Barry O'Bama Goes Home

Barry O'Bama Goes Home

Sure, now, the good paple of the Olde Sod, the Oirish, musta bin bustin’ their buttons when one of their own returned home! I mean, now, the land of sints ‘n’ scholars likes to say, “Níor bhris focal maith fiacal riamh” or, as narrowbacks put it, ”A good word never broke a tooth,” and ain’t dat de truth? (Few, if any, Irish under 90 speak quite like that, by the way.)

The Irish know, of course, that the Yank president’s name isn’t really “Barry O’Bama” and, despite his appearance and what some have said, he isn’t descended from those blaggard Black and Tans who slaughtered and pillaged the Emerald Isle when the Irish fought for their independence.

Nevertheless, Barack Hussein “Barry” Obama “went home” this week.

His limo got hung up, literally, pulling out of the gate at the American embassy although all the president’s men swore he wasn’t in that particular Caddy but rather in the one behind. It would have been highly unusual for the president not to be an occupant of the flag-bedecked, heavily-armored vehicle aptly nicknamed “the Beast” but the Secret Service wouldn’t lie simply to protect all the president’s dignity and the obvious symbolism of his involuntary “suspension.”

However, it didn’t matter a whit to the Irish where Obama was riding, how undignified it was, or how he was spinning his wheels.

One of “their own,” wife in tow as usual, had returned to his ancestral home of Moneygall in County Offaly and the Moneygallians, the Offalyians, indeed all of Eire were thrilled.

He greeted a (very) distant cousin, quaffed a gulp of Guinness in a local pub, wished the bar a hearty “Slainte!,” and observed to one of the locals, “You look a little like my grandfather,” which must have caused the poor man to check a mirror before he ran home to share that good news with the family.

That Barack/Barry. He’s such a guy.

I wonder how proud that lookalike . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4552)

Happy Kwanzaa, Etc. Part One

Happy Kwanzaa, Etc. Part One

I hate to rain on anyone’s parade or holiday and at my age I guess I’m easily confused but Kwanzaa really confounds me.

Wikipedia defines that confounding holiday as “a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African-American heritage and culture, observed from December 26 to January 1 each year. It features activities such as the lighting of a kinara, [a candleabrum very similar to a menorah] and libations, and culminates in a feast and gift giving [which sounds suspiciously like Christmas]. It was created by Maulana Karenga and was first celebrated from December 26, 1966 to January 1, 1967.”

How does one ”celebrate” a fantasy?

Maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Karenga could just sit down one day and decide he would “create” a holiday or that Kwanzaa just happens to coincide with the Christmas season that confounds me. Since he was manufacturing his holiday, anyway, why not choose February which only has Groundhog Day as competiton or August which cries out for something to distinguish it besides heat?

In protest of commercialism, George’s father, Frank Costanza on “Seinfeld” created the holiday of “Festivus,” replete with an aluminum ”Festivus Pole” to be celebrated on December 23rd but everyone, okay, most people, realized Festivus was a joke.

Today, many people take Kwanzaa seriously!

Festivus was more real, and funnier, although I admit that the inclusion of a “traditional” Kwanzaa song at my granddaughter’s holiday concert was pretty amusing. It mostly consisted of two kids listlessly banging on African bougarabou drums as the chorus sang some very forgettable lyrics. I wondered when the “tradition” began. A month ago? Last Tuesday? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3157)