The sands spill through the hourglass, the wheel turns, the cosmic dance continues, and I've got a new blog.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Suddenly Shannon
The Aer Lingus controversy is still at trauma stage, but with the government's refusal to even claim to be doing anything about it (most ministers are out on vacation and refuse to come back), the issue seems to be a moot point already.
Ryan Air announced this week plans to set up three daily flights from Shannon to Heathrow if indeed Aer Lingus does pack up and leave. This doesn't mean, however, that the invisible hand of the market has triumphed once again. Shannon wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if Aer Lingus hadn't been privatized, or if the government, still with a quarter of the company within its fist, forced a meeting of shareholders to discuss the matter. Nearly ninety percent of the public disapprove of Aer Lingus's pullout. See, the beauty of public institutions is that when the person in charge makes a decision that ninety percent of the populace abhor, that person tends to go away pretty quickly. Instead, CEO Dermot Mannion will simply suffer a vague sense of public disapproval, while internally he will be applauded for his initiative.
I've always found the idea that completely unfettered capitalism is the ultimate solution to society's ills an idiotic one - you can look no further than Shannon Airport for the proof. Or, better yet, your child's bedroom: Mattel has brilliantly cornered the market in cheap, brittle toys covered in lead paint made by our Chinese comrades, but due to the bellyaching of some meddling bureaucrats, has been forced to recall the products in an entirely wasteful move. I mean, really, has the government no business sense at all? If free-marketers had their way, there wouldn't even be a recall: that's when "social Darwinism" kicks in and the weak are culled from the herd. Until, of course, the company collapses and it comes begging for the government to throw them a line.
The problem is not potentially forcing Aer Lingus to artificially keep alive a dying trade route: by any standard, Shannon is an asset. The problem is Aer Lingus is leaving a whole region of the country holding the bag for profit alone. Shannon's media moment is dimming fast, so they must act quickly. Big Bertie and his boys are not sentimentalists, and they're not gonna stand up for anything that doesn't look like a winner. Local TDs are going to be powerless to stop Aer Lingus, despite their bluster. Hell, the folks in Galway have been living with contaminated drinking water for months with a "We'll get around to it" reply from Leinster House because the issue is local and mundane - local councillors might as well be talking to an 8" x 10" glossy of Bertie than to the real thing. Big B's Ministers, however, wield a lot of influence on their own, and a loud enough complaint from one of them, or even a threat of resignation, might open a door for Shannon that was previously shut closed.
It might seem unreasonable to demand the national government step in on such a specific issue, especially for an American, where the federal level is so sprawling and immense that it's impossible to speak in anything but generalities. It comes down to how government is implemented here. It's been said (I forget by whom) that the government of Ireland, rather than being just one big central body, is actually just a collection of local bodies - the regions certainly are distinct, and to lump a person from Dublin in with a person from Waterford or Donegal would be a mistake. For every Irish person, there are 75 Americans; for the US's* increasingly unitary style government (don't deny it), Ireland is a somewhat loose amalgamation that only becomes totally unified when set against something else...
...Something like a handful of businessmen trying to abscond with a ton of cash that should really be spread well around. The stumbling block is that this government must be made to care, or at least convinced it can get something out of all this. The issue comes off as a political loser, a situation that would be difficult to change and would draw the ire of a potential backer. It seems much more expedient to draw attention to the recent big deals between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, in which the move from Shannon to Belfast is included. Northern Ireland's new government (featuring the bizarre union of former IRA man Martin McGuinness and the genuinely frightening loyalist Ian Paisley) is a surprising success story, and so to be seen as part of that is better than as part of Shannon's hard times.
It invokes an uncomfortable question, however: is Northern Ireland "part" of Ireland? Should the people down South be paying for the roads up North, or giving away its trade routes? Is this just another case of Ireland selling itself off piece-by-piece until eventually there will be nothing left? Ahern and the boys have gone out their way to convince Paisley that these exchanges between the North and South are not overtures to ending the partition (which to Paisley would literally mean the Apocalypse had arrived**), which is believable enough, but what's the game, then? Is it just about money?
Probably.
* It still feels weird saying "the States."
** The story goes that on the occasion of the first meeting between Bertie and the newly-crowned First Minister Paisley, the latter asked for boiled eggs for breakfast. When Bertie asked why, Paisley replied, "It would be hard for you to poison them."
Ryan Air announced this week plans to set up three daily flights from Shannon to Heathrow if indeed Aer Lingus does pack up and leave. This doesn't mean, however, that the invisible hand of the market has triumphed once again. Shannon wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if Aer Lingus hadn't been privatized, or if the government, still with a quarter of the company within its fist, forced a meeting of shareholders to discuss the matter. Nearly ninety percent of the public disapprove of Aer Lingus's pullout. See, the beauty of public institutions is that when the person in charge makes a decision that ninety percent of the populace abhor, that person tends to go away pretty quickly. Instead, CEO Dermot Mannion will simply suffer a vague sense of public disapproval, while internally he will be applauded for his initiative.
I've always found the idea that completely unfettered capitalism is the ultimate solution to society's ills an idiotic one - you can look no further than Shannon Airport for the proof. Or, better yet, your child's bedroom: Mattel has brilliantly cornered the market in cheap, brittle toys covered in lead paint made by our Chinese comrades, but due to the bellyaching of some meddling bureaucrats, has been forced to recall the products in an entirely wasteful move. I mean, really, has the government no business sense at all? If free-marketers had their way, there wouldn't even be a recall: that's when "social Darwinism" kicks in and the weak are culled from the herd. Until, of course, the company collapses and it comes begging for the government to throw them a line.
