You MUST be Outraged, or at least tisk a bit!

Ah Flotilla-gate. It's all a big mess isn't it.






So instead of writing a rambling and partially wrong and sometime right analasys of the whole Israel-Palestine conflict i will give a few points and then delve a little deeper.


The Good intentions/idea's/positive's to make note of:

- This all started out by people willing to supply aid to those in need.

- Only one ship was attacked, the others were escorted safely to port.

- The world was watching, and so were Arab world news agencies on the ships.

- Most of the Aid is said to be on it's way to Gaza. Hamas however is reportorially refusing some of it.

- Egypt opened it's border to Gaza yesterday, to help the situation.

- Most of those detained from the ships, actavists, volunteers, media and aid workers have returned to their countries of origin.



The Ugly things to take from this.

- The aid convoy acted against orders to stay in Cyprus. And acted politically and provocatively in order to be heard.

- 9 people are dead.

- Diplomatic ties with Israel are damaged Worldwide.

-Turkey is deeply offended, they were once the only Arab ally of Isreal in the Middle East.

- Gaza is still not receiving all the supplies it needs. Apparently 1/4 of what is needed reaches people.

- The Blockade is still in place.


Things to still worry about:


- The predominantly Irish Ship that is still en route to Gaza.

- The blockade has not been lifted, despite international condemnation.

-Israel- United States talks about the construction of Settlements in the West Bank were called off and are likely to be delayed and further ignored for the near-by future.

- Global hypocracies are still rife in terms of Politics and reaction to such situations. Condemnation, harsh comments, sanctions, call's for restraint, all mean nothing.

- Oil is still leaking in the Gulf of Mexico.

- Oil is still destroying the Niger Delta.

-Oil is still destroying the Rain Forrest's in Peru.

- South and North Korea are still on the Verge of war.

- UK Police may soon carry fire arms following today's shooting massacre. Irish Police, will still not Carry arms following Dozens of crime-world shooting and executions over the past decade.

- Firefly is still canceled and hopes of being picked up, after such a long time, and a mediocre movie takings is still unlikely.





What can i really say about all this. Every side in this conflict is wrong in some way.

The Aid workers are good intentioned, but they are also full of several bad eggs and some more extreme people.

Although their act's are noble, they are flauting the will of a nation to protect itself.

They are also supporting the continued existance of a terrorist backed government.

The people of Gaza, and of Palestine in general deserve so much better. After all it is THEIR country.

Israel may now be a country, despite not really being a country that deserves to exist, or is in anyway the good guy. If anything they are the bad guy, but so are the people they are persecuting and inadvertently radicalising.

There is no quick soloution to this. There never is a quick fix. There are far to many hot heads of different points of view involved.

Islamist extremists, Zionist's, Orthodox Jews, Hamas and Fatah, American-Jewish influence, Old-school American Foreign Policy, Iran, Lebenon, The incompetency of the UN, the UN Security Council and the Legacy of fuck ups that follow the once Great British Empire.


I once heard an anecdotal story of a Nutritionist that found that the Diets of those in the Wider Israel/Palestine area have a low Zinc Diet. This man apparently concluded that the Low-Zinc diet lead to increased aggression.

His solution was making everyone eat Marmite.

Now as farcical as that story may be, it sort of describe's most people's reactions to ANY suggestion related to solving problems in the Region.


Now even though the world has relatively ignored the region and the conflict, despite it spilling over into world wide repercussions such as the Uzi Sub-machine Gun, Islamic Fundamentalism (a wider problem not solely related to the P.L.O etc) and security in Airports. (This last one being the fact that before Palestinian's hijacked plans in the 70s and landed them in Jordon, there was almost NO security in Airports. Something that for the most part affects all of us all the time, and generally sucks)

We have all had to listen to this situation, and in some way respond. Most of the time we are generally miss-informed.

There are precidents for defending all side's. Now it is a cluster fuck of Wrong that we can't excuse.

People are dead. These people put themselves in harms way, and attacked military force's in International waters to defend themselves and to protect their intent to bring supplies to a besieged community of 1.4 million people in Gaza.

Military forces, pursued, harassed and boarded ships in military waters in order to prevent them supplying aid to Gaza. When assaulted on one ship, and susstaining injuries and casualties the Military members did all they thought they could do in the circumstance, they opened fire.

They injured many and subsequentially killed 9 people.


This reminds me of the Gideon Masacre in Battlestar Galactica. Those not familiar with the show will have to bear with me. During a bit of a political crises in the Fleet a state of Marshal Law was called for. In order to maintain the running of Galactica certain supplies were needed from the other ships in the fleet. As a from of protest several ships refused to supply anything. In response Raiding parties of armed troops were sent out.

On the 6th sortey a group boarded the Gideon. They were met with a rioting crowd that was uncooperative and throwing coffee and debris at the troops (who are just ship security gaurds and marine like in use normally). Faced with a riot, which they were not geared or trained for the troops were stuck. Subsequentially in the meelee something collapsed that sounded like gunfire. Panicked the troops opened fire. 4 People died.

This messy story isn't referenced to many time's in BSG, but it was pretty shocking stuff. And great writing.


It is incidents like this that cause international outrage. It is only incidents that make people act.


Now how the world acts, i can not predict, or even suggest what would be the best thing to do.

It is all frankly a mess.

It is not like fiction, or even fantasy-science fiction. Ie This is Not Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, the Israeli's are not the Trade Federation, Gaza is NOT Naboo, and the aid workers are NOT Jedi.

There will not be some over-arching conspiracy to bring down the galactic republic. No Israel is acting alone and it is the bully and aggressor here. They can't expect Hamas to stop Rocket attacks, ever.

This blockade will not yield. Israel can't win, and it will eventually have to listen to international Condemnation.


The real challenge is getting people to listen and act without giving up. This situation is likely to be ignored soon. As was the 2004 Tsunami, as is Iraq and Afghanistan, as is the world Drug trade and so has the Haitian Earthquake.

All it will hopefully take is enough people to keep acting, to keep doing good things, for evil to not prevail.

In the grander scheme of things Governments, beliefs, policies and so on mean nothing when people are malnourished, drinking dirty water and oppressed by both a foreign country and their elected Terrorist affiliated government.











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The Decline of man (a music and society rant)

Is it just me or is Lady Gaga NOT attractive?




She look's like this right?


I really really do not like her! She's androgenous to the point of disturbing, and her fashion sense, if you can call it that, is so bizarre and individualistic that it's just weird.

I just don't get anything about her.

To continue the MUSICMEME thing i started yesterday, or earlier today tecnicaly, i want to talk about a song i really hate. Or more technically, the song i least like.


Poker Face by Lady Gaga:




I really don't like this song. And i'm not sure why. But it's just really really annoying.


I know there's innuendo, i know there's humour, but i just don't like it. It's kind of annoying. It's sort of nonsensical and i really can't stand it. Or is it just her?





This however is rather good? How strange.

So is this?:



And This:




And to some extent this and this:











But that is also a prime example of SEVERAL bad things about the modern world.


The speed of internet meme's is verging on scary. This kid was only spotted as something loads of people are looking at a few day's ago. Then Ellen watches it, her producers contact his mom, and he's on the show in the same week.

That and he's a tad prepubescent. Justin Bebier Prepubescent! It's disturbing.

It's as if people are starting to view Androgynous Women and Non-Masculine men as far more appealing that the normal Gender divide.

And it's just plain weird. I myself am far from a Manly Masculine image. I don't like sports, i'm not muscular and i don't exactly have luck with the ladies or have strong male bonds with anyone.

Hell i was a Male nursing student for a while at that.

But i don't like this trend of Lady Gaga, or Boy's who aren't even men. It's just wrong.

It's probably the one area in my personal politics where i believe i am conservative!

Men should be manly, women should be both sexy or motherly. Sure there can be effeminate gay men, and butch lesbians, and trans-gender and transsexual, but Androgynous people or undefined, that's just too far.

And considering that the whole Boy band culture is gone, there are few Rock bands that are popular, few solo male artists and the Whole Sexualising of Men via Interest in Vampires (Twilight, True Blood) you have got to ask, what do women want?

Why the hell Are Prepubescent boys and un-dead wife beaters with glittery skin more popular than real men.

And considering in Ireland, we Make up 49% of the population, it seem's even more difficult to be a man in this so called "equal" world. Mechanisation and Feminine empowerment have rendered a lot of formally manly role's and jobs useless. In our current culture young men are more likely to do worse at school, find it harder to get work and several time's more likely to commit suicide.

Is it just me or is the world bleak for Man. We had the ball's to name the species after ourselves. We ruled unchallenged, sort of, for 42,000 years. Now it's all getting hazy.

Now i'm all for many kinds of Womens Lib. But when i have no idea what it mean's to be a man anymore, and masculine ideal's are being ripped apart. It's not exactly a world many of us our ready to adapt to easily.


And yes i am single, and yeah, probably sexually frustrated. Oh and currently unfit and a bit overweight.

But i've a job now. I start Saturday. I will be ferrying drink to inebriated women, maybe things will be on the up.









day 01 – your favorite song x
day 02 – your least favorite song x
day 03 – a song that makes you happy
day 04 – a song that makes you sad
day 05 – a song that reminds you of someone
day 06 – a song that reminds of you of somewhere
day 07 – a song that reminds you of a certain event
day 08 – a song that you know all the words to
day 09 – a song that you can dance to
day 10 – a song that makes you fall asleep
day 11 – a song from your favorite band
day 12 – a song from a band you hate
day 13 – a song that is a guilty pleasure
day 14 – a song that no one would expect you to love
day 15 – a song that describes you
day 16 – a song that you used to love but now hate
day 17 – a song that you hear often on the radio
day 18 – a song that you wish you heard on the radio
day 19 – a song from your favorite album
day 20 – a song that you listen to when you’re angry
day 21 – a song that you listen to when you’re happy
day 22 – a song that you listen to when you’re sad
day 23 – a song that you want to play at your wedding
day 24 – a song that you want to play at your funeral
day 25 – a song that makes you laugh
day 26 – a song that you can play on an instrument
day 27 – a song that you wish you could play
day 28 – a song that makes you feel guilty
day 29 – a song from your childhood
day 30 – your favorite song at this time last year 

All Hale our new Tory-lite overlords... and other rant's.

Well okay, not MY overlords, but you get the idea.


I couldn't avoid the election. I've been at home, well i've been at home in some sense or another since last May. But for the most part i've been stuck with election coverage for 2 months or so. So i almost have been living and breathing it. For the most part on my own. So despite not wanting to, it's a big wealth of knowledge that i have amassed recently that i can't avoid.

I'm actually an election nerd! DEAR GOD HELP ME!

This is NOT a good thing!

I understood the numbers. I knew most of the political views, i even knew key regions and a few key seats.

I recognised every Political commentator. I knew most of the important Mp's on all side's. Well in England anyway.... Since that's what this election really was about.

Think i'm kidding? It was! It's a fucking joke to say it's a United Kingdom election. Most of this is about Britain.

And now with the Con-Lib Dem government, most of the seat's in power, are IN England.

I do pitty the rest of the dominions for having to suffer that insult. But now that both MP's, Cabinet members and Journo's are laughing with each other in relief that a Government has been formed, it must all be over now right?

I can get back to watching day time tv. I can get rid of this mass of boring complicated information in my head? Nope not really, not so fast. Just because there's a government it doesn't stop the fact that i now know all this shit, and can form an opinion! Wo is me!

I long for the day's i could recite the Order and significance of which System Lords were killed off on Stargate SG-1. That's the kind of politics i can back. But no, i now know a lot about Britain. My neighbouring country.

A country, by birth i'm not really supposed to like if some people are to be believed.

