Politics and Hurricanes/Halloween, 2012

            Yep, Sandy raised a little hell on our mountaintop: winds howled around the house, rain fell, trees went down, power went out. It was quite a spectacle, as any great storm is in the mountains, but nowhere close to Irene. Less damage but still damage.  People lost their homes. People died. But the river didn’t jump its banks, and the bridge over it remained intact. It wasn’t Irene, but the response of the people who live here was much the same. Once the rain and wind stopped folks came out of their houses looking to see what they could do to help. Repair trucks from the phone company and the electric company arrived almost immediately. Highway crews had been out there throughout the storm. Clear, calm voices manned help lines. The 17^th century divine and poet, John Dunne, wrote, “No man is an island. No man stands alone.” As I watched the mountaintop begin to recover those words came to mind. We were all in this together. Every man and woman out there – union people, most of them – exemplified what I was taught as a boy: Americans get the job done. The fallacy of the self-made billionaire lies in the illusion that he is an enlightened individual who goes it alone, some kind of wizard worthy of our reverence. He’s in his house now while thousands of skilled workers hustle to get his power back on. Police keep order on his street. During Irene, the National Guard and state police were out as well. Crews clear obstacles from his roads. Paramedics pick up the sick and elderly. Hospitals take them in. Nobody does it on their own, not the Koch brothers, not Sheldon Adelson, not Mitt Romney. I trace the cult of the American CEO back to when Lee Iacocca first appeared in a television ad commanding us to, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” Talk about swagger. “Follow me and don’t ask questions. Follow me because I have all the answers, and you don’t have even one.” As the years went on one CEO after another began starring in their own commercials, adding to their personal myths as super mensch. Even as disreputable and biased an organization as Fox News can’t give us a single picture of one billionaire packing sandbags. There’s been no news of either of the Koch brothers bringing needed supplies for the epicenter. No help from Sheldon Adelson, either, whose face could be mistaken for a ghoul’s mask on Halloween. The strength of our nation is its middle class that fights our wars, puts the wounded back together, fixes our highways, works in hospitals, teaches our children, cleans up after natural disasters. The middle class made us the strongest nation in the world after they won WW2, and I will bellow and scream against the plutocracy for as long as I’m on this earth. I’m not discounting the singular skill of being able to amass huge amounts of money. Certainly, it is not a skill I have, but just because an individual amasses wealth does not qualify that individual to govern. Business/Government – two different ball games. Wealth does not automatically make one a patriot, either. Patriots don’t send jobs to other countries. Patriot’s would not do business with enemy countries. Patriot’s don’t regard rapes as divine justice. Patriots don’t lie us into wars and send our young men to fight and die in them without proper equipment. Patriots fight for the rights of us all. Patriots don’t turn dogs on citizens or keep them from voting. Patriots support free thought and equal opportunity, and I’ll be damned if I’ll willingly let casino owners determine what I can do and the direction my country takes. Even though I was in the Marine Corps as a kid (not a hero just a glorified grunt), I never thought of myself as a patriot. I never thought I wasn’t. I simply didn’t think of it at all. Now, I do. After years of hearing that word bandied about by people who wouldn’t know the Constitution from a Cabela’s catalogue, maybe I am one of those things: a patriot after all. It’s not for me to say. But, I tell you this: I hold dearly having been raised as an American kid. For that reason maybe I have become a patriot. I want my grandchildren to experience the majesty of this nation as I have.

Semper Fi.

October 19, 2012 Spruceton

      

          This time of year things, creatures, have a way of coming inside. Our friend up the valley, Emmy Fiesinger, had a weasel in her living room. The Butlers across the creek had a bear stick its nose through the kitchen door (literally through the door). My friend, Maureen from Woodstock, found a fisher in her trailer. I actually had a mouse in my office that would climb on my desk, sit on a paperweight, and watch me work at my computer. It was quite cute, round and tiny as a ping-pong ball with a shiny black nose like a little bean. It came to visit a few days running, but it disappeared the instant my new daughter-in-law brought her cat to the house. We’ve also from time to time been invaded  (or “visited” if you share PETA’S point of view) by bats, raccoons, skunks, red squirrels, and snakes. The only solution for an invasion of  red squirrels comes in twelve gauge. The little bastards get shot on sight. They are tiny, wily, and fast, very hard to hit, and, I’m sorry, folks, very satisfying when you do. This takes place outside, of course. If you had them in your house you’d know why: they eat everything in sight – plants, chopsticks, plastic picnic forks, bars of soap, bags of noodles, incense sticks, toilet paper, the rubber lining of the refrigerator et al – and they defecate every fifth step so dots of crap are all over the place like tiny, vile ball bearings. Bats, however, are treated with care, caught with a fishing net and released outside; raccoons get shooed away; and snakes in the basement are left there to eat the mice. I must admit I mourned the loss of my little friend, but not for long. I’m not that far gone. Still, if you live in the country, as far as critters are concerned, it’s “Mi casa, su casa”, and there’s no getting upset about it. If you can’t get used to it, get a condo in town.

