How does “not working” honor anyone’s memory?
Personally, I don’t mind the holidays I have. I’d just prefer to take them at my leisure.
If you’re not working, you can thank the individual who’s being honoured. I think most people see holidays as just a day off, but the intent is that we be thankful that the person existed and remember his/her accomplishments.
My father’s birthday is a profound holiday for me, so I don’t work on that day.
My kids have school today! Is that unbelievable or what? They get 3 days off for the first week of frickin hunting season, but they have to go to school today. If I didn’t have to work I would have let them stay home with me. Sorry, don’t mean to rant, but it’s culture shock to say the least coming from the NY metro area to a small town in the middle of PA.
If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun.
-Benjamin Franklin
I’m confused, why do your kids have to go to school? Isn’t this a National holiday for everyone? I’m at work, but the university is basically closed…how do the teachers in Pa differ from other state employees?
As to your OP Mjollnir, I suppose the idea reflects the way the Sabbath is treated.
I think MLK day is a state things, not a federal thing. Remember the flap when Arizona rejected it?
Martin Luther King Day is a federal holiday, though a lot of states had trouble accepting it as a state holiday. Here in Virginia, we have Lee-Jackson-King day, though the governor has stated he wants to separate the civil rights leader’s holiday from the Civil War heroes’.
School systems don’t have to take off for federal holidays. I remember when our school was open for Columbus Day, MLK Day and Presidents Day.
Homer Simpson once ranted about the unfairness of squeezing Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays together into Presidents’ Day. (“Unfairness” in the sense that he now only got one day off work in February instead of two.)
Personally, I’m waiting for Saint Patrick’s Day, which we celebrate in this country with the consumption of McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes.
I think all working people, regardless of their feelings for MLK appreciate a day off with pay.
I worked most of the day, as did the Doctor I visited this afternoon. Interestingly enough, the Doctor is a black man. He is of Jamaican origin, so maybe that accounts for his decision to keep his office open. Anyway, by no means do ALL working people have a holiday on MLK day. My wife, a Federal Government employee, did not work today as her office was closed.
I find it funny that my local bank had a sign saying “We will be closed on Monday in observation of MLK day.”, implying that they were truly observing the holiday rather than using it as a cheap day off. (I hate banks, by the way.)
Now that MLK has a holiday all to himself (only Christ shares that distinction in the US), what exactly did MLK do that was so great?
KM2 said:
I will repeat the joke I made in the Pit when someone else stated this.
“Oh! You mean Christ Columbus!”
As for what he did- he helped focus American awareness and indignation upon the legalized segregation and discrimination in the South. Without his eloquent voice and constant pressure upon the American public, the removal of segregation and the institution of legal equality for African Americans may have taken decades longer to achieve, assuming that it was achieved. And in doing his work, King faced threats of violence and assassination, yet he never turned away from doing the right thing, even as it meant spending nights in jail or facing crowds that would have been happy to beat his skull in.
For this, King has a holiday. He is the moral equivalent of one of our Founding Fathers, risking life and limb in the quest for the rights that are endowed upon all humans.
JMCJ
Curmudgeon Of The Day Winner, 1/19/00
As Selected by RTFirefly
All humans?
In California when they were fighting about Affirmative Action, the anti-AA people used his “I have a dream” speech. People should not be judged on the color of their skin, even if it benefits them.
Ms King got really, really upset and the ad was pulled.
Better change that all to 12%. Good try, though. Next.
Maybe it was because he got blacks to vote. Well, the states with the lowest voting turnouts are in the South. That’s gratefulness for ya!
Maybe because he ended racism. HA! Ask Jesse Jackson about that one.
Maybe because he was a nice role model* for blacks and can raise their self-esteem. Somehow, I think this is pretty close to the real reason.
*Plagarism of a doctoral thesis is a good thing?
KM2- Ahhh, I see.
MLK must be held accountable to actions taken in his name 30 years after his death. Gotcha.
I suppose, then, in your opinion, we should knock down all the stautes of Robert E. Lee because he fought under the Confederate Flag, a flag the Ku Klux Klan later used as a banner when they persecuted, lynched, and killed blacks. That wasn’t what Lee wanted, or what he may have felt the flag meant, but that’s what people use the flag for now, so let’s tear down his name and call him a bastard.
You’re a hypocrite, Klan Man.
JMCJ
Curmudgeon Of The Day Winner, 1/19/00
As Selected by RTFirefly
OK, KM2, we get it. Something about black people pisses you off, and you spend your days and nights casting about for things to be mad at all of them about. Heck, I’ve even got a guess as to what it is.
How’s this:
You believe that equal treatment tends to decrease opportunities for those members of the previously dominant group who are the most incompetent. You are among them.
Now run along.
Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine
From The Times (London) today (Jan 21st),
The story is here http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?3318806
Justified or not? Not having been around during the Civil Rights era, nor having studied his activities, I don’t feel sufficiently equipped to comment.
…confirmed that the Pope…
I have a bizarre-whacko theory about Dr. King’s death. I’m thinking that he knew that Hoover, given a little more time, would trump up some BS charges against him, and discredit his cause. He also knew that martyrs are immortal. I’m thinking he had himself killed, so that his voice and dreams would live forever. Think about it-if he had been jailed, and Hoover stuck enough crap on him that we never saw or heard him again, would he have had the impact he did? A man of his caliber would have been willing to make the supreme sacrifice if he thought the cause was just.
Along those same lines, you could see where maybe JFK might have thought that he was one orgy away from getting tossed out of the White House, and had himself killed, too.
Purely theory, not totally serious, but makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
-sb
They say the Lord loves drunks, fools and little children.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
That was someone else? Are you sure?