St. Patrick's day is begining to annoy me.

[HEyHEY]

All this shit about St. Patrick's Day is as contemptable as Christmas hype. Another hallmark holiday, being exploited by booze companies this time. This time it's a culture instead of a religion being exploited.
I even remember last year when a beer company had a petition out to make St Patrick's Day a Canadian holiday.
I like going out on Saint Patrick's for a few beers and some good traditional music.
But when people just make it out to be a day to be pissed up for the sake of being pissed up... I find it cheapens the day.
And then in the fog we lose the true meaning of it as, once again, our society becomes an even more consumer-based toilet filled with false convictions and pretend beliefs.

[CanuckAmok]

1. Especially in your case:

"But when people just make it out to be a day to be pissed up for the sake of being pissed up... I find it cheapens the day."

I mean, don't you call those special occasions "weekdays"?

[HEyHEY]

4. Yeah, but at least I'm not faking it

dickhead

[Catherine Vincent]

8. Wow!

I thought you guys played nice in the lounge?:-)

[HEyHEY]

20. That asshole has been on my case ever since I dumped him

[Texasgal]

2. Hey now...

Leave us drunks alone! We need atleast ONE holiday to get smashed! :P

[lumberingbear]

3. Anyway.......

Happy St Patricks day HEyHEY!!!

[politicat]

5. We don't celebrate it.

We're not Catholic, so we won't wear green.
We're not Protestant, so we won't wear orange.
We don't support the Protestant Anglo-English invaders in Northern England.
We don't support the Catholic Majority that refuses to allow women the right to determine their own childbearing.
We find the idea of a holiday that celebrates the wanton and willful destruction of the pre-Christian people and culture at the hands of a Christian invasion force to be repugnant and celebratory of genocide. (When Patrick "drove out the snakes" he's not referring to reptiles, but to the pagans who traditionally tattooed dragons and snakes on their wrists.)

We wear black and don't go to work on March 17.

Does this holiday bother me a bit? Oh, yeah.... being of Irish descent.

[HEyHEY]

6. I'm reading a

Malachy Mcourt book right now, he makes a craic about "Before St Patrick got to Ireland and fuck it up good and proper"

Basedd on your post...we should have beer one time. ;-)

[politicat]

11. If we ever get to Canada....

You're on.

:beer:

[tigereye]

7. actually a lot of Irish

wouldn't be caught dead wearing green, or orange. ;) I now say, My blood is Irish and that's sufficient, plus all my Celtic jewelry.

It is weird, though. I always thought Bloomsday, some other political/historical landmark day would be a better celebration of things Irish.

[politicat]

10. exactly, or even Easter.

That's what I celebrate on Easter, not the Christian stuff.

[Xithras]

12. St. Patrick founded the anti-slavery movement.

1500 years ago slavery wasn't questioned. It was present in almost all of the worlds major culture and was simply seen as a fact of life. The church had slaves, women had slaves, slaves even had slaves. That was simply the state of the world at the time.

St. Patrick was the first major voice to ever speak out against the institution of slavery in Europe. He had been a slave himself when he was younger (captured and enslaved by the Irish, no less) and had a vehement hatred for the entire concept. In a land where the slaveowning Pope was all-powerful and everyone from kings and bishops to farmers and blacksmiths had slaves, his ideas were as dangerous as they were new.

St. Patrick started the anti-slavery movement, and even though it would take another thousand years for that movement to really begin to drive slavery out of western culture once and for all, the spread of anti-slavery sentiment can be traced directly back to Patrick and the people he taught. We may celebrate him for the wrong reasons, but he certainly deserves to be honored.

[politicat]

17. so... it's okay to destroy a culture that refuses to believe in the way

the missionaries tell them, but it's not okay to enslave them... :eyes:

Sorry... I'm not really okay with either slavery or genocide or cultural decimation, so I'm just gonna stay home tomorrow and not have anything to do with the whole Hallmark-Guiness-Bailey's holiday.

[LiberalEsto]

13. I call it

Mr. Patriarch's Day in my own little pagan way.

[rockedthevoteinMA]

21. I agree politicat- I just learned the cliffnotes version of St. Patrick

in my World Civ class recently. I now choose not to celebrate it. Then I learned about Christmas...

[politicat]

28. there aren't many holidays we do celebrate, or alternately, everyday

is special, so they're all holidays.

It helps when one is atheist, and attaches little sentimental value to anything not personally significant (i.e. anniversaries are really important around here, but Xmas and THXgiving are not.)

Call us selfish, but it's not like we don't give gifts randomly throughout the year (which feel more significant for being totally unexpected and out of the blue.)

Pcat

[JVS]

9. I hate it because it ruins my getting drunk for the sake of getting drunk

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x2852551

[HEyHEY]

15. Damned Micks!

[hunter]

14. St. Brigid, February 1st

That's a good day to drink...

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=453

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

16. Hey HEyHEY - Happy St Patty's - ya puritan PUKE!!!

Now sod off!

[HEyHEY]

18. Whatever you damned adaman!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

25. May the sun always brighten your door and may you always fall into

outhouse holes!

[Squeech]

19. Here in Boston

it's a genuine holiday-- or, I should say, it coincides with one.

Evacuation Day celebrates the British fleet pulling out of Boston in 1776. Washington had taken control of the colonial militia by then. His forces captured some heavy artillery from Fort Ticonderoga, and he set it up on the hills of what is now the South End, facing the harbor. The British decided discretion was the better part of valor, and on March 17, 1776, they weighed anchor and headed for Halifax.

At that point it started to look like we might win this thing, and people like Jefferson called a continental congress for that summer. The rest is history (which the Republicans want to replace with political creationism).

Of course, good Boston ethnics would have taken the day off anyway; this gives them the excuse. Which we abuse, colorfully. The very name makes it sound like it's about the city of Boston taking a shit.

I'll be at my desk as usual. I got work to do :grr:

[rockedthevoteinMA]

27. We don't have school tomorrow in MA colleges because of

Evacuation day - though I think it's just a fancy excuse for the Irish politicians to take the day off to drink.

[_TJ_]

22. Isn't that the point?

"But when people just make it out to be a day to be pissed up for the sake of being pissed up... I find it cheapens the day.
And then in the fog we lose the true meaning of it"

I never thought Paddys day had any meaning other than as an excuse
to get slaughtered ;)

[HEyHEY]

23. Well the meaning of it really

Is questionable itself. But it's a celevration of culture and heritage, not just an excuse to get pissed.

[Hardrada]

24. Also if you bring a holiday treat

You have to share with the other children. So there should also be a St. George's Day & a St. Andrew's Day & a St. David's Day and a St. Olaf's Day so we can share back.

[Dave Reynolds]

26. I'm listening to Flogging Molly

and not drinking, howzat?

[HEyHEY]

29. great!

[El Fuego]

30. I LOVE ALL THE DRINKING HOLIDAYS!!!

St. Pat's day, New Year's and Halloween. And Christmas, which is not technically a drinking holiday, but if you smuggle small bottles of vodka to your SO's parents house it helps.:beer:

[Demonaut]

31. I'll drink to that...