But i can't help it. Anglo-Celtic(UK) Culture far outweigh's the influence of Hibernian(Irish) culture on me.

It's the only tv i watch. I rarely catch whats going on at home. And this distresses me slightly.

I laugh at Joe Duffy, IT'S A DISGRACE JOE!, is pretty much all i seem to think of Irish media. We bitch and complain, but we do nothing about it.

I can't feel much democratic fervour for this little island. It's dark, it's wet, it's expensive, we're all grumpy, and everything just HAS to be complained about.

What i see in Britain is a far larger country, and i care more about the state of it's existence on many levels than i do about my HOME.

When i heard the news of protesters storming the gate's of the Daíl last night i was a bit bemused. So many other protests had gone without incident. We as a people bitch and moan, but we don't really act anymore.

After all, our land owners, and leaders are now our own. How can we rebel against our "own" people? Madness.

I see a general failure of the Irish people to hold The Irish in contempt. To see ourselves of capable of any wrong doing. This country is FAR from perfect. If anything i can't seem to think of any example of the Irish State doing anything GOOD for itself or for the people.

Okay so things weren't hunky dory, when we were British subjects, but they're no better now that we're Irish.

I see myself as not being Republican, or Nationalist, but i do feel that we have a warped sense of what it is to be Irish. The time's have changed. Should we not hold the bad people among us as bad people?

Should we not call for change by democratic and social means?

If Joe Duffy's audience can somehow eradicate an entire class of drugs and type of store with their opinion, it begs the question how we can't legislate for other things here?

Why is Alcoholism so bad? Why is obesity a growing problem? Why are certain price's so high? Why are clampers such pricks? How is the government surviving scandal after scandal without an election?

Want to know why the Anti-Head shop law passed so easily? Because no tax was collected on the activities, and no corporations were involved.

An un-regulated and dangerous enterprise involving small independent stores, is a threat to The State's ability to gather taxes, to the Legal addictions such as Smoking and Alcohol, to the Health and Science industries who are slower than Backyard Chemists in creating and understanding such Drugs, and even a threat to established hierarchies of money surrounding well established Illegal Drug trade.

MONEY.

Citizens looking to escape the doom and gloom of life, were seeking "High's" to get away from it all. These unproven and so called Legal high's are VERY DANGEROUS. But they are cheap, they are damn effective and there is a demand for them. But the state can't stop them, they can't tax them. The Health Service's and experts can't understand them fast enough to cope with unknown side effects. And the criminals in all level's of society can't compete.

I doubt all of the Head Shop Arson attacks were concerned Joe Duffy listeners.

Considering how Deep Cocaine and Heroin is in Irish society i doubt it's suppliers liked the idea of these drugs.

Drinks and Cigerrete's companies are suffering as well. They are a vice of many. A knew one was a threat to Tradition, and a threat to sanctioned business.

Enterprise and Industry is meant to be protected in A free democracy. But this Enterprise just had to go....

It got people killed.

Oh wait, cars, alcohol, food, cigarette, life in general, they do that?

They were unregulated and unchecked.

So are Cocaine and Heroin, but somehow no wide sweeping law tries to stop these threats?



This Country is awash with Hypocrisy and complaint, and yet there is little voice for reason or an answer to what change we really need.


How we're going to survive is a bleak and scary mystery in my eyes.

Excuse's excuse's....

I've been constructing a post about the past week, for the past week.


I could write it now, or i could sleep. And have yet another refreshed look at what i'd like to say....


Yeah, i'll do that. I'll put off the inevitable rant.

Where are we now?: A big Rant.

So its 40 years since Woodstock and 40 years since the moon landing. What exactly happened when the 60's ended?

How is that we have come to the way things are now. Back then there was a threat of Mutually Assured Distraction and young men were dying in Vietnam. Here in Ireland we were still destitute and VERY catholic.

And then at some point in the 70's and 80's Entrepreneurs, yuppies and other opportunistic people changed the world. Under the hyped oppression of Reagan and Thatcher, probably not all that bad, we some how lost morality and instead started making money. Its the making of money that really changed how things run.


