OldSouth is on the road this weekend, with the ever-patient and tolerant Mrs. OldSouth.
(How she puts up with him, Heaven only knows.)
Back Monday.
Thanks to all ya'll who check in so faithfully. He expects to have some good new tales to tell from his travels.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Gallup Daily: Obama Job Approval
This graphic is moving in the wrong direction for Team Obama.
It's a clever graphic, scroll over it, and you can clock His progress (or lack thereof) day by day.
Betcha someone in His offices are scrolling it themselves, scratching their heads.
Just wait until those two lines cross...that day is not far off.
It's a clever graphic, scroll over it, and you can clock His progress (or lack thereof) day by day.
Betcha someone in His offices are scrolling it themselves, scratching their heads.
Just wait until those two lines cross...that day is not far off.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Kansas City To Shutter 28 Schools
This probably won't make it to the top of the culture's radar this week, but the Kansas City School Board voted yesterday to close twenty-eight schools.
(After all, really important news like the sentencing of rap star Lil Wayne is breaking...)
Well, anyway...
(CNN) -- Superintendent John Covington called for the closing or consolidation of almost half of the schools in the Kansas City, Missouri, school district, and a school board voted Wednesday to approve the downsizing.
Covington said the closures were the first phase of "right-sizing" a district where enrollments have plummeted from more than 35,000 in the 1999-2000 school year to about 17,000 in 2009-10.
"Closing schools is hard, and it is tough on the community," Covington said recently in remarks posted on the superintendent's Web site.
"Closing schools and making the remaining schools much stronger academically is unquestionably the right thing to do for kids," he said. "Keeping all of the schools open with too few children in them is draining the resources we need to improve the education of all students."
[end quote]
Notice the bit highlighted in the second paragraph, especially if you don't live in the US. This is what is happening, not just in Kansas City. The Great Recession has been the final tipping point, the creator of the inescapable crisis, in this situation. But the deterioration has been underway for a long, long time.
Those who had the means to leave the public schools departed, to private schools and into home education, both of which have grown dramatically in the past forty years or so. The population has aged, and there are fewer children born, especially to the educated and upwardly mobile. OS has a number of friends who are 40+ who simply never married and started families. A few were homosexual, but only a few. Most just never 'nested'. He sees well-educated, beautiful young women friends who are eminently marriageable, but struggling to locate men who are equally marriageable, stable enough to nest.
And then, there is the government, at many levels, who in the 1960's began to view the schools not as institutions of learning and conveyance of the cultural inheritance, but as laboratories for social work and utopian ideas. With that came the enormous disruption in the 1970's of the forced desegregation of each city's schools, mandated by the Federal courts, in which children from one neighborhood were placed on school buses and transported across town to other neighborhood schools, all in the name of 'fairness'. The exodus began, with entire families turning away from public schools. Their children were placed in the private schools, and their children did the same, or went further into home-schooling life. The political support for taxes to support the public schools walked out the door with them, as families also began abandoning the neighborhoods for the suburbs.
This has been a long time coming, and we are on the front end of The Great Reckoning precipitated by The Great Recession. There is no amount of money that can be printed and borrowed to funnel to the Kansas City public school system that will fix this problem, so long as families refuse to participate. The invaluable element of trust has been eroded, and if everything goes well in KC from this day forward, that trust will be fully restored by about the year 2030.
Attempts to ban home schooling and close private schools, in order to force children into the state system would be met with violence. South Boston and Louisville were just two cities that exploded in the 1970's when families were told they would have to begin putting their children on buses in the name of 'fairness', in the middle of a grinding recession. OS was in Louisville when the riots broke out in 1974. It was seriously ugly. The protestors had CB radios (Citizen Band), and their crowds outflanked the police during protests, directed by protestors sitting on top of their pickup trucks. The police had to respond with with equipment that jammed transmission across that part of the radio spectrum. Imagine the scene now, with bluetooth phones, and literally millions more guns (and rounds of ammo) in the hands of the households.
OS does NOT NOT NOT endorse violence, but keeps plugging away every morning, hoping a few of his words stick to the cultural wall, and will help head off these sorts of tragedies. He wishes the school systems well. In the meantime, he's got to get back to work, building his business so he has money to put away for his unborn grandchildren's private or home-school education.
And, ironically, he drives to the courthouse today to pay his property taxes, which mainly go to underwrite the local school system.
The culture shapes the economy.
All birds come home to roost.
(After all, really important news like the sentencing of rap star Lil Wayne is breaking...)
Well, anyway...
(CNN) -- Superintendent John Covington called for the closing or consolidation of almost half of the schools in the Kansas City, Missouri, school district, and a school board voted Wednesday to approve the downsizing.
Covington said the closures were the first phase of "right-sizing" a district where enrollments have plummeted from more than 35,000 in the 1999-2000 school year to about 17,000 in 2009-10.
"Closing schools is hard, and it is tough on the community," Covington said recently in remarks posted on the superintendent's Web site.
"Closing schools and making the remaining schools much stronger academically is unquestionably the right thing to do for kids," he said. "Keeping all of the schools open with too few children in them is draining the resources we need to improve the education of all students."
[end quote]
Notice the bit highlighted in the second paragraph, especially if you don't live in the US. This is what is happening, not just in Kansas City. The Great Recession has been the final tipping point, the creator of the inescapable crisis, in this situation. But the deterioration has been underway for a long, long time.
Those who had the means to leave the public schools departed, to private schools and into home education, both of which have grown dramatically in the past forty years or so. The population has aged, and there are fewer children born, especially to the educated and upwardly mobile. OS has a number of friends who are 40+ who simply never married and started families. A few were homosexual, but only a few. Most just never 'nested'. He sees well-educated, beautiful young women friends who are eminently marriageable, but struggling to locate men who are equally marriageable, stable enough to nest.
And then, there is the government, at many levels, who in the 1960's began to view the schools not as institutions of learning and conveyance of the cultural inheritance, but as laboratories for social work and utopian ideas. With that came the enormous disruption in the 1970's of the forced desegregation of each city's schools, mandated by the Federal courts, in which children from one neighborhood were placed on school buses and transported across town to other neighborhood schools, all in the name of 'fairness'. The exodus began, with entire families turning away from public schools. Their children were placed in the private schools, and their children did the same, or went further into home-schooling life. The political support for taxes to support the public schools walked out the door with them, as families also began abandoning the neighborhoods for the suburbs.
This has been a long time coming, and we are on the front end of The Great Reckoning precipitated by The Great Recession. There is no amount of money that can be printed and borrowed to funnel to the Kansas City public school system that will fix this problem, so long as families refuse to participate. The invaluable element of trust has been eroded, and if everything goes well in KC from this day forward, that trust will be fully restored by about the year 2030.
Attempts to ban home schooling and close private schools, in order to force children into the state system would be met with violence. South Boston and Louisville were just two cities that exploded in the 1970's when families were told they would have to begin putting their children on buses in the name of 'fairness', in the middle of a grinding recession. OS was in Louisville when the riots broke out in 1974. It was seriously ugly. The protestors had CB radios (Citizen Band), and their crowds outflanked the police during protests, directed by protestors sitting on top of their pickup trucks. The police had to respond with with equipment that jammed transmission across that part of the radio spectrum. Imagine the scene now, with bluetooth phones, and literally millions more guns (and rounds of ammo) in the hands of the households.
OS does NOT NOT NOT endorse violence, but keeps plugging away every morning, hoping a few of his words stick to the cultural wall, and will help head off these sorts of tragedies. He wishes the school systems well. In the meantime, he's got to get back to work, building his business so he has money to put away for his unborn grandchildren's private or home-school education.
And, ironically, he drives to the courthouse today to pay his property taxes, which mainly go to underwrite the local school system.
The culture shapes the economy.
All birds come home to roost.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Running On Fumes And Goodwill
'Dean Dad' at Inside Higher Ed is a community college dean, happy to have found his place in the world in a role he never expected to play. He has a sense of humor and humanity, as one commenter notes. OS enjoys his posts, because they are as likely to be about the joys of marriage and parenthood as they are about his challenges on campus, which are many. Dean Dad doesn't whine, and he doesn't participate in that arrogant elitism that infects so many campuses.
So, his account of a recent budget meeting deserves consideration.
