Democrafarcy

After seventy long, wet and cold Irish days, Dail Eireann finally elected a new taoiseach yesterday. To consolidate the lunacy, the new taoiseach is also the old one, bright spark, Enda Kenny.
   The accidental taoiseach became the first Fine Gael leader to be re-elected to the post - even if 75% of the electorate voted for the former school teacher to be sent packing. Kenny will lead a coalition government - don't be fooled by other terms - consisting of their old nemesis Fianna Fail and a rabble of 'Independents' selling out their status for short term local and personal gain. As you do in Ireland.            

Stitched together, stitched up, call it what you will, Irish democracy took another hit yesterday with the establishment parties once again using the taxpayers money to lure a government no-one wanted.
'A mutant,' as Larry would say.

Kenny was Haugheyesque in his giving in order to secure his place in history, a stint that is sure to be short-lived. If the coalition limp through the first six months they could well go 2-3 years, a ministerial pension being the strong lure for those who chose to prop up the same old, same old. Indications are that could happen, over half of that first six-months is an expenses-laden holiday.
   Who knows it could even go longer, if Kenny's inevitable departure provides a distraction in the coming twelve months and a more competent leader can be found within the Irish-Tory ranks. That might be a hard find, though I'll take a stab on Simon Coveney being that person having been seen wining and dining with the Bilderberg Group a few years back. But that's another story.............

It's too depressing to go into the list of new A & B Ministers. They offer nothing new. Coveney, Varadkar and Burton might feel a little shafted having been shifted from their existing portfolios into less-powerful ones. 29-year-old beanpole and spin soprano, Simon Harris gets the toxic Health portfolio.
   The only plus was a more gender balanced cabinet, with Francis Fitzgerald leading the female posse in the role of Tanaiste and Regina Doherty getting the whip.

In a parting shot, Labour leader Joan Burton ordered her troops, all seven of them, to vote against Enda's stewardship having previously backed him and even flirted with the idea of being bedfellows again.
   Obviously soured by the events of recent weeks over the issue of water, Joan remained defiant and proud of her parties term in government, before making her way to her true imprisonment on the back benches, just another number once again.
   To say Labour were chewed up and spat out is putting it mildly, an indignant end to an indignant term. They were warned. 

The 32nd Dail could very well be a historic one, but the reasons for that remain unknown. What is known is 65% of the electorate turned out to vote. Of that, 25% gave a vote to Fine Gael, equating to almost 550,000 votes. It's enough to grab power in Ireland.  
   Twice as many people did not even bother to vote. Making them realize the actual power they have is key to any significant change in Ireland going forward. That's a challenge that thus far as proved elusive to those who yearn for a more equality-based republic, where fairness is the rule of law and elitism is regarded as public hazard.

Larry, being a bit eccentric himself, might have liked new member of parliament, Danny Healy-Rae. When Ireland looks for people to take us forward though, the needle in that particular haystack would appear to be as distant as ever. Entertaining bunch, us Irish.

Let the games begin. 

Uisce Batty

I'm tapping this bedraggled - a bit like a Fine Gael and Labour follower in recent days I might suspect. Many stood on the crest of a wave just five-short years ago, toed the party lines, submissively whipped. Told it was all for the good of the country it was. They drove it home, the austerity. Relentlessly. The eviction bill. The treatment of minorities and the vulnerable, right down to those who can not care for themselves. The homeless crisis. The phantom debt deal. The sale of state assets to vultures. Some brewed at home. Most not.

And water. That abundant, if somewhat soiled substance, necessary for keeping humans alive and to a certain, personal, hygienic standard. Plants and animals like it too. Half the nation seems drawn to seep under it should it fall freely from the heavens at certain times of the year.
Yep, that pesky water sure caused a disturbance.

The protestations from across the class-divide, nationwide, met with derision from Michael 'Phantom deal' Noonan, Alan 'Power is a drug' Kelly and nearly everyone else across the established lines that cross between various orders vying for thought each day of the week in Ireland, now that the church no longer holds much sway with a more clued in population. Paddywackery may work for the tourists, but Paddy, it seems, is sick of the wackery. At least the political wackery of the past four decades.

Alan Kelly's Ministerial career

As it stands today, 62 days since Ireland delivered her verdict, a pact is emerging which will suspend water charges for a short period of time, whist a consultation period is provided for on the issue. It's face-saving guff for both parties, and if it remains as so, it will damage both. Unemployed TD's must be scratching their heads at Enda Kenny's hunger for a short second-term as taoiseach, while those who survived his five-year shambles decide how to feed him to the crows.

Fianna Fail promised a longer term abolition of charges and of its spectacularly named super-quango, Irish Water. They hardly peeled back the skin of the banana. If Kenny can bribe a few Indies now, Martin will support him as taoiseach and watch his demise from the sidelines, biding his time. He may regret that. If history is a governing concept of the future, there's enough to go by now to know that there are a few in the halls of the Dail that are there for the short-term biding. Few schools, few roads. The usual. Not much changes - except the popularity of the self-appointed wise. It's on a downward spiral that looks good on any graph. It can only be a good thing.

Water's for another day. Be a brave day to bring it back out. V is for victory. Expect it to be short-lived as they connive some other way to saddle most further.

I used to think Larry was mad when he mentioned a Tory-style poll tax here for Ireland back in the day. Now I'm not so sure. Just one of the ideas Larry had on taxation. A 'beer-bottle' tax and a tooth-tax being another two he wrote notes on. I may have a lead on them, but that's another day.

I mentioned my bedraggle-ment - vomiting bug. Seven long days. That's a lot of retching. Leave you sore. Old.
Still, got a banana down me today. It's still in there. I can also see me hip bones again. Even your one with the big arse and i-Phone can't claim that. Could brighter days be ahead?

"Ask me bolleeks!,' as Leon used to say.

Indeed.

Ghostly Hours

Lost an hour somewhere during the night. An hour we will not exist, in order to facilitate a brighter day and longer evening for the coming months. All fine, if the weather plays ball. It rarely does. Fear not, for in October, we take it back to facilitate the profits of energy companies, who act more and more like an grubby monopoly with each passing year. A bit like the political establishment. It's funny how the bills always go up right before the long damp Irish winter sweeps in from differing directions. Anyway, at the end of the day, what's an hour between friends?

Four weeks shy of the actual event, Ireland is commemorating the events of The Rising of 1916 this weekend. Though there are many grassroots and local events to visit, Ireland's elite began their commemorations safety tucked behind steel fencing, access denied to the common man and woman. It's difficult to watch, history being airbrushed for the world's media to digest, the faces of the leaders of the rising, those who died as we struck out for freedom, replaced by images of folk with no involvement in the events of that week. Some put there for modern-political gain. Few buy into it, as recent election results testify too.
There's little to celebrate. We remain divided as a society, not much semblance of the equality, that beautiful ideal the executed leaders yearned for and died for. Teachers, poets, trade unionists. Woman. Man. Child. Catholic. Protestant. Each suffered and died. For a ruthless capitalist system that takes the lives of our citizens with a growing gusto right under the watchful eyes of those who have facilitated Ireland's economic and social decline. The ones pronounced as dignitaries - mostly by themselves.

Will we even have a government when the actual date of the events come around? The old-waring parties are the only ones that can form a stable government, but that is unlikely to happen. The dream of the Celtic Tiger that we would be ready by 2016 to really step up and take our independent place among the nations of the world washed away by greed and corruption by many of those who see themselves are Ireland's modern day saviours. Despite their collective Curriculum Vitae of shame, be it directly or by aiding and abetting others to do it. Maybe we suffer from a collective amnesia or maybe it is just that we do not care.

Larry was often an apologist for many of the wrongs, citing our infancy as a nation. Used to get up the wick of Leon. Fermented an anger inside him by times. He did not see Ireland as an infant, he saw us as a seasoned player in the shaping of our side of the planet despite the indignation we often suffered as we set out to make better lives for ourselves when driven out by oppressors, at times foreign, at times native. How we brought civilisation to our nearest neighbour and nemesis and gave the world notables such as Joyce, Beckett, Boyle, Hoban and Connelly.
Larry be winding Leon up. Citing more modern figures. Bono, Geldof, Charles J, before Leon would depart, flying fucks, into the perils of his bottle of choice.
'That drink ill kill him,' Larry would say, nostradamacally.

