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From the Los Angeles Times

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An 'It Gets Better' for the troops

The military needs such a program to combat an increase in suicides.

OPINION

By Alison Buckholtz

October 13, 2010

I've watched all of the "It Gets Better" videos that have crossed my desktop since the campaign began. In these affecting testimonials prompted by the increase in suicides of young gay men, celebrities and public figures speak out to reassure those bullied about their sexuality that the pressures do eventually ease. I sobbed listening to "Project Runway" star Tim Gunn describing his teenage suicide attempt, and I was moved to learn that senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett mentioned each of the recent victims by name as she assured lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens that their lives are precious. The response to this tragedy is heartening because the public outpouring of grief raises awareness and may save lives. But why hasn't there been the same level of concern for the epidemic of suicides among military service members?

It's pointless and petty to compare heartbreak. In the last few weeks, four young gay men have committed suicide, all in some way connected to fear, shame or isolation around the issue of their homosexuality. I'm horrified by this, and ashamed it could happen in America in 2010. I'm just as alarmed that during three days in late September, four soldiers at Ft. Hood Army base in Texas took their own lives. This is not an isolated incident. The New York Times reported Monday that 20 soldiers connected to Ft. Hood have committed suicide this year; the Army has confirmed 14 of those cases, and six are under investigation. The base's suicide rate is about four times the national average.

In fact, the Army's suicide rate overall exceeds that of the civilian population, with 160 active-duty suicide deaths in 2009 and 239 across the total Army, including the reserve component. Army suicide rates are now higher than the age- and sex-adjusted rate for the general public, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health.

Several service-specific programs exist to counter the increase in suicides, including a just-launched Army collaboration with NIMH to help the Army develop effective strategies for mitigating suicide risk. Installations with troubling records are also targeted individually. At Ft. Campbell, Ky., for example, where there were 11 confirmed soldier suicides from January to late May in 2009, leaders called a three-day "stand-down" — military-speak for "work stoppage" — to identify issues and resources.

But sirens sound outside the armed forces only infrequently. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates spoke bluntly about military suicides in a September speech at Duke University. He outlined the dangers of the cultural divide in our country, where our force of 2.4 million active and reserve duty volunteers represents less than 1% of the population, a new low. I don't know anyone, service member or civilian, who seriously advocates a return to the draft, and Gates doesn't either, but he connected the dots. The war becomes remote when only a few experience the pain and sacrifice of long and frequent deployments, and the high suicide rate could be one result of this disproportionate burden.

Regardless of the cause, predictions are bleak. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned in late September that the number of military suicides will probably increase as large numbers of troops return home after multiple deployments. His warning follows a Pentagon task force report that found the military's suicide-prevention efforts are inadequate and inefficient.

My husband is a naval officer, so Gates and Mullen are celebrities in my circle of military families, but to most, they're no Tim Gunn. A speech at a university and a Pentagon report don't have the reach or appeal of a YouTube channel hosting an "It Gets Better" suicide-prevention campaign, where individuals as well as public figures can upload their own stories. This is one area where the military should take its cue from social media. I propose that the Defense Department create an "It Gets Better"-type outreach program for service members, encouraging troops, officers and veterans to tell their own stories of depression and despair following a wartime tour of duty, and how they handled it.

There is already an awareness that fellow warriors' stories of distress may reach suicidal soldiers in a unique way. A new Army video features a service member who successfully spotted an at-risk colleague and prevented his suicide by removing an important mechanism in his rifle. The same program encourages soldiers who need mental healthcare to take advantage of available services.? Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, told public health officers at Ft. Hood that he hopes the "seek help" message will encourage soldiers to overcome the longtime stigma of behavioral healthcare. But Chiarelli acknowledged that military culture has a long way to go before attitudes toward mental health shift. Indeed, speaking out about one's pain — psychic or physical — goes against an entrenched military culture of stoicism. Service members are supposed to suck it up without a word of complaint, lest they be labeled weak or suffer a career setback.

Stoicism and name-calling doesn't work. Nor do stand-downs and speeches. Individual Americans can help close the military-civilian divide by demonstrating the belief that suicides among service members demand our immediate attention as a society. Soldiers and sailors need reassurance that it gets better for them too.

Alison Buckholtz is the author of "Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-buckholtz-military-suicides-20101013,0,399979,print.story

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From the New York Times

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7 Miners Hoisted to Freedom in Chile

SAN JOSÉ MINE, Chile — The first six of the 33 miners who had been trapped underground for two months ascended to the surface here early Wednesday morning, as a rescue operation that has inspired the nation and riveted the world moved into its final phase.

Osmán Araya, 30, embraced his wife Angelica and thanked mining rescue crews before being taken for medical examination.

More than five hours earlier, the first miner, Florencio Ávalos, 31, had traveled up a narrow, nearly half-mile rescue shaft in the specially designed capsule that officials had been testing for much of Tuesday. Shortly after midnight, horns blared as the capsule reached the surface with Mr. Ávalos inside. With a look of sturdy calm, he hugged his family, his nation's president and the workers around him before being taken away on a stretcher, giving a thumbs-up as he left.

