Beacon Broadside

The Economic Downturn and Student Loans: Some Practical Advice for Borrowers

January 13, 2009

Today’s post is from Alan Michael Collinge, author of The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History—and How We Can Fight Back and founder of StudentLoanJustice.Org, a grassroots organization, and political action committee.

Student loan companies will soon be lined up at the Federal Treasury, seeking loans against bundles of high interest, private loans that they made to students, often with their parents as co-signors. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of students and their families see their livelihoods wracked by student loans in ways worse, even, than defaulting home mortgage borrowers. As we progress through this economic downturn, there is a strong potential for increased predatory activities by the student lending industry, and borrowers need to be prepared to take extra steps to protect themselves.

A bit of history: federally guaranteed student loans have been largely impossible to discharge in bankruptcy for the past decade. The federal guarantee on these loans was used as the reason for removing this basic protection. It was a very weak argument—no other loans, federally guaranteed or not, have special exemptions from bankruptcy protections. In practice, this unique lack of bankruptcy protection has given the green light to lenders to attach penalties and fees onto debt without fear of the borrower. The largest lender in the country, Sallie Mae, saw its fee income increase by 228% between 2000-2005 (its loan portfolio grew by only 87% during this time), and their CEO bragged to shareholders in their 2003 annual report that their record earnings that year were attributable to collections on defaulted loans. So, no bankruptcy protection for the borrower means free money for the lenders, and lots of it!

Removing bankruptcy and other protections from federal loans wasn’t enough for the student loan industry, however: in 2005, student loan giants Sallie Mae, Citibank, and others lobbied Congress successfully to remove bankruptcy protections, as part of the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, for private student loans as well. No one seems to be able to find out who inserted this language into the bill—no Congressman can be found who is willing to claim credit. Nonetheless, it happened. That the student loan companies were able to get this passed was shocking to unbiased experts and analysts of this industry.

(more…)
Monday Media Roundup: Khalidi on Gaza, Pearce on Migration, Mark Winne on Eating Local

January 12, 2009

In a New York Times op-ed, Rashid Khalidi offers a primer on Gaza. Also check out this interview on GritTV.

At his New Scientist blog, Fred Pearce calls for open borders.

Mark Winne offers a meditation on eating locally in 2009.

Forrest Church discusses religion in America and living with terminal illness on the Diane Rehm show.

Nicholas Kristof calls for a soda tax, quoting Prescription for a Healthy Nation.
Thoughts on a New Way for USDA

January 8, 2009

Today’s post is from Mark Winne, the author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty. For 25 years, Winne was the Executive Director of the Hartford Food System, a private non-profit agency that works on food and hunger issues in the Hartford, Connecticut area. Winne now writes, speaks, and consults extensively on community food system topics including hunger and food insecurity, local and regional agriculture, community assessment, and food policy. For more information, go to http://www.markwinne.com.

How ironic that we must even ask our national policy makers to make the nutritional health and well-being of their people the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s first priority. But due to the sheer weight of the marketplace and poor government policies, local and regional food systems of the early 20th century yielded to highly concentrated, chemically intensive systems of the post-World War II era. Now disparagingly known as the industrial food system, its voice was always the first to be heard in the corridors of power; its phone calls always the first to be returned by the Secretary of Agriculture.

But a fair wind is blowing, the market is shifting, the people are speaking, and some would even say that the leaders are listening. The pendulum is swinging in the direction of sustainable, local and regional food systems. Certainly for those with time, money, and good information, a healthy food supply is now at hand. No, the scales of justice are still not balanced. There’s plenty of “good food” for the affluent, but not enough affordable and healthy food for those with limited wealth or access to quality food retail outlets. But at least those who speak up loudly for sustainably produced food are beginning to speak up for justice as well. The voice we are hearing more often than not is one that cries out for a food system that is both just and sustainable.

The mere structure of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, however, presents a lingering policy problem that thwarts those growing hordes of activists who see the promise of justice and sustainability being fulfilled at the community level. USDA is hopelessly fragmented into programs that assist farmers—mostly very large commodity farmers, as we know; programs (15 separate ones in all) that feed people such as food stamps; and programs that support conservation. If I walked into USDA headquarters in Washington, DC, and asked to see someone who could help me develop a local food system that respected our natural resources, rewarded farmers with a decent livelihood, and provided healthy food to all our residents, nobody would know where to send me. If I was super clever that day, possessed of infinite stamina, and extremely lucky, I might be able to piece together what I needed out of the various silos in the agricultural bureaucracy. But to my knowledge, no one has ever survived the attempt.

(more…)
Why Write Books?

January 7, 2009

Today’s post is from Jeremy Adam Smith, senior editor of Greater Good magazine and author of The Daddy Shift, forthcoming from Beacon Press in spring 2009. He blogs about the politics of parenting at Daddy Dialectic.

One night at dinner a cynical relative challenged me on my choice of career: Why bother to write books and articles? We were talking about my current project, on the communities that straight and queer parents build together. He asked: Whose mind do you hope to change? Will it make any difference? Who reads books these days, anyway? They were thinking especially of hardcore members of the religious right, who will never read a book like that, and if they do, they will likely reject what it has to say out of hand.

These were good questions. I surprised myself by having some answers. My first thought is that, on the most personal level, none of that matters. I like to tell stories and, for a combination of personal and political reasons, this is the story I want to tell right now. If two people want to hear the story, I’m happy with that. If two hundred thousand want to hear it, even better.

How many I reach is, of course, partially a function of how good a job I do, along with timing, marketing, and many other factors. And I also get existential satisfaction out of the job, because it is a job, and not a well-paying one; still, the process of putting words together and striving to improve my skills gives me pleasure, albeit of the tortured sort. Why, I’m not sure.

Beyond those personal reasons, however, there are people out there who readily agree with me but who need to hear these stories told to them, so that they can think through problems with another mind (as I have many times, through the medium of books) and so that they can feel connected to something larger than themselves.

(more…)
An Open Letter to the President Elect Regarding Gaza

January 5, 2009

Today’s post is from Laila Halaby, author of the novel Once In a Promised Land, which was named one of the 100 best fiction books of 2007 by the Washington Post. Halaby was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a Jordanian father and an American mother. Her first novel, West of the Jordan, won the prestigious PEN Beyond Margins Award. Visit www.lailahalaby.net for more information on Laila Halaby and her work.

Dear President Elect Obama,

Belatedly, I congratulate you on winning the election.
Belatedly, I offer my condolences for the death of your beloved grandmother.
Hopefully not belatedly, I implore you to consider your role in Palestine.

Though I try to avoid watching the news, last night I forced myself to look at coverage of Gaza. I started with CNN or Reuters, and though at that point over 200 Palestinians had been killed, the footage I saw was of the funeral for the one Israeli who died. I watched several men carry a coffin. I saw attractive women crying. It was both public and private and one felt their grief. The message was clear: one Israeli death is one too many whereas more than 200 Palestinian deaths are in a different category.

So I decided to watch al-Jazeera. Do you ever watch it? Shirin Abu Aqle, who has been reporting from the Occupied Territories for the last eight or so years, is looking very, very tired. I forced myself to watch the scenes of destruction, the ambulances, the men and women slumped over the bodies of their family members. I forced myself to listen to the screams, the wailing.

I forced myself to watch these images because I feel that as long as my country is supporting the country that has caused this, I am guilty.

(more…)
Fundamentalist Family, Secular Christmas

December 24, 2008

Today's post is from Susan Campbell, author of Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl. Campbell's writing has been recognized by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors; National Women's Political Caucus; the Sunday Magazine Editors Association, and the Connecticut chapter of Society of Professional Journalists. She was also a member of the Hartford Courant's 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning team for breaking news.

While other families lit Advent candles, my brothers and I gathered to hang red bulbs on a fake silver tree that came with a color wheel that turned its branches from red to blue to green.

And we had stockings. They held oranges and a handful of walnuts still in their shells. Looking back, I know now that walnuts were just filler, but back then I could only puzzle as to what use a 6-year-old would have of a walnut still in its shell.

We had gifts and glitter and candles, too. What we didn't have was Baby Jesus.

(more…)
A Modest Proposal for Your Holiday Correspondence

December 22, 2008

Today's post is from law professor and humorist Jay Wexler, author of the forthcoming Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars. Wexler teaches at the Boston University School of Law. Read more of Jay Wexler's humor at holyhullabaloos.typepad.com.

With Christmas just a few days away and New Year's right around the corner, this is the time when each day my family's mailbox fills up with treasured holiday cards from family, friends, and creepy high school classmates we thankfully haven't seen in twenty years. We love the letters with their welcome updates—a vacation in Europe, a promotion to assistant sales manager, a tumor caught just in time! Our favorite part of these cards, however, has always been the picture. This is our chance to see what you all look like after the passage of another year. Has Father Time treated you well, or could you use some help from the plastic surgery clinic down the street? What kinds of shoes do you fancy, and are your knees still as lovely as I remember? Is your face still symmetrical, or has Father Bell's Palsy paid you a little visit?

