Michael O’Leary reckons airport authorities should be discriminate in who they search and harass at airport screening stations – this wanderer has inclinations of agreement but warms the fence with some reservation. In (northern hemisphere) summer 2007, I went on holiday to Australia, stopping in Hong Kong on way there and New Zealand and Bangkok on the way back, and by the time the journey was complete back in Dublin around three months later I had carried a knife aboard nine different aircraft. The first three international airports failed to notice the knife in my carry-on rucksack before I finally did and wondered how many more would miss it before the end of the trip – they all did, eight different international airports, including terrorist bullseye London Heathrow twice; the others Dublin, Hong Kong, Cairns, Brisbane, Auckland, Sydney, and Bangkok. This despite the ridiculous set-up at Bangkok airport where one could buy duty free aftershave before the having it confiscated at security screen which cannot be passed beforehand. The knife, a simple craft knife used for topping pencils and cutting cardboard, perhaps not the most dangerous of weapons, but what we are led to believe was used by the September 11th hijackers.
Do the governments want to keep us scared? Is it not in their political interest to be keeping us happy instead? Is taking tweezers and knitting needles off eighty-year-old nuns going to stop aircraft hijackings? Would discriminate passenger screening speed-up movement through an airport? Yes, in likelihood, but wouldn’t it further antagonise a particular people, the extremists of which who you simply cannot talk sense to, and make them more likely to blow up a train which has no security screening. It begs the age old question, can we not just all get along, but then that question would hardly be ‘age old’ if the answer was ever yes. Antagonism and bad people are the cruel unfortunate nature of society. Fear, the rule of law, vigilantism and ‘ah sure what can ya do!’ are the instrumental attitudes we have defend it – craft knives alone won’t save/destroy the world, so chose your weapon.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Sssh... Religion
That thing twenty-somethings only talk about when it’s getting close to sunrise at the shallow end of bottle of vodka. That thing the Irish mammies hold dear. That thing the small town gentries do because they know they’re supposed to. That thing young parents do because Catholic schools are the better option. That thing kids do because their parents tell them to. Is the world better for its existence? Probably? Possibly? Potentially? Yes? No? That thing people do because it gives them hope, happiness, charity, community, and some form of answer. That thing people don’t do because of corruption, paedophile protection and jihads.
Stephen Hawkins said that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." Charles Darwin said we evolved from apes. Sarah Palin holds that the Genesis story of the creation of man and the universe over the course of seven days should be taught as fact in schools. Clearly, the Adam and Eve story could not be considered fact by most level-headed individuals but ought to be considered simply as the story it is – a story about the first ever instance of free will and the agricultural revolution, that moment where knowledge became man’s weapon for survival, a metaphor of women cultivating fruit and vegetables while the men hunted, and if the God and serpent characters are removed, enough substance would probably remain for the story to still work.
At this time every year there is the usual talk on Irish radio about the pubs being closed on Good Friday, the ways around the law like moving trains, private clubs, airports and the emerging tradition of Good Friday barbeques, along with talk of the law being out of date and ‘why should the government decide what I can and can’t do’. Two years ago, Irish Hoteliers declared that Easter should be the same day every year because it was too close to Saint Patrick’s Day for people to take two weekends away – the Vatican were found to be deaf in one ear and not listening with the other. This year Limerick, suffering more than most in the depths of the recession, ‘need’ their pubs open on Good Friday because there’s a Munster-Leinster game on, due course will find how hard of hearing the Irish courts are. Staunch atheists will give up sweets and crisps for Lent because they’re trying to lose weight. Some will ask why the church decided we can start eating meat on Fridays when we weren’t allowed before and give out about it for a while, and they’re probably entitled to – the Catholic Church have done plenty of such similar things.