Miners Mario Sepúlveda, 39, Juan Illanes, in his early 50s, Carlos Mamani, 24, and Jimmy Sánchez, 19, followed afterward.

The rescue had finally begun.

“This is a marvelous start,” said Rodrigo Pedreros, 34, a fireman watching at the mine. “I'm praying it all goes well.”

The second miner to reach the surface, Mr. Sepúlveda, was exuberant as he left the capsule, hugging family members and officials. He embraced Mr. Piñera three times and presented people with gifts: rocks from the mine. Then he led the crowd in a cheer. “Chi, Chi, Chi, le, le, le,” they shouted. “Miners of Chile ,” a refrain echoed as subsequent miners reached the surface.

Mr. Mamani, the lone Bolivian among the group of trapped miners , was greeted by his wife Veronica and Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and his wife.

Deep in the mine, 27 other miners waited for their turn, along with a rescue worker who had descended to their underground haven in the narrow capsule, which was painted with the red, white and blue of the Chilean flag.

When the rescuer finally reached the miners late Tuesday, he was greeted with enthusiastic handshakes from the men.

The day had been one of great excitement and last-minute delays. As Mr. Piñera waited anxiously near the rescue hole, the families of the miners and more than 1,300 journalists gathered around plasma televisions set up at Camp Hope, the makeshift tent city that vibrated with a carnival-like atmosphere as the rescue drew near. At one point, Mr. Piñera mingled with the families and even broke into song with them.

“The day has finally arrived,” said Marta Mesías, 51, the aunt of one miner, Claudio Yáñez, 34. “We're going to toast him with champagne, and feed him a bit of roasted chicken.”

The operation is expected to take one to two days, with Luis Urzúa, 54, the shift leader who organized the miners' lives in the mine, the last to come up.

The race to save the miners has thrust Chile into a spotlight it has often sought but rarely experienced. While lauded for its economic management and austerity, the nation has often found the world's attention trained more on its human rights violations and natural disasters than on uplifting moments.

But the perseverance of the miners, trapped so far underground in a lightless, dank space, has transfixed the globe with a universal story of human struggle and the enormously complex operation to rescue them.

It has involved untold millions of dollars, specialists from NASA and drilling experts from a dozen or so countries. Some here at the mine have compared the rescue effort to the Apollo 13 space mission , for the emotional tension it has caused and the expectation of a collective sigh of relief at the end.

“We hope that with the help of God this epic will end in a happy way,” Mr. Piñera said before the rescue began.

Despite high expectations, officials here warned that the operation was still in a very precarious phase. The rescue hole is barely wider than the capsule that will ride inside it, shuttling the men about 2,000 feet to the surface, one at a time. Complicating matters, the hole is not even straight, raising fears that the capsule could snag on the long trip.

The decision by Mr. Piñera, Chile's first right-wing leader in 20 years, to stake his young presidency on an unbridled push to rescue the miners was an extraordinary political calculation. But it has paid big dividends, bolstering his popularity at home and propelling him onto an international stage often dominated by other large personalities in the region.

After a cave-in trapped the miners on Aug. 5, their fate was uncertain, at best. Advisers to Mr. Piñera counseled him not to raise expectations that they could be found alive. Laurence Golborne, the mining minister, said publicly that their chances of having survived were slim, comments that bothered many Chileans.

But Mr. Piñera, who was in Ecuador when the news came of the lost miners, argued differently. “I had a strong conviction, very deep inside of me, that they were alive, and that was a strong support for my actions,” he said in an interview in late August.

He set in motion an intense rescue effort, sparing no expense. Workers drilled a skinny borehole, and on Aug. 22 a drilling hammer came up with red paint. Wrapped around it with rubber bands were two notes: a love letter from Mario Gómez, the oldest miner of the group, to his wife, and another in red ink. “We are well in the refuge the 33,” it read.

Suddenly the name of the makeshift vigil at the mine — Camp Hope — took on new meaning. Mr. Piñera flew here right after his father-in-law's wake to celebrate with the miners' families.

But the Chileans were in uncharted territory. To their knowledge, no one had tried a rescue so far underground. Keeping the miners alive and in good spirits, much less getting them out, would be an enormous challenge.

Doctors from NASA and Chilean Navy officers with experience in submarines were consulted on the strains of prolonged confinement. The miners had lost considerable weight and were living off emergency rations. Some, like Mr. Gómez, who had a lung condition, struggled with the high humidity in the mine.

Medical officials consulted frequently with the miners over a modified telephone dropped down through the skinny borehole. Slowly, they nursed the men back to health. Health Minister Jaime Mañalich enlisted Yonny Barrios, a miner who had once taken a first aid course, to administer vaccines and medicines, and to take blood and urine samples. All the medications traveled down through the plastic tubes sent through the boreholes.

