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Minutia: Columbus Day

Today, we have the day off. I haven’t had Columbus Day off since high school! Working for the government is cool sometimes. Of course I’m not the one working for the government, but whatever…

I have some positive news about our good ol’ USoA, and Lord knows we need some. The government does not buy from any manufacturer that could possibly be exploiting human rights, directly or indirectly. This means that most of what the government buys it buys from US factories. Not something you could say about all those “successful” nations out there: Nike, Starbucks, the Gap, etc., etc. I found out through Miriam, who found out in her administrative training. It came up in the context of the crappy furniture we get with our housing at post. That is a major bone with most FSO’s and their fam’s; but now that I know why it’s crap, and that it was built by people not losing their jobs in this country and not by people not getting paid a living wage abroad, I will happily deal with the crap until the US manufacturers can make something decent and our government can afford to buy it for their employees abroad. Our gov. also buys from industry which supports handicapped persons; there are companies out there making office supplies, etc., that intentionally hire and train handicapped people to manufacture and sell the product. Miriam’s class was visited by a blind sales rep. We both think that is pretty cool as well.