Hi there, and happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. At Pete's request, I will be guiding you through the quagmire that is Monday. I apologize up front if my navel gazing posts are not as stimulating at Pete's Culturology columns. He is a hard act to follow. I totally understand why he has such a tough time writing these posts, the weekend is boring, all the fun news happens during the week.
Instead of the typical swill about music and other inane things, let's focus on today's holiday. I recently found out that someone fairly close to me is responsible for why Carnegie Mellon University does not give it's students all of MLK day off (or at least when I attended they did not). Instead there is a half-day of 'activities' and other things planned, after AM classes. I'd apologize for this "transgression" against your party schedule, but really - how important is a day off from classes?
According the Wikipedia, labor unions proposed and championed MLK Day as a foil for another federal holiday. Bravo labor unions, way to totally use an awesome dude's assassination for your personal profit. While on the outside an admirable cause, that is nearly as underhanded as the various Hallmark Holidays we are bombarded with daily.
Of course, it doesn't matter how it got established, it is a day for us to remember Dr. King and his contributions. That's all I've got people.
this is an interesting attempt at sincerity by you. i feel like you make more of a point to disparage labor unions and trivialize MLKjr's legacy with the post title rather than meaningfully celebrate the man's works, but overall this is still an effort in sincerity and it's sort of sweet in a half-assed way.
I'm all for MLK Day. I just don't understand why it took some opportunistic labor unions to get national recognition for a deserving guy. I suppose it wouldn't have happened as quickly as it did otherwise.
This is also why engineers don't like politics.