School Changes Name of St. Patrick's Day to O'Green

[Dera]

PC is going too far!



Thursday, March 15, 2012
Mass. elementary school changes name of St. Patrick's Day to O'Green Day to be more inclusive

St. Patrick‘s Day has been replaced as the name for the school’s celebration surrounding the popular holiday. It’s been replaced with the generic “O’Green Day.”






(Billy Hallowell) -- St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday rooted in Christian values, however secular celebrations are also regularly held to commemorate the day. In fact, for a great many, the religious tones aren’t even a consideration, as alcohol, Shamrock shakes and other fun-filled elements regularly dominate the day’s observations. Somehow, though, the holiday is reportedly still too religious for one Massachusetts elementary school.

At the Soule Road School in Wilbraham, St. Patrick‘s Day has been replaced as the name for the school’s celebration surrounding the popular holiday. It’s been replaced with the generic “O’Green Day.” MassLive.com’s Patrick Johnson calls the move “a heavy-handed attempt to instill political correctness among
the impressionable 4th and 5th graders.”


The school’s principal, Lisa Curtin, is apparently looking to become more inclusive. So, rather than tout St. Patrick’s Day, she has purportedly come up with a way to circumvent the faith-related nature of the holiday. The school apparently did something similar for St. Valentine’s Day, which, in some classrooms, was referred to as “Caring and Kind Day.”


A copy of the school’s calendar shows March 16 listed as ”O’Green Day / Tasting’ of the Green,” although St. Patrick’s Day does, indeed, appear on the calendar (on Saturday):







Read more: http://www.600kcol.com/cc-common/new...#ixzz1pFjZQ4fz

[maryals]

No No NO, this Politically Correct Include Everybody nonsense has gone too far!!!!! On St Patrick's Day, everyone can be included and is included by adding O' or Mc' to the front of their name that day!
I can't stand it, I just can't stand it!

Mary and Baby

[Dr Powerfun]

O'GREEN Day?!
More like a steaming pile O'Crap!!

[Project]

How many people have any idea who St. Patrick was anyways? I just read the wikipedia article so I do, but I had no idea nor did I care before I did. In fact, I still don't care

[Alpha]

How many people have any idea who St. Patrick was anyways? I just read the wikipedia article so I do, but I had no idea nor did I care before I did. In fact, I still don't care

I hear you, however IMO it's not a matter of knowing or caring...it's a matter of respecting people who do know and care. People should be able to celebrate whatever they choose to celebrate.

I have never heard of anyone being denied participating in celebration, whether they knew, cared or believed. This PC BS is just another NWO plot to attempt to homogenize the planet!!!

[maryals]

I hear you, however IMO it's not a matter of knowing or caring...it's a matter of respecting people who do know and care. People should be able to celebrate whatever they choose to celebrate.

I have never heard of anyone being denied participating in celebration, whether they knew, cared or believed. This PC BS is just another NWO plot to attempt to homogenize the planet!!!

Well said! Even people who don't know St Patrick from a cake o' soap, know that it's a day to celebrate The Irish. And why not? A hundred years ago, Irish Immigrants were the most discriminated against of all the immigrants. It was common to see placards in store windows "Help Wanted, Irish need not apply".
But that said, were it not for the "Faith Base" of holidays like St Valentine's Day, St Patrick's Day, Christmas, Easter, then those holidays wouldn't even exist.

Hmmmm I wonder if that or any School Principle would dare to re-name any Muslim Holyday, to make it "All Inclusive".

Mary and Baby

[Project]

Maybe "Irish Day" would be good

I understand your positions, I just don't think the holiday means much and is just another reason to buy cheap junk made in china then throw it out the next day. No one I see on that day is thinking about history or saints or anything like that. They wear green, drink green beer, watch a parade.

I think probably Irish people hate St. Patrick's day more than anyone else, at least what it has turned into.

Same with Easter. Unless you are going to church and know what it actually is celebrating, all you are doing is eating chocolates and thinking of bunnies.

They just feel hollow these "holidays".

[Dr Powerfun]

Maybe "Irish Day" would be good

Faith and begorrah, that's a WEE better me lad! Still, call me a sentimental traditionalist but not at all am I big on "holiday homogenization". For one thing, in that regard I see achieving 100% 'purity' as problematic - even 'O'Green Day' doesn't cut it 'cause it carries a cultural aspect to it - and to re-brand it simply as 'Green Day' might suggest some kind of environmental worship!!

That said I can see how tough times must be for principals of indoctrination centers - ah, I mean educational institutions. Decisions, decisions! Administrating the effort involved in creating a totally non-offensive and inclusionary baby-sitting... I mean, 'learning' environment must be absolutely grueling.

Personally, I'd sooner see schools focus on teaching kids HOW to rather than WHAT to think. Of course, kids growing up into informed adults capable of independent thought AND decision making is precisely what TPTB don't want.

I understand your positions, I just don't think the holiday means much and is just another reason to buy cheap junk made in china then throw it out the next day. No one I see on that day is thinking about history or saints or anything like that. They wear green, drink green beer, watch a parade.

