Jonathan P. Baird

Recently the Philadelphia Eagles released running back Brian Westbrook. It is no exaggeration to say that Westbrook was one of the best backs in franchise history and one of the elite backs in the National Football League (NFL).

Westbrook’s versatility made him very hard to defend against.  While he could run and pass equally well, I think it was his agility and skill as a receiver that made him especially dangerous. Really, almost no linebacker could match up against him.

Early in his career, he was a great punt returner as well. He will forever be remembered by Eagles fans for his 2003 punt return against the Giants in the Meadowlands. With less than two minutes left to play in the game, Westbrook took it to the house and saved the game.

Last year, Westbrook’s season and his life were dramatically altered when he sustained two concussions. He ran into linebacker London Fletcher’s knee in a game against the Redskins. He was out cold for a number of minutes. After sitting out four games, he returned to football but he suffered a second concussion on a totally unmemorable play. He played very little after that.

While football players always say they are coming back after serious injuries and the money is a huge lure, I sincerely hope Westbrook retires.

There is a body of medical evidence which shows that repetitive trauma to the brain, football-related concussions, can cause permanent brain damage. The harm has been amply demonstrated.

There is even a name for the condition: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). In the October 19, 2009 issue of the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell wrote about CTE and described it as follows:

“..a progressive neurological disorder found in people who have suffered some kind of brain trauma. CTE has many of the same manifestations as Alzheimer’s: it begins with behavioral and personality changes, because it takes a long time for the initial trauma to give rise to nerve-cell breakdown and death.”

The Science Daily website says that CTE is characterized by a build-up of a toxic protein called tau in the form of neurofibillary tangles and neuropil threads throughout the brain. The abnormal protein initially impairs the normal functioning of the brain and eventually kills brain cells. Early on, CTE sufferers may display clinical symptoms  such as memory impairment, emotional instability, erratic behavior, depression and problems with impulse control. Eventually, CTE progresses to full-blown dementia.

Gladwell reports on CTE researchers, particularly Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist. Omalu diagnosed a number of former players who are now deceased as suffering from CTE. These include former Eagles defensive back Andre Waters, former Steelers center Mike Webster, and former Steelers linemen Terry Long and Justin Strzelczyk. In the Gladwell article, he quotes Omalu:

“There is something wrong with this group (people diagnosed with CTE) as a cohort. They forget things. They have slurred speech. I have had an NFL player come up to me at a funeral and tell me he cannot find his way home. I have wives who call me and say ‘My husband was a very good man. Now he drinks all the time. i don’t know why his behavior changed’.  I have wives call me and say ‘My husband was a nice guy. Now he’s getting abusive’. I had someone call me and say ‘My husband went back to law school after football and became a lawyer. Now he can’t do his job. People are suing him’.”

Gladwell’s article provokes many questions. While focus is on concussions, he asks about the effects of multiple little hits. Football players will likely take hundreds and even thousands of these hits depending on the length of their career. How bad is that? He raises questions about hits in practice. Should full contact practices be banned?

Designing better helmets is an obvious reform. But, the Gladwell article is not optimistic that current technology could design a helmet that would absorb enough shock to make that much difference. At least, not in the forseeable future.

It is hard not to think that the price of football is CTE and it appears to be a price that we as a society are more than willing to pay. We love our football.

There are clear parallels between boxing and football. Research on boxers shows they stand a twenty per cent risk of dementia. It is a good question to ask about football: what is the risk? 10%?  20%?  higher?

A while back, I saw a Sports Illustrated article about how poorly the NFL cares for older former players who became disabled playing the game. It reminded me of the way we treat veterans. Once they are finished service, they are forgotten. They are on their own.

I hope when Brian Westbrook hits 50, he is not another Muhammed Ali. Hopefully, the NFL pension and disability system will improve and protect players, including those who do not have Westbrook’s fame and money. In thinking about Ali and Westbrook, they both had gamy attitude but for Westbrook’s sake, knowing when to hang it up might be the difference between an active future and a life with a brain turned to mush.

