Huffington (Issue #67)

IS YOUR JOB BAD FOR YOU? | GEORGE TAKEI | DON’T CALL ME ‘BABY’

THE HUFFINGTON POST MAGAZINE

WAR’S INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

PHOTO OR ILLUSTRATION CREDIT TK

SINCE JOSHUA DIED

MAKING SENSE OF A SON’S FINAL, DESPERATE ACT

BY DAVID WOOD

SEPTEMBER 22, 2013

09.22.13 #67 CONTENTS

Enter POINTERS: A ‘Cowardly Act’ ... Summers’ End JASON LINKINS: Looking Forward in Angst DATA: Thrill Rides Gone Wrong Q&A: George Takei HEADLINES MOVING IMAGE

Voices ADAM GRANT: Why Some People Have No Boundaries Online

THIS PAGE FROM TOP: JONATHAN HANSON; KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES

LORI DURON: When My Son Came Out As Straight

‘I HAVE TO GO’ The lost war of Joshua Lipstein.

BY DAVID WOOD

QUOTED

Exit ART: Calling Out the Catcallers THE THIRD METRIC: How Your Job Is Killing You TASTE TEST: In Which We Face Some Harsh Truths About Orange Soda TFU

RENTERS ON THE ROCKS “Tenants are [often] the innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis.”

BY BEN HALLMAN

FROM THE EDITOR: Missed Opportunities ON THE COVER: Photograph for

Huffington by Jonathan Hanson

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Missed Opportunities N THIS WEEK’S issue, we feature the latest in our “Invisible Casualties” series on suicide in the military, which is running on The Huffington Post throughout the month of September.

In this installment, David Wood tells the story of Navy Petty Officer Joshua Lipstein, an Iraq war veteran whose struggle with drugs and depression ended when he took his own life at 23.

When Joshua was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2009, he was prescribed a dizzying array of painkillers from Valium to Percocet, and eventually became addicted. That addiction, which carried on for five months while he was on active duty, only deepened the depression he was already experi-

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encing. One day, he put a pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Joshua’s death and the circumstances surrounding it still haunt his family and friends, who wonder if the story might have ended

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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I don’t understand why they weren’t drug testing him more frequently.” differently. “I don’t understand why they weren’t drug testing him more frequently,” Elliott Miranda — Joshua’s best friend and battle buddy in Iraq — said of the Navy.

In an extensive review of Joshua’s medical records and Navy investigation reports — in addition to interviews with those who knew him best — David pieces together the story of one young man’s life unraveling, and of the many missed opportunities to help him along the way.

Elsewhere in the issue, Ben Hallman peers into a corner of the foreclosure market that is rarely given attention — the millions of renters who are the victims of the wars between their landlords and banks. According to one academic study, tenants make up 40 percent of all American evictions in foreclosed properties.

Ben centers his story around one such family in Anaheim, California. After being evicted by Bank of America from their condominium — not far from the tourist fantasy of Disneyland — Renee Genel, her

boyfriend, her two children, and her toddler niece begin moving from cheap hotel to cheap hotel.

As part of our ongoing focus on The Third Metric, we also show you ways to make your workday healthier and less stressful.

And finally, Wharton School professor Adam Grant breaks down the varying personality types that populate the world of social media — from the impressers, who aim to “disclose information that is flattering,” to the expressers, who see social media as “an opportunity to be seen accurately by others.”

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Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook

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ANDRE CHUNG/MCT

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A ‘COWARDLY ACT’ 1 A gunman opened fire Monday at the Washington Naval Yard, killing 12 people. The

shooter, Aaron Alexis, was killed in a gun battle with police. He was a former Navy reservist who had been honorably discharged. President Obama called the shooting a “cowardly act.” “These are men and women who were going to work, doing their job, protecting all of us,” he said in a speech. “They are patriots and they know the dangers of serving abroad, but today they faced unimaginable violence that they wouldn’t have expected here at home.” In a statement released Wednesday, Alexis’ mother said, “I don’t know why he did what he did, and I’ll never be able to ask him why ... To the families of the victims, I am so, so very sorry that this has happened.”

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SUMMERS’ END

Former U.S. Secretary Larry Summers withdrew his name from consideration for the post of Federal Reserve chairman on Sunday. “I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery,” Summers wrote. The withdrawal comes after many Democrats said they would vote against him, and led to increased speculation that Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen will be nominated for the post.

FOR WOMEN, THE SAME OLD STORY THE SEARCH CONTINUES IN COLORADO

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau revealed that women still earned only 77 cents for every dollar men made last year. The gap has remained about this wide since 2007. American women earned a median income of $37,791 in 2012, while men earned a median income of $49,398. “Unfortunately for women and their families, it’s the same old story — another year of no improvement,” said Linda D. Hallman, executive director and CEO of the American Association of University Women. House Democrats are joining forces with progressive advocacy groups to try to improve women’s economic security.

Officials say it could take years — and hundreds of millions of dollars — for Colorado to recover from a week of flooding and raging rains. At least six people have died, and the number is expected to increase. The number of missing has decreased from 1,200 to about a few hundred. Authorities have now slowed down emergency operations and begun the recovery phase.

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PENTHOUSE PUBLISHER SEES RED

Penthouse magazine’s publisher, FriendFinder Networks, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week. It said in a court filing that it has less than $10 million in assets and liabilities of up to $1 billion. “Despite continuing member interest and high volume traffic, the debtors did not make certain payments to the holders of existing first lien notes and cash pay second lien notes which constituted a default under their respective indentures,” the company wrote in its filing.

IT’S OVER

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In news that many suspected was coming, Miley Cyrus and Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth have called off their engagement, their reps confirmed to People magazine.

The two met in 2009 while working on the film The Last Song. They got engaged on May 31, 2012.

The couple was last seen together on Aug. 8.

THAT’S VIRAL BABY ELEPHANT CRIES FOR 5 HOURS AFTER BEING REJECTED

BY ITS MOTHER

A selection of the week’s most talked-about stories.

HEADLINES TO VIEW FULL STORIES

THE HABITS OF SUPREMELY HAPPY PEOPLE

13-YEAR-OLD X FACTOR CONTESTANT KNOCKS YOUR SOCKS OFF

UTAH DAD BRINGS NEW MEANING TO ‘SHORT SHORTS’

WHY GENERATION Y YUPPIES ARE UNHAPPY

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JASON LINKINS

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JIM WATSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

LET CALAMITY BE THE CURE HE GROWING CLAMOR around the Beltway is that everyone should batten down the hatches and get ready for the inevitable government shutdown. It’s an outcome that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has worked hard to

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avoid, for the sake of his party’s reputation. But Boehner, short on time and tactics, may have no other choice now than to let calamity physics work its will.

For the past week, warnings over the possibility of a shutdown have rung out. Jonathan Chait advised just last week that “a government shutdown is more likely now” because the time in which to actually deal-make around it is quickly

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) has thus far attempted to stave off a government shutdown on the grounds that it would be bad for the GOP’s brand.

Enter elapsing. Not that a deal seemed likely. As one source, positioned to suss out the state of negotiations, told Jonathan Cohn, “The breakdown is more extensive than you’ve heard ... There is no discussion going on at all at this point.”

And Peter Weber cautions, “Brace yourselves,” because everyone’s incentives seem to align in such a way that makes a shutdown a fait accompli. President Barack Obama thinks the shutdown will add political capital to his coffers. Democrats believe it will improve their position to bargain on the budget. Tea party Republicans believe the conventional wisdom — which holds that the GOP’s brand loses out in the event of a shutdown — is wrong, and that they actually have the leverage. The Hill reports that “at least 43 conservatives want the GOP leadership to go for broke” over this.

Standing at the center of all of this is House Speaker John Boehner, who has, thus far, attempted to stave off a shutdown on the grounds that it would be bad for the GOP’s brand. But he might be all out of options.

His most recent gambit was to try to get the House to pass a con-

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HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

tinuing resolution to keep the government functioning, with a sidecar resolution attached that would defund Obamacare. The idea is to give his caucus colleagues another chance to vent their disapproval of Obamacare without imperiling the federal government. At the same time, Boehner has extended the notion that there will be time enough for hostage-taking when the debate over the debt ceiling

The breakdown is more extensive than you’ve heard ...

There is no discussion going on at all at this point.” is enjoined. (Of course, there’s no indication that Boehner thinks a debt ceiling row would be any better for the GOP than a shutdown, but if his colleagues accepted this plan, he would at the very least buy some time.)

The problem, however, is that the more raucous members of his caucus have rejected Boehner’s “continuing resolution with a side of Obamacare defunding,” and call this plan a “sell-out.” Boehner is further hamstrung by the fact that his colleagues have turned

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AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

the “Hastert Rule” — which holds that the speaker can’t bring anything to the floor for a vote without first securing a “majority of the majority” — into official House GOP dogma.

All of this brought Boehner to his lowest point last week, when he vented his frustrations at reporters, saying, “Do you have an idea? They’ll just shoot it down anyway.” So now, as The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber posits, Boehner might just let his colleagues take aim at their own collective foot.

Back in March, Scheiber mapped out the strategy that Boehner’s been using to move important business through the House and survive — both as a House speaker and as a guy tasked with keeping his party’s standing from collapsing. It goes something like this: First Boehner stakes out a position so extreme or impractical that he effectively marginalizes himself from any negotiation with Democrats. At that point, Democrats begin to bargain with Boehner’s Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell. Once they strike a deal, it passes the

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Senate with overwhelming support. This is the cue to Boehner to troop before his caucus and lament that they fought the good fight for as long as they could, but now even their fellow Republicans have turned on them. If it is their will to hold out, then Boehner will obey it.

(Always best to give crazy people the illusion of agency.) But he can no longer in good faith recommend this path. Invariably, the lunatics fold.

But with those same lunatics in

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The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber posits that Boehner strategizes with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (above) to move business through the House.

Enter full revolt against Boehner’s continuing resolution gambit, that particular jig is up. So Scheiber now reckons that Boehner has no choice left but to stop treating the symptoms and fully feed the disease: Now, don’t get me wrong: Boehner clearly prefers to avoid a government shutdown.

He’s spent months figuring out how to do that, fully aware of the political debacle it would entail. Unfortunately, it’s now clear that the only way he can induce the political isolation he typically relies on to prod his caucus into semi-rational action is by shutting down the government and inviting the public backlash he’s been so desperate to avoid. Boehner simply has no other way of talking sense into his people, no other hope of making the House GOP governable. And so, in the end, a shutdown is in Boehner’s interest, too.

The hopeful possibility here, according to Scheiber, is that now maybe Boehner’s GOP antagonists will “sober up before we take on the substantially higher-stakes proposition of avoiding a debt

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default.” That would, indeed, be a welcome occurrence.

But contending against this possibility are electoral fundamentals. The GOP goes into the midterm elections with a very strong hand. The vagaries of redistricting, and the fact that the bulk of the Democratic base has sequestered itself into a limited number of urban districts, means that there literally might not be

... Boehner has no choice left but to stop treating the symptoms and fully feed the disease.” enough votes in the right districts to threaten any of the GOP deadenders. And a government shutdown may not actually be enough of an apocalypse to alter the underlying electoral plate tectonics.

So there’s a good chance that Boehner’s plan will simply further tarnish the GOP’s standing, without providing sufficient motivation to push his colleagues in a saner direction.

But as Boehner himself has asked, do you have a better idea?

Q&A

FROMTOP: SUHAIMI ABDULLAH/GETTY IMAGES; MICHEL DEASCENTIIS/FULLSCREEN/COURTESY OF AARP

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George Takei on Teaching Technology to the Over-50 Set “Arrogant youngsters... you have so much to learn. You don’t know how wonderful [technology] is.”

Above: George Takei flashes Star Trek’s Vulcan salute. Below: Takei teamed up with AARP for his new webseries, Takei’s Take, which teaches those over 50 to be web-savvy.

FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW, VISIT HUFFPOST LIVE

DATA

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Thrill Rides Gone Wrong

2011

Earlier this month at a festival in Connecticut, a swing ride left 18 people — mostly children — injured. Despite rides being statistically very safe, the public tends to take a closer look at these mechanical attractions after accidents like this. Ahead, see the data on amusement park deaths over the last decade, with a specific focus on roller coasters. — Andy McDonald

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The Week That Was TAP IMAGE TO ENLARGE, TAP EACH DATE FOR FULL ARTICLE ON THE HUFFINGTON POST

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Changsha, China 09.15.2013 24-year-old Austrian climber Michael Kemeter ascends Beichen Times Square, the tallest skyscraper in Changsha, China.

It took Kemeter one hour to climb up to the 45th floor of the 4,160 ft. building.

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New York, NY 09.11.2013 Carrie Bergonia of Pennsylvania becomes emotional looking at the name of her fiancĂŠ, firefighter Joseph Ogren, at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. This year was the twelfth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 09.13.2013 A photographer slides down a zip-line during the Rock in Rio Festival. The 30-plus-year music festival is one the largest celebrations of Brazilian music in the world.

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Madrid, Spain 09.14.2013 A child walks in the grandstand during the 2013 Davis Cup World Group Play-offs doubles game between Spain and the Ukraine at the Caja Magica sports complex.

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Frankfurt, Germany 09.10.2013

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Audi cars are reflected in the mirror beneath the ceiling at the IAA international automobile show, the world’s biggest motor show. More than 1,000 exhibitors from 35 countries present their products during the show.

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HELEN H. RICHARDSON/ THE DENVER POST

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Jamestown, Colorado 09.15.2013 Portions of James Canyon drive washed away after recent heavy flooding. The floods left the town inaccessible and without running water. Most of the town had to be evacuated by helicopters.

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Fuzhou, China 09.14.2013 Hundreds of students learn emergency skills at the Mabao Youths social practice base in the Fujian Province of China.

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Madrid, Spain 09.13.2013 A model shows off a Spring/ Summer design by Ana Locking during Madrid’s Fashion Week.

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Hong Kong 09.14.2013

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The “Rising Moon” lantern is lit up for the first time at the start of the “one2free” Lantern Wonderland Mid Autumn Festival in Victoria Park.

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Jalalabad, Afghanistan 09.08.2013 Afghan police officers attend a graduation ceremony at a national police officer training center. More than one hundred officers graduated from the two-month program.

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Duisburg, German 09.13.2013 Visitors walk through a light installation by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda. The piece, which reflects streaming data, is housed inside a power plant of a former steel mill.

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Houston, Texas 09.15.2013 Houston Texans mascot Toro lowers himself into Reliant Stadium before a game against the Tennessee Titans.

Tap here for a more extensive look at the week on The Huffington Post.

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Voices

ADAM GRANT

JONATHAN STOREY/GETTY IMAGES

Why Some People Have No Boundaries Online WE’RE OFTEN SHOCKED by what people post online. Sometime this year, you’ve probably marveled at an offensive Tweet, a debaucherous Facebook picture, an embarrassing YouTube clip, or an unprofessional comment on LinkedIn from someone you know. What shapes why some people seem

to have no filter in social media, whereas others are more selective and private — and what should your strategy be?

There are two key factors that drive our social media choices, according to new work by researchers Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Nancy Rothbard and Justin Berg.

One is our boundary preferences: are we integrators or segmentors? If you’re an integrator, you

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Voices like to build bridges between your professional and personal lives.

Integrators strive to blend their jobs with their lives outside work — they’re eager to talk about their kids at work, don’t mind bringing their work home, and happy to share the same information with colleagues as family and friends.

If you’re a segmentor, you like to keep your professional and personal lives separate. Segmentors create mental fences between their jobs and other aspects of their lives. On social media, this might mean using privacy controls, making your profile unsearchable, or segmenting your network by using LinkedIn for professional contacts and Facebook for personal contacts.

The other factor is how we want to be seen by others: Are we aiming to impress or express?

Impressers see social media as a vehicle for looking good — they want to build a positive reputation and attract a strong base of followers. As the researchers write, impressers aim to “disclose information that is flattering (e.g. achievements, good picture), glamorous (e.g. travel observations and pictures) or makes one look smart (e.g. inter-

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esting news articles).” They also avoid controversial posts and carefully control and monitor photos, tags and comments.

For expressers, social media isn’t about winning others over; it’s an opportunity to be seen accurately by others. This means being more open online: sharing vulnerabilities, disclosing unpopular opinions, writing about stressful experiences, or posting photos that might not appeal to everyone.

Impressers aim to ‘disclose information that is flattering (e.g. achievements, good picture), glamorous (e.g. travel observations and pictures) or makes one look smart (e.g. interesting news articles).’”

When we combine boundary preferences and image motives, we can gain insight into the strategies that we select and how much other people will like and respect us. Integrators with a strong motivation to express don’t filter their content or their audiences. This open strategy is the least time-consuming and the most authentic, but it sacrifices

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respect and liking: people develop a reputation for revealing too much information and sharing inappropriate information.

It’s probably more common than ever before: as I noted recently, evidence suggests that compared to other generations, Millennials seem to care more about self-expression than social approval.

People who want to express themselves are able to maintain respect by segmenting their audiences. By keeping LinkedIn and Facebook networks separate, for example, segmentors can still re-

ADAM GRANT

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For expressers, social media isn’t about winning others over; it’s an opportunity to be seen accurately by others.” veal their true identities and experiences to their friends and families without alienating or offending their colleagues. However, this approach still poses some challenges for liking. As the researchers explain, recent studies show that “41 percent of Facebook users think it is irresponsible to ignore a friend request from a coworker” and “younger employees are connected on Facebook to an average of 16 co-

Voices workers.” Segmentors who strive to self-express have to explain to colleagues why they won’t accept their friend requests on Facebook, and sometimes leave them wondering what’s being hidden in that private world.

The researchers make a compelling case that keeping an eye on our image usually earns us greater respect and liking. By segmenting what we share with different audiences, the researchers write, we create online relationships that “mirror the tailored nature of offline relationships.” The challenge is that it involves a lot more work.

Few people have the time and energy to create and maintain separate lists of contacts for sharing different types of information, and evolve these lists as our relationships change. And as hard as we try, sometimes it’s out of our control when friends cross our boundaries.

Personally, as more of an integrator, I have a decent number of professional contacts in my Facebook network. My wife is a segmentor — to the point that she cringes at the mere mention of her existence in social media, and will probably even object to this one.

In our experience, segmentation is the dominant preference in re-

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lationships: blurring boundaries is far more bothersome to a segmentor than building fences is to an integrator. (In fact, Rothbard and her colleagues conducted a study showing that segmentors are less satisfied and committed when their employers offer onsite childcare. Even when it doesn’t af-

Millennials seem to care more about self-expression than social approval.” fect them directly, the mere presence of other people’s family lives in their workplaces punches holes in their mental fences.)

Since many people are segmentors, being liked and respected probably requires some selectivity about what we share and with whom we share it. And there’s a way to be selective without spending inordinate amount of time and energy managing different networks and lists: it’s called conversation. So I’d like to propose a rule: when in doubt, share it offline.

Adam Grant is a tenured professor at The Wharton School.

LORI DURON

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When My Son Came Out As Straight

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Y BROTHER MICHAEL has always been my best friend. After all, growing up, he was the one with whom I played Barbies, choreographed and performed synchronized swimming routines, belted out every song from Annie and argued about what we liked best about a young Jason Bateman. ¶ Michael was totally fabulous, slightly effeminate and possibly gay at a time and in a place where it wasn’t discussed, let alone embraced. Growing up, he felt stifled and shameful, like he had to hide his true self because he was a “sissy.” ¶ I remember the night when Michael told our mom that

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Voices he was gay. My mom was crying.

She told him not to tell anybody else, just in case he changed his mind. She told him that he was going to Hell. I started to cry too.

What was happening to our family and my reality?

Now I get emotional with our mother when she cries and feels like a failure because of her reaction when Michael came out.

Once things are said and done, they can’t be unspoken or undone; it’s one of life’s tragedies.

Our mother also regrets showing me that having a gay family member was something to hide, for being less than brave and for placing such importance on trying to please other people. She’s said that, at times, her love for her kids didn’t triumph over what others would think or say. We’ve talked about all of this, and I promised her that I’ll do better, that I won’t repeat her mistakes, that the lessons that she has learned will be put to use by me for the sake of her grandchildren should they be LGBTQ. I have two boys. My youngest son C.J. was two and half when he started, as he explains it, being “a boy who only likes girl stuff and wants to be treated like a girl.”

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How could it be? How could our family have another boy who liked everything about being a girl? It’s history repeating itself, to a certain extent. I have to make sure that only the good parts of the history live on.

Since C.J. started revealing his inner princess, Michael and I have had numerous talks about our childhood and what a child like C.J. — and Michael — needs from

Is it possible for a homosexual person to never have to come out of the closet? I don’t mean staying closeted forever; I mean never even entering the closet.” a parent. My brother and I have grown even closer than we already were, which I would have never thought possible.

Even though I was right there growing up with Michael, I was oblivious to a lot. I talked to him about our childhood. I learned that he felt like he was in survival mode for much of his life. He had secrets, he had shame, and he felt like he made every family photo ugly, all

Voices because he loved girl stuff but didn’t love girls and felt like he was wrong, a freak and a mistake.

One year after my son started showing signs of childhood gender nonconformity, I got to thinking about the coming-out process.

Is it possible for a homosexual person to never have to come out of the closet? I don’t mean staying closeted forever; I mean never even entering the closet.

A lot of people have told me that it is possible, especially in a family like ours. The thought of my sons bypassing a good amount of the guilt, shame, fear and secretiveness that my brother grew up with makes me feel happy, and like my husband and I (and the rest of the people in our lives) are doing something right. If one or both of my sons are LGBTQ and don’t want to step foot in the closet, they don’t have to.

I’m careful how I phrase things.

I ask my oldest son Chase if he thinks anybody in his class is cute. I leave it open so that he can answer honestly.

For years that’s how we’ve been raising our sons. We make no assumptions about their sexuality, in an attempt to avoid a comingout process. We always act like a

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gay person is in the room, just like we always act like a straight person is in the room.

Then, a few months ago, Chase felt the need to come out to me... as straight.

We were talking when he mentioned that one of his buddies and a girl from their class were dating. I asked if he was attracted to anyone at school.

“Mom, I’m straight,” he said.

I’m careful how I phrase things. I ask my oldest son Chase if he thinks anybody in his class is cute. I leave it open so that he can answer honestly.”

“It’s time you faced the facts.”

“What?” I was shocked by his directness.

“I know what you’re doing,” he continued. “You always leave it open, like I could be gay. But I’m not.”

“OK, but you know that if you were gay or are gay, that is totally cool too, right?”

“Yes, of course, but I’m not.”

“OK, but if your feelings change—”

Voices “Mom! I’m straight!” He said this with firmness, a smile and a shake of his head.

I called my brother. “Chase came out,” I told him. “He says he’s straight.”

“What do you mean, ‘He says he’s straight’?” he asked.

“Well, things could change,” I said.

“Babe, he just came out to you. He told you that he is straight. You have to listen to him and work from that for now and acknowledge it and believe it. That’s it. He’s straight. You have to honor that, just like you would if C.J. told you that he was gay. Both of your kids know that you love them and support them and accept them whether they are gay or straight. But when they tell you like that, you have to believe them.”

My brother was right. I want my kids to know that their sexuality would never change the way I feel about them. They can be anywhere on the spectrum of sexuality and still have my unconditional love, acceptance and support. But when they stake a claim on the spectrum, like Chase did, they have to know that I hear them and believe them.

LORI DURON

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

By trying to eliminate the need for a gay son to come out, I created an environment where a straight son felt the need to come out. As I try to learn from my mother’s mistakes, I may be making some new ones of my own. I guess that’s how it goes with parenting.

So I am the proud mother of a 10-year-old, straight, cisgender son and a gender-nonconforming

By trying to eliminate the need for a gay son to come out, I created an environment where a straight son felt the need to come out.” son who is six years old and has yet to declare his sexuality. I’m also the proud sister of a very youthful gay brother who is doing just fine and leading an amazing life. He’s found support outside our parents and now dresses lifesized Barbies. We also still belt out Annie tunes together when the mood strikes.

Lori Duron is a mother of two and author of Raising My Rainbow.

QUOTED

Voices

CLOCKWISE FROMTOP LEFT: TAYLOR HILL/FILMMAGIC/GETTY IMAGES; KRISTIAN SEKULIC/GETTY IMAGES; PAUL TRANTOW/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES; PETE MAROVICH/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

“ Plenty of girls are just as gorgeous.

But she creates this extra something.

It’s in her walk, her eye contact.”

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

“ People dumb enough to rely on the pull-out method are the last people who should be reproducing.”

— HuffPost commenter Guys_POV

on “8 Stories From Women Who Relied On The ‘Pull-Out Method’”

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

to Men’s Health, on his Don Jon co-star Scarlett Johansson

“ Since when does Congress set deadlines, watch regulators miss most of them, and then take that failure as a reason not to act?”

— Elizabeth Warren

on why Congress should act to end “too big to fail” financial institutions, on the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis

“ To be more accurate, he and his wife live in a suburb of Colorado Springs. It’s called ‘Denial Heights.’”

— HuffPost commenter MartiniVirtuoso

on “Ted Haggard ‘Grateful’ 7 Years After Gay Sex Scandal”

Voices

QUOTED

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

“ Free will is wasted on them. My dog wouldn’t do this.”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ASTRID STAWIARZ/GETTY IMAGES; MITCHELL FUNK/GETTY IMAGES; JON VACHON/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES

— HuffPost commenter artistinresidence

John would have loved it. He would have used all of social media and convincingly, because he was a communicator.

— Yoko Ono

on “St. Mary’s University Students’ Pro-Rape Chant Condemned After 5 Years Of Use”

tells HuffPost why she thinks John Lennon would have loved Twitter

“ I’ve been bored a long time.”

— FOX News Anchor Shep Smith

on taking a new job at the network, in an interview with The New York Times

“ Once you get New Yorkers out of their rush hour mode, they are actually quite nice and helpful.”

— HuffPost commenter anon004

on “New Yorkers Aren’t Rude. You Are.”

