Wednesday's Daily Brief

Wednesday, August 31, 2011 Arianna Huffington: What Hurricane Irene Can Teach Us About the Jobs Crisis Arianna Huffington: The response to Hurricane Irene showed that when the media devote wall-to-wall attention to something, and government officials bring a sense of urgency and ask the public to respond in kind, remarkable things can happen. The question is: why do we reserve this kind of collective action for natural disasters and external attacks? The fact is, we have another crisis that's been hovering over the entire United States for almost three years now and shows no signs of blowing over. The numbers -- including over 25 million unemployed or underemployed Americans -- should be just as scary as the ones that have dominated our national conversation about Irene. With the toll that the job crisis is taking on the lives of millions of people in this country -- from college graduates who can't get jobs to middle class families being thrown out of their homes -- this is a category 5 disaster. BUSINESS 'Recession Forever': For The Long-Term Unemployed, Fading Hold On Middle Class TECHNOLOGY Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi Agree On Massive Merger WORLD U.S. Slaps New Sanctions On Syria POLITICS $60 Billion Of War Funds Completely Wasted GREEN East Coast Faces Flood Dangers BLOG POSTS Robert Reich: Rick Perry's Secret Plan to Save Blue States from the Red States Rick Perry's fight to save America from Washington would really save blue states from subsidizing red states. Perry, it turns out, is a closet liberal. Erica Heller: 'Catch-22' And The Waitress With Fruit In Her Ears Listening to Dee and my father having a conversation was like snaring front seats at the Sarcasm Olympics, with barbs and ripostes flying back and forth over the table, whizzing past your stuffed derma like torpedoes. Gabrielle Bernstein: The Path to Finding True Success As a devoted Spirit Junkie and student of A Course in Miracles I've come to understand that Success is an inside job. When you struggle to "get power" you block your true power. David Valdes Greenwood: Do Ask, I'll Tell: Gay Parents and Back to School Time As the only two-dad family in an elementary school with almost 500 kids, we become the default face of same-sex parenting for some of the children and their caregivers. And that's OK -- when we filled out paperwork to adopt six years ago, we literally signed up for this. Laurie Israel: Prenups - Don't Lawyer Up, Mediate! Part I: "The Problem" The anger and hurt generated by the prenup process will always be remembered, and can weaken a marriage at the outset, even if the prenup gradually changes and becomes more balanced and narrowly drawn.

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