Thursday, August 29, 2013

Ed Schultz Knows From Hunger on Detroit (and Other Subjects)

A few weeks ago, Ed Schultz, one of the MSNBC
commentators on the political scene, contributed
his two cents as to why Detroit has suffered
economic collapse. Judging his thoughts on the
matter, I'd say that one of the two pennies he
gave is counterfeit and the other badly tarnished.

He posited: "Michigan used to be a symbol of
industrial strength in manufacturing in this country.
But thanks to a lot of Republican policies, the city
is now filing for bankruptcy. Now, it's the largest
public sector bankruptcy in U.S. history, and the
consequences could be devastating if you care
about people ... Roughly 30,000 retired workers
are concerned about their pensions ... Make no
mistake, Detroit is exactly what the Republicans
want. They outsourced manufacturing jobs,
attacked unions, cut public services, and this is
the result. Now they can wipe the slate clean
because now they can start privatizing city
assets."

Now, my wonderful readers, your faithful
Peasant has given the reasons why Detroit
is now stony broke just a couple of weeks
ago on this blog. And I averred that Detroit
has not had a Republican mayor in a half
century, nor has it had a Republican-led
city council in all that time. I also commented
on how payments into the public employee
pensions were deferred with much of that money
going into the pockets of the Democrat pols
and their pals. The approximately 30,000
retired public workers are being rewarded
not for their years of service but for their years
of voting for Detroit Democrats who have
thus stabbed them in their backs and in their
wallets. But somehow this MSNBC lunatic
thinks that it's not the Dems but the GOP
that is to blame for Detroit's sorry condition!
What would repair this fevered fool's sorry
mental state; electroshock therapy, a course
of lithium, or a lengthy stretch in a padded
cell while trussed up in a straitjacket?
Perhaps Schultz needs all three!

Anyway, I had also commented a much
longer time ago on Schultz and his illogical,
wild, incoherent ravings on political and
economic matters. His recent performance on
MSNBC regarding Detroit is his latest
theatrical offering in the theatre of the absurd.
And many left-wingers like Schultz are
slavishly mimicking his rantings. And these
are the same folks that voted for Obama twice,
who believe in the president's wild-spending
"cure" for our nation's economic troubles,
who believe that the scandals of the IRS,
the crackdown on the freedom of the press
regarding coverage of the administration,
and Benghazi are "phony scandals", and
call we dissenters (especially those of us
involved in the Tea Party) "extremists",
"terrorists", "bullies", "racists", and names
that your respectful and respectable Peasant
cannot print here.

Just another day in Obama's Post-Constitutional
and Post-Reality America.


MEM

Thursday, August 22, 2013

A Little Bit of Ireland in Milwaukee

The Peasant has returned from his annual Irish holiday
(at the Milwaukee Irish Fest) and boy the fun I had!
Four days of Irish music, cuisine (liquid and solid!),
currach races (currachs are Irish rowboats, commonly
sailed in by Irish fishermen and women), irish dog
shows (Irish Steeters, Irish Wolfhounds, Irish Terriers,
etc.), getting together with old friends and making new
friends, including making friends with internationally
renown singers Ronan Tynan and Tom Paxton, and
helping out again in the Aer Lingus music booth
selling CDs and DVDs ... man, life doesn't get better
than this for a part-Irish Peasant!

