Nearly three-quarters of former Los Angeles Times journalists feel less secure about their lives since parting the struggling Tribune Company, a recent informal survey has found. Some of the journalists also reported increased health problems, concern over long-term health insurance and heavy reliance on their spouses’ incomes.

The poll was conducted among former Los Angeles Times journalists who are members of a support message group. Seventy-five out of 124 members responded.

Despite the loss of security, several journalists were happy to escape the pressures of working for the newspaper and the constant threat of layoffs.

“I really could not have continued to have a productive work life with the job insecurity I had at the Times,” wrote a woman who left in April without a buyout but found full-time employment. “It was very hard on my family and on me to never feel secure in my job.”

“It’s odd, but despite the financial ruination and the prospect of never being able to fully retire, I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” wrote another woman who had been laid off.  “Life is good, and the bitterness comes from the big financial losses and from the overall lack of appreciation by the LAT.”

Read the Rest at TheJournalismShop.

Former Los Angeles Times journalists continue to struggle with severe underemployment, soon-to-expire unemployment benefits and worries about retirement, a recent informal survey of 75 former staffers found. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents said they had been laid off or asked to leave by the financially troubled Tribune Company; the rest left the company voluntarily.

More than two-thirds are still receiving unemployment checks, though 68 percent expect those benefits to expire within 30 weeks of when the survey was taken in mid-November. The loss of benefits are despite the 14-20 week-extension recently signed by President Barack Obama.

The eventual end of benefits weighs heavily on the former Times employees.

“I’m hanging in there, but don’t know what I’ll do when I don’t have unemployment as a base,” wrote one female ex-staffer. “I’m in my 50s and it isn’t easy to find a job at my level and impossible to find one that pays what I used to make.” All comments were offered anonymously in the survey.

Read the rest at TheJournalismShop.com.

The okra plants fell over after being chewed off at the stems. The beets were eaten top down. The snow peas mowed from left to right. The squash and cucumbers were killed ostensibly to keep roots from growing down into the burrows. Some plants dehydrated after the quarter-inch water lines were severed by sharp teeth.

I could have stopped the varmints early on; I don’t have a moral problem killing garden pests. In fact, my neighboring gardeners offered toxic pellets to kill the garden destroyers.

It’s the poison I reject. The whole point of growing is freshness and chemical-free food.

I have tried some of the popular options such as plugging the hole with dry ice and offering Chocolate Ex-Lax to the moles (or gophers, voles or whatever is down there.) I still have options available, such as traps, noisy windmills, stinky sprays and of course, dynamite. (I suppose explosives isn’t a true option.)

Actually, I believe the best option is a gopher snake, but the garden club is against that idea, because the constrictors look like rattlesnakes.

The real reason I haven’t taken care of the gophers, though is that I’m holding back: To keep gardening I need to spend a few hundred dollars and dozens of hours to build an enclosure. There are just too many pests at this site to make gardening there worthwhile.

Another problem is the 12-mile round trip. It just does not make for convenient gardening. Unfortunately, the site is not little-kid friendly, so it’s hard to stay for more than an hour or so.

Meanwhile, I’m missing out on Arizona’s best and longest growing season.

There have been four known suffocations following hardware failures involving Stork Craft cribs, reports the Consumer Product and Safety Commission. Stork Craft reports 67 incidents in the United States and 43 in Canada.

Parents who own Stork Craft drop-side cribs – 147,000 of which carry the Fisher-Price logo – are being asked to wait for a free repair kit before attempting to fix the side panel. Hardware has repeatedly failed or been damaged when installed incorrectly. Cribs without drop-down sides are not subject to this recall.

CPSC Chairman Inez Tennebaum admits the agency is not moving quickly enough on this recall, reports The Associated Press via Forbes “So, I put all of the resources for the agency on this project so that they could accomplish this goal of recalling the crib,” says Tennebaum.

Meanwhile, the Illinois Public Interest Research Group issued its 24th annual warning to shoppers, asking them to avoid dangerous toys – such as a red Elmo lunchbox and a too-loud Fisher Price phone. While toys are improving, problems persist, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan tells the Chicago Tribune:

“In spite of the improvements that we have seen over the last year at the federal level and the improvements that we have seen in the last several years in the state of Illinois, Illinois PIRG every single year is able to walk into toy stores and purchase toys that are dangerous for children.”

