The Dead and the Dying

The last couple of days have presented us with ample reminders that those who are not already dead are busy dying.

The most obvious example of the former comes to us from my neck of the woods — yesterday's mass shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. The Killeen Daily Herald today provides eyewitness accounts of the carnage that claimed — by current counts — 13 lives.

Granted, Fort Hood is about a two–hour drive from Dallas, but that's like a stroll in the park, by Texas standards.

A resolution appears to be on the verge of passing the House that will honor those who were killed. Hopefully, the death toll will not rise, but 30 other people were injured and all but two had to be hospitalized. The victims who remain hospitalized today are listed in stable condition so there is reason to believe no one else will die, but complications have been known to occur.

Well, if anything good can be said about those 13 deaths, it would be that they were quick. For the long–term jobless in America, a quick demise would be preferable to the slow agony they are experiencing.

And the agony continues. The Labor Department reported today that unemployment has exceeded 10% in America.

Perhaps in anticipation of that development, perhaps in reaction to Tuesday's elections, Congress approved an extension of unemployment benefits that Barack Obama was scheduled to sign into law today.

I have to admit that the timing seems suspect to me. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been losing their benefits in the last several months, while the Democrats have been obsessing over health care reform. Then Democrats lose two governorships — and a couple of days later, the Democrats in Congress approve a benefits extension.

Paul Krugman writes, in the New York Times, that "economic policy is starting to look like [Obama's] Anzio" because he was too cautious in his approach.

This benefit extension may seem like a bold move to some. And, as one of the long–term unemployed, I appreciate these crumbs that Obama and the Democrats in Congress are tossing to us. But I feel that they are treating a symptom when it is a disease that is killing us.