BALTIMORE, Md. — While some political candidates here at the Green Party National Convention are clamoring for more/cleaner/environmentally friendly energy, G. Lee Aikin urged everyone to simply relax. The candidate for D.C. shadow Representative has spent the past 40 years formulating her “New National Lifestyle,” a treatise on time management that calls for everyone to work less.

Under Aikin’s plan, government and business would move to a quarterly calendar similar to the one employed by academic institutions. Those who choose to participate in the purely voluntary program could elect to work between one to four quarters of the year, sans fear of dismissal/unlawful termination for time taken off.

Her intention is for overtaxed workers to enjoy more down time — which she hopes will be devoted to family, extended vacations and “green activities” (gardening, community activism) — while also allowing the unemployed and under-employed a greater opportunity to fill in the newly created gaps.

“We would be moving a big step toward easing the problems of unemployment (both technical and hardcore), excess consumption of natural resources, overcrowding in our schools and universities, women’s lack of equality, juvenile delinquency, and who knows what others,” she argues in her blueprint for wholesale behavior modification.

(Is it too late to change HOH’s affiliation to the “More Vacation Party”?)