GERALD FORD & oliver sipple

GERALD FORD is a permanently bold-face, all-caps, household name, even without his recent prominence in the news due to dying on December 26th.

Far less prominent is the name Oliver Sipple, who at most will remain a footnote in history. Without Sipple's intervention, however, Ford would not have seen the end of 1975, rather than the ripe old age of 93. Nor, I imagine, would Sipple have wanted even this footnote in history.

Sipple's story is sometimes used as an example in journalism ethics classes. On September 22, 1975, President Ford was leaving the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco, before a crowd of about 3,000 onlookers who had turned out to see the President. In the crowd was Oliver Sipple, former U.S. Marine and Vietnam veteran, who as he watched the scene, saw a woman near him pull out a .38 pistol and aim it at Ford.

Sipple lunged at the woman's arm just as she pulled the trigger — in the above photo, Ford is seen reacting to the sound of the pistol shot. The shot missed, and the woman, Sarah Jane Moore, was arrested (she is still in jail serving life in California); police and secret service personnel immediately acclaimed Sipple as the hero who had saved the President.

The instant hero became an instant victim as well. Sipple was horrified by the attention, not least because he was gay and was barely out of the closet, even in San Francisco, and none of his family knew of his orientation. He asked reporters who thronged around him not to mention that he was gay, but soon gay politician Harvey Milk, called Sipple a "gay hero" and said his act "will help break the stereotype of homosexuals."

A newspaper in Sipple's home state of Michigan carried the unwelcome news to his parents, and they immediately disowned him. When he called home, they hung up. In 1979, when his mother died, his father did not bother to contact Sipple to let him know.

Sipple turned to drink. On February 2, 1989, he was found dead in his bed, at the age of forty-seven. At least former President Ford sent a letter to Sipple's few remaining friends, acknowledging his role in saving his life, and mourning his passing.

Those James Brown viewing pics in full

I have to start this post with the groan-inspiring words: James Brown's body lies a-moldering in the Apollo, but his soul goes marching on! Here, via Gothamist, are the Great Man's remains, and also a truly magnificent shot of the Reverend Al Sharpton — no further comment necessary!

James Brown lies in state at the Apollo Theater

The green marker shows where I am; the red marker indicates the location of the Apollo Theater. So James Brown's funeral procession just passed by, and they have now taken his gold coffin out of the horse-drawn caisson and people who have been lined up since midnight are now starting to file past inside the Apollo.


The hearse is ahead,
But after there follows
A troop of streetwalkers
In wide flowered hats,
Leg-of-mutton sleeves,
And ankle-length dresses.

There is an air of great friendliness,
As if they were honouring
One they were fond of;
Some caper a few steps,
Skirts held skilfully
(Someone claps time),

And of great sadness also.
As they wend away
A voice is heard singing...

— Philip Larkin

Update: as I walked back afterwards on West 127th Street, I passed an old man at the 'bad' house on the block, who was hunkered down on the sidewalk taking a dump. I didn't really look too closely, but as I walked by, he said, "this shit is fucking killing me.”

A dramatic number of dead

How far would anyone go to escape poverty?

From the BBC:

About 6,000 African migrants have died or gone missing on the sea journey to the Canary Islands in 2006, Spanish immigration officials say.
They say more than 31,000 migrants reached the islands in the Atlantic - more than six times as many as in 2005.
The Canaries is one of the most popular destinations for Africans trying to reach Europe to escape poverty.
"We're talking about a dramatic number of dead," Froilan Rodriguez, the Canary Islands' deputy director of immigration, told Spain's Cadena Ser radio station.
Mr Rodriguez said that about 600 bodies had been picked up on the shores of the Canaries and the African mainland in the past 12 months, but the total of migrants killed had been about 10 times higher.

She keeps it in her checking account?

As Londoners may talk about the weather, New Yorkers talk about real estate. With real estate goes the name Barbara Corcoran, founder of the real estate brokerage, the Corcoran Group. She sold it for $66 million. What did it feel like to be suddenly $66 million wealthier?

"The best thing that happened was when I went to my Citibank cash machine on Madison Avenue and 90th Street in my neighborhood two days after the sale. I went to get my $200 out that I get out every two weeks for my $200 pocket cash, and I always push the button, 'do you want a receipt?' 'Yes.' And when the receipt came out, my account balance was over $50 million and that was thrilling.

I showed it to everybody else in the cash line. I couldn't contain myself. I said, 'Look at this, look at this.' I mean, I was looking around, it was such a weird feeling, who do you show it to? Nobody was with me that I knew so I showed it to everybody there. I think they thought I was a nut job, a New York nut.

