Sunday Serendipity

To get the mood started for tomorrows St Patrick’s day celebration. A collection of traditional Irish songs, performed by Patrick Dexter, on cello and accompanied by the Irish wind.

Enjoy, Jack

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71 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  4. What a treat, Jack! Those are Irish lullabies to me, so I’m going back to bed.

    I believe this is the young man we bought virtual coffees for many years back.

  5. Wow St. Patrick’s snuck up on me. Thanks for the reminder, Jack. Our friend Sean (Lardass Liberal) always dragged us to an Irish sing-a-along bar that I didn’t much care for, but he enjoyed it.

  6. Funniest thing about modern genetic testing is old family myths get shattered. I grew up being told I was 1/2 Finnish, 1/4 Irish and 1/4 English. That was based on family guessing and whatnot. Actuals are about 75% Finnish, 9% Irish and 2ish% English. The kicker is 12% Welsh, which no one talked about until I was 60. At least all that wearing of the green was not for naught.

    Now that I live a quiet life and away from big cities I don’t have to be concerned about where I step on the sidewalks and streets. No more used green beer to avoid. Amateurs. The same amateurs who ruin New Year’s Eve.

    I may go for a martini with the green eyeball in it.

  7. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5196704-trump-executive-order-federal-agencies-eliminate/

    Trump signs order to dismantle seven federal agencies focused on media, libraries, homelessness
    The president directed the government entities “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,” insisting they “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel.” It ordered the heads of each entity submit a report to the Office of Management and Budget confirming full compliance within seven days.

    The president targeted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is the parent company of Voice of America’s (VOA), as well as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, which is a think tank, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which is an agency that supports libraries, archives and museums in every state.

    He also dismantled the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, which aims to prevent and end homelessness in the U.S., the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which focuses on preventing, minimizing, and resolving work stoppages and labor disputes, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which aims to expand economic opportunity for underserved communities, and the Minority Business Development Agency, which promotes growth of minority-owned businesses.

    *Of course they don’t want to solve homelessness. They’ve made homeless illegal in many places. That way, they can throw them into one of the many private prisons and use them as forced labor, thanks to that pesky clause in the 13th Amendment.

    *Sh/tler and fiends need to be stopped now. Hoard books and canned goods and make friends with the neighbors, if possible.

  9. I thought we were pure Scottish but a long lost aunt recently told us, hell no, we’re Irish. I wish I had known that for the year I sat in Sister St. Patrick’s class.

  10. Yeah, it turned out I average a whopping 2% Irish on Ancestry. Maybe that side ended up in Ireland as part of the Ulster Plantation and didn’t mix much with the locals, so they came from Ireland but weren’t genetically Irish.

    It’s been two years since the NY/DC trip when I finally got to see the St. Patrick’s Day parade. It may be as close as I ever get. We shall see if the world can be put back on its rails.

    Potatoes & cabbage tomorrow, even if I’m mostly Scandinavian.

  11. Ah the corned beef and cabbage. It was a must have on St Paddy’s Day. A tasty tradition. Except I wait until after the corned beef in the grocery stores is on sale.

    Now when I want a corned beef sandwich I stop at a deli and buy the meat, it is probably more cost effective.

    Rather than a corned beef meal I like kielbasa onions potatoes carrots and cabbage soup/stew. Quite tasty and if I want some corned beef seasonings I can add it.

  12. Rebroadcast on CBS Sunday Morning: When 10-year-old Hunter Blankenship, of Clanton, Alabama, was bullied over his rainbow glasses, he was nearly driven to self-harm. But the car-loving autistic boy instead received an outpouring of love from the community, when car buffs were asked to share their automotive enthusiasm with Hunter – and hundreds answered the call. Steve Hartman reports. 

  16. BiD

    You caught me, yes that is the same young man, I did add a couple of new songs to the play list. When I first started doing Sunday Serendipity, I decided not to repeat any of the videos but as the years roll on, I’ve modified that to “not repeat too often” some stuff is just too good not to hear it again.
    It has been a couple of years for this one, so it doesn’t break my repeat rule too bad.

    Jack

  17. It’s really annoying how fascist-captured media spins these polls today showing Democratic approval down. Doesn’t take a deep read of the data to see it’s because Trump-loathing Americans (half the country) are furious Democratic leaders are not fighting back. Demonstrates rising hatred of Trump more than anything else.

  18. https://www.newsweek.com/tesla-insurance-costs-could-surge-amid-anti-elon-musk-vandalism-2044675

    In a recent slew of incidents across the United States and other countries including Germany and the United Kingdom, Tesla cars have been shot at, set on fire, slapped with stickers urging owners not to buy a “swasticar,” and marked with a big red swastika. 

    While owners are trying to protect themselves with stickers saying they bought their cars “before Elon went crazy,” increasing vandalism against Teslas, experts warned, could quickly drive up insurance for the already-expensive vehicles.

    “Tesla Model 3, Model Y, and Model X are the most expensive EV to insure as of February 2025,” he confirmed. The cost of full-insurance for a Tesla Model 3, according to Insurify, increased 30 percent last year, to $4,362 annually.

