Happy Loyalty Day (TM)!

Happy May Day, almost-belataedly.

C'est le premier mai! One of my co-workers exclaimed this morning, with just a hint of carefully non-disguised disgruntlement (is that a word?). Many of the folks at work, most of whom are from France, were seriously annoyed that we didn't have the day off. In France, le premier mai is a sacred holiday known as la fête du travail, or the "festival of work," which is celebrated by ... not working. What separates it from most other days for the French is therefore not entirely clear.

The May Day lady was giving everyone those little white flowers shaped like a bell. They're called "muguets" in French, but I can't remember the English word for them, if I ever knew it.
I think it was erased from by brain by the horribleness of the word muguet. What kind of a flower name is that? Don't they know that muguet would be a better word for a bottom-feeding fish, or perhaps a transitive verb for cleaning the sludge out of one's refridgerator coils, or that noise that Karl Rove makes after burping up several of the babies he just ate before the White House press conference?

But nevermind.

May Day started in the U.S., in 1886 after Haymarket Riots in Chicago, when workers - inspired by the success of Canadian workers - demonstrated to bring about an 8-hour workday. The idea caught on, and International Workers' Day is now celebrated in most industrialized countries, except, ironically, the U.S. and Canada. We wouldn't want people getting any crazy ideas about working 8 hour days, or women getting the vote--I mean, getting equal pay, or not starting wars to support giant multinational oil companies.

Lest we go having any such radical ideas, May Day has been officially declared Loyalty Day in the U.S. (No, I'm not kidding.) I could make an ironic statement, but that would mean I hate the troops and also their kids and grandmothers. Oy veh. I'm all for supporting the unfortunate National Guard kids and anyone else who got sucked into what's politely refered to as a "quagmire," but constantly using the troops as a bullet-proof political vest (when they don't have enough actual bullet-proof vests, which would be much more useful to them) ... it just seems --well, tacky.