09.22.13 #67 FEATURES

SINCE JOSHUA DIED

JONATHAN HANSON

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

Since Joshua Died MAKING SENSE OF A SON’S FINAL, DESPERATE ACT

BY DAVID WOOD PHOTOGRAPHS BY JONATHAN HANSON

O

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

ON THE EARLY EVENING of March 15, 2011, in the bedroom of a two-story red brick townhouse in Virginia Beach, Va., Navy Petty Officer Joshua Lipstein put a .45-caliber Glock 21 pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger. He was 23 years old. ¶ The Navy, after an investigation, ruled that Joshua died “in the line of duty and not due to his own misconduct.” ¶ The real story is more complicated.

More confusing. More heartbreaking. ¶ His story is unique, but it also reflects the struggles of the 301 active-duty military men and women who died by suicide that year, part of a growing toll of invisible casualties. ¶ It is difficult to reconcile Joshua’s last desperate act with the outward blessings of his life. He was young, smart, capable and well-liked. He was recently married and doted on his infant daughter. He was close to and loved by his dad, Don Lipstein, his sister, Emily, and brother, Andrew.

And yet, like many afflicted by thoughts of suicide, he was fighting an undertow so powerful that it was largely invisible to those who loved him, until it was too late. At times, they felt they had somehow failed him.

“What did I do wrong as a par-

ent?” Don still wonders. “There may have been something I could have done to affect the outcome.

But I did the best I could.”

It was Joshua’s wife, Leslie, late that afternoon, who alerted Don that Joshua was talking about suicide. “I don’t know what to do,” she said in a call from their home in Texas. She didn’t know where Joshua was, and she was frightened. “He doesn’t sound good at all,” she said.

Rattled, Don dialed Joshua’s cell phone. He waited, silently begging Joshua to answer. He was scared about what to say, what not to say. Seconds passed. Final-

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

ly, Joshua picked up the phone.

In that final connection, all the love, all of life’s hopes and failures and regrets, the anger and despair, the secrecy and deception, all telescoped into those few precious minutes. And left, in the desperation of that moment, unspoken.

“I said, ‘Josh, what’s going on?’” Don said. “I could hear him crying. He always put on a strong face for me. But he was crying and he said, ‘Dad, I’m so sorry, I love you. I’m so sorry!’”

“I knew I had to keep him on the phone. I said, ‘Joshua, where are you?’”

“I can’t tell you.”

“I said, ‘Do you have a gun with you?’”

“Yes, I do.”

“Could you just unload it, please?”

“I can’t do that.”

“I was clutching at straws trying to keep him on the phone.

‘Please tell me where you are, please give me an address.’” Silence. Then in a choked voice, Joshua said the address.

“Then suddenly his voice got real strong. He said, ‘Dad, I love you. I have to go,’ and he hung up.”

Quickly, Don dialed 911 and relayed the address, sending cops speeding toward the townhouse.

Don thought, maybe there’s hope.

He called Emily. “Call everyone you know and get them over there,” he ordered.

Don, 54, is a strong person.

Warm, friendly, outgoing. In the 30 months or so since Joshua died, he has endured unimaginable suffering. Battered by shame,

Navy Petty Officer Joshua Lipstein, shortly after his first deployment, preparing to report to duty on base.

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

guilt, an agony of regret. Anger.

And the unanswerable questions: How could this have happened? How did we get to this point? What was my own part in this? Where did I fail? Frantically searching for the understanding that will never come.

Slowly, over the months, he has built a small space of acceptance, of peace. With the help and support of many others, he works at enlarging that space.

He survives. To pass him on the street, to exchange neighborly pleasantries, you would not glimpse his torment.

But in coming to this part of the story, the moment his son hung up the phone, Don falters and goes silent, eyes downcast. A long pause. Then he looks up at me, one father to another, and his eyes are luminous with pain.

“I knew,” he said.

It was three hours, though, before it was official. By that time the Virginia Beach police had arrived and secured the site.

Joshua’s best friend, Elliott Miranda, had heard from the family that Joshua was in a bad place.

He had called Joshua’s roommate,

“ I could hear him crying.

He always put on a strong face for me. but he was crying and he said, ‘Dad, I’m so sorry, I love you. I’m so sorry!’” told him to go home and check on Joshua. Elliott had been frantically calling, but Joshua wouldn’t pick up. Finally, Elliott heard back from the roommate, and called Don and broke the news: Joshua was dead.

Unraveling the skein of events that led to this end, it’s hard to avoid seeing what experts say is a major factor in suicide: the powerful influence of drugs and addiction that can deepen depression and hopelessness. Easy, in retrospect, to spot the missed opportunities for intervention.

THE PERIL OF PAINKILLERS Joshua had been voted class “party animal” when he graduated from Mount Pleasant High School in Wilmington, Del., in 2005.

Then he enlisted. By the end of that year, Navy boot camp had

★

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

scoured away most of his boyish clowning, but not his enthusiasm for life. He loved his two combat tours in Iraq with a Navy river patrol unit, Riverine Squadron 1, hunting insurgents and weapons caches along the Euphrates River in bloody Anbar Province.

He made friends easily and was a good friend. His buddies used words like “energetic” and “optimistic” to describe him.

“An infectious smile, the men all

adored him, a great brother in arms. Josh is a hero,” said Navy Cmdr. Gary Leigh, Joshua’s squadron commander in Iraq, who was “crushed” by Joshua’s death.

Joshua won promotions. He planned to re-enlist. A distinguished naval career beckoned.

Then, a setback. On his return from Iraq in 2009, a routine physical turned up hearing loss, evidence of a brain tumor. Surgery, in December of that year, was successful; the tumor was benign. But his hearing loss and the surgery abruptly ended his

Don Lipstein leans on the mini casket that houses Joshua’s ashes.

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INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

dream of a Navy career. Instead, the Navy began the lengthy process of terminating his service on medical grounds.

In recovery, Joshua was prescribed a cocktail of drugs for pain, anxiety, nausea and other side-effects of surgery: diazepam (Valium), the anticoagulant heparin, the painkiller Percocet, and five other drugs.

The Percocet, in particular, was a peril.

The Huffington Post has pieced together the trajectory of the next 15 months from Joshua’s medical records and Navy investigation reports shared by his father, from Naval Criminal Investigative Service documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, from interviews with Joshua’s family and friends, and from statements issued by the Navy in response to questions.

Joshua’s mother, Melinda, had struggled with narcotics for years, creating considerable turbulence at home when the kids were young, Don said. Joshua was extremely close to his mother; there were periods when he managed the family household in

Joshua was prescribed a cocktail of drugs for pain, anxiety, nausea and other effects of treatment: Diazepam (Valium), Heparin, an anticoagulant, the painkiller Percocet, and five other drugs.

Wilmington, Del., for her. By the time Joshua graduated from high school and went off to Navy boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill., his mother had moved back in with her parents in nearby Ocean City, N.J. But she and Joshua stayed in close touch.

That fall, she was diagnosed with colon cancer, and eventually she was taking fentanyl and Roxicet for pain. It was an easy step, when Joshua’s own pain prescriptions ran out two months after his surgery, for him to get the opiate pills from her.

According to a Navy investigation, when Joshua’s prescription for Percocet expired, “he fed his addiction by asking his mother to send him Roxicet.” Roxicet, the

★

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

report noted, is an oxycodonebased painkiller that “can be habit forming.”

Joshua’s drug habit surged.

From the time of his operation in December 2009 until the end of May 2010, he never went longer than two days without opiate pain pills. Withdrawal symptoms — muscle soreness, diarrhea and anxiety — would kick in within four hours without a dose, the Navy later determined.

Early that winter, on Jan. 30, 2010, Joshua showed up at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va., complaining of nausea and vomiting, muscle pain, cramps and anxiety. He was given a dose of Zofran, an anti-nausea medication, and sent home. On his patient care report, his smoking is indicated (half a pack per day), but the section on alcohol and drug use is crossed out.

Joshua’s roommate at the time in Virginia Beach, near the sprawling naval facilities in Norfolk, was Elliott Miranda. He and Joshua were battle buddies from Iraq. They were beyond best friends, bound together by shared combat. Elliott saw pretty quickly

“ He was more standoffish, not his old energetic self. When I tried talking to him he’d say that nothing was going on, he didn’t have a problem.” that something was wrong.

“Once he had the surgery I noticed that he was doing a lot of pain medicine, and I never said anything because I figured he knew what he was doing,” Elliott told me. “But then things started getting worse. He was more standoffish, not his old energetic self. When I tried talking to him he’d say that nothing was going on, he didn’t have a problem. But I noticed he was making

★ Joshua (in black) with two of his boot camp, basic training and Riverine Squadron brothers, and his mother.

“ The best thing for those who have lost a loved one to suicide — and for the rest of us — is to talk about suicide.”

