Work has been eating up my bloggin’ time, and no, I don’t mean sneak-in blog time during regular work hours; I mean at 10 PM when I’m usually winding down and spilling some thoughts and refilling my sanity on this virtual page, but have recently been catching up on work overflow instead.

And, so I sit here wondering, did people really used to work a lot more? Or a lot less? How does the work time of different cultures compare today? And what other interesting things about working time might I find on, where else, Wikipedia?

Medieval Working Time Versus Today

First off, Wikipedia has these working hours statistics: in the 13th century, an adult male English peasant worked an average of 1620 hours a year. Today, an average U.S. worker works about 1949 hours a year.

Now, don’t feel bad if you’re working more hours than a 13th century peasant. If you’re average, you’re spending 24 minutes commuting to work in a futuristic machine blasting recorded music and rocketing an incredible 80 miles an hour on an Interstate highway! Don’t kid yourself; any 13th century peasant would work an extra 6 paltry hours a week if they could spend dang near an hour a day emmersed in the heretic miracle of canned rock ‘n’ roll at bullet speed.

And things could be worse…you could live in South Korea and work 2,390 hours per year.

And things could also be better: Working Americans average a little over two weeks of vacation per year, while Europeans average five to six weeks.

Birth of the 40 Hour Work Week

Until the end of World War I, most workers worked six days a week. Finally, during the Great Depression, in 1938, the unions got the Fair Labor Standards Act passed. It capped the workweek at 44 hours (it didn’t get shortened to 40 hours until 1940). Part of the reason for a shorter work week was to spread scarce depression-era work across as many employees as possible.

But then came WWII, and corporations wanted workers to work as much as possible to nurture the burgeoning Military Industrial Complex.

Today’s Work Week Confusion

Today, it’s just darn hard to guess what’s going on. Some studies show that average work hours have declined, but the addition of spouses to the workforce has increased work hours per family, and declining work hours per job don’t reflect the increase in people working multiple jobs. And then there’s the big move away from hourly jobs to salaried job, and all the tricks corporations are playing to get fewer people to work longer hours (that means you) because, despite what it does to your health, fewer workers mean less health insurance payments for the employer. And, by definition, corporations are all about making bucks.

Read More: 40 hour work week, work time

As with many American holidays, the original purpose of Memorial Day (to commemorate men and women in the U.S. military who actually got killed in service) has been hijacked by those who’d rather not think too hard about the true origins. That includes me, too.

Like an oyster paints layers of nacre around an irritant it can’t stomach, we Americans have turned Memorial Day into our own pearl by slathering the long weekend with layers of alternate observances that celebrate oil, which, ironically, has been the cause of most of the armed conflicts in which Memorial Day heroes gave their lives.

Happy Oil Appreciation Day

Think about it: over the course of the weekend, do we spend more time focused on our fallen soldiers, or centered on the Indianapolis 500 race — an event where people celebrate 33 cars getting only 2 or 3 miles per gallon for 500 miles? Even after switching to ethanol, it’s become a celebration of using thousands of gallons of corn fuel produced with oil-based fertilizers and oil-guzzling farm machinery.

Then there’s the yearly roll out of the national Click It or Ticket campaign where law enforcement agencies join forces day and night from coast-to-coast to persuade auto passengers to buckle up so that less of them get killed on the highway.

The Click It or Ticket campaign comes at the time when the typical American’s kids get out of school, and parents start their vacation by loading up an SUV, camper, or boat trailer, and setting out on a huge oil-burning splurge — ideally to one of America’s 58 National Parks or hundreds of State Parks where they can teach their offspring all about fresh air and pristine scenic wilderness. Usually, they can also teach their children how to complain about the high price of gasoline, which brings me to the next way oil is appreciated on Memorial Day…

Perhaps most of all, Memorial Day is celebrated by Exxon Mobil Corporation, British Petroleum Corporation, Chevron Corporation, and Saudi Aramco. Year after year, these companies spike gas prices on Memorial Day to take advantage of Americans who refuse to negotiate their traditional celebration of oil. And year after year these corporations have their own celebrations centered around record second-quarter oil profits.

Celebrating Casualties of Wars for Oil

Despite our education based on nationalistic textbooks and popular rumors, the powerful and wealthy elite of the world do not launch wars because of political assassinations, and rarely are they actually suprised by mythic surprise invasions. Wars, in fact, are almost entirely faught over natural resources, and since the discovery of black gold, if you dig beneath the rhetoric of freedom and democracy, you’ll often disclose greed for oil as a root cause of conflict.

Take World War I, for instance. For almost a hundred years now, U.S. textbooks have advertised that WWI started because of the June 28, 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But what about the strategic importance of the Baghdad Railway? At a time when Great Britain’s oil-based military ruled the planet, Germany began constructing a railway through — you might have guessed it — oil-rich Iraq. Via this railway, Germany could have established it’s own port on the Persian Gulf and bypassed the British-controlled Suez Canal. Lo and behold, one of the first battles of the war involved British troops attempting to capture Basra, Iraq in November, 1914.

