Monday, February 20, 2006
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A Presidential Thought--More Holidays
Today is Presidents Day. What a day. The fourth day of a four day weekend for me. So I should perhaps think about something presidential. I could imagine all manner of isues, from the congressional hearings on the failures of FEMA and Homeland Security reagarding Katrina. I could make a crack about lawyers, the NRA and Dick Cheney. I could muse on Bush's 39% approval rating and Cheney's 29%, both reflections of what I felt during the 2004 presidential campaign. But I think I'll leave it to those who voted for him to ponder.
Instead, I find my thoughts drifting to a Democrat from the past: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. onebear reminded me that yesterday was an important day for Japanese Americans--the day FDR signed an executive order to relocate all persons of Japanese descent living on the west coast to concentration camps. I have met some Americans who have protested that they were "relocation" camps. Yeah, right. A group of people of the same ethnicity are gathered (concentrated) into one area. The area is fenced in with barbed wire on top. There are armed guards at the gate and in watch towers. So how is this more relocation than concentration? Some have defended the move as a way to protect the Japanese from the possible violence they would have met from narrow-minded right-wing conservatives--but I'm pretty sure that the guards at these camps in isolated locations such as Manzanar and Poston were armed to keep the Japanese in as much as to keep whites out. I guess this just proves that Democrats can be just as blind and narrow-minded as Republicans. Anyway, I wrote about it last year, so I won't dwell on it here. It only upsets me needlessly. READ MORE.
What really gets my goat is the fact that Presidents Day is a day for all presidents. No, no, no. I do not begrudge FDR or Dubya this day. My issues is that there is only one day off. Once upon a time, there were two days off. When I was in elementary school and high school, we got TWO (2) seperate holidays: Lincoln's Birthday on February 12 and Washington's Birthday on February 22. And there was none of this "Happy Monday"--as the Japanese term this transference of holidays to create three day weekends. Three day weekends are nice, but there was something exciting about having a random Wednesday or Thursday off. It made the week seem really short. And if the holiday fell on a Sunday, we still got Monday off. Of course, if it fell on a Saturday, we were screwed out of a holiday. Can we start a movement and reinstate the two birthday system. Maybe we can hire someone to lobby for a third holiday: one for Lincoln, one for Washington, and one for the remaining presidents.
But I suppose I shouldn't complain too loudly. Hattorihanzo writes that at the public university of Bush's brother' state, Florida, they don't even get the one President's Day off. That must suck. Can't you guys protest or something? You can claim that they are dissing Dubya, and brother Jethro... I mean Jeb, wouldn't be able to rebut.
To Hatorihanzo and others--like potatohead127--I'll make sure to enjoy the day off for you guys as well.
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Comments (11)
the one on my site now is the American one
I'll post up Canadian one later if I could find a clear picture of how it looked like
the snow covered most of my shots though...
The public university I went to for undergrad also doesn't get President's Day off either. Also, the massive defense contractor that I'm employed with also doesn't give us the holiday either...
its still strange how we dont observe it even though we have jebediah runnin around here. oh well. happy prez day!
I think in the Manzanar camp there were no trees, grass, flowers, etc. in the camp grounds. Then one day a sprout broke the soil and the Japanese-Americans built a small fence around it so no one would step on it. It turned out to be a morning glory. After reading the Houjouki everything I hear about morning glories I think about the temoporal.
For my school district, the coming of the President's birthday means that we get an entire week off, and the week is renamed "winter break".
Heh.
What I like about President's Day though is that on the History Channel they had this marathon devoted to the presidents and their respective eras. I didn't get to watch the entire thing, but I did catch the one on Lincoln and Johnson. Ahh, the way he was impeached was rather unfair.
Anyway, about the relocations during World War II, I have come to a conclusion that when people, anyone, is scared, they resort to the most illogical and stupid actions. For example, the Red Scare of the 1920s, when after Russia became the Soviet Union, people of Eastern Europe decent and living in America were being raided and arrested with the assumption that they were trying to spread socialism. See? Stupid.
... >_>; Happy Presidents' Day! :D
PS: I ... love this song by Monkey Majik. Do you know how far you've rotted my brain with this ? XD I'm looping it every single day!