As a lover of poetry, I plan to share poems from favorite poets of mine. It is dispiriting to go to most book stores now and see what passes for poetry sections. They have been eviscerated. Of course, it is not just poetry but as an inveterate book store browser, I have to note the poetry pickings are typically slim. Many poets I like are nowhere to be found.
 
On this website, to do my little bit, I intend to highlight wonderful poets and poems. I hope this inspires any readers to explore the works of these poets. I will begin by citing poets with a poem by Countee Cullen.
 
“Live like the wind,” he said, “unfettered,
    And love me while you can;
 And when you will, and can be bettered,
    Go to the better man.
 
“For you’ll grow weary, maybe, sleeping
    So long a time with me;
 Like this there’ll be no cause for weeping;
    The wind is always free.
 
“Go when you please,” he would be saying,
    His mouth hard on her own;
 That’s why she stayed and loved the staying,
    contented to the bone.

Last weekend I saw The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, a documentary about the 1955 Mississippi murder of Emmett Till, a 14 year old African American male. The Till murder galvanized the early civil rights movement.
 
As someone who thought he knew a fair amount about the civil rights movement, I was surprised by how much I did not know about the Till case. The documentary, produced and directed by Keith Beauchamp in 2005, chronicles the story of Till’s murder and its aftermath.
 
The movie also evokes a period where Black people had no protection from the law. They lived in an apartheid world. The movie is a powerful reminder of how far we have come in a relatively short historical span.
 
The incident that led to Till’s murder was a big nothing. He wolfwhistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, outside the store she and her husband ran in Money, Mississippi. Allegedly, he also did not say “yes sir and no sir” when he spoke to a white person inside the store.For this, he was dragged out of his bed at night at gunpoint, taken to a nearby barn, tortured and murdered.
 
The savagery of the murder is graphically recounted. Till was tortured almost beyond recognition. His eyes were gouged out. His teeth, which his mom said were beautiful, were almost entirely knocked out. His nose was chopped . The assailants shot him in the head so there was a hole clear through his skull. When they finished the torture and murder, the assailants tied Till’s body to a 70 pound cotton gin  and threw it into the Tallahatchie River.
 
After the murder, when the body was recovered, the local sheriff wanted immediate burial so people could not see what had been done to Till. Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, insisted on recovering the body. It was not an easy task to recover the body. The coffin was closed and nailed up so tightly, it was very difficult to open. The funeral director himself had been prohibited from opening the coffin.
 
Till’s family managed to stop the burial in Mississippi.  They brought Emmett’s body back to Chicago for a public funeral.  Till was from Chicago. He had been in Mississippi on vacation visiting family at the time of his murder.
 
Central to the story were the heroic efforts of Till’s mother. With dignity and calm, she described her playful and mischievous son who loved both art and science. Her love for her son shined through the movie. She pursued justice in his case for the rest of her life until her death in 2003. She never did see any justice done.
 
She insisted on a public funeral with an open casket. At the time, Jet Magazine published a horrifying photo of Till’s disfigured face. The photo shocked the world and exposed the disgusting regime of white racism that ruled Mississippi.
 
While there is no way to prove it, the photo of Till probably saved countless Black lives. It ripped the cloak of secrecy and normalcy that had hidden the horrors of racism. The photo focused a light on the actions of the white racists so they would know there might be a price to pay for committing such acts.
 
The movie goes on to recount the trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, the two men accused of Till’s kidnapping and murder. An all white jury acquitted both men. The movie shows how the jury was instantly ready to acquit at the conclusion of the trial. Jurors explained that they wanted to make the verdict look good. They waited a while to deliver the verdict because they wanted to avoid the appearance that they did not deliberate (which was the case).
 
The idea of a white jury convicting white men for the murder of a black boy was unthinkable. In that era, it was suicide for a black man just to testify against a white man.
 
When the verdict came down, it was high five time all around for the white racists. Weirdly and perversely, many of the local white fathers brought their sons to court to witness the verdict. By their actions, I guess they wanted to pass along their sick tradition.
 
Immediately after the verdict the sheriff said, “we have no trouble with Southern niggers until they go north and the NAACP talks to them.” He complained that reporters were making a big deal out of the Till murder.
 
Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, attended the trial. She had received hate mail and threats telling her that her home would be bombed if she attended the trial. Some of the white racists pointed guns at her as she entered and left the courtroom.
 
After the trial, feeling confident of their legal invulnerability due to the double jeopardy prohibition against being tried twice for the same charges, both Bryant and Milam confessed to the murder of Till in a 1956 issue of Look magazine. The magazine paid Bryant and Milam $4000 for the story.
 
Shockingly, 50 years went by before the authorities acted to take another look at this travesty of justice. In 2005, the Justice Department announced an investigation. I am not aware that federal indictments for any charges have ever been brought against anyone on this case. Roy Bryant and Milam were already dead although Carolyn Bryant is still alive.
 
Many questions remain unanswered about the Till case. Who else was involved in the murder besides Bryant and Milam? What exactly happened the night of the murder after Till was forcibly removed from his family’s home? Who covered up? What was the role of the police and the local power structure in Mississippi? Why did it take so long for authorities, federal and state, to investigate again? Why has nothing still been done?
 
Getting to the bottom of the story remains important. Racists thrived in an environment where they did not face accountabilty for their crimes. If there can be no criminal charges brought, maybe there should  be a Truth Commission to look at the Till case and other such crimes from the 20th century where justice was clearly never done.
 
Check out this DVD – the documentary is a compelling, incredibly sad story, well told.

Several weeks ago, I attended a hearing in the Legislature on a bill that proposed random drug testing for all applicants and recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, food stamps and other public assistance.
Under that legislation, positive drug tests would result in termination of benefits. There was no explanation in the bill for why this group was singled out for drug testing.
In introducing the legislation, the prime sponsor described public assistance recipients as “society’s trash.” While the bill received a frosty reception from the House Health and Human Services Committee and was later killed, it is the words of that legislator I remember: society’s trash.
In a nutshell, the problem for any welfare program is right there. Facts do not matter. The stereotype is all-powerful. Hatred of the welfare recipient is deeply ingrained and seems to be widely held. Clearly, the circumstances that led to a person applying for welfare are of no consequence if he or she is seen as trash.
TANF remains a program mired in misleading mythologies. It has the designation “welfare” attached to it, but it is actually an employment support program. While there is a component of the program that helps disabled TANF recipients, the program is overwhelmingly focused on work participation and putting TANF recipients into approved work activities.
It is strange how welfare remains hated even after it is not what people think it is.
The recession has not been kind to TANF recipients and the TANF program itself. Along with everybody else victimized by the massive unemployment, TANF recipients have been particularly hard hit.
The architects of TANF designed the program for an expanding economy like the
1990s. In that robust type of economy, former TANF recipients could hope to land low-wage service sector jobs. The TANF architects did not anticipate a situation like the past two years.
TANF cannot work in an economy where the TANF recipient is competing against six others, including those with college education, for any available job.
The success of welfare reform has been significantly oversold. There was no plan in place for how the program would adapt if the economy went south as it has.
Success was simply defined as getting people off the rolls. The anti-poverty vision was lost, if it was ever there. If the goal was just to get the welfare recipient into the first available low-paying job, what happens when there are no jobs?
In New Hampshire, just as in other states, the state is ill-equipped to deal with the recession. With increased caseloads the TANF reserve is long gone, and the state is $4 million in the hole even considering the over $11 million New Hampshire received in stimulus money from the TANF emergency fund. Federal welfare funding has remained flat since the 1996 TANF law was created.
The idea that we will cut our way out of the budget shortfall is wrong-headed. This is balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest people in the state. Some recent measures like the creation of a waiting list for child care assistance as well as increasing child care co-pays are short-sighted and counter-productive. There are already 1,200 on the wait list, and 4,700 families have been adversely affected by raising cost share.
One bill worthy of special mention is House Bill 1598, a bill sponsored by Rep Tom Donovan of Claremont that tries to stem the use of TANF dollars for non-TANF purposes. The Legislature has raided the TANF program over the last six years and used over $50 million for purposes other than TANF assistance. House Bill 1598, which has passed the House, would stop this abuse. In better economic times, this finagling was ignored. The TANF program cannot afford to be bled.
TANF must be reauthorized at the federal level in 2010. An honest accounting would look at how poorly the program is meeting the economic need out there.
We need far bolder ideas than are being presently considered by mainstream politicians. The Obama administration should take a page out of the FDR playbook. It is time for a large public jobs program.
Projects could address the deterioration in public services and infrastructure that has resulted from long-term neglect in neighborhoods across the country. Such a program could put TANF recipients, unemployed and underemployed workers back to work on socially useful projects.
Once one steps outside of the blinders imposed by conventional thinking, the need is obvious.
As a lawyer who has represented many TANF clients, I do want to say my clients are not trash. If legislators and others could see the faces of people on TANF and hear their stories, they would have a very different view.

