Columbus Day

Today is Columbus Day. Columbus is often (and mistakenly) credited with discovering America. In fact, he landed nowhere near North America, but ended up in Haiti. So instead of being the celebrated first European to set foot on North American soil, he was actually the first European to land in Haiti. He was also the first European to enslave and kill the natives in Haiti.

What a guy, that Columbus. Leave it to The Man to establish a holiday in honor of the genocide of indigenous people.

My husband had a conversation about this dubious holiday with one of his clients a couple of weeks back. He was in L.A., and apparently this holiday doesn't exist in Cali.

H: "Columbus Day is coming up, but I don't get it off or anything. Damned fake holidays."
C: "Oh right, that guy, who landed on that rock."
H: "Uh, no, that was the Mayflower, and Plymouth Rock."
C: "Oh yeah. Where the hell did he land then?"
H: "I dunno, further south, like Puerto Rico or something."
C: "Well that's stupid. Why is it a holiday then?"

Damned if I know, buddy. It's no wonder that the rest of the world regularly points and laughs at us, we do such stupid things sometimes.

I propose that we drop Columbus and celebrate Leif Erikson day. I mean, at least he came close to North America, and he did it almost 500 years before that buttfucker Columbus.