When Holidays Collide
One might say that this year we have an inordinately appropriate pair of largely ignored January holidays. Today is Martin Luther King day, and tomorrow Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th president. This morning PZ Myers posted excerpts from Kings Letters from a Birminagham Jail, plus links to the full text.
Tomorrow, the presidential inauguration will be covered by media and the public as none has ever been before. MoveOn.org provides lists of relevant parties near you. So I’ve got another place to wear my Tux for a second time this year (Counting New Year’s Eve/Morning).
The important thing to me is not so much that some of MLK’s distant ancestors came from the same country as our PrezElect’s father, but that the faith-based presidency is finally over. It’s not just a change of faces, but (with luck) a return to the Enlightenment values on which our country was founded.
But inauguration day is not an official holiday. Even MLK day is barely noticed. (See my earlier MLK Day post). Yet I still feel like celebrating.
An RFT reporter who came to the Dance Discovery Inaugural Ball mentioned me by name. That’s what I get for talking to strangers:
Unreal Parties Like It’s 1799.