While many Christopher Columbus statues were toppled this year in the United States — dragged into Baltimore's Inner Harbor, beheaded in Boston — the towering marble monument to the explorer in his hometown, Genoa, Italy, is disturbed only by pigeons....
“Some vague awareness of his colonialist brutality has only in the last few years made it into classrooms,” said Marina Nezi, a recently retired high school history teacher in Rome. “But [Italy has] a very long history, and school years are often not enough to tell the whole of it.”...
“There’s a firewall of Italianness that has prevented the critique from breaking through and garnering a meaningful following,” [said Giulio Busi, author of “Christopher Columbus, the Sailor of Secrets."] Toppling his statues “feels like an attack on our nationality.”...
Did you know that with a firewall of Italianness, you can stop critique from garnering?
In the New York Times, Christopher Columbus hasn't even been mentioned since October 9th. There's not even the observation that the holiday is not observed. Which is to say, it's really not observed. They didn't even see it. They didn't even see the non-seeing of it!
Now, the New York Post offers a cry for us to respect the old tarnished hero. It's a column by David Marcus:
Christopher Columbus wasn’t just the man most responsible for opening up the New World to the Old; he was also an example of the American Dream centuries before our nation was born... The upshot of Columbus’ grit and courage is nothing short of the world we inhabit today, one in which Judeo-Christian values through centuries of churn and violence have led to the freest, most equitable and most prosperous nations in our planet’s history. There are those who say that Columbus didn’t live with our modern values. That is true, but it is also true that without Columbus, our modern values might very well not exist.... Don’t allow the naysayers who line their pockets with the outrage of the guilt steal from you the history that belongs to all of us; don’t fear their sneers or snide remarks. Christopher Columbus endured plenty of those in his own day, but rather than cower beneath the criticisms of those who were supposedly his betters, he trusted in himself, in God and in the limitless possibilities of human exploration....The column is titled "Happy Columbus Day — say it loud, say it proud." That headline. It's a riff on the old song, "Say It Loud, I'm Black & I'm Proud." I guess that's justified by the material about Italianness in general: "It’s a day to celebrate the contributions of Italian-Americans to our nation’s history. That was the original intent behind the holiday, after all, to elevate Italians at a time when they still faced marked bigotry."
All right now, good GodYou know we can do the boogalooNow we can say with the funky talk, and we doSometimes we sing and we talkYou know we jump back and do the camel walkAll right now, all right, all rightSay it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!
Nice to see James Brown show up again in the ordinary course of blogging. Last appearance: October 10th. And once again, with the boogaloo. Not to mention the camel walk.
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Government workers still 'celebrate' with a paid holiday and most of them are left leaning...
Reposted from the cafe post below - it belongs better here.
Columbus was a world-historical figure, the harbinger of the European explosion, the marker of the moment Europe began to conquer the Earth. This process and its fallout has dominated the history of the 5 centuries after Columbus. It has changed us all, from Europe itself to anywhere humans live, as the cultural and social artifacts of this have changed every human life. Technology and its artifacts, social systems, culture and its expressions.
It is all this that the haters of Columbus really hate. But they cannot escape it no matter how they rage. They can shake their fists at the skies, but the skyline of their cities is stamped with the mark of Columbus, the Western-European architecture of modernity no matter if it is in the Dominican Republic or Banda Aceh. He is our father, he is a critical reason for why we are the way we are.
Anyway, every year, on October 12, your Columbus day, our Dia de Hispanidad, I post this little Spanish-Cuban-Mexican piece (written by a Spaniard in a Cuban guajira form, played in a Mexican style), that in a modest way makes that case. There are many other versions.
Tres Carabelas
I'll be celebrating Columbus Day by preparing and serving/eating some Italian food. And, as usual, praying for America to be protected from those who would ruin it.
THEOLDMAN
and now there's only the observation that the holiday is no longer observed.
and yet... And YET; it is STILL a Postal Holiday
People keep talking about saving money, by cancelling 6 day delivery, and replacing it with 5
My Modest Proposal. SURE! let's go with 5 day delivery, since THAT'S what we ALREADY have.
Think of the money we could save, by Officially going to Tue-Sat delivery
We don't get mail most Mondays anyway... Let's Stop Paying For Mondays!
Indigenous People's Day
It's Columbus Day, but there's way less than the usual hoopla, even though you'd think there'd be more.
The only hoopla over Columbus Day I have ever experienced in my entire life is somebody asking "Why in the hell is the bank closed today?".
"That was the original intent behind the holiday, after all, to elevate Italians at a time when they still faced marked bigotry."
Such BS. It became an official holiday because the politicians wanted to tap into what had become a sizable ethic vote. It's being jettisoned because the politicians want to tap into a different vote. The lessons should be: (1) the government doesn't create anything; and, (2) whatever it gives, it can and will take away.
From Agusto Alguero's "Tres Carabelas"
He makes the point that this was an expedition, not just one man.
On the one hand, praise for Cristobal Colon. On the other, the men.
That's why his refrain is:
Iba con tres carabelas
La Pinta, la Niña
Y la Santa María.
Three little old ships and their valiant crew. They need to be remembered too.
his colonialist brutality
Which was very much like the Amerindians' "colonialized" brutality.
City Journal - Don’t Defend Columbus—Celebrate Him
I like the James Brown angle here. And I am a fan of Christopher Columbus. They actually never did laugh at him for saying the world was round, since everyone already knew that. His crimes were and are everyone's crimes, including all the holier than thous who are in the same exact boat with him and the rest of us. Meanwhile, Dylan also had some ideas about the great man.