He concludes here:
I try to stay positive in public, since part of my job involves setting a tone, and campus morale is a real, if fuzzy, issue. So I'll use pseudonymity here to tell the truth. We simply can't keep doing what we're doing. We're running on fumes and goodwill, and you can't do that forever. The funding increases necessary just to get to 'sustainable' -- let alone 'exemplary' -- are unimaginable. Several areas of the college are still functioning only because a dwindling number of staffers are doing heroic work, and you just can't keep doing that. When heroism becomes the budgetary baseline, even getting to 'sanity' takes substantial increases. In many of the 'support' areas of the college, that's the dilemma now.
As so many, especially Mish, have noted before, the various infusions of federal cash (borrowed from the Fed or the Chinese) have only delayed the inevitable day of reckoning, and Dean Dad acknowledges that fact. The tough days yet lie ahead for his world, as the taxpayer pot has run dry. A state legislature cannot spend what does not exist, and can't print money, although California has attempted to at times.
So, in these years of running on fumes, perhaps it is time to concentrate on building good will. Last week's angry marches by undergraduates demanding non-existent money are counterproductive, because they are viewed by people with high-school or vo-tech educations paddling as hard as they can to keep their own little micro-businesses above water and their families intact, while paying taxes on everything they earn or consume. Wimmen's Studies majors smashing store windows and blocking highways don't build good will with the public. College students tutoring young kids in reading and math in every county school do.
OS is an optimist, who thinks that real solutions will be worked out by good people like Dean Dad and his team, one corner of the culture at a time. The process will be accelerated if the Federal government allows it to happen, by turning off the spigot of funny money, and by the students who see free higher education as an entitlement spending their time in the library.
Or tutoring young kids in reading and math.
So, his account of a recent budget meeting deserves consideration.
He concludes here:
I try to stay positive in public, since part of my job involves setting a tone, and campus morale is a real, if fuzzy, issue. So I'll use pseudonymity here to tell the truth. We simply can't keep doing what we're doing. We're running on fumes and goodwill, and you can't do that forever. The funding increases necessary just to get to 'sustainable' -- let alone 'exemplary' -- are unimaginable. Several areas of the college are still functioning only because a dwindling number of staffers are doing heroic work, and you just can't keep doing that. When heroism becomes the budgetary baseline, even getting to 'sanity' takes substantial increases. In many of the 'support' areas of the college, that's the dilemma now.
As so many, especially Mish, have noted before, the various infusions of federal cash (borrowed from the Fed or the Chinese) have only delayed the inevitable day of reckoning, and Dean Dad acknowledges that fact. The tough days yet lie ahead for his world, as the taxpayer pot has run dry. A state legislature cannot spend what does not exist, and can't print money, although California has attempted to at times.
So, in these years of running on fumes, perhaps it is time to concentrate on building good will. Last week's angry marches by undergraduates demanding non-existent money are counterproductive, because they are viewed by people with high-school or vo-tech educations paddling as hard as they can to keep their own little micro-businesses above water and their families intact, while paying taxes on everything they earn or consume. Wimmen's Studies majors smashing store windows and blocking highways don't build good will with the public. College students tutoring young kids in reading and math in every county school do.
OS is an optimist, who thinks that real solutions will be worked out by good people like Dean Dad and his team, one corner of the culture at a time. The process will be accelerated if the Federal government allows it to happen, by turning off the spigot of funny money, and by the students who see free higher education as an entitlement spending their time in the library.
Or tutoring young kids in reading and math.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Eric Massa Interview With Glenn Beck
It's hard to know what to think. It was a confusing, incoherent hour.
OS thinks they talked past one another, for the most part. Massa wanted to talk about his overwhelming frustration with his entire experience, and Beck was mining for diamonds, smoking guns, something to run with.
Massa is not an intellectual giant, but most members of Congress aren't. He's not terribly articulate. His brain does not seem to work in a straight line as he talks in public about his experience. His emotional turmoil overshadows anything else just now. Listening to him was visceral, and enlightening in its own disjointed way. Beck didn't seem to pick up on that, and Beck himself is not a skilled interviewer, with the craft in place to pick up a thought and help the subject clarify and distill it. He was on his own quest for a smoking gun, or a silver bullet to fire at Obama. The veritable stake to drive through the heart. (Enough analogies already!)
