The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    "If someone took your home away, how would you feel?" (Signed) Mike, Age 13

    By jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 2:51am |

    This poignant question, scrawled on the wall of a foreclosed house, opens the broader topic:

    Thinking of getting a real steal of a deal in a foreclosed home, now listed by some bank's Real Estate Owned Department?

    If you have a heart, (or a soul...) better think again.

    There will never be any luck for you in it--not even if you get these <ladies from Salem<> in to do their magic. (They work for free:)  but personally, I wouldn't live in one of these houses if you gave it to me.

    What say dagbloggers here assembled:?  Anybody want Mike's home for their own?

     

    Comments

    You'll never see an outlaw drive a family from their home


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 3:26am

    Not I.
    Bad karma haunts and I doubt I could smudge enough cedar to clear away the negative in a residence that hosted such anguish as one that was foreclosed upon.

    I wish I could find a decent ewetoob of Gnarles Barkley doing their Feng Shui song.  Cry


    by wabby on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 7:56am

    Didn't know they had one--I'm a huge fan (I always thought they wrote "maybe I'm crazy" with me in mind, but I'm probly not the only one...)

    I mostly wanted an excuse to reference Pretty Boy Floyd, altho I adhere to the proposition that no good can come from acquiring a repository of so much sadness as a foreclosed home represents.

    Parenthetically, I have heard that one in ten homeless shelter occupants is a foreclosed homeowner.  Not sure why I conceive of that as being sadder than a previous renter, but somehow I do.

    I will insist that it is not mere superstition that we honor by refusing to buy a foreclosed home, at least directly from the fucking bank.  I guess a more business minded person will argue that somewhere uptitle to lots of homes there could be a foreclosure or forced sale of some sort and that I'm just being sentimental.

    Fuck them too.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 9:31am

    At the risk of being called an evil, evil man - and being told to fuck off ;) - I'd at least consider buying a foreclosed home. By the time a home has been foreclosed, the damage has already been done. If we're interest in helping these people, we should be helping them prior to the foreclosure happening. Despite being very science-based in my worldview, I do get the bit about it being bad karma, enough so that it would give me pause. In the end, however, if it were a significant savings, and I was in the market for a house, I probably would buy a foreclosed house - if my wife would be OK with it, too, which she wouldn't.

    In all seriousness, I'm interested in hearing reasons why I might be wrong.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 9:42am

    Well, we are without peradventure dealing in the metaphysical; given your handle you will not be susceptible to the varied karmic arguments, and to say that profiting from another's loss is bad luck brings us back to superstition.

    Furthermore, you might well argue that buying at the actual foreclosure sale enhances the chance he the ousted homeowner will have a better chance of recouping at least some of her equity, versus the more common situation these days (given the collapse of prices) where the bank is the only bidder.

    So really, we are left with magnetism.

    I'm gonna argue (and I will cite to functional mri data if I have to) that we are all little magnetic field generators, and, of course, we know that all magnetic fields interact and influence all other ones.

    I am up against the inverse square law (maybe the inverse cube, even, I forget) but that really only speaks to the required sensitivity of the receiving apparatus.

    So, my pitch to the non-superstitious will turn on the truly bad vibes generated in that house over the prolonged period of struggle, and final eviction.

    They may localize because we exist in a general magnetic field (the earth's) or perhaps they permeate and adhere in the structure.  or maybe they find their way back to the home because, let's say, the kids pain continues for who knows how long. (I'm gonna work the kid angle to death here, call me pisher...)

    Who knows?

    I don't think I would anticipate pleasant dreams in Mike's bedroom, though.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 9:55am

    It's an inverse-square law that is a result of living in universe with 3 macroscopic spatial dimensions (I mention "macroscopic" to please string-theory and brane-theory adherents and "spatial" for those wanting to split relativistic hairs). If you're at all interested in the background of such things, the inverse-square law is directly derivable from the fact that the surface area of a sphere varies as the square of its radius. I can go into more detail if you like, but I'm afraid I'm already boring the peanut gallery. ;)

    As for a viable mechanism for how "bad karma" might manifest, I don't buy the magnetic field of our brains being a factor, but I do buy more mundane psychological arguments that essentially arive at the same conclusion. People who know nothing about the house having been in foreclosure (and this leads back to your previous points about houses being twice-or-more removed from foreclosure) are unlikely to have any bad dreams about it. As I said previously, however, even if I can scientifically discount bad karma, I cannot completely keep from thinking about it. As such, even I would be subject to possible psychological trauma if I bought a foreclosed home and became aware of it. That's why there would have to be signficant savings before I'd consider it, but at that point I most certainly would consider it - until my wife overruled me, of course. ;)


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 10:11am

    A little correction to what I wrote here:

    People who know nothing about the house having been in foreclosure (and this leads back to your previous points about houses being twice-or-more removed from foreclosure) are unlikely to have any bad dreams about it.

    It is possible that even without direct knowledge you could still unknowingly pick up on cues from neighbors, etc., and still suffer adverse psychological effects.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 10:13am

    As it happens, I've been looking for you.

    Well, not you, personally, don't get nervous...

    Since you've alluded to string theory, I am at the very edge of my seat (so to speak) awaiting what I understand will be a reasoned discussion, at the end of which I will have been brought to the firm conviction that while there may be 10 dimensions in the universe, and probably there are 11, there cannot be 9 or 12.

    It's on like donkey kong...let's go.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 11:21am

    A while back I attempted to explain something far simpler - quantum theory - and was told that I had done a very poor job of it (I'm paraphrasing of course, no one was actually that mean). So, to that end, I'll say that NOVA does a fairly decent job of explaining the 10-dimensions of string theory here:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/dimensions.html

    As for that mystical 11th dimension, its required to unify the various competing string theories out there. Using this 11th dimension allowed scientists to see how the different string theories were actually different representations of the same theory, if one added this 11th dimension. This idea is actually really intriguiging, as under this transformation, there are similarities between excessively large distances and extremely small distances, which I think one day might be used to explain the early inflationary epoch as well as the current increased acceleration witnessed in the Hubble not-so-constant.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 11:57am

    I don't buy the magnetic field of our brains being a factor

    Because?


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 11:34am

    Because it's just too weak.

    I don't know about you, but my brain has a hard enough time figuring out what my wife's trying to communicate when there are sound waves involved. I know my brain isn't going to influenced by the much weaker magnetic field.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 11:59am

     I know my brain isn't going to influenced by the much weaker magnetic field.

    In all 11 dimensions?

    I said I was up against the inverse square law, but all you are saying is that the receiver you assume to be operating is insufficiently discriminating to glean information from what you must, I think, concede, are measurable (if nanogauss) perturbations of your magnetic field.

    Two words:

    entangled photons (take that, time and spaceniks...)


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:05pm

    It is incredibly difficult to entangle photons!

    I should add that in addition to studying astrophysics, I've done significant research in modeling the brain (or rather parts of it). As such, I'm aware of the effects of many other much stronger (mostly) random effects that would drown out the magnetic effects of other people's brains. Background radiation from nearby power lines, for example, would overwhelm those other magnetic effects. (True story: I once hiked underneath some power lines in the Shenandoah National Forest and I could literally feel my hiking poles vibrate from a resonance they were picking up from the power lines!) In fact, when measuring the magnetic fields of mouse and rat brains, researchers have to add modern versions of Faraday cages in order to shield the magnetic effects of the 60 Hz AC current in the walls!

    An interesting aside is that about 70% of the time when a signal travels from one neuron to another, it fails to cross the synaptic cleft. 70% of the time! It also turns out that models I've worked with show that these synaptic failures actually improve learning. (I don't know why, but this is one of the most interesting facts about the brain to me.)


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:26pm

    Background radiation 

    Hmmm. Gonna have to pray on that....(yuk yuk)


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:29pm

    I don't find you an evil, evil man. As your wife is obviously an astute person, she would not have married into evil. Imho, of course.


    by seashell on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:14pm

    I think I was being called out, obliquely, for my hyperbole...


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:17pm

    The House of Sand and Fog, published in 1999, was prescient in its depiction of dire events that can spiral out of control when someone loses a house to bank/governmental error and/or corruption, and the Buyer is ruthless in his or her pursuit of financial advantage:

    http://www.amazon.com/House-Sand-Oprahs-Vintage-Contemporaries/dp/037572.... (This link may just take you to the main Amazon page for the book. If so, click on "Back Cover" which gives a plot synopsis.)

    Even though the scenario in HoSaF is extreme .... No, JR, I would not buy "Mike's" house. Nor any other made available by the kind of malfeasance that causes such profound unhappiness. Perhaps because walls cannot talk, they retain the predominantly happy or sad emotional experience of at least the last people who lived there for a long time.


    by wws on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 11:36am

     they retain the predominantly happy or sad emotional experience of at least the last people who lived there for a long time.

    This seems so sensible to me, albeit Atheist is unmoved.

    It's been a while since I visited Chartres, and, ok, I was on acid so la-di-fuckin'da, but man, there's some serious accumulated vibes there....


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 11:37am

    I'm unmoved in a literal sense, but not necessarily in a metaphorical one. I do think there are psychological aspects that can present very much the same symptoms.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:18pm

    naah, that's a cop out.

    Tell me why you are so sure that your receiver is clumsy and not elegant.

    And, (btw they give me a headache just to type the words....) aren't you making a time and space argument in a quantum world?  How close do entangled photons have to be for the magic to work?  To my limited understanding, not real close.  And they have real world cryptographic use.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:22pm

    After all, the one thing we can take from Dr. E. for sure is, we don't really know fuck-all about time.  And if we misunderstand time, what do we understand?


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:24pm

    Whether it's a cop out is debatable, but I'll admit to being non-confrontational, if that helps. :) In all seriousness, what I mean is that if you could set up a controlled double-blind environment, I'm quite sure you'd find that the walls had no effects on the subjects.

    Entangled photons can be light years away and still have the magic creepiness that drove Einstein crazy (not literally, mind you). However, they are difficult to create, although we keep getting better at it. That said, I don't deny that there are lots of things we don't understand. I just happen to have my own particular faith that ESP is not a real phenomenon (in the double-blind sense).


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:45pm

     light years away

     

    That is just not right....btw, how do you entangle photons?(don't try this at home, kids...)


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 1:29pm

    The simplest way is to shine a laser at a special crystal (and then not get in the way of the resultant photons).


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 2:00pm

    (in the double-blind sense).

    Funny, that, cause someone just published a paper that has people ready to fight duels

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?_r=1


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 3:18pm

    Yes, I noticed that. FWIW, I agree with the editors.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 3:21pm

     I agree with the editors.

    The editors of the journal?

    BTW, do I misapprehend, from my layman's grasp of quantum phenomena, that there are particles the appearance of which can only be described as occurring just prior to the conditions for their creation?

    And, while we are on the subject, how the fuck does the quantum particle know we are looking at it and why should it care, answer that Dr. Heisinberg


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:00pm

    The editors of the journal?

    Exactly. If the study followed the rules and there were no obvious problems other than it appearing to violate the laws of physics, it should be published.

    As for the collapse of the quantum wave packets caused by sentient observance, that was one of the things I was hoping to explain. The simplest explanation I have is that it is not the particles' wave packets that are being collapsed but ours that are being split. I.e., it's not that of the two states one manifests itself upon being observed, but that when we observe quantum superposed states that "force" one state to exist, we join that state in its quantum superposition, with one of us in the universe where state A exists and one of us in the universe where state B exists. If you want to find a way to connect this to psychic phenomenon, I won't rule it out completely, but as Sagan would say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Sun, 01/16/2011 - 5:05pm

    we join that state in its quantum superposition, with one of us in the universe where state A exists and one of us in the universe where state B exists

     

    Oh man!...That is so much worse than anything I could have proposed, and you'll have to excuse me, I'm going to go and have my head explode!

     

    Ahhh, that feels better....


    by jollyroger on Sun, 01/16/2011 - 5:27pm

    And I really do like that you call that "the simplest explanation".

     

    also


    by jollyroger on Sun, 01/16/2011 - 5:30pm

    As Einstein would say, you want the simplest explanation that explains the phenomenon, but no simpler!


    by Atheist (not verified) on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 1:59pm

    I think the use of the word "explains" assumes a lot...


    by jollyroger on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 2:09pm

    I knew that would happen.


    by Donal on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 3:53pm

    Would just like to point out that all foreclosures do not have a Mike story behind them, that there are many different stories:

    Source:

    Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages Are the Rich

    Also see

    Lose Homes, Pay More Tax (note that's homes the plural.)

    Does a property once owned by an investor or as a second home get the same bad spirits haunting them? Or different ones?

    You have inspired me with questions about ghosts, surprising for someone who has anti-yahwehist tendencies.

    How long does such a ghostly curse last? How many generations of owners? Do properties still carry the ghosts of Great Depression foreclosures? Is ok to rent a foreclosed home? Would it be ok to rent it if you are a formerly homeless person yourself? Is it only ok if you are squatting and not paying? Should all homes that have ever been foreclosured upon be bulldozed? I am now afraid of the history of my own abode. I know the next door neighbors (an Irish immigrant tavern owner with 5 kids) bought it in the 70's in the dark days of the Bronx when it had totally been trashed and rehabbed it and flipped it (given that it shares a wall with their own town house, it's certainly undestandable that its appearance may have bothered them a bit.) I wonder now if it was a foreclosure sale and there is a Mike ghost ruining my karma.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 2:36pm

    I wonder now 

    you never know....

    f you are squatting and not paying?  

    Now you're talkin'!

    anti-yahwehist tendencies. 

    One may dispise Yahweh without denigrating metaphysics

    Does a property once owned by an investor or as a second home get the same bad spirits haunting them? Or different ones? 

    These are extra-deep questions, clearly to be put to the specialists from Salem named in the wsj article...


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 3:23pm

    Surely by now someone has tracked down Mike and as a result of the story he and his family have been the beneficiaries of thousands, if not millions, in anonymous donations making his previous misfortune a necessary step toward his good fortune.  Or maybe not.  That is just how stories like this seem to play out once the media becomes enraptured by a story.

    Know any 13 year olds who normally append their age to their signature?  On the other hand, there are probably plenty of 13 year olds with enough media savvy to set this story up, then call a reporter. :)

    The story is a distraction, something to lighten the watercooler talk for a few days, and we all need a little levity   

    Oh, and a cleansing ritual would probably be a good idea for any new home.  One never knows what other people may have done to invoke malevolent spirits there.


    by EmmaZahn on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 2:54pm

    Surely by now someone has tracked down Mike 

    It could be happening as we speak...the vig on the house was, like 150k per the article and I think the buyer was named, so he might be motivated to have a milk of human kindness moment.

    I am willing to concede that my post brands me as hopelessly sentimental, or if not the post, the Pretty Boy Floyd reference...I was looking for the Joan Baez rendition, but sadly had to settle for McGuinn.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 3:13pm

    sentimental

    Not really, There's real genuine pain out there for any kid in U.S. suburbia, jr. high or high school, that has anything less than their own bedroom for privacy and entertaining friends, much less homeless. And it's scarring, it really is. But in the context of the whole world of hurt that can happen, it's one of those things that's ifffy as to final results--does it make them better or stronger or worse off for life? Depends on the parental reaction, I'd say.  "A space of one's own," that's not something that a lof of people had in this country until the late 50's. But it quickly became a standard, like having shoes to wear to school once was, hence the hurt. But in context there's a lot worse hurt that could happen these days, like getting shot and crippled by someone your own age in a bad hood or a bad school makes having to share a bedroom in a cramped cheap apartment seem not so bad.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:02pm

    It would be nice if we did not, in general, <>treat our kids like shit<>.

    The homeless thing is, as you say, <>only a part<> of the atrocity.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:08pm

    Also, you didn't provide any link for the Mike story, so we don't know how "evil" the situation really is. Is he homeless or does he just grieve for the nice house he grew up in?

    I get the impression that most foreclosured homes sit empty quite a while before they go to sale, so it's not like a situation where it's an eventual buyer jumping at the bit to force the current occupants out. Putting the onus on buyers of property that were long foreclosed upon just doesn't strike me as making much sense--it's the banks and it's the loss of jobs that are causing the problem.

    If someone has the ability to buy a home in this time of depressed prices, they are actually helping the market recover by buying one. Otherwise, it will get worse. I would think if one wanted to be really "moral" about that along the point you are making, they might forego looking at foreclosures and instead look for people desperately wanting to sell to get out of a mortgage they can't afford and downsize, and thereby prevent a foreclosure. And you know what, I suspect the prices wouldn't be that different. I suspect the shysters touting the "buy foreclosed properties!" shitick know that the banks are not really selling for a dime on a dollar but holding firm to the market value of the area. So just buy from a person that wants to sell and not one already foreclosed, the price difference is probably negligible.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:18pm

    link for the Mike story

     

    It's in the wsj story about the salem ladies:

    The house on Arbella Street is under contract for $167,000, and was appraised for nearly double, pending renovations. But, Ms. Bruno cautioned, that bargain comes with a price. She gestured toward an empty room with "Mike, Age 13" scrawled on the wall in child's handwriting. "If someone took your home away, how would you feel?"

    Taking her cleansing agent of kosher salt in a bowl of water and lighting a candle, she led the group—including the buyer's agent—up the stairs. Arriving at the upstairs kitchen, gutted of its cabinetry and appliances, Ms. Bruno yelled into the air: "You will not hurt anything I hold dear. I am the exorcist of your garbage!"


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:22pm

    My bad, I didn't read carefully enough. So we don't really know  who Mike is, do we? Actually, he could also be Mike that's been haunting the house since the Great Depression....in which case, the kosher salt routine is certainly the way to go.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:29pm

    the kosher salt routine

    Kashreth rears it's ugly head...regular old crystals just won't do the trick...


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:33pm

    Well, of course, you address a wider phenomenon: when the overall market is violently depressed, all sales are impacted by that distress, and in a sense, all sales are "distress" sales since no one who can wait out the foreclosure induced glut will come to market now.

    Thus, merely being cognizant of the inventory overhang and the downward pressure on prices will inform the offer one is prepared to make ab initio, and if met with a resistant buyer, one will walk down the block, not necessarily to plunder but simply to be fair to oneself.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:30pm

    I forgot.  After cleansing, be sure to put one of these up:

    mazuza


    by EmmaZahn on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:37pm

    Would you settle for a pentacle, for the wiccans?  Short one point, but we'll point it up....


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:40pm

    My personal preference in pentagrams is the 16th stellation of icosidodecahedron

    but as long as it points up ;-) one point is fine. 

     


    by EmmaZahn on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:50pm

    Confession: when we moved into our townhouse, as renters, on the little porch was hanging a small Puerto Rican flag and a red plastic rosary. I threw away the flag, however I still have the rosary beads, now without their crucifix and having lost a couple of other chunks or two, hanging on the door latch where I found them. Since the neighborhood is known to still have some rituals with live chickens going on in the nearby park and has some kind of shop which advertises among other things, "voudon potions." a couple of blocks away, I thought better safe than sorry. Wink


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:02pm

    live chickens

    I'm gonna assume that the chicken's live state does not necessarily outlast the ritual...I don't suppose  they eat it later, but I am put in recollection of when Fidel visited the Hotel Teresa on his trip to the UN, and insisted that only a live chicken was a fresh chicken. causing some commotion to occur on the hotel balcony involving a hibachi, a cleaver, and a loudly protesting, if only temporarily, chicken.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:06pm

     I thought better safe than sorry

     

    A wise decision. :Smile

     


    by EmmaZahn on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:24pm