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Old 10-12-2010, 05:05 PM
 
Location: Martinsville, NJ
6,175 posts, read 12,915,122 times
Reputation: 4020

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Quote:
Originally Posted by denverian View Post
Wasn't Columbus lost??? If he were looking for a shortcut to China, would we be calling Native Americans Chinese? I don't see the point in celebrating it, but I won't get my undies in a bunch over it either.
Many discoveries were accidental. That doesn't make them less important. Pennecilin comes to mind, and the microwave.
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Old 10-12-2010, 07:10 PM
 
Location: mancos
7,786 posts, read 8,010,775 times
Reputation: 6650
gov workers,teachers and bankers get a paid holiday while the rest of us work to pay for it. thats what it is today unless your looking for a good deal on a matress or washer
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Old 10-12-2010, 07:47 PM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,565,345 times
Reputation: 22474
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerbacon View Post

OK, so we'll celebrate the day as the day the Indigenous people of America discovered Colombus. Same difference.

Actually, they didn't know where they were in relation to anything else. Did the indigenous people even have map-making technology? That would be a surprise since they didn't have writing.
It is certainly about the East meeting West - the two worlds had to meet at some point in time. It was a major event.
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Old 10-13-2010, 11:46 AM
 
Location: Houston, Tx
3,644 posts, read 6,293,835 times
Reputation: 1633
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucario View Post
Yes, the day they met up with an intruder who had no idea where he was.
An EXPLORER, not an INTRUDER. Intruders go into someone else's land. the tribes in the Americas had no concept of land ownership so there is no way one could 'intrude' on their land.
Also, of COURSE he didn't know EXACTLY where he was. Again, he was EXPLORING. You don't explore knwon areas. You explore unknown areas. Duh.

Quote:
Hmm. Wonder how the Mayas, Incas and Aztecs ever figured out how to build beautiful cities and develop sophisticated cosmologies; how the Taino and Arawak ever got from Venezuela and the Guianas throughout the Caribbean; how many Native groups had complicated agriculture.......such ignorant savages.
"Beautiful cities" is an opinion. From the drawings I've seen there was nothing beautiful about them. Primitive huts and an occasional pyramid temple for human sacrifice. Like I said: savages.
The bottom line is that all those tribes don't even amount to a minor foot note in history. They just don't rise to the level of being important by any stretch of the imagination. Colombus is more important than everything about them. He did more in one year to change the world than their entire civilizations (and I use that term loosely) did during their entire existance.
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Old 10-13-2010, 12:08 PM
 
42,732 posts, read 29,808,044 times
Reputation: 14345
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerbacon View Post
An EXPLORER, not an INTRUDER. Intruders go into someone else's land. the tribes in the Americas had no concept of land ownership so there is no way one could 'intrude' on their land.
Also, of COURSE he didn't know EXACTLY where he was. Again, he was EXPLORING. You don't explore knwon areas. You explore unknown areas. Duh.



"Beautiful cities" is an opinion. From the drawings I've seen there was nothing beautiful about them. Primitive huts and an occasional pyramid temple for human sacrifice. Like I said: savages.
The bottom line is that all those tribes don't even amount to a minor foot note in history. They just don't rise to the level of being important by any stretch of the imagination. Colombus is more important than everything about them. He did more in one year to change the world than their entire civilizations (and I use that term loosely) did during their entire existance.
While the tribes in the Americas may not have had a concept of land ownership, they certainly did have an understanding of territorial ownership. In that sense, intrusion was certainly possible.

I think there is a lot to support the idea of "Beautiful cities" before the Americas were settled by Europeans. The drawings don't depict vital, thriving cities, but what is essentially ruins. I'm sure the cities of the Mayans or the Incans, filled with people and tradesmen, travelers and craftsmen, were beautiful places where laughter echoed along streets, and the smells of good food were wafted along the breezes. Where children delighted in afternoon thunderstorms, and adults rested in the early evening hours, looking out at a beautiful world.

The bottom line is that we don't know enough about those ancient people to determine their place in history. Columbus has a place, and we have had the privilege of learning about his place. But the indigenous peoples of the Americas certainly have a place in history, too, and it is our misfortune that we have so little knowledge of it. Columbus Day could serve to remind us all of that situation.
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Old 10-13-2010, 12:11 PM
 
6,022 posts, read 7,815,394 times
Reputation: 746
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevinm View Post
Martin Luther King Jr never stepped foot in 99% of the places that celebrate his birthday either, but still take the day off.

he's an american, and im sure most US presidents of the past never set foot in all of the 50 states either
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Old 10-13-2010, 12:14 PM
 
Location: NE PA
7,931 posts, read 15,783,326 times
Reputation: 4425
Quote:
Originally Posted by All American NYC View Post
Why do we celebrate Colombus day?
I never argue with a day off of work. I don't care if its National Cross Dressers Day, if it got me a day off.
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Old 10-13-2010, 12:19 PM
 
6,022 posts, read 7,815,394 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by legalsea View Post
That is what I was taught: that Columbus was the first to travel to the 'new world', then return to Europe, tell others about it, and then sail back to the same area (twice). Hence, others soon followed him, carrying, for some strange reason, blankets full of disease and (I suspect) bedbugs.

Remember: if you ever go off exploring strange new worlds, take clean blankets with you. Don't haul around your nasty, yellow-fever infested blanket. They are not worth near as much as you think on the open market.

incorrect the animals they brought over infected people
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Old 10-13-2010, 12:28 PM
 
Location: Blankity-blank!
11,446 posts, read 16,159,318 times
Reputation: 6958
Celebrating Colombus Day changes with age.
Years ago it meant no school. A day to play baseball with neighborhood friends.
Now I'm much older. So I go to a dive, order a beer and, with lecherous intent, eye the floozies (undressing them with my eyes), then I drool perversely and begin a stupid conversation...like; hey, baby!
I enjoy seeing those toothless grins and wanton fire lust in their eyes.
Not being too picky I'll grab the first one that can be persuaded to dance lusciously to the tunes from my flute all night long in my bed.
Last year I awoke and thought it was Halloween.
A final thought: it's not important "why" we celebrate Colombus Day, but "how".
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Old 10-13-2010, 12:50 PM
 
Location: Center of the universe
24,645 posts, read 38,586,156 times
Reputation: 11780
Quote:
Originally Posted by rogerbacon View Post
An EXPLORER, not an INTRUDER. Intruders go into someone else's land. the tribes in the Americas had no concept of land ownership so there is no way one could 'intrude' on their land.
You do realize how much what you said makes no sense. This guy went out and stumbled upon land that he did no know about, land where people actually existed. He was an intruder. To the Spanish crown, he was an explorer. To everyone else on Earth, he was an intruder. Pure and simple.

Quote:
Also, of COURSE he didn't know EXACTLY where he was. Again, he was EXPLORING. You don't explore knwon areas. You explore unknown areas. Duh.
You just can't get past your racist, myopic Eurocentrism, can you?

Quote:

"Beautiful cities" is an opinion. From the drawings I've seen there was nothing beautiful about them. Primitive huts and an occasional pyramid temple for human sacrifice. Like I said: savages.
Savages? Ever heard of slavery or the Inquisition?
Quote:

The bottom line is that all those tribes don't even amount to a minor foot note in history. They just don't rise to the level of being important by any stretch of the imagination. Colombus is more important than everything about them. He did more in one year to change the world than their entire civilizations (and I use that term loosely) did during their entire existance.
Yup. He introduced disease, slavery, colonialism, and other pestilence to what is now known as the Americas. Good for him.

Last edited by Lucario; 10-13-2010 at 01:06 PM..
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