Massa probably functioned well in the Navy, but that is its own world, far different from Congress.
What was he thinking, running for Congress? He was asking himself the same thing, it appears.
(What possessed the Democrat powers-that-be to support this guy in his run for Congress? Did no one notice there might be a problem?)
Massa is about to go through a dark tunnel personally, no avoiding it. There is that possible cancer diagnosis hanging over him as well.
Given the perspective that time and living through this next year will afford, Mr. Massa will probably have something much more coherent and specific to say, if he so chooses, sometime in 2011 or 2012.
In the meantime, let's hope the Obama White House and the Democrat machine don't hound him like the Clintons hounded those who spoke up about them in the 1990's.
OS wishes him well, as should we all.
Still, it's hard to make sense of the whole episode...
Another open seat, up for grabs!
OS thinks they talked past one another, for the most part. Massa wanted to talk about his overwhelming frustration with his entire experience, and Beck was mining for diamonds, smoking guns, something to run with.
Massa is not an intellectual giant, but most members of Congress aren't. He's not terribly articulate. His brain does not seem to work in a straight line as he talks in public about his experience. His emotional turmoil overshadows anything else just now. Listening to him was visceral, and enlightening in its own disjointed way. Beck didn't seem to pick up on that, and Beck himself is not a skilled interviewer, with the craft in place to pick up a thought and help the subject clarify and distill it. He was on his own quest for a smoking gun, or a silver bullet to fire at Obama. The veritable stake to drive through the heart. (Enough analogies already!)
Massa probably functioned well in the Navy, but that is its own world, far different from Congress.
What was he thinking, running for Congress? He was asking himself the same thing, it appears.
(What possessed the Democrat powers-that-be to support this guy in his run for Congress? Did no one notice there might be a problem?)
Massa is about to go through a dark tunnel personally, no avoiding it. There is that possible cancer diagnosis hanging over him as well.
Given the perspective that time and living through this next year will afford, Mr. Massa will probably have something much more coherent and specific to say, if he so chooses, sometime in 2011 or 2012.
In the meantime, let's hope the Obama White House and the Democrat machine don't hound him like the Clintons hounded those who spoke up about them in the 1990's.
OS wishes him well, as should we all.
Still, it's hard to make sense of the whole episode...
Another open seat, up for grabs!
The 'Denier': The Consequences Of Insane Ideas
AlGore recently emerged from his Man Cave in Nashville, ranting darkly about 'Deniers', people who don't agree with his view of Global Warming, and his very real set of 'solutions' to a perhaps not-so-real problem. If you are a 'Denier', you are ignorant, obstructionist, perhaps evil. The only other people about whom that fabricated word has ever been used are people who assert that the Holocaust never happened. You know, 'Deniers'...
Now, about a new sort of 'Denier', that doesn't seem to trouble AlGore or anyone in the Obama Administration:
Clifton at Another Black Conservative (found to your right, and highly recommended) recently posted what seemed to be a strange news item: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is quoted as claiming that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 did not occur, but were instead were propoganda fabrications.
So, OS thinks, naaahh, this can't possibly be an accurate account.
So he goes digging around, and yep, there it is.
Even CNN can't make this stuff up.
This assertion is just, well, insane. The product of a sick mind. OS, along with millions of others, saw these events take place. He had friends working in Manhattan that day, one of them at a nearby stock exchange. They assure him it happened. There were neighborhoods of Long Island, Queens, and New Jersey that suffered multiple deaths of loved ones. There were a lot of funerals. These events happened. The hole is still in the ground where the buildings stood. It's madness to even feel the need to write this paragraph, but these are the times in which we live.
Insane ideas, and insane people, attract followers. Lots of them, sometimes. Examples come to mind.
In the twentieth century, two prime candidates are Hitler and Stalin.
