John Oliver Wonders Why We're Still Bothering With Columbus Day (Video)
Happy Native American Genocide Day, Blame-America-First crowd! John Oliver and Last Week Tonight have this happy little video asking the important question: How is Columbus Day still a thing? It's a solemn commemoration of mattress sales and "turning up to an unexpectedly closed post office and going, 'Oh yeah. It's Columbus Day. Shit.'"
It's also an occasion for elementary school kids to see cheesy movies about how Columbus navigated all the way around the world to India, which turned out to be the Caribbean. Maybe the movies leave out a few things, like the parts of Columbus's life where he kidnapped Native Americans and sold them into slavery; had his men slice them to pieces; and through disease and warfare, killed half the population of Haiti. But in fairness, none of that rhymes with "in fourteen-hundred and ninety-two."
Sure, it's a nice occasion for Italian-Americans to celebrate their heritage, but does their heritage have to be identified with a guy whose most notable achievement was getting lost? Why not Frank Sinatra Day?
Watch and enjoy!
Also, too, since it's fall, Oliver takes on the seasonal menace that some of us love, and some of us just wonder why it exists: pumpkin-spice anything. Srsly, microbreweries, do we need pumpkin-flavored ales? Get serious.
Nevada doesn't celebrate Columbus Day - the state opted to declare the date of Nevada's admission to the Union (October 31st, but celebrated the last Friday of the month) a state holiday instead. So while we acknowledge the day exists, it's basically treated the same as Arbor Day or Groundhog Day.
I used to make ice cream for a local shop. Every year, people went nuts asking for pumpkin sometime before Halloween, and we couldn't give the stuff away after Thanksgiving.