Some people really hate State Patty’s Day.

I’m against it. Especially because it seems to bring in professional drunken assholes from all over the northeast. The students are only a small part of it and, as has been suggested, they drink all the time anyway.

I’m all for a healthy alcohol culture but a lot of college students just take all of the fun out of it by drinking to much too fast and then using said drunkeness to act like a complete asshole. State Patty’s day is like that. What’s the point of getting that fucked up by noon? Pump the brakes, man.

Not all of them, of course. I estimate that 5% of the students cause 95% of the problems. So whenever I read one of those Collegian editorials by a student whining “this town needs us for it’s economy.” Yeah, we need the university as a whole, but we don’t need the asshats. Individually, each one of you can be replaced.

the whole country isn’t celebrating at the same time like Saint Patricks Day. I’ve been to Scranton’s Parade Day and just as much shit goes on there as PSU’s State Pattys Day but no one is calling for Parade Day to end.

That many actual Irish people from Ireland find a lot of what happens in the US on St Patrick’s Day to be downright offensive/racist. It’s especially bad that a lot of the “Paddywhackery” as they call it, is perpetrated by Irish-Americans who claim to be proud of their heritage. I don’t see how acting out the worst stereotype of one’s ancestry is something to be proud of.

BTW, apropos of nothing, St Patrick’s Day, as we know it, really is an American holiday. Of course, the Irish have always noted St Patrick’s Day in mass, etc, but it only became a big public deal when Irish soldiers serving in the British army in the colonies used it as an occasion to have a parade and show a bit of pride. Back in Britain, they would not have been allowed to show any kind of Irish nationalism, but because it was hard to keep up morale among the troops serving in the colonies, the brass were willing to let it slide on this side of the Atlantic. So that’s how the tradition of the parades got started. It was also always a tradition to go to the pub after mass on the day, because it was a day off and what else was there to do?

Then, as US history wore on, the parades became an important tool for Irish-Americans to show off their numbers and thereby show the rest of the country their political clout. It was also a way for the leaders of their community to whip up a bit of pride and unity among a group that were generally shat-upon by the ruling class.

That’s why it’s a big holiday here but not so much in Ireland, although in recent years they have started to have parades there and Guiness has marketed it a bit.