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Mr. T brought young fan out of coma in the 80s

justingirl1989 — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:55:44 -0700

This not an April Fool’s joke as far as I know, but I am one of those naive people who is easily fooled by jokes told with a straight face, which helps explain why I gossip for a living. Mr. T is said to have told Empire Magazine that he once visited a young boy in the 80s who was a huge fan and had fallen into a coma. The boy would make a movement whenever someone said “Mr. T,” so the tough actor arranged a visit to the boy’s hospital room - after which he miraculously woke up from the coma:

Former The A-Team star Mr. T once stunned a sick child’s family by bringing him out of a coma - after doctors begged the actor for help.

The poorly kid fell unconscious in Detroit, Michigan in the mid-1980s - and the only physical movement he made was in response to hearing Mr. T’s name.

And when the mohawked star was in town, he stopped by the hospital to visit the ill boy - with miraculous results.

He tells Empire magazine, “His family put toys around him and one of them was a Mr. T doll. And whenever my name came up, the boy moved his arm.

“Somebody told the doctors I was in town, so they called me down there. I closed the curtains and prayed. Then, as I was walking down the hall, the kid suddenly came out of the coma and hollered out.

[From WENN via ONTD]

Mr. T supposedly told this to Empire Magazine, and I searched and couldn’t find the interview on their website. It could be true that he said this though it might not have gone done like he claims. If anyone can bring someone out of a coma, it’s Mr. T.

Mr. T starred in a TV Land reality show in 2006 called “I Pity The Fool” in which he traveled from town to town giving people advice about communication. It aired for six episodes in the fall. A devout Christian, he got rid of his trademark chains out of respect to Hurricane Katrina victims and no longer wears them apart from commercial appearances when he needs to reprise his character. He would wear over a quarter million dollars worth of bling at one time.

source: celeb*tchy.com

Islam

Eleuthera — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:12:54 -0800

by Susan Dale
03/02/2010

A ‘Profile In Courage’ the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) Is Not.

After the thankfully unsuccessful terrorist activities of the underwear bomber in an airplane over Detroit last Christmas Day, discussion resumed regarding the use of the full body scanner at American international airports. This is a highly sensitive machine that, when used for security purposes, displays the body in its full naked glory.

It was said, after the actions on December 25th by Mr. Mutallab, that this process would have been the only way to have detected the particular technique of terror the young Nigerian was attempting to import into America. Then along comes the perpetually zany Council of American-Islamic Relations. In its infinite wisdom, this group disclosed their intention to sue the United States of America to prevent the aforementioned body scanner from being used on Muslim men and women.

For religious reasons, don’t you know?

In the parallel universe where reside the left and their radical Islamic friends, it makes perfect sense that the only machine that can detect a certain, and most destructive kind of explosive, that has been used exclusively by Islamic terrorists since 2001, is now able to be used with any traveler using American international airports, except, of course, Muslim persons. These Muslim individuals are, as every sane person acknowledges, the ACTUAL REASON we have to put every air traveler through the excruciating security measures that are now in place.

To prevent the further terrorist actions of Muslim terrorists is, in fact, the whole point of the exercise.

The TSA, when confronted by CAIR in this regard, immediately capitulated, thus giving in in the face of yet another Islamic threat. Simultaneously, the TSA agreed to instruct its security staff, in enforcing the same tortuous security measures for everyone but Muslims, to ‘pat down’ Muslim men and women, with the proviso, of course, that only same gender ‘pat downs’ would be permitted for our Muslim brethren.

So, to be sure you understand, this is the deal.

Every American has to go through a humiliating and time consuming hell every time any one of us has to fly anywhere in the country, or the world. This nightmare is due strictly to the actions of Islamic terrorists. Now, due to the Obama-determined decision of certain of our non-elected bureaucrats, we are now excepting Islamists, and only Islamists – THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE SWORN TO ANNIHILATE AMERICA – from being forced to submit the examination of this machine that is the only thing that can detect certain terrorist explosives. In other words, the organization created to protect the American traveling public is now, under the Obama Administration, being prevented from doing so due to reasons of politically correct religious (again, addressed only to the world of Islam) sensitivity.

What kind of fantasy world is the Obama Administration living in? Does anyone in his Administration remember what happened on September 11, 2001? Has anyone in this ridiculous excuse for a Presidential Administration heard the repeated assurances from the Muslim world that we will either be converted to Islam by their jihad or die?

‘Explosive-wired Islamofascists’ is not a sensitivity issue – it is an act of war. It is an act of war against the United States of America and its innocent citizenry, no matter what religion. Tender feelings toward our Muslim brethren should not be taken into account when figuring out how best to protect us. The application of their faith when in our country should be very low on the list of what is significant to our nation, and if they don’t like that, they can immediately return to the nations where it is of significance. In America, they should understand, each religion is equal to the other; no particular religion is above another.