When I arrived at my work station, the aforementioned
Are Lingus booth, I received my 5-year volunteer service
pin from my booth coordinator. I worked in that booth
five years straight; now I've gathered some moss, so to
speak. On Friday I met American folk singing legend
Tom Paxton, and got his autograph. Tom and I have a
mutual friend who himself is in show business, actor
Mike Farrell (M*A*S*H*; he played Captain B.J.
Honeycutt in the TV series), and we are allies in the
quest to abolish capital punishment in the United States.
We're two liberals and a conservative, so I have little in
common politically with them, but these men are of great
integrity and are not at all the usual showbiz liberals
who affect a pose with their politics, spouting slogans
mindlessly just to appear "cool". What you see with
these gentlemen is what you get. Mike told me to
tell Tom that Mike "is a big fan"; this I dutifully did,
giving Tom a chuckle. The next day, our booth sold out
of the quantity of Tom's CDs and an illustrated book
with the words to a great child's song that he wrote
over forty years ago about a unique and unusual toy
that a little boy received as a gift from his dad, and the
joy and wonder it gave them. I told Tom that in the five
years of working in the Aer Lingus booth I never saw
anyone's merchandise sell out so fast; people began lining
up at our booth to buy Tom Paxton's CDs and copies of
his book before his concert at our stage concluded, and
next got in line at the autograph counter to get them signed,
and everything Paxton went in twenty minutes flat! The
veteran folkie was delightfully surprised, and told me when
I asked if he had any other merchandise with him he said
that he did not. Count on Tom Paxton to bring a truckload
of goodies with him should he return to our Irish Fest!

Meeting Ronan Tynan of The Irish Tenors fame was a treat.
I told Ronan that I heard him in concert in Saint Paul over
a decade ago when I lived up there, and I remembered his
accompanyist on pianp, an Australian gentleman who also
sang beautifully himself. Ronan was impressed and over-
joyed that I was that big of a fan! We talked about my friend
Chuck Ward, who was a co-founder of out Irish Fest with
his brother Ed and was in the local Irish music band Blarney.
I was wearing my badge with his picture, and told Ronan
that I wear the badge and have founded a song circle that
I named for him upon his passing in 2010. Ronan said that
he wished that hecould have met him. This great tenor is
a huge fellow, well over six feet tall, and broadly built,
but is a very gentle and joyful gentleman. He told some
wonderful anecdotes from his earlier career years and
spoke of his parents and the encouragement that he had
gotten from them to go after his dreams between songs.
What a joy and a privilege to have Ronan Tynan at our
Irish Fest! I still pinch myself to see if it really happened.

On Sunday after the Irish Fest Peace and Justice Mass I
was joined at my table in the Tipperary Tea Room, a
great place for bakery treats, tea and coffee (Irish coffee
too of course!) with a stage featuring great performers
all throughout the fest by Jeff Ward and his lovely wife
Dorothy, Jeff is an Irish native while Dorothy is a native
of Newcastle in Great Britain. Jeff has been singing at our
Irish Fest now for twenty consecutive years and I have met
him for the first time three years ago, but this time your
overjoyed Peasant got to send more time with him and his
wife as well. We talked of Irish music and my Irish and
English roots. What a warm and engaging couple. And
I got to hear Jeff in concert to boot!

I met up with a couple of my friends in our Chuck Ward
Celtic Song Circle and we caught some singers and bands
in concert, and attended the closing ceremonies called
"The Scattering" at nine in the evening. Nearly all of the
artists who came to perform throughout the concert were
onstage singing, dancing, and playing instruments for us,
closing with the traditional closing song of the Milwaukee
Irish Fest, "Will You Go Lassie Go", a song I know well
and dearly love. Then, we were treated to a grand fireworks
display to close out the fest. Well, not quite. One of my
Chuck Ward pals thought it would be fun to begin a song
session after the fireworks, and I said "Great! Let's do it!"
So we started singing some Irish songs and some of our
fellow fest attendees joined us! We kept singing as we
made our way to the gates to exit the grounds, and I led us
at the end singing "Galway Bay", getting loud cheers and
applause as we strolled out through the gates!
So we were the act to close out the 2013 Milwaukee Irish
Fest, as an impromptu and unexpected feature we were,
so to speak.

And this, my friends, is my annual vacation, my personal
Irish holiday. An Irish holiday without even leaving town!
One day, when my finances are stronger, I shall visit the
Emerald Isle itself, and I shall stay for a good long stay
too! But I love my hometown's Irish Fest with all my heart,
and I shall attend, volunteer at, and sing at the fest with all
my friends until I leave this world.

We'll get together again, my dear readers, next week. May the
wind be at your back, may the road rise to meet you, and may
you get to heaven an hour before the devil knows you're dead.
That's an old Irish blessing which I now pass along to you,
with my love and appreciation.