I immediately went next door and bought myself a big breakfast -- eggs Benedict, fresh squeezed orange juice and a side order of toast and coffee. I went whole hog for breakfast with that little receipt in my hand. And I gave the waitress a $20 tip.

I kept that receipt, needless to say. I have it at home in a little picture frame in my clothes closet in my bedroom. I smile at it every morning as I reach for my shoes."

[As told to Lauren Elkies]

Jesus turned water into grape juice

Prohibition, the era from 1919 to 1935 when the manufacture, possession, transportation and sale of alcohol was hilariously banned in the United States, represented the greatest triumph of the Prohibition Party, the "oldest third party" in the country after the Republicans and Democrats.

Of course, Prohibition failed the U.S: there resulted a massive wave of organized crime, enormous wealth for the bootlegging Kennedys, and many of the social problems associated with drinking actually increased because drinking went underground. It was 1935 before Prohibition was repealed — 16 years of social engineering by the federal government on behalf of people whose politics probably included a commitment to small government.

All so long ago. So it has come as a surprise to find that the Prohibition Party is alive and well in a dry township in eastern Pennsylvania, and that the party (all seven and a half members, it seems) "has nominated a candidate for president in every election since 1872..." Above is a snapshot of some of their recent campaign badges — everyone will remember how White House hopefuls Dodge and Kelly (don't they sound like an interesting dive bar?) nearly beat incumbent President Bill Clinton...

Prohibition is long gone. And Christmas is gone as well for another year — good riddance. See you on New Year's Eve at Dodge and Kelly's...

The Prohibition Party remains a moralistic and puritanical organization, even to the extent that some members have sought to prove that when the word 'wine' is used in the Bible, it really means 'grape juice.' Thus is the dilemma of the biblical literalists, who claim to read only the words of the good book and their straight-forward meaning: but when a word like 'wine' gets in the way of the point they want to shove down everyone's throat, they start to dig for a way to show that Jesus turned water into grape juice. Everyone knows it was cranberry juice.

Let's go down to Dodge and Kelly's for a vodka and cranberry or six...

Fully lit!

"From inside a Long Island train at night, each passing light show looks like a blow against cynicism, an act of pure generosity."

Accepting the Statelet, part II

The Irish Independent reports:

"Another group of senior IRA figures, including one who controls one of its most lucrative rackets, have left the organisation in the North over recognition of the PSNI.

The Tyrone-based senior IRA man runs a tax-exemption certificate racket responsible for raising huge amounts of money for the IRA going back to the Eighties. His is the second departure from the IRA's Army Council this year.

The other is a west Belfast man. Both are former prisoners. Both were appointed to the Army Council last year after Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris had stepped down to facilitate talks on entering government with the DUP."

I wonder why it took so long for (major) splits to show in the republican facade. Also, if people are starting to wear away at the edges, what exactly might they now hope to achieve? It seemed patently and blatently obvious from, I suppose, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement that though they somehow presented it as a famous victory on the road to a united Ireland, the peace process is a defeat for the IRA and for Sinn Fein, and not just any old defeat worthy of a scowl and a pint and a muttered "Our Day Will Come," but a defeat that puts the 'RA out of business for good.

I cannot imagine that even an attempt to revive the armed struggle ('Destroying the Statelet') would mean anything other than the Brits wiping them out in a matter of weeks — Tony Blair today has anti-terrorist powers that Thatcher might only have dreamed of. And few nationalists and republicans in Ireland would even accept a return to armed struggle. Think of how bomb scares would feck up the traffic on the way to the shopping malls!

I really do hope that one day in my lifetime there is a united Ireland, as partition sucks and is a reminder of our stupid historical inability to stop fighting over whatever-it-was-we-were-fighting-about. But sometimes no matter how you look at things, you still catch a glimpse of dreary steeples.

Man in Santa outfit is beaten up

Where else are the crudest and most mean-spirited impulses of humanity impervious even to the season of good cheer? — Northern Ireland, of course.

From the BBC:

A man dressed as Santa Claus has been treated in hospital after he was beaten up in Londonderry.

The attack happened on the Lone Moor Road in the city on Thursday.

Thomas McGilloway, who is 42, was kicked and punched by a gang of youths and had to be treated in hospital for an eye injury.

Mr McGilloway was on his way to deliver presents when the attack happened. His mother said she thought he was attacked because of the Santa outfit.

She said he was walking to his brother's shop when the attack happened.

"A crowd came over to him and started on him, just out of the blue," Mrs McGilloway said.

"They said 'get you out of that, you're no Santa Claus, there's no Santa Claus in this world'.

"They kicked him and he came home all battered up."

Awakens to the news that the check is not in the mail

If only we could gloat

It was "Mission Accomplished" in 2003. Then, "A Plan for Victory," in 2005. This October, the most disastrous occupant of the White House ever, announced regarding Iraq: “Absolutely, we’re winning.” This week, two new ways to parse his nightmare: he is seeking "a new way forward," while also admitting, “We’re not winning. We’re not losing.”

Given an infinite amount of time, I wonder how long it would be until he'd finally say, "We're fucked and it's all my fault"?

New Jersey Governor Signs Civil Unions Bill, It Will Destroy the Earth

So... — "New Jersey's governor signed legislation Thursday giving gay couples all the rights and responsibilities of marriage allowed under state law -- but not the title. When the law goes into effect Feb. 19, New Jersey will become the third state offering civil unions to gay couples and the fifth allowing gay couples some version of marriage."

But, to keep things in perspective, a quotation from a couple of years ago... — "Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth." — James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family.

The Empire State Building is 75

From the New York Times: "...on St. Patrick's Day 1930, the journey upward began... The operation was so tight that the steel often arrived still warm from the forges."

Random

For no reason at all, a photograph of a big tanker just sitting there, doing nothing at all.

Accepting the statelet

A Sinn Fein member of Northern Ireland's legislative assembly has been de-selected from standing as that party's candidate in the upcoming elections in 2007. David Hyland, who represents Newry and Armagh, said some ominous words:

“If you accept policing you are really accepting the statelet."

It might be said, "if you took part in the peace process and agreed to the Belfast Agreement, you are really accepting the statelet."

Or, as someone else put it, far more succinctly, "Michael Collins, 26, Gerry Adams, nil."

Down Memory Lane

Do you mind the day? In honor of nothing in particular, a reminder of the good old bad old days in the wee province that I reluctantly home.

God love ye, Northern Ireland, you've come a long way since the day this British Army armored vehicle was cruising through Belfast in the direction of a cinema, where the film on show appears to be 'On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever.'

As George W. Bush might say, how ironical!

Bloomberg says he's going to target poverty

I reluctantly admire our mayor here, Michael Bloomberg, perhaps one of the most candid characters in public service right now. Far too often, I feel, Americans pay undue reverence to elected leaders, such as that creep in the White House, or alternately, pay no attention to them at all, so that politicians have free range to rampage, like that creep in the White House.

I met Bloomberg once, when he visited a relaunch party for a newspaper I worked for many thousands of years ago, where he impressed with a sharp sense of humor, and I also saw him speaking at a New York Times Times Talks event, where I was again impressed with his confidence and intelligence: he mentioned being 62 years old and in great health and at the top of his game, and at very least you felt that here was someone who really enjoyed heading for the office every morning to get stuff done — it betokened an honesty of purpose.

So now he says more will be done to tackle poverty in New York City. Blessed and privileged as I am, I have slight if any understanding of real poverty in New York, but I've walked around (stumbled?) parts of the city at all hours of the day and night, and occasionally I've glimpsed horror within yards of extreme wealth.

Last week on lonely Eleventh Avenue over by the Javits Conference Center, I saw a man lying on the sidewalk ahead of me. There is nothing over there on the extreme west side of Manhattan in the West 40s except enormous trucks parked while drivers snooze or screw local prostitutes. There's a huge rail yard (for the L.I.R.R.) and a heliport by the river itself. And also, this man, lying on the street. As I approached, he was sitting upright on one elbow, facing the glaring afternoon sun. As I passed, I glanced down, and saw that with his other hand he was picking furiously at a vast grey fungus-like mass that covered his forehead and most of his face.

Oh, I shuddered, and kept on walking. He was probably younger than he looked; probably quite a street survivor; and by every mainstream measurement of human beings in America today, totally fucked. During the last election campaign for mayor here in New York City, I was pissed off at what seemed to be the non-existence of a campaign, that all the local newspapers seemed to have decided in advance that Bloomberg should be re-elected without any real airing of issues or digging around to see if Mighty Mike was as shiny as he seems.

One person I argued with said that because Bloomberg is a billionaire, he is beyond corruption, therefore he had to be a good mayor. Yes, that's true — he doesn't have to work hard at bribery and corruption like other politicians, he could simply electronically wire you a brown envelope from his Blackberry. I tried to make the same person see the term 'billionaire' as not necessarily an innately good thing — or bad thing — but in this day and age it is like — bad analogy coming up — if humans were musical instruments, most of us would be tin whistles, whereas a billionaire is the Berlin Philharmonic.

