COLUMN: ARE WE RETIRING DISCOVERY – OR JUST THE SHUTTLE NAMED DISCOVERY? by John P. Flannery

Astronaut Gene Cernan and John Flannery

This week we celebrate our retreat from the exploration of space.

Thirty Thousand onlookers are visiting Washington Dulles International Airport to welcome the arrival of the Space Shuttle Discovery so that it may be powered down and cabined away in retirement at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

We should be mourning instead of celebrating because taking this shuttle out of service shows that our nation lacks the resolve that put a man on the moon, a space station in orbit, and an all-seeing eye (the Hubble Telescope) in the sky to show us the way to the stars.

It has been my honor and privilege to know several astronauts who risked their lives and devoted their careers to space exploration. 

When I asked Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, what he thought about retiring the shuttle, Gene said, “we now have several new space museums.” 

Only last September, Gene told Congress that “we had the most capable operationally proven launch vehicle available … giving [the United States] unprecedented personal and payload access to low Earth orbit,” and warned Congress that the retirement of the shuttle fleet would leave us with “zero capability to access” the space station and the idea was “poorly thought out and premature.” 

Gene wonders why he spent thirteen years of his life exploring space – if we have decided to squander all that we’ve learned by retiring our shuttle fleet and “disabling our nation’s space program.”  The poet Shelley wrote of a king who lamented, “look on my works, ye mighty and despair!  Nothing beside remains.”  Does this lament describe our space program?

The Discovery Shuttle spent 365 days on 30 missions, three missions working on the Hubble Telescope.  It is the fourth shuttle orbiter taken out of service and consigned to a trophy case.  The Shuttle Enterprise is moth-balled in New York, the Endeavor in LA, and the Atlantis in Florida.  These other shuttles completed an additional 100 missions. 

Cernan told Congress last September that our nation is “on a path of decay,” surrendering its lead in space to its former adversary, Russia, and jeopardizing any possible return to the moon or exploration of Mars. 

Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell told me, “It is a shame that we are putting these good Orbiters out to pasture when they could still be supporting the International Space Station (ISS).”  Lovell said, “The money saved in [the Shuttles’] demise is being wasted in a confused budget supporting a ‘mission to nowhere’ space program.”

The world renowned Cambridge Physicist Stephen Hawking, in his book, “The Universe in a Nutshell,” said that “by 2600 the world’s population will be standing shoulder to shoulder, and electricity use will make the Earth glow red-hot.” 

Hawking said there is a “sick joke” that “the reason we have not been contacted by extraterrestrials is that when a civilization reaches our stage of development, it becomes unstable and destroys itself.” 

Hawking doesn’t, however, “believe the human race has come so far just to snuff itself out when things are getting interesting.”  He is concerned, however, that “we shall have to explore the galaxy in a slow and tedious manner,” absent some variant of warp drive.

“We must continue explorations in space,” Apollo 14 lunar pilot Edgar Mitchell told me, “as that is our destiny.”

The Director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, in his popular book, “Space Chronicles,” says, “we know in our minds, but especially in our hearts, the value to our culture of new voyages and the new vistas they provide.” 

Tyson says we have to return to the moon again because we “haven’t been out of low Earth orbit for 40 years,” and must “remind ourselves how to do that,” and “figure out how to set up a base camp and sustain life in a place other than Earth;” also we know that any trip to Mars “takes about nine months” whereas the Moon is “three days away.” 

Tyson explains that the $100 billion dollar cost spread over the several years still amounts to less than one-half of one percent of our tax budget.

Another cost of shutting down manned space flight is the many young men and women who might devote their studies, their lives and genius to space if, as Gene puts it, our nation had not made “a pledge to mediocrity.” 

President John Kennedy told the students at Rice University on September 12, 1962, that there are those who “would have us stay where we are …”  These stand-patting mediocrities abound to this day.  Kennedy challenged students and the nation at large to embark on “the great adventure of all time.”  We must renew those challenges to persist in this adventure, and for the very same reasons Kennedy said, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills …” 

Jim Lovell once famously said, “Houston we have a problem.” We sure do again, and we’d better fix it.  We must start by listening to the astronauts who traveled in space -- instead of the small thinking bureaucrats who just take up space.

GAZETTE COLUMN: WHAT ABOUT AFTER BIRTH? by John P. Flannery

We spend a lot of time seeming to care about what happens from conception to cradle but not hardly enough as a community after children are actually born.

