Misanthropy Abroad

2011-02-18T20:32:00.002-07:00

Okay so instead of writing something meaningful after being accused of trolling on CLR and arguing with fundies on facebook I am posting all of my drafts because I still can't get my shit together and post a decent post.

Yeah the title really says it all. Not much of interest here, but if you're reading this then you already know that.

__________________________________________________________________________

Wikileaks rehashes cables that state the obvious, and we're now supposed to believe that this is somehow new information on old news? I mean for fuck sake, we all know the Provos did the Northern Ireland Bank job, we all know Grizzly Adams denies being in the IRA, and we all know that when it came to negotiations the Provos punched well above their weight. But somehow we're revisiting these issues without digging deeper into them for a deeper understanding.

What picques my curiousity is not whether or not PIRA carried out the bank robbery, but why? This has been something that has been conspiciously overlooked in most analysis. Most commentators were falling over themselves to smear shit on Sinn Fein. But it's like trying to teach Brer rabbit a lesson by throwing him into the briar patch. The Northern Bank job and the execution/murder of Denis Donaldson raise some questions that I have not seen fleshed out elsewhere, so I'll do it here.

After the first failed hunger strike in 1980 Margaret Thatcher stated that the IRA had, "played its last card". Suffice to say we all know she was wrong. It was not because they won that particular fight, they did not, but they kept going for almost another thirty years (with varying degrees of "success"). The point is that "secret armies" do not have the ability to come out and argue a case in the light of day. Like the subaltern (I am truly annoyed that I even know that word btw), PIRA for all of its sophistication in military operations and criminal activity must act out in order to find a "true" voice. We must also remember that in years preceeding this action and in the years since, the Provisionals were/are accused multiple times of having "sold the family farm" so to speak due to their inability to continue the armed struggle. Political careers and informers forming the corner stone of this political analysis. The Provos went out with a bang in '98 in order not to go out with a whimper like the ETA or the FARC have since then. To me the Northern Bank job was a statement from the Provisionals, more to the Republican community than to the various governments.

Because doing a massive bombing or sending a few boys home in union jack draped coffins was most definitely too taboo circa 2005, an extraordinarily complex and unprecendented "operation" would send the message to both the dissidents and the respective governments that PIRA was most definitively still in "business" or at least capable of pulling off things that were head and shoulders above anything that the dissidents could do at that point in time (or even now for that matter). But like my ironical use of "malcontent" while hanging off of some rebar twenty foot plus up it was met with blank stares as the message was lost on those for whom it was intended. The dissidents simply dismissed the operation as more financial opportunism from the Provos. The governments viewed it as either a sign that Grizzly had no intention of changing his stripes or that he had lost control of the army. In either case something that was intended strengthen their position did the opposite. Also of interest in the wake of this and then the "official" winding up of the armed campaign was Sinn Fein's "asks" in return, which was the Irish Language Act. This struck me as quite a shift in stead of dealing with the bread and butter issues of "On The Runs". Not that they didn't try this along the way, but that the ILA was the major issue. I don't know, just a thought.

_______________________________________

As for Denis Donaldson. His murder obviously raises many questions. Questions which quite frankly very few want answered, either in the Republican community or the security forces.

______________________________________________________________________________

Do Not Pray For Easy Lives, Pray to be Stronger Men

Well it's time to wrap up another year. We're still in a recession. It's getting worse, not better for most of us and I'm now back on concrete. But I have a job, (for now) so fuck it. But on to a deadly serious topic, video games. There were a bevy of great/solid games that came out this fall alone. I've got one semi-video post under my belt and it's odd that in my second outing I'm speaking almost exclusively about sequels to those games. This is in my mind indicative of the creative bankruptcy of the system in as mush as once they find a franchise that sells, they milk dry. Think about Ocean's 11 circa the Rat Pack visa vie the multiple sequel reincarnations of modernity to get where I'm coming from. That being said there's no reason not to enjoy the often time solid sequels.

First and foremost is the Treyarch follow up to its last output of Call of Duty: World at War, and following on the footsteps of the incredibly disappointing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. . that mini game alone justifies the sixty five dollar expenditure. A solid solo player campaign and a revamped multi-player experience just make one feel less guilty about forking over the cash. Though the truth is that I've had to ask for this game for Christmas as I can't justify the expenditure right now. That really does bring a tear to my eye, but since I've lost 2.00+ an hour I need tighten the belt a bit, and be an adult (something which I despise btw).

But something folks need to understand is that the undead have the ability unite man kind, as well as eating their flesh.

Seriously, this game even has something for Garibaldy in as much as Castro gets a role in the mini-game.

_________________________________________________

On another note. As a rule I dislike modern remakes, and when my dad told me that they were remaking True Grit I about flipped my lid. Seriously I was about to start screaming when he told me that Jeff Bridges was to reprise the role of Rooster Cogburn. This calmed me down enough to say, "well maybe I should google the trailer to find out more". While I was doing that I asked who would replace Glenn Campbell as the Texas Ranger. When the answer came back, "Matt Damon" I gave an approving murmur. After I watched said trailer and saw that it was the Coen brothers who were making this film I was hooked.

Now technically the Coen brothers are doing an adaptation of the novel, but who the fuck are they kidding? Seriously? Your're going to do a remake of the novel whose orginal film adaptation won John Wayne his only oscar and whose memorable line, "fill your hands you sons-a-bitches" is a classic of Western film and then tell me it's about the novel not the film? I'm calling bullshit on that one. But it still won't dissuade me from going to see the movie.

______________________________________________________________

Also out this year is a follow up to Fall Out 3, entitled Fall Out: New Vegas. While specifically not a sequel and developed by a different company it uses the exact same game engine as Fallout 3. Though new complexities such as a factions systems allows you more flexibililty than just the old morals systems (ie you can only do some things if your moral ranking is low or high enough). The setting of the game in the west allows for throw backs to the orginal franchise and the inclusion of the New California Republic. Now I never played any of the original franchise so am unfamiliar with the many of the nuances

________________________________________________________________________________

I'm trying to work out the bright side of being kept up at two o'clock in the morning by a fussy toddler. If you're drawing a blank too, then you're good company because I would much rather be sleeping. But you can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which gets filled first right? So I'm up.

Pearse Doherty has finally been elected to the Dail for the Shinners and actually managed to overshadow Gerry's parachute drop into Dundalk. Interestingly enough though not altogether shocking considering the constituency Pearse was handily elected over all others. There are many reasons for his electoral success which don't need to be repreated as they are irrelevant to our conversation here. What did strike me as interesting was Doherty's stance on abortion. Now everyone knows SF famously has a fence post up their ass on this issue, not nessecarily because is trying to pander per to both camps but (IMO) because the party itself is deeply divided on this issue.

Now this post isn't meant to be about abortion, right, wrong, or indifferent, but it is a great jumping off post for what has been on my mind. And what has been on my mind is the question, what defines rural proggessivism? Again, not sure if that's a word, but no one contested it last time out so I'm running with it. Personally I am pro-choice, coming from a pro-life stand point. That last line may need clarification, I am personally pro-life, but feel that it is not up to me to make life altering decisions for other people so say make your own choice and live with the consequences. I can't even get smug because I remember when my wife was pregnant that the doctors told us due to her ethnic background that she was at increased risk for a Down baby. Before the tests came back telling us our boy (we still didn't know the sex at that point) was healthy we had a scan and listened to the heartbeat. At that moment it hit me that my wife was carrying a living being inside of her and I told her later that with all of my fears and uncertainties (which had grown exponentially after realizing that everything they had abstractly warned us about could in fact be very real) that I couldn't give my support to stopping that little heart beat. And that is why I am pro-choice. Because at that extremely personal moment I could not imagine anyone else telling my wife and I what to do.

I have heard some extremely progressive people eloquently argue their beliefs both for and against abortion. To top that off we have Malcolm reminding us of the elected representative's responsibility to their constituents. I also think that many leftists have a particularly urban centric world view.

__________________________________________________________________________

Who stepped down where?

Okay so I go pheasant hunting Friday and the whole world goes to shit. I mean seriously, WBS's "I didn't see that coming" is a fucking understatement. Gerry Adams standing for the Dail is seriously a raised octave "What the fuck?". I thought about simply commenting on CLR but it's gotten to say the least, a little bit weird.

Recovering from the initial shock it does connect some dots. MMG being Deputy First Minister, GA's insistence on representing SF in the 2007 debates and his fixation on the leftist Southern body politic. It also fills out the real politik within SF. Replacing Our Beloved Leader for West Belfast MLA is a former Hunger Striker. By contesting a rural constituency adjacent to NI, SF seems to be acknowledging their own limits in as much they are realistically looking to eat at the edges of FF's support base being as how Labour has squeezed them out from the urban left. This is interesting I would be looking for a shift from hard core Labour supporters to SF as they are the only party in the Dail to fundamentally oppose the government approach of austerity. Any left types supporting Labour are likely to be as disappointed by Labour as progressives/liberals/leftists in America are by Obama. But to be fair to both Gilmore and Obama, neither are selling themselves as leftists, only "moderates" looking to correct the "excesses" and "mistakes" of the previous administrations.

While leftists in the ROI and NI are busy picking apart SF's left wing credentials they would do well to note that SF are (to the best of my knowledge) the only party in the UK or the ROI to fundamentally oppose the austerity programs of the respective governments. And by the only

_____________________________________________________________________________

Haven't seen alot of analysis on the elections up North so far and this annoyed me. I mean fuck David Cameron, Tony Blair 2.0. And while I'm happy that Labor didn't totally melt down the fact that the rich got richer and poor got poorer during the Nu Labour administration kind of grates on me. Also I'm not a liberal so while I appreciate the social democrat aspect of the political spectrum the fact that both state houses and the governorship are controlled by Democrats hasn't stopped the contractors from locking us out in order to force an eight dollar pay cut on us. Kind of crossing threads there so we'll get to the point.

Baby Doc looks poised to take over the leadership of the DUP after a blind siding dethronement of the cuckold king, Peter Robinson. Both PR and Gordon Brown have to be feeling a bond of empathy as after years of loyal service they are both essentially defenestrated at the first Westminister election as head of their respective parties. Junior's main claim to leadership seems to be having kept the family feifdom, well in the family. But I have a hard time seeing him as leadership material and if the anti PR vote was largely influenced by the all too cozy relationship between the DUP and property developers. How is Junior going to rehabilitate that image? Other than the E. Belfast upset the DUP monolith plows on to almost total hedgemony of unionist NI. The UCUNF project lays in ruins, which is about where it started though not before much hype from the "Tory boy bloggers quintet" threw some smoke into things. Either they're still drunk trying to drown out the sorrow of it or too busy eating crow to comment at this time. But we'll get back to them later.

The upcoming DUP leadership battle. The top two are of course Nigel Dodds and Baby Doc. It's odd, both and neither of them are leadership material. I mean one could easily follow the flow of events up to this juncture and place them at the helm, but taking a step back you really wouldn't say if I was to pick a man to lead the totally dominant unionist party of NI...etc. etc. But this is where we find ourselves. I remember the last election where I was following the prospects not of Nigel or Peter, but of their wifes and how their battles for the Assembly would impact the leadership struggle. So it is odd after paying so much attention to things like that to see it all come down to 5 pounds and a butcher boy. Makes you scratch your head sometimes. So as I was saying, Baby Doc has fended off the the attack on the right flank from Jim Allister, but Nigel can point to fending off an attack from Gerry Kelly on the center. As Garibaldy pointed out last night over at CLR he says that the Provos have missed their chance but I have a hard time believing that. I don't think N Belfast is going into play anytime soon, but I think it will become a far more contentious set as the housing crisis in the estates comes to a head. I feel this constituency will become the face of the "Greening" of NI. More than the failure of a unionist unity candidate west of the Bann, the encroachment of nationalist into previously hardcore loyalist areas will be mark an entry to a more contentious stage in NI politics. Especially considering all of the centennial stuff coming up in the next few years this seems to be something that will come up but has not really been talked about at all. If MM does indeed pull off the feat of becoming FM I find it almost impossible to believe that a situation where nationalist families languish on waiting lists while "Protestant" houses sit empty and in decay. Not that Nigel has been a push over in the past but this development could lead to a much rockier relationship for the Assembly at Stormont and in my mind colors the upcoming fight for the DUP leadership.

Since neither of the two top contenders are really that dominant I think that the supporting cast will play a dispaportionate role in the process. Wilson, McCrea, and especially Donaldson are going to play a big role in garnering the support of the rank and file which are quite disparate. I especially see Donaldson leveraging his support to move up into the upper echelon of the DUP in return for his support of a candidate. Because lets face it, the DUP may be the house that Paisley built, but the additions that made it what it is today are due to the defections of massive numbers 0f UUP voters along with their totemic "leaders".

The UCUNF thing. Well I think we all had a feeling it would end like this. The aforementioned bloggers (some of whom I actually like) created enough hype to make it interesting, but in the end the DUP machine rolled them over. The question now is where to for the UUP? The civic unionists among their number will have a hard time making a go of it since in their first outing they supported the first pan-prod candidate in what, 25 years? If I'm not wrong I believe that the UCUNF lash up was for Westminster only, not the Assembly. Being that Cameron now has his hands full with the Lib Dems I don't see him spending too much time propping up a party that is not only of no use to him.

______________________________________________________________________________

Write with the door closed, edit with the door open...

Why I'm putting up a post about the Claudy bombing while intentionally avoiding Slugger

Over the past day or so the pic plastered over the BBC website has a blown up grainy black and white picture of a priest who may or may not have been involved with the 1972 bombing in Claudy, Co Derry. While purposefully avoiding Slugger I did of course venture over to Malcolm's Home Service and read his pieces on this tragedy and "new" revelations. However while over on the World Service Side (from which I jump to the Home Service site) I did read the tidbit entitled, "The lessons of justice for Claudy", with the feeder "Why is Claudy left forgotten and angry while Catholic Derry is elated by the Bloody Sunday report?".

Since I never posted anything on Bloody Sunday let me take a moment to digress. Claudy is "forgotten" because it was a massacre perpetrated by an amateurish (at the time, and that's important to note btw) grouping of avowed terrorists with little to no regard to public opinion and the democratic process. Versus a non-violent gathering of citizens demanding their rights within the state that claims jurisdiction over them only to see them murdered in broad daylight by an elite grouping of the Army. Something like Kent state, only alot more fucked up. I know everyone up to and including David Cameron makes the comparison to the provos, but the fact is that the only thing that would be comparable would if at some point the Free State or the ROI had shot down a grouping of Protestant marchers who were demanding their rights as Irish citizens in a very public way and then given medals to those forces which shot down unarmed civilians in broad daylight. That's the equivalent, to argue anything else is as sad as Chekov's post about the movie Hunger*

*It is odd as when I saw Hunger (some time later when it came out on DVD) I did not come away feeling that it was a political film at all. Very much a visual tour de force, I felt the content while apparently "accurate" according to "relevant" sources was nothing close to being a propaghanda piece for republicanism. I should also note that I was not impressed by one shot eighteen minute (IIRC) conversation conversation about the hunger strike between the actor playing Bobby Sands and the priest. I struck me as a rehashing of the activist nationalism (cue the allusion to the Church as some sort of outpost of non-violent liberation theology) visa vie militant republicanism argument, only with alot of chain smoking. Which to my mind is a false dichotomy, but that is neither here nor there. My point is only that an otherwise intelligent and entertaining blog chose to take an "easy" way out.

__________________________________________________________________________

On Hungary

As with so many other things in this blog. Instead of taking initiative I've sat on my ass until moved by some outside force. In this particular case the agent that put a body at rest into motion was O'neill over at A Pint of Unionist Lite. It has been the second time I've seen the Hungarian election referenced and the first time I've seen the fight with Slovakia discussed. So certainly hat tip to O'neill on that one. That being said I not only have to disagree with much of what O'neill says but I also feel I must call him to task for striking a tone condescending superiority.

Look I know that Liberal Unionists like to buy into this idea that they've moved beyond "tribal" politics, but seriously to sit back half a continent away and pass judgement (not to mention making snide comments is bullshit). Here's a fact. No one outside of Hungary gives a shit that almost a third of her "children" were lost to her. This isn't some bullshit 14th century battle that was lost to the Turks (but yeah, Hungary has those too). This was a dismemberment of country that my grandpa was alive to see and understand before he came to America. And for a point of reference, I'm under thirty.

It's odd, my wife obviously has dual citizenship and my son will too. We have discussed for me being that not only am I married to a Hungarian, but that my grandfather also was a citizen. For me I say "maybe". Because for all of my bullshit, I'm 100% American (emphasis on the annoying "can" part).

2011-01-08T16:12:00.009-07:00

From My Cold Dead Hand Part 1.5

Critiques of American culture (guns and otherwise) on the tail of recent happenings...

(something I wrote the day after the Tucson shootings...)

In the wake of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford I thought now to be an appropriate time to follow up on a post that I did awhile ago. This is in turn was from a post Malcolm did previously (I see he's already responded to the shooting) in which my comments do far more to stake out my position than any these posts ever could (the fact is that I'm always more collected in comments, responding than trying to craft an original post).

The story is obviously only half sketched at this point but so far it seems that six people are dead, twelve are wounded. One of the dead was a nine year old child. Representative Gifford is in critical condition etc. etc. The elephant in the room of course is the charged political climate and the seating of Tea Party backed politicians who have polarized the political atmosphere almost beyond belief. Perhaps that's an overstatement because I doubt anyone felt that something like this would happen. I have no doubt that whatever the shooter's political leanings he is a wing nut. But regardless of that, there can be no question of two things, one that the Tea Party folks are circling the wagons right now in order to deflect the already incoming political arrows and that two, politics crossed a Rubicon with the 2008 election.

From when an audience member asked McCain, "how do we beat that bitch?" (in reference to Hillary Clinton) to which he replied, "good question". The vitriol associated with the anti-Obama movement seems almost unprecedented. The continued likening of Obama to a socialist was pervasive and although it launched the second career of Joe the plumber any liberal can tell you that Obama is at best a centrist minded liberal. But then I've already lost the plot before I even started. The issue is not one of policy, it is one of psyche. The truth is that while we are most definitely in a real recession (trust me on that one), we are also, if I may paraphrase a badly timed quip, in a mental depression.

___________________________________________________

Back in '08 I posted up a piece when I was trying to actually keep this blog afloat (something I've long since given up). It pondered the growing disconnect between traditional constituencies and the new political realities we find ourselves faced with. In particular my last few paragraphs have come back to me as a barometer of the discontent from that time, which has only grown since then.

Forget the responses we've heard today and those that will be forthcoming. The fact that this was an isolated incident perpetrated by an what is apparently a single disturbed individual does not and cannot negate the fact that we as Americans are losing the commons threads that bind us together. And I'm not really convinced that anyone grouping is actively trying to undo those threads as much as there is a convergence of things that coming together to affect that particular end.

I've highlighted what I believe to be the "culprits" a number of times.

From Malcolm's linked post in 2009,

"All the things I mentioned in my last post play important roles and need to be taken into account when dealing with gun violence. Death of community, de-industrialiaization and the casualization of the workforce, the increase in individual alienation, and the ever increasing rate of obesity and mental illness all play a role in this debate as well as the ever polarizing rhetoric of the most vocal gun rights advocates. All have a part in this, (unfortunately) mostly American problem"

From my last post,

"the new libertarianism is not a harbinger of by-gone liberties and community, but actually the death knell of communities and democracy, as business is granted apriori status over civil society"

And from my first "FMCDH" post,

"the belief in American individualism as it feeds into the myth that everyman is an island which obviously feeds back into the failure of needing one another in a moral sense.

"I noted in my commentson Malcolm's first post (yes from over a year ago!) the problems that accompany gun violence are far more complicated and nuanced than either side would give credit for. Before pronouncing predetermined verdicts we must actually ask honest questions with and actually listen to the answers we get back. This is also an opportunity which will probably the only time ever that I quote Bill Clinton and cite him for something reasonable when he stated the obvious, "words matter". "

_____________________________________

We'll leave it there.

2011-01-03T20:38:00.003-07:00

In Memoriam: Pete Postlethwaite 1946-2011

This morning I saw the news on the BBC that Pete Postlethwaite had died. When I saw the link I didn't instantly recognize the name. When I saw his picture I knew him immediately. So I thought I would post these two short pieces from the 1996 film Brassed Off.

May he rest in peace

2010-10-26T11:42:00.011-06:00

(Not so) Theological critiques of America: Part II

In the prior posting I dealt with the theological element of Burke's post. Yes it may have been muddled, convoluted and at times non sensical, but it was honest. So we'll leave it there and move on. And to be honest I didn't even really care about it until I wanted to respond to Burke, and felt that I had to respond to his quoted source.

The idea of the American narrative and modernity.

Hauerwas writes and Burke quotes,

"America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people that believes it should have no story except the story it chose when it had no story. That is what Americans mean by freedom.

The problem with that story is its central paradox: you did not choose the story that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story."

I admit I had to Google Hauerwas to find out about him. He strikes me as impressive (at least he has his own wiki page), and a past in the building trades. His place of birth (Texas), well I'll try not to hold that against him and I often times share his fatalistic view of America. But I fundamentlly disagree with his concept that the American version of freedom is somehow tied up in inventing narratives of our past.

Though I must confess I can see where he gets his fatalism and how he comes to argue his point. While coming back from elk hunting I watched Glenn Beck while I ate a Whopper at Burger King. Truth be told, both the meal (though it was better than the McDonalds I ate in Vail) and Beck sickened me. I loathe the politics of fear, plain and simple. Beck, along with Tom Tancredo exemplify that lowest common denominator style of politicking (spelling?) that explemify the new libertarian Republicanism.

The problem with this new brand of libertarianism is the changed fabric of American life. Gone is the time of cooperative living amongst a community. The new American order consists of buying everything you need from Wal-Mart or Sam's Club. There's an excellent book by Robert Putnam which dissects and discusses the decay and collapse of American community. Where I live now there are still a few old Grange buildings left and there's still a co-op in my dad's home town (where I just got back from pheasant hunting). These endeavors and those like them are not inherently a harbinger of a distant rural past full of altruistic progressivism (is this even a word?). It is a reminder of a time when people had no other choice than to rely on one another. Yes there were/are progressive elements there, but to say that the underlying foundation was ideological rather than utilitrian is mistaken. Right now there is alot of soul searching going on in rural Colorado as the effects globalization make family/local grocery stores obsolete while at the same time showing the limitations of box chains like Wal Mart who can be located well over fifty miles away. This can mean literally having to go without food when highways are closed during winter snowstorms.

While full well acknowledging that the rural population is an ever shrinking segment of the population, their plight is endemic and to me a least a harbinger of our common futures and why the new libertarianism is not a harbinger of by-gone liberties and community, but actually the death knell of communities and democracy, as business is granted apriori status over civil society.

And though my blog has an ever shrinking readership from not posting for almost half a year at a time I am still unable to keep on track for even a single post. And Jesus wept....

____________________________________________________

My main point of contention is the idea that we as Americans simply pick and choose in the most debasing of ways in order to simply create a narrative that suits us. I fundamentally disagree with this assessment in as much there is a difference between the ignorance of fucking idiots and the reality of a multi-generational, immigrant nation, that holds multiple and contradictory stories which are all part of the tapestry of the American narrative. One of the ones that springs to my mind as of late is the wave of forty-eighters who enlisted enmasse for the union and went into battle singing German socialist anthems which their commanding officers could not even understand. We often forget that until the civil war, the 1848 revolution was hot shit stateside (and rightfully so). But to that story let us next choose an easy narrative to comprehend with Frederick Douglass. Okay that one is easy enough. Those two narratives dovetail quite nicely. But shooting off of Douglasses narrative, what about the Irish shipyard apprentices who beat Douglass to the approval of a northern crowd? What about his old master? What about the multitudes of Southern soldiers who fought tenaciously to uphold a system of which they were not part of (ie owning slaves)? These are all part and parcel of the American story. Is it any wonder that people feel overwhelmed and simply pick out the narrative that suits them best?

Another part of the issue is the idea of assimilation and forgetting the old stories of where immigrants came from in favor of the American one. This is not hard to understand. One need only to look at the long and sorted history of anti-immigrant hysteria dating all the way back to the American revolutionary period to understand how many immigrants would deprive their children of their pasts in order to help their future in America. My own family is a great example of this as within a generation my family lost two out of the three languages spoke in our homes due to the desire to "be" American. It is funny because when recently visiting the graves of my great grandmother and grandfather (after whom my son is also named) it simply gave their dates and the simple inscriptions, "Born in Hungary". My grandfather who was also "Born in Hungary" made the choice during the cold war to not teach his kids his native tongue. And while it ensured that they were "good" Americans it also ensured that they were ignorant of much of their own stories. My uncle was nineteen when his father passed, and my own mother was only in her early twenties. How much was lost? Lord only knows. And how many snippets of conversation which make up so much knowledge of our families was lost due to the fact that my mother's generation were ignorant of the language in which the stories were being told? Again, the Lord only knows, but I think that this situation would be a fairly common thing.

