Day: July 31, 2004

Jonathan Delacour provides an Australian perspective to all the flag-waving in an American election year. Lots of refreshing viewpoints and facts, with a few jolts along the way, like this:

the United States:
…accounts for 5 per cent of the world’s population, 20 per cent of the world economy, and fully 50 per cent of global defence spending. It is structured for war.
In the 228 years since it declared independence, the US has made 200 military interventions abroad, says the Congressional Research Service, an average of one every 14 months.

The citation here is actually a quote from Peter Hartchner in the Sydney Morning Herald, but Delacour threads these facts and other ideas into an essay of import. Thanks to Tim Bray for the pointer.

Next time you want to complain about your job (assuming you have one), pick up Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The author spends one year trying to live on minimum-wage jobs alone and can’t pull it off. So much for the minimum wage actually adding up to something that really is a minimum. The book isn’t preachy, and doesn’t have answers to the dilemmas it underlines, but it’s a reminder of the daily struggle to survive that consumes all too many. I often feel fortunate to be where I am with family and employment, but this reporting tweaks you more than is comfortable… which is as it should be.