1-800-PetMeds Next Pet TV Star Contest

1-800-PetMeds Next Pet TV Star Contest

See Raphael in this contest! Voting Starts November 29th--Tell your friends!

                                                 Raphael, aka Snow-crab Legs


OR, enter your own adorable pet.   Also, If your have a better caption, let me know,  Maria 

Delivering My Change.Org Petition to Wells Fargo

Delivering My Change.Org Petition to Wells Fargo

Wednesday May 9^th.  11:00 a.m. Arrived in San Luis Obispo with my friend Melanie, a veteran, and my service dog Raphael accompanying me. Parked in the lot of Wells Fargo Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, 665 Broad Street, San Luis Obispo, California 93401. Occupy SLO was conspicuously absent; perhaps they no longer exist. Down the street, two men were setting up a KSBY-TV camera. We approached these cameramen who then asked me for a short interview. I was more than happy to comply. 

 

Again they filmed the large, bound petition book I was carrying, and asked many questions about Change.Org. I told them how supportive Change.Org’s staff had been to me, but I re-emphasized that these opinions of Wells Fargo were my own, not those of Change.Org. I explained that Change.Org only provides a platform and voice for me and the thousands of others who signed up with them. Then KSBY-TV supposedly filmed us walking into the front doors of the bank, but instead filmed another woman walking into the side door. This weakened the spot on the local 6:00 news. Still, I was grateful for the coverage.

 

11:35 a.m. Melanie, Raphael and I entered Wells Fargo Bank. As we looked around for the staircase to the Home Mortgage Division on the second floor, a man in a suit politely approached us and asked if he could help us. I saw right away he was waiting for us. He introduced himself as Mark Corella, the district manager for the Central Coast Market. 

 

Ah, see there! I hadn’t known the Central Coast was a “market” for Wells Fargo. Silly me; I’d thought this was a geographic area.

 

Mr. Corella told me that he and the branch president, Mike Henson, had been waiting for us. Mr. Henson arrived and shook my hand. Both men escorted me and my companions upstairs where we were invited into a conference room to sit down and talk. On my way up the sweeping staircase, I observed that the building’s interior was round with a domed roof, along the Byzantine architectural style of cathedrals, temples, and mosques. A fitting sanctuary, I mused, for the altar of the almighty dollar.

 

Melanie noticed that the mortgage department, which took up the whole second floor, was bereft of customers that day. Interesting. Keeping the children out of the busy street?

 

Both men immediately expressed great sorrow at the fact that I had suffered so much at the hands of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, and begged to hear my story. Mr. Corella seemed especially sympathetic, and claimed he had “no idea” this was going on in his community until he saw the newscast on KSBY the night before.

 

(Scary, huh?)

 

To their credit, the men tried to make me feel welcome and comfortable. Before I launched into my story, I let them know that I was aware that Mr. Henson’s domain was generating new mortgages and not dealing with loan modifications. However, I softly chided them, this has been a sore issue: The ironically named “Home Preservation Department” is a warehouse of, I suspect, temporary, untrained employees without face-to-face presence. But I was here demanding  that the bank sit up and pay attention to this issue face-to-face, i.e., this issue of endless runarounds, bad faith, dual-tracking, lies.

 

They asked if they could look at the petition, and I told them, “Here! It’s yours. This is what I am presenting today.” They were quite astonished to see so many signatures from all around the country and, I pray, embarrassed. 

From about 11:45 to 12:30, I spoke, telling them every detail I could squeeze in, and how I was shafted by the bank at every turn. Both Corella and Henson appeared to listen attentively. I explained about how I had so far received good media attention, much of it from the almost 17K signatures. 

 

I recounted some examples of other people’s miserable experiences with Wells Fargo, and that many were horrific and morally repugnant (not to mention criminal, but this was not a tribunal. Yet.) I explained how the banks had created this economic downfall to begin with and had unleashed an American tragedy. These Wells Fargo representatives could hardly believe their ears because “we always try to help people and do the best for our customers—and our community right here in San Luis Obispo.” 

 

To this form of dangerous and willful ignorance, I suggested that first, they drive around and see the empty houses in their community; and second, they pay more attention to the walloping the WF Brand is getting on the Internet and in other media. “Oh, not just from me but from thousands of customers—and, uh, former customers,” I drawled sweetly.

