Another recognized "holiday" in which we will not receive any mail service or be able to withdraw money from INSIDE a bank (what ATMs were created for anyway!)...oh yeah, and anyone who sells ANYTHING will have that product on sale today! That's kind of what this particular holiday has boiled down to, isn't it? But why IS that?
I was pondering (as I often do when I'm drooling and laying in bed) PRESIDENT'S DAY today and it's meaning. Allegedly two of our greatest presidents had birthdays which fell in the month of February (but I haven't seen any birth certificates to prove this one way or another...thus "allegedly". LOL). And I started to wonder why these two past presidents in particular are "honored" (stretching it here) with a day of remembrance in their birth month, while other past presidents are not. What was it about these two American "heroes" that caused the people of the the United States to feel a need to pause and remember their contributions to the political landscape?
One thing I have always known is, hindsight is 20/20 (a Pegism...in case you were wondering). I certainly wasn't around during President Washington OR President Lincolns leadership era (although I think my very young nephew would think I was!), so I have little to say about what they did or didn't do for the American people during the country's early years. I only have the wonderful source of HISTORY to rely on for information. And as we all know, history is fluid...always changing...based on the storytellers perception. So I can neither agree with nor deny these past presidents' legend.
America is, however, a country that NEEDS heroes...we NEED someone to look up to and remember or respect. I think one of the major problems in American society today (note I say "one of"...) is a lack of respect for others and particularly authority figures. And I believe this lack of respect has evolved for several reasons...the first being, respect is both EARNED and TAUGHT. I believe our "authority figures" have too often ceased to earn our respect and we have also not been teaching our children this simple principle. It's a vicious cycle.
I watch the current presidential candidates for 2008 pop up like weeds in my yard and I wonder which one or "ones", if any, will succeed in gaining the RESPECT of the American people?...after all, we've grown a bit cynical of our leadership of the country in the past few decades. Will whoever wins the next presidential election earn the RESPECT of the people to the same extent Washington or Lincoln did? Will our future President get his or her own holiday or parade? These are the ideas I ponder today...
Now I'm off now to hit the ATM and withdraw money from my account/salary, which is paid for by Washington State tax payers...and you secretly thought I was "anti-government", didn't you?!? LOL...
2 comments:
So far, I'm on the Obama bandwagon. Have read his two books and even though he's a politician, seems like he's "a uniter, not a divider," unlike the author of that phrase.
Oh, yeah, and how about that Britney Spears? I'm sympathetic to anyone who loses his or her hair.
You're my hero(ine).
Seriously. You and MDMHvonPA are two great writers.
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