But is the tradition stale, or at least a little dog-eared? Over the past 30 years, we’ve witnessed the dawn (and set) of Personal Computers, taken cellular ubiquitous, and clutched life-changing Smartphones. We have overcome a cold war, turned braking into better gas mileage, tamed inflation, and reduced urban crime. Yet aside from migrating from photocopiers to online screens in the early 1990s, our beloved Brackets, God Shammgod bless ‘em, have never changed … or even gotten up off the couch.

Defiantly, many of us fill out our Brackets in the same analog dimension as we did back in 1982. Ritual remains as simple as ever: scribble in Winners in the three short days between the Sunday evening selection of the teams and the Thursday of full-on play. Hope you get some upsets right—Tebow willing, three of the Final Four. Annndd, you’re eliminated. Official time of death: sometime during the tournament’s second weekend.

This state of affairs is a collective national embarrassment. Could there be a better way? Of course there could—we’re Americans, and who does Internet innovation, distracting entertainment, and sports better than we do?

Three points:

1. Make it social. It’s time to adopt a new standard: one bracket that you can enter with multiple pools, through the magic of the Internet. Your bracket could be your avatar, at least for the three weeks of March Madness. This is simple and social, and utterly doable.

2. Make the brackets a living thing, like your dog and certain kinds of last testaments. Instead of your dead static brackets, which stick you with your losers after you’ve lost and preclude second chances, your bracket should change as the tournament does. If you picked the games right, terrific. But where you got things wrong, pick yourself up, in defiance of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and have a second act, a third act, and pick again with the teams remaining. Not a new concept, at least on the Internet. Tools to keep you on a diet or a budget already adjust this way.

3. Make it educational. Americans are famously bad at calculating risk. March Madness could be a teaching moment—after all, this tournament is all about higher education, right? Instead of picking winners and losers, pick also your level of confidence. Try a five-point scale. If you’re confident a favorite will prevail, pick that winner with five points of confidence. If you have no idea about an eighth versus ninth seed matchup, guess a winner with just one point of confidence. The game will reward you for you good choices and punish excessive risk-taking and overconfidence.

Do well at this game, and maybe someone will give you a mortgage.

Don’t worry too much about all the math to determine a winner with these social, living, educational brackets. The computer will do that for you. Just enjoy the fact that you can keep playing for the entire tournament, that the conversation with friends, Facebook and real, can last a little bit longer, that you’ll be a little smarter

It’d be different, sure, but un-American? Or totally American?

I think the latter. That’s why I’m doing my part to update the great institution of the brackets, to make March Genius (as I call it) free, not at all scary, and available in beta.

Try it. You just fill in your brackets, same as always. Then you assign a weight to each pick (one ball through five) based on your confidence in the team you’ve chosen. Right or wrong, your score will then be multiplied by your pick’s confidence weight. Sound complicated? No problem, because you can log back in at any time throughout the tournament to change, adjust, and re-pick the games you get wrong.

This is just one small bid to launch a new era and platform for brackets. Innovations will follow innovation, piling up like assists and three-point shots. We may not be able to fix the debt or the Israeli-Palestinian deal. But on this, heck yes, we can.

The post Your Brackets Don’t Have to Be Busted appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

But four years on, economists estimate that underwater mortgages are subtracting a full percent from GDP growth–out of two–while entrenching abysmal new norms of unemployment.

So how does it end? As a financial industry friend counseled, “If someone asks when markets will recover, say, ‘A year for stocks, two for the economy, and three years for real estate.’ And if that doesn’t pan out, tell them the same thing next year.” Well, that worked too, for a while. But folks have quit asking.

Wall Streeters aren’t the only one-percenters shrugging for answers. The vox populi, long on hand-wringing and blame-gaming, have been short on solutions.

I’m here to offer one. In the interest of bipartisan comradeship, there will be blood. Shared blood. Call it “Right-Sizing the American Mortgage.” (Can’t ya just see it in backdrop?)

First, try to move on. This is a no-blame zone. Whether you’re a Reaganite blaming Clinton and Fannie or a seething 99-percenter who holds Goldman and Greenspan responsible, we can all concede there’s plenty of blame to go around. And those blessed 2006 market highs are goner than Colonel Qaddafi.

