A year or so in Ireland

International 20 point grading scale for wine

2011-05-15T07:05:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt at this online database application. I'm curious to see how or if the results appear.

Online wine scoresheet

Later on, I'll add a search feature to query submitted scores.

The Historical Significance of My Best Photo

2011-04-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

At the Texas Relays in 1985, I was on the infield of the stadium at UT. I took this picture of Freddie Williams (ACU) with my old Canon AV-1 (aperture controlled SLR, iso 400 film). I have long said it was one of the best pictures I ever took.

On the 4x400 meter relay, the first leg runs in their own lane. The second leg runs the first curve in their lane and then breaks to the inside as soon as they come out of the curve. This is where I was standing and this is what they were doing. I like the picture because Freddie is in perfect focus and perfect pose in the center, the background is blurred, the other runners are slightly out of focus, and everyone's school name is hidden. (You can just barely make out Texas A&M on the right.) It's almost like it was staged, but I actually took this live action shot.

Baylor won that year in a meet record time of 3:00.88. That record stood for 26 years. It got broken this year by Texas A&M.

http://www.iaaf.org/news/kind=100/newsid=59717.html

Memories of Texas Relays

2011-04-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

On my first trip to Texas Relays, I watched a teammate run in the finals of the University Women's 400m hurdles. Lisa Owens was the only white girl in the race and, at 5'4" was the shortest. I remember she got 5th but as soon as the race was over, she walked to the infield, pulled her long blond hair to one side and threw up into a drain on the field. I told her later that I had wanted to go down there with some water, but couldn't cross the track. She replied in that honey-sweet southern accent, "oh that's alright. I always throw up."

On my second trip to Texas Relays, we were scheduled to run the University Distance Medley Relay. It was hot, so we stayed under the stadium as long as possible. There's some debate about who was misinformed, but I remember Coach Groll telling Greg and me that the meet was 20 minutes behind schedule, so we should avoid going down to the track too soon. In any case, as we were walking down the steps to the track, the gun for our race went off. We had missed it. Doug Glover said he had thought about running the first leg anyway and see if anyone else showed up. As I stood there watching them finish the first lap, I looked over and saw the Martin twins from New Orleans in the stands. I sat with them and, maybe because of the mixed emotions of pre-race anxiety and shame, I started crying. Suddenly, Greg came to find me and told me that Coach Groseclose wanted to see me. Grose told me in that raspy drawl of his, "the meet director's a personal friend of mine and I've got you into the invitational mile. I told him you wouldn't let us down. So, you're with the big boys now - but you're one of them." I did OK, but had been warming up for almost 2 hours and had lost most of my kick. I finished 5th in 4:04.

On my third trip to Texas Relays, I learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life. I was anchoring the Distance Medley Relay, which meant I had to wait for the 1200, 400, and 800 meter legs to finish. During the time we were milling around waiting to run, I had a chance to size up the competition. Running for Arkansas was Doug Consiglio, who had won NCAA 1500 indoors that year. Running for Rice was Gawain Guy, who was on the Jamacain Olympic team the year before for 1500m. Running for Stanford was Jeff Atkinson, who would end up winning the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 1500m in 1988. I managed to convince myself that there was no way I could beat these three. None of the others I recognized. Sure enough, we got 4th place. Well, actually, we got 3rd place because Arkansas got disqualified for a lane violation, but those three were the only ones to finish ahead of me. The lesson was this: if you believe you can't do something, your brain will work to prove you right.

Warming down after that race, I caught up with Atkinson on the side track that used to be there. He was warming down, too, so we had at least something to talk about. As we were running along, his teammate Ceci Hopp came bounding up. Ceci was the beauty darling of the running world (Lauri Young had the same distinction in the high jump and the heptathlon).

On my last trip to Texas Relays, I ran, among other things, the 1500m and got out-kicked by perhaps the ugliest dude in track. I won't say where he was from (German Fernandez goes there) - this guy had a head too big for his distrance runner's body, had white white skin but really bad acne on his face, back, and head. You knew he had it on his head because he had a wide mohawk. Whew.

Xiamen Teas

2011-02-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

When I went to China in 2009, I found a type of tea that I and everyone I served it to loves. Someone had told me the name of it was (loosely translated) Drunken Susie. So, on my trip back last week, it was imperative that I find some more.

There are, of course, many types of tea there. I learned more about tea this time than I ever knew before. For your edification, here is a rough list of the factors involved in the various classifications.

The tree variety
The soil, altitude, and cultivation
The leaf selection
Fermentation
Roasting or drying
Aging
Water temperature
Brewing time

Beyond the first 3 factors, there are essentially three types of tea - black, green & Oolong. These three varieties of tea are distinguished by the amount of fermentation that takes place in processing them.