A memorial for Joshua in the Lipstein house contains his wedding photo, the flag from his funeral, his medals, his beret and a photo of his daughter at a TAPS event.

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

more frequent trips back home, I knew he had people who could get him the painkillers.”

All that spring, Joshua’s drug dependence was deepening even as he remained on active-duty in a military service with a “zero tolerance” official drug policy. Joshua’s wife, Leslie, waiting at home in Henderson, Texas, for his release from the Navy, called Don several times, alarmed at Joshua’s gradual decline. Each time, Don would call Joshua. Each time, Joshua denied he was doing drugs.

It was a mystery to everyone that Joshua managed for five months to indulge his addiction and stay on active duty. “I don’t understand why they weren’t drug testing him more frequently,” Elliott said of the Navy.

Officially, the Navy requires each of its commands to conduct urinalysis tests of 15 percent of its personnel each month. The Navy declined to discuss Joshua’s case.

But in response to questions from The Huffington Post, the Navy released a statement saying in part that “service members cannot legally be singled out for drug testing” outside of “command-wide

inspections, probable cause tests, search and seizure, and examinations conducted as part of a mishap or safety inspection.”

In late May 2010, Joshua’s mother, Melinda, was rushed delirious to a hospital in New Jer-

... when he pleaded with Joshua to acknowledge to Navy doctors the full extent of his drug problem, Joshua told him: No way. sey after an overdose of fentanyl and Roxicet, according to Navy records. Joshua was frantic with worry for her — and anxious that he would lose access to her painkillers. He later told Navy doctors he was despondent at the long delay in getting his medical discharge from the Navy. It meant he was stuck in what he considered a dull job as a military security guard. He was sick over the abrupt end of his Navy career.

He was lonely for his wife, Leslie.

And he was worried about having to support both households until his medical discharge.

★

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

He later denied to doctors that he tried to die by suicide. But that night, May 28, he took a Xanax and washed it down with three shots of whiskey. In a fog, he called Don. “Dad, I’m not doing well at all. I have an addiction.

I want to stop but I can’t,” Don later recalled him saying.

Don didn’t know about the whiskey, but he was deeply worried. “Are you high now?” he asked. “Yes,” Joshua admitted.

Don knew that reading Joshua the riot act now was not the best way to handle the situation, a lesson

he’d learned in dealing with his wife’s addictions. “Is there someone there with you?” he asked.”

“Yes.” “Put him on the phone,” Don ordered, and asked the friend — whose name he does not recall — to get Joshua to Portsmouth naval hospital’s emergency room.

From there, he was put into the Navy detox unit in Portsmouth’s Ward 5. His records show he was diagnosed with depression, thoughts of suicide, addiction to benzodiazepines and opiates, and panic attacks.

Don and Emily came to see him during the 11 days he was in detox. “I wanted to make sure he was there and safe,” Don said. But

First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden advocate for military suicide prevention in an exclusive video for The Huffington Post’s “Invisible Casualties” series.

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

when he pleaded with Joshua to acknowledge to Navy doctors the full extent of his drug problem, Joshua told him: no way. “He was afraid he would lose everything he had worked so hard to earn,” Don told me. “Respect, rank, honorable discharge, benefits — all of this weighed heavily on his mind.”

On June 8, Joshua was discharged with a referral to the Navy’s Level III substance abuse rehab program.

But he didn’t go to rehab, because there was no space, Don said. Instead, Joshua went back to the townhouse, back to his dead-end job, back to his addictions. His Navy buddies were gone, deployed overseas or stationed elsewhere. “I tried calling him from Bahrain a few times,” said one of Joshua’s close friends, who asked not to be identified because he is still on active duty.

“On the phone he sounded like he was good. I think he didn’t want to worry me so he said he was doing good when he really wasn’t.”

They’d all had Navy suicideprevention training, but some described it as meaningless, a computer exercise you had

“ How did that information not get passed on, that he was in the ER because he’s having withdrawal from opiates and he’s active duty? There should be no ifs ands or buts about this.’’ to click through in order to be granted time off.

It was 56 days before Joshua was admitted into the Navy’s intensive drug rehab program at the Portsmouth naval hospital. In preadmission exams he tested positive for benzodiazepine, opiates and cocaine, according to notes taken Aug. 4 by William C. Rodriguez, a Navy physician. Joshua admitted to having thoughts of suicide “over the past few months,” but “he denied any active plans or intent to kill himself.”

Joshua’s growing drug use between detox and when he checked into drug rehab on Aug. 4 was not the Navy’s fault, it said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

It said a delay between detox and

★

“ I will always miss my son and love him, but I don’t want his death to define my life.”

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

rehab is “typical,” and patients can choose to participate in outpatient care while they wait.

“However, patients cannot be compelled to participate in this care, particularly since care is ineffective without the patient’s cooperation in their [sic] recovery,” the Navy said.

He was not tested for drug use during that period because “such testing cannot be employed if the patient is not complying with their [sic] treatment plan.”

In other words, a potentially suicidal drug addict on active military duty cannot be asked to submit to a urinalysis if he is using drugs.

Whatever happened in the Navy’s five-week drug abuse rehab program — and the Navy would not release those records — it didn’t take. Later that fall, Elliott came back from deployment and was disappointed to find that Joshua had taken up drugs again after his treatment. “I knew he was still using,” Elliott said.

“I tried reaching out to him and hanging out as much as possible, but he didn’t want to go out and do things. He was always by him-

“ Here he’s leaving his wife and daughter, family — all the people he loves the most, after his mom’s memorial service, going back to a job he hates, living on a couch in someone’s house.” self, he just wanted to stay home.”

Elliott remembers rushing Joshua to an emergency room several times because he was suffering withdrawal symptoms when his supply ran out. Finally, he said, he confronted the emergency room staff, telling them Joshua had a severe drug addiction.

Nothing, he said, was done.

“How did that information not get passed on, that he was in the ER because he’s having withdrawal from opiates and he’s active duty?

There should be no ifs, ands or buts about this — the guy has a drug problem. We need to take care of this,” he said.

At some point that fall and winter, Joshua started using heroin.

“I thought rehab would take

★

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

care of it,” Don said, referring to Joshua’s addiction. He thought the birth of Joshua’s daughter, Jayden, in September, would change Joshua’s life, help him kick drugs. “When you hold her for the first time, you’re going to love her so much — just like I loved you when I held you for the first time,” Don told him. “And he said, ‘Dad, you were right,’ he absolutely loved her,” Don said to me.

“And he said, ‘Dad, you don’t have to worry because the Navy is going to drug test me all the time so it would show up.’”

“That made sense to me,” Don thought, “because he’s a known drug abuser so they would keep an eye on him.”

Joshua went back to his old job, staring at security cameras at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach. He was bored to tears, he told Don. Anxious to get on with his life, but stuck until the Navy processed his discharge.

Going home occasionally to hang out with Andrew and Emily and check in on his mom.

She died Feb. 10 of colon cancer. The family, Don said, “was in bad shape.” A memorial service

was held two days later in New Jersey. Joshua had to be back on duty that Monday, Valentine’s Day, a traditional family holiday when the Lipstein clan would gather. “My heart sank for him, knowing he had to leave,” Don said. “Here he’s leaving his wife and daughter, family — all the people he loves the most, after his mom’s memorial service, going back to a job he hates, living on a

Joshua is pictured straight out of boot camp in 2005.

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

couch in someone’s house.

“I thought, ‘We gotta get the Navy to release him.’ That’s what I’d been praying for since I found out what he was doing there. It just kept getting pushed back, the medical board. He’d say, ‘Dad, they take forever,’ and I’d say, ‘Josh, it’s gonna happen, we will get you home.’”

“When I looked him in his eyes that morning,” Don said, “I thought, we have to get him home.”

On Feb. 26, Joshua was taken by ambulance to the Sentara Bayside Hospital emergency room in Virginia Beach, complaining of panic attacks and chest pain.

In the hospital’s record of that visit, the section on “drug use” is marked “no.” He was given a prescription anti-anxiety drug, Ativan, and sent home with a handout advising him to “use the Ativan as needed for anxiety ... avoid caffeine, benadryl and other over the counter medications.

Avoid alcohol.”

Ativan is a benzodiazepine, a common antidepressant to which Joshua had become addicted, according to Navy medi-

cal records. Its effects are magnified by alcohol.

Two weeks later, in early March, Joshua came home for a quick visit. He admitted to Emily that he was doing heroin. She was furious, reminding him that when their mom was doing heroin he said he’d never do it. They had a big fight; Joshua smashed the car windshield.

When Emily told her dad that Joshua was doing heroin, he was horrified. “I thought, the Navy isn’t helping us,” Don said. “How could he be passing his drug tests?” But he knew he had to do something. On the morning of March 15, he called a friend, a drug abuse counselor. He said he didn’t want to make things worse between Joshua and Emily; could the counselor talk to Joshua without mentioning the heroin? She agreed.

