As if there weren't enough boring things in the world to yawn about, they're still celebrating Mayday around the world:

Millions of workers from Tokyo to Havana and across Europe took to the streets in May Day rallies and marches to demand improved conditions and protest government policies.

From a rally of 5,000 Bangladeshis seeking a minimum wage, to an estimated million Cubans gathered in the Plaza of the Revolution to hear Fidel Castro, workers expressed their solidarity on the traditional international labour holiday Sunday.

More than 500,000 Germans marched and rallied across the country, many focusing on recent political debate accusing company executives of increasing earnings while squeezing workers’ wages and slashing jobs.

In Moscow, thousands of Communists rallied under pictures of Lenin and Stalin along with traditional red-and-white, hammer-and-sickle banners with slogans like Rise, Save Russia! and marched down Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow’s main boulevards.

But while millions celebrate Mayday, a certain malcontent American law professor (one G.H. Reynolds) attempts to throw cold water on today's festivities by supplying a link to a highly questionable claim that today should be remembered for the deaths of millions.

Clearly, mistakes were made in the past. And who has not made mistakes? One cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.

But must we preoccupy ourselves with trifling matters such as statistics on such a joyous occasion? After all, as Comrade Stalin wisely said, "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

So why not picture this?

If you like that picture, remember that behind every picture lies a story. And here's the story behind it:

King's book also includes the tragic story of the little girl who was photographed with Stalin in 1936 at a Kremlin reception. There the six-year old Gelya Markizova presented Stalin with a bouquet of flowers, whereupon Stalin embraced the girl. The photograph became famous, depicting Stalin as the joyous "Friend of the Little Children" (the photo was cropped to eliminate another figure who appeared to the side of Stalin, the first secretary of the Buryat Mongol ASSR, M.I. Erbanov). As repugnant as the scene is in its own right with the trusting young child in the arms of the grinning bogey-man, the fate of those connected with the photograph is also a chilling example of Stalin's atrocities. The parents of the girl, Ardan and Dominica Markizov, were murdered just a year after the photograph was taken. The father, second secretary of the Buryat Mongol ASSR, was charged with spying for Japan and shot; the mother was killed as the wife of an enemy of the people.

Who ever said that there wasn't room for improvement?