Jan. 19, 2010 The Washington Post today reported that the crush of those seeking public services has so far exceeded the district’s ability to process applications that some have been forced to spend day after day waiting in line. It is a far cry from the near mob scene in Detroit last October when thousands [...]

Dec. 15, 2009 It is not a good time to be a teenager looking for a job. While the unemployment rate in the United States was at 10 percent for November 2009, some 26.7 percent of teenagers were unemployed in that same time period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The month prior saw [...]

Dec. 10, 2009 Today President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. He accepts this honor just over a week after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of roughly $30 billion. Besides the obvious question as to how a man who has expanded two wars could have received [...]

Day 92–Oct. 3 (rest in Aurora, OH   0.0 miles) For the first time in my life I join the ranks of the unemployed. The paperwork involved is baffling. The hoops I must jump through for an unacceptably-low unemployment check are insulting. Even in the best of the time jobs are not plentiful in the news [...]

Day 88–Sept. 29 (Youngstown, OH –  Warren, OH, 8.8 miles) It has been a generation since steel manufacturing jobs left the region. Many living in western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana can remember family members working in the steel mills or perhaps worked there themselves. At it’s peak in the 1940s more than half a million [...]

Day 84–Sept. 25 (Baden, PA-Beaver Falls, PA, 10.8 miles) Twenty miles to the north of Pittsburgh the town of Aliquippa is perhaps the most run-down town I have seen in my life. Many of its buildings are abandoned and drug dealers and prostitutes run rampant. I was warned against visiting the town. I was told [...]

Day 26–July 29, 2009 (rest in Pittsburgh, 0.0 miles) Since I began my walk not a month ago I have climbed mountains and walked beside farm fields. I have met amazing and generous people and made lifelong friends. I’ve walked through impoverished communities and been touched as those with almost nothing pulled money out of [...]

Day 8–July 11, 2009 (rest in McConnellsburg, PA, 0.0 miles) JLG Industries is one of the largest employers in McConnellsburg. The company recently gained a government contract to build armored vehicles, which will mean more jobs in a region that sorely needs them. But while it may bring jobs, it will do nothing towards creating a [...]