If there’s anything that terrifies my fellow Irish-Americans more than the thought of unfettered sexuality, it’s the contemplation of non-violence. Therefore it must be considered an advance in human progress that Southie will have TWO St. Patrick’s Day Parades this weekend:
When the St. Patrick’s Day parade winds its way through South Boston, there will be echoes of another parade behind them: The St. Patrick’s Peace Parade.
__
Veterans for Peace applied for a spot in the official parade back in January. But the application was denied by parade organizers.
__
“When I asked why they didn’t grant our application, they say they did not want to have the word peace associated with the word vets,” said Pat Scanlon of Veterans For Peace. “I’m a Vietnam vet. I think that’s an outrageous statement.”
__
The group applied through the city for a separate permit. It was granted, so long as they started their parade an hour later, and a mile behind the first one…
__
It’s not the first time parade organizers have rejected applicants. Sixteen years ago, they went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to win the right to block gay groups from marching. The court’s decision gave the council the power to exclude anyone who they believed conveyed the wrong message.
__
“We have reached out to gay and lesbians and said you weren’t allowed to march 16 years ago. You can march with us,” said Scanlon.
__
A number of groups including Join The Impact Massachusetts will join Veterans for Peace in the march.
__
“For somebody working for equal rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, it’s showing how the message of equality and peace has a resonance in 2011,” said Ann Coleman of Join The Impact.
In a perfectly ascended world, of course, prominent Bostonian Henry ‘Skip’ Gates Jr., “possibly descended from or related to the 4th-century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages”, might be asked to serve as parade marshall…
Mark S.
Some guy with obvious psychological problems decided to watch all 177 episodes of Two and a Half Men. I’ve never seen the show, which sounds a little more risque than the usual network sitcom:
Yutsano
Having no Irish blood in me, I have no dog in this hunt. The story of how my Slovenian grandfather got the surname Hennessey is a tale too terrible to tell. Or he was just adopted. One of the two.
Linkmeister
Jeebus. That’s almost beyond belief. Who on earth wants peace more than the vets who fought the wars, and who has more right to advocate for it?
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.:
In Georgia, those writers had better explain what happened to that pregnancy.
Mnemosyne
My Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting (aka Irish Car Bomb cupcakes) are all cooled and packed up in their carrier to bring to work tomorrow. The recipe ended up making more than I thought — I got 24 normal size cupcakes plus a dozen mini cupcakes — so I’m going to have to frost them after I get to work tomorrow.
I’m putting the corned beef in the crockpot tomorrow so it’ll be done by the time we get home. Then we’ll probably watch a few episodes of “Father Ted” and go to sleep. We don’t really do the “going out on St. Patrick’s Day” thing any more. Not worth the trouble.
El Cid
As long as the cops don’t arrest Gates for suspicious behavior and possible attempt at breaking and entering the parade.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I will be having a green beer with President O’Bama.
.
.
Suffern ACE
@Yutsano: i wonder if I could restart that bitter but entertaining Valentine’s Day battle. I’ll try…
I am opposed to all the forced Irishness on this Day and resent all traditions associated with it. Only the Irish could come up with the one celebration we have that involves neither chocolate nor a special pie. Anyoe who dares try to get in the spirit of the day is either a sucker or a fool. This holiday hurts me somehow.
Yutsano
@Suffern ACE: I am perenially asked why I never wear green or orange on St Patrick’s Day. Simple: no Irish blood. Not even coming down from the Canadian side. How that happened in my messed up geneaology is probably miraculous.
JGabriel
@Mnemosyne:
Or, as it’s known here in NYC: Amateur Drunk Night. All the real NYC drinkers stay home on St. Paddy’s, the way vampires stay in for Halloween on BtVS.
.
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
Plus, let’s face it, would there be anything more pathetic than two people in their 40s still trying to par-tay on St. Patty’s Day?
srv
@Suffern ACE: Good that BJ’s Civility Thursday is a long dead tradition so I can say May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
Well you DO live in L.A…
Villago Delenda Est
This is part of the long history of episodic television, where major lifechanging events happen to the regulars, but by next week, it’s totally forgotten. Little Joe gets married, his bride is killed by Indians/Rustlers/Irish/Rioting Coolies/Drunken bar fighters/whatever. Little Joe forgets it ever happened next week, which deals with some other guest star’s problem of the moment.
Continuity was for soap operas (and even then, the retconning was pervasive) until Hill Street Blues came along and had these bizarre things never before seen on prime time TV, story arcs.
