Enough fake news: Leap year is a hoax

I hate to get political, but the leap year is, for lack of a better word, a hoax.  It's a ploy devised by government to make you work an extra day in February. (By the way, it’s actually March 1st.) 

It’s a boon to corporations. Just think about it: An extra day of work every four years to feed the corporate machine. An extra day where you’re paying interest on your home, your car, your life!

The artificial extension of February is not only hard on the pocketbook, but on your health. How else to explain the abnormally high hospital loads that occur on leap days compared to other years?  

Leap days may even trigger premature labour. Ever wonder why there’s such an unusually high percentage of leap year babies? These poor kids have no birth date! It's a ruse saying they were born on February 28th or March 1st  – a blatant act of government deception. But we’ll never know how many "leaplings" exactly because the government hides their actual birth date – erased from the records!  

Then there’s the psychological toll. Getting through February is hard enough, but an extra day in the dead of winter is like having an unwanted child in your 50s. Only the extra day doesn’t bring any joy... ever. Leap year was designed to keep us unhappy and depressed, removing all motivation to riot (and perhaps pillage) in the streets, to protest for a better, shorter year. But we will not be kept silent (more on that later).  

Do you ever wonder why the Mayan calendar didn’t have a leap year? Because they didn’t need it! Their calendar lasted longer than their mathematically-advanced civilization, without the help of any leap days. The Mayan calendar was so revered that its end date in 2012 could have meant the end of the world. But it didn’t... not this time. 

If that isn’t enough to convince you, consider this: Every 100 years, the leap year is skipped. This happens every centurial year. It happened in 1700, 1800, 1900... but not in 2000. How could this be, you might ask? Obviously, the world's power brokers considered the impact the loss of a leap year would have on their power and privilege. Why not push it off another hundred years, until say, 2100, when we’re all dead? And that’s exactly what they did! 

No, for the good of all humanity, the leap year must end. Please join us today, March 1st  (that’s right, today is actually March 1st!) for our quadrennial leap year protests, to end leap years once and for all. 

Together we’ll start our own calendar, void of any mention of February 29th and the misery it brings. 

Order your 2024 calendar today!

Next generation has a 50-50 chance

Sometimes it’s helpful to remind myself that my dad, when he was very young, traveled by horse and sleigh to get to school in winter. He still has the fully-enclosed sleigh, and even hooked it up a few years ago to his team of horses to show us how it works. In the bitter cold of January we enjoyed this pioneer-like experience, wood-burning stove and all, for a full 60 minutes. 

I try to think of these things as I travel to work on my heated seats, complaining to my wife, who’s also on a heated seat (but not in the hot seat), that I haven't had a cost-of-living increase in three years. “Inflation is taking a toll,” I bemoan, adjusting the seat warmer so my posterior doesn’t start to sweat. 

While I believe my complaints hold merit, still I wonder: How did I become such an entitled ingrate? 

As a student, I drove a puny Firefly with no air conditioning and barely enough heat to defrost the windows in winter. We had to shout to hear ourselves over the road noise whenever we dared venture onto the highway. Yet nothing beat having my own car, no matter how ugly or dangerous (as a 19-year-old, risk of death was a non-factor). Now I drive a car with not only heated seats, but more airbags than I could ever possibly want to deploy, and an infotainment screen that has everything I could possibly need to distract me from driving. Even a “student car” in this modern age comes fully equipped. It’s sickening. 

 But getting back to my loss in pay... Like anyone who’s learned to live with less, we’ve made do. And when I say less, I’m talking about the North American version of less. Unlike the 800 million people in our world who live in abject poverty, this doesn’t entail going hungry for a day. 

This kind of less means cutting your cable and relying on streaming services instead. This kind of less means living with your old iPhone for a year longer than you initially intended. This kind of less means squeezing that last little goop of toothpaste out of the tube without inadvertently hurting yourself. 

These “sacrifices” are laughable to over 90% of the world’s population. If you make over $42,000 a year, by the way, you’re in the top 1% of the world’s wealthiest income earners. You are the elite. 

Most Canadians can join this upper echelon if they become educated, or if they're lucky enough, find work in the oil patch. Socio-economic circumstances and family upbringing also play a role, but for most of us, it’s possible. We have opportunities dumped into our laps from birth, high-tech baby monitor and all. Our birthrights from government are even more valuable, as much as we take them for granted: free education, universal healthcare and a Canadian passport. 

Yet there's still a concern that the next generation won’t live as well as the last. One study showed that Millennials only have a 50-50 chance of being wealthier than their parents. I don’t know why we find that so shocking. Given the work ethic of older generations, it sounds like our Internet-surfing iPhone generation is making out pretty good. In fact, I would suggest we have to work far less for the same amount of wealth. Increased productivity and technology (like having Facebook at work) have helped out immensely, if nothing else, to have a more enjoyable work life. 

