Monthly Archives: April 2006

More Gore

I’d like to see this theme expanded to other topics and adopted as a rallying point for progressives:

Any force that tries to make you feel shame for being who you are, and loving who you love, is a form of tyranny over your mind. And it must be rejected, resisted, and defeated.

— Al Gore, speaking at the Human Rights Campaign Gala on March 25, 2006, at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Tyrrany over the mind…says it perfectly to me.

(Via John, via Pandagon.)

The State of Homedebtorship in America

Wow:

  • Nearly one in 10 households with a mortgage had zero or negative equity in their homes as of September 2005, according to First American Real Estate Solutions, an arm of title-insurance company First American Corp. The study of 26 million homes in 36 states and the District of Columbia found that one in 20 home borrowers was upside-down by 10% or more.
  • The situation is even grimmer for recent borrowers. Of those who bought or refinanced homes in 2005, 29% had zero or negative equity, and 15.2% were underwater by 10% or more.

I’ve for some time been a housing bear, but these numbers are worse than I’d have predicted. And this was at the peak of the market!

Gore 2.0

This American Prospect cover story by my favorite blogger—and now full-fledged journalist&mdashEzra Klein give me some great hope for the future. A number of things are coming together lately to make me feel like we’ve passed a point of inflection, that we’re beyond the nadir of this—in too many ways—crappy decade. I have to hope that we’re at the start of a new enlightenment.