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St. Patrick's Day Masquerade Parade

A silly and sort of creepy parade.
  (+6, -1)
(+6, -1)
  [vote for,
against]

It would be scary except it's broad daylight so it's not.

A St.Patrick's Day Parade where the participating bands and all other entrants must wear leprechaun masks. Everyone. All the animals and even the politicians. EVERYONE.

No exceptions.

Bagpipes of course would be heard up and down the route.

blissmiss, Mar 14 2009

Anti- gay St Patrick's http://www.queerty....rch-in-it-20090313/
Hard to believe this is America and not Iran [xenzag, Mar 14 2009]

Bagpipe Vending Machines Bagpipe_20Vending_20Machine
[Veho, Mar 16 2009]

Joint Parade Logical Operator Convention Joint_20Parade_20Lo...erator_20Convention
[hippo, Mar 16 2009]

ugh, it is scary... http://www.movinghe...3_johnmc_resize.jpg
[xandram, Mar 16 2009]

...and cute. http://snapshot.par...5&g2_serialNumber=3
[xandram, Mar 16 2009]

[link]






       on a totally unrelated subject, how did the word "homophobia" get to be defined as "fear of homosexuality" ? I can see the obvious "fear of uniformity" or "fear of being the same"; does it really mean "fear of homos" ? Musta caused a few giggles in the intellectual redneck group.
FlyingToaster, Mar 14 2009
  

       yahbut where does that leave the "I'm proud to be me" people ?   

       Intellectual rednecks are the only group I could assume snuck "homophobia" past the censors and PC crowd.   

       re: post, do you really want the riot-control bears in leprachaun masks ?
FlyingToaster, Mar 14 2009
  

       yes
blissmiss, Mar 14 2009
  

       For some reason, our council have chosen to combine the Gay Pride march and the rather heavily Christian Caribbean carnival. This is generally considered silly.
nineteenthly, Mar 14 2009
  

       Blarney.
Blarney and shenanigans I say.
  

       I'd prefer to see parades based on what people do out in the community, rather than what they're perfectly entitled to do in the comfort of their own homes.   

       Otherwise, we might one day see facial masking, toenail biting, earwax collecting, ham sandwich making, vacuum cleaning, Friday-night movie making out-ing, peanut flicking, fridge defrosting, bannister waxing, cat bemusing, jam spooning, gin swigging, shoe polishing, tea brewing and all manner of other parade-based celebrations of each and every little mundane aspect of human activity imaginable.   

       But that's a rant for another idea. There's already some precedent in anonymous parading (or at least anonymous demonstration/picketing) by Anonymous - "a group of ruthless hackers and 'domestic terrorists'" who staged a number of protest events against the Church of Scientology, wearing identical Guy Fawkes masks - both to re-enact a cool scene in a movie, and also to avoid possible litigation (but mostly to re-enact a scene in a movie)   

       On the Boston thing - it sounds like it's being whipped up a bit - the 'ban' is not on Gay people (anyone who is gay can still march) it's on groups hijacking an Irish-Pride parade to promote a different message - I expect the KKK are also being encouraged not to take part, along with the nice people from the Nation of Islam, representatives from the British National Party, as are the Roquefort Appreciation Society, the SAAB Owners Club, the ladies from the Iranian Women's Sewing Guild, and the entire Kazakhstan Crazy People's Coalition.   

       That doesn't mean that Boston has turned into a Theological Dictatorship, more likely, someone with a little media savvy has chosen to get their 15 minutes of (vicarious) fame by spinning what would seem to be a perfectly reasonable decision into an unwarranted media-frenzy that, in the long-run will do no good (Quite the contrary, it's things like this that instead advance the growing far-right menace that feeds on meaningless examples of <insert group here> complaining about <insert complaint here>, if they don't like it, they can <insert helpful suggestion here> (with the optional) it's Political Correctness gone mad! - Of course, what's really happening is the (shit) news networks are making a story where none really exists - and poking at people's most sensitive sensibilities is what makes news - I wish we lived in a world where it was obvious what was news and what was bollocks, but this one looks like bollocks to me)
zen_tom, Mar 16 2009
  

       //Bagpipes of course would be heard up and down the route.//   

       Would there be bagpipe vending machines along the route as well? [+]   

       //(but mostly to re-enact a scene in a movie)//   

       I think you'll find that they mostly did it "for the lulz."
Veho, Mar 16 2009
  

       [FlyingToaster] "Homophobic" doesn't only not mean "fear of uniformity", it doesn't even seem to mean "fear of homosexuality". It's commonly used to mean "intolerance towards homosexuality" combined with a bit of "Dammit, they seem to be having more fun than me, and it's not fair!".

[zen] Are you saying there'd be something wrong with a tea-brewing parade?
hippo, Mar 16 2009
  

       No, I'm more than happy for the tea people to parade - it's just that if I were organising a tea-brewing march, I'd be annoyed if the BMX Racing Association muscled in - I've got nothing against Bike Motor-Cross, but if they were doing a parade, I'd probably leave them to it (rather than insist I follow along to exhibit my shiny teacups) it's just that I wanted to make this parade about making nice cups of tea - if someone who likes BMX also drinks tea and wants to join in - then fine - it is after all, a tea-brewing parade, it would be madness not to let anyone join in who wants to express their love of tea. BMX and Tea aren't mutually exclusive, they just don't have that much to do with one another.   

       We could have a free-for-all parade I suppose - and maybe that's the answer - but I thought the idea of parades was to make them about something, and while that's the case, why not let that be the case? - It does limit the number of things about which we can parade to 365 (52 if we leave it to the weekends) and maybe there'll be some conflict over who wants the nice summer-time parades, but I'm sure that can be worked out amicably.
zen_tom, Mar 16 2009
  

       [zen] Right, yes - clear definition of a parade's topic area is important. I also agree your idea of a "free-for-all parade" is slightly unsatisfactory - it would be hard to represent all views in one parade (not least the views of agoraphobics, or those who are opposed to the very idea of parades of any sort) and would be likely to be hijacked by the louder pressure groups.
hippo, Mar 16 2009
  

       [zen] Perhaps what's needed is some convention as to which binary logical operator should be used when planning a parade which encompasses two or more opinions. Should it be AND or OR? - i.e. is this parade open only to homophobic Irish, or to the homophobic and the Irish? In this context, NAND would be an interesting one - the "Gay Rights NAND Free Tibet Parade" would be open to everyone except those those who are in favour of both Gay Rights *and* Tibetan Freedom. Perhaps this needs a separate idea to properly explore all the possibilities...
hippo, Mar 16 2009
  

       You can dance around this all day, but the fact remains that the St Patrick's Day parades in many American cities are overblown, nasty, drunken, nationalistic, festivals of conservative arrogance. I have gay friends who find these parades very offensive. KKK hats or balaclavas would be more appropriate attire for many of the participants.
xenzag, Mar 16 2009
  

       Hey [xenzag] I've never had any exposure to it - and nor do I want to - I can't imagine British people have traditionally been particularly welcome on St Paddy's day either (recent "Continuity" IRA activity makes this particularly poignant - let's also forget the traditional American funding for IRA bombings against civilians being largely raised at these events (does anyone else find the cessation of IRA violence and the US' reaction post 9/11 coincidental?)) but neither would it be appropriate to try and organise an Orange Order float on 17th March - though to be fair, they're probably not the most enlightened group in terms of sexual identity either.   

       Finally, when all of that nonsense is out the way, the streets will finally be clear for anyone who wants to continue going about their day-to-day business.
zen_tom, Mar 16 2009
  

       The ultimate irony is that St Patrick was of course English, being born near Carlisle; is buried in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland - also part of the UK.   

       The final point I would like to make is that St Patrick's Day should be a day for everyone, and not the controversial divisive fest it has become. Forget about KKK hats and balaclavas. What they need to wear are Mahmoud Ahmadinejad masks. Happy paddy's day to all. :-)
xenzag, Mar 16 2009
  

       People done rained on my poor little green people parade.
blissmiss, Mar 16 2009
  

       Sorry bliss - my bad - I'll unrain myself...
zen_tom, Mar 16 2009
  

       // The final point I would like to make is that St Patrick's Day should be a day for everyone   

       Why? wouldn't that be the UN parade rather than the Irish National parade?
simonj, Mar 16 2009
  

       Isn't St Pat's Day just another excuse for ex-pat Australians to get drunk?
theleopard, Mar 17 2009
  

       // does anyone else find the cessation of IRA violence and the US' reaction post 9/11 coincidental?   

       Not at all. This was when thinking Americans started to realise what domestic terrorism was all about and therefore started to switch from funding terror to encouraging peace.   

       Fortunately Ireland and the UK had been working on this matter jointly for sometime and the para-militaries on both sides were getting ready to throw the towels (and the bombs) in.
Aristotle, Mar 17 2009
  

       [zen_tom] don't you dare dry yourself off. I'm only faining tears. It's really raining shamrocks!!!
blissmiss, Mar 17 2009
  
      
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