A land divided

          Some thoughts on Ireland after brief visits to two cities in Ireland during a recent “Wesley Heritage Tour” that included a cruise around the British Isles:

          We did “walking tours” of Belfast and Cork. One thing we saw in Cork was a statue of Michael Collins standing next to his bicycle. The statue was not on a pinnacle or platform. It was a life-size bronze likeness in the middle of a busy public square, identified only by a smallish plaque. From a distance, you might not even know that it was a statue.

Why the bicycle? Collins was known for cycling everywhere. Why the recognition? He was an Irish revolutionary who was one of the architects of the 1921 treaty that created the Republic of Ireland – alas, separate from Northern Ireland. A civil war followed, and Collins was assassinated in a roadside ambush.

          The tour of Belfast was more in depth, and most depressing. Our guide said he was Catholic but his father was Protestant, and when his father died some years ago he did not feel safe going to the funeral on the Protestant side of town.

          He said his family has come up with a plan for future funerals. They’ll be held at a crematorium because those are generally run by atheists, so families from both sides of the divide can attend because it’s neutral turf.

          He showed us the “peace wall” that divides Belfast. At some places it is 25 to 30 feet tall, built in three stages over the years, ever higher.

          One long street was lined with murals (on the other side of the wide street, alas, and hard to see because of the traffic). The murals, maybe 8 to 10 feet tall, took various stands on the Troubles and other issues.

          One interesting thing is the parallels the murals drew with the plight of Palestinians, with whom many Belfast Irish feel great sympathy – as they have for many years sympathized with any oppressed minority.

          Most compelling was the famous wall-size mural (shown here) celebrating Bobby Sands and other hunger strike martyrs.

          Our guide said the “peace wall” that separates Belfast is not made of brick or wire; rather it’s a mental wall that he thinks will not come down in his lifetime or the lifetimes of his children, or maybe even in the lifetimes of his grandchildren. He was not sure what might bring the people of Northern Ireland together, perhaps just the passage of time and the deaths of those who remember the Troubles too well.

          The Troubles are not really over yet, he said, only moved out of sight but not yet out of mind.

          Wanting to learn more, I read Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. It doesn’t even try to tell the whole story but focuses on the murder of Jean McConville and the role played by the Price sisters, Brendan Huges and Gerry Adams. It’s well written and I think well reported but, as compelling as it is, it’s not an easy read.

As our Belfast guide said, it’s hard to see how any good can come from this, even when the memories fade, however long that takes. Ireland is a beautiful land, and the people we met there were beautiful, too. But how much longer will their souls be wracked by such division and hatred?

Dog whistle not needed

      Sometimes the mask slips – or, as a writer for The Atlantic puts it, “It’s not a dog whistle if everyone can hear it.”

      A dog whistle, of course, is a coded communication. It sounds benign to outsiders, but to insiders its message is clear. These days, the message is always racist.

      In recent days, the mask has come off for today’s Republicans, and the revelation is not pretty. The dog whistle is now something outsiders can hear as well as insiders.

      Most recently, the Kansas chapter of Young Republicans was disbanded because some of its members made disgusting comments in a chat room.

      Old Republicans acted outraged and tried to distance themselves from it all. But too many of the Young Republicans were too tightly plugged into the Old Republican power structure for the denials to ring true.

      If you need more verification, consider the remarks made Sept. 2 by Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt at the fifth annual National Conservatism Conference in Washington.

       “What is an American?” he asked. He said it's not a matter of citizenship. No, no. It’s a matter of race. A true American, Schmitt said, is white.

      The white Europeans who settled America and conquered the West “believed they were forging a nation—a homeland for themselves and their descendants,” he said.

       “They fought, they bled, they struggled, they died for us. They built this country for us. America, in all its glory, is their gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny. If America is everything and everyone, then it is nothing and no one at all.”

      Immigration is wrong, he said, because it allows non-whites to share the birthright of the descendants of America’s original white Christian settlers.

       “We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith,” said Schmitt, who is of German ancestry.

