Happy Unofficial St Pats U of I

[IlliniKrush]

Drinking begins at 7:00 am

 

[SnB]

tommorow will be fun.

 

hooray fake holidays

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Unofficial St. Patrick's Day is about as accurate at portraying the Irish as if...say, I put on blackface, ate fried chicken and watermelon and then washed it down with a forty in a brown paper bag while calling it Unofficial Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

 

I have chosen not to partake in Unofficial. This is on account of my being neither a virulent racist nor an imbecile so obsessed with finding excuses for inebriation that I am able to shun the analytical thoughts emanating from either my conscience or neocortex. Sporting events are worthy of strong drink. Celebrating one's birthday is likewise a legitimate excuse, if one so desires it. But of course herein lies the problem that people feel the need for a REASON. It is as if a life-threatening and brain-curdling twelve-hour binge miraculously becomes good for a person if he or she puts on a silly green hat and customized single-use t-shirt and does it with thousands of other undergrad sheep.

 

Allow me to give credit to today's celebrants who also believe that Chief Illiniwek is an honorable symbol of Native American culture. At least they are consistent in their views. I, of course, see the Chief as offensive to some but completely harmless in any real terms. If it goes, too bad. It's kind of cool. If it stays, too bad. Some people will still be offended. I would love to poll the Unofficial drinkers on their Chief position. Do I expect to find unanimity? Heck no. I blindly guarantee that a significant percentage of these people will say that the Chief needs to go because it is racist. These people are hypocrites, and need to be labeled such. This is the charming part of the bourgeois liberalism that lurks in the GOP-gerrymandered Congressional districts that turn nearly every American urban metropolis into a blue bullseye on a map. As long as it doesn't affect me, my expensive clothes, my cheap gasoline for my expensive SUV and my cheaply bottled Coca-Cola Classic that together comprise a trip to an Illini sporting event, then I am up in arms. But as soon as they try to take away justification for Mickey Mantle-level favoritism on the liver transplant list, then they have gone too far.

 

But have I, in declaring Unofficial St. Patrick's Day an ignorant and racist celebration, gone too far? I believe not. Allow me to provide a quick history of the legitimate St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's day is the feast day of Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, the excluded, and protector from snakes (for much of the past half millennium, the first category fit nicely into the second). He converted Ireland to Christianity from paganism and became Bishop of Ireland. This move allowed the Irish monasteries to preserve literacy and much of Western history during the era of the Viking invasions of the late Middle Ages. The legends of Patrick claim that he drove snakes from Ireland (understood now as symbolism for paganism) and used the three-pointed shamrock to explain to the most powerful Irish chieftain the Trinity: the tri-part nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

 

Over time, St. Patrick's Day has been transformed from a traditional Catholic feast day into a secular holiday celebrating Irish heritage and culture. Dublin, Ireland, has an annual cultural festival that attracts thousands of people from all over the country and Europe. American cities with large Irish populations, such as New York City, Boston and Chicago have parades. Chicago dyes the Chicago River green (they do so fine a job it stays that way year-round). But this international celebration of Irish culture has been expanded beyond this secular celebration. Granted, the wearing of the green has been accompanied by the drinking of the ale, but the sense of community fostered by this celebration has been demeaned by the perpetrators of this cultural travesty called Unofficial into obnoxiously oafish drunkenness with no socially or culturally redeeming value.

 

Phrases like "Kiss me; I'm Irish" are found everywhere on T-shirts. Non-Irish-Americans and Irish-Americans alike buy into the idea that Everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day. While this view could easily take the form of solidarity with downtrodden and oppressed people the world over - donations of money and used possessions to charities or donations of time at soup kitchens or homeless shelters - people (both Irish and not) attach the Irish culture to a simple 4-letter word: beer. Everyone is Irish, so everyone is an obnoxious drunk. They envision Ireland as a nation of alcoholic leprechauns and nothing more. They do this not on St. Patrick's day proper (although I'm sure many do that day, as well), but on an arbitrary, convenient day.

 

Can I blame people for consuming alcohol? No. But thousands of people are carrying out negative stereotypes of the Irish with absolutely no regard for what they are doing. It honestly hurts to see my heritage spat on by thousands of people for the sole purpose of consuming green beer. Irish history is rich and complex, transforming from tribal chiefdoms into thirty-two counties separated into a nation of twenty-six and a captive country of six by British delusions about remaining an empire. People here know basically nothing about Irish history. It's all about the shamrocks, crosses and alcohol. These people wouldn't even be worthy enough to carry Bobby Sands' H-Blocks-issue blanket if they even knew who he was and what he did. Culture to these racists is "f**goty" dancing, not beautiful rebel songs that simultaneously warm the heart and stir the soul. Check out the Wolfe Tones performing "A Nation Once Again," "Joe McDonnell," "The Wearing of the Green" and "Come Out Ye Black and Tans" if you don't believe me.

 

My concern here is St. Patrick's Day as an Irish heritage day, much as Columbus Day and Pulaski Day, respectively, represent Italian and Polish pride days. What Unofficial and its thousands of participants convey as being "Irish" or "Irish-American" is tantamount to celebrating an Unofficial Martin Luther King Day on which thousands of students would smear their faces with black grease paint and proceed to wash down their fried chicken and watermelon with a forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor concealed in a brown paper bag. This is not representative of African-American culture. What it is, however, is an abysmal manifestation of our inward unhealth as a society: this crowd of mutant locusts prefers to reinforce stereotypes that demean a minority population at the cost of reifying falsehoods and ignoring countless contributions. Of course Unofficial MLK Day couldn't fly, even if done with the utmost sincerity. Irish is white, so Irish doesn't count. A leprauchan mascot causes much less division than an Aztec warrior or Plains Chief. It's the way it is.

 

I'm not asking for Unofficial to be forcibly shut down. People should be free to do as they please. I'm not being physically harmed by these drunkards (excluding the potential of drunk driving accidents). It's a mental strain, but that's my issue. That's why I'm ranting here as opposed to in the middle of Green Street, yelling, "Come out ye black-and-tans / come out and fight me like a man / show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders / Tell her how the IRA made you run like hell away / From the green and lovely lanes of Killeshandra." If you're Irish, or at least have a bit of an understanding of what the history is all about, then you know what I'm talking about.

 

I know that it might be asking a bit much, but stop being so self-serving and ignorant. Green beer is a fine part of St. Patrick's Day. It goes along with the corned beef, boiled cabbage and homemade soda bread you should be eating with your family after the parade. When you're going to partake in a racist, essentializing day of selfish hedonism (This is America, after all. For most people, it is a when question, not an if.), at least perform a little favor for the people whose ancestors' graves you are publically pissing on. Learn something. Anything. Find out about Patrick, Bishop of Ireland. Research the history of the Republican movement. Congratulations, by the way, to Sinn Fein, as it is this year turning one hundred years old. Learn about the hunger strikes. The British oppression. The proposed razing of the Irish table in favor of restarting it with "civilized" British blood. The experience of Irish immigrants to America and what they faced here upon arrival. Something. Anything. Give my ancestors some respect before you go out and piss and puke all over their memory.

[YASNY]

LCR, I sincerely hope the day gets behind you quickly and without too many offensive occurances.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

LCR, I sincerely hope the day gets behind you quickly and without too many offensive occurances.

I'm using it as a teaching moment at school. We've been talking about discrimination and what it is. So I am going to pose this situation to them to see what they think about it and see if it meets the class definition of discrimination that we came up with.

 

http://www.dailyillini.com/media/paper736/...dailyillini.com

 

That's from the Monsignor of the local church here. One of the select times I agree with the Catholic Church on something.

[YASNY]

He, like you, makes some very strong points.

[IlliniKrush]

This isn't about the Chief, or St Patricks Day to be honest. It's about college, and having fun. Unbelievable.

[SnB]

Um......wow........yeah...........it's early.

[Steff]

This isn't about the Chief, or St Patricks Day to be honest. It's about college, and having fun. Unbelievable.

 

 

 

Nope. Believable.

 

 

Hafe fun today kids. Be safe..

 

Steve, Keith, & Co.. we expect a full "who held their liquor" report.

[Queen Prawn]

My dad (who is from Ireland) doesn't get the way this country "celebrates" St Patrick's day. When he lived in Ireland it was a day of visiting with family and friends as well as prayer. He says it has started to become more secular in Ireland as well (at least in the big cities - the smaller towns, like where he lived, it is still a religious celebration).

[Rex Kickass]

I never understood the concept of binge drinking = fun.

