If I was a school age child I would have a strong opinion in favor of these holiday’s, but as an adult I feel they have become a bit trite, with very little REAL significance in life. But then as a service employee in a resort town, $$$$$!

To reinforce recognition of history. Columbus Day should be presented as recognition of the explorers, including Columbus, who helped find and form our country. Presidents Day started as Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays, both in February, now combined into a common day for all presidents. MLK day should be expanded into a day recognizing all those people who contributed to the eventual Civil Rights movement- include those whose died in the Civil War, people like Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, James Peck (a white Freedom Rider from the 1960s), and those in government through today who continue to monitor Civil Rights. Don’t make it about 1 person but rather the lesson today’s citizens can learn from the efforts of thousands of people working for a common goal.

I feel these people that we honor with a holiday should be memorialized because of their contribution to this country. When I was a kid the teachers at Bijou Elementary would tell us of the greatness of Washington, Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and years later I learned of the civil rights movement and the words of Martin Luther King jr. and so many others.
My hope is that this is still being taught in our schools today. But I fear that it’s not. Now these holidays are just that… a holiday, a day off and a boost in tourism for the almighty dollar.
Is it just me or does anyone else fly Old Glory on these special days? I do!!!She’s a bit faded and weather worn(kinda like me!) and while I don’t agree with alot America has done over the years I do respect those that have fallen in service to this country, taking us to where we are today.
Old Long Skiis

Columbus was a rapist and murderer. Raping adolescent children in the name of exploration. Let’s all take a long weekend and explore the back country of Tahoe in his honor. South Dakota has it right, renaming this holiday, Native American Day. If history has taught us anything, it’s history hasn’t taught us a thing. We are sheep taught to be happy to have a day off of working a job we hate. Even to celebrate a mass murderer.

Old Long Skiis- I fly the flag every day of the year not just on holidays. I wish everyone did.

Tahoeadvocate: I am glad you get enjoyment from flying the flag. My patriotism is not tied up in the flag so I choose not to. Rick

Thanks Rick.

@Dogmafading hit up the library. You can hate Native American culture all you want but if you saw your women and children raped and killed, you might turn a bit savage yourself.

@Lights Off
You need to be a shepherd for your children. If you want to Lighten Up on issues of this magnitude, you are lost and need to invest in a better light. I will chip away at Columbus’ high horse as long as you continue to celebrate it. He found some islands in the Caribbean, not our beloved America. He was a viscous monster(My history book says he was responsible for coining the term “Rape and Pillage” after what he did to the poor folks whose island he landed on(different story same B.S.)). Teach your children the truth, and enjoy your day off from the loathsome toil which brings food to the family’s collective gullet. BAhhh

I never said Columbus’ behavior toward the indigenous people wasn’t cruel. I certainly never said I hated American Indians. I asked for factual documentation for your claims. Simple.
I still think your hatred for Western civilization is founded on false dogma. All cultures have been “oppressed” at one time or another in history. Every civilization has been conquered. Get over it and move on, and learn to appreciate what you’ve got right now.

And we should probably tell those oppressed Indian women who are being raped on buses to just “get over it and move on” and appreciate what they have

Wait a minute… “I still think your hatred for Western civilization is founded on false dogma”… who hates Western culture? Who said that, where? Quote it.
If calling people names is a ban worthy offense, so should ‘putting words in peoples mouth”. In my opinion it is worse. I think it is slanderous, which you ironically accused someone else of doing. Please stop it.

It is common knowledge that Columbus committed genocide, I don’t know anyone who questions it, we all knew it in high school. It isn’t a conspiracy theory, it isn’t something that is based on interpretation. It is well documented.
‘A People’s History of The United States” was published in 1980. You can find the info in chapter 1. Welcome to what we knew in 1980.

Well put thing fish. Should have refreshed my page before posting. I appreciate your input on the matter and hope this opens an eye or two.

John, Columbus himself oversaw, as a governor of an island, the deaths of nearly 250,000 people. I never intended to blame the entire genocide on him, just one parts he was definitely a part of.
It is common knowledge among the people I know, only one or two of them were PolySci majors. ‘A People’s History…’ was part of the curriculum in AP History.

In summary, no one should celebrate his achievements.

John: you speak with incomplete knowledge. You are correct, greed was the key factor, but it drove Columbus to oversee the destruction of the indigenous people from where ever he went. You may think this is counter productive (which it is), but it came largely from a European and Christian arrogance of forcing civilization on the barbarians (i.e., natives, which included sending some off to the slave markets in Seville). The exact number that could be directly attributable to Columbus or his followers demeans the argument; Columbus, directly through his desire to tame the native, and find riches oversaw the destruction of nearly an entire culture. I direct you to an article written by Edmund Morgan, emeritus professor from Yale University in the Smithsonian Magazine in 2009. It does not paint a pretty picture of Mr. Columbus’s treatment of indigenous people nor is one left with any desire to think fondly of his exploits. He is a historical figure, he did sail to the Bahama’s, Caribbean Islands and South America. As Martin Dugard, the historian noted, it is not that Columbus got their first, but he stayed.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Presence-of-Mind-A-World-Too-New.html?c=y&page=1

Rick

John, he and his brothers were arrested and he spent time in jail while governor allegedly due to the brutal atrocities he visited on a number of the natives. He went back to Spain, whereby his riches were bestowed back on him (the rich always survive) but was told he would not be awarded the governorship again. He oversaw the decline of a population of natives from 100,000 to 200 – genocide, outsourcing, call it what you like, it was not good and he treated some indigenous folks very brutally. Some may choose to define this as genocide and I am not sure you could mount a strong argument against. Others (such as you) may more narrowly define the term and would consider it the unintended consequences of greed. I think if not genocide, it falls much closer to that the genocide side then ignorant greed (by a lot actually). Rick

Thing fish, it was disease. Yes the people died but nobody new about germs. People closed their windows to prevent the evil night vapors from entering the home. Yes there was murder, but it was people who tried to prevent the conversion to Catholicism and would deny eternity in heaven to people. Well yeah people were a little fanatical back then. True. He was too.

Just a point of fact, your 60 years should have been 6 years. Probably just a typo though. Also, during that period there is very little documentation of torture and the primary accusation was refuted.

John click link then read 4th paragraph

http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v9/9.11/1columbus.html

would you prefer a copy and paste?

Eleven score and sixteen years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, unless our creator added color.

Now we are engaged in a great debate, testing whether our basin, or any basin so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure the atrocities bestowed upon the colored and indigenous peoples. We are met on a great battle-field of that debate. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field a day perhaps, as a day of remembrance for those who here and across our great nation gave their lives that that nation might live without them. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this and enact a day with which to remember our sordid love affair with Indian genocide.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground, a day; perhaps. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, abolishing the ludicrous Columbus day, and thus enacting upon said day, a seemingly minimal 24 hours of remembrance for those who suffered the wrath of “superiority” — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.