I’m not much of a gambling man. Oh sure, I’ll waste a dollar on the state lottery, if the jackpot creeps up to some serious figure, say one hundred million. I figure that if I’m going to waste one of my hard-earned dollars on something as moronic as a lottery, it might as well be on a chance to win some serious money. Let’s face it, anything less than ten million, in this day and age, just isn’t much, is it? And the very idea that our manufacturing job base can be replaced with an economy based on casino gambling is first class crap. But I digress.
In July of ’07, I wrote a piece about how we are losing our holidays. We’re losing them, because so many businesses are now remaining open, and so many people are working those holidays, that most holidays are just another day for many. In that piece, I predicted that it was only a matter of time, before we would lose the last two cherished holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I also made a one dollar bet with myself, that I would be right. Last week, I found out that I am a little closer to winning that bet.
Here’s a link to my ’07 blog post.
https://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?do=something&id=2103
Copy and paste people. As many of you know, I seem to have some sort of problem with the hyperlink HTML tag, for some unknown reason.
It would seem that one of our state representatives, Michael J. Rodrigues, (Democrat, 8th district of Bristol County) has filed a bill that would permit all retail stores to open on Thanksgiving day.
For those of you out there who just happen to reside in the Peoples’ Republic of Taxachusetts, or if you’re just curious about the bill, it is house bill number 201, and you may read it right here:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/186/ht00/ht00201.htm
An interesting quote right from the bill itself: ‘All stores and shops which sell goods at retail may be open at any time on Sundays and on Memorial Day, July Fourth, Labor Day and Thanksgiving Day, but no such stores and shops may be open on Christmas Day if Christmas occurs on a Sunday.
Am I reading this correctly? Christmas too, unless Christmas falls on a Sunday? Holy crap. Please, you out there in internet land, tell me I’m reading this wrong.
More traffic, more fist fights over parking spaces at the mall, more violent mob scenes at Walmart in the name of cheap DVD players. If this passes and becomes law, what was once a nice, quiet holiday for most people will now become just another day of shopping mall mayhem. More bloody accidents on the highway, more headaches for police and emergency personnel. Yeah, this is just what we need.
Bear in mind, this bill has not progressed through the legislative process yet. It still has a long way to go.
One more time, what has happened to our holidays?
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