The problem is not potentially forcing Aer Lingus to artificially keep alive a dying trade route: by any standard, Shannon is an asset. The problem is Aer Lingus is leaving a whole region of the country holding the bag for profit alone. Shannon's media moment is dimming fast, so they must act quickly. Big Bertie and his boys are not sentimentalists, and they're not gonna stand up for anything that doesn't look like a winner. Local TDs are going to be powerless to stop Aer Lingus, despite their bluster. Hell, the folks in Galway have been living with contaminated drinking water for months with a "We'll get around to it" reply from Leinster House because the issue is local and mundane - local councillors might as well be talking to an 8" x 10" glossy of Bertie than to the real thing. Big B's Ministers, however, wield a lot of influence on their own, and a loud enough complaint from one of them, or even a threat of resignation, might open a door for Shannon that was previously shut closed.
It might seem unreasonable to demand the national government step in on such a specific issue, especially for an American, where the federal level is so sprawling and immense that it's impossible to speak in anything but generalities. It comes down to how government is implemented here. It's been said (I forget by whom) that the government of Ireland, rather than being just one big central body, is actually just a collection of local bodies - the regions certainly are distinct, and to lump a person from Dublin in with a person from Waterford or Donegal would be a mistake. For every Irish person, there are 75 Americans; for the US's* increasingly unitary style government (don't deny it), Ireland is a somewhat loose amalgamation that only becomes totally unified when set against something else...
...Something like a handful of businessmen trying to abscond with a ton of cash that should really be spread well around. The stumbling block is that this government must be made to care, or at least convinced it can get something out of all this. The issue comes off as a political loser, a situation that would be difficult to change and would draw the ire of a potential backer. It seems much more expedient to draw attention to the recent big deals between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, in which the move from Shannon to Belfast is included. Northern Ireland's new government (featuring the bizarre union of former IRA man Martin McGuinness and the genuinely frightening loyalist Ian Paisley) is a surprising success story, and so to be seen as part of that is better than as part of Shannon's hard times.
It invokes an uncomfortable question, however: is Northern Ireland "part" of Ireland? Should the people down South be paying for the roads up North, or giving away its trade routes? Is this just another case of Ireland selling itself off piece-by-piece until eventually there will be nothing left? Ahern and the boys have gone out their way to convince Paisley that these exchanges between the North and South are not overtures to ending the partition (which to Paisley would literally mean the Apocalypse had arrived**), which is believable enough, but what's the game, then? Is it just about money?
Probably.
* It still feels weird saying "the States."
** The story goes that on the occasion of the first meeting between Bertie and the newly-crowned First Minister Paisley, the latter asked for boiled eggs for breakfast. When Bertie asked why, Paisley replied, "It would be hard for you to poison them."
Friday, August 10, 2007
For the Love of Money
The Irish airline Aer Lingus is one of the big economic movers and shakers in Ireland. Being an... island, Ireland is heavily dependent on its airlines for commerce. So it was with some shock that Aer Lingus announced a few days ago that they'd be ending their link from Shannon Airport in the west to London Heathrow, a major thoroughfare for tourism and commerce in Ireland. The airline plans to relocate that link to Belfast by the end of the year. The move isn't due to any hardship or lack of viability for the Shannon route, but simply because Aer Lingus sees more profit coming in from a link with Belfast instead. Sure, the move would be a bit more expected if the economy were heading south, but it's not, not even close. This isn't Flint, Michigan in the 80s. This is Celtic Tiger Ireland - even if it's late in the boom, the economy is by no means in mortal danger.
Aer Lingus, as late as two years ago, was for all intents and purposes a national airline - 85% of it owned by the Irish government. The airline was only privatised within the past year. That means that within the space of just two years, Aer Lingus has gone from obligated, as an extension of the government, to provide a service to the Irish community at large, to a private business that is entitled to do whatever it wants, and tough luck to the poor bastards that get caught underneath. Aer Lingus suddenly has not only the right to abandon the entire west of Ireland, but the imperative to do so, if to stay would endanger its shareholders' profit margin. Suddenly a decision which would be morally bankrupt in any other context becomes a shrewd business move.
The government's total apathy on the subject, excepting a few low-ranking TDs, is worrying, if typical. It proves that Bertie Ahern's government is simply uninterested in matters of the community. The government still owns 28% of Aer Lingus, and besides, would seem to have a vested interest in not allowing an entire region of the country to take an economic body blow. Besides, Bertie & Co.'s total disinterest is an endorsement of the great big 'ME' mentality that in Ireland has metastasized from business practice to society in general: after the initial sense of shock wears off, most people will passively accept Aer Lingus's pullout as the inevitable result of the invisible hand of free market capitalism, which after all has been so beneficent to Ireland so far. Those who continue with their outrage will be branded as immoderate (like the Tara protesters), and anyone who isn't directly affected will simply work around the change.
If there's any light in all this, it's in the general negative reaction to the decision (though it will never be loud enough to reverse it) - the pullout is definitely seen as unusual. Of course, reading the newspapers all day for months has taught me how easily the public's sense of outrage can be triggered, and how quickly it disappears if not fed constantly. The great big ME mentality is a bit more problematic. It's relatively harmless when the economy is doing well and society is at ease (if profoundly irritating nonetheless). When the economy does eventually go south, however, one can expect much more behavior like Aer Lingus has displayed. It seems obvious to me that Ireland will soon wish it had never heard the word "outsourcing". A lack of unity also makes any hardship that much more difficult, and not just in the holistic sense, either: collective action gets better results than a bunch of individuals asking for government handouts, and a conscious community does as much to prevent crime from developing as it does to fight it.
