Archive for September, 2007

My husband had heart problems in the spring of 2007 so that made me re-evaluate my life. I decided to take time off from being a science teacher but that put an enormous financial strain on us since I am the main breadwinner and holder of our insurance.

My husband is a self-employed, very creative, graphic artist and I am helping out his business as his general manager…but with no pay! We are on COBRA and paying $1000 a month because he is now “uninsurable” even though he is doing fine but he is on a lot of medicine to keep him that way.

I am working another $12/hr. job part-time to help pay a few bills and a “guinea pig” for a 4 month medical research study to pay for a month of COBRA. To go with “regular” insurance is so expensive since no one wants to cover my husband. Those that will cover him want $1400 a month and a $5000 deductible. We have gone through our savings and I am slowing taking money out from my retirement 403b’s to pay the medical bills.

I had a nice lifestyle but now I am watching it slowly dwindle away due to our mounting medical expenses. My husband and I would love to see affordable healthcare available to all.

For information about offshoring and outsourcing, check out the links on the following site:

http://www.madnamerica.com/links.htm

We thought UP members might be interested in Career O’Rama. From their website: 

“Career O’Rama was created to be a counter argument to the common career advice you will get from most career books, councelors, and well-meaning advice givers.

Our belief is that most of this advice is both mis-leading as well as mistaken.

Career O’Rama provides the space to re-think our relationship to work, why we work, what we expect to get out of work, and to tell the unvarnished truth about what it is really like to have a nine-to-five job.

If you disagree with an article, feel free to post comments. Discussion is good and the more information the better.

The discussion is meant to be a level above ‘work sucks’ and ‘bosses are stupid and evil’. While perhaps true, that ground has been covered.”

http://www.careerorama.com/modules/news/

I’m a 54 yr old divorced woman. For many years I worked as a BtoB marketing person for various companies. After a layoff in the early 90s, I went to law school full time. I love law, but couldn’t find a job with a law firm. My strength is research & writing and I finally got an editorial position with a legal publisher, which was fun but didn’t pay enough. I went back to marketing communications with the same legal publisher and after 6 yrs with the company was restructured out. That was 2 years ago. Since then I have been a temp lawyer through an agency and have been assigned to the same law firm for over a year. Legal temping has become indentured servitude for thousands of law school graduates who don’t have degrees from top institutions and, therefore, will never be hired as 6-figure associates by large law firms. Young lawyers are making $25 - $40 an hour and still have to pay off $60,000 law school loans. I’d love to see reporting on this issue.

Corporate America will prevail as long as we hard-working Americans remain apathetic about our ability to change the system. Long live the revolt of the proletariat!!

The politics are coming! The politics are coming!

Okay, they’re already here. Campaign ads and sound bytes and photo ops. The overblown promises. The groundless smears. The media’s rehashing of each tidbit until the next tidbit comes along. All coming to the 24-hour news cycle of media outlets near you. These are not discount outlets like the malls along the interstate. The ads are expensive to the candidates and news-time product ads are lucrative to the media that sell them.

The candidates and advertisers spend, and the media rakes it in during the run-up to national elections for one reason. They think you’re paying close attention. I hope they’re right. They also think you’re easily duped. I hope they’re wrong.

Stay skeptical! Here’s help to inform your critical thinking:

The tried and true FactCheck.org – a product of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and the University of Pennsylvania. Take a quick look at their again-timely 2004 article on candidates’ legal right to lie to us. Between the story of the relevant statutes and case law, and the bibliography, FactCheck reminds us, “We at FactCheck.org try hard to help. But on Election Day, it’s up to you.” So let’s figure out all the truths we can and support candidates who truly support us, not just claim to.

The eager newcomer, PolitiFact.com – a joint venture by the St. Petersburg Times and the Congressional Quarterly. Check out the Truth-O-Meter. Editor Bill Adair, the Times’ Washington bureau chief, wrote his Arizona State University senior thesis (in 1985) on the hospital lobby using a campaign of lies and exaggerations to kill a state health care initiative. So universal health care plans (and their countering “socialized medicine” scare tactics) will likely receive due scrutiny here.

Both have professional skeptics (journalists) digging into the claims of politicians and various “unaffiliated” (yeah, right) organizations. Bookmark ‘em, Danno!