Monday, February 7, 2011

The Iznop Scheme

The highlights, and I'll be quick, of the political day was the launching of Fianna Fáil manifesto. I had a quick scoot through it and I'll leave it at that.
The pearls of wisdom from the Fine Gael camp is to make the teaching of the Irish language a matter of choice instead of it's current status of compulsory.
The highlight of my mis-spent youth kicking cheap plastic balls across pitches that needed a mow, was a scholarship I won to the Gaelteach way back in the day. 3 and a half weeks in the depths of Donegal, great memories that stay with me even to this day. I won it in an Irish speaking competition at school.
Like a lot of things in life where choice is not part of the equation, it causes rebellion. I remember a group of us in school refusing to take the final year Irish lessons because our teacher at the time chose to teach in a fast spoken Irish we could not understand.
In all her wisdom she alienated us, not by her obvious talent, but by her doggedness that perhaps she could teach people something that could not be understood by us mere mortals. It's mirrored life in ways when I think about it. We got our own way, surprise, surprise and she lost 50% of her class. I rode the year out learning history.

There has been a growth in the number of Irish schools in Ireland in recent times. The language is taught in it's native tongue to those setting out on the educational path here in Ireland. A fighting chance you might say.
So in my opinion, the people took it upon themselves to preserve the language for anyone who chose to be taught that way. So Fine Gael really add nothing to the equation in their political wisdom.
As I believe the Irish will find ways to correct the injustices in our society over time, what's being offered by these political dinosaurs right now offers nothing to most people, the people who have to live through this time in reality, and not by being driven around in Garda escorted chauffeur driven state cars and getting paid more than leaders of countries who actually carry a little clout. So far removed from reality to see it themselves, they label the dissenters 'begrudgers' and damn anyone trying to do something for themselves to an almost inescapable knotting of red tape.
The reason i say over time, is Ireland needs to address her way of thinking into the future. So blinded by anger and fury, which has only been catching up on some people of late, they will vote in an alternative government that offers no real alternative. I think there will be a record turn out come Febuary 25, when the turnout should be poor due to disillusionment if what's on offer was to be thought out with any degree of significance. The majority of people have always put faith in things, be they spiritual or political, but continual betrayal still refuses to take that blind faith away. Ireland needs a real government which offers significant change for all. That party doesn't exist yet, and those who do exist to that end are just to small to have a real impact. Ireland is years from her turning point yet, i think.

Sending CV's to foreign countries is something I have never done before. In freer times I'd pack a bag and away I went. Some good times to be had in the States and some European cities and countries. A broader view of the world and its people, so the young that travel now will be OK. The tragedy I believe is for the ones left behind. I genuinely thought for the most part I was settled. Maybe I am, who knows, but the world is a big place and anyone's oyster if the right place and working environment can be found. Pressure is not a good thing to have hanging over one's head for to long, because a few years in, it starts to wear you down. It's always best when pressure is weighed beneath the sands of a sun-soaked beach, don't you think?

I ordered 50 copies of Booker's World today. Copies for family and friends and copies to send out again in search of a publisher somewhere. There is not much more I can do in the short term. Maybe this week I can begin work on The Potato website, a non-profit website aimed at satirically exploring Ireland in all her glory in the hope of selling merchandise such as T-Shirts, Political cartoon prints and other things, all to raise money to support independence in artistic endeavor in the pursuit of the social good. It's like building my own little pyramid scheme in the world of entrepreneurship, only I'll be building it upside down. If that makes any sense.

I might call it The Iznop Scheme. The pyramid scheme that never comes crashing down. A capitalist's nightmare. A worker's dream.

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