Light in the Darkest Days

Newgrange in Ireland via loveireland.com

These are the darkest of days.

Overcast skies rob us of precious minutes of sunlight in the late afternoons. Veil the sunset in coal dust, ink black with a mist of rain swirling ‘round a 4:30 porch light.

We of northern latitudes and coastal storms hunch our shoulders and steel our minds against the short tongues of daylight wrapped in anemic gray, punctuated by occasional  shards of sunlight, silver knives cutting through woolen clouds down to sodden earth.

This season of dwindling day, coldest days and chill, longest nights robbed of stars, December’s cruelty.

The days shrink and wither away, an erosion or life-giving hope that ebbs as we approach the nadir of the year. Winter solstice arrives Dec. 21st at 2:44 in the afternoon when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. It is the shortest day of the year, late sunrises and early sunsets. Long nights of starless forever-skies.

It is the day when the Sun reaches its southernmost migration on our horizon. It is the first day of astronomical winter - yet from the solstice forward, each day will get fraction longer, each noon the sun will be a little higher in our horizon.

It has been a year full of darkness.

Long before it had a name, or before we really understood what was happening human beings  understood this cycle of ebbing light.

I have stood inside Newgrange in Ireland - a 5,000 year old monumental structure of massive stones and white quartz designed to permit a shaft of light on the winter solstice such that on this one day each year - sunlight will travel down a 60 foot passageway and the interior of this man-made mountain will be illuminated with golden light.  

Newgrange is older than stonehenge, older than the Great Pyramid of Giza. Men and women designed and built this complicated structure with stone imported from miles away. Intricate neolithic architecture celebrating light that marks the end of creeping darkness, the return of the hope.

We do not know the minds of Newgrange’s creators, nor  their system of beliefs to be sure. We know only that they went to great effort to capture the sun on the solstice each year - to illuminate hidden decorations deep within.

We know a little more about other solstice traditions that came later.

Yule logs  are a remnant of the Norse feast of Juul. Bonfires were lit as the sun “stood still” on its lowest point on the horizon. The fires heralded the return of the sun -- feasting would carry on while the Yule burned for days.

Yalda was an ancient Persian celebration of light over dark and the birth of the Sun God Mithra. Similar pre-Christian traditions exist around the world.  In parts of Pakistan, the Kalash Kafir celebrate Chaomos -- a time ritual purification with torchlight parades and bonfires. Slavic traditions celebrate Koliada or Koleda in similar fashion.

Jewish families celebrate Hanukkah, the rededication of the second temple, lighting a candle each night in the festival of lights. Symbolizing knowledge and creation, here too was a miracle marked by light as a single night’s oil burned bright for eight days.

Lindsay as St Lucia

Some Scandinavian countries still celebrate St Lucia’s Day -- a festival of lights that evolved out of Norse solstice traditions of lighting bonfires during the longest nights of the year.  Honoring the Christian martyr St. Lucia, young girls dress in white robes with a wreath of burning candles on their heads and serve bright yellow saffron buns to signify the return of the sun.

Early Christians focused more on Easter than Jesus’ birth. It wasn’t until the 4th century that the Church decided to celebrate Christmas and fixed the date in December to coincide -- and perhaps co-opt -- the Roman celebrations of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus -- the birthday of the “unconquered sun.”  As Christianity spread, the birth of the son of God and the festivals that celebrated the return of the sun co-mingled and influenced each other.

We fight against the darkness with artificial light. We string up our Christmas tree, light the candles on our menorah or advent wreaths. We make a fire in the fireplace, yule log, bonfire.

It is perhaps not surprising that these cold dark days are when our hearts are most open to our fellow man, when we give a little more, care a little more. Charity and cheer, generosity and forgiveness  are built into all of these solstice traditions because it is understood that in the darkness is when we most need the light.

This is a dark time for our nation and for the world.

Hatred has sunk its teeth into our flesh. Many of our brothers have turned a cold eye to those who don’t look like us, worship like us, love like us. We point fingers rather than open our arms. Hopelessness and fear threaten to curdle our goodwill.

