Day 314 - a federal holiday

 Today is the 6th day of the 45th week, the 10th day of the 11th month, the 314th day of 2023, and:

• Area Code Day
• Domino Day
• International Accounting Day
• National Civic Pride Day
• National Donor Sabbath Day
• National DTC [Direct to Consumer] Day
• National Forget-Me-Not Day
• National Vanilla Cupcake Day
• NET Cancer Awareness Day
• Sesame Street Day
• USMC Day
• Windows Day
• World Keratoconus Day
• World Science Day for Peace and Development

Quote of the day:
"God cannot alter the past, though historians can"

~  Samuel Butler, English novelist and critic 

Veterans' Day [like Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July and Juneteenth] is a holiday in the federal calendar that is celebrated on the actual date it lands [instead of being moved to the nearest Monday like Memorial Day, for example] - unless it lands fortuitously on a weekend.  This year it landed on a Saturday, so anyone adhering to the federal holiday calendar gets the day off and a long weekend.  But unlike other countries, the Congress can only mandate when the federal employees have off, so our "national" holidays are not universally celebrated and tend to get a bit silly [as anyone who reads my list can affirm].  There are currently eleven federal holidays.  That calendar is very important to those of us who work in banking or for credit unions, because if the Federal Reserve is open, then our business has to be open as well.   But just because the Fed is closed, doesn't obligate banks and credit unions to close, it just gives them the choice to do so.  As a result, many places make Juneteenth and Veterans' Day floating holidays - or in the case of one place where I worked, we were in the office on Veterans' Day but got the day after Thanksgiving off.   

Most private companies only celebrate six holidays during the year:  New Year's Day, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  And, of course, many people in retail and other service industries don't get off at all even on those days - and in most states, employers are not even required to pay additional to those working on the holidays.  As for religious holidays, all that is required is "reasonable accommodation" and one religious observance is not to be favorited by another [which is why this SCOTUS ruling was so roundly condemned as the man knew the requirements and took the job anyway]  

Somehow of late, it would seem that our constitutional history is being rewritten to fit into the mold of a few.  The time honored separation of Church and State is being called into question, and that endangers the very fabric of our country.  Religious toleration and the refusal to enshrine a national religion is the very backbone of the Constitution,  stated in the First Amendment, ratified in 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" and the contortions of the so-called "originalists" to deny that separation is nothing short of rewriting our history to suit themselves.

But the rewriting of history is nothing new, and this discussion always leads to my assertion that there is no such thing as an "historical fact" - but that is a debate for another day.  

Today I am going to recuperate from the RSV shot, and simply relax.  Maybe I'll go in world and indulge in some retail therapy, or play a game, or read, or catch up on some streaming programs....