Pokin’ fun at the usurer suspects...

Happy April Fool’s Day, folks.


I hate practical jokes because I tend to suspend disbelief with alarming ease, particularly when I’m off my meds.

There are so many fools in this world that we definitely need to claim a day all our own, if not an entire week or fortnight.  In that spirit, I present you with this silly post from this weekend that I almost neglected to stick up here.

Following the financial/banking “series” from last week, below are some words to the effect that bankers are wankers.  If you are in the banking industry and you are not a wanker, then please forgive me for these cheap shots.  They are, of course, aimed at your unsavory colleagues, not you.  I’ve thrown in a couple of curiosities and non sequiturs for variety.

And if you are unfamiliar with colorful cockney vernacular (e.g. wanker), maybe try renting a few choice episodes of “Only Fools and Horses” or something.

These nugatory nuggets are presented in vainglorious Comic Sans MS (where installed) for your general irritation and vexation.

“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”

—Anonymous

(often attributed to Mark Twain, probably erroneously)

“Banks have a new image.  Now you have ‘a friend,’ your friendly banker.  If the banks are so friendly, how come they chain down the pens?”

—Alan King  (1927 – 2004),

American comedian

“Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.”

—John Berryman  (1914 – 1972),

American poet

“bank’s closed”:  Slang from the 1920s that meant no kissing or making out was allowed.

great halls of power

just as the most important people in the city
are complete and utter bankers
the most important people in the army
are the absolute highest rankers

—Michael E.  (b. 1967),

British wag

(This guy is likely riffing on British rhyming slang vis-à-vis wankers.)

Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer

This is a song to celebrate banks,

Because they are full of money and you go into them and all you hear is clinks and clanks,

Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,

Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills¹.

Most bankers dwell in marble halls,

Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals,

And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,

Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don’t need it.

I know you, you cautious conservative banks!

If people are worried about their rent it is your duty to deny them the loan of one nickel, yes, even one copper engraving of the martyred son of the late Nancy Hanks²;

Yes, if they request fifty dollars to pay for a baby you must look at them like Tarzan looking at an uppity ape in the jungle,

And tell them what do they think a bank is, anyhow, they had better go get the money from their wife’s aunt or ungle.

But suppose people come in and they have a million and they want another million to pile on top of it,

Why, you brim with the milk of human kindness and you urge them to accept every drop of it,

And you lend them the million so then they have two million and this gives them the idea that they would be better off with four,

So they already have two million as security so you have no hesitation in lending them two more,

And all the vice-presidents nod their heads in rhythm,

And the only question asked is do the borrowers want the money sent or do they want to take it withm.

But don’t think I’m against banks,

Because I think they deserve our appreciation and thanks

for eliminating the jackasses who go around saying that health and happiness are everything and money isn’t essential,

Because as soon as they have to borrow some unimportant money to maintain their health and happiness they starve to death so they can’t go around any more sneering at good old money, which is nothing short of providential.

—Ogden Nash  (1902 – 1971),

American wag

1.  While this line sounds outlandish to us today, thousand dollar bills (with Grover Cleveland’s likeness) were around when Nash penned this poem.  The U.S. Mint ceased issuing larger denominations after World War II and they were retired from circulation entirely in 1969 to help thwart organized crime rackets.

2.  Nancy Hanks was Lincoln’s mother, so “one copper engraving of the martyred son of the late Nancy Hanks” would refer to a penny, naturally.  This might have been more obvious had you grown up way back during the early 20th century like I did.  Truly I am an “old soul.”  Okay, now you know I’m yanking your chain.

* * *

Below you’ll find my stab at an Ogdenashy ode.  Only I take aim at a very 21st Century set of targets.  This is clearly more jeer than jeremiad, inveighing against influential and irresponsible media figures with churlish cheekiness.  However, the underlying target is really their employers, the mainstream media outlets that featured personalities who indulged in chatty cheerleading during the bubble and splenic spluttering during the bust.

Business media personalities are just like anybody else, except they have unusually exorbitant hair & makeup allowances

This is a verse to celebrate every silly talking head,

Who lulls with such fatuous chatter the most easily led.

Most fashion-plate correspondents sit in Herman Miller Aeron chairs

And affect light conversation and smiles that draw willing viewers’ stares,

And particularly because they all observe one rule, and their fans do a great deal to support it,

Which is you must never deliver news or analysis unless it is dumbed down and distorted.

Fiend, you forsook to foresee the financial fiasco, forsooth!

Objectivity: FAIL, you fraudulent Wall Street mouthpiece herald!

If we worry about our savings is it your duty to deny us the reverse of the coin of truth,

Even if it costs us some more numismatic portraits of the martyred son of the late Rose Fitzgerald?!

While your ink-stained betters lose their shirts despite all their toil,

You still prosper while peddling your infotainment snake oil.

