Today Is Not Columbus Day

So, sometimes when you are depends upon where you are.

Case in point: here in Rockford today (Oct 13th) is Columbus Day, a national holiday (which means gov't buildings closed, no post office delivery, most banks closed (hence the English name for them, 'bank holidays'), and the like -- all celebrating the man who discovered America in 1492.

But in Seattle, today is Indigenous Peoples' Day, celebrating not the person who discovered America but the people who were already here long* before he arrived, and memorializing the unmitigated disaster that the European arrival and take-over brought them.

Just another example of how different people can live through very different histories side by side and at the same time.

Here's the link: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/columbus-day-seattle_n_5942718.html

--John R.
current reading: THE BROTHERS CABAL by Jonathan Howard [2014]




*and by 'long' I mean not just the 12,000 years traditional archeology has accepted but the revised figures of recent excavation and re-evaluation pushing the date back to double or, possibly triple, that.