If we as Americans "choose our own stories", it is often not because we choose to, but that we are forced to by the burnt bridges approach of assimilation. Left with only kitsch knick knacks, romanticized and idealized versions of the home country, is it any wonder we're in the state we're in?

2010-10-19T16:52:00.009-06:00

Theological critiques of America: Part I

Burke's Corner has up a piece titled "America and the project of modernity: a theological critique". And while I was very tempted to post a short comment which would probably have consisted of some sentences tied together in a paragraph that may or may not make sense. That's about how it goes with me anymore. Some days I got "it" other days I just ramble. But seeing as how I had just done that on two of his previous posts I thought I would give him a respite and just troll around on my own damn blog.

I take issue with both the content of the post which Burke put up and the underlying point he's trying to make. The gist of the article that Burke links to is that Britains aren't nessecarily anymore secular than Americans according to Stanley Hauerwas. The thing is that when the British stop feeling Jesus in their hearts, they stop going to Church. When we (Americans) stop "believing" in God, we continue to attend church. According to Hauerwas this is because we have a belief in a "vague" God who needs only vagues prayers. This is all tied up in the "AMERICAN" narrative (or lack thereof) and modernity (OMG run and get the pitch forks!).

A brief back story here, if I may. I come from a mixed marriage between a now Northern Bapist and a Catholic. As is the case in most mixed marriages due to Catholic doctrine I was baptized a Catholic. Growing up I attended both Catholic and Baptish services. I learned and recited the Ten Commandments before dinner every night and said grace as well (a tradition that continues to this day btw). We did not go to Catholic school because the local school gave me parents shit over the mixed marriage thing. Since my teens I attended a multitude of protestant services and youth groups with various friends. Please don't ask me to explain why. I don't even know myself, but usually I thought, "why not" and went along for the ride. The topics of those things btw would make a great story someday, though rest assured it will never be written down by yours truly.

My mom left the Church over a multitude of issues, most of which would make sense to folks of the baby boomer generation (birth control, abortion, generally acting like assholes etc. etc.). My father never really left the Baptist church so much as the church left him as it split between an apparently "liberal" northern branch and a new conservative southern branch. We went back to Kansas and we discovered that the rest of the family had gone southern on us. My father was/is an old time conservative (as am I btw, with some caveats) and his beliefs are his business and as he would not want his beliefs imposed on, he would not impose his beliefs on others, which put him at odds with the Southern Baptists. Oh well, as they say, "que sera, sera"...

But back to our post! (that one is for Malcolm)

The idea that we as Americans are less "religious" because we attend Church without being 100% convinced of God in his multiple clothes is to me rather than being an endightment of America, is a testament to our faith. Let us remember that it is called faith for a reason. It requires an act of faith to believe. What Hauerwas is talking about is the commonly held Protestant belief that one must be "saved" by Jesus in order to achieve salvation. I have heard it multiple times in attending especially Baptist services. In northern Baptist services (at least metropolitan ones, the country ones didn't the last time I attended one), it's all hip and cool Jesus until the last fifteen minutes of the service (there's even rock and roll songs for the youngsters) and then bam! It's a choice of either really, and I mean really believing in Jesus and being saved or being damned to hell. Personally I like the Catholic version of good works, faith, and charity better.

That is not to say that you should be able to buy your way into heaven, but when I went and helped my elderly widowed neighbor after she had fallen and broken her elbow it should count on my heavenly ledger, not because it should be my sole ticket into heaven, but because it (hopefully) reflects my desire to help my fellow man when possible and to generally be a good person.

My relationship with Jesus and the Church is far more complicated. But I want, with a great deal of sincerity to believe in Jesus and that doing what is right, even when it is not easy, is the "right" thing to do, and that the idea of Christian charity is a reflection of how we would have God see us. I personally view my good works as half of my relationship to God. I am not ashamed to "talk" to God and at times ask him to help me. Perhaps that's the Protestantism in my blood as no Catholic would ever attempt to actually talk to God without going through an intermediary (I've done that too). My grandma regularly prays for me and my family, though doubting the rules and dictats of the Catholic Church.

In short, I'll take that impefect faith any day of the week and I think that God will too.

_____________________________________________________________

2010-06-01T07:55:00.005-06:00

Marha Jo

Awhile ago now WBS in his infinite wisdom enlightened me to what I had to look forward to as a parent. Not only did I hang my head and weep at such a dim prospect, but I also swore that I would never submit to such tyranny. How do they say it? "I am the Captain of my soul". Right, well I may be the Captain, but the first mate and cabin boy launched a mutiny and I found myself with no choice but to submit to their demands.

That is not to there was total capitulation. I am still not convinced by my wife's statements that our son only likes kid music as he claps along to Merle Haggard and Beast of Burden by the Stones sets him off dancing like there was no tomorrow. So I have been able to keep most of the Disney tunes out. Though I've let the Hungarian kid songs through as this is a good way for the kid to hear Hungarian. And to be truthful I like some of the songs. Because after having my wife translate some of them I realized rather quickly that are very few children's songs in English which include the lines, "I'll give you something to cry about". Totally innappropriate, but satisfying none the less.

My favorite song is by far the most inappropriate. It is entitled Mehemed Tehenek or roughly translated (that is all I can do at this point) Mehemed and the cows. In a nut shell, Mehemed is a Turk. He's never seen a cow and doesn't know what they are. So he introduces himself to a herd of cows. He then proceeds to count all of the different kind of cows, black, white and multi-colored. The being a stupid Turk he pulls on their tails and gets kicked in the head and sent flying. One hundred percent stereo-typical and demeaning, but still spetacular.

And here it is acted out.

2010-05-26T14:25:00.001-06:00

A 357. snub nose, a 45. peacemaker & a Tyroler Hut

Upon reflection the only reason that the "This Weekend I'll be Listening To..." has gained any traction is that it has been a constant and allowed the readership to form a larger picture of WBS's preferences and tastes. Because as Oliver Sacks has shown, each person is different when it comes to what floats one's boat when it comes to music. For me that's country music. Not just the classic kind, though that's how I was raised and it remains the bar by which I new country. I'm a Johnny Cash man myself, my brother is a Waylon man, my father's more of a Roy Acuff kind of guy (who loves the fact that I have Bill Monroe doing Mule Skinner Blues on my iPod) and my mom can't stand any of it. My wife tolerates it and my kid loves it when I sing him Ed Bruce (or at least I think so).

We start with Jimmy.

and another because I love this guy

I was going to try to do a straight chronology of some of my favorites when I realized that it is simply quite impossible. Well probably not impossible, but beyond me at the moment and certainly it would tax the patience of even the most devoted followers of this blog. Because we come to the question of getting down what I like, what I was raised with, and what is considered country music orthodoxy. All three of those things weigh heavily on my mind as they are so closely aligned. So we proceed full well acknowledging that we'll leave some excellent artists out of the equation. Take these as acts of omission, not comission please.
____________________________________________

My dad always liked this song

For a long time I didn't believe that anything new could be quality. All the good country had already been performed and all that was left Christian rock with cowboy hats owned by lawyers.For the longest time I didn't believe that there was any new country worth listening to. I was wrong, there is. I suppose part of the problem is the fragmentation of the industry. As Malcolm once noted even George Strait is now labelled "commercial country". I wouldn't disagree, but I've got some respect for George, even if I wouldn't dream of buying anything from him. For starters there's country, bluegrass, old-timey, gospel and traditional. Deciding which fits into which can be troubling at the best of times. Let alone in the age of retro and alt. sub genres. So leaving aside confusing titles which no one but record store clerks and internet junkies care about I consider anything that I consider good, as plain and simple "country"

Of course it was Johnny Cash who showed me that wasn't the case after he signed with American recordings and produced multiple albums that I loved. Certainly the one most poweful songs was "Hurt" which to be honest, knocked me off of my feet and is one of the rare times I'll give a cover a higher rating than the original.

So while I'm finally warming up to the idea that not everything that comes out is pure crap (although 99% of shit out of Nashville is) I'm still mainly moved by the old standards. And I was thinking about that this weekend when the family was sitting around the table for lunch and my Dad was eating green onions and listening to the aforementioned Mule Skinner Blues. He then relayed to us how that took him back to his youth in rural Kansas where his grandfather had a big swinging chair and a onion patch where they would spend summer evenings swinging, eating green onions and listening to the music. And I suppose that's what country is to me as well.

Music and memory hold a special place in my heart and I think about them both fairly often. Iris Dement did a great song called Mama's Opry which tackles the exact same thing. The enabling has been disabled, but the link is well worth checking out. Music and memory aren't always positive things, but powerful never the less. Guy Clark wrote a song about his grandmother's boyfriend who showed him the way of the world in rural Texas during his boyhood/early manhood. Jerry Jeff Walker (who wrote Mr. Bojangles) later had a minor hit with it. Guy is the first man singing, Jerry Jeff is the guy with the cowboy hat.

My father was always reflective about this song. When asked why, he answered that as a young man he used to have to drive his father around to the bars in LoDo (an old ghetto now gentrified beyond belief). One of the bars he used to take his his dad to was called "The Green Frog Cafe". Far from being "one of the heroes of this country" the song reminds my dad of his father's alcoholism.

Though this is simplistic of course as my grandfather was "one of the heroes of this country" for his service in the Second World War, serving with distinction with the United States Marine Corps throughout the Pacific campaign. He never talked about his time in the Corps to his children. After his death a one of his comrades filled my father in on some things and my dad overheard a conversation once between my grandfather and the aforementioned member of his unit who survived the war with him. Their unit suffered 98% casualties from the beginning of the war, meaning that my grandfather and his friend were the sole surviving members of the original unit with the rest of the unit being made up of replacements. He had been in training to become a Baptist minister before the war, but found himself unable to continue after. He was a combat engineer during the war, demoted twice for fighting. It was left to him and his units to clear and seal the caves with flame throwers and dynamite (amongst many other tasks, because as we all know, "Every Marine is a rifleman first"). Forty years before vegetarianism came into fashion my grandfather refused to eat meat because he couldn't stop himself from wretching at the smell of searing flesh. Imagine how well that went over in Garden City, Kansas (Seriously, read Omnivores Dilemma as it's the only time you'll ever read about Garden City, Kansas in popular print).

And that is country music in a nutshell. Stories within stories. What I just related was one story amongst three generations of the same family that gives a deeper meaning to one good song.

One story leads to another as two albums that were formative during my youth were Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Stars and Stripes Forever, and Willie Nelson Super Hits. SSF was the first album I heard Mr. Bojangles off of and learned what it was to be a "cosmic cowboy"

And though I've mentioned being a little gonzo before I thought illuminating it a bit would help. To help us with is a very gonzo country singer, Ray Wylie Hubbard who wrote L.A. Freeway and Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother amongst others (he has a new album out) to explain the origins of Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother and a performance from the seventies which differ significantly from the latter performances where one might misconstrue the roles.

And of course we all know to thank Bob Wills for the horn section.

__________________________________________________

Next up, talking 'bout my generation.

Now please nobody comment on the fact that I left out Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Merle, Don Williams etc. Because trust me they haven't been forgotton and that's leaving out the singing cowboy tradition of Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey. Just saying his thing is long enough as it is...Though obviously feel free to throw in your country favortites.

PS

Okay I just had to throw a few more in here. What dan I say other than I love watching these tunes.

This is a badly recorded cover but I feel that it somehow adds to the gravity of the song.

"the richer got richer and the poor got poorer and to me it didn't seem right" amen brother

2010-05-11T15:56:00.006-06:00

Ah Jaysus, Mary & Joseph. Again?

So we find ourselves again on the unemployment line again. This time they say fall/winter, if at all. Some of the superintendents like me, others not so much. It's hard to read with some. It's a network of what other journeymen tell the lead man who then tells the foreman, who then tells the super who then feeds that on up to the project manager to the head of the company. By the time I got laid off I doubt there were about twenty guys working for the company total. For some it's about production, for some its about being the wrong skin color, and for others it's about being too young (I kid you not) and for some it's just the way you rub them. The day before my layoff we had our company wide safety barbecue and let me tell you there were alot of empty tables. Remember the concrete company while technically a part of larger general contractor is still its own company. But that hardly matters, we're all fucked. General, concrete subcontractor it's still the same shit sandwich. I was more than ready to go when the time came because I knew it was coming since the end of Febuary when the super took me into the trailer with my partner who was getting transferred with and told us to expect this right about now (mid to end of April). He spoke to me the at the barbecue and voiced again his displeasure at what he termed, "losing core people". Perhaps I should explain this one a bit, at least for my edification. In construction, competency is a minimum. Whether or not you fit in goes beyond that. For the general side being a white boy is a plus. On concrete, pretty much the opposite. Having family in the upper office will help you but not save you, though having a daddy whose a big time supeintendent will. Crawling under the right desk to suck some fat...well you know will carry you for quite awhile and can potentially set you up for life, but only if you crawl under the right desk...Any other desk might just leave you with two checks and some sore knees to boot. Though rest assured and I confirm this myself, all of the sons of superintendents are still working and are being promoted at their due rate. Sound kind of fucked up? Well that's the good part. My company is one of the better ones (aside from the nepotism). I'm about as pale as they come. I don't have any family in the industry and I don't crawl under desks (much to my detriment). I'm sick of Pabst Blue Ribbon, it tastes like piss. But it's the cheap beer I'm willing to drink (I stopped drinking malt liquour when I was 18). So that's about it, except for one tiny thing.

_________________________________________________________

Lockout

I was laid off on a Thursday. Our contract ended Saturday. The lock out started Monday. Now mind you it's not a total lockout, some contractors have signed a 120 day extension to keep talking. Talking about what you may wonder. Well it started with an eight dollar pay cut, which the union refused. It then moved on to a cut in out total package by a third and a freezing of payments into our health and welfare fund (our health insurance) as the contractors said that it was currently solvent and hence didn't need any additional funding. So out of our five Association of General Contractors (ie the big five contractors with whom we do most of our business) four and half walked (the half was a joint venture by one of the company, but as a joint venture counts as its own). Some have also severed their ties with the Laborers union. They were in the same boat as us but chose to sit with their thumbs up their asses until the bosses came down and told them, "that as of tomorrow we no longer have a contract with the laborers" period. While those fuckwits may take that kind of shit we don't. Every single contractor who walked has been hit with a petition for an NLRB election for union representation. One of the concrete contractors already walked and was also hit with an election. We won 46-26. Others have wised up and tried to thin out their ranks so that only company men will be left. The elections will take place in early June, but even if we win the election the contractors are only bound to one year until a new election. Don't even doubt for minute that we won't be doing this again and more come next year. Even it only gets as nasty as elections it will be good. This could turn real ugly, real fast. So here we stand. For our families, for our union, for our class.

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common...

2010-04-17T20:20:00.001-06:00

From My Cold Dead Hand

Part I

I've been thinking about this post for awhile now. Normally I do that and a post might gestate as a draft for quite awhile until I finish it off and clean it up, hence multiple postings in a cluster. Though normally as I go I clean it up a little (emphasis on a little) and clarify things as best I can. But the more I think and the longer I wait for this post to come to fruition it becomes more elusive and more muddled in my head. But I've got a cold union made beer by my side and my Jeannie C. Riley collection freshly updated from original vinyl to iTunes so there'll never be a better time than now to start this thing.

As usual amongst the liberal clientele I found myself vocally supporting the right to bear arms. Indeed I went further than the normal sportsmen line and acknowledged the fact that I own politically incorrect firearms that have no legitimate use in normal hunting. But shortly after this debate (relatively speaking) I read a story from politico that made me reflect and still leaves me searching for an answer. Even as I sit down to write this there's another story in which a man murdered his whole family before taking his own life. This in and of itself is lamentable but a few things have stuck with me from the previous debates which then fell into line and made me reflect more than I might otherwise have. First was the ending of the politico column in which Roger Simons asks,

"How can you have a crisis when hardly anybody seems to care?"

Secondly, was the emphasis which I placed in commenting on another post by Malcolm, which didn't become apparent to me until well after I posted it. I shall return to that emphasis in due time.

Finally, I was the recipient of a forwarded email with the usual pro second amendment email filled with what I would normally write off as the normal cliches, but this time it rubbed me the wrong way. The same way in which all of those usual emails which encourage homespun faith in Jesus or country mean well and usually just end up being deleted but just occasionally pique us enough to actually respond and never in the way intended by the sender.

__________________________________________________________

So let me cite Matthew 20:16 and begin from the end. The forwarded email consisted of a number of points such as, "an armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject". Or nuggets of wisdom such as "gun control is not about guns, it's about control" and one of my personal favorites, "The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved". And that last one was what really set me off, because I wondered about how much of the constitution was important to these people, because most people who will go off about constitutional rights couldn't name five of the 27 amendments to our constitution and that does piss me off. In the politico column Simons notes about Richard Poplawski who shot and killed three police officers that according to his mother, “[Richard] only liked police when they were not curtailing his constitutional rights (my emphasis), which he was determined to protect”. These are the same people who cite Stalin and Hitler in gun control debates and really believe that Obama represents some socialist conspiracy. They must be in overdrive after he shook Hugo's hand.

My wife once got me an Olivia O'Leary book called Politicians and Other Animals. Not a bad book, but nothing really memorable from other than two paragraphs at the end of one of her pieces on the Labour Party, but the words were far more universally applicable than she intended,

"it is perhaps worth asking what the people themselves are concerned about. One of the things they are concerned about is the loss of solidarity in communities. ...I know this notion of voluntarism or commutarianism has been picked up by right-wingers. But it can easily be a revival of vigorous voluntary commitment to local communities...It means asking people of all backgrounds to contribute to their society, not to act as merely individuals. The French Revolution had a word for such people and no, it was not 'comrades' if you remember. It was 'citizens'".

That always stuck with me and if anything Obama is injecting much needed energy into the idea of government as a two way street and engaging everyday citizens in a way that we haven't seen for quote awhile (if ever). That's not socialism, that's a republicanism. Remember, "government of the people, by the people, for the people" entails a far more thorough commitment to our articles of governance than a an obsession with 1/27th of the Constitution.

I am still a firm believer in the armed citizenry as the last line of defense against a tyrannical government, but they must actually be acquainted civil and civic engagement, not just a gun safe. I can't tell you how disheartening it is when handling firearms with others and hearing them say, "for when the revolution comes". It is a dystopic, schizophrenic Bakuninesque vision of society. Perhaps I should take a moment to clarify that one. It is commonly held belief that modern society is built upon the social contract. We all individually give up some rights for a greater social good which would not exist within a state of nature. Bakunin disagreed (as he should've) as he felt that at no point within our history has there ever been lone individuals who knowing full well their rights and liberties decided to come together voluntary and free of outside coercion to form a social contract. Or as Gerald Brenan explain Bakunin's views,

"It was not individual men who by coming together voluntarily together created society: on the contrary, since men are by nature social animals, it has always been society that created them. The concept of liberty is therefor unthinkable outside a community. Man cannot be free when he is alone. He can only be free when he lives in community with other free humans...thus the chief cause of evil of bourgeois society is that man has need of other men materially, but does not need them morally"

Unfortunately today those who preach revolution the loudest use the community as a lowest common denominator in terms of civil liberties and rights. Take Gay marriage for example. Many courts have found it to be legal and just only to have the citizenry of that state make it illegal. What we are seeing is the "community" being used to strips rights away and stifle debate. It is quickly becoming obvious that in this sense the community is essentially little more than the mob with little or no interest in actually debating and exploring ideas. My concern is not that a revolution will come, but what kind of revolution will it be. This failure is doubly damning when coupled with the belief in American individualism as it feeds into the myth that everyman is an island which obviously feeds back into the failure of needing one another in a moral sense.

As I noted in my commentson Malcolm's first post (yes from over a year ago!) the problems that accompany gun violence are far more complicated and nuanced than either side would give credit for. Before pronouncing predetermined verdicts we must actually ask honest questions with and actually listen to the answers we get back. This is also an opportunity which will probably the only time ever that I quote Bill Clinton and cite him for something reasonable when he stated the obvious, "words matter".

up next, From My Cold Hand (Part II) A Family Matter

____________________________________________________________

2010-02-28T20:50:00.002-07:00

Hang in there Brother

There are times that you look at your hands and your labors and think, "to what end?". Family and union above all.

You know what you've got to do. It will be a hard and lonely road, we will walk with you where we can, but you must do the heaviest lifting on your own. Know that we love you and take strength from that.

2010-02-23T19:58:00.002-07:00

In Rememberance of Orlando Zapata Tamayo

May 15, 1967-Febuary 23, 2010

I will admit that it came as a shock to read the news of the death of Orlando Tamayo tonight. Although I'm always ready to have a go at the Cuban regime, the Cuban opposition has always remained on the fringes of my radar. That is no longer possible with the death of Mr. Tamayo. Let those who rally to the banner of freedom come forward now to decry the autocratic, undemocratic, and murderous regime of the Castro brothers. There are many words to be said over this, but not tonight. Tonight we remember a man who gave his life for freedom and liberty. You can keep your murals of Che, I will keep a picture of Orlando Tamayo as my symbol of freedom.

2010-02-06T04:49:00.002-07:00

A Quick note on Joe McCann

I've got to work today. Which normally would normally piss me off but seeing as how more and more guys from other jobs come to ours and how just yesterday they laid off even more people, I'm just glad to have a job to go to. But this song came up on my ipod the other day as I was doing dishes and I was trying to explain to my wife the irony of this song. She didn't really get it. Well she understood what I was saying but when you have a fussy one year old (fuck can you believe it's now been a year and change) who realy cares about this kind of shit? Well me, so I'm throwing this short and fairly obvious observation out there so it's excised from my head. I always felt it was tempting to call codify the differences between the Provisionals and the Officials by the songs, The Ballad of Billy Reid and Joe McCann. Both are essentially narratives of their respectives deaths. But what is really interesting, especially in light of TLR and now that there's some light shed on the Officials is the content of the song on Joe McCann. The introductory verse esablishes his republican credentials through the use of physical force. The second verse which talks about the McCann as a defender of the "Rights of Man" ie traditional Republican doctrine. It is not until the end that anything close to socialism comes in. Even then, it's fairly vanilla and I don't think that without knowing the subject matter you'd be able to ascertain the politics of the Officials. I can see the "holy trinity" for the Provos following this order (the primacy of physical force, traditional Republican doctrine, and lastly socialism), but for this order to be put forward in a song by the Officials always struck me as ironic. Although I wouldn't read too much into it, it always makes me chuckle upon reflection.

2009-12-24T20:52:00.002-07:00

Merry Christmas, now go fuck yourself

Well maybe not, but just maybe yes. It's been a hell of a year. Posts have been non existent and even commenting has deteriorated significantly. I don't see things improving at any point in the future and have seriously considered calling it quits, but not quite yet. So this is my year end wrap up.

For Chekov and Garibaldy

For Malcolm Redfellow Revivus which later transformed into Malcolm Redfellow's Worldservice

I know Malcolm's keeping up the "Home Service", but I'll miss him on blogspot. Seriously it fucking sucks.

WBS and Cedar Lounge...

Like the man (or in this case baby) said, "to hell with you all, I am who I am" keep on rocking in the new year.

And for me...

2009-12-02T20:24:00.001-07:00

Lost Revolution

(A review of sorts)

Part I, a prologue, sort of, kind of...

(Man I wish I knew enough photo shop to put a Che beard on that guy)

It's about time I put out a real post and short of posting my piece on Pride, and Prejudice, and Zombies (which was fucking spectacular by the way), the next up on the list would be The Lost Revolution.

I read this book in two and half days. Being unemployed helped. Certainly CLR and SS have had some solid reviews. Update-SS has now gone overboard and set an impossibly high standard for discussion of this book. It won't stop me from lowering the level of that debate with this post, but...

I must admit that I was surprised when people started referring to this book as less special interest than Swan's book. Perhaps it's my removal from Ireland, or even lack of association with "Irish" America (whom I avoid as if they were lepers) but this book was no more mainstream (to me) than say Robert White's book on O'Bradaigh or Desmond Greaves book on Liam Mellows. All subjects have played roles of some importance and have been largely overlooked as people write umpteen different books on ground that has been ploughed multiple times before. I mean Gerry Adams may be an interesting figure but there are only so many books that I can handle that want to explain him and his machinations. And so while I will someday be buying Henry MacDonald's explanation of why Gerry and his cohorts are bad, bad men you all must excuse me for if I haven't busted my bank account keeping up with such musings.

Which brings us to the analysis versus narrative debate which while not really a debate is interesting none the less. I think one of the reasons why Sean Swan's book has dovetailed so nicely into Hanley's & Millar's is that it's focus on a specific period allowed it to go a little deeper on certain things. From reading Hanley and Millar's contributions on CLR and other places it is quite clear that the six hundred plus pages was most definitely a very abridged edition and that there could conceivably be multiple books produced with information gathered from the party documents they reviewed and the interviews they did. I do feel this last sentence should be actively vocalized as the sales and buzz around this book indicate a more than receptive audience. And as the authors have said, even they don't agree when it comes to the analysis part so how could they craft one for their audience? TLR strikes me as being similar Bell's The Secret Army, the "first" light shone upon a subject which had been left in a dark corner collecting dust. It will require much more analysis over time. I put the "first" in quotes because I really enjoyed Sean Swan's book and would say that the two books compliment each very well. Indeed I think that some of Swan's analysis is essential when reading the "simple" narrative in TLR. In retrospect it is also odd and somewhat disappointing that Swan's book didn't make bigger waves in the blogosphere.