But it's impossible to build a sense of community when every public service is privatized. This privatization fetish of governments seems to follow me around wherever I go. Here are some examples, in the rough chronological order in which I encountered them:
Aer Lingus, as late as two years ago, was for all intents and purposes a national airline - 85% of it owned by the Irish government. The airline was only privatised within the past year. That means that within the space of just two years, Aer Lingus has gone from obligated, as an extension of the government, to provide a service to the Irish community at large, to a private business that is entitled to do whatever it wants, and tough luck to the poor bastards that get caught underneath. Aer Lingus suddenly has not only the right to abandon the entire west of Ireland, but the imperative to do so, if to stay would endanger its shareholders' profit margin. Suddenly a decision which would be morally bankrupt in any other context becomes a shrewd business move.
The government's total apathy on the subject, excepting a few low-ranking TDs, is worrying, if typical. It proves that Bertie Ahern's government is simply uninterested in matters of the community. The government still owns 28% of Aer Lingus, and besides, would seem to have a vested interest in not allowing an entire region of the country to take an economic body blow. Besides, Bertie & Co.'s total disinterest is an endorsement of the great big 'ME' mentality that in Ireland has metastasized from business practice to society in general: after the initial sense of shock wears off, most people will passively accept Aer Lingus's pullout as the inevitable result of the invisible hand of free market capitalism, which after all has been so beneficent to Ireland so far. Those who continue with their outrage will be branded as immoderate (like the Tara protesters), and anyone who isn't directly affected will simply work around the change.
If there's any light in all this, it's in the general negative reaction to the decision (though it will never be loud enough to reverse it) - the pullout is definitely seen as unusual. Of course, reading the newspapers all day for months has taught me how easily the public's sense of outrage can be triggered, and how quickly it disappears if not fed constantly. The great big ME mentality is a bit more problematic. It's relatively harmless when the economy is doing well and society is at ease (if profoundly irritating nonetheless). When the economy does eventually go south, however, one can expect much more behavior like Aer Lingus has displayed. It seems obvious to me that Ireland will soon wish it had never heard the word "outsourcing". A lack of unity also makes any hardship that much more difficult, and not just in the holistic sense, either: collective action gets better results than a bunch of individuals asking for government handouts, and a conscious community does as much to prevent crime from developing as it does to fight it.
But it's impossible to build a sense of community when every public service is privatized. This privatization fetish of governments seems to follow me around wherever I go. Here are some examples, in the rough chronological order in which I encountered them:
- school cafeteria lunches (same quality of food, flashier menus)
- school voucher programs (educational triage)
- Philadelphia city schools (which are still abysmally poor)
- voting machines (totally unaccountable and a genuine threat to democracy)
- Social Security (betting an entire generation's pension on a horse)
- health care (pay $150 for a pill that's illegal to buy for 5 cents in Canada)
- the Pennsylvania Turnpike (Governor Ed Rendell intends to simply fire and replace the state's toll workers instead of putting up with their threats to strike)
- Aer Lingus (which saw it unprofitable to provide direct flights to Philadelphia, but still flies there for connecting flights, for some reason)
- the Luas (the only really successful privately owned public service I think I've seen - yet it's very expensive, all while its owners turn a €5 million profit a year)
And on like that. The common thread, of course, is a group of greedy businesspeople who charge much more money for a completely unaccountable service that is never any better than the state's. A service used by everyone - a toll road, an airline, a school - should not be in the hands of people who are not elected and who are not in the public trust. In the States, at least, we had something called the New Deal which taught us all about that. It's a shame that lesson is becoming increasingly forgotten.
If it's possible to generalize further, the whole Aer Lingus affair just seems to be another example of a corporation walking all over the people that work for and buy from them, simply a fact of life by the early 21st century. Perhaps that's where all these ills come from in the first place: in the absence of any hope of bettering one's surroundings, people turn inward and demand personal satisfaction, if nothing else. It's what produces a culture of willful ignorance. It's what turns people off to issues like climate change and poverty. It's what breeds the sadistic and violent behavior that plagues Ireland, not born out of desperation, but out of real unconcern for anyone other than oneself.
But really, don't get me started.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Blag On
There's a foible, a part of life here. I call it the Bounce. Don't consider this comment as badmouthing Irish culture, but it's an important part of the Story of Miles, the Ireland chapter.
In Ireland, whenever you need something done that will involve dealing with a government bureaucrat on the lower tiers, or you need a special request from office workers, or you're calling an information line, or basically doing anything that requires dealing with someone who does not know you and yet must be convinced to work for you, you will encounter the Bounce.
The problem is that people in Ireland are extremely averse to doing anything for people they don't know directly (though they'll lay down in traffic for you once you're both acquainted). So in a bureaucratic situation, it means an endless uphill battle to get anything done: if you ask the bureaucrat to do such-and-such, he will come right back, in a bored and slightly annoyed tone, that you're at the wrong department and you need to speak to someone else. Bounced.
Now, if you follow on the same path, the clerk to whom you've been sent will just send you back to the first clerk. You can do it forever and never get anywhere.
The worst is the encounter with a person who has taken a liking to the marginal sliver of power he holds over others, and so does his job solely on the basis of whether he feels like it or not. He's your classic Gatekeeper, and though thankfully he's rare, he will show up in the worst places, guaranteed.
