Occan

Last night, I dropped by Geraghty's on the recommendation of Anke and Tuen, a Dutch couple we've befriended. They thought I would like Occan, the flute player performing there that evening. Geraghty's turned out to be a cozy two-room establishment with a back-room table for the musicians. Occan played flute and whistle -- both with consummate skill -- accompanied by a pair of guitarists and a bodhran. (A bodhran is a handheld Irish drum played with the fingertips, palm, and/or a small two-headed stick called a "tipper.")

Occan led the session through a set of jigs, reels, and an occasional lament. At times, one of the guitarists broke into song. Another time, they sat out to provide room for an intricate duet between a whistle and a conga. Unlike many sessions, which can serve as a soundtrack to events happening elsewhere in the pub, the appreciative gathering hung on every note. The intimate atmosphere gave the impression that it was all happening in someone's living room (albeit a living room with a well-stocked bar...

We also saw another side of Irish music, a pair of nine-year old cousins busking as The Bullets. Here, they're performing a driving rendition of "Whiskey In The Jar" ("we really like Thin Lizzy"):

Just Wondering...

...why the same people who screech that President Obama wants to take away their freedom are the ones who vociferously supported the Patriot Act.

...why the same people who profess to love their country show contempt for the democratic process by disrupting town meetings about the most pressing domestic issue of our day.

...how a major political party that once stood for law and order came to endorse mob tactics.

...how the same people who opposed Sonia Sotomayor out of a fear of her "empathy" for the downtrodden can sympathize with the shouting down and threatening of elected officials as a legitimate "organic response" feedback to proposals to extend health care to all Americans.

...how the same people who oppose government intervention into health care are happy to receive Medicare...

...how anyone can listen to someone who advocated shooting wolves from helicoptersand who now calls health care reform "downright evil".

...how anyone can listen when the country's leading fascist decries the president's health care logo as "similar" to a Nazi symbol.

For anyone who can't watch the President summarize heath care reform, here's what the anger is supposedly all about:

Right now, we have a system that works well for the insurance industry, but that doesn’t always work well for you. What we need, and what we will have when we pass health insurance reform, are consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and that insurance companies are held accountable.

We will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms, colonoscopies, or eye and foot exams for diabetics, so we can avoid chronic illnesses that cost too many lives and too much money.

We will stop insurance companies from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history. I will never forget watching my own mother, as she fought cancer in her final days, worrying about whether her insurer would claim her illness was a preexisting condition. I have met so many Americans who worry about the same thing. That’s why, under these reforms, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage because of a previous illness or injury. And insurance companies will no longer be allowed to drop or water down coverage for someone who has become seriously ill. Your health insurance ought to be there for you when it counts – and reform will make sure it is.

With reform, insurance companies will also have to limit how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. And we will stop insurance companies from placing arbitrary caps on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime because no one in America should go broke because of illness.

There's so little for average person to oppose here that one must wonder, is this what the anger is all about? Or could it stem from the racial fears and prejudices of people who think that being on top depends on other people of a different color being on the bottom? Could it be a savage howl of rage at the thought of no longer being in power (not that they ever were)? Just wondering...

More evidence that the Bush Administration neglected national security: This article explains what many of us have been saying for years -- that climate change has profound national security implications. It's a good think that the right people are in charge:

Although military and intelligence planners have been aware of the challenges posed by climate changes for some years, the Obama administration has made it a central policy focus...

R. I. P., Willy DeVille...

See the clouds of summer...

Radical ideas concerning the nation's culture...

Gillian Welch has them old Elvis Presley Blues...

Michael Nugent

Michael Nugent parked us in yesterday.

We returned to our car after lunch to find it blocked by another car whose driver hadn’t bothered to pay his car park fee. An older gentleman informed us that he had told the driver that he hadn’t paid, whereupon the driver promised to be right back. Twenty minutes and one fruitless Gardai appeal later (“Sure, he’ll be back soon”), he still hadn’t kept his promise.

A father and son getting into a nearby car opined that we might be able to squeeze through the place they were leaving. We might have, too, but it would have been a near thing. I doubted that I could make the right turn necessary to free our car without scraping one, two, or possibly even three other innocently parked cars, all while the blue truck and trailer that barred our way got off scot-free.

We had just about decided to wait it out in a pub. I anticipated that the owner of the blue truck would return before we did, and that we would get ticketed for going over time. You know how it is. At that moment, the man driving the nearby car returned. It seems that he recognized the blue van as that of a local lawn cutter and knew in which pub said lawn cutter was likely to be found.

“Just go into S. Moran’s and ask for Michael Nugent. He’ll be there havin’ a drink.” (The “S” in S. Moran’s distinguishes that pub from just plain Moran’s, another Westport watering hole.)

So, we walked over to S. Moran’s and opened the door to a smoky bar filled with men. All conversation came to an abrupt halt.

“Is Michael Nugent here?”

Much hemming and hawing, one guess that he was off cutting grass, and an inquiry as to whether we owed him money followed.

“Because his truck has me blocked in.”

Much laughter. A man with guilt written all over his sheepish Irish mug raised a finger and mumbled that he’d go out the back door and meet us by the cars. He must have raced out there, because by the time we had gone out the front door and walked around to the park, he was well on his way.

Is this a great country or what?

See Premium T.'s version of the encounter here...

Back Roads Of North Mayo: Demesne

We know nothing about this place, despite scouring the internet for information. We came across this abandoned demesne after taking a number of random turns. It's vast (larger than most of the abbeys and castles I've seen here), appears to be Georgian, and parts of it remain in use as a horse corral. After the Irish Land Reform of the 1880's, Protestant landlords slowly but surely abandoned their Irish holdings over the course of about fifty years. It's likely that this is one of them, an estate gradually surrendered to its rightful owners until nothing remained of the original grant but the building and the land around it. The orignal grant may well have gone back to the days of Elizabeth I or Oliver Cromwell.

"...a paint stroke that describes a form also describes a gesture. That means it stands outside technological development and can never be subjected to mechanization or technology. It is always about renewing the primitive impulse to make the gesture. "

Sean Scully, "High and Low or the Sublime and the Ordinary"

Irish madness...

Hooray for the nine Republicans who voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. I wonder what the average age of the thirty white men who voted against her is. I also wonder how Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) -- the sole woman to oppose the nomination -- can look at herself in the mirror. Her vote was a slap in the face to her gender and to her Hispanic constituents...

We are one...

Back Roads of North Mayo: Downpatrick Head

Yesterday, we set out on a back roads tour of North Mayo. We stopped first at the Ballycroy National Park Visitor’s Center. Ballycroy is the newest of Ireland’s six national parks; primarily it preserves one of the largest blanket bogs in Europe as well as provides a home for the endangered red grouse. For some reason, years of traveling to Ireland have not taught me to bring a windbreaker with me no matter what the weather seems like, so the chill kept us from exploring and photographing the bog. We’ll be back.

From Ballycroy, we drove to Downpatrick Head, stopping along the way to take advantage of photo ops. The distinguishing feature of Downpatrick Head is the sea stack, a.k.a. Dun Briste (broken fort). Apparently, St Patrick won a dubious battle there with a pagan god named Crom Dubh (Doov). After failing to hurl St P into everlasting fire, Crom – who simply wanted his followers to be able to worship nature as they had since time immemorial – retreated to his fortress at the end of Downpatrick Head. In response, Patrick cleaved the land with his crozier, separating the fort from the mainland and leaving poor old Crom (and this much I can believe) to be eaten alive by a plague of midges.

After leaving the head, we worked our way through a labyrinth of roads and boreens (lanes), eventually coming across the ruins of an old demesne. More on this later. Meanwhile:

Chrysler and Me

As always, click to enlarge...

Chrysler's response to my request that they redirect advertising dollars from Glenn Beck's program:

Thank you for contacting the Chrysler Customer Assistance Center.

We appreciate the time and effort you have taken to express your concerns to us and we appreciate your feedback with regard to the Fox News program.

In response to your email, we would like to inform you that the advertising that appeared on Mr. Beck?s show was part of a media buy on national news programming that was purchased more than a week before it actually aired.

It is important to recognize there are multitudes of individuals that have different preferences in television programming. Like other companies and auto manufacturers, the brands of Chrysler Group advertise using a wide variety of programming as well as both print and web-based mediums. From trends in popular culture to feedback from both our customers and dealer network, we are constantly evaluating decisions and ideas as they may relate to where future advertising dollars will be committed. We take this approach to reach a diverse and broad audience with information about our products.

Considering these factors, we plan to continue our commitment to advertising on a diverse range of programming. We do this not with the intent to offend, but with an appreciation for diversity in consumer viewing preferences.

Chrysler Group has a long history of supporting America through the innovative products upon which so many people rely. Whether it's long-term product durability, design, utility, or the comfort, convenience and security that is synonymous with our minivans, we are proud of our heritage. As we look forward to the future, we know that

Americans will continue to look to us to provide them with both safe and reliable vehicles to meet their transportation needs.

Thanks again for your email. Your opinion is very important and your dissatisfaction has been noted.

I wrote back:

As a former media buyer, I appreciate the necessity of being politically neutral when purchasing time spots. My quarrel is not with Chrysler purchasing time on Fox; indeed, I simply requested that you redirect future TV advertising slated for Mr. Beck's program to other Fox News programming. Fox has no shortage of conservative commentators who have not called President Obama a racist while they criticize his policies.

I continue to believe characterization of the president as a racist is over the line and should not be supported by Chrysler, a company that has in the past demonstrated social responsibility in many ways. That being said, I renew my request for Chrysler to redirect future advertising dollars away from Mr. Beck to other Fox News programming at least until such time as Mr. Beck offers a sincere apology for his remarks.

Thanks for your consideration,

In fairness to Chrylser, I must add that they wrote the only remotely pertinent response to my request...

I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna cross that river, I'm gonna catch tomorrow now...

Break Day In The Trenches

The British poets of World War I have held my interest since I read Paul Fussell's magisterial The Great War And Modern Memory. Fussell thought "Break Day In The Trenches", Isaac Rosenberg's unsentimental account of a war-scarred soldier finding a moment of serenity in a poppy bud, the best poem of the war.

In just 26 lines, Rosenberg develops the rat and the poppy as competing symbols of fragile life and sudden, violent death. The rat starts as a sardonic reminder that death is unpatriotic and doesn't care which side one fights on to becoming a grim agent of death itself. Once Rosenberg establishes the indifference of the rat, the poem applies to soldiers on either side of No Man's and.

Meanwhile, the poppy -- which held great symbolic importance to the poets of the Great War -- makes its appearance as a reminder of civilized decency contrasted to life in the trenches. But, like the rat, the import of the poppy changes: By the end of the poem it has become one with the fallen and a symbol of the fragility of all that is good about life, be it hope, sanity, or existence itself. Rosenberg drives home the point with the epiphanic final image: A soldier tucks a poppy behind his ear and awaits the rat of death and the dust to which we all return. But for one instant, break day, perhaps one soldier can shield one poppy against "the whims of murder," "the shrieking iron and flame" and speak up for life.

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old Druid time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy 5
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German 10
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life, 15
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame 20
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver -- what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping:
But mine in my ear is safe -- 25
Just a little white with the dust.

Isaac Rosenberg was killed in action at the Somme on the morning of April 1, 1918, returning from night patrol...

Note: An illustrated edition of The Great War And Modern Memory is scheduled for November...

Outlaw mother's milk, says drug czar...