As Brian Hanley pointed out over at SS on one of his latest posts about TLR, bloggers for the most part have done a much better job reviewing TLR than mainstream media. I feel that this book has for the most part brought out the best in bloggers and highlighted much about what is right with the blogosphere. That is intelligent, articulate people from all over the world discussing, debating, in a cordial manner that does put the media personalities to shame. It's also the reason why read blogs. Because lets be frank, I work construction here in Denver. I have a ten month old baby boy and I help organize with an anti-capitalist union (that's not nearly as exciting as one would think) while trying to maintain my standing within my regular trade union and doing all the things good 'ole boys do. The only people who will even put up with my ramblings are my wife and my brother. And I've had to draw them both diagrams crudely illustrating the various splits within the Republican movement (the one for my brother was drawn on a bar napkin). So one can appreciate that when I want to dive deep into this subject the blogosphere is really about it for me. And the discussions around this book make me feel very satisfied with that world for the time being.

One might wonder why I'm already three paragraph (plus) into this post and haven't even broached the WP yet. Even on many of the online reviews there seems to be the tendency to say, "my take on TLR...[insert positive/negative editorial about the WP]" with minimal reference to the book itself. Which is why having taken note of the that precedent I'm trying to layout my reaction to the book, its release and the buzz before I give my opinion on the Officials. This is also a "review" that will go up in pieces as I'm trying to pull together multiple disparate threads into one cogent narrative.

____________________________________

Who's a Republican? (yes the "ubli" is typed in white)

Certainly one of the major ideological sticking points in the Republican debate is being to claim Tone and being his true standard bearer. Everyone on the republican spectrum claims it, even the SLDP with people like El Blogador now claiming that they are the true Republicans. Probably the only other thing that everyone from the WP, FF, Sinn Fein eile (thank you very much splintered), SDLP not to mention the IRSPs, Eirigi, 32csm, and Micheal McDowell can agree on (aside from the fact that they all know that they are Republican) is that PSF are not. This very much reminds me of the frustrations ran into by Western powers when they tried to assemble a unified grouping of Kosovars to bargain with during the crisis in the nineties. All of them wanted the same thing, but due to the longevity of the conflict could hardly get them around a table without them simply trading recriminations about who was a Serbian stooge. Not exactly the same thing but anyone familiar with that scenario can appreciate that sense of WTFness in regards to certain things present in Irish politics. It must also be readily acknowledged that of course the personal is political, and modern political issues are just as much about personal relationships as about ideology, perhaps even more so than most would like to admit.

But back to Tone. There are two issues here I wish to flush out. First, the "common name" debate for which I find Swan's book extremely informative on. Secondly is the role of the Defenders and "Defenderism", two overlapping but separate things and their long suffering as a poor cousin to "proper" republicanism and how that prejudice still exists today.

So let us turn to the "common name" myth, for thats what it is.

To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country, these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman, in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, these were my means.

Wolfe Tone

Let us be very frank on a few simple points. Means are not an end. As I've stated before, the means will affect the ends, but should not be confused with them. Secondly, this statement is a description of his tactics, not inherently a prescription for revolution in Ireland. Indeed almost every rising, rebellion, or attempted revolution has contravened this statement and it is only in the post '69 period that people start to get finicky about which acts of armed violence they support.

One of the my problems with people is that they take a fairly buffet style preference on whom they will and will not allow into the Republican family. So the Provos are out due to the fact that they committed sectarian acts and perpetuated sectarianism as a whole (or so the argument goes). And things like Kingsmill is presented as some hitherto unknown monstrosity in republican history, except for the fact that it wasn't unknown or unprecedented. The Belfast IRA circa 1919-1922 bombed tram lines carrying Protestant workers to the ship yards for exactly that reason, they were carrying Protestant workers. The Tan war IRA and the post treaty IRA carried out multiple attacks on Protestants in Cork (Malcolm has been doing some good work on that, even if he does ruin it by bringing in Harris and WBS started a thread on it as well). The "bhoys of Wexford" of course had Scullabogue.

In these instances it is much easier to pin the blame on "Defenderesque" elements than to admit that such actions are part and parcel of the republican enterprise. And this bothers me, not only because it attempts to shift blame, but also to rewrite history. Namely that Defenders were the flip side of the coin to Orangism until the UI came along and reformed them of their backwards, reactionary antics so that they could come along and be good little foot soldiers for the UI and the Republic.

There can be no doubt that the Defenders were sectarian, but Swan makes an important distinction in kinds of sectarianism, "functional" and "intentional",

"There is a profound difference in comprehension as to what constituted 'sectarianism'. There is intentional sectarianism and functional sectarianism. The former constitutes bigotry, the latter arises when an organization or group is composed, even if unintentionally, almost exclusively of members of only one sect."

I think this is an important point to remember, and one that I'll be applying in retrospect (Swan was referring to Bernadette Devlin's election campaign). There were of course Protestant Defenders both from the UI and independently. And Tom Dunne makes the point in his book Rebellions...,

"Modern work...often accuses scholars of patronizing the poor by assuming that they had no politics. It seems equally patronizing , however to assume that the only way the poor could be politicized was by the elite ideologies from France...The colonial land, religious, and political settlements of the seventeenth century were deeply sectarian, and the Gaelic/Catholic response to them inescapably so also"

To me, the Defenders for all their shortcomings represent an indigenous republicanism in a way that the UI did not. It may also help to explain why "defenderism" so often identified as "gut catholic nationalism" has survived and resurfaced time and time again. Perhaps it is not that Defenderism represented a "truer" republicanism, but one for a group (ie Irish Catholics, especially the rural/working class) that had no where else to go so we see places where "gut Catholic nationalism" has resurfaced in the South throughout history in places there was little need for "Catholic Defenders". And that is indeed my point. Far too often that is how Defenders and Defenderism are referred to, in a literal and dismissive way of a sectarianized agrarian secret society as opposed to a mass political movement that was crucial in politicizing the "men of no property" in pursuit of an Irish nation. There is little use in lamenting the fact that Irish Catholics while more than willing to incorporate republicanism/nationalism (again, this was in the time of empire) into their identity, they were unwilling or unable to wipe the slate clean so to speak about their previous identities up to that point when Tone and the UI came down from on high and provided them with their new identities as "Irish".

This is something that brings us back to modern day and the WP in particular. The idea that socialism will wipe the slate clean of sectarianism and Catholic and Protestant workers will come together, united in their new found socialist beliefs. The problem is that just like every other belief system out there, there has to be frame of reference for it to have any meaning. There's a section in the book The Troubles in Ballybogoin where the workers from the glass plant are on strike and the union officials come out to talk to them. They give them the pep talk and tell these rural, largely nationalist workforce with a grouping of militant republicans that they must have fortitude and faith just as the doughboys from Ulster had faith when they "went over the top" at the Somme. While possibly done with the best of intentions this example shows just how far apart the frames of reference are for the various elements of the working class in NI. So to cite socialism as a way of overcoming sectarianism is to either ignore history or have a blind spot to a millenial streak a mile wide, which most socialists would scoff at in any other belief system.

One may reasonably ask why they are subjected to multiple paragraphs exploring the relationship between the Defenders and the UI when this is supposed to be a review about an book on the WP/OIRA? The answer is that I think that it's crucial to establish the fact that Tone while the "father" is far from a singularly agreeable starting point. And the ambiguity surrounding the Tone as "father" to Irish Republicanism while agreed upon in academic work has largely escaped the political discourse. I aim to rectify that. Republicanism both in its rudimentary form (which would include Enda and Micheal McDowell) and its contextualized form (WP/OIRA, SF/PIRA, IRSP,INLA, RSF/CIRA etc. etc.) is far more complex than most would give it credit for. Perhaps this the inevitable result of splits which cut so deeply that to acknowledge the fact that there is indeed ambiguity and contradiction in all positions is a bridge too far.

__________________________________________________________

Next on the list, Socialism and history.

2009-11-03T19:42:00.003-07:00

RISE, Magyar! is the country's call!

The time has come, say one and all:

Shall we be slaves, shall we be free?

This is the question, now agree!

For by the Magyar's God above

We truly swear,

We truly swear the tyrant's yoke

No more to bear!

Opening stanza of Sandor Petofi's "National Song"

I thought about marking the beginning of the uprising a couple weeks ago, but seeing as how today was the beginning of the end (the second Russian assault on Hungary) it seemed more appropriate for this to be the day to mark. For her birthday this year I got my wife a illustrated book of essays about the revolution and the aftermath. The cover of the book and my favorite photograph is of a man in the smashed storefront of a Soviet bookstore. As Soviet propaganda is burning in the street he recites Sandor Petofi's "National Song".

The uprising or revolution or whatever you call it was a muttled affair at the time and has not become any clearer within the shrouds of history. So I'll keep it short and leave the last word with the resistance fighters themselves.

"We shall drag the blood soaked Hungarian mud on to the carpets of your drawing rooms.

In vain do you take us into your homes-we still remain homeless. In vain do you dress us in new clothes-we remain in rags. From now on a hundred thousand question marks confront you.

If you wish to live in the illusion of a false peace do not heed us. In our streets there are still cobblestones from which to build barricades. From our woods we can still get stout sticks. We still have clear consciences with which to face the guns.

But if you will heed us, listen. And at long last understand. We not only want to bear witness to the sufferings of the Hungarian people in their fight for freedom. We want to draw the attention of all the people to the simple truth that freedom can only be achieved through struggle.

Peace is not simply the absence of war. No people have longed more passionately for peace than we. But it must not be the peace quiescence. This involves complicity in oppression. We promise the world that we shall remain the apostles of freedom.

All workers, socialists, even communists, must at last understand that a bureaucratic state has nothing to do with Socialism"

Nemzetor. January 15, 1957

(as Malcolm notes the correct date to be marked is the 4th of November, but I put it up last night instead)

2009-09-10T19:55:00.003-06:00

That was quick*

Well my unemployment came and went within two weeks. I took the first week off, worked on the house, went fishing and even once slept in until 9:30am, drank coffee until noon and then switched to beer. I couldn't do that one often but that was a nice change of pace after getting up at 4:00am for years. After one week I couldn't put my friend/old foreman off any longer and I had to go to work for him doing non-union insurance jobs. I worked for a whopping two days before my union superintendent called me back to the job I got laid off from. As Vonnegut said, "so it goes"...

____________________________________________

* The only thing I've ever seen that's been more ironic than this post was a myspace posting by a friend who posted a fake piece on being pregnant only to actually get prenant shortly thereafter. I started this post last night and was laid off today after only being back to work for three weeks. The super was decent about and at least was honest. He explained that my work and attitude were great but that other guys had seniority and they had to take care of them first. What happened was that another job had been postponed for a redesign. Now they had fifteen or so foremen and badass carpenters hanging on by a thread and pushing brooms across decks that had been cleaned multiple times before just waiting for the other building to start. When this didn't happen they laid off some really good hands and transferred others over to our job. So my old foreman got my job and my new foreman apologized and was genuinely a decent fella about it all. It helped him that I saw it coming and took it all in stride. Such is life right now. I see this period of "unemployment" lasting a little longer than the last one. I'm comforting myself with some country music and Budweiser, but mainly consoling myself with the fact that I got laid off with some guys who truly were great concrete hands and who to be honest could smoke me doing this shit.

I suppose I'll split my time between finishing some things around the house (believe me when I say that there's years of work here), maybe go back to school and build some militant anti-capitalist unionism while I'm at it. Perhaps I'll post some more on that at some point in the near future but for now we'll leave well enough alone with a decent country song.

2009-08-14T23:05:00.003-06:00

How Fucking Hard Is It To Get Fucking Laid Off In A Recession? Part II

Actually really easy, as it happens. I knew it long before it happened, construction workers are worse than a sewing circle when it comes to gossip. Not only that but one only had to look around to see that there were too many carpenters and not enough work to go around. So they fished us out to other jobs where there was no work and then laid us off in small groups as opposed to one big one. I sometimes think that I should be grateful for the extra two and half days, which I am, but I am also annoyed at the habit of fishing guys out just to lay them off. Personally I'm happy to be laid off. This last weekend I thought about it alot and the fact that I hadn't been laid off since I came back to work when I was 22. There was the temptation to be pissed and just show up for my last job (which was interior work) with my concrete harness and bags on. In the end I went and bought a new tool belt and leather suspenders (occidentals, fuckin' sweet). I knew I was getting laid off, but I wanted to go out like I came in, with my head held high and giving them the best I had. Fuck them, that was for me.

There can be no question that there has been both in terms of quantity and quality, something lagging for quite some time from this blog and even from my comments on other blogs. I remember back to when I was 21 and working on my first dam. I worked with a Texan named Rex who was also an apprentice at the age of 56. For the majority of his life he had worked in factories in Texas. We carpooled together about an hour each way everyday. I asked him one day why was a man who should be looking at retirement eyeing a new career, in construction of all fields. I don't remember why he chose construction but I will always remember what he said in terms of why he left the factory. He said something about the fact that in the factory he felt like an onion where everyday they took another layer off him. He felt that they would just keep taking until there was nothing left and then simply throw him away. So he fled while there were still a few layers left. I don't think I've ever respected a man so much just for running away.

These last few months I've felt like that proverbial onion. So while I've never been unemployed I think I can manage, we'll see.

2009-05-28T19:13:00.002-06:00

Don't Wait by the Phone

I was recently sent an email about joining twitter. For obvious reasons I declined this invite, but let me take a quick moment to reflect on this. My life is boring, I don't even care what I'm doing most of the time and when I do care it's not anyone elses business as to what I'm doing. Every so often and now less than ever I get a hair up my ass and write a post for this blog. So just in case anyone was ever wondering what I get up to I thought I would post a normal day for me twitter style.

3:30am Baby cries, I'm tired

4:00am Alarm goes off, I hit snooze, still tired, everything aches

4:05am Alarm goes off again, I loathe humanity

4:10-4:30am Take shower, get coffee, I still loathe humanity and my job

4:30-5:00am Read book, right now The Serbs (h/t chekov) or Blood and Soil

5:00-5:30am Get dressed, eat breakfast, now either cereal or grits, miss days when my wife used to make steak and eggs for breakfast (yes, on weekdays!)

5:45am Leave for work, smoke cigar

6:00isham Arrive at work, finish cigar

6:00-6:30am Read book in car, right now Official Irish Republicanism, 1962-1972

6:30-6:45am Bullshit with guys from my old crew in the parking lot, complain about work

7:00am Start work, parking structure for Botanical Garden

9:30-9:45am Take break, Hungarian salami, cheese, and triscuits dipped in coffee

12:00-12:30 Take lunch

5:30pm Get off work, smoke cigar

6:15 pm Get home, kiss wife, do dishes, stare at my kid and marvel

6:30-7:00pm Eat dinner

7:30pm Put baby to bed

7:30-8:30pm Read books, blogs, socialize with wife, ie actually behave like a human being

8:30-9:30ish Go to bed, renew vow to abolish wage slavery...someday

Repeat six days a week except add a six pack of Budweiser on the sixth day and that's my life. Nothing to phone home about, let alone twit.

2009-04-21T04:24:00.002-06:00

Study reveals that babies kill marital bliss

Well no shit, I wonder how much they had to pay to find that one out. I'm trying to get something real out soon, but it may just be a coronary coupled with an aneurysm, we'll see.

2009-03-04T20:27:00.004-07:00

How Fucking Hard Is It To Get Fucking Laid Off In A Recession?

First it was supposed to be Christmas, and lo and behold December 20th saw 75% of the crew laid off. Mid January came I was certain that once I told them I was taking a week off for my baby's birth that it was done for me. But nooooo, they said, don't worry about it we'll see you in a week. And then finally, finally, when they said that they were pulling the trailers and we were gone from the job I was sure that I would finally have my lay off. So when my senior superintendent called my foreman to send me into the rotunda to get my check I figured okay, a week early, but okay. And did that lousy bastard give me my second check*? Fuck no! He told they were transferring me up north to strip forms for a couple of months. Of all the nerve!!

Perhaps I should explain. My wife has one month left (roughly speaking) of maternity leave. With the economy in the state that it is and construction being particularly hard hit I assumed (with good reason) that we would all be laid off when the job was done but that there were other jobs coming up in the summer (hopefully). So I was hoping that I would get to spend awhile with my wife and baby son in the coming months/year (as long as my a unemployment lasted). I should note that this was an understatement for my wife who was estatic at the idea of not being cooped up all day with the baby. This put me in the very akward situation of probably being the only man ever, who was afraid to go home and tell his wife that he wasn't being laid off.

_______________________________

* In construction we're paid once a week for the previous week. So the day you are laid off you're given a second check. Hence the saying, "give me two checks and a road map", "I never had a day where I couldn't use a second check" etc, etc.

2009-02-27T16:43:00.006-07:00

In Memorium: The Rocky Mountain News

1859-2009

So much has already been said and written by people so much more eloquent than me that it's almost a crime that I even dare comment on the the passing of the Rocky Mountain News, but it was my paper for my entire life. So losing it came as quite the blow, especially less than two months shy of its 200th birthday. Notable among its achievements of having not only the better comics section of the two Denver papers (the other being the Denver Post) it also had one of the top ten sports sections in the entire country. On top of that it frequently won pulitzer prizes for its stories and special reports that dug deeper and went further than most. Of these, the stories Final Salute, Colorado is Burning, Deadly Denial, and The Crossing come to my mind. I also remember with fondness the many columns by Gene Amole, the comics of Ed Stein and Drew Litton. In fact it it's quite pointless to point out what I'll miss as I'll miss it all. So on this sunny yet dark Saturday all I can think to say is...

2009-02-22T19:57:00.004-07:00

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Robert Mugabe turns 85

So it is true, only the good die young. A Zimbabwean had this to say, "The best birthday present he could give us is to retire". I would amend that to say the best birthday present he could give to the Zimbabwean people is to eat shit and die.

Hugo Chavez cons Venezualans into opting out of term limits.

Because empowering the masses always means lining up behind a dictatorial demagogue right?

The trial of Anna Politkovskaya's non-murderers ends with an acquital for them and an endightment of the Russian judiciary.

"After her murder, Putin dismissed her as 'insignificant'" All the more reason to remember her then.

Likud is asked to form a government coalition.

Because "never again" meant that Germans would never kill Jews in 1940's Europe again. What the Israelis do to the Palestinians in 2009, that's their own business.

GOP Governors reject Stimulus money.

Republican Governors attempt to show that while you can't eat an ideology you can certainly starve on one.
____________________________

And on the bright side of life? Well considering the video game content of a previous post I thought this was appropriate.

2009-02-07T21:09:00.001-07:00

Back in the USSR

Chekov linked to an article about Russia and the World Order as such (some time ago now). He finishes with a note of, "it should make instructive reading for those who consider Russia recalcitrant, aggressive and incorrigible ". I confess that I think that Russia is all three of those things and then some. This is not a purely academic argument nor one based upon any support of American policy. It is one, for lack of a better word based upon truthiness. I use this word knowing its full implications, but somehow feel compelled to use anyways. I suppose it goes back to a memorable line (one of many) from Tom Dunne's book Rebellion's: Memoir, Memory, and 1798, in which his father aged 14 at the time was,

"forking corn on the threshing mill at home when two RIC men arrived looking for Jim, who was on the run. My father 'shouted up the IRA' (just 'acting the idiot') and was instantly hauled down and frogmarched toward New Ross, fifteen miles away. Coming near town, they stopped at a little pub at Ballyanne, where his captors had a few pints and bought him a lemonade. Then as they left the pub, they turned him towards home, booted him in the backside and told him to behave himself. A different outcome might have made him, and me, a nationalist"

At the risk of getting off point even before I begin, I would make a side point about the fact that Francis Hughes joined PIRA after receiving a beating from the UDR after they realized who his brother was. A "different outcome" indeed.

But back to my original point. History is personal, not always but oft times the strongest convictions have far more emotion behind them than objective reasoning. It would be dishonest to say that my initial response to Russia stems from a long and strict study of the country, its people, and history (though I'm not entirely ignorant of it either). It would be honest to say that my responses to them do stem from my family's and my wife's family's (I have no idea whether or not you're even allowed to do a double possessive) dealings with the Soviets. It's all quite well and good to say I've read this article and that article and I know about this or that. It is quite another to say that my brother in law was arrested and threatened with imprisonment for selling little yellow polka dot stickers at the tender age of eleven because that was "capitalistic" (I shit you not).

Or to listen to the men and women of the Hungarian club (my wife is a member) talk about their flights from Hungary or Romania (Now you want some tough Hungarians, talk to the ones stuck outside Hungary after Trianon). Listen to old women recounting tales of crawling across no man's land with no shoes to Austria past corpses in winter while the Russians lit up the night sky with flares and peppered the ground around them with machine gun fire. Listen to the heartbreak in my wife's voice when she talks about how her father who stayed behind was arrested and broke right away, telling the police everything they wanted to know about his eleven year old daughter who had fled. And these were ordinary people, not political dissidents or threats to the state in any normal sense, or even the abnormal sense.

Probably the most politically active member of my wife's family was her great aunt who helped found the steel workers union in Hungary (which my grand father and great grandfather were members of). When the Nazi's came she was killed and the Germans forbid anyone from going to her funeral. Her brother (my wife's grandfather) said nuts to that and that no one would stop him from burying his sister. For that he was shot by the Germans at the funeral, but carried on to finish seeing his sister put to rest. When the Russians came in, did they greet this act of defiance to Nazi tyranny with even so much as the international anti-fascist salute? Not hardly, they tried to send him to Siberia for the crime of being an ethnic German (the horror).

I've already recounted some of my family's experiences with them. And those stories do fire me up, but it takes it to an entirely new level when you can see the pain on some one's face as they recount their experiences. What continues to beggar disbelief is the discordance between cause and consequence. The woman of whom I wrote crawled across no man's land had painted banners that were used in the protests leading up to '56. That's all. But after at least five people from her village had already been arrested and deported she took the cue and made her exit.

Does that mean that I shut myself off from anything having to do with Russia and live in insulated Russophobe cocoon? If only, but unfortunately I have a love of Russian literature and an (at times) overly analytic mind. So I can appreciate the proposed NATO missile shield is a bad idea and that Kosovo has an unhealthy level of gangsterism in its society. But then so does Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and Italy (off the top of my head). So if you're already a sovereign country its okay, but if you just happen to be trying to recover from an abusive relationship with a genocidal country with a penchant for ethnic cleansing then until you can meet the requirements which apparently most other countries in the region can't then you're somehow stuck with Serbia who would rather do away with around 90% of the population?

But I make the connection between my family's experience and that of the Georgians deported over a spat over oil prices, at least on an instinctual (truthiness) level, as my grandmother is Volga-Deutsch. And oddly enough I'm not alone in this. Even Fyodor Lukyanov the author of the article in the start of this post admits that Russia more or less makes things up as they go along,

"what is Russia's strategy? There is no answer to this. Russian actions, or at least those actions that provoke the strongest reaction, are as a rule a more or less spontaneous reaction to external irritants"

Are you fucking kidding me? I can understand Bush making up a speech or two as he goes along, that's why we have Bushisms. But if the best you can do for policy is to say "we're making it up as we go along" then fuck all.

And to those who cite Bush and the neo-cons misadventures throughout the world and say, "who are you to criticize Russia?" I would say this, "I'm (insert name here) and Bush and his buddies can go fuck themselves and their adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and anywhere else they choose to go". I would also point out that while I'm not thrilled with Obama in any sense what so ever, I do think his election marks a clear displeasure with the current administration and symbolic if farcical departure from current American policy.

I'm not opposed to a multi-polar world or the primacy of international law, indeed I whole heartedly welcome both of those developments within the European context which Medvedev is offering. Though I would point out that within the spheres of influence that he is talking about that a multi polar world is one in which the sovereignty of former Soviet states is something which must be respected and in which Russia is failing miserably at right now. Tack on the continuing string of unsolved murders of opponents of the Kremlin which include former KGB agents, journalists who dared critique Kremlin policy, rebel leaders, and human rights lawyers (interesting link from this article noting that 42 journalists have been killed in Russia since '92), not to mention failed attempts. And this is without going into the allegations of the apartment bombings which led to the second war in Chechnya (which while I have some time for this theory are still a little fringe for me to present as more than conspiracy theory. Again though we would do well to remember that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you). But you have to understand people like me only say this because we don't "understand" Russia or we're stuck in some sort of Cold War mentality.

And as a side note to the kind of this kind of thinking I'll throw up a piece which states that,

"The idea of a new cold war is simply a symptom of attitudes which have not yet adjusted to the idea of a strong and independent Russia not comprising a threat."

