It’s May Day! But we’re going to have to postpone the revolution


Because of snow. Sorry, gang, Minnesota has decided to celebrate the first of May by dropping some snow on us, so we’ll have to wait.

Also, this is the last week of classes. I spent the weekend catching up with most of my grading — not quite all, because I need something to elevate my anxiety, to keep my heart beating — so this week is going to be fierce. Happy dance next weekend? Celebrate labor and promote the proletariat then?
Overthrow the government then, too?


I just realized — it’s not May Day. According to Trump, it’s Loyalty Day. Maybe the snow is to let me know I’m supposed to be disloyal today?

Comments

  1. opposablethumbs says

    No snow here, and it’s almost time to be off to the May Day rally (with Corbyn and McDonnell probably speaking) so I’m happy to contribute some decibels on your behalf :-)

  2. robro says

    …it’s not May Day. According to Trump, it’s Loyalty Day.

    Of course. With his commitment to American workers to Make America Great Again, he wants to erase any vestigial memory of the reason May 1st is internationally celebrated as a worker’s rights day. Yep, who needs any historical perspective when you’ve got knee-jerk posturing.

    As for the weather, it’s not even raining in California today. We had a good soaking this winter, and now it’s time for the dry season. Plants are going crazy pollinating. The desert is in full “super bloom.” Molds in the damp corners of our homes are undoubtedly ejecting massive quantities of spores. It’s a veritable plant and fungi orgy. Meanwhile, millions of people are already experiencing intense allergies. Even those of us who don’t normally have allergies to airborne pollens are sneezing our heads off.

  3. David Weingart says

    As I posted on Twitter, the best way to be a loyal American is to resist the GOP and TrumpsterFire agenda

  4. mikehuben says

    The problem with Loyalty Day is that it is inaccurate. It really should be One-Way Loyalty Day, because that is what Trump (and and government and corporations) want: loyalty from the little people which they will not return.

  5. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    Man I thought Summer in Minnesota was a week in August, snow rest of year. /snark
    Seriously, snow on May 1, in Minnesota is not nearly as surprising as snow in Phoenix Arizona, April 29.
    Minnesota at least is northern, while Phoenix is far southwest in a desert.
    I reckon it is the altitude that makes the difference. While quite flat, it is at several thousand feet altitude.
    I remember Mass once getting snow on Mayday and it bloing everybody’s mind with a shoulder shrug.
    === sorry seem to be derailing.
    unofficially it is also Immigrant’s Day. Celebrate. We are all immigrants aside from Native American’s who are being relentlessly trampled, even though they are trying to protect our water resources from being poisoned by leaks from pipelines which will profit ’45. Immigrants are here to build, not steal. They have a reason for leaving their home to find a new one. Only thieves would think the reason is to steal from the residents.
    ?

  6. imback says

    I never heard of Loyalty Day, but I see it is not just a thing from this president. It is a persistent relic of the cold war. According to wikipedia: “Loyalty Day has been recognized with an official proclamation every year by every president since its inception as a legal holiday in 1958.” But in reality under this administration, May Day is having a revival. NPR spent two minutes on Morning Edition today describing how May Day marches are expected to swell this year.

  7. AndrewD says

    Unlike opposablethumbs at @1,I didn’t attend a Mayday rally. My excuse is that I was out delivering Election Leaflets for my constituency Labour party-is this an acceptable excuse?

  8. opposablethumbs says

    @AndrewD #11, If I knew how to type an opposable-thumbs-up symbol, I would :-)
    (just back). Some good speeches, vaguely guesstimating somewhere between 10 and 20 k crowd, managed not to rain which is always a bonus!

  9. Rich Woods says

    @chigau #5:

    I am doing laundry and I shall hang it outside to dry.

    I too am doing laundry, but since I live in England under a near-eternal grey sky I shall be putting it in the tumble dryer or hanging it over the radiators, like I do almost every week of the year.

  10. coragyps says

    Astonishingly enough, I’m going to a May Day rally in Hobbs, New Mexico this afternoon. If you’ve never been, I don’t suggest you make the trip just to see it: look at a flat piece of unadorned cardboard instead. But there is a pro-immigrant march there today, on May Day, not “Loyalty” or “Law” Day, and my wife and I are going marching even if we’re the only pasty-white Anglos to show up.

  11. says

    I spent the day in the cold and rain, but the rally was, as every year, great and militant. Then off to the party, with a lot of international food prepared by communists from all over the world, and just on my way back from a really great presentation and Q&A with a BLM guy, who explained the US situation to a European crowd. All the while talking with friends about how to organize resistance against the far right. A good day.

  12. says

    I’v got a graded teaching (no clue how to call that in English) tomorrow, so I’m at home working.
    Weather: Finally some rain. Temperatures at the start of May are more like typically mid February, but that’s OK because the start of April was like the middle of June.

  13. numerobis says

    It was -12 when I was waiting for my cab. I had a thin windbreaker, no hat or gloves. I was perfectly comfortable to just stand there.

    Weather is weird.

    (But now I’m on a plane, and I’ll be cold in +15 degrees.)

  14. Ed Seedhouse says

    It’s been a terrible winter here in Victoria, British Columbia. We had whole centimeters of snow, lasting for more than a week! Disaster!