But don’t think I’m against air-brushed personalities,

With their packaged presentations and banalities,

Because I think they deserve our full gratitude

for helping to cultivate our dull attitude

Besides which, we'd be hung higher and drier

And find ourselves even more out-of-lucker,

If our culture failed to be a supplier

Of the latest, greatest model of sucker

—Publius Ignominius Stuporis Slumburbius

(two-bit American wag)

Joey ♥ Maria

* * *

Gabba gabba hey...  To make up for that kind of lame Ram0nes song, I feel compelled to include a classic from 1977’s R0cket to Russia  LP.  “Teenage Lobo†omy” keeps up the brain damage theme (albeit sans zombies), complete with Lego stop-motion action.  Hey, these little dudes play air guitar better than I do, and I have the luxury of articulated elbow and wrist joints.

Foreclosure Fallout in the Mid-County

A foreclosed home on the corner of Turkey Branch Pkwy & Independence St in lower Aspen Hill.
This neighborhood is not included in the county’s new focused revitalization program.
(Saturday, March 28.)

The Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs (DHCA) held a community “charrette” for its new Focused Neighborhood Assistance (FNA) program last night at Wheaton High School.  This was basically a public feedback and discussion session.  Evidently the term “charrette” comes from urban planning circles; it was originally applied mainly to creative sessions run by planners, policy-makers, designers, architects, and other experts.

In the March 31st meeting, any experts in attendance mostly acted as facilitators and observers, except during the introductory and wrap-up speeches, where county leaders treated us with enthusiastic exhortations such as “Be a squeaky wheel!” and “Be an informed wheel!”  (I grew up in this county and I have to say that the shrillest “squeaky wheel” residents can be exhausting and occasionally mildy terrifying to put up with.  Maybe having a comfortable salary and an advanced degree in some optimistic field like urban planning makes dealing with the restless rabble more tolerable.  The planning/housing eggheads at the meeting certainly seemed to be perky, perpetually positive-thinking types.)

For information on the FNA initiative, visit the county housing authority’s informational webpage:
“Foreclosure Prevention”

Most of the maps listed on the DHCA webpage link to large, rasterization-intensive PDFs (>1.5MB each).  These graphics were generated in February based on information released by real estate data clearinghouse RealtyTrac.  If you open up the countywide map (~2.85 MB), you’ll see that the greatest concentration of foreclosures occurs along a southeast-to-northwest axis.  This pattern closely aligns with many declining neighborhoods that tend to attract lower-income residents, as well as those blocks hit particularly hard by recent population destabilization and densification.

If you’re interested in the incidence of foreclosures throughout the entire state, check out Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) website for its Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), which features a map color-coded by foreclosure impact level.  A sum of $26.7 million has been allocated for this program; it’s unclear how much of that will find its way to Montgomery County.

The statewide residential stabilization program falls under Maryland’s Neighborhood Conservation Initiative (NCI), first rolled out in tandem with former governor Glendening’s statewide “Smart Growth” program.  Ultimately, Maryland’s push for “Smart Growth” fell far short of living up to its name, as Environment Maryland outlines in their sobering report, “Not So Smart: Land Consumption in Maryland after a Decade of Smart Growth.”

And yet even today, pro-growth advocates still caricature the opposition as “slow growth” obstructionists who stand in the way of economic “progress” and social “progressivism.”  This smear is pretty astounding, given the overwhelming evidence that the pro-development crowd that has dominated government and local politics over the last two decades has rammed through policies that have degraded quality of life measures throughout the county.  This trends have hit densely populated regions like swaths of the mid-county, as well as rapidly developing exurban regions that used to be more rural and rustic in character.  When pressed, a lot of long-term residents agree that this county has become a considerably less appealing place to live for much of the rising middle class.

And yet when you look at the District 4 Special Election, the few candidates in favor of more active measures to achieve residential population stabilization and safeguard the local environment are constantly sidelined and marginalized by the most well-funded Democratic campaigns, as well as local politics beat journalists.  It appears that the aggressive staffers and volunteers enlisted in these slicker campaigns have transferred much of the rhetoric, tactics, and funding streams used in the national political theater to a humble local council race.  They are counting on members of the usual lock-step, pamphlet-ready Democratic voting blocs to usher in their anointed candidates and shut out all of the other worthy contenders, many of whom are long-term residents and civic activists who have a much more direct ground-level appreciation of the history of this area and the steady decline many of these neighborhoods have experienced for decades.

“Growth is good” is about as sound a statement as “Money quells all ills” or “Poverty is ennobling.”

“Smart” growth in Montgomery County quickly devolved into shortcut growth-at-all-costs expansion and an explosion in construction/renovation projects driven by developers who seduced politicians and residents with their visions of economic invigoration and a transformed metropolitan landscape.  A lot of residents, particularly in the west county, have profited handsomely from these policies.

