Opinion: Obama’s proclamations proclaim November a real proclamations month already

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

You probably were not fully aware on this first workday morning of a new month just how fully aware the month of November has officially become, thanks to President Obama and his White House proclamations.

There is an entire little-known industry in the United States, it seems, devoted to raising awareness levels about something through official proclamations.

And usually that involves getting some level of government all the way down to city councils and all the way up to the Oval Office to proclaim a day, a week or an entire month as devoted to that singular issue. Even though hundreds overlap each other. And no one really cares.

Most public officials go along with proclamations as seemingly harmless -- until someone adds up the manpower hours researching and writing and printing and signing the darned things. It’s also a completely useless....

...business for government, of course, issuing feel-good public relations proclamations about something or other that require no action and deservedly get no attention. Except from the odd politics blog on another exciting Monday morning.

No one in recent years can top the Obama administration for conscientious issuing of ceremonial proclamations. No wonder healthcare reform and the Afghan strategy deliberations are taking so long.

These proclamations are dropping like Bidenisms all the time. Last month, whether you knew it or not, we had Leif Ericson Day (Oct. 7), National School Lunch Week (Oct. 9) and White Cane Safety Day (Oct. 15), among numerous others of historical significance. Not to mention his proclaiming a national emergency over H1N1 swine flu.

This month of November is a doozy of a busy awareness month already, in case you weren’t aware of that.

To start the month with appropriate officiousness, the president has signed and the White House has already issued seven presidential proclamations. And we are -- what? -- not yet 30 hours into it.

Each individual issue is no doubt wonderful and absolutely essential to the caring interests behind it. No one could care more about adoptions, for instance, than someone who’s adopted someone.

But with that said, call up your Outlook calendar for November and make a note of these:

According to the president,

November is National Adoption Month,

November is National Diabetes Month,

November is Military Family Month,

November also contains Veterans Day,

November is National Alzheimers Disease Awareness Month,

November is National Native American Heritage Month,

And November is National Family Caregivers Month.

We’ve still got 28 days to go. And they include the Thanksgiving Proclamation. And, of course, Obama’s first official turkey pardon.

And the predawn hours of the first shopping day after Thanksgiving unofficially known as Let-Go-That’s-Mine-I-Saw-It-First-Sale-Day.

-- Andrew Malcolm

By an absolutely amazing coincidence, today is also International Sign Up for Ticket Twitter Alerts Day. Click here. They’re free. Or follow us @latimestot And we are hereby also available now over on Facebook right there.

Photo credits: Getty Images