BuzzWords

Don't Drink The Apple Flavored Kool Aid!

2009-11-10T16:57:00.001-06:00

I always get a kick out of the Apple Fan Boys who rant and rave about how bulletproof Apple is and how only PCs get all those nasty attacks. The snotty Apple commercials have been picking at this scab for months. To which I always reply "when you only have 8% of the market, why bother?"

The people who don't get whacked are Linux, but that's another story

So here's today's story from the Washington Post

Apple ships 50+ security updates

Apple has shipped a large security update for computers running its Leopard and Snow Leopard operating systems for the Mac. The bundle contains security fixes for more than 50 vulnerabilities, including updates for components like Adaptive Firewall, FTP server, QuickTime and Spotlight.

The update applies to Snow Leopard (10.6.x) and Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.8) systems, as well as OS X Server versions of these operating systems. Users can grab the patches directly from Apple Downloads or via the Mac's built-in Software Update feature.

Some of the individual fixes in these bundles are interesting in their own right. For example, Apple said that a vulnerability in Snow Leopard's Login Window could let a user log in to any account without supplying a password. Another update, this one for a bug in Leopard' Dictionary program, is limited to users on the local network, but gives a whole new meaning to the term "dictionary attack"; Apple said a maliciously crafted Javascript could allow a user on the local network to drop hostile code on another Mac user's system.

2009-10-21T16:03:00.006-05:00

I can see the stats on the traffic on my blog and I found out that recently, I'm getting oodles of traffic from google by people looking for info on NACA. My rants turn up in the top 10 in some listings...lol

I followed a link backwards into a discussion group and found this exchange...it explains a WHOLE lot about why we were getting fucked by NACA

So, for any of you who landed here for the scoop on this organization, here it is, right from the horses mouth. We nearly lost the place that we not only wanted, but could also easily afford. Only after we went out and easily qualified for a conventional mortgage at http://www.guarnteedrate.com as well as at a credit union I belonged to, did we realized the following facts. NACA is full of shit and run by idiots.

This isnt just my rants, follow the underlined links to hear the horror stories.

1) No matter how fucked up your profile is, it should never ever take MONTHS to get at least an answer, or a loan

2) the people you are dealing with at the offices are NOT, under any circumstances, to be confused with TRAINED MORTGAGE PROFESSIONALS. They are wage slaves just doing what they are told by the wonky administration.

3) While it all looks like peace, love and happiness, this group has a clear and radical political agenda. And to play in their sandbox, you are required to swallow a whole BUNCH of leftist bullshit. Getting a mortgage from NACA taints you, just like if you got a mortgage from ACORN.

4) Stories in the media are relentless about how NACA promises you the moon and the stars, and fails to deliver over and over and over.

The highlighted parts are the best read.

----------------------
Originally Posted by soro90260
If anyone is thinking of using NACA as their mortgage lender, there are some very important things one must know before going into the process. The most important is that it will take time - a lot of time. Be prepared to take anywhere from 6 to 9 months, if not longer.

Further more, their attitude towards their borrowers or "members" in NACA's vernacular is down right awful. The attitude is "we're the only game in town, the members have to do what we tell them. Where are they going to get 100% financing in this market"? They don't think it much to add 3 to 6 months to process as they see fit. As NACA fancies themselves as consumer advocates, their mission is to "counsel" their members towards home ownership. "Counseling" is a term to be used loosely, having heard stories where members where made to feel badly over minor mistakes to the point of crying.

Also, NACA has a dirty little secret, they're biased against people that have excellent credit, savings and stable employment. The mortgage counselors are paid less commission for members with higher credit scores. Plus the underwriting department will make no exceptions for people who make more money ($107,000 annually for one couple) forcing those people instead to buy down their interest rate to qualify for the maximum loan amount. This bias translates into discrimination against white and latino young professionals or skilled laborers.

Then once the member is approved they are qualified and can bring a realtor to help them shop for property or NACA will refer an agent from their approved agents list. Either way, NACA refuses to communicate with the agents representing their members which is strange given the agents approved had to go through NACA training.

One major warning - DON'T SHOP FOR PROPERTY UNTIL THE QUALIFYING LETTER HAS BEEN ISSUED. Even then, the mortgage counselors are so over worked some of them lie and tell their members that they're approved or even false qualifying letters have been issued when nothing has been done to advance the member's case since the initial intake meeting. This one fact has accounted for members losing properties and thousand of dollars in good faith deposits.

Then once the offer is accepted, the real fun begins with NACA requiring a home inspection which on the surfage seems ok but all findings have to be repaired prior to closing and are handled by the HAND department. It is the HAND department that holds up 95% of the closings.

The real injustice is how NACA treats their employees, when anyone questions how things are done at NACA, the response is "you don't like it, work somewhere else" That's their response to trainees just learning their job. Employees are expected to work from 8:00 in the morning until 9:00 or 10:00 at night, as well as Saturdays for workshops. How this all translates for the consumer is that the people who work for NACA, the heart and soul of the organization, are over worked and under appreciated meaning customer service suffers as those doing the work are only human and something has to give.

Not only that, with a recent change in leadership, people in high places with the organization have little or no experience in mortgage banking but are great "yes men" in their dealings with the CEO, Bruce Marks. The attitude of the CEO as well as those individuals is anyone with mortgage banking experience are a part of the problem. That all those people were "predatory" lenders in the past. All these employees are being purged from the organization being fired in many cases for no reason at all. The turn over is very high as NACA does not respect their work force and in this market, many people will do anything, taking the disrespect just to have a paycheck.

Again, this translates into poor customer service as NACA requires "counseling" for a minimum of 3 months prior to being qualified, some members have had as many as 4 counselors through the process, with each new counselor starting the process all over again. In the end one may be happy to have gone through NACA to obtain their mortgage. However, be warned. the process is time consuming and at times maddening, it just depends on what one is willing to accept from those "advocating" for their best interest

**********************************************************************
Monica Wilson replied:

NACA, like any other organization, has its share of problems. We absolutely must do a better job with customer service, both internally and externally. It is also true that there are seriously tired...overworked and underpaid counselors that work for NACA....I am one of them. I can also attest to the high turnover, this opportunity definitely is not for everyone. We or at least I am kind of prideful in the fact that we do have 'America's Best Mortgage' product out there and not many lenders can offer what we offer. You've got us dead on (again) regarding our process....the process is long. I wish it wasn't. But the counseling that is done is a requirement set forth that must be completed. NACA's position is to let the future homeowner know what to expect up front. Unfortunately not all counselors do a good job in this area. But setting realistic expecations is our motto here in Nashville. We can't change the past, but we can do better in the future. Now, just as with anything in life, you've got your good counselors and you've got your bad counselors. I can only strive to be one of the good ones. I am pretty sure if I were to put in a 2 week notice, no one would lose much sleep in trying to get me to stay. But I must say, if they did say something like, 'you don't like it...work somewhere else' that it wouldn't be the first time a company has taken that attitude...especially in today's employer market. That doesn't make it right...but they are saying that just about everywhere...jobs are hard to come by. And yes, the HAND department will closely review the home inspection....possibly adding more time to the already lengthy process.

**But there is one thing that is not accurate:
Also, NACA has a dirty little secret, they're biased against people that have excellent credit, savings and stable employment. The mortgage counselors are paid less commission for members with higher credit scores. Plus the underwriting department will make no exceptions for people who make more money ($107,000 annually for one couple) forcing those people instead to buy down their interest rate to qualify for the maximum loan amount. This bias translates into discrimination against white and latino young professionals or skilled laborers.

That was a pretty harsh and inaccurate representation of not only the NACA process, but negative assumptions regarding the earning power of other races. Now, NACA DOES have a cap when it comes to purchase prices. On a single family home, the maximum you can purchase is in this region (Middle TN, Eastern TN and KY) $226,100. There is NO MINIMUM OR MAXIMUM INCOME on a NACA mortgage. The only requirement is that you have to be able to afford the home that YOU desire. NACA doesn't force you to do anything regarding buying your interest rate down. We counsel you as to the benefits of the buy down because it is the absolute best way to achieve long term affordability. But where our member's put their money is their business.

**The compensation is right on target and available at http://www.NACA.com. We are compensated more for loans with lower credit scores & income than the higher credit scores & income. The reason is simply because it takes more time and work for the former (lower credit scores) than it does the latter (higher credit). No bias or ulterior motives, just more work vs. less work, plain and simple. Rememer, NACA is a character based lender that looks at the credit & the individual situation of the future homeowner in determining readiness for homeownership. Traditional lenders aren't empowered with the same underwriting capabilities.

