Happy Columbus Day!

[Craig Marinaro]

I'd just like to take this moment to share the spirit of this wonderful day with the people I hold close to me. But I fear that as the years have gone by, people have lost sight of the true meaning of Columbus Day. We've become so caught-up in the superficial fun of hanging sextants in our doorframes and wearing "Kiss Me, I'm Italian, But I'm Backed by Spain!" pins that we forget the exceptional man who we are celebrating on this day.

Christopher Columbus exposed the populace of Europe to the existence of the American continent. Up to his time, those who made great discoveries had done so with hard study, careful analysis, painstaking devotion to a cause, and unmatched intelligence. Columbus stumbled so blindly upon his successes that even *he* didn't know he'd succeeded. He opened the door for a whole new generation of great people--those who didn't have a clue what they were doing, who simply dismissed anything they didn't understand as irrelevant, and who liked to have absolute power over others even though they don't even deserve to have control over themselves. Columbus' ineptness made possible the very lives of men like Napoleon Bonaparte, Richard Nixon, and Jamie Kellner. He was indeed ahead of his time. Even in his last days, when he could hardly breathe so ridden was his body with disease, he continued to valiantly struggle toward his lifelong cause--garnering glory for himself.

So let us not forget this paragon of dumb luck, this monument to the self-absorbed slob in all of us. Just for this one day, lord your authority over others! Brag about anything you've done, even if it doesn't seem to make sense! Just for this one day, let the spirit of Columbus live on in each of us.

-C
Keep Columbus in Columbus Day!

[Anthonynotes]

Ah, of course---the true meaning of Columbus Day! And I was all set to go out and buy some half-price bedsheets and kick back with "A Charlie Brown Columbus Day" (where Charlie and the gang are taught by Linus the "true meaning" of the holiday, while Chuck tries to buy for the school Columbus Day play a pathetic looking model of the Santa Maria with its sails constantly falling off...).

-B.

[The Mad Hatter]

In honor of this momentous day, I celebrated his wonderous heritige by eating some linguini with salsa sauce. I'll tell ya, never try to use salsa as a sauce unto itself... my digestive system didn't quite like that. But it's the price I have to pay to salute this great man, who drifted thousands of miles off-course!

[Narfpinky]

In honor of Columbus Day, I bought a sectional sofa sleeper set, at half price, troz!

[Dante Bunny]

In the Honor of Columbus Day, I'll watch that episode of Histeria!-Around the World in Daze!! I got it on video.

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

In honor of Columbus I stumbled upon a lost paper I wrote in English class about LORD OF THE FLIES yesterday!

...but other than that I'm not really going to buy anything or do anything to celebrate Columbus...it's not just that kind of holiday...

[Nftnat]

I noticed that in honor of Columbus Day, American Movie Classics showed the movie Goodbye Columbus, not once, not twice, but three times. I noticed & tuned in for a bit, but not for long. In spite of the songs by the Association (waiting for word on that from Avran & Delia), I just didn't get into the whole pop-ish postt-The Graduate counterculture not-nice-people thing. It depressed me like Rudy depressed Wally Faust. I was actually tempted to make a cheese ray, or blow up dumpsters.

[Anthonynotes]

Originally posted by Nftnat
I noticed that in honor of Columbus Day, American Movie Classics showed the movie Goodbye Columbus, not once, not twice, but three times. I noticed & tuned in for a bit, but not for long. In spite of the songs by the Association (waiting for word on that from Avran & Delia), I just didn't get into the whole pop-ish postt-The Graduate counterculture not-nice-people thing. It depressed me like Rudy depressed Wally Faust. I was actually tempted to make a cheese ray, or blow up dumpsters.

That Rudy kids depressed Wally Faust? Guess it's been awhile since I've seen that episode (which I don't have a copy of on videotape), and I'm guessing that Nick isn't rerunning the PEatB episodes...

-B.

[Nftnat]

Originally posted by Brainatra



That Rudy kids depressed Wally Faust? Guess it's been awhile since I've seen that episode (which I don't have a copy of on videotape), and I'm guessing that Nick isn't rerunning the PEatB episodes...

-B.

Well, not yet @ least. And with cutting back to late night showings of partial eps, again, what do you think? But yes, that did happen. Iirc (& I do have it on tape; the Klasky-Csupo rope the moon-y Spongebob cancelled & Hey Arnold soon-y show was good for something), after Rudy pointed Brain out to Faust --- asking if he was gonna do something which I don't remember right now, to which Faust commented that Rudy was disturbing er sum junk --- Faust told Rudy to see him about a job in a certain number of years. "Will I get to blow up dumpsters?" "Yes, you will. Now go away; you depress me."

[DR. BELCH]

What I remember most about Columbus Day is the big protests some group or another throws every darn year (either they didn't bother this year or it's so old-hat the news networks didn't bother covering it, though--didn't hear a peep Monday). Columbus to these people is the biggest racist/sexist/homophobe/murderer/practioner of genocide/spreader of disease/bigot/hatemonger that ever walked. Now...the problem is that the "Indians"/Native Americans/indigenous people are seen as peaceful people living in a Utopia before The White Man came. In actuality they were rather savage, warlike, godless, diseased (we got just as sick from them as they did from us, esp. w/ venereal ailments) illiterate folk, engaging in strange, violent "religious" rituals, cannibalism, and farming practices that caused seawater to contaiminate their water table and poison their crops.
The argument is that if not for Columbus these people would have been better off. I say if their behavior and primitive agricultural practices didn't kill them off in three or four hundred years, another invader would later...likely either a European with a far nastier agenda (like Napoleon or some Russian dictator), or rival tribes from the mainland or Central America.
I'm the sort that believes history is a self-fulfilling system. If it were possible to travel back and alter it to keep an event from happening, likely another event would just happen later to achieve more or less the same result. (Like in that "what if" episode of Friends....poit!)