Likewise, U.S. involvement in World War II only began after the U.S. cut off 95% of Japan’s access to oil.

It’s no coincidence that today’s wars against non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction and al Qaeda terrorists are all fought “over there” where there’s a lot of oil and not “over here” where there isn’t much oil anymore.

Have a Poignant Memorial Day!

In light of these thoughts, I have mixed feelings when somebody wishes me “Happy Memorial Day!” Burhanistan has expressed my Memorial Day feelings better than I can articulate them:

If people want to really celebrate properly, there would be parade floats with artful sculptures made out of replicas of shredded limbs, burning villages (cue the smoke machine), filthy VA hospital wards, et cetera. These empty heroes’ marches and Air National Guard flyovers just bolster the lie.

So in this year of war, as President Bush’s golf mates must forgive him for sacrificing golf, I hope you’ll forgive me for striking “happy” from my holiday greeting. I’d suggest that, to show appreciation for all those soldiers who have died to give us oil, the rest of us who live on should, at least for this day, sacrifice using oil. But, since I also know how impossible that would be, instead I will just wish everybody a bittersweet, poignant Memorial Day.

Read More: Memorial Day, War for Oil, Indianapolis 500, oil profits, summer vacation, U.S. National Parks

Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to read of one hijacker’s magic passport is true. It will bend and twist your mentations, but I assure you of its veracity. Not even the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Speaking of names, there are letters inscribed on this most extraordinary of all passports. Those letters read: “Satam al-Suqami.”

The providential passport was issued to Suqami in Saudi Arabia in August of 1998. Three years later, a stranger handed Suqami’s passport to an NYPD detective on the streets of Manhattan — just moments after American Airlines Flight 11 attempted an unscheduled landing on the 93rd floor of WTC1.

How did this passport — a piece of paper soaked in jet fuel — survive the explosive landing? I give you three theories…

The Official Magic Passport Theory

It’s Tuesday September 11, and Manhattan has just come through three straight days of mid-eighty-degree heatwave. But on this Tuesday, the first kiss of autumn brushes Manhattan on the cheek…perhaps a gift for those with no mornings left.

According to the 9-11 Commission, Suqami uses his magic passport to board Flight 11. He then shoots or stabs Daniel Lewin, a former member of an elite Israeli special-operations unit, before moving into the cabin to get set for Mohamed Atta’s attempted landing on the 93rd floor.

While the ensuing conflagration destroys the plane’s indestructible black boxes, Suqami’s magic passport flies out of his pocket, or luggage, passes through the building, and lands on a sidewalk, barely singed and completely intact.

Ok…not even flat-earthers or Laura Bush still believe this theory anymore. Let’s move along to more likely explanations…

The Planted Evidence Theory

The world’s intelligence agencies know that Suqami has been frequently involved with al-Qaeda. Now, somebody wants to make sure that he and al-Qaeda are identified and blamed for the 9/11 attacks. That particular somebody knows the hijackers’ plans ahead of time. Then, they help let it happen.

And then, they make one of the dumbest, most glaringly stupid mistakes an agent could make. They plant some evidence (the magic passport) that could not possibly exist? I don’t think so…

No, this theory still doesn’t sound right to me. How about one more…

The Ingenious Whistleblower Theory

Somebody involved at some level is watching 9/11 unfold. She has realized that the safety drills and military exercises scheduled for 9/11 will be used to facilitate the WTC and Pentagon attacks. She recognizes the coming events for what they are: an American coup d’etat.

Instead of blowing the whistle and surely being silenced by those who also control the Main Stream Media, she comes up with a better idea: she will plant the most implausible and absurd piece of 9/11 evidence possible.

This evidence is unexpected and unrecognized at first, so it will initially get covered by the media before it can be censored. The magic passport will, by its very existence, denote planted evidence. And because planted evidence of such a nature requires preparation, it will be a beacon of proof to any American who can put two and two together that there was foreknowledge of the events that occurred on that horrible day.

And, thus, she hopes, millions of Americans will figure out what has happened. And she prays that they will rise to action against the criminals who allowed 9/11 to be perpetrated. And she hopes that the people will take their country back.

I’ll bet this person, wherever they are, is still hoping.

Read More: 9/11, magic passport, Satam al-Suqami, American Airlines Flight 11

“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother — and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment!” ~Anna Jarvis, the woman who campaigned for seven years to make “Mother’s Day” a recognized holiday in the U.S.

Anna Jarvis began celebrating Mother’s Day in 1907, two years after her dearly beloved mother died. On the second Sunday in May, she called together friends and family to commemorate the death of her mother, Ann Maria — a tireless peace activist. Jarvis also asked everyone to wear white carnations, which were her mother’s favorite flower.