Usually, when someone says "No" in Ireland, it really means "Butter me up a bit." This could be done as simply as chatting with them for five minutes. It's called "blagging" your way in, implying that you're trying to charm someone, possibly lying to do so. You usually try to "blag" your way into a club or exclusive area, and if you're good, it can get you in nearly anywhere. It will have no effect on the Gatekeeper, however - nothing will move him. He delights in your misery, and he will never, ever help you, so you must give up entirely, or find your way around him. You can either go up the chain of command (risky, as the boss is more likely to side with his or her employee), or wait until they change shifts and hope you get a different person, one who is more willing to help.
I've encountered the Bounce almost every step of the way, and though it gets tiresome, I'm getting better and better at avoiding it, or dealing with it successfully. This past year, if I can extrapolate again, has been just as much about learning how to live as it has been living itself. It's a valuable tool, learning how to twist people's arms. I'm not a big charmer yet, but with more practice I'll be so slippery that I might as well have bathed in Crisco.
In Ireland, whenever you need something done that will involve dealing with a government bureaucrat on the lower tiers, or you need a special request from office workers, or you're calling an information line, or basically doing anything that requires dealing with someone who does not know you and yet must be convinced to work for you, you will encounter the Bounce.
The problem is that people in Ireland are extremely averse to doing anything for people they don't know directly (though they'll lay down in traffic for you once you're both acquainted). So in a bureaucratic situation, it means an endless uphill battle to get anything done: if you ask the bureaucrat to do such-and-such, he will come right back, in a bored and slightly annoyed tone, that you're at the wrong department and you need to speak to someone else. Bounced.
Now, if you follow on the same path, the clerk to whom you've been sent will just send you back to the first clerk. You can do it forever and never get anywhere.
The worst is the encounter with a person who has taken a liking to the marginal sliver of power he holds over others, and so does his job solely on the basis of whether he feels like it or not. He's your classic Gatekeeper, and though thankfully he's rare, he will show up in the worst places, guaranteed.
Usually, when someone says "No" in Ireland, it really means "Butter me up a bit." This could be done as simply as chatting with them for five minutes. It's called "blagging" your way in, implying that you're trying to charm someone, possibly lying to do so. You usually try to "blag" your way into a club or exclusive area, and if you're good, it can get you in nearly anywhere. It will have no effect on the Gatekeeper, however - nothing will move him. He delights in your misery, and he will never, ever help you, so you must give up entirely, or find your way around him. You can either go up the chain of command (risky, as the boss is more likely to side with his or her employee), or wait until they change shifts and hope you get a different person, one who is more willing to help.
I've encountered the Bounce almost every step of the way, and though it gets tiresome, I'm getting better and better at avoiding it, or dealing with it successfully. This past year, if I can extrapolate again, has been just as much about learning how to live as it has been living itself. It's a valuable tool, learning how to twist people's arms. I'm not a big charmer yet, but with more practice I'll be so slippery that I might as well have bathed in Crisco.
Lip Services
Civil rights for gays and lesbians is an issue lingering in the background at the moment in Ireland - both the matters of civil unions/gay marriage and of adoption. Back in 2002 Bertie Ahern promised civil unions for gays and lesbians, clenched fist banging the podium, though it never happened, and this last election saw hide nor hair of the issue - I guess the gay community will just have to wait until the Teflon Taoiseach decides to give up his iron grip of power before they can expect anything.
Anyways. University College Dublin's Literary and Historical Society recently made headlines by inviting Pastor Fred Phelps to speak at their campus on the subject of gay adoption. Phelps is the contemptible slime that protests at U.S. soldiers' funerals with signs saying "Thank God for 9/11" and "AIDS cures fags", and is more or less universally hated for his own special brand of irrational homophobia, persistently thrown in everyone's face. Phelps loudly turned down UCD's offer, however, believing the invitation to be a veiled attempt to lure him onto Irish soil, where he speculates he will be arrested for hate speech. He has since denounced UCD and referred to Ireland as the "land of the Sodomite" on a website designed specifically to address this sensitive issue.
The whole affair, from UCD's dimwitted invitation to Phelp's embarrassing reaction, isn't surprising, however, considering that UCD must be taking moves from the same playbook as Trinity: invite horrible, degraded, yet infamous figures to speak at your college in order to stir controversy or to claim a sort of boldness or willingness to take on the real issues, political correctness be damned. I spoke briefly before about Trinity's penchant for giving hatemongers and sociopaths a legitimate forum, but it's clear the virus has spread to UCD as well. Sure it's provocative, but clearly in a bad way: it lends legitimacy to total buffoons like Bill O'Reilly and scary fringe zealots like Fred Phelps for them to be seen at a preeminent Irish university, upon specific invitation no less. The goal isn't to discuss any pertinent issue; it's to rile people, like a little child kicking the seat in front of him to provoke a response. I can respect the right of anyone to say whatever vile thought runs through their heads, but UCD and Trinity's societies should know better than to manufacture controversy this way - these groups, the Literary and Historical Society at UCD and the Philosophical and Historical societies at Trinity are the largest and most influential of the societies, the places where the people who will be running Ireland in 20 years hang around, and these kinds of cheap attempts to get a rise out of the general populace is, frankly, beneath them. Simply puerile.
Anyways. University College Dublin's Literary and Historical Society recently made headlines by inviting Pastor Fred Phelps to speak at their campus on the subject of gay adoption. Phelps is the contemptible slime that protests at U.S. soldiers' funerals with signs saying "Thank God for 9/11" and "AIDS cures fags", and is more or less universally hated for his own special brand of irrational homophobia, persistently thrown in everyone's face. Phelps loudly turned down UCD's offer, however, believing the invitation to be a veiled attempt to lure him onto Irish soil, where he speculates he will be arrested for hate speech. He has since denounced UCD and referred to Ireland as the "land of the Sodomite" on a website designed specifically to address this sensitive issue.
