Irish Local Politics Drama

The meeting was called to order.

“How DARE you”, said the councillor

“put a name

on this meeting

that has not

been passed by the council”

“But councillor”

said the chair

“I meant “called to order”

in the sense that we should be orderly”

Stunned silence ensued.

No one had seen

a chair talk before.

Now

they had heard it.

And what would be said?

“Councillor”, said the chair, “Of the time, take your share”

“The meeting”,

said the councillor

“is of utmost importance, and of incredible importance”

(someone reeled for the unnecessary repetition,

that was falling all over the floor)

“We agreed” (said the councillor) on resolution one oh four.

Yet the government are trying”

“Trying!” gasped the audience

“Trying to revert to ninety four”

“I will have to check” Said the manager

“On the statute you have met

With such awful disdain”

“Well,” said the councillor

“That says it all, and now, I’m off to Spain”

 

Gemini

She comes in the day,
In jeans and quotidian care marking the shapes of her face
That marks everyday that she says she wants to escape.
I ask her about her way, and how she is and how it is going.

I dream of seeing her in the night.

She comes in the night
In a dress and make up that mark the lines drawn by a magazine
That marks this escape of her life: Night.
I say nothing.

I wonder where the beauty is.

Stubborn

It is cold, but not cold enough. There is wind, but not enough. I shall stay out until it is time. Or at least, out enough.

I am out. I have spoken, but spoken wrong. Not incorrect – not by a mile, I’ll say. But wrong, because even if it’s true, why say it and do that? You know, when you know how it’ll go. Like that.

Clouds gather. It’s OK. I like the rain in the misery. The light seeps from windows. The fall of TV light tells me: Go home to your own TV!

The music is ringing through me. One good side. When you’re all keyed up, and each note, each word rings through you – but still connected, still part of the whole melody, still part of the whole experience.

It is cold.

Well, I was right, anyway.

But it is cold.

And then that song again. Keep going, because that’s part of it. To keep going.

Even if it is cold; it is not cold enough.

What does that even mean anyway? What was said. What I said. What was said to me. What does that even mean? Anyway, what was said – what I said, what was said to me: what does that even mean?

Have to do that thing for work, too. Why people can’t just take an email, I don’t know. It’s all back to phonecalls and meetings.I can’t think quick enough for that crap, which is why I like email. I say that to them upstairs, but they can be cold. So, midweek and another few days to fix it. But how?

Someone, somewhere, something. Some thing. Some thing must be done. But what thing? And where? I’d play the argument out in my head, but they never go that way. Some people just don’t follow logic. My logic. What does that even mean?

And anyway, I can’t think quick enough for that crap. That’s why I’m here, trying to figure out what it even means anyway. And it’s cold.

 

Before

Before the fall

The shoes did slide

The slope did rise

Before the fall.

Scarlet Lipstick

Scarlet lipstick on a glass

Reminds me of a girl

- a lover -

from long ago

Who is gone.

 

A new word

A new word.
Approaching it. Like a kiss from a boy or a girl
That thrills you

Using it (promising never to abuse it)
Syllables rolling from your mouth
Tongue and lips and throat create consonants,
Around vowel sounds.

Rove your eyes across
Letters like landscapes on a page
Here to there includes everywhere.

And then.

Years later.

On the Internet.

Words are framed, then defamed
They become cliché
In a matter of days.

On the denigration of politics in Ireland

Mainstream Media (i.e. Newspapers, broadcasters)

In the Irish Times, Pat Rabbitte is reported as claiming the “Constant denigration of politics” by the Irish media is a result of its “all-pervasive negativity”. However, Pat Rabitte needs to understand that most people in this country have been living in pervasively negative economic circumstances.  Even if the media didn’t report it, most people have been touched by the emigration of family or friends; the wait at hospitals for treatment; cuts to public services and welfare for those finding it difficult enough to get by.

I don’t understand what Mr Rabbitte expects the Irish media to do. If he were in Opposition, he might feel attempts to put a “positive” spin on some of the darker days of this nation’s history would be to sully politics and misinform the electorate.  His own party leader, while in opposition, claimed the previous Taoiseach had committed economic treason for the position the country is in. While grievous mistakes were made in the previous administration, surely a politician calling into question another politician’s loyalty to country is a greater denigration of politics than reporting factually on cuts, taxes and resultant difficulties people face.

Irish people are angry. We were sold a false dream by the last administration. While personal debt and credit are the responsibility of each person who takes it, people expected our leaders to be honest with us as to how the economy runs and how healthy it is. The previous administration taught us we cannot necessarily trust what we are told in this respect.

