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Memories of the 28th Century

About Holidays

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For many people holidays are days off with pay, but to people who don’t work in a place that gives paid holidays they are a pain, and the owners and managers of the businesses that gives paid holidays is one who thinks they are a pain. They are also pains to many people who get paid holidays, but that varies with the individual and the holiday.

To start with, just look at the holidays, and to keep it simple, I’ll just consider the days that the feds give off. New Year’s Day is the Christian Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, and that was why it was a holiday long before the year started beginning on January first.

Then there is the day to honor a philandering socialist rabble rouser, the Reverend Martin Luther King.

Then we celebrate the birth of a racist, slave owning, genocidal Indian killing, tax evading, and war criminal, the justly famed George Washington.

Memorial Day is for remembering those who died in the Second War of Independence, the one in which liberty lost, and the country was taken over by oligarchs. Some people erroneous think those who died in that war died for freedom, but chattel slavery has continued in the U.S.

The Fourth of July is not Independence Day, because the U.S. declared itself independent on the Second Day of July in 1776, but the forth is a holiday dedicated to printers, because that was the day when the Declaration came back from the printer. Let the printers celebrate the fourth, and the rest of us can celebrate the second.

Labor Day is supposed to be matched with Intromission Day, which falls on the first Friday of December, but that day hasn't caught on, yet.

Columbus Day is decried by many people, because Columbus was a racist, genocidal, slave trader. Let's just forget about it.

Veterans Day was to commemorated the end of the Great War, but it was extended to all veterans. Many people would prefer that there were no wars, and there wouldn't be, if there were no people willing to fight them.

Thanksgiving Day is different from other holidays, because it is to show appreciation for what we have, but some people look at the origin of it, when the Pilgrims gave thanks to their various Gods for the first harvest they had in the Colony of New Plimouth, and relate that to genocide and so on, but the Pilgrims weren't racist or genocidal; although some of them inspired strange poetry in the for of the Courtship of Myles Standish with that unforgettable line from Priscilla Mullen: "Speak for yourself, John Alden." It might be simpler if people simply felt of even expressed appreciation for what they have silently to themselves. But that's reason to have a holiday for something that one can do a minute of meditation.

Then there is Christmas, as the Christians call the celebration of the annual rebirth of Mithra, the only son of Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd), which is the astronomical event of the Sun starting its apparent march toward and beyond the Equator to the Tropic of Cancer. Since Mithraism was so popular in the Mediterranean region several hundred years ago, and the Christians wanted to cash in on that, they borrowed the Lord of Wide Pastures, Mithra, and rebranded him as the Shepard, along with the only son of a God, they too the date of his rebirth, the fourth day after the Solstice when it becomes apparent that the Sun is returning Obviously the Mithraists and Zoroastrians have problems with that day, and people of other religions usually find it annoying.

With those as holidays, I am surprised that the people have not risen in mass and demanded the elimination of holidays, but they get the days off, even if they hate the rationales for those days. If we were to offer people any ten days of their choice in place of those ten, I think that nearly everyone would opt for their own preferred days off, and that would be convenient with many businesses that cater to holiday traffic.

For these and other reasons I propose that we eliminate all holidays and allow every man, woman, and child an additional ten days as paid time off. If some people still want to celebrate one or more of these old fashioned sectarian holidays, then let them, but most of us want to get away from those evil, old sectarian times.

There are other legal holidays in different places, but they are no better, just different.

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