[FlaSoxxJim]

My dad (who is from Ireland) doesn't get the way this country "celebrates" St Patrick's day.  When he lived in Ireland it was a day of visiting with family and friends as well as prayer.  He says it has started to become more secular in Ireland as well (at least in the big cities - the smaller towns, like where he lived, it is still a religious celebration).

I'll bet he gets up for a good Bloomsday celebration though, eh?

[G&T]

My dad (who is from Ireland) doesn't get the way this country "celebrates" St Patrick's day.  When he lived in Ireland it was a day of visiting with family and friends as well as prayer.  He says it has started to become more secular in Ireland as well (at least in the big cities - the smaller towns, like where he lived, it is still a religious celebration).

 

Actually, I would love to find out how our celebration turned into what it is. What are the chances it was the Irish themselves who made it this way?

 

From Wikipedia:

The first civic and public celebration of St. Patrick's Day in the American Colonies took place in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1737. The first St. Patrick's Day celebrated in New York City was held at the Crown and Thistle Tavern in 1756.

 

Given the time, I doubt it was any Brit that owned the tavern, since they wouldn't celebrate an Irish holiday, and there's no mention of what they did for that celebration. I know it seems like they probably just drank, but the tavern could also have been used as a gathering place for Irish people in the area for a small religious ceremony.

This is about all I can find on it, but I can't find who the owners of that tavern were. Nevertheless, I wouldn't jump to conclusions that Americans are to blame for what St. Patrick's Day has become. It could have been Irish bar owners looking to make a profit. But I have no proof of that either.

[southsideirish]

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 3, 2006 -> 05:50 PM)

I never understood the concept of binge drinking = fun.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[FlaSoxxJim]

Actually, I would love to find out how our celebration turned into what it is. What are the chances it was the Irish themselves who made it this way?

 

From Wikipedia:

Given the time, I doubt it was any Brit that owned the tavern, since they wouldn't celebrate an Irish holiday, and there's no mention of what they did for that celebration. I know it seems like they probably just drank, but the tavern could also have been used as a gathering place for Irish people in the area for a small religious ceremony.

This is about all I can find on it, but I can't find who the owners of that tavern were. Nevertheless, I wouldn't jump to conclusions that Americans are to blame for what St. Patrick's Day has become. It could have been Irish bar owners looking to make a profit. But I have no proof of that either.

 

It's pretty intuitive what happend, at least as far as I see it.

 

The first generation Irish in America would have observed the holiday in much the same way they did back home. And sure, they would have convocated in Irish transplant social centers which could be pubs of inns or houses. . .

 

But as successive generations of descendants got further removed from the roots of the holiday observance it began to get twisted into what it is now. It's the same thing that happens to most such observances, they get diluted and commercialized and too big for their own good until they resemble little of the original celebration.

 

As I'm always willing to find any excuse to quaff a Guinness of three, I don't mind throwing in with the other drunk Micks and honorary Micks on St. Paddy's, but there's certainly little that is authenticly Irish about the holiday.

 

Except for the green Natty Light beer. I'm pretty sure that was the ancient drink of the High Kings or Erin.

 

Friends don't let friends drink green beer.

[southsideirish]

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Mar 3, 2006 -> 12:06 PM)

Unofficial St. Patrick's Day is about as accurate at portraying the Irish as if...say, I put on blackface, ate fried chicken and watermelon and then washed it down with a forty in a brown paper bag while calling it Unofficial Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

 

I have chosen not to partake in Unofficial. This is on account of my being neither a virulent racist nor an imbecile so obsessed with finding excuses for inebriation that I am able to shun the analytical thoughts emanating from either my conscience or neocortex. Sporting events are worthy of strong drink. Celebrating one's birthday is likewise a legitimate excuse, if one so desires it. But of course herein lies the problem that people feel the need for a REASON. It is as if a life-threatening and brain-curdling twelve-hour binge miraculously becomes good for a person if he or she puts on a silly green hat and customized single-use t-shirt and does it with thousands of other undergrad sheep.