 

Near the end, Mr. Henson asked what they could do to help me.

 

Someone suggested that he call the Executive offices in Des Moines to see if he could bring attention to this matter. At that I reeled off the names of people in that executive office I had spoken to in the past, and how they no longer answered my calls or returned my messages, at least as of March. Yes, even Ms. Dawn Nelson, from the Media Division, who chatted so amiably with me and insisted I reapply for a loan mod. Ms. Nelson recited all the perfect formulaic hogwash previously spewed at me, such as how she would “be there” for me and serve as my exclusive point of contact, and how she would help me with the new application, and so on.

 

Okay. Now let’s break and try out your psychic abilities: How many times since that call do you think Ms. Nelson talked to me or even returned my calls? Yes, by golly, zero times. How many times did I call leaving frustrated messages only to hear that Ms. Nelson was “out of the office” for weeks on end? Bingo! Yes, every time.

 

After this, Mr. Henson declared that I had ventured closer to the President’s Office than any of them ever had. I told them that was thanks to my enlisting the help of U.S. Congresswoman Lois Capps’ office.  As to my attempts to open a case with the OCC, that was a waste of time. The OCC, not surprisingly, did nothing but stick up for Wells Fargo and tell me that WF did not have to follow any regulations. No, those OCC “regulations” I was quoting, the OCC person told me, were really only guidelines, for did I not know that “the banks can do what they want?”

 

Do I know that. Ya think? That’s exactly what I’m fighting to change.

 

The meeting with Corella and Henson ended by Mr. Henson promising to contact the executive offices in Des Moines, send them the petition, and let them know they I had spoken with them, and as a result, they, Henson and Corella, wanted to try and help me succeed in obtaining this loan modification. Henson frankly admitted that it would probably do no good as he was “small fry,” but at least he was willing to try.

 

Back in the car, I asked Melanie’s opinion. Melanie is a U.S. Marine veteran with her feet squarely on the ground, so her opinion counts. 

“A game of Klingon Boggle would prove more productive," she sighed.  "Seems like the same dog-and-pony act from what you described before: they’re nice, they listen, they do absolutely nothing.”

 

“Then, while they have you on infinite hold, they send the foreclosure attorneys out. Don’t forget that step.”

 

“Even in there, I was worried that the nice guys in suits might just be shape-shifters and any minute would revert to their true form of cosmic gases.”

 

“Oh, Melanie. Don’t be so unkind. I’m sure Star Trek does not want to be associated with…such…deceptive practices.”

 

Friday May 14, 2012.  Not a word from Wells Fargo in SLO, a word like, “I phoned the executive offices in Des Moines but they will be closed for three months while renovations and remodeling take place. I’ll try back in early September.”

 

I couldn’t stand it, so I phoned Mark Corella, the more sympathetic one. He answered, but seemed very surprised to hear from me.

          “Uh..oh…Maria!” he exclaimed. “Uh, remember I said that mortgages were not my area? I gave your case to Mike Henson to take care of.”
          “Well, then let me speak to Mike, please.”
          “He’s not here.”
          “Aha. Where might he be?”
          “Well, he and his whole group are out of town. In a training session. Yes, they are all in Santa Barbara at a training session. I won’t see him till Monday morning or so.”
          “Can you at least tell him I called? Give him a message?”
          “Yes, sure. In fact I’ll call him right now on his cell phone. But—he probably won’t be able to get back to me. But I’ll try. I know before he left he did send some emails to the executive offices, but I don’t know any more."

A few hours later, Mr. Corella left a message on my home phone stating that he did indeed put that message on Henson’s cell phone.

Monday, May 14, 2012, 4:44 p.m. No word. No calls.  SUPPORTERS: You are WONDERFUL! Couldn’t do this without you. More updates soon!

Loan Mod Hell: The Parable of Hells Un-Fairgo Bank

Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21-35) Rewritten

Or Now,

The Parable of Hells Un-Fairgo Bank
(The original copied directly from http://uscch.org/bible/matthew/18/)
by
Maria V. Eyles
(Words in parentheses and italics my additions, not in original)

Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?” As many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king (a nation’s President, its agencies, and its law makers) who decided to settle accounts with his (their) servants (the big bankers).