Strange days we live in. Everything every human being could ever need and we, drifting further away from anything that might be described as humane. Pomp and ceremony will not change that. Relegating our rising leaders to the back benches won't do it either. We'll remember on the proper date. With others who feel the same. At the time. At the place. On the hour. Hopefully, the daylight will be there too.

Saved - for all.

The Dearly Departed, Larry Mulligan.

I left Mum in the care of Mattie this evening and made my way out into the countryside. A guy I used to know had unexpectedly departed. He was found yesterday morning sitting in front of his TV, watching the Extras box-set in his boxer shorts, a bong stuck rigid in his lifeless hand.

Larry Mulligan was one of the locality's personalities. Everyone knew him. He tried to enter politics early in his life, but no one took him seriously as an Independent when he ran as a supporter for the legalisation of Marijuana. He failed. I remember asking him once why he did not join a mainstream party. He said he didn’t like being whipped.
   Didn't get that!

Larry liked to speak his mind, but no one wanted to listen. After four more attempts at being elected he gave up the pursuit, retiring to a little cottage in the countryside and pursuing little but the taxidermy he liked to do on the side. Many a household around here are home to Larry's work.
    Legend has it Bobby Buchannan out the new road asked Larry to stuff his wife after she died, trying to lure Larry into a scam to keep collecting her pension. Larry could not be lured.

They waked Larry out at his cottage earlier this evening. I saw Bamber there as I arrived. I saw Frankie Bronson and I wondered how he knew Larry. I made my way into the small queue that aligned the outside wall of the cottage. Words like 'It's shocking, isn't it?' were whispered.
   “I heard he was on drugs,” was another one that I heard. 
   I eventually made my way into the house to find Larry sitting bolt upright in his chair, with two birds he had recently stuffed displayed in his outstretched arms. I have never seen anything like it. By the time I made my way to where he sat, I had already made up my mind that I was just going to keep walking. I did notice the peaceful look that adorned his face. It's amazing what you can do with a bit of blusher these days. I made my way back outside.
   
It was an idyllic place. The star filled sky stretched for as far as the eye could see, lost clouds doing little to swallow the view. In the small courtyard a lamp stood lit that would not have been lost in Jack The Ripper's time. It glared upward into the naked arms of a grouping of trees. Apart from the hum of the whispering crowd and the sound of a nearby brook, nothing came forth from the night air. I'd love to live in the country.
   
Fr. Rooney gave a rendition of the Rosary to the gathered crowd. As he finished a van rolled into the drive and within seconds, Larry, still sat in his chair, was carried from the house and put into the back of the van. Fr. Rooney blessed the van as the doors shut and off Larry went. It was macabre.
Bamber filled me in on the details. He said he had it on account that Larry's heart had simply decided to stop beating. The rumours that the contents of the bong were to blame, nothing more than vicious rumours spread by those with fuck all else to do.

Bamber told me that Larry had left his cadaver to science, if his final wishes of being put on

display with his work were carried out at his wake. That was also the reason for Larry‘s unusual departure. He’d wanted it that way. I saw Joe Lumley there. Seems Larry had charged him with overseeing that his wishes were carried out. It would make an amusing story if it was not for Larry's age. 50. 

Just didn’t seem fair. 

*************

Excerpt from Booker's World

Spanish Miracles

Rain rain. Go to Spain.
Come back on Mammy's washing day.

There are many variations to that little nursery rhyme. That's the one we used back in the day. Chests leaning against the back of the sofa. Football in between leaving an imprint, like a giant measle.  Looking out the window on sullen summer days. Heads peering out under Mother's lace curtains, looking for a gap in the clouds. Anything that might give us hope of a 12-hour kick about. Trying to ignore the shouts from herself for breathing on the window and drawing - well, mine were matchstick somethings. Yep, that bad.
   If memory serves me correctly - summers of the '70, '80 and '90's were not as bad as they have been over the past decade or so. A months rain fell in 36 hours this week. Flowers drowned. In June?
   Luckily, kids don't have to rely on a football as their sole source of fun these days. If it rains they just shift inside, that is assuming they actually do wander out occasionally. Big screen TV's and play - boxes now. (No free-advertising around here. There's a depression on)

The rain may never have went where it was willed to go, but the dark clouds of a bank bailout loom large over Spain as I write. Sums of between €40 and €100 billion are being mentioned. Spain are in a strong negotiating position on terms. By strong I mean, they have the capacity to take the whole Euro down. They know it and I'm sure the Germans and Co do too. Just can't see them applying the same interest rates Ireland accepted. Steered willingly into an economic abyss.
   The terms aside, the situation does threaten to throw the country back to the days prior to the Spaniards own Celtic Tiger, the Spanish Miracle.
   Franco's Spain, having been shunned after the Second World War, set technocrats, many of whom were members of the Opus Dei Catholic 'movement'- set polices in place which would see a dramatic change in Spanish fortunes, before eventually becoming the 9th largest in the world.
   The boom lasted until the mid-seventies when the oil crisis stunted it phenomenal growth. Spain continued to grow as they entered the Euro in 2002, but an inflated property bubble... well, you all know the rest.
   With unemployment bordering on 25% - the Euro zone's worst - and austerity the name of the game - the bailout of Spanish banks would seem to be the final nail in the Spanish economic coffin and perhaps also in the Euro itself if contagion catches on and spreads. A run on Spanish banks since the beginning of the year has seen the departure of €100 billion, with a notable acceleration in recent months.
   Across the pond in the US, Barack Obama is calling Europe out as the source of American economic ill. But with a debt of $15 trillion themselves - much down to the fighting of illegal wars - he perhaps should be thinking about taking back control of his own currency from the private Federal Reserve and serving the people currently holing up in vast tent cities springing up right across the US. Not their American dream, for sure.
   Who knows? A new currency. A bonding. A whole new order. 

'I'm sorry, you not get job,' Gus said, relaying the bad news to me. Linda had done what she could, but...
   'I sure you were in the bag,' he said, looking like a puzzled mathematician trying to figure out the meaning to all.
   'Don't worry about it,' I said. I meant it too. It didn't seem to matter to what appeared to be a person close to despondency. For feck sake! It was 12-15 hours a week. Alternative night. The latter end of them. A smidgen above the minimum wage.
   'Everything must be finished by 7am,' Angela had said. A broad lady in a corporate suit. Slightly 'tached in the corners of her mouth. Bowler haircut. Linda told me she was the head of Human Resources. Out from HQ for the week. To conduct interviews. Countrywide. I hope she hires a few. Unemployment is up to 14.8% - another damning stat to weigh against government policy. She listed the duties, the expectations and the wage.
   'Any questions?' she said, taking up my application forms and hitting them end-up off the desk in front of her.
   Fuck it!
   'How soon can I have your job?' I asked.
   'Pardon me,' she said.
   'Advancement?' I said. 'Within the structure.' I tried to sound like one of those interns - so hungry for success I'd work for nothing. Even take scolding. To get to where it is they need to go. Before they're shown the door - reduced to a new societal low. The booted contemporary slave. 
   'Shall we just get you started first?' she tried to smile.
   'So, you're offering me the job?'
   'Sorry. If we get you started.' I looked around. Nope. No-one else.
   'We?' I asked.
   I could almost see her face cheeks begin to blush. Not that pale shy blush. More like that wine angry blush.
   'I"LL let you know,' she said, rising. That hadn't worked out as planned. I thought a little pre-employment foreplay might have worked in my favour. I'm no oil-painting - but I reckoned Ang was there for the pulling. Call it intuition. I began to rise.
   'Any idea when?'  I said - sounding pleasant.
   'How about right now, Mr. Booker? she said. I gulped. Why did I even open my mouth? That table would never hold the two of us.
   'I've seen 17 candidates since 9-30am this morning. You have been the worst. If I count in all those I've seen this week, which is 159 - you rank in the bottom three.'
   That's the table out, so!
   'You can read between the lines,' she began, before referring to my application again. 'Yes. You being a writer and the such?!'
  
I was beaten. The pain of rejection never felt so good. We stood there for a few seconds. Eye-balling. Hers, a steely grey. Mine, trying not to blink. Trying hard to win.
   'Bottom three. That bad?' I asked - breaking the stare-out. My eyes were watering.
   'Bottom three,' she confirmed - firmly. 'To be perfectly honest - I don't know how you even got the interview. The companies weaning protocol seems to have been abandoned for some reason.'
   What? I was just about to mention Linda's involvement when a sudden good idea passed through my numb-skull.
   Take the good fortune and run.
   'Thanks for the opportunity,' I said, dismissing myself.
   It poured from the heavens as I made my way home. Smiling - like a hung-over stop-out. That had just got laid. My shirt was nearly through my skin by the time I got in. Felt great.
 
'Linda could not have word for you. It is only reason. Usually her friend, she do hiring,' Gustav said. 'Don't worry. Next time. We make sure.'
   No. There would be no next time. Not there anyway. I confessed what had happened. I confessed I didn't really want the job. I confessed to having worked in the past for rogue traders - of the building type. When Ireland had such types. Before NAMA ended up employing most of them.
   I told him how pay never met the conditions. How, when a particular job ended - it meant JOB ENDED. How safety infractions were blindly encouraged. A 'no-one around to see' policy. How unions were crap. How my knee and hip flare up in the cold weather now. How, if I possibly could, I wanted to rely on no-one now. Paying tax at over 40% - and still paying for every service out there. No, there was no sense being sycophantic at this stage. No-one to rely on except the balding 40-something, live-in recluse that sat drinking tea before him.
   Not that that had worked either. I told him of my difficulty since in that pursuit. He sat and listened. Like an unpaid therapist. Like I used to for Leon.
   'You know what it is you do,' he said, with a wink. 'I am happy for you.' But that was the trouble. I don't! No-one has a clue what they are doing much anymore. Not even those elected with that responsibility.
  
A few years ago the mere mention of The Bilderberg Group led to taunts of nutty conspiracy theorist. Now the elite secret little club with a chequered history has seeped into the mainstream. They met for cocktails and ceremony last week. Not quite as far behind the shut door behind which they used to sit - talking. Drinking brandy. Talking shop.
   Who was among this invitation-only exclusive billionaire club last week? Good old Michael Noonan. You'd wonder why? What a finish to his final days in politics. Who'd have thought that when he stepped aside for the Kenny reign to begin. The tongueless taoiseach.
   While such swagger goes on and the gap between the wealthiest within society and the rest of us widens at record pace - in times of austerity - whatever is going on in Syria now threatens to implode, as government forces loyal to the Assad regime butcher civilians - women and children amongst them. One Syrian I saw on TV last night cried with his eyes to the heavens shouting - 'The Jews didn't even do this to us.'
   Assad denies it all - as any elected, unopposed dictator would do. UN resolutions have failed and the country stands on the verge of civil war. Veto's remain the block to international intervention. The Russians and Chinese on this occasion. Putin didn't turn up at the recent G-8 summit at Camp David - instead sending his swap-a-role, right-hand-man, Medvedev.
    An intervention is the best case scenario from what I can see - for if things kick off in that region, well, as some might say, it would be like opening up the gates to Hell.
   Does beggar the question though. Who is arming the Syrian rebels? One would have thought in a dictatorship, controls of such things would be top-priority.
   It can't be the vetoing countries. That wouldn't be protecting their interests. No. Definitely not them. Geo-political interests exchange terms like 'genocide' for 'condemnation' sometimes. To serve those interests.
   It's easy to see why the Americans want to move in. Right next door to Iran - current public enemy number 1.  They must be feeling awfully claustrophobic with all those NATO and American bases surrounding their immediate borders at the minute. Watching. Waiting. Wanting.
   Best shut-up. Wouldn't want a droning. You never know what can happen nowadays. When Mayo is rattled with an earthquake - anything is possible. 

'So how did the test go?' I said, breaking a silence.
   'Test?'
   'Exam. English exam.'
   'Don't even talk,' he said. 'Seamus Heaney - he never showed up.'
   'That's unfortunate,' I said - not sure what else to say. I'm sure Seamus Heaney didn't have to do the exam.
   'I think it will pass though,' he said.

Here's praying to it.

Patriotic Scoundrels

'Patriotism really is the last refuge of the scoundrel.'

I came across this comment yesterday when I was out accessing the world - via the Internet, of course. I do that daily. Fill myself in on the woes. In times past it's really got to me. All that has happened to Ireland over the course of the past few years. It's also worrying to note that the worst is yet to come. And with 'buffoons' at the helm, it does cast shadows into those that are obsessed with future. I'm more of a day man now.
   Luckily, for reasons of sanity, I've managed not to get to carried away in recent times.  Found a few new ways to get Booker's point across. Little, almost still life-isms, in letter. It's not much of a contribution to things, but apart from my reclusive nature, apathy toward people and the knowledge that schmoozing - even as a way of making money - is never going to be part of my condition.
 
Ah yes, the comment. It's origins today are not of particular importance and I don't mean that as an offensive remark. The context in which it was made also can take the Kinnegad by-pass. The comment just intrigued me. I failed to see the connection between 'Patriotism' and 'scoundrel' for some unknown reason. So Sherlock Holmes was out - pipe and all. 


The comment is not the actual quote from which it probably was derived from. The actual quote reads - 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' 
The quote is attributed to English author, Samuel Johnson. According to this source  Johnson's biographer, James Boswell, writes that Johnson made the statement in 1775 - but does not provide a context for how the remark arose. 
However, Boswell does make it clear that Johnson was not indicting 'all patriotism, merely false patriotism.' 
The above link also speculates as to whom Johnson might have been referring to - and sure enough, it turned out to be an Irishman. A right-honorable member of the British House of Commons if you don't mind. The Dubliner son of a Cork man, the well-to-do Edmund Burke, was known to argue against the wishes of his own constituents on occasion when it came to Irish matters - such as free-trade and Catholic Emancipation. However, from the time he left Ireland at 20, he would only ever returned four more times. I wonder why?
Burke's views on society formed around the idea that people in themselves wanted to be governed or controlled and that property was the starting point to a human and social development. A revolutionary thought in it's day, but Burke saw it as a foundation upon which to tier his desired society. 
   An undeniable member of the upper-crust within society - Burke's speeches are noted in academia and upon initial reading - worth checking out. 
   However, Karl Marx sounded him out as a sycophant and the original 'flip-flopper.' Burke had supported American revolutionaries - but had denounced French ones, playing, according to Marks, to the 'best market.' Isn't that what most politicians do - so nothing new there. I personally think it might have had something to do with the public head-rolling and the squirt from jugular veins myself - but what would I know?
   If Burke is the subject of Johnson's statement, it's hard to see where the great writer was coming from. For the use of the word refuge suggests something that I just can't associate with Burke and I base that upon a piece from his Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents, in which he wrote - "when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." I see it's relevance in present day Ireland - the slow falling, that is! Not quite one by one - but too close for comfort.
   It doesn't sound particularly like the writings of a scoundrel to me. And if Patriotism doesn't extend to all people living in a nation, state, or country of origin, then it's hardly patriotism for all her worth, is it? Burke was a believer that the poor deserved no-more than what was handed down to them from the rich. It's funny how little has changed. But it doesn't make him a scoundrel.
   Of course, Samuel Johnson may not have been referring to Burke at all and even when I put Holmes away, he too, still had his doubts.

I can see the validity in Johnson's allusion. I can see how they can be combined - those two words for some reason that resonate with me more than others do. Patriotism and scoundrel. Probably down to nationality, environment - and Leon Jackson.
Patriotism is a devotion to ones country. But how far does one have to go to be a patriot? Say here in Ireland - Is shouting and screaming at a summer soccer match dressed from head to toe in green enough? Or does it involve facing a firing squad after the failure of rebellion? I guess it's down to the individual.
We know how Hitler whipped up a fervour on it's back just 80 years ago and the repercussions of that. Bill O'Reilly uses it in the States to foster the mind-sets of those ignorant or unable to think for themselves. Hell, our own Phil Hogan said all those who paid the Household Charge were 'true patriots.' Not that Big Phil would know the meaning of the word.
It probably boils down to that. How people define it for themselves. How people gain access to these differing patriot clubs and schools of thought in their own heads. It's a word that's there to be exploited in us all. Even the most liberal among us.

I can see how a scoundrel might see it's potential - there are plenty of instances of it. They've used Patriotism and will continue to do so.
I see little wrong in having a patriotic viewpoint. To what extent patriotism can sometimes go to however, form into the horror stories we see daily in war-zones around the world. These generations legacies - not that many want to think about that.
   Chants of 'Freedom' and 'Democracy' drowning out the whisper of 'plunder and murder.' It certainly wouldn't be any level of patriotism I'd inspire to.

If I cast my 'No' vote this coming Thursday it will be because I do want Ireland to do well - for herself. On Irish terms. On new principals - the foundation of which was laid out in a constitution that was so bravely fought for down through the centuries at times.
I think most would be hard-pressed to deny their own country the chance to do well for herself. I think we are being sold and at a terrible price. It flies in the face of our history, which if we are to be honest, has had it's fair mix of patriot and scoundrel on all levels along the way.
Who's to say the 'Yes' vote won't be the best thing for Ireland in the long-run. The trouble with long-run is lifetimes - and I'm living mine now. A 'No' forces Ireland to think. For herself. I think there is enough about the Irish people to be given that opportunity - but unfortunately, tying ourselves to this treaty also ties us to a new form of patriotism - a forced one.
   Forced, because European citizens are consistently denied their say as treaty after treaty is forced into laws and constitutions without their say and as is turning out in Greece - and could happen here - that has grave consequences. And for what? For patriots? For scoundrels? It certainly ain't for Joe Soap and Johnny Doe.

For an intelligent species we are irrevocably dumb by times. Much has been made of it - but few listened. Even less have cared. That's how this era may well be recalled off in the wiki's of the future. There's no real 'dumb' vote this Thursday. Not even in abstention.
We appear to have picked our path and they sure as hell don't write speeches like they used to. Did you hear Enda Kenny the other evening on RTé? It just made me shrug my shoulders. It's not apathy anymore either. It's like a satirical circus - except it's real.
I see nothing wrong with bondholders who played the world markets not getting paid. They lost. Tough shit - but there's kids starving out there. If Ireland did that the country would have had a fighting chance. I don't see major social catastrophes happening if the fiscal adjustments are made based on fairness and equality - something distinctly lacking in Irish society. We've took everything thrown at us for eons and we're still here. That doesn't have to change.
We talk about our image in the world? What does it say when we hold absolutely no-one accountable for bankrupting an entire country? Just who are the government inviting and trying to tempt in here on the back of that? Is that the Ireland most Irish people want? I don't believe it is - but when the guns to your head!

Fate decides everything in the long run. It's just too bad nobody's ever found it. Or proved it. Then, when did that ever matter?
Patriot or scoundrel, people have to decide themselves at the end of the day. Find their own justifications and reasons for things. I think it's the same for everyone. On some level.
In ways, a cop-out on this one can be forgiven - given the cheap state of present day democracy. But there's no point stuttering to the grandchildren - not that they'd listen anyway.

Linda posted in that application form earlier. Four pages long. It's a horrid lot of information to be giving out. To waltz a buffer.

Dave

Summer is here. Well, sort of. It's behind those clouds somewhere and it's threatening like a Fine Gael minister to burst through at any minute. I can feel it. The attic is warm. For a change. It broke out yesterday. I'd barely time to change into more suitable attire, but it was gone again. Various weather girls are saying it's here for the week. Getting stronger every day. Like the 'No' camp in the fiscal treaty debate.
   The debate itself - well it's scandalous - to say the least. If the answers to our current crisis' - and they number quite the few - lie within the political structure of this country, well, I'm sorry to say it and be blunt - but we're fecked. Totally and absolutely. Many would say we are already. Many would be right. Between derogatory remarks about the Greeks and talk about having to go to the polls again if we fail to comply with the directives on offer - the whole thing is a farce.

Sonny Skyped me on Monday night. He'd felt the quake that rocked Italy that morning. He looked relaxed. Best I've seen him in a while.
   'I felt a tremor. Amanda slept through it,' he said. Things patched up so! He said there was a steady stream of people going through his brother's artists commune down there nearer the equator.
   'I'm thinking of getting into vibration,' he said - before Amanda came into the room he was in.
   'You look terrible,' she said. Thanks for that. Nothing like a box just under the ribs, is there? Knock the wind right out of you.
   'Thanks,' I said.
   'I didn't mean it in a bad way,' she offered.
   I could have bought that. Cheered myself up a little.No hard feelings. I bit. But not hard enough.
   'How did you mean it, so?' I asked.
   'Touchy,' she said - turning to leaving. 'I only meant you look a little pale.'
   'You do,' confirmed Sonny, as she left the room. Like he wouldn't take her side. The power of a certain part of the female anatomy. The sucker.
   We swapped tales - my dreary ones - his ones, like the Sonny of old. He's going into 'Meditative States' - doing a few courses. Online. From some rogue university. He plans to use the arty tourists that stop by to bring his new product - which he hasn't 'refined' yet - to the world. Word-of-mouth.
   'Life's simpler here,' he said. Was that a chicken I heard in the background for an instant? Good old Sonny. Started a motivational business - and then got depressed. Only in Ireland!
   'Luke's bottling his own wine next year,' he was saying. Luke being his bro. 'It's been aging for seven years.' I couldn't imagine that sort of patience would have agreed with Leon.
   'I could get you a few months work during the summer,' he said.
    I'm sorry, Sonny. Vibration isn't really my thing.
   'Picking grapes,' he continued. I took a deep breath. Like Kenny Cunningham does. Between sentences. I didn't want to appear unappreciative. Or lazy. I'd refute such claims. I picked strawberries for three summers running when I was a kid. I ate more than I picked.The five-mile walk didn't help either.
   'Couldn't leave herself,' I said. 'She won't last the year.'
   'Maybe next year then,' he said. The cold fecker!
   The broadband began to act erratic and we barely managed a goodbye before the call ended with a noise from the computer that belonged on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. No. Not Richard Bruton's department. Boldly going  - nowhere!
   Stress Booker.

I haven't seen much of Gustav this past week. He started work at the supermarket. Working the night shift. He popped in at 6am the other morning. I was coming near the end of an eight-hour session. A writing one. He said he'd noticed the light on in my attic. I must turn that off.
   'So how did you get on with Linda,' I asked him.
   'A gentleman never speaks,' he said, before changing the subject to his new job. A sheepish smile gave him away. I think!
   He's been designated a 'lane' at the 'store' and it's his job to stock it completely through the night.      
   What ever happened to aisle and shop?
   'The one with the freezers down it,' he said.
   I'm sure along the way Gustav's tribe met an Irishman somewhere, and there's a bit of Irish embedded in his old DNA. Last week he was complaining he didn't have a feckin' job - this week it's worker conditions. What next? A run for the Dáil?
   'It is like homeland. In winter season,' he said, smiling. Sweet Jesus! I think he's in love.
   Whatever does it for him! He was gone in less time it took to warrant the intrusion.