Note that this post is written less than a month after Russia resumed the Cold War era practice of a military parades. Actually the idea of a new Cold War is very disconcerting to me. Our war on terror is almost a direct of policies enacted during the Cold War such as provoking the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, our misadventures in Lebanon, and our propping up of Saddam against Iran. So I have no problem in criticizing the idea that anything that sticks to the Ruskies is a good thing, while anything they want is bad. But Russia's actions of late leave me wondering if they can appreciate that this kind of ideology is a flawed one.

2009-01-31T21:54:00.006-07:00

Public Service Announcement 1.5

When people come over to our house my wife shows off our baby and I show off our bathroom. Odd I know, but I'm proud of that bathroom and the interior of the house as a whole. Now admittedly there's no curb appeal but that's just because I haven't had time to totally redo the front yard and replace all of the siding (some nice summer projects). And since I used the remodel as a chance to put off blogging I thought it only fair to show (and show off) the work I and my bhoys did. I would like to say that I am blessed with great family and friends who donated their time generously to drink and occasionally work with me on this place. And while it is far from done it is much better than when we started.

The house when we bought it. Essentially every single room was like this and the nicotine stains on the walls were so bad that you where every old picture hung.

Same room just prior to moving in. I've been unable to replace the windows yet due to time constraints (winter isn't the best time to replace windows) and money. Also I've still got to replace the old handrail with some white oak handrail from work, but that too was put off for another day. I would also mention that due to time constraints I didn't put get a chance to put sliders on all of the furniture. My wife was thrilled when she discovered that she could now move furniture around with ease. I was aghast when I would come home and be able to trace the routes she took when rearranging furniture multiple times (nesting instinct due to the pregnancy) simply by following the scratches in the hardwood floor. It still pains me as a matter of fact.

The main focus of work was the bathroom which had to be totally redone. This was the bathroom before we did anything to it. So we ripped it all out and started from scratch, literally.

Yes that's right, your eyes don't deceive you, that's a Schlitz can up there in the bathroom closet. During the construction process multiple areas were overrun by Budweiser cans, Budweiser Chelada cans, Bud Lite Lime bottles, Old English forties, Skol's vodka pints and half pints and a six pack of Schlitz. Even though most of my crew worked for alcohol and smokes it still got expensive. Well okay only one guy worked for booze and smokes but he was my right hand man. God bless convicted felons.

The finished product. Gone is the aqua blue cast iron tub replaced by a Kohler jet tub. Which by the way makes the best bubble baths as demonstrated by my wife here. Also the floor which was previously vinyl laminate and carpet was replaced by new #2 red oak hardwood. The old aluminum window was also replaced with a new MillGuard Vinyl cranking casement window which is also tempered. The old toilet which was also blue has been upgraded to ADA compatible (taller) seat with an elongated bowl. The original vanity and medicine cabinet were also replaced with a new oak veneer medicine cabinet (which while costing $100 bucks is still just an Medium Density Fiberboard MDF piece of shit). The old sink and vanity were chucked and I banked on the side of style in liue of space replacing the vanity with a fluted pedastel sink. The tile (detailed pictures below) were 20"x 20" travetine stone style porcelain tiles. I added a stone highlight strip which runs from the sink all the way around the tub which helps break up the visual field of the tiles which were extremely large to go on the wall.

So yeah that was my project. I'm putting in solid wood panelled doors right now which are only pine, not oak as I would prefer and the kitchen aside from a new sink has not been touched. The deck joists are rotting and need to be replaced, but like I said, summer projects. Below is the master bedroom (nothing masterly about it, it's just where we sleep). But being that I used this project as an excuse not blog I thought I would show the progress so far.

2009-01-31T15:07:00.000-07:00

Okay a quick hodge podge of a post on the various things which I've thinking about lately. Certainly nothing of import and nothing real political but with the kid here now it felt nice to blog something without having to check my sources or even having my blood pressure rise.

Movies

I was thinking last night as I was watching Support Your Local Gunfighter last night that they just don't films like they used to. And maybe because its the first post of the New Year or that oddly enough the female lead from SYLG died this week that I'm getting nostalgic. Not only was the movie extremely tame but its also entertaining. Now I admit that I have a soft spot for old Westerns especially the comedic and even musicals. Because we all know Paint Your Wagon is the shit. Everything from Stagecoach to the Shootist in terms of Johne Wayne was a mainstay in my household and indeed it was the fact that my wife had made me hot chocolate (yeah that's right, hot chocolate, with whip cream if you must know) in my John Wayne courage cup (a ludicrously over sized cup with the Duke's likeness on the outside with a quote on courage inside the rim) that made reflect upon this issue. My favorite as a youngster was always El Dorado. Mitchum makes a far more convincing western drunk than Dean Martin from Rio Bravo. I also hold it against the Sons of Katie Elder which could have been a fine film otherwise. And for no real reason I just wanted to throw in True Grit, while the sequel Rooster Cogburn was a bad idea no one can deny that seeing a fat, drunk John Wayne telling bad guys led by to fill Robert Duvall "fill your hands you son-of-a-bitch" is just too classic. And it was filmed in Colorado to boot.

And as I went to get my umpteenth cup of coffee I thought of the irony of turning away from a present which I don't much care for to revel in a past that never really existed. And in point of fact John Wayne was a conservative prick. I mean don't get me wrong, his westerns are the shit but seriously, has anyone bothered to watch any of his cold war era propaganda? Sickening. But he's still the Duke and part of what I like about westerns is the sense that the world is big enough that if you happen to disagree with someone you can just give them some extra berth. So we'll move on.

Video games

As I've noted before I'm a video game junkie (at times) and since my PS3 is currently down and I don't have any real time to play anyway I might as well blog about video games that I've played. I know this is kind of sad but bear with here. First and foremost is the extremely disappointing Call of Duty: World at War. Development of the newest installment of the franchise was handed off from Infinity Ward to Treyarch who butchered it. After last years release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare a whole new standard was set for the previously played out First Person Shooter (FPS) genre. This was done mainly by taking it out of the overcrowded and over hyped WWII genre and creating a modern fictional conflict which while closely resembling the Iraq invasion also tied in a Russian civil war which added some very enjoyable moments to gameplay. Along with an indepth plot line which sees your Marine character killed in an atomic explosion to the finale of the game where your entire SAS team (besides you) is wiped out and your mission (though successful) covered up. In lieu of that, in World at War we are given the standard march to Berlin, but this time from the Russian side starting in Stalingrad. There's also a raid on Guadalacanal (where my grandfather fought incidentally, but with the 3rd Marine division, not the 1st as is portrayed in the game). The feeling is that, "sure it's the same old thing but this time it's darker". So okay is this game you get to use a flame thrower or get the chance to execute prisoners. You see Germans executing the wounded at Stalingrad, the Japanese torturing captured Marines and a bevy of surrendering Germans executed all in pursuit of the anti-climatic climax which is, (wait for it) raising the red flag over the Reichstag (take note Garibaldy). But the story and levels are all so familiar, restrictively linear, all so redundant that this was just painful to play through. All in all this game is a piece of shit and that being said a must buy. "Why" you ask? Two words, "Nazi Zombies". I shit you not, when you beat the game you unlock a minigame which has you holed up trying to fend off ever tougher waves of the undead.

Man, there's just something about Nazis and zombies that makes you want to put a bullet in their head. To see it brought together, even in an imperfect manner is just fills a spot that nothing else can.

Oddly enough though, the game has consistently been in the running for some of the "game of the year" reviews for '08 which I found kind of surprising, but the again there's no accounting for taste (this blog proves that). Though that honor has consistently been given to Grand Theft Auto IV which was an extremely solid addition to the franchise. Also in the running was Metal Gear Solid 4 which was a cinematic tour de force. This is important as I'm not a follower of the series, but even I was blown away by the seamless interweaving of entertaining third person shooter gameplay and cutscenes that tie the previous four games together in a way that blurred the line between video game and movie. One of the things about the next gen systems such as the Xbox360 and PS3 is that they have the technology not only to support games like the above mentioned titles but that they allow players to choose the way in which they want to play the games. This may involve simply allowing player to complete a task in a number of ways or making choices that affect the way the rest of the game is played. But the game that really takes it to the next level in terms of player choice while still keeping a solid game together is Fallout 3. While coming up a little short on the FPS end of things it more than makes up for it with its intricately weaved world of post apocalyptic Washington DC. Though I should note that it was named the top role playing of 2008 by gamespot.com. Again Fallout was another franchise that I never cared about, but this most recent installment though being handled by a new Developer (Bethesda) has been a great addition to the series that has won over hardcore Fallout fans and newcomers like myself. The depth, the subtle references to other games, cultural (unfortunately my wife likes musicals so I knew the Rogers and whats his name songs) and literary (it had an H.P. Lovecraft reference which blew me away) references which are scattered throughout the game make it (for me) easily the top game of the year.

One of the things that I've enjoyed with the development of the next gen systems is the fact that not only are looking to mature your technology and games, but you are also dealing with a maturing audience who while still enjoying all of the classic elements of gameplay are also maturing themselves and enjoy games that not only stimulate the forever adolescent located in all of us but something a that tickles the intellect at the same time. While games like GTA are sometimes a little light on depth Metal Gear Solid's plot was relied heavily on the idea of private military corporations and created what was be called a "war economy" in a way that I found to be reflective of the times in which we live where private for profit corporations blur the line between themselves and the state. Another game that does this is the horror game Dead Space (think the original Alien) in which an engineer has to go through a mining ship now infested with a aliens which reanimate dead flesh and come back to life. Again what could have been a jump out scare you game (which it does do, quite frequently if I might add) layered subtexts of religion, social structures and environmentalism in as much as the the premise of the game is that Earth has entirely run out of resources and is now scouring the galaxy, literally cracking open other planets for their resources.

In this sense I feel that games are morphing into a role once filled by early horror movies and classic science fiction. I still think books like I am Legend, Childhoods End along with the original Night of the Living Dead (among others) provide some great social commentary whilst still being a great read/movie in their own right. That is one of the reasons why I enjoy video games so much. But lest I get too high on my horse I thought I would end with a clip of Fallout 3's "Bloody Mess" perk which is fairly juvenile and self explanatory.

Fucking spectacular.

UPDATE: As of the 27th it appears that new downloadable content for Fallout 3 will be downloadable, but only for Xbox and PC. So PS3 owners like myself are shit out of luck due to the fact that Bethesda just made a deal with Microsoft (who produces the xbox). Now this is just bullshit, putting corporate rivalries before gameplay is a sure fire race to the bottom especially when the original game was put out on multiple platforms. If the a game comes out on just one platform (ala Metal Gear Solid or Left 4 Dead) then fine, but to put out the original for all of us and then pull the rug out from under our (PS3 owners) feet for follow up content is just utter crap. Bethesda should know better than this and I will be writing my angry consumer letter shortly

2009-01-30T17:28:00.003-07:00

TEXAS SUCKS, NO REALLY THEY DO SUPER SUCK, WHICH IS WHY THIS HEADER IS IN ALL CAPITALS.

As if the last eight years weren't enough to make you hate Texans, there's this story. Seriously, fuck Texas, if your state is so fucking great, STAY THERE and leave my state and our bison the fuck alone!

2009-01-24T19:16:00.004-07:00

William C****** T*** L***

Born January 21 2008

At 12:03 pm

It is my joy and privilege to announce the birth of my first son William "Liam". He weighed in at 6lbs, 11ounces and at 19 inches long with a 14 inch head. Mother and child are both doing fine and we'll all head home tomorrow.

Pictured above are my father, older brother and son. Together they form three living generations of William L***s. All total my son is the ninth generation Willam L***. A fine picture were it not for the damnable offence of wearing a Yankee's hat. My mom grabbed the paper for Wednesday and was hoping for some uplifting frontpage coverage of the Inauguration for posterity for her first grandchild. And though there was a special section on the Inauguration the front page was dedicated to the burial of a Soldier from Berthoud (a town north of Denver) who had been Killed in Action. But topping the headlines was the announcement of the death of local conservative stalwart Holly Coors (of the infamous Coors clan). So although my mother was downtrodden over the downbeat headlines I noted cheerfully that as a son of labor and future unionist comes into the world, it is all together fitting and just that a conservative windbag checkout.

And yes I know that it's kind of stupid to blot out my last name when online anonymity is as transparent as the emperor's new robes, but then again if the story teaches us nothing it teaches us the importance of illusions.

I'm sure that there will be more pictures and probably some horrors stories from the front lines so speak, but so far I've avoided being peed on which is no small feat considering that he peed three times between the surgery room and the nursery. So all in all things are looking up and oddly enough even after I took over a week off I've still got a job to return to so we'll see you all when we see you.

2008-11-23T20:46:00.002-07:00

A Blow for Irish Freedom

A bridge abutment in County Down has singlehandedly done more in one moment to strike a blow for Irish freedom than the CIRA, RIRA, and INLA all put together have done since '98. As four interlopers and agents of British tyranny were quickly dispatched in a carefully planned ambush outside Warrenpoint. While not quite Lord Mount Batten redux there can be no doubt that any one of the aforementioned groups will be claiming credit shortly. Though on more serious note the fact that single road accident has caused more police fatatlities than all of the paramilitary activities over the last decade should give us pause to think about how for Northern Ireland has come in the last decade or so. It should also cause us a to remember that for all those who proclaim loudly how the provos were defeated as a strategic, political, and tactical force (I'm looking your way Henry McDonald) how long it would take them to rack up that kind of body count. Let us just be thankful that it's no longer the case and that as tragic as this accident is for the community of South Down is, that it is just that, an accident.

2008-11-23T07:33:00.004-07:00

Public Service Announcement

Not that I ever needed an excuse not to blog, but I just bought a house which needed to be practically gutted. That being the case I've spent my nights and weekends over there and will probably continue to do so until Christmas. But that doesn't mean any of you are getting off easy, Garibaldi is still on notice that he will receive his verbal lashing over Stalinism in good time and WBS will receive some real music in due order so that we are not constantly subjected to strange 1980s pop. Malcolm will be informed of at least one more interesting death of some deserving SOB And Chekov will be crushed when even he must confess that the latest picture of Reg and David just looks fucking gay.

2008-11-13T18:08:00.003-07:00

Can someone please explain to me why, with a pregnant wife, a new home and facing a layoff at Christmas, why, why, would I, out of hand turn down an organizing position with the union that would $90,000 a year with a new Chevy Yukon? I for the life of me can't figure out why but I have. Fuck.

2008-10-16T16:32:00.003-06:00

Fuck 'em

I'm probably a bad person for rejoicing in the death of another (though the title of this blog should be an indication of my stance on humanity), but since I haven't seen anything else out there noting it, I thought I would note with glee on the passing of Joerg Haider.

I would have liked to quoted Orwell on all of our duties in the extermination of fascist scum but I can't find it at the moment and googling it doesn't seem to be of any help so we'll simply have to take comfort in the fact that we were able to save some ammo for later use. Now if the big guy would only get Thatcher in a timely and sufficiently nasty manner I'll be a God fearing man once again.

UPDATE: It looks like Haider was up to more than just grooming a successor. Sometimes you just have to love the audacity of the Right.

2008-09-08T20:54:00.004-06:00

A Bed Time Story

I doubt if anyone else happens to recall some time ago a Lindy McDowell column which was posted on Slugger.

I thought I was being dense in not quite grasping it but apparently I wasn't the only (see, circles and Billy Pilgrim in the comments section). What I did garner is that people are fond of simple morality tales, especially when the topic is complicated. So I thought I would try my hand at one.
___________________________________

There was once a woman who had three sisters. They lived in the South and she in the North. There came a time when their parents finally divorced after a very long and very abusive relationship (he was from across the channel). After a three year divorce process during which there was much acrimony on all sides he packed up and left. The mother naturally felt that she should get custody of the four children, but the father felt otherwise. He had always had a special relationship with his daughter from the North, though not out of entirely benevolent feelings of love (though he tried to tell himself that he did truly love his daughter), but because he also liked to stick it to the mother and the other three daughters as she, the daughter from the North was the most like him. The Daughter in the North felt split in two as she knew that on one level she did intrinsically belong with her other three sisters and her mother, though a part of her felt above them and she did enjoy all of the presents that her father lavished upon her. So in the end of the squalid divorce proceedings which were settled in London they agreed to split up and though the spoils were not as absurdly distributed as some divorces, the settlement was vexed none the less and caused more arguments between the remaining three sisters and the mother about whether or not accept the settlement, which was eventually accepted. And so they all went about their crappy little lives on their crappy little island.

Years passed and though there were three sisters they only had three children to the lot of the them. The first was born right after the divorce and was to be quite honest, anal, uptight, had authoritative tendencies and a thing for the color blue. Though he claimed to love his mother there was a barely concealed loathing in his voice and a barely suppressed desire that it was he who the rightful heir to his grandfather. The second son was born out of the squabbling following the divorce proceedings and though he was the secondary son he was without a doubt the "man of the house". He was roguish, charming, and undeniably rotten to the core. He always talked about how the fourth sister in the North should rejoin the rest of the family, but did only that, talk. The third son, though of the finest stalk the sisters had to offer and who had been around as long as anyone could remember was never the less the runt of the three brothers and constantly went back and forth between the two about who he supported in their constant squabbling. There were of course in later years a few other offspring from the second brother which were so horrific that he attempted to drown them at birth, but they survived and were put on life support where they remain. But I am interrupting the flow of my story and jumping ahead.

The Fourth sister, who lived all alone in the house that her father had built for her, had many children. The first was actually from before the divorce and was not only the spitting image of the father but was even more strident than him in many ways. In his own mother he tried to suppress any connection that she felt with the rest of her family and reminded her that she was in her father's custody. He had a thing for orange and bowler hats which he insisted upon walking around with in July. Though with his pasty complexion and paunch it did not really suit him he tried to convince himself that this was all the rage and would make his grandfather proud of him as he thought that he had done something similar at one point during the marriage. It should be pointed out here that the grandfather was a notorious womanizer who had no qualms about using his position of authority to force himself on women wherever he went and that he had little bastards all over the world, some who loathed him and others like the the son from the North who loved him and desperately wanted to be loved in return. For a time the oldest son was able to keep an order on things by reminding them all that they were after all, a family, though he was only to happy to beat the two sons who resembled their mother's side of the family and indulging his other younger brother who while inheriting all of his vitriol for his mother's side seemed rather uncouth to the oldest son from the North. And here too was a runtling who tried to make everyone happy but yet who was universally loathed by all the other siblings.

Though as we can tell from our story this was quite the dysfunctional family everyone liked to pretend that everything was hunky-dory. If one of the sons from the North showed up to dinner with a black eye or strange bruises, nothing was said. At the dinner table when the oldest lectured them on how lucky they were to be with under their father's protection instead of miring in the poverty that the mother and her three daughters had inherited were met with mumbles from the the two who resembled their mother while the uncouth one shouted "never, never, never!" and the runt tried to pacify everyone by asking, "Who wants some pudding?".

And so life went on as it always does and life in the lonely house became a rehearsal of things left unsaid while the buried life took root. There had been another son who resembled the mother but he had always been sickly, lame and thankfully passed on before he could cause anyone any trouble. Of the two sons who resembled the mother there was also a marked difference. Of the two, one was generally well behaved and mannered and while sometimes incurring the wrath of the oldest son and receiving a beating was generally happy and was more or less willing to acquiesce to the oldest son though he wished things were different. The other son was solitary and sullen. Like so many other children spawned from a broken home he spent much if his time lost in pondery. He dreamed of how life had been before his grandfather had come along and how life could've been if the four sisters were together with their mother as they had been ever so briefly when she had first told her husband that she wanted him gone. He did most of his dreaming alone in the nooks, and crevices of the house. Crawling around the rafters in the attic or in the root cellar, anywhere to avoid his brothers who were only too happy to give him a hiding and tell him how lucky he was to be there even though nobody wanted him.

Again the years passed in this manner until one day when something as innocent enough as pulling down a poster in the sullen boy's room set off a monstrous row which the eldest son couldn't contain on his own. He thought of asking his well mannered sibling for help but decided that no, he could do it himself. Indeed the uncouth one was saying that if the oldest son couldn't keep the sullen boy under control then he would (which was why he tore down the poster in the first place). So after trying to offer a few desultory sweets which assuaged his conscious that he had tried to be nice he took off his belt to give him another hiding. This time though the boy had had enough and instead of submitting to the oldest son he raged against him and his uncouth brother with all of his might. The two brothers called for the well mannered brothers help in subdueing the sullen brother though all he did was scold him (a rather annoying habit he had developed was his sense of moral superiority to all those around him). The fifth son tried to assuage the situation by playing WAR's "Why Can't We Be Friends" really loud but all this did was get the neighbors to call in their grandfather.

Not that this did any good as the formerly sullen and now raging son was bitterly fighting with his oldest brother, his uncouth brother and their grandfather all at the same time. He even tried to burn down the house and he did manage to damage a great deal of it. The fighting continued for a long time. The formerly sullen boy wanted to get his cousins involved but despite their words of wanting to reunite the family they were content to wallow in their own dysfunctions. Though they still sent non-denominational Christmas cards. The fighting continued.

Until eventually with everyone worn out the offspring of the three sisters and the grandfather and the sons from the North all agreed to stop fighting. And as they lie there gasping for breath, and exchanging recriminations they finally noticed that the their bitterness and hatred which had previously taken root had grown and blossomed into a twisted tree which bore a bitter fruit. The house in ruins (though still standing) and the grandfather glad to be on his way, as were the cousins, left the children of the North alone in each other's company with only the bitter fruit of their own creation to sustain them while they traded insults and fought over the scraps of what their mother had left them.
______________________________

And just remember that if you don't like it that at least I don't get paid to write this drivel.

2008-08-31T06:58:00.005-06:00

Labor Day Recollections

Okay so Labor Day isn't until tomorrow and we all know that the real Labor Day was back in May. A brief overview for those still uninformed. I would like to draw attention to the point

"[R]ecords show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the [United] Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co founder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those 'who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.'"

Although this is contested I would just like to take this opportunity to say fuck Matthew Maguire, the International Association of Machinists and their competing claims to Labor Day. This being said in the full recognition that the one true Labor always has been and always will be May Day. Much to the schegrin of reds everywhere it was under the black flag that the blows for worker's rights were struck at Haymarket. And the sooner we realize they were right in their derision of the political sphere the better off we will all be.

But enough frothing at the mouth over rhetorical issues of no importance (two bald men fighting over a comb comes to mind when debating the anarchist vs. socialist/marxist/communist/leninist etc. conundrum). And fresh from berating the involvement of politics in labor I would discuss a couple of things and note some changes on this blog.

I would first like to draw attention to the case of Alex Svoboda (pictured both left and right) who, during a labor protest had her leg broken by police who then had the audacity to charge her and another wobbly with assault on an officer. Secondly is the addition of a Truth about 47 link which is in reference to a ballot initiative brought to you by the wonderful Coors family. Finally I would like to draw attention to a ruling from a judge in New York about continued federal supervision of the New York City Council of Carpenters. This stems from an incident in which a "dissident" union candidate was beaten after speaking despite a security presence designed to curb such behavior. I believe this has less to do with organized crime than with McCarron's thugs quashing any vision of a different future for our union. He has made no secret of the fact that he wishes to see only a few giant super councils with little or no democratic resources for the membership. Having undergone a "merger" myself within in the last year or so I can personally testify to the level of intimidation brought against rank and file members who challenge the hegemony of McCarron's order. We as unionists need to support grass roots level activity in order ensure the implementation of democracy within organized labor.

2008-08-22T15:51:00.002-06:00

Gone Fishing

I know that to some the only consolation of having me troll their blogs is that when something like the Democratic convention comes to town that I might serve as a source for on the ground information. But despite Mark Udall coming down to get pictures with me and a coworker (thats another post) and getting offered tickets to see Obama's acceptance speech (I gave them to a coworker and his wife who actually like the man) I've got better things in mind. As my job has shut down for the week of the convention I'm heading west and getting in some salmon fishing in this week. I'll check back in after Labor Day.

2008-08-04T05:19:00.002-06:00

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
1919-2008

"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties — but right through every human heart — and all human hearts."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
The Gulag Archipelago, 1974

2008-07-27T09:41:00.006-06:00

Look What They've Done to my Song

"well it's the only thing I could do half right and it's turning out all wrong"

So Brown's days are officially numbered and the Tories are attempting to prove their not a "Little England" Party. Brown and Robinson are not really that different from one another, they both worked feverishly to help their respective parties gain power and their former bosses achieve astounding successes. All the while they were biding their time and wishing it was them in the lime light. The lesson that Glasgow East teaches us all is that one should be careful what they wish for, just in case they get it. Robinson, still has his head above water and right now seems to be doing quite well holding SF's head just below the surface. But I would refrain from celebrating the ability to stop SF's northern march just yet. The upcoming by-election in Fermanagh is unlikely to reflect well on either the UUP or the DUP as the initial candidate for co-option was deselected and replaced by Arlene Foster who resigned as a councillor to devote more time to Stormont. The likely result will be another SF councillor (where are FF when you need them?). And while this is already a weighted nationalist council it just goes to show that SF may not be making great strategic and policy advances but they are capable of still gaining on the ground. But I'm straying from my intended track before I've even got started.