OS was beavering away last week, with the TV on low, looking for a ball game, when he tripped across a documentary on the Battle of Stalingrad. The details, in a way, don't matter. But the scope of the tragedy is worth remembering:
Various scholars have estimated the Axis suffered 850,000 casualties (killed, disabled, captured) among all branches of the German armed forces and its allies, many of them POWs who died in Soviet captivity between 1943 and 1955. 400,000 Germans, 120,000 Romanians, 120,000 Hungarians, and 120,000 Italians were killed, wounded or captured. Of the 91,000 German POWs taken at Stalingrad, 27,000 died within weeks and only 5,000 returned to Germany in 1955. The remainder of the POWs died in Soviet captivity.
Those were just the casualties for the Germans and their allies. In one manner or another, some 845,000 lives were sacrificed to Hitler's insane dream of empire. And that was just one battle in the whole bloody mess. Stalin, for his part, was willing to sacrifice innumerable soldiers and civilians, because by golly, it was the city named after him!
Insane ideas, and insane people, attract followers. Lots of them, sometimes.
Ahmadinejad is barking mad. And he sits on huge oil and gas reserves, unlike Hitler. Additionally, he is pushing full steam ahead on the development of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to a large part of the world. Hitler did not succeed at that, thanks to the RAF, and a sane Churchill, who recognized the danger and named it. But, he was on his way. He needed about another year or so.
So, what is the response of the United States government? Well, the missile defense shield that would protect most of Europe has been removed. Obama and Hilary keep yammering about 'sanctions' via the UN, in which China and the Russians have zero interest. A goodly portion of Iran is attempting to resist the madman, and the White House utters barely a word. Mainly, the US government has decided that we should all just join hands, sing 'We Shall Overcome', smile a lot, borrow and spend kajillions more for health care and other follies, and essentially hope for the best. As for Israel...well, they're hung out to dry, and they know it.
This is how wars get started.
Meanwhile, back in Iran, the suppression of any and all who pose any possibility of dissent continues.
This account is just one of many, in this case a Christian minister imprisoned and tortured for performing baptisms.
OS writes this because he doesn't wish to see his children and grandchildren sacrificed at another Stalingrad at the behest of the 'Deniers' in the West, who deny that evil exists, and that evil people do indeed carry out their evil intentions.
Now, about a new sort of 'Denier', that doesn't seem to trouble AlGore or anyone in the Obama Administration:
Clifton at Another Black Conservative (found to your right, and highly recommended) recently posted what seemed to be a strange news item: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is quoted as claiming that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 did not occur, but were instead were propoganda fabrications.
So, OS thinks, naaahh, this can't possibly be an accurate account.
So he goes digging around, and yep, there it is.
Even CNN can't make this stuff up.
This assertion is just, well, insane. The product of a sick mind. OS, along with millions of others, saw these events take place. He had friends working in Manhattan that day, one of them at a nearby stock exchange. They assure him it happened. There were neighborhoods of Long Island, Queens, and New Jersey that suffered multiple deaths of loved ones. There were a lot of funerals. These events happened. The hole is still in the ground where the buildings stood. It's madness to even feel the need to write this paragraph, but these are the times in which we live.
Insane ideas, and insane people, attract followers. Lots of them, sometimes. Examples come to mind.
In the twentieth century, two prime candidates are Hitler and Stalin.
OS was beavering away last week, with the TV on low, looking for a ball game, when he tripped across a documentary on the Battle of Stalingrad. The details, in a way, don't matter. But the scope of the tragedy is worth remembering:
Various scholars have estimated the Axis suffered 850,000 casualties (killed, disabled, captured) among all branches of the German armed forces and its allies, many of them POWs who died in Soviet captivity between 1943 and 1955. 400,000 Germans, 120,000 Romanians, 120,000 Hungarians, and 120,000 Italians were killed, wounded or captured. Of the 91,000 German POWs taken at Stalingrad, 27,000 died within weeks and only 5,000 returned to Germany in 1955. The remainder of the POWs died in Soviet captivity.
Those were just the casualties for the Germans and their allies. In one manner or another, some 845,000 lives were sacrificed to Hitler's insane dream of empire. And that was just one battle in the whole bloody mess. Stalin, for his part, was willing to sacrifice innumerable soldiers and civilians, because by golly, it was the city named after him!
Insane ideas, and insane people, attract followers. Lots of them, sometimes.