A photo emerged over the past few days of British PM, Dave Cameron. At the US president's, weekend retreat - the suitably named - Camp David. As you can see from it, Dave, extends his sweaty armpits wildly into the air as Chelsea claim the mantle of Europe's footballing best.
   The first notion that springs to mind straight off the bat when I saw it was TWAT - but that seriously can't be helped. It's not an exercise in controversy - it's just a factoid within these here walls of mine.
   There are many far-reaching explanations - by many i must add - on how to draw on that politically-incorrect summation. For me it's simple.
   Dave is an Aston Villa fan. While not condemning that, it did make me wonder if many Villa fans were as boisterous as Dave, just as Didier Drogba slid home the winning penalty kick to make Chelsea the unlikely, and slightly fortunate, champions of Europe for the first time. My guess is few.
   Dave may chant nationalism as an excuse - but to any real football fan there is no excuse for that behaviour even if you are trying to get one over the German chancellor - who undoubtedly was rooting for Chelsea's opponents - Bayern Munich. Dave looks like a child who doesn't know who to follow - changing teams. Following the trophies. Like Dave's oil and economic pursuits. Stretching his society every which way in the meantime. Like Enda and Eamon are doing to ours. Minus the pursuits!
   That aside, it was a light-hearted moment as the worlds most powerful leaders met to strategically plan how to further ruin people's lives and keep their military complexes happy. I sense it does not matter too much to Angela Merkle. At the very least her economy isn't in the gutter. Then, Dave's isn't as far down as ours. Good job Enda wasn't invited to Camp David. He'd probably have been  swinging out of someone.
   Obama looks American in the pic, doesn't he? In a soccer sense. A commendable attempt at trying to fit in. A good pic. In election year. To show commonality with us average suckers.
   I can only imagine what's going on in the head of new French President, Francois Hollande. He looks like he's wondering what he's doing there. Europe in meltdown - and they're watching soccer.
     Are these people mad? he must have thought. 
     He seemed to verify it the very next day when he continued the strong start to his presidency by announcing a complete withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and a 30% decrease in minsters pay.  Way to go!
   It's his forthcoming battles with Merkle I'm looking forward to. The Iron Lady of Europe has had it her own way for quite a few years now. The direction Europe is going right now is one engineered to drive down living standards and implement draconian cuts to public spending. The squeeze in on.  The far-right in France are on the rise. To cut them off, Hollande needs to drive something new. And quickly.
   Austerity measures and the consequences that go with it are breeding grounds for extreme populous movements. We saw in the recent Greek election, Golden Dawn, winning 7% of the vote. The party has been widely labelled fascist and neo-nazi. Who's to say in this X-Factor world that some voters weren't trapped by just the name of the party?
   A promise of something new other than having to forage for scraps in bins to eat. But there's no promise in extremism. About as much as the promise that comes with austerity. The world's been there before. Many times. Humans ain't the kindest of species - it doesn't take much to push their buttons. We ain't the cleverest either - we seem to repeat our mistakes over and over again. In a world of plenty only a few have it all. The rest of us the reason they do. That's inspiring forward thinking in these strange times. 

It's nearly 2am. I'm convinced I can smell that sun. It's coming out tomorrow.
   All day - and the next...

Earthworms

Grand soft morning here on the Emerald Isle, thanks to The Buddha. The earthworms will be rising, giving the sparrows and robins something to slide down into them after the frost of the night before. They cautiously look around for an imminent attack by their distant cousins, the scavenging crow.

I wonder how these slithery megadriles, so valuable to the earth's Eco-system, are doing down there. I imagine where I'm living they're doing OK.
The excess of the Celtic Tiger came here - but not in the crazy way it did in other parts of the country. Places where ghost estates not only de-value small towns and rural settings, but provide a daily reminder of how far Ireland came, before having to leave it all behind.
Having been a site worker for half my life and seeing the way the thinking never swayed much into Eco-systems off into the future, and all that goes with that, I sometimes wonder about scandals. For instance, what's happening to the residents of Priory Hall or the unfortunate sprinkle of residents on abandoned estates littered throughout the country.
An RTE once-yearly half hour 'special' into such things hardly amounts to doing what a national broadcaster should be doing. Surely shaming and shaping has to be part of their remit. It is. It's just rarely gets done - and less so, never seems to make much of a difference. Specifically in the short-term. Lots of Ireland's past shames have had to be dealt with in silence. Generations of it. Passed down to be dealt with by other generations. Scandals - too many to mention.

Years ago I remember working on apartments on Sheriff Street in Dublin. A regeneration project. Dublin was beginning to boom. These apartment blocks were flying up. Property was beginning to become the name of the game. Cowboys and Indians came. the cowboys stayed.
Cardboard boxes with walls like paper. A great environment for the writer who had no ideas, but being able to listen to everything going on next door would soon have become a living nightmare to many who wished they hadn't been so naive.

Take things like sub-soil acting as topsoil. Little to cling to but the broken bits and pieces of materials that didn't quite make it on to some of the most expensive builds in Irish mortgage history.
Surely, if the earthworm thinks, they must be thinking we are a vandalizing lot. We'll chant 'progress' but surely progress has to be measured over our understanding of time, and not just in the instant. Grabbing desperately for any currency note available to work for the common good of the shareholder who benefits most all this.
When weighed up against time again, I wonder if Darwin was about today, he might be having his doubts. Particularly at the human end of evolution. While we are the only species to have to pay for the privilege of living on the planet, we do seem at times hell-bent on making sure it ain't going to be worth paying for a hundred years down the road.
I doubt even humans will be stupid enough to pay stealth taxes on toxic air rations. Or poisoned foods. Assuming we make it that far at all. At least there's genetic modification to be played around with.

I wonder how earthworm survive in Switzerland?
Enda Kenny scooted off to Davos this week to attend the World Economic Forum beneath the powdery snow of the Swiss Alps. No Ryanair flights or cheap train rides this time. But then, even we Irish, can't be having our state leader-in-name thumbing lifts on European highways and going cross country on skies.
Among the lavish surroundings Enda looked well. Doing Ireland justice after the lack luster style years of the anorak wearing Bertie and the disheveled Ollie Reed years of Brian. Nothing against the guys. I've worn anoraks. Dishevelled too.
Enda was allowed to talk in some of the media set-ups and may have even at times spoke well. But he is an earthworm in a sea of crows. They all know that. Even the maids and porters.

More worrying though perhaps is our leaders recent problems with memory. Who remembers his 5-point-plan at Irish salvation just over a year ago.

Point One - Protecting and creating jobs - Fail. The only reason there has been stagnation is because 50,000 are heading off the island each year. Expect that to double this year as more and more make a better lifestyle choice.

Point Two - Introducing better, fairer budgets to keep taxes low - Epic fail. Taxes are low alright. For the rich or bankrupted - depends on how you view it.

Point Three – we will create a completely new health system. Hard to call this one. If he meant 'new' in the sense it's going to be twice as bad, then they have achieved here. Your call.

Point Four - smaller, better government with the people’s money spent wisely on vital public services. The government, either locally or nationally is no smaller. The Séanad still exists. People's money is going into Zombie banks, but yeah to some they are a vital public service. Again it's up to you to decide.

Point Five - a political system that achieves more and costs less, with the Government leading by example. Epic is too small a word to describe the failure of this one.

However, Enda's dementia seemed to take on some new dementia this week. Just 6 weeks ago, Enda broadcasted himself to the nation. You all remember -
'This is not your fault,' he told a hopeful public - before taking €4billion off them the next day.

This week in Davos he changed his mind. It actually turns out - it is our fault. We got greedy he said. Wealth created from cheap credit. And now we must pay for that. Some unfortunately with their lives. 30 suicides in Ireland to the middle of January. Defies believe.
Enda's playing the medium term here. He's looking to get a 'fairer' deal from the bailout. Maybe even have it's repayment put off so economic worries can be addressed. Give the island a chance at least. If he succeeds it's a noose taken from our throats. For now. The interim period between such a deal and its payment could define Ireland once and for all.
I'm still of the opinion all this is a nation grab. Soon the family jewellery will be sold. If Europe and America come to some 'arrangement' cheap money could be available again. EC grants for infrastructure. Ireland's going to need it for all the oil and gas tankers to take our natural resources out of the county.
'It's jobs', they'll chant. We'll probably cheer. And the Diaspora will sigh relief that they got out in time.

