It’s a good thing Queen Isabella never heard of the Atkins diet. Otherwise Christopher Columbus may have passed on the bet, ceding the first one here title to the Vikings. And while everyone loved the Vikings for their taste in window treatments, as raiders, they had a nasty habit of lighting everything nailed down on fire and stealing what wasn’t. In many ways, the Vikings were the Enron’s of their day, a mere eight hundred years before the discovery of the boardroom.
Still, burning the country side does not a stable New World make, so the job went to Columbus. On his day, we remember his discovery of North America and revel in the importance. My high school history teacher summarized Christopher’s accomplishments best – Columbus didn’t know where he was going, when he got there he didn’t know where he was, and when he got back home – he didn’t know where he’d been. And so a nation was born.
Today, many commuters relive his journey each business day by going to work.
Go Columbus! (Actually, I want to commentify on the current poll – so I figured I’d do it here). Politics annoys me in general – but my biggest peeve is all of the celebrities who want to tell me who to vote for. That learning to recite a written line convincingly somehow makes that person an expert on politics and means I should listen to him or her. In other words, “Shut-up, Springsteen!”
Thanks for your comments Pollster. Somewhere along the line, show business became very interested in politics and vice versa. Which is kind of funny, because in the old days actors were on par with prostitutes.