I plumped for Presidents' Club

This is a geg. This link brings you to a chart and map of the US to see where the votes are coming from. The Presidents' Club is polling strong in California — all those Silicon Valley fans — while St Malachy's Church is riding high in....Colarado!.

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Níos mó ná bealach amháin amach as an tsainn ina bhfuilimid

"If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion."
George Bernard Shaw.

Bhí mé ag meabhrú ar chomhairle an drámadóra agus muid faoi léigear ag eacnamaithe ar RTÉ atá ag sárú a chéile lena mbagairtí maidir le gearradh seirbhísí agus teannadh ár gcrios.

Ach tá níos mó ná scoil amháin eacnamaíochta ann. Cad chuige nach dtugar seans d'eacnamaithe nach n-aontaíonn le polasaithe an rialtais labhairt amach?

Tá gá ach go háirithe le scrúdú a dhéanamh ar an pholasaí maidir le tithíocht agus maidir leis na bainc. Tá praghas na dtithe in Éirinn ró-ard ach níl na praghasanna ag teacht aníos mar tá an rialtas ag cosaint lucht a dtógtha agus an dream a thug amach na hiasachtaí le go dtógfaí iad — na bainc.

Bhí ar an phobal praghas ró-ard a íoc le linn an 'boom' ach níl seans acu margadh maith a fháil anios agus meathlú geilleagrach sa mhullach orainn.

Blast from the past

Our pal in Nua Eabharc Daithí Mac Lochlainn spotted the TUV u-turn on this one first: the party branded Irish a leprechaun language and then recanted with a simple bashing of Irish language.

The party has now apologised.

This BBC report notes that the term "leprechaun language" was first famously used by Sammy Wilson in the 1980s during a City Hall debate. It was actually used as part of a motion to throw me out of the council at my first meeting in November 1987 when I had spoken Irish.

Tale of two cities

And this is the editorial from this week's Andersonstown News which reflects on the fact that while East Belfast this week got £43.5m from the Executive for the Titanic Quarter signature project (good for them) and £10m from Belfast City Council for the same £93m project, West Belfast got....an architectural design competition for a building which has not yet been greenlighted for construction.

You can read the whole editorial, with a virtual appendix listing the Titanic Quarter projects, here in pdf form.

Large boxes which don't connect

So that's how the world works: last Friday I was apoplectic about the high-rise flats towering over the beautiful St Joseph's Church and this Friday I'm looking at a story in the North Belfast News castigating the development.

Though Mark Hackett of the Forum for an Alternative Belfast (i.e. one which people want to live in and which cherishes its people and neighbourhoods) isn't as scathing about the height of the empty apartment block, he thinks it's disgraceful that it has no ground floor activity.

Where there should be shops or a creche or a restaurant or an office even, there is car parking. Without that, there's no connection with the community, he says.

You can read his thoughts on this pdf. But he says: "These large boxes are being marketed as the European model but they lack the sophistication that those models have. I hear a lot of people in Belfast talking about 'tall buildings are good' and 'they create an image of the city that's vibrant', but not if it's a hollow vision because the ground floor activities and connectedness of the streets makes a city really vibrant and we don't have that."

Mark tells me he and his co-conspirators for a better Belfast, Declan Hill and Ciarán Mackel, are known as the three grumps but in this picture, he looks quite angry. Though unfortunately, the photo from this angle doesn't show St Joseph's Church.

Aisling countdown

Swimming From Under My Father

Our LA pal Michael O'Keefe, he of the Black Mountain Zen workshops and movieland, has turned his hand to poetry. Last time I saw Michael was in the Felons about three years ago and we sipped two cokes (one each). Haven't been back at the Felons since, either. (I was going to steal this pic from his website but turns out he got their first, it's a North Belfast News photo — only joking, we're given full credit).

He has his own website of course, I have no way of knowing if it's more truthful or more accurate than the Wiki reference above but you could have fun finding out.

This is what we love about Yanks. They decide they want to be something entirely different. They go to school (they have poetry school in the US, he went) and learn this new trade. And they emerge as their new selves.

So here's an offering from his first book of poetry, Swimming From Under My Father. It's called 'The List Of Lies I Told One Time Or Another'.

I didn't take the money
I will love you always
I have no idea where the Oreos are
Everything will be all right.

God won't give you anything you can't handle.
My defects of character have been removed.
No Sister Marie, I didn't put
the chocolate pudding down Millicent's dress.
Everything will be all right.

I never slept with anyone else.
I'm not sleeping with anyone else.
I don't want to sleep with anyone else.
Everything will be all right.

Why would I lie about that?
Of course it's the truth.
I think you need to take a long look at yourself.
Everything will be all right.

Heaven is where you go when you die,
If you've lived a good life.
Hell is where you go when
you die if you haven't.
God is Love.
Everything is all right.

Bloomberg back, but only just

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has held on to the Mayoral seat in New York City, but contender Bill Thompson, the outgoing comptroller, performed better than expected.

