at the urging of many colleagues, i read "nickle and dimed" earlier this year and found myself thinking, more than anything else "barbara ehrenreich is a snivling whiner who really ought to get a roommate and then she'd stop spending so much of her income on rent." having the luxury of not growing up broke, ms. Ehrenreich made numerous mistakes that I never made while living on $8,000 a year. The biggest two of which were 1) living alone, and 2) driving a car. I also found her book pandering -- like margaret meede coming down the amazon, here comes Ehrenreich, studying the poor people, knowing that they'll never be able to appreciate opera, polysyllabolic words, dickens, and heated towel racks. She really let me down when she had to confide in her wallmart co-workers that she really wasn't rabble like them, no, she was researching a book.
And her attempts at starting a union at walmart (where a union might do some good) wasn't more than lip service. Having lived on walmart wages (actually walden book wages) for a long time I wasn't as impressed with Nickle and Dimed as a lot of other people seem to be.
Just my .02
kc
-----Original Message-----
From: Marni Sweet [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 3:35 PM
To: Ben Rhoades; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [UC] striking at strikes ....
I encourage all of you who are thinking about union or non and minimum vs. living wages, particularly as they relate to Wal-Mart, to read Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