Black Tea is fermented, then roasted to produce a dark reddish-brown brew.
Green Tea is unfermented to leave a greenish, slightly bitter taste.
Oolong Tea is semi-fermented and produces a milder brew with characteristics of both black and green tea.

Fermentation changes the chemical structure of the tea leaf, allowing key flavor characteristics to emerge. The tea leaves are first withered to remove about 1/3 of their weight through evaporation. They are then rolled and spread on cement or tile floors and tables in a cool, humid room to ferment from 1 to 5 hours. The leaves are then roasted in hot pans or modern dryers to remove almost all of their moisture and stop the fermentation process. They are then rolled and fired. Oolong is withered and fermented in one shorter stage then fired which halts the fermentation when it is about half complete. It is the extent of both the fermentation and the roasting that produce the wide variety of Oolong. There is also a kind of tea that is intended to be aged - Pu'erh tea. It is fully fermented, fully roasted, then compacted into a ball or brick and kept in stable condition for years. (I got to drink a 17-year old Pu-erh tea. The aroma is much more powerful than the taste).

My favorite is a modern style of a semi-fermented, lightly roasted Oolong known as (no joke) Om Bhuddism. As it turns out, Drunken Susie is actually a brand name of a Xiamen tea company - Cha Shway Tsee Tsuh (Cha being the Chinese word for tea and the rest being the company name). So, I was able to score some more of my favorite tea (Om Bhuddism), this time from a Xiamen company called Sea Dyke (Hi-Dee in Chinese). I also bought a box of Cheng Bay Woda, which is the traditional preparation of the semi-fermented, lightly roasted Oolong.

A Brief History of the Rise of Memes - and why I left Facebook

2010-06-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

From Howard Bloom's "The Lucifer Principle"
The Nose of a Rat and the Human Mind

Rats are obsessed with genes. They absolutely love their relatives. In their nests, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles and children crawl over, under and around each other, seeking constant body contact. But the kindness of rats only extends to family. Rats will mercilessly hunt down members of a rival clan. And if a non-relative accidentally stumbles into their nest, the homey little creatures who a moment before were hugging one another will turn on the guest with the foreign genes and tear him limb from limb.

How do rats know who's kin and who's not? How can they tell who shares their genes? Those guesstimates are based on smell. Each rat household has its own tell-tale odor. And every inhabitant wears that living room perfume. Chances are that if two rats are sporting the same aroma, they're carrying the same genes, since the pair were raised in the same spot--probably by the same mother and father. One scientist removed a rat from his nest, washed the complaining creature off, then rubbed it thoroughly in the shavings of another nest...giving it the smell of a stranger. Then the experimenter put the innocent beast back in its own home, where it should have been safe among its brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, he'd returned home wearing the wrong cologne. His loving family, blind to his familiar physical appearance, bared their teeth and lunged. When the experiment was over, the unwitting animal was dead, killed by those who had always hugged and nuzzled him. Smell had told the brood that their brother was carrying the wrong set of genes.

Rats use smells to determine whom they love and whom they must hate. Humans use something else - we use memes. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme:

Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Theorists point out that memes which replicate the most effectively spread best, and some memes may replicate effectively even when they prove detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.

A population has arisen within the U.S. which self-identifies its members via shared memes. This population is, not to put too fine a word on it - Conservatives. Conservatives have a complex collection of memes, which they share. Like Bloom's rats, Conservatives wallow in their own memes, which combine to produce an identifiable 'aroma' about them. The more memes they share with others, the more they know they are in the company of a kindred fellow. Much of what constitutes communication consists of a series of clicks and grunts, with the expectation of a/the correct corresponding grunts and clicks. Like rats sniffing each other's butts, conservatives will sniff out each other's memes.

One of the reasons I left Facebook was because I saw it had it had become a method for the rats to propagate memes. I found myself encountering old friends and began to notice a change in them. Since I did not share the memes in which they were wallowing, I became viewed as "an Other" - a non-rat. I had become the enemy of the rats.

Most rats make the mistake of assuming that all non-rats are united against them. The rats need to perpetuate this meme in order to justify the actions they are planning. It is important for them to feel threatened - actually, physically frightened of all non-rats (who are, of course, ALL against them), so that their actions can be rationalized as merely defensive. They're simply reacting to the perceived threat from everything else in the world.

Rats don't want to discuss or debate. They don't even want to be understood. What they want is agreement. Rats have to know who's with them and who's not (because "if you're not with us, you're against us"). If you don't agree, you are a non-rat and are therefore one of the others who are, of course, all united against the rats. It doesn't matter whether or not the meme has any basis in reality or fact. It truly doesn't. In fact, the further removed from reality the meme is, the more tenaciously it is believed and defended against the onslaught of any contradicting evidence.