Lukewarm backward-looking fixes–like the modest financial relief in the legal settlement between banks and the states, and the Obama administration’s recently revised refinancing rules–don’t get it done. Merely lengthening the rope for homeowners does not a new solution make. We must redirect the risks and defuse the hazards. The good news? It’s not too late.

Here’s what Obama’s Depression-era salve fails to defuse: How do you give good people an incentive to carry on, without the moral hazard of forgiving the mistakes of the buyers and the banks?

That moral hazard says to us, “Wash your hands of your underwater mortgage, and start over. Leave the keys. Stick it to those sneaky lenders who made you accept a mortgage you couldn’t afford.”

But such a retreat would not only exert a deleterious effect on your personal credit rating. Far worse, if performed en masse, such an evacuation would fatally exacerbate the lenders’ main problem. “Under”-performing loans would devolve into voids, zeros, a tornado of double-wide defaults shot straight through those elegantly hedged portfolios. Wouldn’t that just be the bankers’ problem? Unfortunately, no. Unpleasant is the truth: when lenders and bankers fail, the economy gets hurt too.

Which brings us to the other half of our moral dilemma: the big banks’ reluctance to “mark to market”–i.e. honestly account for–the real-world prevailing value of all those inflated mortgages they’ve been left holding. And denial of reality is understandable, for if any of the Freddies, Morgans, or Citis–operating as they do on rampant leverage coupled with wafer-thin capital requirements–were to acknowledge the stark reality of current home and commercial real estate prices on their balance sheets, they would each go belly up that very day. Which wouldn’t be nearly as funny as it sounds.

So marked-to-market’s a non-starter, leaving the market mire, and the paralyzing status quo: whether you’re a homeowner or a lender, you can’t hope to sell what you’re unwilling to price. And without a price, none of us can move on. The underwater owner stays in his home. The bank holds onto its money. The owner won’t spend and the bank won’t lend and so the economy won’t heal. Someone must go first, but who? You or them? Wait, what? You? Them?

You AND them.

A-ha. Solidarity.

So what if the banks, who live in steadfast denial of the liquid value of these loans, were to act in concert with those homeowners encumbered by same?

Meet each other halfway, like a hostage exchange.

There should be blood. To begin with, each party concedes a 15-percent haircut on their values from inception.

Read that again. First you accept a 15-percent cut on the value of your home; then the lender accepts another 15-percent cut on the value of your home.

So your lingering million-dollar mortgage on a formerly million-dollar house is now an $850,000 mortgage on a $700,000 house. Fifteen plus 15 equals a 30-percent writedown. Sound harsh? Not when compared with reality–you’re already down at least 25 percent from peak. There can be no absolution without penance, and everybody seems to prefer that others pay that penance. And if you’re in one of those markets that haven’t fallen, well, this is an optional game. You don’t have to play. But if you won’t play, you don’t get the lender’s side of the writedown.

And this is the right kind of writedown. Said mutual bloodletting would do a lot to alleviate those perverse moral hazards–you can’t get a break by walking away scot-free, and the bailed-out bankers finally have to pay a price for what they did. The good news is: this plan would split the pain down its middle, relieve capital constraints, unleash Yankee frontierism, and let the invisible hand get on doing its business. The banks won’t be happy, but they can survive, because a diminished mortgage payment is better than none at all. Homeowners won’t have all their problems solved, but they get a nice boost in the right direction.

So here’s where politics takes a smoke break and behavioral economics assumes the conch. We still have to solve the equation of those families who, because of, say, job loss, or regional economic failure, still would not be saved by the above re-valuation. Give them a choice. By that I mean: new life.

Deep-underwater homeowners get an out. Provide them the chance to divorce their misshapen palatial dreams and give back the house, not just the keys. But don’t walk away: right-size yourself!

Right-size your mortgage by enrolling in the plan, quitting your current residence, even your city or region, to relocate directly to a more income-appropriate property, in Promisetown, USA, that’s been similarly relinquished, by a smaller-sized struggler, in our interstate household relief program. With scale-size loan to fit. A patiently coordinated de-escalation.

