The Panda Bear on Labor Day and her Blog Readership

Because of Labor day, the Panda Bear will be posting on Tuesday and Friday of this week.
Last weekend in the US was Labor Day weekend, which some consider to be the last weekend of the summer and students return to school. Most businesses were closed September 5. However, here in New England the weather can stay summer-like through September.  

The Panda Bear's US readers may be wondering why the Panda Bear needs to explain Labor Day.   However, the Panda Bear Blog has an international readership.   Google providers several ways of tracking blog readership.  As to be expected, the number one country for the number of viewers for the Panda Bear Blog is the United States.   However, much to the surprise and pleasure of the Panda Bear Blog, the number two country of  Panda Bear Blog readers is-drum roll please-is Germany.  In fact last week, there were more German viewers than US viewers of the Panda Bear Blog.   The Panda Bear is very surprised the Germany is the number two country of blog readers because it is not an country that speaks English as its first language.   Great Britain ranks as the number third country of Panda Bear Blog readers.  The Panda Bear would have thought Canada would be in the number two spot of blog readers since it is near the US.   The Panda Bear Blog also appears to have some regular readers in Brazil which is also not an English as first language country,

The Panda Bear wishes to take advantage of Labor Day to thank and express her sincere appreciation for the common working person and all that he and she does for everyone(Actually, the Panda Bear considers herself to be a common working person).    The Panda Bear knows of many people where it just their having a good work ethic that stops them from going on public assistance;they don't materially benefit from working.   The Panda Bear also knows of many people who work hard at their jobs despite difficult working conditions.  The Panda Bear thinks it is simply these people's having a good work ethic that makes these people persevere and excel in the jobs they do.  These people aren't being rewarded for their supreme efforts financially-they could probably get away with doing less.

More should be done by companies and society in general to show they appreciate the hard work of average people.   What strikes the Panda Bear as being extremely unfair is that it is easier for people on public assistance to go on vacation than working people.   Working people even if they have "vacation" time have to spend much of it doing chores after work which is not a problem for people who don't work.

The Panda Bear proposes that the new work incentive should be that very well earned leisure and deserved leisure.   Perhaps people who work would not have as MUCH leisure as those that don't but they could have a high quality leisure.    The Panda Bear supports much of the effort of Take Back Your Time whose goal is to increase the amount of leisure time in the US/Canada.

Finally, in closing, the Panda Bear would like to share some songs Labor Day songs that were collected by Peter Rothberg of the Nation magazine.