Other cited toys include dangerously loud Stompers Triceratops or a lead-contaminated Big Rex book. You can look up toys via cell phones here, or go here for the quick summary.

When I was at Indiana University in the mid-1980s, I think my out-of-state tuition was less than $1,000 a semester. Even if it was $1,000, a 32 percent increase would only have added $320 a semester to my bill.

If calculated over eight semesters, I would have graduated with $2,560 of debt instead of $300. Not great, but still quite manageable. (BTW, out-of-state tuition at IU is now $11,882 per semester, but only $3,194 for in-state residents.)

UCLA tuition runs for $8,266 a year for undergraduate state residents living off campus. A 32 percent increase will add $2,645 to the in-state annual bill or $10,580 to four years of college. The total four-year cost will now be $43,644.

But that’s where it gets ugly: out-of-state resident already pay $30,935 a year for tuition. The rate hike would presumably add $9,899 to the annual bill or $39,596.80 to the four-year total.

The total bill for out-of-state residents, not counting housing, room and board, etc., will be a whopping $163,336.80. No wonder those college kids are protesting.

With number like that, it looks like my kids will be going to Arizona universities unless they win some mighty big scholarships or we move back to whichever state they want to attend college.

Additional

I calculate that only 8.6 percent of the 26,687 undergraduate students pay out-of-state tuition, according to this chart I found, but the link doesn't seem to work. 

I figured if there is one company that never wants to see lead again, it’s Mattel. After all, the company is about to give out money as part of a lead paint toy settlement.

But after testing about 250 toys, Environmental Health found high levels of lead in a Barbie Bike Flair Accessory Kit sold at Tuesday Mornings. The Barbie product had 20 times the legal limit, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The group also found 73 times the legal limit of lead in Disney Fairies Silvermist’s Water Lily Necklace sold by Walgreen’s.

The five other products are: the Kids Poncho sold by Wal-Mart; MSY Faded Glory Rebecca Shoes sold by Wal-Mart; Reversible Croco Belt sold by Target; Dora the Explorer Activity Tote sold by T.J. Maxx; and Paula Fuschia Open-Toed Shoes sold by Sears.

While a national recall has not been launched, California Attorney General Edmund Brown Jr. wants the retailers to pull the products. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is also investigating, reports The Associated Press.

In fact, my wife and I run several blogs through our Typepad account. The biggest is now Cybils, which honors the best children’s books of the year. The next largest site is DadTalk.

A blog I never mentioned, but has been up for a few weeks, runs embedded in TheJournalismShop. This blog is about freelance work that my former colleagues have obtained in the last few months. A colleague of mine does most of the posting on this site.

The smallest site is QuartzTrail, which my wife uses to sell the jewelry she makes. Go buy something!

My wife and I also have several dormant sites: WriteThru, BookBuds, InlandEmpress and Docimacy. It remains to be seen if we’ll bring any of those back.

I bring this all up because Typepad invited me to preview their new micro-blogging tools, which are free to bloggers who don’t need the full suite of blogging tools. There are a few ways to use these microblogs:

• Twitter, Facebook blasting – You might, for example, create a microblog to automatically post to Facebook and Twitter, rather than using cut and paste. LinkedIn is expected down the road.
• Some people don’t want a full blog and think Twitter posts are too short.
• Set up a social blogging site – this is where anyone who becomes a member can create posts.
• Marketing – You can use the social blogging tools to spread the word out about your blog.
• Commenting tools – helps the blogger see all the comments from one person

If you’re interested, here’s the Typepad post on how to create your own microblog.

Regardless, American families are being turned upside down by the continuing scourge of unemployment. Some families are faring better than others, reports The New York Times. In many cases, children take the brunt of spousal strife, parental depression or parental anxiety.

As one dad tells the Times:

“I’ve heard a lot of people who are out of work say it’s kind of been a blessing, that you have more time to spend with your family. I love my family and my family comes first, and my family means more than anything to me, but it hasn’t been that way for me.”

I know what this dad means. For me, the stress is more about having enough funds to pay the bills than about not working. I get ample satisfaction from being a work-at-home dad and would be happy to call “dad” my career.

But not all parents feel this way, writes one commenter on the Times story:

Thank you for making clear a central fact of unemployment: that a job provides more than just money with which to raise a family.

It also provides a sense of identity and self-worth for the parent. Lacking these two attributes, it’s much difficult to consider oneself an adequate role model.

