Hold On a Second, U.S. Post Office – Get Back To Work!

While government and municipal workers have the day off to be with their families and reflect on the importance of Christoffa Corombo (his Genoese name; I call him this because he was Genoese.. what, you didn’t know that? How many Columbus Days have you observed?) within their family unit, Baseball For Dinner is open for business. No second Mondays of this month off, no way. We’ve got work to do.

I won’t even get into how the first thing I was planning on doing this morning was walking over to the post office and having some postage applied to a package, only to remember that our civil servants are off at the casino today. No, this is bigger than me. This is even bigger than Baseball For Dinner. This is a call to arms to fight the powers that be in helping to eradicate Columbus Day.

Why, Joey? Why? Why would you want to strip us of one of the precious few holidays we’ve got left? Are we supposed to settle for paid observance of Asian Lunar New Year and Solemnity of the Ascension? Must we be happy only getting off Feast of the Assumption and Lincoln’s Birthday?

Yes. Labor Day is for you, too. Be happy with it. But celebrating Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas is unreasonable. It’s downright obscene. And, perhaps most of all, anyone who doesn’t feel the way I do is not passionately against me. They just don’t give a shit.

What am I getting at? It should be clear as day. What has Christoffa Corombo ever done for you? Do you think he discovered America? Because that was Amerigo Vespucci in 1497 (validity of this assertion disputed). Do you think he saved us all from thinking the earth was flat? Because no one ever really thought that, and if they did it was probably proved otherwise by some Persian or Babylonian astronomer about 5000 years ago. So? Old Crystal Ball Colon, what has he contributed for the greater good of you and yours?

Sweet fuck all, that’s what.

It is the opinion of this publication that Columbus has no business gumming up the flow of commerce in this nation. He sure doesn’t belong on the calendar. Not unless we’re about to get school off for General Custer Remembrance Day or James W. Forsyth’s Birthday. Columbus was a monster among men, a sadistic opportunist who murdered and enslaved countless indigenous people and led a bloody campaign through the West Indies, using fear and force to forge a path of death and destruction. He is not a man to be celebrated. He never set foot on either of the American continents, so he didn’t exactly open up the region to European trade, either. He was the type of guy who your father would call a “loser”, and tell you that he didn’t want you driving around with him after school – that is, if your father has any common sense.

I mean, come on – there’s a reason we celebrate Lincoln’s birthday and not James Buchanan’s. Buchanan, a widely-perceived “failed” President, would never grace the pages of your Dilbert-a-Day calendar. He refused to challenge the spread of slavery or the growing bloc of states that would become the Confederacy, sure; but, perhaps even more importantly, nobody gives a shit anymore. Save a handful of crackpot historians, Buchanan has all but disappeared from public discourse. Not to say that Columbus should, but the point is, if you have an educated opinion about President Buchanan, it’s probably not a good one. Otherwise, you don’t have an opinion at all. If we had a special day off to commemorate his presidency, would anyone be sitting around the dinner table, reflecting on his policies? Would we sleep better that night, knowing what he’d done for our country? Or would we even bother to consider what it is we’re observing on this day off of work and school? Perhaps, (and bear with me, as The Practical Contrarian is oft rich with cynicism) the average American would just party too hard the night before, sleep in late, and play Halo all day, taking the national holiday for granted, as their right as a patriot.

Likewise, I’m sure, with Columbus Day. Nothing perpetuates the spread of ignorance and non-indigenous sensibilities like having the day off. Why instead don’t we send our children to school and, at least one day out of the year, focus the cirriculum on racism, slavery, and genocide in America and make an honest, concerted effort to prevent history from repeating itself? How’s that for “no child left behind”?

So keep the mail coming, USPS. Teach the ugly truth to America’s youth, educators. And, for Christ’s Sake (he did die for our sins, after all), STOP CELEBRATING THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MURDERERS. It’s worse than negotiating with terrorists.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a soap box to put away for the time being.