incomes to service their mortgages. This is not productive economic activity.
• Helping Families: It moves over-stretched families into housing they can afford. The banks charge all manner of excess fees prior to foreclosures; they squeeze whatever they can form delinquent homeowners. The loan mods and HAMP programs have been totally ineffective in keeping families in their homes. They have been an enormous taxpayer subsidized boondoggle for the banks, however.
The last thing these families need is a banking fee orgy, before they ultimate lose the house anyway.
• Punishes the Prudent: The boom and bust saw irresponsible reckless behavior by both lenders and home buyers. They were reckless, overused leverage, disregarded risk. Having the taxpayers subsidize this behavior presents a moral hazard.
But worse than that, it punishes the people who behaved prudent and responsibly. Those who refused to buy a home they could not afford, chose not to over-extend themselves, and have been saving for a down payment are the net losers in this. By working so feverishly to artificially reduce foreclosures and prop up home prices, we punish the first time home buyer, the newlyweds, the savers who want to buy a house they can afford. By preventing home prices from normalizing, you are puni9shing this group.
• Rewards the Banks: Despite the helping families rhetoric you hear, they are irrelevant. Thevariosu mortgage mos and cramdowns are little more than a game of kick the can down the road. All of these programs are part of a broad “Extend & Pretend” mind set. They are an extension of the FASB 157 rule changes that allows banks to hide their bad loans.
The various foreclosure programs are essentially a way the banks don’t have to take their hits now. Were the banks required to report their mortgages accurately and/or write them down, they would be revealed as insolvent.
~~~
Now we get to the ugly Truth: The mortgage mods and foreclosure abatement programs are really all about propping up insolvent banking institutions on the taxpayer dollar at the expense of the middle class.
These programs are another losing round of helping Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. It is the worst kind of trickle down economics that has been seen in decades . . .
>
Related:
Bank of America to Reduce Mortgage Balances
DAVID STREITFELD and LOUISE STORY
NYT March 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/25housing.html
Bank Launches Big Plan to Cut Mortgage Debt
JAMES R. HAGERTY And NICK TIMIRAOS
WSJ, March 25, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703312504575141763259183050.html
The Housing Crisis and the Resentment Zone
CASEY B. MULLIGAN
Economix March 24, 2010
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/the-housing-crisis-and-the-resentment-zone/#more-57981
Our story so far:
It started with the ultra-low rates of 2001-04. It was aided and abetted by an abdication of traditional lending standards, mostly by non-bank lenders. These Lend-to-Sell-to-Securitizers pushed lending standards ever lower to increase the pool of potential mortgage buyers — credit worthiness be damned.
The net result of all this was a credit bubble. My estimates of the changes to mortgage requirements was that somewhere between 10 and 20 million marginal new home buyers came into the real estate market during the past decade. This drove prices to unsustainable levels, and created a huge boom and bust cycle in housing.
Prices have since fallen about 30% nationally as the artificial demand created by this free money and accompanying gold rush psychology collapsed. Despite this, prices remain elevated by historical metrics. The net result has been 5 million foreclosures, and counting. One in four “Home-owers” are underwater — meaning, they owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. There are probably another 3-5 million foreclosures coming over the next 5+ years.
What are the net result of this grand experiment?
1) There are an enormous number of families living in homes they cannot possibly afford.Whether its a function of populist politics or bad economics, the proposals we have seen so far appear to address items one and three. But upon closer examination, they do nothing of the kind. In fact, they are actually gaming the system to help issue two — the bad loans the banks are carrying.
2) Banks are holding a tremendous amount of bad loans (and potential bad loans) on their books.
3) Real Estate Sales, despite being propped up with historic low mortgage rates and tax purchase credits, continue to slide.
4) The overall economy has been weak, with a very slow, soft recovery.
What the real estate market needs is to allow the price normalization process to continue. Even though home prices have fallen dramatically, they have yet to reach their historical means relative to income or the cost of renting. This is to say nothing of the usual careening past the median towards under-valuation that typically follows a massive misallocation of capital.
Why should we allow these foreclosures to proceed unimpeded? Consider the following benefits of foreclosure:
• Increasing Economic Activity: The areas of the country with the greatest foreclosure rates have seen a big increase in real estate activity. Look at California and Florida — they have seen enormous upticks in RE activity versus the lower foreclosure states.
When someone purchases a home they actually can afford, they end up spending quite a bit of money on additional goods and services. They do renovations, hire contractors, make durable goods purchases, they paint and repair, they buy cars, they spend money in the local community.