I would put the UUP/Tory talks in the same category as the FF/SDLP talks. Though it does give me a sense of satisfaction to see some of my previous mutterings justified, but it was not then nor is it now a substantive effort at merging. One must remember that the Conservatives have been running candidates in local elections for awhile now and have managed to to just about break the 1% mark. As Bertie waved the green flag as the sharks closed in, so too is Cameron running to the edges of the empire in order to fend off the what he may feel is his last obstacle to power. Which is the idea that the Tories are English nationalists in disguise which is why Cameron made the trip to Glasgow East to reassure Tories who might be concerned about going soft after they went limp wristed on national security over 42 days detention. And a third place showing was a splendid little victory over the Lib Dems. Labour might want to savior coming in ahead of the Tories now, for I doubt they'll be able to say that come the next general election.

If the UUP were serious about merging they would have to square a few circles first and answer a couple of questions. First and foremost is the obvious question, which is what is the difference between the two right now? Other than the fact that the UUP are opposed British law being extended to NI. Secondly, “the creation of a new political and electoral force in Northern Ireland” would be coming from where? Much like FF, the Tories would have to be content with the current pool of recruits and a little more cameo time from the big leagues. I'm sure the SDLP could tell them how effective it is to have the leaders from real political parties coming around at election time to say how great [insert candidate name] is. Because it has worked wonder for the stoops, right?.

Lacking any real hope for a new dawn some UUPers have grabbed on to this life line in the hopes of being pulled out of the current mess they find themselves. Chekov on Three Thousand Versts states that,

The Conservative Party has moved to address social and welfare issues in a fashion which has found it much more firmly in the centre ground. In contrast, the Labour Party has assumed the mantle of Thatcherite economics and its policies on privatisation and social issues are often arguably to the right of the Tories. Certainly in debates about civil liberties, individual freedoms and the encroachment of government into the realm of the private individual, the Conservative Party are currently advancing more liberal arguments than Labour.

I had noted that the Conservatives have had their electoral clothes stolen by New Labor so they did the only thing they reasonably could and have gone to the left and called it the centre. Cameron's opposition to things like 42 day detention wasn't based on prinicple of liberty, but the principle that whatever the government does, the oppposition should find a way to criticize or oppose it. Something which Enda has yet to learn to do convincingly. Personally I don't feel that this moderation will last once they enter office. Though I don't see Cameron as a modern day closeted Thatcher, he just doesn't have the balls she did. No, Cameron is Blair's opposite and will have his day just as New Labour did. But don't look to the new Purple politician to uphold any particular principle other than an affinity for power. The UUP would be wise to ensure that this closer relationship does something other than lose them an MP and allow Alliance to move on up to the junior leagues.

2008-07-26T07:18:00.003-06:00

What's in a name?

A judge in New Zealand ordered a name change for a young girl who had been named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. The article notes that,

the young girl - who had refused to tell her friends her name and went simply by "K".

Well, it's never too early to start planning for a career in surveying.

2008-07-24T04:25:00.001-06:00

So it really is true, eating soy makes you less of a man.

2008-07-13T13:22:00.010-06:00

Complete, Utter, and Steaming Horseshit!!!

A Dutch court has just ruled that the UN is not liable for the
Srebrenica massacre and dismissed a lawsuit from survivors and their families. The UN invoked its immunity and the court stated that,

"immunity was important to allow it to exercise its duties without the interference of courts in member states."

This immunity stems from the Conventions on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations which were adopted in 1946. In stating its immunity the UN stresses that,

"the Organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfilment of its purposes "

Adding a more specific focus on immunity,

"Privileges and immunities are accorded to the representatives of Members not for the personal benefit of the individuals themselves, but in order to safeguard the independent exercise of their functions in connection with the United Nations"

In this particular case their function and purpose was to enforce Security Council resolution 819 which declared Srebrenica a "safe zone" from attack and thereby pledging themselves to defend it. Or at least it would follow under normal logic, which apparently does not apply to International Humanitarian Law.

The Dutch maintain that they were not responsible since they were handed an "impossible" mission and that it is the Serbs who are to blame, which is partly true. But an analogy if I may. If a thief breaks into a house and steals a television he is indeed responsible, but it is far worse if a policeman who is in charge of protecting the house, hands the television out the window to the waiting thief. It does not exonerate the thief but it sure as hell implicates the policeman.

In this case the television was 8,000 Bosnians who were massacred in the worst atrocity of its kinds in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Even more disturbing than the usual UN ineptitude is the fact that the Dutch told some of the Bosnians to go because they were being "evacuated" by the Serbs.

Right now the court ruling has not stopped a suit against the Dutch but the reports note,

"The case against the Dutch state would continue, Hagedorn told AFP, but the court may decide to put it on hold pending the outcome of the appeal process in the UN matter so as not to split the two issues."

It should be noted that Serbia is to date the only state to be charged with violating the Genocide convention, but it was also found to be in violation of another element of the treaty, which is the prevention of genocide.

Article 3 of the Genocide convention states that complicity in genocide is a punishable act. So we must think long and hard on what constitutes complicity? The main question is though, does inaction make the UN and Dutch liable? For though I feel the Dutch telling Bosnians to leave the safe zone is deplorable I am not entirely sure they acted with willful intent though I believe they had knowledge of what would happen when the Bosnians left the safe zone.

To fully appreciate the treachery of what befell Srebrenica we must go back a bit to the town and UN declared safe zone of Bihac. As Serbs advanced towards the hospital an American civil affair's officer argued that the hospital was had "sacred" status under the 1949 Geneva conventions and that UN personnel had a duty to defend it (which is a grey area in and of itself). He forwarded this on to his superior who ordered that actions be taken to prevent the Geneva conventions from being violated. This was accomplished by the local Canadian commander who had to date been reluctant to intervene, ordering the Bangladeshi troops under his command to occupy the hospital grounds with their APCs. By placing troops directly in front of the Serbian advance the UN stopped the Serb invasion of Bihac and also upheld the Geneva conventions. Yea, the good guys win this round.

In the aftermath of this victory for decency and international law the UN Office of Legal Council ensured that the behavior which saved Bihac would not set a precedent as the OLC ruled that troops donning the blue helmet were not bound to protect the conventions but to,

"carry out the will of the international community as expressed by it in the Security Council".

So even though the Dutch troops could very likely be guilty of violating the Genocide convention by their complicity they are technically immune from prosecution due to the fact that the UN is not bound by the very same conventions it seeks to uphold and that once the Dutch troops donned the UN blue they were too. Though the fact that the Dutch troops failed to uphold the Security Council resolution 819 means that they should be held liable. The lawsuit is not about impeding the UN from functioning with independence. It is about holding it liable for its failure to to function at all, except as a witness and accomplice to genocide.

2008-06-29T13:01:00.004-06:00

Seven Songs for Summer

Because I actually need to blog something and can't be tossed to produce anything that requires any real depth. It should be noted that I enjoy my music like my drinking, in a dimly lit room by myself. Splintered did it, as did WBS over on Cedar Lounge. The rules are as follows,

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

Being that I don't know seven people I could tag in real life, let alone in the blog-0-sphere I'm not really tagging anybody, except maybe Malcolm and possibly my cousin. So here we go.

John Prine, Sweet Revenge-Ever since I swapped out the header picture awhile ago I've had this song in my head, especially the first stanza.

I got kicked off Noah's Ark I turn my cheek to unkind remarks there was two of everything but one of me and when the rains came tumbling down I held my breath and I stood my ground and I watched that ship go sailing out to sea.

The Kinks songs from the Darjeeling Limited soundtrack- I know that it's actually three songs but they're all rolled together in one for me right now. Powerman, Strangers, and This Time Tomorrow. Are constantly playing on my iTunes and in my head. It feels right for this time in my life in which some things are changing and feel at times quite overwhelming (we'll return to these changes in another blog). Plus it's also nice to get some deeper cuts from a good band from which we usually here a whopping three songs (You Really Got Me, Lola, A Well Respected Man).

Louisiana-Right now I'm going back and forth between the Willie Nelson version from his latest album and another version by Sonny Landreth. I prefer Nelson's version overall as it reminds me of his Stardust album and is quite clearly a highpoint in his other wise mediocre album Moments of Forever. With the flooding happening right now it seems as topical as ever and I enjoy the word smithing in the first stanza where Newman uses the present tense in the lyrics, "What's happened down here is the winds have changed" before switching back to the past tense. While I respect Randy Newman as a song writer I can only bear his voice on Short People.

Rick Nelson, Garden Party- My anthem song, or at least I would like it to be. One of the few he actually wrote himself and one that's as true now as then.

BeeGees, I Started a Joke- Beware the dangers of Limewire and of instant gratification.

Faces, Debris- Off of A Nod is as Good as a Wink to a Blindhorse album. Ronni Lane is great and even Rod Stewart isn't too bad on this album. No deeper meaning here, just a good cut from one the better Faces albums.

Tom T. Hall, Morning Dew- This is not only a good song but one that I often refer to when in need of moral grounding. One of the things that annoys me about the left is it's smug approach to religion and its impact on society. Mick Hall's quote of the week being a fine example of this. I mean really, go fuck yourself.

That's it. Nothing spectacular, but it's something. So I'm tagging Malcolm and my cousin, and jeronimo/frome too.

2008-06-19T16:08:00.002-06:00

Chuckle Brothers Part Deux?

Tidbit here about a new mural in East Belfast.

Of particular interest to me were some of the highlighted quotes from Peter Robinson.

"I was a young fellow when the so-called Troubles started in Northern Ireland," he continued.

"I was out on the barricades with the people that I grew up with...so I understand how many people got introduced into paramilitary organisations"

And people said the laughter died on June 3rd.

2008-06-13T18:52:00.002-06:00

In a long over due reversal of rolls Malcolm has called me to task over the shameful neglect in marking the passing of Utah Phillips. Part of the reason I've neglected this topic was that while I had a good deal of respect for Utah and his music over the years my personal interactions with him were a subtext for other events and happenings of much greater personal relevance than a folk concert. And so when I read of his passing I noted that he got to go in his sleep, wished him well on his voyage to wherever we'll all end up someday and went on my merry way.

But respect paid where respect is due. I think it is impossible to separate the man and his music from his beliefs since that is what fueled him. As Malcolm demonstrated for us there are no shortages of those willing willing to sing the praises of the wobblies. More like to lay claim to their legacy as a member in the broad family of progressive forces in American history. But Utah was different, he lived it. During periods when it certainly wasn't popular and seemed to weather well the times during which it was in vogue once again. Certainly I would recommend We Have Fed You All A Thousand Years, and Rebel Voices as a great starting point and working back to some of his deeper cuts, such as the albums Starlight on the Rails: A Songbook and Good Though!

To explain it in his own words,

"A lot of us who sing labor songs have worked to lift them out of the past and put them to work where they belong: in the union hall, on the picket line, and as part of growing up, thinking and living union"

That last line of "thinking and living union" is one we would all do well to remember. Unionism does not stop when we leave work, nor is it expressed once every couple of years when we inevitably vote Democrat. It is something which we must nurture and develop in every sphere in our lives.

2008-06-13T04:34:00.002-06:00

Sometimes you really just have to shake your head.

From Thursday

Polish arson attack 'not racist'

From Today

Attack on house treated as racist

I'm sure there's no connection.

2008-05-17T07:39:00.007-06:00

Misanthropy Abroad's Tips For Better Blogging

While there can be some excellent exchanges on blogs there can also be an incredible amount of whataboutery, MOPEry and general denseness which leads to a single misspelt word undoing ones entire argument because lord knows that if you happen to miss a button before punching the publish button you're a hopeless Neanderthal who is lucky to be walking about on two legs let alone venture any opinions online.

So today I propose to help lift up the level of debate online for discussion by going over the three simple rules for reading and writing on blogs. Text, Context, and Subtext. I'd thought about digging up a few classic posts that demonstrate this but I felt I'd go a different route and so we're heading to the local establishment for fine upstanding young Christian males, the YMCA.

______________________________________________

Text

The starting point for our conversation. On the surface it's the simple extolling of community, charity and brotherly comraderie. Sure there are a few eye brow raising lines such if you put them together, such as,

I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time
They have everything
For young men to enjoy.
You can hang out with all the boys
You can do whatever you feel
I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf
You can hang out with all the boys

And this is where the next part comes in.
____________________________________________

Context

This is pretty simple, who's talking. In this case it's these guys

That certainly adds something to the text. But I'm sure that we would all agree that that these boys all look like fine upstanding Christians who feel nothing except brotherly love for one another. Except for the Cowboy, who's Catholic and the Biker, who's a Seventh Day Adventist. There's a little tension there.

Now say for example if these people sang the song it might mean something different.

But thankfully they didn't (to the best of my non-existent knowledge on them) and so we are free to move on to the final idea that one must understand for better blogging.

________________________________

Subtext

So we come to the final part where we combine what's being said with who's saying it and we come up with what they really mean which in this particular case is...

Gay sex, there I said it. I did think about trying to do an image search for some clever cartoon but in the end I couldn't do it. Sure I've looked up the term "donkey sex" and if you type in "elephant fucking" my blog shows up, but this one is just a search too far.

So there you have it. Follow these simple guidelines and you'll get more out of blogging everyday.

2008-05-13T16:16:00.003-06:00

Don't Fuck With Johnny Cash

In overall contribution to music and American culture I would say that Johnny Cash is easily one of the most important figures in twenthieth century music. Not just for his music which Little Eva rightfully pointed out has come in and out of fashion but because of who he was and who he facilitated.

Due to his marriage into the first family of country he had a pedigree that was impeccable and was a bridge between the golden age of country and the new outlaw movement which sprung up around the likes of Willie et al. Though that’s only part of it as he was also an influence and sponsor of Bob Dylan (sorry Eva) and got him studio musicians for his Nashville Skyline album as well as writing the intro and dueting with Dylan on the album. When it came time to close the Grand Ole Opry it was the Cash clan that did the final curtain call. But not before Cash had arranged to have Dobie Gray do a number or two. And by doing so made him one of the few black artists to have ever crossed that stage. During his network TV show he not only had the classic country acts up there but also struggling upstarts like Chris Kris Kristofferson. Which fans of Steve Goodman and John Prine duly appreciate. Add to this his having acts like Ray Charles on as well and it makes for musical histoy in the making.

We can delve into his later American recordings but that’s not really nessecary. What those albums do show is that Cash never lost “it”. There are songs that he mastered and made his own, such as this video. There are ones that he tried and didn’t quite work for him (such as his cover of “He Stopped Loving Her Today” by George Jones). But he kept going to the end and I recall unashamedly that I cried when I heard that he died.

So for those who feel that Johnny Cash was only a middling or average singer. I would say that suits me quite fine as the only thing I’ve excelled at is mediocrity and that’s possibly why I like him so much. But perhaps at this particular moment it won’t be the man in black whom I turn up but a rarely recalled Barbara Mandrell song which goes by the title of, “I was country, when country wasn’t cool”. That works for me and I would like to think that the man in black would agree.

2008-05-08T16:21:00.003-06:00

Great tits cope well with warming

Yeah, it fooled me too.

2008-05-02T21:49:00.004-06:00

My God! They Really Are in League With the Devil!

Yeah so I've been slacking again and since I just got the new Grand Theft Auto IV I'll be doing even more slacking for awhile. Though I did want to get this one out while it was still somewhat fresh in my head. I dreamt last night that I was running after some people in a hotel or a cruise ship when I ran through a bar and decided to stop for a quick drink. Sitting at a table in the bar was none other than the devil. Now he wasn't all horns, tails, and fangs but I knew it was him never the less. What makes this worthy of mention was that we chatted up while I had my drink (still on the chase mind you) and he revealed to me that he was part of a Fianna Fail committee on business. To which I responded with a line about the banality of evil or some equally Karamozovian line. Nothing of consequence but when Irish politics start to seep into my subconscious mind you know it's bad.

2008-04-20T11:33:00.008-06:00

Guam!?!? Are You Fucking Kidding Me!?!?

I mean seriously, you have to be fucking kidding me if you think that having Guam, of all places having a say for the presidential race is good for our democracy. Let me be the first to say, "Fuck Guam". I fully believe that if Hillary was set to win she would have said that it was important that their voices be heard.
_________________

I wonder if gynecologists are ever asked, "Hey if you're not doing anything this weekend, would you mind coming over and having a look at the wife's plumbing? You know, maybe give it a tweak here and there?"

Perhaps that's a little outlandish, but why is it then that people have no problems asking construction workers to come over and "give them a hand" over the weekend? You wouldn't ask your teacher/professor to come over and give you a lecture on Early American Romanticism. And yet. And yet I must go and install new locks into a friend's house. That is after turning down another offer to go and work a side job. Twice, in fact as if not working Saturday meant that I would want to do it Sunday instead. Let me make this quite clear. 40 hours a week is more than enough work for me. Weekends are spent doing yard work, getting shit faced and catching up on domestic matters.
___________________________

Interesting conversation over at the Cedar Lounge about elitism and our presidential election as of late. But I think maybe that the more important question one about the white working class in particular feeling bitter versus being bitter.

Now for many, especially internationally the requirements of US Presidents (especially after Dubya) will be low. As Malcolm noted in the seventh comment here. And that is exactly where we go wrong. I would cite if I may, the an early comment left in Malcolm's old place which I not only stand by but feel to be my penultimate contribution (despite three plus postings so far about said upcoming election). Typos and all it really does mark out how I feel about the election and politics in my country.

But back to the comment. This post was supposed to be out before the Pennsylvanian primary finished but as happens the date has come and gone with nothing more than a sigh of exasperation as Hillary soldiers on and shows no signs of stopping no matter what. Obama may do better to take some hints from someone who has been in his position before and simply destroy the brain. I mean seriously tell me there's not a resemblance here.

You can see it in her eyes, those glasses she's gnawing on are only a placebo for her real desire. Suffice to say we must all remember to "organize, before they rise".

But I digress. The comment,

"They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

To me this is one of the first honest things Obama has said on the campaign trail. If anyone wants to get upset by something that Obama said they should've been paying attention to this little snippet,

"Here's the thing, Missoula — I just like saying Missoula, by the way. It's a good name. Missoula. A lot of vowels."

Wow! Now that's leadership material, I know I'm convinced! Okay before I get too carried away with my own shit there are two things that need to be addressed. These are the topics Obama was addressing and the hype and accusations flying around Obama.

While I respect WBS I'm going to have to disagree with him on this one. Obama is an elitist. Let's be clear that just because C. Wright Mills writes something doesn't make it so. He wrote that Hungary '56 was the archetype of a Marxist uprising. Let me be quite clear. My family went out in '56. My wife's family went out in '56. We've met and dealt with a multitude of 56'ers. It may have been many things but it was not a Marxist uprising. But back to Obama and the power elites. I don't particularly care about the semantic particularities that pervade leftist blogs but lets be honest. If you're running for the highest office in the land you're an elitist. You may not be a member of the elite per se (that much I will begrudge) but once you attend an Ivy League school you leave your "common man" roots behind. Joe Blow is quite content to pay his mortgage, stow a little away for retirement and get shit faced on Friday nights, Sundays during football season and any particular day during National Hockey League play-offs (go Avs). Basically we're content to simply fuck up our own lives and leave everyone else alone. To be a politician is to be be extraordinary in the most basic sense that you want to screw with other people's lives. So yes Obama is an elitist, so what? That's like saying shit stinks. We may not like to acknowledge it, but we all know it's true.

Of more concern to me is the rhetoric that flies around Obama. In looking for his insightful comment about Missoula I came across a comment on his appearance in Missoula,

"JC, (0.00 / 0)
Obama really IS another Kennedy [my emphasis]. So, if you young folks missed the Kennedys the first time around, go see Obama. He's the real deal. We loved the Kennedy's back then, and people now love Obama"

This is quite worrying to me. While Ted Kennedy may be quite safe for re-election I loathe and mistrust the Kennedy legacy. I don't particularly care about JFK's womanizing, though he did set the bar rather high. Of more concern to me is the secondary Kennedy brother. I reflect on Malcolm's post about RFK. To me the face of Jim Crow America is not the face of an overweight Alabama Sheriff but the face of a young and aspiring Kennedy. Yes RFK's rankling of Hoffa does chafe my ass in that he equated corrupt business unionism with the threat of communism and the threat of the general strike (which is a legitimate aspiration for labor IMO) thereby tarring all unions as red havens even though he knew otherwise. But my real issue with RFK is that while he was attorney general he approved letting J. Edgar Hoover loose upon Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole.

So although history in the main sense blames backwoods hillbillies we would well to remember that the Kennedy bhoys were quite content to suppress the civil rights movement when it suited them. It was only when resistance to civil rights become a liability did the Federal government crack on organizations like the KKK, ie pragmatism rather than principle. And that's fine, who are we to judge history?

Here's the the thing though. I've noted before how long time Democrats are dropping out of the party over their concerns about the party. Muddying the waters is of course the uniquely American idea that we are all middle class. But immigration is really muddying the waters. Now maybe I'm being hyper sensitive but when there are signs in my friend's yard all year round about stopping illegal immigration. Lifelong democratic voters who say they'll stay home before voting Republican defend Douglas Bruce in regards peasant comments. And extremely conservative Catholics say that we need a "revolution" (his words), I start to worry.

"Why?" you ask? Well as much as the term fascism is thrown around in terms of everything authoritarian it should be remembered that it does have rather specific connotations. Importantly it has to do with non-traditional conservative thought and hostility towards the left. I don't know if what I'm seeing counts as fascism. I wouldn't characterize the men I work with as fascist or even really authoritarian or reactionary. Men like my coworkers and friends have made up the back bone of the union movement for a generation. Maybe some would consider them as "Reagan Democrats" in our brave new world of infinite special interest groups. But it wasn't always as such and the fact that that term is getting a new and ever increasing demographic during a Democratic resurgence should be cause for worry.

My concern is not if we take to the barricades, but that when we do that it will not be in defense of the general ideals set forth by the Confederation but by those espoused by the National Syndicalists and their relative successors. Although to take that seriously, one would actually have to study fascism, conservatism, and liberalism and their place in society, something which we are ill prepared to do.

2008-04-06T11:42:00.005-06:00

Why Some Legends Should Be Left Alone

Alright so I don't get out much, I know. I see more movies at home than I could ever hope to see at the theatre. So it's no surprise that I just saw "I am Legend" last night on DVD. I doubt anyone remembers the book. I mean to be honest even though they took the title from the book it was really just Omega Man with the Fresh Prince of Bel air (spelling?) instead of that guy from the Planet of the Apes. I read the book well over a decade ago (sixth grade to be exact and from a decrepit Denver Public School library).

There are so many things wrong with the movie that I don't even know where to start. So why don't we just start at the ending. The only reason I remember this book is the ending, which is the title. The whole point of the story is that far from being the end of society it's only the beginning of a new society and that our hero is the new villain of said society who are far more advanced than our protagonist previously gave them credit for. This is not only highlighted by the fact that the vampires can stay in the sun for certain periods or that they could have captured/killed him at really any point, but that they have created new myths (yes this a recurring theme here). And he is at the very center of them as the new boogie man, hence, "I am legend".

Now I will give Will Smith credit that at least in this version our protagonist meets his end with his blowing up rather than the Omega Man's sorry ending of the crucifixion of the new savior. What really chafes my ass is that the movies are exactly the opposite of the what the book was trying to get at. Just before he blows himself up along with the lead dark seeker Smith sees God's plan and gives the cure to two other survivors who then go on to escape. The background at the ending is straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting with the gate opening onto village in Vermont complete with a white washed Church (we're assuming Protestant) and American flag in the scene (and they arrive driving a Ford). And the flag, that's another thing. It's not on a proper flag pole that would suggest a military installation, but rather on a normal flag holder that Joe Blow attaches to his front porch to show his patriotism. And that's the idea. That American values such as homespun patriotism and God's divine plan will prevail over all else.

Even the alluded to subtext fall within this paradigm. When Will Smith captures the female whom he eventually cures (until he blows her up). Her mate comes after her, providing the catalyst for the entire movie. So even though we see Smith shortly afterward lamenting the total de-evolution of mankind we know that the creatures can still love one another and as we find out, learn and imitate. But again all this is for nothing as it only serves to reinforce the ending which is that with the cure the "dark seekers" can be saved and civilization rebuilt between the twin pillars of faith and country.
Instead of the bold idea of a new society of which we as human beings are no longer a part of it is a reaffirmation of our society and God's plan.

But it is that bold stroke of daring that separates the mundane from the spectacular and it is why over a decade later I still remember holding onto that thin, worn out copy of the book stunned into contemplative silence by those three little words. And this movie will only be remembered as a footnote to that and then only as an example of why some things are best left alone.

