They have made it in America. they are comfortable and successful. They could afford the single egg that costs1.75dollars in he breakfast lounge on the promenade of the Detroit plaza hotel. Or they could dine in the rooftop café where, says the advertisement, “the world does revolve around you.”
A few blocks from the hotel is another America.
It is working class, integrated, mortgaged, and worried. Its wage earners are out of work. Millions are jobless across the national average. So many people have been laid off hat dozen of extra unemployment offices have had to be opened.
The most interesting part of the monastery was he murals on the hall. Dating back to thee 17th century, the well-preserved and delicate murals vividly portray respected figures of Tibetan Buddhism. On kilometer from he monastery are several chortens and newly-built pavilion by the side of the road. From there, we could see the eight snow-covered peaks of meili mountain towering above us on the other side of a deep valley cut by the jinsha river.
A couple stood behind her----- husband and wife, both auto workers, both out of work, both in their 50s. “it is not so bad for us”, the woman said. “my husband can tinker with odd jobs around the neighborhood and pick up a few dollars to go with relief, but it’s hard on our two sons. One’s been laid off and the other is about to be”
Cold War Hero Now Tainted by Scandal
Berlin: what a difference a decades makes for Helmut Kohl. Ten years ago, he was a folk hero –- the pied piper of German unification who strutted through the Brandenburg gate, convinced Europe that a bigger Germany could live in peace with its neighbors.
I walked the unemployment lines the other day to talk to this America. It is depressed, pained and bewildered. But not self-pitying. “all I want is my job back,” a black woman, about 30, said to me. “I want to get out of his line months ago.” She had applied in vain for 25 other jobs.
At another unemployment office I met a young black man who was discharged from the army last year and hasn’t been able to find a job yet. “I served my country, man, and I can’t find work. And I come down here and I keep thinking, man: is this what it’s about? Is this what it’s come down to?” There are two Americas, all right, they live next door and yet so very far apart.
There are worse stories; stories of unemployed auto workers whose wives have miscarried under the pressure or have left home. One man , about 25, whose wife and child have left him, told a reporter for the washing ton post: “I cut back to the bitter bone. I’ve got such headaches and problems. I told my wife that it’s not us, it’s the system that is causing us problems. But she took my son went back to live with her mother.”

Today, kohl dares to show his face in public, exposed as a political machine boss who amassed millions in slush funds from personal financiers who smoothed the way to four election victories for his Christian democrats.
The workshop, co-organized by the local government and the nature conservatory, an international conservation group based in the united states, set aside on day for a field trip to the meili mountain area. I set off by bus with the other conference participants on sunney morning to see meili. En route, we stopped off in the feilai monastery. Nestling in a tibetan hamlet, there is only one prayer hall in the lamasery.
A pilgrimage to meili snow mountain
I first heard of the meili snow mountain in 1991. At that time, I did not even know where it was.
Meili, sill unscaled by man, was then associated with a severe avalanche hat killed 17 Japanese and Chinese mountaineers on their way to the snow –capped summit kawagabo peak, the highest in yunnan province.
The two Americas as seen from Detroit by bill Monyers
If you were searching for the mood of America during he republican national convention, you first had to ask: “which America?” The delegates to this convention were one America. Predominantly white, male, protestant, of western European stock, they presented business and professional interests. Four out of five earned more than 25,000dollars a year, two out of five earned more than50,000 dollars a year, 3 per cent were Jews, 3 percent black, 22 percent catholic, and one fifth of 1 percent (four out of the 1,994 delegates) were union officials.