I think probably Irish people hate St. Patrick's day more than anyone else, at least what it has turned into.

Same with Easter. Unless you are going to church and know what it actually is celebrating, all you are doing is eating chocolates and thinking of bunnies.

They just feel hollow these "holidays".

Y'know, y'DO make a good point there Proj... Since the word 'Holiday' derived from the notion of "Holy Day", if folks don't know or care about the history and/or tradition behind them then what's it all about except for a diversion from the day-to-day grind?

OTOH, organized plot or not IF the intent IS to de-sanctify them all, you'd think the PC police ALSO oughta 'strike the root' and come up with some term other THAN holiday!

[Project]

How about we make it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuat...ssachusetts%29 instead, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalia or National Muay Thai Day or anything here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_17

[Judee]

Thought I'd throw this into the fray...


March 19, 2012
Was St. Patrick a slave-trading Roman official who fled to Ireland?



With St Patrick's Day upon us, a new study asks whether the saint fled his native Britain to escape a career as a Roman tax collector, only to arrive in Ireland and sell slaves.

The classic account of St. Patrick’s life tells us that he was abducted from Western Britain in his teens and forced into slavery in Ireland for six years before escaping, during which time his faith developed.

A new study looking at Patrick’s own writings in their historical context argues that the saint may have in fact fled to Ireland deliberately to avoid becoming a ‘Decurion’ – a Roman official responsible for tax collection.

The onerous duties of Decurions, and especially the requirement to make up for any shortfall in the tax revenues from their own pockets, was a strong incentive to abscond. Historians have long been aware of the possibility that Patrick’s own father, Calpornius, exploited a bail-out clause in Roman law that allowed him to leave his post as a Decurion by joining the clergy.

What seems to have escaped notice, however, is that the position of Decurion was de facto hereditary and, in addition, Decurions who joined the clergy were obliged by Roman law to install their sons in their place. However, by the time that Patrick was due to inherit his father’s office, the usual hardships of the Decurionate were exacerbated by the political and economic decline that Britain was experiencing.

“In the troubled era in which Patrick lived, which saw the demise and eventual collapse of Roman occupation in Britain in 410, discharging the obligations of a Decurion, especially tax-collecting, would not only have been difficult but also very risky,” says Dr Roy Flechner, of the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.

According to Flechner, once Patrick was faced with the obligation to become a Decurion following the void left by his father, he preferred to emigrate overseas. Ireland would have been a natural choice, given its proximity and links with western Britain.

Patrick’s writings reveal that his contemporaries accused him of going to Ireland for financial gain. By his own account, he was a wealthy man when he returned to Ireland after his alleged escape from captivity. Although he never says what his wealth consisted of, it must have been movable wealth of a kind that he could transport across the Irish sea to Ireland.

Ireland did not have a monetary economy at this early stage, so exchanging his family land in Britain for money would have been pointless. Slaves, however, were a highly valued commodity and Patrick mentions that his family owned slaves, which was common for aristocratic families in Britain at this time.

Slaves were also relatively easy to transport, and in the historical context it makes sense that Patrick would have converted his family wealth to slaves or taken the family slaves with him. So was St Patrick, the freed Christian slave of legend, actually a slave owner and trader?

“It may seem strange that a Christian cleric of Patrick’s stature would own slaves, but in late antiquity and the early middle ages the church was a major slave owner – we have early medieval Irish legal texts that regulate the ownership of slaves by the church,” says Flechner.

“The only objections to slavery known in this period and the early middle ages were cases in which Christian slaves were owned by non-Christian masters. Patrick is known to have attempted to free enslaved captives, but
these were Christians whom Patrick had converted himself, and who were sold to Pictish masters.”

“The traditional story that Patrick was kidnapped from Britain, forced to work as a slave, but managed to escape and reclaim his status, is likely to be fiction: the only way out of slavery in this period was to be released by manumission or redeemed, and Patrick never says he was redeemed. The traditional legend was instigated by Patrick himself in the texts he wrote, because this is how he wanted to be remembered.”

Adds Flechner: “Escaped slaves had no legal status and could be killed or recaptured by anyone. The probability that Patrick managed to cross from his alleged place of captivity in western Ireland back to Britain undetected, at a time when transportation was extremely complicated, is highly unlikely. It is interesting that early medieval commentators were uneasy with the account of the escape, and by the seventh century a new legend emerged in which Patrick is said to have attempted to redeem himself. Other commentators draw attention to the similarities between Patrick’s story and Exodus 21:2, which stipulated that slaves must be freed
after six years.”

“None of this is to say that Patrick was not a bishop or that he did not engage in missionary activity, but his primary motives for moving to Ireland were most likely to escape the poisoned chalice of his inherited position in Roman Britain.”

More information: This article was published in Tome: Studies in Medieval History and Law in Honor of Thomas Charles-Edwards, ed. F. Edmonds and P. Russell (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2011).

Provided by University of Cambridge

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-...oman-fled.html