The long Christmas holiday in America starts soon and goes right through next week because of the day-of-the-week that Christmas lands. It’s one of the biggest end-of-the-year travel periods in decades because of this as well.
But somehow it doesn’t feel like a holiday this year. People are still spending like crazy in an economy that to me is all smoke and mirrors, but all over the world dissatisfaction with their lives is only growing. You know the list. America’s on top.
Today begins the long Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. (Canada celebrates it earlier.) Festivities continue throughout the week with many people not returning to normal work routines until Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
For many Americans this has become a bigger holiday than Christmas and other end-of-the-year celebrations, which are considered more religious than familial. In large part, this is because of BLACK FRIDAY.
Today is controversial: a very revered American holiday that many of us are reluctant to celebrate because we are so ashamed of America’s wars. Yet we can’t ignore the life stories of those who are conflated with them.
During my life time, which began just after World War II, America has fought many wars and not a single one was justified. I hoped Obama would end some of them, but instead he started new ones. Today, it’s terrifying.
The populism which snuck Trump into power will not alter its vehement refusal to engage globally, and that includes warring. So the Trump administration has made almost as many efforts to end America’s fighting abroad as it has to build a wall between Mexico and our southern border. Neither has been successful.
And the efforts have divided America even further and increasingly stressed our government and culture.
Consider this. America for good or bad was instrumental bringing down the Berlin Wall under what had been its most conservative president to date, Ronald Reagan. Trump refused to join the celebrations a few days ago. It’s unclear whether this was his decision or the Germans’. Either way he is clearly not seen or does not want to be known as a peace maker.
His bumbling missteps in the Mideast do not look promising. NATO is in tatters. Defense strategy is non-existent. His attempts to negotiate peace in North Korea have resulted in a dozen new North Korean missiles and his arrogance with Iran have fueled Iranian mischief.
Worse, our Commander-in-Chief has implied he will use nukes.
Today is the Columbus Day federal holiday in America.
“Columbus Day” puzzles many of my African readers. After all, Columbus didn’t land in America but in the West Indies. So it seems a fickle holiday in a country that’s known not to have that many.
Today is America’s Memorial Day holiday.
The holiday is intended to honor the memories of U.S. soldiers who died in action. It’s similar to the Remembrance Days celebrated in many parts of Africa, and like in South Africa created primarily to honor the freedom fighters for independence.
But America’s Memorial Day has grown to honor all fallen soldiers not just those who fought in the 18th century revolution. In fact it wasn’t started until after the Civil War when it was first called “Decoration Day,” following a petition by recently freed slaves (most who came from Africa) to honor the Union soldiers who had freed them.
After World War I it was changed to “Memorial Day” and extended as an honor to all soldiers in all conflicts.
As a young boy it was a big red-white-and-blue festival. School got out early Friday so we could decorate our little red wagons and bikes for the big Monday parade, just as we would hardly a month later for the July 4th Independence Day Holiday.
Since then my own personal regards for Memorial Day has diminished. The numerous wars my country began during my life time have mostly been unfair and unjust. The end of conscription — which happened when I was in university — changed the military so radically that it is no longer a people’s army: It no longer represents society as a whole.
Today the military is composed either of young men who can’t get any other kind of job or who need the benefits once their service is finished, or avowed militarists.
I do stop during the day and think of my relatives in the Great Wars. I think of the way the country ultimately came together to fight world tyranny. But in my life time there is little in America’s wars to be proud of. They are mostly memories I wish we didn’t have.
There are so many African dictators in part because of America. Today is America’s Presidents’ Day Holiday. It celebrates the office as much as the individuals who held it. It celebrates the closest thing a democracy can be to remaining a monarchy.
Last year I wrote, “Today is one of the most important holidays, Martin Luther King Day. It’s impossible to overstate its importance this year.”
The litany of racist acts accelerated including murder. Worse, everyone is becoming numb. We chuckle quietly hopeful of some relief. We go about our business as if nothing has happened, as if there is nothing special about today. Most offices, even cultural institutions, are acting today as if Martin Luther King never existed.
Today I join thousands of other Americans in the “Christmas Bird Count.” (It’s time to change the name to something more secular).
Volunteers across the country survey their regions for what birds remain after the annual fall migration. Since Christmas Day 1900, the bird count has proceeded uninterrupted by wars or depressions.
Today begins the long Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. (Canada celebrates it earlier.) Festivities continue throughout next week with many people not returning to normal work routines until a week from Monday.
For many Americans this has become a bigger holiday than Christmas and other end-of-the-year celebrations, which are considered more religious than familial.
In both Canada and the U.S. the holiday week is characterized by copious amounts of food featuring seasonal recipes and lots of sweets. The traditional meat served at the feast is turkey.
The holiday originates with the first permanent settlers to the New World, people who called themselves “pilgrims” who were fleeing England’s restrictive laws on religion. They arrived the northeast coast of America between 1620 and 1621.
They fared poorly in the beginning until two local native Americans, both Wampanoags of the Algonkian-speaking clan, befriended the settlers. Both spoke English; one of them had traveled to England in 1605.
The “Indians” taught the pilgrims how to farm and build homesteads, and the summer planting season was so successful that the pilgrims invited the Indians to a “Thanksgiving” harvest dinner in November, 1621.
