Salon's "Pinched" Series

Salon.com just started a great new series called "Pinched," which are personal narratives of middle-class folks trying to make it through the latest tough economic times. The most recent piece is a heartbreaking article by a woman who, even with a master's degree and a full-time job, recently had to take her kids to a soup kitchen to feed them. She has the following sobering insight:

"[T]he moment I walked into the soup kitchen -- the moment I acknowledged, publicly, that I could not provide food for myself or my children (which is why the soup kitchen is so much more difficult than the food bank) -- is the moment that my ability to believe in the politics of this country was forever altered."