Tuesday, August 30, 2005
An American Sacrifice
For a few seconds this morning, I was ready to give George W. Bush some credit for cutting his vacation short to return to Washington in response to the aftermath of Katrina. After all, the wire service headlines made it sound like he was doing something significant: "Bush Cancels Vacation to Return to Washington."
"Cancels"? Hardly. First of all, he's not going back until tomorrow, instead of Friday as originally scheduled, which means all he really did was cut his vacation from 30 days to 28. And a little arithmetic on that yields the following: The average American worker gets about two weeks paid vacation each year. For many workers, that two weeks includes sick time, so they've got to hold a little of it back--so assume the best most people can do is to take a week off in the summer. If somebody like that cut his vacation by an amount equivalent to the amount Bush cut his, that's roughly like coming back on Sunday afternoon instead of Sunday night.
Big whoop.
Recommended Reading: David Neiwart at Orcinus, who's about the best there is at covering right-wing extremist movements, on the latest attempt by a right-wing columnist to "prove" that most of the extremist movements in the United States are tied to the left. Great stuff.
And over at Pandagon (the newest addition to my blogroll), there's this. Leave it to the anti-abortion freaks to find the most tasteless way to exploit Hurricane Katrina.
Late addition: Appropriately in light of my post earlier today, the Rude Pundit rides the slippery slope of legislating morality.
For a few seconds this morning, I was ready to give George W. Bush some credit for cutting his vacation short to return to Washington in response to the aftermath of Katrina. After all, the wire service headlines made it sound like he was doing something significant: "Bush Cancels Vacation to Return to Washington."
"Cancels"? Hardly. First of all, he's not going back until tomorrow, instead of Friday as originally scheduled, which means all he really did was cut his vacation from 30 days to 28. And a little arithmetic on that yields the following: The average American worker gets about two weeks paid vacation each year. For many workers, that two weeks includes sick time, so they've got to hold a little of it back--so assume the best most people can do is to take a week off in the summer. If somebody like that cut his vacation by an amount equivalent to the amount Bush cut his, that's roughly like coming back on Sunday afternoon instead of Sunday night.
Big whoop.
Recommended Reading: David Neiwart at Orcinus, who's about the best there is at covering right-wing extremist movements, on the latest attempt by a right-wing columnist to "prove" that most of the extremist movements in the United States are tied to the left. Great stuff.
And over at Pandagon (the newest addition to my blogroll), there's this. Leave it to the anti-abortion freaks to find the most tasteless way to exploit Hurricane Katrina.
Late addition: Appropriately in light of my post earlier today, the Rude Pundit rides the slippery slope of legislating morality.