MEM



Thursday, August 8, 2013

It's Milwaukee Irish Fest Time Again!

My great and grand readers, your Irish-imbued
Peasant will be attending Milwaukee's Irish Fest
again in the middle of this month. The event
will go from 8/15 through 8/18, and since the
first day of it is on a Thursday, there shall be
no posting for that week. I shall be taking the
week off to prepare for the festival, in which
I again shall be a volunteer worker in the music
booth by the Aer Lingus Stage, my yearly
station at the Green Bash. The event is held at
the Henry Maier Fairgrounds on the shores of
Lake Michigan in downtown Milwaukee.

Also, I shall be enjoying many fine musical
performances by the assembled talent as well
as a theatrical performance of two as well;
the Irish are as good with theatre as they are
with music! In addition, I shall be getting
together with family and friends from near and
far (including from the Emerald Isle itself),
and will be enjoying loads of great food and
drink! Fine ales, Irish whiskey, corned beef
sandwiches, potatoes done up many delcious
ways, and anything else that looks and tastes
good --- I'm going for it all!

If any of you would like to come to the Irish
Fest here in my hometown, click this link for
details: www.irishfest.com./

It is the next best thing to visiting dear old
Ireland itself! Hope to see many of you there!
Drop by the Aer Lingus Stage music booth
and ask for me!


MEM

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Some People Never Learn!

By now, my great and glorious readers, you have
no doubt heard of the latest sexcapade of former
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (SO aptly named!)
who is now a candidate for the office of New York's
Mayor. And it's the same activity which caused
his first scandal, causing him to relinquish his
seat in Congress! Indeed, it seems that the boy
just can't keep it in his pants and off the 'net!

The New York Times ran a reproachful editorial
on July 24 chastising the veteran Democrat for his
repeated disgusting behavior, even urging him
to quit the mayoral race in the Big Apple.
The Times Editorial Board wrote:
"At some point, the full story of Anthony Weiner
and his sexual relationships and texting habits
will finally be told ... in the meantime, the
serially evasive Mr. Weiner should take his
marital troubles and personal compulsions
out of the public eye, away from cameras,
off the Web and out of the race for mayor
of New York City." Sound advice. Your
skeptical Peasant doubts, however, that the
former Congressman will heed it.

The strong words from the Times came a day
after Weiner had, once again, publicly
admitted to his sexual misadventure. If you
are a liberal politician and you get into a nasty
enough scandal, and the ever-left Times tells
you to hang it up, then you know you're
through! "A Web site called The Dirty had
another woman's story, another round of sex
texts, and another picture of Mr. Weiner's
penis," the Times continued. "The marital
trauma that Mr. Weiner and his wife,
Huma Abedin, had said was behind them was
not as far behind as we thought." Well, not
when the serial perv indulges in a new round
of sexual adventurism. Continuing with the
editorial scolding, the Times stated "Mr.
Weiner and Ms. Abedin have been saying that
his sexual behavior is not the public's business.
Well, it isn't, until they make it our business by
plunging into a political campaign ... To those
who know his arrogance and have grown tired
of the tawdry saga he has dragged the city into,
this is not surprising." OWWW!

And how about Mrs. Weiner, a Hillary Clinton-
esque figure to be sure! She, like the former First
Lady, seems willing to suffer whatever indignities
that her husband puts her through with his tawdry
dalliances just to steer him to political power (and
herself as well). If she has designs on public office
as Hillary has it remains to be seen, but time will
certainly tell. Like the Clintons, they are a truly
gruesome twosome!

The other major daily newspapers in New York
City have joined the Times in calling for Weiner
to get out of the mayoral race. But wouldn't you
know, Weiner has already said he will stay in the
race. Perhaps, though, something will prevail upon
him to see reason and exit the fray after all. We
can only hope. In the meantime, we are witnessing
another case of a politician all caught up in him-
self, thinking he is invincible where all from
criticism to scandal are concerned. Pride and hubris
always come before a fall; this is such a simple
lesson to learn, except for those who are long on
ego and arrogance while being short on smarts
and sense.