A current popular phrase might be applied in this instance: Islam, this is America. The land of the free. Deal with it.

It would be interesting to know whether the Obama Administration has instructed members of his Administration to make any accommodations for members of the Christian religion alert to members of the Obama Administration: the religion that FOUNDED OUR NATION in air travel? Perhaps, for Judaism, second alert to members of the Obama Administration: another very important religion found in the United States of America?

The answer would seem to be no.

It is wondered, therefore, if the Obama Administration and its member leftists ever intend to acknowledge the truth about the world of Islam, the founder of terrorism throughout the world.

Barack Hussein Obama can go on and on about how wonderful is the world of Islam. How magnificent and tolerant is their religion; how beautiful is their handwriting, (a subject not thought to be significant in 21st Century America by Obama Administration educators); how extraordinary is their Algebra, yet another subject of American education considered unimportant by current Obama educators, (African-American Studies; Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Studies; etc., being of much greater significance in the Obamaworld of educating our children) and how peaceful, and desirous of peace, are their people. And from where, almost verbatim from various Obama speeches, do these lovely words come?

Fantasyland.

Like it or not, the Muslim world of the 21st century has nothing to do with the Magical Mystery Tour that Barack Hussein Obama and his followers have chosen to present as the current Muslim world. Obama and his acolytes can create beautiful and false words around the ‘religion of peace,’ and assume people will believe these lies. Hollywood and whoever can create physical fantasies about how gorgeous and sensitive Muslims were and are; or how brilliant, intellectually, scientifically and politically, Muslims were and are, or what victims they are and have been through the centuries, because, of course, of the actions of the Great Satan, (us) with Obama always on the ready to apologize for whatever of our transgressions of which the aggrieved (Muslims) complain. It is, as you know, always our fault. .

The truth about the world of Islam is the opposite.

The fact is that the Muslim extremist world of the 21st century is a nasty, grubby, illiterate but tech-savvy, hate-filled world of duplicitous and violent men whose minds live in a 12th century mélange of hatred of the Infidel (which is just about all of the rest of the world); misogyny - alert to the American left: this is not just chauvinistic men wanting to keep women home and perennially barefoot and pregnant; this is a world where a teenage girl had her nose and ears lopped off because her mother wouldn’t let her marry their cousin, (which actually happened recently in Pakistan, and when the little girl’s mother saw her baby’s face after this mutilation, she fell dead from a heart attack) (religion of peace); this, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, is the Islam you champion. One will also find homophobia to a degree that these and other ardent feminists, like Barney Frank, could not imagine – no hate crime legislation here – beheading is the answer to that particular problem in Muslim countries. Then there are young men who have had every advantage that the West gives its youth, who would prefer to have their future contain wiring Downs’ Syndrome children with explosives so they can kill that many more innocent Westerners, in whatever country, it doesn’t really matter to them as long as it results in the most casualties.

And why do they do this? Not for anything we have done, despite constant such lamentations by the left, but for what we are. As an Islamic terrorist was quoted in responding to a leftist plea for us to just get along: “We don’t want to reason with you; we want to kill you.” A logical conclusion is to listen to them when they describe what they want to do to us for existing, don’t you think?

This is the Muslim world Barack Hussein Obama embraces.

Isn’t it time that the President of the United States of America stops protecting and defending the murderous medieval world of Islamic terrorism and starts protecting and defending the American people? Sadly, for us, this is not the case for our current Supreme Leader.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35806

Van Jones on Beck

stephley — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:45:38 -0800

Van Jones is back on the scene for a second act, and he’s got a peculiar affection for the Fox TV host whose persistent attacks helped bring down the curtains on his post with the Obama administration.

On Friday night, Mr. Jones, once a “green jobs” adviser to President Obama, was in Los Angeles to accept the President’s Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his work promoting a green economy.

In his acceptance speech, televised live on local Fox stations, Mr. Jones had words for his “fellow countryman, Glenn Beck.”

“I see you, and I love you, brother,” Mr. Jones said. “I love you and you cannot do anything about it. I love you and you cannot do anything about it. Let’s be one country. Let’s be one country. Let’s get the job done.”

He also gave a “shout out and salute” to Mr. Obama, describing the president as “a world-class leader” who “volunteered to be the captain of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.”

He added, “And we’re still floating.”

Without specifically mentioning his abbreviated tenure at the White House, Mr. Jones briefly alluded to the turmoil he’s faced over the past year.

“I have had 1,000 defeats in this past year, but I had one victory, and it’s the most important victory to me,” he said. “I don’t hate anybody. I’m not mad at anybody, and I still believe in the politics of hope.”

Mr. Jones stepped down from his White House post on Sept. 5, amid a tide of furor over a number of past missteps that made him a liability to the administration, including signing a petition alleging that the Bush administration willfully allowed 9/11 to happen.

He recently landed at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think-tank, and at Princeton University, where he will teach environmental and economic policy.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/van-jones-to-glenn-beck-i-...

