Columbus Day- 2009

Sadly today now seems to mark the marginalization, the ghettoizing of holidays, as though Columbus day was a celebration of his ethnicity. Columbus day is the celebration of what he represents, leadership, courage, perseverance and the spirit of adventure. The indomitable will that was the spark for the greatest nation on Earth, and as such should be collectively remembered.

"Columbus in the New World" by Edwin Austin Abbey



Columbus, richly clad and in full armor, grasping the Royal banner of Spain, kneels behind the three priests, who, clothed in magnificent black and gold vestments, are consecrating the New World before an improvised altar covered with red velvet. A further group, among them the brothers Pinzon, who commanded the two caravels, kneel apart, and three of the company bear aloft the banners of the "Green Cross," a device of Columbus, presented to him by Ferdinand and Isabella. Farther away are the sailors and the three ships at anchor, while the background is filled with a flight of flamingoes, streaming away from the land, thus symbolizing the departure of the native, the indigenous, the wild, upon the arrival of the foreign and the cultivated to implant civilization.

For the dreamers, the visionaries, and to progress, Hail Columbus!