Well now, I’ll begin at the beginnin’, says I, and here, on the feast to honor himself, Saint Patrick, no less. Instead of telling it to you in the Irish, as is my custom, I’ll spell it out in English so that even the despicable sons of Cromwell can read what I’ve got to say.

In a world where change is practically the only constant, every century, a new technological advance (so-called) turns us upside down – from the wondrous improvements in smelting, to this dizzying cotton spinning, to the steam engine itself!

Why, aside from change, the only other thing us Irish can depend on with absolute certainty is, of course, our national staple, the potato. Starch, starch and more starch.  There’s nothing better for you if you’re Irish, ya know. We could not live without it, but we needn’t ever worry about that.

Now the reason I’m writing: Some of the peevish sons of Cromwell are up to their old shenanigans, bless my soul, trying to scare the good people of Ireland into leaving.

It’s not enough for them that they took our land, lo the many years ago. Their latest deceit, so I am told, is to convince our people that a fungi is creeping across the nation’s potato crop – a blight on the land that, they say, will quickly destroy each and every potato throughout all of Ireland. 

They’ve even invented a new word for this thing of theirs: a “famine.”  And they claim it will lead to the death, or worse, the emigration, of millions of our people.  Some of these Protestant liars are making the assertion that hundreds of thousands of our people will end up in a backwater land, such as America.

Now how ridiculous is this? It is, in fact, a stark lie, bald-faced and all, and you heard it here first. The ones who are utterin’ these things will regret it till their dying day, if they should live that long.

The potato is the raison d’etre, the sine qua non of Ireland. Like the land and the sea, the potato will always be – unchanged, immutable.

I say it again, as I say it in this column each and every day: the only blight on our land remains the cesspool that was Oliver Cromwell, almost two hundred years after his malefactions against God and his people, the Irish.

As goes the ancient saying that seems to fit every occasion, and really none at all: “The lad set sail a mere youth, on a youth’s voyage, but when he returned, he was — an Irishman!”

And now I’ll be sayin’ good day to you.  And happy St. Patrick’s Day!

“Our janitor didn’t realize that the hands of the [Doomsday] Clock are never ’sprung ahead’ for daylight savings,” said a grim Dr. Noah Swayne, director of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.  “That janitor is likely responsible for destroying civilization as we know it.”

Swayne said the earth could be annihilated at any time.

The woman accused the Prince of non-consensual kissing while she dozed in a corner restroom abutting the VIP room of the downtown Capital City nightclub.  She was at the nightclub partying with seven dwarfs who own a local gold mine. 

Although immediately after the kiss, she awakened and rode off happily with the Prince, hours later, several friends, who major in Women’s Studies at a local college, urged her to report the crime to police.  Witnesses say she was “hysterical” at the police station.

The Prince’s legal counsel, high-powered Atlanta criminal attorney Ed Garland, issued a statement: “The Prince is completely innocent of any crime.  The kiss was consensual, not to mention G-rated Disney fare.” 

Garland has represented other high-profile celebrities in criminal matters. He was Pinocchio’s counsel in a federal perjury trial, which, Garland said, “was going just fine until his damn nose started to grow.”  Garland also successfully represented Princess Jasmine after she severed ex-husband Aladdin’s penis and justified her action by saying: ”He always have orgasm and doesn’t wait for me to have orgasm.”  In addition, Garland unsuccessfully represented Sid Phillips, the villain from Toy Story, who stabbed The Jungle Book’s sloth bear Baloo to death in a prison cell.  Baloo had been serving time for a sexual assault on feral boy Mowgli. Mr. Phillips was later executed for that murder.

For the current case, Garland says video evidence proves the accuser consented to sexual encounter.  “We have located a video of the accuser just moments before the alleged assault in which she was captured singing, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come.’”  Garland said it is reasonable to interpret the lyrics to mean ”someday my prince will ejaculate.”  The investigation continues.

“What happened is very simple: the runaway Prius was modeling its behavior on the sensational publicity given to other Toyota sudden acceleration cases,” said Toyota Chief Engineer Dr. Emil Tanaka. 

“Cars are not stupid, you know,” Dr. Tanaka explained. ”If a car is miswired or otherwise emotionally unstable — maybe it’s had a bad day on the highway — it may engage in risky behavior mimicking sensational stories in the news, just to get attention. If it weren’t for all this damn unfair publicity to Toyota, this car wouldn’t have acted up.”