A pop quiz

I have been dark on this blog for almost a month due to travel, writing deadlines, and assorted other excuses, including a death in the family and the start of a new book.

Here's a pop quiz just to see if anyone really reads my blog: What do Willie Morris (late author, Rhodes Scholar, and youngest editor in the history of Harper's Magazine) and Haley Barbour (governor of Mississippi) have in common?

Respond as anonymously as you wish. "I don't know" is also a valid response.

I hope this blog is a vibrant source of information, opinions, and observations for you. My goal is to discuss critical issues that span a wide range of topics and present them in a readable and personal (but not overly personal) way. -- Stevin

Another bank bites the dust

On Friday, the Bank of Lincolnwood in Illinois became the 37th bank in the United States to fail since the beginning of this year. That is thirty-seven bank failures in five months. And we are not even halfway through the year.

Meanwhile, the prudent head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Ms. Sheila Bair, tried to force Citigroup (parent of Citibank), to dismiss its ill-suited CEO, Vikram Pandit (a former hedge-fund manager who sold his hedge-fund to Citigroup, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars via the sale; that is how he came to join the company), as a condition for taxpayers taking a 34% stake in Citi.

Ms. Bair was absolutley correct in asking Pandit to step aside. He simply does not have enough commercial-banking experience to be CEO of one of the world's largest banks. The FDIC, which Ms. Bair chairs, is a guarantor of significant portion of Citi's $298 billion of depositors' monies. However, she lost, Pandit stays, and taxpayers now own 34% of a bank holding company that is in bad shape. Citi has had net losses of $36 billion over the last six quarters (on Pandit's watch). And Citi's share price has declined from $23 per share last October to $3 per share today.

WHY IN THE WORLD IS TAXPAYER MONEY HELPING CITI? Compare what they have done over the past year to what a well-managed bank like JP Morgan Chase has done. JP Morgan Chase is healthy and thriving -- and taking market share from Citi. Meanwhile, Citi still has billions of toxic assets on its balance sheet. Our taxpayer dollars are at risk, and our children will inherit the deficit created by this unwise bailout of Citi. -- Stevin

The best revenge

"The best revenge is not to do as they do." Thus saith Marcus Aurelius. -- Stevin

Hannah, language, and Barbara Wallraff

Among the many hopes I have for my nine-year-old daughter Hannah is that she learn to use the English language well. As she grows up in a world that is increasingly visual, I hope she does not become imprecise or vague in expressing herself in either the written or spoken word. Based on how well-spoken she is at nine and on the wonderful note she wrote me ten days ago, she's off to an astonishingly good start. As I write this, however, she is either playing with her Wii or watching a Disney movie. Nothing wrong with either, but she's growing up in an increasingly visual and special-effects and gaming era. By the time she's fifteen, she will have an entirely different relationship with words, books, and the English language than I had when I was fifteen. When I was fifteen, I came under the influence of the amazing Miss Feldman, the greatest English teacher who ever existed in the whole universe forever and always into eternity and beyond, and Miss Feldman told me I wrote well, and whether she was just saying that or actually meant it, she motivated me to want to become a great writer.

Miss Feldman is no longer in our midst, but there is somebody out there who comes pretty close to Miss Feldman as a witty and inspirational "judge" of words, editor, and arbiter of the English language. Her name is Barbara Wallraff. She has been an editor and columnist of "Word Court" for The Atlantic for years. She's witty and wise. Whereas I always seemed to have trouble reading William Safire's column on language to the end, I devour Ms. Wallraff's columns from beginning to end. Her "Word Court" column is syndicated in newspapers across the country via King Features. See http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/columns/wordcourt/about.htm or visit her nifty website at http://www.wordcourt.com/.