Ahmadinejad is barking mad. And he sits on huge oil and gas reserves, unlike Hitler. Additionally, he is pushing full steam ahead on the development of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to a large part of the world. Hitler did not succeed at that, thanks to the RAF, and a sane Churchill, who recognized the danger and named it. But, he was on his way. He needed about another year or so.
So, what is the response of the United States government? Well, the missile defense shield that would protect most of Europe has been removed. Obama and Hilary keep yammering about 'sanctions' via the UN, in which China and the Russians have zero interest. A goodly portion of Iran is attempting to resist the madman, and the White House utters barely a word. Mainly, the US government has decided that we should all just join hands, sing 'We Shall Overcome', smile a lot, borrow and spend kajillions more for health care and other follies, and essentially hope for the best. As for Israel...well, they're hung out to dry, and they know it.
This is how wars get started.
Meanwhile, back in Iran, the suppression of any and all who pose any possibility of dissent continues.
This account is just one of many, in this case a Christian minister imprisoned and tortured for performing baptisms.
OS writes this because he doesn't wish to see his children and grandchildren sacrificed at another Stalingrad at the behest of the 'Deniers' in the West, who deny that evil exists, and that evil people do indeed carry out their evil intentions.
The Cracks Are Beginning To Show
The cracks are beginning to show, as those who so breathlessly promoted Barack Obama are now seeing the devastating results of his failures.
The abject corruption. The amorality. The arrogance. The ballooning of debt. The loss of jobs. The closures of businesses. The trashing of the Constitution. The contempt for the Constitution, and for anyone who stands up to say that the Constitution matters.
The present dust-up over the departure of Rep. Massa is indicative of the atmosphere around the administration. From this distance, OS can't tell if Massa's account is accurate, but it certainly is plausible enough to deserve consideration. Even if only 50% of it is true, it's damning of Obama's White House.
Simon Heffer of the UK Telegraph observes in part:
His lack of experience, his dependence on rhetoric rather than action, his disconnection from the lives of many millions of Americans all handicap him heavily. It is not about whose advice he is taking: it is about him grasping what is wrong with America, and finding the will to put it right. That wasted first year, however, is another boulder hanging from his neck: what is wrong needs time to put right. The country's multi-trillion dollar debt is barely being addressed; and a country engaged in costly foreign wars has a President who seems obsessed with anything but foreign policy – as a disregarded Britain is beginning to realise.
And, folks, that's relatively gentle treatment, compared to what many here have to say about the man.
Chin-straps on. This man is in office, sans a successful impeachment (which has never occurred) until January of 2013.
The abject corruption. The amorality. The arrogance. The ballooning of debt. The loss of jobs. The closures of businesses. The trashing of the Constitution. The contempt for the Constitution, and for anyone who stands up to say that the Constitution matters.
The present dust-up over the departure of Rep. Massa is indicative of the atmosphere around the administration. From this distance, OS can't tell if Massa's account is accurate, but it certainly is plausible enough to deserve consideration. Even if only 50% of it is true, it's damning of Obama's White House.
Simon Heffer of the UK Telegraph observes in part:
His lack of experience, his dependence on rhetoric rather than action, his disconnection from the lives of many millions of Americans all handicap him heavily. It is not about whose advice he is taking: it is about him grasping what is wrong with America, and finding the will to put it right. That wasted first year, however, is another boulder hanging from his neck: what is wrong needs time to put right. The country's multi-trillion dollar debt is barely being addressed; and a country engaged in costly foreign wars has a President who seems obsessed with anything but foreign policy – as a disregarded Britain is beginning to realise.
And, folks, that's relatively gentle treatment, compared to what many here have to say about the man.
Chin-straps on. This man is in office, sans a successful impeachment (which has never occurred) until January of 2013.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Time To Walk Away?
(Narrator's voice): Let me tell you a story...
A well-meaning family of modest means buys a house in a Midwestern city about seven years ago. It's in a less-than-nice neighborhood, let us say politely. But, it once was lovely and stable(before WWII blew the culture up), and showed real promise of coming back. After all, the banks were lending, and if enough urban homesteader types like these folks were to show up, people with classic middle-class values, they might create a momentum and bring the place back. The bank owned it, and were glad to have it as a paying asset. The family went through a pretty stringent qualification, if memory serves. It was not a 'liar loan', at least not from the family's point of view.