Click here for a fascinating account of the first Thanksgiving, what led up to it, and what came afterwards.
The report was first published for the Tacoma School District by a panel of scholars from the northwest. Among the things that stuck out to me was that the first Thanksgiving was an extremely friendly affair that lasted three days between Miles Standish’s pilgrims and the local Alonguin Indians.
Both women and men Indians sat at the Thanksgiving tables, but only Pilgrim men were allowed to sit at the tables since the women were expected to stand behind their men to serve them as needed.
Capt. Standish did, indeed, issue the invitation to the local Indians for the first harvest thanks, acknowledging that his small settler group would not have survived without the Indians’ constant consul and encouragement.
If ever there were illegal immigrants, it was Miles Standish and his band of exiles. But Clan Chief Massasoit threatened no barrier. In fact, the chief gave the Standish clan choice pieces of his own land.
The friendship between the citizens and exiles was so profound that 150 years later Benjanmin Franklin realized that because of the equality that women were given among the native Americans that they should be given an important seat at the table creating a new America.
According to the Tacoma document Franklin invited the principle Indians of the time, the Iroquois, “to Albany, New York, to explain their system to a delegation who then developed the ‘Albany Plan of Union.’ This document later served as a model for the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States.”
There are never things lacking for being grateful for. This Thanksgiving remember all those who built our pasts with open hearts and the courage to confront new times and new places embracing, not fearing those unlike us.
Today is controversial: a very revered American holiday that many of us are reluctant to celebrate because we are so ashamed of America’s wars. Yet we can’t ignore the life stories of those who are conflated with them.
During my life time, which began just after World War II, America has fought many wars and not a single one was justified. I hoped Obama would end some of them, but instead he started new ones. Today, it’s terrifying. The Trump administration has not ended the wars he so vehementally campaigned against, instead supporting Saudi Arabia in its genocide in Yemen. Worse, our Commander-in-Chief has implied he will use nukes.
Today is the Columbus Day federal holiday in America.
“Columbus Day” puzzles many of my African readers. After all, Columbus didn’t land in America but in the West Indies. So it seems a fickle holiday in a country that’s known not to have many.
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America’s Independence Day holiday falls on Wednesday smack dab in the middle of the week, so a lot of people are taking the entire week off.
America’s Independence Day holiday has lost much of its context over the last 220 years. Unlike many African countries, for example, there is no living memory of Independence, just what the books tell us.
Many of us are specially less eager to celebrate the holiday, because of the terrible divisions our constitution causes today. Almost all the political divisions of our country stem either from your embrace of the 18th Century constitution, or your criticism of it.
Unlike most countries in the world it’s near impossible to change our constitution. To do so is a difficult two-step process.
The first step is simply to “propose” a change, known as an “amendment.” This requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers of our legislature, or a two-thirds vote by a convention called separately by The States.
Once an amendment is proposed, it will only become law when three-quarters of the States ratify it. States have different rules for what constitutes ratification, but in all cases it’s at the very least a majority vote by both chambers of the State legislature then approved by the State’s executive (governor).
So changing the constitution is virtually impossible. It’s the central reason America is becoming so conservative in a world that is becoming increasingly progressive.
Merry-making this year is doubly hard given who is our current president and how juvenile and corrupt our legislature has become.
Today begins the long Memorial Day weekend holiday in the United States. Technically the holiday is Monday.
The holiday is intended to honor the memories of U.S. soldiers who have died in action. It’s similar to the Remembrance Days celebrated in many parts of Africa, and like in South Africa created primarily to honor the freedom fighters for independence.
But America’s Memorial Day has grown to honor all fallen soldiers, not just those who fought in the 18th century revolution. In fact it wasn’t started until after the Civil War when it was first called “Decoration Day,” following a petition by recently freed slaves (most who came from Africa) to honor the Union soldiers who had freed them.
After World War I it was changed to “Memorial Day” and extended as an honor to all soldiers in all conflicts.
As a young boy it was a big red-white-and-blue festival. School got out early Friday so we could decorate our little red wagons and bikes for the big Monday parade, just as we would hardly a month later for the July 4th Independence Day Holiday.
Since then my own personal regards for Memorial Day has diminished. The numerous wars my country began during my life time have mostly been unfair and unjust. The end of conscription — which happened when I was in university — changed the military so radically that it is no longer a people’s army: It no longer represents society as a whole.
Today the military is composed either of young men who can’t get any other kind of job or who need the benefits once their service is finished, or avowed militarists.
I do stop during the day and think of my relatives in the Great Wars. I think of the way the country ultimately came together to fight world tyranny. But in my life time there is little in America’s wars to be proud of. They are mostly memories I wish we didn’t have.
Today is the American Presidents’ Day holiday. It has a particularly biting edge to it this year, because the vast majority of the country vehemently disapproves of President Trump.
Officially marked to celebrate the birthday of our first president, George Washington, the holiday was expanded by most of the States to also celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, which also occurs in February hence the name.
Today is one of the most important holidays for political America, Martin Luther King Day. It’s impossible to overstate its importance this year.
The current xenophobic administration is poised to make illegal 800,000 young people Friday at midnight. Starting in the wee hours Saturday morning, the embodiment of “I Have a Dream,” King’s famous speech, today America’s “Dreamers” face being deported to places they have never seen.