Friday, November 9, 2007

My Godfather's Folks were from Napoli!!!

Remember Blazing Saddles? "We'll take the n...s and the c...s, but no Irish." They let my greatgreatgrandpappy Sweeney from Cork in anyway. I was never any good with riddles, so I won't attempt snappy repartees to comments when my counter comment may prove beyond all shadow of a doubt my blockheadedness. If you were from La Ville du Nord you would understand my lack of mental faculties beyond rote memorization of my Baltimore catechism. "Who made us? Dog made us. Why did Dog make us? Dog needed a best friend." I am also lesdyxic when I get tired.

I wonder if my Sweeney forbear was an illegal? So many of the Irish came to these shores for work and just stayed on. I know for a fact that until very recently Boston, Toledo, Detroit and Chicago still had their share. Probably still do. It’s so easy to pass when you just stay in the neighborhood where everyone speaks in the same dialect as you. I know that Polish Grampa Joe had his papers for steerage on that ship from Bremen and I am sure that Canadian French Great Grandpa Joe and Great Grandma Rose-Delima just hopped a train from Quebec.

So, with the Democratic-controlled House passing a free trade bill with Peru today, I guess that opens up more grape and lettuce picking jobs for all those folks who will get “laid-off” from their middling paying primary and secondary economic sector jobs. Remember, W has really grown the economy by providing millions of minimum wage and below jobs (many industries do NOT have to abide by minimum wage laws) for all those folks who are getting foreclosed on as their jobs evaporate into increased profits for the Upper 1%. But wait, there’s more! We get plenty of grapes from South America, so maybe those lettuce pickers will be kings until we can get well-preserved (anti-freeze?) lettuce from the Far East. Hey, I saw organic garlic at a well-heeled supermarket in Seattle a few months ago so I guess that the lettuce can’t be far behind. I saw a Tommy Bahama shirt for $185 at a Nordstrom store near Portland OR – made in China, of course. Got to be an obscene profit in there somewhere for someone! Now, I must state for the record that I own several Tommy Bahama shirts but there is limit even to my conspicuous consumpting ways.

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