Columbus Day Sale!

If you think you've lived your life without offending anybody then apparently you haven't lived...

Christopher Columbus, was an explorer and one of the first European founders of the Americas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy Columbus Day!

        Yes I said it even though here in Los Angeles what used to be called "Columbus Day" is now "Indigenous Peoples" day.  Somehow the new day seems more impersonal with an overgeneralizing of all the many peoples who lived in the Americas before the "evil white men" came to destroy paradise. 

        Frankly I'm glad things turned out the way they did because I'm happy with my life and with my country.  Stuff happens and when it comes down to past history there ain't nothin' you can do about it when it's all behind you. 

         So I raise a glass to say, "Thank you Christopher Columbus!"  Without him then someone else would have come along and discovered America.  Mankind is restless and always in search of new ventures and adventures.  Enslaving the indigenous peoples the 15th century Spaniards encountered might not have been what you and I would have thought of doing with our 21st century outlook, but people back in those days thought differently than we today think.   The past is what it is and that's that.

         What Christopher Columbus achieved was by any account pretty amazing and something that few of us would dare try.  Personally I'm going to give acknowledgement to the driving curiosity that drove those men of the past to do what they did.  I'm not their judge and nobody--absolutely nobody--living today is worthy of casting judgement on Columbus or any other from the past.  Our judgement over past humans amounts to intellectual exercises that have no real consequence to the world other than bantering about in intellectual fantasies.  The more important thing is to learn from the past to become better ourselves.

         I will continue to think of October 12th as the actual Columbus Day.  And I will continue to think of him as a hero of his time, though a flawed hero as heroes often tend to be.  Please leave his statues be and please don't start changing names of all of the cities named in his honor.  That would really be a big mess.

Garage Sale Days Are Over

        Though I don't like to say I'll never do something, I'll say in this case that this past weekend was my last garage sale.  It was a lot of work for about 3 hours in the hot sun before I started packing it all in.   The $60 that I made from the sale seemed hardly worth it and I barely made a dent in all the stuff in my garage.  And now I have a huge mess to continue to organize and put back. 

           Hopefully, in putting everything away, I'll organize it all better so that it will be easier to find stuff for the next garage sale.  I mean, I don't plan to do another sale, but you know how that can go sometimes.   Never say never.   But I think I am going to say it and probably stick to it.  Standby Goodwill--I've got a load coming your way.

           Do you think Christopher Columbus is worth remembering and honoring?   Would the Americas be a better place if the Europeans had never come here?   What do you think a world without the influence of "white people" would be like?  

Happy Columbus Day--Was He a Hero?

        Should we stop honoring Christopher Columbus?   That's what some people have said.  Certain groups have called for the day to be in the future called "Indigenous People's Day."   The argument points out all of the cruel treatment, enslavement, and death brought to the peoples who already inhabited the land that Columbus "discovered."   He was certainly responsible for many tragic outcomes for those that he called "Indians", believing that he had arrived in the East Indies.

US Postage stamps: Columbian issues of 1893,

         
          When I was a child we celebrated Christopher Columbus and his great adventure to the New World.  The story was sanitized for the consumption of school children and indeed much was probably known only to history scholars.   On the whole, Columbus was revered with poems, books, and artworks.  Now in recent decades Columbus has been portrayed as a villain, an opportunistic European who took advantage of his conquered lands.  

           The way I see it is that we are dealing with history--events that cannot be changed and therefore should be accepted for what they are.   We cannot fairly judge those in the past according to the standards of our time.  The voyages of Columbus were amazing and courageous.   Christopher Columbus set the groundwork for the settling and development of the United States of America.

           I think Christopher Columbus deserves every accolade that is handed his way.   Unfortunately a trend to revise history often seems to be the rule of our time.   Revisionist history is one of the most deceptive and misguided movements coming out of the realms of academia.   Tear down the old heroes and replace them with some ambiguous ideal standard of lifestyle that was eradicated by those evil explorers,colonizers, Founding Fathers, and many others who came before us.

           Changing the players, events, and mindsets in order to create a new narrative is what it comes down to.  Sounds kind of like what our media does on a regular basis.  "History is written by the victors," is the oft heard claim.  Perhaps now we can more appropriately say that the media are the historians of our time.   This strikes me as a somewhat disturbing thought considering the questionable honesty of most media sources.   Or should I say selective honesty?

             Do you think that Christopher Columbus deserves to be honored?    Is history being tampered with too much in order to present a more politically correct view of the past?   Do you believe that media is trustworthy or does it exhibit a bias that influences many people in making important decisions like who to vote for?  

Happy Columbus Day!