So, overall I agree. NACA needs an overhaul in customer service both internally and externally. We are sometimes so focused on helping people that we let the basics slide. NACA Nashville is going to make sure that each member we get the privilege of working with, has realistic expectations. We will serve our region treating people like we want to be treated. I'm sure we won't be perfect, but we'll hit our mark 99% of the time. Yes the process is long both counseling and the home inspection. But that is because we don't want our homeowner to be in an unaffordable mortgage or a house requiring repairs. Repairs that could eat at the homeowner's pocketbook in the years to come. I am absolutely working harder, spending less time with my family & sharing the stress of many local homeowners in danger of losing their home. But, I am absolutely in the right place & absolutely loving what I do everyday. And yes, at one point NACA focused on hiring 'counselors' and not mortgage professionals. They thought we mortgage professionals couldn't be 'retrained' to doing things the NACA way. NACA soon discovered that counselors are great at counseling but not so good at closing the loan. So, with the expansion of the new offices (Nashville is one of the newest), the staff are experienced mortgage pros & effective counselors.

Web Reference: http://www.nacanashville.blogspot.com

I am no longer with NACA as an employee. But I did want to check in with you and encourage you to attend an upcoming workshop if you haven't done so. Here are the next 2 workshops on the calendar.

--snip--

Sincerely,
Monica Wilson
Former NACA Mortgage Consultant

Mortar Board Memories

2009-10-13T17:19:00.001-05:00

Alicia Notestone

Associate Editor/Communications Coordinator,

Mortar Board, Inc.

Dear Alicia

I saw your post on Linked In about Mortar Board Memories and thought I'd drop you a note and share my story.

In 1985 I was a going nowhere fast. No high school diploma, a job that involved a hair net and not much to look forward to. By that summer, my then-girlfriend threatened to dump me if I didn't get my act together. But I always thought college was for "other" people, the ones with good grades and rich parents. Plus I was 5 years out of high school, I had crappy SATs, I'd never fit in. I just didn't see this happening, however, love makes you do strange things.

The University of Cincinnati took a chance and admitted me provisionally. I worked full time, went to school full time, made up the classes I was missing from high school and for the first time in my life started to feel like I was accomplishing something.

I did well enough to get admitted to a baccalaureate college and suddenly I realized there were people around me who were successful and self-made. They weren't all "Joe College," lots of undergrads at UC worked full or part time, I wasn't the only one wearing a tie to class with a name tag in my pocket.

And even though I had to work a lot so I could afford school, I started to feel like I was plugged into the university. I was getting good grades, I volunteered, I worked on a couple of student boards, I was an Orientation Leader and I even ran for Student Government and won! I found out that I could balance a life, a job, and school and make them all work. And so one day when I saw an ad about Mortar Board, I realized that might actually be me. Four years before I would never have considered it, but I sent my stuff in and crossed my fingers.

Later in the year, I was completely unprepared for the Student Government meeting where I got tapped. They make a big deal out of Mortar Board tapping, and apparently everyone knew but me. Worse yet, they had gone to my one big lecture classes (Art History, the 4pm "art in the dark" snoozfest) to tap me, but I had actualy cut the class! I got a lot of grief from people about cutting class the day an honorary with an emphasis on scholarship came looking for me.

When, after initiation, I looked around at the fellow members of my class, I recognized several student leaders, plus met a lot of folks who had achieved significance in places I was unfamiliar with. Engineers who candy-striped in hospitals. Someone who worked with kids next to the president of a sorority with a double major in French & Education who also worked on blood drives. These weren't manufactured people, it didn't matter who your dad was or how much money your family had, you couldn't fake this. I was proud not just to be selected, but to be regarded as a peer, simply on my merits. It was tangible evidence to me that the highest standard of achievement is not just grades, but of balance. To serve others, to lead by example and to achieve academically among your peers.

I'm a banker in Chicago these days, and as you can imagine it's a challenge. But I try to carry that idea of balance with me. It would be easy to spend day and night at work and neglect my family, or to selfishly guard my free time and ignore the world around me. But I have experienced the value of making time for each part of life and do my best to make it work.

The girlfriend is long gone now, but I still have my Mortar Board pin in a box on my dresser. I run across it now and then looking for a missing cuff link, loose change or a collar stay. And when that black enamel mortar board catches the light, it still reminds me, after 25 years, how far I have come, and what I have learned along the way.

Brian Turner, BFA '90

Mystic 13 Chapter

University of Cincinnati

Cornfest 2009, Morris IL

2009-09-28T10:28:00.001-05:00

Photos from our trip to Cornfest.

Condo of the damned

2009-09-16T23:51:00.001-05:00

Just to bring everyone up to date.

Many of you know what a horse race it's been for us to buy this place. We started in Feb, looked at over 40 places, found one we loved, waited out the short sale, only to find out it was doomed. The next two places we liked had similar problems. Since we have to be out of the place we are subletting, we decided on the property on Marine Drive, here on the lakefront. Ideal address, beautiful building, but the condo needs to be gutted right down to the floors, all before we have to move on the 27th of Oct. We made an offer and after a bunch of static on the seller's side, they accepted, Or so we thought...

I'm out today, sick as a dog. I scheduled Thursday and Friday off to deal with the closing and contractors. We knew there were going to be some issues, but not as many as have turned up.

The seller's lawyer is a real tool and has made every step of this process difficult. He fought us on every aspect of the contract.He dragged his heels on ordering the title and now, all of the sudden, the day before closing, he doesn't have the paper from the seller, who is in, of course, California. (truthfully, we actually thought the seller was dead...ooops) Maybe, possibly, if the seller turns it around today, FedEx's it overnight, we could close by 1030a tomorrow...or not. My money is on not, but we're going to walk through the paces.

Of course, what we think is going on is that there was furniture in the unit we were very specific about having removed before closing. We wrote it into the contract. As of this morning, we know it was still in there. You do the math.

Since the paper is not back, neither the mortgage co nor our lawyers know for sure what kind of, if any, money we have to bring with us to the table tomorrow...or not. So, at 4pm, my lawyer calls me and tells me what his estimate is, my mortgage broker tells me what their estimate is, and suddenly I have to have a certified check to bring to a 1030 closing. My bank is in the burbs...of course. Jump in the car, fire up the gps and haul butt to my bank, at rush hour and get there 3 minutes after the branch closed. Casting off the last shred of dignity, I bang on the glass and beg them to let me in. Thankfully I had my company id with me and they relented. It's good to bank with family, I got my check.

My lawyer tells me that the paper may not turn up till Friday, when, of course, he is not available. He has 4 closings on Friday and was expecting to have us done before then.

Our mortgage rate lock expires tomorrow as well, so suddenly, it's all up for grabs. Our lawyer is going to find out how much it will cost us to extend the lock, but let's hope it doesn't come to that, since we'd be making the seller pay the penalty, and we already know where that's going to end up...

The fun part, of course, is that we have 6 appointments scheduled Thursday and Friday with contractors.

People never believe me when I tell them what bad luck I have. They think I'm kidding...

Don't know how all this is going to end, so keep your fingers crossed.

Brian.
--
Lyndon Johnson once famously said that the difference between liberals and cannibals is that cannibals don't eat their friends and family members

Is Gay the New Black? Not according to LZ Granderson on CNN

2009-07-16T16:41:00.001-05:00

Commentary: Gay is not the new black

Story Highlights

LZ Granderson: Blacks tired of hearing about gays' disappointment in Obama

He says black gays strongly support first African-American president

He says gay rights movement is not comparable to the civil rights struggle

Granderson: Gay movement has to overcome its own racial issues

By LZ Granderson

Special to CNN

Editor's note: LZ Granderson is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, and has contributed to ESPN's Sports Center, Outside the Lines and First Take. He is the 2009 Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award winner for online journalism and the 2008 National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) winner for column writing.

(CNN) -- Far from flowing rainbow flags, the sound of Lady Gaga and, quite honestly, white people, stands a nightclub just outside of Wicker Park in Chicago, Illinois, by the name of The Prop House.

The line to get in usually stretches down the block, and unlike many of the clubs in Boystown and Andersonville, this one plays hip-hop and caters to men who may or may not openly identify as gay, but without question are black and proud.

And a good number of them are tired of hearing how the gay community is disappointed in President Obama, because they are not.

In recent weeks, one would have thought the nation's first black president was also the nation's biggest homophobe. Everyone from Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black and radio personality Rachel Maddow to Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay advocacy group, seem to be blasting Obama for everything from "don't ask don't tell" to Adam Lambert not winning American Idol.

