The Perfect Man

Interview: IT ALL SEEMS so normal. A long car journey through a winter landscape acquires an element of fun as an American mother encourages her daughters in a guessing game at which the younger child is very good, or so it seems.

The triumphant little girl becomes dangerously excited and in a split second the joy turns into tragedy. Their father, an Englishman, is left to make sense of his own grief as well as the respective resentment and guilt dividing his two daughters. The chance of teaching in Italy presents the family with a year away from the US and the legacy of an accident that should never have happened.

Genova is British director Mike Winterbottom’s first movie in five years. It marks a brilliant return to film and, drawing on his various strengths, including documentary film-making, it is his finest work to date. Either way, it is a remarkable piece, intense, believable, beautifully shot and sufficiently shocking to have a viewer gagging with terror. There are elements of the surreal as a benign presence becomes sinister. It is as much a thriller as it is a faltering romance. And yet again it demonstrates the subtle, persuasive gifts of the most sympathetic, and understated of actors, Colin Firth. Playing the bereaved father Joe, Firth is caught between the contrasting needs of 10-year-old Mary, tormented by nightmares and bedwetting, and the more complex tensions introduced by Kelly, her 16-year-old sister, bored by adolescence. It is a movie of unexpected power.

Firth seems genuinely pleased and admits to being very taken with it. “I keep looking at it and I have to say I’m quite besotted by it. It’s beautiful and it’s real. It’s also quite different, Mike uses a small camera. It’s really opened my eyes to the wonders of working in natural light.” He refers to the contrasts: “The sharp, blinding sunlight and those long, dark alleys.” There is also the contrast between the snow and ice of the opening sequence and the subsequent summer haze of Genoa where most of the film is set.

Firth looks me straight in the eye, and speaks about the new movie with all the enthusiasm of someone who sat in the audience instead of being the star. “It’s about grief and the way people deal with it. It’s also looking at a particular family and how love is tested.” Any parent watching it will experience several pangs of recognition.

A father of a grown son and more recently two younger boys by his Italian wife, Firth is very good with children and his scenes with the little girl who plays his daughter in Genova are convincingly affectionate. Also moving is his growing helplessness in dealing with his angry older daughter played by the assured Willa Holland. One magnificently well shot sequence in which the younger girl attempts to cross a busy street is terrifying.

Having seen Firth in so many movies it is a bit odd to be meeting him in person in a Dublin hotel. There is no affectation, no pretence, no theory; he says acting is about “suspending disbelief”. He is handsome without being sexually intimidating and often smiles that sweet quick little smile that some of his characters use to great effect. Mention him to anyone, male or female, and the response is invariably the same; people like Colin Firth. Some, myself included, went to see Mamma Mia! only because he was in it. The child actors who worked with him on Emma Thompson’s Nanny McPhee consistently remind their own parents of how nice he is, while his performance as Mr Darcy did more for Jane Austen than an army of admiring literary critics.

On a Friday afternoon, he looks more like an off-duty vet or doctor than an actor; in fact he speaks like a lively academic and is decidedly unactorly. This observation makes him laugh. Interested in books, he has always read a lot and likes history, the subject his father studied at Cambridge. “My grandfather went to Oxford, he read theology.” Firth does not belong to that precocious Oxbridge set of British actors. He didn’t go to university and still seems more surprised than regretful about missing out on the experience. “I didn’t do that well at school, I don’t know, I wasn’t focused at the time . . . I don’t really know what happened.” He still seems a bit mystified, but not at all defensive about it, as if he is merely trying to figure out what happened.

His reading has filled many of the gaps and he researches his roles well, often continuing the reading after the shoot is over, such as when he was in Conspiracy (for which he got an Emmy nomination) and became interested in Albert Speer. No, even if the famous Victorian actor/manager Henry Irving is a distant relative by marriage, Firth is not a typical actor, much less a movie star. He laughs on hearing this, and says of acting: “Well, it’s kept me amused”.

It has also kept him in work; Firth is in demand and has never been short of a role. His range is impressive from the obsessed Arsenal supporter in Fever Pitch to the world-weary Roman soldier in The Lost Legion, to a detached Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring, in which he showed how ruthless an artist can be. Few actors can convey the uptight Englishman as well as Firth does; he can look heartbroken as he did in Love, Actually – but is also a good comic actor and is the only saving grace in The Accidental Husband. He has been in two of the most successful British films ever made, The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love.

“I don’t think many people noticed that I was in Shakespeare in Love; there I was, the only one of all my colleagues not winning awards or being nominated and in a film celebrating poetry and language and love and beauty, and I was this miserable fellow with no imagination, no romance in me. I’m rather fond of my Wessex.” His character, Lord Wessex, is the bankrupt aristocrat intent on marrying Gwyneth Paltrow’s Lady Violet De Lesseps, who is secretly in love with Shakespeare. Wessex, says Firth, “can’t even tell her what he admires about her – is it her eyes or her lips? – he is utterly indifferent, and just wants to solve his problem”, which amounts to the funding of his ships heading to the New World.

Being in the film was exciting, and Firth became interested in Elizabethan politics and read widely on the subject. He seems to have the sort of mind that, once it gets drawn to a subject, quickly becomes immersed. “I’ve always liked reading, and when I was approached about The English Patient I was very pleased with myself because I had already discovered Ondaatje and had read Coming Through Slaughter and Running in the Family.” How about In the Skin of the Lion? “Oh yes,” he smiles, “I’d read that. Did you know that some of the characters from that were in The English Patient?” Like a child playing snap, I say: “Caravaggio”. Firth smiles and describes how the late Anthony Minghella had read the novel “and just put it away, left it for a while, and then wrote his version of it, as an impression instead of an adaptation”. In the film, Firth played the doting husband of Katharine who, though only a minor character in the novel, becomes central to the film as the lover of the English patient. “Her character was the one that most struck Anthony. Interesting?” he asks, as much as states.

Interviews promoting new movies are part of an actor’s job, but Firth manages to turn an interview into a conversation. Yet with the clock ticking and the publicist waiting in an alcove off the room, it is a race against time. Asked about one of his earliest roles, that of a young shell-shocked soldier in Pat O’Connor’s crafted A Month in the Country, he says: “I did like that; it is the one film I would like to see again.” Based on JL Carr’s novel, it tells the story of Tom Birkin, who arrives at a Yorkshire village in the summer of 1920.

Hired to uncover a medieval mural known to be painted above the nave in the local church, Birkin is troubled. The war has left him with various twitches and a stammer. Another new arrival is Moon, another war veteran, played by Kenneth Branagh. His job is to locate the burial place of a wealthy woman’s ancestor. While Birkin is falling in love with the vicar’s wife, Moon is greatly taken with the moody, rather beautiful Birkin. Firth gives an inspired performance which also revealed what have become two of his great strengths as an actor: his ability to let his expressive face and eyes convey volumes, and his flair for playing well off his colleagues. Watching that movie now not only makes one conscious of how young they both were, but how good they were at such an early stage of their careers.

“I think good acting makes good acting. I’ve never understood why actors choose to act in solitude, or why they are so competitive. It is more of a team thing. I enjoy having someone to work with rather than against.”

In Another Country (1984) Firth featured as Judd, the independent idealist at a boarding school apparently based on Eton. His classmate is the openly homosexual Guy, no doubt intended to be Burgess, played by Rupert Everett. The two have a natural rapport and brought this dynamic to a lively film version of The Importance of Being Earnest in 2002. They also appeared in a subversive remake of the British comic classic, St Trinian’s, with Everett playing the headmistress to Firth’s Education Minister with a mission to clean up the bankrupt and anarchic St Trinian’s – his mission was compromised by the minister’s having had a previous relationship with the headmistress. Most recently, Firth played a distressed, confused son to Jim Broadbent’s overbearing Dad in And When Did You Last See Your Father? based on poet Blake Morrison’s memoir of a complex, ambivalent father/son relationship.