The people who are hanging on by their fingernails, however, do none of these things. They end up paying a vastly disproportionate amount of their incomes to service their mortgages. This is not productive economic activity.
• Helping Families: It moves over-stretched families into housing they can afford. The banks charge all manner of excess fees prior to foreclosures; they squeeze whatever they can form delinquent homeowners. The loan mods and HAMP programs have been totally ineffective in keeping families in their homes. They have been an enormous taxpayer subsidized boondoggle for the banks, however.
The last thing these families need is a banking fee orgy, before they ultimate lose the house anyway.
• Punishes the Prudent: The boom and bust saw irresponsible reckless behavior by both lenders and home buyers. They were reckless, overused leverage, disregarded risk. Having the taxpayers subsidize this behavior presents a moral hazard.
But worse than that, it punishes the people who behaved prudent and responsibly. Those who refused to buy a home they could not afford, chose not to over-extend themselves, and have been saving for a down payment are the net losers in this. By working so feverishly to artificially reduce foreclosures and prop up home prices, we punish the first time home buyer, the newlyweds, the savers who want to buy a house they can afford. By preventing home prices from normalizing, you are puni9shing this group.
• Rewards the Banks: Despite the helping families rhetoric you hear, they are irrelevant. Thevariosu mortgage mos and cramdowns are little more than a game of kick the can down the road. All of these programs are part of a broad “Extend & Pretend” mind set. They are an extension of the FASB 157 rule changes that allows banks to hide their bad loans.
The various foreclosure programs are essentially a way the banks don’t have to take their hits now. Were the banks required to report their mortgages accurately and/or write them down, they would be revealed as insolvent.
~~~
Now we get to the ugly Truth: The mortgage mods and foreclosure abatement programs are really all about propping up insolvent banking institutions on the taxpayer dollar at the expense of the middle class.
These programs are another losing round of helping Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. It is the worst kind of trickle down economics that has been seen in decades . . .
>
Related:
Bank of America to Reduce Mortgage Balances
DAVID STREITFELD and LOUISE STORY
NYT March 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/25housing.html
Bank Launches Big Plan to Cut Mortgage Debt
JAMES R. HAGERTY And NICK TIMIRAOS
WSJ, March 25, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703312504575141763259183050.html
The Housing Crisis and the Resentment Zone
CASEY B. MULLIGAN
Economix March 24, 2010
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/the-housing-crisis-and-the-resentment-zone/#more-57981
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Project Censored
Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010
- 1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
- 2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
- 3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
- 4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
- 5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
- 6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
- 7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
- 8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
- 9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
- 10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
- 11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine
- 12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief
- 13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War
- 14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts
- 15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco
- 16. US Repression of Haiti Continues
- 17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan
- 18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature
- 19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor
- 20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
- 21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
- 22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
- 23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
- 24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion
- 25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Giro
I'm just the messenger ... Is someone going to rip this Zomegnan a new one?
The organizers of the Giro d'Italia RCS Sport will announce the teams invited to ride this year's race on Monday, but Lance Armstrong's RadioShack squad will not be amongst them. There also seems little chance that Riccardo Riccò will be welcomed back to this year's Giro, despite his ban for doping ending on March 18.
In recent weeks, RadioShack team manager Johan Bruyneel had publicly hoped the RadioShack team would be invited to the Giro. However with Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer targeting the Tour of California at the same time as the Giro, the US-registered team failed to convince the Giro organisers they deserved a place and did not push particularly hard to have a team in the race.
"On Monday, we're going to announce 22 teams, but RadioShack won't be in the race," race director Angelo Zomegnan told Cyclingnews when asked about the teams expected to line up in Amsterdam for the start of the Giro on May 8.
Lance Armstrong rode the centenary edition of the Giro d'Italia in 2009 with the Astana team. It was his first ever start in the Giro, but his special relationship with Zomegnan seems to have soured following the rider protest over safety concerns during the Milan circuit stage.
Armstrong was brought into the protest by other riders but Zomegnan seemed to publicly chastise him, telling the Associated Press, "There's a certain age at which your legs start to get shorter and your tongue longer."
Armstrong was due to ride Milan-San Remo on Saturday, perhaps to help RadioShack secure a place in the Giro d'Italia, but pulled out less than 24 hours before the start. The team said in a press release that he was suffering from gastroenteritis.
The organizers of the Giro d'Italia RCS Sport will announce the teams invited to ride this year's race on Monday, but Lance Armstrong's RadioShack squad will not be amongst them. There also seems little chance that Riccardo Riccò will be welcomed back to this year's Giro, despite his ban for doping ending on March 18.