MattR
@Villago Delenda Est: In one episode of The Simpsons, Lisa makes a comment that is something like “What I’ve found best is to not worry too much, just ride things out and by next week everything will go back to the way things were”
piratedan
as a truly wild sense of humor is needed on St. Patrick’s Day, I heartily recommend these books by said author….
http://www.pointedshoe.com/
It revels in most things irish and rock and roll. As they say oftentimes in the books, “it’s not for ye mam”.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@JGabriel:
It’s Amateur Night all over the country. So are New Year’s Eve, the Sundays of Memorial and Labor Day weekends, Halloween and Thanksgiving Eve (probably the worst Amateur Night of them all). Before I retired from the drinking game, though, St. Patrick’s Day was one that I felt obligated to celebrate: My mom was, after all, Molly O’Toole before marriage.
jnfr
If it’s Saint Patrick’s Day, it’s time to plant sweet peas in Colorado, traditionally.
JWL
I haven’t read the book in decades, but Hunter Thompson’s ‘Campaign Trail 1972’ contains a brief but powerful account of disabled Vietnam Vets marching against the war that summer outside the republican convention in Miami. To this day, American war lovers perpetuate the simple minded myth that that those who opposed the war betrayed those who fought it. They never mention those vets who organized to stop it.
Off topic: Little Joe was the Ted Bundy of Virginia City. That, in turn, explains the disappearance of his brother after season 5. Adam one day spied LJ at the burial ground in which he “disappeared” his victims, a meadow on Ponderosa land. The elder brother immediately contacted the police, i.e., sheriff Roy Artemus Coffee. Unbeknownst to Adam, however, the sheriff had been paid for years by Ben Cartwright to look the other way. After consulting the Cartwright patriarch, it was decided that if one son had to go, it would be the smug and condescending Adam, rather than the otherwise fun loving Joe. They never filmed that episode, either.
Linkmeister
@JWL: So that’s why he played an angel on “Highway to Heaven!” Repentance!
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
I told one of my students that the copying machine was invented by an Irishman. “Really?” Yes. Phot O’Copier.
Ash Can
@Yutsano:
Same with St. Patrick. He was Italian. (Which is one of the reasons this part-Italian goes ahead and chows on corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day. :) )
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): What’s Irish and stays outside?
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Ash Can: I give up.
Ash Can
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): Paddy O’Furniture.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Ash Can: Ugh. Okay, I deserved that.
Josh
Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald? Oh, wrong joke.
Lysana
@Ash Can: Well, Patrick was Romano-British, which isn’t Italian, but close enough if you want.
Sly
Not a very big claim to fame, actually. One in twelve Irish men can claim descent from King Niall, and three in ten African American men can claim descent from Irish immigrants to the Americas. Presumably the same rate applies for the general populations in both categories, but its only possible to trace such things directly by comparing the Y chromosome.
Also, too, the cop who arrested Gates is descended from Niall. Maybe they can share the honor.
Pat
I am an Irish gay person who feels the need to hide my Irish heritage because of the many, many prejudices of these Irish parade organizers. I think I will leave my green at home today.
PurpleGirl
Continuing my long tradition of staying away from the parade route in Manhattan, I’m spending the day doing medical stuff in Elmhurst and shopping in Forest Hills. I’m another with no Irish ancestry who won’t pretend to be Irish for the day. Peace to everyone.
ETA: That pun was really good, Ashcan. True punishment.
alwhite
@Suffern ACE:
Actually she has a girl & there are episodes where they comment that it looks like Alan but Styles remains unaware.
The show is a guilty pleasure. It is way too explicit for its timeslot but I find it funny.
alwhite
@Pat:
I show my Irish heritage by wearing orange – Its a joke I find very few people get (which is probably a good thing!) Its a shame you feel you have to hide yet another part of who you are because of the world we live in.
alwhite
@Sly:
This place I worked at years ago with an engineer who was as Irish as he could be, hardly a day went by that he did not bring it up even though his grandparents where born here. Every St. Paddys day one of the guys from accounting, a very large, very black man, wore this green derby. This drove my co-worker into a spittle-flecked rant along the lines of “who does he think he is, HES not Irish!”. I told him that guy was as Irish as he or I was and could easily have Irish forefathers – that really got him cranked up.
I wear orange in honor of that guy.
Gina
I thought I had Irish ancestry til I did some genealogical digging a few years back. Found out that the “Irish great-grandmother” was French Canadian. My grandmother (her daughter) was pretty much insane, she’d tell all sorts of lies about everything, no one ever called her on it to her face though.
