A date that means different things to different people.
April 20, 1889 Adolph Hitler was born.
April 20, 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, starting the largest environmental disaster in US history.
April 20 is also known as “Weed Day” as pot smokers around the world celebrate 420 (whether 4:20 or 4/20) as a time to indulge.
I also mistakenly thought that today was Earth Day. But as I went to find just how many years Earth Day has officially been with us, I found that it is not today, but rather on April 22. Duh. I know I knew that somewhere back in time.
Regardless, it is Green Week on NBC/Universal/Comcast/GE – just in case you didn’t hear them remind you of it every five minutes.
Just in time for today’s observance, Jason Leopold writes at Truthout: “BP Still Being Awarded Lucrative Government Contracts.” Tomorrow, I’ll speak with Greg Palast, who also has a few things to say about BP and their “safety” record in his “BP’s Secret Deepwater Blowout“.
We went a bit off the date topic in the first hour today with Kenneth Bernstein, better known to many Daily Kos readers as TeacherKen. He is a teacher, and is one of my fellow Netroots Nation DFA Scholarship winners. Since we met during the competition, I’ve wanted to have him on my how. His school is on spring break this week, so he had some time to join me this morning to talk about public education, charter schools, unions, budgets and the need for a national board for professional teaching standards.
How ever you choose to celebrate, happy 4/20 day…
And Thanks BP….