Handsome, intelligent, witty, approachable, sincere, manly, soothing voice, looks good on a horse – what more could one possibly ask for? Speaking with Firth is enjoyable, even if the conversation is racing between topics because of the time restraint. Ironically, it had started rather badly. When the hotel receptionist had failed to locate Firth I was given a swipe card and directions to the suite. A strange conversation in the lift with a guest who looked like a spy was interrupted when a tall, slim man and a small woman entered the lift. The man was Firth. He and the woman were having an animated conversation.

When the lift stopped, they got out, and so did I. Their conversation continued; Firth, with his slightly awkward elegance, was gesturing, telling a funny story, and the woman was laughing. Close on their heels, I followed, too awkward to say anything. It is unlikely that the hotel corridor was about a mile long although it seemed so as I lurched along behind them. The woman looked around and asked, “Are you following us?”. Firth took off his glasses, peered like a schoolmaster and muttered, “You could have introduced yourself.”

It was a Mr Darcy moment. My excuse about not wanting to interrupt them sounded feeble even to me. But the ground failed to open. I could hear my words spoken some months earlier announcing that there were only two actors I wanted to interview: Johnny Depp because he is so weird; and Colin Firth because he was so gorgeous . . . I mean, such a fine actor.

“Both of my parents were born in India. I grew up all over England, well, mainly the south, the Home Counties.” His Englishness manages to avoid the stereotypes while also being used to great effect, such as in Genova. There is a terrific scene following his wife’s funeral when Firth the Englishman is having a half-hearted conversation with his American in-laws. The cultural distance seems to echo the sense of shock.

Referring to the part he plays in Atom Egoyan’s dark, unsettling movie, Where the Truth Lies, Firth says, “You know in the book, my character was an Italian American, and I didn’t mind playing that — I can do an American. But Atom decided I should make use of my Englishness, that’s what happened there.” It is a dark, stylish piece, screened amid controversy at Cannes in 2005. Firth is one half of a nightclub act, the other half being Kevin Bacon. Again, the partnership was electric. “Kevin is such a fine actor, you have no choice but to perform well.” It was also a daring role for Firth: “My character was violent, sadistic, sexually deviant, and so on.”

It is strange to be discussing Where The Truth Lies when so many people immediately think of Firth as the attractive, uptight lawyer in the Bridget Jones movies. Yet even those romps which made so much money had certain “Mr Darcy” in-jokes, as did St Trinian’s. Does he mind being asked about Pride and Prejudice? “No, not at all.” Is it not true that Firth is irritated by the way that role continues to stalk him? “No. I know that there is this perception that I’m sick of it, but I never said that, and I’m not. It is odd, though, because it was so successful, but for me it was a five-week shoot and then I went on to do other things. That’s the way it is, you move on from jobs to the next one before the other one is finished; the acting is over, but the other work is still going on.”

Had he read Austen? Was he conscious of portraying a character who is so much part of his tradition? “I had never read Austen. I was conscious of her, that school I was in at Eastleigh, near Chichester cathedral, where she is buried. I’d never read her because I thought she was just for girls,” he laughs at himself, “but also, at that age, I was more interested in reading Sartre and Camus, I wanted to be brooding and existentialist. I never studied Shakespeare either, until I went to drama school. But when I read Pride and Prejudice, I loved it. I couldn’t believe what I had been missing out on and read all the novels.” How about Persuasion? He would be a good Wentworth. “No, I’m probably past it now.” How about playing Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge? “That’s my favourite novel; Henchard is a fascinating character because he has flaws and he has done this terrible thing and had had to live with it,” says Firth, who reckons humans are more interesting than heroes.

