While I am checking email, my husband is watching the talking heads debate Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I like this letter that President Obama sent out to his constituents:
Barbara –
This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I’d been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.
That is why I’ve said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won’t all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it’s recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.
This award — and the call to action that comes with it — does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.
So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we’ve begun together. I’m grateful that you’ve stood with me thus far, and I’m honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
I hope this passes, but I need healthcare coverage, like a public option.
This is great. From the morning news:
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Fri, October 09, 2009 — 5:08 AM ET
—–
Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
The U.S. president Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize
“for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international
diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Nobel
Foundation said in Sweden on Friday.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na
Be there if you support healthcare reform as I do:
CSI: BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD
Join us as we expose insurance industry crimes!
Come out to the rally and show your support for health care reform!
TUESDAY OCTOBER 6TH
5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
3200 West End Avenue
Nashville, Tennessee 37203
Directions from downtown:
Southwest on West End Avenue
Pass 31st Avenue
Right on Acklen Park Drive, to park there
At this rate, will I be able to stay on unemployment until I qualify for social security?
After More Job Losses, Democrats Move to Extend Benefits
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: October 3, 2009
WASHINGTON — In the wake of further job losses in September, President Obama on Saturday called the new figures “sobering” and said that he was working with his economic advisers “to explore additional options to promote job creation.”
Mr. Obama suggested that a health care overhaul would help revive the economy and create jobs. The president’s remarks, in his weekly radio and Internet address, came as the White House and Congressional Democrats considered steps to help the unemployed, including extending enhanced unemployment benefits past December, continuing a tax credit for workers who have been laid off and extending a tax credit for first-time home buyers.
The jobless numbers, released by the Labor Department on Friday, showed that the unemployment rate for September had risen to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent and that 263,000 jobs were lost last month.
The House on Friday approved legislation that would provide 13 more weeks of benefits to states with unemployment rates of 8.5 percent or higher. Democratic leaders in the Senate are pushing a measure that would also provide aid to states that do not meet the threshold.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, is promoting legislation that would provide four more weeks of unemployment coverage to all states, while states over the 8.5 percent threshold would get 12 more weeks.
Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council, said in an interview with The Atlantic online that the administration should “continue to support people who are in need, whether it’s unemployment insurance, or the Cobra program,” which provides health insurance for the unemployed.
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Fri, October 02, 2009 — 8:37 AM ET
—–
U.S. Economy Lost 263,000 Jobs in September; Jobless Rate Rises to 9.8%
American employers cut 263,000 jobs last month, far more than
forecast, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent from
9.7 percent in August, the Labor Department said.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na
Since I cannot find full time employment, and I am approaching a one-year anniversary of unemployment, I have been contracting and making my own job. In fact, Dave Ramsey recommends creating a job for yourself if you cannot find one.
I have started pet sitting for my neighbors. I’m getting business cards designed by an intern. I’ll print them up and pass them out to every pet owner I see in the neighborhood. I’m targeting Boone Trace, Lexington Point and Riverwalk in Bellevue, as I will not have to drive very far to my job. Hopefully, this will turn into a personal assistant position in which I can run errands for people, drive them to the airport and pick them up (in their own cars), etc.
I’m very frustrated with the commission sales job that I have been trying for the past nine months. I’m just not a sales person. There are areas of the job that I love, but I have almost concluded that I will not be able to make a living by selling promotional products.
This news makes me angry:
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Tue, September 29, 2009 — 3:22 PM ET
—–
Senate Panel Rejects a ‘Public Option’ in Health Plan
After a half-day of animated debate, the Senate Finance
Committee on Tuesday rejected efforts by liberal Democrats to
add a government-run health insurance plan to major health
care legislation, dealing the first official setback to an
idea that many Democrats, including President Obama, say they
support.
The committee on Tuesday afternoon voted, 15 to 8, to reject
an amendment proposed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV,
Democrat of West Virginia, to add a public option called the
Community Choice Health Plan, an outcome that underscored the
lack of support for a government plan among many Democrats.
And Chuck Schumer of New York was on Chris Matthews saying that the public option is not dead yet. It had better not be!
From the AP this morning:
US income gap widens as poor take hit in recession
By HOPE YEN, AP
47 minutes ago
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WASHINGTON — The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as rippling job layoffs ravaged household budgets.
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans — those making more than $138,000 each year — earned 11.4 times the roughly $12,000 made by those living near or below the poverty line in 2008, according to newly released census figures. That ratio was an increase from 11.2 in 2007 and the previous high of 11.22 in 2003.
Household income declined across all groups, but at sharper percentage levels for middle-income and poor Americans. Median income fell last year from $52,163 to $50,303, wiping out a decade’s worth of gains to hit the lowest level since 1997.
Poverty jumped sharply to 13.2 percent, an 11-year high.
“No one should be surprised at the increased disparity,” said Richard Freeman, an economist at Harvard University. “Unemployment hurts normal workers who do not have the golden parachutes the folks at the top have.”
Analysts attributed the widening gap to the wave of layoffs in the economic downturn that have devastated household budgets. They said while the richest Americans may be seeing reductions in executive pay, those at the bottom of the income ladder are often unemployed and struggling to get by.
I think I am now in the poverty level (except for the retirement funds that I am using to pay my mortgage).
I face losing my insurance coverage December 1, when I will have to pay the full amount of my COBRA premium. My husband does not have healthcare coverage. Read this article in The Tennessean published this morning.
Freedom Riders mural defaced
Students’ work twice has been vandalized
By Jennifer Brooks and Chris Echegaray • THE TENNESSEAN • September 25, 2009
It took the students weeks to create the Freedom Riders mural that greets visitors to Jefferson Street.
It took a vandal with a can of silver spray paint seconds to deface it.
Along the length of the mural, the paint blotted out the faces of the civil rights
marchers painted on the wall.
Not all of them. Just the black faces.
Painting the mural was supposed to be a lesson in civil rights history and civic pride for the student volunteers from three Nashville high schools who spent six weeks working with Franklin mural artist Michael Cooper on the design.
The defacement of the mural offers a lesson of another sort.
“The students should be encouraged to go and find other walls and make as many murals as they possibly can,” said former Freedom Rider Kwame Leo Lillard, who was there when the mural went up just four months ago.
