Continuing The Tradition

Liberals love to redefine words. When they find a pet cause, they take a word, redefine it to mean what they want it to mean rather than what it actually means, and then they demand that everyone agree with them in the name of tolerance. Continuing that wonderful tradition, liberals are now telling us that 'unemployment' should be called 'funemployment':

For the 'funemployed,' unemployment is welcome

These jobless folks, usually singles in their 20s and 30s, find that life without work agrees with them. Instead of punching the clock, they're hitting the beach.

Michael Van Gorkom was laid off by Yahoo in late April. He didn't panic. He didn't rush off to a therapist. Instead, the 33-year-old Santa Monica resident discovered that being jobless "kind of settled nicely."

Week one: "I thought, 'OK . . . I need to send out resumes, send some e-mails, need to do networking.

Every week since: "I'm going to go to the beach and enjoy some margaritas."

What most people would call unemployment, Van Gorkom embraced as "funemployment."

While millions of Americans struggle to find work as they face foreclosures and bankruptcy, others have found a silver lining in the economic meltdown. These happily jobless tend to be single and in their 20s and 30s. Some were laid off. Some quit voluntarily, lured by generous buyouts.

Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks or their parents, the funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings. They travel on the cheap for weeks. They head back to school or volunteer at the neighborhood soup kitchen. And at least till the bank account dries up, they're content living for today.

"I feel like I've been given a gift of time and clarity," said Aubrey Howell, 29, of Franklin, Tenn., who was laid off from her job as a tea shop manager in April. After sleeping in late and visiting family in Florida, she recently mused on Twitter: "Unemployment or funemployment?"

I've been unemployed, and I can assure you that it is anything but fun. To sit around all day knowing that you have no income coming in, and thus no way of buying food and making the house payment, well, that's a terrible situation to contemplate, much less be in. Anyone who has fun playing around during unemployment has a strange set of priorities. Or, they're reliant on the government. Sorry for the redundancy. There's my two cents.