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[JuntaJoe]

Ok, the controversial holiday is coming up.

I'm mostly a fan of the man but never felt anyone other than Washington rated a holiday.

When I say "mostly" it is because I've studied him a little and found his early years most inspiring. A true American Ghandi if there ever was one. He was noble and demanded nothing more than simple dignity. It was only the last year when it seems his entourage pushed him into socialistic propaganda to keep his name in the papers. He lost his way somehow at the end. It's sad to say that his being made a martyr was the best thing that ever happened to his legacy. I feel his death, in regard to his legacy, would have been unneccesary if he had stuck with his original principles. Sure, he might have had a popularity lull, but time were changing fast and King would have rocked the early 70's.

But even during that last year, he made a not well known speech to a graduating high school class that truly reflected his early values. If you read it then you realize that all that socialist rhetoric was just a propaganda jag and not the true man.

Every American should read this and try to live it. Even Ayn Rand would have loved it.

I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life's Blueprint?

Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint. Number one, in your life's blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you're nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.

Secondly, in your life's blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You're going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life-- what your life's work will be. Set out to do it well.

And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers-- and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871, "If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

This hasn't always been true-- but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in-- stay in school.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

Classic prose.

[JuntaJoe]

Almost forgot.

Besides commenting on the speech, I also was interested in opinions about having a MLK national holiday.

[estio]

Great speech. It defines the spirit of a free man quite well.

As for the holiday, why do federal employees need another day off? That's my only problem with holidays, regardless of who they honor.

[JuntaJoe]

Yes, I didn't see any reference to being a victim in need of social welfare.

And this was during the heighth of the "Poverty Crusade" that his staff pushed him into.

He understood that these poor kids had real issues, but told them to grab their bootstraps and pull hard.

Work hard and the world will grant you the dignity of a job well done.

Ignore what you are stuck in and work for the top.

It seems that for a moment, he realized what was the most important message to give young people.

He told them to challenge life and themselves.

I'd love to see this speech of his given the laurels that his "I have a dream" and final "mountaintop" speech got.

Together, the three speeches really round out his true image.

This "small" speech really tells you where he got the personal strength to march through Alabama and Cicero, Illinois at the risk of his life. He believed in personal strength, effort, and conviction. And that certainly refutes that socialist drivel his "posse" told him would keep his message alive. A true socialist doesn't believe in personal reward for effort expended. The man wanted to be a winner.

He told the kids to be winners.

[Eddy]

I have no objections to holidays if it gives me the day off with pay.

[JuntaJoe]

Yep, lost productivity ensures that the company will lower its earnings statement and cut your pay raise or your job completely.

You are thinking penny wise and dollar foolish, Eddy.

[Che]

Paid holidays are the American version of... bread and circus.

The state gives them... instead of a pay-raise.

[JuntaJoe]

Well stated.

[Eddy]

Sorry Joe, but considering most of the jobs in my life will give me the day off without pay, I can't see how this is a good thing. Either give me the day off with pay, or don't give anyone the day off. No, I don't want to hear about how if I had picked the right major I'd be getting the day off.

[DrJoshuaFalken]

Why do MLK and Ceser Chavez and whoever else need their own separate holiday.

Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays became Presidents Day, these were great men. Others did stuff for civil rights, they are great as well, but they all dont need their own separate holidays.

[Che]

Once upon a time, employees of the state of Texas would have been taking Monday off as... Confederate Heros Day.

Then employees were given the option of taking it as CH day or MLK Day.

The last change... made it MLK Day only.

State employees also once got Robert E. Lee's birthday as a paid holiday.

[JuntaJoe]

Eddy wrote: Sorry Joe, but considering most of the jobs in my life will give me the day off without pay, I can't see how this is a good thing. Either give me the day off with pay, or don't give anyone the day off. No, I don't want to hear about how if I had picked the right major I'd be getting the day off.

I'm saying you don't need the day off.

Good reasons for days off from work:

1) Health and well being of the work force. Sick days let the worker recuperate and inhibit the spread of contagion to the rest of the work force. Weekends and annual vacations ensure a healthly mental and physical state to optimize worker efforts on the job.

2) Holidays that allow a person to practice a faith based belief system. Whatever you think of religion, it certainly does motivate certain sections of the workforce and give them strength.

3) Reward time off to encourage extra productivity from your most talented employees and to encourage lesser skilled employees to become better.


So there are my personal opinions on a good day off from both employer and employee viewpoints.

Note that government mandated holidays don't fall into the mix.

But people are more than employees. They are citizens too.

So a small numbers of observances are necessary.

I'd say a quarterly distribution of dates makes sense.

Base it off the 4th of July as that date is most important as the birth of the nation.

I'd make the others be:

1) Founding Fathers Day
2) Great Heroes Day
3) Patriots Day

The first seems obvious. It would also be a great time for teachers and historiams to dust off the tomes and remind everyone of the origins of the country.

Great Heroes day would be the opportunity to remember people like MLK, Albert Einstein, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, John Glenn, etc.

Patriots Day would roll Memorial Day and Veterans Day into one. The public perception has already done this. I get tired of being thanked for my military service on Memorial Day. I keep saying that I'm not dead yet and I made the other SOB die for his country. :roll:

Note some holidays that disappear. New Years Day. A calender change is enough to cause people to lose their sanity? How dumb is that? Washington's birthday and Lincoln's Birthday. Washington was a man of history like few others. The perfect person and personality in the perfect time and place. But he was still part of a team. It was that small group of men that pulled it off. Washington was actually prodded into the job. Without them, Washington would have remained a rich planter. We need to celebrate the whole dynamic of that small group. Lincoln was more famous to history than during his time. Without the help of Grant and later philosophers, he might have been considered a flop. After all, he wasn't statesman enough to keep the national collapse from starting. And giving him a holiday opens the door for later individuals to be placed on singular pedestals that gives us the problem we have today with so many holidays for just one person. Slap their head on a coin, ok? But don't shut down a country. Coins last longer anyway.

The only holiday that doesn't seem to fall into any class that I'd keep would be Thanksgiving. Frankly, that day is just too good for the economy to toss out the window and is a fine non-religious or non-state holiday for that everyone can appeciate.

[Batchman]

Joe ... you take Christmas away from me, and I'm going to send Bertha after you!

Don't make me do it!

[JuntaJoe]

Really need to patch some of those holes in your head, Batch.

You're leaking a bit at the edges. :wink:


Did you note my first section where I mentioned religious holidays as good for worker morale?

But that leads me to another thought. Given the lazy nature of man, I would recommend employers limit religious holidays to three a year. Take whichever ones you want, but no more than three per calender year. For the Athiests, Animists, and Agnostics, they would simply declare their three days as they wish. I'm sure that some limits on this could be important as regular religious holidays are well known in advance and are well separated over the year. The employer could require a 60 day notice and the three days must remain at least 30 days apart.

[jimmyreb]

Hes just trying to soften you up Batch!

And about R.E. Lee's B-Day, that is something I had thought about recently, he is truely one of the greatest men to ever live, not just because he got lucky and was thrust into the limelight. It is a shame and a disgrace that he has not been honored, when other's like Columbus who just had gold lust and people like Lincoln, who just wanted to get re-elected, get their own holidays.