NYT: Despair as Job Search Drags On and Money Dries Up

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/us/18unemployed.html?_r=1&partner=EXCITE&ei=5043


Andrew Spear for The New York Times

Terri Sadler watching C-Span last week at home in Carlisle, Ky. She has been out of work since October 2008 and was down to the money she had left in her purse.
By MICHAEL LUO
Published: July 17, 2010

CARLISLE, Ky. — In her well-thumbed, leather-bound Bible, Terri Sadler recently highlighted in bright pink a passage in the Gospel of Matthew.


In it, Jesus urges his followers not to “worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

But Ms. Sadler’s tightening throat and halting breath when she tries to read the words aloud make it clear that she is having trouble mustering enough faith to follow them.

Ms. Sadler, who lost her job at an automotive parts plant in October 2008, learned last month that her unemployment insurance had been cut off. She is one of an estimated 2.1 million Americans whose benefits have expired and who are waiting for an end to an impasse that has lasted months in the Senate over extending the payments once more to the long-term unemployed.

Times have changed politically, however, and opposition is growing in Washington and abroad to deficit-bloating government spending, even for those who are hurting.

For Ms. Sadler, and many like her, each passing day has become an excruciating countdown of debts and deadlines.

FULL story at link.

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Xipe Totec]

2. Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For this sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, and it's lost in the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing a care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they'll turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

[patrice]

3. There's a lot that you must learn to live with politically, but being Unemployed is THE Deal Breaker

All bets are off. It's everyone for him/her-self.