Facebook is still a big petri dish for the spreading of memes and it stinks like a fully infected microbiology project. I say leave the rats to their own stench.

The truth is a very big picture

2010-04-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

I'm stuggling with how to begin this. I don't intend to begin by trying to offend anyone, but at the same time there are some who will manage to be offended no matter what I write here. And that is, in fact, the problem I want to write about.

To begin with, I need to establish a level of understanding of what I'm actually talking about. I'm talking about the frameworks by which we have ccome to view the world and how we understand what we see.

A piece of information can be true, but it alone is not "the truth".
What do we call a piece of information that is not true?
What do we call an incomplete collection of true information?
What do we call a collection that includes both true and untrue piece of information?
What do we call someone who spreads information he or she knows to be untrue? (That, in fact, is the definition of a liar.)
But what do we call someone who unknowingly spreads information that is untrue?
What do we call someone who has an incomplete collection of true information? Conversely, what do we call someone who has a collection that includes true and untrue information?
What do we call someone who continues to cling to erroneous information in spite of being presented with evidence that it is false?
What do we call someone who accepts as true information they receive from a source they have come to trust, even when that source has been proven false?

In his book "Idiot America", Charles Pierce summarizes his conclusions like this:

In Idiot America, "facts" are what enough people believe.
"Truth" is how fervently they believe it.
Anything said often enough and loudly enough can come to be believed.
The worst thing to be in Idiot America is an expert.

One of the reasons I deactivated my Facebook account was that I noticed it had become a platform for the spreading of untrue and emotionally charged information. People's apparent vested interest in posting information that is unrelated to them personally is really a quest for concensus.

They post their "facts" not as a basis for discussion or debate, but rather in the hope of having others agree with them. The more "facts" they post, the smarter they believe they are. The more people they find to agree with them, the smarter they believe they are perceived. For these people, disagreement is taken personally. It is a threat to their self-perceived standing in a community they have created out of like-minded individuals.

These people believe they are smart. They believe this because they know certain things. The mistake they make is in assuming that their collection of facts constitutes "the truth". They believe they are right. They also dismiss the very idea that they could be wrong. As far as they're concerned, what they know is the truth. What they don't know or don't believe is not the truth for them.

These people will also practice a form of selective ignorance. If someone presents them with information that is inconsistent with or is not in their collection (their basis for truth), they are entirely capable of rejecting it. They do this by 1) simply failing to remember or 2) failing to believe it. If they don't know it or don't believe it, it's simply not true.

The Facebook apps I could ignore. "Facts" posted as personal updates I found harder to ignore, especially when I believed them to be untrue, either partly or wholly. It was troubling to see people I know consistently posting bogus information. I found myself unable to ignore it and needed to refute or correct it. Doing so simply made me a threat to their well-being. It was more troubling to see people I know accepting the bogus information being posted by others.

I committed Facebook suicide

2010-03-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

...And nobody noticed.

Over the next couple of postings here, I hope to explain why. When one deactivates one’s FB account, there is a questionnaire asking why and offering a list of options to choose from (“I am spending too much time on FB” or “There are too many apps” or “I have a duplicate account” or “I didn’t find the happiness I was looking for”). None of these come close to my reasons.

Reason #1A– John Poindexter had 5 felony convictions
Who's John Poindexter?
John Poindexter was National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of 5 felonies for his involvement in the Iran Contra scandal (one count of conspiracy (obstruction of inquiries and proceedings, false statements, falsification, destruction and removal of documents); two counts of obstruction of Congress and two counts of false statements).
Poindexter was brought back by the Bush Administration to work his magic for them, and didn't even get fired for this crazy idea. He was allowed to resign.

Reason #1B – The Patriot Act, Operation TIPS, The Homeland Security Act, H.R. 1528
In 2002, the Bush administration tried to implement a “Terrorism Information and Prevention System”. The goal of the program was to establish a reliable and comprehensive national system for reporting suspicious, and potentially terrorist-related, activity. Operation TIPS was going to be phased in across the country to enable the system to build its capacity to receive an increasing volume of tips.

Reason #1C – TIA
The Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology to track and monitor "terrorists" and other asymmetric threats to national security, by achieving Total Information Awareness (TIA). This would be achieved by creating enormous computer databases to gather and store the personal information of everyone in the United States, including personal e-mails, social network analysis, credit card records, phone calls, medical records, and numerous other sources, without any requirement for a search warrant. This information would then be analyzed to look for suspicious activities, connections between individuals, and "threats". Additionally, the program included funding for biometric surveillance technologies that could identify and track individuals using surveillance cameras, and other methods.
Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by Congress in 2003. However, several IAO projects continued to be funded, and merely run under different names.