But the funniest thing was
When I was leavin’ the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin’
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn’t drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, “Good luck”
I get the day off, so I care.
My iCalendar told me it was both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. I wanted to be insulted by that, but honestly, I wasn't.
Lincoln and TR are still on Rushmore. But it’s still early innings for #BidenVoters.
Lots of Europeans knew about North America well before Columbus ran into it. But they all thought it was a useful secret, and kept it. Columbus was the one who let the cat out of the bag.
Shouldn't the people who want him cancelled go to work??
"he was also an example of the American Dream centuries before our nation was born"
A proto-hoople deserves a little hoopla, one way or the other.
"Lots of Europeans knew about North America well before Columbus ran into it."
Mostly Basques. They fished the Grand Banks. But they had no connection to the European cultural communication channels. Maybe their parish priests knew where all those boats were going.
My Irish ancestors were landless peasants. They had reason both to bless and curse the Columbian exchange that introduced the potato to their island. The potato both alleviated hunger and later caused widespread starvation. The introduction of the pig to the New World was not such a mixed blessing. Widespread institutionalized cannibalism tends to distort and debase the values of a civilization. The ultimate form of objectifying a conquered people is not to steal their gold but to eat their bodies......There's nothing much to be said in favor of smallpox, but the introduction of the pig to the New World removed the need for people to eat their neighbors. That's something to celebrate.
Homeschooling today so guess what I get to choose to talk about?
(I'm so regressive)
hey Buwaya? sort of off topic, but; as our Spanish Expert,
What's up with the Basque Autonomous Community??
Are they still at war with Spain?
Do they still like the group, La Oreja de Van Gogh? 'cause i sure do!
that's intriguing buwaya, I am part basque after all,
Happy Indigenous People's Day!
https://youtu.be/0USxZp1_JTY
Browndog said...
The only hoopla over Columbus Day I have ever experienced in my entire life is somebody asking "Why in the hell is the bank closed today?".
I say this on all holidays.
But if we are going to have any holidays then Columbus Day should be top five.
It is culturally important to celebrate exploration and the expansion of western liberalism.
Liberals hate Columbus as they hate all great men...because he got shit done and didn't give a fuck what anybody thought about it.
Remind you of anyone?
"What's up with the Basque Autonomous Community?"
Trying to figure out what to do about Covid, like anyone else.
"Are they still at war with Spain?"
Not really, as they won. For all practical purposes.
"Do they still like the group, La Oreja de Van Gogh? 'cause i sure do!"
No idea. Pop is not usually my thing and listening to the stuff I can't generally tell one lot from another. But Leire was quite pretty.
I am officially (the ocho apellidos rule) half-Basque.
Based on my mothers research we are @60%. Lots of Basques out there in the colonies, that didn't show up in our apellidos.
Buwaya,
thanks for posting the song. Very apt description of the style.
Columbus remains a great historical figure no matter what ignorant ahistorical thugs say or do. I'm still puzzled by what Soros and the billionaires who are funding this Red Guards movement want. Chaos doesn't seem a useful situation for them. Maybe the aristos that supported the French Revolution thought they could control the outcome.
Over at the Daily Caller some fool commenter claimed that Columbus was secretly Jewish, and that "fact" explains why he was such a terrible person, one who wrought all sorts of horrible things on the Americas.
A wag wrote in to agree, saying the Columbus's birth name was actually Shlomo Shmoikel Columbus, and that "Christopher" (which means Christ-carrier) was just a typical Jewish deception to fool the goyim.
Sounds perfectly sane to me!
The updated research on The Admiral reveals he was a Jewish born secret Portuguese trained navigator who went under cover using an Italian Sailor assumed identity the better to get financing from Spain for the American “discovery” and the control of the Catholic pope’s decree splitting it all up with Spain so as to give Portugal the eastern half of South America. The European diseases then accidentally killed the indigenous plantation workers/slaves so Portugal then arranged for a third of Africa’s population to be shipped over to replace them. But that was all during the 150 years before The British seriously got into the Plantation game. And full revenge has been extracted on all of Europe since then by a mass syphilus Plague.
What's really infuriating is that Columbus hatred is a product of a few generations of students learning bogus "history" from Howard Zinn, who was NOT a historian but a radical who selectively quoted and cribbed from the articles and books of others.
Thus Columbus comes across as a slaver, a hater of the indigenous Americans, and a despoiler of the Caribbean paradise.
All bloody nonsense.
Read :Debunking Howard Zinn" and find out for yourself.
Goodbye, Columbus
...hello DisIngenuous Poeple's Day
So let's get this straight . . . 500 years ago Europeans brought over diseases that the natives had never experienced and caused widespread illness and death. They had no idea that would happen but still they our betters tell us that they should be historically condemned for it and airbrushed from history.
500 years later, China brought over disease the natives never experienced and caused widespread illness, and for certain vulnerable populations, death. Our betters tell us that only racist and xenophobe think China should be accountable for it, but the native leaders suffering from the virus of China are responsible for native suffering. Hmmm.
Did the Native Americans wear masks and social distance? Did they at least lockdown to prevent further spread?
I know it's not an official holiday, but I'm displaying my American flag today.
If for nothing more than to piss off all the right people.
@cronus for the win...
The Irish had St. Patrick's day, so we gave the Italians Columbus day. Later we gave Blacks, MLK day. And Mexicans get Cinqo de Mayo. So, what's wrong with that? Why should Italian-Americans be discriminated against?
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