Unemployment hits in more places than just your bank account.

I agree with the commenter, but stress about money does impact my parenting. Simply put, I’m not at my best when I’m forced to hunt for work or I’m worrying if my wife’s job will suddenly vanish. She’s already endured a pay cut and a couple work furloughs.

We’re not starving or anything; I have three steady hours of freelance work each day to supplement our income. But clearly, I’m more irritable and less patient than I would be in a more stable financial situation.

Because of my own experience, it is very easy for me to understand how stressed some families in worse situations must be. Writes one commenter on the Times’ story:

I work in the mental health field and I can tell you that the families we see are more numerous and their problems more severe. It’s not just the folks who are unemployed who have these problems; it cuts across our population as a whole. Worrying if you are going to lose the job you have or if your business is going under are problems that are on the periphery of the unemployment crisis.

One difference between me and the parents mentioned in the Times is this: I freely explain to my kids what is happening to our family and the American public at large. This way, my kids at least understand why I say “no” to buying a new toy or taking them to an event.

Here’s one suggestion:

If this man (from the story) could not face the reality of job loss himself, no wonder his children couldn’t deal with it well. This kind of story should be a wake-up call to parents to learn to face their own reality squarely and talk openly and sincerely with their children and reassure them so that they can lessen the inevitable stress. Pretending that everything is fine never works all that well. I feel sorry for this family but many many people are like this, they think that ignoring what is going on is the best way to cope. It isn’t!

Another way to look at this article is what it reveals about our culture. Are we really teaching children to measure emotional self-worth by financial self-worth? I hope not, but this commenter certainly thinks so:

This most recent crisis illustrates several things wrong not just with the economy but also with the way we chose our spouses, spend our money and raise our children. If a man’s earning power is one of the main measures by which we judge his worthiness, then the loss of his job will have significant impacts on his ego, his family’s welfare and his wife’s perspective of him.

So what should we do? Continues the commenter:

We should teach our sons that their is more to being a man than just earning a salary, that there is more to being a husband than just paying the bills, that our daughters should date the sweet sensitive guy rather than the one with the car. Despite the stresses and losses experienced by these families, they are still far more fortunate than 90% of this planet. People should be grateful for what they have and use these times to re-evaluate all the things they deemed important in the past.

So what about you? Has unemployment had an impact on your family? If so, how?

Note: Some of the commenters’ grammar and spelling have been corrected.

Additional

This story reveals the much more measurable damage unemployment causes children.

It’s been a while since there was a major recall, but this one is a doozy: Maclaren is recalling about 1 million umbrella strollers because the side hinge mechanism can cut off a finger, reports msnbc. Or a fat carrot, as the screen grabs show.

There have been reports of 12 finger amputations and three lacerations in the United States, reports the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Although the $100-$360 strollers are being recalled in the United States, warnings apparently suffice in Europe, according to this video report.

From the CPSC website:

This recall involves all Maclaren single and double umbrella strollers. The word “Maclaren” is printed on the stroller. The affected models included Volo, Triumph, Quest Sport, Quest Mod, Techno XT, TechnoXLR, Twin Triumph, Twin Techno and Easy Traveller.

Side note: Notice if you will in the two video screen grabs, the Google Ads.

The Consumer Reports study found that the chemical, which some believe causes behavioral problems as well as breast and prostrate prostate cancers in animals, was present in cans labeled “BPA-free” and “organic.”

The American Chemistry Council, which is in part funded by BPA makers, rejects the study as faulty.

This caught my attention in a blog post from Consumer Reports (the main article is behind the pay wall):

(Eden Foods President and Chairman Michael) Potter says that finding a supplier of cans that weren’t lined with BPA-containing epoxy resin was a difficult and frustrating process. “I made hundreds of calls to can manufacturers trying to find out what was in their can linings and I always ended up talking to an attorney in the Beltway who informed me to my amazement that it was a trade secret and I had no right to know,” says Potter.

Ah, good old trade secrets. Another way to say, “We’re poisoning you, folk. Just move right along.”

Who would have though there was real peanut butter in any of the Jelly Belly products? I thought they were 100 percent artificial!

