The Whistleblower column/blog/team got its name because we tell the stories of regular people who speak out about what they see as mistreatment by the powerful institutions that rule our lives. Every once in a while, we write about actual whistleblowers - or in Sunday's story, a Ham Lake woman's failed effort to invoke the state Whistleblower statute to get unemployment benefits.

Also Sunday, I told the story of the Lerner family, whose personal financial troubles were compounded by the failed effort to hand over their overleveraged house in Hopkins to the bank. It's another sad tale of the housing meltdown, and more evidence that the continuing foreclosures are straining lenders' capacity to absorb them.