Judging by how many children are abandoned, beaten, tortured, sexually mistreated, addicted, uneducated, jobless, homeless, hungry, lost in our society to prostitution or pornography, and flat out killed in cold blood, we’re shamefully indifferent once we’ve encouraged everyone in creation to have children – and as many as they can.

My twin aunts Honora and Alma Flannery had a vocation to help children and spent a lot of their time at the New York Foundling Hospital starting in the 1950s. 

The Foundling found its mission after the Civil War when children showed up abandoned at St. Peter’s Convent on Barclay Street.  The good sisters opened a house especially for these abandoned children in 1869.  The very first day they formally opened, an infant was abandoned, left at their door step.  They tried from that day forward to care for these children, to supervise them and place them in good homes.  My aunts joined those that had gone before them in that effort.  But it was like trying to empty the ocean with a tea cup.  There were too many children.

Years ago, in the 80s, I met a red-headed high school student, then in Loudoun County.  His father, who suffered from schizophrenia, abandoned him before he was born, and his mother left him at the hospital once he was born.  You might think he got a break because he was taken in by his grandparents, except for the fact that they kept him in a closet, fed him animal food, and he developed lifelong disabilities from his confinement, abuse and malnutrition.  He also suffered from the onset of childhood schizophrenia – a genetic “gift” from his absent birth father.  I met him, after he’d been adopted by a good family, but also when he was charged with murdering another young man in Sterling.  We managed to avoid his execution on the murder charge, to save his “life,” and he’s awaiting parole in our Virginia prison system, meaning that he may never be released from custody.  This young man is not so exceptional among unwanted children. 

We might like to salve our collective conscience with the thought that some charity or government agency like the Foundling has got this covered and foster care and adoption are meeting the need.  Think again!

When I lived in the Bronx in our family’s best neighborhood ever, in the Throggs Neck section, a family next door served as “foster parents.”  They had new kids in and out so often it would make your head spin.  The adults that hosted the children were paid for their foster care “services.”  I suppose they did the best they could.

These kids in foster care often came from homes where they were abused physically or mentally or neglected – and the foster care system “succeeds” when it can return these children to the family that beat them, mistreated them, neglected them  – “reunification” it’s called – with assurances from the birth parents that they are never gonna do that again – until they often do (and are found out). 

It is chilling to consider that the youngest children are at the greatest risk, both infants and toddlers, higher than any other age group, and the number of serious injuries has quadrupled among these children in recent years. 

You can judge the results of foster care by what happens when these young men and women “age out” of foster care – and are on their own.  84.8% have no High School Diploma or GED.  22% are homeless.  16.8 % are on public assistance.  33.2 percent are involved in crime.  54.4 % have behavioral and emotional, school related, and mental and/or physical issues.  50% of the young women repeat the cycle that brought them unwanted into the world – as they have early pregnancies.

If you want to help, discourage unwanted children with birth control and better parenting advice to our children, than “just say no,” become a father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5, and James 1: 27) and adopt a child (if you can), or help other good families adopt, or read about the plight of these children and what some are doing (try Jill Duer Berrick’s book, “Take me Home”), or write to learn more about what to do to help those “aging out” of foster care (projectagedout@aol.com), as that’s how I got my stats for this column, and, if you care that much, start a “project aged out” in our own community – heaven knows, we could use one.

If America wants to continue to breed with abandon, then it has a responsibility to these unwanted children that it now completely ignores. 

# # #

GAZETTE COLUMN: “FOLLOW YOUR BLISS” – DON’T BE A DUMMY! by John P. Flannery

Terry Fator, his Mom Marie, and Terry’s “friends”, Emma Taylor and Winston the Impersonating Turtle

When trying to figure out what to do with your life, Joseph Campbell would tell his students, “Follow your bliss!”

How many Dads or Moms have snuffed out the spark that might illumine a life when they told a son or daughter, forget about it, you can’t make a living at it, and, if you even try, you’re no longer a member of this family?

Yeats said it was a curse to dream things that the world has never seen.  But such people enliven the world when they dare to make their dreams a reality.  In truth, the curse that we truly suffer is those who refuse to dream at all, for themselves, or for their children.  Proverbs say, “When there is no vision, the people perish…”  Blinding the young to the possibility of life is a cruel reality that endangers us all.

I was reminded of this sad and certain fact last week in between lectures on DNA alleles and how blood viscosity affects spatter at a forensics conference in Las Vegas.

While there I met Terry Fator, my wife Holly’s cousin. Terry’s now a top headliner at the Mirage Hotel, and a world-renowned ventriloquist, impressionist, singer and comedian, with a five year $100 million performance contract.  But Terry, now in his 40s, has fought against a strong headwind since he was 10 years old.

You may have seen Terry on David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey or Larry King. 

But it was on “America’s Got Talent” that he got his “big break” when he won a nationally televised contest that gave him a million dollars in prize money – after almost thirty years of church socials, birthday parties, county fairs, menial survival jobs, personal abuse, and, perhaps the most disappointing, a highly disapproving and abusive father who threatened at every turn to make Terry’s dream of fulfilled bliss a nightmare. 

Terry always knew he wanted to perform: he appeared in school plays, spoke louder and clearer than his peers, discovered that he could sing, and later that he could sing in the voice of almost any great performing artist, male or female, from Louie Armstrong to Cher. 

After discovering ventriloquism in a book at the library, Terry practiced saying the letters of the alphabet without moving his lips while he worked doing janitorial services.  Ultimately, he could not only speak but sing without moving his lips.

Finally, Terry had a real gift for writing and delivering a funny line.

But here’s the rub. 

From the very beginning, Terry’s father, Jep, abused Terry, making him uncertain that he had any gifts at all, telling him that he couldn’t sing, that he shouldn’t play with these dummies, and that he couldn’t write.

Terry was not, however, going to give up his dream, although he chased unsuccessfully after his father’s approval, in his own words, as Alice chased after the white rabbit in Wonderland.

Luckily, Terry was not entirely alone in his quest.  He was sustained in his life’s ambition by his mother Marie and by his siblings, Jep Jr.and Debi.

At his 20th birthday, Marie gave Terry a professional, hand-carved wooden dummy.  Terry named him Walter T. Airdale 27 years ago – kept him through various repairs and upgrades – and Walter announced at a performance last week that Holly and I attended that he was the first “manikin American” running for President with the campaign slogan, “nobody puts words in his mouth”  

No question Terry pays back and forward.  When Terry won the million dollars on “America’s Got Talent,” he confided to his sister that now he could afford the treatment that she needed for her debilitating rheumatoid arthritis.  After his brother shared the stage with Terry in various band incarnations before Terry went solo, Jep Jr. became President of Terry Fator Companies.  At every performance, Terry honors the military and sets aside contributions that he once could only hope he’d ever be able to give back.

Terry’s Mom, Marie, and her husband, David Sligh, brought us to see Terry in rehearsal, to his show and then to dinner with Terry and Taylor.  Taylor performs in Terry’s act and she’s more than that.  Terry and Taylor found each other in Las Vegas, fell in love, and now they’re happily married.

A few years ago, Terry wrote a book about his life, that he must have – at least unconsciously – intended as an answer to his Dad’s slanders against his high ambition; it’s titled, “Who’s the Dummy Now?”

Not all young men and women have the resolve and belief in self and can find the support elsewhere among family that allows for success.  It’s most offensive therefore when we stifle the dreams of the young who we insist are our legacy.

FORMER PROSECUTORS DEMAND THAT DOJ STOP "HIDING THE BALL" - IMMEDIATE RELEASE - J. FLANNERY

THE DOJ TEAM THAT WRONGLY PROSECUTED STEVENS

After the lying and withholding of exculpatory evidence in many federal prosecutions, the Stevens prosecution being just one recent illustration of this unfortunate truth, we have enlisted a spectrum of former prosecutors, white house counsel, noted authors, and members of congress from across the political spectrum to demand federal legislation to put an end to this misconduct.

More than 125 lawyers signed a letter urging Congress to take up criminal discovery reform and do something about it. 

The signatories included former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, author and SNR Denton partner Scott Turow, lead Stevens defense counsel Brendan Sullivan Jr. of Williams & Connolly, former US Attorney and Congressman Bob Barr, former White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, former DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson, ATR President Grover Norquist, former Appellate Judge H. Lee Sarokin, and former federal prosecutor and Capitol Hill Judiciary Committee Special Counsel John P. Flannery.

"Our experience leads us to believe that the vast majority of prosecutors act in good faith to fulfill their constitutional and legal obligations," the joint letter said.

"However, federal courts, the DOJ and other entities have for years articulated inconsistent, shifting, and sometimes contradictory standards for criminal discovery, leaving it up to individual prosecutors to navigate this legal maze and determine the scope of their obligations to disclose information."