2008-04-06T09:19:00.005-06:00

Charlton Heston Was a Bad Ass

1924-2008

Regardless of views on his later politics, anyone that can survive the Planet of the Apes is worth remembering.

2008-04-01T18:05:00.012-06:00

May God Reward Those Gallant Men...

I saw this week that the Edentubber Martyr's memorial has been vandalized. I must admit that I'm not a memorial kind of person and have never seen said memorial. Unfortunately I've encountered other monuments that have been desecrated.

I should state as a disclaimer that I don't necessarily equate the Ludlow massacre monument with a group of individuals (however well intentioned) who blew themselves up. But I can appreciate what a monument means to a community, particularly an embattled one.

While in Ireland I did go to see Milltown and Sean South's grave. In Milltown particularly the flowers and memorials were fresh and well kept. Regardless of politics one had to appreciate the state of the Republican plot. I saw the Republican plot in Limerick during the 50th commemoration of Sean South and so we were all of kind of packed around McGuiness as he spoke and then we listened to a rather off kilter rendition of Sean South of Garryowen (and yeah I bought the book).

The Edentubber momunent (or at least the commemoration) has not been without "controversy". I had been looking for the Edentubber Martyr's post as a segway into my time in stab city (which I enjoyed immensely BTW) during which I got caught up in a RSF demo, got questioned by Special Branch*, and then marched with the Provos because really, after shopping for hours in the rain I thought, why not? On the way, I noticed that a thread on an earlier posting from El Blogador. At 91 comments at the time of my reading its doing fairly decently at stirring some debate. But lets be honest. There's really no need for all this commotion if we could only appreciate for a minute the concept of contextualization. Now, now, I know that it was brought up and summarily dismissed by the third post. But lets be honest that has more to do with party hackery than anything else. El Blogador while an honest sort, has occasionally (As I've pointed out before) been known to descend into party hackery. Now I'm not at all cynical at the fact that an SDLP blogger is playing up being a Republican Party shortly after certain happenings (And yes I do know that self linking is a totally Pete Baker kind of move, but fuck all).

But as I was saying, on a dreary new years eve...I previously noted that I happened upon the 50th anniversary of Sean South. Not the commemoration, by any means but the one in Limerick, which while not bad was certainly not not up to par with having replica weapons and trucks in tow. Never the less it was interesting and enjoyable. If only for the fact that it was the only time in Ireland that we were able to sit and have a drink with someone on a normal basis (after the fact of course). The secondary chuckle brother was there of course, as was Martin Ferris. We saw the signs and because of my neurotic nature showed up over half an hour early.

Due to my ignorance of Irish politics I had no idea that the RSF commemoration was due to assemble shortly before (ie 2:15 RSF v 2:30 PSF). So we showed up at 2:00 when we saw the piper started to assemble. At the beginning I was a little a startled by the lack of support of support that PSF was able to pull for this event. Now I knew that Sean South was no Bobby Sands but I figured that the 50th anniversary would be able to draw more than some pensioners, a few Fianna and some rather thuggish looking individuals in army sweaters who turned out to be the color guard (A personal note If I may, if you must be dressed in paramilitary get up of green sweaters then please ensure that you're in decent shape. Man boobs are quite unbecoming, no matter what your politics may be).

We chatted for awhile with a younger fellow who was looking a but rough from a broken nose ('tis the drink you know). We were chatting with him when Special Branch came upon us after hassling the Fianna kids got boring and approached. As our companion was local it was the usual name and address. They seemed shocked when asked for my hometown and I replied "Denver, Colorado". I didn't see fit to explain that I really hadn't flown all this way just to attend a RSF event as I generally dislike authority and political policing especially.

What I was struck by in regards to Martin's speech was the disconnect between talking about the past and talking about the future of Stormont. It wasn't that I felt he was insincere, just that when it came to talking about the North and the political situation he was in his element and he was able to develop a rhythm that his references to the commemoration (Sean South) was lacking. One must think that when one addresses numerous funerals of his contemporaries historical figures tend to be somewhat dull in their color. Or maybe it's the famous disconnect between the South and the North, who knows?

Though I would like to tackle the myth that Sean South...Wait hold on for a moment. We've totally had a domestic intrusion into our fine Saturday morning of blogging, drinking and generally being a lazy bum. While I can enjoy Mexican food with little or no ill effects, the cats are apparently a different story and they decided to voice their displeasure by vomiting on the stairs and peeing outside of the litter box. My lovely wife was feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole thing so I decided to help by offering to buy her breakfast. This cheered her sufficiently that I could retreat here to commiserate on what a bad person I am for leaving my lovely wife (still recovering from surgery mind you) to clean up two out of the three bodily functions any animal can produce. God I am such a horrible human being.

But I don't feel so bad that it's impossible to continue this narrative. So where were we? Oh yes Sean South. His death launched him into the pantheon of martyrs which is fine but his remembrance is ensured by a song which is as often as not is just another bar room ballad (and this for a member of the Legion of Mary). I've got nine copies of the song at last count. Mainly because at the commemoration people kept mixing up the words between versions and it piqued my curiosity, so I went digging for versions. May it be noted for posterity and no other reason in particular that my favorite versions are Charlie and the bhoys live version which starts as fairly respectful (complete with some lyrics form the Battering Ram version) and quickly descends into barroom irreverence complete with wrong lyrics and the crowd chanting "the I, I, IRA" in the background. Next up is the Oliver Kane version which is fairly run of the mill except for the fact that he uses an accordion. Straight up that makes him the shit. If you play the accordion you're cool, no ifs, ands, or buts. At the bottom of the pile is (of course) an American band by the name of Shillelagh Law. Seriously, if your going to call yourself an Irish rebel band then you do need to have some respect for the subject matter. Their version, complete with harmonic overlay from The Minstrel Boy and with an ending that proclaims loudly, "Tonight we invade England!" followed by drunken crashing and horns is actually very disrespectful. Now following that condemnation I will actually get into what I wanted to say to begin with.

No matter how big an event his funeral was and no matter "canonized" he's been after the fact you have to know that somewhere is Limerick in some bar some guy on his way to take a "slash"**(thank you Malcolm) was saying "I knew Sean South, and he was a fuckin' prick. Fuckin' piece of shit was probably happy to die with all his Catholic clap trap about martyrdom and what not". Not pretty, but probably true.

*I would've sworn that the lead detective was Micheal McDowell out on a weekend jaunt to harass "Republicans". The quotes will remain until we figure out who's really a Republican and who's just a communalist/nationalist/fascist/bigoted/defender.

**What the fuck is it that the Irish have about using the trough in the pisser? I mean seriously, you can save civilization, but you can't move on up the to the urinal? I mean hey, maybe you're just nostalgic about about getting piss on your shoes and having your drunken compatriot chit chat with while he sways precariously over and you wonder how disgusting is it to know that not only do you have your own splash back to deal with but also this inebriated stranger's as well.

2008-03-14T04:41:00.003-06:00

For Your Information

Yesterday I was informed by a co-worker who enlightened me to the fact that I said "fuck" 34 times in a ten minute period.

2008-02-23T15:46:00.007-07:00

Predictable story coupled with equally cliche picture

BBC is currently running this story right now with the header of "McGuinness: 'I would have killed'". The full quote being,

"If I have had the opportunity to kill every single British soldier that was on the streets of Derry I would have killed every single one of them without any difficulty whatsoever."

Though of course what he meant to say of course was,

"Given the opportunity I did kill or at least attempt to kill every single British Soldier, RUC, RUCR, UDR and RIR member that I could get my hands on without any difficulty whatsoever."

I'm sure that a correction will be posted on the SF website shortly.

The DUP responded by accusing McGuiness of playing to the gallery ahead of the Ard Fheis. Thereby once again demonstrating that although there are signs of freshness in the air NI still retains that hallmark of irony that we all have come to love so much.

Posting note: Whenever I try to post this the computer lumps the entire post together instead of leaving the proper spacing, fuckers!

2008-02-22T05:09:00.003-07:00

Working Man Blues

Okay lets just get this straight. If you're going to do laminate counter tops because you're a cheap bastard then do it right. Don't fucking waste all of our time by using 3/4" plywood that hasn't all been ripped to the same width on the table saw. It's called fucking Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) and its made for jobs like this and that way we're not all wasting time by bondoing and sanding the irregularities out of regular plywood. Plywood by the way that should of been joined together and then run through the table saw to ensure even edges. Failing to do so will result in me burning the face of the laminate when I go to router off the top piece thereby leaving a nice 1'-0" long burn along the edge. Now I don't mind if I just fuck up (I do it often enough) but what I don't like is when I do my job right and it still turns out fucked then I get pissed. Secondly take two minutes of time to layout your crew. Seriously taking two minutes every day will save you two hours of time when it comes to getting the job done. I mean does anyone really think that bridge hands who have a limited knowledge of the English language are just going to be able to "jump in" and build you a quality counter top that you can be proud of? Also don't rip you're laminate too skinny so that you can't a have a nice wide berth to put your factory edges together because your framing was out of square. I mean Jesus fucking Christ! You always talk about how long you've been doing it. Then you would've thought by now that you'd have a fucking clue, but apparently not and you know, that's probably why you're a boss now!!

Rant over

UPDATE:

The owners want the counter top ripped out and done over. Right this time.

2008-02-15T16:42:00.004-07:00

Lenten Reflections

Well its been a long week and there's nothing better than kicking back on a Friday night by kicking off the coveralls, finishing one's stogie and cracking open a nice, cold, frosty, non-alcoholic beer. Yes, for Lent I decided to give up drinking. And while I'm far more productive as a teetotaler, I'm far less witty. Or least I think I'm clever and funny when I've been drinking. Now as hard as this is for some to stomach, my wife has it even worse as she decided to attend mass every week for Lent (admittedly its low mass). Something which I wouldn't do no matter what. I mean come on, just because I'm Catholic doesn't mean that I'm religious. But being that its Lent I thought I would reflect on what religion means to me. So without further ado (I think I'm mispelling that word) I present some reflections on religion during this Lenten period.

And I'm putting this one in just because I've always found that it made me laugh after a long week at work.

2008-01-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Lord Knows I've Been Drinking

I must confess that I'm not that great of a blogger. Many ideas for good neigh, great blogs come into my head every day. By the time that I can get to a computer about nine hours later they've slipped away like so witty lines I've thought up before and have forgotten before they could be uttered. Why the introspection you ask? Well it has officially been one year since I launched my own official blog and attempted to excise from myself all of the thoughts that plague me all day long.

To be honest this blog has served its purpose. Although not every thought that plagues me has been excised I've been able to none the less express some of them and more importantly I've been able to share ideas and express myself or at least make the attempt, with others. This in and of itself has made it all worth the while. For its true that I've never much cared to make the effort until receiving some sort of reply from the abyss by way of Redfellow hovel, for which I'm grateful (regardless of logrolling and other whatabouteries).

This blog is a reflection of me. I don't have the discipline or the time to consciously craft an image for this vehicle. Though to be honest I'm glad its worked out like this. I've never been able to lie or produce falsehoods very well. I would like to think of my writings & inspirations as a mix of Pushkin's Charskii and Elsa Morante's Giuseppe Ramundo. Into this equation mix the last stanza of Bob McDill's song, Good Ole Boys Like Me:

When I was in school I ran with the kid down the street

And I watched him burn himself up on bourbon and speed

But I was smarter than most and I could choose

Learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news

Though to be honest I don't even own a pair of cowboy boots and can't ride a horse that well (why would I want to?). Although it was poignant at my wedding that all the men were wearing them and my brother kicked me and said, "I told you so". Well life's a learning experience isn't it? On the recollection of my wedding I would like digress a little form the main narrative which has yet to be worked out and do a stream of consciousness flow here. I did have a Catholic wedding mass and though it wasn't two minutes in before I messed it up, the priest played along and things were going well with the exception of the redness on the back of my neck (it looked like I had a rash, but oh well). Then came communion and I remembered with stark clarity the message that my grandmother had imparted to me as I kneeled before the priest, which ran along the lines of, "Do not under under any circumstances chew the body of Christ" (for we believe in transubstantiation in lieu of consubstantiationn or the sacramental union of Luther). One must let the body of Christ dissolve on the tongue. Well that's fine, I could do that. That was until the priest gave me the blood of Christ. Christ! It was horrid and this coming from someone whose had moonshine & Hungarian plum brandy (which is actually rougher than the moonshine I partook in) amongst other less than smooth drinks. I broke the undissolved wafer in two and swallowed the body and blood of Christ. Scratch that, I attempted to swallow and found myself choking on the body of Christ, kneeling at the alter on my wedding day. My face turned red and I resolved that regardless of whether or not I choked and passed out I would not turn around let my family and friends see me choking. My face turned as red as my neck though I was eventually able to swallow. Happy Days are here again.

Once again as is a regular habit of this blog I find that once I've let my mind roam in search of a truthful tract it fails to return to me. That's okay, I've got no particular place to be I and rather enjoy just shooting from the hip so to speak.

But as to why I blog? That is the question of the post. It really comes down to Orwell and Why I Write.

Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen -- in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all -- and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.

Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

Political purpose -- using the word "political" in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples' idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

I see no reason to try and reinvent the wheel and explain myself when he did it better than I could ever hope to. Though I would change the quote from Milton, myself preferring:

"free, and to none accountable, preferring hard liberty before the easy yoke of servile pomp"

I set that quote as my watchword some years ago. Not sure how well I've lived up to it, but I like it none the less for my transgressions (which have been numerous). Rights, which are as inalienable to us as the very air we breathe must also be accompanied with inalienable responsibilities from which we must never seperate ourselves lest we find our rights follow them out the door. When a force wants to take our rights the first thing they do is start with responsibility, "Let us handle that for you" they demur. And who amongst their busy lives will argue with someone wanting to lighten their load a bit? But that topic is another blog. Along with one that I've decided to entitle, "So you want a revolution? then learn how to fucking type, file a report on time, have the stamina to see a campaign through to the end and realize that you're no working class hero you sorry sack of shit".

Though I don't have the discipline to post often, rest assured, my misanthropy remains unabated and in fact grows more virulent every day.

A small footnote on my one post that intruded upon any hope of a cyber bubble reputation. The idea that international law could be used in NI to help sort out the issues was brought up and expounded upon. I let it go and eventually tapped out of the bout. For Christmas I got a book entitled Crimes of War 2.0. While reading it I came upon a few interesting points (as international humanitarian laws previously held little interest for me).

"International humanitarian law...does not address the causes or origins of a particular war, or which side was right or wrong, only the method by which it is fought [my emphasis]. So it is entirely possible, for example, for an aggressor to stage a war of conquest in accordance with the Geneva Conventions or for a defender to commit war crimes in a legitimate war of self defense."

And from the section entitled "Act of War" which has to do with declaring a conflict a "war".

"An example of modern State practice is porvided by the United Kingdom, which during the Suez War (1956) and Falkland Islands War (1982)strenously denied that it was at war with respectively, Egypt and Argentina."

Interesting thoughts and definitely a reccommended read, if not for the faint of heart. So althought its far too late to do me any good I still thought it was worth mentioning since I was getting nostalgic for posts past. Also, on a more personal note. I wrote that post in the middle of a pretty good bender during which I burnt out two other guys (seperately) and kept drinking well into the night (much to my wifes chagrin).

All in all its been fun and I look forward to continuing this blog however irregular the posting may be. Thanks for coming in.

2008-01-09T16:33:00.000-07:00

The Early caucus results

Obama called his victory in Iowa "historic". Hillary thinks that tearing up when she doesn't win shows that she's ready to lead our Country. I've been following the ups and downs of the early caucuses as Hillary pulled out a three point lead to take N.H. and see Edwards once again relegated to the V.P. bin (who let him out of it anyway?)

But the only thing that really sticks in my mind is that...

No matters who's in front or behind it's just a couple of asses fucking around.

And just in case any Democrats are out there wondering why I'm not lampooning the Republicans I am including the following. Please insert wry comments as you feel appropriate.

A small footnote if I may. Though this seems to be a small and immature post I would to take a moment to state that this post was one of the hardest posts to put together. Seriously, try typing "donkey sex" into a search engine and see what you come up with. Not pretty, and I'm pretty sure illegal in most states.

2007-12-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Off The Wagon

Okay so it finally happened. I've been trying to stay away and live a clean life. But sometimes it's just all around you and you find yourself saying, "well just once won't hurt me any". And from there, there's no turning back. So it is with a great sense of shame that I admit that I'm plugging back into American politics. For my starting point I've put politico.com on my homepage and would recommend that any readers interested in the upcoming election do the same. Still, it's hard not to feel dirty about the whole thing. Malcolm doesn't seem to have the same trepidations that I do but then again he's a Labour man (more in a good sense than bad, but still).

While East coast liberals like to view themselves as true defenders of the blue flame it has commonly been the sons of the plains and mountains that have bled in two World Wars (although no bets on which side we took in the first one), Korea, and Vietnam. Not to mention Bush's folly which I won't even touch for fear of sparking an aneurysm which leaves my wife to find my body slumped over a keyboard when Hillary is the best alternative we've got.

Though a few notes real quick on things. Certainly Ron Paul has the mantle in terms of guerrilla campaigning in this election. Former commanders of this force have been Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. While they certainly add an entertainment value to the race they're really only that. Though the fact my grandma's neighbor who is a member of the John Birch Society and drags a UN flag from his truck has a Ron Paul sign in his yard means that I will not be joining that carnival.

Interesting note in regards to funding for the Dems and Republicans. After playing the social conservative card to get into office, the lack of action on immigration (a major issue for both parties), moral judgements, and fiscal conservatism has finally come back to bite the administration and his heirs in the ass. Corporate donations to both Hillary and Obama from the likes of Warren Buffett have been forthcoming and I've already mentioned how Hillary is the darling of Wall Street. While this is good news for the two Democratic front runners it does become a bit problematic when the big three attempt to play the populist card. Even Hillary has been playing up how during her husband's tenure the economy was peachy keen. Maybe we don't want to look too closely at how NAFTA and free trade agreements with China hit the rust belt.

In other news, the Latino vote has come under scrutiny. Of interest to yours truly was this little tidbit from the upcoming primaries in Nevada in which Paul Lopez of previous fame was noted as a "rising star".

Canvassers are generally told never to enter a home. But with this program, the canvassers try to get inside and talk at length with the voter to develop a deeper level of engagement.
Paul Lopez, a 29-year-old Denver City Council member and a
rising star in politics there, was in town recently for a weekend of this
intimate canvassing. Asked about the best way to reach Hispanic voters, he pointed to his shoes. Door-to-door and face-to-face.
In other words, winning among Latinos is like winning with everyone else.

So yeah, all in all I'm not getting all giddy over any of the selection just yet. I'm glad some people can get more excited about getting rid of Bush than me. But then again I don't think that getting rid of bush should mean getting frigid, but what the hell do I know?

Obviously this section will be updated at my leisure, or should I say, as my neurosis impels me.

2007-12-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

Almost didn't do this post as I was feeling very un-Christmasy this year. But alas, shovelling my grandma's driveway on a white Christmas grew my heart two whole sizes. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

2007-12-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

Kurt Vonnegut

1922-2007

When Kurt Vonnegut died people wrote, said, and quoted many things about him. These were all very fitting, but the above picture (which I couldn't locate at the time) summed it up best for me. Let this serve as a belated though heart felt tribute to a great man and author.

2007-12-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

In Crossmaglen...

It has been brought up that the devolution of policing and justice may be held up until the Army Council dissolves. Certainly pertinent in this debate is the murder of Paul Quinn (okay maybe not the best link but one that came to mind quickly). The brutal death of this young man has sparked a McCartneyesque like movement which has professionalized and streamlined rather quickly.

To be honest there were a couple things that came to my mind when I've read of this but the one that has kept coming back, kept nagging at me and finally made me reach for a novel I'd read. Not a bad book if you have nothing else going but one which has since stayed on the shelf and collected dust, until now. The oldest son of a widowed school teacher in WWII Italy Nino who served with the partisans in the war explains,

"The war was a joke, Ma!...but the joke isn't over...These characters think they can start all over again, like before: Don't you see that? Well, Ma, they're wrong! They put real guns in our hands, when we were kids! And now we're having fun making peace!"

Maybe I'm just missing the boat on this one but I don't really believe that the AC funds all (or a majority) of SF's electoral activity. It was made very clear when Friends of Sinn Fein (note the address for donations) was set up that all money donated was clearly marked to go to "legitimate" political activity. This was indeed a snub to the long term supporters from NORAID. Some of which openly crossed over to support Gerry McGeough in his failed electorial bid for a seat at Stormont as an anti-PSNI/pro-Immaculate Heart of Mary candidate. Something tells that real estate investments in Bulgaria have very little to do with getting Grizzly Adams elected president in the Free State.

The cost of operating the AC independent of actual operations of has been estimated to be anywhere from 7-11 million euro a year (as noted by the Gardai in 2005). It is also believed that by the late ninteties that over 2/3 of petrol stations in the North were selling laundered diesel. I would imagine this number has dropped some as the ARA has stepped up its activities and people start to realize the environmental hazards that smuggling diesel actually presents to the localities. Slab, as we all know was listed as the richest smuggler in Britain by the BBC in 2004. And while he's currently awaiting trial on tax evasion charges even Willie Frazer admits that he still drives an old beat up van and lives on his family farm. IE he's not exactly buying holiday homes in Donegal like GA or taking holidays to Portugal like Gerry Kelly. Their incomes come from an even shadier source, the British Government. That money goes to the Provisional AC. Continuity may hold blessing of the first Dail, but the Provos hold the purse strings when it comes to funding. Lord knows that RIRA haven't able to make a go of it and the INLA are stuck in some sort of Soviet cubist mode while trying to comes to grips with the economics of Perestroika.

Ah, but once again I've veered off the track I had wanted to go down. I'm sorry, but I'm not particularly interested in whether or not Paul Quinn ever drove smuggled fuel. The hard men in Crossmaglen will continue to operate as they have regardless of whether the AC stays on or disbands. Certainly this episode illustrates the down and dirty nature of the black market economy which is prevelant in NI. If anything comes of this I would say it would be a further move away from this type of operation to the more refined real estate deals such the kind exposed in Manchester and Bulgaria.

As for the devolution of Policing and Justice. Well I think the Assembly and Executive should show that they can make their existing portfolios work for the people of NI before they take on one more thing to hose up. Though to be honest, could do they do any worse than these guys?

2007-12-12T19:55:00.001-07:00

It Was On A Dreary New Years Eve...

I previously noted in passing that I happened upon the 50th anniversary of Sean South. Not the commemoration, by any means but the one in Limerick, which while not bad was certainly not not up to par with having replica weapons and trucks in tow. Never the less it was interesting and enjoyable. If only for the fact that it was the only time in Ireland that we were able to sit and have a drink with someone on a normal basis (after the fact of course). Martin was there of course, as was Martin Ferris. We saw the signs and because of my neurotic nature showed up over half an hour early.

Due to my ignorance of Irish politics I had no idea that the RSF commemoration was due to assemble shortly before (ie 2:15 RSF v 2:30 PSF). So we showed up at 2:00 when we saw the piper started to assemble. At the beginning I was a little a startled by the lack of support of support that PSF was able to pull this event. Now I knew that Sean South was no Bobby Sands but I figured that the 50th anniversary would be able to draw more than some pensioners, a few Fianna and some rather thuggish looking individuals in army sweaters who turned out to be the color guard (A personal note If I may, if you must be dressed in paramilitary get up of green sweater then please ensure that you're in decent shape. Man boobs are quite unbecoming regardless of your politics).

We chatted for awhile with a younger fellow who was looking a but rough from a broken nose ('tis the drink you know). We were chatting with him when Special Branch came upon us after hassling the Fianna kids got boring and approached to question us. As our companion was local it was the usual name and address. They seemed shocked when asked for my hometown and I replied "Denver, Colorado". I didn't see fit to explain that I really hadn't flown all this way just to attend a RSF event as I generally dislike authority and political policing especially.

What I was struck by in regards to Martin's speech was the disconnect between talking about the past and talking about the future of Stormont. It wasn't that I felt he was insincere, just that when it came to talking about the North and the political situation he was in his element and he was able to develop a rhythm n

2007-12-01T04:55:00.001-07:00

Zero Hour

Well not quite, that's in another five hours but you all know what I mean. So then I'm off. I'll be back Tuesday. Hopefully I'll fill out the Limerick episode (by the way, it was the Sean South commemoration) and have some thoughts on the American campaign trail.

2007-11-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

I was looking for the Edentubber Martyr's post as a segway into my time in stab city (which I enjoyed immensely BTW) during which I got caught up in a RSF demo, got questioned by Special Branch*, and then marched with the Provos because really, after shopping for hours in the rain I thought, why not?

On the way, I noticed that a thread on an earlier posting from El Blogador. At 91 comments at the time of my reading its doing fairly decently at stirring some debate.

But lets be honest. There's really no need for all this commotion if we could only appreciate for a minute the concept of contextualization. Now, now, I know that it was brought up and summarily dismissed by the third post. But lets be honest that has more to do with party hackery than anything else.