In these darkest days, we can be the light that travels down the cold stone passage, that illuminates the darkness and brings hope of better days.

We can be the light that opens hearts with kindness, charity and goodwill to our neighbors around the world and in our backyard.

We may never know the words or ceremony of 5000 years past or exactly how that thread may be woven into our modern traditions and beliefs.

Yet we understand the need to capture the golden light in darkest December days.

-30-

This article originally appeared in the The Daily Astorian on December 19, 2016

Buyers Remorse

Republicans in Washington DC have got to have mixed feelings about this election.

They should be happy.

On the one hand, they can now have everything they want. They control all the levers of power -- the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court. They can finally repeal Obamacare, pass tax cuts for the 1 percent, privatize medicare, defund medicaid, planned parenthood. They can finally privatize social security, eliminate environmental regulations.  They can eliminate access to birth control, discriminate at will.

Trump can use the government to exact revenge on his enemies. He can embrace Russia and turn his back on Europe and Asia. He can start trade wars -- which will increase prices for food and other goods.

They have a mandate, but there are smart wonks in Washington and they have to be sounding a note of caution.

You see, all those things aren't very popular and now they have no excuse not to carry out what they have promised to do.

Donald Trump's real victory was based on low voter turnout after a horrible negative election. Only 25 percent of eligible voters, voted for Donald Trump.  Many Trump voters voted against the supervillain mastermind in a pantsuit rather than for the tax-cheating infantile con man.

It was a close vote. That Hillary won the popular vote -- by close to half a million ---  is immaterial from a strategic perspective. From a electoral college perspective just a two percentage point shift could make all the difference in the swing states. Demographics will continue to move against the Republican party -- the future is young and diverse.

Moreover, Trump showed that a lot of the tenants of conservatism are no longer popular with voters.

Many young evangelicals cast their lot for the debauched Caligula because they wanted the political power to overturn abortion rights. Once that key issue is gone, will they continue to stick with him?

Sooner or later enough of them are going to read something Jesus said in the New Testament and realize that maybe they should care about the poor, elderly, diseased and marginalized people that Trump and the Republicans will make life Hell for over the next four years. Young evangelicals are already mobilizing for action on climate change, and even Liberty University students protested the leadership's embrace of the sinner-in-chief.

Trump and the Republicans want to do a lot of things that are the opposite of what people thought they were getting with Trump. Trump has vowed to deregulate Wall Street, repeal Obamacare, and cut taxes for the very wealthy. Paul Ryan wants to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid and privatize social security.  Just repealing Obamacare will leave 22 million without health insurance and there are current no plans to replace it with anything. That will increase health care costs and reduce access - right before the midterm elections.

There aren't a lot of good ways to spin this when the results of their actions start having a real effect on people's lives.

Moreover, Trump's anti-science cabal will be a disaster for health issues far and wide and there are no Republican plans to address the crisis in the Healthcare system. More doctors are going to burn out, fewer will enter the profession and access will get worse, not better.

 Finally, if they go along with Trump they will be helping construct an oppressive and intrusive police state. He is already appointing virulent racists to the highest positions of power. A number of these Republicans got elected saying they wanted to oppose federal intrusion into people's lives.

There really hasn't been much media coverage of any of this - more time was spent on Hillary's emails than any policy question - so some of this going to be a big surprise when in the harsh light of day.

In short Republicans now have no excuses -- they have to fix everything and deliver the impossible -- and they don't believe in facts or science or the data that shows that trickle down economics doesn't work. What they have proposed will make life worse for the majority of Americans.

You only need 1 out of every 100 Trump voters to have buyer's remorse.

-30-

Required Reading:
What a Difference Two Percentage Points Makes
Trump's Economic Prescription: First DO Harm
What Trump and the GOP will mean for your Health
Paul Ryan's Better Way is Only For the Wealthy

Building Bridges, Not Walls

Inside a bridge is a strange place for dinner.

Built in 1911, the Grays River Covered Bridge is the last of its kind serving a public road in the state of Washington.

Eight years ago the local WSU Extension office and 4-H organizers had a great idea. A fall community harvest dinner featuring donated salmon and local veggies grown in the valley - served by by 4H kids inside the bridge on a beautiful October night.