On another line, the Swiss-Italian, well that was actually Sicilian – the HORROR! :-D
The German great-great grandmother may, actually, be of Irish descent, but I only could track her back to Canada (Ontario province), so I’ll just continue to sit this holiday out.
Oh, and protip: if you have a couple of generations of family members who have told the wrong stories for years, they don’t like getting the correct versions.
Southern Beale
The local news just did a live report from Dan McGuinness’ pub off Nashville’s Muisc Row. The party starts at 10 am. Wheee.
I am not Irish. I’m of Russian extraction. Every day is St Patrick’s Day for us. So I am *not* looking forward to being downtown tonight for a hockey game. It’s gonna be madness!
rickstersherpa
Its is a bit strange the journey the Irish-American community has traveled these last thirty years, at least the “professional Irish.” Thirty-three years agon Father Robert Drinian was in Congress, as liberal and progressive as they come, and the most famous Irishmen in America, outside the Kennedys, were the Berrigan brothers, Fathers Daniel and Philip, who were rather vigourous in their non-violent protests against Vietnam, Nuclear Arms, and Nuclear Power. Of course, under the last two Popes, the right-wing part of the hierarchy and their very wealthy Galtian donors have gone out of their way to drive that part of Catholicism underground. And so it goes. (see Vonnegut, Kurt)
If I were in Boston today I would be watching the second parade.
soonergrunt
There’s something wrong the with concept that vets can’t or shouldn’t support peace.
I’m irish and scots. I won’t wear green today. I used to wear orange on St. Patrick’s, but most people have no clue what that refers to, so I just don’t bother.
Dennis Leary has the best take on the Irish, anyway. I think I’ll listen to his CD at lunch.
debbie
@pat:
I remember there being all kinds of intolerance toward who could march in the NYC parade. If you were other than Catholic and a beer lover, you were not welcome. I was surprised to discover just how intolerant the NYC transplants were. I never got the same feeling from visitors from Ireland.
evap
Hubby is Irish, really Irish — born and raised in Dublin and still an Irish citizen although has lived in the U.S. for almost 30 years. He hates St. Patrick’s day in the U.S., it is nothing like the day in Ireland (where it is a religious holiday – you’re supposed to go to church).
And, please, calling something an “Irish Car Bomb” is not funny, it is offensive.
Dennis SGMM
Mom was Scotch-Irish but that doesn’t incline me to celebrating St. Patrick’s Day because Dad was Czech-German-Italian so it isn’t as if a I need a special day to drink too much.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m not Irish but neither was Saint Patrick.
Omnes Omnibus
No Irish ancestry here, but I’ll listen to the Pogues and Black 47 today because that is seldom a bad thing to do.
Cat Lady
I think I’ll watch State of Grace again today for a real pick me up.
Comrade Javamanphil
I will be listening to the only version of Danny Boy the world needs all day.
Cheryl from Maryland
Irish soda bread with butter is just as good as cookies or pie. If not better. Which I’ll be baking as I listen to the Chieftains and various guest artists on “The Long Black Veil.”
celticdragonchick
As a lover of Irish traditional music and as a Celt, I wish a happy and safe St Patrick’s Day to all. I personally recommend Altan for good listening.
As somebody interested in Irish history, I was struck by Annie’s statement above regarding unfettered sexuality.
This is from my prospectus I turned in yesterday on an upcoming paper on the subject of the Magdalene Laundries.
Prospectus
The Magdalene Laundries of Ireland:
How the Church and Irish State Colluded in the Social Control of Women.
Overview:
Magdalene correctional facilities are not endemic to Ireland alone. Named for the penitence of an alleged prostitute in the Bible, Magdalene facilities were widespread in the British Isles and North America from the late 18th to early 20th centuries. Many of these facilities were aimed at reforming prostitutes and were voluntary in nature. Women who resided in these institutions were expected to “wash away” their sins with hard work and contemplative prayer. However, as most of these institutions declined in numbers or changed in mission elsewhere by 1920, the Magdalene Laundries became increasingly important in Ireland, and a wide variety of women and girls became unwilling inmates. The Catholic Church in Ireland operated with the Irish Government to incarcerate women who were convicted of criminal or moral offenses, as well as women and girls who were thought to be in moral danger for being attractive, or who were an embarrassment to their families after having been raped, assaulted or becoming pregnant. Many of these women had little or no hope of escape or reprieve, and in many cases there is no record that they even existed except for the unmarked mass graves on the sites. The last laundry did not close until 1996.
Thesis:
Instead of providing a rehabilitative function, the Irish Magdalene Laundries came to serve as punitive, quasi official religious prisons where women could disappear into for years or decades. By forming a hegemonic relationship with the government, the Church was able to use the laundries as a significant social control on women and enforce a narrow, patriarchal view of female sexuality.
