THE IRISH

May 12. 2024

It's Mothers' Day.  Facebook is full of tributes and photos.  This melds with the news that Malachy McCourt, author, saloon keeper, raconteur, an actor and fine Blaguard all and all has died.

               Malachy McCourt photo alamy  

His brother, Frank McCourt, won attention with his book "Angela's Ashes" .. and I learned that Angela was a Sheehan.

I once called Malachy and asked if he thought we might be cousins.. He laughed.. "Ah. there's  a million Sheehans in Limerick!"   So. Malachy has died at 92 and a celebration of his life will come up in New York soon. His son, Conor, sent me an invitation.. 

All of this turns on watching some interviews with Malachy and Frank talking about their play, A Couple of Blaguards..and how their years of poverty and the oppression of the church and .. poverty!  churned them  up to be inspirations and examples of what the Irish have to offer.

 

Malachy said, in one interview, that the Irish mourn weddings and celebrate death!  As we all tumble down the road to oblivion, this made me smile as I anticipate an Irish take on British wealth by GB Shaw in his play "Misalliance."   It's a romp and the 'nobility' is skewered right along with the great wit that I'd heard about with Shaw, but had not really examined.  This is a sort of footnote to my review of the play and hopefully.. I'll see it next Saturday, May 18th.. an auspicious day.. and if the production at A Noise Within is up to the writing, it'll be a lot of fun.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Malachy and brother Frank, chat about A Couple of Blaguards and this makes me wish I'd seen them do it.  Malachy says that one great goal in his life was to make Frank laugh.  After reading Angela's Ashes, it was good to hear that Frank could laugh.. and according to Malachy, uncontrollably!  What joy.

 

Malachy went on with the list of Irish writers who are beloved and 'important' in world literature.. W.B. Yeats is a fave of mine.. and the rambles of Jame Joyce's Ulysses, especially.. Yes..  

So.. Shaw is on the docket. The beauty of the English language forced upon the Irish who have taken it to special heights ..maybe kicking and screaming.. but certainly with a lilt and joy that few others in English have risen to.

Malachy died a while back. We probably were not cousins.. except in some odd Irish way that he had from birth and I from those Sheehan immigrants so lojng ago.  

Long live language. Slante! 

Mass Murders

It's the bullets. It's the bullets. It is the bullets. 

 

These are bullets They kill. Guns without bullets are fancy clubs..

The hue and cry of access to all kinds of guns and the cry of the right: "Second Amendment!!  all forget that the way guns work is with bullets. 

On Facebook and in person to others now and then, I remind folks that bullets make guns lethal. Certainly being battered with an automatic weapon might kill us, but that activity is .. at least.. one person at a time. 

With the massacre in Monterey Park, California Saturday January 21, 2023 and a report of seven murdered in Half Moon Bay today, 1/23, it was because of bullets.

There will  be dozens of 'well buts' that others might offer up to my call for a way to start tracking the sales of bullets that are used in automatic weapons, but acknowledging that the bullets, ultimately, are the problem is the goal. The man who killed eleven in Monterey Park and later commited suicide had a cache of ammunition. He had easy access to ammunition.

There are probably millions of bullets in the armories of people like the insurgents who attacked the Capitol on J6, but, if we start now to find a rational way to track large sales of ammunition for automatic weapons and levy penalties for those who self load , the same way moonshine is regulated. that would be a start.

This is a plea to ATFE and local leaders to examine the idea of regulating the ammo that is designed specifically for weapons of war.  The "E" n ATFE is about Explosives.. which bullets must be.  If Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are now under the aegis of ATFE and Federal stamps are on Tobacco and Alcohol.. why can't there be a way to track and regulate the "E". .the bullets that explode and kill innocent citizens?

All of the arguments that say bullet regulation is impossible just don't fly.  Had the  Las Vegas assassin who killed 58 victms and left almost 500.. FIVE HUNDRED others wounded, not to mention the mental trauma radiating in wave after wave of sadness and fear beyond those who were attacked? Had his purchases been redflagged? What then?

Had this man, who wheeled into the Mandalay Bay Hotel a virtual arsenal of weapons and thousands of bullets been noticed as he accumulated his cache of thousands of bullets for automatic weapons, that horrible event five and a half years ago just might have been avoided.  

When do we start? Now.

How do we start?  I don't know.. 