El Blogador while an honest sort, has occasionally (As I've pointed out before) been known to descend into party hackery. Now I'm not at all cynical at the fact that an SDLP blogger is playing up being a Republican Party shortly after certain happenings (And yes I do know that self linking is a totally Pete Baker kind of move, but fuck all).

*I would've sworn that the lead detective was Micheal McDowell out on a weekend jaunt to harass "Republicans". The quotes will remain until we figure out who's really a Republican and who's just a communalist/nationalist/fascist/bigoted/defender.

2007-11-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Burn Down The Mission

I've already been over this once and have no real desire to beat a dead horse but this story caught my eye. For some reason, it seems popular to compare NI with Spain in terms of conflict resolution (maybe its the vacation homes). I don't quite think this is the right way to go. Spain was a case in which one side came out on top only to find that while fascism won the battle it had definitely lost the war. And while the CNT (much to my chagrin) was never able to quite re-establish itself, the Republican narrative reigned supreme. Except in Spain. It is only recently that the Spanish government even came forward to formally condemn the Fascist regime. This in and of itself has not gone unopposed. Slugger has noted the Spanish attempt to come to terms with the past as has Malcolm. Interesting thoughts here on remembrance in general, especially in terms of victory versus tradegy in how events are remembered (or not).

I remember reading books such as Requiem for a German Past which essentially sought to answer the question thrown at so many Germans by their children during the post war years, "Where were you during that time?". More recently books like The Himmler Brothers have come out to explore those roots deeper. What I am struck by is not the success or failure of these books to come up with the answers, but the deeply personal nature of that search for truth and meaning.

Tim O'Brien's best book on Vietnam is easily The Things They Carried. Its been years since I picked it up but a particular chapter has always stuck with me. Its about How To Tell a True War Story. Truth, meaning, and memory are shown for what they are, which is woefully inadequate.

There has also been a very heated string of posts by WBS over Cedar Lounge over the shootings at Coolacrease. Well worth the read if you get a chance. Certainly blogging at its best. The latest post queries an interesting point,

"We could believe those [views] presented by the British Army correspondance, or the IRA inquiry, or alternatively the written testimony of one or other of the sisters. Or we could believe Muldowney, or we can believe Sammon or Harris. But that’s all we can do. We can have no degree of certainty. We cannot know"

My family tells the story of a small inn we used to own on the outskirts of Budapest where travellers could stop and rest and store livestock before going to sell them in the capitol. When the Russians came in they attempted to "requisition" the pigs for themselves. One of my family members attempted to protest that those were their pigs. He was summarily beaten unconscious and thrown into the sty where he was then trampled to death by his own pigs. My family is very proud of the fact that they "went out" in '56. When I was younger I had the audacity to ask,

"Well what did we do against the Nazi's?"

I was given a look that was clearly meant to shame me and informed,

"Why, nothing of course".

My family weren't members of the Arrow Cross Party or anything like it but were simply ordinary people who were all too fallible and probably too busy staying alive. I suspect something similar in Spain (and many other parts of the world).

I guess that most Spaniards won't be fawning over Carmen Polo or her father but neither will they all be lining up to lynch her either. Why? Because very few of them have probably ever been asked or able to answer, Where were you when...? But then again if things were different, could any of us?

2007-11-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving

From all of us here at Misanthropy Abroad* I would like to wish everyone a happy holiday.

*Me, the mouse in my pocket and whoever is responsible for my new found desire to use the asterix after all this time.

2007-11-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out

Awhile ago with cash in hand (a fairly substantial sum) I walked into the store and came home with my new Playstation 3. I am if there was a doubt, an occasional video game junkie. Not like some of my fiance's coworkers who read up on the latest updates and swap stories from the techie side of it. But simply a guy, who every couple of months will spend a week solid frittering away every moment of free time trying to beat a new game. In and of itself it not that big of a thing but it was enough that I included in my marriage disclaimer.

Marriage Disclaimer

To be honest I hadn't planned on going to France nor did I really want to. I was going to Ireland, not Frog land. But when it became apparent that I couldn't not* invite her and she said she wanted to go to France we compromised, and went to France. We arrived after taking an over night ferry from Portsmouth to St. Malo just before New Year's Eve. Having arrived six hours early for the departure we decided that once we had checked our bags to grab a pint and dinner. Having approached two establishments that both had large colorful signs that proudly proclaimed "we serve food" we were looked at like we were speaking a foreign language when we asked for food. So to console myself I spent the next five hours drinking English Budweiser. Not nearly as good as our own but then again what does one expect from the English?

The seas that night were exceptionally rough, and the ship was locked down. The Fish and Chips (yes I really did order it everywhere I could) I ate at a white trash motel restaurant suddenly didn't seem like the best thing in the world. The Budweiser of course had nothing to do with it as "the King" is a benevolent ruler who bestows upon his loyal subjects great wit and insight whenever they are in his presence. In the middle of the night my soon to be fiance gets an anxiety attack and we decide to search the ship for help. Aside from my lack of sea legs, the drink had finally set and I was left wanting for resourcefulness. We waylaid one stranger and my fiance tried bad French for direction to the ship's hospital (she does have a flare for the dramatic at times). To which he laughed and replied, "How should I know? I'm English" after which he returned to the bar. So here we are at 1:00 in the morning walking all over the ship with my fiance swearing that, "she's going to die" while I try to reassure her, occasionally stopping to turn and projectile vomit in multiple locations (yes vacations are lovely). When we finally came upon the help which was incidentally very close to our room the French found our predicament hilarious. I sincerely hoped they kept that sense of humor the next morning when they were able to appreciate the many finer points of English cuisine.

Suffice to say that my arrival into France was not the graceful entry of a seasoned world traveller, or even innocence abroad, but a rather dehydrated, hungover, hungry and tired American who despite my unwillingness to boycott France was still leary of the French. But the next two days were spent recuperating in Mont St. Michel, shopping in St. Malo and climbing around the outlying forts when the tide was out. It has been noted before that I am not adventurous when it comes to eating, but I'm also not the kind of American that goes to other countries just to stand in line at McDonalds. So for the duration of my stay in France (who make terrible coffee by the way) choking down numerous dishes that my palette found less than desirable and a number of cheeses that reminded me of how my socks smelled at the end of a work day. The creme de la creme of it all though was the New Year's Eve dinner (50 euro a head) that served little pigs in a blanket as a course. I mean come on, pigs in a fucking blanket. What does this have to do with a marriage disclaimer you ask? Excellent question, nothing really really except as a maybe a prologue. Though this trip was the basis for this blog title.

Having decided some time previously to propose marriage I decided that I would do it in France at Mont St. Michel on New Years Eve blah, blah, blah. But being the analytical sort of person that I am I decided to take a long view of things and be logical. Here I was whisking my girlfriend off to Europe. Taking her shopping, buying French lingerie while we holed up in a castle (well at least down the street from one) and going down on one knee on New Year's Eve. If I had picked up a chick on the way to the airport I'm pretty sure that I could've gotten her to say yes (not that I would've, but I could've). This being the case I decided to forgo the usual speech about my undying love and devotion and all of the wonderful things we could if we spent our lives together. No, instead I spent a solid half hour before my proposal walking the walls of Mont St. Michel outlining all of my faults, shortcomings and defects. A few key points were as follows:

I'll never be anything other than a construction worker
I'll never get any better at putting the toilet seat down
I'll never be in any better shape than I am right now
I will continue to go on an "occasional" beer binge and get fall down drunk at inoppurtune times and "possibly" vomit on the front lawn where all of the neighbors can see me
I'll never outgrow playing video games
I will continue to think porn is great no matter how often I get laid

Now admittedly, I don't do all of these things all the time but I wanted the record to be straight just in case any of these things ever came up as an issue of contention.

* Yes, I'm aware that I used a double negative. I felt that writing, "I had to invite her" was missing the point of the sentence to begin with as it suggested a sense of coercion which is most certainly not the case.

2007-11-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Eighteen Days to go...

Okay eighteen days, two roasted pigs, one deck and five doors (side jobs) until I get married. This is my third post about being busy, so I feel like misc. excuses are wearing thin so It thought I'd be specific about things. I'd never imagined men could get to be as involved in weddings as women, but I'd be proven wrong.

To set the record straight, the list of things that will allow me to have a good wedding day are as follows:

She says "yes"
I get Budweiser in a can at the reception (I'll probably have to sneak it in but that's okay, I've been doing it for so long that my wedding shouldn't be any different)
I hear songs that I like at the reception

That's it. I don't really care if the food is good. I could care less if the flower boy or my father aren't wearing the same suit as the wedding party (sorry no tuxedos for me). I don't care if I trip walking out of the church and split my head open, well maybe that one might suck but you get the idea.

The bachelor party is this Saturday (hence the pigs) so we'll see what comes of it. Suffice to say that I'm burnt out, bled dry and ready to be done with weddings. Though I'm looking quite forward to marriage.

2007-11-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

Misanthropy Loves Company

Just west of Gypsum Colorado and north of a dot on the map called Dotsero there are a series of switch backs that will take one up to 11,000 feet (plus) passing Basque sheep herders in their caravans along the way. The Flat Tops wilderness is like no other place in Colorado (or in the world, but my experience in that is limited). Further back there are literally no roads, just game trails in the dark timber, further down, the roads exist but can still be blocked by snow drifts in June. The dark timber eventually gives way aspens which give way themselves to scrub oak and arctic/subarctic plains until the entire land mass drops off the limestone cliffs.

It is to this area that we've gone elk hunting for years. At last count we've lost one trailer, and one outfitter's tent to the weather. We about added a 4-Runner this year, but more on that on later. I must confess that when it comes to elk hunting I lack what many would call a "killer instinct". Yeah I get up before dawn and go push and post and the game trails but my heart's not always in it. For starters, the land itself is surely enough to make even the most devout atheist believe in God as you watch a sea of clouds come below you and fill the numerous ravines as you sit on a limestone outcropping above . Secondly, for some reason when I find myself totally without distractions I am unable to quash the desire to read. Many a year has gone by (and possibly many an elk) with me sitting on a game trail, ridge or any other place with my nose stuck in a book. A good portion of the Brothers Karamazov was digested in a bush in the middle of clearing into which I had crawled before dawn one year. Finally, Elk are truly majestic creatures and though members of my party have had the opportunity to get elk, they like myself are simply awe struck at the sight of such elegance and grace. So it was again this year as once more we headed up.

I was fairly sick on Saturday and didn't get out until well after the alarm went off at 4:45am but still headed out early enough to catch the snow storm move in while overlooking the steep draws of French Creek while having lunch. By the time we returned in the evening it had started to accumulate on the tents and getting the fire going was a bit of a challenge. But still, it's always a pleasure to spend time with family in what surely must count as a paradise of sorts.

Sunday morning my brother and I were both up fairly quickly and out to investigate. As we drank coffee and ate our breakfast we looked back at our tent which had partially collapsed due to the snow storm. When we hollared to the other tent about going hunting they enquired about the snow. We informed them that it was indeed still snowing and were annoyed (though not surprised) to hear that they would not be going out. We quickly came came to an unspoken understanding that with a partially collapsed tent, an unabating snowstorm and two older companions with a string of bad luck in regards to losing things up here in bad weather that discretion was indeed the better part of valor and that a hasty retreat from the area was in order.

As we finished loading up the truck to leave I opened up the cab door and surveyed the scene. On the bench seat between my brother and myself lay two pistols, additional clips for said pistols, rifle ammo, knives, cigarettes, cigars, cans of beer, some other smokable entity of a more questionable legal nature and Waylon Jennings belting out Bob Wills Is Still the King, and "if that ain't country I'll kiss your ass". Now admittedly we're very gonzo, but still.

We progressed up out of camp towards the main road with my dad in the lead until we came to one of the steeper hills and the 4-Runner first stalled in its advance and on a second attempt actually slid sideways off of the side of the hill. We were last up the hill and once I topped out my brother told me that I'd better go back and see what I could do. So cigar in mouth (I left the beer behind) I ran down the hill to find my dad trying to get out his chains. Surveying the situation I quickly came to the conclusion that chains at this point would be unnecessary and could be counter productive. Articulating this in my usual graceful vernacular I said, "fuck that". I hopped in the 4-Runner, donned the alpine hat my uncle had brought home from the service. I proceeded to get the truck up and out. I happily return to my truck, put in Jerry Jeff and lit another stogie knowing that we would all get down from the flat tops in one piece.

Decent Teamster? Possibly. Great White Hunter? Definitely not.

2007-10-29T16:30:00.000-06:00

Meet The New Boss Redux

In my last real post I noted that as long the mud slinging was restricted to politicians themselves or at least to "respectable" pundits then things will remain on a somewhat even keel. It appears that things are heating up in that arena as a new video has shot to number one on Youtube for the past two weeks. Interesting point from the article,

Paul's anti-Clinton effort is getting help from two technical producers who set up the Web site for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the 2004 campaign that went after Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry by raising questions about his decorated military service in Vietnam.

Now I have little time for Hillary but she she deserves to be damned on her own merits, not slanderous accusations. I remember her spat with Obama in which she came out the "victor" because Obama was supposed to be playing up the "audacity of hope" while Clinton and her groupies were veterans of numerous capital hill brawls. This is where it comes back around. The problem with being ruthless in ones pursuit of power, is that you will indeed crush anyone who gets in the way and that they tend to remember things like that. I don't think that this kind of thing will be able to stop her from getting elected but should be interesting never the less.

2007-10-24T18:48:00.000-06:00

Sorry, I'm about to head out of town tomorrow for a wedding on Saturday and so won't be able to get off any of the three posts I'm currently working on. So stay tuned in and expect a glut in early November. Not that they're anything spectacular, just guns, politics, alcohol, David Allen Coe and alpine hats. Now if only I could get my posts to publish out of order so that old drafts can be posted up top instead on the date they were started, but we still peresevere.

2007-10-07T20:16:00.000-06:00

Meet The New Boss....

I've been too busy to write up a real post but a number of things have been on my mind that need to get out. So in no particular order here we go.

McCain has recently criticized Clinton for flip-flopping on Iraq. Look lets just get this straight right now, changing your mind is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it can be a good thing if you see something that isn't working and you want to try something different. Note throwing more troops at a political problem isn't change, it's an act of desperation that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq. Somewhat along the lines of say, traipsing through a market surrounded by a phalanx of troops while claiming that Baghdad is a secure place. But baiting Democrats on international affairs is so 2004. For a real look to see how things have changed and will yet stay the same we look to last Tuesday's WSJ article. Too lazy to read the whole thing? That's okay I'll pick out the best part for you.

"Well known business leaders have openly changed allegiances. Morgan Stanley Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive John Mack, formerly a big Bush backer, now supports Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton of New York"

Now I doubt John Mack has had a Damascean conversion to economic populism and regardless of what Jim Webb might have to say about the matter I doubt Hillary will spend too much time worrying about actually implementing any form of economic populism. So all in all we end right back where we began.

Having grown up in a traditionally Red State that has recently succumbed to the Blue tide I am reminded of, the Who.
______________________________________

The first anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya's death and the war in Chechnya are intersting reminders that terrorism is never as simple as simple as it may appear. Post 2001 the Bush administration was willing to turn a blind eye to Russian tactics in Chechnya. As long as it fit into the larger theme of the war on terror. This has turned into a two way sword as members of the PKK launch continued attacks on Turkish forces who have been prevented from following them into Iraq. Why is this? Because the Kurds are the lynch pin holding Iraq together and though of course we all know that there's no cross over in membership between and either the PUK or the KDP it still wouldn't do to have a new third front open up in Iraq right now that might also stir up unwanted attention to other activities that the PKK might be getting up to.
_________________________________________

In Sri Lanka the military has "confirmed" that it destroyed the last sea worthy boat from the Tamil Tigers navy. Whether or not this marks the "last throes of the insurgency" remains to be seen. But with the loss of the eastern side of the island due to Col. Karuna's defection and the introduction of an Tamil "air force" means that the fighting has certainly taken on a new and nastier tone than previously. On a side note regarding the complexities of terrorism, it may of intrest to note that it was the Tamil Tigers who develop and refined the suicide bombing techniques used so widely and effectively in the bevy of conflicts around the world today, a national liberation struggle, not religious fundamentalists.

Well not nearly everything that was on my mind but enough to let me get to bed and sleep. Night All

2007-10-05T20:36:00.001-06:00

Due to circumstances of a varied nature my posting will be erratic at best for the month of October. I've got a draft or two in the works but a trifecta of things (wedding, work, hunting) are and will continue to take up a great deal of my time for the rest of the month. Hopefully something resemblig normal posting will resume in November.

2007-09-17T15:50:00.000-06:00

We Shall Overcome Redux

Well once again I am left with egg on my face over a prior prediction. It looks like that the Soldiers of Destiny will be invading NI after all. Almost ten years after the war, but I suppose better late than never (legion of the rear guard indeed). Obviously the pundits are doing overtime to get their opinions in here, and here. Odd that neither Irishelection.com or Cedar Lounge have anything, but quite possibly it may just be that they have real lives to attend to (update-Cedar Lounge's response here and Irish Election's here). Aside from the fact that I called it wrong most of my other points still stand. After claiming NI as their own for umpteen years I can't see why FF would give Dermot the brief. I hardly think the people whose votes you wish to gain would appreciate being considered foreigners whatever view Aer Lingus might take.

FF may have alot more money but SF have the people on the ground and know how to use them. Not only to canvas before an election but to maximize vote management. As noted previously FF and Bertie in particular need to check their ego and enforce some electoral discipline on their party. With the SDLP living on in one sort or another FF will not be able to get a clean sweep and a fresh start for their candidates. This will no doubt increase the sense of dissatisfaction among the more labor oriented members if the SDLP lives on as a fig leaf for FF during Westminster elections. One can least expect a portion of SDLP stalwarts to either push for a labor alternative or simply stay home, further dwindling the pool that FF want to draw from.

And though everyone knows that SF is the main target and the launch of FF up north is seen as a counter attack on the SF redoubt it remains to be seen as to whether FF have a stomach for a real fight where they find themselves (for once) in the position of underdog, or at least outsider. And as much as FF are flaunting the need for a normal centerist party that has a grasp of the economy they may be left feeling the odd man out when the Tiger cools. Also in the mix is the odd timing especially in regards to certain financial irregularities regarding the Teflon Taoiseach. Not that I'm the least cynical about the motive of politicians but then again Bertie would not be the first leader in history to announce a nice little war to alleviate domestic unease.

Then there are the issue of transfers. Empey's ill phrased complaint about FF aside the move does bring up another interesting issue, transfers. Previously the SDLP had enjoyed a degree of success from transfers, even and especially from unionists voters in concerted attempts to keep SF out. It will be something to look at during the next election cycle as to whether FF can successfully maintain the small n approach in certain areas that the SDLP was able to do. Or whether or not the argument of "vote for us to keep SF out" will fly when it's the Republic knocking on the door.

Definitely a space to keep watching.

2007-09-11T15:58:00.000-06:00

In Memorium

SEAN CANAVAN, 39 Brooklyn NY Initiated 1981. Finish/Furniture. Local 608. Father and brother are also UBC members. Survivors include his many beloved nieces and nephews.

MARTIN COUGHLAN, 53 Bayside NY Initiated 1987. Interior Systems. Local 608. Immigrated with family from Ireland in 1987.Wife Catherine; Orla (27),Ailish (24), Sinead (21), Denise (19).

MATTHEW DIAZ, 33 Brooklyn NY Initiated 1998. Floorlayer. Local 2287. Reached safety but returned to help others.Wife Karen; Michael (7), Christopher (3).

PAUL GILL, 34 Astoria NY Initiated 1986. Carpenter. Local 608. Fulltime NYC firefighter lost in the line of duty. Wife Tina; Aaron (14).

MAURICIO GONZALEZ, 27 NYC, NY Initiated 1995. Carpenter. Local 608. Held dozens of skill and safety certifications. Wife Evan; Nina (1).

MAURICE KELLY, 41 Bronx NY Initiated 1980. Interior Systems. Local 157.Acoustical ceilings specialist. Children Danielle (17), Sean (10), Thomas (7).

CHRIS KIRBY, 21 Bronx NY Initiated 1997. Carpenter. Local 608. A third-year apprentice and sports lover.

BENJAMIN MILLMAN, 40 Staten Island NY Initiated 1999. Carpenter. Local 608. Wife Toby; Brandon (14), Maghan (7).

JOSEPH MISTRULLI, 47 Wantagh NY Initiated 1982 Interior Systems. Local 157. Foreman and holder of numerous certifications. Wife Philomena; Joseph (22), Mary (21),Angela (16).

BRIAN MONAGHAN, 21 New York NY Initiated 2001.Apprentice. Local 157. Reached safety but returned to help others

DAVID ORTIZ, 37 Bronx NY Initiated 1998. Carpenter. Local 608. Employed by the Port Authority (NYC transit agency).

JOSEPH PISKADLO, 48 N. Arlington NJ Initiated 1973. Carpenter. Local 157. Immigrated from Poland in 1962. Wife Rosemary; Brian (23), Laura (21), Steven (18).

JOHN RIZZO, 50 Brooklyn NY Initiated 1979. Carpenter. Local 608. Wife Concetta; Giuseppe (20), Luigi (10)

DANIEL ROSETTI, 32 Bloomfield NJ Initiated 2001. Journeyman Carpenter. Local 15 (NJ). Was thrilled to “work above the clouds, close to heaven.” Fiancee Christine Bennett; son Justin (14 mos.)

DAVID RUDDLE, 31 Bronx NY Initiated 1996. Interior Systems. Local 157.The youngest of eight children. Daughter Amanda (11).

STEPHEN RUSSELL, 40 Arverne NY Initiated 1987. Carpenter. Local 45. Fulltime NYC firefighter lost in the line of duty.

ERICK SANCHEZ, 41 Brooklyn NY Initiated 1987. Journeyman Floorlayer. Local 2287. Children Kathleen and Raymond.

PATRICK WOODS, 36 Staten Island NY Initiated 1996. Furniture Systems. Local 608. Beach goer, dog lover, strong union man. Survived by both parents and two younger brothers.

2007-09-01T11:56:00.000-06:00

Recommended Reading

A couple weeks ago my old roommate came up to stay for the weekend. During his time staying with me he asked to borrow some books that I thought he might enjoy. After picking over my limited selection I came up with a few that I felt fit the bill. The picks were Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Sand County Almanac, Dr. Zhivago, and I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Though things being what they were he forgot them on my coffee table as he ran out the door Monday morning and I have been reading back over them ever since.

Fruits of the Land and Pictures by Hand

Sand County for me is up there with Walden and Desert Solitaire if not exceeding both of them. Unlike Walden it does not take itself too seriously and unlike Abbey, Leopold was content to reflect on his land and not try to go and milk it for personal gain. I have "borrowed" my father's copy from when he was young (the reprint is from 1970). I am rewarded for this theft by the illustrations which do much more for me than the photographs lining the newer editions. Illustrations such as the ones found in my edition of SCA are one of the few times that the human hand can give more than it takes in regards to nature. I do not dispute that some photographs encapsulate a great deal of emotion and that good photography takes skill. But some of the most powerful pictures are often simply a matter of luck, left to shutter speed and chance.

Sacrificial Lambs

I feel that the latest edition of Black Lamb... with the introduction by Cristopher Hitchens is to be avoided. I was blessed that when I purchased my cheap paperback version, Penguin felt that Rebecca West could stand or fall based upon her own merits and did not try to muddy the waters by adding a modern voice to try to contextualize things by adding a two bit hack to ride on her back as a tick might a dog on whose blood it is feasting.

I bought Love, Poverty and War based upon the fact that the back lauded that Hitchens was, "the best...essayist Britain has produced since Orwell". Woe to those who believe such drivel. Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out... and Homage to Catalonia could all be categorized as decent travel books. Orwell with his scarecrow like cut was the figure to capture discontent and revolution. Hitchens, with his paunch and inability to use a razor would do better to stick to a Cyril Connolly style of writing of personal failure and insightful wit (which I must grant him). Travelling in the same circles as Bremer and Wolfowitz in their "Liberation" of Mess-O-potamia is a far cry from street fighting in Barcelona or even an honest attempt to capture the tragedy that is the Balkan experience. Who would have thought that a communist dictator was the best that one could hope for? His latest book God is Not Great is currently number 21 on the best seller list. But has been pointed out other places, the question still remains as to whether or not the militant pursuit of secularism/agnosticism can bear fruit.

But as is so often the case with this blog, I digress. West raises many points in her meandering tale. Some are worth reflecting upon and others are best left to history and scholars to debate. There are a couple of lines that I have reflected upon personally and have exalted elsewhere.

Admittedly West goes on to slag on Hungary and Ireland, simplifying partition and Trianon in the extreme, but as a great man once said, "So it goes". After she and her husband finish their time in the Balkans they stop in Vienna. She reflects on the Civil War that had rocked Vienna a few years earlier.

Her chauffeur during her stay in Vienna who also happened to chauffeur Major Fey during his political pogrom of the Social Democrat's tenant houses.

