I wish Al and Tipper Gore the best. Knowing the many, many forces that exist to hold a marriage together no matter what, I assume there are forces just as strong that compel them apart.

Whatever those forces are, I’m sure they include a strong drive toward growth, and evolution. That’s what the lives of these two eminently decent people have been like all along, and it’s not going to stop now.

Bookmark It

I still can’t quite wrap my brain around the fact that a Democratic administration is doing nothing to help the unemployed:

Overall, seven million Americans have been looking for work for 27 weeks or more, and most of them—4.7 million—have been out of work for a year or more.

Long-term unemployment has reached nearly every segment of the population, but some have been particularly hard-hit. The typical long-term unemployed worker is a white man with a high-school education or less. Older unemployed workers also tend to be out of work longer. Those between ages 65 and 69 who still wish to work have typically been jobless for 49.8 weeks.

The effects of long-term unemployment are likely to linger when the overall jobless rate falls toward normal, threatening to create a pool of nearly permanently unemployed workers, a condition once more common in Europe than in the U.S.

“The consequences are worse for those who can’t find a job quickly,” said Till Marco von Wachter, a Columbia University economist. They extend from atrophying skills to a higher likelihood of unhappiness and anxiety. Workers out of work for a long time tend to find it more difficult to find a job, and “the longer people are unemployed the more likely they are to eventually give up searching and thereby drop out of the labor force,” Mr. von Wachter said.

The typical unemployed worker, regardless of occupation, had been unemployed for a seasonally adjusted 21.6 weeks as of April. Because of the deep recession, Congress extended jobless benefits to a maximum of 99 weeks in states with high unemployment. Those extended benefits will expire if Congress doesn’t act; the Labor Department estimates that 19,000 jobless workers could start losing benefits in the first week of June. The House has voted to extend the benefits; the Senate hasn’t yet.

While blue-collar and construction workers have been battered by the recession, they aren’t the only ones hit. Unemployed production workers, including toolmakers, woodworkers and food processors, have been out of work for a median of 38.1 weeks. Unemployed workers whose most recent job was in management, business and financial operations have typically been out of work for 32.3 weeks.

Richard Moran of Ortonville, Mich., the state with the highest U.S. unemployment rate, hasn’t had a job for two-and-a-half years. The 57-year-old, who was laid off from a testing and design job for Chrysler Group LLC, suspects his age is working against him.

Mr. Moran has attended two free training programs. The first, to become a corrections officer, ended at roughly the same time that Michigan was closing prisons amid tightening budgets. He recently finished an auto-parts design course to refresh his skills. “The certificates are piling up,” said Mr. Moran, who also has a four-year college degree in mass communications.

While education is helpful, college graduates have also fallen into the ranks of the long-term unemployed. They represent 15.9% of the long-term jobless, compared with 14.9% of all unemployed workers. Those with high school degrees who haven’t been to college comprise 40.7% of long-term unemployed, compared with 37.8% of all unemployed workers.

Bookmark It

Still breaking laws, still a tool.

Bookmark It

Truly:

United Nations » Israel faced heavy criticism in an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council on Monday in response to its deadly attack on an aid flotilla trying to breach the Gaza blockade, but attempts to issue a formal statement stalled after the United States rejected the strong condemnation sought by Turkey.

Turkey proposed a statement that would condemn Israel for violating international law, demand a U.N. investigation and demand that Israel prosecute those responsible for the raid and pay compensation to the victims. It also called for the end of the blockade.

The Obama administration refused to endorse a statement that singled out Israel, and proposed a broader condemnation of the violence that would include the assault of the Israeli commandos as they landed on the deck of the ship.

Even though they were shooting even before they came on the ship, and killed the captain. But don’t let that small detail distract you. Just like all those stories about the Israelis using white phosphorus on civilians they so vehemently denied — but admitted, months later.

Bookmark It

You know, I never had a great rapport with the mechanic around the corner. It might have been all the pictures of Reagan, Bush and Frank Rizzo on the wall that made me feel less than warm. But in any event, I’ve started to get the feeling that he’s ripping me off.

I was talking to one of my neighbors yesterday, and she made no bones about it. “He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing,” she said. “He’s got no diagnostic equipment, I don’t think he knows anything at all about cars that aren’t at least thirty years old,” she said. “And besides, he makes most of his money as a gun dealer. Take your car to someone else and have them look at it.”

She recommended a garage bay in an industrial park a few blocks away. I went there this morning to have them look at it. It was a truck repair place run by a couple of guys, one with a heavy accent and another one who couldn’t speak English at all. No Joey Vento cheesesteak for you!

But they showed me the problem – a piece of protective molding that had split and was rubbing against the suspension whenever I made a turn. The guy who couldn’t speak English got under the car and made a makeshift repair with a screw and a washer. “This will be fine, you don’t need nothing else,” the English-speaking guy told me.

The price? $20. I thanked them profusely.

I can’t believe that other moron was gonna charge me $375.

Bookmark It

I know someone who has five of ‘em. Want one?

Bookmark It

I really like this Bob Herbert piece. Yes, there really is a lot that can be done. It’s about time we started doing it.

Bookmark It

Terrorists don’t want to attack us because they hate our freedom. They attack us because we keep making it possible for the Israelis to oppress the Palestinians.

Bookmark It

Peter Beinart:

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral. If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled. Saving liberal Zionism in the United States—so that American Jews can help save liberal Zionism in Israel—is the great American Jewish challenge of our age. And it starts where Luntz’s students wanted it to start: by talking frankly about Israel’s current government, by no longer averting our eyes.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration blames everyone but Israel for yesterday’s deaths –which is why we have this war without end.

Bookmark It

This is what Tropical Storm Agatha just left in its wake in Guatemala:

Bookmark It