The recall, by the way, is for the 49 Flavors of Jelly Belly jelly beans, which comes in a cylindrical 7.5-ounce package. Details:

The Jelly Belly 49 Flavors cylinder packages were shipped to approximately 200 independent stores nationwide from September 29 to October 30, 2009. Product was packaged in a clear 7.5-ounce acetate cylinder with white label on the bottom of the package with lot codes 090925, 090928, 090929 or 091001. UPC code 07156798939.

As many parents know, peanut allergies can kill kids, so be careful out there.

To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew very little about the process – what to put in a cover letter or resume or what to say in an interview. I tried to avail myself of the college’s resources, but the placement director at the time repeatedly, and in insulting ways, blew me off.

Because my spring break would take me to the Phoenix area, I applied to every paper I could find in the Editor & Publisher Yearbook. The huge tome lists everything from circulation figures to how many computer screens were in the newsroom. Only paperclips weren’t counted.

One paper I applied to was called The Mesa Tribune. It had two sister newspapers, then known as The Chandler Arizonan and The Tempe Daily News.

I also applied to the Scottsdale Progress, which was looking for a reporter. (It was posted on a job board in the school hallway.) Before leaving on the trip, only the Progress returned my query, inviting me for a job interview.

When I arrived in Arizona, the Progress changed its mind, canceling the interview. Nervous and feeling desperate, I called up the other papers. The Arizona Republic and now defunct Phoenix Gazette had no idea why I was calling. I presume, my resume and cover letter were promptly discarded after delivery.

After leaving a message with an operator at the Tribune, I lost hope of having any job interviews. Later that day, my family came back to the hotel to find a message for me: Call the Tribune news editor after 3 p.m.

Because this is before most of us had iPhones, I had to make the call from a barely functioning pay phone on a busy street. The news editor told me that there were no reporting positions, but to come in for a copy editing test. I also was asked to perform a post mortem on the three newspapers.

I survived my first interview, then went home to finish up college and apply to more local jobs. No word at all from the Tribune. I didn’t know I was supposed to send a thank you note.

Because I had my apartment until the end of summer – that’s how Bloomington, Indiana, leases worked – I figured I’d hang around town before heading back home to the Chicago suburbs.

Instead, I received a call from the editor I interviewed with. “Do you want a job?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not a reporting job. Are you okay with that?”

“Um, sure.” I’d take anything at that point.

“Be out here in two weeks.”

That was about it. The editor told me I could stay at his house for a day or two until I found a place to live.

Before leaving town, I talked to my journalism placement director. She was mad at me. “How did you get that job?”

I told her my story.

“You have no right. That job could have gone to someone who deserved it.”

Apparently, the placement director had never heard of Mesa either.

I drove up to the Chicago suburbs to get my childhood bed and a few things, like an ancient 100-pound, tube-based “portable” TV.

The drive itself was quite the adventure when you consider that the gas gauge didn’t work in my pimpmobile. I mean my red Monte Carlo. But that’s another story.

During my 11 years in Mesa, I loved The Tribune. The deadline panic. The incredibly funny crew. The deteriorating facilities. The constantly changing politics and corporate-induced headaches.

Sometimes, the paper struggled. In the late 80s, both my immediate supervisors were let go the same day. By the next morning, I found myself unofficially sharing management roles with a colleague.

Most of the time, the paper grew: we started the Gilbert Tribune and bought the Scottsdale Progress, sweet revenge for not getting that job interview.

Always, the paper strove hard against The Arizona Republic. We took wild chances. We busted our butts to break news first.

But times change. I left when the paper was sold to another chain. I was interested in new opportunities and challenges.

Soon, the newspaper was renamed the East Valley Tribune. Earlier this year, the paper laid off a huge chunk of its staff – many my former colleagues – cut circulation days and shrunk the once proud paper into a tabloid. The Scottsdale edition was shuttered. The Tribune also won a Pulitzer this year.

This week I learned that the East Valley Tribune will be closed at year’s end. Freedom Communications, which bought the newspaper a few years back, is in bankruptcy these days and was unable to find a suitable buyer.

I salute those who still work and formerly worked at the Tribune. An amazing amount of energy and hard work went on in that red brick building. I learned so much there.

The East Valley Tribune will be missed. For those who understand: I toast the Trib with a plastic cup of Jägermeister in the front driveway.

So far, two deaths and 28 illnesses have been linked to a recall of 545,699 pounds of Fairbank Farms beef. The recalled ground beef and beef patties were packaged from Sept. 14 to Sept. 16 and had “EST 492” stamped on the packages, reports The New York Times.