This is just my note in a bottle tossed into the sea of cyberspace.  If the leaders who can take this notion that it's the bullets..  and make manifest the idea that bullets for weapons of war must be..at least.. tracked, we may be on the way to healing. 

Currently, the United States is a land of fear and divisiveness  exacerbated by the pandemic with more and more  people teetering on the brink of failing mental health. In Colorado Springs? That murderer had announced his intentions well ahead of his attack!

We must find a way to consider the bullets and all ammunition as a topic for broader discussion. And, notwithstanding the gun advocates who shout "Second Amendment" we must respond calmly and with a civil tone.  Did the Founding Fathers anticipate the ability of a 'well regulated militia' to have access to more than muskets and mini balls? Did they intend for private citizens to have weapons that would deliver SIX HUNDRED ROUNDS PER MINUTE? Do the math.. Talk it over. Regulate and track the ordnance for assault rifles. Save lives.

 Civilization must respond. Human Beings of Good Will must find a way to peace and stem the tide by attending to the bullets.

RELUCTANT SOLSTICE

 DECEMBER 21, 2022

 

the last words I heard her voice say

"i love you"

which i may have never heard before...

fool me once, shame on you

fool me twice, shame on me

trust can only stand on the shoulders of 

honesty and loyalty  & other traits, I suppose

but when loyalty is lost

how can we return?

when honesty is in question? 

what then? 

where does trust find itself?    lost

when someone has never been wrong

apologies are never coming

when there is no spontaneous laughter

but an angry sting erupts without skipping a beat

we know which spark prevails

no fun

no joy

no kiddin'

no dice

is asking someone if they are in love creepy?

is asking someone what kind of person they are 

creepy?  

friendship is not up to one person

friendship is an 'us' situation

'we' become friends 

or ...  

what? 

 

NOW AND THEN AND HERE AND THERE

 November 7, 2022

 Art is on my mind.  

A well known deep pockets Collector of Art calls on two factions of contemporary art to decide which kind of art is Best.  

He invites the Conceptual Artists and the Representational Artists. 

The Representational Artists say, "We'll have a debate. "

The Conceptual Artists leave the room.

The Art Collector then declares that there shall be a Competition to see whose art is 'Best.'  

A large gallery is provided & divided down the middle with a heavy curtain.  The Conceptual Artists are on one side & the Representational Artists are on the other side of the curtain.

The Representational Artists ask for a myriad of supplies: paints in all the colors and brushes and markers and such.  The Art Collector provides all of these supplies: including life models & canvases and easels.

The Conceptual Artists, when asked what their needs are? Respond, "We have it covered. Thank you."

Time passes. The Representational Artists work feverishly to make their work   

There are sounds coming from tthe Conceptual Artists on the other side of the curtain.

When the time is up, The Art Collector draws back the curtain in the gallery to compare the work of the Representational Artists and the  Conceptual Artists. 

The Representational Artists have created a beautiful room of color and landscapes and portraits and still lifes. There are sculptures in bronze and clay.

The Conceptual Artists on the their side of the gallery have cleaned the room to shine.  It totally reflects the beauty of the Representational Artists.

The Art Collector smiles.

 

With thanks to J. Rumi.

michael sheehan

November 7, 2022

glendale, california 

My favorite St Mary's Professor

My favorite St. Mary's professor  has become a sort of distant pal over time.  He's in the theatre and teaches history at St. Mary's College in South Bend.  His insights into the current cultural scene may seem a bit biased to many folks.. but they make  sense to me and twisting the dagger a little.. seems like an okay idea to me.

This is Bill's latest take that points up what we al lmay susect but may not articulate quite as well. Thanks, Bill.. 

/////

From the fertile mind of Bill Svelmoe. 

South Bend, Indiana

"I’m enjoying a few lingering moments on the deck before heading into the office with a purpose for the first time since May 2021. Got to print off some syllabi.

But it probably won’t be this version. Yesterday, after a matinee of “Unnecessary Farce,” and then a cast party during which many glasses of my jalapeno-cucumber margaritas were, how to put it, enjoyed, I wrote a syllabus for my freshman survey.

Below are the “Course Objectives.” I’ll probably have to rip this up and start over. Don’t want to scare the newbies before they even make it to their first football game.

