Should the Start of Chinese New Year Be a Federal Holiday? 307
First time accepted submitter CarlosF writes "Does Lunar New Year belong alongside those other red-letter days? Efforts to recognize Lunar New Year at the state and local level have been afoot for years. In 1994, San Francisco decided to close public schools on Lunar New Year, but this was largely a response to demographic reality rather than political pressure."
Why not ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets not start going on that slippery slope.
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And yes, growing up in Texas, we celebrated Cinco de Mayo, even if we didn't officially close on those days.
Next you'll be asserting that we shouldn't celebrate Easter or Christmas because they are religious, and forcing people, by law, to observe a religious holiday
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"And yes, growing up in Texas, we celebrated Cinco de Mayo, even if we didn't officially close on those days."
I think you have your head stuck in Texas. Because:
1. BFD. People near the northern borders recognize Cinco de Mayo, too. But that's a far cry from making it a Federal holiday.
2. I doubt it's as "international" as you say. I used to live in Texas. Including summer. And I never heard of Juneteenth until just now. I had to look it up on Wikipedia.
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And yes, growing up in Texas, we celebrated Cinco de Mayo
Nitpick: Cinco de Mayo [wikipedia.org] is not a Mexican holiday. It commemorates a rather obscure event in Mexico's history, and most Mexicans do not celebrate it, and have probably never even heard of it. It is celebrated in the USA much more so than in Mexico, and is really more of an American "Chicano Pride" holiday than a Mexican one.
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It is not a Chinese holiday, any more than celebrating the Julian New Year would be celebrating a Roman holiday. The lunar calendar is universially recognized, even if not followed. The holiday is not Chinese, as many countries celebrate it.
Quick Google: Vietnam celebrates the same day, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand do not
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Who's forced to observe a holiday?
Anybody who tries going to the DMV to get their driver's license renewed on December 25th will find that they've instead been forced to observe a religious holiday.
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So is Chick Fil A forcing you to observe Sunday as a day of rest because they are closed?
In a way, yes. They deliberately close on that day to make you think about their religion. If you want a really bland chicken sandwich on a Sunday, you can't help but observe that they're resting.
But in more ways no, because:
The DMV isn't open on the weekends either or after 5 generally. What does that mean?
They have a regular schedule. By definition, a holiday is an interruption to that schedule. In this case, the interruption is to commemorate the purported anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
And one more thing, the DMV is a poor example since that's a state agency.
It's hard to fathom why you think that. I specifically picked a state agency to
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Battle of Camarón is April 30th!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Camar%C3%B3n [wikipedia.org]
I think March 6th is Alamo Day.
It seems that Mexicans usually win their battles with the tried and true method of overwhelming their enemies by thousands to one.
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Remember the Shrimp?
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Cinco de Mayo is almost a holiday in Arizona.
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Cesar Chavez Day is not a Mexican holiday, and is observed in Arizona and Texas as well as California. He was born in Arizona and is remembered for improving life for migrant workers while generally opposing illegal immigration (though this latter part seems to be lost in the current debate).
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I've lived in Arizona for 10 years. I don't recall ever celebrating or observing Cesar Chavez Day.
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In California, Ceasar Chavez day is already a holiday for most school districts.
Since Cesar Chavez [wikipedia.org] was a native-born American citizen, and most Mexicans have never heard of him, I am not sure what your point is.
Re:Cesar Chavez Day, May 5, Sept 16 (Score:2)
Sure, and the Texas school kids get Texas Independence Day off, celebrating a bunch of illegal immigrants trying to overthrow their government. And while Delaware doesn't get a school holiday for Dec. 7 (ratifying the Constitution), or for whatever day the invading Dutch overthrew the Swedes, we did get a couple of school days off in the fall for teachers' union meetings. Cinco de Mayo nominally celebrates a successful battle at the beginning of an unsuccessful war against the invading French Army, but Me
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When is St. Anonymous's Day, anyway?
do not want (Score:5, Funny)
Having to observe both American *and* Chinese holidays is a bit too much. Mid-Autumn festival, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the solar New Year, and the lunar New Year--and for each one I'm expected to go home and spend time with the parents. If the lunar new year becomes a federal holiday, there goes my last excuse!
Ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, we know the answer is no [wikipedia.org].
The way it should go is exactly the way it will go: if the Chinese population in a given area is large enough that the inhabitants cannot ignore the celebration, they will recognise it. That area can be a county, state or country.
No. (Score:2)
Please. No.
I like paid days off as much as the next guy, but seriously, we are not in China.
Slippery slope, blah, blah, blah...
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Please. No.
