Vacation and National Holidays

Jeff,

In many countries, it is more than a month - 35 days, mandatory.

Also, some others are on a 35-38 hour work week, instead of 40.

 

I don't know why we would need a voting holiday. (Unless you want the excuse to have a day off)

What we need are more polls to move people through quicker. I would vote much more often if I didn't have to wait two hours, and I hear this complaint over and over.

 

And this comes from a man who is self employed.

I get a week off every 28 days. Long change is a beautiful thing!

 

<I>DALE McFEATTERS: Mr. President, at your leisure

Scripps Howard News Service

(August 8, 2001 8:54 p.m. EDT) - So you've been at your new job not even seven months and you decide it's already time for a vacation, a long vacation - 32 days, more than a month. Sounds odd, doesn't it?

The White House thought so, too, and has tried to portray President Bush's prolonged sojourn at his 1,583-acre ranch in Crawford, Texas, as somewhere between the oxymoronic "working vacation," and a crusade, "Home to the Heartland."

As an example of "working," spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that the president and Laura Bush would spend a day in Waco laboring shoulder to shoulder with those "fighting for social justice" at a Habitat for Humanity project. In the event, the president and first lady spent less than 2 1/2 hours fighting for social justice before they were on their way back to the ranch.

The break, Fleischer said, would give Bush a chance to mingle with "average Americans," who, judging from Bush's initial outing, turned out to be two surgeons and a Republican lawmaker on the links at a private country club.

And the White House toned down the "Home to the Heartland" rhetoric. It was meant to draw an invidious comparison with the solid, true and few folk of Crawford and the shyster political rabble within Washington, D.C.'s Beltway, but cooler heads realized it sounded like Bush was also demeaning large tracts of the rest of the country as non-Heartland. In any case, the press traveling to Crawford took to calling it "Home to the Wasteland."

On the eve of departing Washington, the White House press office had a perfunctory stab at making the vacation seem like a reward for a job well done. Bush and his aides boasted about the tax cut, the patient's bill of rights, faith-based initiatives, the education bill, but only one of these is actually law and some of the others are substantively dumbed down from what the president had wanted.

The Bush staff did not point to the president's one incontrovertible accomplishment: He has erased burnout and workaholism from the Oval Office.

News organizations tallying the 43rd president's time in office found that, when he returns from Crawford on Labor Day, he will have spent 54 days at his ranch. He has also spent 38 days at Camp David and four days at his family's vacation home in Kennebunkport. Come Labor Day, he will have spent 96 days out of a possible 226 at these various retreats, a relaxation average of 43 percent.

Bush's current vacation will be the longest since 1969 when President Nixon went to San Clemente, not a comparison you would think the Bush folks would want to invoke. Nixon really did have working vacations - he seemed incapable of relaxing - and basically hauled the entire executive office of the president out to what he grandly styled the "Western White House" at huge cost and inconvenience.

Bush feels no need to disguise his vacation. He's going to relax and he doesn't care who knows it. He sparred with the press the other day over whether he would take a nap. He wouldn't admit to it but you could tell he was planning to. He likes Texas; he likes his ranch; and he told reporters he plans to spend the rest of his life there. (Laura Bush hasn't been heard from on this last point.) Early in his term, Bush said he would go to Crawford or Camp David every chance he got.

He may never, as he once said he wanted, go down in history as the Education President, but he's got a great start on being fondly remembered as the Leisure President.</I>

http://www.nandotimes.com/opinions/story/57993p-845941c.html

 

Thank you for posting such unbiased commentary, mc mark.

 

Yeah, MC Mark, I saw the same thing on one of the 3 national news programs.

They had said it would be about 2 months total so far at his ranch, plus the Camp David...

Oh well, they are probably biased, too. He really is in Washington right now. It is a left-wing conspiracy.

 

I'm a democrat, but I don't care. The president is a leader. He's not a micro-manager. The country will run just fine with or without him in washington. So long as he steps to the plate when needed, which it seems he has done, then it's fine by me if he relaxes. I'm a firm believer that you need to get away, whether it be vacationing, or just sitting and daydreaming. That's where the great ones get their ideas. (I'm not saying Bush is great)

 

I'm on vacation right now. I got 6 weeks this year and I'll get 7 weeks next year. My wife says I can't leave my job because of this reason.

ps. I love FL Keys during lobster season the best. Dolphin fishing in March second. We just got back from Table Rock Lake in MO. That is one of the cleanest lakes I've ever been in.

 

By the Bush Standard, I'm on vacation 365 days a year (366 in leap years).

 

Isn't that illegal? Dolphin fishing?
I didn't know people [intentionally] ate dolphin

Rocket RIver

 

So people aren't allowed to have opinions?

 

I'm not sure that making a holiday out of election day necessarily means you'll end up with higher voter turnout. I think it's more likely that people will end up leaving on vacation (taking a 4 day weekend) or hanging around the house and never getting up to vote. Most people aren't looking for the responsibility of voting on a day off....notice how most holidays have lost their significance?? How many of us celebrate the real meaning of Labor Day??? I don't get my butt off the couch while watching sports....or how about Memorial Day??? same story. I think voter turnout won't increase because of having a day off...to the contrary, I've seen people love taking off an hour early saying, "i'm going to vote!" --- an excuse to get out of the office. The issues and the candidates draw out voters, workday or not. I think that's an example of an idea that sounds good on the surface...but when you break it down, it really doesn't do what it was intended to do.

 

RR,

If you've ever eaten Mahi Mahi, you've eaten dolphin. It's a really pretty blue and yellow fish with a flat head and a long dorsel fin that runs from head to tail. The fun is catching the first fish in the school. I won't tell anymore because even I have problems with the sportsmanship after that (yes it's legal).

Jeff,

I could release all the lobster I catch because the fun is in the catching. In fact for every 10 I catch, I have to release back 9 because they are undersize - they look bigger under water. Though I must admit, I do enjoy fresh lobster. My wife's brother-in-law is a big saltwater man in FL and we try to get together for a week twice a year. The wives have fun, the kids have fun and the guys have fun. No problem with me going to that sister-in-law's house.

 

Art:

Stop it! You're making me extremely jealous!

BUT


I have a friend who just moved to Florida, near Plant City. So now we have a place to crash when we (finally) get to take that Florida vacation we've always talked about!!