“When he (they) began the accounting, a debtor (one particular big banker) was brought before him (them) who owed him (them) a huge amount (restoration of the nation’s economy). Since he had no way to (honestly) pay it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children and all his property, [Ed: Emphasis mine] in payment of the debt.

“At that the servant fell down, did him homage (or pretended to), and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’

“Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.

“When that servant left, he found one of his fellow servants (a tax-paying citizen) who owed him a much smaller amount. [Ed: Emphasis mine.] He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe!’

“Falling to his knees (with the threat of sudden foreclosure and destitution), his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me and I will pay you back.’

“But he (the big banker) refused. Instead, he had him (the tax-paying citizen) put in prison (and took away his house, making his wife and children homeless) until he paid back the debt.

“Now when his fellow servants (all the tax-paying citizens) saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. 

(The master in this rewritten version actually turned blind eye to the tax-paying citizens and did nothing about the unforgiving servant for several years. But in the original we see the cosmic consequences played out in truth. And here it is:)

“His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt (and even bailed you out) because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’

“Then in anger His master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.

“So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from the heart.”

(That is, shows the same mercy and forgiveness to his brother/sister as he/she was shown.)

The End

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage: Predators

Predators
by
Maria V. Eyles

            By mid-morning, my shoulders slump and my face sinks sideways onto my table, ever-littered with documents, scrawled notes and phone numbers. The so-called “loan modification” people at Wells Fargo have me limp as a rabbit in a wildcat’s mouth, treacherously shaking out my strength, savings, time, and resolve, while their foreclosure attorneys—fangs bared, I imagine—declare another victory for the one percent.

            I close my eyes. Images of the old anti-ads against the Big Robber Barons and Evil Employers who battened on child labor sear through me. I don’t want to open my eyes, for I see a very Ugly America now in 2011, one to make Bernie Madoff seem like Shirley Temple’s dress designer. 

            If for the past thirty years since the deregulation of the powerfully greedy, banks and corporations were on steroids, now they seem to be acting as if on crack cocaine and LSD combined. They are playing with me and millions of others a hunting game called Loan Modification Limbo and Dual-Tracking on the see-through pretext of “helping people stay in their homes.” (Don’t they have “homes” confused with “homeless shelters” in that sentence?) Dual tracking is dangling the client in a loan modification process and a foreclosure process simultaneously so that the bank/mortgage servicer can defraud the applicant of the home by foreclosing on it while the applicant is in good faith waiting for the loan modification to be resolved.

Both are supposed to be illegal, but the banks haven’t heard.  We have to guess that all those profits rolling in (in July this year Wells Fargo boasted a piffling 3.4 billion dollar profit in one quarter) deafen them to the cries of the 99%, those of us who actually worked for our homes.          

Envisioning this Bunuel/Hitchcock hallucination, I shake my shoulders resolutely and shoot upright at my table. “No way! These predatory swindlers will not get their greasy fingers on MY house!”

My condo/townhome here in Pismo Beach, California, is the only real bank account I have. The little equity left was forged from the 35 years of work that my late husband Geoffrey, a research scientist, civil and structural engineer, and I (California Community College Instructor, writer and editor) put into it. My husband and I actually made a conscious effort to make less money in our fields in order to contribute to the betterment of our society and the great and beautiful State of California. Guess that made us saps in the eyes of the banks, big business, and unfortunately the legislatures.

Now a widow on disability, I did well with the house for many years before being suckered into a bad loan by a Wells Fargo rep. I hold myself completely responsible though—so much so that I spent the last four years trying to refinance it. Wells Fargo refused me a refinance option over and over while extending me much credit. The evasion, we now know, was because they no longer had any say in the loan, but had sold it to some ruthless speculators, who turned it into “mortgage backed securities,” which means it is lost somewhere in a pool of millions of dollars. I have no real investor, but that cardboard “investor” has total power over my fate.

My story parallels millions of others. Hardship upon hardship ensued, ironic backfirings of my trying to improve my financial situation. In October of 2010 I first phoned WF’s Loss Mitigation department. That day a year ago I joined the rest of the P.T. Barnum Company of the Bamboozled and was “invited” to try for a loan modification and a HAMP. Ha. I would have done better getting on a plane to Lourdes.