Sadly, though, more and more the pictures we receive don't contain images of you at all. Instead, we get measly little photographs of your kids and maybe a pet chinchilla in a sweater with snowflakes on it. This would have shocked the Pilgrims, whose primitive stick-figure Christmas cards always depicted the entire family in their dour black frocks. In fact, it wasn't until the industrial revolution that children occasionally started appearing alone on holiday cards—though these images of dirty child laborers look a bit shocking to our delicate modern sensibilities.

Don't get me wrong: We love kids. We love looking at them, playing with them, dangling yarn around and watching them get all tangled up. What adorable little creatures! But it's you we know, you we once pulled all nighters with in college, you whose shoes we puked on during homecoming. We want to know what you look like after all these years, and even more than that, we'd love to discover what ugly dude you ended up marrying.

(more…)
Hanukah: Moving Past Two-Mindedness

December 18, 2008

Today's post is from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, author of Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion. This post originally appeared at her blog.

A lot of people have trouble with Hanukah. I did, for years. I'd go to parties and nibble on my latke or sufganiya while grumbling under my breath about how there was nothing here to celebrate. I'd light my hanukiyah (menorah), but I'd only do the bare minimum needed to fulfill the mitzvah and I'd do my best not to enjoy it.

My problem then, and the problem of the people who this year have already informed me that they're all but going to boycott the holiday, is that the history of this particular celebration is, well… complicated.

The war through which we celebrate Hanukah was, in part, a Jew-on-Jew civil war, in which zealous traditionalists attacked and killed more assimilationist Hellenized Jews. The catalyst for the violent revolution was the reigning Syrian Greek king, Antiochus IV, who demanded that Jews worship false gods and violate the Sabbath, or die. The Jews who refused to do this were not very pleased with the ones who did.

(more…)
The History of one Hmong Family

December 16, 2008

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang (Coffee House Press, 2008) tells the story of one Hmong family and their experiences as refugees and immigrants to the United States. Only a handful of books have recounted the experience of the Hmong in America (I Begin My Life All Over from Beacon Press is one of the few others), and Yang's telling of her family's history sheds light on an entire community. The book recently received an Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. Beacon Broadside invited Yang to discuss why she wrote her book.

I'm the second oldest daughter of Chue Moua and Bee Yang, two Hmong refugees, surviving victims of the Secret War in Laos, 1960 to 1975. The war and its ramifications killed two thirds of the Hmong population in Laos. I was born in a refugee camp called Ban Vinai after my family crossed the Mekong River in 1980. When I wrote my memoir, The Latehomecomer, it was my best effort at making my history and our lives meaningful. I have been taught that by documenting our deaths we are documenting our lives, that the two cannot be separated.

When the book was first published in April of this year, my father said, "If Hmong tears can reincarnate then the world would rain in our sorrow. But they cannot, so they can only green the mountains of Phou Bia, but if your words on the page, carried by the winds of humanity, blow in the right direction: then the lives were not lost."

I've always believed in my father's words. If I cannot believe in the man who has tried, from the moment my ears can remember hearing, to teach me of a better, bigger world, a world worth belonging to, then I would not know where to turn or who to trust. So much of the book is dedicated to the people who have taught me faith and understanding, one of whom is my grandmother, Youa Lee.

(more…)
Link Roundup: Gene Tests for Sports Talent, Geoffrey Canada on the Colbert Report, Bill Ayers on Hardball

December 12, 2008

Mark Hyman wonders what parents who test their kids genes for sports talent are expecting to do with that knowledge.

Geoffrey Canada explains the Harlem Children's Zone to Stephen Colbert, who wonders if it's something like Gymboree.

Bill Ayers discusses past, present, and future with Chris Matthews on Hardball.

Marian Wright Edelman asks if we are preparing our children to lead in science.

Author's Guild President Roy Blount, Jr., calls for a book-buying surge. If you're in Portland, Oregon, you may want to start at In Other Words. At Beacon yesterday, we watched the documentary Paperback Dreams as part of our occasional lunchtime movie series. The film profiles two independent Bay-Area bookstores, Kepler's and Cody's, and their financial struggles in the age of big-box retailers and online shopping. This past year, Cody's, sadly, went the way of Ruminator (aka Hungry Mind), Coliseum, Olsson's and countless others.

Recent Beacon Broadside posts:

Why Are All the Hapa Kids Sitting Together?

Eboo Patel on NPR

Putting Hussein in Christmas

Caring for the Soul of the World

Health Care: The Change We Need

recent posts

about