Tuesday November 11, 2008

It's Tuesday, a week after election day. I've been through all the emotions one could imagine. I've felt anger, sadness, depression, fear, worry, indignation, disbelief, you name it.

I am connected to a group of people who keep me hanging on. They are my lifeline. I still have hope, but it feels as though it is dimming and somewhat diminished. This is the life of a parent who happens to have a child who is developmentally and physically disabled. I also have Hope because of the President-elect Barack Obama, Hope that he can fulfill promise to our children. Hope for a future beyond my years that his adult life will be bright and meaningful, but safe and not neglected.

Planning for my adult son's life is as uncertain as anything I have ever imagined. We are in an uncharted territory and the economy is even more daunting. I am reading "The War Against The Poor."...by Herbert J. Gans, subtitled..."The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy" "A prescient, clear-eyed analysis of American Social Policy."

From the Book are the following Reviews and go to:

http://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Poor-Underclass-Antipoverty/dp/0465019919

"The War Against the Poor should be required reading for the 1996 election." Jonathan Freedman, Washington Post Book World

"The War Against The Poor" may be a painful book to read, but we avoid it at our peril." Andrew Hacker, Author of Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal

"The arguments in this book demand our attention if we are to overcome the politics of blame and resume the effort to...humanize a market society out of control" Frances Fox Piven, co-author of regulating the poor: The functions of public welfare"

Herbert J. Gans, the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, is the author of numerous other books, including the Urban Villagers and The Livittowners. His writing has also appeared in The Nation,m the New York Times Magazine, and Dissent. A former president of the American Sociological Association, he recently received an award for "lifetime contributions to research" from it's urban section. By Basic Books A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers http://www.harpercollins.com

This is a tough read and it'll take me a while to get through it. It IS a painful read.