Sources: The Road to Nowhere

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Forfeited vacation days: Expedia.com, “Vacation Deprivation Survey,” May 2004.

Time needed to relax: Families and Work Institute, “Overwork in America: When the Way We Work Becomes Too Much,” March 2005.

Doing work during vacation: Families and Work Institute, “Overwork in America: When the Way We Work Becomes Too Much,” March 2005.

Travel barriers: Lonely Planet, “2005 Travelers’ Pulse Survey.”

French strike: “French parliament allows employers to dismantle 35-hour workweek in exchange for higher pay,” Associated Press, March 22, 2005.

Paid vacation time offered, not taken: Families and Work Institute, “Overwork in America: When the Way We Work Becomes Too Much,” March 2005.

Maximum hours in EU: European Industrial Relations Observatory, “Working time–developments in EU and national regulation,” March 2004.

Presidential vacations: Kenneth T. Walsh, From Mount Vernon to Crawford: A History of the Presidents and Their Retreats, 2005; “A White House on the Range: Bush Retreats to Ranch for ‘Working Vacation’,” Washington Post, August 7, 2001; “Escape from the White House,” CBS News, December 13, 1999.

Bush vacation before 9/11: “A White House on the Range: Bush Retreats to Ranch for ‘Working Vacation’,” Washington Post, August 7, 2001.

Schiavo v. Asian tsunami: “Supporters Praise Bush’s Swift Return to Washington,” New York Times, March 21, 2005; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, “NOAA and the Indian Ocean Tsunami,” December 29, 2004; “President Discusses Support for Earthquake and Tsunami Victims,” White House transcript, December 29, 2004.

Middle-aged men and heart attacks: “Are Vacations Good for Your Health? The 9-Year Mortality Experience After the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial,” Psychosomatic Medicine 62:608-612, 2000; Dr. Brooks Gump, Department of Psychology, SUNY Oswego.

“Presenteeism”: “Health, Absence, Disability, and Presenteeism Cost Estimates of Certain Physical and Mental Health Conditions Affecting U.S. Employers,” Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine 46(4), April 200; Cornell News Service, “Economists coin new word, ‘presenteeism,’ to describe worker slowdowns that account for up to 60 percent of employer health costs,” April 20, 2004.

RAND bonus: RAND Corporation; “Too many Americans shun vacations,” Detroit Free Press, June 24, 2004.

Roman holidays: Hutton Webster, Rest Days: A Study in Early Law and Morality, cited in Juliet B. Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (Basic Books, 1992).

Idleness in Massachusetts: Juliet B. Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (Basic Books, 1992).

“Work-shy elements”: Tom Hodgkinson, How to be Idle (HarperCollins 2005).

Mandated vacations around the world: The Bureau of National Affairs and American Bar Association International Labor Law Committee, “International Labor and Employment Laws,” 1997, 2002; Human Resources and Skills Development Canada; International Labour Organization, “Paid annual leave,” July 2004.

Leisure sickness: “Leisure Sickness: A study on Its Prevalence, Phenomenology, and Background,” Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 71(6), 2002.

Passport holders: Calculations based on numbers from U.S. Department of State, U.S. Census; calculations based on figures from U.K. Passport Service, National Statistics Online (U.K.); Community Marketing, Inc., “Gay & Lesbian Travel Profile,” 2005.

Sex on vacation: National Leisure Travel Monitor, 2004.

Hours worked per capita: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Employment Outlook,” 2004.

Flights of Fancy: Webflyer.com, “Chronology of Mileage Redemption/Program Liability Accumulation,” 2003.

Air rage insurance: “Insurer offers air rage cover,” London Telegraph, November 30, 2004.

Air rage categories: Center for Investigative Psychology, University of Liverpool, “Air Rage: In-flight Violence” (unpublished study).

Number one currency: “In terminal decline? Frequent-flyer miles,” The Economist, January 8, 2005.

High gas prices: Ipsos-Public Affairs survey conducted for the Associated Press and AOL News, April 2005.

Solo travel: Fodor’s Travel Publications survey, March 2005.

Dining alone: Fodor’s Travel Publications survey, March 2005.

Nude resorts: National Leisure Travel Monitor, 2003.

Religious services: Travel Industry Association of America, “Travel Statistics and Trends, 2004.”

U.S., Saudi tourism: World Tourism Organization, “Tourism Highlights: Edition 2004”; World Tourism Organization, “Facts and Figures,” 2003.

Christian cheerleaders: “Cheerleading camps combine spirit, sport Christian themes center stage at clinics,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 1, 2005.

Disney-going Mother Jonesers: In-house survey, May 2005.

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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