The tubes, called “palomas” here, became the miners' lifeline. Over the many weeks, officials on the surface used them to send letters from loved ones, food and liquids, even a small video projection system that the miners used to watch recorded movies and live soccer matches on a television feed that was piped down.

The miners were put on a diet to keep their weight down and worked with a trainer to keep fit with exercise. One miner, a fitness buff, ran about six miles a day through the winding shafts of the mine.

In recent weeks, Alejandro Pino, the regional manager of an insurance company for work-related accidents, has given the miners media training on how to speak and express themselves, even sending a rolled-up copy of his guidebook through the borehole.

“I tried to prepare them to handle journalists' most intimate questions,” Mr. Pino said last week.

Alberto Iturra, a psychologist who worked with the miners, talked to them, sometimes several times a day, to sort through their frustrations and depression. After first sending down nicotine patches, officials later sent down cigarettes to the miners, most of whom were smokers, family members said. Still, Dr. Iturra said that doctors never ended up sending down medication for depression.

As doctors struggled to keep the miners healthy, engineers were hard at work digging a bigger hole through which the miners could be pulled to safety. Mr. Piñera was not satisfied with one option, so he set in motion three efforts to drill a successful rescue hole: Plans A, B and C.

Finally, last Saturday at 8:05 a.m., the Plan B drilling rig broke through to the exuberant miners. Each rescue is expected to take about an hour, including the time it takes to drop the capsule into the hole.

Even as the miners themselves are mythologized here for surviving their subterranean captivity, others on the surface are benefiting. Mr. Golborne, a former chief executive of a retail store chain who has no political party affiliation, has become Chile's most popular minister. He spends many evenings roaming Camp Hope in his red windbreaker, playing cards with miners' families and kicking a ball around with children.

“Golborne is the new Bachelet,” said Marta Lagos, a political analyst in Santiago, referring to Michelle Bachelet , the popular former president. “He emerged into the public view out of nothing. This is a man that says he has no political ambition and is not interested in politics. Bachelet used to say the same thing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/world/americas/14chile.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

Latest updates and video

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/latest-updates-on-the-rescue-of-the-chilean-miners/?ref=world

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Humanity Is Drawn to Scene of Rescue

SAN JOSÉ MINE, Chile — In the unlikely community that has coalesced here in recent weeks, a television crew discussed coverage in Mandarin. A Roman Catholic priest lamented how money corrupted the human spirit. A clown named Rolly pondered the meaning of sacrifice in the Atacama desert, arguably one of the driest places on Earth.

“You could call me a psychologist of sorts,” said the clown, whose real name is Rolando Gonzales. “This has been my home for the last 32 days,” he said. Mr. Gonzales, 43, is himself a former miner who came here to counsel family members and provide a bit of entertainment for the children of the miners.

“I've glimpsed into the human spirit with this experience,” he said. “People need a clown at their side when they are grasping for solutions.”

Spiritual pilgrims are among the many who have made their way to Camp Hope in recent days. More than 1,000 journalists from around the world are here to cover the impending rescue of miners stuck in the San José Mine, and the camp has become a small city of rescuers and their supporters, with helicopters flying overhead and policemen patrolling the scene on horseback.

“I cried today,” said Alcides Peralta, 39, an ultramarathon runner from Uruguay who arrived at the camp's entrance carrying the flags of his small South American nation and of Chile . “I arrived to stand in solidarity with my Chilean brothers,” he explained, while nibbling on a bologna sandwich.

Chile's stern carabineros, or policemen, halted that plan, ejecting Mr. Peralta on Tuesday from the camp because of his lack of media credentials. “This saddened me greatly,” said Mr. Peralta, his eyes hidden by dark wraparound sunglasses. “But I'm fine, even if it means I have to run all the way back to Copiapó tonight,” he said, referring to a town 30 miles from here.

The crush of journalists from around the world instilled some dismay in others here, including Daniel Pauvif, a Roman Catholic priest nearby in the Atacama, who has been coming here on and off for the last two months. He said many of the news organizations were glossing over the real story in favor of simpler tales.

“These miners are being called heroes but they are, in reality, victims of a great injustice in work conditions,” said Father Pauvif, squinting under the Atacama's relentless sun.

He went on, focusing on the more ignoble stories he had heard about family members who had cut secret deals with media outlets abroad which are interested in exclusive rights to their travails. Rumors spread throughout the camp on Tuesday that some families would be whisked off to the United States, Spain, even Greece, for television appearances.

“This has become a spectacle that is revealing human weakness,” said Father Pauvif. “It is making them open to asking for money for interviews. Some have ceded to temptation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/world/americas/13scene.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Fame to Affect Adjustments for Miners

The ordinary miners are long gone, left behind in another lifetime.

The 33 men who are expected to emerge from Chile 's San José Mine after more than two months trapped underground are now icons, national heroes, global media stars. And that mixed status — celebrities as well as survivors, equal parts victors and victims — will alter the usual trajectory of mental adjustment after trauma for many of them, experts said Tuesday.