Reason #1D – Facebook was Poindexter's Wet Dream

This is a demo

2008-07-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well, that was interesting

2008-07-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know, we're back in the United States. We decided in April to pay our own return trip to Texas. By leaving Ireland, I had to resign from Dell. As it turned out, I found a training job in Austin teaching Dell products and technologies.

Sierra spent the month of May going to a middle school in Round Rock, Texas. It was a bit of culture shock for her to go from a school where she was an "upper classman" at an elementary school that 1) she had walked to for 3 years, that 2) they wore a uniform, that 3) started at 9:00 and got out at 2:30, and 4) where homework took at most 30 minutes to a middle school where she is one of the youngest, and 3) where she had to decide what to wear, 1) she had to catch the bus at 2) 7:30 am, and where they changed classrooms between each class, and returned home around 4:00, and still had to do 4) around 2 hours of homework. Luckily, she had the last month to adjust before it counts for real in the fall.

So, we're not in Ireland anymore. I will probably delete this blog in a couple of months.

Pubish

A Continuation of a Conversation at Austin's Gingerman

2007-04-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who showed up at the Gingerman pub last Saturday. It was a beautiful spring day in Austin and I think we had some good conversations.

I wanted to follow up with some of my comments regarding Iran and also to give everyone lots of links to follow and research on your own.

Back in 2003, I started predicting that we would go to war with Iraq. Sadly, I was correct. Sadder still is my current prediction - we are going to attack Iran.

Please take the time to read Seymour Hersh's article "The Iran Plans" from April 2006. Pay special attention to page 2 and the last 6 paragraphs on page 7. The bottom line is this - we're going to attack Iran. We probably won't try to invade or occupy, but we will bomb Iran. Knowing this will help you understand the politics driving the ongoing war in Iraq.

Here's how it's going to play out:
1) We are going to send 30,000 - 40,000 troops into eastern Baghdad. Why there? Muqtada al-Sadr is loosely in control of a large militia there.
2) al-Sadr's militia will attack our troops.
2a) (We'll forget who the enemy is or was before.)
3) Our administration will claim that al-Sadr and his militia are funded by Iran
4) Therefore, Iran is engaging in state-sponsored terrorism AND that terrorism is a direct threat to us. This will be the justification for our attacks.
5) We will attack Iran with aircraft carrier task force and special forces.

"Naturally the common people don't want war; .... That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. " -Hermann Göring

For a humerous educational 'lecture' on the history of the west's interests in the Middle East, check out Robert Newman's History of Oil (Google video - 45 minutes). The video is embedded in my January posting.

Muqtada la-Sadr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr

As of early 2004, he was the de facto ruler of the Sadr City section of Baghdad and commanded the loyalty of the Mahdi Army, an Iranian-backed insurgent force making a bid for power in Iraq.

On October 19, 2006, al-Sadr's Mahdi Army seized control of Amarah in the south of Iraq. George W. Bush was stated to have seen a possible parallel between the lead-up to the capture of Amarah and the 1968 Tet Offensive, which was seen to lead to the United States' withdrawal from the Vietnam War. The White House later said the President was not suggesting a similar turning point had been reached, rather that al-Sadr was trying to influence US elections.

On October 24th, the US Army locked down Sadr City while searching for a kidnapped US soldier. During the lock down, deaths dropped by 50%. When Prime Minister al-Maliki demanded the end of the blockade, the muder rate returned to previous levels.

On February 13, 2007, several sources in the Bush administration claimed that Muqtada al-Sadr had fled to Iran in anticipation of the coming security crackdown. On March 30, it was reported that Sadr, through clerics speaking on his behalf, "delivered a searing speech ... condemning the American presence in Iraq ... [and] call[ing] for an anti-occupation mass protest on April 9...." This call to protest was significant in that, since the beginning of the American "troop surge" (which began on February 14, 2007), Sadr had ordered his "militia to lie low during the new Baghdad security plan so as not to provoke a direct confrontation with the Americans."

Bush's proposed increase was 21,000 US troops, 4000 of which would be Marine Corps focused on the Anbar province while the others would be embedded into Iraqi units to provide security to Baghdad.

12,000 more Guard troops may be going to Iraq
Coming on the heels of a controversial “surge” of 21,000 U.S. troops that has stretched the Army thin, the Defense Department is preparing to send an additional 12,000 National Guard combat forces to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Robert Newman History of oil

2007-01-28T02:15:00.000-08:00

Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, the places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman's stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world's oil supplies are finally exhausted.

