Thank you Mr.Columbus

Today, that is October 12th is celebrated as Columbus Day to mark the anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. Although the poor man had actually set out to discover a sea route to the 'Indies' and it was by virtue of navigational miscalculations aided by providence that he landed in America and actually thought he had arrived in India.

Aside from being thankful to him for not actually "discovering" India in the way he discovered Americas - which led to swift ethnic cleansing of natives and colonization of the latter, today we are also thankful to him for another matter that may seem unrelated to his exploits. You see, in this world 'ravaged by Global Warming' - this year snow decided to arrive rather early even by Minnesota standards. So even though most trees had never gotten the memo that it was autumn and time to let go of their modesty by way of shedding their foliage, the snow arrived as an untimely reminder of the same, loading up the still-green leaves with the white stuff.

Now, first real snowfall of the season, and that too on a Monday morning would have wreaked havoc on the commute by snarling up traffic for miles. Fortunately, part of the work-force, seems to be happily celebrating Columbus day by not venturing out on the roads to make things any worse than the white stuff already has.

For this reason alone, we feel compelled to thank Mr. Christopher Columbus today. And as a show of sympathy, we wonder yet again, how a competing explorer - Amerigo - got his name plastered on these continents when our blundering hero was the first one to arrive here and 'discover' it. Though, on second thought, United States of Columbia would somehow not be the same.