"it has never been ascertained how many many of those luckless tenants were killed , imprisoned, or turned loose homeless and destitute; but such victims must have numbered in the many thousands. It was at this...that my chauffeur...had assisted, by driving...about from massacre to massacre, because he thought it was time that somebody did something"

This last line jumped out at me. How many events in history have been set in motion by that kind of ill defined inexplicable belief that something ought to be done. Far too often that something means shooting someone else. In this respect I am full agreement with Malachi O Doherty, that trouble with guns is that there's only so many things you can do with them.

The Doctor is in

Next to the fact that I some times break down and read crap on paper, my most closely guarded secret is that I love Russian literature. Yes Pushkin, Gogol et. al. thrill me in ways that few other authors can hope to. I am often amazed at how they are able to capture the endless steppes while at the same times bringing to life the claustrophobic social ties that constituted Russian society.

Ten Days That Shook the World be damned! Non-fiction has yet to terms with the fact that it takes more than reality to come to grips with the human experience. The book which varies radically from the movie is such a book in which life is cup into which experience is poured. As sometimes happens in order to capture the truth the cup must be allowed to overflow and we must let reality flow over to see it in all of its fullness.

Update: He actually did come back into town with his wife and newborn son. He did remember the books this time and I'm left without quotes to reference.

One For The Road

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell not only made me nearly piss myself, it made me feel like a very bad person for laughing that hard. Have no doubts, if you buy this book you are a bad person. If you laugh then you are a full blown misogynist. If you actually empathize with Tucker Max at any point or say I've done something like that then you are without a doubt an irredeemable flesh puppet who has no soul who probably drowns puppies in your spare time because it makes you laugh. But I still recommend it.

2007-08-18T11:50:00.000-06:00

A Tale of Two Albums

Otis Blue is really the tale of two albums, one of rocking upbeat soul/pop numbers countered by blues/soul songs offsetting one another in what I would call almost the perfect album. This should come as no surprise to students of soul but may surprise some of the "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" crowd. This album simultaneously contains a cover that I feel is more powerful than the original and an original that later became famous as a cover (and for many more poignant for many).

A Change is Gonna Come

I know there are those who may be under the impression that Sam Cooke was a little too pop and too little soul. I would refer these ignorant individuals to Live at the Harlem Square Club. This album I feel even outshines James Brown, Live at the Apollo (though since I've always felt Brown was over rated this doesn't account for too much).

Cooke pinned "A Change is Gonna Come" after personal experiences with Civil rights activists and listening to a Bob Dylan song. The final stanza of Cooke's song is cautiously hopeful reflecting the guarded optimism the times really were changing for the better.

There were times when I thought I couldn't last for long, But now I think I'm able to carry on It's been a long, been a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will.

Contrast this with the Otis Redding version recorded within two years of the original, in which he radically adapts the final stanza.

There was a time that I thought, Lord this couldn't last very long, somehow I thought I still able, to try to carry on. Its been a long, long, long time coming, but I know a change has gotta come.Its been so long, its been so long, I've lived too long but a change has gotta come,So tired, so tired of standing by myself and standing up alone, but a change has gotta come. You know and I know, that a change is gonna come.

This is a much darker take on Cooke's tune which does not prophesize that a change will come but that it has to. To me this more accurately reflects the outcome of the civil rights movement with its limited objectives and goals. Toward the end Reverend King came to a more overarching vision than that of the original movement. It is ironic that a man whose life was ended due to the fact that he supported an AFSCME strike has led to the likes of Condaleeza Rice and the parody that is the Reverend Al Sharpton.

That is a tragedy. The American Civil Rights movement really was a march for human dignity. It was a march that faltered and at times found its way frustrated by ignorance and hatred. But it did not waver in its commitment to what it knew to be right. Unfortunately that march was never completed. Like so many movements before and since it found that the new world it hoped to birth to be still born. So it settled for diluted reform and the trappings of success.

_______________________________

Otis Blue contained Redding's biggest hit until the post humous release of "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay". While that song has ensured his place in music history it has also helped to obscure what some of us consider to be his true works of art. All three of his covers on this albums (the others being "What a Wonderful World" and "Shake") are excellent. This shows a real growth from a less than stellar "You Send Me" on his earlier "Pain in My Heart" album released early in 1964.

Soul later succumbed to over orchestration as shown by the likes the Marvin Gaye album "What's Going On". There can be no doubt this album attempted to deal with the issues that existed under the waning star of the Civil Rights Movement. Otis Redding's third album demonstrates why that approach was folly. His throaty delivery adds new depth and dimension to classic soul tunes as well as pop standards. Readers are actively encouraged to pick up this album.

2007-08-10T21:32:00.000-06:00

Hold the Fort...

Okay so it's been a hectic week. Union meetings, middle/high school/college friends visiting and me being forced to eat tofu and listen to academics wax polemical about the working class struggle. Seriously, the second time I met these people they were calling me their "good friend" and practicing the polite art of conversation while not saying a damn thing. The truth is that I can count my friends one two hands and my good friends on one hand. Incidentally one of them is now staying in Delta via the courtesy of the state. It was well that I had only two beers the whole evening or there might have been trouble.

Continuing quickly on the labor theme established last time I am faced with a personal quandary that I was berating a business rep. about this week. I freely acknowledge that the local wages, benefits, and conditions will most likely improve due the "merger" with Kansas City. Note that despite encompassing more than five states it's still "Kansas City District Council" even though Kansas City has half the population Denver has. My issues are with how Kansas City gets the job done. From my observations it seems to be a mix of old school Teamster's thuggery combined with some back wood colloquialisms. I was initially and remain unreconciled with the new order. Now admittedly the reason that I was reconciled with the old order was because it was a dying breed of non super councils. The irony of course that I was held up this week by the very same business rep. as a model union member.

This blog has struggled with trying to juggle personal/political/cultural posts. I have many drafts that have never been finished and left to collect cyber dust. Many of my posts are fairly amatuerish in nature, then again, so am I. I would like to tackle some of the issues raised by Pete Baker and Fintan O'Toole over on Slugger as a personal follow up on one of my earlier posts. Hopefully I'll be able to get to it this weekend, but fishing and tiling my parents house will have to come first.

Okay, talk to you all this weekend, hopefully.

2007-08-05T20:04:00.000-06:00

I Washed My Face In The Morning Dew

Last week laying out an access panel in the governor's ceiling I was thinking about Malcolm's post awhile ago. I was also caught up in thinking about SS's post which I quoted in my last post. This kind of thing is nothing new to me. When I used to work nights on the highway I would infuriate the boom truck driver by getting lost in thought while we were hanging signs at the intersections (but he was an asshole so it was okay). It's odd that though regardless of whether I blog these thoughts they are still in my head (which is actually why I blog, to get them out). I was trying to explain to my grandma after I got posted on Slugger what it was all about. Her reply was to shake her head, wave her hands at and to tell me, "you think too much" (though she's right on that one).

The point being that while I'm extremely difficult to satisfy on one level (just ask my political director) I'm very easy to make happy. Such happiness was achieved this weekend after a visit to the future in-laws in Cripple Creek. A cold Budweiser in the can and a decent cigar go along way to making me a content man. Throw in my fiance, a nice fire and the natural beauty that is Colorado to do the rest. We all know that many song writers have written about the majestic beauty in the state here and here, not to mention songs of a more regional variety.

At times it is tempting to let it go at that but this weekend I was reminded of the absolutely astonishing and humbling beauty that is Colorado. After a thunderstorm I went out on the back porch to finish my beer and smoke my after dinner cigar. While standing under the awning I was near enough to the bird feeder to be able to reach and touch (had I had the urge to) the numerous humming birds that were fighting over who would get to feed at that particular bird feeder. I vacillated between staring at them and gazing at nothing in particular in the green aspen grove surrounding the house while enjoying the scent of a fresh rain.

Today as I drove back through town on the way home I was reminded of why "Misanthropy" is the leading word of this blog. It is not necessarily an H.L. Mencken misanthropy, but a latter day Joseph Roth misanthropy.

Recently a post over at Cedar Lounge brought me back to my roots so to speak. I was originally and will continue to be a labor man. So as I drove through Cripple Creek with that post fresh in my head it saddened me to see that casinos lined the streets and that the biggest event that weekend was the county fair (ie a 4H booster). Not that I have anything in particular against 4H, but anyone who has spent any amount of time shovelling bovine shit by the truck full will be necessarily wary of any kind of agrarian organization.

Actually what had set this train of thought off was a dinner for my aunt when we finally brought her pictures from my European trip in December/January (which actually gave me the title of this blog). One of the pictures was of the quotes on the James Larkin statue.

And Tyranny trampled them in Dublin's gutter

Until Jim Larkin came along and cried

The call of Freedom and the call of Pride

And Slavery crept to its hands and knees

And Nineteen Thirteen cheered from out the utter

Degradation of their miseries.

Now my aunt is not what I would call a pro-union person. This is because at the phone company (where my whole family worked) a union official told her she made too much money for a woman. At which point she moved virulently to the other end of the labor spectrum. Though after reading the quotes she was, never the less moved. I too was moved because truer words were never spoken. I remain firm in my belief that the cause of labor is the hope of humanity. This is in spite of today's unions and numerous "Labor" parties that exist throughout the world.

For us there must be more than Project Labor Agreements, wages, benefits and a good ole boy club to which we can join. There must be an over arching movement that seeks to raise the bar for humanity that we may all enjoy the fruits of liberty and freedom and dignity. Not in some shallow sense about donning a uniform and going over seas, but in our own homes and communities, where we have sunk our roots. This is cliche but true. This is the cause of labor, the elevation of men from expendable machines and cost codes into fully formed beings capable of not only seizing their destiny but of shaping the course of history through their determination not to be bought off or intimidated in their quest for a more just humanity. I'm ranting I know, but this is what motivates me to pay unions dues, not my wages or benefits (which suck thank you very much).

Well it's late and 4:00am will come all too shortly. For anyone more interested in the roots of my mania, I recommend as a starting point this piece as well as these various books. Again as a starting point.

2007-07-30T05:10:00.000-06:00

Launch Delay

I had planned to do a couple of posts yesterday. Unfortunately a friend called and needed help putting up some 4' x 8' soffit board. Well the six sheets that would only take a couple of hours turned out to be about sixteen (a little fuzzy math) and the couple of hours turned into a full day. So Malcolm's much deserved blasting will have to wait another day or so until I can get some time.

2007-07-28T10:28:00.000-06:00

We Shall Overcome

Not surprisingly a thread on Slugger went off topic fairly quickly. Surprisingly the off topic discussion was (for the most part) fairly engaging and interesting, at least more so than the original post.

In the absence of anything resembling movement that might indicate new life for the SDLP the persistent FF/SDLP merger came up and was kicked around. Most admitted this was a non-starter for multiple reasons. But I think it's at least worth looking at (for entertainment reasons at least).

The first and most glaring reason for not merging is the fact that FF are a party of power, not principal. They were able encompass the working class, small farmer vote and then move on to become comfortably middle-class while retaining their core constituency (and lets face it, breakfast roll man still came through for them this last time out). The SDLP never were working class. One of their few enclaves was well and truly lost when Fitt decided to jump in bed with Thatcher over the hunger strikes. I'm sorry, I don't care what your roots are (and Fitt's were impeccable) but when you refuse accept the political root of the the Troubles and join the House of Lords then you can't expect the working class to take the "L" in SDLP seriously. Though to be honest I don't really think the SDLP ever did either.

As for the FF franchise moving north, I just don't see it happening. After the elections in the ROI, Malcolm and I were reflecting on what happened and he noted how the tri-colour motif run by SF doesn't really fly in Dublin Central (which we all have to acknowledge now). Conversely I don't believe that the slogan "The Republican Party" would cut it in Ballymurphy, Bogside or Tyrone. Indeed any hope a Northern FF have would be in the rural border counties. So considering that SF saw off the Gerry McGeough in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, Sharon Haughey and Davy Hyland in Newry Armagh and all three SDLP candidates in West Tyrone I would be curious at who the Soldiers of Destiny would have man the frontier? Foyle, while having the largest "dissident" vote (if you can really call the combined forces of Peggy O' Hara and Eamon McCann that) still returned its quota of Shinners and Stoops. Though I would like to see Attwood try that slogan in the Falls, just once.

(Update: Slugger is down right now so bear with me on paraphrases instead of quotes)

Though almost all agreed that a merger was a non-starter they also agreed that a reorganization towards a more "professional" SDLP was a welcomed stance. I feel this is an erroneous assessment. If anything the SDLP need to become more amateurish in their approach to politics (think GAA vs. David Beckham). I'm sorry but hiring consulting firms (as Durkan did in his last bid for Foyle) is pathetic. Yes he won the seat, and evening convincingly so but it shows that the voters are simply a product. I don't question the conviction of certain activists, but as noted in other places, I do question their common sense. Too often have I purused Slugger and P.ie and watched as Stoops blasted PSF for being SDLP lite or SDLP 2.0. Then when the election results came in they were shocked that such campaigning failed to win back the electorate. They consoled themselves that the electorate had opted for tribal politics, conveniently forgetting their own affiliations. Wait, in fairness I must confess that the SDLP, in a valiant attempt to break down the sectarian boundaries campaigned in the Shankhill and Waterside during certain elections. But considering that their slogan was, "vote SDLP to stick it to SF" the votes they were loaned can hardly make up for the votes lost within the nationalist community. Putting aside the bullshit for just moment, SF have the people on the ground to make a difference on the constituency level. The SDLP don't and didn't have until the SF brand appeared on the market.

Oddly enough as I was putting this together Splintered Sunrise posted a piece about Neil Blaney and IFF. His final thoughts on the Blaney machine are worth repeating and are applicable to our course of thought.

At root, though, the secret of the Blaney machine lay not in Neil’s technical proficiency as a politician, great though that was, but in the political spirit animating his soldiers. For the Blaneyites, who would take part in elections in Derry as easily as in Donegal, politics never ceased to be a national crusade. And there’s a lesson here – political parties are voluntary organisations, and no matter how draconian the regime the worst penalty you can inflict on someone is to tell them they can’t come to meetings or pay dues any more. A really effective machine comes into being where the men and women at the grass roots are inspired to follow a great political cause. People who think that electoral success is an end in itself can’t really comprehend the mindset that sees it as a mere by-product of a bigger struggle.

This is the battle that the SDLP lost, not the ballot box versus the armalite.

2007-07-25T16:56:00.000-06:00

Success!

Despite the fact that in the past month I've gone head to head with the Catholic church on: Genesis, Lilith, abortion, contraception, the evils of co-habitation, pre-marital sex, over-population, and nuclear energy (don't even ask), the evils of pornography, homosexuality, Humana Vitea, and the credibility of one Janet Smith, PhD. They have seen fit to grant a certificate of completion for Marriage Preperation classes to myself and my fiance. I have a feeling that it was in spite of me that we were awarded the certificate, but who am I to complain? Though I must admit I am lucky that unlike marriage, wedding prep. classes do not require a sober state of mind for them to acknowledged by the holy mother church. Also, unbeknownst to me there were bets on whether or not I would complete the classes (FYI the majority bet that I would not finish the classes). This is an important lesson, never underestimate the power of spite.

Next chapter: Natural Family Planning, shudder.

2007-07-22T11:44:00.000-06:00

Weighing in at a flabby 175 pounds and throwing a combo replete with typos and wrong tenses I made my debut at "the world-famous Slugger O'Toole's Pugilistics Parlour and Flyting Academy". I wish I could look at my counter to see if I've gotten a boost from it but I still can't figure it out and so will have to simply hope that if some people came over from Slugger that they might stick around awhile. Thanks for coming in.

2007-07-21T08:52:00.000-06:00

What Is Truth?

The trouble with getting to the truth is the fact that no one can agree on it. Or what can be agreed on is lacking on anything that might give the events any meaning in forming a cogent narrative. And to be honest that's what people are looking for. Not just a narrative that says, "the (insert proper group here) is (insert value judgement here)" but one around which people can come to some kind of understanding (not agreement, understanding) on just what did happen over the last thirty years in Northern Ireland. I personally don't think this will ever happen, not now, not in a hundred years. Certainly scholars will write narratives and maybe even a "definitive" text or two but there will never be an agreed upon narrative for what happened on the fringes of Europe in the latter part of the twentieth century.

That is why posts such as the ones posted by Pete Baker commenting on Fintan O'Toole's piece seem odd and out of place. I have no doubt that Pete believes what he writes. He has the zeal of a true believer, though what he believes in is beyond me. Though I digress, it is the issues I want to tackle, not the author. Or in Slugger vernacular I would like to make an honest attempt to play the ball and not the man.

As mentioned in the first paragraph I take issue with the idea that the truth is something that exists outside of people/society and is simply being hidden by the powers that be for the sake of expediency. The truth of what happened is really quite simple. On numerous occasions one group of people inflicted harm upon another group of people. This continued on for some time until it stopped (for the most part). There you go, no need for expensive inquiries, H.E.T.s or the republishing of the Stalker report. We can even deal with specific incidents that have longed plagued the peace process.

March 6,
People with no guns were killed by people with guns.

March 16,
People with no guns were killed by a man with guns.

March 19,
People with guns were killed by people with guns.

There you are, nothing to see here, move along. Nothing I have have typed is untrue but to say that I've written the truth would be somewhat disingenuous, because the truth should have a little more substance than that. Truth, like life must be made of more than the sum of its parts. What gives human life value beyond our heart and lungs is indeed the intangible, or for the spiritually/religiously inclined "the soul". I feel it must also be for the truth and that is where we run into problems. For anything beyond what I've written we must necessarily subscribe some sort of value judgement, even (and especially) if the judgement is one of all around condemnation and a sense dark night of the soul which seems to especially affect journalists.

One of the issues I take with Fintan's argument is that narrative can be confused with physical monuments to the dead. He mentions multiple monuments as examples of successful and unsuccessful ways of dealing with the past. I feel that this misses the point. the success or failure of the monuments had little to do with the monuments themselves but to the extent to which the society in which the monument resided had agreed upon a common narrative. He is right in noting that the Valle de los Caidos is little more than a monument to Franco's victory and an indictment of the Catholic Church's involvement in the Iberian peninsula (though the last part is just my opinion). An interesting article appeared in the WSJ sometime ago dealing with the fact that the Spanish Civil War is still being fought (not the right article but one dealing with the same issue) in the obituaries as the descendants still strive to make sense of what happened from 1936-39.

Three years of turmoil and now sixty plus years later we are subjected to obituaries stating that a devout Catholic (who in actuality may have also been an avid fascist) was murdered by godless heathens. Conversely we faced with obits that may state that a freedom loving, gentlemanly Republican who may have been an FAI member was murdered by bloodthirsty fascists. Both can be correct without being true or vice versa. The issue isn't so much truth but an agreed upon collective narrative. Think about it, America was founded upon the idea of liberty and justice for all based upon genocide of the indigenous population and the subjugation of black slaves, immigrant labor, and women. Though since we have an agreed upon narrative we can view those actions as an aberration rather than the norm from the establishment.

For Northern Ireland it's not quite as simple. Fintan's point that the security services were responsible for, "A little over one-tenth of the victims" is a red herring in this case. Throughout the entire struggle British government kept up the line that, "there can be no political justification for murder or any other crime"(Thatcher). Ie the law is sacrosanct and must be respected by all parties. But what happens when the law is changed to suit the needs of government or is blurred in the name of "national security"? Many of the reports and inquiries have found, stated or at least hinted at the idea that some of the worst manifestations of the Troubles have at least been given a wink and nod from security forces. This has been reinforced from investigations the government itself carried out. What is undermined is not the truth but narratives set up by one party in the conflict. This is the same reason why the killing of Robert McCartney was so devastating to SF. Certainly SF/PIRA had killed/murdered non-combatatents before but not in a way that was so damning to their narrative.

What we see every time a new report on collusion comes out or the IRA admits to killing a civilian is not "the truth" but simply another thread of the tapestry of the Troubles. I think that this is where people go wrong. They think that, "the truth will set them free" or at least give them, some sort of meaning. But what if the truth is that many people died for the wrong reason or no reason at all?

Do we as humanity have the courage to face up to that truth?

2007-07-19T16:31:00.000-06:00

Come on the Hoops!

Look lets face it Beckham is a premadonna and his wife wants to be Madonna, but that won't "save" the MLS on it owns. The fact that he makes more than of the other All-Star (and I use that term loosely) players put together. Which is maybe why MLS is hoping that the bhoys will be able help pick things up. I on the the other hand am not so optimistic. For me it's not simply a matter of getting a "big star" like Beckham to trot out at halftime to wave to the crowds, but in trying to make soccer into an American game. To me this is something which can't happen, football, hockey, baseball (the All-American past-time) and basketball are already competing for that spot with Rugby, Lacrosse, and arena football all trying to pick up the scraps. On the east coast the baseball/basketball dynasties command something comprable to what soccer does in Europe (well not quite so many riots but still). Though here out west this is strictly speaking "Bronco's country". We bleed orange and cite the orange sunset as proof that God is indeed, a Bronco's fan.

Being that I'm a child of the Orange it might surprise some that I was estatic to see Celtic come here and play. I mean for fuck sake Celtic played in my town. Now admittedly they lost, to Americans of all people but it was still kind of cool to have them here.

2007-07-16T21:18:00.000-06:00

So, how was your day at work?

I have to admit that this was kind of a different day.

2007-07-14T07:45:00.000-06:00

More Bang for Your Buck

(Pun intended)

An interesting story popped up on the beeb awhile ago noting that the MLAs in Stormont have already topped £720,000 in claimed expenses. Oddly enough, no one in the Irish blogosphere thought it worth commenting on. Since I was bored and my curiosity piqued at such a high amount being spent in such short time I crunched the numbers and figured out party averages.

So topping the list is the UUP with £8861 being claimed on average. Roy Beggs topped the UUP with £12,419 being claimed. Not one UUP MLA claimed under £6,000 in expenses with Billy Armstrong coming closest with just £6,284 being claimed. Sir Reg claimed £8,922. A word of advice to the UUP. When your leader gets elected in the third count, with the other member of the executive in the tenth you might want to try a little frugality in governance and personal exependitures. Remember, the money you spend today will be a reflection on the NI Conservatives when they take your place after you lose your MP next time around and finally throw in the towell.

So coming in second (becoming sort of a theme for them) is the SDLP with an average claim of £8,635 pounds per MLA. Mary Bradley (let her know how you appreciate her spending your hard earned money) topped the entire assembly by spending £18,757 which included remodelling her office. North Antrim's Declan O'Loan came in at the bottom with a mere £2,914 in expenditures. Party Leader Mark Durkan came in at a "respectable" £7,784 claimed.

Being that too many of the analysis out there disregards any other parties other than the "big 4" I thought it be only fair to include Alliance in this piece. So, what is there to say about Alliance? They cost on £7,863 per MLA and are soooo self righteous that even the fact that Anna Lo got elected can't make me really like them that much. David Ford for all of his huffing and puffing about blow in carpet baggers in South Antrim sucked £7,462 off of the public teat (the blow in carpet bagger claimed £3,962 by the way, but we'll get to them shortly).

Now for the fact that I'm uncomfortable with a political party being tied up with a church it looks like some the evangelical sense of frugality rubbed off on the DUP. Their 36 MLAs only cost £7,552 per member. Though the DUP can claim the lowest cost per MLA in the unionist family the Big Man himself claimed the most for any party leader with £9,828 in costs. Allan Bresland broke the mold entirely by not claiming any expenses at (fairplay to him).

And finally, in reference to the title and picture we come to Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein MLAs cost the taxpayer £2,241 per member at Stormont. 4 of them have claimed no expenses (Paul Butler, Daithi McKay, Caral Ni Chuilin, and Claire McGill). Not one MLA claimed over £6,000 with Raymond McCartney coming the closest with £5,539. Grizzly Adams claimed £881 in expenses thereby putting him at the bottom of the list for party leaders with ODFM Martin McGuinness beating that claiming only £650. Oddly there were seven MLAs with exactly the same amount spent (£1965.32). Kind of creepy if you ask me.

As far the unionist camp goes I don't think how much money was spent is an issue. The UUP need a reason to exist not curb expenses. Though "Decent people" who are "Simply British" probably wouldn't mind a their MLAs thinking twice before ringing up an expense.

For nationalists it should give pause. While the SDLP like to wind up the Shinners during elections about their recent reversals in regards to law and order and talk about how Bertie, Enda and McDowell think they're great people it doesn't really cut it when you crunch the numbers. Let me give a small example. Mary Bradley spent more money in two months than I made for all of last year. Admittedly I took a temporary pay cut to work for my current contractor but the point still stands. If the SDLP want to stop their electoral decline they need to get their heads out of their asses and realize a few things. One, don't run more candidates than you have quotas. Two, goofy picture stunts don't really convince people of your anti-

establishment credentials when they have the this place in their constituency.

It only serves to alienate in places where a very small "n" nationalism will suffice. Three, don't piss away other people's money like it's your own (see the rest of this post).