The decline in rising middle-class neighborhoods like mine has been swift and dramatic during the 2000s.  Top-down policies and planning measures that catalyzed fast growth starting in the late 1990s rapidly created thousands of low-end jobs with depressed/stagnant wages.  Loosening credit standards, misleading leftist political rhetoric, and an ever-expanding stock of cramped and crowded slumburban rental units and sub-units helped paved the way for this steady race to the bottom.

And unlike in places like northern Virginia, broad economic development and job growth hasn’t kept pace with the residential overpopulation and densification bubble in Maryland.  Now that county employees are increasingly missing out on perks like cost-of-living adjustments, they may finally develop a deeper appreciation of what so many other residents are struggling with right now.

And yes, “densification” appears to be a legitimate word.  Using it here only invites obvious slurs about the stupefication of local leaders and residents during the Dumb Money decade.  (Hey, I sipped half-heartedly at the Kool-Aid, too, until about 2004 or so.)

Well, well.  Google tells me that British tunesmith Graham Parker once wrote a song titled “Stupefication.”  This minor associative tidbit gives me the perfect pretext for including my gratuitous music vid embed of the day, an early new wave gem from three decades back:



This song — from Parker’s 1979 acclaimed LP Squeezing Out Sparks — arguably has a quasi-suburban feel to it, especially since the accompanying vid features plenty of goofy girl-next-door Londonettes along with the come-hither caddishness of Mr. Parker.

Ahem, now let me return to the weighty subject of mid-county suburban decay.

* * *

The county’s revitalization program targets a few key areas hit hard by foreclosures, including one upcounty region (Germantown).  Their mid-county target area is Glenmont.

I wish I could say that this is merely a pilot program, but it looks like county officials are being very cautious about the initiative because of their depleted budget and re-shuffled policy priorities.  Ms. Cantor of the Mid-County Regional Services Center used the word “scant” at least twice while describing the level of funding available for the effort.  Speaking for County Exec Leggett, one official emphasized that local priorities are currently ordered as follows: “public safety, education, and safety net services.”

It looks like Montgomery County has been monitoring preliminary and active residential foreclosure trends for several years, along with the socioeconomic and other demographic data they normally compile and analyze for policy guidance.

I excerpt one of these maps below; again, the data was current as of February.

This is a snapshot approximating foreclosure activity in west Wheaton and Glenmont during the 4th quarter of FY 2008.

FNA = Focused Neighborhood Assistance
CAE = Connecticut Avenue Estates

For the original maps this graphic is extracted from, again, see the DHCA’s foreclosure resource webpage.

The area surrounded in blue is the mid-county zone being targeted by this program.  The vast majority of people within this area identify as Glenmont residents.  (Glenmont and Wheaton share the same census-designated place, or CDP.)

My household falls within the triangular area outlined in red, which roughly comprises much of the the “Connecticut Avenue Estates” (CAE) legal subdivision.  (Portions of “Connecticut Avenue Park” and “Montgomery Highland Estates” are cordoned within this red boundary as well, albeit unintentionally.)  There are at least a thousand households with the CAE subdivision designation; at least a couple of hundred of them are located in the southern region of the county’s targeted area, north of Randolph Road.  CAE is an aging high-density subdivision that the county has targeted before in combatting mid-county suburban blight.

Too Little, Too Late?

We’ve got a mid-county landscape studded with foreclosures and overshadowed with many other manifestations of creeping suburban blight.  These trends have been worsening for the past fifteen years or so, accelerating during the last 5 - 7 years.

While we are grateful that the county is finally addressing these long-developing patterns after all these years of decay and neglect, it’s frustrating that officials can only muster up the resources to focus on this very circumscribed area for this latest round of revitalization efforts.  Even with these well-defined constraints, DHCA officials made sure to repeatedly temper residents’ expectations about the project at Tuesday night’s meeting, which is certainly a good idea during this lean fiscal era.

If anybody has any other ideas about how or why county leaders arrived at this particular targeting decision, I’d really like to hear it.  I think they may have been chosen in part because of an emerging groundswell of civic involvement within that neighborhood.  Congratulations to the men and women behind the new Greater Glenmont Civic Association (GGCA).  The county is obviously looking to capitalize on the energy and “human resources” within these neighborhoods in its FNA initiative.  Incidentally, GGCA seems to tilt toward the southeastern portion of the region highlighted in the map above, which is centered on the subdivision known as “Glenmont Village” near the Glenmont Metro station.  The western regions of the neighborhood seemed somewhat isolated from this civic movement (e.g. portions of “Glenmont Hills,” “Connecticut Avenue Park,” and “Stoneybrook Estates”).

Those of us in neighboring communities (e.g. west Wheaton, Aspen Hill & north Kensington) really ought to redouble our own efforts to resurrect and support our own flagging and oft-neglected neighborhood groups.