By the time Hannah is fifteen, the very definition of a book, magazine, or newspaper will be radically different from what it is today. It will probably be more like what we saw in the movie Minority Report by Steven Spielberg, where Cruise just calls up in front of his eyes a semi-transparent 3D hologram to "read the file" on someone. A flick of the wrist here, a bend of the finger there, and the page jumps forward. Whatever the delivery system becomes, words and language will still matter, and Hannah will learn as much from reading Barbara Wallraff in the future as I have in the past and still do in the present. If you want to have fun while improving your own use of the English language, read Barbara Wallraff. -- Stevin

The political courage of Senator Jim Webb

Few people realize how hard it is for politicians to propose reform of our nation's criminal justice system without opening themselves up for attack by opponents or constituents as being soft on crime. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) stands out from the pack in the U.S. Senate for having the political courage to have introduced Senate Bill 714 in March of this year, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009. Unlike most politicians, Webb does not run for cover when asked about his position on our criminal justice system. He has established the commission because he believes our nation urgently needs a top-to-bottom review of all aspects of our criminal justice system: incarceration rates, gang violence, drug policy, mental illness and crime, prison administration, and prisoner re-entry into society.

I urge every responsible American to get behind this legislation. -- Stevin

E-mail fraud

No matter how many anti-spam filters we build into our e-mails, incredible things still get through. I got this from someone with the "Central Bank of Nigeria" several days ago: "THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT YOUR INHERITANCE!$. I am Mr. Adekunle Elvis a computer scientist working with central bank of Nigeria. I just started work with C.B.N. and I came across your file which was marked X and your payment release papers painted RED, I took time to study it and found out that your inheritance have [sic] not been released to you...I can make transfer of your funds available to you immediately under 10minutes, that is if you are ready and willing to follow all instructions stated by me without hesitation."

I, of course, did not respond to this e-mail, but what about those who did? How badly are they being taken?

Nations must co-operate to prevent such abuse. Rogue nations that permit such fraudulent e-mails to originate from their jurisdictions must get on board and help the world shut down such scams. -- Stevin

The "Sea of Wisdom"

Ernest Hemingway called the Bible the "Sea of Wisdom."
Indeed. -- Stevin

What a great brother I have

I have a younger brother, Rusty, whom I have under-appreciated for many decades.  It took a personal reversal in my life for the veil to be lifted from my eyes.  Now I see how endlessly fascinating, intelligent, and multi-talented he is.  Four years younger than me, Rusty will always be my "little" brother.  But there's nothing little about him when it comes to helping me.  He's always at the other end of the phone when I need him.  And he's always positive, always upbeat when it comes to "my situation."  Right now he is in the trenches with me as one of the editors of a book I'm writing.  It is odd that I end up being the one in the family who becomes an "author," although it was he who was supposed to be that, given that he got his MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia and was the Managing Editor of the American Book Review in the 1990s.  Today he shows only encouragement toward me, no jealousy -- and no regrets that he himself did not go on to get any of his own good stuff published. I am amazed and grateful that he is so willing to set aside his priorities to help see me through this project. Rusty is a good editor, a great writer, and an excellent brother. -- Stevin

The Amazing E.B. White

Both my nine-year-old daughter and I are enjoying the writings of E.B. White right now. Hannah met Louis this week in E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan, while I am re-reading (for the ten millionth time) that "must-read" for any writer, Elements of Style, the "little book" that was originally written by one of White's professors at Cornell, William Strunk Jr. and which E.B. White updated and reworked in 1959. After that Elements of Style became known simply as "Strunk and White" or the "little book" (because of its compact size and succinct remarks on grammar and the principles of composition). The Little Book is almost always in my pocket when I go anywhere. In addition, White helped make The New Yorker one of the greatest literary magazines of the English-speaking language. His first article appeared there in 1925 and his last shortly before he died in 1985. White also wrote both children's books, Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web, which remain classics alongside The Trumpet of the Swan. The lives of both children and adults are better because E.B. White lived and cared so passionately about plain expression and good English. -- Stevin

Why we don't have to worry about over-regulation

Many people believe that we are on our way to a socialist economy with all this goverment stimulus going on. To think that is to under-estimate speculation's power to, even in quasi-socialist countries, pull in the opposite direction. Speculation is a kind of anarchic force. The tide has for now turned against the speculators. That is to some extent too bad because, when that happens there is an inevitable loss of liberty. But rest assured that the speculators will fight back and create disruption somewhere else in our financial markets. The pendulum swings back and forth between economic liberty and constraint. -- Stevin