We don't know why politicians and pundits tiptoe around it--"Depression"--since it's plain we are in one.  True there are "depressions" and "depressions."  Maybe we should call this one "Depression Lite."  With millions of jobs lost, many banks closed and tottering, bankruptcies and housing foreclosures everywhere, however, a person could be forgiven for seeing Grapes of Wrath II.  Of course it's not Hoover 1929; it's Bush 2008.

      Are we despairing?  No!  A toxic, stunted bush has been uprooted, and a tall, solid tree planted.  It's "A Tree Grows in Washington."  We believe its fruit will nourish all, not just the favored few.  That will take time unfortunately.  Meanwhile, poor people, homeless, the disabled, students, and struggling tenants, trying to survive, continue to bear serious burdens. 

     Tenants face grossly-inflated locked-in "market rate" rents from the disastrous housing bubble of recent years.  Talk of "deflation" stalks the land, but we see no reduction in rents in this city.  Landlords continue to cry "market rate," but the market has become a casino and the landlords are breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.  The "condominium craze" continues to eliminate rent-controlled housing.  Finally, we see outrageous threats against tenant associations, one coming up rapidly for a hearing, where tenants have been threatened with arrest for assembling in their own lobby.  Enough already! 

     Long Live Tenants' Rights!