 

Allow me to give credit to today's celebrants who also believe that Chief Illiniwek is an honorable symbol of Native American culture. At least they are consistent in their views. I, of course, see the Chief as offensive to some but completely harmless in any real terms. If it goes, too bad. It's kind of cool. If it stays, too bad. Some people will still be offended. I would love to poll the Unofficial drinkers on their Chief position. Do I expect to find unanimity? Heck no. I blindly guarantee that a significant percentage of these people will say that the Chief needs to go because it is racist. These people are hypocrites, and need to be labeled such. This is the charming part of the bourgeois liberalism that lurks in the GOP-gerrymandered Congressional districts that turn nearly every American urban metropolis into a blue bullseye on a map. As long as it doesn't affect me, my expensive clothes, my cheap gasoline for my expensive SUV and my cheaply bottled Coca-Cola Classic that together comprise a trip to an Illini sporting event, then I am up in arms. But as soon as they try to take away justification for Mickey Mantle-level favoritism on the liver transplant list, then they have gone too far.

 

But have I, in declaring Unofficial St. Patrick's Day an ignorant and racist celebration, gone too far? I believe not. Allow me to provide a quick history of the legitimate St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's day is the feast day of Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, the excluded, and protector from snakes (for much of the past half millennium, the first category fit nicely into the second). He converted Ireland to Christianity from paganism and became Bishop of Ireland. This move allowed the Irish monasteries to preserve literacy and much of Western history during the era of the Viking invasions of the late Middle Ages. The legends of Patrick claim that he drove snakes from Ireland (understood now as symbolism for paganism) and used the three-pointed shamrock to explain to the most powerful Irish chieftain the Trinity: the tri-part nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

 

Over time, St. Patrick's Day has been transformed from a traditional Catholic feast day into a secular holiday celebrating Irish heritage and culture. Dublin, Ireland, has an annual cultural festival that attracts thousands of people from all over the country and Europe. American cities with large Irish populations, such as New York City, Boston and Chicago have parades. Chicago dyes the Chicago River green (they do so fine a job it stays that way year-round). But this international celebration of Irish culture has been expanded beyond this secular celebration. Granted, the wearing of the green has been accompanied by the drinking of the ale, but the sense of community fostered by this celebration has been demeaned by the perpetrators of this cultural travesty called Unofficial into obnoxiously oafish drunkenness with no socially or culturally redeeming value.

 

Phrases like "Kiss me; I'm Irish" are found everywhere on T-shirts. Non-Irish-Americans and Irish-Americans alike buy into the idea that Everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day. While this view could easily take the form of solidarity with downtrodden and oppressed people the world over - donations of money and used possessions to charities or donations of time at soup kitchens or homeless shelters - people (both Irish and not) attach the Irish culture to a simple 4-letter word: beer. Everyone is Irish, so everyone is an obnoxious drunk. They envision Ireland as a nation of alcoholic leprechauns and nothing more. They do this not on St. Patrick's day proper (although I'm sure many do that day, as well), but on an arbitrary, convenient day.

 

Can I blame people for consuming alcohol? No. But thousands of people are carrying out negative stereotypes of the Irish with absolutely no regard for what they are doing. It honestly hurts to see my heritage spat on by thousands of people for the sole purpose of consuming green beer. Irish history is rich and complex, transforming from tribal chiefdoms into thirty-two counties separated into a nation of twenty-six and a captive country of six by British delusions about remaining an empire. People here know basically nothing about Irish history. It's all about the shamrocks, crosses and alcohol. These people wouldn't even be worthy enough to carry Bobby Sands' H-Blocks-issue blanket if they even knew who he was and what he did. Culture to these racists is "f**goty" dancing, not beautiful rebel songs that simultaneously warm the heart and stir the soul. Check out the Wolfe Tones performing "A Nation Once Again," "Joe McDonnell," "The Wearing of the Green" and "Come Out Ye Black and Tans" if you don't believe me.

 

My concern here is St. Patrick's Day as an Irish heritage day, much as Columbus Day and Pulaski Day, respectively, represent Italian and Polish pride days. What Unofficial and its thousands of participants convey as being "Irish" or "Irish-American" is tantamount to celebrating an Unofficial Martin Luther King Day on which thousands of students would smear their faces with black grease paint and proceed to wash down their fried chicken and watermelon with a forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor concealed in a brown paper bag. This is not representative of African-American culture. What it is, however, is an abysmal manifestation of our inward unhealth as a society: this crowd of mutant locusts prefers to reinforce stereotypes that demean a minority population at the cost of reifying falsehoods and ignoring countless contributions. Of course Unofficial MLK Day couldn't fly, even if done with the utmost sincerity. Irish is white, so Irish doesn't count. A leprauchan mascot causes much less division than an Aztec warrior or Plains Chief. It's the way it is.