The Start of the X-Mas Season

2006-11-19T15:12:00.000-08:00

It starts to get dark now before 5:00. The Irish don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so there’s not a specific start of the Christmas season. Saturday, at 4:00, Sierra’s school sang and played their tin whistles for the Santa parade before the lighting of the Christmas tree and city lights. The weather was cold, but not rainy like today. http://www.dlrevents.ie/events.htm

The parade consisted of the following:
* a formal procession of city elders (including Father Mangan and someone playing bagpipes) most of whom were wearing the red and white stocking caps
* two fire spitters and a juggler,
* a small marching band drum section (about 12 kids playing pretty well),
* 4 larger-than-life paper maché figures,
* a 2-man Chinese dragon (with 4 man drum and gong section),
* a couple of girls in red and white fur short skirts riding horses,
* and Santy riding in the chimney of a small house on a trailer.

They came down George’s street, circled the block in front of Sierra’s school, and then came back to the stage where Sierra’s choir was singing so that Santy could come and speak alongside the mayor.

It was a cute little small town celebration. Sierra woke up with a sore throat this morning.

Happy(?) Halloween

2006-10-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

We went to a suburb of Dublin this morning to look at pictures we had taken by a photographer there last week. Clontarf is on the other side of the Liffy river from Dublin. In addition to being the site of a famous battle in the 11th century, it just happens to be the birthplace of Bram Stoker.

There is a Dracula museum near the DART station in Clontarf, which just happens to be built over the house where Stoker grew up. (For those who care, the museum is on the second floor of the largest fitness center in Europe)

The first part of the museum deals with Stoker's life, which is itself very interesting.

Until he started school at the age of seven — when he made a complete, astounding recovery — Stoker was an invalid. After his recovery, he became a normal young man even excelling as an athlete at Trinity College, Dublin (1864-70), from where he graduated with honors in mathematics.

Bram Stoker was born in Dublin in 1847 at the height of the Great Famine. This was one of the most catastrophic events in Irish history, with hundreds of thousands of people dying from starvation and disease or emigrating in 'coffin ships' to America.

The famine may have inspired the visual characteristics of Count Dracula and also his infamous obsession with bloodsucking. His mother would tell him often gruesome stories of her childhood, particularly those concerning the great cholera epidemic of 1832, when humans drank the blood of cows as a source of nutrition.

There was a suicide burial plot in Clontarf, Dublin, where Stoker lived. As a boy the author used to spend hours playing in that graveyard and St. Michan's Church, where the Stoker family had a burial vault.

Dracula comes from the Irish word "Droch Ola", which means "bad blood". Stoker's mother was from the West of Ireland and she told Bram about a cholera epidemic in 1832 when she witness large graves and people being pushed into them with wooden poles while they were still alive.

The second part of the museum was basically a well done haunted house, full of Dracula scenes, that scared Sierra to pieces.

The West Winger to Western Ireland

2006-09-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

"West Wing" star Martin Sheen will next month begin studying at a university in Ireland.

The actor, whose mother hailed from the Irish county of Tipperary, has been quoted as saying he wanted to finish his education when he retired from acting as he never got his high school diploma, according to media reports.

Last year NUI conferred an honorary degree on Sheen, real name Ramon Estevez, for both his acting and "his consistent and meaningful engagement with civil society".

A dedicated supporter of liberal causes, Sheen has been arrested more than 60 times for public protests.

National University of Ireland, Galway

I've been to Cork, but not to Galway. I may have to check that out.

Oh yes, we want this war. We really really do.

2006-09-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

You're all like a bunch of actors in a bad porno movie over there. Bush is running around bragging about the length of his war and how he's going to use it to continue screwing the country. Half the population is rocking back and forth, faking orgasms, and lying right back about what a great ruler he is.

"I've got a hunk of steaming love for you, babe. C'mon, you know you want it."

"Oh yes, I want it. I love it when you fail. Oooh, make a mess over there, too, baby."

Bush: Anger over war won’t change U.S. policy

President, conceding unpopularity, vows to stay the course in Iraq
“If we lose our nerve and leave the Middle East before the job is finished, the world will be much worse off,”

Get a clue, you moron! The world is worse off. You accomplished exactly what you wanted to over there. You wanted chaos, death, and anarchy and that's exactly what you got.

Death Squads Behind Spike in Iraq Killings

Sectarian violence in Iraq has become the "core conflict" in Iraq and has created a security situation American military commanders believe is more complex than any they have faced at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, a sober Pentagon report released today says.

Car Bomb and Rockets Kill 43 in Baghdad’s Shiite Strongholds

The recent surge in bombings calls into question the long-term effectiveness of a joint American-Iraqi security offensive in Baghdad. The security measures are expected to contribute to a relatively low civilian death toll in August, but there are increasing questions about whether that can be sustained.

