Delicious Black Bean & Turkey Chili
From my good friend Davis Farnsworth, this is a wonderful dish, especially on a cold wet day like today. Read more [...]
The Cost of Long-Term Unemployment
More and more studies are appearing about what happens to people who are unemployed for a long time. The universal consensus is that very real psychological damage results when someone is unable to find work after several months. What is particularly sobering about this research is that the damage can be lifelong and often includes significantly reduced income for years or even decades afterward. Read more [...]
It May Be a Job, But It’s Gotta Pay
It's common knowledge that jobs ain't what they used to be. Just because someone creates a new job doesn't mean that it actually replaces one of the many jobs shipped offshore or otherwise eliminated for American workers. In other words, one new job will not be enough to provide for one worker's income. More and more a family needs two jobs to make up for a lost job. Read more [...]
Taking a New Approach to Housing the Homeless
A remarkable story about "Housing First", a program for getting the most vulnerable homeless people into housing with no strings attached. Read more [...]
A Nifty Tool to Ease Health Care Expenses
Even if your company doesn’t make much money (and mine doesn’t), you can start to write off expenses associated with the work you do. One of the most useful write-offs I get through my company is through my Healthcare Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA). Read more [...]
Meditations on the Abyss at the Urgent Care Clinic
I was sitting at my computer when I was hit by a sudden headache. It came on within seconds; the worst headache I’d ever had. Exquisite, excruciating pain; to borrow from Gibson’s Neuromancer, “…pain beyond anything to which the name of pain is given.†A quick Google search served to suggest that this could be very serious and I needed to see someone right away. Read more [...]
Taking Care of Yourself
Two interesting items have been in the news lately. One is the move by Blue Shield of California to raise their premiums by 59% and blowing off calls by the California Insurance Commissioner to hold off Read more [...]
What the Health Care Reform Debate Means When You’re Unemployed
{Health care is] the one area where "they" have you by the throat. If you can't deal with something with home care and over-the-counter drugs, or find sufficient help at a local free clinic and can't pay for "real" care, you're screwed. Read more [...]