    *One, more reason to ditch/avoid teSSlas.

  19. Ms Bronc,

    I’ve found much the same with my genetic tests, a lot less irish and more Germanic than family tales would have you believe and somehow some Scandinavian snuck in. Those damn Vikings.
    BTW, all of my ancestors immigrated here well before the civil war, most in colonial times. As I told a friend who’s family immigrated here in th early 1900’s. My folks have been here so long that we are still questioning “is the Statue of Liberty art”.

    Ms Jack had the best story. Her father was from Louisiana and was certain that he had native American ancestry. Fairly recent too. When she did her genetic tests she found that while she had no Native American ancestry she did have 1% West African ancestry. If you are dark complected, in Louisiana, and you want to move about in white society….

    Jack

  20. The censorship by all of the mainstream media is worrisome. If you don’t know anyone in another country, and you don’t look for citizen journalists on the socials, you’d never know anyone in the US was fighting what’s going on.

  21. My first colonizing ancestors came here in, well, the first one joined the First Church of Dorchester, MA in 1640. No idea when the woman he married came here, because her maiden name is questionable.
    The last one came in from Denmark in the early 1900s.

    Hold tight to history books. I have one about The King Philip War, which they never taught in school. I bought a book from the Dorchester Antiquarian Society, found out about that war, and was able to find one, detailed book about that war.

  22. You have to hit bottom before you can begin to come back up. You just pray bottom doesn’t kill you first.

  24. My mothers side started arriving in Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown and Gloucester Virginia colony in the early 1600’s. Some free some indentured. Then into Massachusetts Boston, Maryland and other colonies. Ending with my Grandmother around 1904, the year she was born.My father’s side started in the post Civil War and continued to 1900’s as they left Finland, Ireland and Wales.

    Kind of representing America as a melting pot, but spread over the centuries.

    I do have one little interesting genetic result that shows on some tests and not others. It is one to five percent Native American. I have on ancestor nicknamed John the Indian. However, it is possible the result is from my Northern European Indigenous people, Sami, who it is thought the Native American ancestors came from.

  27. It works that way with moral bankruptcy as well.

    The phrase “first slowly, then all at once” is a popular, often misinterpreted, quote from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, where a character describes going bankrupt as “gradually, then suddenly”. 

  28. Strangely enough my DNA is 7/8 Scots-English. Strange because maternal line arrived in the1600s to settle Maryland and the paternal didn’t arrive from Scotland until after 1925. We picked up a German great grandfather just in time for the civil war. Absolutely no interesting ethnicities except a smidge from the earliest traces that originated in NE Africa that identifies as Syrian.

  31. My roots are irish, i’d like them surgically removed, a terrible people

  32. A lot of American-style racism is fueled by this Celtic pride bullshit, ask me how i know

    No coincidence Celtic icons and symbolism have been adopted by our adorable white supremacists, so proud of their legacy!

  33. …and sorry Scotland, something about your piece of that rock gave us Trump, so thanks 😡

  34. to be fair, i do enjoy those phony milkshakes from that irish burger joint 😊

    Slava Ukraine (no relation) 🫡

  35. ”Banshees of Inisherin” is fabulous, though

    Doesn’t contradict anything ive said 😊

    Ok i like Colin Farrell, he’s cool

  36. If y’all (not your trailmix) are so fucking proud of your western European heritage, why the fuck are you condemning it to Putin’s tyranny?

    oh cuz you hate the inclusivity Western Europe has embraced, got it, duh

    or you don’t even know that and just believe what your youtube incel influencers tell you, way to go 👍

  37. Probably good time for my annual recommendation of

    CRACKER CULTURE
    Celtic Ways in the Old South,

    by Grady McWhiney, University of Alabama Press.

  38. https://www.latintimes.com/ted-cruz-mocked-after-posing-pathetic-photo-trumps-tesla-its-car-bro-578461

    Senator Ted Cruz found himself on the receiving end of ridicule after he posted a photo of himself posing with Donald Trump’s newly purchased Tesla, calling it “the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

    Ha! So, tRUMPsky makes accusations about your dad, calls your wife “ugly,” repeatedly calls you “Lyin’ Ted,” and you try to help push Swasticars so TeSSla stock doesn’t tank so much that banks call in the loans Elon took out to buy Twitter (using TeSSla stock as collateral), so he can keep bankrolling Don-Old.

    Simp much? He doesn’t feel the same way about you, Ted.

    Also, how is having such an unlikable guy hawk your car going to improve sales?

  39. My long-lost aunt’s late father (my grandfather) told us kids we were descended from an illustrious band of horse thieves who emigrated to avoid hanging. Scottish, Irish or Welsh, nobody really knew.

  42. Did Bondi release the JFK files? Is it stuff folks already knew, like the so-called Epstein files which was stuff we knew three years ago; SFB was on the plane log 7 times.

    I’m not loving the media censorship. I’ve switched search engines a couple of times, but they don’t do any better that Google did.

    If anyone has contacts in other countries, I’d love to know if they are seeing any protests, not just in the US, but in Hungary, Serbia, etc.