While tourists may occasionally venture off highway 4 to see the bridge, for us locals it remains an important way to cross the river to reach the other side of the valley. Just as it has for the past 100 years, this bridge brings us together.

Hans Ahlberg owned both sides of the river back in 1905. He and his neighbors saw the need to get crops and cattle to pasture and to market.  There was a foot bridge at the time but the only way to get a cart across the river was by ford the waters at low tide. Ahlberg and his neighbors convinced the county to pay for it, but many of the locals invested sweat equity in the project to offset their taxes.

It became a covered bridge in 1908 to protect the wood from the ravages of wind and rain. A century later, the bridge was weather beaten and at risk of being torn down. The people of the valley, however, worked to secure funding for a major restoration.

Rarely are bridges manifested by the hands of a single individual. Bridges are creations of community -- monuments to cooperation, knitting peoples across geographic barriers into tighter daily relationships.

Amy and I were married at this bridge 24 years ago. She and her bridesmaids arriving by horse drawn wagon through the covered bridge to Ahlberg park.  On hot summer days children cool off on the smooth stone beach and swim clear waters the flow below.

It is one of two bridges that are constants in our lives.

The Astoria-Megler bridge just celebrated its 50th birthday this year.

The Astoria bridge shows how these works of infrastructure don’t happen overnight. It was almost 40 years between the first proposal span the Columbia at Astoria, to the dedication ceremony in 1966.  It was not an easy task. Washington and Oregon had very different ideas about the necessity of the bridge and how it should be paid for. Washington opposed having a toll on the bridge and wanted Oregon to pay the lion’s share of the cost.

When it finally came together, it did so through bare-knuckle negotiation and compromise. Compromise has become a dirty word of late -- as if it is tainted with weakness. Yet compromise is the loamy soil that yields value and progress in a democracy.

When the link between Washington and Oregon was finally established, a reported 30,000 people came down for the dedication of the so-called “bridge to nowhere.” Thousands more paid the toll to cross it each year, the numbers growing each decade.

The bridge was paid off early and the toll taken down. Amy and I remember one Christmas eve on our way to midnight mass in Astoria in 1993, the toll collectors waving us through.

These creations elegantly change the landscape of our possibilities. They open to us easy access to neighbors and friends, jobs and education, culture and life bound no longer by the natural obstruction of indignant rivers.

Stone Walls in Ireland. Credit Amusing Planet

When I lived in Ireland a lifetime ago, I would walk the back roads of crushed white gravel. The hills interlaced by rough little scars of stone. Walls - built up hundreds of years long past as men and women cleared the fields of the hard blue limestone. Walls of stone upon stone without mortar to hold them together. Only the weight of each rock’s indignation kept these crooked little walls standing angry centuries against the coastal winds.

The lots bound by these stones were small and tragic, without gates.

If bridges are built of compromise and community, walls are built up of grievances.  

Like our grievances, walls can last years -- indeed well outlast their builders -- yet be held together by nothing. Gateless hard little grids that let nothing out, or nothing in.

Bridges are different.

This marks 25 years since I first set foot into this valley - a college boy visiting his true love’s parent’s home for the first time. In that quarter century I have become a fixed point in a living, breathing community of characters. I am still best known as Amy’s husband, no doubt, but I have unintentionally made my mark here and there upon the landscape.

Being part of a community is not always easy for me. I am in no ways shy, but I have an inner  hermit that would much rather sit alone by the fire.  Most at ease when I am hiding behind a keyboard or camera, I avoid parties and crowds. I am a poor friend and a distant brother. Never had a clique of friends, never joined a softball team or bowling league.

When I do join, I worry over the poverty of my contributions.

Yet, I have lived here longer than any other place in my lifetime, and I know I am a part of my beloved rain-soaked forest.

The connections we form with other people are the cement that holds our lives together. We are social animals, we thrive with ties to other people. Research has shown that the number of people we interact with on a daily basis is a predictor of our sense of belonging and well being.