How might it all look? Imagine a nationwide housing database. Shouldn’t be hard; we’ve already got one. It’s called MLS, and almost anyone contemplating a mortgage has trolled its waters. Suppose back in the salad days you codgered your way into a $600,000 mortgage when it probably ought to have been $300,000. Read on. You’re in luck. Simply come clean, acknowledge your over-reach, and sign up with the program. Now move out.

Simply put your home, along with your outsized payment, back into this MLS housing pool, and pick yourself another property, downstream, with its attendant monthly bill, and move there instead. Could it possibly be so simple? It can. Operation twist and torque worked. No broker necessary, although enterprising agents willing to master this boom will surely encounter lots of For Hiring signs. Ding, ding, and ding.

Oh I know, sounds politically unpalatable, with a new public-private partnership (read: bureaucracy) required to administer this. But it shouldn’t be too much of a bureaucracy, and establishing such a database wouldn’t take much. A Harvard Comp Sci could have this new right-size MLS site programmed and operational within a week. (A Cornell kid would have it up and running overnight.) Dig.

And the bill for this “Public-Private Partnership” would be footed by those selfsame zombie banks that fear nothing on earth worse than having to reacquaint those deadbeat pools with reality. They’d take a loss, yes, as people down-sized. But banks would gladly absorb a one-time payment if it came with legal amnesty for all their sins. Stuck it to ’em after all, didn’t ya?

Sure, the swap may compromise your living space, but the peace of mind, relaxed monthly burden, professional freedom, and reinvigorated economic activity should more than compensate for the loss of capitalist pride.

Just imagine the relief, the empowerment, of going online and selecting the house and mortgage you would’ve been better off taking in the first place. All of this can be yours.

Not to mention the instant vaulting economic relief of an unstuck housing market taking a bold leap forward. The Dow would rally 2,000 points within days (faster than the year our industry friend forecast). Housing inventory levels, currently mired at a dismal 14 months’ supply, would drop dramatically, as cash-strapped strivers accept this second chance lifeline. And the economy would blossom, freed from the suffocating yoke of a housing glut and attendant construction famine.

But above all else, it would keep the dream alive. I’m finished.

Jordan Wallens is a Cornell graduate and author of Gridchronic. He has worked in the investment business for 17 years and lives in Los Feliz with his wife and son.

*Photo courtesy of bbcworldservice.

The post There Will Be Mortgage Blood appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

You may not feel it, but believe me, we huddle at the precipice of an opportunity to once again lead baseball’s evolution into modernity. To reshape the League landscape, unleashing a ground-breaking model that would place the Dodgers near the top of the payroll food chain, and yield a Dodger blood blueprint impossible to duplicate by any other team.

Not on this side of the Atlantic. For unrivaled future prosperity, we who pioneered the west, must look east. No, not Boston, that didn’t work. Farther, to the most dominant, glamorous, and lucrative sports franchises in the world: Europe. In particular, Spanish soccer. (Note: One needs not revere Europe, nor even like soccer, to proceed).

Throughout history, Real Madrid has amassed more Cups & Championships than any other team on earth. Spain’s national side currently defends the World Cup against all oncoming parade buses. Then there’s the latest universal class act of dazzle, FC Barcelona, a captivating side from an enchanting Mediterranean port that shares many cultural similarities to Los Angeles. Possibilities too.

So what’s the Magic Johnson winnin’ time recipe? A semi-public offering. Power to the People, right on! What, heard this vague general idea before? May be because the publicly owned Green Bay Packers (Titletown population 102,000) won the Super Bowl, inspiring ordinary folk to magical thinking. Why just recently our hapless City Council chimed in, lodging a quixotic plea to Congress, to force Major League Baseball, to hand the Dodgers over, to the council! Yeesh.

Now with bankruptcy breached, and Framie McCourt bottomed out, every pitchfork populist and self-styled e-con-o-mist has a ham-fisted Dodger Doomsday solution, clamoring to hold the conch and be heard. Present company included.