The media had a field day on Enda's flip-flop. I'm not going into it much. The only people seemingly being blamed for our economic woe is the Irish public. Because cheap arrest gestures to coincide with unsecured bondholder payments is not putting any firm blame on those few people - and they are just a few - who bankrupted us back to the 1980's.
If we're playing the blame game there may be reasons. Particularly when you have capitalist cheerleaders like Bertie Ahern telling citizens to top themselves if they talked down Bertie Economics. Why shouldn't a nation trust their leader?
Let's lob a quarter off everyone's debt and be done with it. OK, it may only save me about 500 quid - which is about how much this weeks bondholder payment will eventually cost me - but I'm sure it will benefit lots more people a whole lot more.
This unfortunately now is costing people their lives in worrying proportions and the longer the issue goes on, the more blood the banks have on their hands. Another thing capitalist junkie's are not held to account for.
Enda's home now to work on how to avoid a referendum on the upcoming treaty changes. Early polls on that subject suggest an even split. Once the fear machine goes into action that will sway it. Even if it goes to the polls, he's safe on that. At least he won't have to worry about a leadership challenge from Leo Varadkar anytime soon. I had a little comment on that one. Tired from calling it for what it is - I changed tact and decided to support Leo. A cheap wit that componded to me only one thing. Ireland's still in serious trouble.

The speed up to save the Euro gathers pace, with wording on the new treaty expected this week. The only way Europe can save itself now as a fiscal union is to print money - and fast.
That will be done if countries sign up for it - meaning further erosion to national sovereignty. The United States of Europe will be here.
Controlled by the ECB - Europe's own Federal Reserve system. Working toward a common currency with America even? Must have been plenty of Fed money went into the old Marshall plan at the end of the last world war. I'm sure they have their suckers firmly implanted in the ECB too.
Austerity is the only game in town right across Europe. Driving down living standards in an effort to compete globally with the emerging superpowers of China, Brazil and China, to name but three. But put in simple terms - it's impossible. Europe would go to war long before they would subject themselves to conditions these countries subject some of their employee's too. That's just the reality now. People are seen as a natural regenerate-able resource. A corporatist commodity - there to be used and abused as long as the shareholder don't have to see it or be subject to it.
In return for a dividend, Capitalism may have created the illusion of a progressive society - the real story is rarely broadcast or carried - no advertising money in that. Consumerism for the sake of it is not progressive. Wait for the years to come.

Now those Kardashians on the other hand. Sunday afternoon. Little gathering. Leave Bruce Botox out of the equation. Multiple camera angles. Them, being directionally driven for Eco-profit - of course.
Who'd be an earthworm?! Or a crow!

Remember Ronnie

'Tis a windy night to be a swing,' me old mate Leon used to say.
Hurricane Katia's tail-end is supposed to hit shore sometime tomorrow evening with winds of up to 160km an hour, traveling across the country on into Monday, before making its way across the water. That's a pretty snappy tail in any one's terms and you just hope whatever is up there will suck it up. Maybe the ghost of Ronnie Drew? Knock the whip out of her because the country seriously doesn't need another weather event like the ones experienced over the last few years here in Ireland.
I'd have been a climate skeptic in my day, partially because of historical fact and partly because academics were caught manipulating the numbers. That kinda craic should get a Professor sent packing, but hey, it didn't take long for that story to disappear.
The one thing I am certain of is man's contribution to the current, shall we say, turbulence. The planet and the immediate outer space is being choked to death. I'm sure the Outer Space doesn't mind too much, as well, for all human purposes it's as dead as a .... but for us here down in Ireland, we like the mildness of our incessant rainfall and we'd like to get back to that.
I mean, what's the story? What's a planet without a human? I'll leave that up to the individual to answer. And why the hurry? What does all this money guarantee at the end of the day? It's definitely not to get off the planet anyway. With the amount of junk floating about up there, that would be a dodgy ride. It will probably be left to Richard Bronson now to clean it up. I'm sure he won't mind. He's Tthat kinda man.

*************

Today or yesterday, depending on where your reading from was World Suicide Prevention Day. This blog is almost two years old now. The first post recorded here dealt somewhat with the issue. It was around the time Irish Olympic hero, Darren Sutherland took his life. Every instance of suicide I come across always leaves me cold. Sense of disbelief, best swept to the back of the mind, in a place not often visited. Here's a few statistic's concerning the issue.
In Ireland it has been described as an epidemic. Long swept under the carpet which is down to multiple factors, the stigma is lifting, but as the statistics suggest, the efforts are to slow and although their was a decrease from the 2009 high, when it's human lives we are speaking of, it's an extremely weak Minister that will cut funding to vital services. It's too important an issue to be a minority issue. The constitution states a desire for an equal society. It's how those who wrote it wanted it to be.
I dealt partly with the issue in Booker's World. From the viewpoint of someone left behind and from a male standpoint. Terribly selfish of me, but there you go. Why I chose to write about it somewhat really doesn't matter. It was my interpretation of perhaps where some mind-sets perhaps are even in 2011. I think the problem can be addressed by continually making people aware that it is a serious issue that has scarred families, defiant of class and stature in every corner of this country.
A greater understanding as to why is important, but so too the feelings of those left behind who are left to carry the questions inside, sometimes on their own. There is great work being done and more is needed.
I also believe work toward a cognitive approach through the Arts can be of great benefit to someone reaching out. That's a personal opinion, but I think I've read enough material at this stage to laud some worthwhile benefits. To often people just get lost. To often we can be too busy to see. Too often we only see the signs when it's too late. Not that we didn't want to see them, but because life got to unmanageable keeping everything together under the stress and strain of daily living.
I hope James Reilly stands up and is counted on this one. He'd get a hell of a lot of good press here anyway if he did. Reilly for Taoiseach. I can almost see it now.
He got the poison chalice that is the HSE. Harney's legacy as she enjoys the fruits of her progressive democracy, or Independence, or whatever she counts herself as these days. There's many things Reilly has to address...and fast. Everything's against him. But on this issue he should not fail. Legacy can bring its own stigma and legacy stretches further than the in-club of the time. Though we know History lies even to this day, you'd have to say we are getting better at recording it for future generations to ponder over. As Leon Jackson once said, 'It's what you leave behind.'

*************

The three best sporting moments Ireland has delivered over the course of my own lifetime are recorded here. Opinions vary, as do reasons, but I'd still stand by them today.
In a few hours time Ireland kick off their Rugby World Cup campaign against the good ol' USA in New Zealand. Coming off the back of four straight defeats there is cause for worry. I got to be honest. Anything but a semi final and perhaps the money sending them there might have been better spent. But no point being negative, hey?
Sport throws up surprises and moments that unite people. It has the capacity for that. I hope whoever speaks in those dressing rooms over the coming weeks wakes a spark inside our men down there. The country could do with the lift.
At club level Ireland is a powerhouse. That hasn't reflected nationally despite the Slam in '09. When i again reflected after a drubbing by the French last year it was from a bath tub in Booker's World... but that's another story.
Maybe we can do a Denmark. Or a Greece. But with an oval ball. Sometimes it's ok to bleed for your country. Hopefully Brian, Paul and Deco can stoke a little national pride and give us all something to be proud of over the coming month. In language we can all understand too.

*************

It's 3-13 on a Saturday morning now. What the hell, I was always fond of a late Saturday night. A lot of good ones too, mixed in with the ones sometimes forgotten.
Things are calmer this windy weather. The wind has any cloud cover dispersed and it's as clear a night I have seen this year.
It's also the 10th anniversary of 9-11, an event that changed the world in so many bad ways. Just when perhaps we might of thought we'd move away from wars fought to show who had the bigger tech member, or who indeed were the brave souls high-fiving to the reign of a missile down on civilians from the safety of a calm sea.
A war on Terror, as a war on Drugs are not winnable. In my world, it's the sole reason they are fought. It may be our eventual downfall. That need in some for power and control. Perhaps genetics will explain much in the decades to come. Perhaps computers will provide us with the answers to much. It should - and could - be an exciting time in the history of things.
Perhaps ten years on we'll do more than remember those who died that day - however they died - and actually set the wheels in motion of restoring some sort of order to the economic and social mess we are in today. Maybe Obama in his final year in office will call it as it is and be that leader that promised much just three short years ago.

The world's a bit like Sky News and Sports. The world could do without one and couldn't possibly survive without the other. One serves the worst in us, the other the best.
Quotes often grab my attention. Today, two passed my way. They both just seemed to fit into the day that's in it. For this fictional has-been anyway.

'Enjoy life now .. it has an expiration date.'
Thanks John F. Kennedy for that one. I lie not, for the F is not Fitzgerald, but a noble practitioner of life all the same.

'Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.'
Thanks to Damauri Dreved (more later) for that one. He advised me it was Cyril Connelly who bestowed such profound wisdom on us lesser mortals. It kinda fits in to the realities of the day. But such are the joys of the absurd path. You get to create your own meaning. And there's no greater freedom than that.

*************

The Door

So Blogger's got a few new swanky features. Sometimes I prefer the old. Take Facebook, it used to be a place where you could hang out for a few hours, have a bit of banter and generally just use it as a new form of selective socializing. It's new, may as well try it, hey? But of course having gathered many business acquaintances along the way and a host of newbie friends, Facebook became a drag and was slowly torpedoing the way of MySpace. Privacy Issues had the hounds out and after Google launched +, forcing Facebook into a reaction, the spread of information may have slowed somewhat, but there are smarter ways of getting it and that can't include alienating your visitors. Facebook can be rather draconian and dry and humorless on days. Recently I lightened the friends list somewhat and see if i couldn't get back to the days where a little banter could be a flowing. I've yet to try out +, not sure i have the patience to be figuring it out and what use it is at the end of the day. There are people better equipped to do that, I'm sure.

While Fianna Fail go to war with one another over their decision not to run a Presidential Candidate and Bertie weighing in with believe it or not, a plausible argument that he could have won it - given the list to date being offered a life of luxury while the nation drowns in a sea of debt.
Could they split? There's no doubt there's a handsome re-branding contract there for someone for he who can figure the Irish - Rules! So I guess it's an achievement of sorts on a certain degree.
The argument for debt forgiveness is not exactly raging, but it's causing whispers behind the backs. Why not cancel it all for a few years until we figure some things out? I mean we own the banks who want the debt, so in times of economic stress shouldn't Nooner be more radical in his thinking in search of a populous census based on the common good at a time of crisis? He's cutting a Euro swagger in a lean time. Good tutoring going on in the corridors of Brussels I'm sure. Top tutors too. Listen to me talking like Don Booker.

The Autumn is here - I think - which means darker evenings, fires, and a garden full of leaves. I can't wait. I wonder what elements I might have to encounter in Western Australia if i can find a way in. They used to say 'There's opportunity out West,' back in my Granddaddy's day. Now it's, 'There's opportunity down South.'
I wonder how the Irish cope with the constant sun. I'm hearing little complaints from the growing number of people I know living over there. I'd be an easy sell if I was hired to get folk over there by selling them what they have as opposed to what they could have. In a time of mass migration, wherever or whatever the causes, it may be places getting a shot at a sustainable future that cop us up here West on a little bit. If you can give people a certain security they'll want better things. But when the future is tail end up here in Ireland it's hard to see anything surfacing anytime soon.

Year 1 - The Letdown
Year 2 - The Fightback
Year 3 - The Letdown II
Year 4 - The Door???

Of course it could all work out fine - in both places. Nothing that a nice big Euromillions win wouldn't sort out, or a few budgets. Stranger things happens in Larryland. Speaking of which, I better get back to it. I found two good new friends on my travels who are going to help me shape the Booker's World novel. Big credit due because without the help putting it out as an ebook was always a concern. It's been difficult to get the help needed and when it came it came from afar. That's the good thing about modern forms of technology and human communication. You meet people who don't just buy into the illusion played out around us which deflects from living life the way people would like too. If that sort of technology and savvy is directed correctly who knows what can be achieved - But if it is by-passed continually for more corporate ends, I feel it like raw capitalism, it is doomed to failure. I think people are tired of the BS, the Corpo of tomorrow will be based on what they stand for, driven by their stakeholder. If that stops at the $, their probably are better forms of gambling to be taking. Well, more fun ones anyway. As Penelope Stoppit once said, 'World's Changing, Baby!'

It sure is - every single day.

Divisions & Diversions

I love the blog if for little more than a chance to ramble for a half an hour, before a very basic edit and proofread and post. Not sure why I do it still, I thought I'd be well sorted work wise by now and with one thing and another, I'd lose interest in it. That's what usually happens, right? Today's wingers could be tomorrows comedy, and if there is an element of truth in that, well it might be worth the time. Most days now I don't take things to seriously, well in the last week or so anyway. Bottom line, there's little point. I'm pretty cemented now in my view on life being an absurdity so best to roll with it, accept the freedom it gives and go about creating your own meaning, even if that means getting up certain noses at times. But sure life's an arena, what's a little banter every now and again.
Caught wind of some expansion in Europe tonight, a step closer to whatever end. The Welsh are welsh, the Scots, Scots and the English, English and I'll always be Irish. It should mean more than hanging off the coattails of Europe. What's the point of fighting so hard for Independence when it gets chucked away so easily. We've gone so far off the path the constitution laid out for us that I wonder sometimes what was all the struggle for. Why are people constantly herded into groups whether they like it or not, when there's nothing more evident than the fact that humankind is as diverse as it is individual. Talk about straying off the path of Evolution!

Nooner came out tonight and said he will 'be directly feeding Ireland’s views into the discussions on the proposals at Euro Group and Ecofin meetings and with his other Finance minister colleagues.'
Ok, fair enough, but am I the only one who really thinks any one of the European hierarchy care what Nonner thinks. Nothing against the man, but what about Ireland. In there, we're pretty insignificant. If we learned how to stand on our own we might actually have made it, considering the diaspora we have worldwide. The countries that matter in the future will be those that lead the way in health and education and tolerance. Not the ones chasing the chance to ride the debt train and profit from those zero's they just pluck from the sky. Good job the Universe is infinite, hey?

Across the water the political divide seems to have come around again. Cameron, a son of privilege continues to lay down the moral laws to the masses. He wants to bring in a U.S Supercop to lead the fightback to civil society - or his delusion of it anyway. The Police Service in England must be mortified.
OK, every dude is worth a chance. But he's failed already in my mind. Here's a guy who wants to cut the number of police yet hires a guy who shouts for more policing. Here's a guy who hired the ex-editor of The Sun news paper as his head spin doctor. Even Tony Blair did a tad bit better than that, and Alister Campbell was awful. The spin doc in question, Andy Coulson, is currently caught in the cross hairs of the phone hacking scandal which goes it seems right to the heart of the establishment itself.
So no, Cameron is a complete failure already. He's slowly alienating his police service and hires the editor of a tabloid newspaper. No other term for it really. Bet he's good a portrait of Maggie herself in one of his homes. Came from bankers, I believe too. But leading a party like The Tories, I'm not surprised given their roll of shame. I'm no moral agenda setter myself, but Dave Cameron can dream on if he thinks the good people of the UK will be swallowing his particular brand of economics and social values.
But Ed Miliband said - and rightly so - that MP's and bankers also have to take a look at themselves in the aftermath of the rioting. Is New Labour dropping the 'New'? It's definitely a hint of a divide in a world where left and right politics are dangerously close to a super merger even Warren Buffet would be proud of. There's certainly none of that to any great degree in Ireland and even a left alliance is but a dream when Labour so easily sat beside a party who condemned a government for years and then gladly took up the mantle and headed off in the same direction.

I wonder if the Americans will fall for another Texas governor. I'm beyond thinking that the impossible can't happen. Unfortunately it seems we see it more with each passing day. If democracies have a responsibility in choosing their leaders then a greater emphasis has to be placed on who those leaders are. But it would be a brave man, or woman, to stand up to Corporate America.
Obama could very well be a one-term President if he's not careful. I often wonder if we could go back to the scenes at his inauguration and leave him in that moment, but move the crowd up to today, would those iconic pictures be as inspiring? His backroom team will have to pull out every stop in this one. From a political prospective there is nothing better. I read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 last year. Could there be a better six months to be had than following the buses around, a writing hack to anyone that pays and gives you the freedom to write what you like? I'm sure there is...

As me old mate Leon used to say, "Life. It just sorta follows you around."
When he had one.

Black & White

I'm sure writers among us tend to draw from personal experiences or the tales of others to help shape their writing, especially when it comes to fiction. Some commentators have said that truth is stranger than fiction and perhaps it is when it comes to the stories flashed at us daily of a world in a terrible state with no apparent direction that is going to solve its mounting problems.
I drew strongly from experiences in Booker's World in many ways, one inclusion being the months I spent working in London back in the 90's. Sure it's masked with a touch of Booker eccentricity - for who likes a bore rambling on about the state of affairs in a country drifting towards Iceland every single day. Ahem...