With the passing of SB35 during its last session, the NH Legislature formed a commission to study the creation of a legal aid project for low and moderate income veterans in New Hampshire. The bill reflects the efforts of bi-partisan sponsorship by Senators Jack Barnes and Maggie Hassan, and Representatives Russ Ober, Frank Emiro and Kris Roberts. The commission, under the leadership of Senators Jack Barnes and Matthew Houde, is planning to put the project into action.

Veterans comprise about 10 percent of the state’s population. Upon returning from service in Afghanistan and Iraq, they often face psychological, physical and economic obstacles that require legal advocacy. Of particular note is the reported high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI), making it even more difficult for New Hampshire’s veterans to make ends meet, to get the benefits to which they are entitled, and to get and protect affordable housing.

Mary Morin, the Director of the State Veterans’ Council, has identified a significant need for pro bono legal advocacy for veterans and has determined that the creation of a veterans’ legal aid project could significantly improve delivery of services. The commission includes representatives from the State Veterans’ Council, NH Legal Assistance, the Military Section of the NH Bar Association, the Adjutant General of the NH National Guard, Employment Security, the NH Veterans’ Home, the Department of Health and Human Services, the US Dept. of Labor’s NH Office of Veterans Employment and Training Services, along with many other organizations and service providers.

In gathering information about the unmet legal needs of New Hampshire’s veterans, the commission has heard from the service officers of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Both have highlighted the need for legal representation in evictions, foreclosures, utility shutoffs, and Social Security Disability claims.

The hope is that staff at the State Veterans’ Council, NHLA, and the NHBA Pro Bono Program would work with veteran service organizations and homeless shelters to reach veterans who have pressing legal needs. The State Veterans’ Council would refer cases these organizations cannot handle to either NHBA Pro Bono or NHLA.

The commission hopes also to create a training program for attorneys so that they will be qualified to take on more types of cases on behalf of veterans on a pro bono basis.

One nice thing about having the website is the opportunity to tout heroes. I.F. Stone is a hero of mine.
 
I first came across him during the war in Vietnam when he was putting out I.F. Stone’s Weekly. Long before bloggers and the internet, Stone was almost single-handedly destroying the government’s case for the war in Vietnam. I.F. Stone’s Weekly was indispensable reading.
 
He was a newspaperman and an investigative journalist. He went his own way and dug up stories by reading everything and finding stories that no one else covered. He did this for a lifetime.
 
For years I have had the quote below on my bulletin board at work. Stone is worthy of a much more detailed post but I mostly wanted to share the quote which I have always enjoyed:
 
“It’s just wonderful to be a pariah. I really owe my success to being a pariah. It is so good not to be invited to respectable dinner parties. People used to say to me, “Izzy, why don’t you go down and see the Secretary of State and put him straight. Well, you know, you’re not supposed to see the Secretary of State. He won’t pay attention to you anyway. He’ll hold your hand, he’ll commit you morally for listening. To be a pariah is to be left alone to see things your own way, as truthfully as you can. Not because you’re brighter than anybody else is – or your own truth so valuable. But because, like a painter or a writer or an artist, all you have to contribute is the purification of your own vision, and add that to the sum total of other visions. To be regarded as nonrespectable, to be a pariah, to be an outsider, this is really the way to do it. To sit in your tub and not want anything. As soon as you want something, they’ve got you!”   I.F. Stone

It is with sadness that I read about the death of Teddy Pendergrass last month. Teddy died in Bryn Mawr Hospital in the Philadelphia area on Jan 13.
 
