I FIND the treatment of Susan Moore, a perpetually unemployed person, to be reprehensible.

Unemployment can become a form of severe societal isolation, a mental illness, and the last thing a person in this position needs is a cheap national rag feeding the garbage-eaters of the world with sensationalist attacks.

A chasm that seems impossible to cross can develop in a person's mind, especially someone of already low self-esteem, after even a short stint of unemployment.

I am not surprised Susan Moore would become discouraged at the first problem that occurred. This reaction suggests she has a problem not dissimilar in nature to a physically debilitating injury. I hardly feel that many of us would be heaping abuse on someone with a severe physical injury.

The easiest thing to do with cases such as this is to dump on the person involved but all that it does is reveal the depth of one's own emotional lacking. Society is so fuelled by stories of 'heroic courage' that we lose the ability to step into the shoes of a person who does not at the moment possess the ability to face daily problems.

The right thing to do here is for Susan's support to continue, to believe in the goodness of people to help themselves when they can and for those that are responsible for her support to keep giving her encouragement and expecting that she will stumble many times before she succeeds.

It is up to the community to look beyond the simplistic first impression and allow her to become a contributing member of society again.

J Dylan Rivis,

Montpelier Vt, USA.

Updated: 11:13 Monday, March 08, 2004