Category Archives: Scribbles

…Columbus sailed the ocean blue. So today is Columbus Day, and that’s about the end of the good press for the Great Navigator. Soon, his sponsors, the Spaniards, came and conquered most of the indigs and enslaved them and stole their gold and silver. Nowadays, to hear the Mexican multiculties, you’d think it was the English. But it was, in fact, their ancient archenemies, the Spanish, some of whose half-Indian descendents today feel justified in acting so superior to English-speaking people. How’s that for irony? Jews, of course, remember 1492 for another reason: the year of their expulsion from Spain unless they converted to Roman Catholicism. History, which looks so benign in the rhymes Mr. B. is learning in second grade, is a bitter cup.

MORE: On the other hand, on this most unPC of holidays, it helps for even the America haters to remember that it wasn’t all bad. Chris brought civilization, and, via Cortez, an end to human sacrifices in Mexico and elsewhere.