In their minds, Obama is not moving fast enough on behalf of the GLBT community. The outcry is not completely without merit -- the Justice Department's unnerving brief on the Defense of Marriage Act immediately comes to mind. I was upset by some of the statements, but not surprised. (After the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, President Ronald Reagan's initial handling of AIDS and, more recently, Katrina, there is little that surprises me when it comes to the government and the treatment of its people.)

Still, rarely has criticism regarding Obama and the GLBT community come from the kind of person you would find standing in line at a spot like The Prop House, and there's a reason for that.

Despite the catchiness of the slogan, gay is not the new black.

Black is still black.

And if any group should know this, it's the gay community.

Bars such as The Prop House, or Bulldogs in Atlanta, Georgia, exist because a large number of gay blacks -- particularly those who date other blacks, and live in the black community -- do not feel a part of the larger gay movement. There are Gay Pride celebrations, and then there are Black Gay Prides.

There's a popular bar in the heart of the nation's capital that might as well rename itself Antebellum, because all of the white patrons tend to stay upstairs and the black patrons are on the first floor. Last year at the annual Human Rights Campaign national fundraiser in Washington, D.C. -- an event that lasted more than three hours -- the only black person to make it on stage was the entertainment.

When Proposition 8 passed in California, white gays were quick to blame the black community despite blacks making up less than 10 percent of total voters and whites being close to 60 percent. At protest rallies that followed, some gay blacks reported they were even hit with racial epithets by angry white participants. Not to split hairs, but for most blacks, the n-word trumps the f-word.

So while the white mouthpiece of the gay community shakes an angry finger at intolerance and bigotry in their blogs and on television, blacks and other minorities see the dirty laundry. They see the hypocrisy of publicly rallying in the name of unity but then privately living in segregated pockets. And then there is the history.

The 40th anniversary of Stonewall dominated Gay Pride celebrations around the country, and while that is certainly a significant moment that should be recognized, 40 years is nothing compared with the 400 blood-soaked years black people have been through in this country. There are stories some blacks lived through, stories others were told by their parents and stories that never had a chance to be told.

While those who were at Stonewall talk about the fear of being arrested by police, 40 years ago, blacks talked about the fear of dying at the hands of police and not having their bodies found or murder investigated. The 13th Amendment was signed in 1865, and it wasn't until 1948 that President Harry S Truman desegregated the military. That's more than an 80-year gap.

Not to be flip, but Miley Cyrus is older than Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell." That doesn't mean that the safety of gay people should be trivialized or that Obama should not be held accountable for the promises he made on the campaign trail. But to call this month's first-ever White House reception for GLBT leaders "too little too late" is akin to a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he wants to eat his dessert before dinner. This is one of the main reasons why so many blacks bristle at the comparison of the two movements -- everybody wants to sing the blues, nobody wants to live them.

This lack of perspective is only going to alienate a black community that is still very proud of Obama and is hypersensitive about any criticism of him, especially given he's been in office barely six months.

If blacks are less accepting of gays than other racial groups -- and that is certainly debatable -- then the parade of gay people calling Obama a "disappointment" on television is counterproductive in gaining acceptance, to say the least. And the fact that the loudest critics are mostly white doesn't help matters either.

Hearing that race matters in the gay community may not be comforting to hear, but that doesn't make it any less true.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

My response:

Really, you are going to base an article about race relations, sexuality and politics on who feels comfortable in what nightclub? That's the gayest thing I've herd all day, and I'm gay.

Self-segregation, not to mention downright (or should I say "down low") denial in the communities of color is rampant. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously if you are not willing to come out of the shadows?

And if we're going to start measuring suffering, lets get right to the point: killing someone because of their race is a federal crime. Killing someone because they are gay is not. These are the kinds of issues people are angry about. If not for state laws, I would just be another dead (F-word) Talk about your "Strange Fruit" hanging from the trees.

While white people joined the cause of Civil Rights, right from the beginning, where are the communities of color marching in the streets for gay rights? I see most mainline Protestant preachers represented in demonstrations, but black preachers are still preaching hellfire and damnation from the pulpits. And so when anger is directed at the African-American community (and the Mormons) over Prop 8, the basis is very real.

You want solidarity in the gay community between black and white? Then take the lead on changing community attitudes in your own community. Change begins at home.

Obama came to the gay well over and over. He took the money, he promised "change you could believe in" and has yet to deliver. And he knew the issues, he was in the Illinois statehouse when the state protections were passed. This is why gay and lesbian people or angry at him. Change delayed is change denied.

Every community in our country has their time "in the barrel." African American, the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, women and now Gays & Lesbians. Next up will be Hispanics. With the immigration issues, maybe they already are.

But the difference is that only women were denied the right to inherit property or custody of minor children…in the 18th century. None of them were denied the right to marry, tax benefits or had to pay tax on the health insurance of their spouse because of their ethnicity. And I doubt if any of them were denied the right to be at the bedside of their dying partner.

So in a way, gay is not the new black, it's the old black. Maybe worse. And when we win the rights we are fighting for, they will apply to all gay and lesbian people, not just the white ones.

More Flack from NACA members

2009-06-02T13:25:00.001-05:00

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=loans&message.id=44892#M44892

Gigi5 wrote

No NoNo We are not all poor people with bad credit and we are not at our last resort, we read contracts and some even write contracts, we know lawyers and some have lawyers amongst their friends and families. I truly am sorry that you've had a very bad experience with NACA but, we didn't do it! Why try and degrade us! We are here working for a common cause to become homeowners. Some of us will prevail and some us us will do like you go to other lenders. We will prevail!!! No Chicago60613 you didn't offend me I feel sorry for you. That you would take an experience you had and attack the people who are trying to get thru that same maze. I am just as frustrated as you but, Why not tell us about your bad experience give us some of the reason you are walking away and say good riddance NACA, no need to throw acid on us. We were like you trying to become a homeowner. Why persecute the persecuted?

Persecuted...acid...really, who writes your copy, Al Sharpton? Thats a bit "out there" isn't it?

I pray that you get your home and it all that you wanted and more. I noticed this is the first time you came on the thread, I wished you would have come in early when you first started your journey and we might have had some solutions for your situations. I personally will continue thru NACA but, I have maintained that there is nothing wrong with working two programs at once. It's a shame that you were entangled for the last three months I hope that Someone at NACA would read your letter and give you a call and allow you to vent in a positive way that may help future NACA clients.

Peace & Blessings to the NACA Thread.

mystikal1 wrote

Gigi5, KUDOS to you. I agree with you if you aren't in the same boat as us why would you be on this forum anyway.

MsKiwi wrote:

"I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience with NACA, however to claim that people who do go through NACA are poor and ignorant is incorrect. I'm sure the attitude you displayed here in your first post came through loud and clear with the folks at NACA."

Successful1 wrote

Let's not give the unfortunate soul anymore attention than he really deserves. You have to be able to recognize the absence of salvation in others and not hold their trash for them. He doesn't have what we have, in more than one way, and he wants what we have but doesn't know how to obtain it. He probably will never be back to this site so lets not even let him occupy anymore megabytes. Just pray he will gain the fortitude to weather life's storms a little more joyfully. Like us!!! LOL

To which I respond

Ah yes, please, ignore all the people who echoed, agreed and reinforced my experiences. Ignore that fact that everything I pointed out in their screwed up process has been posted here over and over and over (yeah, I read all 85 pages of the thread) and ignore the fact that when I got professional advice on my problem (not some hack at NACA) it turned out to be both true AND easy. No, really, please, pile on! Bring it!

I really was a believer. I come from a very religious family (though I do tend to leave out repetitive references to "the Lord" in professional situations, like this) with a long history of community service and activism. But rather than wear it like a badge, I try to put it to work, in places like NACA. We tried to make NACA work because we thought we could "do Good and do Well". But NACA is such a mess, it is it's own worst enemy.

When someone posted on here that:

""I had my purchase workshop tonight and my counselor was there of course. She's great and it went pretty smoothly. She's trying to push me into buying a house as opposed to a condo but I live and work in the city, I want a condo in the city. There's no way I can afford a house in any of the areas I want to live in. But we did talk about the letter. Apparently the letters we received tonight are not the final letters, they said that when we're ready to submit a contract we need to contact our counselor for a final letter and to get them updated information (account statements, pay stubs, etc) and they write a new letter for the contract"

It just reinforced my decision to give up. It just illustrates the fact that NACA is just a mess.

My issue is NOT with the "idea" of NACA, it's with the" reality" of NACA which is a deeply flawed.

