Labor Daze

Good Morning and (for readers in the U.S.), happy post-Labor Day. A couple of new items.

• For American workers, it's felt like post-Labor Day blues for years: there's little to celebrate when ordinary workers' incomes aren't keeping up with inflation, when job security is just another gamble, and when health and retirement benefits are becoming daily punchlines to unfunny jokes on workers. How do employers get away with it? By being deceptively "inspirational" and "motivational," all the while keeping employees under a jackboot. See Pierre's Tuesday column, "Art of the Workplace Vise..."
  

• Why do Men Love War? William Broyles answered the question in a famous essay for Esquire 22 years ago that said more about Americans' love affair with the testosterone-laden idea of war than with its repulsive reality. Here's an update on the question, and Broyles' lingering influence: "Jarheads: Romancing the Brutes..."
  

• Gun-running by El Al, the Israeli airline? Guns are the least of it. Think bombs. Missiles. Cluster bombs. Not just under the Department of Homeland Security's eyes, but with its encouragement. Through America's civilian airports. See the item in the Monday edition of Candide's Latest, and more...
  

Tuesday is primary election day in Florida: Katherine Harris and Randall Terry are just a couple of the lightning-rod luminaries on the ballot. Stay tuned.pt