In recent weeks, RadioShack team manager Johan Bruyneel had publicly hoped the RadioShack team would be invited to the Giro. However with Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer targeting the Tour of California at the same time as the Giro, the US-registered team failed to convince the Giro organisers they deserved a place and did not push particularly hard to have a team in the race.
"On Monday, we're going to announce 22 teams, but RadioShack won't be in the race," race director Angelo Zomegnan told Cyclingnews when asked about the teams expected to line up in Amsterdam for the start of the Giro on May 8.
Lance Armstrong rode the centenary edition of the Giro d'Italia in 2009 with the Astana team. It was his first ever start in the Giro, but his special relationship with Zomegnan seems to have soured following the rider protest over safety concerns during the Milan circuit stage.
Armstrong was brought into the protest by other riders but Zomegnan seemed to publicly chastise him, telling the Associated Press, "There's a certain age at which your legs start to get shorter and your tongue longer."
Armstrong was due to ride Milan-San Remo on Saturday, perhaps to help RadioShack secure a place in the Giro d'Italia, but pulled out less than 24 hours before the start. The team said in a press release that he was suffering from gastroenteritis.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
What you see and hear is real. Or is it?
Wunderkind Cameron Carpenter plays Chopin's Revolutionary Etude with mostly feet and occasionally hands on the organ of Trinity Church on Wall Street (restored after9/11 damage). Decide for yourselves, is this for real or a kitschy amuse? Click on the posting title for more info.
Health Care- Red Pill or Blue Pill
Today I would like to direct attention back to where this blog started, Red/ Blue politics in America.
Significant Obama speech yesterday.
Today there will be a potentially historic vote on Health Care reform rallying the best and worst of our system. Freedom of speech can be an ugly thing, disinformation/manipulation media events obscure truth.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
On a Journey to St Sulpice (001)
This is the first of a couple of installments I promised to write for Steve. Ultimately it will lead us to the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the St Sulpice in Paris. But I want to put it in some historical context. Organs and organ music: then there is no way around the all important Johann Sebastian Bach. Without getting too carried away: Bach is the alpha and omega of Western music, he synthesized all musical knowledge and provided it and us with a firm foundation. It’s fair to argue – but I won’t go there now – that without Bach there wouldn’t be any postings on our blog about jazz, Clapton, etc.
Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach (31 March 1685), died in Leipzig (28 July 1750). Both places are located in former East Germany. But bear in mind that Germany as we now know it didn’t exist until 1870 and has a long, tragic history. Here’s a highly recommended book by J.R. Gaines: “Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment” (HarperCollins, 2005). Bach was a complex man. Embodied like possibly no other composer the “three musketeers” of religion, mysticism and secularism, all for one and one for all.
Like Tiger Woods, Bach had flaws. He was brilliant and therefore couldn’t cope with stupidity, laziness and authority. No, this is not my autobiography. Bach had little patience, to the point of occasionally treating his pupils to physical punishment - not uncommon in that time but still. Bach was also vain – he knew that he was darn good alright.
One of Bach's aspirations was to work as a freelance musician, but he was born 100 years too early for that to happen. Mozart was the first freelancer, and even he had to severely compromise. Lacking freelance opportunities Bach instead pursued recognition in the form of the title of “Court Composer” or similar. It wouldn’t happen, despite his “Musical Offering”, a phenomenal collection of canons and fugues based on a totally infantile theme by Frederic the Great. Any lesser composer wouldn't even have bothered; Bach turns it into something so brilliant that it almost became an insult to Frederic the Great.
Bach was all about counterpoint, the “relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent”. Little exciting things happens in any music (classical, jazz, pop) unless there is counterpoint. Bach mastered counterpoint and fugue like few if any before or after him. When at their best, the great ones like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven can satisfy the hungry ghosts to well beyond the point where their bellies are finally filled.
In his lifetime Bach was known but not well known, respected but not well respected. After he died some of his manuscripts were circulated in small circle (Mozart etc. certainly studied them) but it would take until the 19th century before the Bach revival would start and the world would finally realize what happened between 1685 and 1750. But during his life Bach was known above all as a “world” famous organist, organ composer and consultant of organ builders.
More about that in the next installment.
Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach (31 March 1685), died in Leipzig (28 July 1750). Both places are located in former East Germany. But bear in mind that Germany as we now know it didn’t exist until 1870 and has a long, tragic history. Here’s a highly recommended book by J.R. Gaines: “Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment” (HarperCollins, 2005). Bach was a complex man. Embodied like possibly no other composer the “three musketeers” of religion, mysticism and secularism, all for one and one for all.
