On September 27, 2006, the House passed the Military Commissions Act (H.R.
6166) by a vote of 253-168, which reflects the revised compromise made between
the Senate Republicans and President Bush. On the floor, House Republicans
blocked Democrats from offering amendments, including one that would have
extended the habeas corpus right to detainees. House Judiciary Chairman James
Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) justified the action by arguing that suspects have
enough rights without habeas corpus. In a passionate speech, he stated, “Let's
bring justice before the eyes of the children and widows of Sept. 11.” He was
joined in his support by House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who criticized Democrats for largely opposing the measure, stating, “It is outrageous that House Democrats, at the urging of their leaders, continue to oppose giving President Bush the tools he needs to protect our country.”

Democrats, however, found the bill, which gives both the president and
interrogators broader authority in its treatment and prosecution of detainees,
to be a dangerous step. House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said, “Defending America requires us to marshal the full range of our power: diplomatic and military, economic and moral. And when our moral standing is eroded, our international credibility is diminished as well.” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) offered a similar view, arguing that, “This is how a nation loses its moral compass, its identity, its values and, eventually, its freedom.

. . . We rebelled against King George III for less restrictions on liberty than this.”

Work = Happiness (?)

The field of 'Positive Psychology' has become increasingly popular in recent years. Whereas typical psychological research generally focuses on the pathological. Positive Psychology, on the other hand, studies happiness, functionality and well-being. All of which, seems kind of refreshing and useful for those of us who feel like their missing something. Maybe that secret to happiness.

I came across the field of study in a New Yorker article a few months ago online. It's companion piece, called "Happiness: A User's Manual", is a funny collection of advice that is based on recent psychological research on happiness. (check it out)

Not surprisingly, your choice of profession is an important piece of the puzzle. The article says, "Don't go to law school" because...

Lawyers are 3.6 times more likely to be depressed than members of other
professions, and it’s not just because their jobs are more stressful. For most
people, job stress has little effect on happiness unless it is accompanied by a
lack of control (lawyers, of course, have clients to listen to) or involves
taking something away from somebody else (a common feature of the legal system).

I wondered where other professions fell on the happiness ranking. Social Workers and other social services professionals, I suspect, suffer from a similar fate. There is an extreme lack of control in social work. The majority of your clients tend to continue making the same mistakes they've made in the past, regardless of how hard you worked to convince them otherwise. In my case, I see my clients get themselves into serious debt and financial problems again and again. We provide hours of group and invidual counseling about money management but, for the majority, these are hard habits to break.

Yesterday was one of those days when I felt particularly frustrated. I spent most of the day at CapitalOne's Fairfax headquarters being trained for a new money management curriculum to give to my clients. That night I was going to be able to try out some of the interesting exercises I learned from the day. I had arranged for six of our clients, a volunteer counselor, a childcare provider and two pizzas to arrive at 6:30 PM.

However, I returned to the office to find that four out of the six class participants had cancelled. Well, this only exacerbated my frustrations. I decided to cancel the class and reschedule for another night, but I left the office in one of the foulest moods that I've had in a long while.

This Wednesday I attended the Fannie Mae Foundation's 2006 Annual Housing Conference.

Full of academics and bureaucrats, the conference was lacking in new information. You see, it's really quite simple. The Commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development summarized it this way,

But what I did find really interesting was a presentation by Martin Eakes, CEO of the Center for Regulatory Lending (CRL). Believe it or not he didn't even have a fancy PowerPoint slide show! Instead, he spoke with conviction about his anger towards the loan and credit industries. While I was familar with cash-advance / payday loans, which have become terribly popular with my own clients, I knew very little about how predatory lending affects homebuyers. It turns out that many sub-prime mortgage loans are designed NOT TO BE SUCCESSFUL. There are penalties for paying the money back early?! Unfortunately, these types of loans tend to be targeted at minorities, women and the elderly. Truly scary.

So, what I'd like to present to you as both a warning and education are the Seven Signs of Predatory Lending from CRL's website. Watch out for `em. It seems like they're out to get you.

So, in order to keep the conversation rolling, let me introduce you to Death & Taxes: 2007.

What is it? I'll let the author explain this beautiful creation:

More relevent to this blog... "Why do we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on traditional homeless services, like shelters and case management, but neglect to simply build affordable housing?"

My suggestions are the following:

1. the myth of "rugged Individualism" as a core cultural value in the US
2. the general concept of "affordable housing" is usually limited to the infamous "public housing projects" and all of the ugly connotations that conjures up
3. we tend to blame the homeless for being homeless; ignoring the mentally ill, the abused, the people who work two jobs and still can't pay the rent
4. there is the unspoken belief that the poor are somehow less deserving, morally or otherwise

What am I missing? Any other suggestions? ...or better yet, maybe you can explain the decision makers' logic behind the spending?

The picture below is from the Death & Taxes website's forum, where the author created a simple graph showing how entitlements figure into the total budget.

But we're not stopping there. By the end of this fiscal year we are planning to purchase an additional 5 units -- making it a total of 23 properties! We're going to be very busy the next 10 months.

On a side note, the Washington Post has an interesting article today about how the lack of affordable housing affects our public employees, like firefighters, teachers, police officers, et al. More and more are living outside of the area that they serve. Is this a good thing or bad? Not surprisingly their decisions are based on more than economic factors. Check it out.