            Mostly, of course, this kind of stuff only happens occasionally. Mostly, the creatures stay outside where they’re supposed to stay. We have a huge back window that looks north up Evergreen Mountain. We see lots of life out there that has no idea it’s being watched. I’ve seen a deer on its hind legs trying to climb an apple tree to get at fruit on a limb above its head. I’ve seen our bear on a casual stroll. I’ve seen a coyote stalk and rush a gray squirrel, and I’ve seen the squirrel get away. I don’t think its feet touched the ground for ten yards. The squirrel leaped. The coyote jumped. His jaws clacked down on empty. The squirrel commenced to scream furiously at him from the top of a maple tree. I applauded. One winter a covey of grouse camped out under a spruce tree in the back. It was the same winter I saw the wolf. Damn straight. A wolf! I gaped with astonishment as it crossed towards a stand of Norwegian spruce, passed through, and sat howling on the other side. Big-headed, gray, long, with a thick, bushy tail. A wolf! It had snowed earlier and the fallen snow preserved his prints for days. The forest service said it probably came down from Canada. Mink, fox, lynx and bobcats are out there, too, if you’re lucky enough to see them. It’s opportunistic. If you’re out there and happen to glance in the right direction at the exact right time you might spot a piece of something. When I’m out there my head and eyes are on automatic pilot, side to side, up and down. Don’t think bobble head doll. These movements are subtle. Still, there are no guarantees. Maybe you’ll see something. Maybe you won’t, but what you know for certain is that they are out there, and they are watching you.

        

Fall 9/22/12 Spruceton

It's official. It's Fall. I got my first whiff of it back in mid-August. The air that morning was different than the day before, sly but there, a thing sensed. The first leaf fell on September 1st from a crab apple outside my office window, and now the ground is so covered with leaves it looks like a Hudson Valley quilt. There are millions more to fall in the next few weeks, but  the mountains are just coming into real color, not yet peak but puffs of it. The song birds have flown, and the blue jays are back with their thuggish ways and grating shrieks. Transition. I keep hearing the tune to "Tradition" from Fiddler On The Roof only with the word "transition" instead of "tradition". Try it. Transition, Transition... See? Many ways to tell when these seasons are transiting but the game changer is when I no longer want tequila & lemonade and yearn for rum & apple cider.

One of my very smart and sophisticated west coast friends can't quite grasp the fact that I have chosen to live where I do. "You're Jewish," she wailed at me with a tone of unfathomable disbelief.  "You went to Yale, for God's sake!" (Can't you just hear her?) "So did Bush," I pointed out. "Bush is not Jewish." "No, but he went to Yale." "What does that even mean?" she yelped. I had to admit I didn't know.

Wordsworth's definition of poetry was "emotion recollected in tranquility". John Hersey gave a lecture at Yale saying that the writer's life is like a pendulum. It swings out, and you gather material. It swings back, and you write it down. So, here is tranquility. Now is the time to write it down. If not now, when? Transition, right? Who knows? Good friends have recently died.

This afternoon at golden hour my son and I walked up the back to a hill where he was married only a month past. Another transition -- this little creature we plucked from South America twenty-five years ago (twenty-five days, twenty-five minutes -- It all went by so quickly!). We'd made a chupah from fence posts and tree limbs that looked out over the mountains on the far side of our valley. You hear the creek and the wind, and that's all. I walk this piece of land and I am calm. The silence is operatic. I am as full as a man can be.

I should report that the Bank of America tzorris continues to be a gigantic pain in the ass, but we have a lawyer on it, and it's slowly beginning to come clear. Sort of. But our house will remain our house. To paraphrase that NRA slogan (You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hand) -- You can have the key to my house when you etc etc etc. We'll get through this. Thanks to every one who helped. I probably won't write about it any more. I hope.

