Is adoption an option?
Absolutely. Not for everyone, but not to be overlooked, and most of all, not to be looked down upon. A recent diary entitled "Is adoption the better option" reprinted an angry rant from a birthmother...
View ArticleUn-American Civics lessons in the public schools?
When I got up this morning, I did my customary surf of the news and discovered the story about President Obama's planned address to schoolchildren scheduled for September 8. Living in a district where...
View ArticleMemories and Recipes - The Great Storm
From the safety and relative mild climate of my home in the middle south, I've been watching the stories of the snow which has swept across much of the country and buried whole cities, including...
View ArticleA Good Fund of General Knowledge
Those were the words at the bottom of the six page diagnostic evaluation of my father, some eleven years ago. Sadly, the reason for the evaluation was that my father's cognition had clearly...
View ArticleFrom the Irish Famine Commission Papers
I dabble in a bit of geneaolgy from time to time. It's a great entertainment, especially now that it can be done at any time from the computer at home. So I hope, on the eve of St. Patrick's day,...
View ArticleLabor Day Music
If you enjoy any kind of humane working conditions - a 40 hours week, a lunch break, vacation, sick days, any kind of workplace safety measures, any employee benefits - you know you owe them to...
View ArticleWherein I get my Irish up
It started out innocuously enough. A friend posted a link to Gail Collins' column skewering Newt Gingrich, whose patriotism apparently caused his infidelity ("The Framers made me do it?")A couple of...
View ArticleNotch Babies
With the possible exception of one Nonaganerian Kossack I'm aware of, there probably aren't any notch babies reading this, and there may be plenty who've never heard the term, but for seniors of a...
View ArticleA memory on Mothers' Day
Both of my parents were the grandchildren of immigrants who fled An Gorta Mor, The Great Hunger of mid-19th century Ireland. My father, the son of a widowed telegrapher for a stock exchange, spent...
View ArticleThe Great Fire redux
This is a partial rerun of a piece I did several years ago. As today is the 140th Anniversary of the Great chicago Fire, I thought it might be worth sharing. What lessons can we learn from these...
View ArticleWherein a Republican small businessman begs the Senate for regulation
While going through a box of my late mother's things, I came across a bundle of papers, folded neatly in three as for an envelope. Upon opening the bundle, I realized that I had come across a little...
View ArticleUniform Pants Needed
It was a quiet Saturday afternoon around la hacienda K. Spousal unit was taking advantage of a little break in the weather to do a last bit of yard work before winter, and I was a bit at sixes and...
View ArticleOh. my. G*d.
I used to teach Sunday school to fifth graders. It will take those poor kids decades to unlearn what I taught 'em. We did the usual bible stories, and I would, well, explain things a bit from time to...
View ArticleLiveblogging St. Patricks Day with the Shamrock American Kossacks: Green...
Top o' the morning to you. It's grand to celebrate this greatest of holidays with my friends at the G.O.S. As an Irish American raised in Chicago, I was always keenly aware that my heritage had...
View ArticleThe Dinner Table Conversation
Author's note: This story was inspired by a post by Meteor Blades. The names of the parties, as well as certain other details, have been changed for privacy, but the story is based on real...
View ArticleThe Red-Headed Jewish Kid
Like so many young men his age, Jim was drafted as the prospect of a new war began to loom on the European horizon. He was inducted in Rockford Illinois and began basic training. Just as it was...
View ArticleLost in Plain Sight
I don't know much about her, but she had a hard life. She first appears in Liverpool, in the slums of Scotland Road, in the 1851 census, living with her husband, mother-in-law, teenaged brother-in-law...
View ArticleShamrock Roundup
It's a glorious day for a celebration, as the The Nationalist reminds usForget austerity, Forget the property tax. Forget the weather. It's that time of the year again for the Irish to celebrate.We may...
View ArticleShamrock Roundup
Top o' the morning to you! We'll step off the curb and start the parade this year with a look at the world as seen from the other side of the pond. As you can see, many of the issues are universal,...
View Article2015
Failte!We've come to the day, and as we do each year, we offer you the Shamrock Roundup, for a look at the news and the pundits from the other side of the pond:The Irish Independent reports the...
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