Svensker
We moved out of Hoboken because of St. Pat’s Day. The yuppie scum would be vomiting their guts out in front of our house, which we got used to, but when they started peeing and when finally we got a poop on the morning after St. Pat’s, we’d had enough.
Larval banksters in action.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Comrade Javamanphil:
this song works for me
Dennis SGMM
@celticdragonchick:
Wow! I’m an amateur historian and I’d very much appreciate a link to your finished work (If possible). If not possible then please email binhthuy71(at)yahoo.com.
joe from Lowell
It’s going to be a fine day when the Baby Boomers are sufficiently into their dotage that 45-year-state slap fights aren’t the subtext of everything in our society.
‘Ooh, I hate peace! Ooh, I hate long hair! Ooh, I hate marijuana smokers (not marijuana, just “those people,” and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give them the satisfaction of legalizing it!)’
Get in the box! Get in the box!
Comrade Javamanphil
@celticdragonchick: Altan is playing the Flynn in Burlington, VT tonight. It is with deep regret I cannot go although I saw them a few years ago at the Irish Fest in Albany, NY. They are excellent. I also recommend Dervish
celticdragonchick
@Dennis SGMM:
Will do :)
Comrade Javamanphil
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: Yep, that’s a good one too. BTW, the latest Dropkick Murphy’s album is a $5 download on Amazon this month.
celticdragonchick
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Cool! Thanks!
leinie
Time to go make the sour Jameson icing to go on the chocolate Guiness cake. Last year they actually served green beer with the corned beef and cabbage at the office.
cleek
@Villago Delenda Est:
and then there are shows that are all about the arcs but drop them without so much as a wink.
an example from House: where is Dr Cuddy’s baby ?
stuckinred
@celticdragonchick: Isn’t there a movie about this?
JohnR
“more than the thought of unfettered sexuality,”
Well, that helps to explain the drinking some, I suppose. Makes procreation easier. My maternal grandparents were Irish and German, which I always thought was the traditional mix – they meet in bars and see each other through booze-tinted glasses. It makes for great kids, too – they start drinking and resolve to take over the world, but then get into an argument over whether Cu Chulainnn could have outdrunk and outfought Siegfried, and when they wake up they’re too hungover to do anything. Makes the world a safer place. I don’t know about all this green crap, though. Normally I don’t care what color the booze happens to be, but if it startles you when you’ve had a bit, it’s probably better to leave that color out.
stuckinred
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318411/
The Magdalene Sisters
burnspbesq
How to celebrate St. Pat’s:
Stay home. Read some Joyce, or Behan, or (if you want to fuel your outrage at how things currently are in Ireland) Fintan O’Toole. Watch some Dara O’Briain clips on YouTube; it’s great to hear a brilliant standup comic who doesn’t have an accent. Listen to Solas, Altan, Grada, Cara Dillion. If you’re really old-school, listen to the Wolfe Tones.
Eat and drink whatever you please. No need to buy into the stupid old stereotypes, unless you actually like corned beef and Guiness. Raise a glass to your ancestors who sacrificed everything to come to this country in search of a better life than what Ireland had to offer at the time. I love visiting Ireland, but I don’t think I have too many illusions about what it’s really like, and there’s no way on God’s earth that I would want to live there.
Dennis SGMM
@joe from Lowell:
What the fuck are you talking about? I’m a fervently anti-war Vietnam vet and I still (Very occasionally) smoke dope. Vets like me were the one’s who tirelessly participated in the anti-war movement. There were, and still and still are, a fuck of a lot more of us working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than there are from the generation that bitches about us.
Because you seem to be historically numb, I’ll remind you that boomers were the ones who made pot smoking both wide spread and acceptable among nice, white people as opposed to being a vice of the darkies and lunatics.
Fuck, you make me tired. Broad-brush condemnation of the boomers is just as fucked up and ahistorical as anything dreamed up by the Republicans.
Dennis SGMM
@celticdragonchick:
Many thanks. The more I study History, the more I find that the actions of Great Men are less affecting than those things that were taken for granted at the time.
stuckinred
@Dennis SGMM: I second that emotion!
Suffern ACE
@stuckinred: I think joe is quoting hypothetical peace hating people and doesn’t count himself among their members.
briber
@Ash Can: If you are ever in the Minneapolis/St Paul area and are looking to build one of those patio thingies. Your best bet for supplies and design advice is: Patio Town (Give a click and check their mascot.)
