Disregarding Holidays

A blog post I just read by Colin McCune got me thinking.  The post, titled "Memorializing Who?"  talked about how many Americans completely disregard memorial day and fail to think about what it is supposed to be recognizing.  I agree with Colin that it would be nice if people were more mindful of this quite patriotic holiday.  But why is it that people have such a lack of appreciation for memorial day?

I found one possible answer in an article from the Washington post called "U.S trails Europe on paid vacation time".  The article explains how the U.S. is the only major country with no legally required vacation days.  All other wealthy countries require at least 10 paid vacation days to be given by all employers.

Colin made a point about how many people go to work on memorial day.  I think working on a holiday means that you have less time to actually observe the holiday.  It's interesting that the American government wants a day for people to honor America's heroes but doesn't actually require that people are given time to do this.

I think people would be much more likely to pay more attention to this holiday if they were guaranteed to get the time off work.