SPECIAL REPORT!: Feds now admits to storing naked body images from full body X-ray scanners

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) A few months ago, I first wrote about the TSA's naked body scanners and how it could allow Big Brother to view and store pictures of your naked body (plus the naked bodies of your children, too). At that time, my story was met with a reaction of derision from a few people outside the usual NaturalNews readership who said my story was nothing but "paranoia" and that the government had promised it would never record or store full body scan images. The very equipment used to view the body scans was incapable of storing those images, we were told. (These loons apparently think governments never lie...)

Well, as much as I hate to say, "I told ya so," it turns out I was right (and so was Alex Jones and others who spoke out against the TSA's naked body scanners). As reported today by Declan McCullagh from CNET, "The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse." (http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-2...)

That same story points to a recently released document (http://epic.org/privacy/airtravel/b...) proving that the TSA actually requires its equipment to be able to record and store naked body images. This, despite the fact that the TSA publicly stated, "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded." It turns out they were flat-out lying.

So now we have an admission by the TSA that their equipment is, in fact, capable of storing these naked body images. On top of that, we have an admission that federal agents used that same technology to scan tens of thousands of people while secretly saving those images, too.

More naked body scanners coming to U.S. airports

Just two weeks ago, by the way, Big Sis Janet Napolitano announced that these full body scanners would be installed in nearly every major U.S. airport. So get ready have your private parts scanned and recorded by TSA agents, because that's what could be coming soon to an airport near you.

Another fascinating twist in this story concerns the current location of the more than 35,000 naked body scan images stored on the machine used at a federal courthouse. The machine was apparently returned to the manufacturer. This means the company that makes the full body scanners now reportedly possesses 35,000+ pictures showing the nude bodies of American citizens whose images were scanned and recorded without their knowledge!

"TSA is not being straightforward with the public about the capabilities of these devices," said Electronic Privacy Information Center executive director Marc Rotenberg (in the CNET story). "This is the Department of Homeland Security subjecting every U.S. traveler to an intrusive search that can be recorded without any suspicion -- I think it's outrageous."

Balancing security with privacy

Now, certainly we probably need some level of security in our airports. I'm not disagreeing with that premise. There are some bad people in the world who will try to do ugly things in order to prove a point. But magnetometers (metal detector) work just fine, and even a pat-down is less intrusive than a naked image body scanner. Personally, I would much rather submit to a pat-down than a naked body scan.

The more important issue here is that our own government has been lying to us about all this. They said these machines could not record images, and now we find out they could record all along. This worsens the privacy violations by adding a level of deceit. Now how can we trust that other full body scanners aren't also recording images?

The truth is, we can't.

And besides, as I suggested before, there's one really good way to make sure we're safe in the air. I call it "Armed Airlines." We should have the choice of an airline where everybody is armed. You have to pack a firearm and a concealed carry license (or a police badge or military ID) just to board the plane. No terrorist or troublemaker in his right mind would dare pull anything on that flight -- not with 250 other passengers armed, too.

I would gladly join that flight, and I'd sleep like a baby. Why? Because it would be the safest airplane in the sky. I also know quite a few airline pilots who would gladly pilot those flights, and they'd have their own firearms on the flight control deck, too.

Because right now, what we really have is a nation of disarmed airlines where nobody can carry firearms except Federal Air Marshals. They're good guys, but there just aren't enough of them to go around. I'd like to see "Armed Airlines" flying. And besides, Armed Airlines would be the only flights guaranteed not to have screaming babies sitting right behind you.NaturalNews Article to Harmful Body Scanners

SPECIAL REPORT!: Mancow Discusses Pharmaceuticals Being Added to Water Supplies on The Alex Jones Show

The Alex Jones Channel
Aug 5, 2010
Popular radio host Mancow also joins the show to discuss pharmaceuticals being added to water supplies.
http://www.mancow.com/site
http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.tv/

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SPECIAL REPORT!: Lawsuit challenges airport full-body scanners

The Boston Globe
Lawsuit challenges airport full-body scanners
By Katie Johnston Chase
Globe Staff / August 4, 2010


A privacy advocacy group is suing the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of the controversial full-body scanners employed at airports across the country, including at every major checkpoint at Logan International Airport.