The problem isn’t the faith or the religion itself as such, religions invariably teach love, compassion, forgiveness and respect for your neighbour, the problem for religion is the men who organise it – all of them are inherently lent to the corruption brought on by the trappings of power. Most organisations in Ireland, indeed around the world will be found corrupt if they last long enough, banks, multinational conglomerates, sporting groups, charities, volunteer agencies, law enforcement and especially governments, so why not organised religions as well. Yes there are a lot of things wrong with religion, but there is also plenty of good in them too. Whether you sip a beer with a rump steak on Good Friday or kiss the cross at three o’clock and go home for some Donegal Catch instead is your own decision, the government won’t decide that, no atheist can prove he, ahem He doesn’t exist just as no believer can prove He does (although Catholics will point to their miracles,) so enjoy whichever and don’t get belligerent about it either way.
Stephen Hawkins said that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." Charles Darwin said we evolved from apes. Sarah Palin holds that the Genesis story of the creation of man and the universe over the course of seven days should be taught as fact in schools. Clearly, the Adam and Eve story could not be considered fact by most level-headed individuals but ought to be considered simply as the story it is – a story about the first ever instance of free will and the agricultural revolution, that moment where knowledge became man’s weapon for survival, a metaphor of women cultivating fruit and vegetables while the men hunted, and if the God and serpent characters are removed, enough substance would probably remain for the story to still work.
At this time every year there is the usual talk on Irish radio about the pubs being closed on Good Friday, the ways around the law like moving trains, private clubs, airports and the emerging tradition of Good Friday barbeques, along with talk of the law being out of date and ‘why should the government decide what I can and can’t do’. Two years ago, Irish Hoteliers declared that Easter should be the same day every year because it was too close to Saint Patrick’s Day for people to take two weekends away – the Vatican were found to be deaf in one ear and not listening with the other. This year Limerick, suffering more than most in the depths of the recession, ‘need’ their pubs open on Good Friday because there’s a Munster-Leinster game on, due course will find how hard of hearing the Irish courts are. Staunch atheists will give up sweets and crisps for Lent because they’re trying to lose weight. Some will ask why the church decided we can start eating meat on Fridays when we weren’t allowed before and give out about it for a while, and they’re probably entitled to – the Catholic Church have done plenty of such similar things.
The problem isn’t the faith or the religion itself as such, religions invariably teach love, compassion, forgiveness and respect for your neighbour, the problem for religion is the men who organise it – all of them are inherently lent to the corruption brought on by the trappings of power. Most organisations in Ireland, indeed around the world will be found corrupt if they last long enough, banks, multinational conglomerates, sporting groups, charities, volunteer agencies, law enforcement and especially governments, so why not organised religions as well. Yes there are a lot of things wrong with religion, but there is also plenty of good in them too. Whether you sip a beer with a rump steak on Good Friday or kiss the cross at three o’clock and go home for some Donegal Catch instead is your own decision, the government won’t decide that, no atheist can prove he, ahem He doesn’t exist just as no believer can prove He does (although Catholics will point to their miracles,) so enjoy whichever and don’t get belligerent about it either way.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Populace Inclinations
Two teenage lads get on the Dart at Blackrock station, the talk Leinster schools rugby from there to Grand Canal Dock whereon one remarks “What is that cool building over there anyway?” and “Dunno, but it’s cool though!” the response; the building not immediately visible from the Dart station, but they clearly referring to Liebskind’s under construction Grand Canal Theatre. The Liebskind aesthetic perhaps debateable in architecture circles, but if debate (or indeed concurrence here) is sparked by two otherwise-indifferent-to-architecture schoolboys, does it not thus serve a worthy purpose. Lads of this age and aspiration will be inclined to the skin-deep beauty of Miss Ireland auditionees and will inevitably be seduced by Liebskinds, Gehrys and Hadids; their aesthetic ascribes to populace attention and maintains a needed interest in architecture, but what of those involved in the field, he sitting opposite the two lads for instance; our aesthetic fancies, be they architectural or otherwise, are inclined in specific directions and carefully crafted in the school in which we are taught. Our educated concern will be function and form, our assumed taste will consider the aesthetic with the verdict in this instance perhaps ‘acceptable’ because it is relatively hidden and doesn’t overbear as the Conference Centre does.
Who among us didn’t design a daft building in first year? First years, don’t worry if you’ve been asked to design some rowing club pavilion and you just do an upside-down boat, this eegit did a circus tent for a yoga room! But such is first year, preconceptions will be misconceptions and concepts inevitably too literal, and what would Gehry have done in first year other than crunch up some butter paper and arrive at his one-trick-pony epiphany. Aesthetic, of course, is subjectively considered in the eye of the beholder, in architectural cliché it ought to follow function but will there be sufficient concern over aesthetic if functionality is sound? And what of the reverse? Don’t we need ugly things so as to appreciate beautiful ones? Check www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com for further information. Do we need starchitect spaceship buildings to maintain a populace interest in architecture? Or will really bad ones like the National Conference Centre realise the same end? Will someone ever gracefully demolish Hawkins House? Will mock-Georgian windows continue to be employed in picked-from-a-book one-off houses on the ever spoiling landscape of west Mayo where Georgian gentries would have only gone to if they took a wrong turn on the way to hell? Can populace inclinations be leant to our learned tendencies? Hardly likely. We can but persist with their education.
Who among us didn’t design a daft building in first year? First years, don’t worry if you’ve been asked to design some rowing club pavilion and you just do an upside-down boat, this eegit did a circus tent for a yoga room! But such is first year, preconceptions will be misconceptions and concepts inevitably too literal, and what would Gehry have done in first year other than crunch up some butter paper and arrive at his one-trick-pony epiphany. Aesthetic, of course, is subjectively considered in the eye of the beholder, in architectural cliché it ought to follow function but will there be sufficient concern over aesthetic if functionality is sound? And what of the reverse? Don’t we need ugly things so as to appreciate beautiful ones? Check www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com for further information. Do we need starchitect spaceship buildings to maintain a populace interest in architecture? Or will really bad ones like the National Conference Centre realise the same end? Will someone ever gracefully demolish Hawkins House? Will mock-Georgian windows continue to be employed in picked-from-a-book one-off houses on the ever spoiling landscape of west Mayo where Georgian gentries would have only gone to if they took a wrong turn on the way to hell? Can populace inclinations be leant to our learned tendencies? Hardly likely. We can but persist with their education.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The Shed - Howl in the Hole
Many will have missed the Shed on the first take, never mind a double; its establishment as Dublin's newest road-less-taken venue was shortlived, but gracefully brilliant in its brevity. Billed as 'a private workspace aimed to experiment new participative and creative ways to socialize and communicate through the arts', it certainly delivered before the fun police called a halt an hour early due to health and safety or fire regulations or some other fun-inhibitor. They the two dressed in shirt and ties not seeming they belonged, certainly not seeming they enjoyed creativity, and checking their watches wondering how long a piece in experimental music might go on for. Though for all else it was what one might have hoped for from any one night stand.
The Shed is just a shed, a backstreet dead-end alley, exposed concrete blockwork, timber trusses and corrugated-iron roofing, a large room scattered with paint cans, pieces of timber, and on Thursday a clutter of artisans and patrons, some installation art and video projection and the before mentioned experimental musicry. The art concerned an installation by Amy O'Meara called 'Slow Children', a physical performance by Lorna O'Neil (which this blogger unfortunately missed), and music by Colin Wright and Rory Grubb. I've attended a number or Grubb's acoustic setlists before, tonight was very much more about his experimental inclinations. He rounded out the night by taking us on somewhat of a journey, creating meandering loop-based electro-acoustic sounds from various instruments and objects to a crescendo wherein he used all five-hundred songs on his keyboard (including machine guns and screaming ladies) as well as his guitar and bicycle wheel, which itself he found three ways to make music from - a true epic of a music piece.