The products were sold in Northeastern states at grocery stores such as Trader Joe’s, Giant, Price Chopper, Wild Harvest and Shaw’s. (I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit nervous as to the number of times TJ’s shows up in recalls.)

While this meat dates back to September, it could still be in the freezer. For specific recall information, go here.

After chatting for a few moments, Seth zooms ahead, then waits at the street corner for me to catch up. I remind Seth to look all ways before crossing.

Seth again rolls ahead while my mind wanders to the issues of the day: wife home sick, early release day, technical problems at work, messages I need to send.

I hear metal slap against asphalt. I know even before I hear Seth wail that he’s crashed. I look up to find him crumpled on the street, his head and back pressing against the high, concrete curb.

Although I am about 200 yards away, three worries hit me at once: 1. that a car might hit him 2. that he broke an arm and 3. that he might have hit his head on the curb.

When I get to Seth, I can hear him moaning, but at least his helmet looks intact. For a split second, I debate whether I should pick him up, then, despite protestations, lift his lanky body into a sitting position. He’s holding one arm, but it doesn’t look broken.

At about that time, two or three drivers stop to see if Seth is okay. “I don’t know yet,” I call out.

“Does he need a Band-Aid?” one mother calls out.

“Yes.”

The driver says something about looking for them, but I can’t make out the garbled words from across the street.

Another woman, with young girl in tow, is suddenly crouching next to us. “Does your boy need Band-Aids?”

I inspect Seth further, finding several scratches under his pants and shirt sleeves. “Yes, thank you.”

“I’ll be just a minute,” and she walks into a nearby house.

I tell the driver, who drives off to school.

Impatient, Seth licks the wound – black asphalt stains obscuring the red scrapes – on the back of his hand.

“Don’t do that, you’ll infect it.”

I pull a bottle of water out of the backpack and wash off one of the four scrapes. Both wrists, an elbow and a knee. Warm weather clothes protected Seth’s skin from more severe injuries.

“Where is the lady bringing Band-Aids?” Seth complains.

She arrives moments later. As I use baby wipes to clean the injuries and then apply antibiotics, I ask what happened.

“I closed my eyes and crashed,” Seth says.

“Why would you do that?”

“To stay warm.”

“Seth, you can’t close your eyes when you’re riding a scooter.”

“It was only for a second.”

“A second too long. Please, never close your eyes when riding a scooter or bike.”

Seth shakes his head in acknowledgement.

I talk to the woman helping us out. Turns out her oldest daughter is at the same preschool as Lael.

I marvel at how nice the people in our neighborhood are. I’ve not always been this fortunate.

I fold up Seth’s scooter while thanking the young mom. Seth complains Arizona is too cold as we walk the remaining distance to school. I deliver Seth, who seems okay now, to class just in time.

On my way home, I talk to a husband and wife with two boys, telling them what happened. “Maybe his eyes were cold,” the mom says.

It’s then I remember: Seth complained about cold eyes last year. Talk about sensitive; the temperature is a relatively warm, 55 degrees.

Is it my imagination, or is parenting like living in an inexplicable, illogical adventure novel?

I am fortunate that my kids not only think camping is fun, they can’t wait to go again. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but to me, the rewards are worth the hassle.

In the top photo, the kids wrestle on our air mattress in the tent. Our kids play with a dog on the beach trail in the second (on the jump.) In the third, the kids explore a sandstone wall. In the bottom photo, my wife Anne hugs the kids in front of the campfire as the sun sets behind them.

These vines grow wild all over Southern California.

During our camping trip, experts from universities and oil companies explained to students how to read the sandstone. Apparently, the stone reveals clues to where oil or natural gas might be. I just liked how the formations look.

We played the usual games of being chased by the surf, trying to grab rocks when the tide pulled back and building sand forts. The larger fort, which was decorated with our hard-earned rocks, lasted a long time before the tide came in.

On the last full day, I went on a long walk past Trestles, the famous surf beach. When I came back, Seth had figured out how to find sand crabs. Before long we had a large group of kids playing catch and release.

I was so impressed with the result, I took the last three eggs out of the cooler and took a few photos. I’m also glad the kids are learning how to crack a yolk. (By the way, the kids say the egg came before the chicken.)

The trees also kept the campground cool in the heat and the ground dry in the rain.