Redbelt

This was a film we sat down to watch on a Sunday morning. Some might find that an odd time for movie viewing but it’s just how it happened; kids quiet, pup asleep, the opportunity presented itself. There being no mass to tempt us, why not settle in front of the box?

Fight films are not what I watch as a matter of choice, Fight Club being the sole exception in recent years. But this, written and directed by David Mamet, proved to be a powerful social drama in which the central character tries to walk a straight path, pays his way, respects the dignity of others, seeks to screw nobody and ends up being crapped on by just about everyone he comes into contact with.

A martial arts theme runs throughout but of a different order from what we were used to as teenagers through Bruce Lee films. This was Jiu-Jitsu rather than Kung Fu and apart from the final minutes the invincible superiority of the heroic character that fight films tend to produce was kept off stage. In the average Kung Fu movie the violence is what keeps it interesting. In Redbelt the real tension was reserved for the plot. It could have been something else other than fighting that provided the backcloth. With a few tweaks to the plot racing would have done the job just as well.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a martial arts sport which is fuelled by the concept that a weaker opponent can overcome their more powerful adversary through the application of leverage positioning. This fighting technique becomes the central theme of the movie as the central character is drawn into a battle not of his making and decides to make a stand despite the precariousness of his position in the face of great odds.

Mike Terry, played superbly by Chiwetel Ejio, runs a Jiu Jitsu club where he teaches the fight game skill to cops and others. Cash is short and his cheques to suppliers begin to bounce. He tries to hold the line and has no interest in fighting competitively. Piece by piece the previous stability in his world loses its cement and begins to totter, always threatening to topple over.

The series of unfortunate coincidences experienced by Mike Terry soon begin to appear not so coincidental at all as a thread of manipulation and deceit weaves its way throughout the plot. Equipped with nothing approaching the Midas touch, Terry has soon run out of options and the debts continue to mount. He faces a situation where his wife tells him she has borrowed serious money from a loan shark who in turn claims to have borrowed it from sources that make him uncomfortable. He has no room to manoeuvre and needs the loan back. With a shortage of solutions, suicide for someone seems a certainty, if not for Terry then someone close to him.

Terry is the victim of a carefully put together conspiracy to draw him into competitive fighting although it is impossible for him to see it until too late. Corruption, scams, blackmailers, dodgy lawyers, fraudsters permeate. In the end a rape victim he taught self defence to is the sole stanchion upon which he can rest his troubled mind. But her mind is equally as troubled and for a while the film conveys the feel of drowning people reaching out to each other.

The strong element of predictability in this film, in terms of where its ultimate destination lies, is more than compensated for by the suspense and twists that punctuate throughout.

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A Season on the Brink

Sitting on a bench at the side of a Dublin canal I became engrossed in six minutes that changed the world of European soccer. It was in January of last year and the sky was cloudless. That made the day all the chillier although the absence of clouds seemed to have some symbolic value. When the Liverpool team emerged into the Istanbul stadium in May 2005 the half time clouds that were smothering their bid for European Glory had lifted, allowing the team to reach for the sky which they took with great aplomb.

A book detailing that memorable night and the season that was in it, I discovered by chance browsing through the used book section of a shop run by the Simon Community in Dundalk. For the grand sum of a solitary euro I became the contented owner of a possession not really coveted up until that point due to my being unaware of its existence. That I called into the shop made for a nice coincidence. I was on my way back from having just purchased two Liverpool match tickets as a birthday present for my sister and decided to have a nosy. Although the book was much less expensive than the tickets, there was no temptation to switch presents!

Guillem Balague, the author, is a Spanish football journalist and was no stranger to the coaching technique of Rafael Benitz who achieved major soccer success with his previous club Valencia. Of course, when I was charging through Balague’s A Season On The Brink sitting on a canal bench, the book’s main focus, Rafael Benitz, was still the man in charge at Anfield. Liverpool were having a decent season and there was no indication of the howler to follow and the eventual departure of the Spaniard from the Kop scene. A Season on The Brink purported to offer an assessment of the Benitz impact of on the team in the wake of the departure of the club’s previous coach, Gerard Houllier.

Balague proved too eager to dismiss Monsieur Houllier and lionise Senor Benitz. Houllier departed from the club on better terms than Benitz, leaving behind him more silverware in the Liverpool boardroom than his Spanish successor. In the end neither of the two were able to deliver the successes of the Shankley/Paisley era, leaving a Liverpudlian generation with no memory of league title success.

There cannot be too many managers who have a book written about their exploits in one season alone. A more revealing account should deal with the full Benitz term there. One from the man himself would not go amiss. Rafa was done for by a string of bad results and little silverware. His considered take on the descent of Liverpool would add ballast to what at the moment is speculation. Regardless, if there is no quarrelling with success, failure then can’t make much of a case.

Balague argues that on the Istanbul night Rafa ‘did what all great leaders are able to do: he showed others how to get themselves out of trouble.’ This verdict has to be called into question by the experience of Rafa’s later years at the club which brought little success. The power of Stephen Gerrard on the Istanbul pitch was arguably more crucial than anything Benitz did off it. Gerrard nevertheless emerges as a character in need of constant reassurance. Benitz, we read, would, unlike Houllier, never go to the Gerrard door cap in hand, knees on the mat, to tell him how essential he was to the club’s future. That Gerrard did not switch ships as they passed in the night and meet Chelsea on the way to their zenith, instead accompanying Liverpool to their nadir, must play on his mind when he looks at his relatively sparse personal trophy cabinet. Balague seems to have overlooked the current Liverpool captain in his comment, ‘the lads quickly realised that you get nothing for yesterday.’

