philly

The NY Times has an article on unemployment and the realities of it in this time of "economic expansion" as the W administration calls it. They say that things are getting better and that we should all look to the future, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The main focus of this two-page write-up is Fabiola Quitiaquez, a woman who recently lost her job in NYC. She had to sell her apartment and move to Atlanta, GA. But after six months, she was still unable to find a job. Not even shitty jobs.

That just really hit home for me. I lost my job in NYC a month before I graduated from college. The company was downsizing and laid off 20% of the staff. Ugh. It wasn't a pretty day. I was pretty depressed for a solid month, but I just concentrated on my finals and stuff and got through it. Then it was January and I had no job. I sent my resume out to about 50 or so different jobs all over the tri-state area. Jet Blue, Topps, U-Haul to name a few. Nadda. Jack shit. I don't think I got even one response. I wasn't exactly a diamond in the rough, but I had a college degree and tons of work experience. I had a background in photography/photo editing an account management. Nobody bit.

I put up my resume on Monster, CareerBuilder and my college's own job finding service. All that resulted in was more junk mail. It was quite disheartening. On top of that, something went wrong in the processing of my unemployment and I didn't receive any. I had to re-apply and finally got it months later. My $400 or so bi-weekly check wasn't helping me out much.

I was fortuate enough to be living at home at the time with two loving and [at times] understanding parents. They knew that I was going through some tough times and tried to stay out of my way and my moodyness. I ended up going to a temp service and landed a few dinky jobs. Filing at Citicorp, some computer work at MasterCard and a longer-term position at a small 3-person out-of-the-basement company. I stayed at that third job for a few months and it was nice, but really not what I wanted to be doing for the long-term.

Lady was also a college graduate and working temp jobs. She had her own apartment in a house with two other girls and her own worries with money and her future. We decided that we'd take a big step and move out of NY. We decided on Philly after visiting it and falling in love with the city.

I was very lucky and landed an interview with my first application and 6+ months later, I'm still there. I guess I'm a success story in this unemployment story, but there are so many failures. It took me about six months to get my first job after college. After that, I just moved from one temp job to the next.

Since the start of the recession in March 2001, the average length of unemployment has risen to 20 weeks from 13.

CNN Money is running a story on the wackiest warning labes by The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch.

A toilet brush with a tag that says "Do not use for personal hygiene" has taken top prize for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year, according to an anti-lawsuit group.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health.

Lady recently told me about a lawsuit a women filed [have no idea when] against a contraception company after she applied contraceptive jelly onto a piece of toast and then ate it thinking that would work. To no suprise [to the 250+ million other residents of the United States], she got knocked up. I have no idea what happened to this lawsuit and I don't feel like looking it up because it is so stupid. I'm sure that company now clearly states the obvious on a warning labe.

So, now I read in the Chicago Tribune that lives could've been saved had there been a system in place in the Indian Ocean's rim countries. Such a system exists for the Pacific Ocean

For 40 years, governments around the Pacific Ocean have known the giant waves caused by massive undersea earthquakes could reach across thousands of miles of ocean and devastate coastal areas, and they had prepared accordingly.
…
Only after the first waves hit Sri Lanka did workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and others in Hawaii start making phone calls to American diplomats in Madagascar and Mauritius in an attempt to head off further disaster.

The U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka, Jeffrey J. Lunstead, called Hawaii for more information.

Military officials in the Pacific were called and asked to relay warnings to U.S. forces in the Indian Ocean.

"We didn't have a contact in place where you could just pick up the phone," Dolores Clark, a spokeswoman for the International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii, said Monday.
…
In the Indian Ocean, there is a far less extensive history of tsunamis and no such warning system. Only three of the countries that happened to be members of the Pacific alert system were warned–Australia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Illustration: AFP/Getty Images

More than 57,000 now is what I hear. It's really hard to read about all of this. I was feeling sick and really busy at work so I didn't read anything during the day, but just skimming the articles now just makes my heart sink.

Via CNN.com: here

The United Nations group UNICEF said Monday it was sending a team of experts to assess damage and how to mobilize relief to the region.

Mercy Corp, an international coalition of humanitarian agencies based in Portland, Oregon, also said it was accepting financial aid for tsunami victims.

Donations to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are being accepted at its Web site.

Doctors Without Borders said it is getting ready to bring help to the region. Its Web site also has a place to provide donations.

CARE said it also is assessing the situation and is "mounting an emergency response."

AmeriCares reports that it is sending relief shipments to Sri Lanka and other areas hit by the tsunamis.

From what I've read and seen, the count is somewhere between 9,000 and 13,000 as of right now.

Definitions from WikiPedia:
Tidal Wave / Tsunami
Earthquake

I have a college friend currently travelling in Thailand. I hope she's safe.

Does anyone know how we can help out?

Now doesn't that just make some logical sense? Shouldn't New York City receive more Homeland Security money than say, Cheyenne, WY? That wasn't the case in 2004, but it will in 2005. The NY Times reports that the Department of Homeland Security and its $3.5 Billion 2005 budget will allocate more grant money to larger cities, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Washingon included. I'm not sure if Philly was on the list, because I can't find the actual list on this internets. Perhaps on another internets lies the list.

Nevertheless…

But now, "second tier" cities like Albany, NY; Richmond, VA and Memphis, TN will recieve less money than they did in 2004. Yes, it's not right that their grant money will decrease, but should it have been as high as it was? Shouldn't NYC receive the $208M it will in 2005 opposed to the $47M it received in 2004? The per-capita breakdown of the 2004 allocation is just ludicrous. Per-capita, a Wyoming resident was receiving more than a New York resident.

The changes are two-pronged. First, more money will be given directly to cities, rather than to states. Second, the money will be doled out on a weighted scale to give larger cities larger chunks. Those larger cities have more people to account for and shouldn't they be allowed to protect those people? Why should a city be punished for being bigger?

I'm not saying that the smaller cities should be punished for being smaller now, just that the original system wasn't practical and lead to the outcries now.

Just what the Muslim community in Philadephia needs. Philly.com reports of a recent spree of robberies in West Philly by people wearing burkas.

There is quite a large Muslim presence in Philadelphia and I see women [or potential bank robbers] wearing burkas every day in every part of Philly. I'd hate to see them be persecuted even more than they already are as a result of these recent robberies.

I'm so fucking thrilled that W has his priorities straight.

"My New Year's resolution has become apparent after getting on the scales," Bush said. "I am — I'm a little overweight. Therefore, I fully intend to lose some inches off my waistline and some pounds off my frame."

Funny funny. She's got the whole package. She's smart, witty, sarcastic, ironic, poised, informed… the list goes on. What's not to like? I wonder if she sings too.

On the first day of Christmas,
my Rummy sent to me
a Saddam pigeon in a palm tree.
Not knowing Osama's address,
Rummy hastened to 'Potamia - and a mess,
exhorting his pal Cheney,
"Let's bomb Baghdad again, golly gee!"