So yeah, as ugly as it may sound, because NACA works from the worst case scenario, anybody who is not a financial train wreck suffers endlessly. They penalize the organized with the disorganized. Same group of listless of NACA people slogging through piles of paper. There is not motivation to do anything. It's not like they are on commission, now is it? AND IT SHOWS.

3 months, 250 pages of fax, 4 requests of additional documents, 2 credit reports for each of us (which we paid for) 12 months of rent checks (another $50 for copies from the bank) 3 meetings and a $50 "membership fee" AND STILL NO END IN SIGHT! Tell me again, what exactly do I have to show for any of that?

That, vs 2 phone calls, 2 faxes and 28 pages of docs signed and returned (yes, I already had them, I just needed to sift through the 250 pages I sent to NACA) and I'll have this wrapped up in a week.

Because NACA assumes right out of the box that you are ignorant and that they have you by the short hairs, using the promise of a mortgage as a weapon to beat you over the head and drag you around, they can get away with stunningly unprofessional and vaguely illegal activities.

Did you miss the part about them not accepting 1 year and 51 weeks of rental history? The part about them not being able to deal with two W2 forms from the same company? Or maybe you skipped past the part about MAKING me file my taxes, even though I was due a refund and had an extension?

HOW SCREWED UP IS THAT?!

Oh, and Gigi, nobody from NACA has bothered to contact me, even though I sent that letter to my counselor, David Whitfield, the office manager and the national office. Yeah, their follow-up pretty much illustrates their work ethic, now doesn't it?

So yeah, fine, please, "ignore that man behind the curtain" as they said in The Wizard of Oz. Tremble before NACA and assume they know everything, don't bother to think for yourself.

But I, like Dorothy, realized at the end that the Wizard was a fraud and that everything I was looking for was indeed right in my own back yard.

And for you alleged Christians on here…

"He who does not work shall not eat. Yet we hear that some of you are living in laziness, refusing to work, and wasting your time in gossiping. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we appeal to such people--we command them--to quiet down, get to work, and earn their own living. 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12

Whatever happened with our NACA.com mortgage application ?

2009-05-31T11:22:00.004-05:00

The following is a message/letter we posted to the managers at NACA.com
(Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America).

5/27 2009

Yesterday we gave up. We just could not take any more. The following
is a copy of the letter I wrote to our counselor, who we loved. I have
removed her name for privacy.

Dear Counselor,

This letter is to thank you for all of your hard work, both of us are
very grateful for you patience, professionalism and advocacy on our
behalf.

Sadly, NACA has let us down at every opportunity and this letter is to
inform the organization that we will no longer require your services.
We are fed up. We just can't take it anymore. We can;t sleep at night
wondering and waiting for NACA to get their act together. And we can
never get a straight answer fro anyone, ever, about anything.

This is the single most disorganized organization I have ever dealt
with. Given the latest task list of stupid stuff we received from the
lenders on Wednesday May 27, we are just walking away. After 4
requests for "additional documents" we're through.

And let's be specific here, so there is no confusion.

We attended the workshop in February of 2009 in Aurora IL. It was a
mess. The speakers were disorganized and unfocused. Our packets we
incomplete, our request for an appointment were incorrect and the
presentation was poorly presented.

When attempting to record the required documents and data in the
website, as we were advised to do prior to our first appointment, we
never were able to make it work. We are both technology professionals,
we looked for any possible way to make this work, and there is none.
This kind of technology is a good idea, but NACA's site is clearly
inadequate for the task. Even looking at the site today, our
information and status is either missing, incomplete or incorrect.
This does not inspire a great deal of confidence.

So, rather than getting time to review our documents at our first
meeting, we spent most of the time having to fill out paper documents.
You were very good at working the numbers we were able to assemble and
giving us a thumbnail assessment, we walked away full of hope, but
with our fingers crossed that everything was correct. We turned around
an extensive (12 items) 'to do list" in a matter of days.

Over 250 (!!) faxed pages, roughly 90 days and a dozen phone calls
later, and we are still getting jerked around over stupid stuff. And
let's not forget, we are VERY well qualified applicants. My FICO is XXX

Example one: we submitted all our bank statements, check stubs and tax
returns in March. But by the time the lenders bothered to look at it,
(April? May?) we had to submit yet another set of bank statements,
check stubs and tax forms, not to mention have yet ANOTHER credit
report pulled, because it was, in the opinion of the lenders, out of
date. Whose fault is that?

Example two: They requested verification of my partner's child
support, which I provided copies of court orders. That wasn't good
enough, so then they requested 12 months of payment history. If he
was in arrears with child support, his ex-wife would have filed a
deadbeat dad suit against him long ago. This was totally
demoralizing.

Example three: They requested a quit claim deed on a property he have
had no financial interest in for nearly 10 years. Not the houses he
owned a couple of years ago, but the one he owned 10 years ago that
was no longer even listed on his credit report - and was recorded to
have been transferred to his ex-wife. This should no longer show on a
title search, since it was recorded several years ago.

I submitted two W2 forms from my prior employer. This was also
reflected on my tax forms. Apparently nobody at NACA has ever seen
something like this (a company merger) so I was asked to write a
letter. Even after a detailed letter explaining the merger, they are
STILL requesting information. If it's good enough for the IRS, why
isn't it good enough for NACA?

My favorite request came last week. In spite of the fact that we are
now less than seven days away from the recorded end of our two year
lease, attested to by our landlord, on the NACA document, stating that
our lease ran from June 1, 2007 to June 1, 2009 we were required to
get a document from a landlord we have not spoken to in two years to
fill our YET ANOTHER NACA FORM, to cover us for the week (!) that
would fulfill the NACA requirement of two years of rental history. How
is it possible that 1 year and 51 weeks is not enough?

Then they requested 12 months of canceled checks, costing us nearly
$50 to provide. Then they requested another copy of the corrected
history verification form - which was already correct.

The final straw was our reserve. This was a gift from our
family. When we knew that we were going to buy a condo, I used my
previous savings to pay down our debts. The gift was to cover our down
payment, closing costs and renovations. I deposited the check from our
family in my bank in February 2009.

Suddenly this became a huge issue, so I requested a
notarized document, from the bank, attesting to the gift. But that
seemingly wasn't enough for your lenders, suddenly they wanted a copy
of my family's bank statements?!

That is the single most grossly inappropriate request I have ever, in
my entire 10 years of working in the banking industry, heard. You are
asking us to provide sensitive family financial records to
total strangers, containing bank balances, account numbers, detailed
payments information to people who cant even read a single paragraph (
see W2s above) It's clear that your lenders are just making stuff up
at this point and that the people working our files just simply dont
know what they are doing, or are allowed to do by law.

It was me, not NACA who came up with the idea of a canceled check
image to resolve this, why didn't a lender think of that? I really am
just stunned.

In a recent email to two people at NACAI stated that we started
this in March and that our landlord had refused to renew our lease
specifically because we were buying a house. I stated very directly
that we were going to be essentially homeless because of the constant
NACA delays. The response from someone at NACA was, and I quote,
"the lenders aren't at this location, I don't know how long it takes,
I'll call you when we hear anything." I was further notified that "If
you enter into a contract, NACA will not honor or recognize it without
your qualification status already established."

How is it that I can build a house in 90 days, but I can't buy one? I
could walk from Washington DC to Los Angeles in 90 days, but NACA cant
generate a pre-approval letter? This is just INSANE!

I work for (a well respected financial institution) as an analyst. We
don't do mortgages, or else I would have done it here. The Executive
Vice President, heard me talking about buying a house at our company
Christmas party and would casually ask me, in passing, how everything
was going.

On Friday, 25 May, 2009 she called me into her office since I was so
despondent over the situation and she gave me this advice: it doesn't
take 90 days to get a mortgage commitment. It doesn't take 2 weeks.
"Get a new lender."

And so, desperate, in the space of three hours yesterday, I have
secured a pre-approval from a reputable lender. I am making an offer
on a property tonight and depositing a check into escrow tomorrow. We
are going to use the 10k for a down payment and have the seller cover
closing costs. We are going to pay one half percent more for the loan,
but finance ten thousand dollars less, so it works out to a tiny
difference in the scheme of things.

Because of NACA's grossly disorganized processes however, we are going
to incur significant expenses for temporary housing and double moving
costs because our closing date will be past the end of our lease.
Thanks NACA.

But, we are going to have a roof over our heads eventually. We could
have saved ourselves months of frustration, hundreds of pages of faxes
and hours of phone calls and a couple of thousand dollars in expenses
if we had just done this in the first place. I have attached the copy
of the pre-approval for your review.