For Liverpool fans the book is an uncomplicated foray through the first year of Rafa’s reign and would hold their interest. Fans of other clubs will be attracted to it only for the tittle tattle they presume to be there. Balague also throws light on the behind the scenes arguments that afflict every club. They might draw the supporters of other teams quicker than the lauding of Liverpool’s footballing prowess.

There is a wide mosaic of voices in this book including some from the AC Milan Camp, the vanquished of Istanbul. Gattuso conveys the sense of despair setting into the Milan team as it realised, despite having gone three in front, that everything was coming apart in front of their eyes. There is a touch of the action replay to it as each goal in the final is analysed from different perspectives but this takes nothing away from it.

Overall, Ballague’s book may not be as good as others about Liverpool FC, but for the fans it is one to display on the shelf.

A Season on The Brink by Guillem Balague. Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London 2005

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PIPPATA

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Joe O’Connor – Ten Years On

The O’Connor family, like every other family affected by the conflict deserves answers concerning the killing of Joe – Mark Thompson, Relatives For Justice.

Ten years ago today the Provisional IRA in full public view shot dead the Real IRA volunteer Joe O’Connor as he sat unarmed in a car in West Belfast’s Ballymurphy Estate. Despite numerous eye witnesses the Sinn Fein sponsored militia denied the killing and moved to intimidate anyone prepared to say anything to the contrary. Few people believed the Provisional denial although a small number of journalists abandoned what - if there was ever any to begin with - integrity they may have had, traded in their reputations and ran with the line anyway. Ten out of every nine people declined to believe the grovelling hacks.

The killing of Joe O’Connor was clinical and ruthless. He stood no chance, trapped in a car as the state shoot to kill squad closed in on him. Whether there was collusion leading to the death is a moot point. There most certainly was after it, the inference easy to draw from the comments by the coroner at Joe O’Connor’s inquest.

As well as being a brutal killing it was ultimately a futile one. Ten years on and the Real IRA is on its feet and very much in business whereas the organisation that gunned Joe O’Connor down is on its knees sucking the PSNI truncheon. The killers thought he would be long forgotten by the time his tenth anniversary came about. They were frustrated in that as well. Today his mother backed by Relatives For Justice called for the truth behind his death to be brought forth. Last weekend a commemoration took place at his burial site attended by his family, friends, comrades and republicans of different hues.

It has been said of the logic of capital punishment that it is in essence contradictory because it is premised on the absurd concept that killing people is a proper way to demonstrate that killing people is wrong. The same reasoning can be brought to bear on the Ballymurphy killing ten years ago. How the killers ever imagined that one way to influence the Real IRA to take the gun out of Irish politics was to use the gun against one of their volunteers defies reason. The Real IRA could only have had their militaristic orientation reinforced as a result of the killing; that guns were indeed an appropriate way to deal with opponents. The legacy is on the streets of the North today.

In today’s Irish News the mother of the murdered man, Margaret O’Connor, spoke about his death. She asked for closure:

there is all this talk about truth commissions and people owning up to what they did but no one has ever admitted killing my son … his children deserve to know who killed their daddy and why … I just want the PIRA to admit they killed my son. I need them to admit that they did it so that my family can have some kind of closure.

Margaret O’Connor is unlikely to get the acknowledgement she needs. The organisation which killed her son has long called a spade a shovel and is unlikely to concern itself with justice. Nevertheless, some people who were members of the Provisionals at the time of the killing have since spoken out against their organisation’s action ten years ago today. One who spoke at Saturday’s commemoration for the dead man apologised.

On behalf of grassroots Provisional IRA Volunteers and Sinn Fein Activists, I apologise to the O’Connor & Notarantonio families for Joe’s political assassination. I make the apology as a former Provisional IRA Volunteer, former Sinn Fein member and Ex- Political Prisoner.

There is not now the slightest doubt about the culpability of the Provisional IRA. Those who in the immediate days after the killing may have been manipulated into a confused state by Provisional lying can no longer be shielded from the truth of what happened on Friday the 13th October 2000.

In plain simple language that the peace process has difficulty understanding, Joe O’Connor was butchered by the Provisional IRA. .

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Bombing Derry

In the swirl of ridicule that descended on the head of Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness in the wake of the Real IRA bombing of the Ulster Bank in Derry it is all too easy to lose sight of the catastrophe that draws closer with each exploding device. It seems the Real IRA has learned nothing from the Omagh bomb and is prepared to risk a repeat of the slaughter inflicted there in pursuit of a legitimate goal through means that are anything but legitimate. The veteran socialist activist Eamonn McCann made an interesting observation worthy of reflection by those seeking to prosecute wars that can never be won.

…it's pointless demonising the dissidents as gangsters with no politics. There are clear parallels between their campaign and the Provos. The Provos were wrong then and the dissidents are wrong now. Their campaign will bring death and misery to all involved.

