Our friend Gloria writes: "Maybe I am too old to work again, after all I have hit the magic number of 55"

Our friend and colleague Gloria Nieto posted this on her SF Gate blog ("Social activist looking for a job"). I don't know what to do except to repost it here (and try to make other people feel as awful as I do?). -- Ken

An Open Letter to My Senators

Dear Senators Boxer and Feinstein:

My last unemployment check came the first week of April.

Yesterday I went out to talk to someone about some work and I could not find her. I almost ran out of gas trying to find her.

After putting a little bit of gas in my car so I could continue looking for work this week, I now have $7 left.

I have been unemployed for over a year. Despite what lots of nasty people say, I do not sit around waiting on that check to come. I have interviewed on numerous occasions only to finish second every time.

Maybe I am too old to work again, after all I have hit the magic number of 55 where apparently employers draw the invisible line. All my peers without work are experiencing the same phenomenon, we are all too old. Of course no one is going to come right out and create a law suit for themselves by admitting this.

However, look at the fastest growing age group and they we are. Friends in IT tell me they are terrified of losing their job if they have gray hair.

I make a lot of effort to give back to my community. Last weekend I volunteered with the local La Mesa Verde program to assist a family planting a garden in its back yard to produce their own healthy food.

But Senators, where is the understanding from Washington that so many people are hurting? We need another unemployment extension. It is time to act on our behalf, without fear, the same way we have to face each day, despite rejection after rejection.

We, the unemployed, are staring over a precipice, looking at loss after loss. Our homes gone, our lives destroyed through greed, avarice and an uncaring system that has spit us out as collateral damage, unneeded any longer. We need you to listen to the pain, the anguish. the cries of us weeping from all the loss.

That was me crying in my room last night, maybe you heard me? No one in DC seems to hear those moments of terror and pain and loss. Did someone hear us?

I was wondering what I was going to do on Monday with $7. Eat maybe? Probably not.

Perhaps someone could see into my room last night as I lay weeping on my floor, asking for someone to believe in.

Please do something to help. Really, our lives depend on you.

Sincerely,

Gloria

I wrote Gloria a note letting her know that I was going to be reposting this. For what it's worth -- not much, that I can see -- I added:

I wish I knew how to provide some tangible help. Meanwhile, thanks for your courage in sharing this, which can't have been easy. Believe me, it's occurred to me that at my age (OLDER than you!) if I found myself separated from my job, this is the boat I'd be in too.

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THE AGE THING AND JOHN W. McCAIN

Yesterday Matthew Grimm did a wonderful satire here about McCain's elderliness. It wasn't really about McCain's physical age as it was about the ancien regime attitudes he holds. This morning, though, John Murtha, who is 75 himself, did get into a discussion about how McCain's age does reflect on his fitness-- or lack thereof-- for the presidency.

Murtha is 75, four years older than McCain. He says they are nearly the same age, and the rigors and stress of running the country is too much for guys their age.

"I've served with seven presidents," Murtha told a union audience. "When they come in, they all make mistakes. They all get older."

"This one guy running is about as old as me," he said, drawing laughter and applause. "Let me tell you something, it's no old man's job."

If elected, McCain would be the oldest man to become president at age 72. Ronald Reagan became president at age 69, but he served as president for eight years and was just a few weeks shy of his 78th birthday when he left office.

Reagan was already senile while he was re-elected for his second term.

This morning I was out for a hike and one of my neighbors told me a tragic story that really shook me up. Another of our neighbors, D., one of the brightest faces in the community, someone who always lights up the day when you meet her, hadn't been seen for some time. She's also around McCain's age. I ran into her walking in the hilly neighborhood last week and I remember thinking how fit she was for a woman of her years. I hear complaints from people in their 20s and 30s about walking up these hills. Well, one of her closest friends got worried and let herself into the home. D had had a stroke and had been laying on the floor alone for 2 days. Now she's in the hospital in a coma and the doctor said he doesn't expect her to see the weekend. It's heartbreaking. It happens, albeit not always that tragically and dramatically. People age and eventually they die. We're going to have to look a lot more closely at whomever McCain picks as his running mate than we normally do.

I bet McCain wouldn't get this one any faster than Larry King did: