Her name was Karen, and I worked with her at an investment bank in the late 90s. She went on to become a nurse, I think, and before she moved on she left glued to my head her favorite saying, "You white people and your dogs!"
She didn’t so much say it as laugh it, always dragging out the dooooooggggg to emphasize just how strange she sometimes found pasty people to be. I was sitting on a Central Park bench, huddled against the cold with The New York Times in my gloved hands, warily keeping half an eye on the dog across the walkway (more dinosaur than dog) as it strained against its leash at each passerby in turn.
Clutching the non-dog end of that leash was a waif-like blonde girl, and safe to say she was far outweighed by her beast. I was mentally rebuking her for not buying a bit smaller version of animal, something of a more reasonable (to her) size (like a poodle) and with every barely restrained lunge of her uber-dog my mind sneered, "You white people and your dooooooggggggssss!!!"
The other half of my eye was reading The New York Times, that venerable gray lady helping me make sense of the world, and as a sense of it all sank in I became far less negative to the thought of the dogosaur across the walkway breaking free and ripping out my throat. It’s not just that The Times easily misses six million starving Ukrainians yet can spot non-existent WMDs while Judith Miller embeds into Iraq and morphs into Bush the Second’s literary Leni Riefenstahl, that's all bad enough, but now it seems the rot has filtered down to the benchwarmers. I used to be a daily reader – no more.
Even page A1-lister David Streitfeld, penning A Battered City Fears the End Of Housing Aid right off the bat declares that any drop off in that city’s (Elkhart, Indiana) subsidized housing market if and when taxpayer funds are withdrawn will be a damning indictment of "the market", for if prices drop and it’s no longer "a breeze to get approved" on your home loan, there’s our answer regarding if "the market can function on its own".
"People here are pretty sure the answer will be no" he forecasts, and I can guarantee you that under his parameters the answer "will be no". By subsidizing anything with Other Peoples’ Money, be it hookers, hooch, or housing, you will artificially elevate price and volume, and the federal politicians have been subsidizing Elkhart, Indiana’s housing market for some time now, all because Obama happened to pick it out of a hat for a personal promise during his presidential campaign.
So now, Other Peoples’ Money is being shoveled in at an ever more ferocious rate. Since late 2008 the FHA has increased loan volume in Elkhart by 40%, all in the face of falling real estate prices and as their own default rates rose by 174%. It is not so much the madness of such a policy in action that horrifies, but the mindset that lay behind it.
Undoubtedly, housing prices in Elkhart will fall and marginal owners and prospective buyers will have to face life on terms far different once Other Peoples’ Money is no longer shoveled down their maw. That is how the market needs to work sometimes; it’s not only a one-way trip. When mistakes have been made, and Elkhart, Indiana’s housing market had mistakes aplenty, people, unfettered and unsubsidized, need to find a new equilibrium.
Only when they fly from the nest Obama put them in will the good people of Elkhart know what their homes are truly worth, and they can begin to finally sort things out and get back on with their lives. There is neither economic logic nor economic justice behind what is going on in Elkhart, Indiana. The free market, like all of life, isn’t always a downhill stroll.
The volume of passerby has slacked off, my guess is in fear of the straining dogosaur Will O’ the Wisp (my new nickname for her) is struggling with from her park bench perch. Twice I see a strolling couple pull a 180 and walk back towards the Woolman Rink. Better to go the long way. So now the dog is starting to focus more on me. Sitting still and ignoring him seems the best course, but it’s a struggle against the urge to flight.
Speaking of struggle, Helene Cooper’s page A10 salvo 2 Vice Presidents, 3 Programs, Little Agreement tries to breath life into a brainless tit for tat between two long-term power junkies Joe Biden and Dick Cheney. In the very first paragraph she plays up the back and forth between the waxy cheeked geriatrics by using the words "engaged", "war", and "dueling", cause even when wearing Depends neo-cons are tough. That the spine-tingling, savage howling of these blood-thirsty wolves is granted a respectable run down in my beloved Times makes one weep for our future, none more so than Iran’s.
Biden is very worried over "the abuse of the civil liberties and civil rights of the people of Iran", and while that's very kind of him judging by the abuse of the civil liberties and the civil rights of the people of America, may I respectfully suggest his eyes are off the ball. Meanwhile, his predecessor in office Dick Cheney defends water boarding – unless performed on American troops, no doubt, as he’s a patriot.
Meanwhile in our War of Terror, while the Federalist Papers were rather clear that war-making power resides within the Legislative Branch, rising Republican Sarah Palin – already a lock for the milf voting bloc – hammers down the neo-con endorsement by waxing Machiavellian on the political benefits Obama can garner for himself by invading Iran.
Dick Cheney, maybe aghast of what he and his fellows have sown, played moderate and intoned "I don’t think a president can make a judgment like that on the basis of politics". Actually, neither Pom-Poms nor Darth Cheney give any hint that the Constitution grants no power at all in the matter of war to the president in the first place, but I’m old fashioned like that.
As if on cue, the dogosaur lunges towards me, but Will O’ the Wisp wins that battle and I am safe. The animal might have seen the bold letters CHENEY on the page I’m reading, and he seems driven mad with fear. All animals can sense a predator, so I quickly turn the pages to the society section for cover – the pictures of blank faced aristocracy clutching their beloved French poodles might sooth the savage beast.
I find the perfect one: Lady Fullbroke just yesterday married her fourth cousin, Duke Edwards of Summerdowns. That the opulent wedding took place in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth is only natural as God loves rich people best, and so goes without saying. The sterling whiteness of Mrs. Fullbroke’s wedding gown was matched perfectly to the coat of her beloved French poodle, Mimi, who remained clutched in her arms throughout the entire ceremony.
Now safely ensconced behind Mimi I mentally sneer "You white people and your dooooooggggggssss!!!" at Will O’ Wisp. I flip away from Biden and Cheney emptying their colostomy bags on each other, and the dogosaur whimpers and collapses into a heap at the girl’s feet, panting.
Moving on, the editorial board of The New York Times, always on the trendy edge of the abortion debate, applauds a recent move by the US military to provide "morning-after emergency contraception" to our girls serving in bases "around the world". The sun never set on the British Empire, and always daylight shines upon our brave American men and women copulating under the empire’s vast canopy. No need to add unwanted pregnancy onto the burden our soldiers already labor under.
Will O’ the Wisp and her dog have disappeared. I had failed to notice their departure, in the same manner that the Times editorial board to note the ghoulish, overriding benefit to the war machine that morning after pills bring. If our female warriors are swollen with child they can’t long remain in a combat zone (child soldiers being a public relations nightmare) and the US military is a bit short-handed these days.
What will posterity say of all this?
I’d had enough for the day of making sense of it all and the crazy had begun to infect me: I felt an odd nostalgia for the dog. Between listening to ancient, discredited grandfathers who can’t die soon enough to dogosaurs lunging at morning after pills, I grabbed onto the cold as a ready made excuse to head to warmer climes, like the Subway Inn at Lexington and 60th.
A classic among classics for the dive bar aficionado, it has the benefit of few restrictions on behavior but one – no dogs allowed.