No Shame in US Bank CEO Helping His Janitor

This story was originally published by Technorati on 5 March 2010. Arthur Delaney, the writer of the story in The Huffington Post to which this article is a response, asked me to include this statement:

"My story is clear that US Bank bought the already-foreclosed property in a sheriff's sale, and that US Bank is the trustee while Chase is the servicer."

To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

The Huffington Post recently reported on the fate of Minneapolis janitor Rosalina Gomez, who as providence would have it, found out that she was cleaning the executive offices of Richard Davis, the CEO of US Bank, the bank that bought her house, which had been foreclosed upon and was sold in a sheriff's sale in September.

Calling Davis the culprit in this story, Huffington's Arthur Delaney's gotten it all wrong.

U.S. Bank didn't send Ms. Gomez's home into foreclosure; U.S. Bank bought her home in foreclosure. That's a big difference. Chase is the bank that held the mortgage and allegedly didn't make it clear enough to Ms. Gomez and her husband that the loan they were getting had a variable interest rate, that would allow their monthly mortgage payment to climb after a period of time.

Churches Can Fight City Hall and Win

A version of this article originally appeared on Technorati on 2 March 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

The Crossroads United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Arizona, has an outreach ministry to the city's homeless population. Part of that outreach includes reaching out to the downtown area and pulling in, by the bus load, as many homeless folks as they can find every Saturday morning for a pancake breakfast.

The problem with this laudable practice is that Crossroads is in a posh neighborhood, and the rich folks that live there are none too keen on having walking, talking reminders of "There, but for the grace of God, go I" in their midst. They like their churches like they like their children, seen and not heard.

Rich folks have lawyers, and these rich folks' lawyers impressed their clients' position upon the local politicians they underwrite, who forthwith issued an injunction against said pancake breakfast, ordering Crossroads, citing zoning law restrictions, to cease and desist, or face consequences.

That should take care of that, said the city fathers to themselves, what with the little guy's inability to fight city hall and all.

Enter the hero in the white hat, in this western melodrama, who happens to be none other than . . . the U.S. Congress?

That's right, that loathsome first branch of government passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act back in 2000, and it's been taking down city halls under similar scenarios all across the country ever since.

"Jesus" Help Me Find My Proper Place

Lou Reed and the Blind Boys of Alabama prove once again that, when it's heartfelt, there's no such thing as a bad prayer. Reed who wrote the simple song, "Jesus," first recorded it with the Velvet Underground in 1968.