Read the New York Times analysis here.

Future planning

The Comptroller of New York City Bill Thompson (pictured) takes on the might of Michael Bloomberg today to see who will be the next mayor of New York.

I wish Bill Thompson well. He has been an exceptional friend of Ireland in an office where the bar had already been set very high by previous comptrollers.

You can read the Irish Echo editorial on the race here.

The polls have him trailing — after all Bloomberg is outspending him ten dollars to his every one, at least — but even if he doesn't get the key to Gracie Mansion, we can expect his life of public service to continue.

No doubt he holds with the view of Luis Valdez that "the future belongs to those who can imagine it".

Dancing days

A reader sends me this picture from Sailortown in the eighties when dancing priest Cornelius Horan was lending his 'support' to the annual blessing of pets and animals which takes place at St Joseph's.

Unfortunately, the same Fr Horan, then regarded as simply eccentric, went on to disrupt the Athens Olympic marathon and tried to storm a Formula 1 race before being charged with indecent assault.

It gets worse: Irish speaker Horan also danced for the children of one of our local Irish medium schools when he was "jigging his way round Ireland for peace".

Poor mouth in the baby Grand

I'm sure Flann O'Brien would be tickled by the fact that his Myles na gCopaleen creation An Béal Bocht will enjoy a run in the Baby Grand at the Opera House from 11-14 November.

Before that, the ultimate take on Gaeilgeoirsphere will premiere at An Chultúrlann on 6 November. There's more detail on this flyer.

There's a full translation service and here's the synopsis by our pre-eminent professional theatre company Aisling Ghéar:

The Poor Mouth/An Béal Bocht’ - is a two-fingered salute to all things ‘excessively, excessively and excessively ’ Gaelic!. It tells the story of one, Bonaparte O'Coonassa - ‘son of Michealangelo, son of Patrick, son of Owen, son of Sarah, son of Thomas, son of Maire’ !! who was born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland. From the front door of this ‘small lime-white house situated in the corner of the Glen’ you could (allegedly) see - Gweedore, Connemara, Galway, the island of Aran and The Great Blaskets!!! Famed as much for its beauty as the abject, relentless and ‘much prized’ poverty of its residents, the daily fare consists of potatoes, potatoes and yet more potatoes, which they shared with a horse called Charlie, a bunch of sheep ‘a slim thighed cow’, a clutch of chickens and Ambrose the pig!! You’re invited to discover buried treasure, underwater homes and the perils of marathon Irish dancing. A perfect marriage of satire and gazumping!!

There are great things happening in the Gaeltacht Quarter — and Aisling Ghéar is at the very heart of them. But there's no use preparing masterplans and reports if the Irish speaking community of Belfast doesn't support the living, breathing companies which make the Gaeltacht Quarter tick. See you in the Opera House.

Interest in Chomsky's Jewish parentage

On his blog, Nelson McCausland makes an interesting reference to Noam Chomsky's Jewish parentage in an article which excoriates the respected academic and activist.

Minister McCausland says: "Chomsky was born in Philadelphia to Jewish parents" before going on to list a series of McCarthyite style charges including "him he is a member of the revolutionary IWW" (for the uninitiated, the largely irrelevant International Workers of the World); he is "controversial"; he is "shunned by the mainstream media".

Chomsky was in town to give the annual Amnesty International lecture in Queen's and to speak at St Mary's College in West Belfast. He adds: "The choice of such a prominent figure from the far-left as their speaker must say something about the politics of Amnesty International and maybe even the Human Rights Centre at Queen's. For those who are not familiar with the HRC at Queen's, the director is Professor Brice Dickson, the first chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission."

However, what that "something" may be, we can only guess as the normally candid minister who won't attend any events which involve Catholic ceremony doesn't elucidate. Why not?

Micheál Ó Brolacháin ar lár

Brón orm cloisteáil inniu ar mo bhealach ar ais ón Oireachtas i Leitir Ceanainn go bhfuair Micheál Ó Brolacháin bás aréir.

49 mbliain d'aois a bhí sé agus i measc na leabhar a scríobh sé bhí Laochra, Sráid Sicín agus, do pháistí, Gréagóir Goraile. Bhí greann ar leith ann agus dúil mhór aige sa tsaol. Bhuail mé leis ar dtús agus muid ag plé le Conradh na Gaeilege agus na heagrais agóidíochta a d'eacair as, go háirithe Freagra.

Ba guth úr é i saol na litríochta Gaeilge sna hochtóidí agus is oth liom nár lean sé den scríbhneoireacht. Folisíodh Laochra i 1983, an bhliain chéanna inar fhoilsigh Séamus Mac Annaidh Cuaifeach Mo Londubh Buí. Ar ndóigh is beag aitheantas a bheir muid do scríbhneoirí na Gaeilge, ní iontas mar sin iad éirí as an scríbhneoireacht. Tchím ón idirlíon go raibh baint aige fosta le Shamrock Rovers.

Go raibh suaimhneas síoraí aige.