I think disturbed and then shocked were my two main emotions over the past three days as I watched an area in Croydon I used to live in being burned to the ground by an element of society hell bent on nothing but mindless violence and destruction and providing the world with a first hand view of nihilism at work.
I also worked in Brixton. Imagine a naive Paddy, walking the early morning streets of Brixton going to work, his only knowledge of the place the images he saw on a TV screen back in 1981 when this area of London was subject to something similar Londoners have been suffering through these past four days.
As it turned out Brixton was and still is one of the nicest and friendliest places I have ever been. Not without problems, but problems faced and dealt with daily by a legion of youth workers who's buzz from life came from keeping the whole thing together. How deflated so many will feel over the past few days, as years upon years of hard, thankless and soul destroying work may have become undone by the violent reaction of youths hell bent on destruction at any cost. But to watch London on fire last night and Anarchy on the streets one suspects this runs a little deeper as Police were unable to manage a situation that stinks of some form of criminal minded organization using the times to snare vulnerable kids into a lair that only ends up in a body bag or a prison if they are lucky. .

Much will be written over the next weeks and months on this. It will be interesting to see who takes what view points. I do think Britain has an effective press once the tabloid is taken out of the equation. Watching Bill O' Reilly point his finger at America last night and tell them Fox, and he, were a spin free zone made me glad I reside on this side of the Atlantic.

Has David Cameron, once this melee has died down, the metal to address the fact and figures and research available, mostly assembled at the cost of his tax-payer, and come to the pretty straight forward conclusion, self interests aside, that Austerity at the behest of corruption is morally and socially wrong and address the question and go some way toward some form of equalization in the form of the social structure which is falling apart with each passing generation not just in his country but in many countries. One would hope that at some stage some is capable of standing up and saying things need addressing. But will it happen?

I think a lot of people would have respect for Martin Luther King. I personally am a fan of anyone who pursues some form of civil and social justice. I couldn't care less about their make-up if their viewpoint is one of equality and justice.
King once said, '' When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.''
That's 40 years ago. That's insight from the past by a man who many historians would agree had his hand on the pulse of society as it was at the time. Except 40 years on, it's not about black and white anymore, its about people the world over. Britain will recover because they have that about them. I'm not sure America will though with their 4-advertisement breaks every half hour with the bullshit of Bill O Reilly in between. Charlie Sheen has better things to be saying than that €20 mill a year Capitalist junkie.
I'm all for protecting yourself, but when you live in an age of growing apathy and disillusionment and guns can be bought like sweets, where kids are knowingly mining for the materials we use in our everyday lives and slaughter and slavery stain diamonds the world over, well, in my opionion this world is not protecting it's most precious commodity.

How people buy into every media driven consensus with the amount of untainted information available today shows the power of propaganda in the modern world. In most cities of the world 'the rogue element' have historically been squashed together like sardines in pressure cookers no human being should have to endure. It's a breeding ground for wayward ideologies perfected by the disillusioned. No form of life likes containment. You'd still hope for a day when the realities of Huxley's and Orwell's World and V- For Vendetta weren't beginning to have a sense of reality about them.

There are a few dozen things that will have to be sized up when things settle again. Each as important as the next. The push for your thinking will be delivered through the media, but don't be so easily bought. These areas of these cities are ghetto's, no-go areas and they will remain a threat to what is in this age viewed as decent civil society. So what do we do? Label them and fire on until next time comes around. Or tackle the deep rooted issue, that when justice be it in any form it takes, is not equal and fair then this unacceptable way of living will only get worse as we 'evolve.'
The guys who wrote our constitution in Ireland set standards for the Irish to follow once free to dabble in world affairs. Being irish it is hard to escape that those words came from people who accepted their fates so that perhaps the world they yearned for was something to strive for as we matured as a country. I'd never rule out hope it will come about. And I'd never rule out the irish either. You would think a country with nowt to lose might step up and lead the way a little, but once married to a system that conditions the direst of human behaviour we won't be chairing any agenda setting council anytime soon. One can but hope we'll all see a little sense sometime in the future, but with the weight of a tragic human history on your back of the hope, even a little sense seems insurmountable at times.

Highways

'And now the end is near,' goes the lyric from Sinatra's, My Way. The song popped into my head this morning for some reason as I rode out a dose of insomnia to the tune of Sky reporters commenting on the overnight news that Credit Rating Agency, Standard's and Poor's had downgraded America's credit status to AA+, removing its triple A rating for the first time in American History.
In justifying the move, the Agency stated that the 'downgrade reflects the view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policy-making and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.'
I don't think many could argue with that. And the Americans should not be too despondent. Ireland's status is near Junk. But it's the political commentary behind the downgrading that once again shows up the distinct lack of leadership, on both sides of the Atlantic foam. The Market response on Monday will tell more. But nothing suggests anything but a continuance into an economic hell that nobody seems to want us out of.

Not only is the US in trouble, China is now calling for the dollar to be removed as the world's stable currency and events in Europe threaten the nations involved in the single currency. Italy have vowed to implement Austerity measures of historic proportions on its citizens in a move to try and stabilize market reaction against them for a stagnant economy. But it is doomed to failure on a number of fronts. Italians, like the French, like their standard of life. Good luck taking it away from them.
EU leaders, most of whom are on Holidays are keeping in the loop with each other via conference and telephone calls. Cheaper on the tax payer I guess.
The main problem is the markets are screaming austerity and when it does not go far enough it screams some more. It's like one of those hostage situations of old. Austerity will not get any economy moving again, yet this is the call? Why?
Ireland this week announced another rise of people signing on the live register and when weighed against emigration the proof lies in the pudding. So how can anyone see any light at the end of the tunnel when those charged to lead are not the real leaders after all. The governments of the world have allowed for a state of play where bankers are allowed go unaccountable for heaping misery on people through any means they wish to invent and are allowed that free reign by elected officials put on a ballot paper for us by political parties who get more and more capitalistic with each passing day, right or left, despite the escalating reality that Capitalism in its present form has failed and failed catastrophically.
There is little or no divide in the political spectrum anymore. You get the feeling for that based on a number of things. When, say for instance, a left party like Labour in Ireland go to bed with a right wing party like Fine Gael you know the fix is in. When probably the most powerful man in the world, Ben Bernanke 'serves' under both a Republican and Democratic President you know the fix is in.
Possible Presidential candidate Ron Paul once said of Bernanke 'there is something fishy about the head of the world's most powerful government bureaucracy, one that is involved in a full-time counterfeiting operation to sustain monopolistic financial cartels, and the world’s most powerful central planner, who sets the price of money worldwide, proclaiming the glories of capitalism.'
When you take the relationships highlighted in Capitalism- A Love Story you know the fix is in. When you know that JFK took one from the Knoll, you know the fix is in. You know when you research all the previous American Presidents who met with the same fate and their views towards bankers and banking methods, you know the fix is in.
The wider connotations is none of this is taught in our educational system. Thinking for yourself is rarely encouraged. And perhaps through ignorance we are all complicit to some degree and will probably only care when it is too late.

If there was any real will on the behalf of world leaders for the betterment of mankind all these problems could be gone tomorrow with debt forgiveness and longer terms to pay back outstanding debt after that. I'm sure those who play with digital money and profit from the Interest on that while manipulating governments the world over would not want that. It's a disturbing feature of modern day society when sociopaths run the show. It's hard to describe them as anything else when they have such a lack of empathy for all those suffering the World over so the practice of greed can continue. I read about the Great Depression following the Crash of 1929 and if some accelerated radical thinking on an economic and political level does not come into play very soon, barely a century later we could be back in the midst of one again.

The words of My Way were given to me by my Dad on the morning I boarded a plane for New York back in 1999 for the Summer. Best gift I ever got off anyone. It's an honorable thing to do, to give a child that sort of freedom of scope even if they are delivered via lyrics sang by an old swooner.

''For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself - Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.'' - Paul Anka

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.