Glee Takes the Show on the Road!

BuzzSugar — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:15:48 -0800

I hope the cast of Glee isn't exhausted yet, because they're going to be working right through their Summer vacations. After months of rumblings and rumored, it's been confirmed that there will be a mini Glee live tour. From May 18-28, the kids will make stops in Phoenix, LA, and Chicago before finishing things off in New York (here's all the dates and ticketing info).

I'm sure those tickets will sell like hotcakes, but don't get your hopes up for a chance to see Sue Sylvester or Mr. Schuester live on stage - only the glee club members themselves will be on the tour. The good news is that they'll be signing all of your favorites from the show, from "Somebody to Love" to "Don't Stop Believin'" and beyond. Back in October, most of you said you'd check out a Glee tour, so are you already saving your money for tickets now that it's official?

Photo courtesy of Fox

I was the other woman. (revised)

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:39:22 -0800

I was the 'other woman.' I guess I will start at the beginning. I first met Dan when I was 17 through a mutual friend. I was a teenage ditz and he was a shy nerd and we never really had much to say to one another, although we never disliked each other.

Fast forward to age 23. I was fresh out of a very very bad relationship, I was dressed sexy for a concert, slightly drunk, slightly horny, not looking for a one night stand so much as just desperately in need of some of that naughty sort of confidence that only comes when men drool and trip over themselves wanting me. My friend Seth said, "Hey, Dan's here and he's sad. Why don't you go cheer him up?"

So I see Dan... 6 years later... and damn. He's a big guy but he has gotten sexy since the last time I saw him. I check for a ring... don't see one... so I walk up to him, grab his hands, put them on my bra-less tits and say, "Does that cheer you up at all?" And he just smiles at me. I know that's a sleazy thing to do... but I was drunk and at that point in my life I really didn't care.Nothing happened that night but some nice conversation and mild flirting.

The next day I mention him and someone says, "You know he's married, right?"
"What? I didn't see a ring."
"Well he is married. And his wife is due to have their kid in a couple months."

So I apologize the next time I see him and I ask him if he's REALLY married... which he is... his ring is broken and it's been sitting in his ash tray for weeks or more. "You really did cheer me up though," he says.

His wife, Marcie, is head nurse at a local hospital. She's the 'bread winner' of the family and he works bars as a karaoke DJ. I figured he would have a drop-dead-gorgeous wife. He's just that type: handsome, outgoing, charming. So one night, he and I and a few friends went back to his place after bar closing time, and that's when I first saw her. Not her, her picture. Their wedding picture, to be more precise. And I remember thinking to myself, "I hope this is just an unflattering picture of her... on her wedding day?" But no, that's just how she looks. I'm not judging her based on that, the few times I met her she seemed nice enough- a little aloof but I figured she just didn't see any need to be friendly with his female friends. I was just shocked. Call me vain, I don't care. I honestly thought she would be the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life.

So I casually flirt with him when I see him... never expecting (or at that time wanting) it to go anywhere. I would say, "Dan, if you weren't married I would f*ck your brains out." To me he was 'safe' the way gay guys are safe... you can talk and hug and hang out and you know it will never go anywhere. I thought he had enough will power to resist me.

So one night... I'm drunk. And broke. I walk up to Dan and say half seriously, "Buy me a shot and I'll show you my tits." He raises an eyebrow at me and smiles- he has an amazing smile- and orders my favorite. I take it and then he grabs my hand and says, "Time to pay up." We walk out behind the building and I give him a quick look... and a quick feel... and then we head back inside flirting and drinking more than we should have. We end up back behind the building again and he undoes my pants button and says, "Now let me see everything else."
Now I'm a flirtatious drunk but as soon as the pants start to come off I sober up. "No, come on, I haven't even shaved... and I'm so drunk right now... let's go back inside." I walk in and later say to Seth, "I think Dan tried to f*ck me."
He laughs and says, "Dan is wasted and his wife's not giving him enough attention. I'm sure he didn't mean it. You're not exactly playing hard-to-get, you know."

So I think nothing of it and things go back to harmless friendly flirting. There was a definite attraction between us, but I figured nothing would ever come from it.
Until one day... We leave the bar. He and I are in his car and the rest of the group is in another. He starts to talk about how his wife is mean and talks down to him all the time. I say, "It's the hormones. She'll be back to normal in a couple months. Babies are stressful, just give her time." He says, "No, it's not the hormones. She's been like that ever since we got married. I don't know what to do." "You not thinking of leaving her, are you?" "No. I was raised Catholic... we never get divorced. And I love her. But I'm lonely," Runs his hand across my cheek..."I've never had sex with anyone other than my wife," Fingers slowly find their way across my cleavage... down under my bra... "And that's not going to change..." Down my stomach, the tips of his fingers teasing the waistline of my pants... "Anything else though..." Slowly undoing the button of my jeans... sliding his hand down further...