MLB’s already done the hard part, intervention. Presume that once today’s legal and bankruptcy madness concludes, the decks will be clear and the path wide open. But what next? Mark Cuban’s apparently above us. Nor have our city’s countless courtings of reluctant billionaire philanthropists borne any other fruit than helping said reluctant billionaire philanthropists to feel more sorely needed and beloved than ever. Awwww. So consider the following quasi-public option. Power to the people, sort of!

“Nyet!”, cries Comandaunt Selig, to purely public ownership. Which is why this magical thinking extends only to a point. Reserve a parcel of shares, say 20%, for the citizenry. But to be clear, carnival barkers united, this ain’t the French Revolution. It’s Montreal 1996, Commissioner Selig, remember? When MLB successfully took over a financially dysfunctional franchise, until an orderly transition was made, to a managing partnership approved by league owners. The commandment: adults must remain in charge.

Back to Shangri-la. Barcelona, like L.A., is a beachside metropolis of countless barrios, steeped in fine art, exotic food and love of good times. Sound familiar? Look in the mirror, see the secret.

Barça has dominated professional soccer for years. In a recent Euro Champions League Final with greater viewership than the Super Bowl, Barcelona made English lords Manchester United – at $1.8 billion, the world’s most valuable franchise – look like the Jamaican bobsled team. Barcelona also contributes the bulk of Spain’s winning World Cup squad. The club is at the height of its powers, passing, scoring, and defending circles around the world’s finest like no other team in the history of soccer. How? Sure, one could point to their stable of stars to attribute this era of brilliance, but it would be a mistake by half. The reason is the system. Financial structure.

And this, desert-wanderer Angelenos, is where the ark of our covenant resides.

Spanish fans play a vital if not commanding role in ownership. It’s what makes Barcelona’s “Blaugrana” and Madrid’s “Galacticos” truly “clubs.” And since the objective here is still the greater good of the team, let’s be Frank, er, candid: the bounty of fan loyalty has blessed each club with endlessly renewable, high nine-figure war chests, empowering them to capture every last free agent they wish. Hear me now?

Here’s how semi-public ownership could work. To start, MLB sells a controlling stake in the team, to a pre-selected consortium of qualified institutional bidders, via blind auction. Next charge the winners the prevailing new franchise fee. Voilà – your managing partnership of grown-ups.

Step 2, build a mezzanine level of second-phase ownership. Invite all the privileged Southland scions to put their money where their butts are and legitimate their claim on all those empty club seats. Start these “Benefactors” at say $10,000,000 minimum bid, Weeds out the riffraff, while incenting L.A.’s vast business and cultural machine to put up real skin, or sweat in line with the rest of us.

Then apportion the remaining shares – let’s say 20 percent – to their most deserving owners, perennial attendance champs, the fans of Los Angeles. Think Foreclosure, followed by renewal, at a gleaming park, amid a city, on a hill, in a ravine.

To do it, the renewed and true Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles float say $400 million in common stock. If that figure sounds brash, note that Forbes Magazine estimates the club’s value, even in its current dreadful state, at $735 million. And if $400 million sounds too modest, well good. Always leave ‘em wanting, right? Caveat amateurs. A group of investors headed by Stanley Stalford Jr. has lobbied for total public ownership. But way over-reaches in proposing a microwave billion-dollar IPO. Easy, Junior. First buy us dinner.

At the auction, set the opening price at $50 per share, then ring that bell. And let the whole wide world get their mitts on a wafer of authentic Americana, the crown jewel of the National League. A piece of the team – for less than the price of a night at the ballpark. Purchase a single share and frame it for posterity, or pick up piles of ‘em, like USC fans, amassing imagined power and prestige. Sell shares locally, nationally, in the Dominican, heck let those Dodger-lovin’ emerging markets in on the new American dream.

The initial float alone would be more than adequate to liberate the organization from the McCourts’ stifling debt service. Which would instantly lift team payroll from its current 16th ranked $103,000,000, up to about a top 5 spot, at well over $125mm.

Without doing a single other thing.