Since then, endless unpaid full-time work filling out forms for a voracious Wells Fargo Paper Mill has only heightened my despair.  That shoulder-slumping morning, I rallied remembering the success I had upon plying some tactical judo and turning this intensive writing and paperwork against Wells Fargo. Recently my irate letters got the attention of U.S. Congresswoman Lois Capps’ offices, whose intervention had, in turn, catapulted me as far as the Offices of the President of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. 

I picked up my landline and dialed Congresswoman Capps’ San Luis Obispo office, where a wonderful advocate had been helping me. Meantime I ignored my cell phone whose display blinked with realtor after realtor wanting me to hire them for short sales. No! I hissed back at the muted display. Not yet.

 

Miraculously, the young woman assigned to me at Lois Capps’ office answered the phone. I asked if she could aid “communications” with Wells Fargo. My fourth representative—oh, I mean “Home Preservation Specialist”*—in four weeks  apparently decided not to respond to my six messages in response to his insistence that I get in touch with him 72 hours previously. The congresswoman’s advocate (a case worker, not an attorney) was happy to help by phoning him on special congressional lines. This—and only this—worked.

Aside: *The travesty of the titles of these reps from Wells Fargo boils my Italian blood: They are actually called “Home Preservation Specialists.” Quite an insult to the millions of Americans whose homes they have foreclosed on. The name also suggests that, among others, the true reason they keep you dangling about your loan modification right up until the hour of the auction block is so you don’t inflict damage on the house as they drag you out kicking and screaming. That way they can “preserve the home” for the bank’s speculative realtors. Big joke on the dummy client.

To continue, this Mr. P from Wells Fargo Mortgage, office of the president, did phone me back almost immediately. (How great it felt to put pressure the other way around.)  The “resolutions” he spoke of on the message felt to me like the Cadillac version of The Run- Around, that is, no resolution at all. The Run-Around is a dance invented by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage where you only step backward, in circles, covering the same old ground,   sure to get nowhere, very, very slowly, like blood-letting by leech.

The Run-Around Bank Limbo Rock goes like this:

Demand a 35-75 page application packet
Rush the client with threats of shredding the instantly obsolete packet
Lose the packet, and repeat steps one and two several more times
Sit On the packet for months
Reject the packet
Repeat Steps one and two
Change Partners (the “specialist”) then repeat all the steps above, again
Promise to get the packet to the underwriter within 3-5 days
Go back on Promise and go the other direction
Begin Foreclosure Double Cross
Repeat all the moves from Step One
Stall till moments before the grand finale
Refuse the loan modification
Pose like a vulture and swoop down on client’s home
Foreclose on the home; or, levy heavy fines and fees on your “partner”

            This is the premeditated theft so many banks have choreographed, a sorcery of   poorly performed illusions under the guise of “helping people stay in their homes.” None of this is in the spirit of the Emergency Stabilization Act of 2008, which spawned fair guidelines for HAMP and othe loan mod programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. No—it is a new form of predatory lending practices. 

           

What defines human predators is a total lack of empathy and conscience. The fact that someone gets hurt, tormented or even killed is matter of complete indifference to a human predator. By contrast, in the nights surrounding this phone call, I had brushes with two different kinds of predators.  

“Mountain lion sighting” the little piece on the online TheTribune (San Luis Obispo) said.  This was at 10:50 p.m., just before I was to take my dog Raphael on his final walk, and just before every place shuts up for the night here in dark, deserted little Pismo Beach. “In Chumash Park, off the Fourth Street Exit,” the article informed.  A MapQuest search made my scalp tighten: Chumash Park is less than one mile from my house as the equity flies! A curious or hungry mountain lion could easily saunter through the brush, cross along the railroad tracks and creek under Highway 101, and come into Ira Lease Park just steps from my house. Sauntering would take a few minutes; running would take no time at all.

For the next fifteen minutes I sat paralyzed at the computer screen, trying to figure out what to do. It does not help that my dog Raphael, a giant blue shepadoodle, looks exactly like a sheep from a distance. Surfers off Pismo Pier regularly come out of the water exclaiming that they had never seen anyone walk a lamb on the beach till now. Then they get closer and laugh…sheepishly. Call me unimaginative, but I just don’t think a mountain lion would stop to make the inquiry about Raphael’s species.

