The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Curfew Shall not Ring Tonight!

    By jollyroger on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:52pm |

    Stories of the successful interposition of bodies between the law and its intended victims are few and far between.

    To encourage the valuable practice of civil disobedience, and to commemorate a 16 year old girl's astounding poem let us pause and pay our respects to 

    Common Law.

    Mary Lee Ward is 82.  She was the victim of a classic predatory lender Delta Funding.

    (Just to add to your heartbreak, she took out a mortgage to save her grand daughter from being given up for adoption...).

    It all went bad, and, long story short, the new owner of her house was trying to gain possession of the premises through an eviction today.

    not so fast, said the people (who, united, will never be defeated.)

    Karen Gargamelli, esq. (with whom I am immediately in love) having rallied the neighbors, the pols, and her outfit Common Law (send them some money, they do good, also they have a fundraiser at Judson Church on October 20, be there or be square) fought off the marshalls, and for two weeks, at least, Mary Lee Ward is chez elle.

    Having washed up on the shores of my native Brooklyn, not two blocks from the next action venue (the office of the new "owner" (as if you can own what was originally stolen), I will report on Monday's coming confrontation.).

    Meanwhile, let us remember with affection Rose Hartwick Thorpe, whose young mind produced an extraordinary poem, the tocsin (pun) to which became a line for Katherine Hepburn in Desk Set.   I remember her classic voice rendering the line, which at the time I could not associate with any particular story.

    Now I love the poem, and I love this twenty first century echo.

    Curfew, my friends, shall not ring for Mary Lee Ward--not tonight.

    Comments

    If as the article states, Delta Funding canceled the loan, why isn't the new loan holder suing Delta Funding for passing on a debt that was not owed by Ms. Ward? It's also interesting that the new loan holder doesn't have a phone number.


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 12:00pm

    All good questions.  In general, the irregularities manifested over the past ten years of predatory loans, misleading disclosures, forged and fraudulent documentaion and flat out theft of property would curl your hair.

    I would venture by way of speculation that the current owner though Ms Ward would be  easier prey than the now bankrupt Delta Funding, (who also, of course, can no longer respond in damaes.)


    by jollyroger on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:06pm

    uups


    by jollyroger on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:06pm

    Maybe this is what Obama meant by we are the change we've been looking for.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 2:56pm

    Well, it is an organized community...on the other hand, civil disobedience does not seem to be part of his current playbook.  I, personally, would settle for a little incivil obedience (to the oath of office that he took), but you can't (as they say) always get...


    by jollyroger on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:02pm

    anybody who holds their breath waiting for any possible president who will come out and endorse civil disobedience is....well....dead.   The point is that more often than not our solutions are going to come from not the feds but from the local grassroots, neighbors helping neighbors.  Times being as they are, as The Player would say.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:08pm

    Of course, once you are in office, civil disobedience becomes something of an oxymoronic construct...Saul Alinsky, I suppose, would argue that demonstrations are a means to seizing political power, following which happy outcome they become nugatory.

    (Ha ha, Saul, the joke's on you...)

    That said, it is invigorating to see these echoes of the sixties on today's streets, and we shall follow the outcome with interest and vigor.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:14pm

    If there is a liberal delusion, now that I think about it, it is that the activist (revolutionary) spirit can be translated into governance.  The activist who doesn't burn out is the activist who knows their work is life-long commitment.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 4:20pm

    You mean now that we've taken the Winter Palace we gotta clean the toilets?? Bummer.

    by jollyroger on Sat, 08/20/2011 - 6:17pm