It is probably only a few who feel that the whole purpose of the Derry attack was to rub Martin McGuinness’s nose in it. But doing so was almost certainly one factor in the Real IRA’s strategic deliberations. While McGuinness was lining up with the British Tories at their annual conference, where they marginalised him to the fringe, the Real IRA was announcing with a bang that the former Provisional IRA chief of staff was a busted flush in terms of his ability to hand the head of republican political violence to the British state on a plate. The timing of the attack led McGuinness into standing shoulder to shoulder with the squires from the shires in a crescendo of condemnation of republican armed activity. In his critique of the bombers the North’s Deputy First Minister referred to them as conflict junkies and Neanderthals. The irony was not lost on observers who have been quick to point out that the Real IRA are branded Neanderthals because they seek to ape McGuinness who in his day blitzed Derry.

After the killing of two British soldiers in Antrim in March of last year Martin McGuinness lambasted the Real IRA as traitors, demonstrating the validity of Tallyrand’s comment that treason is a matter of dates. If the organisation was irritated by the comments it maintained an inscrutable expression. But when the opportunity presented itself to turn the worm the Real IRA did so with rapier like delivery. It issued a statement designed to position McGuinness as far removed from republicanism as Margaret Thatcher. A Real IRA spokesperson told the Sunday Tribune:

It was entirely appropriate that Martin McGuinness's condemnation of the IRA operation came from the Tory conference. The man who once bombed Derry into the ground is now on the side of bankers and big business. His sentiments are in keeping with those of his Tory friends. The contrast between McGuinness and those still committed to the republican struggle couldn't have been greater.

It was a stinging rebuke for the former Provisional IRA leader whose political and strategic achievements were shown to be tiny when the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, made it clear that the North of Ireland might as well be Finchley. Perhaps for this reason the Irish Times could comment, ‘… it can hardly be denied that the dissidents are now solidly rooted in the place republicanism was anchored through much of the conflict.’

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Holy Gazonkers!

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Desperately Seeking Sarah

A few nights back we sat down to view a movie about which my wife had read a decent write-up. The Dark was located in the horror genre. It featured Sean Bean who invariably puts in strong performances, although in this one as James he was shaded by Maria Bello playing Adèle.

Unlike much from recent horror industry output The Dark did not rely on the power of special effects but opted for the earlier methods of inducing fright. There were lots of things going bump in the night and appearances of spectral forms to cause the heart to miss a beat. There were times during it when I felt a shiver not only go down my spine but shudder right through me.

Adèle, who has been living in New York, decides to travel to Wales, where her daughter’s father James is a sheep farmer. Apart from the animals his sole companion is an unfathomable shepherd who tends to the flock while the reclusive James takes time out to paint. By making the trip to Wales Adèle hopes to bring some stability to Sarah’s life and remove the turbulence that has adversely affected the mother-daughter relationship.

First signs were ominous and when sheep almost knock Adèle into the sea as they leap like lemmings to the waves below, it does not dawn on her that sheep should not behave like the cliff top departing rodents. If there was a moment to consider a return flight to New York it was then. From that point on fortunes and some other things begin to plummet.

The endeavour to achieve family harmony was destroyed within days when Sarah was lost to the sea. 60 years earlier there had been a mass suicide performed on the hill from which Sarah fell to her death. A deranged but manipulative preacher had persuaded his equally deranged but more gullible congregation that beyond the waves lay the afterlife. At one time the preacher owned the farmhouse where James now lived.

From this point on the film is peppered with the anguished wails of ‘Sarah, Sarah’ from a desperate mother. Sarah’s father leads the hunt for his daughter’s body. Strained by anguish that he had not been at her side when she was lost he wanted to be there for her when she would be found. Tension builds up between him and Adèle because she sketches apparitions while he searches the sea. Their previously traced separate paths continue to diverge.

The mother, clearly unable to come to terms with the loss, retreats into a spooky world where conjuring up people long since dead focuses her mind. She learns from the annals of Welsh mysticism of the supposed existence of a place called the Dark. There she convinces herself is the location of her lost daughter.

When she discovers the sickly teenage Ebril in her daughter’s bed, Adèle becomes convinced that Ebrill knows where her daughter is and how to get her back. Undaunted by being told that Ebrill drowned many years ago, had returned but brought something back with her that was best left at sea, Adèle persists in her quest. But the legend of the Dark is that it only allows a person to be returned in exchange for another. It is clear where the story line is heading.

The film can be hard to follow particularly towards the end. I was never quite sure who made up the living and who were dead. The scenes became so interchangeable that it became impossible to say if they were in the Dark or in the farmhouse.

A viewable if confusing movie there are enough chills and frights throughout to keep the horror aficionado on board to the end of the journey across a dark stretch of unyielding currents determined that what they have they hold.

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FTQ

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Egg Face Enda

Brian Cowen hasn’t been alone in attracting ridicule in recent times. Visitors to the country might be excused for thinking that the pairing system operated by TDs for some Dail votes also extends to pairing off when it comes to silly behaviour. They might conclude that the evidence for this lies in Enda Kenny, having watched his opposite number in Fianna Fail, party leader Brian Cowen, fall off the credibility cliff, decide to do likewise; that Kenny reckoned this is what a Taoiseach in waiting - as he fantasises - must do if the wait is to be brought to a satisfactory end.

The pairing system is bog standard nudge and wink politics in the Dail. It permits elected representatives to be absent from votes without detracting from their party’s voting strength because someone from another party will agree to be absent at the same time. It keeps things on an even keel.