A year later, Anna asked the officials of her church in Grafton, West Virginia, if they could set aside a Sunday to honor all mothers. The church agreed. Things snowballed, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day a national holiday.

But, only a few years later, Anna Jarvis changed her mind.

Promoting Peace, Not Greeting Cards

Jarvis quickly grew embittered at the way Americans commercialized the holiday she’d worked so hard to found. The original Mother’s Day was centered around Jarvis’s own mother’s social activism and had more to do with protesting war and promoting peace and pacifism than appreciating mothers.

Contrary to the yearly anti-war promotion of peace which Anna Jarvis had envisioned to honor her mother, America became infatuated with buying chocolates, flowers, and greeting cards.

Jarvis, along with her sister, spent her family inheritance campaigning against the holiday. On November 24, 1948, the founder of Mother’s Day died childless, blind, and in poverty.

So, in deference to the wishes of Mrs. Anna Jarvis, here’s a salute to all mothers today, but especially to the mothers whose children have been killed and mamed fighting for natural resources in a foreign country so that Halliburton and ExxonMobil CEOs can turn million dollar salaries, and so that the rest of us can drive an SUV thirty miles to work each day. Your courage and sacrifice is commendable.

Read More: Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, pacifism, peace activist, anti-corporate activism

David Rockefeller and his brother, Nelson, originally conceived the twin towers as an urban renewal project to revitalize Lower Manhattan. In 1966, 164 buildings, including many electonics stores in seedy radio row, were demolished to create the WTC construction site.

But, with the realization of the Rockefellers’ urban renewal dream came a nightmare: by the time the first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970, the World Trade Center was rife with asbestos…asbestos that 31 years later covered all of Lower Manhattan.

Exactly How Much Asbestos Did the WTC Contain?

Nobody seems to know exactly how much asbestos was in the WTC, but click on the image to the right and you’ll get a pretty good idea: a lot!

The New York Port Authority originally planned to use 5,000 tons of asbestos fireproofing. The fireproofing, trademarked Blade-Shield, was manufactured by United States Mineral Products of Stanhope, N.J. It was 20% asbestos mixed with mineral wool — a concrete-like substance made from melted rock.

By 1971, medical studies began to show the cancerous effects of asbestos, and New York City banned its use in construction — but not before asbestos-containing Blade-Shield was sprayed on the beams and supports of the first 40 floors of the Twin Towers.

The Port Authority claims that over half of the applied asbestos-containing fireproofing had been removed by September 11, 2001.

So, how much asbestos remained in the Twin Towers?

Estimates vary from 400 tons all the way up to 2000 tons.

Getting Rid of 400 Tons of Asbestos

By the 1990s, the twenty-year-old Twin Towers — like any other twenty-year-old office buildings — were due for some major upgrades.

Writes John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man:

…in recent years the complex…had the reputation of being A financial misfit, unsuited to modern fiber-optic and Internet technologies, and burdened with an inefficient and costly elevator system.

Unfortunately, due to the danger of spreading asbestos dust, building codes required any remodeling work be preceded by removing the asbestos.

So, in 1991, with two gigantic out-of-date office buildings on its hands, the Port Authority tried to garner the immense funds required to remove the asbestos: it filed suit against its insurers. The case, Port Authority of NY vs. Affiliated FM Insurance Co., sought between 500 million and 1 billion dollars for asbestos abatement.

The case dragged on for years, and then finally, on May 14, 2001, the judge ruled against the Port Authority; there would be no insurance money for asbestos removal.

Because of the asbestos health risks, and their size, the Twin Towers couldn’t be demolished. And because of the asbestos, they couldn’t be upgraded. And disassembling them floor by floor would have run into the double-digit billions of dollars.

So, that’s how, by May 2001, the Port Authority found itself between several rocks and the hard bedrock 70 feet beneath the WTC.

The Bright Catastrophe at the End of the Tunnel

Lucky for the Port Authority, a gullible guy named Larry Silverstein showed up (actually, Silverstein was no stranger to the Port Authority — he’d developed and constructed Building 7 on the WTC site), and he wanted to lease the out-of-date no-future Twin Tower money pits. On July 24, 2001, Silverstein purchased the lease for 99 years in a deal worth over $3.2 billion. He then took out insurance policies that covered terrorist attacks. Just seven weeks later, we’re told the terrorists did indeed attack. That’s what we’re told…but one can never be sure of a story worth $3.2 billion.

To date, Silverstein has received almost $5 billion from nine different insurance companies.

Meanwhile, mesotheliomasos, a rare lung cancer, has already begun to kill some of the hundreds of thousands of Manhattan residents and 9/11 first responders. Doctors and scientists agree that an increasing number of cases will appear due to the tons of WTC asbestos that rained down on Manhattan.

Read More: wtc asbestos, 9/11, 9/11 conspiracy, 9/11 truth, Larry Silverstein, New York Port Authority