“All the attention is likely to camouflage reactions to the trauma itself in some members of the group,” said Dr. Charles Marmar, a psychiatrist at New York University 's Langone Medical Center. “It may resemble this honeymoon effect, like in the young kid who suffered some trauma in Iraq or Afghanistan and returns as a hero, wanting to drop right back into family and community as if nothing had changed.”

After being swept up in a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake, about 15 percent to 30 percent of people suffer post-traumatic reactions for months afterward, studies suggest. About 5 percent go on to suffer from mood problems, nightmares or other symptoms for a year or longer. The same rates may very well turn up in the miners: the group lived in the shadow of near-certain death for 17 days before rescuers on the surface made contact with them.

“The outpouring of attention may delay those reactions, but that attention is not going to last forever,” said John A. Fairbank, co-director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress and professor of psychiatry at Duke Medical Center. “I suspect that a few miners will have trouble adjusting to the new normal,” he said, particularly in families where roles have changed since the ordeal started.

At least two things are likely to work very much in the miners' favor, experts said. One is the considerable upside of being a national treasure. Chilean officials have skillfully managed this crisis and are expected to monitor the survivors closely, providing support for them, if necessary. The government is not going to neglect the men after making a maximum effort to secure their rescue.

Another protective factor is the group itself. By all accounts, one of the miners, Mario Gómez, helped build a tightly organized hierarchy in which group members rationed food and work equally.

“Groups can be a positive influence or a negative one,” said Lawrence Palinkas, a professor of social policy and health at the University of Southern California . “But here it appears that there were recognized leaders, shared goals, among men who came from similar background and were able to keep stress at a minimum.”

As for physical challenges, once at the surface, the miners will receive wrap-around sunglasses to protect against sudden exposure to the bright sun, and then be treated with first aid at the site before being whisked by helicopters to a nearby hospital. Many of the miners have complained of dental pain and skin irritation that will require treatment, officials say.

Each of the 33 men will have his own tale, his own way of coping with a transformed identity and a life story forever stuck nearly half a mile below the earth.

Yet in the weeks and months to come, the support structure of the group is likely to become increasingly important, as the miners struggle with the demands of the media, family expectations and a question: What next?

“Except for a few miners who find reminders of the experience too painful, this group will become the most powerful social network these men have,” Dr. Marmar said. “They're bonded for life, like any group of cops or firefighters or war fighters who have shared a threat to life and united to survive it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/world/americas/13psychology.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Defendant in Court for Hearing at Ft. Hood

FORT HOOD, Tex. — Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan returned Tuesday to Fort Hood in a wheelchair and combat fatigues for a pretrial hearing 11 months after he opened fire in a base processing center, killing 13 people and wounding 32 more.

The 10-minute rampage last Nov. 5 was the bloodiest shooting on a United States military base in modern times. Roughly 100 rounds were fired until two police officers shot Major Hasan, a 40-year-old Army psychiatrist. He is the only suspect in the shooting.

Major Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. He is paralyzed below the middle of his chest, spending most of this year at an infirmary cell at the Bell County jail 15 miles from Fort Hood.

The opening session of the hearing was dominated by procedural matters and a defense motion to postpone the hearing for nearly a month. Major Hasan, wearing a green fleece cap, looked pale as he was rolled into the courtroom by a police officer. During the proceeding he listened, expressionless, saying nothing. There was no interchange between him and several relatives and others who knew the victims, who sat in the public viewing area of the Fort Hood courtroom. One of the women carried a black-and-white photograph of a soldier encased in a plastic bag on her lap.

A base security detail had placed a green cloth around fences on the courtyard — apparently to block any outside view of the suspect.

Col. James L. Pohl, the investigating officer conducting the hearing, requested that the defense prepare a written argument overnight, which he will consider in the morning.

The military hearing, known as an Article 32, is roughly equivalent to a civilian grand jury. Colonel Pohl has said that he will call all of the 32 wounded victims, who will be asked to describe what they saw of the shooting.

At the end of the proceedings, which are expected to continue for weeks or even months, Colonel Pohl will decide whether Major Hasan will face a court-martial, and possibly the death penalty.

Military justice experts have said they do not believe the hearing will investigate Major Hasan's motivations. That would probably wait for a trial.

The shootings raised questions of Major Hassan's mental health, or whether he was a terrorist. Military investigators have not found a direct link between Major Hassan and any radical Jihadist groups, although he exchanged numerous e-mails with Anwar al-Awlaki , a radical American-born cleric based in Yemen who has encouraged and applauded terrorist acts.

After the shootings, Mr. Awlaki called Major Hasan “a hero” on his Web site.

Major Hasan was born in the United States to Palestinian immigrant parents who apparently were not particularly devout Muslims. But Major Hasan became increasingly religious after his mother died in 2001. As a resident at the Walter Reed hospital, he received mediocre reviews and reportedly made several extreme statements to colleagues about how the United States was making war on Islam. He argued that Muslim soldiers could not be expected to kill fellow Muslims.

A Pentagon review of the case found that supervisors missed repeated warning signs about Major Hasan.

