No subject

Those who can pay
Will fly off into space on day
The sucked-dry stubble they'll leave
To us to clean, or starve
Under a sunless sky
These airless days
Of a trashed planet…

----
Poem 2:

Drowned by the Hype -- L.A., August 14-17, 2000

By Matthew Lee
InnerCityPress.org

Routinized, motorized, tear gas sprayed in jaded eyes
Inside, on the hard wood floor, back patting
How they'll take on HMOs, tobacco, even
Repeating their speeches on video screens
This is the sound byte, not the gun fire outside
In the protest pit, the white noise background
Of directionless dissent, so it is portrayed
By lap-topped journalists comfortable with room service
Charging lap dances to corporate accounts
They whose strings were pulled by Citigroup
Now eat shrimp canapés with leather-faced stars
"We're for the people," the robotic triangulor says
Protest confined to a pit, voices in the wilderness
Muffled by vinegar-soaked bandanas
Driven back, in the shadow of Wells Fargo
Under the logo of KPMG Peat Marwick
Past the windows of skid row
Staying at the Panama SRO, the Goldenwest,
San Peeedro Street, detoured past Kosher burritos
On the air-conditioned floor, the consummate insider's
Portrayed as the vessel of minorities' dreams
"If he can, you can" - but the dreams he carries
Are those of Aetna, and other Hartford-based insurers
"We're the party of the people," busted blood vessels
The last nose of Camelot, Eleanor Holmes Norton
Sent out to sell the unsellable, declaiming
The greatest peacetime prosperity in history
While the District she represents includes
An unmoved ghetto, an Anacostia where empty buildings,
Their plywooded windows painted black,
Stand dusty, the proffered salvation
No more than a new private prison
Skid Row circumnavigated with crime scene tape
Tapes looped again and again: "We are the party
Of the people, if entrusted with this office,
I'll fight for you."  With rubber bullets
The sound bytes fly, like, "Free trade is fair trade."
"I'll never compromise your right to choose."  Tear gas
Kills brain cells.  Pico, Olive and the Fig,
All smell of death, disruptions quickly erased
Misreported, drowned by the hype…

----
[From earlier this summer -- no longer timely?]

Ways of Dying in Manhattan 

by Matthew Lee, c. 7/29/00 

Method One: Box Crusher [New York Daily News, July 28, 2000, pg 2] 

He came from Tlaxcala into Washington Heights 
Working six days a week selling cheeses to yuppies 
At day’s end, time to crush boxes to bundles 
In a moment, the crusher had pulled in his torso-- 

Raymundo Juarez, husband of Araceli, is dead 
The safety switch jammed so there’d be no delays 
He sent money by wire to his daughter Michelle 
While his father is crying, the shopping goes on... 

Method Two: Airless Vault [Fox 5 T.V. News, New York City, July 28, 2000] 

She worked in the vault at Depository Trust 
The market’s back-office, in lower Manhattan 
The door closed behind her, and then she smelled smoke 
Pushed a button for help, but it only got worse: 

Electronic trades still supported by paper 
There’s no sprinkler with water in the vault at the bank 
It shoots carbon dioxide to safeguard the stocks 
But our lungs live on air -- in a moment she died. 

       Lack of Aftermath at the Stock Exchange 

There’s no minute of silence, before trading begins 
Neither super model nor cow, no moment on the stage 
Generals? They can ring the opening bell 
Killers bring good luck. Losers cause the Dow to slide 

And fall it did, parallel to her death. A loss 
Of confidence in tech-stocks, the Reuters round-up said. 
No mention of Raymundo, martyred for convenience of gourmands 
Traders head to the Hamptons, their picnic baskets sanitized 

In Tlaxcala, and further South in Morazan 
The spread is sorghum bread. Up North 
We call it live stock food. Some vegans, too, 
Shopping around the news of Raymond’s death. 
Everybody loves Raymond (well, the one who speaks English) 
She shouldn’t have been in the vault (lawsuit’s defense emerges) 
Raymond himself blocked the safety switch (we can revise everyone 
Into a piece worker). No one’s to blame 
Just isolated tragedies of the working poor 
Those who crush the boxes of our luxuries 
Those who file stock certs in the catacombs--
The proof of purchase rules 
Over the cellars or the sold. Mold makes cheese 
More valuable. It appreciates, managed by mysterious 
Ethnics. Our schools should be run by a hedge fund-- 
They’re already run by Citibank. And now that Coca Cola 
Runs Mexico, Raymundo’s companions 
Won’t have to come, to be crushed 
With the boxes. Progress is incremental, 
Like the ripening of cheese, the appreciation 
Of the tech-stock fund, the distinctive tang 
Of sheep’s milk from a little town, where looters 
Scatter the condiments of Burger King 
And pundits cream on the irony of it all 
The simultaneity, their hearts-playing grandmothers 
Learning Russian from cassettes-- 
Some get pace makers 
And some a cardboard grave 
Western Union rules Tlaxcala 
United Fruit owns the Cincinnati Reds 
No insurrection, where three rivers meet 
Worshipping Andrew Mellon, growing seedless brains 
The history of rancor confined to a theme park 
Only the Luddites oppose vaccination 
Come! Hollywood’s the yeast of apocalypse 
The strategists of control profitably note 
That those in designer jeans rarely rebel 
So ship them already, in metal tombs 
Of immigrants, hungry for the risk 
Of box-crushing portfolios, glad, they were, to know 
The smooth technology protecting their future 
The legal plumbing that’ll ensure their legacy 
Even if the crushing machine shall claim 
Even if all air shall be sucked for the common good 
We will continue, infinitely informed, a replaceable army 
Short-selling cheese, ignored those harbingers 
Of our own decline: humans reduced to cardboard 
Killed for the primacy of paper proofs 
The person may die, but the system remains - for this 
We suck air, out of vaults, it’s too bad 
She was resting there, that he worked 
Beyond his tolerance, to meet Sanitation’s demands 
To jam the landfills -- he himself will be recycled 
Resurrected in the cyclical cries of the poor 
The body and the head must re-join one day
We memorialize by forgetting, consuming death each day 
In the face of oracular newsprint, hard wired to the false promises 
Of the appearance of saviors on contested terrain 
All pacified now, under a heavy syrup of Coca 
Cola as the drug war proceeds: these deaths 
Form the indictment, for the Last Supper 
The last fetid locality will be sampled 
Wrapped in a prospectus, endlessly 
Scrutinized like genetic code, the mind’s own mark- 
Up language linking itself to previous invasions 
Of termites and arrogance -- let Raymundo 
Ring with stiffened hands the last bell 
Of the session’s subservient trade 
You who believed, now see that life’s a disease
The disparate martyrs of Wall Street, baptized in C.O2 
Investing in secrets while they’re unlocked 
Fission leaves us blind... 

----
[last paste: non-poetic news of InnerCityPress.org's work]

Las Vegas (Nev.) Sun, August 15, 2000

Wells Fargo merger target of Las Vegas, N.Y. critics

By Richard N. Velotta 

A New York civil rights organization is asking the Federal Reserve to block 
Wells Fargo & Co.'s acquisition of First Security Corp., based on Wells 
Fargo's lending record to minorities in Las Vegas and other areas.

Matthew Lee, executive director of Inner City Press/Community on the Move, 
Bronx, N.Y., says Wells Fargo has engaged in predatory lending and has not 
complied with community reinvestment laws.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman in Phoenix said the company is compliant with all 
statutes and it files reports with and is monitored by federal regulators.

"We're confident that the merger will be successful," said Marilyn Taylor of 
Wells Fargo. "Wells Fargo is excited about our future association with First 
Security."

The merger is expected to close Oct. 2.

But Lee says Wells Fargo's lending record should be carefully scrutinized by 
regulators who are considering the merger.

Gail Burks, president and chief executive officer of the Nevada Fair Housing 
Center and a member of the Southern Nevada Reinvestment and Accountable 
Banking Committee, said she serves on a national board with Lee and has 
brought his research to the attention of housing advocates in the West.

In addition to the points raised by Lee, Burks also said she is concerned 
about the company's community reinvestment plan and small business lending in 
the Las Vegas area.

"Their (merger) filing (with regulators) doesn't say what they are doing on 
community reinvestment," Burks said. "They say they are going to continue it, 
but there are no specifics. There should at least be some kind of plan."

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 obligates banks to fulfill credit 
needs of the local community in which they are chartered, particularly for 
low-income neighborhoods. Specifically, banks are required to make affordable 
loans for residential and commercial areas and in enterprise zones identified 
as low-income census tracts.

Lee said his organization is concerned that Wells' practices would be 
extended through First Security's 330 bank branches and to the company's 
CrossLand Mortgage subsidiary.

Lee says his organization has documented that Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, a 
lending subsidiary, disproportionately denies minorities access to normal 
interest rate loans. He says Wells pushes applicants denied loans to 
subsidiaries that offer loans at higher interest rates.

"Wells Fargo redlines communities of color across the United States with 
normal interest rate loans," Lee said.

"Redlining" is the practice of limiting lending activity in certain 
neighborhoods.

"Wells targets these communities with high interest rates and subprime 
loans," Lee said. "We call this predatory lending. Given Chairman (Alan) 
Greenspan's speech on March 22 of this year on predatory lending, expressing 
the Fed's concern, it is imperative that the Fed finally scrutinize Wells' 
subprime lending in this proceeding."

Lee's group analyzed newly released 1999 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data 
from communities across the United States to reach its conclusion on Wells 
Fargo's lending practices. Lee said data from the Las Vegas Metropolitan 
Statistical Area bolster his organization's point.

Lee said that in Las Vegas in 1999, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage denied 28.7 
percent of the conventional home purchase mortgage applications submitted by 
blacks while denying 7.2 percent of those submitted by whites. He compared 
that data with the denial rate of applications from low-income people vs. 
high-income people in Las Vegas.

While the denial rate of loans to blacks was about four times greater than 
those to whites, the denial rate of people with low incomes is only 1.9 times 
greater than to people with high incomes.

"Low income" is defined as those with incomes below 50 percent of the Las 
Vegas area's median level, while "high income" is defined as those at more 
than 120 percent of the area's median.

Lee says the analysis shows that Wells Fargo's decisions on loans are reached 
along racial lines and not income levels.

What's worse, Lee said, is that Wells then turns loan applicants that have 
been turned down to subsidiaries that loan money to higher-risk clients that 
must pay higher interest rates.

"While Wells Fargo disproportionately denies people of color access to 
conventional home purchase loans through Wells Fargo Home Mortgage," Lee 
said, "Wells Fargo's high-interest-rate, subprime lending affiliate, Norwest 
Home Improvement Inc., targets people of color."

Wells Fargo declined comment on Lee's statistics about the Las Vegas market.

Lee's lending complaints come at a time when Wells Fargo is on the verge of 
divesting branches in Nevada and three other states to comply with antitrust 
law.

A memorandum of competitive considerations issued to the Federal Reserve by 
Wells Fargo indicates that in the Las Vegas market, Wells believes it would 
divest seven First Security branches with deposits totalling $392.5 million. 
In the four states affected by the merger -- New Mexico, Idaho, Utah and 
Nevada -- the company is expected to divest 37 branches and $1.4 billion in 
deposits.

Burks said her organization will ask the Fed for an extension of the comment 
period on the bank's acquisition of First Security until after it is 
disclosed which bank branches would be divested.

Wells Fargo's Taylor said the decision on how many and which branches would 
be divested is up to the Federal Reserve. A decision is expected to be 
reached by the end of the month and Taylor said the public would be notified 
after employees of the affected branches are told.

<http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2000/aug/15/510637348.html>