Then, those who are now in administration saw the country’s accounts before the last election. In an election that could have been won by standing still and not being Fine Fail, they decided to make various pledges that people assumed would be possible to achieve. Write downs of the country’s debt; “not another red cent” for Anglo (IBRC); protection and improvement in the Health and Education departments have all come to nothing. And when asked why they come to nothing, we hear it is the fault of the previous administration.

Yet, those now in administration must have been able to do the maths, having seen the country’s accounts.  So the promises, pledges and posturing have all come to nothing.

This denigrates politics. There is a separate, deeper and distinct lack of trust arising from the people’s experience from the last election to now.  That is the result of pledges and promises being made, which the electorate assumed were based on seeing the nation’s accounts. We knew it would be hard. However, when you’ve seen the accounts and say “X is possible”, people tend to believe you have seen the accounts and X is possible. Months later, when this is not the case, they are disappointed. All the media has done is tell people it is not possible. All the people have done is be disappointed.

Social Media

Social media has allowed people to share this experience and disappointment. Believe it or not, on any given day, one will see immense support for all political parties from various popular social media accounts. These people believe the politicians are doing the best they can in a bad situation.

Others agree that the government are trying to improve the country’s fiscal situation, but disagree with the methods being employed to do that. And in this disagreement, there are further disagreements among those taking part in social media debates. Some believe tax increases are required, others new taxes, others still believe services have to be cut – that the government take in the same amount of tax they have been, but cut their cloth to meet the measure.

In lighter moments, there are more satirical comments. This has been an Irish reaction to hard times for generations. We had Scrap Saturday in the 80s, we now have the Irish Pictorial Weekly. However, throughout time, we have had writers and plays and pub conversations where politicians were taken to task for their actions and had their ability questioned. It is a part of politics in this country. We consider Johnathan Swift and James Joyce and Flann  O’Brien with pride; in their day their writing was considered immoral and denigrating.

I won’t pretend there are not social media accounts and people who use social media purely to abuse others, but these are very much the minority. They are also a known entity. On all platforms they can now be blocked and/or ignored. Casting social media as some kind of cesspit of festering ideas is to consider only one small corner.

Social media may be a new technology, but it is not a new phenomenon. It is composed solely of the communication of human thought, which has had a long history in being communicated by the apparatus of the lungs, throat and mouth; pencil and paper; ink on broadsheet or tabloid formats; radio waves and television signals.  To approach it with fear and ignorance is to approach humanity with fear and ignorance.

So What Is The Problem?

The problem with Irish politics is that it consists of Big Ideas and Small Communities. TDs are tied to their local constituency. When they should be considering the implication of national policy and legislative decisions, they are in fact expensing a phone call to a local council to see can anyone do anything about the pothole outside Mrs Murphy’s house down the lane.

This is irritating for the electorate in general, and probably for politicians also – but it is also the unwritten agreement between politicians and the electorate. Making “pledges”, “contracts” and “promises”, which are later waved away as simply something one does when trying to get elected.
It is time for politicians in the Dail to be held to task for their national decisions, not whether they can pull strokes and get favours in for their local consituency. Local politicians, similarly, should run for election to work in the community – not as a step to reach their aspirations to national governance or overriding ideology. This will require a change in how national and local politics works in this country.

Until a realistic and workable solution to this problem can be arrived at, politics in this country will continue to sully itself, by the sheer force of its own nature.

On Julie Feeney’s “Clocks” as Antidote to Bad Pop

I first heard of Julie Feeney on one of my brief sojourns into pop radio. These are infrequent experiences, usually in the car, coloured by my clumsily jabbing at the centre panel until something else comes on.

I have long wearied of sexual antics and fantasies of 40 year old men played out by young women, or “girl power” heroines who can have all they want and then sell the T-shirt to prove it (then drink a pint of bluish purple aniseed and mint vodka, which luckily spills all down the front of said T-shirt, thus increasing page impressions (among other impressions), and T-shirt sales). But one day, after the cholic heave of our old motor, there came this melodic, harmonic mystery:

You’re impossibly beautiful
Is that ‘cos I waited? Is that ‘cos I’m looking?
Or is it just ‘cos you are?

What is this? I wondered. It didn’t sound like the market reports, or the drab announcements of another political mishap or human tragedy from some hitherto unwell-known spot in the country. Wait – this isn’t Misery Ireland at all. This is… what is this? Today, I still don’t know what station the radio was tuned to, but it was quite a moment to me. The lyrics, the melody, the purity of voice. It quickly became my song for my daughters. I listened to the end of the song.