Hours later, Leslie called with her frantic warning, setting in motion the flurry of final calls.

‘DROP THE SHAME’ Joshua’s former commanding officer, Cmdr. Gary Leigh, came to the military funeral in Wilmington, where Joshua lay in an open casket. Leigh bent over and tenderly

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INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

straightened his service ribbons.

Petty Officer Lipstein, the Navy concluded, “was under a significant amount of stress due to separation from his wife, reoccurring panic attacks, depression, a long term addiction to drugs, the death of his mother, brain surgery, loss of hearing, and a likely medical separation from the Navy.”

“Looking at the evidence, his mental capacity was diminished at the time of his death, and he was not able to comprehend the nature of his actions and, therefore, cannot be held mentally responsible for his actions,” wrote Navy Lt. Cmdr. Felix L. Hopkins of the Oceana Naval Air Station, who conducted the investigation.

After Joshua died, “I was in a frozen state,” Don told me one day as we sat in his car in a parking lot outside Wilmington. He wore a polo shirt emblazoned with the logo of Navy Riverine Squadron 1.

“I was in a state of shock for probably three months. There is a tremendous amount of loss, pain and guilt, shame, anger.”

A Navy casualty assistance officer gave Don a batch of material after the funeral, including a brochure

from TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. It provides peer-based emotional support for those who have lost loved ones due to their military service, connects survivors with grief counselors and other resources, and offers semi-

“ ... talking about it helps people who struggle with the shame, and if you don’t deal with that, the shame will eat you up.” nars and retreat camps for kids.

Don called and was put in touch with a trained survivor care team member. She was a good listener and he talked, slowly over the months absorbing the facts of Joshua’s life and death.

As he began to thaw, Don came to understand some things about the suicide of his son. One was to drop the shame. Stop pretending it didn’t happen. Celebrate the life that was. “My son died by suicide, but I loved him during his lifetime,” he said. “He lived an awesome life.

He was a great kid. People saw him as a shining star. I can’t help but

★

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

INVISIBLE CASUALTIES

think of all the gifts he left us, Leslie and Jayden and the whole family. We are very close.”

Don is now a peer mentor coordinator with TAPS, training other suicide survivors to approach newly bereaved family members to offer a friendly ear and other resources.

“The best thing for those who have lost a loved one to suicide — and for the rest of us — is to talk about suicide, he said. “Give it some attention. We have to get rid of the stigma of PTSD, depression, substance abuse. We have to talk about it or we’re not going to be able to fix it.”

“A lot of us [suicide survivors] get stuck in our shame,” he said. “I just met a couple whose son died six years ago and they have never been able to talk about it. But talking about it helps people who struggle with the shame, and if you don’t deal with that, the shame will eat you up.”

He also learned how to move on.

“I will always miss my son and love him, but I don’t want his death to define my life,” he said.

He began to understand that he would never comprehend precisely why Joshua took his life. That

he couldn’t play what-if: what if Joshua’s Navy buddies had been around, what if his drug use had been detected earlier, what if his mother had not died...

“I don’t think the military should be blamed completely,” he said. But he did allow that “there were things the military could have done to help make it less traumatic for guys coming back and trying to get back into civilian society.”

“They spend a lot of time to train them to be mentally and physically tough. But we don’t do anything to reprogram them back. The training is making them tougher and tougher. But how do we train them to be soft again?”

David Wood is the senior military correspondent at The Huffington Post and the winner of a 2012 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for his series, “Beyond the Battlefield.”

David Wood appears on HuffPost Live to explain the “Invisible Casualties” series.

Tap here to watch the full interview.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE Foreclosured Renters Left Homeless in the Shadow of Disneyland

By BEN HALLMAN

ANAHEIM, Calif. —

In a hotel room not far from Disneyland,

BEN HALLMAN

Renee Genel slumps on a couch, her family’s meager possessions scattered nearby in torn plastic shopping bags. ¶ Unlike most of the guests here, Genel is not a tourist. This room, until noon tomorrow, is home. ¶ Last month, on Aug. 1, Bank of America evicted Genel, her two children, her toddler niece and her boyfriend Christopher Mogelberg from a condominium they rented. Since then, the family has lived a nomadic life, shuffling from hotel to hotel, staying in whatever cheap room they can secure using a discount travel website. ¶ This evening they got a good rate at a Hilton and splurged. The room is cleaner, and larger, than their usual accommodations.

Christopher Mogelberg, Renee Genel and Genel’s niece, Jaylyn, made temporary accommodations at a Hilton in Anaheim, Calif., after being evicted from their home

by Bank of America.

BEN HALLMAN

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Mogelberg, 38, spends hours each day hunched over an old laptop, firing off increasingly desperate messages to bank officials, demanding thousands of dollars in compensation for harm he says his family suffered.

A big man with black, wraparound frame glasses, he lost his last job nearly two years ago, and now is a stay-at-home dad of sorts to the niece — Jaylyn, a toddler who was left with the family a year ago by Genel’s troubled brother.

“I won’t stop until heads roll,” he says, his voice rising. “I want people fired. I want people held accountable.”

Genel, 34, agrees that the family was wronged, that Bank of America should have honored a lease that doesn’t expire until the end of September. She shares Mogelberg’s outrage over the loss of belongings they claim a bank contractor stole while they were locked out of their home.

But increasingly, his preoccupation seems a distraction from more pressing demands.

Genel fears she will lose her job as a purchasing manager at a power company, the family’s sole source of income. Already, she has been warned about being late and

HUFFINGTON 09.22.13

“ I won’t stop until heads roll. I want people fired.

I want people held accountable.” missing work. She was permitted to retrieve nothing when she was forced from her home, so she wears the same work outfit — a striped skirt and black sweater — nearly every day.

Her two preteen sons, who are 10 and 11, have moved in with their father. Jaylyn, who recently took her first steps in a hotel like this one, isn’t sleeping well. Genel had to borrow $80 from a coworker to buy food and diapers.

The family has just a few belongings: a box of ibuprofen, a bottle

Mogelberg outside of his truck in the Hilton parking lot where his family’s scant possessions are stored in the small backseat.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

of blue cheese dressing, a Curious George doll, some clothes.

They don’t have a lawyer, and Bank of America has refused to yield. By any measure, the couple is losing this fight.

Genel turns to Mogelberg. “You need to stop engulfing yourself with the emails, with the phone calls,” she says, beginning to cry.

“We can’t keep going like this,” she continues. “It’s unbearable.”

“I know,” he says, “I know.”

OVER THE PAST SIX YEARS, foreclosures have wreaked immense harm on people, neighborhoods and the American economy. Though the market is now much improved, an estimated 4 million homes are in some stage of default or foreclosure.

The Huffington Post has extensively chronicled the cost of the crash to homeowners, and the widespread failures of the mortgage industry to effectively manage it. But millions of renters have also been swept up in the crisis — collateral damage in wars fought between banks and their landlords.

“Tenants in many cases are the most innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis,” says Kent Qian, an

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attorney for the National Housing Law Project in San Francisco.

“They had nothing to do with the fact that their landlord stopped making mortgage payments.”

In California, at least one-third of housing units going through

“ Tenants in many cases are the most innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis. They had nothing to do with the fact that their landlord stopped making mortgage payments.” foreclosure are renter-occupied, according to Tenants Together, a nonprofit housing agency. According to one academic study, tenants account for 40 percent of all U.S. evictions in foreclosed properties, or tens of thousands each month.

Many quickly pack up and leave, moving somewhere else without much fuss. But others attempt to serve out the terms of their leases, a right allowed under federal law, but not much liked by new owners, who want to clear them out as soon as possible for resale or rent.

COURTESY OF LEGAL AID FOUNDATION OF LOS ANGELES

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The Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009 safeguards the right of renters to complete the term of their lease in situations in which the new buyer does not intend to occupy the residence, assuming they have not violated the lease terms.

Mogelberg and Genel signed a lease on a three-bedroom condo in April 2012. Finances had been tight for a while, with both of them out of work at one time or another. But this was a steal: just $850 a month, in a market where rent for an apartment this size could be more twice that.

Seven months later, in November, they received a notice that Bank of America had purchased the home out of foreclosure. “You should talk to a lawyer NOW to see what your rights are,” the notice stated.

The family approached a local legal nonprofit, but were turned away. The demand for services was just too high, they were told.

Fernando Gaytan, a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, tells HuffPost that there are not enough housing lawyers to meet the demand in his region. Renters are in an especially tough spot, he said, because

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they typically don’t have much time to present a case.

Unlike homeowners, for whom eviction is typically a drawn-out process that can last for years, renters are normally allotted 90 days or less to prove they have a right to occupy a residence.

The first eviction date, Jan. 1, came and went. Mogelberg and the bank continued to spar over whether the family had the right to remain in the condominium.

