So this is what it feels like ...

As I write this, I am in the first week of my second year of unemployment.





This is very strange to me. From the time I got my first job in journalism in September 1979 until I was fired last January, I always worked. And I didn't just "work." In most cases and in most places, I was a valued employee.

In my entire career as a journalist, I was fired once.

Unfortunately, that came when I was 58 years old and the economy -- particularly in the newspaper business -- was terrible.

Now we're seeing unemployment soaring in almost every sector, and nearly everyone else losing a job is worse off than I am. I have a wife who has a great job; she makes more than 250 percent of the most I ever made as a journalist.

So while things have been a little tighter than usual -- fewer weekends in Las Vegas, for instance -- we have been blessed. We haven't missed out on anything that matters.

Still, I feel like crap. I've had exactly one job interview in 12 months, and that was for a job that wasn't really a great fit. I may never work for a paycheck again. I'm hopeful that the book I'm writing will sell and make up for that, but as I said, the only damage losing my job has done is to my self-esteem.

So many people have it worse. Our economy is a disaster, and all the Republicans can offer is more tax cuts for the wealthy.

I think it's time to make them irrelevant.

Time to get this country back to where it was, working for the middle class instead of the fat and bloated of the world.

It's probably too late for me, but I don't want my children and grandchildren living in Rush Limbaugh's America.

We need to get back to where we once belonged.