US – Sunday, September 5

Hurricane Earl bears down on East Coast
Hurricane Earl took aim at North Carolina on Thursday and is on track to lash its barrier islands with dangerous winds and pounding surf before cutting a path up the U.S. East Coast.A LONG, HOT AUTUMN
If you hear a distant fanfare this weekend as you huddle around the last barbecue of summer, chances are it is Labor Day signaling the start of the home stretch to the Congressional mid-term elections.  From here on out, we’ll see more ads, more posturing, more mudslinging, and great herds of political pundits thundering across the land with all the enthusiasm and grace of buffaloes in a rut.  And no one will be more aware of all that than a man whose name is not on any ballot, and yet has everything on the line: President Barack Obama.Oil sheen spreads from rig after fire
An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames on Thursday and unleashed a mile-long oil sheen into the Gulf of Mexico, in the region’s first major offshore disaster since BP’s oil spill began in April.‘Housewives’: The Beverly pill-billies?
Coming fresh off of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” reunion (did you all catch that horror show? One word: cray-cray) is the announcement that Bravo is set to release yet another Real Housewives franchise, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” next month.Didn’t I see that one already?
Hollywood loves a good formula, and this fall movie season is rife with tried-and-true plot setups that will give you deja vu.University City back in business
From Baltimore to Lancaster avenues and along Market Street in between, University City is abuzz from the arrivals of college students and professors back after summer vacation.Tiger losing, and so is his clothing line
Tiger Woods fans have put up with the philandering, the text messages and the domestic spats. Now comes what may be the hardest thing of all to tolerate: losing.‘Check out the moobs on that guy’
While breast-enhancing surgery has become almost a norm for American women, men are also heading to the plastic surgeon’s office more often — to have their man-boobs (moobs) removed. The very best in Cape Cod’s clam shacks
If you are what you eat, then most Cape Codders would be a clam — or maybe a lobster roll A land named for a type of fish should abound with chances to sample tasty seafood, and Cape Cod does not disappoint

‘I am good enough, I am smart enough ... ’
So you squandered an estate note on a bachelor’s degree, then trudged through more entry-level hardships and thankless internships than should be legally permissable, only to backslide into a self-esteem shattering, résumé-derailing grind, several tax brackets below your dignity. 

Neil deMause 

‘Get a job’ isn’t that easy

Say you’re a New Yorker, and you’re poor. You’re hardly alone: The latest figures show that close to one in four people in this city live without enough cash to afford basic needs, and it’s only likely to get worse as “finding a job” begins to seem like a relic of a quaint era, like buggy whips or analog cell phones. 

So what, then, does it take to get yourself back on your feet, and why are so many people unable to do so? In a report last week by the nonprofit Urban Justice Center, the jobless gave some answers. There was the woman who’d worked in a restaurant but had to quit “because I had to pay the babysitter more than I earned.” The woman who said she couldn’t register for job-training programs “because they’re in English and I don’t know English.” The people who couldn’t go and interview for jobs because they couldn’t afford interview clothes. Not to mention the woman who found a job as a home health aide — a success story at last! — and was now earning a grand total of $7.05 an hour. “I love my job,” she explained, but “what I’m earning is too little to pay rent and everything.” 

Then there’s Jillian Benjamin, who told me she’d begun studying to be a caterer like her mother back in Guyana, but was forced to quit her business management class because the city insisted that she enter its unpaid “Work Experience Program.”

“They had me collating applications, stapling and putting them in a box,” she said. “I don’t know what we can learn from that or put on our resume.” 

None of this should be rocket science: Anyone who lives in the real world — let alone who’s read Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” — should know it’s hard to get a job when you can’t afford a babysitter, or shoes for that matter. City leaders, though, still hold to the notion that with enough staplers, we can solve poverty. Maybe now that we’re all together in this same, leaky boat, we can get real: Without better-paying jobs, and more support like child care, saying “get to work” is no solution.

Neil deMause is a Brooklyn-based journalist and author. He can be contacted at demause.net and fieldofschemes.com.

Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions expressed on its pages. Opposing viewpoints are welcome. Please send 400-word submissions to letters@metro.us 

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