Enda Kenny thought he was onto a great thing when he opted to shaft the Fianna Fail government. Constrained by diminishing numbers in Leinster House’s tight voting game, the Fine Gael leader sensed an unprotected jugular and blood. And with all the ferocity that any toy teddy could muster he set out to get it. Tanaiste and Minister for Education Mary Coughlan was due to attend a meeting in Chicago. Its purpose, according to the Irish Times was:

aimed at boosting the level of attendance by US students at third-level institutions here, which currently has an estimated value of €900 million to the economy.

Mary, rather than feeling a fair wind at her back, found the outstretched foot of Enda catching her from behind before she even set foot on the transatlantic fight. The Fine Gael leader must have felt like giggling all the way to the political numero uno spot. That was until Labour came along, paired off with Coughlan, and hit him square in the face with an egg so big the whole country could see it. It was so well spread there seems to have been no part of the facial anatomy left splatter free. Protest as he might that he was not blushing, that his face was white and yellow, most observers knew it was bright red, Labour red.

How did Kenny make such an error of judgement? Given that his decision to shaft Fianna Fail on pairing was so vulnerable to a little political upending from another party, it is baffling that Kenny failed to first cover his left flank before setting out on his daft venture, and strike a deal with Labour on the matter before abandoning the deal he had in place with the government party. While he was upfield taking a questionable shot at Fianna Fail’s net, Labour were converting with aplomb the penalty kick he gave them. Wally of the year.

That he managed to steal some of the Brian Cowen’s threadbare credibility is probably why his rating in the opinion polls is well behind Labour leader Eamon Gilmore. Potential voters are likely to think that if Enda does not look over his shoulder on matters this simple he cannot be trusted to steer the economy out of trouble and is more likely to have some juggernaut of a bank ram into the back of him as a prelude to start the screwing procedure all over again.

Fine Gael is now reduced to slamming Labour’s claims of having no intention to go into government with Fianna Fail after the next election. Gilmore has already insisted that it is ‘crystal clear’ that Labour are ‘not going to put Fianna Fail back into government in any form after the next election.’ Even if Gilmore is spoofing nobody believes that Fine Gael will not suck up to Labour if by doing so it is assured of being in government. And Gilmore played it very well with public opinion by pushing patriotism before party:

We should not obstruct a Minister going to an event which might have the potential down the line to generate jobs or to generate investment in the country ... we have 450,000 people out of work in this country and we felt that the priority really is to do whatever can be done to try and get jobs for people and to try and get investment in this country ... Our main criticism of the Government is that they haven’t done enough of this.

With Labour as the left most party in the Dail, Enda Kenny is positioning it nicely as a serious contender for breaking the mould and providing the next Taoiseach.

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An Athair Seamus Go Deo

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Woeful Wanderers

While supporters may be divided on their thoughts on Benitez himself, what they are united in is their hatred for owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett - This Is Anfield Website, June 2010

A friend sent me a text this afternoon from Belfast. He is a Manchester United fan. Contrary to popular opinion they do have friends, and I continue to value my friendship with him. At the same time I carry on in the hope that his condition is curable.

The purpose of his brief message was to gleefully tell me that Liverpool were 0-2 down to Blackpool at half time in today’s game at Anfield. The wrong pool later won. Blackpool, for long enough identified as somewhere people would go to get on a fun ride rather than watch a soccer game, are now having a fun ride at Liverpool’s expense. I was not indifferent to the news but not greatly disappointed. Resignation best summed up my mood. There were no surprises there. That I never bothered following the game as it happened just about sums up my level of enthusiasm.

The Spirit of Shankley group organised protests before and after the match. Last week 9000 fans stayed behind after the game to express their dissatisfaction. They want rid of the current American owners of the club and one of the banners on display was emblazoned with the words ‘Yank Liars.’ That probably makes the Shankley group the most radical political force in British politics today. There is not much in the way of rivals.

Six points from seven games, languishing in the relegation zone, the future must look orange given that the orange of Blackpool overran the red of Liverpool on the pitch today. For someone of my ilk to long for a return to the Paisley era might sound strange to many. Nothing to marvel at, however, it is boot room Bob man rather than boot boy Ian. Under Bob Paisley’s leadership Liverpool enjoyed the most successful spell in its 128 year history. It has not been emulated since. It might never again.

As is inevitable the club coach will take a lot of flak. Liverpool fan and journalist Aaron Cutler argued:

Roy Hodgson’s Liverpool tenure has failed to ignite. A stuttering start to the season has dispelled any hope of a honeymoon period and instead exposed many of the same old frailties. Nobody expected a quick fix but signs of progress were anticipated, however small.

And that was before today’s debacle. Yet it is pointless to blame the current coach. As a friend ventured to me last week he was brought in to manage the decline, not achieve anything. Hodgson might have a reputation for managing well on limited resources but there is nothing to be carved from rotten wood. Trying to revive the club under its current owners is like giving the kiss of life to a corpse.

All those who blamed Rafa Benitez for the plummeting fortunes of the team, must now be looking back on his tenure as a golden era. The best thing about his departure is that it has shown clearly that he was not the problem there. True, his transfer forays were dubious at times, but he never managed to become one of the three Amigos propping up the rest of the Premier League.

Liverpool play old Merseyside rivals Everton next week. As a normal derby game it is important in its own right. But with both teams scraping around the bottom of the Premier barrel, on shared points from a similar number of games, there will be a sharper edge to matters. It might be seen more in the stands than on the pitch. While there is little to say that either team will rise to the occasion, the safe money has to be on Everton. What William Hazlitt said of man is true of Liverpool supporters:

As Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

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Fascist Bill

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries a letter from RNU Ard Comhairle member Tony Taylor.

A Chara,

On behalf of the Republican Network for Unity (RNU), I’d like to claim
victory as the draft Public Assemblies Parades and Protest Bill surpassed
its dead line and fell flat on its face.

The Bill spouted by Provisional Sinn Fein as having far reaching
benefits for the republican & nationalist community. Protecting them from
orange feet served only to facilitate Loyal Orders in their discussions
during and after the draft of the Bill.

The outcome was a fascist Bill scribed and promoted by Sinn Fein & the
DUP. That was designed to curtail resident’s rights, criminalise
Republicans and ostracise anyone else opposed to orange feet trampling
through vulnerable communities.

Furthermore, the Bill was to criminalise Nationalists and Republicans who
exercise their legitimate right to oppose abuses against the public by the
RUC/PSNI who regularly carry out unjustified abuses against women and
children. (Highlighted during discussions with Derry Priest, Fr. Paddy O
Kane).

Only the following were consulted when putting the Bill together; the
RUC/PSNI, Spike Murray (senior Sinn Fein Activist), Mervyn Gibson,
(Deputy Grand Chaplin of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland & a
former Special Branch Officer) and finally a number of community and resident groups. Although, they failed to properly represent the voices of communities that have been forced to endure unwelcome parades.

Considering the working group had been advised by the Human rights
Commission when drafting the Bill. It is shocking that Stormont
Politicians did not feel the need to take identified violations of our
human rights into consideration. Which again demonstrate, just how arrogant
these Political Parties truely are. In their attempts to demonise and
criminalise those who oppose the current institutions.

Due to the back lash by communities across the North and responses like that
presented by R.N.U. opposing the Draft Bill, Public meetings will now be
excluded from the draft Bill. "The primary change will be the removal of
all public meetings from the remit of the legislation. The public
consultation process indicated concern that open-air and other similar
public meetings would be captured by the legislation...........”.

R.N.U. sought just how much this Bill would cost to implement through a
Freedom of Information Request (FOI). We were astonished to find that No
Cost Analysis had even taken place. In light of the greatest economic down
turn in our history, how can Sinn Fein and the DUP explain this? How
much has this Bill cost in its entirety to date?

In addition, No Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA), No Regulatory Impact
Assessment was carried out. No evidence was held as to how the working
group came up with the figure of limiting the numbers to 50 to parade or
protest thus criminalising other demonstrators.

No information was provided, as to how the working group extended their role
to implementing draconian legislation. There was also no information as to
why Sinn Fein and the DUP reintroduced the Emergency Provisions Act. Which
was supposed to be ended under the devolution of Policing and Justice powers
from Westminster. No answer was given, why other elected Parties were
excluded from the process but not the Loyal Orders.

The bias displayed by both Parties towards the working- class, had the
draconian Bill actually been introduced, demonstrates just how far removed
Sinn Fein and the DUP are from the communities they claim to represent.
It is unmistakable that they now wish to please their British masters at any
cost.

In conclusion, R.N.U. believes that the Nationalist and Republican
community have been misled by Provisional Sinn Fein. Throughout the
process, senior Party figures had repeatedly claimed that the RUC/PSNI and
the British Security Services had not been involved in the drafting of the
Bill. However, according to the information obtained by our Network, in
the Freedom of Information Request (FOI). The British Crown Forces
clearly played a central role.

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Unreasonable Conclusions

In this round of the Dawkins season, screened by More4, society’s best loved or most hated atheist did not have to deal with religious zealots who are invariably more sinister and threatening than the type of person he designated the Enemies of Reason. The colourful array of astrologers, mediums, faith healers, fortune tellers, spiritualists, homeopaths, water dowsers, psychics appeared a bunch who took themselves much less seriously than religion’s devotees. They lacked the certainty, and arrogance that comes with it, of the ‘true believer’. Richard Dawkins seemed to be having genuine fun with them; and to their credit, they with him.

To me there is not a lot to choose between when looking at the peddlers of theology or astrology. The latter has the advantage in that we can at least see the stars they profess to study rather than have to settle for the unlikely story that they are invisible but nevertheless out there concealed behind a burning bush or something. And astrologers tend not to want your head chopped off or threaten you with hell fire if you don’t see their particular star shining as brightly as they do. Nor do they seem inclined toward charging around with their holy book trying to inflict its contents on to the rest of us or burn someone else’s for not being holy enough.

In Enemies of Reason, Dawkins continued with his theme that a growing threat to reason is on the march and should be treated more seriously than it is. He sites much of his fear in the evident decline in interest in science subjects in British classrooms. This when juxtaposed to the rise of what may be called quackery has sent Dawkins’ anxiety antennae bleeping.