For its first and only night, the Shed with its debut 'Howl in the Hole' was a wonderful success fusing art with raw urbanism, the north-inner city today perhaps among the less likely places to have found it, Henrietta Lane just off Bolton Street, the Kings Inn pub even less unlikely for such an after pary when it more accustomed to Racing Post readers, naive trainee barristers and the engineering boys of the DIT. In any event, a great pity the Shed ceased to exist as soon as it was born, though its curator did promise its re-realisation in some other form - the art will find a way, in the interim however check http://aroomforimprovement.com/thith for a taste of what you inevitably missed.
The Shed is just a shed, a backstreet dead-end alley, exposed concrete blockwork, timber trusses and corrugated-iron roofing, a large room scattered with paint cans, pieces of timber, and on Thursday a clutter of artisans and patrons, some installation art and video projection and the before mentioned experimental musicry. The art concerned an installation by Amy O'Meara called 'Slow Children', a physical performance by Lorna O'Neil (which this blogger unfortunately missed), and music by Colin Wright and Rory Grubb. I've attended a number or Grubb's acoustic setlists before, tonight was very much more about his experimental inclinations. He rounded out the night by taking us on somewhat of a journey, creating meandering loop-based electro-acoustic sounds from various instruments and objects to a crescendo wherein he used all five-hundred songs on his keyboard (including machine guns and screaming ladies) as well as his guitar and bicycle wheel, which itself he found three ways to make music from - a true epic of a music piece.
For its first and only night, the Shed with its debut 'Howl in the Hole' was a wonderful success fusing art with raw urbanism, the north-inner city today perhaps among the less likely places to have found it, Henrietta Lane just off Bolton Street, the Kings Inn pub even less unlikely for such an after pary when it more accustomed to Racing Post readers, naive trainee barristers and the engineering boys of the DIT. In any event, a great pity the Shed ceased to exist as soon as it was born, though its curator did promise its re-realisation in some other form - the art will find a way, in the interim however check http://aroomforimprovement.com/thith for a taste of what you inevitably missed.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Carpe Diem
Escape the trappings of nostalgia and a prospect waiting room, the inglorious unfolding rhythm of the space-time continuum, linear in presumption, lost in all reality, clear in all clarity, indignant disparity, now is dreaming, tomorrow is nothing if today is found unravelling, undulating, inundating, scream liberating the throws of winter’s melancholy, spring’s zoology, summer’s psychology and autumn’s withering, philanthropic philosophies, lonesome day wholesome day someday a while away...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Eviction
Consider 1845, a hard up British landlord teasing the last of a helpless Connemara family's worth to feed social extravagances in London, consider him sending in the sheriff on Her Majesty's errand, consider the smell of the burning thatch, women wailing on the barren roadside, the men threatening obscenities, and the scramble of anyone able off of this God forsaken island.
Consider 2010, a hard up banking CEO teasing the last of a helpless Clondalkin family's worth to feed his already fat bonuses, consider the arrogant sheriff yielding to the Free State, the smell of negative equity, a baby's soiled nappy, a five-year old's lunch box and a mother's kitchen, the men shout shenanigans, they all shout rescue plans, and anyone able may note a discrepancy in the migration trend but sees it reassert its 160-year inclination as a low-fare flight takes them somewhere off this God forsaken island.
Might the Beatles have been Irish? Might JFK have been Taoiseach? Wayne Rooney an inter-county hurler? Was it for this the Wild Geese fled? Success somewhere else for it'll only be begrudged here? There was a time the island at the edge of Europe was the forerunner of modern technology; as the continent dealt with the plague, it was Ireland who helped guide her back to the light a thousand years ago. Now we put Intel in their computers and Viagra in their... Ahem, some immigrants are leaving, and our own emigrants are going too, if only someone might shout stop we could spare a generation having to go off and fight for Troy and taking the long way home.
Consider 2010, a hard up banking CEO teasing the last of a helpless Clondalkin family's worth to feed his already fat bonuses, consider the arrogant sheriff yielding to the Free State, the smell of negative equity, a baby's soiled nappy, a five-year old's lunch box and a mother's kitchen, the men shout shenanigans, they all shout rescue plans, and anyone able may note a discrepancy in the migration trend but sees it reassert its 160-year inclination as a low-fare flight takes them somewhere off this God forsaken island.
Might the Beatles have been Irish? Might JFK have been Taoiseach? Wayne Rooney an inter-county hurler? Was it for this the Wild Geese fled? Success somewhere else for it'll only be begrudged here? There was a time the island at the edge of Europe was the forerunner of modern technology; as the continent dealt with the plague, it was Ireland who helped guide her back to the light a thousand years ago. Now we put Intel in their computers and Viagra in their... Ahem, some immigrants are leaving, and our own emigrants are going too, if only someone might shout stop we could spare a generation having to go off and fight for Troy and taking the long way home.
Monday, December 28, 2009
White Christmas
Nothing like an old 10-10-20 fertilizer bag for a snow sled nipping down a modest enough slope so long as there's no nettles, barbed wire, stone walls, ditches or whatever to be flying into - its not nearly as much fun in a car, especially backwards, or worse sideways, nothing like apologising to a passenger before the accident as the Corolla launches into a 2mph death slide, helplessly inching toward the ditch, "this is the last time I tolerate anyone saying, 'Oh it'd be great if there'd be a bit of snow for Christmas'... Every so sorry about this' Thud! You do feel a great sense of community though, people pushing you out the church car park, throwing dirt under your wheels because they were smart enough to bring a shovel in this weather, getting into your car to 'have a go' at the hill themselves.
Little town pubs won't have done well right when they needed it the most with actual culchies stranded out the regional roads, townies just aren't enough in little towns, this holy soul hasn't had a pint since leaving Dublin a week-and-a-half ago. And what of Dublin's annual New Years exodus to Lahinch, Dingle and others, are the Dubs brave enough, inevitably naive enough, so probably a non-issue.
Isn't that two extreme weather events on the hop? 100-year-event flooding! Big freeze at Christmas! Somebody call Al Gore, there's surely graphs worth showing from Ireland. I know it went to -10 here, -19's the record at Markree Castle in Sligo in 1881, if it gets much colder might that be two 100-year-events on the hop? Who knows! People are suffering of course, and whenever that happens its invariably some form of comfort for them to have someone to blame, but sure who can you blame for the weather? Gas-guzzling America? We-wanna-be-a-super-power-too China? Developers building on flood plains? Gritters not getting salt to every road? If life was a Dennis Quaid film would it be Flight of the Phoenix, when faced with crisis you build a new plane out of the old plane, or would it be the Day After Tomorrow, which happens to be New Years Day and sure nothing changes on New Years Day.
Ice Station Sambo, over and out...
Little town pubs won't have done well right when they needed it the most with actual culchies stranded out the regional roads, townies just aren't enough in little towns, this holy soul hasn't had a pint since leaving Dublin a week-and-a-half ago. And what of Dublin's annual New Years exodus to Lahinch, Dingle and others, are the Dubs brave enough, inevitably naive enough, so probably a non-issue.
Isn't that two extreme weather events on the hop? 100-year-event flooding! Big freeze at Christmas! Somebody call Al Gore, there's surely graphs worth showing from Ireland. I know it went to -10 here, -19's the record at Markree Castle in Sligo in 1881, if it gets much colder might that be two 100-year-events on the hop? Who knows! People are suffering of course, and whenever that happens its invariably some form of comfort for them to have someone to blame, but sure who can you blame for the weather? Gas-guzzling America? We-wanna-be-a-super-power-too China? Developers building on flood plains? Gritters not getting salt to every road? If life was a Dennis Quaid film would it be Flight of the Phoenix, when faced with crisis you build a new plane out of the old plane, or would it be the Day After Tomorrow, which happens to be New Years Day and sure nothing changes on New Years Day.
Ice Station Sambo, over and out...
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