Bunning relents but damage likely done

Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky finally came to his senses tonight. Read the latest. It may be too little too late for some unemployed folks because the deadline for a seamless continuation of funding was missed due to Bunning's one-man blockade. Combined with the timing of when certain people were scheduled to move into a new tier and the state in which they reside, further payments might be delayed for days, weeks or months. A percentage of jobless people who would have otherwise qualified for continuation of payments if last Friday's deadline was met, may have some problems restarting the process. Because I am one of those people, I will report back on this saga next week.

At the very least, Mr. Bunning has created a lot of anxiety for thousands of Virginians who might have received a similar "bye" notice to the one I got in the mail today from the Virginia Employment Commission -- an agency that still has not returned my calls or answered my e-mails. If payments do not resume for a percentage of us, Bunning will have done more damage than the mainstream media will probably report.

It's been clear to me that most news folks are missing the important nuances and magnitude of this sometimes surreal story. There has been a fair amount of editorial commentary about Bunning's cruel stunt but little analysis about what it really means for average folks caught in the most complex part of this political web. In fact, the media hasn't done a good job in general of covering the unemployment problem in this country. They report the data released by the government, but I don't see much challenging of those statistics that fail to portray the whole picture. I don't see much interpretation of what unemployment means to society, let alone the diversity of individuals facing financial extinction. In a year in which many politicians, including President Obama, all but ignored growing unemployment issues, where was the media?

An interesting side note to this mess... Diane Sawyer led with the Bunning story on the ABC network news Tuesday night. Meanwhile, Brian Williams of NBC barely made mention of it late in his newscast. Think I will be watching Diane Sawyer from now on. What kind of news judgment does Williams have? Pushing a story that impacts millions of Americans to a 20-second blurb? Is he kidding? No wonder Sawyer's ratings have risen since she has taken over at ABC. Kudos to ABC for chasing down Bunning and airing his classless outbursts and thoughtless actions.

Thoughts on a Saturday morning

I suspect that Saturday is the best day of the week for the unemployed. It's a day in which one can feel less freakish. Most of the world isn't working. There are cars in driveways and apartment parking lots during the daytime. There are fewer people walking around in suits or business-casual garb. No company ID badges on display in coffee shops or at the gas pumps. It's easier to slip into denial on Saturdays. Easier to escape. Reminders of reality lose a bit of their sharp edge.

However, all is not perfect for the unemployed on Saturdays. My wife and I don't do the things we did pre-layoff. No long drives that eat up gasoline. No fancy restaurants. No splurging at the mall or buying drinks for friends. We get our DVD rentals from Red Box ($1.00 per night). No more strolling through Blockbuster. No more checking out the new releases in Best Buy. These small sacrifices now will hopefully prevent us from taking up residence under a highway overpass in the future.

Unemployment not only impacts jobless folks, it impacts spouses, friends, businesses and the economy in general. That is why it is so important for our political leaders to focus on getting people back to work. Until unemployment rates are lowered, the economy will never fully recover. I also suspect that crime will get worse and homelessness, particularly among folks my age, will increase. And if anyone thinks they are immune to these problems because they live in more affluent areas like Northern Virginia or Southern California, think again.

If I was the news director for NBC Nightly News, I would make the unemployment situation a regular part of each evening's newscast in order to pressure politicians into helping businesses create jobs -- real jobs, not just contrived highway repair projects or gushy government positions. Instead, we get Michael Jackson updates every night. Does Brian Williams have a clue as to the fact that the unemployment problem is far worse than the statistics show? Are major network news anchors so out of touch with reality and so rich that they have lost all sense of priorities and news judgment?

I try to turn my brain off to these issues on Saturdays. Today I am going to play music with friends and take a walk with my spouse. Unemployment is somehow making me fatter, so I have to walk more often. Tomorrow we'll go to the farmer's market. Sundays aren't quite as good as Saturdays, only because for many years I worked on Sundays.

I still haven't gotten use to being home on Sundays. There is a different stride to Sundays. Folks slow down. By evening, many people are prepping themselves for another work week. Some get the Monday morning blues on Sunday night. I feel the pressure of another week beginning, but for far different reasons now.

My cat, Jebbles, wants me to stop blogging now and take him out in the backyard. Another Saturday ritual that's good for the soul. His priorities are to hunt down a bird or chase a butterfly. He never catches anything. I admire his never giving up, though. He boils life down to the simplest of pleasures and tasks. Probably a lesson in there for many of us to learn from.