"St. Patrick’s Day turned into St. Peter’s Day."

A nice first line by the NYT sportswriter Adam Zagoria, in "N.C.A.A. Men’s Tournament: No. 2 Seed Kentucky Downed By St. Peter’s/St. Peter’s, a No. 15 seed from Jersey City, N.J., toppled one of the most popular national title picks in the Kentucky Wildcats."

The St. Peter's team is called the Peacocks. I like teams to be named after animals, and it's always fun to imagine the actual animals fighting — in this case, peacocks against wildcats. Ha ha. 

I liked this:

St. Peter’s guard Doug Edert hit a floater that rolled around the rim before dropping in to tie the game at 71 and send it to overtime.

[Peacocks Coach Shaheen] Holloway was asked after the game: “Did you ever get nervous?”

“Nah — for what?” he said. “It’s basketball.”

Escape from Indianapolis.

We stopped in at Milktooth to get some waffles, grits, and pancakes before hitting the road back to Madison. But there was a huge St. Patrick's Day march/walk going on when we got back to the car, and we drove way down a one-way street before we got to where the police had blocked the street off. It wasn't enough that the nice Indianapolis cop was able to give us permission to drive the wrong way on a one-way street, there were all kinds of roadblocks keeping us from escaping from this area of town, and the cop spent 10 minutes looking at his information trying to figure out what else we'd need to do. It involved finding a sequence of alleys — things that are not on Google Maps. And we had to remember these weird, winding directions.

I photographed the low-level chaos from the car window.

You know, in the movies, protagonists in strange towns — in a panic, and going at high speed — are able to find these secret escape routes.

At one point, we needed to make a left turn across the lane that the marcher/walkers were on. We were coming out of an alley, so it was not blocked off, and the cop had told us to cross in front of them — the same cop who was preventing us from cutting through from the street he was guarding. When we reached that point, there was a woman in a car in front of us, and she seemed as though she was going to hesitate forever, the stream of marcher/walkers being endless.



Meade got out of the car and — risking seeming threatening — approached her to explain what she had to do and stopped a few walkers and motioned her out before getting in the car and nudging into the left turn and over to the on-ramp to I-70 just a few feet away.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

At the Bright Green Café...

... you can celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but around here, it's a birthday, so happy birthday, John.

"I'm not going to tolerate you making racist comments about my people."

(Thanks to Mitchell the Bat for pointing me there.)

Pyramids lit up in green for St. Patrick's Day.

Ireland seeks to be "front and center in the world’s consciousness" today... and Egypt plays along.

"8% Rate St. Patrick’s Day As An Important Holiday."

Says Rasmussen.

Chez Meadhouse, we rate St. Patrick's Day as in important birthday.

Happy birthday, John.

My baby is 30.

Happy birthday, John.

Everybody else: Happy St. Patrick's Day!

At the Premature Patrick's Café...

... join us or get the hell out of here.

It's St. Patrick's Day, and you know what that means around here.

Happy Birthday, John!

It's St. Patrick's Day, so....

... chez Althouse, we say: Happy Birthday, John!

Happy St. Pat's from Clan O'Harra.

The St. Pat rat?

If you're an O'Harra, maybe you can explain.

Speaking of celebrating....

It's St. Patrick's Day.

Which is always a double celebration, chez Althouse. A click on the new "St. Patrick's Day" tag will reveal why and will also take you to lots of photos and videos of St. Patrick's days past. The photo here is my favorite old one, from 2006.

It's that wonderful time of the year again.

We're getting set up here in Brooklyn. That's Borough Hall, tonight (with Brooklyn Law School in the background on the left).

Yesterday's Madison peace activities.

