Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Housing Bill

I'm sure some of our more knowledgeable readers will have some commentary on the housing bill, but one thing that caught my eye:

...until Wednesday he had threatened to veto the bill over $3.9 billion in grants for local governments, a provision the White House regards as a giveaway.

Does Bush have a point here? What's that $3.9 billion actually for?  Megan is pissed about the whole thing, because it basically looks like Congress, and Bush, have no interest in looking at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on a fundamental level:

Instead of moving to put FM/FM into a more easily understood model--either nationalizing them, or privatising--they're making the GSEs even weirder, and of course, piling on more debt.

It's time for Congress to bite the bullet:  nationalize them, or take them private.  But keeping pet companies on a leash so that you can use them as a sort of housing market slush fund, while pretending that the liabilities you thereby create don't really affect the government, is the kind of thing one expects to see in a banana republic, not a free and prosperous nation.

The Wall Street Journal's reporting seems to cast doubt on the bill's centerpiece--giving banks an incentive to allow people in trouble to refinance:

The biggest boost for homeowners is a program that would allow the FHA to back the refinancing of as much as $300 billion in home loans for distressed borrowers. Under this plan, the lender or investor holding the mortgage would have to accept at least a 15% write-down in the value of the previous loan. The new mortgage would then receive federal backing.

But lenders wouldn't be required to participate, and many are likely to conclude that they are better off proceeding with a foreclosure or offering the borrower some other means of trying to catch up on payments. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the program would lead to 500,000 borrowers refinancing loans totaling $85 billion.

Thomas Lawler, a housing economist based in Leesburg, Va., said he expects the effect of that program to be minimal. "This is probably low on [lenders'] list of options" of how to work out overdue loans, he said.

Of course, as with many things, my perspective is informed by who I am. So I'd love to see some reporting on the most important vestige of slavery and Jim Crow--the wealth gap. My guess is that the news won't be good. 

Tom Shales says I should be watching "Black In America"

But I really don't think so. It's true I haven't seen a frame of it. But I just think that any major media company that tries to capture some 30 million people in a news special will simply fail. I know Shales likes it, but I have no faith that these guys can deal with something this nuanced.I simply can't sit back and watch these fools act like most black people are poor--when they are not--and try to sum us all up under episodes like "The Black Woman & Family" or "The Black Man." I take it as a bad sign that these guys basically got on the 2-3 train and took a 30-minute ride Uptown to go and do their reporting. Yes I know don't knock it until you try it. But today I'm violating.

The indelible soulfulness of Bob Barr

Now this is interesting. As a commenter mentioned, Bob Barr was accused of yelling racial slurs at a security guard a few years back. Usually those sorts of accusations will get you accused of being racist. But when you're in my cross-hairs and you've got the visage of Bob Barr, they get you accused of being black. It isn't just that accusation, it's also the fact that Barr apparently gets really pissed-off when people ask him that he's black. Who'd get mad about that? People in NY start speaking Spanish to me all the time, apparently thinking I'm Puerto-Rican. I wouldn't get pissed...unless....

I tell you a smell a conspiracy. It's really coincidental that Bob Barr will be taking votes from McCain, thus helping us elect a black man. Isn't that kinda funny?

I don't even completely agree with Nas...

...but this is cool. Just glad to see him standing for something. Obama is actually having an effect on hip-hop--just not the one that some of these fools thought he would. I still wish Nas had kept the original album title.

From the department of crime doesn't pay

As a guy who recently wrote a memoir, I can't tell you how depressing it is to see the genre basically become a magnet for liars--and then to see those liars rewarded with coverage in the New York Times. Call me conflicted, but just spell my name right. Perhaps the worst part is that memoirists who defraud their readers don't even get that much out of it. I mean, you may get book-level fame and book-level money, but dude, it's still book level. If you're going to defraud somebody do it the right way--go get an MBA, work on Wall Street and steal some real money.

Oh, that hurt. Sorry friends, I promise, no more fat-cat bashing.

Nerd Nirvana pt. 2: Dungeons & Dragons as a parenting tool

OK, so the unitiated need to stop reading right now. In the words of Jigga, it's about to get real ugly in here. Anyway, that Margaret Weis note got me to thinking. I recently ordered copies of the old first edition Player's Handbook, the Manual of the Planes and the Deities and Demigods book. I need them for a project I'm working on, but I also wanted them as sort of archives of another time, and as a reminder to myself not to let the daily grind of adulthood kill what the best thing I had going as a child and probably have going as an adult--imagination and curiosity.

But more to the point, after the order, I got to thinking--What would it be like to try D&D today as a full-grown adult? Me and my buddy Ed Park (who does a mean version of She and Him's "Sentimental Heart") were talking about this awhile back, and I think the conclusion we reached was that it almost certainly wouldn't have the same pop. That said, I'm seriously considering teaching my 8-year old son to play (I was seven going on eight when I started) because I don't want his idea of games and gaming to be limited to things that don't require abstraction. There is something to said for having to imagine what that Sword of Vorpral Wounding looks like, or how it would feel to face a White Dragon. My question for the Nerds among us is, Have any of you guys tried D&D as adult? Did you just put away the polyhedral dice and say forget it? Do you ever get the hankering to go rooting through the Caves of Chaos?

The Edwards "love-child" story

Jack Shafer smells a double-standard. Me, not so much. Shafer compares Edwards to Larry Craig, and correctly notes that Craig was not simply suspected of having sex with a man, he was actually charged with a crime. But Shafer still sees a double-standard. It seems to me that the crime--even more than Craig's hypocrisy--is key. I don't much care if John Edwards is having an affair. Who knows what arrangement he has--or doesn't have- with his wife? I do care if my public servants are breaking the law.

A counter to David Brooks and debt

Megan speaks on the debt crisis. I especially like the historical perspective.

Bob Barr--Negro

Group News Blog makes a point that us politically-aware Negroes have been thinking for some time, though not around white folk. But this is the age of Obama so here it goes--Folks, there's something vaguely familiar about Bob Barr:

You see, Bob Barr has long been the butt of many jokes in my family since the ugly winter of 1998. He was such a annoying, little pit bull against Clinton, you just wanted to smack him...but...

There was something odd about him. Something that was “off”.

Media people have noted that “offness” of late, but I will tell you that this has been long discussed in other more insular circles.

Bob Barr, um...well...as my mother said it “Looks a little 'funny' 'round the mouth...

Dig the lips, folks...That ain't collagen...that's collards and Coltrane.

Funny-ass hair texture too—particularly on the 'stache. “Rev. Al's shit is straighter than Barr's is.” one friend loves to note frequently.

The first time I saw Bob Barr, during his Bill Clinton-pursuing heyday, I thought to myself, "I didn't know there were was another black Republican in the House besides J.C. Watts." I have of course since been corrected, but I have to say, there really is some Anatole Broyard/Nella Larsen/Jessie Fauset business going on with this cat.

Great moments in blog commentary

Courtesy of H&R, a commenter over there responds to the convoluted lines of attack Republicans have used against Obama

I don't think "dork" and "charismatic godhead" descriptions can exist side by side.

He's one of those awkward dorks who fills football stadiums.

He's one of those gaffe machines who can spellbind the populace with his rhetoric.

He's one of those devoted leftists who has no discernable political philosophy.

He's flip-flopped on Iraq, while stubbornly refusing to change his position.

He has a relentlessly negative message of hope.

Are all of the smart Republican message gurus sitting this election out?