35. American holidays

Americans celebrate a variety of federal holidays and other national observances throughout the year. American holidays can be secular, religious, international, or uniquely American.

With the wide variety of federal holidays, and the many levels of American government, it can be confusing to determine what public and private facilities are open on or around a given federal holiday. You can usually find such information in the daily newspaper or by calling the office you wish to visit.There are 8 major uniquely American holidays. Thanksgiving Day – 4^th Thursday of November (people thank God for good harvest, which saved Pilgrims from hunger in 1621 and eat roast turkey, pumpkin pie, etc. Gathers family for traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner. Many people attend religious services. The next day most people return to work, but some take day off). Martin Luther King Day – 3^rd Monday of January (to honor a black clergymen, who tried to win civil rights for Blacks & was assassinated in 1968). President’s Day – 3^rd Monday in February (to honor all past presidents of US). Memorial Day – 4^th Monday of May( to honor soldiers, who died in the Civil War. Is also considered as beginning of summer season). Independence day – 4^th of July ( the birthday of US as a free & independent Nation). Labor Day – 1^st Monday of September (to honor nation’s working people). Columbus Day – 2^nd Monday in October. Veteran’s Day – 11 November (originally it was called Armistice Day – to honor soldiers, who served in WW1, but now it honors veterans of all the wars).Other holidays: Mother’s Day – 2^nd Sunday in May, Father’s Day – 3^rd Sunday in June.( Father's Day began in 1909 in Spokane, Washington, when a daughter requested a special day to honor her father, a Civil War veteran who raised his children after his wife died), Christmas (December25, Christmas is a Christian holiday marking the birth of the Christ Child. Decorating houses and yards with lights, putting up Christmas trees, giving gifts, and sending greeting cards have become holiday traditions even for many non-Christian Americans), New Year’s Day(most Am-s celebrate with friends. One of the nosiest and crowded of New Year’s Eve celebration takes place in New York at Times Square), Easter (always falls on Sunday. It’s a day of worship and gathering of the family), Halloween (the last day of October. Originally a religious holiday – the evening before All Saints), Valentine’s Day (14^th of February. Am-s give symbolic gifts).

36. The media of the US consist of several different types of communications. M.: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet. Many of the M. are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. Am M. conglomerates tend to be leading global players, generating large profits as well as large criticism in many parts of the world. Television in the US is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).There are several thousand local stations, of which many belong to the7 nationwide commercial broadcast networks. Traditionally, there were 3: NBC, ABC, and CBS.4 newer networks are Fox, The CW, My Network TV and ION Television. There is also a noncommercial public T. network - PBS, which is partially subsidized by the federal government. Public access T. are open cable channels allowing for citizen produced programming to appear on local cable networks. Radio - American R. broadcasts in 2 bands: FM and AM. Some stations are only talk R. — featuring interviews and discussions—while music R. stations broadcast one particular type of music. National Public Radio - is the nation's primary public R. network, but most R. stations are commercial and profit-oriented. Motion - All major metropolitan areas have their own local NPs (newspapers). Most general-purpose NPs are either being printed one time a week, usually on Thursday or Friday, or are printed daily. Weekly NPs tend to have much smaller circulation and are more prevalent in rural communities or small towns. Major cities often have "alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily paper(s)(New York City's Village Voice or Los Angeles' L.A. Weekly).Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries and papers for local ethnic and social groups. The primary source of NP income is advertising, rather than circulation income. The largest newspapers (by circulation) in the US are USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Magazines (MZ) - Thanks to the huge size of the English-speaking North American M. market, the United States has a large MZ industry with hundreds of MZs serving almost every interest. Most MZs are owned by one of the large M. conglomerates or by one of their smaller regional brethren. The U.S. has three leading weekly news MZs: TIME, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. The U.S. also has over a dozen major political MZs. There are also dozens of MZs published by professional organizations for their members, such as Communications of the ACM (for computer science specialists) and the ABA Journal (for lawyers). Internet - The I. has provided a means for NP and other M. organizations to deliver news and the means to look up old news. Some organizations only make limited amounts of their output available for free, and charge for access to the rest. Other organizations allow their archives to be freely browsed. It is possible that the latter type obtain more influence, as they are true to the spirit of freedom of information by virtue of making it free. While proprietary archives are slowly exposed to the public after many decades, organizations that maintain immediately-updating resources have more control over what will be remembered by the general public in the near future.