90 Year-Old Woman Shoots Self As Sheriff's Deputies Try to Evict Her From Foreclosed Home

As the House of Representatives pass the $700 billion bailout bill, a 90 year old woman, Addie Polk, shot herself shot herself as sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home. She has essentially become a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis Friday. People, let's be realistic, who would give this woman amortgage at her age? Unless she is rich, that doesn't seem to make much sense. She would realistically not live out a 30-year mortgage.

Fannie Mae foreclosed on the Akron, Ohio, home of Addie Polk, 90, after acquiring the mortgage in 2007. Ms. Polk is being treated at Akron General Medical Center after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon, her city councilman said.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mentioned Polk on the House floor Friday during debate over the latest economic rescue proposal.

"This bill does nothing for the Addie Polks of the world," Kucinich said after telling her story. "This bill fails to address the fact that millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, are facing the loss of their home. This bill will take care of Wall Street, and the market may go up for a few days, but democracy is going downhill." Hello people!

Neighbor Robert Dillon used a ladder to enter a second-story window of Polk's home after he and the deputies heard bangs inside, Dillon told CNN affiliate WEWS-TV in Cleveland, Ohio.

"I just thought she may have fell or couldn't get up or something," he told WEWS. "I didn't know [she had shot herself] until I got in there. And even when I got there, she was breathing, but she wasn't saying anything to me. I knew she needed help then."

Dillon said he saw blood when he put his hand on Polk's shoulder. "There's a lot of people like Miss Polk right now. That's the sad thing about it," said Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville, who had met Polk before and rushed to the scene when contacted by police. "They might not be as old as her, some could be as old as her. This is just a major problem."

According to CNN, in 2004, Polk took out a 30-year, 6.375 percent mortgage for $45,620 with a Countrywide Home Loan office in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The same day, she also took out an $11,380 line of credit. Over the next couple of years Polk missed payments on the 101-year-old home and in 2007 Fannie Mae assumed the mortgage and later filed for foreclosure.

Deputies had tried to serve Polk's eviction notice more than 30 times before Wednesday's incident, Sommerville said. She never came to the door, but the notes the deputies left would always disappear, so they knew she was inside and ambulatory, he said.

What should a 90 year-old woman do? File for bankruptcy protection? This bill must give relief to people who are facing foreclosure. You can't bail out the big banks and level Main Street out in the cold. If the government can bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, surely they can do something for the middle class. The loan officer who originated this loan ought to be held accountable too.

This is awful. I can't even begin to tell you how bad we're letting things get when we're kicking old women out of houses that are being forclosed on and all they can do from being homeless is shoot themselves. They deserve more dignity.

'We're better than the last eight years' - Obama

Dear Jim Tressel....

You mean well. Really I think you do. And to a certain degree people should cut you some slack because well, you went into tonight's game without your best player who probably would have made a difference but 32 points worth of difference might be a stretch but never the less we would all do well in taking that into account when we analyze USC's dominance over OSU tonight but that aside, you're really quite awful. Your coaching career at The Ohio State University has really began to look similar to a decrescendo.

You came in to Columbus, took charge, showed the city you were serious....about us, gave us a nice fat old ring in '03 and ever since then you've been a terrible husband when by now after all that we know you're capable of we really have come to expect so much more from you. Bringing Boeckman back in time and time again after Pryor had proven to be the more capable quarterback, not so much in the grand sense but in the context of effectiveness tonight, was just dumb. It was conservative, and what you considered 'safe' in your estimation, and it couldn't have been something we needed less to match what USC clearly exhibiting in high-octane, unadultered exciting football. It was less a game plan than it was a myriad of fireworks reminiscent of an Independence Day that Pete Carroll did to you tonight. He ran circles around you. Midway in the 3rd period I finally figured out who you reminded me in comparison to the LSU's and USC's and UF's of the world.

You remind me of the sheriff in the opening of No Country For Old Men who is in a position of authority and respect and who means well and even thinks he's got control of the situation coming into things but unbeknown to him at the time he lost and just didn't know it yet.


You - The Sheriff
Anton Chigurh (the guy in cuffs in the background) - All the other high-octane teams that open up their playbooks and don't approach the field like a 1950's playbook has your family hogtied in a hotel with a gun to their faces threatening to pick them off one at a time unless you call it's plays.

I'm starting to think you might have taken us as far as you could, God bless you, and it just isn't in you to win the big game anymore. Michigan has long ceased qualifying itself as such so really you need to come up with a new trick because that one's getting old. Michigan isn't even surprised anymore when it loses against us.

Look, I'm not saying we didn't have fun, because we did, but we need to see other people. We need to see if we can find someone a little more in touch with things in 2008 like John McCain or Estelle Getty and you need to find someone more your speed like a cemetery.

We certainly hold no ill will towards you and are grateful for the good time we've fostered together.

Deepest Regrets,
OSU Fans

Corpse Kept Upright for 3-Day Wake

In news that gives you the creeps...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Aug. 19) - A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish to remain standing — even in death. A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake.'He Wanted to Be Happy, Standing'


A young man's wish to remain standing in death has been fulfilled. Through a special embalming treatment, Angel Pantoja Medina, left, remained upright in a corner at his mother's home in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for his three-day wake. Here, family members bid goodbye to the 24-year-old Monday.

Dressed in a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses, Pantoja was mourned by relatives while propped upright in his mother's living room.
His brother Carlos told the El Nuevo Dia newspaper the victim had long said he wanted to be upright for his own wake: "He wanted to be happy, standing."
The owner of the Marin Funeral Home, Damaris Marin, told The Associated Press the mother asked him to fulfill her dead son's last wish.
Medina was found dead Friday underneath a bridge in San Juan and buried Monday. Police are investigating.

Only people of color would do some wild shit like this. I don't give a fuck if it's your dying wish to do this mom. It's not going to happen. You're dead, I'm alive, therefor I get the final say, you know. I'd take it back to the Pulp Fiction line on a nigga if they wanted me to put them in my house post-mortem 'Do you see a sign on the front of my house that says 'Dead Nigga Storage?' You have to believe this story is a step backwards for mankind. Bad bad idea.