Operating income alone will be nearly sufficient to run the club. Reserve equity, dilution, and assessment rights, and maybe spiff the place up. Encourage vainglorious strivers (Fight On, Trojans) to attain ‘senior’ rights by endowing, for a hefty price, every position on the diamond.

Custody the excess float, designate resources strictly for team operation and expansion, rather than real estate speculation and cosmology. Issue additional non-voting shares when opportune, and you’re looking at financial might reaching to the horizon. That’d raise the Dodgers comfortably, conservatively, to the $140-160 million annual payroll range, vaulting us right past the Mets, the once again Anaheim Angels of Anaheim, and the bloody Red Sox. Nearer to the rarified air of those blasted Yanks. Best part: the entire plan would be “revenue-neutral”, meaning we wouldn’t even have to dip into precious principal to do it.

Ownership shares to carry no loan provisions, since those are what got us into this predicament in the first place. (All right, 4th place). Forget dividends, means less profit motive (yes, I know, a little socialist) but results in an unalloyed focus on fielding the best team money can buy, housed in the finest facilities possible.

Okay, all of that could be undertaken privately. So why deal the plebeian fans in on the largesse? Because among other advantages, the Euro ‘club’ structure allows the Barcelonas of the world to charge light sweet crude annual membership dues from shareholders and subscribers. A modest burden assessed at the individual level, dues are easily recouped through insider discounts, player promos, and better seats. Note: Barcelona charges about $58 per year for membership, times several million ‘Socis’ and subscribers, a group that once, okay forever, includes Pope John Paul II. Which, uh, helps.

But here’s where the power of the club model truly asserts itself. Imagine some off-season, we covet the services of free agent galactico Albert Pujols. Or a front of the rotation starter. Now presume the cost is unsurprisingly dear. What to do? Roll the dice? Call Miss Cleo? Better. Simply take a vote, “Would Dodger Nation, throw in 3 bucks a head, to land Pujols? How about $2 for Roy Halladay? A buck to punk ARod?” If so, thy will be done. Greenlighted and accounted for just like that.

Sound improbable? It’s precisely the way clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona dominate eras. Fans elect executives whose platform is to pull off certain moves. It’s how Real landed Mr. Posh Beckham. Sigh, Beckham. One glimpse of Madrid’s reigning heartthrob, Cristiano Ronaldo, and L.A. will surely declare, “Get us some o’ that!”

The vox populi would surely go for it. So should the mullahs at league HQ. Congress too, Inaugural management appointed by MLB, but later determined via ballot box. Of the people, by the people, for the people.

The team would once again thrive, as a proud and prosperous public trust. Setting a golden example for the sporting world to admire and envy, yet never ever hope to emulate. Why so impossible? Simple. Name one professional owner who’d give it all up? Crickets. To the fans? Pick yourself up off the floor.

Only the lowly can play this game, and baby our number’s up! Q.E.D. Now don’t you ever, stop, believin.

Jordan Wallens is author of Gridchronic. He has worked in the investment business for 17 years and lives in Los Feliz with his wife and son.

*Photo courtesy of brendan-c.

The post Too Blue to Fail appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

‘Twas a scene serene last Sunday eve, especially at our house. DefCon Zero. Wife and I contentedly closing out a busy weekend toddling. Even little Atticus went down without incident. Win, Win, Win. The height of drama? 60 Minutes. I’m older than I think.

Halfway in, likely over a Flomax ad, the house phone unexpectedly rings – that’s rare. Only immediate family has the number, and they all know better than to dial it when a high degree of probability says a certain baby boy may be slumbering nearby. “Cell baby cell!” I’ll politely remind them. Tomorrow. When I retrieve the message. For now, they can wait. Let freedom ring.

Few seconds pass, resuming telepharma fogey hour programming. A text message enlightens my Mephone. Connected? … Probably nothing. It’s Sunday us time, check it later. Let go, be present.

Pause. Relax. My phone abruptly lurches in urgent vibration. And my heart starts to race. Something going on? Then another text pops up all expectant, followed immediately by another. Best dial in stat. Tap-tap. Another!  Battle stations. Cell now pounding in vibrastic seizure, staccato text volleys sparkling for attention. Status? All right. Concerned. Something is definitely up. Pleading please please please, don’t be bad.

