danajohnhill.org

Overheard during lunch this afternoon at Wise’s Drugstore:

“I just think that cats are more demanding than dogs.”

Yeah, my demanding cat who I can leave for days at a time with no worries - what a burden! When she lies next to me and purrs contentedly, it’s such a hassle. And the other one that lives outside, who drinks from a fountain and takes care of her own kitty business, is so troublesome.

Look, I understand some people don’t like cats. But be reasonable. Dogs require a tremendous amount of care. Cats are, by and large, very low maintenance. If I wanted to, I could get the automatic litterbox–PoopBot, if you will–one of those water dishes with a screw-on two-liter bottle, tear open a bag of MeowMix, and leave Moggie for a month. As long a twister didn’t carry our house away, she’d be sitting quietly in the windowsill when we returned. To quote our neighbor, “Cats is where it’s at”.

I have to admit that Charlie Crist has surprised me. When he was running for governor, and his campaign portrayed him as a conservative Republican, and he won the endorsements of organizations I consider loathsome, I thought he’d be as bad as his predecessor. Almost immediately, however, he moved to require a verifiable paper ballot, opposed raising tuition, moved to reduce skyrocketing property taxes, and made some respectable, environmentally conscious proposals. I read the latest in today’s St. Pete Times.

This afternoon I posted numerous photographs of my old neighborhood north of campus, which is being swiftly razed by bulldozers, and rebuilt as high-density condominiums and apartments.  I am all for intelligent urban planning, and I don’t deny that much of the old “Student Ghetto” was run-down.  Nevertheless, it is sad to see some of these landmarks of Dana Heritage demolished.  So far, none of the structures in which I personally lived have been torn down, but several former homes of friends have, and more are pending.  In fact, this afternoon I noticed a sign for a soon-to-be-built apartment building on the site presently occupied by an old house where Dan and Steve lived for two years.

Check out the photos, and ponder the potential fate of much of this fair city.

I am constantly annoyed by news reports describing the crisis in the housing and loan industry wrought by “unqualified buyers”. The insinuation is that lower-income individuals, with poor- or little credit history, have ruined everything for everybody by not being able to make their mortgage payments. Exuberant lenders, the perceived wisdom goes, gave loans to people that didn’t earn enough to pay the money back.

To me this smacks of blaming the victim. The reason these people cannot make their mortgage payments isn’t that they had poor credit history, or didn’t earn enough. They cannot afford to make their mortgage payment because unscrupulous lenders trapped them in crippling adjustable-rate loans. Brokers and lenders, in search of bigger and bigger profits, targeted individuals desparate for the American Dream of home-ownership. These borrowers ought, of course, to have had attorneys present to represent their interests, though I doubt they suspected bad-faith on the part of the lenders.

Now that the inflated housing market has softened, I find it loathesome to see the blame for it all heaped on the shoulders of the very people who are now facing forclosure. Why doesn’t the mortgage industry–and the media–recognize this simple fact: if these “sub-prime” borrowers had been offered traditional 30-year loans, they’d still be making their payments, and everyone would be happy.