Four months before the shooting, he had been transferred to Fort Hood. Major Hasan became a regular participant at a local mosque, and purchased a handgun. On the morning of the shooting, he stopped by a neighbor's apartment to give her and a friend new Korans.

Major Hasan's lawyer, John Galligan, has complained that his client cannot receive a fair hearing on the base. He has hinted he will make an insanity defense on behalf of his client, although in recent weeks he has resisted the prosecution's efforts to professionally assess Major Hasan's mental state.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/us/13hearing.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Trial of Man Once Held at Guantánamo Opens

In the first civilian trial of a former Guantánamo detainee, the word Guantánamo was not uttered in front of the jury as the case began on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

Instead, a prosecutor focused on what he said was the defendant's role in a 1998 plot to bomb two United States Embassies in East Africa.

The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani , participated “because he and his accomplices were committed to Al Qaeda 's overriding goal, killing Americans,” the prosecutor, Nicholas Lewin, told the jury in his opening statement. Mr. Ghailani helped to buy the truck that was used to bomb one embassy, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and also about 20 large gas tanks that were packed inside the truck to increase the force of the blast and kill more people, Mr. Lewin said.

That bombing killed 11 people; a nearly simultaneous attack on the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, killed 213 people. Thousands of people were wounded in the attacks, which were orchestrated by Al Qaeda's East Africa cell.

“This man — Ahmed Ghailani — was a vital member of that cell,” Mr. Lewin said, pointing to the defendant, who sat in a gray sweater at the defense table.

The trial of Mr. Ghailani has been widely anticipated since last year, when he became the first Guantánamo detainee moved into the civilian system. After he was captured in 2004, he spent nearly five years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and, earlier, in overseas jails run by the Central Intelligence Agency , where his lawyers have said that he was tortured.

In the trial, there are expected to be no references to Guantánamo and the C.I.A.'s so-called black sites — or to the claims of torture — because the government and the defense agreed to limit their focus to the events around the 1998 attacks.

And last week, the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, barred prosecutors from using a key witness who had been identified and located through the interrogation of Mr. Ghailani while he was in C.I.A. custody.

That witness, Hussein Abebe, was expected to testify that he sold Mr. Ghailani the TNT used in the Tanzania bombing; prosecutors had said that without his testimony, they had “no way of putting such evidence in front of the jury.”

One of Mr. Ghailani's lawyers, Steve Zissou, told jurors that Mr. Ghailani, a Tanzanian man in his mid-30s, was innocent at the time of the attacks, an immature, trusting, naïve “creature of his surroundings” who enjoyed watching cartoons and had been duped by a group of men who turned out to be part of the East Africa terrorism cell.

“Bin Laden used his tortured vision” of Islam, Mr. Zissou said, “to indoctrinate many young men around the world.” Mr. Ghailani, he said, was “neither a member of Al Qaeda nor does he share their goals.”

He added: “Did he know what his friends were planning? Did he know what Al Qaeda was planning?” The answer was no, Mr. Zissou said.

He also contended that Al Qaeda used “lies — big lies, small lies” — to get people to assist it.

It became clearer, meanwhile, how prosecutors intend to prove their case, even without Mr. Abebe. Mr. Lewin said, for example, that jurors would hear from welders who sold Mr. Ghailani the gas tanks used in the attacks.

The evidence will also show that Mr. Ghailani and other conspirators escaped together to Pakistan one day before the attacks, the prosecutors said, adding that Mr. Ghailani used a false name and a fake passport.

“The defendant's jobs were done,” Mr. Lewin said. “He didn't want to get caught, so he didn't stick around.”

The trial's first witness, John Lange, who was the American chargé d'affaires in Tanzania, described being seated in a meeting in his office when he heard “a very low rumbling noise,” and then high glass windows blew in, landing on him and his colleagues.

None of them were seriously hurt, but he recalled leaving the building and seeing a man lying on the ground amid the wreckage, his body blackened and charred.

“He was in his last gasps of life — just trying to breathe and laying there,” Mr. Lange said. He added, “I have no medical training, and I wasn't going to be able to help him.”

Among the spectators in the courtroom were several victims and victims' relatives, including Sue Bartley, who lost two family members in the attack in Nairobi: her husband, Julian L. Bartley Sr., the consul general, and her son, Julian L. Bartley Jr., a college student who had been working as an intern in the embassy.

“It's always hard,” she said after observing the first day of proceedings. But she says she is “glad the trial is taking place now” and is prepared for future trials when additional fugitives are caught.

“We have the greatest confidence in our justice system,” she added.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/nyregion/13ghailani.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Across the U.S., Long Recovery Looks Like Recession

This is not what a recovery is supposed to look like.

In Atlanta, the Bank of America tower, the tallest in the Southeast, is nearly a fifth vacant, and bank officials just wrestled a rent cut from the developer. In Cherry Hill, N.J., 10 percent of the houses on the market are so-called short sales, in which sellers ask for less than they owe lenders. And in Arizona, in sun-blasted desert subdivisions, owners speak of hours cut, jobs lost and meals at soup kitchens.

