Posts Tagged ‘Christopher Columbus’

This may shock some of you, but within living memory the discovery of America was regarded as a good thing. Now, instead of learning about an adventurous explorer who discovered a whole New World, school children are taught that they live on stolen land and are descended from genocidal colonizers. And we wonder why kids […]


Today, October 12, is traditional Columbus Day. It was 531 years ago today that the Genoese explorer became the first European to set foot in the Western Hemisphere. No big deal, according to those who want to cancel Christopher Columbus because he violated “norms” that the world wouldn’t discover for another half millennium. The cancelers […]


Not so long ago, Italian-Americans were actually seen as a disadvantaged group that faced real discrimination. For that reason, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the first federal observance of Columbus Day in 1937 to recognize the contributions of Italian-Americans and to assure them of their rightful place in American history. “We are celebrating today the […]


Brave New World

11Mar22

Less than a year after dumping the Warrior logo, the Wakefield School Committee continues to demonstrate that they are more in tune with global causes than they are with the local taxpayers who pay the freight. Last week, they quietly changed Columbus Day to “Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day.” And nobody said a word. The 2022-2023 […]


Let me be the first to wish you and yours a happy Columbus Day. This year’s holiday is doubly special because it’s not just the second Monday in October. Monday also happens to be Oct. 12, which is traditional Columbus Day. It will be exactly 528 years ago to the day that the great Italian […]


Big bang theory

11Jul20

When is a firecracker just a firecracker? If you were in Wakefield — or anywhere else in the country — on July 4 weekend, you probably noticed a dramatic uptick in the volume of amateur fireworks compared to other years. You were not alone. “Fireworks complaint” was far and away the dominant entry in the […]


Weekend Warrior

11Oct19

As we head into the long Indigenous Peoples Day weekend, let us take a moment from our apple picking, leaf-peeping and farmers market excursions to reflect upon the true meaning of the holiday: to show how much more virtuous and woke we are than those who still call it Columbus Day.


As every kid in America used to know, it was on Oct. 12, 1492 that Columbus discovered America. Most kids also learned the little poem that began, “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” I learned it in kindergarten at Miss Hope’s progressive Studio School on Montrose Avenue. Do schools still teach that […]


Another holiday, another opportunity to vilify the United States. Actually, the upcoming Columbus Day holiday is just a warm-up for the Thanksgiving main event. We know the narrative by now. Christopher Columbus was not a heroic explorer who discovered a new world. He was a villain who set in motion the centuries-long American reign of […]