Tag Archives: Obama

O’Bama is His Name-O

President O'BamaLately I ‘ve been hearing a lot about people’s claims that President Obama is a Muslim in disguise, despite his protestations to the contrary.  An August 19, 2010 report by the  Pew Research Center concludes that 18% of Americans believe that Pres. Obama is a Muslim. Fox “News,” Tea Party members and right-wingers in general are doing their fair part to ensure that the most gullible of our fellow countrymen and women live in abject fear of an Islamic take-over of the USA, and that unless we get rid of the terrorist in the White House, we are looking down the wrong end of the barrel at the end of a free America.

It is hard to believe that people can be such nincompoops.  Anyone can see that the current POTUS is Irish!

To preface my discussion, it must be known that I have thoroughly researched this subject in a scholarly and erudite manner.  I have delved into that infallibly academic source, Wikipedia; I have scoured Google for true unfiltered images of our president in action; I have even searched videos on that bastion of truth, YouTube. After considering all the evidence I agree with and drawing from my own narrow-minded point of view, I have thus concluded that President “Obama” is Irish.

To clarify one point, “Irish” and “Muslim” are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As in many parts of the world, there are certainly people in Ireland today, native Irish or not, that were either born Muslim, or have reverted, as Muslims like to say, to Islam. Frankly if one sixth of the world population professes Islam, then it follows that there must be at least one or two families of Muslims in the Republic of Ireland.

We arrive now to my point that the President is Irish, by using the same stream of logic that leaves nearly 1 in 5 Americans actually believing that B. H. Obama is a Muslim.

Let’s start with his name:  

  • Barack: ‘Barack” sounds a bit like ‘brick’, a tool of the building trade with which the Irish in the 18th and 19th centuries were largely responsible for using to erect many of the great edifices of the American east coast.
  • Hussein: The letter ‘s’ when followed by an ‘e’ Irish is pronounced, sh.  (The English spelling doubles the ‘s’ in order to ensure that it is not pronounced like zz, as would be a tendency for American speakers of English.) In Irish, the ‘h’ sound in words is dropped, or aspirated, leaving us with  ‘Ushayn’, which through the natural evolution of language could become any number of words including, for example, O’Shaughnessy.
  • Obama: If the Irish-ness of his first and middle names is not obvious to the casual reader, the president’s last name should clinch it. During a March 17, 2010 luncheon with the Irish Republic’s prime minister, Brian Cowen, the president said of his surname,  “I used to put the apostrophe after the “O” but that did not work.” He did not elaborate on why it didn’t work, but I believe it is that, in the Irish language, the character is Ô, and that takes too long to type when you are going for 70 wpm. And if I believe it, then it must be true.

Now we come to O’Bama’s physical features. The picture on the left shows Pres. O’Bama. The picture on the right shows another well-known Irish citizen, Bono. The resemblance of the of the two men to each other is uncanny. (The president’s resemblance to Dilbert will be discussed in a future article.)

The uncanny resemblance of two Irishmen

Finally, a discussion of O’Bama’s historical connection to the Irish struggle for freedom.  Cornelius “Conn” Colbert was a hero and martyr of the Easter Rising, in which  a 1916 rebellion by Irish republicans was the catalyst of a struggle which eventually led to the creation of the Republic of Ireland. “Colbert” is also the surname of the American TV host,  Stephen Colbert, although the latter uses the French pronunciation of “Coal-BARE.” Nevertheless, the two names are spelled the same. (Stay with me here; this is going somewhere.) On October 30, 2008 Stephen Colbert publicly endorsed Barack O’Bama on The Daily Show.

Therefore, Brick O’Shaughnessy O’Bama is unmistakably and doubtlessly Irish.

Cusp of Change

We are standing at the cusp of change.

I have looked at the West from behind the Iron Curtain and thought that the wall would never open in my lifetime.

I have stood at the spot from where the First World War was ingnited and wondered how one shot could plunge the world into panic.

I have witnessed the end of the Cold War, the dawn of a new renaissance, only to stand among the rubble of yet another war in Europe and wondered how it could have happened.

I have watched with millions, the first human steps on the moon and wondered how far away it was.

I have listened to the words of Martin Luther King at the place of his death and thought about his dream. At that time exactly two years ago I never imagined we would be experiencing such a dramatic event in American history.

Now I look ahead at a new dawn, another cusp of change. Another chance for humankind to realize that there will always be tomorrow. Much of what Dr. King dreamed of has yet to be realized, but the legacy of his life’s work and that of all of us, brothers and sisters, give us one reason to celebrate: the swearing-in of Barack Hussein Obama to fulfill that role for which he has been called.

We are standing at the cusp of change.

We can not stand and look back at the past without looking ahead at the future. There is still much to be done. We still have many of the problems of which Dr. King reminded us: poverty, inequality, hunger, unemployment, and yes – racism. We still have millions of people who are forced to choose between food and medicine, a roof of their head and childcare. We still have factories closing and leaving their employees without options.

All over the world are people that are looking to the United States of America for inspiration. Right now we are at one of our most inspiring moments and we all have a lot to work left to do to show the world, and more importantly each other, what we can do.

We can be a nation where everyone has appropriate medical care. We can be a nation where everyone can have the education she or he wants. We can be a nation where every person can partake of the gifts of life. These are basic rights, and we have the responsibility to show people what we’re made of. We can’t rely on President Obama to do the work for us; we’ll have to pull up our sleeves and dive in ourselves. But if Barack Obama is a beacon, we are the beam that carries it forward.

I would like some day to be able to say I that I had stood on the cusp of change and it was wonderful.