MIKEWEEK

06 Septmeber 08/Bulletin 202
Quote of the Month: “I must admit feeling a bit guilty about this.”

New Orleans Dodges Bullet: The Bulletin was glad to hear from many New Orleans friends who made the wise choice not to stick around to meet “Gustav” in person. Even better news was that the G-named Hurricane turned and landed west of the city, packing lighter winds than had been forecast.

Perhaps no evacuee had it quite as good as the “Dabs” aka Bob Dabney who uttered this month’s quote from the safety of dad’s seats at the US Tennis Center. Not only did Bob get to flee directly to the US Open and the delights of Serena Williams blasting an opponent off the court, but his guilt pangs were made all the worse when American Airlines upgraded him to first class on the flight out of New Orleans.

The Dabs and I and our pal Lisa enjoyed the evenings matches and we could not help but make note that some folks simply know how to flee better than others

Culture Watch: If my partner Vincent were not an economist, he would likely be singing for his supper. Dad, Karlene, V & I took in the new production of “Hair” ….under the stars, in Central Park…V has been belting out “Good Morning Sunshine,” pretty much night and day.

While Hair is stamped all over with phrases and symbols from the 60’s, the play still delivers a powerful message while it delivers one intelligent, memorable tune after another.

I first saw Hair in the 10th grade, with the Viet Nam War in the last stages of quagmire and a wrong number in the draft card lottery was still a likely ticket to the killing fields.

The producer introduced this production with a live remarks explaining that those little cards they are burning at the end of Act One “are draft cards.” It seems undeniable that this country drifted back to war and was able to stay there for almost five years with so little protest, largely because the draft no longer threatens the country at large.

Lou Dobbs Almost Comes Knocking: Less than 24 hours before Vincent was to start his job at a major accounting firm, he got a letter from a law firm (seldom good news) advising him that his visa request had been denied (really not good news) GULP…what now, we wondered?

Thankfully, Vincent had offered to start his job early, and the company liked him so much, that they allowed him to continue working under his existing visa. They will try to get him the new work visa again next year. Since V now has a Mater’s Degree his odds of approval are much better next time—as the U.S. sets aside 20-thousand so called H1B visas for people with advanced degrees.

If that Visa request fails, the backup plan would be to work for the same company in England, which we both think would be quite an adventure. Still, it all seems quite silly. Vincent got his BS and his Masters from Fordham-he had scholarships for much of his education and he is trained in Economics and Math- the very skills this country badly needs. How stupid, if this country can’t benefit from people educated in this country.

Uncle Duties: Yes, the time between Bulletins has stretched to incredible lengths, so much so that we can report that Vincent’s niece Chloe just celebrated her first birthday and my Nephew Benjamin will celebrate his on October 7th! Vincent’s sister Mae and her fiancé Jon purchased a condo from the same developer, just two blocks from our place, so Vincent and I get plenty of time for Uncle duties.

We are both looking forward to our second chance to say hello to Ben at the first ever Longman Christmas in Vermont at Matty and Nicolle’s.

New York Print Debut: In the late 90’s I meet an up and coming investigate reporter at an Investigative Reporter’s and Editor’s Conference. As I recall, I had an expense account and he did not, so I bought us a meal and we traded war stories. Flash forward to the New Orleans Magazine article I wrote from Band Camp which included my mailing address at Butner. The up and coming reporter (who was by now working for the Village Voice) wished me well and suggested he would repay that lunch upon my release. The reporter left the Voice in the middle of one of many management shakeups and became the investigative editor of an urban policy magazine. This spring he convinced his editor that they should take an in depth look at efforts to rebuilt New Orleans and he suggested that my knowledge of the city in question might come in handy. Many of you have already gotten the link to this article, but for those who did not; please follow this link to read my first work in print in the Big Apple.
http://www.citylimits.org/neworleans/

House Warming: Our new place is bigger than the old one, but still only fits about ten, so we had a small gathering for the housewarming. More photos of the digs coming soon.

Bulletin 201 "The Big Move"

MIKEWEEK
4 June 08/Bulletin 2008
Quote of the Month: “Oh I see, Mike and Vincent…both mens!”

The Big Move: I know we must have set the land speed record for a real estate purchase in the Empire State.

Come the first of May, I let our old landlord know that I was “petty sure” we would be moving out at the end of the month, but couldn’t be sure because we did not even have a closing date yet…let alone financing.
My landlord was an Italian guy named Tony, who owns about 6 buildings in New York. Tony said, “Those condo conversions are crazy. Thanks for letting me know…and keep me updated.”

I did get financing approved several months back, but it took the state a little longer than expected to approve the change over to the condo. And, wouldn’t you know it: but it was during those very months that the United Stated home mortgage industry chose to dive into major meltdown.

Luckily, Vincent and I had turned to a mortgage broker by the name of Glenda. She hails from England and has nerves of steel. “Michael” she would say, “let me do the worrying, don’t you worry about a thing.”

Easy advice to give, but hard to take; especially considering the fact that the ten percent that I had already put down on the condo, could end up being forfeited, should I not be able to obtain financing for the entire deal. That is how it works, with these condo conversions. What…me worry?

Countrywide…rides to the rescue: I would have laughed harder when Glenda called with the good news, that there was one bank in America still writing so called “non income verification loans.” That’s the sort we needed to qualify for this purchase, because Vincent’s future income at Ernst and Young could not be counted at the time we closed.

Relieved we were that Countrywide (now owned by Bank of America) still was willing to loan based on such metrics and snatch that option we did, at a remarkably fair 6.35%, 30 years fixed rate.

Ah, but wait. The story gets more interesting, because even Countrywide decided to bail on this

particular method about a week after they gave us the approval. Still, thanks to our broker, they made good on our deal. We are given to understand that we got one of the final ten or twelve such loans that Countrywide ever issued of this sort.

The rest was an Amazing race to the finish…After getting financing approved in the second week of May it turned out the sellers were still willing to close the very next week. We dashed down to the law offices of one of Dad’s former Yale Classmates (the Pryor) of Pryor and Cashman for the closing and signed all the papers.

The signing happened at 1pm, we got the keys at 2:15 and by 4pm we were already starting to move stuff in.

The place is even better than we imagined it: The condo sits on the 5th floor of a 6 story pre-war building with 35 other units. As fate would have it the fifth floor will be all owners but for one kind older black woman named Ms. Williams.

Vincent and I were the very first condo owners to move in, and our agent suggested we knock Ms. William’s door. She is a renter and it turns out, a shut.

She came to the door with a big smile. “I am so relieved to have somebody else moving in and living on the same floor” she told us. We traded small talk and as we said goodbye she looked us each up and down, smiled and then uttered the quote of the month.

June arrived and We have gotten the cardboard box count down to under a dozen and will take some pictures soon. We get wonderful morning light from the kitchen and bathroom windows which face north. Then the sun travels in the afternoon and evenings… to the living room and bedroom which face south. That also means we get something we did not have in the last studio, and many New York City dwellers only ever get to imagine…cross ventilation. Amazing!

The neighborhood is called Hamilton Heights: And, it is a work in progress. Columbia University is migrating slowly up our way, with new buildings slated to takeover abandoned properties in a run down area that sites halfway between us and the university. Above is another neighborhood, Inwood which has gone through major improvement.

Our neighborhood is largely Dominican and Jamaican and Vincent’s research tells us that he is not the only Asian moving here—they are the fasted growing ethnic group in our zip code. For now, I guess you could say I am from the local minority group.

People have been outgoing and friendly, and we have already found more than a few steals at neighborhood restaurants. A Cuban sandwich with a cup of deep rich café con leche can be had for five dollars.

Riverside Drive is a big reason we moved here. It is a wonderful Avenue with wide sidewalks, lots of trees and many places to sit and enjoy New York. Other motivation came from the fact out rent at the studio finally got so high that it was crazy not to buy.

And finally, there is Riverbank State Park, which local’s call the “secret park” because so few New Yorkers even know it exists. It boasts everything from a skating rink to a full track, but our main use will likely be the four tennis courts, which are lighted every night until 11pm.

More to follow, but I figured it was high time I got a bulletin out and shared the good news about the new place and our new “hood.”

Clinton's Not So Big Win: Primary Math for Democrats

Dick Morris will never make Keith Oberman's list of Best Person's in the World (and may have made the Worse, Worst, or Worser) but he did get the math right!

After all the boxing, horse racing and yes even tennis examples; the scrore is Hillary with a ten percentage point win, but minus the ten percentage points she needed to catch Obama.

The bottom line has been clear for all to see: Obama WILL win 1) twice as many states 2) the most delegates 3) the popular vote.

Hillary's last gasp is the super delegates. She has given them the new name, AUTOMATIC, but I doubt they will turn out to follow her argument like robots.

Hillary's bet is that they will hunker down, out of fear BECAUSE OBAMA MIGHT NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES and instead give the nomination to her: the candidate who could not win by any of the three standard measures.

Like Morris, I think even the Democrats are wiser than that.

Just because one state that is populated by a large number of older people (who remember and some even rode in the covered wagon) went big for Hillary---and 10 points is Big, just not BIG Eough. That does not mean that is the way to go for this party. The future is the new blood, the independents (who could not vote in PA).

Hillary cannot change the math... and it is not Obama's job to find the Fat Lady--I guess Howard Dean will have to suffice.