The whole affair, from UCD's dimwitted invitation to Phelp's embarrassing reaction, isn't surprising, however, considering that UCD must be taking moves from the same playbook as Trinity: invite horrible, degraded, yet infamous figures to speak at your college in order to stir controversy or to claim a sort of boldness or willingness to take on the real issues, political correctness be damned. I spoke briefly before about Trinity's penchant for giving hatemongers and sociopaths a legitimate forum, but it's clear the virus has spread to UCD as well. Sure it's provocative, but clearly in a bad way: it lends legitimacy to total buffoons like Bill O'Reilly and scary fringe zealots like Fred Phelps for them to be seen at a preeminent Irish university, upon specific invitation no less. The goal isn't to discuss any pertinent issue; it's to rile people, like a little child kicking the seat in front of him to provoke a response. I can respect the right of anyone to say whatever vile thought runs through their heads, but UCD and Trinity's societies should know better than to manufacture controversy this way - these groups, the Literary and Historical Society at UCD and the Philosophical and Historical societies at Trinity are the largest and most influential of the societies, the places where the people who will be running Ireland in 20 years hang around, and these kinds of cheap attempts to get a rise out of the general populace is, frankly, beneath them. Simply puerile.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Eternal Recurrence
I'll admit I've been purposefully neglectful of writing for a bit now, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I've felt like I've reached a plateau for now: it's summer job time, so my activities are limited to working, eating, and sleeping, and occasionally going out (against my better judgment, because I should be sleeping). For now, I am set into a routine, which is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to keeping a job. And I've covered that before. Secondly, I've developed this feeling that my opinions aren't totally relevant—on politics or the foibles of Irish culture. I suppose it makes me feel like I'm trying too hard to fit in. I can either write about what's happening to me or what I think about it, but in the absence of anything new, dedicating an entire journal to those opinions doesn't really feel right.
So I will speak of this: thinking back to my life before coming to Ireland produces this sense of unreality for me, like it all happened to someone else. It's very disorienting. This year seems like it was lived by another person as well, but in a different way, like somehow if I were asked to prove that I did these things, I'd be unable to convince anyone, beyond giving descriptions of the several phenomenons that evoke the greatest feelings for me: of waking up completely alone in my dorm room, wrapped up in my blankets; or watching the skyline through my kitchen window; or riding back from the beach at Portmarnock with the taxi windows down; or the satisfaction of really doing things for myself, even if I'm here on the behest and backing of my family; or organizing a trip and finally stacking the complete reservations and flight bookings and bus schedules together; or learning how to play the system; or forgetting for long periods of time that I'm really in a different place and thinking: is it a 'different' place anymore when you don't treat it as different?
So I will speak of this: thinking back to my life before coming to Ireland produces this sense of unreality for me, like it all happened to someone else. It's very disorienting. This year seems like it was lived by another person as well, but in a different way, like somehow if I were asked to prove that I did these things, I'd be unable to convince anyone, beyond giving descriptions of the several phenomenons that evoke the greatest feelings for me: of waking up completely alone in my dorm room, wrapped up in my blankets; or watching the skyline through my kitchen window; or riding back from the beach at Portmarnock with the taxi windows down; or the satisfaction of really doing things for myself, even if I'm here on the behest and backing of my family; or organizing a trip and finally stacking the complete reservations and flight bookings and bus schedules together; or learning how to play the system; or forgetting for long periods of time that I'm really in a different place and thinking: is it a 'different' place anymore when you don't treat it as different?
Monday, July 09, 2007
Artful Dodger
"The formation of the new government is quite simply a work of art."
What is it with people kissing Bertie Ahern's ass every chance they get?
What is it with people kissing Bertie Ahern's ass every chance they get?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Cork, Like
For nearly the entire year I've been meaning to go to Cork. Nearly all of my Dublin friends are originally from Cork or identify with it strongly (I know one or two people from Galway, and virtually no one who actually grew up in Dublin, strangley enough). Every time Kelly or Dave from Queen Kong was planning a trip down, however, somehow it would fall apart at the last minute. So all year I've been hearing stories about Cork and its bizarre cast of characters—famous town whores, former politicians now living derelict on the streets, one-man militias and past best friends who've turned dangerously insane—stories tantalizing enough to stir my desire to see this place but also outlandish enough for me to picture it as a living cartoon, just a few hours from Dublin.
I was in Cork on my original visit to Ireland two years ago, just for a few days, not nearly enough time to get a real sense of the place. That would take years and years, and I don't pretend that my totally unfocused, wandering sightseeing two years ago or my overnight stay just now are definitive looks at the city.
Cork has a fierce reputation in Ireland, moreso than, say, what is illustrated by Limerick's nickname of "Stab City." For all intents and purposes it's Ireland's second city (the Republic, anyways), though its people aren't too pleased when they're compared to Dubliners. Cork county is known as the "Rebel County" (not because it notably resisted the British or its position as the anti-Treaty stronghold during the Civil War, but because it has consistently taken the stance opposing the rest of Ireland). Cork city is known as the "True Capital" and the "People's Republic" (inspired by the solid red uniforms their sports teams wear). There is a definite Cork accent, which is nearly unintelligible to me, though I think I'm getting better. It is very much its own place, and a lower of opinion of places outside of Cork, especially Dublin, is prevalent: Dubliners are pejoratively called "Jackeens", referring to Dublin citizens' waving little Union Jack flags upon Queen Victoria's visit to Ireland in 1900. The "-een" suffix comes from the Irish for "little". It's actually a fascinating slang term, as Irish slang often is, because of its layers of meaning.
