The question over the next four years is not whether the U.S. will survive the fiscal cliff or go the way of Greece, it is whether Democrats and Republicans will play their role of Hatfields and McCoys for television cameras, or go together up the hill and through the valley to get this country moving.

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Or vice versa, they go together.

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During our poverty tour last year, we met countless people caught in vicious cycles of looking for nonexistent jobs because their unemployment benefits were expiring or had run out, scraping change together for gas to go on interviews that may or may not pan out, and having to swap food stamps for cash to keep the lights or gas on in the house.

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Some strategies: You might go out to eat together or enlist an objective third party, such as a minister, social worker, geriatric-care manager or friend.

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Growing up in an Italian family had taught him that food and emotions go together, whether at weddings or funerals.

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But it's been difficult to stitch together a coalition of African countries willing or able to go to war on behalf of Mali's weak civilian government.

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We go out and we piece together over the next seven or eight months a WCS spectrum position that is 30 MHz of fallow, unused spectrum.

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Together, go through their unused toys and outgrown clothes and donate them to a shelter or gift drive.

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He and mum would go for a drive in it most days, out to lunch or to the countryside, enjoying their retirement together.

BBC: Anthony Power