Wake Up America!

Waited for and rode on the rental car shuttle back to the airport with a couple who had flown to Australia from New Zealand just to attend the MotoGP motorcycle races.  As you might imagine, motorcycles and my booking in January to go to New Zealand made it easy to forge ahead with as much conversation as time allowed.  But the interesting tidbit that prompts this posting is a comment the young woman made about having learned from a friend who moved from San Diego to New Zealand: most Americans only get a couple or three weeks holiday time each year, not the 5+ weeks Kiwi's get.  I acknowledged, that, sadly, Americans continue to fall behind other nations in so many areas including holiday time.

The brief conversation prompted some reflection as I settled into my seat: Here I am enjoying the privileges that a career in Federal public employment allowed me, reflecting on how the USA could be so much better than it has become.  Short holiday time for most American workers even seems minor when compared to our other challenges: no single payer health care system (except for those over 65), costly college education, out-of-control gun ownership, religious intolerance, wall-building bigotry, increasing homelessness especially for the mentally impaired, inadequate/challenging child care funding, distant, meaningless wars that go on and on, as well as war words with North Korea -- just to name a few.  And embarrassingly, we Americans currently have a completely dishonest clown as President -- still supported by some 36+% of our electorate because of their ignorant bigotry, misinformed beliefs about immigration, abortion, gun rights, religious freedom, just to name a few.

Oh wait!  From the people I know who follow my blog -- I'm preaching to the choir!

Time to select Van Morrison's "Bright Side of the Road," lean back and let my earbuds coast me into taking a nap, and wake up in a better mood.  After all, I'm a lucky bloke -- headed to Cairns to accomplish yet another "bucket list" item - scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef.

So, I wrote all of the above before I learned that my seatmates -- Canadian citizens in their early 30's from Quebec are making a year-long world tour with their now 7 month old -- had sold their home and put everything in storage because the accountant mom gets a year off - half paid at 93% of her full salary - upon the birth of a child and the police officer dad gets a full year off at 50% of his salary.  Exactly the kind of benefit where Americans lag on the world stage - that I had just written about.  Of course I learned their blog site (all in French) and contact information and we snapped this photo as the conversation continued all the way to baggage claim. Oh America!  We could be so much better.