I really wonder if Dawkins is not being a bit over the top. People who are obviously hoaxers, many seemingly for the sheer fun of it, with absolutely no intention of proselytising for the cause, hardly pose the same challenge to human understanding as organised religion. An astrologer is like an actor providing public entertainment. The blood is fake but we don’t ask for it to be banned or demand our money back at the cinema on the grounds that Dr Frankenstein could not possibly have created a man. It is hard to imagine the homeopaths stoning women to death because of medicinal promiscuity. The quack pack are a funny lot but you sense they know it already and have a fair measure of tolerance towards other who are baffled by their activity and thinking. Unlike the religious lot they seem not to mind having a bit of fun poked their way.

We live in a world of multi cultural dimensions and other cultures are just something we have to coexist with. And that includes the zany, the pot smoker the gambler, the boozer, the whatever we do. Otherwise, how far should Dawkins and his colleagues be allowed to take matters? Society neither wants nor needs a dictatorship of the scientists. It knows already that scientists between them have manufactured the means of human extinction, the most terrible array of powers any group can possess. To teach not dictate is the licence society should grant science.

Imaginative licence is part of the human condition. Great works like Bram Stoker’s Dracula would not have been produced without it. Science should strive to better explain the imagination instead of suggesting that is just in our imagination, not in reality, that vampires are to be found and we should abandon it because its truth status is negligible. There are things the human mind wants to enjoy without being reminded of the reality underneath. In exploring a beautiful city like Zaragoza few want to hear from their tour guide what the sewers running underground are like despite the fact that without them the city could not function.

Consider the fictions we live with and take pleasure from. Should Stephen King novels not be sold because there is no such thing as blood sucking creatures of the night taking over a town called Salem? The joy I used to derive from King novels during my imprisonment, having been introduced to them by Gary McNally who gave me Carrie, and Martin Livingstone who provided a copy of The Stand – after which I was hooked – would have been denied me, my life made duller than it already was. I didn’t believe Pet Sematery was a place that could have its own version of the resurrection. It was pure fiction but fantasy serves a purpose by inserting a few bends, chicanes and indolent waywardness into the straight highways of science.

Dawkins invariably professes a ‘passionate concern’ for truth and he fears for the science in the world of untruth. I fear for the world of fiction and the novel – even science fiction which I don’t particularly like - in a science defined by expansionism in the worst possible sense of the term.

If there is a danger posed by people being conned out of their money and paying for remedies that endanger their health then that is a matter to be addressed by the law of society. By all means expose Lourdes for the farce it is, the same with the healers-cum-money sucking televangelists in the US. But much of what was highlighted in Enemies of Reason was like gambling: pay your money, pull the arm and hope something bigger comes out than what you put in. Misplaced hope, an illusion, it hardly matters. Is it so necessary for science to purge it?

Dawkins made a play on human progress through modern medicine but had woefully little to say on the very real possibility of quack remedies being considered because the pharmaceutical companies have priced scientifically verified medicine outside the price range of many in dire need of it. Maybe that’s the lot of the ‘undeserving poor’ in a world subject to the laws of social Darwinism.

I believe in the scientific explanation of our world and have no belief whatsoever in religious explanations of my surroundings. Science is to be valued for its explanatory power of the universe above any other interpretation. One reason I respect it is because of its potential to be liberating rather than restrictive. While there is no reason for it to exist on the same intellectual plane as other explanatory frameworks, for it to adopt a religious-like approach to all practices that have a very dubious truth value and seek to suppress them on those grounds is to dangerously politicise science. Given its power coupled with the political ends to which scientific power has been applied, such as gas chambers and atomic bombs, society can only afford to travel down the scientific road to truth not oblivion.

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PATBIC

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Immediate Action required in the Gerry McGeough Vincent MacAnespie Trial

Tonight The Pensive Quill carries a piece by guest writer Helen McClafferty on the need for immediate action in the case of Gerry McGeough and his co-accused, Vincent MacAnespie.

I am being appreciatively inundated with calls and emails from various people around the world, especially since Gerry McGeough’s second heart attack, asking “what can we do to help support Gerry and Vincent at this time”?

In the wake of these calls and emails, I ask you to take the following action:

1) Write letters to your local newspaper (Letters To The Editor)…

objecting to the fact that McGeough and McAnespie have been politically singled out to stand trial on” alleged charges dating back 30 years”, etc., etc., etc. You can go to the “freegerry.com web site for updated information on the case/trail.


2) FILL THE COURT ROOM WITH SUPPORTERS

Gerry McGeough is due back in court in approximately six weeks providing he is medically sound to do so.


3) DEMONSTRATE OUTSIDE THE COURT AS LONG AS THE TRIAL LASTS…

Carry posters that say “FREE GERRY MCGEOUGH AND VINCENT MCANESPIE”. “BRITISH GOVERNMENT RENEGES ON GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT”. “STOP THE POLITICALLY MOTIVATED PERSECUTION OF THESE TWO MEN”.


4) CONTACT YOUR LOCAL SWEDISH EMBASSY-RE: GERRY MCGEOUGH…

Insist that the Swedish government do two things: 1) make a statement denouncing the use of their asylum papers as evidence in any court against anybody and 2) to swiftly take the required action to have those papers immediately returned to their rightful owner, the Swedish government and don’t allow any Swedish government employee to testify in a Diplock court.


5) CALL, EMAIL, FAX YOUR LOCAL SINN FEIN …

Ask them…” what have they been doing to help McGeough and McAnespie since their arrest March 2007”? The one and only comment on their arrest was reported in An Phoblacht.com on March 8, 2007 where MP Michele Gildernew and TD Caoimhghin O Caolain “branded the arrest of Assembly election candidate Gerry McGeough as outrageous”. However, since then, there has been absolutely no further condemnation of their arrest and 3 ½ year persecution by the Crown. The big question here is WHY hasn’t Sinn Fein stepped up to the plate on behalf of McGeough and McAnespie?

