ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Jessica Schairer has so much in common with her boss, Chris Faulkner, that a visitor to the day care center they run might get them confused.
They are both friendly white women from modest Midwestern backgrounds who left for college with conventional hopes of marriage, motherhood and career. They both have children in elementary school. They pass their days in similar ways: juggling toddlers, coaching teachers and swapping small secrets that mark them as friends. They even got tattoos together. Though Ms. Faulkner, as the boss, earns more money, the difference is a gap, not a chasm.
But a friendship that evokes parity by day becomes a study of inequality at night and a testament to the way family structure deepens class divides. Ms. Faulkner is married and living on two paychecks, while Ms. Schairer is raising her children by herself. That gives the Faulkner family a profound advantage in income and nurturing time, and makes their children statistically more likely to finish college, find good jobs and form stable marriages.
Ms. Faulkner goes home to a trim subdivision and weekends crowded with children’s events. Ms. Schairer’s rent consumes more than half her income, and she scrapes by on food stamps.
“I see Chris’s kids — they’re in swimming and karate and baseball and Boy Scouts, and it seems like it’s always her or her husband who’s able to make it there,” Ms. Schairer said. “That’s something I wish I could do for my kids. But number one, that stuff costs a lot of money and, two, I just don’t have the time.”
The economic storms of recent years have raised concerns about growing inequality and questions about a core national faith, that even Americans of humble backgrounds have a good chance of getting ahead. Most of the discussion has focused on labor market forces like falling blue-collar wages and lavish Wall Street pay.
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FlightAware: Live Flight Tracking “FlightAware provides live flight data, airport information, fuel prices, FBO reservations, weather maps, flight planning, and navigation charts, as well as aviation news and photos to over two million users a month via the FlightAware.com web site as well as mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7.”
Every 11 years, solar activity surges. The sunspots that pepper the sun explode, hurtling massive clouds of gas known as “CMEs” through the solar system. This is called “solar maximum.” – Provided by RandomHistory.com
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Sordid trade in the ‘summer brides’: Arab tourists are ‘buying underage Egyptian sex slaves’ to serve them for just a few months’
Wealthy tourists from the Persian Gulf are paying to marry under-age Egyptian girls just for the summer, according to a report.
These temporary marriages are not legally binding and end when the men return to their homes in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
The tourists pay a ‘dowry’ to poor families through intermediaries with prices ranging from £320 to £3,200.
The young victims – some under 18 – suffer sexual slavery and are forced to be servants to their ‘husbands’, claims the U.S. State Department report ‘Trafficking in Persons’.
No foreigner can marry an Egyptian girl if there is an age difference of 10 years, according to state laws. But parents and marriage brokers are getting round the restriction.
They will forge birth certificates to make the girls appear older and the men younger. In 2009, a court in Alexandria jailed two registrars for conducting temporary marriages of hundreds of girls under 18.
Sex before marriage is banned under Islamic law and most hotels and landlords demand proof before allowing a couple to share the same room.
But the report found that many parents will marry their daughter without her consent and often the girls agree to the arrangement because their families have no money.
Some of the victims are taken back to their husband’s country to work as maids while those left in Egypt are shunned by the conservative society – particularly if they have children during their temporary marriage.
The shame leads many of the girls to dump these youngsters in orphanages or abandon them with thousands of other Egyptian street children.Many of these ‘brides’ are also targeted by Egyptian men and forced into prostitution.
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One lifeguard at Brooklyn’s McCarren Park Pool is wishing he had self-defence training after his workplace has become a brawling hot-spot for violent teenagers.
Lifeguards at New York City’s largest public pool, which re-opened last month after 28 years and a $50 million revamp, struggle to keep order over gangs of aggressive teenagers.
In an interview with the New York Post, one of the pool’s 30 lifeguards has admitted to running off ‘pure adrenaline’ when a gang of teenagers attacked him and his colleagues just a day after the pool’s opening.
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A new foothold for Islamist militants –photo gallery
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Goebbels photo bombs Hitler. Date unknown
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Honey Hunters : Eric Valli
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Matchmaker’s App Helps People Ditch Bad Dates
The online dating service eHarmony is best known for getting people together, but now it’s helping them ditch dates too. The site recently launched the Bad Date Rescue app, a free iPhone application that lets users prearrange a fake phone call that will give them an excuse to duck out of a date early, if they so desire. Users are able to choose what number from their address book will appear on the phone’s screen when the “call” is coming through as well as what excuse, such as a work emergency or a leaky pipe at home, the voice on the other end will give for the call. There is even a quick rescue feature that can prompt a call within minutes if necessary.
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Marilyn Monroe – Date Unknown
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1652 coffee advertisement– yep, 1652!
The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink.
First publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosée.
THE Grain or Berry called Coffee, groweth upon little Trees, only in the Deserts of Arabia.
It is brought from thence, and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seigniors Dominions.
It is a simple innocent thing, composed into a drink, by being dryed in an Oven, and ground to Powder, and boiled up with Spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an hour before and not Eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any Blisters, by reason of that Heat.
The Turks drink at meals and other times, is usually Water, and their Dyet consists much of Fruit, the Crudities whereof are very much corrected by this Drink.
The quality of this Drink is cold and Dry; and though it be a Dryer, yet it neither heats, nor inflames more than hot Posset.
It forcloseth the Orifice of the Stomack, and fortifies the heat with- [missing text] its very good to help digestion, and therefore of great use to be [missing text] bout 3 or 4 a Clock afternoon, as well as in the morning.
vintage_ads: 1652 coffee advertisement– yep, 1652!.
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Tuna auction inspector at world’s biggest wholesale fish market- Tsukiji Market, Tokyo
VIA.
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District of Columbia Established as US Capital (This day in 1790)
Adopted in 1787, the US Constitution allowed for the establishment of a capital city that could govern itself, but it did not stipulate a location. While it was agreed that the capital should not be in any one state, its placement was hotly debated. In 1790, Congress struck a compromise between the North and South, establishing a capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was chosen by President George Washington. District residents were unable to vote in presidential elections until when?
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Originally posted 2012-07-16 09:54:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter