Ireland in America

My Grandfather's House

Mitchelstown, Cnty Cork

In honor of the Saint's day, it may be a good time to check in on the Irish in America. Our source, the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (2009), and John Lee.

Sayeth the ACS:

Eight times more Americans claim Irish ancestry than live in Ireland. The second largest ethnic group in the US, after Germans.

24% of Massachusetts residents claim Irish blood, the US average 12%

There are some 125,000 Irish born Americans in the US. On average they are older (median age 60) and somewhat wealthier than the population as a whole (household incomes $56k v $50k). This may change over the next year or so, with a new wave of emigration.

The Irish are better educated than the general population. 32% of those over 25 have a college degree v 27% in the general population.

70% of those with Irish ancestry own the home they live in v 66% of Americans (Does this remotely sound true?)

There are are 9 cities named Dublin's and 4 Shamrocks in the US

Time to hit the streets

Tommy Kane

Several gentle readers have commented on the drawing which graces my header. It's by Tommy Kane.

I wish I could say it was surfeit of aesthetic judgement that led me to Tommy's art. It wasn't. It was pure, unadulterated, smilingly great serendipity, a laignape. That's the best kind.

Having a few sous left over on a Sunday morning, I was willing to throw caution to the wind and blow it mindlessly, when from the dark, piggish recesses of my soul I blurted ART. That's what I need. I need ART.

So being an Etsy virgin I started there, entered a few keystrokes, and up popped Tommy's ETSY store. I fell hard, head over heels.

If you are unfamiliar, Tommy is a pro's pro having spent the past 25 years as an award winning art director for television commercials, print advertising and music videos. You've seen his work, you just don't recognize it as his. Italy's leading newspaper, La Repubblica, calls Kane one of the great undiscovered artists in America. I agree and and am happy to spread his gospel.

Tommy has also self published two books of his travels, the most recent in Cambodia. Take alook here.

My thanks to Mr. Kane, I am so glad to have found you, and your art, and yes this is an unsolicited, unpaid testimonial, from the heart. Your art has found a happy home.

Can't hurt to try, can it?

Beware the Ides of March.

I'm uncertain whether this works for women, but I'm game, and for you and science I'll give it a go, and willingly share MY results, but it may take several years, so please be patient.

According to a learned study reported a while back by The Med Guru, I can quit my daily gym routine and in exchange undertake a regime of vigorous ogling.

"Frankfurt, Germany, December 6 -- A rather bizarre study carried out by German researchers suggests that staring at women's breasts is good for men's health (depends on whose?) and increases their life expectancy. (I may be an exception as Mrs. T disagrees about me and the life expectancy thingee)

"According to Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist and author of the study, gawking at women’s breasts is a healthy practice, almost at par with an intense exercise regime, that prolongs the lifespan of a man by five years. (Per occasion? I may live to be...) "

No mention of drooling. My grandfather used to ogle and drool, but we thought he had old timers. Now I learn we caught him amidst his exercise, shame on us.)

"She added, "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out." (Seemingly for the female. Try this in real life guys and see where/how you end up.)

In olden days, men could ogle while at work. Women would get their 30 minute aerobics running around office furniture. It seemed fair at the time, although it is a practice no longer recommended.

Like I said I'll try it, but I'm unsure I want to live to be a 1000. Should you notice I'm not here, in a few days call the police, Mrs. T has killed me.

An editorial and observation

Please note that I am in no way making sport with our friends and allies in Japan, it's just that some things are too hard to ignore.

Have you been watching the news from Japan this weekend?

I have been riveted, and something has struck me powerfully. Ever since the earthquake Japanese politicians have been on television, telling their countrymen how badly screwed they are. " We've lost 25% of our national electrical generating capacity, there are several nuclear power stations with melting cores on our mainland. The bodies of your friends and families are washing up on shore, your homes, highways, and way of life have been destroyed. Godzilla can't get here until Tuesday. Ad nauseum."

Obviously, the folks are depressed, in shock, scared, homeless, screwed, but from what I've seen stoic and believing they are dealt with honestly.

In the US, during any calamity, it's understood that any and every official on the air is a manifestation of Pinocchio. We can clearly tell who is lying. The guy with his lips moving.

Granted, I'm watching Japanese news through a US filter, but it is refreshing to WANT to believe that governments can be honest with their citizens during horrible events. It's just a shame it's unlikely to ever happen here.

Toad

When Brooks serves you lemons....

As long as BB's serves up softballs I gotta swing. Jim Bob's dad instructed us early that if you don't take advantage of idiots, God will stop sending them your way, believing that you no longer want to play. Please Coach, put me in.


After school mom and dad collect the kids, telling them it's time to do a bit of spring clothes shopping. Your oldest daughter asks where are we going? There is after all the lame mall and the less lame mall, but it's farther away. Mom says, why don't we go visit the folks with the cool old truck in their ad. Oldest son wets himself in disbelief.


