• 10:52: Wait … Dick Clark is still alive and kicking?
• 10:54: Train … seriously, don’t they have other songs in the repertoire?
• 11:01: And now, a cutaway to WSBTV’s coverage of Atlanta’s Peach Drop. Tangerines take to the streets in protest.
• 11:03: Local news reminds us that it’s already 2011 in places like Russia and New Zealand. Brilliant. Thanks for the info.
• 11:10: Oh man, local news is unwatchable. We have to endure this for 25 more minutes before Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve is back. That’s sacrilege.
• 11:18: Ok, local news until 11:30. Switching to MTV’s New Year’s show for a few minutes.
• 11:19: Ugh, some sort of Old Spice Jersey Shore skit on MTV. Society is crumbling.
• 11:20: Best Internet clips from MTV’s show — Bieber fever. Yeah, society is crumbling.
• 11:23: One of the clips featured that kid who so deftly covered Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi.”
• 11:31: OK, back to NYRE. Dick Clack, bless your soul.
• 11:32: New Kids on the Block? WTF? I thought I had thoroughly suppressed those memories.
• 11:34: About to pour up a glass of Port. It’s pretty tart.
• 11:36: Warmest New Year’s Eve in NYC was 58 degrees and the coldest was 1 degree, according to Ryan Seacrest.
• 11:38: New Kids on the Block and the Back Street Boys! Yeah, society is crumbling. OMG, I’m getting bad junior high flashbacks.
• 11:42: Ut Oh, here we go. Folks kissing in Times Square. “Please don’t go girl …”
• 11:43: “The Right Stuff. … Uh oh oh oh oh, the right stuff. …”
• 11:45: Ahh, it’s done. I was hoping for “Hangin’ Tough”
• 11:50: Jenny McCarthy? Well, it makes sense. She’s an MTV vet.
• 11:58: Bubbly ready. It’s about to be on.
• 11:59: “The energy, the magic is about to happen.” – Seacrest

Next week, get ready to celebrate Administrative Professionals Day. That’s right. As I was purchasing a Mountain Dew and a pair of taquitos at the local RaceTrac, I saw a small banner on one of the cash registers telling me of this additional cause to celebrate.

Apparently, this “holiday” has been around some form since 1952, but in my book, it can be counted with the large number of useless (and meaningless) observances that have been created over the years. Lest this post begins to resemble a Wikipedia entry, I will keep the list small, but here are just a few:

• Labor Day (Sept. 7) — Pointless. Last I checked, work was a necessity to having food and a roof over one’s head. I think Administrative Professionals Day could probably be lumped into this.
• Arbor Day (April 24) — Trees? Where is the Grass Day? Or how about National Sky Day? Or how about oxygen? That’s just as vital as trees.
• Columbus Day (Oct. 12) — He didn’t discover America.
• Parents’ Day (Fourth Sunday of July) and Grandparents’ Day (First Sunday after Labor Day) — Although Father’s Day and Mother’s Day could be added to the list of days created to feed the greeting card market, I guess I will cede these two since, like Valentine’s Day, they have become so entrenched in our culture that we might as well leave them be, if for no other reason than that they are harmless, and in fact, make people feel good about themselves. But on the next few, I can’t say the same. …
• Black History Month (February), Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (May) and National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15) — In the 21st century, isn’t it counterproductive and hypocritical to still set aside certain months to celebrate our various minorities when, more than 200 years ago, we declared them all to be our equals (although putting this high ideal into practice, we learned, became much more difficult). Black History Month, which Cynthia Tucker, a black woman and editor with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, called “quaint, jarring, anachronistic,” is the most unnecessary of these types of holidays. An African-American is now president, a black man is head of the Republican Party and numerous black people hold public seats in the federal House and Senate and in state and local offices. While racism has certainly not been stamped out, it’s time for us to move beyond cutesy recognitions such as this, for they move us backward, not forward.
• Confederate History Month (April) — While I like learning about Civil War history as much as anyone, the Confederacy is a failed attempt. Southern history is important, but call it what it is; to celebrate Confederate heritage or the Confederate battle flag is to celebrate a failed uprising and the distinction has to be made. The Hootie and the Blowfish song famously included the line, “Tired of hearing this shit ’bout heritage, not hate” and that’s precisely what a lot of folks tout. Southern heritage, that is, the legacy of the South as a region of the country, not as a seceded state, up to and following the Civil War, is a meaningful area to celebrate, but attach the battle flag to it, and it becomes a celebration of some of the worst atrocities this country has seen. So, for the folks who proudly display bumper stickers that read, “Southern by the grace of God,” that’s fine. I’m glad I was born in the South too, for it’s a beautiful part of the country with a rich heritage and which produced some great authors, but let’s not muddy the issue by summoning the legacy of a failed mutiny.

I’ll leave it at that, but you get the picture. We’ve got too many of these holidays and some of them are even offensive, or as Tucker said, “anachronistic.”

My wife told me a couple days ago that they (employees of the grocery store she works for) can’t wish customers a “Merry Christmas.” Instead, the must say, “Happy Holidays,” or something else, lest they offend someone who does not believe in Christmas. This is like saying American citizens can’t say to other American citizens: “Happy Fourth of July.”

First, let me make it clear: I’m all for the separation of church and state. But, let me also be clear: Christmas is a federal holiday. If our political correctness has made us uncomfortable with this, we should, as a nation, reverse the designation as a federal holiday. Otherwise, employees of retail stores and grocery stores are irrevocably free to wish people Merry Christmas because it is a federally mandated holiday by the United States.

Forcing employees to say, “Happy Holidays” is silly because it’s a federal holiday, plain and simple, and if enough in the country are uncomfortable with that, measures should be taken to un-designate Christmas as a federal holiday, but good luck with that, since we are, in all but name, nearly a theocracy with the amount of religious nods slipped into our own laws and the amount of politicians who tout religion, not reason, as paramount to their decision-making, which affects, not only fellow believers, but those who do not believe and those who believe in some other deity (i.e. the Jewish God, Allah or whomever).

Regardless, the policy of this grocery store (and my wife tells me of others that hold the same policy) is not only silly, but wrong … and this precludes whatever one may believe about God, Christ, Christmas or any of it.