Vacant Seats at Stop Loss and ABC's Vacuous Flag Pin Debate

It is by long training from my dad that on Saturday nights one heads to the movie early in Manhattan, so as not to end up on one of those front row seats on the far left or right of the theater. Alas, you could walk right into this Saturday night's screening of Kimberly Peirce's edgy, moving and necessary film Stop Loss and you could still get a seat seventh row center. I counted less than 25 fellow New Yorkers, and we all seemed to know we were doing a sort of civic duty by viewing a film focused on the controversial (read-unfair) backdoor draft during a far less controversial, and now widely repudiated war in Iraq.

Critics by and large liked and recommend this movie and largely got it right. The war scenes which were inspired by and edited to include actual video clips from our soldiers in Iraq have the desired effect of putting you instantly in confusion of urban combat, "where everybody has a gun" and you have NO WAY of knowing who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. Under different circumstances, our soldiers often faced similar problems of not knowing in Viet Nam and it was one of my primary concerns with putting our troops there in the first place--how can they fight a battle when they don't know the enemy from friendlies?

But I digress, it is all those empty seats. I come to film and debates about war as number 363 in the draft lottery in 1974 the year I graduated from High School, whenViet Nam was winding down. I went thorough my own strong internal debate as to whether I would serve in that war, but my high draft number and our withdrawal meant I never had to make my own decision on way of another.

I prepared for that decision the way most of my fellow teen males did, reading about the war, arguing about it and of course at the movies watching. I don't remember it became before or after my draft number, but movies like The Deer Hunter were standard fare and they may not have been blockbuster hits, but the did not suffer the same level of reality avoidance that Stop Loss appears to be suffering from now.

In the same way real life is edited into the final war tapestry of the movies fiction, so too is Stop Loss part Deer Hunter, part Thelma and Louise and yes with the edge of real life imperfections of her masterwork Boys Don't Cry.

I saw the film the week of ABC's Flag Pin, Bitter Debate and wonder if either of the moderators have been to this movie. Given Charles Gibson's tone deaf questions about college professor couples pulling down two hundred grand, one suspects he could use a solid does of this does of reality caught on film.

The film ends with a couple numbers, let me see if I can remember them right.
650 thousand Americans have served in Iraq and 80 thousand of those were stop loosed; which means they served there tour and were ordered back, or to stay longer by President Bush.
And in the recent surge....numbers have not yet been released as to how many of the soldiers Bush poured were in fact forced back in through stop loss.

Before you loos a lot of sleep over whether a candidate is patriotic enough to pin a flag replica on his lapel, I challenge you to test your own patriotism and take in this film. It is no Deer Hunter, not quite so stark or violent, but it is an effective telling of a tragedy that being largely shielded to the public by a combination of pentagon policy, an disinterested media and a public suffering from Iraq fatigue.

These are the young men and women who were pissed off enough by 9-11 that volunteered when the president said we need to strike back. And they fought for us, even after they got over there and figured out the people they were fighting were not the guys who hit us. Now, they are being shoveled again and again back into this fight, because of some fine print on the form they signed when they volunteered.

For those who feel it important to take the action of placing a pin upon their chest, or deem it necessary for a candidate to wear the flag-the next time you make that demand, or snap one I, I suggest you also take action concerning these volunteers being forced back into battle--at very least you could take the action of seeing the movie about their plight.

Moyers Comments in Full

Your humble bulletin reporter suggest you follow this link to read the full remarks from Bill Moyers at the National Press Club in Washington DC as reported by the Nation concerning his acceptance of this year's Ridenhour Courage Award.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/moyers

MIKEWEEK BULLETIN

17 April 2008/Bulletin 200
(Dobbs, Ridenhour, Moyers and Obama’s Teflon)

Quote of the Month “I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it…”

Latte Drinking UWS Liberal: I must confess that I have added Latte drinking to my long list of cardinal sins. But, that can’t be all bad, because my brother Matty admits he and his wife Nicolle indulge too (they even use the Latte frothier I got them for Christmas). In my continuing quest to stay hip and on the cutting edge, I have turned to latte drinking and drum roll please----posting the Bulleting on the World Wide Web.

For the Already computer savvy familiar with the techniques of say, late 1995—
Please click on the following link to read the rest of Bulletin 200 on line at:

http://mikeweek.blogspot.com/

Moyers Gets Ridenhour Courage Award: Three cheers to the Fertel Foundation and the Nation Institute for selecting Bill Moyers for this year’s top Ridenhour Award. In the spirit of full disclosure, which is just so in vogue that it seems like you can’t publish anything these days unless you have some hidden connection to the story that you can disclose to your fair readers.

Well…The Moyers family and I share a bond through our involvement with Hazelden, the fine substance abuse rehab where Bills’ son William and I both first got sober. So, as my pal Joe Walker would say, “there you have it.”
It was reporters like Bill Moyers who made CBS News, in its best years, the one network we all dreamed we would one day work for.

