Free Republic

I first met Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Returning from a visit to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, I stopped in the press center and found her talking with New York Times columnist Frank Rich, who introduced us. I told her I had just been to the library and saw her doll collection. We had a brief conversation during which I noticed something missing: pretentiousness. Like many Americans my age, I first “met” Caroline when she was a child. The image of her in those black-and-white photos holding her father’s hand and riding...

NEW YORK - The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder. What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner. Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and...