{"id":444197,"date":"2010-03-18T16:34:22","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T20:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011381390_stpatricksdayhascomeandgone.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-03-18T16:34:22","modified_gmt":"2010-03-18T20:34:22","slug":"st-patricks-day-has-come-and-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/444197","title":{"rendered":"St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paddy responsible for centuries of conflict in Ireland<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

I know that Wednesday, St. Patrick\u2019s Day, was a great excuse for most young Americans to go out drinking and have fun \u2014 safely, I hope. But in Thursday\u2019s Seattle Times there was a blurb about how St. Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland [\u201cSt. Paddy\u2019s Day,\u201d Newsline, March 18].<\/p>\n

Should we really be celebrating the person who may be at the root of centuries of conflict and of thousands of Irish deaths because of arguments over whose \u201cbrand\u201d of Christianity is \u201cright?\u201d Isn\u2019t St. Patrick responsible for a great deal of human suffering?<\/p>\n

I do not think we should celebrate in his name at all. Instead, let\u2019s celebrate the vernal equinox \u2014 it\u2019s just a few days later \u2014 when the hours of daylight and darkness are the same, promising longer days to come! We could celebrate the promise of spring and the natural part of the cycle of reproduction. We all enjoy springtime and our young adults can have just as much fun drinking green beer \u2014 symbolizing spring\u2019s green leaves.<\/p>\n

Think about the traditions which you celebrate blindly and without much thought. Use your reason and logic; Why are you doing this? Look at the results of these traditions and then consider throwing them away and creating new traditions, which do not celebrate prejudice or death.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jeff Wedgwood, Issaquah<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, go pinch yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n

Concerning The Times\u2019 promotion of \u201cpinching of no-green wearing misanthropes\u201d [\u201cAn Irish pub crawl for St. Patrick\u2019s Day\u201d, NWFriday, March 12], a person cannot be called a misanthrope for not wearing green.<\/p>\n

The misanthropes are the people who think that it\u2019s fun to pinch other people. As a person of Irish descent, I abhor the tawdry and cheap celebration of a supposed saint that has no relation to actual Irish tradition. A bunch of drunken brawlers \u2014 most of whom are not Irish \u2014 do no credit to Patrick.<\/p>\n

But endorsing schoolyard bullying is a new low. It\u2019s bad enough that on this day each year children have to endure this juvenile version of the inquisition, but do you really want a bunch of drunks running around pinching people?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Phil Fagerholm, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paddy responsible for centuries of conflict in Ireland Editor, The Times: I know that Wednesday, St. Patrick\u2019s Day, was a great excuse for most young Americans to go out drinking and have fun \u2014 safely, I hope. But in Thursday\u2019s Seattle Times there was a blurb about how St. Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland [\u201cSt. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}