       “Our ancestors were driven here by destiny, possessed by urgent and fiery conviction, by burning belief, devoted to their cause and their God.”

      The left, he said, is “turning the American tradition into a deracinated ideological creed,” an idea stripped of its proper racial foundation. It is stealing the country from the “real American nation” – that is, the pilgrims, the pioneers and the settlers who “repelled wave after wave of Indian war band attacks” to build this country.

      Nonwhites are threats to the real America, he claimed. They are the people tearing down Confederate statues and removing Confederate names from buildings, streets, and forts, turning “yesterday’s heroes into today’s villains.”

      They are the people behind what he called the “George Floyd riots.”

       “When they tear down our statues and monuments, mock our history, and insult our traditions, they’re attacking our future as well as our past. By changing the stories we tell about ourselves, they believe they can build a new America, with the new myths of a new people. But America does not belong to them. It belongs to us. It’s our home. It’s a heritage entrusted to us by our ancestors. It is a way of life that is ours, and only ours, and if we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.”

      Did I say that Schmitt is Republican? Did I have to?

      Yes, it’s too bad. The party our parents knew is long gone. What has replaced it is vile – and, yes, not really American.

Enough ‘Mayhem’

  The other day I saw another of those Allstate Insurance commercials involving “Mayhem,” the guy who keeps causing accidents.

  I once emailed the Allstate head of advertising and the company president to complain about the poor example Mayhem presents, especially to younger viewers. I got no response, of course. Not even a polite, “Bug off.”

   Of all the TV commercials I hate (and that is most of them; a subject for another column), I probably hate the Mayhem ads the most.

   I suppose I am supposed to see the humor in the ads, but mostly I just see mindless stupidity passing for public discourse. I am offended (yes, shocking to say, offended) that the ads are still running. Blame the aforementioned Allstate executives and the TV network people who monitor broadcast standards — or don’t.

More notable passings

   Are you invisible if no one sees you clearly? Consider the tale of Jesse Douglas, who died recently at age 90. A longtime aide to Martin Luther King Jr., he worked largely behind the scenes in the 1960s human rights movement.

   An albino Black man with pale skin, blue eyes and blond hair, he was frequently mistaken for white. He was once labeled an “unidentified white man” in a newspaper photo of civil rights marchers in Atlanta.

   Douglas was an ordained minister in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. According to The New York Times, in later life he served churches all around the country, including ones in Kansas City, Missouri, and Champaign, Illinois.

  Bobby Cain, a member of the “Clinton 12” who helped integrate a Tennessee high school in 1956, died Sept. 23 at age 85.

   According to AP, he was not happy about spending his senior year at the all-white Clinton High School, under a court order because he happened to live in the school district. After he received his diploma, he was beaten by a gang of white students.

   Only one other of the 12 made it to graduation. Cain said he never had a friend in the school because any white person who dared befriend him would be ostracized.

   Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt died Oct. 10 at age 106. She was the longtime men’s basketball team chaplain at Loyola University. She became an international celebrity in 2018 when the Loyola Ramblers made it to the NCAA Final Four and, at age 98, she cheered her team from a wheelchair.

   Susan Stamberg, the first woman to host a national news program and a "founding mother" of National Public Radio, died Oct.16 at age 87.

   Diane Keaton, Oscar-winning star of “Annie Hall,” “The Godfather” and other popular movies, died Oct. 11 at age 79. She was known for her quirky fashion sense and singular personal style. Somehow, she never clicked with me.

 Scam alert

   Gold is a hot commodity right now. When investors are uncertain about the future, they seek refuge in gold. When I last checked, the price of gold was $4,214 an ounce. That’s crazy. If gold is this hot, investors are running scared.

   Crypto is a scam. That’s why the Trumps are betting big on it. Hot tip: Run away.

   AI is also largely a scam. The stock market is running gaga over AI, and some experts see a bubble about to pop with major losses for many investors.

