The Bush Boys

Magazine Man is the writer of one of my favorite blogs ( masthead.blogspot.com/.) This guy is a very talented and funny writer who was recently laid off from a rather popular magazine that is suffering from the recession. MM had been with this magazine for 6 plus years and was a deputy editor.

I did not leave a comment because over 80 people had all ready left comments. I had nothing new to add. However I did read all 80 comments. I guess what stunned me the most was the fact that most of the commenters were people who had also been laid off. Their stories touched me as much as his did. The positiveness of all these unemployed people was amazing. MM is not yet in the positive stage. He is still in the stunned and pissed off stage. However I am sure he is too talented not to be snapped up soon or to find an even better way to make a living for his family.


I am not oblivious to the headlines and have friends whose family members are facing the unemployment lines as we speak. I guess seeing that this large magazine is struggling and the many comments from others in the same boat, helped to put a face to the enormity of what we are facing. No one is immune. There is a lot of pain out there.


More and more this recession will claw into our own circle of family and friends. Unless they reduce Social Security benefits (which is not beyond possibility) I am faced with feeling survivor's guilt. Not much fun either. I guess the only thing keeping me from severe survivor guilt is that I was a victim of G.H.W. Bush in "93." My employer restructured me out of a job after 19 years as a 110% employee and forced really early retirement. I've also paid some dues.

Those Bush boys are tough on the economy. Little Bush has managed to provide a really bad recession( wonder when the "D" word will surface). Herbert Walker's was not quite so all encompassing.

I just hope you and yours are spared. If you are targeted, hope you are able to make lemonade out of these lemons. This too shall pass. I know it did for me in "93."


It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.----Harry S. Truman