Do you think that perhaps the outrage against banks in the mortgage foreclosure crisis has been tamped down by complexity and lack of human dimension to the story? Read on. I know Sarah Ludwig, Director of the Neighborhood Economic Development & Advocacy Project has been saying for years – I’ve heard her – that predatory lending practices targeted largely at minority homeowners was sucking the hard-won home equity out of lower income communities into the hands of the banks and real estate speculators. In the last few days though two articles and one cartoon bring the mortgage crisis into wonderfully clear relief: Susan Dominus, writing in Monday’s NY Times how foreclosure fears fatally led a Queens national guardsman to volunteer to fight in Afghanistan, and how his family may now lose the home he tried and died to save . It’s great reporting. Kai Wright, writing in The Nation tells the mortgage foreclosure story through the lens of an Atlanta family . For a clear telling of what Mr. Bush and his banker buddies are doing to us, miss this story not. Of course, Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury has been on top of this too. In a current cartoon, a wounded Iraq veteran is coming home but… . For me, the policy take away? Drive Republicans from office. In a remarkably heartless move a GOP Senator from Nevada, John Ensign, who clearly need to be demoted, blocked enactment of federal foreclosure relief in order to deprive Democrats of credit . The bill, a complex and flawed compromise with the financial and banking lobby, observers and participants agree is not adequate but it is much better than what -- that's to Senator Petty -- we have now. In NYS, Governor Paterson & legislative leaders announced a not bad deal to begin to address foreclosure crises but, so far as I can tell, the bills agreed to were not enacted before our legislators went home. Does anyone know for sure? (Although, to be fair, for a change, Mr. Paterson did announce a $20 million allocation for foreclosure prevention counseling.)