Less than a month before November elections, the United States is mired in a grim New Normal that could last for years. That has policy makers, particularly the Federal Reserve , considering a range of ever more extreme measures, as noted in the minutes of its last meeting, released Tuesday. Call it recession or recovery, for tens of millions of Americans, there's little difference.

Born of a record financial collapse, this recession has been more severe than any since the Great Depression and has left an enormous oversupply of houses and office buildings and crippling debt. The decision last week by leading mortgage lenders to freeze foreclosures, and calls for a national moratorium, could cast a long shadow of uncertainty over banks and the housing market. Put simply, the national economy has fallen so far that it could take years to climb back.

The math yields somber conclusions, with implications not just for this autumn's elections but also — barring a policy surprise or economic upturn — for 2012 as well:

Demand is inert. Consumer confidence has tumbled as many are afraid or unable to spend. Families are still paying off — or walking away from — debt. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, estimates it will be the end of 2011 before the amount of income that households pay in interest recedes to levels seen before the run-up. Credit card delinquencies are rising.

“No wonder Americans are pessimistic and unhappy,” said Mr. Sinai. “The only way we are going to get in gear is to face up to the reality that we are entering a period of austerity.”

This dreary accounting should not suggest a nation without strengths. Unemployment rates have come down from their peaks in swaths of the United States, from Vermont to Minnesota to Wisconsin. Port traffic has increased, and employers have created an average of 68,111 jobs a month this year.

After plummeting in 2009, the stock market has spiraled up, buoying retirement accounts and perhaps the spirits of middle-class Americans. As a measure of economic health, though, that gain is overstated. Robert Reich , the former labor secretary, notes that the most profitable companies in the domestic stock indexes generate about 40 percent of their revenue from abroad.

Few doubt the American economy remains capable of electrifying growth, but few expect that any time soon. “We still have a lot of strengths, from a culture of entrepreneurship and venture capitalism, to flexible labor markets and attracting immigrants,” said Barry Eichengreen, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley . “But we're going to be living with the overhang of our financial and debt problems for a long, long time to come.”

New shocks could push the nation into another recession or deflation . “We are in a situation where our vulnerability to any new problem is great,” said Carmen M. Reinhart, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland .

So troubles ripple outward, as lost jobs, unsold houses and empty offices weigh down the economy and upend lives. Struggles in Arizona, New Jersey and Georgia echo broadly.

Florence, Ariz.

In 2005, Arizona ranked, as usual, second nationally in job growth behind Nevada, its economy predicated on growth. The snowbirds came and construction boomed and land stretched endless and cheap. Then it stopped.

This year, Arizona ranks 42nd in job growth. It has lost 287,000 jobs since the recession began, and the fall has been calamitous.

Renee Wheaton, 38, sits in an old golf cart on the corner of Tangerine and Barley Roads in her subdivision in the desert, an hour south of Phoenix. Her next-door neighbor, an engineer, just lost his job. The man across the street is unemployed.

Her family is not doing so well either. Her husband's hours have been cut by 15 percent, leaving her family of five behind on water and credit card bills — more or less on everything except the house and car payment. She teaches art, but that's not much in demand.

“I say to myself ‘This can't be happening to us: We saved, we worked hard and we're under tremendous stress,' ” Ms. Wheaton says. “My husband is a very hard-working man but for the first time, he's having real trouble.”

Arizona's poverty rate has jumped to 19.6 percent, the second-highest in the nation after Mississippi. The Association of Arizona Food Banks says demand has nearly doubled in the last 18 months.

Elliott D. Pollack, one of Arizona's foremost economic forecasters, said: “You had an implosion of every sector needed to survive. That's not going to get better fast.”

To wander exurban Pinal County, which is where Florence is located, is to find that the unemployment rate tells just half the story. Everywhere, subdivisions sit in the desert, some half-built and some dreamy wisps, like the emerald green putting green sitting amid acres of scrub and cacti. Signs offer discounts, distress sales and rent with the first and second month free.

Discounts do not help if your income is cut in half. Construction workers speak of stringing together 20-hour weeks with odd jobs, and a 45-year-old woman who was a real estate agent talks of her job making minimum wage bathing elderly patients. Many live close to the poverty line, without the conveniences they once took for granted. Pinal's unemployment rate, like that of Arizona, stands at 9.7 percent, but state officials say that the real rate rises closer to 20 percent when part-timers and those who have stopped looking for work are added in.

At an elementary school near Ms. Wheaton's home, an expansion of the school's water supply was under way until thieves sneaked in at night and tore the copper pipes out of the ground to sell for scrap.

Five miles southwest, in Coolidge, a desert town within view of the distant Superstition Mountains, demand has tripled at Tom Hunt's food pantry. Some days he runs out.

Henry Alejandrez, 60, is a roofer who migrated from Texas looking for work. “It's gotten real bad,” he says. “I'm a citizen, and you're lucky if you get minimum wage.”

