Many countries are celebrating a public holiday on 1 May. In view of this, the weekend/holiday posting rate (5 stories/day) will continue through the holiday, with the usual story posting rate restarting on Tuesday. I realise that for the USA this is NOT a holiday, but we will probably celebrate your own Labor Day with you later on this year.
For those who are enjoying the holiday, I hope that you have a pleasant and relaxing time!
This discussion was created by janrinok (52) for logged-in users only. Log in and try again!
International Workers' Day, May Day Holiday, Labour Day, La Fête du Muguet etc
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 01, @12:07AM (1 child)
You wanna lay back, and take it easy? Just do it. You don't need an excuse.
(Don't you wish your boss were so easy to get along with?)
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Monday May 01, @02:28PM
I am impressed that I have multiple coworkers/customers who are taking a personal day today in honor of May Day. Almost all of them are Indian by birth.
I'm a bit of a skeptic and I suspect the day off is partially motivated by the nice weather, but I would argue that all public holidays should be motivated by nice weather. Yeah, President's Day might celebrate some important people, but why can't we take another day off in the summer?
(Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Monday May 01, @01:19AM (7 children)
This usually makes me think of someone in serious trouble. Unless you're in an airplane and have a parachute handy. Or you know the movie... I just wanted to say good luck.. We're all counting on you!
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Thexalon on Monday May 01, @03:00AM (1 child)
May Day? Why that's the Russian New Year. You know, we'll have a big parade, we'll serve hot hors d'oeuvre...
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday May 01, @03:13AM
Cubans celebrate their 1959 revolution on May 1, but unfortunately for them the celebration is canceled this year [jamaicaobserver.com].
also: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-65442845 [bbc.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Monday May 01, @03:59AM
I get mildly annoyed because May Day was something else entirely when I was a kid and then years later I found out about the labor protests.
https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/30/402817821/a-forgotten-tradition-may-basket-day [npr.org] or something along those lines.
(Score: 5, Informative) by jb on Monday May 01, @04:47AM (2 children)
I always assumed that was just a misspelling of "m'aidez!".
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday May 01, @11:53AM (1 child)
May Day in that context is a misspelling of help me. It's kind of weird that a bit of French got fossilized in what is otherwise English used for such communications.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Monday May 01, @09:54PM
We could try to stave that off, but at this point it's a fait accompli.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Monday May 01, @01:36PM
you want attention in the air? say "mayday fuel" and you'll get first rate treatment.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Monday May 01, @08:30AM (3 children)
I wasn't expecting comments to this holiday announcement, although they are most welcome. But I didn't realise that some people were completely unaware of the term May Day for this day.
May Day [wikipedia.org] was historically celebrated as being the unofficial start of summertime when trees had regained their foliage, and flowers and other plants were plentiful in the hedgerows. These plants would be used to supplement their diet and hedgerow foraging used to be quite popular. It celebrates the return of more pleasant weather when animals that had been kept in lower pastures could be returned to their summer pastures higher up.
The day is celebrated by all the usual types of over-indulgence that accompany such things, but one particular act was the dance around the Maypole [wikipedia.org]. Long ribbons fastened to the top of the Maypole are given to two rings of concentric dancers who, by dancing and weaving in and out of each other, leave the ribbon woven or plaited around the pole itself in a decorative fashion. There are still a small number of villages in the UK that continue this tradition predominantly for the welcome tourism that it attracts.
In France the celebration is known as La Fête du Muguet, the muguet is the French name for Lily of the Valley. (Convallaria majalis) As with most traditional folklore festivals there are several versions of how it came about. The two most popular explanations in France are here [wikipedia.org]:
Does anyone else have any stories about how the holiday was created and how it is celebrated in their particular area?
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday May 01, @11:58AM (2 children)
We didn't celebrate it much, but the way I was brought up to celebrate it was by leaving a basket of flowers on a neighbor's porch and running away after knocking. More of a happy spring weather thing than anything else. Seeing as it's something my mother brought from the Midwestern US and likely cleared ahead of time with the neighbor as it's not common here. If I ever have kids, it's something that I'll pass on as it is kind of a nice tradition. And because I don't want my kids murdered, I'll clear it with the neighbor ahead of time.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday May 01, @01:30PM (1 child)
That would be a nice tradition to continue or even expand but, as you say, not without its risks in these troubled times.
If it brings a smile to someone's face then it is well worth the little bit of effort that it requires.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday May 01, @01:56PM
That's why you need to clear it, so many idiots with guns and no balls shooting random people because they're afraid.
(Score: 3, Touché) by gtomorrow on Monday May 01, @10:27AM
Power to the people! Death to the oppressors!
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday May 01, @10:52AM
Don't care what you want to celebrate, just let me sleep.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday May 01, @12:10PM (1 child)
It's kind of funny. Isn't a usual complaint from some people that we, or the people here, are a bunch of right-wing-nutjobs, cryptofascists or libertarians of some kind. Yet we apparently celebrate May 1st. We are a complex people indeed.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Tuesday May 02, @04:45AM
What people?