Bush said opponents of the war in Iraq who are calling for a plan to bring home troops would create a disaster in the Middle East.

If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable, and absolutely disastrous.

Pentagon gives gloomy Iraq report

In a notably gloomy report to Congress, the Pentagon reported that illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of both security and basic social services.

In response to the Pentagon's report Friday, the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada, said it showed the Bush administration is "increasingly disconnected from the facts on the ground in Iraq."

White House on 2,500 U.S. Fatalities In Iraq: ‘It’s A Number’

Tony Snow was asked this afternoon if President Bush had any reaction to the death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq reaching 2,500. Snow responded: “It’s a number.”

Bush said last year that history will prove his policy a sweeping success.

because 30,000 Iraqis, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis.

Bush said 'So long as he's president, we're in Iraq'

Be sure to shrug your shoulders when you say that.

Why I don't worry about threats anymore

2006-08-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

I was in a class the day the airline business got turned on its ear a few weeks ago. Being the only American in the group, I got asked a lot of questions. I had pretty much concluded the same thing as Keith Olberman did back in 2005:

Of course, there may be another completely unrelated but equally viable explanation for the "alert".

Another July in Ireland

2006-07-16T04:37:00.000-07:00

I'll probably need to change the title on this blog, since it has now been over a year and I'm still here.

I'm alone in Dun Laoghaire as the family has gone back to the states for a summer visit. I plan to stay busy here with work, working out, projects, reading, and studying..

My mom just left the other day, too, after spending a couple of weeks with us at the end of a tour of Ireland.

To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit degrees, you multiply the Celsius figure by 1.8 and then add 32. To go the other way, subtract 32 and divide by 1.8. With that in mind, calculate the Fahrenheit equivalent of 26 degrees. We might get that hot in August. Meanwhile, they're getting a good dose of Texas summer.

My mom got mad at me when she overheard me mentally preparing Sierra for her summer vacation. I had to explain that Sierra was getting ready to leave the peace and quiet of Ireland to return to the madness of America in the middle of mid-term elections. So, here's a sample of news listings you won't hear on Fox News:

Our successes in Iraq mean that troop withdrawls might actually be accelerated.... or not. But that's OK, see, because Republicans really really want another World War. After all, war is good for business. (By the way, the keynote speaker for this event will probably need to be changed.) So, while war means good business overseas, it should also help with the energy crisis, right? Maybe I did the math wrong.

It should be OK, though, because summer vacation is here and the nation's future is in the secure hands of the Republicans

I'm beginning to think this is what the inventor of the TV had in mind

2006-06-11T00:42:00.000-07:00

Fun Running in Dublin

2006-04-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I did the BUPA Great Ireland Run in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Ireland's largest road race had 7,500 runners in it. That's almost 1/2 the size of the Capitol 10000 in Austin, but was still impressive for Europe. And while it didn't have the same spirit as the 10K in Austin (then again, what race does), the Great Ireland Run of Dublin had its own unique flavor. Eamonn Coughlan was there. Back in the day, he was known as The Chairman of the Boards.

The vast majority of the participants wore the gray T-shirts sent to us by the registration. The back of each shirt had the flag of the Irish county from which the participant came. There was an inter-county competition to see which county could have the fastest average time of the participants from that county. Of the people who didn't wear the official t-shirts, a lot of them wore the t-shirts promoting the charity they were representing.

Public Service Announcement

If you're planning to enter a road race and walk or jog with a group of friends, please be sure to work your way to the FRONT of the pack before the start. That way, EVERYONE else in the race will have to dodge you as they're actually running the race. Also, be sure to walk side by side, so that you form a wider wall for people to run around. And act really indignant when someone accidentally bumps into you as they veer out of control trying to avoid your obstruction. Doing this will make you feel very important and will enhance the enjoyment of everyone involved. Thank you.

When I got to the start, the clock read 11:42. When I finished, it read 52:35. I thought that meant I had run under 41 minutes. It certainly didn't feel that fast, but as it turned out, my official time was 48:11. Not as good as the 45:00 I ran in Austin last year, but respectable for an old man.

A note for the end of March

2006-03-29T22:40:00.000-08:00

I went back to France last week. Worked a couple of days in Montpellier and then Saturday in Marseille. We're planning to go back again in April, the week after Easter, because I enrolled Carol and Sierra in a week-long French language course in Montpellier.