The reason I came to you was because I heard your CEO, Bruce Marks, on
NPR in February, talking about the housing crisis and how NACA is an
alternative to traditional lenders. I was a believer! In truth, it's a
grossly inadequate substitute for real financial professionals.

In closing Counselor, I want to make sure you know that both of us
hold you in very high regard and our leaving in no way reflects on
you. You did your job, it's too bad everyone else at NACA isn't as
focused and hard working as you.

Our best wishes for your future success. Feel free to contact me
directly if you have any questions or I can be of service to you in
the future.

Sincerely,

Me.

Everything in this letter is true. There were even more examples of
how incompetent they are and all the screwups they made, but I edited
this down to just the greatest hits.

I was all gung-ho about this program, I really was. I wanted to
believe. I wanted to do something for my community. It wasn't just
about the money. But the delays were ENDLESS. In spite of the fact
that we were very qualified, no credit problems, no drama, nobody at
NACA could ever tell us when or if we were going to get a mortgage.
Every time it was 'well this looks good we should hear back in a
couple of days"

We provided no fewer than 6 faxed packets of information. Why can
they not assess the file completely enough the first time to provide a
concise list of what is needed and be done with it. I realize our
situation is potentially more complex than most of their applicants,
but this back and forth with STILL no final approval is a ridiculous
waste of time and effort

We even convinced our agent to join NACA so she could work with us.
The other agents in her office tried to warn her, but she did it, as a
favor, to us. She should have listened to them.

And this ignores all the way left politics involved. It really is
pretty shameless. We decided we would just hold our nose and drink the
kool-aid, because in the end, we would save a few buck and get a home.
We were wrong, oh so very very wrong.

The final straw was my taxes. I filed for an extension, since I wanted
to used the 8k homebuyers credit this year and not have to file an
amended return. I was due a refund, as clearly stated on my tax
documents.

last Friday they told me that I HAD to file my taxes before the
lenders would move forward. Even though I had a copy of my IRS
extension and was due a refund.

Knowing how long it takes to get documents (in this case a check) from
the IRS was just too much. And we just knew that even after that,
something else would come up. And then something else.

So yeah, in spite of some NACA cheerleaders who will read this, NACA
is a last resort. They are for poor people with bad credit who are
such a bad risk that nobody else will give them a mortgage. They are
for people who dont know enough to read a contract and ask questions.
They are for people who dont think to bring a lawyer to review their
docs before signing. These are the people who got nailed before and
these are the people who are the CAUSE of the mortgage crisis.

Sorry if I offended anyone, I know that NACA does have some qualified
applicants, but in the end, I speak the truth.

If you want a roof over your heads before it starts to snow again, go
somewhere else if you can. A couple of dollars each month, in your
monthly payments is just not worth it.

If you have 6 to 9 months to fart around, these are the folks. Oh, and
you may want to buy a cheap fax machine. You're going to need one.

Chicago has highest gas prices in U.S.

2009-05-18T10:15:00.001-05:00

Chicago has the highest gasoline prices in the nation, according to
the latest Lundberg Survey.

Prices for regular-grade gasoline here averaged $2.63 a gallon on
Friday, when the survey--released Sunday--was completed.
Nationally, the price of gasoline jumped 25 cents a gallon during the
past three weeks, but remains well below prices from a year ago.

Analyst Trilby Lundberg said the average U.S. price of regular-grade
gasoline was $2.30 a gallon. That's up from $2.05 a gallon recorded on
April 24, but $1.49 a gallon cheaper than at this time last year.

The lowest price for gasoline in the U.S. was found in Phoenix, at
$1.99 a gallon.

--Associated Press

WSJ says Mag Mile less Mag in economic downturn

2009-04-13T11:34:00.001-05:00

CHICAGO -- Tomas Coppinger flew here from Ireland this week with $6,000 in his pocket. But he barely spent any of it on the iconic shopping promenade known as the Magnificent Mile.

"Beautiful street," Mr. Coppinger said as he paused beneath the skyline along Michigan Avenue. "But the prices are too high."

Softness in the tourism and convention businesses -- as well as bargain-hunters like Mr. Coppinger -- are hurting the Midwest's most prestigious retail district. It has weathered past downturns relatively well, thanks largely to the curiosity of out-of-town visitors.

But today the Magnificent Mile is enduring its highest vacancy rate since 1992. Retailers Lord & Taylor, Talbots Inc. and William-Sonoma Inc.'s Pottery Barn all recently shuttered large stores.

Last year the number of empty shops hit 6.3%, up from 4.4% in 2007 and just 1.0% in 2002, said Bruce Kaplan, a senior vice president at CB Ellis, a commercial-real-estate firm that conducts an annual survey on the Mile's rents and vacancy rates. "People come from around the Midwest to shop here," Mr. Kaplan said. "So it's a little bit insulated from the economy, but it's not isolated."

The Magnificent Mile -- so named as a promotional gimmick after World War II -- stretches from an east-west jut of Lake Michigan on the north to the Chicago River on the south. It actually runs just eight-tenths of a mile, but in that span counts more than 450 retailers and a who's who of high-end boutiques and department stores, including Saks Inc., Chanel and Cartier.

Last year, the average rent per square foot along the strip was just under $70 and ground-floor space averaged about $500. Mr. Kaplan said he expects both those numbers to soften this year.

For some, the rent relief will come too late. Borders Group Inc., already struggling with troubled finances and declining sales, will close its Michigan Avenue store, its largest in the U.S., in January.

"The location wasn't meeting our profit objective and hadn't for some time," said spokeswoman Mary Davis. "It was great to have a presence there, but no retailer can afford to operate stores that aren't profitable, especially in this economy."

Peter Hanig, whose eponymous family-owned shoe store has been a presence on Michigan Avenue for two generations, said the balance between exposure, prestige and performance is shifting. "The stores that had declining sales but wanted to keep a presence for marketing purposes are rethinking their strategy," Mr. Hanig said. "Every business in the country is going through a re-evaluation right now."

The market has softened as retailers in Chicago confront growing demands. The sales tax in surrounding Cook County was raised last year to 10.25%, highest in the nation. This year, after the city privatized public parking meters, downtown rates climbed to $3.50 an hour. State legislators are considering a series of tax increases to close a nearly $12 billion budget deficit.

A decline in out-of-town visitors also is hurting business. Downtown Chicago hotel occupancy rates dropped to 48% this February, from 54% in February 2008 and 60% in February 2007, according to STR Global, which tracks the hotel industry. Room rates are down 11% from last year. Among the largest 25 markets in the nation, Chicago has experienced the third-largest decline in hotel traffic, behind only Phoenix and San Francisco, STR said.

The people who are visiting are "shopping down," said Jacqueline Hayes, a Chicago commercial-real-estate broker who keeps a close eye on Michigan Avenue. "People at all levels are spending less," she said, although she believes the trend is squeezing luxury boutiques the hardest.

Mr. Coppinger, a wedding photographer from Galway, Ireland, spent most of his shopping stash on clothes at outlet stores in Aurora, 40 miles west of Chicago, where his daughter Aoibheann, 22 years old, gushed over the big discounts on Tommy Hilfiger jeans. On Michigan Avenue, Mr. Coppinger spent less than $100 on a few books at Borders.

Alderman Brendan Reilly, who represents the strip in city hall, said the city is investing in the area with walkways to draw lakefront visitors as well as some beautification projects. A weekend parking-tax holiday also is under consideration.

"Retailers need a hand up," Mr. Reilly said. "We'll do what we can to provide that extra boost."

Write to Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com

Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Chicago Cop Recounts Fire Resuce

2009-03-06T11:38:00.000-06:00

You know, the CPD takes a lot of shit, and many times for a lot of good reasons. But now and then, you read a story like this and you feel a great deal of affinity for, and pride of, your sworn officers. How many of us would risk our lives to rescue a stranger from a burning building?

Chicago Tribune 3/6/09

Chicago Police Officer Timothy Gould heard someone yelling for help from inside the burning building on the South Side this morning. But when he followed the voice to the door of an apartment, he was pushed back by flames.

"I couldn't get in and I heard someone in the back yelling, 'Help me!'" Gould said.

So the 18-year veteran officer ran to a back alley, grabbed a chair, broke a back window about eight feet off the ground and climbed halfway in. Then he yelled for the man while using a flashlight to find him in the heavy smoke.

"I was yelling, 'Look for the flashlight!', 'Look for the flashlight!' " Gould said. "I told him, "Talk, talk, talk.'"

Gould leaned farther in and felt the man's hands reaching out to him.

"I was reaching around and grabbed him, got him to the back window and got him on my back," Gould recounted. "I jumped back and got down on the chair and took him about 25 feet from the building."