At one point, he said, he was told by phone that the bank was treating this property as “owner-occupied,” which he found baffling, considering that the previous

Fernando Gaytan, a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, says there are not enough housing lawyers to meet the demand in his region.

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owner had died and the property was in the control of her estate.

Throughout, Mogelberg believed he would prevail, he said. He researched federal and state consumer protection law extensively, to the point where he could cite parts of the code from memory. He said the family tucked the money they would have been paying in rent had Bank of America accepted their checks into savings.

Three months later, on March 21, Mogelberg was at home with Jaylyn when Orange County sheriff’s deputies showed up. He had to leave right now, he says he was told.

He was not permitted to take anything as he left, he said — not even a diaper bag or formula for the baby. The door was secured behind him with a lockbox, he said.

For two weeks, the family lived in hotel rooms, using up their savings. Mogelberg complained to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which controlled the previous owners’ mortgage, and had sold the property out of foreclosure to Bank of America. A HUD contractor negotiated their reentry with the bank, and the eviction was rescinded — a rare reprieve.

They returned to chaos, they

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claim. Dressers were overturned, clothes and belongs strewn about.

Cigarettes had been extinguished on furniture. The toilet was fouled with human waste. When they tallied the damage, they realized many

According to one academic study, tenants account for 40 percent of all U.S. evictions in foreclosed properties, or tens of thousands each month. of their possessions were gone.

“All of a sudden you go home and there’s no home,” Mogelberg said.

He confronted the bank contractor who let them back into the home. According to public records, that contractor, Daniel Ray Slusher, has been convicted of multiple felonies, including identity theft and receiving stolen property. He has been arrested at least eight times, according to Orange County court records, most recently in May, two months after this episode took place.

Slusher could not be located for comment. Emails and phone messages left for him by The Huffington Post went unreturned.

AP PHOTO/REED SAXON, FILE

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According to Mogelberg and Genel, Slusher told them that he had moved some of their items into storage. He later returned a television and an Xbox game console.

When Mogelberg logged into the game system, he found that someone with Slusher’s user name had recently played it, he says.

Many other items, including tools, jewelry and a box of personal papers containing birth certificates and other forms of

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ID, were never returned, the couple claim. Mogelberg says he is missing a red Ronald McDonald watch with a leather band that his mother had bought for him in 1976. It was the kind the company gave its executives that year.

Slusher owned a company called Expert Property Preservation. He worked indirectly for Safeguard, a Cleveland-based company that is the dominant player in an industry spawned by the American housing bust.

A recent Huffington Post investigation focused on Safeguard as

While the market is now much improved, an estimated 4 million homes are still in some stage of default or foreclosure.

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the largest player in the bank contracting industry. In recent years the company has been the target of hundreds of lawsuits alleging that its workers have wrongly broken into properties and carted off people’s property.

“Since the general allegations were made in March about missing personals, we have attempted to obtain information from [Mogelberg and Genel] so that we can conduct a thorough investigation, and we have continued to offer help in other ways as well,” a Safeguard spokeswoman said in a statement.

The cycle repeated. A few months later, the family received yet another eviction notice.

The second lockout happened the morning of Aug. 1, while Mogelberg was in court seeking to stop it.

Once again, the family was not allowed to retrieve any of their possessions. Genel later sneaked into a detached garage and grabbed Jaylyn’s stroller, so she wouldn’t have to carry the girl in her arms while they waited for Mogelberg to return.

“If I catch you here you will go to jail,” she said she was told a sheriff’s deputy.

An Orange County sheriff’s office spokesman declined to comment.

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Bank of America says it has dealt in good faith with Mogelberg and Genel. The bank claims it did not receive a copy of the lease until after the second eviction, and that it still has not received a copy of a check proving that a claimed $3,500 deposit was paid.

A bank spokeswoman said Mogelberg and Genel were offered $5,000 to walk away from the

A bank spokeswoman said Mogelberg and Genel were offered $5,000 to walk away from the property, but that they did not respond to the offer. property, but that they did not respond to the offer.

Mogelberg claims he faxed a copy of the lease to the bank’s outside law firm at least twice.

He did not keep receipts of those faxes, he said.

He turned down the relocation assistance because accepting the money came with a catch: giving up his right to later sue over the affair. At this point, Mogelberg still thinks he will prevail in a fight to win a financial award

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from the bank. He says he can win a civil judgment worth far more than $5,000.

Housing lawyers say this is a familiar story. New owners are often eager to put homes they purchase out of foreclosure back on the market for sale, especially now that home prices are rising in many places. That gives them a financial incentive to see that the property is vacated as soon as possible, so that it can be marketed again.

To this end, paperwork often goes missing. Banks claim that notifications that owners are supposed to deliver are never received.

“This is a very common dispute,” said Fernando Gaytan, a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “Financially strapped tenants are often faced with the allegation that they didn’t supply documents on time.”

And when renters go looking for assistance, there are few places to turn. Gaytan said there simply isn’t enough free legal assistance to meet the high demand.

When the eviction happens, it is often traumatic, he said. “It can rattle a family to its very core.”

RESEARCHERS HAVE FOUND that homeowners in foreclosure or de-

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fault situations face greatly elevated risks of illness and depression.

A 2009 study in the American Journal of Public Health, for example, found that people undergoing foreclosure counseling at a housing agency in Philadelphia had higher rates of depression, hypertension and heart disease.

A related study found the depression rate among senior citizens in foreclosure situations was eight times that of typical Americans.

Researchers have found that homeowners in foreclosure or default situations face greatly elevated risks of illness and depression.

Mogelberg was an Army Rangers soldier who served in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. He often feels crippling pain in his extremities — symptoms, he suspects, of Gulf War syndrome. The symptoms have been worse since he was evicted, he says. Mentally, he seems barely able to cope at times. Especially when it comes to more bad news.

It’s late afternoon in a hotel parking lot. Mogelberg is bending

BEN HALLMAN

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over the back seat of his pickup truck. He had come to check up on the boys’ two pet rats, kept in a cage on the floorboard. But he forgot to leave the windows down, and the cab of the truck is explosively hot.

One of the rats is dead. The other is extremely sluggish. He pours water over its whiskered nose, but it has no effect.

“I think she died in my hand just now,” he says.

He carefully places the rat back in the cage. Then he covers his eyes with his hands and begins to cry.

“It’s my job to prevent this from happening, and I’m failing at it,” he says.

In his past life, he was at his best under stress, he says. Now he has trouble managing his feelings.

He cries a lot more, he says.

Genel is less demonstrative, at least in front of a reporter. But she is also struggling.

“I don’t even know what to do,” she says.

The contrast between her work and home life is profound.

By day, she is a purchasing manager at Belco, a Spanish-owned power company in nearby Chino, Calif. On a recent company outing, she flew inside a World War

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[Mogelberg] covers his eyes with his hands and begins to cry. “It’s my job to prevent this from happening, and I’m failing at it.”

II-era B-17 bomber. She earns about $900 per week.

At night, she returns to a life she finds increasingly hard to manage.

A new apartment seems out of reach. They had bad credit even before the lockout, and most landlords screen prospective tenants. They

Mogelberg and Genel with their possessions at the Hilton hotel in Anaheim, Calif.

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reckon a three-bedroom apartment will cost nearly $2,000 a month, and most places require a security deposit. They can’t seem to scrape more than a few hundred dollars together at a time. They have no close family who could help them out.

Genel believed Mogelberg, she says, when he assured her they would prevail in their fight with bank, when he said they wouldn’t get evicted. She realizes now they should have planned more, saved more.

“I’ve been kicking myself in the butt,” she says.

She’s been late a lot. She has also missed days.

“I’ve been pushing my luck at work,” she says.

She does so again on a Friday morning. “I broke down on the phone while talking to my boss,” she says.

Often she can get a ride to work or borrow a company car, but today her only mode of transportation is the family’s truck.

If she left, she fears they would have no way to get to the next Priceline find: A $50 room in Brea, Calif., about 15 miles away.

“I can’t leave Chris and Jaylyn,” she says.

After breakfast — with the left-

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overs carefully packed into a plastic foam box — the family loads its belongings onto a hotel cart. Genel waits by the front entrance while Mogelberg fetches the truck.

It is a postcard-perfect Southern California day. A family staying at the hotel chatters excitedly as they exit. They are on their way to one of the amusement parks.

The next hotel is smaller and darker than this one. They will stay throughout the weekend, sharing one small room and one bed.

The next week, allotted a few hours inside their former apartment, they will retrieve several large garbage bags worth of belongings, including Genel’s father’s burial flag, a treasure she prizes among all else.

After that, they don’t know.

“I’m at my breaking point,” Genel says.

Ben Hallman is a senior financial writer at The Huffington Post.

HuffPost Associate Business Editor Caroline Fairchild discusses the issue of foreclosed renters on HuffPost Live.

