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Greetings Constant Reader: Welcome to another issue of the IRS, finally falling on the 15th of April as it should be. Spring is in the air, and as I finish the content for the web site with this editorial column, I have lost an hour of time in the night and woke up to find that while it was snuggly and dark outside, like it always is at 6 am, that it was really 7 am and I had to get moving if I was going to accomplish anything today. What does that say about me that I had to get up at 7 am on a Sunday to get all my goals accomplished before I went back to work tomorrow? Am I popular? Crazy? Solving some large mathematical equation? Is there a STAR TREK marathon on? No. The answer, I guess, is that I have a lot of things I like to do beside my day job which amounts to reprinting a succession of letters for the same things that happen every year. That's not completely fair, I enjoy everyone I work with, but the work itself does little to make me feel socially or spiritually productive. I guess in the end that's not the job of your job. I've written on this subject before, about how my friends and I have no time to take part in art, and that most artist barely make enough money to survive, but this is a little different. Recently NPR did a report on how American adults are not getting enough sleep. According to the report, 8-9 hours is required and most people are getting 5-6. As I drove down the road, missing my turn, unable to change lanes to turn around because no one would let me over and I finally became so upset that I honked, yelled and went over anyway, causing other cars to swerve, honk and yell at me, I realized, we all need a little nap time. What happens to a society that is sleep deprived as a whole? What about when they choose to self medicate with a Starbucks on every corner (thus making Starbucks more evil than we ever imagined)? We are a bunch of cranky, caffeinated over achievers. By over achieving I don't necessarily mean productive work. Most of us are not up contemplating a way to solve the energy crisis. Some of us like to stretch the limits of our ability to stay up partying or playing cards, but the result is the same. We're tired and it affects our ability to be productive, and more importantly, it affects our ability to be civil to each other. Those who know me know I don't like people as a whole, (but I am in good literary company with Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift on my side,) so why worry about civility. Well, civility is a lot different from actually liking people and treating them well. I'm all for civility, manners, what ever you want to call it. It allows people to go about their day with out fear of molestation and drops the aggression rate over all. And strange to say it makes me feel better. I actually feel better when I stop at the corner before the red light, where I was going to stop anyway, and let some moron who's been waiting to merge into traffic go ahead and do so. Ultimately I know this is selfish, I want to feel better and go about unmolested. So what. If every one had my selfish goals it might be a little more pleasant to get around. Now I would like to wind up with suggestions about getting more sleep, but I just don't have time.
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