I doubt if anyone has ever sung in a sexier, more passionate way than Teddy on “Close the Door”. To this day, that song still knocks me out.
 
I remember when Teddy’s album “Life is a Song Worth Singing” came out in 1978. I ran out, bought it, and listened to it about a thousand times. Even before that, when Teddy sang with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, the music was amazing and affirmative. “Wake Up Everybody” could have been a counter national anthem.
 
I just want to mention some of the other Philly sound artists from that era who I loved. The Spinners, Deniece Williams, and the O’Jays were right up there. I think of Lou Rawls singing, “See You When I Get There”. Wow!
 
I guess I always have been partisan to soul, R&B, and blues. Growing up in the Philly area, I think the first two albums I ever owned were the Temptations Greatest Hits and the Four Tops Greatest Hits. Soul music got me. Honestly, whether it was Philly soul or Motown, I loved it.
 
Thinking back on that era, this was also the time of Frank Rizzo, the now deceased former Mayor and Police Commissioner of Philadelphia. Rizzo was a character from the dark side. The awful image that stands out to me is the photo of Rizzo’s police lining up naked Black Panthers after a police raid. I recall the photo running in the Philadelphia papers.
 
There were many raids across the country on Black Panther headquarters. Only a fool would think that was an accident. The FBI  and J. Edgar Hoover were out to get the Panthers. I would not be surprised to learn the Philadelphia raid was a Cointelpro operation. Of course, it could have been solely Rizzo and his department doing their thing.
 
Rizzo’s signature photo was the famous shot of him wearing a tuxedo with a billyclub sticking through his cummerbund.
 
My sister Lisa was active in the Stop Rizzo movement of the 70’s. I had left Philly by then. Last time I was in South Philly last year I was surprised to see a huge Frank Rizzo wall portrait on the back of a building. It is pitiful that Rizzo would be considered a symbol of ethnic pride.
 
The Philadelphia sound was the other side of the coin from the ugliness represented by Frank Rizzo. The sound was galvanizing, sexy and life-affirming. Not too long ago I heard the songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. Gamble and Huff were the architects of the Philly sound. All I can say is that I think those guys were geniuses.
 
I will miss Teddy but fortunately the music will live on.
 

On this last Friday, my sister Lisa would have turned 57 if she had lived. Her birthday is Jan 29. She has now been gone for over three months. To me, it does not seem that long
 
I realized today that I still have her number on my cellphone speed dial.  I do not want to remove it. I have looked at her emails to me over and over again. Mostly they are about nothing special, just everyday life stuff. I have not wanted to delete them. They are my last lingering connections.
 
I do think about what Lise would be thinking about so many things. I wonder if she would be mad at Obama like so much of the Left. Chances are, not very. I know, though, she was not on board with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Could I have gotten her to go see Avatar? Yes, definitely. She would have liked the 3-D, especially at an IMAX. Not that she wished anything bad on anyone but she would be glad Scott Roeder, the guy who murdered Dr Tiller, got convicted of first degree murder.
 
It is a certainty that Lise would have been uninterested in the upcoming Super Bowl. Even if the Eagles were in it, she would not have cared although she would have been happy for me. Just about my only football memory with Lise goes back to childhood. She came to a game at Franklin Field in the early 60’s where the Eagles played before they played at the Vet. I remember she got lost when she went to get a hot dog. My dad found her. It was a different world then. No one thought about missing children like they might think now.
 
Lise was a big Phillies fan along with her kids, her de facto ex-husband, and her whole birth family. She did not live sports but this is the Phillies Golden Age. Hard not to like a team with Ryan Howard, J. Roll, Chase Utley,  and Shane Victorino. She enjoyed the sheer pleasure of watching such a great team. I don’t think it will ever be better than this for Phillies fans.
 
Since Lisa died, I have thought about going to a grief counselor but I haven’t gotten it together to do that. I did get a couple therapist names. It has helped me to talk and email friends about Lise. I suppose this has given me an outlet. At the suggestion of Lise’s friend and my friend Bebo, I checked out a book, Surviving the Death of a Sibling, by T.J. Wray.
 