Remember: don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes.

Keep the faith.

DONNELLY/FOREMAN FAMILY vs BANK OF AMERICA -- UPDATE

Bank of America continues to have us in a stranglehold, and it hasn't eased up, yet. Instead, this malignant financial machinery grinds on and now somehow has us eight months in arrears when we were not at all in arrears before the process began, and have paid our mortgage faithfully for nearly 29 years -- 348 payments. Will someone please tell me what is going on because BOA doesn't have a clue? Does kafka-esque ring a bell? How does "outrage" sound?

BAD PUBLICITY HELPS! Our latest customer relations manager actually had my blog in front of him and swore he was there to help.

We've got about 300 signatures on our petition. Our friends have been wonderful but we need to keep the pressure on.

If you haven't signed, please do so. If you haven't sent it to your contact list, please do so. To those who already have, thank you. Believe me, this is some serious stuff.

I would like to write other things, but this has got to come first. It's a terrible strain for the entire family to awaken in the morning only to have this be the first thought we all have.

Stephen

WHAT KIND OF JEW PULLS A TRIGGER? -- part 4

"Happiness is for idiots" was my family's mantra, injected into our DNA, remorselessly hammered home. "Only idiots are happy" was a minor variation. For most of my life I've believed that suffering was necessary to produce anything of value, artistic as well as religious: the artist in his garret;the saint on her cross. Pollyanna-itis was a three spit plague to be fended off by any sacrifice, particularly and primarily, the sacrifice of personal happiness. Well, I gotta tell ya, at this late stage of my life I actually find myself happy! Of course, I'm wary of cliches, but my heart actually feels full,a physical feeling like there is something big and good right there inside my rib cage. Whoa. Where'd that come from? I hear snickers, probably from my Ivy League buddies, and I don't blame them. I ask myself, "You sure you're not coming down with dementia?", and the answer comes back, "If this is dementia, bring it on." It's not that I'm unaware of the dark side. This FOREMAN FAMILY vs BANK OF AMERICA business is a bonafide nightmare which is far from over. It engenders anger and fear in equal parts. At one time in my life anger would have taken over. I would have been possessed by it. I'd have gladly taken Brian Moynihan, CEO of BOA, apart. I am angry, angry because I have to be so angry, angry because I've been so bewildered, angry because my wife of thirty-two years, Jamie Donnelly, has to wake up each morning and have her first thought be, "Will I lose my home?", angry because my children feel the stress and uncertainty, too. However, anger is not all there is. Jamie Donnelly taught me that one. Jan, the smiling, good-natured, "brusha brusha" Pink Lady she played in the movie, "Grease", really is true Jamie.

Nu? So what else is there?

Last night the moon was as full as it's ever going to be in 2012. The sky was clear, so bright moonshine turned the river water to pewter and created shadows that jumped in the breeze. A grouse drummed in the woods the other day, the sound a pilgrim most likes to hear in Spring because it means the cycle has brought the partridge back. Outside my back window the lawn is covered with dandelions, violets, and apple blossoms. Dandelions make me happy:little suns. I don't mind seeing them at all. Outside the window I look out when I'm at my desk the lilacs are leafing, and birds by the dozens land on their branches. A red hawk once landed on a limb near the ground. There he was! Preening. I've seen bear, deer, coyote, mink, woodchuck, chipmunks, squirrels, and wild turkey through that window, too, all spotted while sitting at my desk. They don't know I'm there so they go by slowly. How often do you get to see that outside your window? I've looked out my window and seen my children playing and ,Jamie, giving friends the tour. Those three people remain my treasures. We are alive and healthy, and we will go through this together. Friends are more dear to me than ever. Bank of America is not solely the first thing I think of in the morning when I wake up. The first thing I think of is a cup of hot, strong coffee laced with chocolate syrup (just a little, and, oh, yeah, some sugar, just a little of that, too) The thought is accompanied by a smile. A few minutes with my coffee cup then watch out. I'd still like to take Moynihan apart. My family will still do everything in our power to save our home. When and if I have to be unhappy I'm sure I will be, but not until then.

Right now outside my window there is an oak leaf on the ground, brown and crusty from the Fall. Most of the oak around here was lumbered off years ago, so a mature oak is rare and never this far down the mountain. But, oak is coming back. There are lots of saplings, and in another twenty years they will be mighty. Been a long time since I've seen an oak leaf and never close to the house. It must have been traveling down hill since Fall. It bodes well for the future, and stiffens my resolve. I'm determined to stand at my window and watch those trees grow.