In the forthcoming film of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Firth plays Lord Henry Wotton, while Dorian is the young English actor Ben Barnes, who played Firth’s son in Easy Virtue, based on the Noël Coward play. Released last year, it is a stylish period comedy, with Firth as a disillusioned ex-soldier. He was pleased with the movie, and says: “It has done very well in Italy, but got mixed reviews over here.”

How does Firth feel about Mamma Mia!? “That was great fun, I was delighted to be asked to be in it, it wasn’t easy singing and all that . . . but I knew that it was going to be a big hit and fun, and it was great being part of it.” His nostalgic solo in the boat was very good. “Why, thank you,” he says.

He seems a contented person, neither complacent nor smug. He mentions Tennessee Williams’ plays and is intrigued to hear that the short stories are even better. Mention of a German novel that would make a fine film causes him to praise Downfall and The Lives of Others.

In between all the films, the jobs, the reading,Firth is involved in promoting fair trade for producers in Third World countries. Initially, when he was approached by Oxfam in 2003 he was wary of becoming a token celebrity. But he looked at it in a practical way. “I went to Ethiopia to see for myself. You know, we are all complicit in this exploitation, every time you buy something that has been produced for nothing by a person who has no say, no rights. Ethiopia is beautiful and the people are dignified, but the poverty . . . I thought it would really get to me, but in fact it was far worse when I came home and saw us all drinking our cappuccinos and not thinking about the real costs. The farmer you see doesn’t realise how much we pay for his coffee. He gets so little, he thinks we get it for free. My involvement started as symbolic, but it quickly became personal.”

Through his involvement with Progreso, of which he is a director, he has made his celebrity work with a shop in Chiswick (Ecò Age Ltd), which sells a wide range of fair trade goods.

Just one final question: did he do his own riding as Mr Darcy? “I did indeed,” he says proudly. “Recently I was in something else and my character had to ride a horse, and I thought, ‘Oh I’m getting on a bit, get someone else to do it’, but when I watched him, I didn’t think the double was doing that well. So I decided I’d do it myself – and I did.”


www.irishtimes.com

Siena Beats Ohio State in 2 Overtimes

DAYTON, Ohio — When it ended, after Siena and Ohio State battled for 40 minutes of regulation and two overtimes, the Saints gathered underneath a tunnel here at the University of Dayton Arena.
Saints fans hung over the railing, their faces painted the school’s colors of green and gold, their voices gone from screaming. They rang cow bells and leaned down, hoping to touch anyone wearing a green jersey.

It was already early Saturday morning. Even though this game started Friday night, it did not end until 12:21 a.m. Fifteen minutes later, the scoreboard remained stuck. The clock read 0:00. On its right, Siena 74. On its left, Ohio State 72.

“Definitely big,” junior guard Ronald Moore said. “We’ve got to get ready for Louisville.”

Indeed, the ninth-seeded Saints will meet the top-seeded Cardinals on Sunday evening in the Midwest Region in the Round of 32 of the N.C.A.A. tournament. The Saints ensured that with their wild, back-and-forth victory over eighth-seeded Ohio State, a team that led during most of regulation and the second overtime.

Siena outlasted Ohio State by the end of the second overtime, thanks to Moore, who not only tied the game at the end of the first overtime with a 3-pointer but won it with another 3-pointer he sank with 3.9 seconds remaining in the second overtime.

Moore said he struggled Friday night, and the final statistics show he made only 4 of 13 shots, and only 2 of 6 of his 3-point attempts. Of course, two of those four made shots and both of those made 3-pointers were the most important shots taken in the game. Those shots transformed Moore from a solid, if virtually unknown, player into another N.C.A.A. tournament celebrity, another hero made in March.

Moore appeared near tears after the game ended. Asked what went through his mind before the final shot, he said, simply: “Nothing, really. I needed to knock it down.”

After it went in, Siena players huddled on one side of the court, jumping and hugging and celebrating their advancement. This epic game had taken several twists for them to get here.