   You know all about AI. Every time you try to send a text, your phone’s “spell check” makes silly changes to what you type. AI is a programmed response. There is a lot artificial about it but, as far as I can tell, little intelligence so far.

   Google now says of its AI Overviews: “All responses may contain mistakes.” Ya think?

Another great one gone

Another great has fallen. Jane Goodall died Oct. 1 at age 91. A noted animal scientist, she was especially remembered for her groundbreaking work among chimpanzees in Tanzania. Lately she was outspoken on the need for humans to protect our planet from our own greed. Her voice and her winsome image will be sorely missed.

 *  *  *  *  * 

 Trumpistas insist that his critics suffer from what they call Trump Derangement Syndrome. Actually, as any unbiased observed can tell, Trump is the one deranged. Witness his recent arrogant and ignorant tirade at the United Nations, and his similar performance before our nation’s top military brass. 

Yank him aside via the 25th amendment? Then we have to deal with Mini-Me Trump, who is simply evil. Trump probably thinks of Vance as job insurance – or maybe life insurance.

 *  *  *  *  * 

  So you think it was God who spared Trump’s life from an assassin’s bullet? Then how do you explain why Charlie Kirk died? God must have intended it, you may venture. I caution you not to go down this futile rabbit hole – one of so many that pop “evangelical” culture presents.

  And, yes, it’s far more culture then religion. As so many studies have shown (and who needed a study to show this?), pop “evangelicalism” is 95 percent political posturing and maybe 5 percent bad theology.

 *  *  *  *  * 

  Yes, it’s been a long time since I posted anything on this blog. The daily atrocities of the Trump regime (yes, it’s a regime, not an “administration”) are intended to wear us down, and I let them work at me too early. I will try to be more diligent in the future.

 *  *  *  *  * 

  I really enjoyed the first several books of Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” series. The movie, however, was a big disappointment, despite the big name cast. How much more bland could you get?

  We purchased but then briefly lost (easy to do in a house of books) Osman’s other recent book, We Solve Murders. Having found it again, I’ve been reading it – forcing myself to read it, that is. It’s really quite ordinary. Hard to believe it’s by the same author. We all have our bad days, sure, but….

  More soon!

Another great one gone

Another great has fallen. Jane Goodall died Oct. 1 at age 91. A noted animal scientist, she was especially remembered for her groundbreaking work among chimpanzees in Tanzania. Lately she was outspoken on the need for humans to protect our planet from our own greed. Her voice and her winsome image will be sorely missed.

 *  *  *  *  * 

 Trumpistas insist that his critics suffer from what they call Trump Derangement Syndrome. Actually, as any unbiased observed can tell, Trump is the one deranged. Witness his recent arrogant and ignorant tirade at the United Nations, and his similar performance before our nation’s top military brass. 

Yank him aside via the 25th amendment? Then we have to deal with Mini-Me Trump, who is simply evil. Trump probably thinks of Vance as job insurance – or maybe life insurance.

 *  *  *  *  * 

  So you think it was God who spared Trump’s life from an assassin’s bullet? Then how do you explain why Charlie Kirk died? God must have intended it, you may venture. I caution you not to go down this futile rabbit hole – one of so many that pop “evangelical” culture presents.

  And, yes, it’s far more culture then religion. As so many studies have shown (and who needed a study to show this?), pop “evangelicalism” is 95 percent political posturing and maybe 5 percent bad theology.

 *  *  *  *  * 

  Yes, it’s been a long time since I posted anything on this blog. The daily atrocities of the Trump regime (yes, it’s a regime, not an “administration”) are intended to wear us down, and I let them work at me too early. I will try to be more diligent in the future.

 *  *  *  *  * 

  I really enjoyed the first several books of Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” series. The movie, however, was a big disappointment, despite the big name cast. How much more bland could you get?

  We purchased but then briefly lost (easy to do in a house of books) Osman’s other recent book, We Solve Murders. Having found it again, I’ve been reading it – forcing myself to read it, that is. It’s really quite ordinary. Hard to believe it’s by the same author. We all have our bad days, sure, but….

  More soon!