I look forward to reading reports of your Freedom Ride
2 Likes
You mean, when Marcie finally decides to get vaccinated?
People are born into a race, and other than by changing countries and moving into a different social definition of “race” there’s not much you can do about it. Anyone over 18 in the US can decide to get vaccinated and use the nicer water fountain. And by doing so, they reduce the chance that my immune-compromised mother will die a painful and isolated death.
Honestly, it’s offensive to compare racial segregation to attempts to reduce the spread of a nasty disease.
3 Likes
I don’t mean to cause offense, simply trying to tease.
But it does raise a good point about what Marcie is waiting for on vaccines. I often hear of people who haven’t been vaccinated that we just don’t have enough information, I wonder what enough information would look like?
Oh I wasn’t offended by your post. You were just following Marcie’s lead. And I’m sure these kids are not going to feel like they are intrinsically less valuable due to being segregated. Also, they will certainly be vaccinated by MKL day unless there’s some unexpected danger that is discovered. In fact, they may already be vaccinated (although not officially so). Last I heard, their parents were trying to get them into Pfizer’s children’s study.
I’m pretty sure Miss Van Pelt wasn’t directing that at you, Daniel.
While I think this framing is a tiny bit disingenuous, I agree obviously that while there may be tiny parallels there are huge differences between American slavery & racial segregation vs medical segregation. I in no way meant to minimize the former by poking at the latter.
Probably not the right thread for this discussion.
I am really thinking about the Jewish holiday thing. It bugs me that those holidays aren’t recognized. Hopefully most folks in our line of work have enough time off that they can pick and choose their days. I honestly think that’s why my company has few prescribed days off and a generous personal time policy.
I have a friend in my moms group who reminds us that this is a thing. Her husband’s a doctor, so theoretically he can set his office hours, which he does, but he also does surgeries and sometimes has hospital rotations and they tend to ignore his Holy Days. I find that appalling in this day and age.
Also, if I had to clean my house for Passover I’d need a week for that ahead of time and then another week for the cooking.
1 Like
Medical “segregation”, is that really a term people are using? Like, really? 
I don’t even really know where to start.
Don’t get me wrong - I love my religious holidays, but I think human rights celebrations make more sense as national holidays.
You might be surprised that I agree that Christmas shouldn’t really be a national holiday. Possibly Thanksgiving, too, but that could be viewed as a historical remembrance more than religious.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I think the staffing thing probably used to be a concern then, too, but in the last decade we’ve had significant Black Friday creep. I’d be fine with leaving it up to individual businesses to decide if they will open on Christmas based on expected sales & staffing levels.
thanksgiving I think is fine because it’s more a holiday for all Americans.
christmas should go if you’re not going to give jews a religious holiday too.
We are a small enough minority that it doesn’t make sense to have the state recognize our religious holidays. And there are an awful lot of other small religious groups with their own set of holidays.
Maybe in a few locations there are practical reasons to take the day off – my town didn’t close school for any religious holidays (except federal holidays) until they ran into trouble hiring enough substitute teachers on the Jewish High Holy Days. So they started closing the school for that, and threw in Good Friday at the same time, for a sense of fairness, and because a lot of the kids took it off.
But in general, I think we should avoid adding ethnic and religious holidays to the official roster. Juneteenth was first celebrated by ex-slaves and their descendants, but the point of making it a federal holiday is to acknowledge the role of slavery in our nation’s history, and our attempts to move to a better place.
1 Like
It could be worse, in England they get the day after Christmas off as well.
And they don’t even bother with the commemorating, like they have a day off at the end of August and it’s like “End of Summer Bank Holiday” or something. Meanwhile I looked it up and Elizabeth I’s birthday was like the first week of September. Easy stuff!
we did get a few of the jewish holidays off at nyc public schools though, as we should.
Just ignore it. Have your intimate get-together for the purpose you originally intended.
1 Like
I’m in favor of having a “bank” of floating holidays (say three days’ worth) for days off of work instead of federal holidays for “anything and everything”.
I’d also be in favor of a shorter summer break for elementary & secondary education and increase the number of days off for the various religious/ethnic celebrations.
Three days really isn’t enough for people who actually participate in non-Christian religions. If you had to take off for Christmas day, Thanksgiving Day, and Easter Sunday, you might feel annoyed at not being able to travel to visit your relatives on any of those, nor get time off for Good Friday, nor Christmas Eve…
Of course, the real issue here is that the US tends to have really miserly vacation policies.
3 Likes
I’m confused on your post here Lucy. At my job I only get Christmas and Thanksgiving off as actual holidays. Day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve have already been removed in favor of the “floating holiday” concept. I’ve never had a work day off for Easter. If I wanted to travel for those holidays I’d have to use PTO anyway. So saying “3 is not enough for non Christian holidays because you would have to take PTO to travel” doesn’t feel like it would be any different than current state for Christians?
Also - since when is Thanksgiving considered a Christian holiday? I’ve certainly never heard anyone in my life speak to it as a religious holiday.
I would just laugh and mock idiots climbing up on that cross and claiming they are victims.
That is the most charitable thoughts I can have for those type of people
1 Like
Since about 1621?
To Whom do you think the Pilgrims at Plymouth were giving thanks?
As a Jew I’m okay with Thanksgiving as a secular American holiday regardless of if the roots were loosely Christian. I’m not sure exactly who they were giving thanks to was important though.
not so for Christmas. That will always be a Christian holiday to me. If I happen to be hanging out with Christians, sure I’ll celebrate with them, but as a Jew, it’s not my holiday.
All the friendly Native Americans who helped prevent them from starving through the prior winter!