50% of U. S. kids will use food stamps

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Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90% of black children will be on food stamps at some point during their childhood.

Economic woes stemming from the current recession will probably push those numbers higher. The report was based on analysis of data from 1968 to 1997.

For a family of four to be eligible, their take-home pay can't exceed about $22,000.

This info was released Monday, November 2 in the November issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Pediatrician Paul Wise, in an editorial in the same issue of the journal, wrote,

"The current recession is likely to generate for children in the United States the greatest level of material deprivation that we will see in our professional lifetimes.

"I find it terribly sad but not surprising."

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• The View From Their Recession (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
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Recession: Down Harley Street

Sometimes you just have to whistle!
Sometimes you just have to sing.

Down Harley Street

The butcher's boy whistles down Harley Street
Whistles out of a broken heart
His girl has jilted him
And the butcher sacked his job on the butcher's cart
No girl
No job
It isn't pretty that life is so rotten that once was sweet
The butcher's boy whistles down Harley Street

I worked on this song in high school, but I never performed it because there is a lovely whistling section, and I'm not a stellar whistler, The words have stayed with me and every once in a while they come to mind as being particularly pertinent.

Today job news has me down and I'm whistling.

from "Contemporary Art Songs: 28 songs by American and British composers"
Down Harley Street - Composed by: Charles Kingsford - Copyright 1942
Lyrics by BenjaminFrancis Musser