“Studies indicate that “social capital” is one of the biggest predictors for health, happiness, and longevity,” explains Cecile Andrews, author of Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community, and the Common Good. “The problem: we often do not recognize the importance of social connection. Our culture values hard work, success, and wealth, so it’s no surprise some of us do not set aside enough time for social ties when we think security lies in material things rather than other people.”

Community is what people do to help one another.

In our little valley there is a food bank, community education, a wildly successful locally-organized blood drive. There are adoptions, weddings, births and funerals. Houses hold the names of their previous occupants long after they are gone.

No one is perfect, every face has a flaw. Like a family, however, like your brothers and sisters you learn to live together. As new people move in, they either adapt to the ebb and flow of the river and the rain, or they find a reason not to stay.

We are, after all, a long way from anywhere and the winter is dark and gray.

So it was that we found ourselves inside a covered bridge on a rain-soaked October night. Hundreds of us, feasting on salmon and ham, potatoes and squash, under amber lights and violin, tin roof and wood walls against the early-autumn storm outside.  The rain held off just long enough to get the salmon barbequed, to get everyone seated at the long tables.

So it was that we were warm and dry, shoulder to shoulder while the wind and rain battered aged tin and cedar, while mud-clouded river flowed below our feet.

Here we were together the people of the Grays River Valley.

Here we were together, a community, a bridge.

-30-

This essay was originally published in the Daily Astorian and Chinook Observer newspapers.

The Myth of Islands

An Island is a lie.

On my way to work, I drive along Willapa Bay and pass by the two Islands that can be seen from the mainland. Long Island crowds just feet from the highway that hugs the shore. Heavily forested it stretches away to the horizon, appearing as solid shoreline. Long Island holds a grove of ancient forest and in days past was inhabited with settlements. There is a ferry landing just off the road that used to bring trucks back and forth across the narrow thread of water that separates it from the rest of Washington state.

A little farther on is a defiant little islet several hundred yards from where the tourist pass by on their way to the beach.. The US Geographic survey named it Round Island back in 1858. Locals call it Baby Island. Its shoulders’ hunched and spiked with snags and cedar that burl in the winter storms. Only a few acres of brush and trees, it appears a picturesque myth centered in the waters of the bay. Steep rocks rising from the silver gray waters and lonely alone.

We like to think of ourselves as islands, as individuals, as ecosystems wholly within ourselves. We like to believe that our actions affect no one beyond our ragged shore. We like to believe ourselves surrounded by waters isolated from the world outside. We like to think ourselves individuals, the center of our own solar systems -- centered yet separated by time and space from mothers, wives, children and friends who dip into our orbit for time only to swing away again.

It is easy to feel alone.

It is easy to think that our actions do not shatter the mirrored water that flows around us, yet the decisions we make ripple out into the world.

We see it in politics, where the temptation is to live and let live, assuming no responsibility for the community, the state, the nation or the world.

I hear it all the time. I’ll take care of myself, do what I want, and it won’t affect anyone else. If other people make bad choices, can’t access health care or mental health services or run out of money when they are too old to work, that’s their problem. It won’t affect me.

Yet it does.

I work as a nurse in an emergency room. It is the front line of the consequences of bad choices.

I meet a lot of people who until that moment thought that they were islands. Many thought their decisions affected no one but them and them alone.  Some have long suffering loved ones at bedside, others have long since burned those bridges to the mainland. Perhaps they justified this as a way to limit that damage they caused, or perhaps the connection was never very good in the first place.

If not family and friends, there are always the professionals -- the police officers, EMTs, nurses, doctors and socials workers -- who crash in waves trying to make a difference until the last breath.

Every wave recedes taking a little away from the beach and leaving a little of itself behind. Yet, the ocean itself is not unchanged.

I have watched as addiction destroys families and devastates public resources. I have seen suicide shatter communities. I have seen health care professionals struggle to make a difference in the face of increasing needs and decreasing resources.

I have seen doctors and law enforcement officers that I worked with take their own life.

Studies have shown that nurses experience depression at twice the rate of the general population. Doctors have a suicide rate that is at least twice that of the general population and that rate is even greater for female physicians. The stresses come from long hours, increasing work loads and the crushing expectations of health care systems that are always demanding more and paying less. Unfortunately, few seek professional help.

So too some of the stress comes from our own expectations. Physician Pranay Sinha, in a 2014 essay entitled “Why Do Doctors Commit Suicide?”  in the New York Times explained it this way:

“There is a strange machismo that pervades medicine. Doctors, especially fledgling doctors like me, feel the need to project intellectually, emotional and physical prowess beyond what we truly possess. We masquerade as strong and untroubled professionals even in our darkest and most self doubting moments. How, then, are we supposed to identify colleagues in trouble -- or admit that we need help ourselves?”

Individual strength, resilience  and freedom are cultural virtues in our nation.Yet we achieve most when we come together and recognize our connections and that through those connections our individual decisions have repercussions on the world around us.

This far north the tides are impressive - a dozen feet in sea level change can drastically alter your perspective in a few hours time. When the tide is low, the water drains out of old Shoalwater bay and Round Island is exposed as connected to mainland by mudflats that the unwary may be tempted to walk across.

Drain away the oceans that appear to separate us, and you will find underneath the connections that tie us all together. 

What we do and say and how we act affects those near and far.

How we treat each other and how we take care of ourselves matters.

If you think you are an island, just wait until low tide.

-30-

This essay was originally written for the The Daily Astorian and published on 4/29/2016.

What You Give and What You Get

Pictured: Ted Cruz haunts Bernie Sanders dreams.

While it is easy to complain about the taxes you pay, you have to compare it to the benefits you get.

That's also how you have to evaluate the tax plans of the Presidential candidates.

Vox.com has a great tool to see how you'd fare under each candidates proposed tax changes. Plug in your income, marital status and the number of kids and you can get an idea of whether your taxes will go up or down under President Sanders vs President Cruz.

I put my numbers in and I'd have to pay a big increase in taxes under President Sanders and I'd get a huge tax cut under Cruz and Trump.

However, you have to keep reading to get the rest of the story.

It's one thing to know how your taxes will change, but you can't view it in a vacuum. What the federal government does can affect your bottom line, too. 

For example, Bernie Sanders's plan would raise taxes on everyone, but it would also pay for health care, education, and other programs that you would no longer have to pay for. And it goes the other way, too. If Donald Trump's tax plan was implemented, everyone would get a tax cut, but it also means government services would be cut, so you would have to pay for them yourself.

So you have to look at each tax plan in terms of not just how much you would pay, but what you get as well. While there is some disagreement on how much these tax plans will cost, Vox seems to use the conservative estimates for their calculations.

Under Sanders my tax bill would jump $12,000 a year -- but that is less than a year of college tuition for one of my two daughters. So that might be worth it if my healthcare insurance bill would go down and tuition would be free at Washington State University.  (Sanders Proposal)

Under Clinton my tax bill wouldn't change much -- her tax increases are targeted more at the wealthy than Sanders -- but her promises are more modest. For example only community college would be free. (Clinton Proposal)

Before we go any further, can well all just agree that Republicans can no longer call themselves the fiscally responsible party? Since World War II, economists have found that the economy does better when Democrats are in the White House.

With the exception of George HW Bush, Republican Presidents over the last 50 years always cut taxes and increased spending - which is the same as quitting your job then running up your credit cards. That's not fiscally responsible.

That track record pales when you consider the proposed economic policies of the current GOP candidates.

Needless to say under Trump or Cruz, my taxes would go down according to the calculator, but at what price?

Both their tax proposals would DOUBLE the $9.5 trillion projected federal deficit -- massive cuts to federal spending. (Trump's Plan) (Cruz's Plan)

Yet, both are also proposing big INCREASES in military spending. There's also that wall they are planning to build and an elaborate federal police state to deport millions of illegal immigrants and oppress law abiding Muslim Americans. That's going to cost more than a few pennies too.

Indeed, another Vox story is worth reading to get the full picture. In "We've Lost Sight Of How Wildly Irresponsible the Republican Tax Plans Are," Ezra Klein explains that Trump and Cruz have spun off into the world of fantasy as far as their fiscal policies are concerned.

