Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

Happy Cortez crushed the Aztec Empire, anyway.

What a great picture.

Is Columbus Day worthy of being celebrated? Like any holiday (Christmas, New Years, 4th of July), it depends on your culture / viewpoint. I'm not too big on celebrations, there are a few holidays that I enjoy, but most of them are just a nuisance because too many organizations use them as excuse to take the day off. It's can be very annoying if you are trying to get anything done.

Columbus Day is worth commemorating however. (Note that commemorate is not the same as celebrate. Some people get them confused and some even use them interchangeably.) The guy managed to talk some rich folks into financing his mad gamble and he set off with a gang of thieves to sail off the edge of the world. Nobody else had ever done this, well, nobody that we know of, mostly because they either outright failed (drowned, starved or died of exposure. Sailing is a dangerous business.) or failed to record their adventure. It's because of Columbus that Western Civilization reached the new world. You could even say that we are here because of him. Yes, the natives of these lands got smashed, but hell, that's the way the world was back then. I hope the morons that wanted the name of this 'holiday' changed are happy.

Image via Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated, caption via Monday Evening.