So everyone's in the car but dad's going the wrong way. Junior smells a rat. He's about to get screwed but doesn't know how, where or why, until Pop pulls into the Brooks Brothers lot.

Mom this isn't the Hilfigers store with the truck. Mom. The anxiety is palpable. Imagine a Greek chorus chanting "I'm not getting out of the car" becoming louder and louder.

Says mom, it's just the same as that other truck. Come on in, it will be fine.



Mother, I attend a public high school, not New White Bread City High!!!! Are we moving, I'll never be able to show my face..... What is this crap?

Dad, of course is oblivious to the noise around him. He's timed this perfectly. They shop and he's home in time for martinis and the news.


Ladies is this fetching shirt dress burning a hole in your credit card? Only $65. I didn't think so either.


There is something really creepy about the photo above. Young Barbara Bush looks 15 while he's old enough to be hitting on moms at the tennis club.

My personal favorite is the photo below. Western wear from BB's. There was a time when BB didn't have shirt pockets.



The treasures above are from BB's Supima Cotton Collection catalog.

before and after

It's only natural that a man would want his dog to exude a certain flair, a point of view, a dogly elegance. Freud would have a field day, but a dog, after all, is a manifestation of a world view.


To that end, dogs have expectations of us too. Let down the side and there is hell to pay.

Yesterday, I let down the side. Pooh was too matted to brush , and Charlie came home from a walk in the woods full of burrs and vermin, so I called for a day at the groomers.

They are not amused. I can only barely tell them apart. Charlie has furrier ears, and tail.

If you pay attention, you can read a dog's questions by its demeanor. Both are asking why I couldn't wait a month, or at least until it warmed up a tad.

Perhaps you had to have been there.

What it was, was football

It's hard to imagine that when television was in its infancy, Andy Griffith, AKA Opie's pop, Sheriff Andy Taylor began his performing career as a stand up comedian. This bit, released in 1953 as a 78 or a 45 RPM record (ask your parents) gives an early glimpse of his mostly unchanging style. What it was was describes a strangers visit to a football game. Refer back often to refresh your memories of the sport during the coming strike.

Hope you enjoy.

Danny and Annie

I never knew from StoryCorps until last evening when I saw this video.

"Danny Perasa and his wife, Annie, came to StoryCorps to recount their twenty-seven-year romance. As they remember their life together from their first date to Danny's final days with terminal cancer, these remarkable Brooklynites personify the eloquence, grace, and poetry that can be found in the voices of everyday people when we take the time to listen."

It's a beautiful story. I hope you enjoy it.



Toad

My Inspiration

Raise your hand, if after your New Years resolution to drop a few pounds went south, you now secretly plan to include a weight loss nudge in whatever you have given up for Lent. If there are fewer than 2 of you, someone's lying. You should give that up too.

While not a Lenten thing with me, I have been trying to give some weight back. My inspiration is star of stage and screen, comedian Drew Carey.



Drew was an unhappy fat man. His mother had just died, he had heart disease and physically felt miserable. That's when he decided to do something about it.

I've a few years on him, but when we started, Drew and I were about the same size. I'd been toiling away in the wilderness, when I read a story about him in Parade, and his plan to drop 92 pounds in a year.



Damned if he didn't do it. My timescale isn't so ambitious, but the goal is the same. Everyday, I am nudged by this Drew quote.

“Eating crappy food is not a reward—it’s a punishment.”

If you too are struggling for motivation, remember the Nike motto. Just do it. You'll be glad you did.

Toad

Lenct-monat

Bruegel-The Fight between Carnival and Lent

In western Christian churches, today marks the beginning of Lent, a season of fasting, reflection and penance in preparation for the coming celebration of Easter. But where does the name Lent come from? What does it mean?

As we discovered this last week, in some Celtic neighborhoods long before they ran out of room and settled in Scotland and Ireland, March was known as Lenct-Monath or the long month, as the hours of daylight were becoming longer than night.

Before going soft, the Roman church celebrated 2 annual periods of penance, fasting and preparation- during the weeks prior to Christmas (Advent) and Easter (now). The Easter fast most always begins in March- hence the Lenct fast. The name stuck, traveled well and eventually became modernized- to Lent.

In other news:

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Vita Sackville West, the patron of garden writers and creator, along with husband Harold, of the fabulous gardens at Sissinghurst Castle. Her collected garden columns are a treat to read, but more provocative is the biography writen by her son Nigel Nicolson of her life with husband Harold "Portrait of a Marriage."

They loved each other deeply, just not exclusively. In many respects they lived too soon.



Toad

Carnival

I was surprised by those who wrote asking about Mardi Gras. I presumed everyone knew, but in Protestant Europe it's now mostly celebrated in the abeyance.

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) or Carnival is celebrated the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. The celebration is as old as religion, and has been observed everywhere throughout the western world at one time or another. In ancient Rome it was Saturn's feast, a time of debauchery. Since, it has been alternately a celebration of the coming of Spring, or a religious festival.

The Church of Rome, put paid to Saturn's feast, and gradually turned the bacchanalia to something better able to serve their needs.

In once predominately Catholic countries, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and their territories, communal parties were held to to empty the larder of forbidden meat, eggs and butter before the severe Lenten fast. Pancake Day celebrations in Britain are the last vestige of this old tradition.

The first Mardi Gras celebration in the US was held in Point Mardi Gras, in now Alabama in 1699. Mobile is credited with the oldest Mardi Gras in what is now US territory (1703). As the capital of French America bounced around the gulf coast from Mobile west to New Orleans, the festival followed. Little excuse was necessary to have a party in seaport towns.

Let the good times roll.

Toad

The Namer

In his book, The Best of Plimpton, George writes about his ideal retirement.

"Every once in a while I wonder vaguely what I will do very late in my declining years-when just sitting in a chair may be all I can do. The notion has kept recurring that, being a fireworks enthusiast, I would delight in being retained (at a nominal fee, mostly for travel) by Oriental fireworks manufacturers to be assisted out to a field and settled into a chair, possibly with a headrest attached, so that looking up into the night sky would be comfortable, where my function would be to decide on names for their new aerial shells. I would be known as "The Shell-Namer." "

A man's got to dream and this is an honorable calling. To paraphrase Tristram Shandy, "to each man his own hobby horse", and George did love his fireworks. He just didn't dream big enough.

Me, I'd rather be the "Pill Namer".

What manner of idiot names pharmaceuticals? "Ask your doctor if Astro is right for you", my foot. I'd give them real names, for treating real symptoms. Names you'd insist on. Dr. I demand to have....

I'd start by re-naming Viagra.

On nights and weekends I could become "The Car Namer."

Think there is any money in kid naming? If in want, I may be reached here.

Toad

Coming Home- A rant

Once upon a time, I asked if the I Hate Men Network (Lifetime) had women working there. I had taken offence at an airing of Pride and Prejudice, in which the ending was cut. I ask again, do they hire women, or anyone who is in or has ever been in a family, or does the glass ceiling stop at the front door?

Most of the world's difficulties can be laid at the feet of boys and beer, a lethal combination for any brain cell activity. Boys and beer will do things no woman would ever consider. Imagine a woman green-lighting this.

For your consideration, I present I Hate Men Channel's new television series Coming Home. Coming Home is a typical All-American maudlin soap opera of families separated, obstacles overcome, with alls well at the end of the story, but with a cold, cruel twist. In this new series, which begins this evening, military service men and women, who have been serving honorably in difficult overseas assignments, just happen to come home and drop in on their families, UNANNOUNCED. Say that last sentence to yourself slowly.

The SOB's got sprung from Afghanistan, never told their families they were coming home, yet had the presence of mind to alert a camera crew, just to be able to play gotcha. Sixty six years ago, coming home unannounced was the norm, but now we have touch-tone. This is a low down, dirty, heartless trick.

I've been working so hard lately to keep my cynicism in check, and then they go and do this. I do so hope I'm wrong about this, and will apologize to each and every one of you if I am. Someone will have to let me know though, for in protest for the rest of March, or until the PBS fund raiser is over (whichever comes first) I am joining TV less Divine Theatre.

End of Rant. Thank you

Toad

While in KC for the tourney...

Should you be fortunate enough to find yourself in Kansas City this spring, you may want to plan a side trip to Union Station (across the street from the WW1 Memorial), to take in the Diana, a Celebration exhibit.

Included are Diana's wedding dress and numerous personal and family mementos. If your invite to her son's wedding isn't forthcoming this may be the next best thing.

It runs through June 12, after which it returns to Althorp, her family's estate.

Toad

Hoz's suit

I've written before that I do not hold with visible monograms on men's shirts. To me, it's a very short step from wearing a name tag. My friends wear them, my favorite blogger wears them, you may wear them. I'm not judgmental. If you want to, go ahead, I won't say anything, they are just not for me



However, there is a line, at least in the sand of matters sartorial, where when it comes to writing on clothing, one may never cross, even if a thug. I saw it at How to talk to girls at parties.

ADG, esteemed monogramist and arbiter of clothing related fuzzy dice over at Maxminimus, has likely as not, never even once considered this contrivance, but god help us if he finds a good cloth maker.


Put your glasses on and look closely at the photo above. See it? The pin stripes. Clearly, in the early stages of old timers, Hoz had the fabric woven with his NAME- written in English-picked into the stripes. Have you ever? Imagine going eyeball to eyeball with this giddyup and having to keep a straight face.