Meanwhile, firefighters used a ladder to help a mother and her daughter down from the third floor of the building in the 7800 block of South East End Avenue. They were not injured and did not need to be taken to a hospital.

But Gould, 54, said he was worried about the condition of the man.

"I knew he needed oxygen. I told him to keep taking deep breaths, there was soot coming out of his nose and he was having a hard time breathing," Gould said. "I thought he was gonna die right there because of smoke inhalation."

The man was taken to Jackson Park Hospital, where he was listed in good condition this morning.

Gould, who described himself as a "big dude" who works out often, was happy to hear the man was doing well because he felt the man's body going "limp" on his back.

"God works in mysterious ways," he said. "I don't even usually work that (beat)."

--Dan P. Blake and Pat Curry

The G in GMail

2009-02-25T16:19:00.001-06:00

The email service went offline at around 10.25am GMT, and the outage appears to have affected users throughout the UK as well as across Europe, and even as far afield as Australia and India.

It appears that only web-based Gmail access is affected, and users can continue to send and receive messages using other devices, such as mobile phones and third-party mail clients.

Google could not confirm what had caused the outage. "A number of users are having difficulty accessing Gmail," said the company in a statement. "We are working to resolve the problem. We know how important Gmail is to users, so we take issues like this very seriously, and we apologise for the inconvenience.

"We are posting status updates about the problem at mail.google.com/support."

Bloggers and Twitter users were quick to flag up issues with the service. Google's web-based email system is usually fairly robust, and suffers little downtime, so many internet users were left baffled by the problems and at a loss as to what to do. Many Twitter messages offered workarounds to the problem, such as using mobile email applications, while other Gmail users said they would simply down tools and make a cup of tea and wait for the issue to be resolved.

Several major companies, including Telegraph Media Group and The Guardian, have switched to using the Google Apps suite in place of conventional desktop email. Google Apps allows users to work collaboratively on documents via the web, as well as share calendars, and provides instant messaging and chat alongside Gmail email services.

Macy's to cut 7,000 positions and slash dividend to 5 cents, targeting savings of $400M

2009-02-02T15:26:00.001-06:00

www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-macys-job-cuts,0,7980884.story

chicagotribune.com
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

AP Retail Writer

1:56 PM CST, February 2, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) — Macy's Inc. announced Monday that it will cut 7,000 jobs, almost 4 percent of its work force, reduce its contributions to its employees' retirement funds and slash its dividend to preserve cash amid a severe pullback in consumer spending.

The Cincinnati-based department store chain also delivered bleak earnings and sales forecasts for the year.

Macy's said the cuts, which include some unfilled jobs and 1,900 positions being eliminated in a restructuring now under way nationwide, will come at corporate offices, stores and other locations. The company employs about 180,000 people.

Macy's announced last month — on the heels of the worst holiday shopping season in decades — that it would close 11 stores, affecting 960 employees. The company expects the additional actions announced Monday to lower its annual selling, general and administrative expenses about $400 million starting in 2010.

The company also slashed its quarterly dividend to 5 cents from 13.25 cents. The dividend will be paid on April 1 to shareholders of record March 13.

Department stores have been especially hard-hit by the poor economy as shoppers cut spending and turn to discount stores. Last month, Fresno, Calif.-based department store chain Gottschalks Inc. put itself up for sale and said it had filed to reorganize in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Dallas-based Neiman Marcus Group Inc. said this month that it was cutting about 375 jobs, or 3 percent of its work force.

Macy's announced the national rollout of a plan to localize merchandising to specific markets and said it would integrate all its geographic divisions into a single unit.

It began testing the localization strategy in 20 regional markets last spring and expects the reorganization to be complete beginning in the second quarter.

As part of the restructuring, Macy's central buying, planning and senior management and marketing functions will be located primarily in New York.

Corporate-related businesses functions such as finance, human resources, legal, property development and company purchases will be located primarily in Cincinnati.

Macy's said it expects to earn between 40 cents and 55 cents, excluding one-time costs, for the year that ends next January.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters project earnings of 87 cents per share.

The company predicts its same-stores sales or sales at stores opened at least a year will fall between 6 percent and 8 percent in the year that ends in January 2010. Same-store sales are considered a key indicator of a retailer's health.

Macy's announces 7,000 job cuts

2009-02-02T14:54:00.001-06:00

US department store chain Macy's is cutting 7,000 jobs as it reduces costs against a backdrop of falling sales.

Sending shares in the firm down 11%, Macy's said the redundancies would affect both store and office positions.

With a current workforce of about 180,000 people, the cuts represent about 4% of its staffing levels.

Macy's said it hoped the move would allow it to make an annual saving of $400m (£281m). It added that it will likely report a fall in annual sales.

'Tough 2009'

It predicts that annual same-store sales - which excludes new shop openings - will be between 6 and 8% lower.

The firm said tough trading conditions would continue throughout 2009.

Macy's has 810 stores across the US.

US consumer spending fell for a sixth consecutive month in December, according to the latest data released by the Commerce Department on Monday.

Home from work, jan 15, 2009

2009-01-15T23:05:00.001-06:00

OUr front step. - 17, -42 with wind chill. The two blocks from my car to the house nearly killed me

Front Steps, Jan, 2009

2009-01-15T23:02:00.001-06:00

Life Imitates Art

2009-01-15T12:16:00.001-06:00

As I left for work today, the temp was -13. The high, the *HIGH* will get up to -2.

Chicago Tribune 1/15/2009

HAMMOND, Ind. - In a scene straight out of the movie "A Christmas Story," a 10-year-old Hammond boy got his tongue stuck to a metal light pole.

Police say the unidentified 4th grader was able to tell them a friend had dared him to lick the pole Wednesday night. Temperatures in Hammond were around 10 degrees at the time.

By the time an ambulance arrived, the boy was able to yank his tongue off the frozen pole.

Police say ambulance personnel explained to the boy's mother how to care for his bleeding tongue

The 1983 movie is set in a fictional city based on Hammond, the hometown of author Jean Shepherd

U.S. Senate rejects Burris' credentials

2009-01-05T16:16:00.000-06:00

From The Chicago Tribune

"Roland Burris headed to Washington today to claim Illinois' disputed U.S. Senate seat, even as officials at the Senate rejected the paperwork sent by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to formally pave his way.

Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson rejected Burris' certificate of appointment to the Senate as invalid, said Beth Provenzano, a spokeswoman for Erickson. Senate rules require that the certificate be signed both by the governor and the secretary of state.

Provenzano said the certificate was signed by Blagojevich but declined to answer a question on whether the certificate was signed by Secretary of State Jesse White, saying only that the certificate did not meet the requirements of the rule. White has said publicly he would not sign the certificate.

Burris talked to reporters at Chicago's Midway Airport today before flying to Washington. He repeated his insistence that he is the state's junior U.S. senator and expects to be granted his seat in Washington on Tuesday.

"No, I'm not bothered by [the rejection] because the appointment is legal. Why don't you all understand that what has been done here is legal?" he added. "That's legal, I am the junior senator from Illinois and I wish my colleagues in the press would recognize that. All the drama, I guess it keeps you all in a job."

"I'm a United States senator," Burris said at the airport news conference. "They cannot stop me from ... my senatorial duties."

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD when will the state that produced such outstanding senators as Stevenson and Simon, and even now Durbin, stop electing the un-electable to positions of power?

That said, we might all want to take a step back and hold up a magic mirror and look at Obama's own record in his term there. Can anyone name anything he did ON HIS OWN in his time there of any lasting meaning? Not much folks, sad to say.

So the idea we need to fill a "black seat" with another black man, because black people holding this seat have accomplish so much, does not seem to hold water.

Now, if we were looking for black americans who played a kick butt game of politics, they are unmatched, and I admire them for nothing if not that.

And just a note here, there were a significant number of seats held by black men in the Senate following the Civil War. Though they were marginalized by history, many of them were outstanding men, now lost.

In 20 years, will we look back on Roland Burris as a great man, or a great politican?

30 Rock Out takes

2008-12-23T17:45:00.001-06:00

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Rick Warren is an insulting choice

2008-12-23T13:20:00.001-06:00

Preacher Rick Warren's views are simply too extreme for Obama's supporters.
By Katha Pollitt
The Los Angeles Times

December 22, 2008

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton -- or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that in a million years. Republicans respect their base even when, as in McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor.

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.

