Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Parts One and Two of Michale J. Totten's articles on Cuba.

Labels: World

Cheese slicer that looks like a Polaroid camera.

Labels: Cool stuff, Food

Inspired by the headline Wendy Davis endorsed by ‘sugar daddy’ dating service...

Labels: Music, Politics

Dad builds luge in front yard.

Labels: Cool stuff

Headline: Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve.

Labels: Crime

A Swiss company offers a service to compress cremated human remains into diamonds.

Labels: Curiosities

(An annual blog tradition continues.)

In 2006 I mulled over the idea that instead of having a Martin Luther King Day we should have a Civil Rights Day, so that we can have a single holiday for all civil rights crusaders, and, for symbolic reasons, it shoudl be set on July 5, the day after we celebrate out nation's independence. As stated in that post, I had originally considered that Civil Rights Day replace Labor Day, but I have long since settled on the latter holiday giving way to Commerce Day, a day for celebrating all the contributors to our economy and not just labor.

A July 5 holiday for any reason is even a bigger pipe dream than Commerce Day, and the MLK Day tradition is already firmly entrenched, so from this day forward I will recognize the third Monday of January as Civil Rights Day. Dr. King will always get a little extra notice for being the one to inspire the holiday, but the table of honor will feature all civil rights leaders past and present.

Following is my original argument for the holiday:

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For years I'd heard news stories about debates over whether or not to establish an official Martin Luther King holiday, and never did anyone report the arguments against. I always suspected that one was that we had way too many day-off-of-work holidays as it was. Having one three weeks after Christmas does seem a bit superfluous. MLK Day would be only the third national holiday named after a person, the others being Christmas and Columbus Day, commemorating the chief catalyst for Western culture and the chief catalyst for extending Western culture to the Americas. (In the case of the latter, make that Western cultures; English and Iberian influences were vastly different.) Some, I imagine, feel that only those rare individuals who have had such a radical impact should have holidays named for them. Dr. King isn't in that league; the only Americans who are are the Founders; their holiday is July 4.

Here's my argument against making January 15 [Update: MLK Day is celebrated on the third Monday of January, which happens to fall on the 15th in 2003] an official holiday: it's not fair to everyone else involved in the civil rights movement. Independence Day isn't just about one guy. We have a holiday for all those who made the Declaration of Independence happen. We should have a federal holiday called Civil Rights Day. It would be like Memorial Day, honoring leaders of past civil rights struggles instead of soldiers of past wars.

Labels: Blog traditions, Holidays

The 2014 Index of Economic Freedom is out, and for the first time the United States falls out of the Top 10 to twelfth place, right behind Estonia, the most economically free of the former Communist nations.

Labels: Economics

The Education Intelligence Agency releases its 2013 Public Education Quotes of the Year. And the winner is a doozy:

“Since a teacher’s working conditions are a child’s learning conditions, attacking teachers is the same as attacking children.” – Randy Mousley, president of United Teachers of Wichita. (February 9 Wichita Eagle)

Labels: Education, Politics

I posted this comment at this Facebook post:
Here's the problem re fiscal policy. Fiscal leftists accept the Second Theory of Thermodynamics, that a closed system will eventually achieve entropy. They recognize the relevance to economics, that true growth cannot be achieved without inputs from outside the system. Unfortunately, they believe that the wealth of The Rich™ is external to the economy. And over at Instapundit, which reports that Oklahoma lawmakers are actually going through the effort to propose this law... Under Kern’s bill, students couldn’t be punished for possessing small toy weapons or using writing utensils, fingers or their hands to simulate a weapon. Students also couldn’t be punished for drawing pictures of weapons or wearing clothes that “support or advance Second Amendment rights or organizations.” ...I said this: Has anyone noticed that the state of Oklahoma is shaped like a battleship turret? If the law passes and its constitutionality is successfully challenged, Oklahoma will have to change its map. So will Idaho, BTW.

Update:Instapundit link added.

Labels: Economics, Politics

The Year of the Zombies, so he says.

Labels: Culture, Humor, Politics