Quick Update

Gerry's trial is set to resume on October 11th. No apparent consideration has been given to his current health and well-being.

Originally his trial was set to resume approximately six weeks after his second heart attack, but it is obvious now they want the trial done and over with before any demonstrations and growing unrest among concerned republicans and other supporters of Gerry can get underway.

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Behead Jay Leno

Death to the infidel who would pour scorn and insult on the nation’s great leader. Jay Leno is a heretic who has insulted the one true prophet of modern Ireland, our glorious Taoiseach. And for that the penalty is something not very nice, even if BIFFO is something of a false profit making all sorts of wrong predictions about an end to the country’s economic woes. Taking the piss out of him hardly ranks therefore on the same level as taking it out of other prophets. Take it out of them and you will not live to regret it.

So what was it that Jay Leno actually did? Not a lot when you think of it. Indulged in a bit of light hearted entertainment at Brian Cowen’s expense. What odds? Virtually the whole country was doing that after his recent Good Morning Ireland performance so Leno just helped internationalise things in a humorous sort of way. The morning after the night before interview had already made its way to the international press and its face was much sterner than Leno’s.

Any one familiar with the Jay Leno Tonight show will know he is renowned for his sketches that invite ridicule. He opens his show by displaying a photo and asking the audience what the person caught on camera does for a living. On this occasion he gave them three possibilities to choose from: bartender, politician or comic. When Leno announced that the guy having a good time in the picture was a politician, not just any old politician but ‘Brian Cowen, Prime Minister of Ireland’ the studio audience fell about itself laughing. Leno could just as easily have said Boris Cowen and few would have noticed. Then just to spice things up a bit the Tonight host said ‘oh God it’s nice to know we are not the only country with drunken morons, isn’t it?’ True enough. They overpopulate the world. In BIFFO’s defence it has to be said that if he is a drunken moron he is not alone amongst Irish politicians. First among equals maybe but definitely not on his Jack Daniels.

Almost as many people are estimated to have viewed Leno’s Tonight show as live in Ireland. No small number to be mocked and scorned in front of. Needless to say the patriots of Ireland – who only last week were all gleeful at BIFFO’s misfortune - began to complain to RTE’s Liveline, insisting on an apology from the NBC network which features Leno’s show. Cowen, however, even if he was smarting refrained from getting involved. He might even have decided to taken it on the chin and passed it off as a comedy skit, something that goes with the turf. In any event NBC don’t look like they are for folding and giving into the demands of patriotic Ireland (probably none other than the stalwarts of local Fianna Fail cumainn). Good for NBC and anybody else who stands up against the humour haters and in defence of the profane, the sacrilegious and the right to mock. There are enough maniacs running around in religious circles screaming ‘blasphemy’ at whatever it is annoys their fancy without the creation of secular saints, to whose defence will spring every charlatan and their axe.

As for BIFFO, have as many as you like Brian. You are just toasting the national Zeitgeist all the way down.

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Biffo Redux

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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A brief Interview with Martin Galvin, Esq: What It Means For Gerry McGeough If Pronounced Guilty

Tonight’s Pensive Quill features an interview with Martin Galvin. It was carried out by guest writer Helen McClafferty.

There is a great deal of speculation and assumptions floating around out there in cyber space regarding what type of sentence Gerry McGeough is facing. I asked Martin Galvin, a prominent New York attorney helping out on Gerry's case, to explain what the possibility is if pronounced guilty.
Martin explained that:

Under the terms of the deal, if pronounced guilty, Gerry McGeough would first be sentenced to a lengthy jail term. While he would be eligible for early release, after 2 years, (even for someone like Gerry who endured a notorious German prison and 3 years in a federal penitentiary) this is not a minor thing for a man in his 50s with a bad heart serving time in the conditions at Maghaberry with young children.

Martin went on to say that:

The problem with this type of sentence is the fact it is "a release on license or parole", which can be revoked at any time for little or no reason other than the constabulary claims to have intelligence information that you are associating with people they dislike. (eg Terry McCafferty). McCafferty was jailed a few weeks after his release. It was claimed there was intelligence information that he was associating with dissident Republicans. After 15 months it was admitted that there had been no intelligence information against him. This could mean a quick return to Maghaberry prison under the original sentence.

For those of you not familiar with the Terry McCafferty case, the following was taken from the Irish News, Monday, March 29, 2010. The paper reported:

"Alleged Real IRA leader” Terry McCafferty was released from Maghaberry Prison after the Sentence Review Commissions ruled his detention illegal on the basis that the case against him was unreliable. McCafferty had been released on licence in November 2008, half-way through a 12-year sentence for possession of explosives, but, as noted at the time, in December 2008 the Secretary of State revoked his parole licence and he was re-arrested at Belfast International Airport. Since then there has been a legal battle over the case, which included a December 2009 Court of Appeal ruling rejecting a legal challenge to the decision to revoke McCafferty’s licence.
As part of that legal battle the attorney general appointed a special advocate to represent McCafferty at hearings which he was not allowed to attend because of sensitive intelligence material presented to the commission by security agencies. The case took a dramatic turn earlier this month when the special advocate announced he was withdrawing from the case, claiming he was not being allowed to properly represent the alleged dissident. However, McCafferty’s lawyer Paul Pierce was last night informed that the sentence review commission had recommended the prisoner’s immediate release. Welcoming the move, Mr. Pierce said: “My client has been held in prison without any valid evidence for the last 15 months. He will be considering a civil action against the secretary of state for this illegal detention.”

