Boabab

Once again its been an editing frenzy these past few days. I thought writing was a great way of whittling away the hours from one day to the next. OK, it's hardly water surfing off the back of a MIG, but to be able to put those hours to some good against the back drop of a country going deeper into the mire with each passing day makes me kinda lucky in a way.
Imagine trying to squeeze it in as a hobby around the comfort zone of a wage packet going into a bank every week, one large enough to pursue those other adrenalin inducing bucket list wishes. Wink, wink all you potential employers out there paying in the four figures, expenses, benefits and occasional perks inclusive! Me old Granddaddy always said never to sell oneself short and after all, like Rachel Weisz, I'm worth it.

It's not surprising that economics dominates everything to some degree that is brought to us in the form of information in whatever capacity we seek it. The threat of an American default had the American politicians scrambling for a deal to stop that from happening. In an almost Hollywood type ending, Gabrielle Giffords, who just months ago survived a bullet to the head in an assassination attempt, returned to Washington to cast her vote in a deal which secured a raising of the US debt ceiling, pending the implementation of trillion dollar cuts in spending, which will solely come from austerity measures and not a raising of taxes on the rich. Sound familiar?
Obama lost out on this one would feel, having vowed this scenario would not happen. No amount of burger buying is going to make voters forget all the false promises he made to get elected come next year. One would think that if the Republicans had someone to offer they might have Obama in a situation that even he couldn't talk his way so elegantly out of.
But with Arnie going the way of Gibson, and Sarah Palin thicker than a Boabab, and Americans tired of wars and social deprivation it would just take a stroke from the Republican ranks to pull a hero from Hollywood and allow him/her to ride an F16 all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue, before hopping off and landing in the chair of the Oval Office via a jet pack. Don't bet against it happening.

America once prided itself on its moral values. Leaders in direction for a world longing for freedom. That's what built America to the power it is today. Unless America can find a way back to that while not suppressing freedom the rot which has set in will only continue. One has to believe that humanity can find a way back. But given the modern state of play its hard to see where it may come from.

With disaster avoided in America and the World saved - for a few weeks anyway - attention turned back to Europe where the Markets began playing about with Italy and Spain again, throwing Europe into disarray. All containment methods are being suppressed by market force. Will it all fall apart and if it does, does that mean The Lisbon treaty will be dead?
When Ireland rejected it the first time around, 500 million Europeans seen it as a victory, not for the treaties demise, but for them, the people, a voice in a deafened arena. The arrogance of those to deny people the right to choose their countries direction is the cheapest form of Democracy yet.
Of course Ireland was not to be denied a second opportunity, and under the stalwart credentials of Brian Cowen, we got the chance to put right that terrible wrong. And after the fear and the promises, the Irish succumbed to the bully, and 500 million voices went mute again. At least they might as well have gone that way, because sure as hell no-one was listening to them. With that turnaround Ireland let go of the two things She was respected for the world over. Her courage and her rebellious attitude.
Luckily we have the drink, hey!

On Super Planet the goal at the inception of life is simple. You have to leave the Planet in better shape than that when you first came into it. However small. And guess what, it works. A common purpose devoid of Bullshit. But hey, that's Super Planet and even Hollywood won't go there...

The world of Ponzi economics. It has failed. There's no new thinking. Politicians don't care what the lay man thinks. They are there to front the agenda of others. Those who do that best rise to the top. Excellent vocabulary required. And a few Bullshit of the Month awards wouldn't go astray either. Yes, it's a damning viewpoint, but when weighed up against fact and reality, it's also a correct one.

One wonders now how long it will be before America and Europe come together and the move toward the fabled One World Currency begins. It's hard to see another way out really. The US.E?
Get the Russians in too given their demographic and monopolize Western Hemispheric trade. Get a great big Army out of it too. Something needs to change. People are tired of being robbed. In broad daylight too. Reward - Austerity. Never going to work. When has anyone ever given people something and then got it back from them successfully? There's no evolution in that. But maybe that's the idea?
It all sounds worse than it is. Right? Maybe. But I doubt it. There have been many breeze's since the second World War. Some turned to wind, and changes one not thought possible came about. You feel those breeze's again. That bore from the greatest of crisis, the humanity in everyone often shines brightest, and it is then we fulfill the potential of our species. We will know we are evolving well when we can stop a crisis from also displaying the worst of what we are long before we see the error of our ways and set about correcting it. Population is going boom and we're caving in on ourselves so 1% of the World can play with us like mice. The problems of today might be wishful thinking in the not to distant future because we all know what happens the mouse when the Cat stops playing.

Sudan remains a killing field and on the day Hosni Hubarak was wheeled into a cage in a hospital bed to stand trial for killing his own, the world stands by claiming there is nothing they can do but force some sanctions down Al-Assad's mustachioed mouth. I looked into why a little today and it seems that Iran is one of Syria's allies and that threatens world volatility.
There's also little appetite for another war in any of the willing countries. So apart from a few brave souls who risk their lives to let the outside world know about what is happening within, Assad is free to do as he pleases it seems.
I read an interview with his wife soon after their marriage some years back in a magazine while waiting to get a tooth pulled. She spoke of her husband and about his courage and his capabilities as a leader. Rumors are she's back in London now, safe from harms way. Would she be so brave as to speak now?
Like Somalia, it's to our shame that we stand by and allow these human atrocities to happen, where, despite an age of plenty, most have nothing at all and those that do, want to keep it all for themselves. How quick power corrupts.

It all makes Ireland seem a little insignificant really. I think our chance to show leadership as a country died with Lisbon. We fell down the rankings on that one. All that came after in the form of bailouts and banks behaving as they did sent us thumbing down even more. Throwing out our young once again to foreign shores, the romanticism once shared in towns and cities around the world now replaced with tales of disillusionment, because there is nothing romantic about being sold out by your very own... so the world can be a better place... I have the T-Shirt!

David Norris bowed out of the Presidential Campaign as expected. His parting words were taken from Samuel Beckett.
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better”.

I've always been a fan of little pearls of wisdom. Of insight into our own lack of foresight. Of perfect descriptions of all that we are.
Norris blamed Human Error. And why shouldn't he? What he did is typically human. On a human level when it comes to those we hold dear. He fell on his own sword for something he did out of the simplest of human emotion, concern for someone else. Down where life matters you don't pick and choose the people that matter to you. They're the ones there with you through thick and thin. Through everything.
I'm a little surprised Norris didn't realise that what he did, however personal to him, would not be accepted by society which yearns for leadership of the right kind. An error in judgement cost him the Park. When there's papers to be sold and political gain to be had, those errors have ways of coming back to haunt you. Norris shouldn't feel to downbeat, though one feels he will. He's probably as capable as anyone out there on show today. Most leaders now hide behind the spin and it goes back to that earlier assertion of who sells the Bullshit best to the masses?

For Norris, there's always next time. That's if the Mickey Martin don't go for Graham Norton in the meantime............. Best little job in the country.