I like paid days off as much as the next guy, but seriously, we are not in China.
Slippery slope, blah, blah, blah...
We're not in Palestine / Bethlehem / where-ever, but Christmas & Easter are among our biggest sets of holidays.
Also, Chinese New Year is celebrated in a lot more countries than just China.
Another angle is, we need a break in the dark, dreary months between Xmas / New Year and ... Easter.
A strike against Chinese New Year is that it's not on a constant day, but floats around the calendar.
Also, since all the factories in China are closed for a week, a fair number of westerners whose work is liaising with t
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Then maybe you should do what we do down here - Mardi Gras ftw!
Which is day after tomorrow, so tomorrow and Tuesday will be a nearly nonstop party....
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Then maybe you should do what we do down here - Mardi Gras ftw!
Which is day after tomorrow, so tomorrow and Tuesday will be a nearly nonstop party....
Mardi Gras sounds like a blast!
It's also based on Lent, a religious holiday, from my understanding. But never-the-less, sounds freaking great. Enjoy!
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Mardi Gras is only partly related to Lent; apparently there are also African traditions of having feast in the spring and using up the meat. (Having a big party to finish off the things you're not going to eat during a long solemn fasting holiday is kind of missing the point.)
Also, Mardi Gras roughly tracks with Chinese Lunar New Year, because it's a fixed number of days before Easter, which was originally celebrated based on the Jewish lunar calendar, though the Romans munged the date into their solar cal
Should the Chinese New Year Be a Federal Holiday? (Score:2)
Of course. All those Chinese hackers trying to break into US Federal systems should be able to spend the holiday with their families.
It is a federal holiday (Score:5, Informative)
Shouldn't your question be "should it be a federal holiday in the USA"? It is already in China.
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No its not; China isn't officially a federation, therefore it doesn't have a federal government, or federal holidays.
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China isn't a federal government. Don't confuse "federal" with "national."
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If this were slashdot.cn your observation would have merit. But it's not, so it doesn't.
What about Ramadan (Score:2)
and Diwali?
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I'd rather have Holi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi [wikipedia.org]
Re:What about Diwali and Holi (Score:2)
Diwali celebrations have the good cookies.
And while celebrating spring colors and throwing paint around are cool, witch-burning not so much. (I'm getting that phrase from the Wikipedia article, though she's described more as a demon than a witch.)
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They are mentioned in the article actually...
Really I think these are what "floater" holidays are designed for. For example Christmas should actually be converted to a floater holiday. For non-Christians it's basically a paid weekday off with little value since you can't get anything done because most places are closed. Come up with a set number, say 5, and make it federal law that all employers offer 5 "floater" holidays for religious observance. The law could require that they can be used like vacatio
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For non-Christians it's basically a paid weekday off with little value since you can't get anything done because most places are closed
Christmas is/was/has become (take your pick) a secular holiday for most people.
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The traditional Jewish observance of Christmas is to go out for Chinese food and a movie. (At least in SF and NYC, perhaps other areas with large Jewish and Chinese populations.)
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Darwin Day! Get ready ...
If I owed (Score:5, Funny)
a loanshark an inconceivably large sum of money, and was only able to go about my business and you know, exist, because of the loanshark's continuing goodwill... I'd probably go out of my way to wish him happy birthday when it rolled around.
Just saying.
Make every day a holiday (Score:2)
Also 19 September (Score:2)
The Pastafarian holiday International Talk Like a Pirate day: 19 September [rationalwiki.org], to not do so would be religious discrimination.
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Oh, lordy me ... I was also forgetting May 4th -- International Star Wars day, the Jedi attacking me I don't want.
You see: once we start having holidays for some groups, we have to have them for all of them!
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Yarrr! But ye don't have ta take that day off, as long as yer boss is ok with ye talkin' like pirates at the office and doin' bad statistics!
The place I worked in the 80s started getting more culturally sensitive and having a rotating variety of ethnic foods for lunch in the office cafeterias. It was in New Jersey, and that meant they did a much better job of doing Italian than other ethnic groups. But hey, if you want pasta for lunch, they can set you up.
Why National? (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1994, San Francisco decided to close public schools on Lunar New Year, but this was largely a response to demographic reality rather than political pressure.
Which is as it should be, and an indicator that federalism is working just fine, thank you very much. In an area where lots of people want to take the same day off, it's off. Otherwise, it's not. Heck, we could make Nooruz (Persian New Year) a national holiday, but I doubt there's a demand for that anywhere except in certain parts of Los Angeles. It would be nice for the various Slavic and Greek enclaves around the US if their New Year (based on the Julian rather than Gregorian calendar) was a national holiday. We could make Rosh Hashanah a national holiday, along with at least half a dozen different New Year days from India (it depends on the region). Etc. Etc. Etc.