Then, somebody said something about buying something, and then there was the usual sound of “boompf boompf shakey my ass, baby I’m a baby for you yeah slurp boompf” in a voice that trilled and warbled but covered little of a normal octave of 8 notes. In my reverie of the song I’d just heard, I turned the radio back to the aural misery that is current affairs in Ireland.

Some time later, there was that song again. This time I got the name (Julie Feeney) and later that week, I got the album (Pages). I brought the girls with me (a ritual I like when getting some new music I want them to grow up listening to) and we listened to it in the car on the way home, then at home. We all loved it. It was playful, clever, melodic, harmonious, not at all too serious about itself. It packed a bit of a punch, not being a simple Boom Tinkle or Dingle Dung or Bear Bear Bungle Bear album, which I had grown to understand as some musical Plato’s forms for pop songs in the modern age. Furthermore, the voice was singing in an Irish accent. Unashamedly. As if the Irish could have a musical legacy in a modern age! Well, such reckless abandon of the well established templates of success made me a firm fan.

And so, to last week, when Julie Feeney released her antidote to all that is wrong with modern pop. A bold claim, especially from one who doesn’t listen to modern pop. But I am aware of enough stereotypes to continue with my blatantly ignorant damning of a billion dollar business in order to praise something of true artistic merit.

The First symptom cured: Bloat

Modern pop suffers terribly from bloat. I use this term because it is kind of ugly, and I think sounds like a neighbour of fart and gloat (and goat!). It’s this thing where they chuck money and money and money at an artist until they sound good. Or look good enough not to listen to. And if they look good enough to not listen to, you can get one of these talented young producers in and some talented musicians in to distract you from them.

Clocks was crowd-funded by Julie. To my eternal shame, I wasn’t in a position to help during the fundraising period (for my wife and I have been doing a spot of redundancy-and-new-job while raising 2 kids and paying a mortgage during this recession). However, I remember it at the time, and loved the idea of it. Other musicians have praised the approach, pointing out that it lets musicians make the music they want to (and their fans want to hear). Without the excess, Clocks revels in simple instrumentation (played with marvellous dexterity), and gets to the point very quickly: the music has evidently been crafted, carefully and deliberately. Nothing is where it shouldn’t be and everything is where it should be.

The Second symptom cured: RSI (Repetitive Sounds Irritation)

There is a very definite and obvious formula to much of modern pop music, from the instruments, chords, sounds and lyrics used. The elephant in the room generally goes into the chorus, where people sing along with reckless abandon, everything else is stirred into the sauce with the care with which this cliché has been constructed. The sudden tempo changes, dramatic chord changes, have all fallen to cliché as one hears the cadence almost immediately. A friend once likened it to a McDonald’s. Wherever you go in the world, McDonald’s will taste the same. Wherever you go in the West, you can hear pop and know immediately what the song is about, how long it will last and when you need to go “Ahhnd SheeWeeeIeeee Knowww Don’t knoooooow” and so forth, as you try to keep up with lyrics you’ve never heard, but feel like you have.

Clocks has a much more subtle cadence, with melodies that are strange to hear, sometimes simply different from the fairly pedestrian strains of pop (Dear John), sometimes a little whimsical (Every Inch a Woman), sometimes just better than people working in pop have managed (Worry). Julie actually sings with an Irish accent, but not like an Irish pub (lest someone attack me with my own poor McD’s metaphor). More that musical accent you used to complain about Americans complimenting us with; an expressive, perhaps dramatic accent at times, as vowels and consonants lose their twang and take on a grand softness that dampens the harsher edges.

The Third symptom cured: Adolescent “Love” and “Holding” and “Closeness” and “Being a Part of You” etc.

Frankly, modern pop could win any number of bad sex awards if it were written down and sent to someone to judge. While I appreciate the post-modern expressiveness, which is about as embarrassing to listen to as sex is for an adolescent to consider happening outside their own head, I fear they are taking it too far. Songs of love and betrayal are often hollow, sounding like something a 40 year old is trying to explain to their young nephew in the smoking are of a pub at a wedding. There is a horrific amount of misogyny and sexism, and women are often handy metaphors, which makes one wonder if the writers are really looking for something much more handy altogether.

In Clocks, the songs are a series of stories. Some positively Chekhovian in their simple honesty, and (gasp) real human emotions are expressed. Cold Water along could teach a generation of songwriters about the difficulties of relationships, that are difficult because there are 2 humans involved, not a man (or a woman) and a cardboard cutout stereotype to which the song is “sung”. Julia, as another example, is a song of love an loss that is so simple and delicate, I think only a handful of people could manage to have written it (“The echoes of her laughter ringing ripples in my bosom/ I hear echoes in the ripples of my crying, Oh My Julia”).

In fact, my initial response to this whole thing was not that it was an album, but an experience that I would recommend to anyone.

The Fourth symptom cured: Absolute individuality

In terms of modern pop, it’s all about the stars. I wish to write no more about it.

This is not so much about Clocks the album, but going to see Julie Feeney live in Newbridge last weekend. While I find the Riverbank a difficult venue (seats are very close together, and as you can imagine from this post, I am a large, grumpy man who will complain to anyone who will listen), I loved every moment. The show was part of a 10 night tour, which found Julie Feeney singing in a different town with a local school choir. She sang with the well prepared, well talented and frankly well behaved young women of the Holy Family choir. They did themselves, Julie Feeney and their school proud.
To see Julie Feeney live is quite an experience, as she really brings songs to life – there is a physicality to her performance reminiscent of Tom Waits, where it seems the music inhabits the singer, and is frankly making a break for it, through characters and movements and words. During the show, the choir sang Impossibly Beautiful, which I imagine to be Julie Feeney’s best known song. That was a brave and generous move, I felt. Certainly if I had created anything like that, I would have difficulty handing it over to someone else. They also sang Stay (from Pages), which was beautiful.
Then she made us sing. Not in a middle-of-the chorus, come on you drunk fools, wavy arms and faux excitement manner. No, no. First, we had to learn the parts. She spent a minute or two teaching us. Then, we all sang Dear John (from Clocks). I think as an audience, we may have let her down a bit, but as a performer, it was a remarkable act of trust and attempt to bring us all there in the community of a song (and a great song, with the line “What a fantastic day!”, which just isn’t said enough in pop music).

Anyway, I have gone on too long and here I shall leave it. I don’t blame you if you’ve just skipped to here to read the conclusion. My conclusion is: buy the album. It charms its way into you, and wriggles around under your skin, giving you that giddy excitement of listening to something truly unique.

Edit: You can buy the album from iTunes here or, go to your local record shop and see can they get it for you.

On the abortion debate in Ireland…

Dear RTE, Today FM, Newstalk, and local Irish media

With regards to the abortion debate, sparked by the death of Savita Halappanavar.

What the Irish people need now (not that we haven’t needed it in the past) is a complete and accurate debate on the question of abortion. Such a debate needs to be evidence-based (i.e. that all points made are founded in research), take into account political issues (i.e. reflect the opinions and needs of the society), consider legal ramifications (i.e. discuss the points where human rights issues – laid out in law or precedence – and the constitution  are concerned) and a wider ethical or moral stance (i.e. philosophical questions of humanity and when a foetus can be considered a “person”, religious issues, and so forth).

This is a difficult proposition. It will require some time, money and effort to do.

But I request – for the good of my children – that someone host such a debate and we move onto deciding what to do next.

We don’t know what happened in the case of Savita Halappanavar. By that, I mean we don’t know enough. However, we do know that 20 years ago, the Supreme Court felt abortion in the case of a threat to a mother’s life should be dealt with. In the past week, there have been arguments from both sides in relation to this. Some claim no legislation is required, because the mother’s life and wellbeing will be given priority. But then, a woman suffered 3 days of pain, resulting in Septicaemia, resulting in death. Others claim an abortion should be available at any time. To this, more still have claimed abortion is being sought as some sort of contraception.

I am confused.

I am confused because idiots are being given the run of your airways. I no longer blame them. I blame you. You own the airways. Prepare and deliver a proper debate.

How do you deliver a proper debate?

Avoid the nutjobs. This is an ethical, medical and legal question. So talk to people with ethical, medical and legal qualifications. Calibrate any debate. You know how to do this. I know you can calibrate debates, because this week, you have diligently pitted very strong views against each other in polar shouting matches that frankly resembled a chimps’ faeces throwing session.

