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 Reclaiming St. Patrick's Day

 Author:  Topic:  Posted:
Mar 13, 2002
 Comments:
This St. Patrick's Day, instead of dressing in green, putting on a plastic green bowler and heading down to the St. Patrick's Day parade with a cooler full of Guinness, anticipating a daylong binge, then going to a pub slurping down overcooked corned beef and cabbage, guzzling green beer, donating money to Irish orphans and joining in teary renditions of Danny Boy under the oral assault of the bagpipes, why not stay home and say a few prayers for peace in Eire?
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On March 17th, every American who can claim even the most tenuous link to Ireland celebrates St. Patrick's day. This is fine with me, for St. Patrick was not even born in Eire, he was born in Wales, which is certainly wonderful evidence of the redemptive powers of our Lord. What bothers me is that way Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day. They take is as a license to exploit the worst stereotypes of the Irish people along with carte blanche for drunken bacchanalia. They consider St. Patrick's Day a failure unless they spend the evening leaving green makeup smears on their toilet as they vomit up Guinness, corned beef and cabbage.

Could you consider an automobile dealer advertising Juneteenth sales with copy like "Break the chains of high rate auto loan slavery!" Can you imagine animated black children smashing leg irons and getting into a new Chevy, grinning ear to ear and eyes popping like Stepin Fetchit? No, of course not, well at least after you've gone to google and look up Juneteenth and Stepin Fetchit (you can't help being racist, you're a white American).

Can you imagine a furniture store advertising a Bastille Day sale with copy like "Drop the rifle and head to Raymours! Run like a Panzer is chasing you, you don't want to miss this sale!" Can you imagine an appliance store having a Cinco de Mayo sale with swarthy mustachioed Sombrero-clad Hispanics, saying, "Dese prices are so loow, it's even easier than shopleefting." No, of course not, there's no place for such ethnic stereotypes anymore.

But for the Irish, it's fair game, and they even encourage it. In the weeks leading up to St. Patrick's day they will gather together to complain about "No Irish Need Apply" signs; when white English speaking job seekers haven't been discriminated against in one hundred years. They'll complain bitterly of English policies that forced them to leave a tiny potato farm for America's green shores over a hundred years ago. They'll dress in ridiculous green outfits, get drunk on green beer, and eat barely edible concoctions in the name of some mythic Irish heritage that they would recoil in horror from if they were forced to live in. Then, feeling guilty about living in the history's greatest country while their forefathers starved in county Cork, they will fill a hat with dollars to perpetuate the cycle of violence in Northern Ireland.

Even worse are those white Americans who have little or no Irish in them. Being convinced by the fuzzy minded liberal media that having forefathers who emigrated from England, Scandinavia or Germany is akin to being a slave-owning, minority-oppressing child-molesting power-elite, they are desperate for any kind of earthy, soul-filled, oppressed heritage, and eagerly buy into the Irish for a day myth, dress themselves in green, affect an Irish brogue, and act like drunken louts. Well this is one German-American whose ancestors worked died in the coal mines and carbon plants of western Pennsylvania and feels no shame for his current middle class position, and thus feels no need to pretend to be an oppressed soul brother while living in the suburbs and driving a minivan.

But I digress. Let's think about the real St. Patrick. Born in Wales, sold in slavery to Ireland, educated in France, he went back to Ireland to convert that nation to the True Church, and succeeded wildly. We know the story of the snakes is a myth, but it's also a metaphor, for the snakes are pagans and heretics, and he did indeed rid Eire of them, clearing the way for Ireland to be the repository of our Western Heritage during the Medieval Ages. He would not approve of drunken, mindless revelry.

Yet, there are a few snakes left in Ireland. Yes, the ulcer that is Ulster, for Northern Ireland is separated from it's southern kin, and controlled and inhabited by foreign, heretical overlords. But it's clear that violence will not free Northern Ireland. Instead, let us pray.

Pray that a just solution to Northern Ireland is found. Pray for divine intervention in Northern Ireland. Perhaps those evil men who enjoy throwing stones at 6-year-old Catholic schoolgirls will be blinded and struck down, as Saul was on the road to Damascus. Perhaps a manifestation of our Lord can move through Belfast, killing all first-born Protestant males (you have to admit there is precedence). Looking into the Bible, there are hundreds of solutions in the Old Testament, perhaps one can happen miraculously, if we pray enough.

But if you do go out and tie one on, please ask that any money you donate to the Northern Ireland cause not be used for weapons or violence.


It's unlikely... (none / 0) (#6)
by because it isnt on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 09:29:10 AM PST
...that true Irishmen will be drinking beer, green or otherwise, this St Patrick's Day. They'll be doing that on St Patrick's Eve -- i.e. Saturday.
adequacy.org -- because it isn't

This is an American-centric piece (none / 0) (#10)
by Adam Rightmann on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 10:35:57 AM PST
Trust me when I say many, many white Americans, regardless of the Irishness of them, will be drinking a lot on Sunday. I really can't speak for the Irish back in Eire.


A. Rightmann

Drunken Irish (none / 0) (#31)
by ICS Dempsey KBE on Thu Mar 14th, 2002 at 12:25:27 PM PST
I really can't speak for the Irish back in Eire.

I can, however, having experienced their kind first-hand. True Irishmen do not need an excuse such as St. Patrick's Day in order to become intoxicated. Rather, intoxication is the natural state of the Irish. Aside from ethnic stupidity, there is no other explanation for their insistance on constant rebellion against the Crown, despite the many advantages of being a member of the United Kingdom. The Irish even associate themselves with a long-extinct barbarian tribe! Perhaps if their nobility had adequately performed their duties and sworn proper fealty to the English king in the first place, their people would now enjoy the same fortunes as the rest of the British Empire.


 
No, your article is a stupid piece (none / 0) (#32)
by Anonymous Reader on Sun Mar 17th, 2002 at 04:49:10 PM PST
Trust stupid mutherfucking papist USians to write this kind of tripe. Go back to fucking your sister you inbred cunt.


 
I couldn't agree more with ... (none / 0) (#8)
by Mint Waltman on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 10:06:21 AM PST
... your words regarding America's inherent superiority to Ireland. However, I have but one point to make, the illustration of which requires a rather painful disclosure on my part. My own brother married a woman of Catholic origins. Given the harsh strictures the Catholic Church imposes upon its own, the idea of her being Saved, despite all my efforts, was out of the question. What followed was what my brother considered the height of Christian charity- he agreed that their children would be raised Catholic. I have my own plans in the works, but that's another story.

I attended a Catholic mass when my niece and nephew were baptized, and I have to say that it was a dreadful sight! More than half the pews were empty at the beginning of mass. Small congregation? No. As the time for communion approached, the remainder of the congregation shambled in bleary eyed and hung-over. Then it was up to the front for a bit of the hair of the dog from the priest and out the door to saddle up to some God-forsaken bar. They didn't even stay for the rest of the service! So whether alcoholism is caused by Irish heritage or Catholic upbringing I cannot say, though I suspect it's a little of both. Needless to say, most revelers have at least one of those bases covered. Despite your heroic call for reason and civility, you're nevertheless fighting a futile war against biology and sociology....


BORING ALERT (none / 0) (#11)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 10:57:53 AM PST
Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring.

Your post was boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring.


Attention gentle readers (none / 0) (#13)
by Adam Rightmann on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 11:10:17 AM PST
Normally, I would editorialize the parent post. It adds nothing to the discussion, and may even make Mr. Waltman, a thoroughly righteous poster despite his snake-handling heretical predilections, post less often. But, we are sensitive to the charges of too much censorship by the occasional power-mad editor, so the parent comment will stand, as an example of 90% of the comments we editors remove from your sight.


A. Rightmann

If the very group you are... (none / 0) (#19)
by Mint Waltman on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 11:58:54 AM PST
... appealing to (Irish-Catholic Americans) is incapable of taking their spiritual lives seriously, how can you expect them to eschew sating their bodily appetites and instead meditate upon the situation of their brothers across the ocean?


Well, the internet if full of God-hating liberalis (none / 0) (#20)
by Adam Rightmann on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 12:03:45 PM PST
ts, but I still keep trying to reach them.


A. Rightmann

 
Ignorance is bliss (5.00 / 1) (#34)
by Anonymous Reader on Thu Mar 21st, 2002 at 09:59:40 AM PST
All Americans are fat.
All Muslims hate the West.
All Germans were Nazis.
All Palestinians are suicide bombers.
All Irish-Catholics are alcholics who don't take their religion seriously.

Ignorance is bliss.


 
Next Holiday on the List... (none / 0) (#9)
by doofus on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 10:16:37 AM PST
I certainly hope one of the fine editors of adequacy writes a similarly insightful essay for Cinco de Mayo.


I can only pray they won't... (none / 0) (#12)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 11:00:16 AM PST
You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you? Some kind of masochist that wabts to be bored to death?