Spot check. Idoya? Ten-hut by my side. Little one? Monitor read – positive ID, sleeping peacefully. Principals copacetic. Continue. Basset hound Humphrey lain out unresponsive on floor. Standard. All key hands and paws accounted for and secure. Probably little different from any other young, young, parent.

Not Dad. That was the party I feared for the first time these alerts went viral. And Jesus, don’t let it be my sister either, don’t think I could handle that, having gotten this far. Agreed? These are my demands. Wallens family circle of trust remains intact, and we’re good. Remember, you owe us one. Bargain.

First text to turn my insides out is from a mythically mirthy Irish buddy stationed in London, phew. Relief. His headline opens by calling me “Brother.” Which could mean he’s especially mirthy, or that something wicked this way comes. Quickly, what friends do we share? Few. Proceed.

London goes on to “Offer condolences.” Standby, hold please. What is going on here? And why wasn’t I notified?

Second text hails Mary fulla grace – it’s from my sister. Thank God. But by my frenzied calculus, this could also be bad, for if it’s Nicole, then this alleged happening, whatever it may be, has officially degenerated into something personal.

All of this races through my mind at synaptic speed, faster than eye can read.
But a while later, tunnel vision catches up, I read her words, and my knees get shaky. “OMG – TURN TO CNN”.

Shheeyyiiii… I guess it’s on. Again… Well, can’t possibly be worse than the last time. Deep breath, 1, 2, 3… Maintain control. Check for intel, dive in, survey situation. Here it is, banner headline. “Osama bin Laden Killed by US Special Forces.” Clear!

And Atticus slept sweetly through it all.

How long’d it take to read this far? Two, three minutes? Took 10 seconds to happen. Nine and three-quarters years to write. Just my personal smartphone era strain of post-traumatic stress, induced by 24-hour breaking news cycle. Many of us share this affliction. I come by my case personally. The big one.

My brother Blake was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, North Tower, 105th floor, Cantor Fitzgerald, you know the rest. Dashing titans of high finance, among the unlikeliest victims, whose targeting started the global conflagration. Instantly immolated, slaughtered en masse, by millennialist jihadis, in the quantum leap salvo, that launched an endless war. So began our nation’s hunt.

Blake was my closest friend, confidante, supporter. I stood as best man at his wedding; he was conscripted to serve as same in mine. Blake led from the front. Two years my elder, he was wiser than that. I trailed Blake’s legend through high school, and followed his star to college. He was blessed with a graceful irrepress not even a stilted New Yorker could resist. Smart, charming, handsome, connected. How he loved children, and they adored him. But Blake was himself no child of privilege. He displayed elegant intensity. One friend labeled Blake “Five-Star Supernova”. And it stuck. Blake avidly spread his contagious passion for the art of living; one revered motto urging concisely, “Think Story.” He coupled a prodigious ability to forge sacred friendships with a genuinely inquisitive, highly tuned mind.

Since the evildoers’ objective was to strike at the heart of American industry, Blake and his winsome cohort on Wall Street were most assuredly it. Blake had no truck with zealots. But ya’ try not to take it personal. Mortally wrong place, historically wrong time. Last lottery anybody oughta aspire to. And my closest ally protector was caught up in it. With a worldwide blast, witnessed by billions, his 30-year soaring success story turned into a short-lived tragedy.

Aftermath. Morning after, worst part? The dull blade gnawing curiosity. What were Blake’s last thoughts? What fear and bewilderment Blake scrambled to understand in his final moments. He died alone, scared, and no doubt reproaching himself for his lovely wife Raina. At the fix he found himself, and the break he’d leave her with.

In Los Angeles, Sept. 11 is regarded with just slightly greater awe than a box office blockbuster. Here, people’s perceptions of the world around us and events within it seem to spring less from perspective reality than from our ancestral love of movies. Where you better believe it, we absolutely always get our man. Or simply re-shoot the ending. So in the sensory deprivation chamber that is L.A., I, we, tend to feel a bit alone with this pain.