We need to hear doctors with differing medical opinions, whose opinions are based on (and can be founded upon) medical evidence. We need to hear legal professionals who understand the constitution and the current legislation, and who can articulate honest opinion on the legal situation in the country. We need to hear the religious, ethical or moral commenters (preferably those with decent academic pedigree, who can properly articulate and discuss the key issues involved) talking in a reasoned and (again!) honest manner. We don’t need to know what happens in Britain, America, Europe, etc. unless it pertains to medical procedures and outcomes and is covered in evidence-based, peer-reviewed literature.

In the aftermath of the Referendum on Children’s Rights (where every debate was perceived to have been won by those who agreed with the participants), we need to improve the situation in Irish political discourse. The question of the right to life of mother and child seems to come up every 5-8 years (in my reckoning) in Irish society. It is time for us to grow up and deal with this like adults. Like parents of the decision, if you will. Let’s not drink our way through the pregnancy,

Kind Regards

etc.

It’s about the message, dummy

I read Stephen Collins article on Twitter in the Irish Times this morning.  I laughed, to be honest. I don’t know if Stephen tweets, or books his face, or perhaps even has a Bebo account or a Space he calls My.  Referencing John Waters’ abysmally researched article on the same subject was  a killer mistake. It is a strange feature of modern lifestyle reporting that Journalists have little time for proper research.

Often, they turn to radio phone-in/text-in/tweet ins, or Facebook statuses (stati?) to get the “Vox Populi” on any given subject. They enjoy a lofty position of being “in the know”, yet encouraging ignorant opinion from all corners, so that they can “give people a voice”. Usually the most extreme views in favour of, or against the subject at hand. Then, they patronise the same people (your opinion is valid, citizen!), then criticize the same people for “their simplistic grasp of the facts” (facts, that are rarely available to the public, but shared in whispers between journalists in the corners of pubs).

Meanwhile, people take the half-truths and others’ ill-informed opinions as fact, and share them on Facebook, Twitter, etc. As they used to do in pubs and shops. We called it gossip then. Now, journalists call it “social media”. As if gossip is the only form of social interaction and social media is a medium for gossip alone. Both these assumptions are wrong.

The Internet has made information available, which is a good thing. Especially (and I write from the position of an instructional designer here), the sharing of information and experiences. By sharing, information accumulates and grows; we find new ways to solve problems, we find new opinions or experiences that make us re-think our own.

Unfortunately, people do not always have all the facts. This is similar in “real life” (a thing I have heard of and assume means “anything happening that is not on the Internet”). Also unfortunate (perhaps more so), is people’s sense of absolute outrage for things they do not understand. But this outrage did not happen because of the Internet or social media.  From the age of 15/16 into my early twenties, I frequented a pub where people’s sense of outrage often descended into physical fights. Sometimes over work, sometimes over politics, sometimes over a girl or who kissed who – but the outrage is the point. It has been with us since the beginning of social interaction, it didn’t begin with social media.

My point is – all these things are happening at once through social media. It is not a place where outrage is encouraged to fester, not like a radio news programme with phone-ins or text-ins or what have you (yes, outrage does fester, but simply because this is a human response, which social media happens to give voice to). The internet and its many communication technologies is an open area, where people can interact in many ways. And that’s what they do. They interact. Some will do so belligerently (which the journalists seem to love as they can fill some column inches with comment on it), but many more do so in the hope of helping others, getting help or simply sharing information and experiences.

On specific websites, issues with “problem commenters”, belligerence and personally-aimed abuse do need to be dealt with – but that is an editorial decision, which I believe is ongoing. It is something that is being learned for online distribution, in the way newspapers had to learn how to deal with the balance between public interest and libelling someone by printing blatantly false facts. It is a curve, and one which is being climbed. More often now, we see community manager roles being introduced to help deal with a level of quality for comment.

On Twitter, where everything is more open/free, such issues are rarely considered to be a problem. Because we all grew up knowing someone who was a smart arse, or someone who was cruel, or someone who wantonly rants for attention. These people are all on Twitter because they are human, and humans are allowed on Twitter to express themselves. They can be ignored (unlike IT articles, just because something is written in print, doesn’t mean it *must* be read). The more disruptive people can be blocked. And (I have not seen it myself, but have heard of it), if belligerence gets too far, Twitter will step in and suspend/remove accounts.

Similarly, bullying is a problem. But the Internet and social media didn’t invent bullying. People just use it as a tool to do so. While Facebook implement anti-bullying policies and practices, surely the best remedy would be to minimise the amount that people want to bully others?

To pick out a very restricted form of conversation within social media (the belligerent tweets/the fake Chris Andrews Twitter account) is simply debasing the level of public debate that is made possible by the medium to that of fishwives and pub bores.