Course Objectives

1. For many of you, this is the first semester of your first year in college, often billed as the greatest four years of your life. The classroom should be part of that word “greatest.” It’s not, “greatest four years going to parties and football games, and then, oh yeah, I have to go to class.” Class should be something you look forward to. History is a discipline that is inherently interesting. It’s my challenge to have you thinking, when you get out of bed on TTh, “Cool. I get to start my day with some history!”

2. But let’s be honest. We are living through a very dangerous time in history. Before you graduate, you may see the end of the American experiment in democracy. It may end in violence. You may see nuclear weapons used on battlefields in Europe and Asia. If you live a normal life span, you will almost certainly see the destruction of large sections of our world through fire, storm, and flood. A vast human tide will move away from coastal regions and march north, as unbearable heat blankets much of the globe. I want to help you learn to think historically about the moment through which you are living. This course will help you understand how we got here. Yes, actions and attitudes from centuries ago launched us on this path. Early American history is the gateway drug to all that follows.

3. There is simply no way to talk about American history in 2022 without “being political.” I am genuinely sorry about that. For my entire career at St. Mary’s, I have avoided, at least in introductory courses, engaging with students in a way that would seem to favor one side of our political divide over the other. That is impossible to do going forward. I cannot honestly talk to you about American history without candidly addressing the threat posed to our democracy by Donald Trump and the current iteration of the Republican party. History is about the pursuit of truth and fact. Truth and fact are not priorities for Donald Trump and most of the Republican party today. One of the objectives of this course is to show you the roots of what I will call “Trumpism” in our early history. I would not be a responsible historian if I did not do this. It won’t come up every day. It probably won’t come up most days. But I’m telling you this on day one, so that you know what is coming.

I understand conservatism in my bones. My family is very conservative. The community I grew up in is very conservative. I voted Republican for most of my life. And, although Trumpism is not conservatism, I understand why conservatives have embraced him. And I understand how emotionally taxing it can be to engage in conversations like this. I have lost close friends. I have family that doesn’t speak to me. So I don’t make this decision lightly. But it is a decision I must make. And now you have a decision to make.

4. At the end of the course the student should have a comfortable grasp of the foundational incidents, accidents, and themes pertaining to the history of America through the Civil War. That is the goal of any American history survey course.

It may seem difficult to apply a history so remote to your life today. I make you this promise. After taking this course, you will understand better why this “city on a hill” had the worst response of any western nation to the global pandemic. You will understand better why religion is so deeply entwined with the politics of our nation, for good and/or ill. And you will understand better why the simple declaration that “Black Lives Matter” still arouses such resentment in so many Americans. Why a vice president of the United States could not bring himself to utter those words on national television. Our earliest history still echoes today.

Make no mistake. This will not be a comfortable course. If you’re looking for comfort in 2022, a study of American history is not the place to find it. Yes, there is much in American history to inspire. This is the nation that declared “all men are created equal.” This is the nation, the first in human history, to write a path of hope for regular folk, those not born into privilege. But don’t think for a second that those who were born into privilege really meant what they said. It fell to women, to African Americans, to the vast human tide of immigrants to insist that such words must have meaning beyond parchment promises. A genuine study of American history must focus on that struggle.

Finally, the study of history is one of the paths to wisdom, and wisdom is perhaps the most important quality of a person who can successfully claim to have lived a good life. Wisdom, at least in part, is the ability to make decisions based on an understanding of similar human experience in the past (including of course your own), as well as a capacity to deeply reflect upon one’s own self and identity. History follows no invariable laws, which is why history books are filled with stories about human beings, not formulas and equations. Individuals, strong and weak, good and bad, wise and foolish, have often made a direct impact on the course of history. Understanding another time will assist us as we strive to live well within our own.

Huh, I wonder if I could teach this in Florida???"

The Classified Documents and the outrage of the Law..

I have asked to know the name of the author of the folllowing.  I found it on Facebook and the obvious bias in this essay is .. well.. obvious..

With the raid of the former president's home in Florida and the now disclosure of what was found to be in his possession dramatically reported .. I wonder if Fox News is reporting this??  It's time to make sure that no one is 'above' the law.

Twenty boxes of sensitive and possibly most top secret documents, including the 'pardon' of Roger Stone, the former president's friend, are in the inventory.  This is serious business. 

 This essay was written before the current disclosure of the inventory receipt.  