That's how it started. I'm not going to give the details... that's for me to keep private. I will say this: we never actually had sex. Penis never touched vagina. Anything else though... in total orgasm only happened three or four times. We weren't animals about it. His wife wasn't satisfying him and my new boyfriend wasn't satisfying me. In a way I feel good that he chose me to mess around with instead of someone else, because I respected him and I never once pressured him to do more than he was comfortable with. Usually it was just, he'd go out to smoke a cigarette and I'd go with him and he'd give me a quick feel-up in the parking lot; not seductively, but just because a man can only go so long without touching a woman and I like to be touched.

And it wasn't an emotional love affair. We were in no way 'soul mates,' more like 'kindred spirits.' We were both attractive and laid-back and fun on the outside but deep and intelligent and sensitive on the inside. And we were horny.

We agreed to keep it completely secret, not only from his wife, but from our whole circle of friends. Not to sound vain, but I'm a good looking girl and there were a few men out there- particularly our mutual friend Seth-who would have wondered, "why not me?" He had just gone through a nasty divorce: his wife Lydia cheated on him with- and then left him for- some guy she met one the internet ("Oh, he's my soul mate," she said). She then broke up with Mr Internet a month later, got back together with Seth, and then left him AGAIN a couple months later saying, "I feel like it was all a lie." And I don't know why I chose Dan- maybe because I'm a bad girl trapped inside a good girl's body. Maybe because I thought if no one knew then it didn't count. Maybe because I just wanted a cheap easy orgasm or two without the commitment and I didn't want anyone kissing-and-telling and labeling me a slut. I don't know. Maybe I just always want what I can't have.

So one night, things get pretty intimate... in his basement... with his wife and baby sleeping peacefully right above our heads. And we mutually decided that enough was enough. There was a bit of crying, but we were both sick of waking up with a guilty conscience, and who were we kidding? Nothing good could ever come of this. So that was it. The end of the affair.

We stayed friends after that, close friends actually. We were so comfortable with the whole situation that we even joked around about it. And it never got intimate again. I think he may have wanted it to once, but I'm not sure. He was going to give me a ride to the bar and picked me up about four hours early, when his wife was gone for the night. He said it was just easier that way because he was on my side of town. All we did was play catch with his kid's ball in the basement and surf the internet. He didn't try anything and neither did I, but he sort of had that look in his eye.

So months go by, everything is fine, and then he stops returning my calls. At first I think he's just been busy, but then it's been a month and I still haven't heard from him. Now he's the sort to call any of his friends every week or two just to see how they're doing, so this was out of character for him. So I mention to Seth, "Have you talked to Dan? I'm sure it's nothing but he's hasn't called me in a while. How is he?"
"Uh... Sweetheart, Dan isn't allowed to call you," Seth tells me.
"What? Why?" I ask naively, thinking we still had our little secret.
"Well, he and his wife got in a fight and he told her about everything that happened between you two. They're not going to break up but he had to promise never to see or speak to you again."
"So... now everyone knows?"
"Yup."
"Everyone? They all think I'm a slut now, don't they?"
"Hey, if it makes you feel any better, Marcie knew Lydia was cheating on me and never told me. What goes around comes around, right?"

So that's it. That's where I am now. I pretty much lost my whole social life... all my hang-outs were his DJ spots and I'm at least respectful enough not to risk running into him. Sometimes I wonder what I'll say if I ever run into him again, or even worse, run into Marcie. I don't know. Oh well. I learned my lesson. I'll never be the other woman again. I'm done being a home-wrecker. But I have to admit, I had one hell of a good time doing it.

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800

Teacher tackles gunman supected in school shooting

Roarman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:46:37 -0800

Math teacher David Benke says he had no time to fear for his life when he tackled a man he said was preparing to reload a rifle to shoot students at a Colorado middle school who were heading home for the day.

And Benke doesn't consider himself a hero for stopping the 32-year-old accused of wounding two students Tuesday at the Littleton school that's just miles from Columbine High School, the site of one of the nation's deadliest school shootings.

"You know, it bugs me that he got another round off," Benke said of the two shots that authorities say Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood fired.

On Tuesday, Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink praised Benke, calling him a hero. Benke, the father of 7-year-old twins and a 13-year-old girl, fought back tears after Mink thanked him.

"I know he feels bad about not being able to intervene sooner, but believe me when I say, I think he stopped what could have been a more tragic event than it was this afternoon," Mink said.

The victims, Deer Creek Middle School students Reagan Webber and Matt Thieu, were both treated at Littleton Adventist Hospital. Spokeswoman Christine Alexander said Webber was treated and released to her home, and Thieu was transferred to another hospital.

Authorities say both victims had surgery Tuesday.

Benke and other teachers were monitoring the parking lot in the afternoon when Benke heard what he thought was a firecracker and began walking toward the noise.

"At first when I was walking over there, it was kind of what a teacher does," Benke said, still shaken hours after Tuesday's shooting. "`Hey kid, what are you doing,' you know that kind of thing."

"Unfortunately he got another round off before I could grab him. He had a bolt action rifle .... He figured out that he wasn't going to be able to get another round chambered before I got to him so he dropped the gun and then we were kind of struggling around trying to get him subdued."

Benke said he doesn't remember the students running from the scene or the time it took sheriff's deputies to arrive at the school. He didn't have time to think about anything happening around him.

The 6-5, former college basketball player oversees the school's track team. He said another teacher was quickly on the scene and both of them pinned the gunman to the ground.

"I basically have my arms and legs wrapped around him, (the other teacher) has his forearm around his front and we were basically trying to get the guy to quit struggling.

School officials could not immediately confirm the names of other teachers who helped subdue the shooter.

"I talked to him while we were on the ground. I was underneath him and his face was pretty close to mine," Benke said. "I asked him, `Why did you do this? Were you a student here?'

"He either didn't respond or his responses didn't make a whole lot of sense," Benke said.

Denver station KUSA-TV reported that Eastwood attended Deer Creek Middle School in the early 1990s.

Eastwood has an arrest record in Colorado dating back to 1996 for menacing, assault, domestic violence and driving under the influence of alcohol, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

In 2005, he participated in a NASA-funded medical study in which he spent 10 days in a hospital bed so scientist could study muscle wasting, an affliction experienced by astronauts during long flights, according to a story in the Rocky Mountain News.

He told the newspaper that he had a lifelong dream of being an astronaut and described his occupation to the newspaper as horse trainer working at his father's Eagle's Nest Ranch in Hudson.

Investigators said Eastwood visited the school previously and was inside shortly before the shooting. He is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday and may face at least two counts of attempted murder.

A man who answered the phone Tuesday night at a number listed for Eastwood identified himself only as "Mr. Eastwood" and said he was Bruco Eastwood's father. He was at a loss for words.

"There's nothing you can say about it. What can you say?" the man told The Associated Press. "Pretty dumb thing to do. I feel bad for the people involved." He wouldn't comment further.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_colo_school_shooting

Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs

Roarman — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:42:41 -0800

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives - potentially for years to come.

Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

Here in Southern California, Jean Eisen has been without work since she lost her job selling beauty salon equipment more than two years ago. In the several months she has endured with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check, she has relied on local food banks for her groceries.

She has learned to live without the prescription medications she is supposed to take for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She has become effusively religious - an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material - finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.

“I pray for healing,” says Ms. Eisen, 57. “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got to go with what you know.”

Warm, outgoing and prone to the positive, Ms. Eisen has worked much of her life. Now, she is one of 6.3 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer, the largest number since the government began keeping track in 1948. That is more than double the toll in the next-worst period, in the early 1980s.

Men have suffered the largest numbers of job losses in this recession. But Ms. Eisen has the unfortunate distinction of being among a group - women from 45 to 64 years of age - whose long-term unemployment rate has grown rapidly.

In 1983, after a deep recession, women in that range made up only 7 percent of those who had been out of work for six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. Last year, they made up 14 percent.

Twice, Ms. Eisen exhausted her unemployment benefits before her check was restored by a federal extension. Last week, her check ran out again. She and her husband now settle their bills with only his $1,595 monthly disability check. The rent on their apartment is $1,380.

“We’re looking at the very real possibility of being homeless,” she said.

Every downturn pushes some people out of the middle class before the economy resumes expanding. Most recover. Many prosper. But some economists worry that this time could be different. An unusual constellation of forces - some embedded in the modern-day economy, others unique to this wrenching recession - might make it especially difficult for those out of work to find their way back to their middle-class lives.

Labor experts say the economy needs 100,000 new jobs a month just to absorb entrants to the labor force. With more than 15 million people officially jobless, even a vigorous recovery is likely to leave an enormous number out of work for years.

Some labor experts note that severe economic downturns are generally followed by powerful expansions, suggesting that aggressive hiring will soon resume. But doubts remain about whether such hiring can last long enough to absorb anywhere close to the millions of unemployed.

A New Scarcity of Jobs

Some labor experts say the basic functioning of the American economy has changed in ways that make jobs scarce - particularly for older, less-educated people like Ms. Eisen, who has only a high school diploma.

Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 - the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks.

“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.”

During periods of American economic expansion in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the number of private-sector jobs increased about 3.5 percent a year, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a research firm. During expansions in the 1980s and ’90s, jobs grew just 2.4 percent annually. And during the last decade, job growth fell to 0.9 percent annually.

“The pace of job growth has been getting weaker in each expansion,” Mr. Achuthan said. “There is no indication that this pattern is about to change.”

Before 1990, it took an average of 21 months for the economy to regain the jobs shed during a recession, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the National Employment Law Project and the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research group in Washington.