 

I'm not asking for Unofficial to be forcibly shut down. People should be free to do as they please. I'm not being physically harmed by these drunkards (excluding the potential of drunk driving accidents). It's a mental strain, but that's my issue. That's why I'm ranting here as opposed to in the middle of Green Street, yelling, "Come out ye black-and-tans / come out and fight me like a man / show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders / Tell her how the IRA made you run like hell away / From the green and lovely lanes of Killeshandra." If you're Irish, or at least have a bit of an understanding of what the history is all about, then you know what I'm talking about.

 

I know that it might be asking a bit much, but stop being so self-serving and ignorant. Green beer is a fine part of St. Patrick's Day. It goes along with the corned beef, boiled cabbage and homemade soda bread you should be eating with your family after the parade. When you're going to partake in a racist, essentializing day of selfish hedonism (This is America, after all. For most people, it is a when question, not an if.), at least perform a little favor for the people whose ancestors' graves you are publically pissing on. Learn something. Anything. Find out about Patrick, Bishop of Ireland. Research the history of the Republican movement. Congratulations, by the way, to Sinn Fein, as it is this year turning one hundred years old. Learn about the hunger strikes. The British oppression. The proposed razing of the Irish table in favor of restarting it with "civilized" British blood. The experience of Irish immigrants to America and what they faced here upon arrival. Something. Anything. Give my ancestors some respect before you go out and piss and puke all over their memory.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Is this you as well? or did you steal your post from here?

 

Unofficial: f*** You!

[FlaSoxxJim]

Is this you as well? or did you steal your post from here?

 

Unofficial: f*** You!

 

Yep, that's LCR.

[Steff]

Yep, that's LCR.

 

 

It is...?

 

 

Interests

 

music movies books politics sports (Cubs Bulls Bears Illini Hoops)

[southsideirish]

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 3, 2006 -> 08:50 PM)

Yep, that's LCR.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

So he is a Cub Fan?

 

America is a culture of fear and hatred. I try to hate those who deserve it: conservatives, the Democratic Party, media whores, etc. But I can't even make myself hate White Sox or Cardinals fans. And I love the Cubs almost as much as my family.

 

Why is he posting on a White Sox message board?

[FlaSoxxJim]

So he is a Cub Fan?

Why is he posting on a White Sox message board?

Huh, you're right. Someone's got some 'splaining to do!!

 

I can only assume that is a twisted joke. But the abundany nods to Japanese films, Hunter Thompson, and Warren Zevon, etc., sure look like LCR's MO.

 

So what's the deal Apu?!?!!

[SnB]

Way to make a fun thread unfun!

 

i need a nap.

 

bye.

[Steff]

Way to make a fun thread unfun!

 

i need a nap.

 

bye.

 

 

Yes.. go nap. Lock the door.. I hear security is roaming.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Is this you as well? or did you steal your post from here?

 

Unofficial: f*** You!

It is my roommate and very good friend -- we've who have had plentiful discussions on the topic and told me to post it for him since he has no acct here.

[Queen Prawn]

Actually, I would love to find out how our celebration turned into what it is. What are the chances it was the Irish themselves who made it this way?

 

From Wikipedia:

Given the time, I doubt it was any Brit that owned the tavern, since they wouldn't celebrate an Irish holiday, and there's no mention of what they did for that celebration. I know it seems like they probably just drank, but the tavern could also have been used as a gathering place for Irish people in the area for a small religious ceremony.

This is about all I can find on it, but I can't find who the owners of that tavern were. Nevertheless, I wouldn't jump to conclusions that Americans are to blame for what St. Patrick's Day has become. It could have been Irish bar owners looking to make a profit. But I have no proof of that either.

 

Not sure where the hell you got that I was blaming the Brits . All I mentioned is that what goes on here was nothing like what my dad experienced back home and I mentioned that it has been changing there as well. Sorry, but I will take my dad's (as well as Gramma's and Grampa's) word over an online encyclopedia.

[G&T]

But as successive generations of descendants got further removed from the roots of the holiday observance it began to get twisted into what it is now.  It's the same thing that happens to most such observances, they get diluted and commercialized and too big for their own good until they resemble little of the original celebration.

 

But the issue lies here. LCR is telling people to stop pissing on Irish heritage, but who allowed it to become a drunk fest? It may have been the Irish themselves so there is no one else to blame. What's there to complain about if that's the case?