It's tough to make jokes about what a bad actor this former president apparently is now.  The following essay, with tongue in cheek, speaks volumes, but the fact is that the United States is in a crisis that this former president has fomented. The death of one of his acolytes,  Ricky Shiffer, who died when shooting at the FBI with an automatic weapon yesterday (August 11, 2022) is a sad testament to the problems that may take a long time to solve. 

Who wrote this essay?  Do you know?

EDIT..   I learned that this essay is from The Shovel. No author.. but  

 https://www.theshovel.com.au/.../the-shovels-view-on-the.../

///

"We are certainly no fans of Donald Trump – let’s make that clear from the outset. But yesterday’s raid by the FBI on the home of a former president sets a dangerous precedent.

A precedent which now means that anyone who evades taxes, attempts to undermine an election, sexually assaults women, manipulates the value of their assets, uses state resources to enrich themselves or aids and abets the overthrow of a democratically elected government will be subject to investigation.

Is that the world we want to live in? Where anyone accused of insurrection can be subject to questioning from law enforcement officers?

It’s a slippery slope. Before we know it, regular citizens accused of defrauding the government, concealing evidence, manipulating financial documents, tampering with witnesses or perverting the course of justice will also be held to account.

Or to put it another way, if we simply shrug our shoulders and fail to question the actions of the FBI, soon any old Joe Citizen who is suspected of ripping classified government documents into small pieces and flushing them down the toilet will be obliged to answer to law enforcement, as well as their plumber.

If we don’t ask the hard questions about the potential motives of the FBI now, soon any one of us who buries our ex-wife in a small grave at the side of their golf course in order to gain a tax concession will be treated with suspicion.

As Trump supporters put it so clearly yesterday, if this can happen to a President, it could happen to anyone who has committed insurrection, assault or fraud. That’s a chilling thought.

We are on new ground here. As Donald Trump himself made clear, this is the first time a former president’s home has been raided. Proof, if ever we needed it, that the FBI shamefully only targets people whom it considers to have committed a crime. Who gave FBI director Chris Wray that authority?

As we made clear earlier, we’re certainly not Trump supporters. But in today’s partisan world, it would be easy to fall into the trap of cheering on the FBI’s actions, without taking a step back to look at the bigger picture. If Trump goes to jail, it opens the door for every lying, corrupt, perverted piece of shit to go to jail too. Is that what we want?"

SVELMOE is at it again..

From time to time, Bill Svelmoe, a college professor in Indiana, comes to the table to bring an understanding to his readers.  We have theatre in common and that's enough.  He's much more into Politics than I, but his point of view is one that I like and it makes sense to me.  

His take on the daily news as of Sunday, August 7, 2022 lays it on pretty thick.  Thanks Bill.  

This is shared from Facebook with Bill Svelmoe's permission. 

//

• Matt Gaetz and Roger Stone caught on tape.

  Gaetz: “You’re a bullshit artist, not a liar.”

  Stone: “Correct. There’s a big difference.”

  Correct. There is a big difference.

  As philosopher Harry Frankfurt pointed out in his book "On Bullshit," a liar is often a very clever person with a genuine connection to the truth. A liar knows what the truth is and deliberately tells you an untruth in order to steer you away from the truth. Liars are likely too smart to lie about something that is easily disproved. They don't want to get caught.

  But a bullshit artist has no connection to the truth at all. The truth is simply whatever they desire it to be in the moment. So the bullshit artist does not think beyond the needs of that moment. What do I need to say to get me successfully through this moment? And in that moment, the bullshit artist may or may not actually believe what they are saying. It really matters little, as they have little actual relationship with the truth at all. In fact, sometimes they might actually speak the truth quite by accident.

  Trump, and those who follow in his wake, are bullshit artists. You see this in the fact that Trump is incapable, apparently, of thinking beyond the moment. A very dangerous trait to have in a leader by the way. A basic trait which humans, indeed all higher order animals, evolved in order to survive is the ability to make decisions based on future outcomes. You see this ability in the squirrel that starts across the road, sees the oncoming car, hesitates, then sprints back to safety. Basic survival. How will this decision affect my future?

  Trump, as with all accomplished bullshitters, seems not to have evolved this trait in any substantial way. Whatever bullshit is required in the moment to let him avoid facing his own shortcomings shapes the words that come out of his mouth.