Bloomberg's opponent during that election once raised the issue of there being two New Yorks, a rich, visible New York, and the poor, invisible one. The New York Daily News attacked him for being 'divisive.' As happened so often since 2000, I felt as if I was powerlessly watching people walking into traffic. So now, belatedly, I am heartened that Bloomie seems to be doing something new about poverty, but though I regret having to mention Him, Jesus did say: "Ye have the poor always with you." A simple statement, but one that today needs clarification: some born-again Christians in America recently went so far as to say that Jesus' words justifies telling the poor to fuck off and die — He was saying, there will always be poor people, no matter how hard anyone tries to help them, so why bother? I honestly don't think this is what He meant.

Youse have five minutes til have your perceptions challenged!

Former Loyalist paramilitary and class A nutter Michael Stone has defended his recent one-man attack on the Northern Ireland Parliament with handgun and bomb-in-a-bag as not the actions of a deranged extremist, but as... 'performance art.'

Said Stone's defense lawyer, Arthur Harvey, QC: "My instructions are that these were not viable explosive devices and were improvised from the most basic household items, including a cardboard holder for a kitchen roll, candle wax and powder from fireworks freely available in shops."

"It was, in fact, a piece of performance art replicating a terrorist attack," Harvey added, with a straight face, we hope.

In an open letter to the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Peter Hain and the Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde, Stone referred to himself as "an author and artist" and alleged that his "unfinished work", entitled 'Never Say Never', was aimed at exposing the "futility of the politically-motivated violence created in a political vacuum."

Ah yes. Incredible brushwork, such exquisite appearance of a loss of control at the edges. Stone also said that Picasso's Guernica had inspired his piece and he signed off his letter with words that must have made Hain and Orde pause abruptly — "political conflict is a crossroads for art, the art transcends politics" — before roaring with laughter.

Think about these words: "Political conflict is a crossroads for art, the art transcends politics."

Or, as another put it:

The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

My friends, we will ponder Stone's words for years to come. Could this mean that Bobby Sands was not on hunger strike but merely offering a commentary on the overbearing bourgeois obsession with food and eating? Or that the Enniskillen Memorial Day bombers were simply joining with local Protestants in presenting a vivid avant-garde reprise of the horrors of war? What if indeed, the entire Troubles were simply an elaborate piece of modern theater? Wake me up when all has been revealed but after everyone has forgotten...

[Photo above shows Michael Stone and his unwilling fellow performance artists, Mr and Mrs. Stormont Security-Guard of Government Subsidy Gardens, West-South-West Belfast.]

Free rent for sex in New York City

Bizarro, via Ananova:

Wealthy New Yorkers are advertising rent-free rooms to women in exchange for sexual favours.

The New York Daily News reports the trend and lists a number of ads on the popular Craigslist.org website.

One, entitled "Take Care of My Needs and Live Rent Free," offers: "All you have to do is take care of all my urges, and I'll let you live in a one-bedroom apartment I own rent free."

Another ad reads: "All I am looking for is an attractive, playful, and submissive woman who is uninhibited to my proposal... substituting rent for sexual encounters."

In the posting, the 33-year-old man living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, adds that the room comes with a TV, DVD player, internet-ready computer and a phone line.

"I don't need the rent but would like to fill it up with a woman who would love to show her appreciation for my generosity," he wrote.

But Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne warned that the advertisements amounted to prostitution.

"It is illegal to trade or solicit sex for monetary consideration or other consideration," he said.

Sean Bell rests in peace

Above, the classic ghetto memorial wall to Sean Bell, the 23 year-old groom-to-be who was shot dead by police in Jamaica, Queens, hours before his wedding on November 25th. (The Museum of Biblical Art had an excellent recent exhibition on memorial walls around the city).

The Sean Bell incident, notorious because the cops fired a total of 50 bullets at unarmed Bell and his unarmed pals, prompted a surprisingly large protest on Fifth Avenue yesterday: as many as 40,000 people marched down Fifth according to the police, who normally low-ball public protests, especially if they are "kicking the cops' collective ass" protests. So there could have been as many as 60,000 or more...

New York City protests and Fifth Avenue are a minor interest of mine because the year I moved to NYC was an important one for the way in which the police here approached policing large groups of largely peaceful protests.

First of all, I have to point out that local newspapers here had quotes from tourists who were pissed off that the trifling, stupid protest about some dead kid yesterday, got in the way of their urgent need to shop unassailed by pesky police brutality nonsense. One woman from Maryland told the Times: "We just came here to go shopping at the American Girl store and go see the Rockettes. Now we can’t even cross the street to get our lunch." I hope she choked on her Xtra-Fat-Cheezee LardyBoy Obesityburger.

There were several large protests in the city in 1998, one of which I attended, the Matthew Shepard Rally of October 19th. Later, I wrote a very, very poor paper on the incident, a sort of badly-reported reconstruction. (More importantly, some of the attendees I interviewed for this piece ended up becoming reasonably good friends or at least acquaintances).

The Matthew Shephard Rally was refused a permit by the city, but protesters assembled anyway at the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Neither the organizers nor the cops expected over 5,000 people to show up, and in 'quelling' the illegal protest, cops on horseback
caused something of a near panic, and the protesters set off as one down Fifth Avenue in a great melee with horses and cops giving chase.

I believe 5,000 people showed up because the year 1998 was the year when suddenly a lot of people finally started using email and the Internet, or perhaps for the first time had email access at work. (I started using email in 1995/6? at St Andrews, at which time it was still considered a rather quaint gimmick). I can recall complaining to someone that I had received email notices about the protest maybe six or seven times that day, from people who were forwarding the notice of the rally to everyone in their address folders.

Before I arrived in the city on July 31st, there had been an earlier incident involving ironworkers on strike, who allegedly (all this is hearsay as told to me by several people reminiscing) held a protest after spending most of the day in various bars. Ironworkers are known for their tendency to not flee from danger, nor pass up the chance of a punch-up; several ironworkers were arrested for punching, not police officers, but police horses.

Then on September 5th, came the Million Youth March in Harlem, organized by Khalid Muhammed and the Nation of Islam. 6,500 demonstrators showed up to find an almost equal number of cops in riot gear, and helicopters buzzing so low overhead that many locals were terrified. As the 4pm closing time arrived,... well, here's the Associated Press report from the day:

At the end of the event billed as a black empowerment rally, organizer Khallid Abdul Muhammad called the police names and told participants to "beat the hell out of them with the railing if they so much as touch you."

"We have a right, a God given right, a constitutional right to defend ourselves against anyone who attacks us," said Muhammad, dismissed as an aide to Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan after a 1994 speech in which he referred to Jews as ``bloodsuckers" and insulted Pope John Paul II, homosexuals and whites.

I wasn't at this event, but some of my peers at journalism school were, and I can remember how vividly they described the crazy scene. Remarkably, only one person was arrested, but everybody was pissed off, including Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose baleful presence was to loom over the city like a great big ugly pus-filled cyst until the fateful day in September 2001, when in running away from the collapsing World Trade Center, Rudy was rehabilitated to the extent that he now thinks he could make a run for President; if he does, the New York Times editors will yawn, and reach for a folder marked "Scores to settle, volume I, Giuliani, Rudolph W., unreported scandals A-D."

Poem: for anyone fearful of China's rise to global prominence

Chinamen Jump

At night Chinamen jump
on Asia with a thump

while in our willful way
we, in secret, play

affectionate games and bruise
our knees like China's shoes.

The birds push apples through
grass the moon turns blue,

these apples roll beneath
our buttocks like a heath

full of Chinese thrushes
flushed from China's bushes.

As we love at night
birds sing out of sight,

Chinese rhythms beat
through us in our heat,

the apples and the birds
move us like soft words,

we couple in the grace
of that mysterious race.

— Frank O’Hara

Afghanistan

Simon Norfolk is a photographer of war zones. Here are some of his recent images from Afghanistan, which reminded me vividly of my trip there in March 2002.

The Kabul Hilton

Mortar tailfins

Destroyed river crossing point

Brickworks

All my senses vibrated

April 19th, 1943, is known as Bicycle Day, the day on which Dr. Albert Hofman first experimented with LSD:

Slowly I came back from a weird, unfamiliar world to reassuring everyday reality. The horror softened and gave way to a feeling of good fortune and gratitude, the more normal perceptions and thoughts returned, and I became more confident that the danger of insanity was conclusively past.

Now, little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux.

It was particularly remarkable how every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a door handle or a passing automobile, became transformed into optical perceptions. Every sound generated a vividly changing image, with its own consistent form and color ... Exhausted, I then slept, to awake next morning refreshed, with a clear head, though still somewhat tired physically. A sensation of well-being and renewed life flowed through me. Breakfast tasted delicious and gave me extraordinary pleasure.

When I later walked out into the garden, in which the sun shone now after a spring rain, everything glistened and sparkled in a fresh light. The world was as if newly created. All my senses vibrated in a condition of highest sensitivity, which persisted for the entire day. This self-experiment showed that LSD-25 behaved as a psychoactive substance with extraordinary properties and potency.

There was to my knowledge no other known substance that evoked such profound psychic effects in such extremely low doses, that caused such dramatic changes in human consciousness and our experience of the inner and outer world.

Just beautiful!

From March 18, 2003.

What is the American Army doing in Iraq?

The Iraq Study Group or Baker Commission reported its conclusions over a week ago, telling anyone who is interested that the U.S. policy towards Iraq has been a failure on a massive scale, adding that short of a massive new commitment of troops, the war has been lost.

Already, there is speculation that the horror that was once a shiny dossier called variously neoconservatism, pre-emptive strikes, project for a new century, whatever, must now come to an end, at least, for most Americans, with a rapid withdrawal of the U.S. Military and a high-sounding speech by Bush that in translation will read "to hell with Iraq," though for many Iraqis, they already exist in a sort of American-made hell.

There's been a mini-civil war within the Republican Party too, with one side praising James Baker, who served as Secretary of State to the former President George Bush, for steering the report in the direction of a realistic sense of "how do we get out of this mess as quickly as possible?"

The other side of course, threw the usual insults, that Baker was a "surrender monkey," (New York Post), and tantamount to a side-kick of Osama, because he is advocating something short of "total! victory!" Here is what President Bush has done to Iraq, quoting from Mark Danner, a writer who has covered Mess O'Potamia from the start:

'As Iraqis do their shopping or say their prayers they are blown to pieces by suicide bombers. As they drive through the cities in broad daylight they are pulled from their cars by armed men at roadblocks who behead them or shoot them in the back of the neck. As they sit at home at night they are kidnapped by men in police or army uniforms who load them in the trunks of their cars and carry them off to secret places to be tortured and executed, their bound and headless bodies to be found during the following days in fields or dumps or by the roadside. These bodies, examined by United Nations officials in the Baghdad morgue,

often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin, broken bones (back, hands and legs), missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails.'

Everything that President Bush said would or could be achieved by the Iraq invasion, has in fact had its opposite come true. For example, Iraqis have danced in the streets alright, but they danced most memorably a couple of years ago when a mob tore some American contractors to pieces and then stuck their heads and body parts on sticks. Second example: overthrowing Saddam Hussein was supposed to increase stability in the Middle East and increase U.S. prestige everywhere. Now the entire region is volatile with unleashed fury, and the U.S. military is seen helplessly bogged down.

I can't think of anything else to say, as "told you so" is wearing thin. But in fact, "told you so" is about the only thing worth saying, aside perhaps from "get out now."

Dublinesque

Down stucco sidestreets,
Where light is pewter
And afternoon mist
Brings lights on in shops
Above race-guides and rosaries,
A funeral passes.

The hearse is ahead,
But after there follows
A troop of streetwalkers
In wide flowered hats,
Leg-of-mutton sleeves,
And ankle-length dresses.

There is an air of great friendliness,
As if they were honouring
One they were fond of;
Some caper a few steps,
Skirts held skilfully
(Someone claps time),

And of great sadness also.
As they wend away
A voice is heard singing
Of Kitty, or Katy,
As if the name meant once
All love, all beauty.

A measure of a man

My friend Alfred, whose crazy photo collection threatens to crash Flickr's servers.

Tiresome, pointless, unnecessary, stupid -- do I have to go on?

From the New York Times: "Last July, Kelly White and her boyfriend became engaged. They had a cozy picnic of wine and cheese on a hill before he presented her with a watermelon-flavor Ring Pop and asked her to marry him. “I’d rather not say if he got down on one knee or not,” she said. “It’s embarrassing.”

But they won’t end up at the altar anytime soon: they said they would not marry until gay and lesbian couples are also allowed to.

“I usually explain that I wouldn’t go to a lunch counter that wouldn’t allow people of color to eat there, so why would I support an institution that won’t allow everyone to take part,” said Ms. White, 24, a law student at the University of California, Davis. “Sometimes people don’t buy that analogy.”

Whether it makes sense or not, some heterosexual couples…

Wake me up when they've stopped being annoying. Leo Abse, a Labour Member of Parliament for Cardiff North and notable British eccentric (his books written in retirement include: Fellatio, Masochism, Politics and Love, and Tony Blair: The Man who lost his Smile) fought to decriminalize homosexual acts in Britain, understood the need to present homosexuals as unfortunate misfits deserving of pity, not evil perverts, to Parliament, in order for MPs to support the reforming bill into law (it was not uncommon for MPs who publicly leaned in favor of decriminalizing homosexual acts to be targeted by blackmailers). But of course Abse didn't really think of homosexuals as pitiful misfits lurking perpetually in shadowy public toilets. In this story from the New York Times, I can't help but feel that some straight people are motivated by a concern that even though it is genuine, smacks of pity, and there's a universe of rage generated by someone coming up to you and saying "I feel so sorry for you... let me make a gesture that resembles a condescending pat on the head. There, there... feeling better?"

A debate about 'gay marriage' in the USA might have, in a more perfect world, been opened up to discuss marriage in general, and what an almighty failure it often has been everywhere. Across the country, lemming-like hoards of gay couples have surged through states where some form of legally-permissible gay intertwining is on offer, waving placards and wearing ridiculous costumes, anything to clamber aboard the marital omnibus that for centuries has been a half-assed arrangement at very best. No thanks.

Soon it will be the Loooooong Island Rail Road

The Long Island Rail Road takes commuters out of Manhattan from Penn Station to all points on Long Island. It is one of the oldest and busiest railway systems in the world -- and you can drink on board, yes, there is a bar car on most trains, so that harrassed and angry Long Islanders can relax and simmer or defuse with a beer as they slide out to the island.

But the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) wants to ban the bar car, fearful of drunk commuters falling on to the tracks (they are only fearful of this now, in the L.I.R.R.'s third century of service?) or otherwise doing what drunk people do best.

MTA Spokesperson: "They can have as many beers as they want as soon as they get home. I would prefer we don't let anyone drink alcohol on the train. If we're not ready to go that far … the least we can do is not make it easy for people to do it, which is, don't sell it."

Anonymous L.I.R.R. bar man: "The way I see it, I keep families together. A guy has a drink on the train ride home, and his wife picks him up at the station. Otherwise, he'd be driving around Long Island from bar to bar."

I am an invisible man

''I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." (from Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison)

In the Army

Rachel Papo's photo project, Serial No. 3817131, shows Israeli female soldiers as they complete their mandatory two-year military service.

She's off!

The USS Intrepid, home to New York's Air and Space museum, was finally pulled away from its collapsing pier today after being stuck in Hudson River mud. The Intrepid will go stay in Staten Island and the pier will be rebuilt.

What shall it profit?

From Slate, an interview with David Simon, producer of HBO TV series, The Wire. Simon is unique in America today in acknowledging openly the absolute monstrosity of advanced Capitalism:

Slate: If you had to sum up what The Wire is about, what would it be?

Simon: Thematically, it's about the very simple idea that, in this Postmodern world of ours, human beings—all of us—are worth less. We're worth less every day, despite the fact that some of us are achieving more and more. It's the triumph of capitalism.

Slate: How so?

Simon: Whether you're a corner boy in West Baltimore, or a cop who knows his beat, or an Eastern European brought here for sex, your life is worth less. It's the triumph of capitalism over human value. This country has embraced the idea that this is a viable domestic policy. It is. It's viable for the few. But I don't live in Westwood, L.A., or on the Upper West Side of New York. I live in Baltimore.

But it will hardly matter what Simon thinks or says or produces, because a loud-mouthed right-wing rowdy can simply shout "Commie!" at him and We, the People will laugh and surf on.

Respect!

From the BBC:

Young people in Northern Ireland have cash in pocket but it doesn't buy them respect at the shop counter, a new survey has found.

The NI Commission for Children and Young People has urged retailers to value a new generation of shoppers, not treat them like second class citizens.

One in three young people surveyed said they felt shop staff were suspicious they would shoplift or cause trouble.

What about gypos? It's the dirty tinkers that's the real problem.

Pope Benedict in hand motion sensation

Hey, look, it's my hand.
Yeah, it's my hand again. You like it?
Hey everyone! Look at my hand!
And here's the other one! Cool, huh?

Bing-bong! Subway stories

Last night I went to visit a friend in Chelsea and eventually, very late (4:30 am), decided to take the train back to Harlem, with him going deciding to go visit a friend and accompanying me half of the journey up the Upper West Side.

There was a smiley old homeless man near us in the carriage, who shortly after we boarded, dropped his crack pipe and made a mad dash to grab it before collapsing into fits of giggles when he saw me grinning at his embarrassment.

That was all the introduction he needed, so he leaned over and said to me: "Son, would you like a Spiritual Reading?" I declined, but off he went.

"Let's see... you're an Aries."

"No."

"What part of the year were you born?"

"January."

"I knew it! Before the 15th... right?"

"No, January 29th!"

"Ok, Ok, so let me see... the illness you have, the one you saw a doctor about... He told you there might not be a cure, isn't that right?"

"I'm not even sick!"

Chez Moy

"For some reason, Northern Ireland produces poets the way the Dominican Republic does baseball players."

Apparently, even Cookstown.

Ireland is world's number one country

Ireland is the best country in the world in which to live (didn't they say this last year?), according to the Economist. The news has been greeted with customary restraint in Dublin, see image above.

Affects everything

I am increasingly fascinated by money, the getting of it and what it means to Americans and this society. That may sound like a very strange sentence, but there are times when I read about money in the Times or more especially, in the Authorized Version, the Wall Street Journal, that I feel like an alien reading about what another life form believes to be their salvation. For many Americans, there has never been a better time to get rich really fast than now. If I lean out my window, across this small patch of Harlem I can hear construction sites in every direction. People are fixing, building. Something's up. It's a good thing, don't get me wrong. But somehow it stinks too.

Wealth was often a topic when I was a little kid growing up in Ireland, not of the cold, hard cash variety, but another kind of wealth nearly as important to many Americans:

To lose one's wealth is much,
To lose one's health is more --
But to lose one's soul is such a loss
That no man can restore.

Times of great prosperity and intense religiosity seem to me to be kind of special moments in human history, not least because one would expect one to cancel out the other. If you are spiritually rich, what's the need for stacking up cash? If you're loaded, wouldn't you be too busy with material enjoyment to ponder the afterlife. I know I am somewhat being simplistic here, but generally, missionaries go from developed countries to poor parts of the world where people in poverty are at very least glad of some attention. (Anyone from Ireland will be all too familiar with what might lie behind a seemingly innocent question like: "I say, would you like some soup?")

I'm not sure where I am going with this, but anyway... I'll continue carping away about this as time goes by.

Curious George

From JamesWagner.com comes this:

'American involvement in World War II lasted exactly three years, eight months and one week. As of today, the American war in Iraq has lasted exactly three years, eight months and one week. There is of course no other equivalence.'

I thought that George W. Bush was monstrous from the moment he said he would run for President, and in 2000, on election night, in Tap-a-Keg on Broadway, I predicted that the bastard would enter the White House with only one real aim: 'How do I get to invade Iraq?' I don't know why I saw this. I just somehow smelt or sensed that he was a fraud. Everything this man touches, he ruins. Everything he says, is lies. All that is solid, melts. Living under the rule of another monster hundreds of years ago, Andrew Marvell wrote:

But Thou, the War's and Fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect
Still keep thy sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

And there's more: I came across this image of a Fox News moment which dates from last March. Apparently someone at Fox, presumably someone high up, decided that the supposed civil war in Iraq had been invented by the 'left-wing media' as usual.

Scenes from an aftermath

Saturday's shooting in Queens dominates local news here in New York City... Comparisons are immediately drawn with the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx by cops who fired 41 shots at the unarmed African immigrant. But many things have changed since then, not least, the mayor, who is no longer prize asshole Rudy Giuliani, but the rather more skillful and perhaps even humane, politician, Michael Bloomberg. Here are some scenes from the aftermath.

The club (above) where an undercover cop, believing a group of guys were going to nearby Liverpool Street get guns from their cars to do some damage, fatefully radios for back-up, saying: "It's getting hot on Liverpool for real." I have to confess that though I tried to have a drink in every licensed establishment in the five boroughs, Club Kalua is one I missed.
For anyone who has been to New York via JFK in the last five years, you would have unknowingly passed very close to the scene of the shooting on the AirTrain. The AirTrain's Jamaica Station (above) was hit by one of the 50 shots fired.
Sean Bell and fiancee Nicole Paultre, not married after all.
Reverend Al Sharpton (above) has taken charge of the on-going but relatively muted protests. The Guardian newspaper reports that "New York is on edge" after the shooting, which is a massive exaggeration. It might be more accurate to say "Some New Yorkers have heard about the shooting." Somehow the potential for race riots after an incident like this seems very, very remote nowadays, unlike ten or fifteen years ago.
Above: Nicole Paultre, fiancee of Sean Bell.

Even the ethnic backgrounds of the five cops who fired, coincidentally gives pause when compared with other torrid incidents in NYC's past. Amadou Diallo was an unarmed black man shot by four trigger-happy/nervous white cops. In this incident, two cops are black, two are white, and the fifth cop, who some sources say fired the first shot, is Latino.

Yes, race still matters enormously in New York and Everywhere, U.S.A., but something has changed for the better, which I think is that there has been a big increase in the professionalism and service rendered by (some) city goverments. There was a time when New York City had a police commissioner who told a woman who was scared about a series of rapes that she looked like the type of woman a rapist would go after.