Wray argues that when an adult loses a sibling, society fails to recognize the depth of the loss. She describes what she calls dismissive condolences by people who expect you to get over it.
 
What I find hard and what bothers me is that I always expected Lisa to be here for my whole life. I wrongly assumed her ongoing presence. She was a keeper of secrets and a repository of family knowledge. She knew me like a book and she and I could level. She had worked harder than anyone at keeping our family together.
 
To say there is a loss does not come close to specifying the degree of emptiness of Lisa’s absence. Lisa’s death, along with our Dad’s last May, completely tossed my birth family to hell. We are like a fragment of what we were.
 
Through this all, my mom has been an unbelieveable rock. I treasure her. She is tough and has soldiered through a nightmare. I feel incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful mother. She has totally been there for me.
 
I did want to note that in the last week our family received notice that Lisa would be honored posthumously on Feb 24, 2010 at the Campeones de la Justicia Banquet by the Immigration Law Society and Alianza, the Latino Law Student Society. This event honors the most prominent and distinguished Hispanic leaders in the legal community in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The event will be at 6pm at hte Camden County Boathouse on Cooper River Park.
 
I want to end with a poem by Ferlighetti. Lisa loved Ferlinghetti and she and I had shared a copy of Coney Island of the Mind.
 
    The world is a beautiful place
                                          to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
                                   not always being
                                                        so very much fun
    if you don’t mind a touch of hell
                                              now and then
             just when everything is fine
                                            because even in heaven
                            they don’t sing
                                                all the time
            The world is a beautiful place
                                                  to be born into
    if you don’t mind some people dying
                                                        all the time
                      or maybe only starving
                                                    some of the time
                which isn’t half so bad
                                                if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
                                              to be born into
            if you don’t mind
                                 a few dead minds
                in the higher places
                                            or a bomb or two
                        now and then
                                           in your upturned faces
    or such other improprieties
                                          as our Name Brand Society
                            is prey to
                                        with its men of distinction
        and its men of extinction
                                          and its priests
                    and other patrolmen
                                            and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
                                            and other constipations
            that our fool flesh
                                    is heir to
    Yes the world is the best place of all
                                                  for a lot of such things as
        making the fun scene
                                        and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
                  and singing low songs and having inspirations
      and walking around
                                looking at everything
                                                        and smelling flowers
        and goosing statues
                                    and even thinking
                                                    and kissing people and
        making babies and wearing pants
                                                and waving hats and
                                    dancing
                                      and going swimming in rivers
                        on picnics
                                in the middle of the summer
        and just generally
                                ‘living it up’
Yes
    but then right in the middle of it
                                            comes the smiling
                                    mortician

I wanted to say a few words about Howard Zinn who died on Jan 27. For people on the left of my generation (I am 59), I cannot think of anyone else, with the possible exception of Noam Chomsky, who made a bigger political contribution to American life.
 
I did not know Howard personally. I lived around Boston during the 1970’s and I heard him speak many times, often at anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. Howard had amazing presence. He was funny, charming, and direct.
 
I feel indebted to Howard for his leading role in opposing the insanity that was the Vietnam War. It was a different world
then. Being anti-war was not as acceptable as it is now. Howard had guts. While he is best known for “A People’s History of the United States”, I remember his book “Vietnam:The Logic of Withdrawal”, published in 1967 or 1968. It pushed the anti-war movement. About this, Chomsky said:
 
“Howard really broke through. He was the first person to say
– loudly,publicly, very persuasively – that this simply has to stop;we should get out, period, no conditions; we have no right to be there; it’s an act of aggression;pull out.”
 
Of the times I heard Howard speak, the experience I remember the best was not at a rally. I went to BU to see the movie Burn which featured Marlon Brando. Howard gave a talk to introduce the movie. Burn is a story about a slave revolt on a Caribbean island. It was made by Gillo Pontecorvo who also made The Battle of Algiers. Because of its anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist story, the movie was suppressed by the movie industry that made it.
 
