Happy Veterans Day Dad

Today we celebrate all of those men and women who committed themselves to the defense of our nation, our freedoms, and our future.

Today you forgot about whether or not you support the wars or whether or not the military industrial complex is ruining our nation. Those questions will hold to tomorrow. Today simply say thank you. Thank you for those who were willing to stand and serve our nation. My father honorably served the United States for 20 years. He had to spend months away from his family, long sleepless nights while standing duty, and years of too much work and too little pay. For all this and more I want to say thank you to my dad and every other dad (or mom) who made the sacrifices that come with wearing the uniform.

I also hope that people will keep the following in mind. Despite all of these men and women’s sacrifices…

“Veteran Affairs estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. Over the course of a year, approximately twice that many experience homelessness. Only eight percent of the general population can claim veteran status, but nearly one-fifth of the homeless population are veterans.”

I had the honor of spending some time with two homeless veterans last night. They told me that Veterans Day is one of the only times they feel respected. as they each forcibly handed me their Veterans Affairs ID cards. They also told me that they would spend today trying to walk to Golden Corral and Applebee’s because each of these restaurants are offering free food for veterans and it has been a long time since they had a good meal.

Editor’s note: One group that supports homeless veterans in Hampton Roads is Vetshouse. Click here for more info or to donate.

WORK LONGER. GET LESS.

This headline is maddening because it is the naked truth. And what’s worse is that we will do nothing about it. In fact, many people will argue that this is a good thing.

The bi-partisan commission tasked with addressing the national deficit has released a preliminary draft of their recommendations. Included in the proposal is taking the retirement age to 69, reducing Social Security benefits, eliminating the child tax credit, and higher taxes for most Americans.

This nation’s economy was built by people working longer, harder, and for an increasingly smaller part of the pie. The absurdity is that the 40 hour work week will now be further exacerbated by tacking on an additional four years before you get your long-promised leisure time in your golden years. Eventually we will drop the pretense of retirement entirely and simply require for people to be gainfully employed until they die. For me the most frustrating part of all this is that 15 years from now people will have just accepted these changes as the norm.

Why we don’t question the efficacy of our work system is beyond me. If someone says,’I think we need a shorter work week, or our lives would be better spent in the pursuit of things we are actually passionate about,’ people dismiss you out of hand as lazy, or assume you are looking for a handout, or something else Un-American.

The interwebs tell me that the average 13^th Century adult male peasant worked 1,620 hours in a year. Today the normal US working year is 2,080 hours. That’s right, every year you work 460 hours–or 57.5 working days–more than feudal serfs.

In case you are smiling self-assuredly, swaddled in the knowledge that your life is better off for all these hours spent working, you should know this: According to Forbes magazine, Costa Rica, Panama, and Brazil (and every Scandinavian country) are all happier than the United States. Each of these nations work less hours, celebrates more holidays, and is much poorer than the United States.

Our feverish drive to work more and more in the United States has been blamed on a countless many things, but most often on the Protestants. Perhaps it’s my Catholic upbringing then that makes me ask, what the hell are we doing? What on God’s green earth are we working so hard for? Are we making a better world? Evidence would seem to run to the contrary. Are we working for our children? The only thing we have been good at ensuring is that each successive generation will work harder and longer than the one previously. Stress continues to run rampant in our working world; in South Korea someone kills themselves every 34 seconds.

We measure the health of our nation with calculations of income per person, and silly census data like the average number of cars per household. But the punch line is that the enormous amount of time and toil we invest in the pursuit of wealth will never be paid back. We try to cram 70 years of life into the cracks between work days. We squirrel away our savings, and stockpile our goods so that we can retire in comfort. A failing physique–and a failing mind–are often soon to follow. I’ve long wondered why we want to live so long, but now I am sure it’s to get your money’s worth out of the only time you won’t be working.

I’ve said this before and I will say it again. Why don’t we protest? Why do we struggle so in the United States to view policy debates for what they truly are: battles for how we will define our humanity. I, for one, would really like my brief time on this spinning rock to be more than a long line of paydays and dreams deferred.

Norfolk School Bus Driver Organizes Worst Protest in the History of Protests

This is the perfect follow up story. Angry over the lack of a pay raise for over three years, Norfolk school bus drivers warned they were going to have a sickout yesterday, in which they expected as many as 100 drivers to call out sick. This would have been hugely disruptive to the schools and would have forced them to address the grievance with the fierce immediacy of now. Would have.

What actually happened? One woman called out sick. One person, that’s it. How did she not have just one friend who was willing to walk with her? How does this happen? We live in such fear of our economic livelihood that we are unwilling to take on a risk that could better that very livelihood. This American virtue is why we will agree to work till age seventy. This is why we will agree to do more for less, and it’s why we will reach the end of our lives and ask, Where did all that time go? Then you will remember… work.

Amazon agrees to stop selling Pedophile Hand guides

I could make a Catholic priest joke here, but instead I will suffice it to say, what the fuck?

City is Getting Ripped off on Demolition

The city is paying over a million dollars to knock down a building! I utterly reject the premise that this could actually be the cost of taking a building down. I refuse to believe this for two reasons:

1.     I would lose my mind if I were to learn that it costs one million dollars to destroy something useful.

2.     I think we should start the AltDemolition Company. We will put out a call for wreckers. I will bring the beer. We meet and we destroy. After writing this I shall be calling the city to let them know that AltDemolition is ready for work and that we will take that light rail encroaching building down for a mere pittance of 800,000k. The money saved will be able to cover the salary for new city manager Marcus Jones, who is reportedly making 210k dollars. (You are welcome Mr. Jones… AltDemolition looks forward to your future patronage.)

The fact that they simply did not know a BUILDING was too close to the rail line boggles the mind, but I have come to terms with crazier things in our civic life. I am looking at you Cooch.

Now for something completely unimportant: Apparently the world hates Gwyneth Paltrow

As Gwyneth Paltrow is my long-time celebrity crush, this headline from Salon bout knocked me out my chair. From what I can gather, all the hate seems to stem from her insane wealth and privilege, which I must admit might have been what drew me to her in the first. After reading this I do not hate Gwyneth, but after looking at her picture accompanying the piece I no longer put her on a pedestal either. You see, I realized that my wife is far more beautiful than she, and Tatum returns my 2 am phone calls.