Had I one regret above all else about that dark day, strangely it’s that I had turned down a job offer that would’ve put me right there in the middle of it. Cantor offered me a few years prior; Blake even sweetened the deal by insisting he’d buy me the apartment next door.

But for the first time, I declined to follow, inexplicably, regrettably. I sorely wanted to be in that building that morning, to sacrifice my life to be by my brother’s side. But it wouldn’t have been fair to Dad.

We have all by now genuflected, then lamented, the non-partisanship that flowered in the days following Sept. 11. The circumstantial cohesion briefly flickered then died. People everywhere tried to help a brother out. To perform that eminently American miracle, turning defeat into a happy ending, by the third reel.

Those were the days, weeks, months when survivors each struggled to find peace, closure. But the attacks left most Americans enraged, violated. Not so much sad or heartbroken. And bin Laden’s deft evasion left us feeling outsmarted and impotent.

The years of fruitless search for the cave-dwelling megalomaniac who composed it all left Americans with a shared feeling of resignation.  Even cheerleader and “Chief Bringemon” George W. Bush conceded like some hapless breakup victim that Osama bin Laden was no longer even on his radar. He’d, uh, moved on.

So how do I feel about the death of Osama bin Laden? Less than you’d think, but more than I’d have thought. What’s a guy to do?  Summon all the family to a sentimentalist revival, cause our soldiers killed a guy? I don’t think so. We’ve come a long way back, and not on account of no figurehead. It’s not as if we were waiting baited all this time for bin Laden’s guts on a slab. We weren’t. The wish was incidental to the loss.

Like others who lost loved ones that dreadful day, I remain sad. No surprise there. But a couple of thoughts may surprise you. Angry?  A little, but again, less than you’d think. The hatred, avenger’s zeal? All pale next to that excruciating sad. The loss fractured my world, and those of unimaginably many others. Why, just think of the dimensions of your social network – how many Facebook friends ya’ got? Now multiply by 3,000. That’s about how many lives were similarly affected.

Make no mistake, I’m glad this murderous scourge has been surgically extracted from the human race. I’m glad he was discovered in a mansion. I relish how that fact exposes the fraud that he was. Bin Laden stridently cultivated an image of voluntary sacrifice. That this privileged scion of means chose to suffer in squalor side-by-side with his brothers. He didn’t; he was a fraud. The man was neither of his people, by them, nor for anyone else’s agenda but his own vainglory. Paid for with their death. Even his misguided followers must now concede that.

Alright, truth be told, yah, I’m glad the last thing bin Laden ever laid eyes on was the barrel end of elite American enforcement. To have known Blake and me was to know that two of our close friends serve in the Special Forces. We always shared great admiration for the code they live by, the excellence they pursue, the stories they share, the lives they sacrifice, for people they’ll never meet, who will never know their names. Honor.

When asked if I get “closure” from bin Laden’s demise, I struggle to answer so succinctly. “No,” I answer, “I hoped they’d send bin Laden’s bulleted carcass on a coast-to-coast decomposition tour. I could see his soulless body paraded around like it’s Weekend at Bernie’s.” Good thing cooler heads prevailed; I wouldn’t have been as respectful as the commander-in-chief.

Among those of us whose loss that day was final, we do not derive much “closure” from this development, because for us the closest thing to closure we ever got was a funeral. There is no moving on for us. Blake is still gone. We will never again meet, hug, laugh, cry, confide. My child will never meet his hero Uncle Blake.

The whole issue of closure means everything to others and trivia to us. To those who were stung by the attacks, but not necessarily struck by it, bin Laden’s death finally gives them their pride of settlement, of control, of eye-for-eye justice. Even Jesus be cool with that.

Well we the people, we got our man. We retook control and showed ‘em who’s boss.  I suppose that passes for “closure.” ‘Twas the one thing we all ever really wanted, and the only thing I’ll never ever get.

Jordan Wallens is author of Gridchronic. He works for an investment firm and lives in Los Feliz with his wife Idoya, son Atticus and basset hound Humphrey.

*Photo courtesy of Jordan Wallens.

The post Death by Seal appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.