Mary Sepeda, his sister, nods. She used to drive two hours to clean newly constructed homes before they were sold. That job evaporated with the housing market. (Arizona issued 62,500 housing permits several years ago; it gave out 8,400 last year.)

“It's getting crazy,” she says, holding up a white plastic bag of pantry food. “How does this end?”

You put that question to Mr. Pollack, the forecaster. “We won't recover until we absorb 80,000 empty houses and office buildings and people can borrow again,” he says.

When will that be?

“I'm forecasting recovery by 2013 to 2015,” he says.

Cherry Hill, N.J.

The housing market in this bedroom community just across the border from Philadelphia never leapt to the frenzied heights of Miami Beach or Las Vegas. But even if foreclosure notices are not tacked to every other door, a malaise has settled over the market. Home prices have fallen by 16 percent since 2006, and houses now take twice as long to sell as they did five years ago.

That's enough to inflict pain on homeowners who need to sell because of a job loss or drop in income. Some are being forced to get rid of their houses in short sales, asking less than they owe on a mortgage. As of last week, 10 percent of all listings in this well-tended suburb were being offered as short sales.

Chrysanthemums bloomed in boxes on the porch of one of those homes as a real estate broker unlocked the front door. In the kitchen, children's chores were listed neatly on an erasable white board. Dinner simmered in a Crock-Pot on the counter.

There were few signs of the financial distress that prompted the owners to put their four-bedroom colonial on the market for less than they paid five years ago.

The colonial's owners, James and Patricia Furrow, bought near the top of the market in 2005 for $289,900. Mr. Furrow, 48, retired in July after 26 years as a corrections officer and supplements his pension with work as a handyman. But his income is spotty, and his wife, who works in a school cafeteria, does not earn enough to cover the mortgage on the house where they live with their three children.

They have already missed a payment; they want to sell the house in hopes their lender will forgive the shortfall between their loan balance and the lower sale price. They are asking $279,900.

“When we did buy, the market was still moving pretty good,” said Mr. Furrow. “Then it got to the point where people said it is not going to last. And of course it didn't last.”

Some of the homes being offered at distressed prices are dragging down prices for less troubled homeowners who hope to sell. And with foreclosures now in disarray, the market could be further weakened. “Even someone who is trying to sell a normal, well-maintained house is at the mercy of these low prices,” said Walter Bud Crane, an agent with Re/Max of Cherry Hill.

So the houses sit, awaiting offers that rarely materialize. According to Mr. Crane, the average number of days that homes sit on the market has nearly doubled, to 62 this year from 32 in 2005. Buyers are chary, not sure if their jobs are secure. Open houses draw sparse crowds.

In Camden County, where Cherry Hill sits, unemployment is near 10 percent. Several large employers have closed or conducted huge layoffs, and others have pruned hours. With Gov. Chris Christie reining in spending, government workers are jittery.

Real estate agents say it has rarely been a better time to buy: interest rates are at record lows, house prices have fallen and the selection is large.

Tara Stewart-Becker, a 28-year-old financial services manager, said she and her husband would love to buy a sprawling fixer-upper just three blocks from the narrow colonial they purchased four years ago in Riverton, which backs onto the Delaware River.

But a bad kitchen flood and a loan to pay for repairs has left Ms. Becker and her husband, Eric, owing more on their mortgage than the house is currently worth. Even though the couple make far more money than they did when they bought their house and could afford a larger loan and renovations, they cannot sell.

“I would gladly take a new mortgage and stimulate the economy for the rest of my life,” Ms. Becker said.

“Unfortunately, there isn't anything that a government or a bank can do,” she added. “You just have to settle for less and wait.”

Atlanta

Long fast-growing, no-holds-barred Atlanta has burned to the ground before, figuratively and in reality, and each time it was a phoenix rising. But this recession has cut deeper than any since the Great Depression and left Atlanta's commercial and high-end condo real estate in an economic coma.

Over all, assuming a robust growth rate, industry leaders say it could take 12 years for Atlanta to absorb excess commercial space.

“That one — see it?” Alan Wexler points to a gleaming blue tower as he drives. “A Chicago bank took it over six months ago. Sold at a 40 percent discount.”

“And over there” — he juts his chin at a boarded-up hotel topped by a Chick-fil-A fast-food restaurant crown. “That was going to be a condo. They just shut it down and walked away.”

Mr. Wexler, a wiry and peripatetic real estate data analyst, describes it all on a drive down Peachtree Road, Atlanta's posh commercial spine.

He starts in the Buckhead neighborhood, which has more than two million square feet of vacant commercial space. A billboard outside one discounted condo tower promises “New Pricing from the $290s!” There are towers half-empty and towers in receivership. Office buildings that once sold for $85 million now retail for $35 million.

Approaching downtown, Mr. Wexler hits the brakes and points to an older, white marble building. “See that one? It's the Fed Reserve. That's where they sit, look, sweat and wonder: How did we get into this mess?”

That's a question much on the minds and lips of residents.

The commercial vacancy rate in Buckhead is near 20 percent, and the Atlanta region has added jobs only at the low end.