At the end of the first overtime, Moore hit a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer to tie the game at 65-65. The Ohio State sophomore guard Jon Diebler missed a potential winning shot at the buzzer.

Near the end of regulation, Kenny Hasbrouck, the Saints senior guard and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference player of the year, knocked down a 3-pointer and made 1 of 2 free throws to tie the game at 56-56. Evan Turner, Ohio State’s valuable sophomore swingman, missed a jumper that would have won the game in regulation.

Back and forth it went.

Hasbrouck and Turner are the best players on their teams, and they played as if attached to opposite ends of a fulcrum Friday night.

Turner dominated for most of regulation, while Hasbrouck remained stuck in a shooting slump on the worst possible night. Hasbrouck tied the game, but Turner missed at the end of regulation. Hasbrouck opened the first overtime with a driving lay-up, and Turner scored 7 points in the second overtime, tying the game twice and giving Ohio State a lead that did not last.

Twenty minutes after the game ended, the Siena fans and players and band lingered at the arena, as if they did not want to leave. A band member walked off the court, carrying a trombone, pointing at every person he passed.

“I love you,” he said. “And I love you. And I love you. And I especially love you.”

For Siena, it was that kind of night.

By GREG BISHOP

www.nytimes.com

Bill Collectors Target Next-of-Kin When Debtors Die

Dead people are paying their bills like there's no tomorrow.

According to "The New York Times," collection agencies are preying on next-of-kin to collect on the debts of the deceased. That could mean credit cards, utility bills, even medical bills.

Companies like Minneapolis-based DCM can electronically rummage through some three-thousand probate courts around the country.

They use the data to file claims and then deploy bill collectors specially trained to sound compassionate.

While collection agencies can go after money inherited from the estate, most state laws protect the next-of-kin from having to pay out of pocket.

Consumer advocates say that spouses, siblings and adult children often have no idea they're not on the hook for their loved one's debts.

DCM is unapologetic, saying they're doing their part to keep the financial services industry afloat during the credit crunch. CEO Steven Farscht said, quote, "Every dollar we collect improves their profitability."

www.msnbc.msn.com

Boston cops get ready for St. Patrick’s Day parade

BOSTON — Thousands of people dressed in green or wearing shamrocks will fill South Boston for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.

The parade begins Sunday afternoon and travels through Boston’s historically Irish neighborhood. It has been a tradition for more than 100 years.

Boston police hope new measures will reduce the public drinking they say has become increasingly prevalant at the parade. Police say excessive drinking has led to fights and other problems.

The police department will add up to 200 officers to the 400 they had at last year’s parade. Two officers will stand by every liquor store and bar along the route to curb underage drinking.

By Associated Press

Roman’s t-shirt design is finalist for Peachtree Road Race

Model High and Shorter College graduate Hannah Lucas is a finalist to provide the artwork for the 2009 Peachtree Road Race t-shirt. Lucas, currently enrolled at the University of West Georgia, is one of five finalists to provide the artwork for the traditional shirt for the annual race held in Atlanta.

Rome and Floyd County residents will get a chance to help Hannah’s art work make the final cut as the Atlanta Track Club is letting the public participate in the selection process.

The artwork for the five finalists will be printed in the March 15 edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the public will be allowed to vote for their favorite on the ajc.com website.

The winning design will be printed on the t-shirt presented to runners in the traditional Independence Day road race. The four finalists each received a $100 award. The winner will receive $1,000. The winner will not be revealed until race day.

Hannah Lucas is a graduate student art major at the University of West Georgia. She was a 2003 honor graduate at Model High School and a 2007 graduate of Shorter College.

news.mywebpal.com

Reclaim Your Lost Money

Wishing for extra cash? You may be entitled to some of the nearly $33 billion in unclaimed property sitting in state governments' coffers.

These are sums that businesses were required to turn over to the states after no activity or contact with the owner after a period of a year or more.

Items can include dividend or payroll checks that haven't been cashed, refunds, trust distributions, unredeemed money orders, insurance payments or refunds, annuities, certificates of deposit, customer overpayments and the contents of safe-deposit boxes.

To find out if a state has any of your money, visit the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators' Web site, unclaimed.org. From there, you can access individual states' records or the centralized MissingMoney.com (which includes records from most states, but not New York and California), all free.

You also can search for the names of deceased relatives who may have unclaimed property. If you can prove that you are the legal heir, you can claim those accounts.

If a match pops up, you'll need to fill out a claim form and submit it to the state's claim office along with the proper documentation.

Be patient -- depending on your state and type of claim, it can take a while to be verified and for the state to put your check in the mail.

By ANNA PRIOR

online.wsj.com

4 arrested in Nev. probe of anti-government group

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Four members of an anti-government group have been arrested on charges that include money laundering, tax evasion and weapons possession, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Authorities said the four men are members of the Sovereign Movement, a group that attempts to overthrow the government and defy authority with "paper terrorism." The arrests in Las Vegas on Thursday capped a three-year investigation into the group's activities led by the Nevada Joint Terrorism Task Force, U.S. Attorney for Nevada Greg Brower said.

A grand jury indictment in federal court in Las Vegas names Samuel Davis, 54, of Council, Idaho; Shawn Rice, 46, of Seligman, Ariz.; Harold Call, 67, of Las Vegas; and Jan Lindsey, of Henderson.

Davis and Rice are accused of laundering roughly $1.3 million for undercover FBI agents, who described the money as loot from a bank fraud scheme. Davis and Rice are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and 30 counts of money laundering. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine on each count.

Davis was described by prosecutors as a national leader in the Sovereign Movement, whose members believe government licenses, taxes and currency are invalid. Rice described himself as a lawyer and rabbi devoted to anti-government teaching, authorities said.

Davis and Rice pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas late Friday. Call and Lindsey also were due to appear in court. Authorities did not know if the four had lawyers.

Brower's office said Call and Lindsey, a retired FBI agent, are leaders of the Nevada Lawmen Group for Public Awareness, a group affiliated with the Sovereign Movement.

Call is accused of possessing an unregistered machine gun, as well as parts designed to convert manual firearms into automatic weapons.

He faces two counts of possession and transfer of a machine gun and three counts of possession of an unregistered machine gun. If convicted, he could get up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.

Lindsey is charged with one count of evasion of payment of tax and four counts of evasion of assessment of tax. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press

Re-thinking our education system a necessity

Privatizing education is the best way to ensure quality

With Gov. Jim Gibbons’ proposed budget cuts to Nevada’s education system being debated within the chambers of the state legislature, everyone is cowering in the corner wondering whether or not we will have a recognizable education system in the future.

Managing and cutting the budget for useless and wasteful programs is what might determine our future. Does a UNLV coach deserve to get paid millions of dollars? Does President David B. Ashley really need a $15,000 desk with matching $3600 leather chairs? Most people don’t care enough to notice this wasteful spending or assume that these benefits are predetermined in contracts. But, when we catch corporate CEOs and other executives flying in private jets or building huge corporate offices, we criticize them openly.

Outrageously expensive desks aside, raising taxes is not the solution. Some suggest raising the room tax because the burden falls on tourists. This mentality is careless because I can’t imagine a tourist who would spend a night in a hotel room with artificially inflated prices due to higher room taxes. As we have seen recently, they are more likely to take their business elsewhere.

More than enough tax money already goes to an already failing public school system. This past election, voters passed yet another room tax to further support the failing public education system in the state.

Every election cycle the schools claim they are in dire need of money, the voters fall for the sob stories and consequentially tax businesses more and throw money at the failing schools without demanding accountability. Soon after, the schools ask for more money claiming the original allocation wasn’t enough.