Not only is Ira Lease Park steps away from what is still my house for a month, but the streets of Pismo Beach at night are a chiaroscuro patchwork of parking lots, alleys and  illumination around the boardwalk and hotels. 

  

Finally I grabbed Raphael’s leash then shoveled him into the back seat of our car, mercifully parked at the foot of my stairs. I took off for Shell Beach and the Spyglass Inn four miles north. There I yanked the poor canine around, exhorting him to hurry up with his duty. Not sniffing or detecting anything awry, except my palpitant fear, Raffy gave me that intelligent, withering look of serene pity that I have only seen in German Shepherds (half his heritage). He refused to produce for me not quite enough pee to fill a tiny vial.

 

A mountain lion, in all its vehement beauty, evokes a clean, unpremeditated kill. An un-premedicated one too, for that matter. Thus the fear the cougar evokes is visceral, natural. Such a bone-shuddering scenario as death-by-mountian lion is motivated by hunger, defense of cubs, the refusal to become prey: Raphael and I traipse innocently into Ira Lease Park, unaware of the creature lounging on a high tree limb above us. Her neck stretches to alertness, and in regal calm her yellow eyes record every detail of size, shape, movement and distance. We move closer. Noiselessly she crouches, poised….A soft thud from behind, a crash; one or both of us a blood-streamed puppet, slashed by razor claws while she nuzzles for the jugular.

The prospect is terrifying. Yet this primordial fear is one the human body-psyche can instinctively cope with, even prevent. Thrust into a high alert fight-or-flight mode as I have been for the last week, a person can take great precautions to prevent such an encounter by avoiding the sighting area especially at dawn, dusk or nighttime, and sticking to  lighted, semi-populated areas. 

Taking just such precautions a few nights later, I learn that not all predators can be avoided. Raphael and I wended our way toward the boardwalk and hotels around 10:30 p.m. A circling parade of Pismo Beach police cars and a group of nicely dressed adults on one corner let us know we were not alone this night.

At the boardwalk, I wave at one of the officers. We all know each other by sight from our respective late night rounds. Often the patrol cars will slow down and wave when they see my flashlight’s halo. But this time this officer addresses me.

“Did you see anything strange or unusual?”
“Like a mountain lion?”
“No—we haven’t found the lion yet. Like a young (ethnicity mentioned) man running on foot.”
“Robbery?” I remembered the well-dressed people huddled on the street corner.
“No—street fighting. Not a pretty picture. Fight with his girlfriend. Apparently he was kicking her while she was lying on the ground. Some people ran downstairs to help and called us. He ran off.”
I raised up my cell phone. “I have you right here. I’ll let you know if I see him.”

The officer took off jogging toward the SeaVenture. Beyond the boardwalk, the headlights of a patrol car zoomed along the strand. Raphael and I stood alone again on the deserted boardwalk. The ocean gleamed in patches under the low-lights of the moon. Swallowed up in the velvet blackness was another predator lurking, maybe stalking.

The young man—a predator? Yes. Abusive and violent—yes. Dangerous—definitely. His assault on his girlfriend—an appalling criminal act? Of course. But under most California Statutes, a crime only because there are visible cuts and bruises to “prove” it. Some torn clothing, a trace of DNA; in this case, witnesses.

The mental ambuscades of cruelty and abuse built into the WF (and other Big Bank) loan modification process are, on the contrary, are just as damaging to human life but “invisible” and hard to prove. Yet, like in any other case of domestic or workplace emotional abuse/bullying, the “home preservation specialists” are expert abusers, whether conscious of it or not. They use all the same methods of the narcissistic sadist. Here I quote psychologist Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D., speaking of sadistic narcissists in divorce cases:

The narcissist often starts out with the commitment that he (she) will be cooperative. He puts the spouse off guard and leads her to believe that the settlement and the decisions about custody will be fair. The word “fair” is not part of the narcissist’s vocabulary….During a divorce, the narcissist uses intimidation, stalling, empty promises, psychological manipulations and hidden agendas. When the narcissist thinks he has his soon to be ex-partner up against a wall, he turns the screws….No matter what the agreement is at the time, the narcissist will always find flaws: “I need one more form; I need time.” (emphasis mine)    --www.wellsphere.com

Once you see them listed as above, it isn’t hard to match up the abuse to the loan mod process:

Intimidation while in negotiations: “You sent us the wrong documents. Now you’ll have to start over.” [Also counts for nitpicking] “You are 91 days late on your payments. We are starting foreclosure proceedings

Stalling:  the average loan mod application takes 12-18 months, and very few relatively are approved.