Yesterday, Hank Schuelke, who Judge Emmet Sullivan appointed to investigate allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in Senator Stevens’s case, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.  

Much of the initial questioning concerned Mr. Schuelke’s findings about what occurred in the case and how the improperly withheld information could have affected the case’s outcome. 

However, the issue of legislative reform did arise, as well. 

Asked whether Congress should intervene to reform federal criminal discovery, Schuelke replied that the Congress should eliminate the materiality requirement so that in a pretrial setting, prosecutors would be required to disclose any information that is favorable to the accused, regardless of materiality. 

Schuelke acknowledged that the bill introduced on March 15th by Senator Murkowski (R-AK), the fairness in disclosure act, includes such a requirement; the text of that bill is found at the enclosed link - http://sdfla.blogspot.com/2012/03/fairness-in-disclosure-of-evidence-act.html .  

It closely mirrors the legislative reforms that our statement endorses.

The DOJ did submit a statement prior to the hearing expressing their opposition to any legislation reforming criminal discovery practices.  

This is a good example of how you can't teach an old dog new tricks - like fundamental fairness.  The DOJ can't really say they are doing the right thing now - or we wouldn't have these disclosures of misconduct and the clean up afterwards of dismissals and punished assistants.

When asked about the DOJ’s objections, Schuelke stated, “If the Department believes that there should be no pretrial materiality standard -- because that’s what they’re telling their prosecutors now to do --what is the principled reason for opposing legislation that does just that?”

Here is a link to the full hearing if you are interested: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/StevensP .

PRIMER ON THE SUPREME COURT HEALTH CARE ARGUMENT by John P. Flannery

The U.S. Supreme Court scheduled 5 1/2 hours of argument over three days on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  This is a primer on that historic argument.

The court schedule is as follows:

1.  On March 26, the Court scheduled one hour of argument on whether any challenge to the mandate requiring citizens to buy health insurance or pay a penalty must wait until 2014 when that part of the act takes effect.  The argument for "waiting" to decide the question occurs because, if the mandate is a tax, then it may only be attacked when it is imposed in 2014.

2.  On March 27, the Court scheduled two hours of argument on whether the U.S. Congress overstepped its powers under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution when it mandated buying insurance.

3.  On March 28, the Court scheduled 90 minutes of argument on whether the Act can survive if the mandate is struck down as constitutionally defective.

As for how historic is this argument, there has not been such a schedule since the Voting Rights Act challenge in the 60s, that ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

26 of 50 states have asked that the current patient protection law passed by the U.S. Congress be struck down - principally because of the insurance mandate.  136 other organizations have filed briefs both pro and con, urging the Court either to end or uphold the controversial health care bill.

Each Republican presidential primary candidate has declared that he will repeal the act if elected if the Supreme Court does not do so in its June 2012 decision.

In truth, it is unlikely that whomever is elected President will get an opportunity to repeal the Act.  The President alone can't repeal anything unless like-minded members, usually of his own party, controlling both houses repeal the patient protection enactment.

It is highly unlikely that the U.S. Court will overturn this health care law just as other historic challenges to significant legislation including the Voting Rights Act, the Social Security Act and the Civil Rights Act all failed.

This debate encompasses a few critical provisions in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, having to do with the enumerated powers of the U.S. Congress and how Congress may exercise those powers. The U.S. Congress has three relevant powers:  first, the power "to lay and collect taxes," second, the power to "provide for ... the general Welfare," and, third, the power "to regulate Commerce ...  among the several states."  Congress exercises these powers, according to that same article, by "mak(ing) all Laws which shall be necessary and proper" to their exercise.

The opponents of the bill insist the federal government may not mandate that any private citizen buy insurance, denying that Congress has the power to do so or the means to execute it. 

But Medicare already does what some argue can’t be done; Medicare’s coverage is presently financed, in its various parts, for those over 65 years of age with a tax-based "mandate" to buy health care insurance; this program, in place for more than 45 years, imposes a payroll tax on every worker and none may opt out of this "mandated" tax.  The opponents of the bill nevertheless persist that the federal government has no "business" in health care, despite Medicare, and government sponsored health care for the military and members of the U.S. Congress.