I hope the above information helps people to have a better understanding of exactly how serious the consequences are facing Gerry at this time.

I cannot impress enough upon republicans that if Gerry is convicted, not only will it serve to prove the British government did not hold up their end of the Good Friday Agreement, but it will now set a precedent, going forward, that all republicans will now be in jeopardy if the RUC/PSNI decide you are next.

For more legal information on Gerry's case, you can download and listen to Martin Galvin on WBAI's Radio Free Eireann, by using this link and scrolling down to Saturday, September 18, 2010 show 1:00pm: http://archives.wbai.org

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Religious Opinion Against Rights

David Quinn frequently takes up the sceptre on behalf of the Catholic Church and the religion of Catholicism. I have often read him but have always found his reason wanting. He tends to rely on argument by assertion and presupposes a privileged position as of right for his religious opinion. I also listened to him once in a debate with Richard Dawkins at the end of which Dawkins must have felt like the cat that got the cream.

His column in last Friday’s Irish Independent devoted itself to the visit of the Catholic pope Joseph Ratzinger to Britain. He at first claimed the Vatican chief had conquered, only to pull back a sentence or two later to the more modest position that:

if he didn't exactly conquer, he certainly persuaded many people that there is a lot more to Joseph Ratzinger than the caricature of him many might lead us to believe.

This is in spite of reduced numbers having turned up to greet the pope, compared with the 1982 papal visit, a decrease perhaps better explained in terms of a greater disinterest in religion than by Quinn’s take that smaller numbers were down to security and financial considerations.

Nor is it accurate to claim that ‘the Pope's visit to Britain last weekend was vastly more successful than almost anyone anticipated’. Quinn could have said with greater plausibility that the crowd that turned up to protest the visit ‘brought ten times as many people as expected to a rally opposite Downing Street.’ But in a world as imaginary as the god of David Quinn, the Christian columnist saw critics of the papal visit ‘reduced to petty and impotent fury.’ Wish, father to the thought.

The real success of Ratzinger’s visit lay in the fact that it avoided any major controversy. He was not pelted with eggs and there were no priests caught on camera flashing as the popemobile zoomed past them.

What struck me about Quinn’s piece was that his real concern is that the challenge to the power of religion is steadily curbing its ability to restrict the rights of others. Quinn masks this as an attack on Christian rights:

if the forced closure of Catholic adoption agencies in the UK and elsewhere because they want children to be adopted by married, opposite-sex couples isn't an example of a direct attack on the rights of religious organisations, then nothing is.

But the rights he cites as being violated are precisely in those areas where religion seeks to discriminate against others on the grounds of religious opinion. Clearly the grounds for discriminating against people in same sex relationships are based on a religious opinion. Religious belief should not be allowed to function in that capacity any more than sporting belief.

When Quinn supports Ratzinger’s description of secular tolerance as the ‘dictatorship of relativism’ he seeks to subvert what is a bulwark against the dictatorship of Catholicism.

As is evident from the position of Quinn this Catholic dictatorship would seek to deny abortion to US and Swedish women on the basis of the religious opinion of the doctor. Any legal rights the women have would be rendered null and void by religious opinion. Irish couples who choose not to get married would be denied infertility treatment because the religious opinion of the fertility doctor would override their right. Women in general would have no right to the morning after pill if some chemist decided on the grounds of his religious opinion that they should not get it. Again legal rights being subverted by religious opinion. In all these cases Quinn values his opinion over the rights of others.

On the same dubious grounds Quinn also complained that the Government and opposition parties refused to add a conscience clause to the Civil Partnership Bill:

a true example of the "dictatorship of relativism" which insists that no distinction can be made between one "lifestyle choice" and another, and that those who make such distinctions must be penalised.

Distinctions can always be made between lifestyles. But Quinn wants some lifestyles not just to be desisted from – a matter of personal choice - but to be actively penalised by intrusive religion. It is society’s prerogative, not the church’s, to set its own standards. Quinn rejects this. He is intolerant of Minister Dermot Ahern’s advice to politicians not to let religion "cloud" their judgment and Minister John Gormley’s instruction to bishops to "stick to the spiritual needs of their flock", rather than "intrude" on ‘matters of State.’

In a bid to present religious believers as victims Quinn hits out at ‘aggressive secularism.’ What he is really doing is presenting in a harsh light assertive secularism which is nothing other that the assertion that people have rights that cannot be eroded by the religious opinion of others. The ‘rights’ of religion is nothing other than an attempt to discriminate against those religion does not approve of.

Because of the concern with safeguarding rights against religious opinion Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, made the point at the rally where, according to Quinn, only the petty, impotent and furious turned up: ‘we are no longer listening to religious leaders - we get our morality from other places.’

It is as well we do otherwise we would believe raping children sits on the same moral plateau as ordaining women priests and worthy of the same sanction.

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da Jersey Shore

Cartoon by Brian Mór
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