Because of the (above noted, disclosed) friendship, I learned firsthand that Moyers thoughtfulness is as genuine in real life, as it appears to be, when you watch his news work on the small screen.

When Bill learned that my mother was ailing and that she was a big fan of the PBS series he produced based on the book “Follow Your Bliss,” Bill wrote her a most wonderful letter that raised her spirits for many a week when times were quite tough, near the end.

I also knew Ron Ridenhour, the reporter who broke the news about the massacre at My Lai during the Viet Nam War. I knew Ron as a co-worker, a friend and as a fellow journalist who I often kidded with, but always looked up to (more disclosure done). Ron would be blushing to the max at the prospect of Bill Moyers being handed an award in his name; but it was a natural choice.

Moyers and Ridenhour shared a professional bond. Both maintained a lifelong hard and fast commitment to getting the facts out, even when stories were complex in nature, difficult to dig out as they were to tell, and both did not countenance bush league standards or wimpy editors. In fact, they required the same tough nosed types at the top to stand up for their work, and perhaps that is why there is so much less reporting of their caliber, especially in Bill’s medium Television, these days.

In accepting the Courage Award, Bill scoffed at the notion anyone should think of him as courageous. He said, “It wasn't courage I counted on; it was exhilaration and good luck.” Put simply Bill was just working hard at a profession he loved, and I like to think that’s how Ron would have put it, too.

Good Life on UWS Headed Uptown: I pen this from a sundrenched sidewalk café on Amsterdam Avenue. It’s one of those brilliant spring days when you feel like you can conquer most anything that comes along. There is plenty to be optimistic about.

Vincent and I are preparing for our big move to a more pioneering address along Riverside Drive where it intersects with 146th Street on the edge of West Harlem. (By the way, I tried sending the bulletin a different way last time, so not all readers learned that our first bid on a co-op did not go through at the first of the year).
We regrouped and decided to go the condo route and found this marvelous space which is larger, less expensive to buy and costs about half in monthly condo fees. It’s in a 6 story pre-war building and the condo has south facing windows on the 5th floor overlooking brown stones, and smaller north facing windows in kitchen and bath. The icing on the cake is that the place sits on the edge of a big state park with a skating rink and tennis courts; not bad for a first home in NYC.

This is a condo conversion, which means the state must OK it, but so far all looks good. And, those following the news know getting a home mortgage loan is a bit more tricky than usual these days. I have a sharp broker who says, “Mike, don’t lose any sleep, let me worry about it.” So keep your fingers crossed for us.

Lou Dobbs May Have to Brace Himself: Those of you who have met my partner Vincent already know that he hails from the Philippines. He will receive his Masters in Economics from Fordham in May and is slated to start work with Ernst and Young this summer pending approval of his work visa. Vincent is exactly the kind of candidate that should get through, if logic prevails. He has an advanced degree in a field where this country is wanting. Still, just as with the roiling waters of home mortgages there is a lot going on that is crazy right now in this country, so we anxiously await the work papers. Hope we don’t have to ask Lou for permission too.

The Debate Before PA: One thing that was fun about Butner (and there were a few things) was that the mail was so slow, that I would write a Bulletin about an issue that I saw on the tube and then it would be days before the New York Times arrived, where I would get to see what commentators like Dowd or Friedman were saying.

Sometimes, I would feel reassured that I still had a gut instinct for the news business, when one of them had picked up on a similar detail or line of thinking, that I had reported in my bulletin.

My take on Wednesday Night’s Debate is that it was basically a draw, although Obama spent a lot more time on the defensive than he would have liked.

My sense is that Obama has acquired the same coating of Teflon that Ronald Regan did all those years ago. (PA will be a major barometer to determine whether this is true, whether that is a fair state for the test or not).
While they are miles apart in thinking, Obama represents change just like the “Gipper” did, pure and simple. No matter how many knives they (or she) stick in him, my hunch is the change voters don’t care. They expect it, are sick of it, and will ignore it. We shall see.

I was glad to see Tim Russert and Gail Collins both picked the same Hilary baggage line that I selected for this month’s quote.

It is a line that most of the talking heads missed the night before! It’s also a sign that Obama was either super committed to taking the high road, or that he was wobbly from all the stab wounds, that he seemed to miss it too.
To me, that was Obama’s biggest missed opportunity in the debate. He should have followed up her admission of all that baggage pointing out that it comes in all sizes and shapes. Because, it is not that Clinton lacks the smarts, or ability that is causing her trouble, rather it is the fact that she seems to do things in such a “Clinton way.”

And, while I would be the first to argue that there was a heck of a lot that was very, very good for this country during the Clinton years; when it comes to the winning at all cost, divide the party by race if need be, cut your throat type of (Clinton) politics; sorry but that lost me along the way.

Perhaps it is just the last gasp of Bush fatigue, but truth to tell, I can live with any of the three contenders and am relieved that are all so capable.