Tag Archives: ireland

Sep 6 2012

Telling It Like It Is

My friend, Simon Bendle in the United Kingdom recently posted this on Facebook:

“Just come across this for the first time: IrishPresident Michael D Higgins tearing into Tea Party supporter Michael Graham a few years back. Well worth a listen, if you haven’t heard it before. “Be proud to be a decent American,” says the ballsy little president, “rather than just a wanker whipping up fear.” How many other heads of state would say that on national radio? Makes me proud to be (half) Irish!”

It is so refreshing to hear a politician anywhere articulate the real purpose of the Tea Party.  Simon regularly opines on various matters on his “Bendle Blog.”

Jul 30 2012

If This Is True …

Ancestry.com, the online genealogy search site conducted a recent analysis and came up with a startling discovery.

It seems that a certain John Punch was the first indentured servant (or slave) in Colonial America to come from the African continent; he was our fledgling country’s first African slave.  His blood line courses through American history like so many of our early settler’s (voluntary and not) life lines did.  Just like so many tributaries that run through the countryside eventually flow into the mighty Mississippi.  Eventually, John Punch’s African genes mixed with Irish genes that came from that Emerald Isle.

John Punch’s blood then ran in the veins of a vivacious young college student who met and married a graduate student from Kenya.  That marriage brought forth a child of mixed racial history who grew up and eventually became the first President of the United States of America: Barrack Obama.

So that mighty river that flowed from the first African slave to be brought to our shores now flows through our President.  This is the Alpha and Omega of the African struggle in our country.

I think that is mighty cool.

Phil Chen