I really need to listen to music more. You would think that someone who owns roughly 5000 CDs, between actual CDs and iTunes, would be listening to music constantly. But I don’t do it as often as I should. My drive time (roughly 10 hours a week in the car) is spent listening to podcasts, which I never get caught up on. When I’m at home, I’m usually trying to get caught up on the backlog of TV shows that I’ve taped. I used to listen to a lot more music than I do now, and it’s really something that I just need to do. Because for me, music and writing go hand in hand. I should realize this as my best blog every year is my recap of the previous year, and I can’t even start that until I put on the live Rush albums.
So, tonight, in the middle of sending out a ton of emails, and getting caught up on some paperwork that has been eating my time up this week, I took a short break to check a couple of entertainment websites that I keep up on movie, tv and music news with. Which led me to a movie that is apparently about Kit Harrison’s abs, with Mt. Vesuvius as a backdrop. But there was a song playing in the background, so I looked it up, found the video on YouTube, and have had it playing repeatedly for the last hour or so.
So, I’m putting the video in this blog, and hope that you enjoy the song as much as I have. It seems that when I find a song like this, that helps my mind get to the place I need it to go in order to write, it really makes no difference what the words are, or the meaning behind them. It’s really just all about the melody for me. If the sound flows right in my brain, it triggers the ability to write. Honestly, the song could be all about raping puppies, but if the music was right, I wouldn’t even hear the words. I hear the words that I’m typing out, the music just makes them flow easier.
So, first, the video, and then on to the story that I heard earlier and wanted to talk about...
Now, for something completely different…
So, I’m driving to work this afternoon, and listening to my favorite podcast, the Tony Kornheiser show out of D.C. It’s a great mix of sports, news, entertainment, and general hilarity. But today, during the newscast, they brought up a story that was in the Washington Post about a policy the District of Columbia city tax department has been enforcing over the past few years. (I’ll include a link at the bottom to the actual article in the Post) It seems that the city, in an attempt to recover delinquent property tax revenue, began selling off tax liens on properties in the city. In many cases, the bills were very small, under $500, on properties that were owned free and clear by the residents. In the past, these bills were purchased by mom and pop type investors, who worked with the owners to get caught up. But in the last few years, that has morphed into a system dominated by predatory investment groups that come in, buy the tax lien, create a huge legal bill, and when the homeowner can’t pay it, they take the property, leaving the owner with nothing.
One of the people in the story owned a $197,000 house, owed $134 in back taxes, and lost the house. Another woman was in a nursing home suffering from dementia, and lost her house over a $44 bill. This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve heard in quite some time.
Honestly, it takes quite a bit to get me actually worked up over something. I look around at our society, and realize that we’re all in this handbasket on the express elevator going down. For the most part, I simply shake my head and resign myself to the fact that my generation was the tipping point, and it’s only going downhill from here. Most days that doesn’t bother me. Most ‘depressing’ stories that get other people riled up, I saw coming years ago, or I simply chalk up to avarice and/or hubris.
But this story struck a nerve, because it is just so wrong on so many levels. The people defending the program, whether it be the city officials or the people working for the investment firms, try to justify the program by saying that the people losing their homes were given ample opportunity to pay back the taxes. I’m sure that everyone followed the letter of the law. But when someone is a 76-year old veteran who is suffering from dementia, or a 95-year old suffering from Alzheimer’s, do you really think they were capable of understanding the tax laws? And where is their advocate? Was the city truly trying to work with them, or simply trying to pass the buck and get their money? Because you KNOW that the investment company wasn’t trying to work with them, they were trying to screw them out of the property as quickly as legally possible. There aren’t too many things that you can buy for $150, and sell for $125K a few days later.
So… way to go, humanity. Just when I thought you couldn’t ever shock me again, and that I was capable of handling you no matter what depths you sank to, along comes this story. Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little bit.
I’ll try to be back with something more positive soon. Puppies and kittens, rainbows and unicorns, something, anything to move on from this.
The link to the story in the Post if you’re interested: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/09/08/left-with-nothing/
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
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