It's one thing to be respectful of minority groups, and for everyone to have the same legal rights regardless of ethnicity, religion, etc. That's as it should be. But it's an entirely-different thing to bend over backwards pretending that there are no minorities. I wouldn't expect to get Christmas off if I lived in China, nor would it be any kind of insult or malign discrimination on China's part if I didn't.
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May 1 is 'International Day of the Worker', and is celebrated in many countries around the world. It was originally a Soviet holiday, so of course most Americans have never heard of it.
Actually, it pre-dates the USSR by almost two decades. It was established by the Socialist Second International in 1889, to commemorate what was called the Haymarket Affair in Chicago a few years before. Most folks I know are quite aware what May Day is, though of course that's not a random sample, and I expect most of them assume (as did you) that it is Soviet in origin. You need a little less of the attitude embodied in your sig.
As soon as everyone is hung over... (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as the night before is used as an excuse to get drunk by a large portion of the populace, who are then too hung over to go to work on the holiday, it will become an official American day off. New Year's day isn't a holiday because anyone is celebrating the start of a new year.
It already is...in China! (Score:2)
I believe that, in China, both new years are official state holidays.
Do it for all nationalities. (Score:2)
If you are going to do it for Chinese. :P
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You want all nationalities to celebrate Chinese New Year? Well....let's see. Big dinner of good food with family. Gift exchanges. Fireworks. Colorful dances. OK, this works for me. Oops! Gotta go buy some moon cakes. See Ya!
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What about Christmas? Why is that a holiday? :P
There are more Celts than Chinese (Score:4, Informative)
Only in Ammurica (Score:3)
(I'll take Newfoundland, [wikipedia.org] which includes St Patrick's Day as a holiday)
(Here in BC the Liberal government, desperate to do anything that might rescue a few votes, has launched a February holiday called "Family Day." I guess that it goes without saying this comes after years of hacking away at any program that actually benefited real working class families.)
(And of course, in Vancouver Chinese New Year is in fact a pretty big deal. Maybe we'll celebrate Family Day by going out for Dim Sum.)
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Should Bastille day be a national holiday?
In countries that contain the Bastille, yes. Does the first new moon of the year fail to occur in some nation?
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Should Bastille day be a national holiday?
In countries that contain the Bastille, yes. Does the first new moon of the year fail to occur in some nation?
In that case, we should also celebrate the first full moon of the year. I'd personally also go for the first waxing moon of the year and for the first waning moon of the year.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:4, Funny)
I would further like to suggest that we should then celebrate the first day of the month following the start of the lunar year, But let's not stop there, keep it up and we can get the whole year off. Except that I tend to work in industries that don't recognize most federal holidays. That's just for those lazy government workers.
In fact, forget mandatory holidays anyway, just give me more paid time off that I can take on my own schedule.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a bad idea... really!
Most folks don't actually do 9-5 five-days-a-week of productive work every week these days... but reducing their workweek to 4-days is somehow not popular (especially if corp has to pay the same amount anyway, or alternatively employees taking a 20% pay cut).
Adding (paid, federal) holidays (like, a LOT of holidays) may have the same impact. Imagine an extra holiday every month giving everyone an extra 3-day weekend every month. From the cultural perspective, I can imagine that being an amazingly great thing. Call it "moon day" or whatever, invent some hallmark theme for it, etc.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:5, Funny)
Call it "moon day" or whatever, invent some hallmark theme for it, etc.
Whatever you do, don't call it Moonday. We already have one of those every week, and it's a terrible day.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, the days really do have to be mandatory - otherwise, you get those people who basically live in the office and never use vacation time ruining it for everyone else. They almost never do more work, they're just slower at it (because they're burnt out from never taking any time off, it's a chicken and egg thing I guess). The worst part is that because "butts in seats" is an easily quantifiable metric (significantly easier than, say, "work quality" or "features completed"), managers tend to even encourage that self-destructive behavior.
That's pretty much how the USA got to where it is right now, in fact - we have the worst time off laws of almost any nation, and it's largely because of the ridiculously overblown Protestant "you should either be working, eating or sleeping" work ethic. We would probably get more done as a country if we had more time off.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:4, Informative)
Funny you should mention this. Just this morning on CNBC there was a guy who talked about this very subject. His main point was that people should get roughly 10 hours of sleep each night, not the recommended 8 and certainly more than whatever the national average is.
He also mentioned that people should take naps in the afternoon to recharge as well as take more vacations as they are more productive afterwards.