Like Tiger Woods, Bach had flaws. He was brilliant and therefore couldn’t cope with stupidity, laziness and authority. No, this is not my autobiography. Bach had little patience, to the point of occasionally treating his pupils to physical punishment - not uncommon in that time but still. Bach was also vain – he knew that he was darn good alright.
One of Bach's aspirations was to work as a freelance musician, but he was born 100 years too early for that to happen. Mozart was the first freelancer, and even he had to severely compromise. Lacking freelance opportunities Bach instead pursued recognition in the form of the title of “Court Composer” or similar. It wouldn’t happen, despite his “Musical Offering”, a phenomenal collection of canons and fugues based on a totally infantile theme by Frederic the Great. Any lesser composer wouldn't even have bothered; Bach turns it into something so brilliant that it almost became an insult to Frederic the Great.
Bach was all about counterpoint, the “relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent”. Little exciting things happens in any music (classical, jazz, pop) unless there is counterpoint. Bach mastered counterpoint and fugue like few if any before or after him. When at their best, the great ones like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven can satisfy the hungry ghosts to well beyond the point where their bellies are finally filled.
In his lifetime Bach was known but not well known, respected but not well respected. After he died some of his manuscripts were circulated in small circle (Mozart etc. certainly studied them) but it would take until the 19th century before the Bach revival would start and the world would finally realize what happened between 1685 and 1750. But during his life Bach was known above all as a “world” famous organist, organ composer and consultant of organ builders.
More about that in the next installment.
La Primavera
Milan - San Remo
298 km - longest of the Spring Classics
1 Oscar Freire (Spa) Rabobank
2 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step
3 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini
Third win for Freire - 2004, 2007, 2010
In modern times the peloton just doesn't seem to be able to drop all of the sprinters going over the Cipressa and the Poggio, although last year's winner, super fast sprinter Mark Cavendish, did get dropped on the Cipressa climb today.
298 km - longest of the Spring Classics
1 Oscar Freire (Spa) Rabobank
2 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step
3 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini
Third win for Freire - 2004, 2007, 2010
In modern times the peloton just doesn't seem to be able to drop all of the sprinters going over the Cipressa and the Poggio, although last year's winner, super fast sprinter Mark Cavendish, did get dropped on the Cipressa climb today.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Miles Davis and Friends
Shorter, Zawinul... Connections, structured improvisation, Fusion
Paris is the scene man. 1991
Friday Night Jazz!
Weather Report - Birdland
Stadthalle Offenbach Concert 1978.
Joseph Zawinul - Electric Piano
Wayne Shorter - Saxophones
Jaco Pastorius - Bass
Pat Metheny - Guitar
Jaco Pastorius - Bass
Donna Lee
How did you learn to do that?
Stadthalle Offenbach Concert 1978.
Joseph Zawinul - Electric Piano
Wayne Shorter - Saxophones
Jaco Pastorius - Bass
Pat Metheny - Guitar
Jaco Pastorius - Bass
Donna Lee
How did you learn to do that?
Jaco Pastorius, Jazz Bassist, Dies of Injuries in a Beating
AP
Published: September 23, 1987
John Francis (Jaco) Pastorius, an electric bassist whose brief career influenced jazz musicians worldwide, died Monday night at the Broward General Medical Center. He was 35 years old.
Mr. Pastorius had been comatose since being beaten during a fight at a local nightclub, according to Gary Cuccia, a nursing coordinator at the medical center.
Mr. Pastorius's rapid-fire fingering techniques and composing talent earned him a reputation in the late 1970's and early 80's as one of the top electric bass players. At the peak of his career he toured with Weather Report, Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock and Blood, Sweat and Tears.
The police said the beating occurred before dawn on Sept. 12 after Mr. Pastorius tried to enter a nightclub from which he had been barred. The manager of the club, Luc Havan, was arrested Friday on a charge of aggravated battery and released on $5,000 bond, the police said.
Early in his career, Mr. Pastorius had disdained drugs and alcohol, saying they impaired his playing. But colleagues said he later began to drink heavily and for months before his death was penniless and unemployed, often sleeping in a local park.
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content is sorely lacking, that virtuosity is of little consequence, as in
Wooten's case and all of his brothers. It's all a race to the Wooten's
without regard to content. They're playing is 100% patterns, riffs,
sequences, and lie easily within the hand for their respective
instrument. The Wooten's are all nothing more than typists,
typing the same thing over and over in a sad effort to increase their
letter count