May 8, 2012 – A Stay At Home Dad

In case you haven’t been on the internet at all today, Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of *Where The Wild Things Are” has died. He was 83.

Until today, I had no idea who wrote the book, let alone illustrated it. Judging by the number of blurbs about his passing that I’ve seen during my own surfing today, he’d certainly attained to a fair amount of fandom. Looking at his Wikipedia entry, I see that’s the only book of his I know. Or at least recognize. He seems to have been a more prolific illustrator than writer, and managed to stir up some controversy with the illustrations in one of his books.

Aside from that, I skimmed through an interview with him and he struck me as pretty curmudgeonly. Perhaps he was having a bad day, although the article’s author indicated Sendak’s behavior was pretty typical for him.

The wild rumpus will continue without him.

Via Ann Althouse, Bank of America is forgiving mortgages for certain “qualified” borrowers. The program, or whatever, is the result of a settlement over abuses in dealing with foreclosures. There isn’t a whole heckuva lot of detail at the source article either.

I’ll admit my initial reaction was outrage. Another round of helping out people who got in over their heads making people like myself and the Wife sucker’s. But then, after seeing that it’s a settlement, I started wondering if there isn’t some angle that BoA is playing here that makes this much less than it appears. For instance, perhaps not that many people will ultimately qualify. Or perhaps those that qualify are also likely to end up losing the deal because they can’t meet some other conditions. I’m not a banker, so I can’t imagine all the ways this could be to a bank’s advantage.

On the flip side, there will undoubtedly be some people who make out, getting tens-of-thousands of dollars forgiven from their debt load. Having their bad behavior rewarded.

Seems hard to escape the fact that, no matter what side you choose, those of us who pay our debts get screwed. We pay the bank so they can go and abuse trust. And we also foot the bill for the delinquents.

The kids lament their lot in life as being unfair. Wait until they’re old enough to grasp this idea.