The machines, which use X-rays or radio frequency energy to detect weapons and explosives beneath passengers’ clothing, have been much criticized because of privacy concerns.

In the lawsuit, filed last month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the slightly blurred but accurate pictures of passengers’ naked bodies produced by the machines are the equivalent of a “digital strip search.’’

The suit says the program, run by the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, violates the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

The program also violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the lawsuit says, referencing religious laws about modesty.

Court documents allege the scanners also violate the Fourth Amendment by having passengers undergo “a uniquely invasive search without any suspicion that particular individuals have engaged in wrongdoing.’’

The TSA declined to comment on the lawsuit, but spokesman Greg Soule said the agency is exploring “additional privacy protections through automated threat detection.’’

Currently, an image is created for every person who goes through the scanner. The agent with the passenger never sees his or her image, and the agent viewing the image never sees the passenger.

Travelers can opt to have a pat-down and a metal detector screening instead.

The TSA is working with technology companies to develop software that would show a generic paper-doll-like figure instead of an actual image of a passenger’s body — and transmit images only when a threat is detected.

The TSA plans to keep the current scanners in place until less invasive software is available.

This will not solve the privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, because the images of travelers’ naked bodies are still being captured by the machine.

“We think the privacy safeguards are mostly fiction,’’ said Rotenberg, adding that a congressional investigation is underway to review the scanners.

According to the TSA, the scanners’ ability to store images is used for testing purposes only and is disabled before they are installed in airports.

“There is no way for someone in the airport environment to put the machine into the test mode,’’ Soule said.

Officials at Logan International lobbied for the airport to be the first to have the full-body scanners installed. The TSA aims to deploy as many as 450 machines this year — adding to the 50 that were already in place at airports around the country — following the attempted terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. And Logan is now pushing to be the first to implement the less invasive scanning software.

“When this technology is available, we want to be the first airport to put this in so we can take the privacy issues off the table,’’ said Edward Freni, director of aviation at Logan.

Freni said that no privacy concerns from Logan passengers had been brought to his attention. But one of the petitioners in the lawsuit is Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis security technologist who said that while he was traveling through Logan Airport he was not told the full-body scan was optional. Nor did he see any signs indicating he could have a pat-down.

Ralph Nader’s Center for Study of Responsive Law has also weighed in on the full-body scanners, raising questions about privacy and safety.

And a group of University of California San Francisco scientists wrote to President Obama’s science adviser in April, stating that the dose of radiation from the X-ray scanners may be “dangerously high.’’

The scanner X-ray emits the same amount of radiation that a passenger receives in two minutes of flight, according to the TSA, but the scientists say this is misleading because the scanner X-rays are not distributed throughout the whole body, but are directed at just the skin and the underlying tissue.

There are also questions about the effectiveness of the scanners, which critics say may not be able to detect explosives hidden in body cavities.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to expand the full-body scanner program to more airports.

Currently, 157 full-body scanners are in use at 43 airports; by the end of the year nearly 500 are planned to be in place.

Next year, 500 more machines are scheduled to be installed.

Katie Johnston Chase can be reached at johnstonchase@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

SPECIAL REPORT!: Brain Eating Vaccines: The Reality Behind The “Conspiracy Theory”

Wired Magazine hit piece attempts to debunk legitimate concerns about agenda to chemically lobotomize general public through vaccines, water supply

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
UPDATED WITH PERSONAL STATEMENT BY ALEX JONES
Wired Magazine writer Jonah Lehrer has labeled concerns that vaccines which alter brain chemistry and induce states of “focused calm” could be abused by governments to create lobotomized, servile populations as delusional, paranoid, and idiotic conspiracy theories, despite the fact that major mental health professionals are already pushing for lithium to be introduced into water supplies as a means of mass medicating against “mood disorders”.
Lehrer, an Oxford University graduate and a Rhodes Scholar, brazenly calls Alex Jones a liar in his article today after Jones put out a You Tube video in which he warned that new vaccines designed to reduce stress and neutralize people’s anger could lead to a nightmare THX 1138 scenario, in which the population is controlled and subjugated through the use of special drugs to suppress emotion.
Jones also encouraged listeners to Google search the words “brain eating vaccines,” causing the term to rise to the number 1 position on Google Trends for August 3rd.

