Ridiculous Division

I've wondered about the reasons the United States continues to be segregated and think I've pinpointed one of them. I'm getting somewhat tired of people complaining that segregation is alive and well in the U.S.A., all the while declaring themselves to be some kind of dash-American...Mexican-American, Afro-American, Italian-American, Asian-American. Isn't this part of the reason there is segregation? And are these people trying to separate themselves based on the color of their skin or on the location of their ancestry centuries ago? How many generations of blood-mixing does it take before one is forced to declare them self just American because all the dashes won't fit on a page?

It's as ridiculous as dividing groups based on the color of their eyes or their hair. Would that mean when someone ages and their hair turns gray or falls out, they have to declare they are part of a different group?

If we stopped this hyphenating of America and all declared to be American, wouldn't this go a long way toward uniting us.

I'm an American! And proud of it.

Freedom of Speech

Since we are a country that values freedom of speech, we should be able to say anything we want. I’m personally offended that special groups of people declare certain words offensive and strive to reduce my right to say them. Won't the dictionary eventually run out of acceptable words? But, along these same lines, if we want others to pay attention to our thoughts and opinions, we might want to make some effort to say them diplomatically, in a non-offensive manner.

I always thought it would be much more powerful to have the skill to use the English language to cut a person down or raise someone up, rather than having every other word be an obscenity. I consider the use of foul language to be a strong lack of intelligence. If we don’t care what others think about us and our opinions, and we spout off, we should be prepared for the consequences.

Let's Celebrate!

I recently discovered that there’s actually a publication called a “Retail Promotion Calendar” that is used to target people to try to part them from their money. In addition to the traditional holidays, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day, some of the less personal, yet interesting listed are:
     January 14 - Organize Your Home Day
     May 11 - Eat What You Want Day
     June 1 - Donut Day
     October 22 - National Nut Day  (I’m not sure if that’s the
          food or the person!)
     December 5 - National Bathtub Party Day


There’s a whole week for some things:
     November 23-29 National Game and Puzzle Week


Some of the events get an entire month, such as:
     January - Clean Up Your Computer Month
     February - Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month
     July - National Ice Cream Month (One of my favorites!)


I may be calling on a few of my friends to help me celebrate some of these, after all.