One thing i could never get my head around when reading 1984 is that it was dated. Sure Surveillance and Socialist Dictatorships and constant war are still believable but the lack of consumer goods and sheepish devotion to brand names such as iApple and so on is just impossible to imagine.

Could a world exist without iPods, mobile phones, soft drinks and bottled water? News at you finger tips, celebrity gossip and scandal a few clicks away?

If anything the world has changed for the worse. Its more subversive and far more worrying. After all i have to admit that i am a sheep to the Internets wiles. I can't help but click click click. I don't need to know any of these things but i click anyway. I am slowly learning who the talentless gobshites are, or at least why they're always in the gossip columns, and to me that's scary.


Woodstock, a legend a dream:


40 years ago in the spirit of free will, music and taking copious amounts of drugs a group of people organised a concert.

It was a logistical nightmare and situated in a state park near Woodstock, but closer to other small sleepy towns and far from a good highway.


After a few days they realised it was pointless to keep the fences up, to many people wanted to be there. So they opened it all up.

They ran out of food. The toilets over flowed. The music kept on playing and a state of emergency was declared.

The emergency services couldn't get there by road because of all the traffic blocking it for hundred of miles.


Food was airlifted in, and sick, heat stroked, dehydrated, and the tripped out were lifted out.

It eventually ended. A legend had occurred. The clean up would take weeks. An industrial level of clearing needed to remove the rubbish.

Never again was a concert so large and so influential.


As for my youthful interpretation of the whole occurrence all i had was this when i was growing up, followed by waynes world 2:

This is better:

Who's On stage?

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The Moon Landing:


A dream that by the time the decade was out Man would set foot on the moon.

Not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

What ever happened to that kind of determination?

Man walked on the moon. They went a few times and then had to give up, one rocket still waiting to go.

Instead they stayed in orbit of earth for 30 years with shuttles while probes did all the work for us.

We never made that bold leap again. Expense they say, but the adventure was gone.

We could have made it to Mars by now. We could have a base on the moon.

We "could" in theory be shipping back Helium 3 for clean efficient energy.

Instead we buy consumer goods smarter than all the machines that landed men on the moon.

An average watch has more computing power than the Eagle Lander.

And yet with all our advance's in the name of a cold war and then Capitalism we have made no further strides into space.

It's a real shame.






When it all come's crashing down:


How long can we keep this all up.

I'm no green hippie or any of that but it worries me how we can ever keep going the way we do.


Our main geological contribution to history is Ring Pulls and Bottle Caps.

The industrial age left behind Clay pipes, the Romans Coins.


Can we leave Virtual Credit behind? Can we leave behind foreclosed homes, Obsolescent iPods, Cheap cars we never truly own, Plasma screen tv's, vhs, dvds, blu-ray or even the Internet.

The boom years melted away when the banks ran out of steam and their insane 100% loans got too much for them and became worthless.

Instead of spending millions on weapons to kill our enemies we spent millions of our own money on things we didnt need.

We live in order to feel safe and secure. To have a roof over our heads, food in our stomach and our kids in good health and education.

We spend our wealth to make ourselves happier when all we need are the basics. And yet we've wanted more for as long as i've been alive and possibly longer.


Our over consumption of the what the world has to offer may or may not contribute to climate change. It sure as hell has contributed to the 2 other large problems we face.

The Global financial crisis is based off of our own greed and gluttony.

The swine flu pandemic is also a result of the same thing. People wanted Pork. So it was mass produced in a factory in Mexico. It was so mass produced that standards of hygiene and safety were poor. The pigs only cared for so they could get fat quick, not live healthy. Disease spread and mutated. A new Swine Flu Strain developed. It reached the poor unhealthy Mexican workers and spread like wild fire in a rural town. It then spread to the rest of Mexico thanks to migrant workers, refugee's and pilgrims for religious festivals. It also reached tourists and then the rest of the world.

It continues to spread and incapacitate thousands and thankfully is not worse, but it still kills.


