The New York Times has several great stories this week that have nothing to do with a certain "embedded" reporter. (Yes, I am extremely immature.) 

I loved Tamar Lewin's article on parents who are in hot water, after taking out enormous debt to help their children attend college. Not enough attention has been given to parents who take out second mortgages on their homes to pay for college, because there isn't good data on this. But we're starting to see the impact on this group, because their default rate is going up. Ugh. 

Almost 10 percent of the borrowers over 60 were at least 90 days delinquent on their payments during the first quarter of 2012, compared with 6 percent in 2005. And more and more of those with unpaid federal student debt are losing a portion of their Social Security benefits to the government — nearly 119,000 through September, compared with 60,000 for all of 2007 and 23,996 in 2001, according to the Treasury Department’s Financial Management Service.