On Mar 1, 9:42 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote: > > but the Department of Personnel Administration apparently calls it > > "Presidents Birthday". > > http://www.dpa.ca.gov/personnel-policies/holidays.htm > So only people born on the third Monday in February can be President > of California?
In yet another attempt to bring this thread back on the original topic (the Usher calendar reform proposal):
Yes, the only official name of the mid-February federal holiday is Washington's Birthday. As was pointed out earlier in the thread, Washington's Birthday can never fall on his actual birthday (which was February 22nd Gregorian, though when Washington was born Britain and its colonies were still on the Julian calendar).
Many school districts take off two Mondays in February, one each for Lincoln and Washington. (They can afford to do this since the school year consists of only 180 days, not ~250 work days like most businesses.) Usually, the first one is called "Lincoln's Birthday," while the second is called "Presidents' Day." This year, however, a certain local school district decided to take off February 15th and 22nd, calling the former "Presidents' Day" and the latter "Washington's Birthday" -- since it falls on the actual date of his birthday.
Notice that in the Usher reform plan, the federal holiday would fall in the February 16th-22nd range, rather than the current 15th-21st range. Thus the Usher Washington's Birthday can actually fall on Washington's birthday, unlike the current holiday.
Moving from California to Louisiana, it was pointed out that many Louisianans take Shrove Tuesday (i.e., Mardi Gras) off. But this is awkward since after the weekend of Saturday and Sunday, there's a single day of work on Monday before the Tuesday holiday. In the Usher plan, Mardi Gras, being 47 days before the Usher Easter (April 5th-11th), would fall in the February 17th-23rd range -- in other words, it's always one day after Usher Wasington's Birthday. So Louisianans would always have a full four-day weekend under the Usher plan (Sat-Sun-Washington-Mardi Gras).
> What happened on March 31?
I believe someone else already answered this by saying that it's the birthday of labor leader Cesar Chavez.
Notice that the two major public university systems in California (UC and CSU) no longer tie their spring breaks to Easter (as is traditional). Instead, spring break in these two university systems is now the week that contains Chavez Day. This reflects a current trend across the nation (and possibly the globe) of having spring break appear at a fixed point in the term, rather than tied to Easter with its five-week swing.
Under the Usher plan, Easter appears at a fixed point in the term, and so many schools and universities might return to having spring break contain Easter if we were to use the Usher plan. I'm not sure what California would do, since the latest Usher Easter is eleven days after Chavez Day. Of course, since Washington's Birthday isn't always on February 22nd, Chavez's Birthday need not always be observed on March 31st. The observed holiday might fall on the Monday after Palm Sunday, so that the spring break can always include both Chavez Day and Holy Week.