Our own wanton demand for things we didn't need has caused our own slow downfall. The world will be stagnant and devided for years untill this mess is fixed.

People are profiting from the very demise they created and we can do little to stop them. They claim some countries are "growing" again, that profit is up. But this is just to boost shares. To make money as we slowly pick ourselves up again.

It's the rest of us that suffer. And whats truly sickening is that as we hold onto our wallets and refrain from buying useless goods the worlds other problems persist unhindered.

Poverty will only continue and spread.

Drug trade will only continue and spread.

Weapons trade will only continue and spread.

Climate change will happen no matter what we do.

Desertification will continue because the rest of the world demands cheaper goods from climate and countries that can't supply us forever.



There aren't many solutions but expecting a status quo or equality is laughable. We all we always be exploited or the person perpetuating the injustice.



Capitalism, what's the worst that can happen.




Spirituality:


During the week, the day of leaving cert. results, i was walking to the station from the library to get the train home.

While walking along the path beside the cricket pitch i was stopped for a young girl seemingly lost.

She asked me "Is there a church on Campus."

Flummoxed by the question, and wondering why but not feeling too prejudice i said:

"Yeah sure, it's probably not open, it doesn't hold to many services as far as i'm aware"

She said: "But can you go into it, like, and..."

The sentance was something along those lines but wasn't really finished. I guessed she was trying to say something along the lines of sit in the pews and pray, or talk with the priest or whoever etc.


"i said yeah sure."

And then looking behind me gestured that it beyond the library was Fellows square and then the church is on the right in Front square, "the one with the cobble's".

She thanked me and left it at that.

Now she was cute. She was also full of excitement and glee in her appearance. So i'm guessing she received her results that day, and was checking out her most hopeful perspective campus that she must have known she had a good chance of attending since she took the time to visit.

Now i was early for my train. I could have described what i knew about the college and campus, and mentioned that if she wanted "spiritual" guidance or religious folk to talk to to attend the Chaplaincy office, because even years on from my guided tour i remembered vaguely where it was situated.

But i left it at that. After all i was unsure as to what faith she was. By the apparent urge to know where the church was i had no idea what she could have been other than some form of Christian. Not exactly a Protestant or Catholic thing to request. After all protestants, here in the south especially wouldn't need such a clarification and would find a local church, and a devote catholic, rare at that, would have there own Church or strive to find one within their local area and would not rely on the more Multi-denominational nature of a college, even an Ex-Prod one like Trinity.

I'm an agnostic as it is. So her desire for a church on campus was alien to me to say the least. I have no belief structure and i am predominantly a man of science. However i hold a small candle to the notion that there could be a higher power or greater meaning to the universe, i just don't think i need to know what it is or worship it in any way.

I get my "spiritual" experience's from music, the odd sport, concerts and movies and tv. I worship entertainment and popular culture because it gives me a shared understanding of the world through story telling and set structures. Most religions are based around this. Christianity especially is based on the intertwining stories and 4 gospels that describe god's works and his son's actions in his first few years and last few years.

After all popular culture, films, books and plays especially are all very Greek. They're all based around the idea of 3 acts, protagonists, antagonists and so on and very rarely stray from such structure. It's an ancient and well tested format that no one really argues with. It is after all more at least 3,000 years old if not older.

Story telling is what make's us human after all. It was at the camp fire that language and story telling was born. In that communal setting early man shared with his tribe the stories of the beasts they tracked, the bushes they picked and the great sights and stories they had seen and heard. It spread at that time to everyone. It pre-dates Sun worship, stone tools, settlement, farming and the taming of animals. Stories make us human.


Maybe Neanderthal's didn't have stories? But back on track.

Despite how cute she was, despite her giddiness and excitement over her success, i let it be. I could have chatted to her further. I could have been a welcoming guide. I could have even shared my views on spirituality if not concrete, but still interesting. But i walked on, left with a slight glow of happiness after seeing someone else happy.

And left wondering "what if?"

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