Alone, and palely loitering

Alone, and palely loitering, originally uploaded by Stephen10031.

Blessed be the Bloggers

a path for the righteous, originally uploaded by Dope on the Slope.

...for they shall inherit earthenware pottery. Reverend Daniel Meeter (seen here unseasonally shoveling snow in winter 2005/6) of Park Slope, Brooklyn, has good things to say about blogging:

“I just think it’s great. It’s a way of carrying the spirit over the wires. It’s marvelous what you do.”

Of Difference Does it Make

Edward Carson, originally uploaded by irelandseye.

Of Difference Does it Make

During the 51-year existence of the Northern Ireland Parliament only one bill sponsored by a non-Unionist was ever passed.

Among the plovers and the stone-chats
protected by the Wild Birds Act
of nineteen-hundred-and-thirty-one,
there is a rare stint called the notawhit
that has a schisty flight-call, like the chough’s.
Notawhit notawhit notawhit
— it raps out a sharp code-sign
like a mild and patient prisoner
pecking through granite with a teaspoon.

— Tom Paulin

Men in suits seize control of Northern Ireland

Portglenone Forest, originally uploaded by ZMB.

From the BBC: "Northern Ireland has a new power-sharing government in an historic day at Stormont.

DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness took office as first and deputy first ministers as five years of direct rule ended.

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern witnessed the creation of the new executive.

Mr Blair said that the day's events offered the chance for Northern Ireland to 'escape the heavy chains of history' and 'make history anew'."

Just as Tony Blair is about to resign, he makes one more visit to Northern Ireland. No other British Prime Minister has visited Northern Ireland as often as he. In some ways, he may be glad that at least this one area of governance appears set to slide towards some sort of success, or at least, disappear into well-deserved obscurity.

Poor dear old Northern Ireland: finally, a political solution fit for a political problem, neither perfect nor proud. Somewhere on the Dungannon Road between Benburb and Dungannon, where I grew up, there must be crops of toadstools growing once again in the grass verge near the bridge over the River Blackwater, growing as I remember them the summer I picked mushrooms part-time in Benburb, growing as they do every early Irish summer, no matter what happens in the realm of the humans.

One of my fellow mushroom pickers mused: "See, if ye ate them toadstools, you'd be dead as quick as anything. But you can ate mushrooms."