Howard told the story of Burn and its suppression to a large audience. I have to say his talk was fantastic. He was captivating, funny, and utterly entertaining. I do not think I ever saw anyone give a better talk about anything. I don’t know how available Burn is these days. Very worth seeing.
 
Howard’s counter-narrative of American history remains an absolutely necessary corrective to conventional wisdom. Instead of a history dominated by Great Men, Howard looked at what he called “the countless small actions of unknown people”. That perspective is valid and needs further development.
 
In reading about Howard this last week, I came across this Zinn quote cited by Matthew Rothschild of the Progressive Magazine:
 
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And, if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that iis bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
 
I will miss Howard’s presence on the planet. I always looked forward to hearing whatever he had to say. He helped to make the world a saner place. What more could any one person do.

On Jan. 27, the New Hampshire Legislature will have an opportunity to support consumer protection and to oppose predatory lending. The House will vote on Senate Bill 193, which imposes a 36 percent interest rate cap on all small loans under $10,000. SB 193 has already passed the Senate.
The bill is a follow-up to the legislation passed in 2008 when the state, in very timely fashion, acted to stop financial exploitation of New Hampshire families by regulating payday and auto title loans.
That consumer-friendly legislation protected innumerable people from a debt trap. Given the bad economy, it is highly likely that thousands of citizens would have turned to payday or title loans out of sheer desperation if the option had been available. Payday and title lenders would have reaped a financial bonanza at the expense of economically struggling families.
An interest rate cap is the strongest remedy against predatory lending. Nationally it has proven to be the most reliable weapon for consumer protection, which probably explains why opponents fight it so hard.
There is no question that unlimited interest rates equal usury. Opposing usury is not some fringe, leftwing critique. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have all scripturally and doctrinally forbidden usury. For most of American history, states have had usury caps in the range of 6 to 8 percent.
Only relatively recently, in the last 40 years or so, a number of states uncapped interest rates. In New Hampshire, that happened in 1999.
The new small loan bill, SB 193, is necessary because predatory lenders have not ceased trying to find a loophole to evade the payday and auto title interest rate cap. While there is a whack-a-mole quality about this, SB 193 should close the door on such usury.
New Hampshire Banking Commissioner Peter Hildreth has had to issue three orders since early 2009 against lenders who wanted to restructure loans to get around the rate cap. It is instructive to take a look at Hildreth’s orders on these loans.
The commissioner found that the interest rates charged by these lenders, roughly 300 to 400 percent annual percentage rate, were unfair. He found the loan products offered were also oppressive and unscrupulous. He described consumers who borrowed $500 for a year having to pay back $2,325 in interest payments.
In May 2009, CashForce USA, a lender, tried to evade the interest rate cap by advertising small loan open-end lines of credit up to $1,500. Hildreth initiated an investigation and ultimately found that the use of monthly access fees and interest would result in a cost of $3,100 to pay off $250 if the borrower paid the minimum monthly payment. The commissioner concluded that such small loan open-end lines of credit were unethical, and he would not allow the product to be offered in New Hampshire.
On Jan. 6, the small loan bill was actively debated by the New Hampshire House. There were four very close votes, and final voting on the bill was postponed until Jan. 27.
While many arguments were advanced pro and con, I did want to address the argument that SB 193 would hurt small business. That is a red herring. The loans at issue are consumer loans – not small business loans. No business could become viable if it depended on a small loan of this nature.
I have to say that I find it hysterical that opponents of the small loan bill leafletted the Legislature on Jan. 6 describing the bill as “anti-liberty.” Apparently liberty includes the freedom to exploit and scam consumers. When you defend 400 percent interest, you are defending the liberty of the loan shark.
It is a bizarro world view that reserves sympathy for userers but has not a peep to say about victimized consumers. Only willfully blind true believers could miss the role free market ideology has played in the collapse of the larger economy.
Free marketeers have brought us such great innovations as the sub-prime mortgage along with the payday loan. These financial instruments stand as perfect symbols of our deregulated age. Could there be any clearer indicator of moral depravity and corruption than these products?
What happens with the small loan bill may well be a harbinger for consumer protection in New Hampshire. Defeat of the legislation may signal a green light for sleazy financial schemers, connivers and predatory lenders of all stripes.