I can't finish without a brief update. New point person at Bank of America: Julio Esparza. (O) (213) 345-6243
(FAX) (866) 882-0975
Mr. Esparza is our ear at B of A. He's the one who now needs to hear from you. Use of social media has gotten their attention. My nephew's twitter campaign is paying off. B of A does not want bad press, but these days there's plenty of it. Wow, is that bank hated! The two petition links are below:

www.change.org/petitions/the-foreman-family-vs-bank-of-america

http://www.change.org/petitions/bank-of-america-live-up-to-your-promise-and-help-my-uncle-keep-his-home

Pass them on.

Foreman Family vs. Bank of America -- The Foreclosure Chronicles

Today is May 5th. This is an update.

Bank of America agreed to (their word) "escalate" my case. Well, folks, they escalated it into a bill for seven months in arrears. Understand, in nearly 348 payments, only one has ever been lost in the shuffle due to a bank error. Throughout the modification process I continued to pay every penny asked of me. There was no question I was paid up, so please explain to me why I'm seven months in arrears? The bank couldn't have put us in a more dangerous and exposed position. Seven months in arrears? Horseshit.

We need to keep up the pressure. It may not always get the intended result, but they do respond to it. We've been assigned a new customer relations person who seems to be quite aware of the power of social media. His name: Julio Esparza, (o)(213) 345-6243, FAX (866) 882-0975. Let him hear from you even if you've already signed, sent, and/or called. JULIO ESPARZA. Right now, he's the ears of Bank of America.

Senator Gillebrand, Congressman Gibson, New York's Attorney General, and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) have all launched investigations. Our local bank managers, both in LA and NY, to their great credit, are helping as well.

If you haven't signed our petition, please do so. It won't cost you anything nor will it hurt your reputation. Come on. Sign it and pass it on. Signatures are coming in from all over the United States. Make yours one of them.

The petition address is as follows:

www.change.org/petitions/the-foreman-family-vs-bank-of-america

Foreman vs. Bank of America -- The Foreclosure Chronicles

Many of you have asked what you can do. My answer is to generate as much publicity as possible. Make my letter to Mr. Moynihan go viral. I’ve written a short letter for you to use as a template, and I’ve listed four people to start with. Their names and addresses follow. Of course, you may amend this note any way you deem fit and send it to anyone else you think might help.

Julio Esparza (currently the rep on my case)
B of A
213 345 6243
FAX (866) 882 0975

Catherine Mack
Bank of America
Office of the President & CEO
Catherine.unlikenancy.mack@bankofamerica.com
Phone 877 471-4367 ext. 227943

Rebecca Symes – Senator Gillibrand’s office
212-688-6262
FAX 866-824-6340

Ridge W. Harris – Congressman Gibson’s (20th District, NY) office
518-610-8133
FAX 518 610 8135
Intern.kinderhook@mail.house.gov
also
ann.mueller@mail.house.gov


LETTER OF SUPPORT

Dear_____________:

This is a letter in support of the Foreman family in their battle against Bank of America to keep from losing their home. We believe Bank of America’s action in this case to be part of a wide pattern of exploitation of homeowners who find themselves trapped in the bank’s financial scheme. Thousands of homeowners are at risk because of this. We believe the bank’s actions to be immoral and unethical. Our support for the Foreman family stands strong.

Thank you.

The following web address

-- http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/ba.htm --

will take you to nearly 2,000 complaints against Bank of America. If you read them you'll begin to see a common pattern emerge. There are thousands of people trapped in this financial web that endangers the most valuable thing they own -- their home.

Take a look.

Foreman vs. Bank of America -- The Foreclosure Chronicles

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
- U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809

FOREMAN FAMILY vs BANK OF AMERICA ----- Talk about your David & Goliath! My family is in the thick of it. I've never understood Franz Kafka more than I do now. The situation is sheer lunacy, but what has become obvious is that it is a pattern of banking perpetrated against thousands of customers. My congressman's office alone is pursuing over thirty investigations. Astonishing. People have had their homes auctioned out from under them, and only learn of this action when they receive an eviction notice. Homes that enter into the Home Affordable Modification Program put forth by the Obama administration, even those granted the reduction, are in terrible danger of being ensnared in B of A's tentacles, undergo an endless waiting period full of delays,rack up fees,and then lose everything. Bank of America tells me there is no appeal because Obama's program doesn't provide for appeals. Can this be true? I report what I'm told.