Empty promises, a.k.a LIES: a steady diet chokes the client/victim of deceit: “As soon as you get us the rest of the documents, we will pass them on to the underwriter.”  

Fault-finding and nitpicking: (“You didn’t fill in your f4506t form right. Read line nine. Do it right or we can’t accept it.” [Of course, they never tell you exactly what they want on line nine, so you keep guessing and faxing.] “You signed but forgot to re-date page 37 in your 85-page application packet. That makes the packet invalid.”  

Psychological manipulations:  Everything they say, and everything so far covered here are psychological manipulations. Two other psychologically abusive, crazy-making techniques that pervade the loan modification offices are gaslighting and double-binds. In gaslighting, the abuser denies that real events have taken place in order to throw the victim off-guard and make her doubt her perceptions and sanity. This is a diabolical way to “blame the victim,” as are many of the other techniques. A double-bind is a Damned If You Do—Damned If You Don’t command, so that when the victim tries to obey the command, nothing she can possibly do is right. This paralyzes her, and turns her into prey.

A conversation I had with my third Wells Fargo “specialist” illustrates both, and more:

Mr. J: You didn’t send in all the bank statements for XYZ Bank. (gaslighting)

Me:    Yes, I absolutely did. They are right behind the Wells Fargo accounts.  

Mr. J: I’m looking right at your 71 pages, and they are not there. (gaslighting)

Me:  Yes. They are.

Mr. J: Well, some of them are here, but I can’t read them. (gaslighting; fault-finding) You sent too many statements. (Double-bind: I sent only what they requested only.)

Me:  They are ALL there. Why can’t you read them?

Mr. J: They’re a mess.  I don’t like them this way. (obstructivism)

Me:  So you don’t want to read them even though they are there in front of you? So, what way would you like them? [Thank heaven I bit my tongue before telling him where he could have them.]

Mr J: Well, you need to send them separately but all together. (double-bind: impossible command)

We went around with this double-bind for a while. He decided he wanted cover pages for each account, which meant separating statements with two accounts piggy-backed on them.

Mr. J: Why do you have so many accounts? Why do you keep moving little amounts of money from one to the other? This makes no sense to us. (demeaning the victim by criticizing something personal that is not his business.)

Me:  Mr. J! That’s irrelevant, but I do that in order to have enough bill money each month, if you need to know! By the way, Mr. J—I DID send a hard copy along with the fax. You should have that too.

Mr. J: Well, you didn’t send it to me. (retro double-bind)

Me: No, because you weren’t my “specialist” at the time! It was Ms. H. I sent it to her. Why don’t you ask her. Or maybe it was Ms. M, whom the bank switched me to the day I sent the package, just to make sure it got lost, I’m sure.

Mr. J: Well, because you didn’t send it to the right person, I’m sure it went to Imaging. (blaming the victim)

Me: Well, then can you ask Imaging to give it to you?

Mr. J: I’m sure they just shredded it. You’ll have to send it again (all of the above). Hurry up or the whole package will be stale…in three days it will be stale!” (coercion; threats)

Finally, hidden agendas: Wells Fargo Mortgage has One not-so-hidden Agenda: To grab up people’s homes. “No loan mod. So now we have to sell it tomorrow at noon at foreclosure auction. Have a nice day!” 

The Machiavellian minds behind this Loan Mod Scam know very well that the human brain is not equipped to handle this kind of stress, frustration, and abuse. Double-binds are particularly dangerous because they really do paralyze proper thought functioning, much like giving a computer an unsolvable math equation.

Unlike the primal fear the mountain lion evokes—or even the violent man abusing his girlfriend—this kind of psychological abuse/bullying, which goes on in many workplaces, renders people deeply confused, paralyzed, powerless, depressed and physically ill. This destruction occurs because it is only too easy to believe the “reasonableness” of the abusers’ insane requests, or to think you were mistaken about the hint of contempt in the voice.

Even in that warren of half-lit little streets in nocturnal Pismo Beach, there may have likely been a collision of hearts, of passions, and of loyalties that drove the young man out of his human self into animal mode. As intolerable as his act was, at least it was motivated by some emotion, distorted of course, but perhaps normally human at the start one hopes. In the theater, don’t we feel a teensy bit of empathy for the jealousy-tormented Othello? Only because it is human as well as reprehensible? Perhaps the man will regret his behavior, and feel lasting guilt. And at the very least, when caught, that predator will pay for his cowardly abuse.

“The banks can do whatever they want!” is the chorus from all agencies involved in my case, including HUD, and every attorney’s office I have spoken to. Can they? Can the banks do anything they want? This financial mafia reigns from distant, sterile offices, spouting soul-killing policies, fattening their pockets with government bail-outs, and arrogantly treating troubled clients like dirt, while barely covering up their criminal intent to steal their homes.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, now world-wide, is a fresh stream of sanity in an increasingly crazy world. I urge all who are as unhappy as we are to hit back where it hurts: Follow the Bank Transfer Day wherever possible and close any checking and savings accounts you now have in the big corporate banks like Well Fargo. Instead, re-invest that money in your local credit union, where you will have a say in how it is handled. They’ll start to listen harder if their assets start to dwindle, like yours and mine.

And as to me, if I have a choice, I’ll take my chances with the mountain lion.

PS TO MY READERS: The Comment funtion does not seem to work, so please feel free to contact me at my email, marinastar805@gmail.com

All civilized comments will be answered. Thanks for reading!

Change.org|Start an Online Petition »

Frustration and Elation

25 September 2011

Frustration and Elation

My frustration at being steamrolled by bronchitis and pneumonia has given way to elation: Today’s headlines trumpet the decision by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to enfranchise Saudi women and, unbelievably, allow them to run for local public office, beginning in 2015.

I worked with Saudi Arabians for eight years (1977-1985) in Cupertino, California.   Hired to teach in a corporation that contracted to train Saudi Arabian men in computer skills (yes—we still had keypunch machines and computer languages at that ancient time), I was the first female instructor assigned to the two-man (Ron L. and B. Clay) ESL “department.” It seemed like a strange job, but after two years of sporadic part-time jobs, I grabbed the incredibly well-paid position as soon as it was offered.

What was it like getting to know Saudis and working with them at close range?

In my first weeks at Sysorex, I was terrified.  Young and clueless about Arabs and their culture, I found myself in a sleek, modern high-tech classroom surrounded by friendly tanned faces above crisp white robes. The strange men babbled loudly in a language I could never begin to fathom, never mind speak. The Saudis were very curious about me because many of them had ever seen an unveiled female adult outside of their homes.

Their curiosity daunted me and posed a problem to my stiff Anglo-Saxon expectations regarding personal space and allowable distance between two people. (For more info, look up proxemics.) In terms of body language, the Saudis seemed invasive and brash, even to the extent of making sexual come-ons.  I felt constantly on the defensive, wary of every word, smile or move, both theirs and mine.

As they approached, I took several steps back. As I stepped back, they approached even more closely. As their voices got louder, my answers squeaked out, expressing my startled emotions as being half intimidated and half angry. Soon I was face-to-face—even nose-to-nose—with strange men I had barely made acquaintance with. Though I was grateful they were very friendly and vocal and therefore easier to teach language to,  I was beginning to think they were being too friendly for the wrong reasons.

Word went round the company that while I was an excellent instructor, I seemed not to like my students enough to really engage them. Not like them? I liked them fine. It was they who were the problem, not taking me seriously because I was a woman. Right?