The rationale for this "new" mandate is fairly straightforward.  If you are going to guarantee health insurance coverage for every citizen no matter his or her pre-existing medical condition, then you have to protect the insurance system against "adverse selection," meaning those persons who have no "skin in the game" who choose not to pay for insurance, as they are presently young and healthy, but then opt into the system just when a medical condition does arise and they seek coverage then.  The mandate seeks to avoid free-loaders gaming the system and shifting the burden for their health care to every one else by failing to participate themselves until they have a health emergency.  The larger the insured pool of contributing participants, the more distributed the risk, and the more reasonable the premiums that everyone else has to pay.  The "mandate," requires each to buy insurance unless excluded because of poverty and, anyone who doesn’t, must pay a fine or tax that counterbalances this adverse selection.

Presently, we pick up the medical tab for those without insurance, often at emergency rooms, but we presume, as a matter of public policy, that these folk have no other alternative than emergency rooms.

Congress also has the power to tax and spend money for the general welfare.   We are quite familiar with Congress' ability to grant incentives by tax policies and to dedicate those revenues to advance policies deemed generally beneficial. In this case, Congress enunciated its lawful constitutional objective under its enumerated powers, of expanding health coverage nationwide, by eliminating pre-existing conditions that have precluded coverage, barring adverse selection, promoting pooling of those who were uninsured to make the premiums affordable, thereby reducing costly emergency room visits by the uninsured ill now covered by the general public.

As for interstate commerce, we can't ignore the fact that this is a multibillion dollar nationwide insurance industry that spans the geographic boundaries of the "several states" - meaning all fifty states.   Congress invoked a lawful and constitutional objective under the commerce power, making laws that were "necessary and proper," to regulate this huge expanse of commerce.  It is clear that any person’s decision not to purchase insurance taken in the national aggregate affects interstate commerce.  The general public should be aware that it doesn’t take much to find “interstate commerce” is affected.  In Gonzales v. Raich; the Supreme Court found that medical marijuana grown lawfully at home (under state law) for personal use and exclusively in one state, California, affected interstate commerce.

Accordingly, if the Supreme Court did the unexpected and struck down the insurance mandate in the Patient Protection Act, they would undermine years of Supreme Court precedents going back to our nation’s founding.

Our history in health care has been shameful, silent acquiesce to human suffering that so often ended in death for those who couldn’t afford treatment.  This Act is the first step in curing the nation’s indifference to universal health care.



GAZETTE COLUMN: NEXT BOS VOTE - SAVE THE MASTER GARDENER PROGRAM by John P. Flannery

It is not too late for the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors to save one of the most productive programs in Loudoun County – the Master Gardener program - even though the Board just cut out the heart of the program last week, by a vote of 5-4 against extending funding to pay the one person, Debbie D. Dillion, the urban horticulturist, who drives this program’s continued success.

Having said that, this column is not a hand-wringing post-mortem - as we can still save the Master Gardener program and restore Ms. Dillion to her post – but we must convince one disapproving member of the Board of Supervisors to change his or her vote at an upcoming meeting of the Board of Supervisors.

We should be grateful and thank those who supported this significant program -- Chairman Scott York (At-large), Supervisor Ken Reid (Leesburg), Geary Higgins (Catoctin) and Janet Clarke (Blue Ridge). 

But Supervisors Eugene A Delgaudio (Sterling), Matthew F. Letorneau (Dulles), Ralph Buona (Ashburn) and Suzanne M. Volpe (Algonkian) disapproved.  Of the dissenters, Mr. Delgaudio has made it clear he won’t change his mind – if you’re trying to figure whom you should call or write.

Mr. Higgins argued that this Master Gardener program was a great example of a “public-private partnership” given that it brings in for our community three times the productivity that it costs.  Similarly, Ms. Clarke encouraged Ms. Dillion to tell the Board why this program was so important.  But this wasn’t enough to carry the board the first go-round.

Mr. Letorneau said “these volunteers can continue to do that without the help of county government.”  Unfortunately, that’s just not so – not without Ms. Dillion’s participation.

Chairman York encouraged the public to try “to educate some of these Board Members who haven’t dealt with the rural area of the county.”  So let’s do just that although this program has a broader reach than “the rural area of the county”– as there are lawns, trees, veggie gardens and house plants across the county.

This phalanx of award-winning master gardeners in Loudoun County volunteer their time to conserve and perpetuate what Messrs. Jefferson, Adams and Washington held dear – a legacy of green growth both necessary to life but also beautiful to behold. 

These Master Gardeners are a resource of information and service for working farms, gardens, sustaining food gardens ("victory gardens"), trees, lawns and in house plants. 