As my sainted mother drilled into her sons, "bad taste speaks louder than money." I now understand why the Egyptians wanted him gone so badly.

Toad

World War I The end of an era

via AP

There has been a rash of WWI veteran news lately.

Two weeks ago, Florence Green, the sole surviving female WWI veteran turned 110. She enlisted in the Womans Royal Air Force in the summer of 1918, serving a variety of jobs in the military from mechanic to clerk to waitress. She lives with her 89 year old daughter in Norfolk.

Last week, the sole surviving American veteran, Frank Buckles died, a month after his 110th birthday. Entering the Army, at 16 after lying about his age, in April 1917. After the war he entered the shipping industry working for White Star Lines. In 1941, while in the Philippines on business, he was captured by the Japanese, and served 3 years as a POW.

Today marks the 110th birthday of the last WWI combatant, Claude Choales. Living in Australia since 1926, Claude joined the Royal Navy after lying about his age to enlist. Happy Birthday Mr. Choales.

The last Axis veteran is believed to have been Franz Kuenstler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who died in 2008.

God bless them all.

Toad

Cool Guy - Tom Wolfe

Today we celebrate the birthday of National Living Treasure, Mr. Tom Wolfe.

If you are unfamiliar with his writing, you are missing a snapshot of America. Wolfe's writing is central to understanding American culture, obsession and fear over the past 50 years.

Curious what 1960's America was like? You could do a lot worse than The Kandy Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby , or The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The '70's: The Right Stuff, or perhaps The Painted Word. 80's- The Bonfire of the Vanities, 90's- A Man in Full.

My all time favorite is still Radical Chic and Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers.

Happy Birthday Mr. Wolfe, may you life forever.

Toad

Martius

Why name a month for the god of war?

Blame the Romans. For most of recorded history March was the first month of the calendar year. Romans believed that Mars, father of their founder Romulus, deserved the honor .

The ancients, untroubled by political correctness, called things as they saw it. The Goths anticipating good weather for battle held their war councils in March. Their neighbors implored their war gods for protection. The martial name stuck.

Other places, not worried by a thundering herd of marauders, named it and claimed it. The Saxons called it Lenct-Monat, translated to length month, as the days are finally longer than the nights (pay attention to this name, it comes up again in a few days). Celts called it Klydmonath-the stormy month. Scots name this the windy month, Finns the month where we see the ground. The non western world has a different scheme so they don't play.

Today is also marks St. David's Day, the patron of Wales. Unlike the lawless bacchanals in Ireland celebrating St. Patrick's Day on March 17, St. David festivals are more subdued, in keeping with the practices allowed a captured nation under colonial rule. A bit of singing, poetry, eating, a toast or two. The Red Dragon, the heraldic emblem of Wales will fly.

Toad

The Rules of Basket Ball

American college basketball is a sport where how the team plays during the season is mostly meaningless except for Las Vegas bookmakers. The post season tournaments are what matters. It's where the money is.

It wasn't always thus.

Basketball, originally the proverbial, cut a hole in a peach basket affair, was invented, around 1890, by Dr. James Naismith in Springfield Massachusetts. Naismith invented the game, it was his basket, he got to make the rules. Eventually he codified his new game into 13 simple rules,which he typed and carbon copied. When asked, he would mail a carbon to anyone looking to create a team. The original 13 typed rules remained with the Naismith family.

Later, Naismith moved to the University of Kansas (1898) taking his game with him. To this very day, Dr. N is spoken of in hushed, reverential tones in the Land of Ahs, his grave site is near the University, the Field House is named for him. Kansans will broach no disrespect on this subject.

Last December an auction of historical memorabilia was held by Sotheby's. Included in the auction were Robert Kennedy's copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abe himself, a battle flag from the Little Big Horn and the original, typed by Naismith, rules of Basket Ball.

The Rules trumped all other items and were purchased for $4.3 million by the Booth's, a prominent Kansas family who immediately donated the rules to KU and tossed in a few more dollars to erect a shrine at Kansas University's Naismith Field House to awe all who enter their Basketball temple.

The shrine isn't yet ready, but Kansas City has a museum, and a tournament coming up. If you are in town for the Big 12 Conference tourney, March 5 -9 stop by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to take a look. The rules will be on display until May 29, 2011.

Toad

Kate's mum

PIG!!!!!!!!!! Go ahead and shout it, I've been called worse. Today even.

I've nothing against the pretty young things, but there's no mutual risk and I simply have no interest. I find them terribly overrated. Take Queen2be Kate for instance. Cute girl. Cleans up well. I hope Kate, the lad and their islanders are eternally happy.

I'm more taken by her mum, Carole. She's hot...as well as smart.

Just saying.

Toad