Read on and learn how deeply cancerous this problem is.

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
- U.S. President James Madison, 1809-1817


“Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that... the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.”
- U.S. President Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837


“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and
causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.”
- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865


“This a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.”
- U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877 – 1881


“Corporations, which should be carefully restrained creatures of the law and servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”
- U.S. President Grover Cleveland, 1885 - 1889


"The real truth of the matter is… that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson."
- U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945

PLEASE PASS THIS ON!

Foreman's Blog -- The Foreclosure Chronicles

Brian C. Moynihan, CEO
Bank of America
Charlotte, North Carolina 28202

April 19, 2012

Dear Mr. Moynihan:

I have been a writer all my 71 years, twice published as a novelist, produced as a screenwriter, teleplay writer, and playwright. At one time I made too much money in Hollywood, and now I make too little in Greene County. My wife and I have struggled to make a living but we’ve made it, and raised two fine children who call our place home. We have an old farm in upstate New York that our son and his bride intend to work again. My daughter lives in Boston but is rooted here. It’s a comfort for her to know she’s always got a home. My grandchildren will be raised here. We have holy places on our mountain, special places where trees have grown, ashes have been scattered, ginseng has been found, deer have fallen. Now I’m looking at the end of all this? My life has suddenly taken on the most ghastly elements of reality TV: Bank of America has me in a death grip. It is an ironic tale, and horrifying, and has been thrust upon my family like a blitzkrieg. I am a Greene County, New York resident of more than twenty-eight years, and now I wake up every morning faced with the nightmare of losing my home. Please listen.

What follows, noted by bullets, is a summary of my situation.

· In the Summer, 2010, I applied for Home Affordable Mortgage Modification through Bank of America. B of A was not my original lender but bought my mortgage from Countrywide who bought it from the original lender shortly after it was granted. I felt somewhat swindled because I hadn’t chosen them in the first place. Nonetheless.
· I was not in trouble with my mortgage at the time of my Home Affordable Modification application, but I wanted a better interest rate. My interest rate was then at 7% and the current rate was 4%. With the exception of a single glitch many years ago when a payment was paid forward instead of backwards, I have paid my mortgage faithfully for twenty-eight plus years. My mortgage when I began the process of modification was $1,842.60/month.
· Shortly thereafter Bank of America paid my insurance and yearly taxes. I did not request this but figured I was certainly on track for a modification.
· I was approved for modification twice. Two times. The process took a year and was nerve wracking. Mistakes were made but we got through it. Except for the exorbitant balloon payment ten years hence, the modification was fine and I accepted it. It included my taxes and insurance. After years I was finally getting my finances under control.
· Was told via phone telephone call that all my documents were in place. It was on a day early in April when my usual customer relations person was off. My usual customer relations manager is Jennifer Rainey, 800 669 6650
· April 13th – Informed I was rejected due to a typographical error. While the notary had the correct date, 4-10, and it was faxed on 4-10, I had mistakenly written 8-10 instead of 4-10 under my name. My wife had no date at all under hers. Document is enclosed.
· Because of the rejection my mortgage has skyrocketed by more than $600 and will go up even further to a figure that, I was told, the bank will reject – in the neighborhood of $2,800 --which means, even if we found the means to make the payment, we won’t be approved and we will lose our home. Can it be there is no appeal for a typo?

Sir, can you believe the irony of this situation? I don’t need to tell you this is truly a waking nightmare. How does it happen that I apply for a home affordable modification, get it, and wind up losing my home when originally I was in no trouble whatsoever? My family has worked hard to stabilize our finances, and now this. Why does Bank of America need my house? You, sir, can pick up the phone and rectify this situation for me, and I pray you will do so.

You should also know that Senator Gillebrand’s (NY) and Congress Gibson’s (20th District, NY) offices have both launched investigations as has the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the executive editor of Rolling Stone has passed my information to Matt Taibbi. I also intend to publish this letter on my blog. Friends will take it from there. And I do have a lawyer. Mr. Moynihan, this is simply too important to not meet the crisis head on. You’re a hard charger. You must know that!

Please, sir, make that phone call!

Respectfully


Stephen H. Foreman

shf@wildblue.net