Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Just Checking!

When you log on AOL, there is a little banner that always pops up on their search engine. The "AOL" part always changes to show what day it is, or the month or season. So during Hanakkuh there was a blue mennorah behind the AOL. During January, the "O" on the AOL was a snowman. With me?

Yesterday, I logged on and the banner had "A-Obama's face-L." Huh? WHY? My brain (as small as it is) started spinning as I tried to guess what the occasion might be. Election? Nope, we already had that one during the election. Innauguration? Nope, already passed. Obama's Birthday? Nope. Ahhhhhh....Presidents Day!

I thought that Presidents Day was to celebrate Washington's Birthday and then we kind of threw Lincoln's birthday in there too. But I could be totally wrong.

I checked. I'm not wrong. From a super duper really reliable source ;) Wikipedia tells us:
Titled Washington's Birthday, the federal holiday was originally implemented by the Congress of the United States of America in 1880 for government offices in the District of Columbia (20 Stat. 277) and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices (23 Stat. 516). As the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen, the holiday was celebrated on Washington's actual birthday, February 22. On January 1, 1971 the federal holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. A draft of the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 would have renamed the holiday to Presidents' Day to honor both Washington and Lincoln, but this proposal failed in committee and the bill as voted on and signed into law on June 28, 1968 kept the name Washington's Birthday.
By the mid-1980s, with a push from advertisers, the term "Presidents' Day" began its public appearance.
[1] The theme has expanded the focus of the holiday to honor another President born in February, Abraham Lincoln, and often other Presidents of the United States. Although Lincoln's birthday, February 12, was never a federal holiday, approximately a dozen state governments have officially renamed their Washington's Birthday observances as "Presidents Day", "Washington and Lincoln Day", or other such designations. However, "Presidents Day" is not always an all-inclusive term.

So you may be wondering why I am so bothered by this - It could be that I am sitting here WAITING for my part of the stimulus package. Or maybe I'm sitting here WAITING for the recession to be over. And just like I'm waiting, I think the country should WAIT before they heroize (do you like my made up word). I'm totally willing to give the guy a chance to change the economy. And I am willing to wait more than the 8 1/2 minutes he has been in office. By the same token, I think we should also wait more than 8 1/2 minutes to call him the Messiah, rename high schools (that's a whole different story) and name a day for him.

6 comments:

valerie said...

Just wanted to say I LOVE the new look! :)

Tricia said...

gina: i.love.you. amen to ALL of it. even the word heroize. reading your post is saving my sanity in the midst of tball team meeting noisy pizza place chaos.

Ashli Dardenne said...

GINA! I found you!!!!! Hehe. I won't tell anyone....promise.

StephieMae said...

K so I agree with you 100% on this matter. Jen Bowen and I wanted to make President's Day cupcakes and then thought we could incorporate Obama into them,like making them chocolate with of course chocolate frosting to represent his fro and then a candy cigerette on 'em.(because ick he smokes) Then we realized how did he get into this? He's not why we celebrate President's Day, eww. So then we scrathed that idea all together. Who needs cupcakes anyways? Well I guess while you sit and wait they'd come in handy :)

Tracy said...

Gina, you should come here. It's really kind of embarrassing. There are Obama T-shirts, Obama ball caps, Obama bobblehead dolls. It's insane, and I really think, if he were allowed to walk the streets and see all the adulation, he'd be just a bit embarrassed too. Sheesh!

Lewis Family said...

Amen! I think it's weird how many people seem to be running around like infatuated little school girls for this guy. I'm staying right here on the "wait and see" bus. I hope he can make everything perfect, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. Great post!