Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Greening of Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick's Day is another one of those fogs of history that makes green famous once a year.

Much like the health care for the environment, notions are associated with a color, whooped about a bit, then forgotten with the change of the channel by the click of our modern wizard's electronic stave.

But that is not how it is with Saint Patrick himself, who, once upon a time as a young man was taken captive by Irish raiders, circa the turn of the 4th century.

The raiders carried him off to Ireland where he was made a slave for six years until he escaped to return to England.

He returned to Ireland years later as a bishop, eventually to be morphed into Saint Patrick by those who came after him.

Napoleon once said "History is a set of lies agreed upon" which was modified by another mood into "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. "

We see a struggle to form the history of Saint Bush II, one version by Karl Rove and Liz Cheney, but another version formed by those who would not paint the same picture.

And this only a short time after the Bush II regime closed up shop in the White House to return to the Republic of Texas.

The bottom line is that history is a concept we form in our minds by looking at the remains of things, such as the remains of buildings, tools, and the remains of memory.

Saint Patrick is covered by the haze and fog of the years of the past, just like our future is.

If we continue on our current course to destroy the environment before the Sun does, green will not be what comes to mind if visitors from space ever look upon our planet, whether they do so on 3/17 or not.

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