I was reading a blog post by one of my classmates about the work he's been doing with his journal entries (the same ones that have been consuming the entirety of my day today), and I had to simply say "yes, yes, and yes!" I agree with Mark in every possible respect.
The book in question is Working Poor: Invisible In America, by David Shipler. Let me just say this now, in very simple terms: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.
It will infuriate you at how stupid poor people are, even if you are inclined to want to feel sorry for them.
It will convince you that maybe, just maybe, stupid people should be sterilized.
There's an entire chapter that seems dedicated to "Wow, this single mom was molested by her father as a child, and then she became a crack addict, and she had her kids taken away, .... oh, and she's poor now, and that may or may not have something to do with it, there's no real statistics either way" (yes, that really is a pretty decent summary of Chapter Six)
My journal entry for Chapter Six said it best actually, because for the first five chapters, I was "dubious but willing to listen" as I desperately tried to find points I was willing to concede to the author. The further I went, though, the more convinced I was that all of my preconceived notions about the working poor were pretty accurate. In chapter six, he completely lost any interest I had in believing him. Now, I think he's just a complete fucking hack who somehow convinced the powers that be to give him a Pulitzer for some other book he did (or maybe the people in charge of the Pulitzer were on crack as well, who knows)
All I know is that I can't picture my remaining four journal entries containing anything other than unbridled hatred for this work.
Just try reading Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. My University 101 class freshmen year forced us to read the book. A complete waste of time. It had a good premise of a attempting to live a low-income life to see if its possible but in the end she just comes off as socalist idiot.