Mike Alexander, research division chief for the Atlanta Regional Commission, posed the question: “When do we start to add premium jobs again?”

Lawrence L. Gellerstedt III, chief executive of Cousins Properties , sits in an office high atop an elegant Philip Johnson tower, with a grand view of the Atlanta commercial corridor running north. He does not see improvement on the horizon.

“We're all wondering what gets the economy producing jobs and growth again,” he says. “Atlanta always was the fair-haired child of real estate growth and now, it's ‘O.K., poster boy, you're getting yours.' ”

Small banks are a particular disaster, 43 having gone under in Georgia since 2008. (Federal regulators closed 129 nationally this year, up from 25 last year.) Real estate was the beginning, the middle and the end of the troubles. In one deal, dozens of Atlanta banks invested in Merrill Ranch, a 4,508-acre tract of desert south of Phoenix.

The deal imploded and took a lot of banks with it.

“No one was demanding documents or reading the fine print, and mortgage banks were fat and happy,” recalls John Little, a developer. “Well, that train couldn't keep running.”

He has a ringside seat on this debacle, as he sits in the office of a handsome condo complex he built in west Atlanta. He faced price discounts so deep that he decided to rent it instead.

Nationwide banks have no interest in lending to local developers, and the regional banks are desperate for cash and calling in their loans.

Mr. Little got lucky; he bought out his loan and kept his property. “Most of my generation of builders has gone under,” he said. “It's still spiraling out of control.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/business/economy/13econ.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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F.C.C. Wants to Stop Cellphone ‘Bill Shock'

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission will propose rules on Thursday requiring mobile phone companies to alert customers by voice or text message when they are have reached monthly usage limits and are about to incur extra charges, the commission's chairman said Tuesday.

Julius Genachowski , the F.C.C. chairman, will propose what he calls the commission's consumer empowerment agenda, aimed at ensuring that users of new technologies do not have to worry about hidden costs, confusing billing practices and what the commission calls “bill shock.”

In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Genachowski said that the five-member commission would consider proposed rules that also would require cellphone and mobile Internet companies to notify customers when they were about to incur roaming charges or other higher-than-normal rates that were not covered by their monthly plans.

The proposals, which have been strongly opposed by mobile phone companies and their trade groups, are expected to be approved by a majority of the commission at its monthly meeting Thursday. The chairman's office rarely brings matters to a commission vote without the support of a majority of the board.

“The data is clear that there is a significant consumer issue,” Mr. Genachowski said, one that has not diminished as mobile communications technology has become more ubiquitous. A November 2009 study by the Government Accountability Office found that one in three users of wireless phones and data networks had received unexpected charges on their bills.

“The solution is a 21st-century solution — one that is workable, one that is nonburdensome and one that is a terrific example of a 21st century consumer policy,” he said. Mr. Genachowski plans to outline his consumer agenda on Wednesday in a speech in Washington.

The mobile phone companies are less enthusiastic. In a filing with the F.C.C. opposing new billing and notification regulations, Verizon Wireless said that it agreed that consumers should have “access to clear information regarding their wireless usage.”

But, the company added, “intense competition has led wireless carriers to provide consumers with usage information” and many mobile phone companies “have developed tools that allow customers to monitor and control their usage in various ways,” including on their mobile devices and online.

Still, the commission has received hundreds of complaints from consumers who say they have received bills with unexpected charges, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars. The charges are often caused by the misunderstanding of contract terms, F.C.C. officials say, rather than fraud on the part of mobile phone companies.

The F.C.C. has in recent months highlighted several of the more spectacular complaints it had received, including a retired 66-year-old marketing executive in Dover, Mass., who said he had received an $18,000 bill after his mobile service's free data downloads expired without warning. The F.C.C. got involved after an article in The Boston Globe highlighted the incident, and the company agreed to zero out the balance.

Experiences like that have convinced the F.C.C. that phone and Internet companies should make their contracts and usage limits easier to decipher, clearly spelling out how limits can be reached and instructing customers on how to know when new, steeper fees are likely to apply.

That particularly applies to data usage, an application that has increased exponentially with the advent of smartphones and devices like Apple 's iPad . Even so-called unlimited data plans often have a cap limiting the amount of information that a user can download each month to a certain number of megabytes.

“Most people still don't know what a megabyte is,” Mr. Genachowski said. “So it's hard to expect them to know when they have reached their limits.”

Mr. Genachowski praised the system put into place by AT&T that warns iPad users with a message when they are reaching their monthly data usage limit. AT&T warns iPad users when they have reached limits in their plans, as well as when they reach the monthly limit.

“But that has been the exception and not the rule,” Mr. Genachowski said. “The magnitude of consumer complaints about bill shock has been very significant.”

Still, AT&T and most other mobile phone companies oppose government mandates on how they communicate with customers. “To the extent that the commission adopts a static rule ‘defining' part of the customer experience, it was serve as an obstacle to attempts to improve it,” AT&T said in a F.C.C. filing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/technology/13shock.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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