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump are the top three contenders for the Republican nomination. Rubio has promised tax cuts amounting to $6.8 trillion, Cruz $8.6 trillion, and Trump a whopping $9.5 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center (and that's not including interest on the debt they would rack up!). 

To put that in perspective, the tax cuts George W. Bush proposed during the 2000 campaign were $1.32 trillion — which would be $1.82 trillion in today's dollars. And taxes were higher in 2000 than they are today, and the country was running surpluses rather than deficits.

To get even close to paying for these tax cuts, Trump and Cruz would have to eliminate the Medicaid program and children's health insurance as well as all education spending and all transportation spending. Gone too would be all spending needed to take care of our Veterans.

However, that's not all. Trump's proposed cuts are so big that you could eliminate all military spending -- shut down the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines -- and still only pay for two-thirds of his tax cut. Don't forget, he's proposed INCREASING military spending.

"There's just no way to reconcile all that," Klein wrote. "Taken together, even the most sympathetic reading of Trump's plan dissolves into incoherence." 

Required Reading:
How each candidate's tax plan affects you
We've lost sight of how irresponsible republican tax plans are 
Why Does Sander's Tax Plan Increase Taxes So Much?
How The Candidate's Tax Will Affect You - In Four Charts
No One Can Agree On How Much Candidates Tax Plans Will Cost
Why the Economy Performs Better Under Democratic Presidents
Five Charts Prove that The Economy is Better Under Democrats

The Anti-Robot Party

This presidential election season has been all about jobs - despite an economy that is growing. Republicans and Democrats alike blame the loss of jobs to trade and immigration.

Both are wrong - sort of.

While it is clear that manufacturing jobs were lost to trade - that doesn't mean that more protectionist trade policies can bring back millions of high paying, stable manufacturing jobs.

First of all, we've demolished the unions that made those manufacturing jobs stable and high paying in the first place. That means new jobs that are created will have lower pay, lower benefits and less security than the ones we lost.

Moreover, as FiveThirtyEight's Ben Casselman writes this week, Manufacturing Jobs Aren't Coming Back because manufacturing itself has changed.

The reason the economy looks good on paper but feels bad all around is that the this has been a long "jobless recovery." Employers have invested heavily in automation and outsourcing to contractors and consultants over the past decade, using low interest rates to rebuild their manufacturing capacity without hiring new workers.

Productivity -- the amount of goods produced by an hour of work -- has gone way up, while unemployment has not.

One way that happens is just laying off a worker and making whoever is left do the jobs of two or three people. Certainly I've seen this in many American workplace. It is a very easy way to increase "productivity." Moreover, no matter how stressful it is for the remaining workers, they will put up with it because they fear the loss of their own job.

The other way to increase productivity is through automation. Robots don't need health benefits and don't call in sick. They don't complain when you pile on the work.

Automation in factories has been -- and will continue -- to increase. We lost jobs to cheap labor in China and Mexico, but lately manufacturing has been returning to the U.S. without the increases in manufacturing employment. The new factories are more automated and the jobs at these factories require a higher skill and education level.

So a new factory only needs a fraction of the manpower to run it as was needed a generation ago.

The trend is likely to continue and not just in manufacturing.

Just read the Robot Invasion series Slate magazine did last year to get an idea of the wide range of professions that can and will likely be replaced by software and automation. From lawyers to pharmacists to sports writers, software is getting better at the jobs that humans used to do.  Even pizza delivery is now being automated, with Dominoes rolling out automated pizza delivery drones in Australia. That's right, even the pizza delivery driver's job isn't safe.

So scream all you want about immigration and China -- it won't do any good.

The robots aren't even listening.

Required Reading:
Robot Invasion: Slate
Manufacturing Jobs Aren't Coming Back from 538
Delivery Robots Making Pizza Runs from Discovery News
Business is Thrilled that Automation Raises Productivity

Patrick Cooper Hunt: A Refugee's Story

Patrick Cooper Hunt left Westport in County Mayo, Ireland in 1848 at the height of the Great Famine.