While I was up at the Capitol end of State Street yesterday, watching the St. Patrick's Day parade, Uncle Jimbo was monitoring the situation at the University end of the street, where I'd only seen the gestational phase of the anti-war activities. The parade I saw was really beautiful, with sunlight, the glistening white Capitol, a huge happy crowd, lots of kids running after candy thrown into the street, and our beloved Bucky Badger. It was so beautiful that when I started thinking about how beautiful it was, I had to struggle not to break down and cry -- and tears come to my eyes as I type this. I mean, look at this:



You're dissolving into maudlin tears now, aren't you? Or are you a staunch anti-war type, firming up your belief that Althouse is soft in the head and waiting to see just how badly she's going to slam the activists down at the other end of the street? I'm just going to leave it to Uncle Jimbo:

We start off with a quick chat with Lee Rayburn, deposed local Air America host, and victim of Clear Channel’s corporate savagery. This was cut short by the cowbelling of the orchestra. Next we have young Atticus intoning the words of his savior John Lennon. He actually does a creditable job and tries to stir some life into the scene; he is hamstrung by the pacing of the song and the anti-depressant medications of much of the crowd.

More at the link, including the part with the puppets ("an evil W flushes our sons, daughters, civil liberties, and future down a giant toilet"). Here's his video (in which you will hear the f-word):

Driving to Green Bay.

In case you're wondering why is Althouse getting such a late start this morning, I was up until 3 a.m. after driving, beginning at 8 p.m., to Green Bay and back. It's all about that snow storm back east. A flight got cancelled, the next flight -- after a motel stay -- was late, a connection was missed, and the only way to avoid a second night in an airport motel was to fly into Green Bay instead of Madison. You'd still arrive at 10:30, but you'd arrive 130 miles away. I was just relaxing into a cozy night of TV -- mellowing out as two "I Shouldn't Be Alive" guys were getting horrendously lost in the Amazon -- and then, minutes later, I'm fueling up the car for the 5 hour round trip to Green Bay.

Speaking of green, it was St. Patrick's Day, not a good time to be driving after midnight, especially on that 20 mile stretch of Route 26 where it's just 2-lane blacktop, and there's a long line of cars and school buses streaming toward you. I guess they were coming back from a sporting event in Madison. There are always a few drivers who think they can improve their situation by passing one car in front of them, and I'd like to thank all those idiots who trusted me to slow down to avoid a head-on collision. When I finally got into Madison at 1:30 a.m., the streets were flowing with young revellers. As I drove across State Street, a young woman yelled at me, "Don't drive drunk!" -- which was for her a big joke, because she assumed everyone out in a car right now was drunk. But I was driving-all-the-way-to-Green-Bay-and-back sober.

So we made it back safe and wide awake. And those guys got out of the Amazon, too, because the show is called "I Shouldn't Be Alive." I don't know how they did it, and I'd like to know. But I'm glad they did, and I'm glad to be back in Madison, Wisconsin on March 18, 2007.

Downtown Madison, on St. Patrick's Day.

So I go downtown today, and of course, it's St. Patrick's Day, but I'm just looking for a little walk and a stop someplace where I can read the newspaper and drink some coffee. Still, I had my camera, and there were things to see.

Down at the campus end of State Street, it's looking like this:



Cooking up a peace march, apparently.



But up at the Capitol end of the street, there's a different crowd:



With a different attitude:



The sun is shining. The parade is about to begin. First, the pipers:



Then, the 132nd Army Band Wisconsin National Guard:

It's that day when I say...

Happy Birthday to John!



Happy St. Patrick's Day to the rest of you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

And, therefore: Happy Birthday, John!

Before the parade.

I didn't know there was a Madison St. Patrick's Day parade. I guess when I move downtown and live on the Capitol Square, I'll know more about such things. Obviously, it's not St. Patrick's Day yet, but apparently, they want a weekend day. Anyway, I was just downtown to take a walk and to sit in a café for a little while, and I happened to see some pre-parade things.

A kid, already hoisted onto parental shoulders, with the appropriate balloon headgear:



Note the guys with placards bearing religious messages. "The fool hath said in his heart 'There is no God.'" That ought to unnerve you. Think there's no God? You've just pegged yourself a fool! And if you buy that logic, you are a fool. One of the guys was playing an accordian, and they were all singing. What were they singing? I don't know. I was wearing "earbuds" and listening to a podcast.

The Madison Area Technical College Mascot was stirring up some excitement:



Come on, everybody. It's about green and balloons and hats: