The Oatmeal's Take on Columbus Day

[Dawgluver]

Christopher Columbus was a jerk:

Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not) - The Oatmeal

 

[buckytom]

thanks very much for that, dawg.

i had a fight with dw and my boy's teacher last year over a homework question about columbus.

it asked ,"who was the first european explorer to discover america?"

i taught the boy all about the vikings in nova scotia and maine circa 1000 a.d., and further to say that a place is "discovered" when there are people already living there is just stupid.

but then dw intervened and told him to just give the answer the teacher expects.

that's when the fight started.

he mentioned it in class that day at my request and was marked down on his test because of his answer. fortunately, it didn't affect his grade in the end.

so this year, i told him to tell his new teacher that he was going shopping after school to a store with a columbus day sale and that he was going to walk in, take something and claim he discovered it, satisfying both native american rights and his norse traditions.

fortunately, his teacher this year is a great guy who gave him credit for it.

 

[Dawgluver]

We all were brainwashed, weren't we? I can't imagine the poor, helpful, indigenous people forced to wear their severed hands around their necks because they couldn't give old Chris his gold.

I really like the idea of calling it Indigenous People's Day.

 

[buckytom]

my wife's hands are often around my neck. but that's not quite the same thing.

i guess italians will need to find an italian pride day that isn't a federal holiday to make it work.

i totally support making it a federal holiday to honour native americans. so far, they've only been given casinos, which is a pretty good start for having taken their land. we should give them the rights to cultivate and sell pot as well.

we talked about this at dinner tonight, so i mentioned that pulaski day wasn't a federal holiday, nor may 17th for squareheads (although that's more independence from other squareheads. i'm not sure if that counts up there (they're all so freakin tall).

she said that pulaski day should be more of a week so only half would miss it. (and she's 1/2 polish, lol).


ok, i'm done with truthfully, imo, but mildly insulting folks.

 

[GotGarlic]

Love the Oatmeal. Thanks for posting this.