In the video, Jones makes the point that vaccines being proposed by people like Robert Sapolsky to impose a state of “focused calm” by altering brain chemistry, as well as shots aimed at curbing drug and cigarette addictions, fit the very definition of being “brain eating” because they fundamentally rewire the brain and shut down innate processes that naturally produce stress, anxiety and aggression – which are all necessary human traits vital to survival and healthy mental functioning.

Eat like a king, stock up at eFoodsDirect today!

Many vaccines contain the preservative thimerosol, a compound derived from mercury. As the video below from the University of Calgary demonstrates, mercury is a potent neurotoxin and causes neurodegeneration, altering the very structure of the brain. The U.S. government has been forced to admit that childhood vaccines preserved with thimerosol have contributed to the explosion in autism cases in the United States.

Lehrer unwittingly exposes his bias tactic to label legitimate concerns surrounding these vaccines as mythical fantasies when he claims that plans by governments to artificially add lithium to the water supply are in fact “idiotic conspiracy theories”.
Perhaps Lehrer can explain why Professor Allan Young of Vancouver’s Institute for Mental Health told the BBC that “Large-scale trials involving the addition of lithium to drinking water supplies may…be feasible,” following claims that lithium led to a reduction in the number of suicides in Japan and helped to alleviate “mood disorders”. It’s hardly an “idiotic conspiracy theory” when one of Canada’s foremost mental health professionals is calling for its potential implementation, is it Mr. Lehrer?
Lehrer also includes a lengthy passage from a separate blog which scoffs at people who are worried about authorities attempting to “sterilize and/or pacify their populations through drugs in their water supplies”.
Apparently, if you are concerned about brain eating vaccines then you’re also stupid enough to think that powerful men in positions of influence have publicly called for the population to be mass medicated against their will by means of sterilants in the water supply.
Presumably then we should take a shot of Robert Sapolsky’s anti-stress vaccine and not concern ourselves with the trivial fact that Barack Obama’s top science czar John P. Holdren advocated in his own textbook Ecoscience that a “planetary regime” should employ a “global police force” to enforce totalitarian measures of population control, including forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply, as well as mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children.
Neither should the fact that Holdren reiterated these talking points as recently as 2006 be a topic of consternation, and anyone who makes reference to it is obviously just engaging in another “delusional rant,” to use Lehrer’s term.
Indeed, Lehrer’s own fellow Oxford luminary Julian Savulescu, in a 2008 white paper, called for populations to be mass-medicated through pharmacological ‘cognitive enhancements’ added to the water supply.
Of course, this is not the first time that we’ve warned against the dangers of vaccines and been proven right, despite being attacked as delusional conspiracy theorists for doing so at the time. The same claims were made about the H1N1 vaccine when Alex Jones and other leading alternative researches identified the ‘pandemic’ hype as a hoax to sell vaccine stocks and impose an untested formula created with cancer cells- now Wolfgang Wodarg at the Council of Europe has exposed that it was a false panic deliberately-fueled by WHO officials and vaccine industry representatives.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
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Lehrer’s paltry rebuttal, which consists mainly of playground insults and strawman invocations, is perhaps best answered by the readers of his article, the vast majority of whom express their vehement disagreement.
“After reading this article and then watching the Alex Jones well documented video there is no question who is telling the truth and it is most certainly not the author of this article. Major failure Jonah,” writes one, pointing out that Lehrer refuses to even link directly to Jones’ You Tube video, probably because he is unable to debunk Jones’ exhaustively documented analysis about the threat posed by brain-altering vaccines.
“All you did was prove Alex Jones right,” writes another. “That’s what is sad here…you’re not an intellectual. Your a hypocrite with a weak ass puff piece that does nothing to prove Alex Jones wrong but just attacks his character”.
“A vaccine to alleviate stress. Only a domesticated drugged mind could not see the danger in that and then to attack someone who does see danger in it!” points out another.
“I’m an RN, and one of the reasons I am leaving this profession is the vaccine/autism issue. Look into the history of eugenics, and govt testing on unwitting human subjects, and tell me that Alex Jones and the questioning public he serves are “paranoid.” Look at the history of the twentieth century and tell me that governments would never treat their own citizens in this way. Lithium additives to the water supply ARE being proposed, ostensibly as a way to lower the suicide rate. Sodium Floride WAS used by the Nazis to make jewish populations more docile. The CDC and the corporate mainstream media urged pregnant mothers and children to use the flu shot last season, assuring them it was safe, and deriding the “paranoid conspiracy theorists” who warned against it – and I myself, in administering it, read the package insert which clearly stated “The safety of this vaccine for use with pregnant women and children has not been evaluated.” This is about money and power. Give yourself an education in both before you join the simian hooting against “liars” and “paranoids” that follows fact-challenged ad hominem attacks such as the above article,” concludes another commenter.
A parent whose child had an auto-immune response, Kindarad75, also backed-up Alex’s claims with personal knowledge: “I know for a fact that Alex Jones is right,my son who is 6 yrs old now had the all in one shot when he was 18 months and in the middle of the night he ran a 104 temp and I couldn’t get it down took him to the ER finally got it down..He woke up in the morning not being able to talk babble or even make eye contact..Mind you he was fine before the shots, he has Autism now!!! Thanks to those shoots…He is getting a bunch of help but will never be the same!!!”ASrrggggggg this pisses me off to no end I also have a teenage son with ADHD and epilepsy you tell me these shoots are good??? you are the liar NOT Alex Jones!!!
Jonah Lehrer has been publicly invited to appear on The Alex Jones Show to defend his claim that “Alex Jones is a liar” on the subject of brain eating vaccines. Watch this space to see if he accepts the challenge, or if he continues to hide behind sophomoric jibes and strawman arguments.
The following statement by Alex Jones was submitted to the Wired website but never appeared in the comments section in response to Lehrer’s hit piece.

