RIP Tanta

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Tanta was an example of what is best about the blogosphere: someone with real expertise–expertise (on mortgage finance) that at one point seemed obscure, until it became utterly critical to all of our lives–who contributed pseudonymously and humorously to the great enlightening conversation we conduct in the blogosphere.

Tanta passed away this morning of ovarian cancer.

Calculated Risk has a long post reflecting on her contributions. Here’s my favorite paragraph:

Tanta liked to ferret out the details. She was inquisitive and had a passion for getting the story right. Sometimes she wouldn’t post for a few days, not because she wasn’t feeling well, but because she was reading through volumes of court rulings, or industry data, to get the facts correct. She respected her readers, and people noticed.

I never met Tanta in person, though I remember the joy I had one day when I mentioned her in a post and she emailed me and I discovered she was reading me and I was reading her. It so happens that that exchange came about because she was kicking the NYT’s ass on their inadequate coverage of the mortgage crisis. 

Today, the NYT honored her with an obituary.

My condolences to her family and loved ones. I am thankful that she shared her expertise at a time when we were all so frantically trying to learn about it.

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25 replies
  2. QuickSilver says:

    I came belatedly to Calculated Risk (if “belatedly” means after you mentioned it, Marcy). I’m sorry to read about Tanta, who made such a great contribution. I’m fairly sure at least one other blogger has been eulogized in the New York Times, but I can’t remember a tribute of this length, can you?

  4. egregious says:

    From the NYT:

    Tanta argued that for every asset that banks unloaded on the government, the chief executives should be required to explain “why they acquired or originated this asset to begin with, what’s really wrong with it in detail, what they have learned from this experience, and what steps they are taking to make sure it never happens again.”

    • bobschacht says:

      All of our congress critters should be asking these questions.

      Thanks for this memorial, EW. I didn’t know about her, and didn’t read her, but she has done a great service, and I appreciate what she has done. And all without pay? Good grief.

      The obit says nothing about her family except a reference to her sister.

      There ought to be an annual blog fellowship, in her name, for the best unheralded financial blogger of the year, to encourage him/her to continue and expand his/her work, and perhaps thereby to get hired and properly paid for their expertise. Maybe the next NetRoots convention might be the place to make such an award.

      We need more people like Tanta, and I think some of them write for FDL.

      Bob in HI

  6. pdaly says:

    Sad news. My condolences to her family and friends.

    Thanks to the internet Tantas contributions were more immediately available and appreciated at a time when mainstream media is not doing its part to educate us.

    Roger Ebert was writing on a different topic (i.e., the AP wire is now limiting movie reviews to 500 words; newspapers want more celebrity news) but his words are a propos:

    The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. It is not about the disappearance of film critics. We are the canaries. It is about the death of an intelligent and curious, readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically. It is about the failure of our educational system. It is not about dumbing-down. It is about snuffing out.

    The news is still big. It’s the newspapers that got small.

    Tanta did her part to reverse this trend.

  8. pseudonymousinnc says:

    Steve Gilliard got the other NYT obit, which came from a very different direction, because the two represented different things about blogging, albeit with certain crossover points.

    Tanta’s media advisory is the kind of thing that, I think, would have the NYT’s real-estate beat writer demanding the space for an obit, Her words on the “implied insult” of reporters’ desire for original, attributable quotes over the phone from a blog author rather than quoting a blog have real, slap-in-the-face force. They’re saying “if you value what we write enough to read it, value what we write enough to cite it.” And CR, with Tanta in comments and writing posts, became the kind of insistent voice that, like FDL in the Libby days, and Greenwald, and Nate Silver this year, is valued enough to be read and taken to heart.

  9. skdadl says:

    What a wonderful writer. I’ve been reading the links to her Muddled Metaphor Index, and the car crash in the ocean with one iceberg after another (”Whocoodanode?”) has me doubled up.

    We need more people like Tanta (and EW and bmaz, and many others here) indeed. All honour to her for showing so well how it can be done.

  10. Professor Foland says:

    A poetic ubernerd (with a place in her heart for Eunice) who could make mortgage forms fascinating. If Tanta had been a character in a novel, the author would have been labelled as a surreal fantasist.

    She will be missed.

  11. wavpeac says:

    Her articles certainly have helped me understand what was going on. So few people have the ability to synthesis the big picture and the details. She clearly was able to do both. A huge loss.

    Thanks for sharing this E.W

  13. garyg says:

    I am a more regular commenter over at CR under the plain handle “gary” and more often just lurk here.

    The loss of Tanta has actually hit me harder than the loss of other people I have personally known, as opposed to virtually.

    Tanta and emptywheel have long been two of my favorite writers, and it’s easy to see the common appreciation for truth and cutting through bullshit, and contempt for those who shill and obfuscate. The first time I saw Calculated Risk in your blogroll I was delighted to see you were also a fan.

    So, to close, THANK YOU Marcy for all that you do. The world is a better place when people like you and Tanta share your talents with the rest of us.

    • TobyWollin says:

      Barbara – I did not read Tanta, so my first response to this was like yours. 47 years old and died of ovarian cancer. For all the women who name breast cancer as their nightmare, women totally miss the fact that they should be paying attention ‘down there’ – and jumping up and down to get more funding for research so that we can get a test to catch it when the cancer is ‘young’. Just infuriates the crap out of me to lose such a brilliant voice at that age and for that reason.

  16. cbl2 says:

    Emptywheel,

    your note about Tanta’s e mail made me smile for the first time since I heard this awful news.

    a major, clear voice in the blogisphere. and like many here am grieving as if I’d lost someone close to me

    anyone familiar with the rough and tumble of Calculated Risk threads will be truly moved to read that community’s condolences

    thank you Emptywheel

  19. wildethyme says:

    The ability to write clearly with humor about the very compllicated is a special gift. Tanta used it superbly.

  20. JohnEmerson says:

    It’s sad that there are dozens or hundreds of bigger players in the general areas of economics and finance who contributed less than Tanta, and they were all widely recognized and well-paid, whereas she worked anonymously and probably earned nothing. She even had to hide her identity in order to protect her employability.

    The U.S. has been in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” territory for a long time. Our wise men and elders haven’t been telling us what we need to know.

  21. KayInMaine says:

    I didn’t know Tanta, but knowing she air-boxed the faces of reporters who tried to masquerade the mortgage/credit market crisis makes me wish I did!

    Sad to see another great voice online be silenced. RIP Tanta.

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