Wrong. I had so much to learn about myself and others! Someone took the time, I believe it was Art C. our institute director, to instruct me in intercultural differences.  The cultural gaps between Americans (especially American women) and Saudis were immense: For example, Saudis position themselves at a very close physical distance from their interlocutor, almost nose-to-nose or from 3 to 9 inches; this translates as either intimate or belligerent space to us Americans, who are used to about 4 or more feet between our physical public space bubbles. But my Saudi students were only trying to be polite, not “pushy,” when they came up in my face and spoke loudly to me. And I, I was showing them with my backwards tango steps that I didn’t like them and didn’t want to listen to them.

There were many other “little” misunderstandings built on miscues of body language that enlightened me over the months and years. One such gem to know is that when Saudis are agreeing with you or indicating “yes,” they will move their head from side to side as we do when we mean “no” or we disagree. Another had to do with the etiquette of eye contact. Most Arab peoples prefer to maintain fairly intense eye contact while talking at such range. My being on the shy side and often gazing into space or at the floor did not help my cause. Learning to maintain nearly constant eye contact was very exhausting to me. Yet for the love of learning and teaching, I did my best.

Then a miracle occurred. I learned a cultural “secret” that changed my life: Most Arab people are adept at interpreting other people’s degree of eye dilation so they can tell what’s going on with your emotions, specifically the emotions of like/dislike, love/hate.  If you don’t like them, they know without your ever having to say a thing.

This is one reason that you will always see photographs of Gadhafi and the late Yasser Arafat wearing sunglasses at all their meetings and negotiations, even indoors.  They do not want to be read like open books.

So maybe my eyes were not lying—the students made me feel uncomfortable, which surely translated in my eyes, or my pupils, to make a pun. Over a long weekend, I contemplated what to do with this stunning new information. Sunglasses were out, since the average person wearing sunglasses indoors is an insult to most Arabs, for now obvious reasons.

By the next Tuesday I was a changed person. My students immediately sensed it. Before encountering a student, I made myself think that the love of my life had just surprised me with a visit and plane tickets to Paris, or that Pavarotti was serenading me personally with Che Gelida Manina, or some similar fantasy-imbued thought I could sustain for a while. As I did this, I could feel eyes and my face relax into twinkles and smiles, and soon my whole being glow with joyous feelings. Then I looked the person in the eye and greeted them warmly. Magic!

Now I held the keys to two great mysteries. Not only did this joyful thinking re-train my neural-synaptic responses—and my eye dilation—to express genuine liking for another (for I did not confine this to only my Saudis, but used it with everyone), it created a genuine liking and affection for self and other in my psyche! It wasn’t a trick—it was a major life transformation.  I truly did genuinely like and care about each of my students now. This “secret”   brought me a cache of fabulous gifts, among them a new patience, curiosity and openness in my daily interactions with all. This secret made me quarry out a genuine Maria-self from the deeper character strata hidden within me.

Frustration had given way to elation.

From this time forward, I never doubted that as a teacher and instructor, I gave to my students some important content information about language. But, conversely, the real beneficiary of an education is and was always me, with all my students being the greatest teachers I ever had or hoped for.

So what was it like teaching Saudis? A great honor and beyond my best expectations.

What were they like? My Saudis were as diverse and multi-faceted as any group of people can be.

Most were warm, friendly, fun-loving, respectful, intelligent, and personable. Relationships come first for them, so they were very forgiving and could never stay angry or upset for very long. Some were stand-offish, some foolhardy, some hard to get to know, some lazy, some hyper…just like any other group. But I don’t recall one who was a fake. These Arabs led me to demand such genuineness of myself. Though such genuineness leads to vulnerability and therefore many more opportunities to get hurt, a two-dimensional life is much more tragic than instructive pain. And so my learning evolved.

The Saudi students’  religious views on women were difficult for me to accept, but I remember one thing: with a few exceptions—and I know this sounds like a sterotype of the Controller but—I never heard one of my students talk about women with disrespect. In fact, their conversation regarding their wives or woman in their culture was amazingly elevated and glowed with complete respect. Their control over women was, in their minds, all about protection from “harm” (which, granted, included normal living, but we have many centuries to make up here), not about oppression.

 And most curiously, though I remember them having celebrations at the birth of a son, they spoke of their daughters more frequently and adoringly, expressing their desire for them to find the highest happiness in life, even if that meant she took the rare course of never marrying but becoming a doctor or professional instead.

You go Saudi women! And may Allah bless you, King Abdullah Al Saud.