Gorta Mór killed a million Irish and sent a million more fleeing across the seas in search of something better.

Many died never touching shore. Packed as they were aboard the coffin ships, two-fifths died at sea of disease and starvation.

He was lucky to have an uncle in Lambertville, NJ and so in the summer of 1849, he sailed from Liverpool, England for the port of Philadelphia aboard the ship Wyoming.  

He was about 18 years old.

Or he may have been 22 - it depends if you trust his headstone which says 1833 or the ship's manifest which lists him, and a dozen other young immigrants as 22. 

In America he found work for his uncles who had sponsored him. He found opportunities he would never have had in an Ireland occupied and oppressed by England.

Yet by 1850, more than a quarter of the population of Philadelphia was Irish and the flow of Irish Catholic refugees created resentment and discrimination as well. "No Irish Need Apply" was a familiar sign by 1851 -- a door slammed in a man's face, when he sought only pay for a day's work and food for an empty belly.

The ship Wyoming, part of the Cope Line of Philadelphia.  Constructed in 1845 By John Vaughan & Sons of Philadelphia, the Wyoming would have been newer and perhaps quite a bit more seaworthy than many of the "coffin ships" that brought Irish immigrants to America. (source Wyoming Trails and Tales) 

Secret societies and an entire political party emerged in opposition to Irish immigration. The Irish were the "wrong religion" because they were Catholic. Nativists believed their religion was incompatible with American Values. Sound familiar? 

The Know Nothings used fears of Irish immigration and conspiracy theories of Papal armies to gain power in statehouses and Congress in the 1850s. The Know Nothings electing governors, over 100 congressmen and ran a Presidential candidate that got 20 percent of the vote. They enacted laws to restrict voting rights of the Irish. 

Mobs of Know-Nothings dragged priests out of churches and attacked immigrants with deadly violence as they became emboldened by their rising political power. 

As Christopher Klein writes,

Abraham Lincoln was among the many Americans disturbed at the rise of the nativist movement as he explained in an 1855 letter: “As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

The civil war over slavery overshadowed the nativist political rise, but it has always remained in the background. As the Irish gained political power, they gained pride and marched in the streets. 

St Patrick's day celebrations that we know and love are born out of a stubborn resistance to nativist forces that tried to exclude and oppress the immigrants of the Emerald Isle.  The first parade was in New York, not Ireland. The Friendly Sons of St Patrick Society was formed in Philadelphia in the 1700s to provide aid to Irish immigrants. 

"Yes, the Irish transformed the United States, just as the United States transformed the Irish. But the worst fears of the nativists were not fulfilled. The refugees from the Great Hunger and the 32 million Americans with predominantly Irish roots today strengthened the United States, not destroyed it. A country that once reviled the Irish now wears green on St. Patrick’s Day."

In America Patrick Cooper Hunt found a girl named Mary Malone. She too had emigrated from County Mayo. She too had seen the Great Hunger of Gorta Mór and survived. Together they made a life. They had five children and went on to become upstanding Americans. 

Patrick Cooper Hunt and his children did well in the US. His grandson served in World War I, worked on the rail roads, became a transportation engineer and taught college in New Jersey.

From Irish immigration to jetpacks in Space. Patric Cooper Hunt's great grandson helped design the MMU. 

His great - grandson worked for NASA on Apollo and Skylab as well as for the military designing things that go into space, and things that go boom. My father John Hunt designed a lot of other things too, of course. He even designed that grocery checkout scanner that you find in every store.

And of course, his great great grandson is writing his story today. 

So on this St. Patrick's day, dress in your green and lift your glass, but take a moment too to remember those refugees that America took in. Those men and women fleeing political and economic oppression, who found a new life in this land of opportunity and hope -- and made the country better by their presence. 

Because that is what St. Patrick's day is all about. 

It is a story of refugees coming to America because they could no longer survive in their beloved homeland. 

It is a celebration of immigration and an act of defiance by the immigrants and refugees that could not know freedom until they came to America.

                                                                               -30-

Required Reading:
The Irish Refuge Crisis
How the Know Nothing Party Change America