Lehrer,
This is Alex Jones publicly challenging you to appear on my radio show and face the music. You know full-well that my video quotes the New York Times, top bioethicists and major medical associations calling for Lithium to be added to the drinking water in order to “calm the public.” In the “Brain Eating Vaccines” video, I talk about multiple classes of live viruses (so-called “vaccines”) that travel to the brain and destroy receptor sites. Many of them deal with “curing drug addictions.” There are also many “stress vaccines” currently being developed. But of course you already know of this; this is your field, after all. It’s clear you were counting on what you perceived as the ignorance of your readers.
The good news, however, is that more than 90% of your readers’ comments see through the dumbed-down pap you shoveled at them for what it really is: condescending, arrogant control-freakism. British newspapers are now reporting that the government has suspended the H1N1 vaccine to under fives because of its ten-fold increase in violent seizures. So many people have died or have been irrevocably damaged by vaccines that now their surviving family and friends are joining together to investigate the crimes of Big Pharma and take action against the neo-eugenicist servants of death. The Rhodes Scholarship was founded by Cecil Rhodes to develop a covert plan for world government. But you already know that, being a Rhodes Scholar.
The truth is, Jonah, you’re going to lose. More and more people see you and your cohorts for what you are, and you and your brethren will all be brought to justice. Stop trying to “improve” us with your GMO garbage, and get the hell out of our lives, you parasite. Check your email for our contact information. You threw down the gauntlet; let’s see if you’re man enough to meet head-to-head.”

Weekly Claims Show Surprise Gain in Wobbly Jobs Market

By: Reuters 

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, government data showed on Thursday, underscoring a weak labor market and the fragile economic recovery.

Getty Images

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 479,000 in the week ended July 31, the Labor Department said. That was the highest level in claims since early April.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast claims dipping to 455,000 from the previously reported 457,000 the prior week, which was revised modestly up to 460,000 in Thursday's report.

"The bottom line is that any recovery in employment is going to be very slow. It's likely that we're still at 9.5 percent unemployment or awfully close to it by the end of the year," said Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis.

The four-week average of new jobless claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, rose 5,250 to 458,500.

A Labor Department official said there was nothing unusual in the data from the state.

The latest claims data has little bearing on the government's closely watched employment report for July, due on Friday, as it falls outside the survey period.

Nonfarm payrolls probably fell 65,000 last month after declining 125,000 in June as temporary workers hired to conduct the decennial census were let go, according to a Reuters survey.

Private-sector payrolls are seen rising a modest 90,000 and the unemployment rate is expected to climb to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent in June.

After falling rapidly in 2009, jobless claims have stalled this year and are anchored above the 400,000 to 450,000 range that analysts say is normally associated with sustainable jobs growth.

The scarcity of jobs is putting a strain on the economy's fragile recovery from its longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression. Growth slowed to a 2.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter after expanding at a 3.7 percent pace in the first three months of this year.

Other data on Thursday showed several U.S. retailers posted July sales below analysts' expectations in the latest sign that skittishness about high unemployment and the economy in general are causing consumers to cut spending.

So far seven of the 11 retailers that reported sales have missed analysts' forecasts, according to Thomson Reuters data. In the week ended July 24, a total of 4.54 million people were still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, down 34,000 from the prior week. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast so-called continuing claims slipping to 4.54 million.

The number of people on emergency benefits increased 60,993 to 3.31 million in the week ended July 17.

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http://www.cnbc.com/id/38572868 

Student loans - the next "mortgage meltdown" crisis?

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) -  An entire generation of today's college graduates are facing financial ruin, unable to climb out of a debt cycle started by high-interest student loans.

Their job perspectives are grim, and, in many cases, their interest rates are outrageous.

Web Extra: Get help with your student loan

Could this be the country's next "mortgage meltdown?"

 A college degree used to be one of the keys to success - access to the American Dream.

Then again, so did homeownership.

But, as a nation, we have $700 billion in student loan debt, and one in five people can't make their monthly payments.

It's a problem that could devastate the workforce, because there's a large class of educated workers out there with massive dents in their credit, something potential employers are monitoring more closely.

That truth almost ruined Bob Dickie.

Dickie, 54, once had the typical American mindset - he thought getting a college degree would be like getting a new lease on life, and that paying for it was easy as filling out a student loan application.

"The school promises the world to the student," he says. "You're going to make a great living, you're going to launch your career. All the stuff you see on TV."

So he went...and graduated in a recession.

Dickie managed to get a job, but he wasn't making anywhere near what he needed.

"The pay was $10 an hour," Dickie says. "So paying rent and commuting 50 miles one way, there was just absolutely nothing left."

But skipping student loan payments crumbled his credit.

"I mean, I had all the luxuries of upper middle class. Brand new cars, health care membership, home, I was used to the good life," he says. "After this experience, it just kind of tanked out."

Dickie's partner, Angela Money, tried to negotiate with his lender.

"They were very threatening to us," she says.

And Money says they wouldn't help by lowering payments. In fact, they hiked the interest rate. Dickie's debt just kept getting bigger.

Eventually, he managed to pay the loan off, but it still haunts him.

"Now, our battle is, we can't get it off his credit report," Money says.

"It can become a downward spiral," Dickie adds. "Because now employers are using your credit rating to see if you are a good candidate for employment."

"It's a Catch-22," adds Money. "So how can people do better and progress when things like this are happening?"

It's exactly the kind of question the country asked during the mortgage meltdown.

http://www.wbtv.com/global/story.asp?s=12909902

99 Weeks Later, Jobless Have Only Desperation

JOBLESSNESS, UNEMPLOYMENT, ECONOMY, US ECONOMY, OBAMA, ADMINISTRATION

The New York Times

| 03 Aug 2010 | 10:10 AM ET

Facing eviction from her Tennessee apartment after several months of unpaid rent, Alexandra Jarrin packed up whatever she could fit into her two-door coupe recently and drove out of town.

Ms. Jarrin, 49, wound up at a motel here, putting down $260 she had managed to scrape together from friends and from selling her living room set, enough for a weeklong stay. It was essentially all the money she had left after her unemployment benefits expired in March. Now she is facing a previously unimaginable situation for a woman who, not that long ago, had a corporate job near New York City and was enrolled in a graduate business school, whose sticker is still emblazoned on her back windshield.

“Barring a miracle, I’m going to be in my car,” she said.

Ms. Jarrin is part of a hard-luck group of jobless Americans whose members have taken to calling themselves “99ers,” because they have exhausted the maximum 99 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits that they can claim.

For them, the resolution recently of the lengthy Senate impasse over extending jobless benefits was no balm. The measure renewed two federal programs that extended jobless benefits in this recession beyond the traditional 26 weeks to anywhere from 60 to 99 weeks, depending on the state’s unemployment rate. But many jobless have now exceeded those limits. They are adjusting to a new, harsh reality with no income.

In June, with long-term unemployment at record levels, about 1.4 million people were out of work for 99 weeks or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not all of them received unemployment benefits, but for many of those who did, the modest payments were a lifeline that enabled them to maintain at least a veneer of normalcy, keeping a roof over their heads, putting gas in their cars, paying electric and phone bills.

Without the checks, many like Ms. Jarrin, who lost her job as director of client services at a small technology company in March 2008, are beginning to tumble over the economic cliff. The last vestiges of their former working-class or middle-class lives are gone; it is inescapable now that they are indigent.

Ms. Jarrin said she wept as she drove away from her old life last month, wondering if she would ever be able to reclaim it.

“At one point, I thought, you know, what if I turned the wheel in my car and wrecked my car?” she said.

Nevertheless, the political appetite to help people like Ms. Jarrin appears limited. Over the last few months, 99ers have tried to organize to press Congress to provide an additional tier of unemployment insurance. But the political potency of fears about the skyrocketing deficit has drowned them out. The notion that unemployment benefits discourage recipients from finding work has also crept into Republican arguments against extensions. As a result, the plight of 99ers was notably absent from the recent debate in the Senate.

Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, is now working on a bill to help those in the group, a spokesman, Miguel Ayala, said, but the chances of providing them with additional weeks of benefits seem dim.

“It’s going to be extremely hard to pass,” said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project. “We barely got 60 votes to keep 99 weeks, so it’s even harder to get more.”

Other ways of helping the long-term jobless might have a better shot of succeeding, Mr. Stettner said, like a temporary jobs program or assistance for emergency needs.

Ms. Jarrin ping-pongs between resolve and despair. She received her last unemployment check in the third week of March, putting her among the first wave of 99ers. Her two checking accounts now show negative balances (she has overdrafts on both). Her cellphone has been ringing incessantly with calls from the financing company for her car loan. Her vehicle is on the verge of being repossessed.

It is a sickening plummet, considering that she was earning $56,000 a year in her old job, enjoyed vacationing in places like Mexico and the Caribbean, and had started business school in 2008 at Iona College.

Ms. Jarrin had scrabbled for her foothold in the middle class. She graduated from college late in life, in 2003, attending classes while working full time. She used to believe that education would be her ticket to prosperity, but is now bitter about what it has gotten her.

“I owe $92,000 for an education which is basically worthless,” she said.

Last year she moved to Brentwood, Tenn., south of Nashville, in search of work. After initially trying to finish her M.B.A. program remotely, she dropped out because of the stress from her sinking finances. She has applied for everything from minimum-wage jobs to director positions.

She should have been evicted from her two-bedroom apartment several months ago, but the process was delayed when flooding gripped middle Tennessee in May. In mid-July, a judge finally gave her 10 days to vacate.

Helped by some gas cards donated by a church, she decided to return to this quiet New England town, where she had spent most of her adult life. She figured the health care safety net was better, as well as the job market.

She contacted a local shelter but learned there was a waiting list. Welfare is not an option, because she does not have young children. She says none of her three adult sons are in a position to help her.

A friend wired her $200 while she was driving from Tennessee, enabling her to check into a motel along the way and helping to pay for her stay here. But Ms. Jarrin doubts that much more charity is coming.

“The only help I’m going to get is from myself,” she said. “I’m going to have to take care of me. That has to be through a job.”

So, in her drab motel room, Ms. Jarrin has been spending her days surfing the Internet, applying for jobs.

Lining the shelves underneath the television are her food supplies: rice and noodles that Ms. Jarrin mixes with water in the motel’s ice bucket and heats up in a microwave; peanut butter and jelly; a loaf of white bread.

Ms. Jarrin still has food stamps, which she qualified for in Tennessee. But she is required to report her move, which will cut them off, so she will have to reapply in Vermont.

She has been struggling with new obstacles, like what to do when an address is required in online applications. She is worried about what will happen when her cellphone is finally cut off, because then any calls to the number she sent out with her résumés will disappear into a netherworld.

The news, however, has not been all bad. She had her first face-to-face interview in more than a year, for a coordinator position at a nonprofit drop-in center, on Monday.

And last Thursday, she got her first miracle, when an old friend from New York sent by overnight mail $300 in cash, enough for another week in purgatory.

 

This story originally appeared in the The New York Times

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38537255/

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