Dennis SGMM
@stuckinred:
I get incensed first because comments like Joe’s aren’t reflective of reality and second because many boomers are, or will be, collecting SS and Republicans hate SS with the fire of a thousand suns. They’d like nothing better than to cut the boomers away from the herd for the usual fifteen minutes of hate and vilification so that they can undo SS unopposed. Comments like that from the otherwise sensible and commendably liberal Joe just help our common enemy.
rea
You’ve got to respect Old Patrick, for expelling the Republicans and other snakes from Ireland, if for nothing else.
Morbo
I think I will listen to a lot of Primordial today, yes I will.
Gozer
My dear wife is Irish (long red hair and lots o’freckles). I always rib her around this time of year about the many shennanigans her fellow Irish get into.
St. Paddy’s day for me however is terrifying. Too many drunk white folks for this brown hairy dude.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dennis SGMM: FWIW it seemed to me that JfL’s comment was a lament that issues are portrayed in the media and, I believe, viewed by senior politicians through the lens of 1960s cultural battles. The world had changed sense then and a sensible dialogue about any issue is virtually impossible when the facts on the ground cannot be recognized by those making decisions because of lingering mental stereotypes from the time I was a baby.
Stefan
and then there are shows that are all about the arcs but drop them without so much as a wink. an example from House: where is Dr Cuddy’s baby ?
It is a mystery that Dr. Cuddy no longer has a baby. She does, however, seem to have a small toddler, which I’m guessing might be the same baby but grown up by about a year or so. The child is referred to (and seen) in multiple episodes this season — there was even an episode about Cuddy and House trying to get her into a pre-school.
Judas Escargot (aka ninja fetus with a taste for bruschetta)
We already had our St Pat’s dinner this past Sunday (Future-misses is the youngest of four, so it was the only “dinner holiday” left). This being Boston, everyone across all the families has at least 1/4 Irish in them somehow.
By coincidence, we started the tradition the same year Congress moved DST to March, so I’ll forever associate DST with St. Pat’s now, even if they move the date back. Fire up the crockpots when you change the clocks Sunday morning, and you’ll have perfect corned beef by 2pm.
debbie
@ Omnes Omnibus:
Flogging Molly is another group that’s good to hear today, especially “It’s The Worst Day Since Yesterday.”
R-Jud
@burnspbesq:
Bah. I prefer Dylan Moran.
St. Patrick’s Day is compromised for me. On the one hand, Mom is Irish and Scots. So I’ve got a shoulder of lamb stewing in Guinness in the kitchen right now and will make some boxty later.
On the other hand, Dad’s Italian, and used to get shit from the Irish kids all the time. So by long-standing tradition, I’m wearing a t-shirt that he used to wear on St. Pat’s. It’s red and says “Fuck you, I’m Italian.”
celticdragonchick
@stuckinred:
Yes.
The Magdalene Sisters and the documentary Sex in A Cold Climate.
Mnemosyne
@evap:
Well, if it’s any consolation, I got some karmic payback for the cupcakes — I just got back from urgent care. I cut my thumb while digging the eye out of a potato. One scary-ass looking bandage and tetanus shot later, I’m getting ready to head for work.
lu5cus
Put this under the things are changing file:
Irish Minister criticizes NYC St. Pat’s Parade
My favorite quote is this: “What these parades are about is a celebration of Ireland and Irishness,” he said. “I think they need to celebrate Ireland as it is, not as people imagine it. ”
h/t Matty Y
Just Some Fuckhead
@Gozer:
Which is worse, beagles or Irish?
Comrade Kevin
Corned Beef is an abomination, and not even Irish. The only reason you find it in Ireland these days is because American tourists expect it. Have some colcannon or stew instead.
virag
raise a glass to jfk and a dozen more besides. to all my fekkin’ micks out there, slainte!
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“If you’re really old-school, listen to the Wolfe Tones.”
I’d rather go with the Chieftains, Planxty, or the Clancy Bros. The Wolfe Tones are a bit too much 1970s-Crossmaglen-car-bombs for me.
Kila or Afro-Celt Sound System are also a good bet.
celticdragonchick
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
Planxty is good. Have you tried Deanta?
Altan is amazing. Also, Connie Dover.
shortstop
That’s a very funny sentence.
Batocchio
Wow, that’s appalling – but at least they got their parade now. I’m part-Irish, and an occasional musician, who plays plenty of Irish tunes – including some that are decidely anti-war and anti-violence. For tonight I posted one of my favorite tunes, “”Ar Eirinn Ni Neosainn Ce Hi.”