  You see this in the infamous cruise ship incident from early in the pandemic. Trump wanted to keep the cruise ship filled with Americans offshore because he didn't want the "numbers" to go up that day. Now any human with a modicum of the kind of adaptive intelligence required to survive on this planet knows that whatever the numbers might be on that day, in a pandemic those numbers will matter not one whit tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Nobody will remember or even care what the numbers were that day. So even the dullest human being would know that future numbers will be how a leader is judged.

  But for the bullshit artist only what is needed for the moment is seen. And "truth" is whatever gets one "successfully," as in with the least loss of face, through that moment. Only the numbers of that day would get Trump to his pillow at night with the happy dream that all was well with the world.

  And so we get the well documented daily stream of bullshit from Trump and his followers about anything and everything, including that he won the last election. But I am convinced Trump is more dangerous than your typical liar. Because Trump has no idea what the truth of these matters really is. He genuinely believes whatever his brain, such as it is, cooks up for the moment to get him through that moment. That the lie will be exposed in an hour, or a day, never enters his head. Because an accomplished bullshitter like Trump will have a new "truth" to ease his passage through that future confrontation.

  As we’ve seen with Trump, a bullshit artist can have a great deal of success in life. Lots of money to be made from the rubes with bullshit. You can build quite a following.

  But, as Trump and his band of buffoons have found out since the election, and as Alex Jones found out this week, bullshit, while it can get you far, runs into a stone wall, or what we might call a category error, when you wind up in a courtroom. Judges, even judges appointed by the world’s greatest bullshit artist, tend to recognize the difference between bullshit and fact/truth. Their professional lives depend on making such fine distinctions.

  It has been fascinating, and very gratifying, to watch Alex Jones get his comeuppance in court this week. Very gratifying to see a $50 million-dollar verdict. And fascinating to see a bullshit artist in the mold of Trump struggle to come to grips with the difference in a court of law between his bullshit and the truth.

  “You must tell the truth while you testify,” Judge Maya Guerra Gamble gently admonished the befuddled Jones. “This is not your show. You need to slow down and not take what you see as opportunities to further the message you’re wanting to further and instead only answer the specific and exact questions you have been asked.”

  I love the injunction to "slow down." Bringing one's mind to a place of truth often requires time, a moment of reflection, the sober pause. But the mind of the bullshit artist is always racing. No need to pause and reflect. The boxer instinctively brings his hands up to protect his face. The knight needs no thought to throw up his shield. The bullshit artist operates on this self-protective instinct. A lifetime of practice. An enormous fund upon which to draw. The Joy's John is very deep. (NOTE.. 'Joy's John' is what we call "Porta Potties" in California) 

   

  When have you ever seen Trump pause to reflect when asked a question? Never. There is just the immediate response. Whatever is needed in the moment to get to the next moment. Injury free.

  Jones was clearly puzzled. Nonplussed. He didn't understand the distinction being made by the judge. He argued that he believed he was telling the truth.

  Judge Gamble, in a moment that so clearly encapsulated a real dilemma of our modern world, perhaps "the" dilemma of our modern world, had to carefully explain to Jones the difference between an alternative reality media world and a court of law. In the law, she told him, truth was actually a real thing.

  Judge Gamble: “You believe everything you say is true, but it isn’t. Just because you claim to think something is true does not make it true. It does not protect you. It is not allowed. You’re under oath.”

  Simply a wonderful moment! But a truth that needs to be carefully delineated over and over to our friends who have fallen under the spell of Trumpism. Just because you think something is true does not make it true. How often have you heard it from your conservative friends? “Well, that’s your point of view. I have my point of view.” But ultimately a point of view is only as valid as the truth/facts upon which it is grounded. Jesus, in one of his parables, referred to this as building one’s house upon a rock rather than upon sand.

  The problem for Trump and Trumpers is that their house, their point of view, is built on sand. And, while I’ll be the first to admit that, in so far as a house built on sand has a great view of the water, such a house can be very attractive. But, eventually, the water will rise.

  And, in my little Jesus parable, the rising water for Trump, Alex Jones, and Trumpers in general, well, let’s just say that particular spigot is most often turned these days by a judge and a jury and smart lawyers.

  Alex Jones saw his house washed away this week. We eagerly await the rising flood exacting a similar accountability on the palaces of the Stable Genius …

  
  

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