Most Americans who've heard of Warren know him as the teddy-bearish, Hawaiian-shirted head of the Saddleback megachurch in Orange County and the author of "The Purpose Driven Life." Perhaps they also know he's the rare right-wing Christian pastor who sometimes talks about poverty and global warming and HIV. His concern for those issues has given him a reputation as a moderate and has made him the darling of Democratic Party think tanks, ever hoping to break the Republican lock on the white evangelical vote.

But on the signal issues of the religious right he is, as he himself has said, as orthodox as James Dobson.

And as inflammatory. Warren doesn't just oppose gay marriage, he's compared it to incest and pedophilia. He doesn't just want to ban abortion, he's compared women who terminate pregnancies to Nazis and the pro-choice position to Holocaust denial. (Hmmm ... If a fertilized egg is as precious as a born Jewish human being, does that mean a born Jewish human being is only as valuable as a fertilized egg?)

Speaking of Jews, Warren has publicly stated his belief that they will burn in hell, presumably along with everyone else who hasn't accepted his particular brand of Christianity (i.e., the vast majority of people in the world). And forget about evolution -- the existence of homosexuals, he's argued, disproves Darwin. And while we may not know how old the Earth is, the Saddleback website assures us that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.

Warren claims that his views are mainstream, pointing out that in 30 states, the majority of voters have banned gay marriage. Popular doesn't mean right, of course, but regardless of what Americans think about gay marriage, on other so-called social issues, he's way out in far-right field.

Take abortion. Most Americans, whatever their personal feelings, are pro-choice. On election day, anti-choice initiatives went down to defeat in all three states where they were on the ballot. Most Americans do not think the one-third of American women who terminate a pregnancy are running a concentration camp in their wombs, and would have no trouble choosing between saving a Jew from a gas chamber and a fertilized egg from a fire at the clinic.

Or take marriage. At his Saddleback Church, wifely submission is official doctrine: The church website tells women to defer to their husband's "leadership" even when he's wrong on important issues, such as finances. Never mind if she's an accountant and he flunked long division, or if she wants to beef up the kids' college fund and he wants to buy shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. The godly answer is supposed to be "yes, dear." Is elevating this male chauvinist how President-elect Obama thanks women, who gave him more than half his votes?

Or take foreign policy. In electing Obama, Americans overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's Wild West approach to foreign policy. Apparently Warren didn't get that memo either. Unlike many evangelical preachers, he issued a statement against torture, but despite his access to Bush, he told Beliefnet.com that he never raised the subject of torture with him. ("I just didn't have the opportunity," he said -- although he apparently found plenty of time to lecture Obama about abortion.)

On "Hannity & Colmes," he agreed that the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, should be killed because "the Bible says God puts government on Earth to punish evildoers." Really? The Bible says the United States should murder the leaders of other sovereign states? How many other heads of state does Warren want to do away with? If Ahmadinejad, who is, after all, a more-or-less democratically elected leader, had shared his inauguration with an imam who had called on national television for the assassination of President Bush, Americans would be calling for the nuking of Tehran.

In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues." That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.

I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.

Katha Pollitt, a poet, essayist and critic, writes the "Subject to Debate" column in the Nation. She is the author, most recently, of "Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories."

Pet Diaries

2008-12-21T17:13:00.002-06:00

Excerpts from a Dog's Diary..

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!

9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!

9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!

12:00 PM - Lunch! My favorite thing!

1:00 PM - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!

3:00 PM - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!

5:00 PM - Milk bones! My favorite thing!

7:00 PM - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!

8:00 PM - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!

11:00 PM - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

Excerpts from a Cat's Diary.

Day 983 of my captivity.
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its head less body at their feet I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a 'good little hunter' I am. Bastards.

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of 'allergies.' I must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage..

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my torment ors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.
The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now........ .

Bettie Page dies at 85; pinup queen played a key role in the sexual revolution

2008-12-12T10:21:00.001-06:00

chicagotribune.com
OBITUARY
Bettie Page dies at 85; pinup queen played a key role in the sexual revolution of the 1960s and later became a cult figure
By Louis Sahagun

December 12, 2008

Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, has died. She was 85.

Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2, according to her agent, Mark Roesler.

A cult figure, Page was most famous for the estimated 20,000 4-by-5-inch black-and-white glossy photographs taken by amateur shutterbugs from 1949 to 1957. The photos showed her in high heels and bikinis or negligees, bondage apparel -- or nothing at all.

Decades later, those images inspired biographies, comic books, fan clubs, websites, commercial products -- Bettie Page playing cards, dress-up magnet sets, action figures, Zippo lighters, shot glasses -- and, in 2005, a film about her life and times, "The Notorious Bettie Page."

Then there are the idealized portraits of her naughty personas -- Nurse Bettie, Jungle Bettie, Voodoo Bettie, Banned in Boston Bettie, Maid Bettie, Crackers in Bed Bettie -- memorialized by such artists as Olivia de Berardinis.

"I'll always paint Bettie Page," De Berardinis said Thursday night . "But truth be told, it took me years to understand what I was looking at in the old photographs of her. Now I get it. There was a passion play unfolding in her mind. What some see as a bad-girl image was in fact a certain sensual freedom and play-acting - it was part of the fun of being a woman."

"The origins of what captures the imagination and creates a particular celebrity are sometimes difficult to define," Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner said Thursday night. "Bettie Page was one of Playboy magazine's early Playmates, and she became an iconic figure, influencing notions of beauty and fashion. Then she disappeared. . . . Many years later, Bettie resurfaced and we became friends. Her passing is very sad."

In an interview 2 1/2 years ago, Hefner described Page's appeal as "a combination of wholesome innocence and fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."

According to her agents at CMG Worldwide, Page's official website, www.BettiePage.com, has received about 600 million hits over the last five years.

"Bettie Page captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," said Roesler, chairman of the Indianapolis-based CMG Worldwide, who was at Page's side when she died. "She was a dear friend and a special client and one of the most beautiful and influential women of the 20th century."

A religious woman in her later life, Page was mystified by her influence on modern popular culture. "I have no idea why I'm the only model who has had so much fame so long after quitting work," she said in an interview with The Times in 2006.

She had one request for that interview: that her face not be photographed.

"I want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my golden times. . . . I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."

Bettie Mae Page was born April 22, 1923, in Nashville. She was the oldest girl among Roy and Edna Page's six children. Her father, an auto mechanic, "molested all three of his daughters," Page said in the interview.

Her parents divorced in 1933, but life didn't get any easier for Bettie.

"All I ever wanted was a mother who paid attention to me," Page recalled. "She didn't want girls. She thought we were trouble. When I started menstruating at 13, I thought I was dying because she never taught me anything about that."

After high school, Page earned a teaching credential. But her career in the classroom was short-lived. "I couldn't control my students, especially the boys," she said.

She tried secretarial work and marriage. But by 1948 she had divorced a violent husband and fled to New York City, where she enrolled in acting classes. She was noticed on the beach at Coney Island by New York police officer and amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs, who introduced her to camera clubs.

Page quickly became a sought-after model, attracting the attention of Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula, who operated a mail-order business specializing in cheesecake and bondage poses.

Under contract with the Klaws, Page was photographed prancing around with a whip, spanking other women, even being hog-tied. She also appeared in 8-millimeter "loops" and feature-length peekaboo films with titles like "Betty Page in High Heels."

"I had lost my ambition and desire to succeed and better myself; I was adrift," Page recalled. "But I could make more money in a few hours modeling than I could earn in a week as a secretary."

Her most professional photographs were taken in 1955 by fashion photographer Bunny Yeager. They included shots of Page nude and frolicking in waves and deep-sea fishing, and a January 1955 Playboy centerfold of her winking under a Santa Claus cap.

At 35, Page walked away from it all. She quit modeling and moved to Florida, where she married a much younger man whose passions, she later learned, were watching television and eating hamburgers.

Page fled from her home in tears after a dispute on New Year's Eve in 1959. Down the street, she noticed a white neon sign over a little white church with its door open.

After quietly taking a seat in the back, she had a born-again experience. Page immersed herself in Bible studies and served as a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade.

In 1967, she married for a third time. After that marriage ended in divorce 11 years later, Page plunged into a depression marked by violent mood swings. She argued with her landlady and attacked her with a knife. A judge found her innocent by reason of insanity but sentenced her to 10 years in a California mental institution.

She was released in 1992 from Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County to find that she had unwittingly become a pop-culture icon. A movie titled "The Rocketeer" and the comic book that inspired it contained a Bettie-esque character, triggering a revival, among women as well as men, that continues unabated.

With the help of admirers including Hefner, Page finally began receiving a respectable income for her work.

In an interview published in Playboy magazine in 2007, Page expressed mixed feelings about her achievements. "When I turned my life over to the lord Jesus I was ashamed of having posed in the nude," she said. "But now, most of the money I've got is because I posed in the nude. So I'm not ashamed of it now. But I still don't understand it."

She spent most of her final years in a one-bedroom apartment, reading the Bible, listening to Christian and country tunes, watching westerns on television, catching up on diet and exercise regimens or sometimes perusing secondhand clothing stores.

Occasionally, however, Page was persuaded to visit the Sunset Boulevard penthouse offices of her agents at CMG Worldwide to autograph pinups of herself in the post-World War II years of her prime. The agency controls her image and those of Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana, among others.

During one such event in early 2006, Page needed about 10 minutes to get through the 10 letters of her name. As she pushed her pen over a portrait of her in a negligee with an ecstatic smile, she laughed and said, "My land! Is that supposed to be me? I was never that pretty."

She is survived by her brother Jack Page of Nashville and sister Joyce Wallace of Blairsville, Ga.

Sahagun is a Times staff writer.

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Copyright © 2008, The Los Angeles Times

Issuers Increasing Internal Collections Efforts

2008-12-08T14:24:00.001-06:00

The price credit card issuers sell bad debt for has fallen by more than 50% in the past 18 months down to around $0.07 for newly charged off debt. The huge decrease in revenue that card issuers can reap by selling bad debt has caused many issuers to sell less bad debt and increase their internal collections efforts. "A lot of the banks have put a lot of resources on maximizing their own collections," said Sameer Gokhale, from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. Once the decision has been made to not sell the bad debt, credit card issuers must then decide which method of collections they will pursue. Over the past three years there has been a wholesale move among large credit card issuers to use the Internet to interact with debtors, allowing debtors to pay their balance, set up a payment plan or conduct any other transaction that they could accomplish with a collector over the phone.
Source: American Banker, November 10, 2008

'Ralphies,' leg lamp fans keep film thriving

2008-12-08T13:33:00.001-06:00

(CNN) -- Of all the holiday films to depict the giddy anticipation of Christmas, only one has inspired a cable marathon, a booming leg lamp industry and fans who dress up in pink bunny suits.
It has been 25 years since "A Christmas Story" arrived in movie theaters and soon vanished from the big screen and people's minds.
Reviews of the film were mixed at the time, with a critic for The New York Times calling the cast "less funny than actors in a television situation comedy that one has chosen to watch with the sound turned off."
But you're triple-dog-dared to say that today to the fans who tune in to its regular holiday showings -- including an annual 24-hour marathon on Christmas Day -- and who have transformed a small house in Cleveland, Ohio, into a tourist attraction simply because it was featured in the movie.
(The film's airings, including the annual marathon, are on TNT and TBS. Those networks, like CNN, are a unit of Time Warner.)
"It's a film where almost every actor seems like they're born to the role," said Brian Jones, a fan and the owner of A Christmas Story House and Museum, which sees more than 30,000 visitors a year.
Jones bought the home for $150,000 on eBay in 2005, but he was already making a living selling leg lamps -- replicas of the hilariously tacky "major award" one of the characters wins in the movie, complete with an illuminated base that looks like a woman's leg in a fishnet stocking and a lampshade that looks like a short skirt. See why Jones went from the Navy to selling leg lamps »
He now sells 10,000 lamps a year to fans like Rose Davis of Ashtabula, Ohio, who was one of the first people to visit the house when it opened and who has attended an annual convention devoted to the movie three times.
Davis, 68, still remembers the first time she saw the film with her family when it came out in 1983.
"We just sat in the back row of that theater and roared with laughter. We were even missing some of the punchlines," Davis said. "It was a disappointment that it wasn't a hit at that time. But then it took video and television to really make it so popular."
The Thanksgiving weekend convention in Cleveland attracted more than 4,000 people, including Davis.
Fans took part in a character look-a-like contest, met some of the original cast members and screened documentaries about the movie's director and the making of the film.
The idea for the gathering came naturally, Jones said.
"They have 'Star Trek' conventions, 'Star Wars' conventions, why not have 'A Christmas Story' convention?" he said. See photos of the look-a-like contest and the cast members as adults »
Famous tongue
If "Star Trek" has Trekkies, "A Christmas Story" has Ralphies, named after the hero of the movie: Ralphie Parker, a 9-year old boy growing up in 1940s Indiana. He's on a mission to convince his parents, a cranky department store Santa and anyone who will listen that a BB gun is the perfect gift for Christmas.
"You'll shoot your eye out," everyone replies, to his exasperation.
Along the way, viewers meet Ralphie's colorful family, friends, classmates and tormentors, who fill the nostalgic landscape with lots of humor and childhood angst. The film was based on the stories of radio host and writer Jean Shepherd, who drew from his own childhood in Hammond, Indiana.
"It transcends generations. It doesn't matter if you're 5 or you're 85, you always remember that one particular holiday... when you wanted that one particular gift," said Scott Schwartz, who played Ralphie's friend Flick in the film. iReport.com: Are you a "Christmas Story" fan?
Schwartz was 14 when he was cast in the movie, appearing in one of its most famous scenes: Flick's tongue freezes to a metal pole when he touches it on a dare.
"It's very funny to have the world's second most-famous tongue: [KISS frontman] Gene Simmons and me," Schwartz said.
Filming the scene was actually much less excruciating than it looked. The pole was made of plastic with a suction tube inside and a little opening for his tongue, Schwartz said. When he touched it, the vacuum effect made it look like he was stuck.
"It was an absolutely painless experience other than the bitter, bitter cold," Schwartz recalled.
Cable hit
Schwartz still keeps in touch with Peter Billingsley, who played Ralphie and continues a career in show business. Billingsley, 37, most recently produced the Vince Vaughn-Reese Witherspoon comedy, "Four Christmases" and had a cameo in the film.
Billingsley said he doesn't mind that he's most famous for a role he played as an adorable, chubby-cheeked, wide-eyed little boy.
"It's nice to be known for a pretty great movie," he told The San Francisco Chronicle earlier this year. "I'm certainly proud of it, and I'm finally at the point where I can watch it and appreciate it."
The movie has been a hit on cable television. TNT began airing a 24-hour marathon on Christmas Eve in 1997. The all-day fest moved to TBS in 2004. More than 47 million people watched at least part of the marathon last year.
If the marathon isn't enough, there are countless "A Christmas Story" plays staged across the country. A stage musical based on the movie is in the works.
It's all amazing and gratifying for the original cast.
"It's a phenomenon to some degree and part of Americana," Schwartz said. "People go out of their ways to do things for us simply because we brought them so much joy for so many years. It's a nice feeling."

Memorable quotes
• "I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"

• "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

• "Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian."

• "In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."

• "Only one thing in the world could've dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window."

• "Now it was serious. A double-dog-dare. What else was there but a 'triple dare ya?' And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare."

• "Scut Farkus! What a rotten name! There he stood, between us and the alley. Scut Farkus staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! So, help me, God! Yellow eyes!"

• "He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny."
"He does not!"
"He does, too, he looks like a pink nightmare!"

Episcopal Diocese of L.A. officially condones the blessing of gay unions

2008-12-08T11:19:00.001-06:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-episcopal8-2008dec08,0,7657390.story

From the Los Angeles Times

Though many churches in Southern California have been doing so for years, Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno endorses the rite as policy. It's not mandatory -- clergy may choose not to perform the practice.
By Jessica Garrison

December 8, 2008

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has announced that church leaders can bless the unions of same-sex couples as a matter of policy.

The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, whose diocese encompasses Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties, made the announcement Friday during a diocesan convention in Riverside.

Bruno acted just days after hundreds of conservative Episcopal congregations in North America formed a breakaway church amid a rift that began with the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire five years ago.

Bruno's declaration is not expected to have a major effect on Episcopal churches in Southern California. Many have been blessing gay unions for years. But he has now made it official.

"The practice has not changed. The policy has. . . . It's sort of like 'coming out,' " said the Rev. Susan Russell, a lesbian priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Russell also is president of Integrity USA, a group representing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the Episcopal Church.

The rite endorsed by Bruno also allows the blessing of other relationships, such as those between two senior citizens who do not wish to legally marry because they might lose health insurance or Social Security benefits.

Church officials also noted that, unlike communion, the rite is not mandatory. Clergy may choose not to perform it.

Diocese representatives also passed a resolution at their convention calling on the Episcopal Church to let gays and lesbians become bishops.

The L.A. diocese is expected to elect two suffragan, or assisting, bishops in 2010, and some say it is possible a gay or lesbian bishop could be nominated from among qualified candidates around the world.