When Latvian Eyes Are Smiling - New York Times

When Latvian Eyes Are Smiling - New York Times: "And here are some more glorious and sorrowful mysteries: how race and nation, faith and place, define and divide us endlessly; how ethnicity makes fast friends of strangers and also poisons the well of humanity; how religion calls us to worship and so miscalculates our Gods. If there is only one God — as all Muslims, Christian and Jews believe — then isn't the one we believe in one and the same? If there is no God, aren't we off only by one? And if there are many, aren't there plenty to go around?

Consider the shamrock. Consider those famous 40 shades of green Ireland is said to have. It's Disney, an illusion, a fake Irish bar. The world we live in is 40 shades of gray, and in each of them still 40 more.

The barkeepers know this in Milford and West Clare, in Boston and Baghdad, in Dublin and Darfur, wherever they are — it's always the same human thirst and hunger, the same longing for the shared feast and safe harbor, the home fire and known place, the common table and place at the bar. The green beer and blather, the old songs and good craic notwithstanding, until all are safe in their own place, a Great Day for the Irish, or the Americans, is just pretend."