The Village Oak Tree

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Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

As we come to the close of another year, according to the Roman calendar, I’m hearing more and more that people are suffering from burnout. A burnout caused by sensationalist news media that hits us every waking moment of our lives nowadays.

We’re tired of hearing about economies failing, hearing about thousands of people dying around the world in all manner of ways, and our governments failing us every time we elect someone new to replace the feckless ones that failed us before. Maybe we should take a lesson from Bulgaria where the people just protested large and loudly enough to oust their government.

In the U.S., things are starting to reach a fever pitch in a lot of places.

Gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit and let’s talk about what’s going on that may not be making any headlines where you are. To close out today’s podcast, I have a satirical seasonal poem to read for you from one of my dearest friends.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

This is another one of those weeks when I struggle to find something to talk about with all of you.

There is so much flooding the media zone right now, that anything I say will sound like just another repeat of the talking heads on the telly.

So, I’m going to talk a little about how the U.S. west coast is looking like they’re making some small moves to slide themselves away from Washington D.C. more and more, and the economy as it’s starting to affect everyone except the morbidly wealthy.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit and let’s talk about what’s going on that may not be making many headlines where you are.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

I have so much going on this month, I’m having trouble keeping up, so I’m going to make this a short one this week, sort of.

Lately, I’ve been picking up more and more IT gig work from this company I’ve been working for, for the last five years. They want me to take care of corporate computer refreshes and network printer installs out the wazoo lately and I can’t seem to get ahead on my own work. The worst part is, like all gig work, the pay sucks and there’s no benefits. How many of you can relate?

This week, I want to touch on a point again about something near and dear to my heart. I know I’ve said this a few times before that I’m married to a foreign born wife, who has a daughter living in another state, also foreign born and these days, I’m constantly worried for their safety.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit and let’s talk about what Trump’s latest anti-immigrant foreign policies might mean for people like us.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

I’m a bit angry these days as I watch everything collapse around me. I went to a Thanksgiving dinner party last Thursday at the behest of my wife and as usual, there was someone there whom I hadn’t met before, who just had to ask me about my life, just because I’m different, as in not Chinese. I was the only white guy at this party, and also wearing my signature retired Army ball cap.

I’ve learned in the past not to try and hide anything from anyone because people just don’t know how to leave others alone. When in an intimate gathering with strangers, they just seem to have this incessant need to want to know everything about people they don’t know.

So, in my usual fashion, I answered this gentleman’s questions about myself, without any censorship, which led us down some rabbit holes later in the evening. For which my dear wife admonished me for after we got home. She said I was scaring people. Well, maybe people should be scared.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit. Let’s talk about the things that scare us the most these days.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

I'm back and still wicked busy right now but I'm taking some time out from all of my projects to, once again, talk about what’s on my mind. The topics I have in mind are also probably on a lot of other people's minds as well as the country heads into what the retailers call the holiday season.

As promised, I'll keep it relatively short. What I want to address today, are the prices and looming shortages in the grocery stores and other retail stores we normally shop in every week just to stay afloat from day to day.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit. Let's talk about the things that affect regular people the most these days.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

A word of caution. The reading of The Priest has adult language so be aware when listening to the podcast.

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

I’m going to make this as short as possible this week as I have a lot of pressing things going on these days.

I was contacted today by a IT staffing company that I occasionally do gig work for, to work a couple of days next week, one of which will be Wednesday. So, this will be my last post for a couple of weeks until I have some free time to sit down and write something again.

In the meantime, I’m still working on my website to make it more presentable and add in my photography efforts through the years. I’m about half way there to date and I’ll let everyone know when I’ve uploaded all of the changes.

Then there is the added time constraint of completing my final photography project for this community college class I’ve been taking this fall.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit. Let’s talk about a couple of things I’ve found in the news. I’m going to be all over the place this week as I have noticed the world is ramping up exponentially.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

I’m going to take a break from most of the news this last week of the Celtic new year, what we in the Gaelic world call Oiche Shanhna (Ee-heh How-ná) or Samhain.

I want to take this time to outline the future of this podcast going into my new year ahead. This is the time of year I typically make my big changes in life, much like what Christians tend to do around the first of January. You know, New Years resolutions they call them.

Since my annual calendar revolves around the ancient Celtic calendar, my new year starts on November first, using the Roman calendar.

I’ve decided to start spending more time writing my novels, and traveling around the United States pursuing photography in the new year ahead. The images I take I will showcase on my soon to be newly renovated website. The website address is shown below or just use the QR code in the upper left.

What that also means is that because of all of the stress and distractions from the daily news cycles, I will start fading out my podcast as we know it. My future plan is to make infrequent podcasts about my travels and the people I meet along the way, along with any earth shattering news stories I find. Sort of like photo journalism with lots of landscape and nature photography. I will write more articles than produce videos next year.

Will this cause me to lose a lot of Substack subscribers? Probably. But then, my mental health is a lot more important than how many subscribers I can garner from the internet. Life’s too short to be worried about such shallow endeavors. At my age, I’d rather pursue nature than internet followers in the time I have left here in middle earth. So, I’ll be writing more of my particular brand of activism in the blog on my website than for any corporate online platforms. All because of the threats of algorithmic censorship in this age of pro-Israeli lobbies and Trump’s authoritarian takeover. I’ll probably quit writing in Substack altogether sometime in 2026 because of the corporate influence. I’ll continue contributing to Medium.com though because I have quite a few friends there and a much larger fan base.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit. Let’s talk about a couple of things I’ve found in the news, the Celtic New Year, and where Samhain - Hallowe’en comes from to finish out my year.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

Over the last couple of weeks. I’ve given you a couple of long winded podcasts so this week, I’m going to give everyone a bit of a break. This one will be much shorter.

I’m still going with this whole business of Trump’s personal militia, that call themselves DOH or Department of Homeland Security. A term George W. Bush coined during his two failed terms. But I’m not here to dredge up past U.S. presidents too much other than to shout to the world about how feckless they’ve been over the last eighty years since FDR died.

I’ve also found a couple of news articles from media that’s still not afraid to print the truth about the failing economies in the U.S. and Europe.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit. I’m not going to mince words this week. The western world is in big trouble these days.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

Today, I’m going to talk about the failing economy, both here in the U.S. and in Europe, and what that may portend for the future. I am also going to talk about some dystopian fiction novels I’m reading to provide examples of what things could look like when things collapse, and they will soon. Things are reaching the unsustainable point now so it’s only a matter of time.

There is some good news with the ceasefire and prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel. The bad news, As always, Israel violated the ceasefire by committing deliberate Arson in Gaza City as they were pulling out, and killed nine Palestinians yesterday, claiming they had crossed some yellow line in the sand. We all should know this is bullshit but they’ll get away with it once again. As soon as the prisoner exchange is finished, Israel will be right back at it again.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit. We’re going to have a chat about the economies in the U.S. and the EU today, and some dystopian fiction books I’ve been reading lately. Trust me, there’s a reason why I’m bringing this up now.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

Thank you for joining me.

Today, I want to talk a little about the history of rebellions from around the world, the looming hunger in the United States, the terrorism on display in Chicago, that maybe coming soon to your neighborhood, if you live in a democrat led state or city.

So, gather round, sit you down somewhere comfortable for a bit. I've gathered some news stories and articles from around the world that give us a glimpse into the history of rebellions, the near future of the United States and what may be coming for Europe soon.