With tax revenue to the state of Nevada dwindling, schools are obviously feeling a little bit of a pinch. What’s the solution? More money! I’m sorry folks, but as much as your professors like to make you believe, throwing money at a problem isn’t going to fix it. For too long we’ve done just that with Nevada’s education system.

Our public schools are in a severe crisis and this crisis extends beyond financial problems. The big problem plaguing public schools is that they’re public. That’s right, they are owned and run by your government. The reason the budget crisis is affecting K-12 a lot harder than higher education is because they’re dependent on government funds.

The reason the country and our state are failing in educating our youth is because the government controls the education system.

Problem number one: the Department of Education. States and school boards have become so addicted to federal money for their schools that they’ll meet whatever standard the law-makers dictate to them.

This usually doesn’t require much more than mandatory increased attendance. So, schools don’t enforce discipline or academic standards on their students to focus on filling more seats and getting more money. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has to fund education.

The only way to cure the problems associated with the Department of Education is to get rid of it and eliminate federal funding for all schools. Once schools rid themselves of the addiction to federal money, they can finally get back to actually teaching their students. Many private schools, especially parochial schools do without federal money and still have a higher success rate.

Problem number two: the government runs a monopoly on education.

Government-run schools fail primarily because parents don’t have a choice in where their children get educated. Could you imagine if the government chose what TV you could have in your home, what car you could drive, what shoes you have to wear and the food you ate? Well, we’re not that far off from some of those things, but essentially you would be stuck with whatever the government dealt you. It would probably not be the optimal choice.

The solution is to give the power to choose schools back to parents. Free-market principles prove to be successful in private schools. When you have choice, you choose better. For some, private schools are out of reach due to tuition fees and other associated costs. One private school here in Las Vegas charges a reasonable $3,600 a year and they have an exceptionally better and higher quality education system most public schools which Nevada spends $7,355 annually. Still, there should be vouchers and public-private ventures to help those who cannot afford a private education by themselves.

What makes many private schools better, as stated earlier, is their rejection of federal money and ineffective federal regulations. Privatizing the education system would mean more leeway determining teaching methods. Also, this would allow schools to enforce more appropriate academic and disciplinary standards.

Another benefit to a private system is that parents get to see the real cost of their child’s education, and so, they will probably care more about it. Why would anyone want to pay $3,500 a year for their child to get an F? Paying for education might force careless parents to have an interest in their child’s education. Return the choice to people and they’ll choose better.

by Matthew Jarzen

One in nine mortgages in Provo-Orem 'underwater'

Falling home values in the wake of a deepening housing crisis have resulted in a rising number of homes with upside down mortgages nationwide, with one local analyst warning that the problem could be especially serious for some homeowners and investors in Utah County.

Nearly 11 percent of all homes with a mortgage in the Provo-Orem area are in negative equity in the fourth quarter of 2008, and that number is likely to grow, according to a report released Wednesday by First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based seller of mortgage and economic data. In the third quarter, 7.9 percent were upside down.

Negative equity, also referred to as underwater or upside down, means borrowers owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth.

Of a total of 72,522 Provo-Orem properties with a mortgage in the fourth quarter, 7,713 were underwater. In Salt Lake City, 27,031, or 15.2 percent, of all properties with a mortgage were in negative equity in the fourth quarter.

"Being underwater is a necessary but not sufficient condition for default and foreclosure," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American in Washington, D.C. "The other necessary condition is inability to make your mortgage payment due to job loss, divorce, a significant change in the payment because of an adjustable loan. The problem occurs when those two combine."

Those who didn't put any money down for high-end homes (above $400,000) bought during the boom years of 2006 and 2007 in Utah County are most likely at risk of going underwater, said Jason Eldredge, vice president of sales with Newreach. The Salt Lake City company tracks pre-foreclosure statistics in Utah.