After the recessions in 1990 and in 2001, 31 and 46 months passed before employment returned to its previous peaks. The economy was growing, but companies remained conservative in their hiring.

Some 34 million people were hired into new and existing private-sector jobs in 2000, at the tail end of an expansion, according to Labor Department data. A year later, in the midst of recession, hiring had fallen off to 31.6 million. And as late as 2003, with the economy again growing, hiring in the private sector continued to slip, to 29.8 million.

It was a jobless recovery: Business was picking up, but it simply did not translate into more work. This time, hiring may be especially subdued, labor economists say.

Traditionally, three sectors have led the way out of recession: automobiles, home building and banking. But auto companies have been shrinking because strapped households have less buying power. Home building is limited by fears about a glut of foreclosed properties. Banking is expanding, but this seems largely a function of government support that is being withdrawn.

At the same time, the continued bite of the financial crisis has crimped the flow of money to small businesses and new ventures, which tend to be major sources of new jobs.

All of which helps explain why Ms. Eisen - who has never before struggled to find work - feels a familiar pain each time she scans job listings on her computer: There are positions in health care, most requiring experience she lacks. Office jobs demand familiarity with software she has never used. Jobs at fast food restaurants are mostly secured by young people and immigrants.

If, as Mr. Sinai expects, the economy again expands without adding many jobs, millions of people like Ms. Eisen will be dependent on an unemployment insurance already being severely tested.

“The system was ill prepared for the reality of long-term unemployment,” said Maurice Emsellem, a policy director for the National Employment Law Project. “Now, you add a severe recession, and you have created a crisis of historic proportions.”

Fewer Protections

Some poverty experts say the broader social safety net is not up to cushioning the impact of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Social services are less extensive than during the last period of double-digit unemployment, in the early 1980s.

On average, only two-thirds of unemployed people received state-provided unemployment checks last year, according to the Labor Department. The rest either exhausted their benefits, fell short of requirements or did not apply.

“You have very large sets of people who have no social protections,” said Randy Albelda, an economist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “They are landing in this netherworld.”

When Ms. Eisen and her husband, Jeff, applied for food stamps, they were turned away for having too much monthly income. The cutoff was $1,570 a month - $25 less than her husband’s disability check.

Reforms in the mid-1990s imposed time limits on cash assistance for poor single mothers, a change predicated on the assumption that women would trade welfare checks for paychecks.

Yet as jobs have become harder to get, so has welfare: as of 2006, 44 states cut off anyone with a household income totaling 75 percent of the poverty level - then limited to $1,383 a month for a family of three - according to an analysis by Ms. Albelda.

“We have a work-based safety net without any work,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “People with more education and skills will probably figure something out once the economy picks up. It’s the ones with less education and skills: that’s the new poor.”

Here in Orange County, the expanse of suburbia stretching south from Los Angeles, long-term unemployment reaches even those who once had six-figure salaries. A center of the national mortgage industry, the area prospered in the real estate boom and suffered with the bust.

Until she was laid off two years ago, Janine Booth, 41, brought home roughly $10,000 a month in commissions from her job selling electronics to retailers. A single mother of three, she has been living lately on $2,000 a month in child support and about $450 a week in unemployment insurance - a stream of checks that ran out last week.

For Ms. Booth, work has been a constant since her teenage years, when she cleaned houses under pressure from her mother to earn pocket money. Today, Ms. Booth pays her $1,500 monthly mortgage with help from her mother, who is herself living off savings after being laid off.

“I don’t want to take money from her,” Ms. Booth said. “I just want to find a job.”

Ms. Booth, with a résumé full of well-paid sales jobs, seems the sort of person who would have little difficulty getting work. Yet two years of looking have yielded little but anxiety.

She sends out dozens of résumés a week and rarely hears back. She responds to online ads, only to learn they are seeking operators for telephone sex lines or people willing to send mysterious packages from their homes.

She spends weekdays in a classroom in Anaheim, in a state-financed training program that is supposed to land her a job in medical administration. Even if she does find a job, she will be lucky if it pays $15 an hour.

“What is going to happen?” she asked plaintively. “I worry about my kids. I just don’t want them to think I’m a failure.”

On a recent weekend, she was running errands with her 18-year-old son when they stopped at an A.T.M. and he saw her checking account balance: $50.

“He says, ‘Is that all you have?’ ” she recalled. “ ‘Are we going to be O.K.?’ ”

Yes, she replied - and not only for his benefit.

“I have to keep telling myself it’s going to be O.K.,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d go into a deep depression.”

Last week, she made up fliers advertising her eagerness to clean houses - the same activity that provided her with spending money in high school, and now the only way she sees fit to provide for her kids. She plans to place the fliers on porches in some other neighborhood.

“I don’t want to clean my neighbors’ houses,” she said. “I know I’m going to come out of this. There’s no way I’m going to be homeless and poverty-stricken. But I am scared. I have a lot of sleepless nights.”

For the Eisens, poverty is already here. In the two years Ms. Eisen has been without work, they have exhausted their savings of about $24,000. Their credit card balances have grown to $15,000.

“I don’t know how we’re still indoors,” she said.

Her 1994 Dodge Caravan broke down in January, leaving her to ask for rides to an employment center.

She does not have the money to move to a cheaper apartment.

“You have to have money for first and last month’s rent, and to open utility accounts,” she said.

What she has is personality and presence - two traits that used to seem enough. She narrates her life in a stream of self-deprecating wisecracks, her punch lines tinged with desperation.

“See that,” she said, spotting a man dressed as the Statue of Liberty. Standing on a sidewalk, he waved at passing cars with a sign advertising a tax preparation business. “That will be me next week. Do you think this guy ever thought he’d be doing this?”

And yet, she would gladly do this. She would do nearly anything.

“There are no bad jobs now,” she says. “Any job is a good job.”

She has applied everywhere she can think of - at offices, at gas stations. Nothing.

“I’m being seen as a person who is no longer viable,” she said. “I’m chalking it up to my age and my weight. Blame it on your most prominent insecurity.”

Two Incomes, Then None

Ms. Eisen grew up poor, in Flatbush in Brooklyn. Her father was in maintenance. Her mother worked part time at a company that made window blinds.

She married Jeff when she was 19, and they soon moved to California, where he had grown up. He worked in sales for a chemical company. They rented an apartment in Buena Park, a growing spread of houses filling out former orange groves. She stayed home and took care of their daughter.

“I never asked him how much he earned,” Ms. Eisen said. “I was of the mentality that the husband took care of everything. But we never wanted.”

By the early 1980s, gas and rent strained their finances. So she took a job as a quality assurance clerk at a factory that made aircraft parts. It paid $13.50 an hour and had health insurance.

When the company moved to Mexico in the early 1990s, Ms. Eisen quickly found a job at a travel agency. When online booking killed that business, she got the job at the beauty salon equipment company. It paid $13.25 an hour, with an annual bonus - enough for presents under the Christmas tree.

But six years ago, her husband took a fall at work and then succumbed to various ailments - diabetes, liver disease, high blood pressure - leaving him confined to the couch. Not until 2008 did he secure his disability check.

And now they find themselves in this desert of joblessness, her paycheck replaced by a $702 unemployment check every other week. She received 14 weeks of benefits after she lost her job, and then a seven-week extension.

For most of October through December 2008, she received nothing, as she waited for another extension. The checks came again, then ran out in September 2009. They were restored by an extension right before Christmas.

Their daughter has back problems and is living on disability checks, making the church their ultimate safety net.

“I never thought I’d be in the position where I had to go to a food bank,” Ms. Eisen said. But there she is, standing in the parking lot of the Calvary Chapel church, chatting with a half-dozen women, all waiting to enter the Bread of Life Food Pantry.

When her name is called, she steps into a windowless alcove, where a smiling woman hands her three bags of groceries: carrots, potatoes, bread, cheese and a hunk of frozen meat.

“Haven’t we got a lot to be thankful for?” Ms. Eisen asks.

For one thing, no pinto beans.

“I’ve got 10 bags of pinto beans,” she says. “And I have no clue how to cook a pinto bean.”

Local job listings are just as mysterious. On a bulletin board at the county-financed ProPath Business and Career Services Center, many are written in jargon hinting of accounting or computers.

“Nothing I’m qualified for,” Ms. Eisen says. “When you can’t define what it is, that’s a pretty good indication.”

Her counselor has a couple of possibilities - a cashier at a supermarket and a night desk job at a motel.

“I’ll e-mail them,” Ms. Eisen promises. “I’ll tell them what a shining example of humanity I am.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy/21unemployed.html?sq=... New Poor&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all

Toyota official: Our deal with U.S. regulators avoided massive recall, saved us $100 million

liliblu — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:03:04 -0800

UPDATED Monday at 12:30 p.m. with Toyota statement:
A top Toyota official claimed that a negotiated agreement with U.S. government auto-safety regulators prevented a widespread vehicle recall and saved the Japanese auto giant more than $100 million, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post after it was turned over to congressional investigators.
The document is a July 2009 presentation, listing Toyota North America president Yoshi Inaba on its cover, that was given to the automaker's Washington office.
Under the heading "Wins for Toyota & Industry," Inaba wrote: "Negotiated 'equipment' recall on Camry/ES re. SA, saved $100M+, w/ no defect found." "SA" stands for "sudden acceleration."
In 2007, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, responding to complaints filed by Toyota and Lexus owners about sudden acceleration, started an investigation to determine if Toyota floor mats were catching the vehicles' gas pedals and causing unintended sudden acceleration.
Toyota responded to the probe by telling NHTSA that there was no way the floor mat could cause the acceleration, if it was put in place correctly by the driver.
As a result, later in 2007, Toyota recalled only 55,000 Camrys and Lexus ES350s, costing the company significantly less than a widespread recall.
But the problem didn't go away, and Toyota ended up recalling 2.1 million vehicles last fall for what it calls "floor mat entrapment" of the gas pedal, and an additional 3.8 million vehicles last month, for what it says is an unrelated problem with sticking gas pedals.
The document was first obtained by the Detroit News on Sunday and later by The Washington Post.
Seeking to clear up Inaba's role in the presentation, Toyota sent this e-mail this morning:

"The presentation was delivered to Mr. Inaba, not by him. It provided an outline of the constantly changing government, industry and regulatory environments in which Toyota and other automotive companies operate.
Our first priority is the safety of our customers and to conclude otherwise on the basis of one internal presentation is wrong. Our values have always been to put the customer first and ensure the highest levels of safety and quality. Our recently announced top-to-bottom quality review of company operations, along with new quality process initiatives and a renewed commitment to transparency are all designed to reaffirm these long-held values."

The document was turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, which will grill Toyota president Akio Toyoda, Inaba and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood during a Wednesday hearing.
"Did regulators do their due diligence once problems were brought to their attention? Did Toyota raise potential safety problems with regulators as soon as they knew a problem existed?," said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the committee's ranking minority member. "But there are also questions involving what happened in between and whether Toyota was lobbying for less rigid actions from regulators to protect their bottom line. If anything but the safety of America's drivers influenced the decision-making process, the entire purpose of NHTSA will be undermined."
The committee also has subpoenaed documents from Dimitrios Biller, a former top attorney for Toyota North America, which he claims the company squelched and which would have allowed liability lawsuits to go forward against Toyota.
As Toyota heads to the Hill on Wednesday, Toyota lobbyists are attempting to prepare the way for them, my colleagues at The Post report in this story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022104295.html?hpid=topnews
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/2010/02/toyota_official_we_made_a_deal.html?hpid=topnews
Toyota's 2009 Presentation (PDF)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/documents/toyota_documents022110.pdf?hpid=topnews

mom3martin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:00:17 -0800

By CATHY HORYN

Published: February 16, 2010

Thirty minutes before the start of the Marc Jacobs show, the models were lined up and waiting. Mr. Jacobs, in a formal mood, was wearing a three-piece suit but had removed the jacket. Out front, where the floor and specially built walls were covered with brown cardboard, giving the aura of a giant box, guests milled around. The photographers, without celebrities to snap (none had been invited) were like chickens idly pecking around a barnyard.

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RODARTE Layers of fuzzy wool and fabric, with ankle-wrapped stilettos.

And so all was calm at Marc Jacobs, in contrast to previous seasons when the scene was part of the fun, crushing or not. Then, too, Mr. Jacobs was interested in conceptual collections, involving a set, and afterward journalists would troop backstage to unearth the meaning.
On Monday night, though, the music was a remix of “Over the Rainbow,” from “The Wizard of Oz.” That’s only worth mentioning because a number of puff-sleeve dresses, and the low-heeled pumps with anklets, pointed to Dorothy. The rest of the show needed no explanation.
“Did you like it?” Mr. Jacobs asked guests backstage. “It’s beautiful, right?”
Yes, Mr. Jacobs, it was beautiful.
Part of the tug of “Over the Rainbow” is that it’s an American ballad, written by E. Y. Harburg, known as Yip, and that seemed to be Mr. Jacobs’s idea - to create a buoyant American collection.
His timing couldn’t be better. American style is the subject of this year’s major costume exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, opening in May. And by banishing celebrities from his front row, at least for now, Mr. Jacobs has pointedly returned the focus to the clothes. That has been a complaint about American fashion - that it has been sidetracked into celebrity, parties and co-branding deals. What about its great tradition of innovative design?
If the spirit of American fashion is modernism, Mr. Jacobs seemed to approach that ideal in at least two ways - through a neutral palette, with flashes of bitter yellow, that evoke modern interiors free of Old World clutter, and in the modest, relaxed line of the clothes. The majority of the skirts and coats, in wools and double-faced cashmere, were A-line and hemmed below the knee. A sleeveless taupe blouse with a streaming sailor tie appeared with a wool kilt in a slightly warmer tone, the wool cut in window slats and inset with chiffon. By raising the center of a peacoat and pinching the back, he gave the classic shape a new, flattering silhouette.
Probably he has shown pantsuits before, but two in putty gray looked just right. The collection was loaded with fur, piled at wrist and neck and sometimes treated as a top, but it also appeared in a checked pattern for a plain shell and rounded skirt. You’d think it was tweed.
A trip to a Texas border town, seeing factory employees walk to work half asleep, gave Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte the concept of a young woman dressing herself in the dark, using short and long lengths of fabric, washed-out florals and highly textured knits that also looked haphazard.
Yet, while some of the constructions were beautiful, the concept rapidly wore thin, and perhaps it was not developed enough.