My wife Holly, herself a Master Gardener, said that, “For those who do not have a veggie garden or who do not have an interest or time to grow one, the Master Gardeners’ have a ‘grass roots’ program and a ‘tree steward’ program that helps homeowners grow a healthier lawn, trees, and veggies -- for your family.”  Indeed, more than a ton of food grown by the Master Gardeners was distributed to Interfaith Relief to help feed those who have fallen on hard times in this recession.

This constructive force, that is the Master Gardener program, arises out of the training, certification, coordination, and direction by this county’s special treasure, now at risk, our (outgoing) urban horticulturist, Debbie Dillion, with the Loudoun County Extension Office, who has been an integral part of a joint program of Virginia Tech, Virginia State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and state and local governments. 

The President of the United States has presented gold awards, for more than 500 hours of service, to Loudoun County Master Gardeners Cathy Anderson, Barbara Arnold, Margie Bassford, Elaine Hawn, Sally Hewitt, Carol Ivory, Jim Kelly, Normalee Martin, Dawn Meyerriecks, and Linda Award.   The President also awarded silver medals, for more than 250 hours service, and bronze, for more than 100 hours, for another 81 Master Gardeners.

Last week, Debbie was invited to speak to the Board to explain what she did.  The Supervisors eliminated her job as she sat at the front table.  We have it in our power, by the force of reason, to restore her job.

Write and call the Supervisors who voted against this program – not to rant or threaten their jobs but to persuade one member to make a course correction.

GAZETTE COLUMN: THE SPIRIT OF THE IRISH by John P. Flannery

County Mayo - western coast - home to Flanebragh (Flannery)

My maternal grandmother, Catherine McCoy, was born in Ireland on May 9, 1897 and was baptized according to the Rites of the Catholic Church in the Church of St. Patrick, Crossmaglen, in the County of Armagh. 

Even in her sixties, you were certain she must have just breezed in from Ireland the day before because, what this delicate lady described, in her slight brogue, with blazing blue eyes, was a life-like picture of honest hard working folk, in Irish villages and towns, who helped each other and trusted in their faith to make it all right. 

Catherine lived her life in America – as her Church would have it.  But life in America didn’t begin when she was Sixty -- as one who heard her might suspect.  Catherine left Ireland by boat for New York with her parents when she was only six years of age.   She saw Ireland, in all its wonder and sorrow, through her father’s eyes, in many dinner table conversations, as she came of age in America.  That’s why she could never leave behind the spirit of Ireland born in her and nurtured by her parents.  It defined who she was.

Irish who were not born in Ireland, and have never been to Ireland, feel like they have never left the place, and that somehow it defines or shapes their character, and makes them who they are.  They find their courage, their grit, their skill with words, their love of people, and their faith, in their Irish ancestry.  They tap their feet to Irish tunes, strain to mimic a word of Gaelic to find a soulful connection, swear to their fighting prowess, and swell with pride before the Irish tri-color flag representing the division between north and south separated by a white bar, signifying the elusive peace that all Irish desire.  I don’t mean by this to suggest that these Irish are not Americans.  But they are tied to that distant windswept island by one of those fabled Irish knots you’ve seen in the Book of Kells. 

To put this in perspective, in America, there are 34 million persons who have an Irish family tree, a branch through the Atlantic, to an Irish County and village – and that’s nine times the present population of Ireland itself. 

The Irish in America will tell you, at the drop of a hat, of their historic role in the American Revolution and every war since and in politics as well and how one-quarter of our Presidents had Irish ancestors.  Yeats wrote, “It is an Irish curse to dream things the world has never seen.”  But the Irish also believe that they make their dreams come true.

Every year, St. Patty’s Day invokes the tugs and ties to Ireland for the Irish diaspora.  For years, I was asked if I’d been “back” to Ireland – as if I’d been born there.  So I have gone to see Ireland for myself.  What I found was a green that’s unimaginable, roads so narrow that the bushes and trees sometimes brush both sides of your car, horses so grand and strong you need only stay out of their way if you hope to ride them, and a people so friendly and talkative that even a request for simple directions down the road could prompt a Joycean dialogue about the surrounding region and its history. 

           

          The beauty of the Irish is that you truly need not even have an Irish ancestor on St. Patrick’s Day to celebrate.  After all, St. Patrick himself was the son of a Roman-British army officer, and thus not Irish at all.  So, on his day, all are Irish in spirit, in the spirit of St. Patrick, who celebrated what’s best in each of us.