No Job, No Matter How Lowly, Is

I Complain To One Of My Fellow Servers That I Don't Understand How She Can Go So Long Without Food. "well, I Don't Understand How You Can Go So Long Without A Cigarette," She Responds In A Tone Of Reproach. Because Work Is What You Do For Others; Smoking Is What You Do For Yourself.

In A Process That Had Begun In The 1980s And Suddenly Accelerated In The Early 2000s ... [t]he Peaks Of Great Wealth Grew Higher, Rising Up Beyond The Clouds, While The Valleys Of Poverty Sank Lower Into Perpetual Shadow. The Once Broad Plateau Of The Middle Class Eroded Away Into A Narrow Ledge, With The White-knuckled Occupants Holding On For Dear Life.

Crime Seems To Change Character When It Crosses A Bridge Or A Tunnel. In The City, Crime Is Taken As Emblematic Of Class And Race. In The Suburbs Though, It's Intimate And Psychological, A Mystery Resist To Generalization, A Mystery Of The Individual Soul.

The Internet Was Supposed To Make This Whole Business Of Job Searching Rational And Simple. You Could Post Your Resume And Companies Would Search Them And They'd Find You. It Doesn't Seem To Work That Way. There Aren't Enough Jobs For Experienced, College Educated Managers And Professionals.

Upscale People Are Fixated With Food Simply Because They Are Now Able To Eat So Much Of It Without Getting Fat, And The Reason They Don't Get Fat Is That They Maintain A Profligate Level Of Calorie Expenditure. The Very Same People Whose Evenings Begin With Melted Goats Cheese... Get Up At Dawn To Run, Break For A Mid-morning Aerobics Class, And Watch The Evening News While Racing On A Stationary Bicycle.