> Exactly. The '92 election was in part about that. It was the time of
> the Angry White Man. There was that Michael Douglas movie - Falling
> Down was it? It's amazing we're not getting more of this right now in
> fact.
>
> Doug
========================
[Instead of Michael Douglas we have 'the new Stoicism.']
One-Time Lawyer Finds Job Hopes Riding on E-Mail
By David Finkel Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 29, 2003; Page A01
First in a series of occasional articles
NEWARK, Ohio
Monday begins with good news, exactly the opposite of what Stuart Adkins has come to expect.
"Congratulations," the e-mail Adkins is reading starts off, and that first word alone is enough to flood him with an emotion he hasn't felt in nearly two years. Later, he will describe it. "Jubilation," he will say. But for now, he reads what comes next -- "on successfully advancing to Level 2 of the Trade Chief Assessment" -- and sits, just sits, overcome.
A 38-year-old single man, Adkins represents what in Washington is the political issue of what to do about the more than 9 million Americans who are either jobless or underemployed and an economy that has been described as "slow" and "adrift." In Newark, Ohio, though, Adkins is simply one of the sadder stories around.
Once a lawyer, he lost his job in June 2001 when his company downsized because of the worsening economy, and has seen his life collapse. He has exhausted his savings and retirement. He had to sell his house and the 40 acres he lived on and everything else he owned except a car, a bed, two chairs, a laptop computer and a TV. It took 18 months to find the part-time job he has now, which, to add to the sting, is at the local unemployment office helping people find jobs. He works in a cubicle that belongs to a woman on extended sick leave. The family pictures are hers. The decorations are hers. The bottle of water is his, and the day planner, and that's it. That's what two years have brought.
[snip] He remembers, too, the day last November when Adkins, selling the place, had an auction. He didn't go, but he imagines if he had he would have seen a man at a low point of his life.
'Selling It for Next to Nothing' "I was extremely arrogant," Adkins says. "If I went by somebody without a job, it was, 'Hey, loser.' "
It is Monday night now -- still no word -- and Adkins is describing who he was on the day before he lost his job.
"In business, I was a bastard. My way or the highway. It was all hardball. Everything was money-driven.
"Work hard, set your goal, attain your goal, move on to the next goal, that was life. From goal to goal to goal. I was invincible. I'd never failed."
By the day of the auction, though, he was convinced he would never succeed again.
Item after item, there went his life. His farm equipment. His truck. His furniture.
"Not just having to sell it," he says, "but selling it for next to nothing."
On top of that, the weather couldn't have been worse.
"Rain. Snow. Sleet. Wind. You thought the whole universe was against you."
Even worse, the weather kept his mother and sister from coming, which meant they couldn't help him fill a contractual obligation of the auction to sell food to those in attendance, which meant that was how Adkins spent his last hours on his property.
"On the porch, selling hot dogs," he says. "It was pathetic."
full at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45824-2003Jun28.html