The well-meaning family moved in, happily. And steadily brought the big old house back to life, but refied along the way to cover the costs of major roof repairs, installation of a central climate control system, and some structural work that needed doing. They also bought a little frame house around the corner, renovated it, and the eldest son lived there until he married and moved away. It's a rental now.
These folks tried, as imperfect as they were. Really worked at both improving their own lot and the lives around them. One family member still runs a Saturday version of 'Sunday School', to see if some improvement can be made in a few lives, to open the door to the outside world to a few kids, many of whom have never seen much of the rest of the city.
The neighborhood did not 'come back'. The drug trade is more embedded than ever, with its handmaiden prostitution in open practice on the streets. It's as if the city administration has nearly abandoned these blocks, as the streets deteriorate, police coverage seems scarce. I've urged that someone get a carry permit, and carry, just for safety's sake. Falling on deaf ears, of course.
Because of the refi, done at the height of The Bubble, they owe about 90k on the house. Not much equity. $1200 payments, probably including taxes and insurance, faithfully paid each and every month. A look at their zip code on Google Real Estate shows them as a tiny island of solvency in a sea of foreclosures. Abandoned industrial property nearby not likely to ever reopen. Empty CRE not likely to be occupied anytime soon. Lots of boarded-up houses all around them.
[end of narration...]
Is it time to walk away? No villains here. Everyone, bank and family, gave it their best shot. How do they get out without being hounded by the bank, and having to file a BK? It's becoming a matter of physical safety now. In the end, better bankrupt than suffering a gunshot wound. But that's a really low-class set of choices to make.
OS thinks the best solution is: The owners hand the bank the keys, the bank hands the deed to the city, the city razes the house, and zones the lot 'commercial'. Maybe, in 2020, the economic tide has turned, and the area does come back. It's a corner lot, maybe a place for a green-grocer to located. Easier to sell it if it's an empty lot.
At least that way, the city doesn't have a crack house on their hands.
This blog gets some visitors who know about these things. Any ideas?
A well-meaning family of modest means buys a house in a Midwestern city about seven years ago. It's in a less-than-nice neighborhood, let us say politely. But, it once was lovely and stable(before WWII blew the culture up), and showed real promise of coming back. After all, the banks were lending, and if enough urban homesteader types like these folks were to show up, people with classic middle-class values, they might create a momentum and bring the place back. The bank owned it, and were glad to have it as a paying asset. The family went through a pretty stringent qualification, if memory serves. It was not a 'liar loan', at least not from the family's point of view.
The well-meaning family moved in, happily. And steadily brought the big old house back to life, but refied along the way to cover the costs of major roof repairs, installation of a central climate control system, and some structural work that needed doing. They also bought a little frame house around the corner, renovated it, and the eldest son lived there until he married and moved away. It's a rental now.
These folks tried, as imperfect as they were. Really worked at both improving their own lot and the lives around them. One family member still runs a Saturday version of 'Sunday School', to see if some improvement can be made in a few lives, to open the door to the outside world to a few kids, many of whom have never seen much of the rest of the city.
The neighborhood did not 'come back'. The drug trade is more embedded than ever, with its handmaiden prostitution in open practice on the streets. It's as if the city administration has nearly abandoned these blocks, as the streets deteriorate, police coverage seems scarce. I've urged that someone get a carry permit, and carry, just for safety's sake. Falling on deaf ears, of course.
Because of the refi, done at the height of The Bubble, they owe about 90k on the house. Not much equity. $1200 payments, probably including taxes and insurance, faithfully paid each and every month. A look at their zip code on Google Real Estate shows them as a tiny island of solvency in a sea of foreclosures. Abandoned industrial property nearby not likely to ever reopen. Empty CRE not likely to be occupied anytime soon. Lots of boarded-up houses all around them.
[end of narration...]
Is it time to walk away? No villains here. Everyone, bank and family, gave it their best shot. How do they get out without being hounded by the bank, and having to file a BK? It's becoming a matter of physical safety now. In the end, better bankrupt than suffering a gunshot wound. But that's a really low-class set of choices to make.
