I have watched 60 Minutes for as long as I can remember. Most of the time I am absolutely absorbed by at least one, sometimes two, of the three segments presented. Occasionally, I think the enduring CBS workhorse strikes out.
That was most decidedly NOT the case last night.
Segment One: Cleveland Mortgage Crisis
People have made jokes about Cleveland, Ohio for decades. “Mistake by the Lake” (Erie) comes to mind. Coming as I do from the Chicago area, I grew up thinking Cleveland was just a smaller, less “cool” place with lots of similarities to our own beloved environs. Whatever the reason for all the derision, the fact is that Cleveland has been losing population for years and has been hit hard by the current failure of the American economy.
So many houses have been lost to foreclosure and stand vacant month after month, year after year, the homes have become like shopping malls to thieves who take all the wiring, the plumbing the fixtures and even the aluminum siding off the bottom levels reachable without a ladder. The blight created by these ravaged properties has forced the city of Cleveland resort to demolishing these recently perfectly good structures in order to try to save the value of the remaining homes, most of which are worth no more than half of their current mortgages.
As the camera swept by the small, Cape Cod-style houses sitting at the back of deep, well-kept front lawns, my heart broke a little bit more than it already was. I know a thing or two about having to make the decision to ignore all my own Midwestern values and decide to strategically default on a home so far underwater I could never make keeping it make sense. I was lucky, though, because my house was in a market that was still very desirable, especially for people who wanted to cut down on the burden of gas prices and long commutes from the suburbs. I was able to browbeat my bank into accepting a short sale, after 18 months of intense battle. The people interviewed on 60 Minutes last night had no chance of making such a deal.
The extent to which Americans are hurting is not abating. It is simply not being discussed anymore. While our collection of clowns known as Congress continue to play their silly games in Washington, Americans are quietly dying, inside and out. One woman on the show was skeletal in physique. When asked how she had been getting by as she steadfastly scraped together a monthly mortgage payment even after losing her nursing job 18 months before, she replied that she cut back on food and blood pressure medicine. She went to food banks so that she didn’t have to be hungry “all the time.” She owes $100,000 on her mortgage. Her home is worth $50,000 today. We are not talking about a McMansion here.
Segment Two: Anderson Cooper, Scuba Diver
On a lighter note, as they love to say on broadcast news programs, we left Cleveland and its problems and traveled with Anderson Cooper to a coral reef located in what Christopher Columbus called the Gardens of the Queen, a secluded and largely undiscovered area of the ocean off the coast of Cuba. With with marine biologist David Guggenheim, Cooper took the viewers on an up close tour of a pristine coral reef, untouched by the problems shared by most of the world’s more ecologically disturbed reefs. Dodging sharks and gigantic Moray eels to explore this increasingly rare oasis, the apparently fearless Cooper went almost nose to nose with a curious, 200-pound giant grouper.
What a life this man leads. War zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, a populist revolt in Egypt’s Tahrir Square during the “Arab Spring,” a catastrophic earthquake in Haiti with millions displaced and/or severely injured. How difficult it must be to be Ben Maisani, Cooper’s boyfriend, who owns a New York city gay nightclub, while Anderson gallivants all over the world putting his life at risk.
Segment Three: the Consummate Pretender
Of all the female actors in Hollywood, Meryl Streep is the one I would choose first to share a meal with. Many actors are far more interesting playing roles than they ever are in their own persona. Streep is fascinating in her own right. She refuses to take herself too seriously, has a rapier-sharp wit and doesn’t seem to care a whit about her considerable physical beauty. Most recently she has inhabited the character of the Iron Lady, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
I remember vividly the moment I became a devoted Meryl Streep fan. I was where I could always be found at some point of a weekend in 1982; in a movie theater, this time watching Sophie’s Choice with my then-husband. In the scene, the character Stingo (Peter MacNicol) shows up at her door wearing a seersucker suit. Sophie, an immigrant from Poland, said in her thickest Polish accent “Stinko, you’re wearing your cocksucker suit!”
Since then I have loved her performances as everything from a all-too-familiar, pinch-faced nun in Doubt to a high-spirited,latex-wearing mother of the bride in Mama Mia. This extremely rare interview on 60 Minutes did absolutely nothing to dampen my admiration of this gifted thespian.
Sixty minutes well spent.
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