Exit Brooklyn-based artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is taking the fight against catcalling to the streets.

Calling Out the Catcallers

BY KATHERINE BROOKS

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF TATYANA FAZLALIZADEH

ART

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Exit OST PEOPLE who’ve spent time in a major city are familiar with the uninvited cat call.

Whether you have been the target or you’ve watched the event unfold, many of us have heard one individual or another solicit a passerby — most often a woman — to “give them a little smile” or “cheer up, baby.”

While some may combat the unsolicited attention with a cold stare, Brooklyn-based artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh has an alternative way of addressing the problem. In a project titled “Stop Telling Women to Smile,” Fazlalizadeh places portraits of women in public spaces, encouraging victims of gender-based street harassment to fight back.

The series began last year when Fazlalizadeh was finishing a mural project in Philadelphia. She’d been contemplating how to address the issue of street harassment for some time, having experienced years of daily occurrences herself. After considering the medium of oil painting — her primary practice — she eventually decided to channel her ideas through public art.

Fazlalizadeh recruited friends and colleagues to help make STWTS a reality, drawing her subjects in strong, even confrontational

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M

Many of us have heard one individual or another solicit a passerby — most often a woman — to ‘give them a little smile’ or ‘cheer up, baby.’” poses that are meant to “humanize” the faces of women in the public space. The portraits are accompanied by lines of text that speak to the harassers and offenders who aren’t often called out. “My name is not Baby,” one caption reads.

“Stop Telling Women To Smile” encourages victims of gender-based harassment to speak their minds.

Exit

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Fazlalizadeh had conversations with friends about their experiences with street harassment, using them as inspiration for the text beneath the images.

Exit “Women are not seeking your validation,” quips another.

“I asked [friends] if they’d like to participate in the project, and all of them having street harassment as a consistent issue in their lives agreed and were happy to be a part of it,” Fazlalizadeh explained to The Huffington Post. “For most of them, we sat and had a conversation about their experiences and what it is they’d like to say back to harassers. I used those conversations as inspiration for the text underneath their portraits.”

Fazlalizadeh first posted her drawings in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, but has since created a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a broader endeavor. She wants to travel to Baltimore, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Miami, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Chicago to meet and draw women living in the rest of the country, using sites like Hollaback and StopStreetHarassment.org to help navigate the various communities.

Thus far she has primarily focused on the experience of women, but she’s open to expanding the project to men who have encountered street harassment based on their gender or sexual orientation as well.

ART

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“As the work gained attention, I realized how many different types of people can relate to this and have stories to tell. I’ve had conversations with men at STWTS related events who wanted to talk about their experiences with street harassment,” Fazlalizadeh recounted.

“I know it happens, and it’s impor-

There are always those who want to tell women that their experiences are not valid or not important whenever they speak up.

For me as a black woman, this is particularly true.” tant, and it’s something I may take on in the future. Right now though, I want to focus on women — of varying backgrounds — to really tackle the ways in which our bodies are sexualized and mistreated in the public space.”

The STWTS Kickstarter campaign has already raised more than the $15,000 Fazlalizadeh is seeking, with 12 days to go. According to the site, a portion of the funds will be allocated to working with a filmmaker to document the project.

As for those individuals who

Exit

might not believe that gender-based street harassment is a problem, Fazlalizadeh had the following to say: “There are always those who want to tell women that their experiences are not valid or not important whenever they speak up. For me, as a black woman, this is particularly true. Wanting the basic right of feeling comfortable and safe and not sexualized as I walk out of my house is very much worth prioritizing.”

ART

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Wanting the basic right of feeling comfortable and safe and not sexualized as I walk out of my house is very much worth prioritizing.”

“There’s also the point that gender-based street harassment easily lends itself to more conspicuous issues such as rape and domestic violence,” she added. “It’s a matter of control over women’s bodies. And it’s a serious issue to address.”

Exit

THE THIRD METRIC

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SOURCES: UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON, U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH, WEBMD, PLOSONE, JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE, AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY. PHOTO: SHIUTTERSTOCK. ILLUSTRATIONS: JAN DIEHM

How Your Job is Killing You

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MORE THEN 8 in 10 Americans are stressed about their jobs. Occupational stress is so pervasive, we accept it as a fact of life. But the truth is, demanding jobs do more than make us unhappy — they can also spur serious health consequences.

Above, find out some of the ways your high-octane career could be affecting your health. If this research doesn’t make you want to leave it all behind to teach yoga or travel the world, we don’t know what will. — Carolyn Gregoire

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In Which We Face Some Harsh Truths About Orange Soda

BY KRISTEN AIKEN

TASTE TEST

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PREVIOUS PAGE: KEVIN TRAGESER/GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES/FLICKR RF

IF WE’VE LEARNED one thing from our orange soda taste test, it’s this: Our taste buds need to seek psychological counseling.

Certain foods take special residence in our childhood memories, but they never make the cut into our adult lives. (It’d be weird to see a Wall Street suit-type sucking on a Go-Gurt while berating someone on his Bluetooth, right?)

Orange soda is one of those foods that just never made the transition to adulthood, for whatever reason — we’re guessing it’s because Adult You is more healthconscious than Child You, or be-

TASTE TEST

cause it looks unprofessional to show up to a meeting with a neon orange tongue.

So because we don’t drink it regularly anymore, orange soda evokes powerful associations with our early years. Memories so powerful that they cloud our judgement of what “good” orange soda is. Basically, what we’re saying is that the psychological link to our childhood has murdered our ability to decipher good from bad. Do you really like Fanta, or does it just remind you of a time when you could run around the kiddie pool naked, before you had to

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TASTE TEST

Exit worry about paying rent?

Because all of our taste tests are blind (meaning the tasters have no idea which brands they’re drinking), sometimes we’re horrified to find we’ve ranked the major monster brands atop the list, when the beloved artisanal products that we buy regularly end up ranked at the bottom. This is one of those occasions. Despite receiving markedly negative comments, our winner is a major brand that exhibits all the qualities of your typical or-

ange soda (fluorescent orange, uber sweet). But among the complaints were also comments such as these: “Tastes like my childhood,” and “Too syrupy, but it’s what orange soda is supposed to taste like.”

Supposed to taste like? Clearly, our tongues need therapy.

We were also saddened to see that the last-place finisher is what we thought was one of our favorite brands. Someone called it “butt water,” and now we just don’t know what to think.

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NANCY LOUIE/GETTY IMAGES (MUFFINS); GETTY IMAGES/COMSTOCK IMAGES (POLICE); OLI SCARFF/ GETTY IMAGES (LEHMAN); PESKYMONKEY/GETTY IMAGES (SUIT); SHUTTERSTOCK/RIDO (INTERVIEW)

Marriott Hotel Offers Free Mini Muffins ‘in Remembrance of Those We Lost on 9/11’

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Gay Bar Plagued

by Hate Crimes Told to Stop Calling the Police So Much

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EX-LEHMAN EMPLOYEES CASHING IN FROM ‘RECOVERY’ THAT LEFT MOST WORKERS BEHIND

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Men’s Warehouse CEO Blames Terrible Sales on Brides Scared of the 13 in 2013

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Millennials Now Bringing Their Parents Along on Job Interviews

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MICHAEL WESTHOFF/GETTY IMAGES (TICKET); VASKO MIOKOVIC PHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES (PIZZA); GETTY IMAGES/CULTURA RF (LAW STUDENT); EMILE WAMSTEKER/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES (MCDONALDS); DEVAN MUIR/GETTY IMAGES (PREGNANT WOMAN)

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Pittsburgh Residents Ticketed for Parking in Their Own Driveways

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Restaurant Offers ‘Free Pizza for Tits’

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LAW STUDENT SUES SCHOOL AFTER FAILING CLASS

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McDonald’s Manager Robs His Own Store

‘ Pregnant’ Woman Really Just Smuggling Cocaine

Editor-in-Chief:

Arianna Huffington Editor: John Montorio Managing Editor: Gazelle Emami Senior Editor: Adam J. Rose Editor-at-Large: Katy Hall Senior Politics Editor: Sasha Belenky Senior Food Editor: Kristen Aiken Senior Voices Editor: Stuart Whatley Pointers Editor: Marla Friedman Quoted Editor: Gina Ryder Viral Editor: Dean Praetorius Creative Director: Josh Klenert Design Director: Andrea Nasca Photography Director: Anna Dickson Associate Photo Editor: Wendy George Senior Designer: Martin Gee Infographics Art Director: Troy Dunham Production Director: Peter Niceberg AOL MagCore Head of UX and Design: Jeremy LaCroix Product Manager: Gabriel Giordani Architect: Scott Tury Developers: Mike Levine, Sudheer Agrawal QA: Joyce Wang, Amy Golliver Sales: Mandar Shinde AOL, Inc. Chairman & CEO:

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