OS thinks the best solution is: The owners hand the bank the keys, the bank hands the deed to the city, the city razes the house, and zones the lot 'commercial'. Maybe, in 2020, the economic tide has turned, and the area does come back. It's a corner lot, maybe a place for a green-grocer to located. Easier to sell it if it's an empty lot.
At least that way, the city doesn't have a crack house on their hands.
This blog gets some visitors who know about these things. Any ideas?
Friday, March 5, 2010
Geert Wilders Address To House Of Lords: Churchill Was Right
Geert Wilders can travel in the UK again, no thanks to a Labour government that has abandoned the idea of free speech.
He addressed the House of Lords today. The entire text is here, and is necessary reading.
Remember, in his home country, he is on trial for saying these things. He was barred entry to the UK for saying these things.
The entire speech is memorable, and uncompromising.
Ladies and gentlemen, not far from here stands a statue of the greatest Prime Minister your country ever had. And I would like to quote him here today: “Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. No stronger retrograde force exists in the World. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step (…) the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.” These words are from none other than Winston Churchill wrote this in his book ‘The River War’ from 1899.
Churchill was right.
Wilders is an important voice in the culture, because he addresses the culture head-on, and does not mince words.
Ladies and gentlemen, we should defend the right to freedom of speech. With all our strength. With all our might. Free speech is the most important of our many liberties. Free speech is the cornerstone of our modern societies. Freedom of speech is the breath of our democracy, without freedom of speech our way of life our freedom will be gone.
I believe it is our obligation to preserve the inheritance of the brave young soldiers that stormed the beaches of Normandy. That liberated Europe from tyranny. These heroes cannot have died for nothing. It is our obligation to defend freedom of speech. As George Orwell said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
Green Shoots nominee!
'These Cuts Affect Me'
Hmm...Stop the presses!
Dog Bites Man!
Students Protest At Berkeley!
With the smell of burning sage and the occasional hint of weed in the air, an impassioned throng of students from the University of California’s Berkeley campus marched to Oakland (where the university system's headquarters are located) in opposition of budget cuts and tuition hikes they say are crippling one of the nation’s premier public institutions.
While the five-mile trek to Oakland proved largely peaceful, police arrested as many as 200 protesters once they reached freeways and tried to block them. The arrests mark the continuation of a what many describe as a troubling trend at the University of California, which has seen recent allegations of police brutality, racially motivated discord and an activist movement that at times appears intent on provoking law enforcement.
Thsi demonstration was part of a larger effort across the country yesterday, with protests reported in other locations. Berkeley, however, seems to have been the most vocal.
OS does not think another 'Those spoiled college kids' rant is in order. He has two of his own, neither of them spoiled, but both very cognizant that their opportunities have not come cheaply. They use Pell Grants, one has taken on significant loans, both work their patooties off. They don't talk of it often, but Dad hears the unease in their voices.
OS actually feels a bit of sympathy for the kids who went on their march in Berkeley yesterday. (The attempts to block the freeway, the windows smashed, etc., elicit no sympathy.)
They were raised in California, the land of milk and honey. Their folks likely went to UC, and prospered in their time. What could go wrong? Money grew on trees, and the state will always be there for the ed system. They were raised with that cultural assumption, which has proven to be fallacious. That's painful and angering to kids in late adolescence, which is what college students are. Their ethical world is black and white, and their cause is inherently just and true, just because it's their cause.
Had they been born five years earlier, they would not have even been aware of the gathering storm, as they busily did what college students do.
The cultural assumption was fallacious. And erroneous assumptions, if embraced, bring terrible consequences, in both individual lives and the wider world.
There is good news here, though. Some of these kids, in a more sober mood, will begin to read and think about what led to this day, and what it means. These kids will have the opportunity to embrace some healthier assumptions, and transmit them to their children.
Maybe, in 2030, we won't be reading accounts of undergraduates trashing college campuses because their tuition bills spiked unexpectedly.
In the meantime, allow OS to recommend a college that has avoided so many of the traps that so many other institutions have encountered.
It's not the only one, by any means, but provides a great template as the educational system begins to reorganize.
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