"If you've got a 100 percent-funded loan, and the market depreciates just a few years after you purchased at the peak, you may find yourself in a negative equity situation, if you didn't put any money down," he said.

In Utah, as in most areas nationwide, higher-end homes are seeing the biggest price drops as rising foreclosures and unemployment take their toll.

"A lot of new construction over the $400,000 price range in Utah County could be in negative equity," Eldredge said. "Much of the new home inventory in this price range was built in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Many of these homes were also funded at 100 percent. Now that the upper-end homes are seeing the biggest price declines, they are turning into negative equity homes."

Increasingly, he is seeing more homeowners having difficulty refinancing loans of more than $400,000 despite having good credit and secure jobs, because their loan-to-home values have dropped sharply.

"People who did 100 percent financing, where the first 80 percent is on a fixed rate, and the second 20 percent loan on a variable rate, could have some problems if the 20 percent rate starts to adjust upward. That could mean a couple hundred dollars per month increase," he said.

Still, the situation in Utah isn't as dire compared with what's happening nationally.

Across the nation, households with negative equity or near it account for a quarter of all mortgage holders. More than 8.3 million or 20 percent of all U.S. mortgage holders are now underwater as the recession cut home values by $2.4 trillion last year, the report said. Three months ago, 18 percent were underwater.

New negative equity borrowers may rise to 250,000 a month in the first half of the year if prices continue falling, the CoreLogic report said.

But Eldredge maintains the problem in Utah isn't anywhere as serious as in Las Vegas, Arizona, California and Florida.

"How serious the negative equity situation becomes depends on how and when you bought the home. Did you put money down on your home? Did you buy in markets that are now depreciating faster than others? If you put 20 percent or more down, you will be fine because you came to the table with some equity," he said.

Also, most of the investor speculation in Utah's housing market began in 2005, at least two years after the market started heating up in states like Nevada and California, he said.

"We didn't have as much time to get as deep in trouble as some states like Nevada, which began heating up in 2003. We were lucky we did not start earlier in the boom like those markets," he said.

Still, the number of default notices, or notices issued to homeowners who are at least 60 days late on their mortgage payments in Utah County, has jumped to 252 in February, up from 45 a year ago, Eldredge said.

"Once a homeowner goes into default, nine times out of 10, their homes will have a new owner within 12 to 14 months," he said. Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs, located in the former fast-growing north Utah County area, had the highest number of default notices in 2008, he said.

The CoreLogic report also found an additional 2,951 mortgages, or 4.1 percent, of all mortgages in the Provo-Orem area are nearly underwater, bringing the total to 14.7 percent of all outstanding mortgages that are now underwater or nearing it.

These borrowers, analysts say, may be prime candidates for refinancing under President Barack Obama's foreclosure prevention plan announced Wednesday

President Obama's plan aims to help as many as 9 million troubled borrowers refinance or restructure their loans. About $75 billion would be used to rescue homeowners by agreeing to pay lenders for altering troubled mortgages while reducing borrowers' interest rates as low as 2 percent, according to an Associated Press report Wednesday.

Obama also supports revising U.S. bankruptcy rules that would let judges reduce mortgages on primary residences to fair-market value, if borrowers pay their debts under a court-ordered plan.

But, here's the rub.

At least 7.6 million mortgage holders won't qualify because they are underwater by more than the 5 percent threshold allowed in Obama's proposals, according to an estimate by online valuation service Zillow.com.

More than 2.2 million U.S. borrowers have "severe negative equity," or loans worth 125 percent or more of the property's value, according to CoreLogic.

Some analysts say the plan also focuses mainly on owner-occupied homes and not investors, which account for as much as 40 percent of home sales during the housing bubble.

"The real worry is that we may have a Catch-22 position, where if you help the owner-occupieds and not the investors, you run the risk of these homes going back to the banks, and home values tanking further when these homes are reintroduced into the market at much lower prices in short sales or foreclosure sales," Eldredge said.

Grace Leong - DAILY HERALD