As much as I joke, this isn’t to take away from those who are really struggling. In areas where jobs are disappearing, it’s no small thing for families to suddenly see their incomes halved. And as Edward Luce argues in his book, The Retreat of Western Liberalism, the losses felt by the middle class could mean the end of democracy as we know it. 

Because when we start to feel like we're falling behind – think Alberta or the American Rust Belt – we also tend to lash out. At government. At immigrants. At the world. 

No matter how rich we were, we begin to feel dirt poor when some of it gets taken away. It’s only then that we look back at the good ol' days and wonder what we squandered. 

It was so easy back then... And we didn’t even ride to school with horses.

My bets are on... um... Buttigieg?

        “Pete Buttigieg [who finished first in Iowa] has poached elderly voters from Joe Biden, who has disappointed them by finishing fourth. Now Biden’s polling fourth in New Hampshire and the electability argument against Donald Trump is unconvincing to these elderly voters who are now voting for Buttigieg."
      - Suffolk University Polling Research Director Davide Paleologos, Fox News, Feb 6, 2020

If you’re like me, you’re probably salivating in anticipation of the Iowa caucuses New Hampshire primary. Can’t you just feel the excitement? Do you even know what I’m talking about? 

For political junkies, the primaries are like the countdown to Christmas. The race for the White House officially begins on February 3rd, when Democrats begin the arduous, five-month-long process to select their presidential nominee.   

The horse race of American politics is long and at times painstaking, but it’s a marvel of democratic tradition. It’s an exercise in public engagement, with thousands of selfies (an unfortunate element of the new age) and heated debates.  

It’s all good, and hopefully the start of something better. It could spell the demise of Donald Trump in this fall’s election.  

That won’t be easy. Normally, a first-term president riding a strong economy and exuberant stock market would have no problem winning re-election. An incumbent has distinct advantages, and only in a worst-case scenario are they at risk of losing. 

Because this, however, is Trump’s worst-case scenario: A challenger who dares return  normalcy a sense of decency back to the country

As a casual Canadian observer, I’ve been all over the map as to whom I’d support. All of the candidates have strengths, namely that they're not Donald Trump. The progressive wing of the party is represented by the likes of Elizabeth "I've got a plan" Warren, while the moderates are represented by Joe "steady-as-she-goes" Biden and Pete “I-could-be-Joe’s-son” Buttigieg. And then there's Bernie "I-won't-stop-for-a-heart-attack" Sanders... 

While it must be tempting for many party members to hitch their wagon to the most visionary, boldest candidate, one who can enact the biggest social change (i.e. Sanders), I would argue this is not a typical change election. This is not 2008, when George W. Bush was mired in two wars and the stock market had just crashed. This is not 1980, when Jimmy Carter fought inflation, high interest rates and an Iranian hostage crisis. 

Despite the Mueller Report, the impeachment trial, and the millions of mindless tweets, the economic and social landscape does not favour a change election. This is a change the leader election. And if they make it to be anything more, I venture to guess Democrats will face yet another electoral college defeat. Only a few midwestern swing states counted in the 2016 election, and it's likely to be the same in 2020.  

Which brings me back to Biden Buttigieg. I certainly have my doubts. I hate to be ageist, but it must play a role in his mangling of sentences and misstated facts people doubting his abilities. The presidency will be taxing for a 86 39-year-old, the age he’d be at the end of his second term Biden he’ll be when he begins his presidency. Biden Buttigieg also has flaws that he’s carried with him throughout his career, like saying stupid things and touching women inappropriately, like mishandling race issues in his own city. But in this Trumpian era, perhaps it doesn’t matter? 

The fact that he has little experience hasn’t hurt his popularity, although he has work to do to attract and he’s still a solid favourite among black voters. Maybe it’s a sign of our times, where we want a leader who doesn’t appear to be elite who’s outside the political establishment. We want an average Joe, and that’s A fresh young face is exactly who he is. 

Reluctantly Enthusiastically, I’ve come on board the Biden Buttigieg bandwagon, but only because and I believe he has the best a fair-to-good chance of victory winning. I hope he pulls it off, but here’s some unsought advice: Drink your Metamucil milk, wear warm socks a jacket if it gets drafty, and take frequent naps your Flintstones vitamins (am I being ageist again?) Do everything in your powers to stay alert in front of the cameras look like you’re not in high school anymore, and for goodness sake, stop touching women like you’re their creepy uncle don’t let those big, mean Republican senators steal your lunch money! 

Despite his shortcomings, what he will bring to the White House – and the world – is stability new beginnings. What better alternative to an impulsive, self-obsessed teenager named Trump than a steady-as-she-goes octogenarian I-actually-know-how-technology-works millennial in the Oval Office. 

He can nap play Fortnite daily at his desk for all I care.