We have a betting pool going on where we predict what the content of an article is here before we read the story-- just going by what's available on the front page.

8/10 times, we're exactly right about what the content is.

Plz die thx.


For my articles, it should be 10/10 (none / 0) (#16)
by Adam Rightmann on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 11:16:44 AM PST
but then I try to hold a consistent viewpoint.


A. Rightmann

 
Goodness... (none / 0) (#22)
by elby on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 01:35:54 PM PST
You mean your team of geniuses can successfully extrapolate the subject matter of the story from the summary/introduction of the story?

-lb


you should see (5.00 / 1) (#23)
by nathan on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 01:42:55 PM PST
What they can do with a journal abstract.

Nathan
--
Li'l Sis: Yo, that's a real grey area. Even by my lax standards.

 
no no (none / 0) (#24)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 02:00:51 PM PST
more like the specifics of the story. i should have specified.


 
What's really cool... (5.00 / 1) (#26)
by Robert Reginald Rodriguez on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 05:23:29 PM PST
I can determine without fail the content of the stories at their site without even looking at the front page!


 
Thank you, our multi-ethnic editorial board (none / 0) (#14)
by Adam Rightmann on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 11:14:35 AM PST
will certainly take your suggestion into consideration, perhaps one of Hispanic editors can do it justice. However, I must inform you of a whole slew of Holidays coming before Cinco De Mayo, starting with Palm Sunday.


A. Rightmann

WTF? (none / 0) (#17)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 11:18:56 AM PST
That dying PIM company has a holiday devoted to it?

PLZ KLL ME THX


 
Another "red flag" in the old FBI file.. (none / 0) (#27)
by RootComplex on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 09:21:22 PM PST
Mayhaps it's because I've lived the majority of my life on the west coast in WASP suburbia, but until reading this article I was unfamilier with the practice of collecting $ in hats for the NRA specifically on this holiday. Perhaps if I grew up in Buffalo it'd be a different story. Thank heavens that isn't the case.

But really what are they gonna do, hug the English out? Hell, they're already forced to live in much closer proximity to their teeth & cooking than we. How much more must they endure? How much more CAN they endure?


Ahem (none / 0) (#29)
by Anonymous Reader on Thu Mar 14th, 2002 at 04:07:50 AM PST
I would just like to point out that if any nation in the world has worse teeth and cooking than the English, it is the Irish.


 
We always blame our alcholism on other cultures (none / 0) (#28)
by Anonymous Reader on Wed Mar 13th, 2002 at 09:33:58 PM PST
Whether you are talking about Saint Patricks day, Cinco de Mayo, Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest, or any of the other holidays celebrated in America, the drinking is always blamed on others. It is interesting, because America has a love/hate relationship with alcohol. Many believe drinking to be an evil thing that can only be done on special occasions, therefore holidays are stolen from other cultures to become an excuse to get drunk. While many other nations allow drinking, they don't have the problem with binge drinking that is in America.

Saint Patrick's day is not a day of drinking green beer and wearing plastic hats as you so keenly made us aware. Cinco de Mayo is not even a real holiday in Mexico, any more than the battle of Gettysburg day is in America. Mardi Gras is celebrated in other countries, most notably Carnival in Brazil, but dancing and parades are more of a focus than getting drunk and raping people like Mardi Gras is in America.

The problems all go back to the typical American's jealousy of these other cultures. The religious right has repressed these people for years. They ignore the fact that even Jesus drank, and could turn water into wine. So I encourage all of my fellow Americans to stop raping other cultures for their holidays. We have July 4th, Thanksgiving, and other holidays that we can use to drink on. However, we need to push for more public acceptance of drinking. That way we can discourage the binges that many people rely on these holidays for.


 
the best St. Patric joke... EVER!!! (none / 0) (#30)
by Mr Somebody on Thu Mar 14th, 2002 at 06:46:36 AM PST
ok gang, stand aside, cos Mr Glib is back in town! actually, that's a better name than Mr. Somebody... but on with the joke,
drum roll ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

What did Saint Patric say as he was driving all the snakes out of Ireland?

"Are you alright in the back there, lads?"

BOOM! BOOM! ya dadadadadada dayaya! I thangyou...


 
Oral? (5.00 / 2) (#33)
by Anonymous Reader on Tue Mar 19th, 2002 at 05:05:15 PM PST
the oral assault of the bagpipes,

The images I get from this phrase are nightmarish!


 

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