  43. I am probably the only human left on Earth that has somehow missed learning about any person or group called Kardashian. Which is fine with me. just reading that a Kardashian did a photo shot with a dumpster is enough to convince me to not bother with one in the future.

    Oh, and my SIL is pissed that I refuse to support white supremacy. Oh well.

  44. Another book club suggestion with a wealth of research about our British soil roots.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed

    Four folkways
    The four migrations are discussed in the four main chapters of the book:

    The Exodus of the English Puritans (Pilgrims and Puritansinfluenced the Northeastern United States‘ corporate and educational culture)[4]

    The Cavaliers and Indentured Servants (Gentry influenced the Southern United States‘ plantation culture)[5]

    The Friends’ Migration (Quakers influenced the Middle Atlantic and Midwestern United States‘ industrial culture)[6]

    The Flight from North Britain (Scotch-Irish and border English influenced the Western United States‘ ranch culture and the Southern United States‘ common agrarian culture)[7]

  45. Jamie = possible our 9th back, or maybe 11th, knew each other. (that’s a funny).

  46. the only human left on Earth that has somehow missed

    Not the only one, BB. I have pivoted from every Kardashian-reference since the OJ trial.

    I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart in a lineup.

  48. i think KimK wants to be on the right side of things, maybe someone can help her see what Musk actually represents

    A mother of black children might want to reconsider normalizing nazis

  49. My first ancestor who came here is also the progenitor of a bunch of Republicans; Taft, HW & W.

  50. Kanye called himself a n@zi…and she knew what MuskRat did. She is buddies with Don-Old & Melania.
    Cancel the entire lot of them. I shouldn’t even know who they are, except the dad was OJ’s lawyer. Never watched their show, but they worked their way into everything, like tRUMPsky in so many shows in the 80s. Are they Russian operatives, too?

  52. Irish – I imagine I have some in my background although my surname originated in Sussex and Essex, ironically a derivation of chauv or chauf – surnames given to bald guys. If the shoe fits…

  53. Honestly i think it’s impressive she turned a sex-tape into a global business empire, good for her

    These people are your cultural figures whether you like it or not. Was someone like “Lady Di” more inherently deserving of such status?

    People are enthralled by celebrity- Trump’s taken your entire society with an understanding of that, Dems are focus-grouping messaging strategies

  54. What the fuck is this new gold shit on the fireplace?

    I sure as hell hope they didn’t drill any holes to get those up there. Tacky as hell.

  55. Anon, the trappings the insufferable asshole brought to the Oval. I can’t begin to describe how distraught I am about the direction this country is taking.

  56. “What the fuck is this new gold shit on the fireplace?”

    If you watch the ambush of Zelenskyy you can see tacky trump-branded tchotchkes strewn about the Oval Office as if it belongs to him, because he believes it does

    He admires the imperial Russian style aesthetically as well as politically

  58. Princess Diana actually did good things, big things, like destigmatizing AIDS, and bringing attention to land mines.

  62. i don’t dispute Di did good things, you only know who she is because she’s a “noble”, though

    was just an easy example 🤗

    …and KimK has spoken out on racial justice issues, helped get at least one alleged victim of unfair prosecution a pardon, my heart is open to forgiveness but i agree, enabling nazis is not defensible

    The Kardashian women are famous because they are attractive, savvy, shameless, and have a good eye for opportunity; once again, more power to them as long as they don’t enable societal arsonists

    semi-colon saves the day!

  63. No eggs for Easter! It’s a war on the thing in which they pretend to believe. Good. Other countries are joining forces to fill the gap where once we were. Denmark turned him down, too. Like, why the eff would he even ask after the Greenland stuff?

    He’s out spending taxpayer money, golfing and forcing us to pay for rooms at MAL for Secret Service. Elon could take a chainsaw to those pricey golf outings.

  65. https://www.newsweek.com/how-usps-layoffs-could-impact-mail-deliveries-2044678

    The United States Postal Service (USPS) has announced it will be working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to improve the beleaguered government agency, including cutting 10,000 jobs.

    In a letter to Congress leaders, outgoing Postmaster Louis DeJoy confirmed he had signed an agreement with DOGE and the General Services Administration (GSA) to “assist us in identifying and achieving further efficiencies.”

    DeJoy also stated that he asked DOGE to examine the “unfunded mandates” imposed on USPS by Congress, such as requiring the agency to deliver mail six days a week, maintain rural post offices, uphold uniform first-class mail rates, and provide free P.O. boxes for residents without direct mail carrier service.

    *The USPS operates without federal funds. Tell your Senators and Rep to keep DOGE away from our postal system.

  68. The real unfunded mandate on the postal service is the retirement funding that has to be done from revenue rather than government appropriations. IOW there is no savings from destroying the post office. It is another scam to privatize and gouge the public for profit!

  69. Might as well get out of the way ‘cause they’re definitely going to wreck the train.

  70. The Flag of the White House cartoon at the bottom of BiD’s USPS article towards the end of this thread deserves to be Mr C’s featured image for a few days at least, says it all

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