Finally, the blurb across the bottom of the screen said according his book, most people work in 90 minutes bursts of creativity then have to recharge for the next round.
Overall, working more hours does not produce more work and people who think they can be more productive by working more and sleeping less are actually doing the opposite.
This is the link to the interview [cnbc.com] from this morning and this is a link [cnbc.com] to a related story from last year saying the same thing.
Having said all that, do I want Chinese New Year to be a holiday? No. Holidays should be reserved for unique events, such as our Declaration of Independence, not some general celebration such as New Years (Chinese or not).
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I've done it. It's really nice. It can be a struggle getting through some days but when it's the end of the week, it really pays back.
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Should Bastille day be a national holiday?
In countries that contain the Bastille, yes. Does the first new moon of the year fail to occur in some nation?
In counties that contain a large jail like the Bastille one might notice a momentous jailbreak, no?
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Bastille and a new moon are slightly different things. one of earmarking a single period of time in history when the other is a method of keeping time that reoccurs yearly or more.
We have chosen to tabulate time differently and the new moon plays no significant roll in that. It is a hold back of tradition rejected- regardless of any usefulness it may have.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:4, Informative)
The argument likely aims at the fact that storming of Bastille was the event that launched chain that resulted in creation of modern democracy, modern Western power structures and Napoleon Code.
The storming of the Bastille happened years after the American Revolution, and unlike the American Revolution, which resulted in (relatively) liberal democracy right away, the French Revolution resulted in the Reign of Terror (hardly a model for democracy), and the re-establishment of monarchy several times (Napoleonic and Bourbon kings and emperors). In fact, the French Revolution scared a lot of other countries from liberalizing and becoming more democratic (see Edmund Burke's writings, for instance)
Also, the Napoleonic Code also has nothing to do with the common law practiced in the US (outside of Louisiana and Puerto Rico to some extent) or other Anglophone liberal democracies.
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storming of Bastille ... resulted in creation of modern democracy
America was already a democracy when the Bastille was stormed. It would make more sense for the French to celebrate July 4th.
modern Western power structures
Is that a good thing?
and Napoleon Code.
Except for Louisiana, American law isn't based on the Napoleonic Code [wikipedia.org], and Louisiana has long been the worst governed and most corrupt state in the country.
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14 July 1789 was the event that launched the chainn that resulted in creation of modern democracy?
Seems to me that 4 July 1776 was a bit earlier, and perhaps even helped to inspire the French.
Or we could step back a year to 19 April 1775, when the Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought...a battle in the US th
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:5, Funny)
I see no reason to have a statutory holiday dedicated to worshipping the moon.
Yes, the Sun is the one, true God.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:4, Funny)
The Sun is female, the Moon is male.
The ancient Egyptian worshipers of Ra the sun god, as well as the Roman worshipers of the sun god Apollo the sun god of Luna the moon goddess would all like to talk to you about that.
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All holidays should be abolished. At least at the federal level anyway. Celebrating a "holiday" simply because it's the first day of a new year? We should have stopped that nonsense long ago.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:5, Insightful)
In medieval times [medieval.net] the calendar was packed with holidays, about one per week IIRC. Seems like that would've been a good way to blow off some steam, eh? Most of these are only historical curios now. I'd be for bringing those back, or secular equivalents, rather. Starting with Festivus, of course. Feats of Strength!
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Medieval holidays were a little different than holidays nowadays. You didn't get time off work for them (dawn till dusk and a bit more, 7 days a week). Instead, you weren't supposed to have sex or any other sort of fun, and instead spend more time praying.
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:5, Funny)
(dawn till dusk and a bit more, 7 days a week). Instead, you weren't supposed to have sex or any other sort of fun, and instead spend more time praying.
Now we call that "grad school".
Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah. You know what else is useless? Weekends. What's up with that crap. I mean, abolish them, and we could work 7 days a week. Woot!
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I don't know about that. I know several full time maintenance personnel at a couple local factories and they use the weekends to retool production runs and deep cleaning.
Large industrial operations generally need tolerances checked and adjusted frequently too.
The idea of rest as far as factories go is more like making sure the equipment is working properly and capable of doing the jobs demanded of them. oiling and greasing the right parts to ensure longevity, and so on. But those factories also take a week
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At Intel it's 4 crews working 12 hour shifts: 4 on, 3 off, 3 on, 4 off. Most of our PMs were run-based, not time-based.
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Yeah. You know what else is useless? Weekends. What's up with that crap. I mean, abolish them, and we could work 7 days a week. Woot!
In that light, why don't we do away with the 8-working-hour-per-day rule?
Why is there a necessity for "overtime pay"?
Work 24-hours-a-day until you die, you slaves!!!
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Yeah, fun is irrational. We should all be good little automatons, just like our owners wish.
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Do you ever take a day off, or do you work year round? Nonetheless, for arbitrary reasons or not, some people actually enjoy holidays. I, personally, am somewhat fond of CNY since I have a bunch of friends who celebrate it, although I don't I do agree that we should celebrate it since it doesn't carry a lot of historical or cultural significance in the US.
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>All holidays should be abolished.
You first.
--
BMO
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All holidays should be abolished. At least at the federal level anyway.
Sounds like a plan -- that way, we can get more work out of everyone and make them take their holidays out of their ten days of vacation a year.
Of course, that does make it a bit difficult to schedule coverage for the office when you can't be sure how many people will be available to cover and, conversely, whether there will be demand for services from the ones who are there. Kind of like Wall Street during the major Jewish holidays: not a legal holiday, but don't bother trying to call your brokerage.
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Re:No, it shouldn't (Score:5, Funny)
Im sure youre a blast to have at parties.
"Stop all of this illogical merrymaking! We should be acting as productive members of society!"
Nope! (Score:2)
Not enough Frenchies in San Francisco.
I do hear that it is a holiday in France there. After all, they have millions of Frenchies there. They seem to act like they run the place,
Re:Frenchies in San Francisco (Score:2)
Come down to Palo Alto for World Music Day in the summer; there's always a large French music jam.
And there is a French consulate in SF, and a reasonable choice of French cocktails at the bar around the corner.
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I assume that schools in San Fran get their funding by Average Daily Attendance (ADA) mechanisms. Also given the heavy asian population there, it stands to reason that a lot of children are kept home. This means that opening school on that day isn't very profitable. So it makes sense to keep them closed in favor of a day in which kids will likely attend and get the school money.
I think that's "demographic reality" in the sense that politicians understand it.
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I assume that schools in San Fran get their funding by Average Daily Attendance (ADA) mechanisms. Also given the heavy asian population there, it stands to reason that a lot of children are kept home. This means that opening school on that day isn't very profitable. So it makes sense to keep them closed in favor of a day in which kids will likely attend and get the school money.
I think that's "demographic reality" in the sense that politicians understand it.
Some high schools in certain states close for a week on the opening of deer hunting season.
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That's all we need, one more day where kids don't go to school, and yet most of us still have to go to work (since most of us aren't government employees).
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Nixon was a Dem?
Wage controls? Price controls? He was certainly to the left of Obama.
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Yeah, but the Republicans have moved far to the right (or at least the vocal Tea Party types have, as opposed to the corporatist party machine which is really in charge.) Not only would they not want a pinko liberal like Nixon any more, they wouldn't even want that notorious leftist Barry Goldwater.
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WTF? Like, the other party hasn't been actively selling off bits and pieces all along? Get real!
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Indeed. I've wondered for a long time why the holiday system is fixed almost everywhere in the world. Sure, it's easy to manage, but seriously, in a mixed society it makes no sense! National holidays are ok, but mandating religious ones is simply stupid. Just legalize a set of religious calendars with a preset number of holidays. This number should be fixed. If there's more in a given religion - have the church choose. If there's less - fix the ones that exist and have the employee choose any other days to
Re:Holiday time where I work (Score:2)
I've worked at a large company for many years, and the way our bureaucracy has worked things out between management, union, and non-union folks is that we get a small set of US national holidays off, plus three floating holidays that the company can't tell you when to take and four or five more that they can, in addition to however much vacation you get (based on seniority.) So typically if you're Jewish you use those three days for the high holidays, if you believe in Columbus you might take Columbus Day
Re:Since the Dems sold us to China (Score:5, Funny)
Trolling slashdot is a time honored tradition.
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Why should I be docked vacation or PTO because I happen to observe my own religion's most important holiday yet the gentleman of east-Asian decent next to me gets a free day off for CNY?
If you are docked vacation pay for holidays, you need to call your employment rights board for your location. I think you are lying to prove a point, but it only shows that you are a liar, and y
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July 4th is a nationalist holiday, not a cultural holiday - the equivalent would be Threw-Out-Chiang-Kai-Shek-Day, err, National Day, Oct 1.
Lunar New Year is a cultural holiday that many of the east Asian cultures celebrate, not just China, just as many of the European cultures celebrate Solar New Year or May Day (either as Labor Day or Pretend-It's-Not-Beltane cultural holiday.) And in fact, China does celebrate Solar New Year and May Day as official public holidays.