In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I still remember that bit of ditty from 3rd grade. Nina, the something, Pinta maybe?, the Santa Maria. Three ships sailing into history in search of Asia, the long route, the wrong route. No doubt they loved finding gold instead of spices. And of course a New World to explore, conquer and repopulate. In return for the native\u2019s hospitality they brought microbes the indigenous folks had never been exposed to and so, without the necessity of major battles, the Spaniards decimated the Mayan, the Aztec and the Incan civilizations with brand new diseases. Smallpox for gold goblets. Black fever for slaves.<\/p>\n
I suppose when we earthlings go to distant planets we\u2019ll be peaceful, respectful, good neighborly, remembering that Columbus Day is just another Subjugation Day for the unfortunates who get discovered. Mars Rover Day will get replaced with a more politically correct moniker for its historic moment. Indigenous Martian Day really doesn\u2019t work for me, but I won\u2019t be around anyway, call it whatever you want.<\/p>\n
Columbus Day either. Dump the whole holiday for all I care. Just don\u2019t rebrand it. Us liberals really do value political correctness carried to the extremes. And so I can\u2019t wait to hear the folks who vociferously decry any political correctness as a limit on their freedom of speech. They\u2019re gonna howl that we\u2019ve waged war on poor Christopher the way we wage war on their Christian holidays. And their Star Spangled Banner. And their Confederate traitor statues. Is NOTHING sacred? <\/p>\n
Can\u2019t we just learn to love one another even if they were slave traders and warmongers? Can\u2019t we simply celebrate the holidays of the Judeo Christians and skip the minorities? So okay, we drop Christmas but we don\u2019t call it Islam Alternative Day. And if we drop Columbus Conquers the Americas Day, let\u2019s just find a new one somewhere in October to make a federal holiday. I like Halloween, good national fun and a money mojo for the candy and costume industry. Nobody made a dime on Columbus Day anyway and I notice the stock market doesn\u2019t bother to celebrate it. What kind of holiday is it that can\u2019t be monetized? Not a true American one, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I still remember that bit of ditty from 3rd grade. Nina, the something, Pinta maybe?, the Santa Maria. Three ships sailing into history in search of Asia, the long route, the wrong route. No doubt they loved finding gold instead of spices. And of course a New World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[573,574],"class_list":["post-9316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-columbus-day","tag-indigenous-people-day"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9318,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9316\/revisions\/9318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}