Sunday morning roundup

Barbara Ehrenreich on the already poor vs. Nouveau Poor. She writes,

The current recession is knocking the working poor down another notch — from low-wage employment and inadequate housing toward erratic employment and no housing at all. Comfortable people have long imagined that American poverty is far more luxurious than the third world variety, but the difference is rapidly narrowing.

I guess, but it's not narrowing that much. Ten people to a house is one thing; fifty is another.

Frank Rich infuses contextual sophistication into the paranoid rhetoric debate.

Holy crap, Maureen Dowd and I have the same optometrist. Who knew?