So finally, after so many false starts, Simon told me of a gig going on down there this last Wednesday night, so I got a ticket, and we went. The bus ride was four hours, the same as to Galway, and relatively painless—it doesn't feel like four hours for some reason. Stick me on a plane for the same amount of time, though, and it'll feel to me like an endless torture.
Towards the end of the ride, Simon pulled out a bottle of the most evil drink in Ireland or the UK: Buckfast. Buckfast is a "tonic wine", 15% alcohol by volume, made by monks in an abbey in Devon. It tastes like grape-flavored paint and it's a favorite of students and the homeless, because it's cheap and it gets you drunk quick. Simon, the classy bastard that he is, loves the stuff, and we passed the bottle back and forth as we approached Cork.
Luckily for me, I have a good residual memory and even though I didn't know exactly where we were when we got off the bus, I had an instant sense of my bearings from my stay two years ago, a ghostly sense of directions maybe. I guess it helps that Cork isn't very big, too.
We met up with Simon's friends Ciaron and Hazel and had a few pints before the show. The show itself was in a sort of sophisticated circus tent, with electricity and a bar and booths surrounding the center stage. The band was Wiggle, which is, frankly, one of the dumbest band names I've ever heard, but the music was enjoyable, sort of spacey reggae stuff. Plenty of hippies in the crowd. That sort of thing.
After the gig we four hit a place called An Bróg ("The Shoe"), which Simon and Ciaron referred to as a "teenage disco" and was about as sloppy and drunken and loud a place as one could hope to find. Hazel disappeared and Simon and Ciaron got to chuming with their Cork friends—it seemed like everyone knew everyone else, regardless fo race or creed or nose piercings or stillettos. Strange for me, being the visitor, and for me to see this level of familiarity in a place I usually see as a launching pad for anonymous hook-ups and easily-provoked bar fights.
The Bróg let out and its patrons simply stood in the street out front, chatting and running into friends and wrestling and slamming others up against the metal grate of a closed shop until the security alarm went off. Some guys with bongos attracted a large crowd, many of whom attempted to dance.
If I can make a digression for a moment, I'd like to say that it is impossible for the Irish to dance. They cannot do it. The best anyone can usually achieve is a sort of arhythmic version of the Running Man, or a long, loping sway (sometimes arms above the head, sometimes not), or else just a combination of jutting the head out at irregular beats and occasionally lifting the feet from the floor. My own dancing amazes them. I'm nothing special back home when it comes to dancing, but over here I am a god. I receive looks of awe and generous praise from friends and strangers alike, which usually prompts me to spin around and do that bang-bang hand gun thing at them, just to completely blow their minds.
The crowd slowly dispersed and Simon bought some kebab from a shop where, outside, a still-uniformed-and-aproned employee was kicking the shit out of a guy lying prone on the ground. That was quickly broken up and a little later attracted the attention of the garda.
Simon and I walked for a while to the house of another friend, Ricky, who was having people over for an unrelated house party. At last, the night wore down and I fell asleep on a love seat that forced me to sleep as if I had been stuffed into a crate. I awoke about every hour because someone's laptop was blaring music and I didn't have the energy to turn it off. At one point it played almost every Cake song, which wasn't so bad—their album Fashion Nugget is one of the few cassettes that I own, and is a staple on long car trips back home.
We woke around one o'clock, gathered our things and left. In town we stopped at a café with a few other Coke people and tried to recover some more. At 2:30 we got some Subway, stopped in to see Ciaron at work in a CD shop (and inadvertently ran into Simon's mother), then boarded the bus back home.
All in all, with the stories I've heard beforehand, it was about what I was expecting from Cork. It's a shame I didn't have any time for sightseeing, ro for meeting more people, but there's still time left, and I've taken the initial plunge, so hopefully it's in the cards.
I was in Cork on my original visit to Ireland two years ago, just for a few days, not nearly enough time to get a real sense of the place. That would take years and years, and I don't pretend that my totally unfocused, wandering sightseeing two years ago or my overnight stay just now are definitive looks at the city.
Cork has a fierce reputation in Ireland, moreso than, say, what is illustrated by Limerick's nickname of "Stab City." For all intents and purposes it's Ireland's second city (the Republic, anyways), though its people aren't too pleased when they're compared to Dubliners. Cork county is known as the "Rebel County" (not because it notably resisted the British or its position as the anti-Treaty stronghold during the Civil War, but because it has consistently taken the stance opposing the rest of Ireland). Cork city is known as the "True Capital" and the "People's Republic" (inspired by the solid red uniforms their sports teams wear). There is a definite Cork accent, which is nearly unintelligible to me, though I think I'm getting better. It is very much its own place, and a lower of opinion of places outside of Cork, especially Dublin, is prevalent: Dubliners are pejoratively called "Jackeens", referring to Dublin citizens' waving little Union Jack flags upon Queen Victoria's visit to Ireland in 1900. The "-een" suffix comes from the Irish for "little". It's actually a fascinating slang term, as Irish slang often is, because of its layers of meaning.
So finally, after so many false starts, Simon told me of a gig going on down there this last Wednesday night, so I got a ticket, and we went. The bus ride was four hours, the same as to Galway, and relatively painless—it doesn't feel like four hours for some reason. Stick me on a plane for the same amount of time, though, and it'll feel to me like an endless torture.
Towards the end of the ride, Simon pulled out a bottle of the most evil drink in Ireland or the UK: Buckfast. Buckfast is a "tonic wine", 15% alcohol by volume, made by monks in an abbey in Devon. It tastes like grape-flavored paint and it's a favorite of students and the homeless, because it's cheap and it gets you drunk quick. Simon, the classy bastard that he is, loves the stuff, and we passed the bottle back and forth as we approached Cork.
Luckily for me, I have a good residual memory and even though I didn't know exactly where we were when we got off the bus, I had an instant sense of my bearings from my stay two years ago, a ghostly sense of directions maybe. I guess it helps that Cork isn't very big, too.
We met up with Simon's friends Ciaron and Hazel and had a few pints before the show. The show itself was in a sort of sophisticated circus tent, with electricity and a bar and booths surrounding the center stage. The band was Wiggle, which is, frankly, one of the dumbest band names I've ever heard, but the music was enjoyable, sort of spacey reggae stuff. Plenty of hippies in the crowd. That sort of thing.
After the gig we four hit a place called An Bróg ("The Shoe"), which Simon and Ciaron referred to as a "teenage disco" and was about as sloppy and drunken and loud a place as one could hope to find. Hazel disappeared and Simon and Ciaron got to chuming with their Cork friends—it seemed like everyone knew everyone else, regardless fo race or creed or nose piercings or stillettos. Strange for me, being the visitor, and for me to see this level of familiarity in a place I usually see as a launching pad for anonymous hook-ups and easily-provoked bar fights.
The Bróg let out and its patrons simply stood in the street out front, chatting and running into friends and wrestling and slamming others up against the metal grate of a closed shop until the security alarm went off. Some guys with bongos attracted a large crowd, many of whom attempted to dance.
If I can make a digression for a moment, I'd like to say that it is impossible for the Irish to dance. They cannot do it. The best anyone can usually achieve is a sort of arhythmic version of the Running Man, or a long, loping sway (sometimes arms above the head, sometimes not), or else just a combination of jutting the head out at irregular beats and occasionally lifting the feet from the floor. My own dancing amazes them. I'm nothing special back home when it comes to dancing, but over here I am a god. I receive looks of awe and generous praise from friends and strangers alike, which usually prompts me to spin around and do that bang-bang hand gun thing at them, just to completely blow their minds.
The crowd slowly dispersed and Simon bought some kebab from a shop where, outside, a still-uniformed-and-aproned employee was kicking the shit out of a guy lying prone on the ground. That was quickly broken up and a little later attracted the attention of the garda.
Simon and I walked for a while to the house of another friend, Ricky, who was having people over for an unrelated house party. At last, the night wore down and I fell asleep on a love seat that forced me to sleep as if I had been stuffed into a crate. I awoke about every hour because someone's laptop was blaring music and I didn't have the energy to turn it off. At one point it played almost every Cake song, which wasn't so bad—their album Fashion Nugget is one of the few cassettes that I own, and is a staple on long car trips back home.
We woke around one o'clock, gathered our things and left. In town we stopped at a café with a few other Coke people and tried to recover some more. At 2:30 we got some Subway, stopped in to see Ciaron at work in a CD shop (and inadvertently ran into Simon's mother), then boarded the bus back home.
All in all, with the stories I've heard beforehand, it was about what I was expecting from Cork. It's a shame I didn't have any time for sightseeing, ro for meeting more people, but there's still time left, and I've taken the initial plunge, so hopefully it's in the cards.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
But What About Me
Going back and reading some entries is already painful for me, because they're written so pretentiously! Read them! Who wrote that, a fourteen-year-old? I know this is my specific forum just for me, but I do come off as self-absorbed. What follows is more of the same.
I feel like it's time to leave Dublin, but I'm also scared of what awaits me when I return home and then move on to New York soon afterwards. So it's difficult to tell how much the feeling of apprehension is born of the reluctance to leave my friends and way of life that I have here, and how much it's simply a reaction to the difficult times that are coming up.
I look back to my first week here, completely in a daze in a hotel room on Baggot Street, and I see a scared little boy, and I take a lot of pity on him, since I feel so much more competent now than before. Still, it's not quite enough, I don't feel that much different now, like I'm still not a technical grown-up. I feel like I'll never have that feeling of being actually in control. Every mistake I make absolutely kills me.
I guess the real test is how I will behave when I get back home. If I'm really no less green, then I'll still be subjecting myself to the wrong people and calling out for help at the first signs of trouble. I'll still be wasting good time and good ideas and still prefer talking to doing. I just don't want it all to slip away.
I want to stop being some college kid, on track to becoming some grad school kid. I've been spending my energy on the wrong things for too long, and I've been taking breaks I don't deserve to take.
I feel like it's time to leave Dublin, but I'm also scared of what awaits me when I return home and then move on to New York soon afterwards. So it's difficult to tell how much the feeling of apprehension is born of the reluctance to leave my friends and way of life that I have here, and how much it's simply a reaction to the difficult times that are coming up.
I look back to my first week here, completely in a daze in a hotel room on Baggot Street, and I see a scared little boy, and I take a lot of pity on him, since I feel so much more competent now than before. Still, it's not quite enough, I don't feel that much different now, like I'm still not a technical grown-up. I feel like I'll never have that feeling of being actually in control. Every mistake I make absolutely kills me.
I guess the real test is how I will behave when I get back home. If I'm really no less green, then I'll still be subjecting myself to the wrong people and calling out for help at the first signs of trouble. I'll still be wasting good time and good ideas and still prefer talking to doing. I just don't want it all to slip away.
I want to stop being some college kid, on track to becoming some grad school kid. I've been spending my energy on the wrong things for too long, and I've been taking breaks I don't deserve to take.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Salad Days
While my job at the media monitoring company affords me the incredible opportunity to keep right on top of the news in Ireland and the prevailing public opinion of that news, I also have to read, every day, about "the potholes in Galway", as one coworker put it. And with the tabloids, of course, there's always a few photos of Victoria Beckham, who looks like a scarecrow.
But then there's an ad for Rocky 6 printed in Irish and my day brightens back up.
Getting up early for work is actually not as taxing on me as I would have guessed. I'm actually getting in an hour later than everyone else, since the Luas doesn't start running until 5:30. I'm still gripped by a very American model of work, in other words the assumption that I am constantly hanging by a thread and that I am easily replacable. Over here it's not so harsh, however. Because I'm a native English speaker, I'm at a tremendous advantage right off the bat. Even if I did a terrible job, it'd still be months before I was fired, but fear is a great motivator, and the instinctual fear of getting axed is enough to force me out of bed at 4:45.
I booked my flight home last night, and immediately afterward, I felt this sense of dread for what comes next. Life becomes a lot more uncertain when I return home, however odd that sounds for someone who's been living in a foreign nation for a year. The idea of returning to New York is at least appealing, but I think the problem is New York is neither Philadelphia nor Dublin. Some hard decisions are coming up concerning what I'm doing after college and when. The time is actually coming up when these amorphous flights-of-fancy ideas about the future actually have to become something concrete, and while I've always enjoyed more luck in these kinds of matters than is due to me, uncertainty frightens me, especially at that important step.
But there's no point in ruining the rest of my time here by worrying. For now, the majority of the time I am contented. Can't ask for much more from a summer.
Anyways.
There will come a day when it's perfectly legitimate to do all of your academic/scientific/whatever research through the internet, but no matter when it arrives, I think I'll always be skeptical, because the librarians at my middle and high schools got to me right at the moment when legitimate sources started appearing on the internet, but before it was widely accepted. I'm still surprised when I order something through a website and it actually shows up.
One of the first things I'll be doing when I get back is going to some genuine, authentic diners. You might imagine that Ireland has nothing even resembling a diner, and you'd be right: it's all pub food, kebab places (Europe has a special love affair with kebabs), and chippers (take-out burger places that are ubiquitous but deadly). There are a few 'Eddie Rockets' restaurants, which are fake overpriced '50s diners—there's a 'Johnny Rockets' on South Street in Philadelphia, which forces its employees into synchronized '50s-style dance about once an hour, all of them wearing that I-can't-believe-I-work-here expression on their faces. The Irish fake '50s diners don't subject their employees to that indignity, but they are overpriced and bland. Not to call myself a conniseur, but I do know what a real diner is, and that ain't it.
So, unafraid of letting my true suburbanite colors show, I'm declaring my intention to eat mostly diner food for the first few days that I'm back.
But then there's an ad for Rocky 6 printed in Irish and my day brightens back up.
Getting up early for work is actually not as taxing on me as I would have guessed. I'm actually getting in an hour later than everyone else, since the Luas doesn't start running until 5:30. I'm still gripped by a very American model of work, in other words the assumption that I am constantly hanging by a thread and that I am easily replacable. Over here it's not so harsh, however. Because I'm a native English speaker, I'm at a tremendous advantage right off the bat. Even if I did a terrible job, it'd still be months before I was fired, but fear is a great motivator, and the instinctual fear of getting axed is enough to force me out of bed at 4:45.
I booked my flight home last night, and immediately afterward, I felt this sense of dread for what comes next. Life becomes a lot more uncertain when I return home, however odd that sounds for someone who's been living in a foreign nation for a year. The idea of returning to New York is at least appealing, but I think the problem is New York is neither Philadelphia nor Dublin. Some hard decisions are coming up concerning what I'm doing after college and when. The time is actually coming up when these amorphous flights-of-fancy ideas about the future actually have to become something concrete, and while I've always enjoyed more luck in these kinds of matters than is due to me, uncertainty frightens me, especially at that important step.
But there's no point in ruining the rest of my time here by worrying. For now, the majority of the time I am contented. Can't ask for much more from a summer.
Anyways.
There will come a day when it's perfectly legitimate to do all of your academic/scientific/whatever research through the internet, but no matter when it arrives, I think I'll always be skeptical, because the librarians at my middle and high schools got to me right at the moment when legitimate sources started appearing on the internet, but before it was widely accepted. I'm still surprised when I order something through a website and it actually shows up.
One of the first things I'll be doing when I get back is going to some genuine, authentic diners. You might imagine that Ireland has nothing even resembling a diner, and you'd be right: it's all pub food, kebab places (Europe has a special love affair with kebabs), and chippers (take-out burger places that are ubiquitous but deadly). There are a few 'Eddie Rockets' restaurants, which are fake overpriced '50s diners—there's a 'Johnny Rockets' on South Street in Philadelphia, which forces its employees into synchronized '50s-style dance about once an hour, all of them wearing that I-can't-believe-I-work-here expression on their faces. The Irish fake '50s diners don't subject their employees to that indignity, but they are overpriced and bland. Not to call myself a conniseur, but I do know what a real diner is, and that ain't it.
So, unafraid of letting my true suburbanite colors show, I'm declaring my intention to eat mostly diner food for the first few days that I'm back.
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