In Dublin, on the way to the bus that takes you to the airport, something occurred to me that I should mention. I don't want to generalise, but I noticed something about the Irish that was exemplified by this one innocuous event. I was crossing the bridge near Connelly street and there was a panhandler sitting against the rail in the middle of the bridge with his cup out. An older man was coming towards me and we did that little dance people do when they are trying to avoid running into each other. The man was probably in his late 50's, long white hair, and he wore a cheap maroon windbreaker from a university he obviously didn't attend. His sneakers were beat up, but he walked with his back straight and his head up. He was cutting across the pedestrian traffic (hence our near collision), heading towards the beggar on the bridge.

Me, I tend instinctively to go out of my way to avoid panhandlers, but here this old man was going out of his way to give some other poor bloke a bit of change. This is not untypical. Again, I don't mean to generalize, but the Irish are some of the most caring, giving, cheerful, helpful, and generous people I've ever seen. If you ask for help or directions, they will try to help - even if, for example, they have no clue about the directions. I often feel stingy and morose next to the Irish generosity.

March Madness

2006-03-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

It has been over a month since I've posted anything here. On Wednesday, I'm heading back to France for a few days. I had intended to post an entry last month when I came back from France on the 26th. Life has a way of getting away. I'm getting old.

Yes, I spent a week in southern France last month. And there I was at the airport in Marseille on Sunday the 26th, looking for the Aer Lingus counter for my return flight to Dublin. I was there in plenty of time, the crowds weren't long, it was going to be a quick trip back. Sunday the 26th.... of March! I bought my return ticket for the wrong MONTH. After running between terminals, I found the cheapest ticket I could - on Lufthansa airlines - with a 3 hour layover in Frankfurt. So, this week, I'm going back to Marseille to use up the back end of two round trip tickets. Lufthansa to Marseille and then Aer Lingus back to Dublin on the 26th... of March.

It did me a lot of good to be in France for that week. Working half in English and half in French gets taxing after a while. I had never been to Montpellier before. When I was at la Faculté d'Avignon in 1987, I was a poor college student who could only visit those parts of Provence I could reach by bicycle on weekends. Montpellier has a very interesting history. Marseille is just weird. But as soon as I arrived in Dublin, it felt like home. The bus ride from the airport sealed it. At one stop, two old men got on and had the funniest conversations with complete strangers for a few stops and then got off, wishing everyone around the the best. When we stopped in Dun Laoghaire, the driver leaned out of his booth and cheerfully yelled, "Last Stop! Twice as fast as a taxi and a fraction of the price!" The Irish are so cool.

Sierra made the cover of the March 9 edition of The Irish Catholic. There was a ceremony at the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin for candidates for baptism. Sierra was the youngest one there by a long shot. We asked our neighbors to serve as godparents. Little did we know that Otto was once the managing director of that very newpaper.

In the Pro-Cathedral Dublin a ceremoney called the Rite of Election took place last Sunday when 17 Catechumens were presented by sever parishes to go forward to receive the Sacraments of Initiaon at this year's Easter vigil. On the night in their respective parishes, they will be Baptised, Confirmed and will receive the Eucharist for the first time. The ceremony which was presided over by Bishop Ray Field took palce on the firs Sunday o fLent. Pic shows Otto and Marie Herschan with Sierra Mangum (9) enrolling herself as a candidate for christian initation.

When I was 9, I made the front page of the Abilene Reporter News for breaking my arm when I fell out of a tree.

This is not an essay

2006-01-29T00:54:00.000-08:00

I have trying for some time to figure out how to post this. I'm trying to avoid sounding too philosophical here (hence the silly title). I think I'll just retype what I wrote in Sierra's journal on Christmas eve and then see where we end up.

I've just had a revelation of sorts. I was meditating and started thinking about many of the mandates that various philosophies expect their followers to adhere to. For modern day Christians, for example, this focus is almost exclusively on issues of morality (thou shalt not...). I don't know if the other religions or philosophies have lost their way like Christianity has, but I will assume so. Most people have no idea why they're doing the things they're doing. It's how they were brought up; it's what they were taught - whatever.

When it comes to morality or even lifestyles, I have to make the analogy of running. I use this analogy because I understand it well and it is often what forms my frame of reference for other things. I was basically a self-taught runner. I studied a lot, read articles, practiced techniques, took advice from others, learned from mistakes, and kept learning and improving. I also eliminatd from my life those things that would make me a worse runner. I even stopped playing basketball because of the risk of injury. I was 'religious' about my running, both in terms of what I did and what I didn't do. The goal, of course, wasn't to be religious or strictly adherant to my practices. The goal was to be able to run as fast as I could and win races. In pursuing that goal, I became dedicated and strict in the conduct of my life. But someone else could not come along and copy me and expect the same results. It's a question of cause and effect. The habits did not cause the success; rather, the pursuit of success caused the habits.

In terms of spiritual religion and social morality, how does this analogy apply? (And what was the revelation I had?) At the risk of oversimplifying the subject, the OBJECTIVE to pursue in the spiritual realm is enlightenment. It is a hightened state of awareness and 'intunement' of and with the spiritual elements of ourselves, others, and the universe. Religions are supposed to be paths of development to reach enlightenment. In pursuit of enlightenment, you should learn what impedes your progress along the path and eliminate it from your life.

There are things in life that you should avoid. But your motivation for avoiding them should not be (or doesn't need to be) conformity to the rules of a religion or the social norms of a culture. Your motivation should be to remove from your life things that interfere with your pursuit of enlightenment.

On that note, I'll point you to a link that demos a game I bought recently. Now, I don't do video games as a general rule - I spend enough time with computers as it is. But this is one game I have really come to enjoy. Check out The Journey of the Wild Divine.

The Journey to Wild Divine is a unique program for mind & body that links biofeedback hardware with your computer to create an enlightening experience of wellness.

Learn new breathing and meditation techniques using biofeedback to create a renewed sense of balance. The perfect addition to your wellness program for a happy mind and a healthy body.

We've been playing this game once or twice a week now. Sierra is quite good at it, but there are times when you have to slow your heart rate down in order to get through a level and she has trouble with that. I think her natural heart rate is so fast (like most kids her age) that the system reads that as not being relaxed. Still, it's fun to navigate. The running analogy breaks down at a certain point, but this is a tangible example I can give you. There are things that would interfere with our ability to play this game, for example. To play this game well, you should avoid these things.

Happy New Year 2006

2006-01-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

I know it was a tradition in Austin for people to go swimming in Barton Springs Pool on New Year's Day. I thought it was the same tradition here, but it turns out, it's on Christmas morning. The location is a place called 40 Foot at the base of James Joyce's Tower in Sandycove.

From http://dublin.hotels.travel-tracker.com/:

A mile south of Dún Laoghaire, the Martello Tower is SANDYCOVE 's most prominent feature . James Joyce spent some time here with his friend Oliver St John Gogarty, whom he later transformed into Buck Mulligan in Ulysses . On the seaward side of the tower is the Forty Foot Pool - named not for its size but because the 40th Foot Regiment of the British army used to be stationed in a battery above it.

And from Ramblings of a Defiant Irishwoman

SWIMMING on Christmas morning, when any right minded individual would be on their knees at Mass, or slaving over a hot stove in the kitchen. No wonder it was a men only tradition up to a few years ago!

Times have changed and never more so by what I saw yesterday at the 40 foot! Traffic jams of men, women, children, and Santas helpers coming and going, ..

Well, I missed the traffic jam by going on January 1. I wasn't alone, though, as there was a older woman packing up as I arrived. So, how cold is the Irish Sea in winter time? Check out this model. Ireland is the island on the left. We're right in between 54N and 53N on the map. (Convert C to F - multiply by 1.8 and add 32)

Nice.

December 26 - St. Stephen's Boxing Day

2005-12-26T03:30:00.000-08:00

December 26 is not a holiday in France, so I'm working. It IS, however, a holiday in Ireland. We were told that everything shuts down for 3 days after Christmas. I know for a fact that at least today everything is closed. I had to take a taxi to work and even the man's car wouldn't start.

St. Stephen's Day in Ireland
St. Stephen's Day honors the first Christian martyr, stoned to death shortly after the Crucifixion. St. Stephen's Day is a national holiday in Ireland, but the celebrations have little connection to the Saint.

In Ireland, St. Stephen's Day is the day for "Hunting the Wren" or "Going on the Wren." Originally, groups of small boys would hunt for a wren, and then chase the bird until they either caught it or it died from exhaustion. The dead bird was tied to the top of a pole or holly bush, which was decorated with ribbons or colored paper.

There are different legends about the origin of this custom. One is that St. Stephen, hiding from his enemies in a bush, was betrayed by a chattering wren. The wren, like St. Stephen, should be hunted down and stoned to death. The pursuit and capture of the wren is also related to the pagan custom of sacrificing a sacred symbol at year's end.

The custom of going on the wren fell into disfavor around the turn of the century, and died out completely in most parts of Ireland, but has been revived throughout much of the country. Wrens are no longer killed-- an artificial wren may be used, or a real wren may be carried about in a cage.The "Wren Boys" now include girls, and adults often accompany the young people. Folk costumes and traditional music and dancing are often part of going on the wren, and the money collected is often used for community or school projects.

Boxing Day

Despite the lively images suggested by the name, it does not gain its name from the overpowering need to rid the house of an excess of wrappings and mountains of now useless cardboard boxes the day after St. Nick arrived to turn a perfectly charming and orderly home into a maelstrom of discarded tissue paper.

The name also has nothing to do with returning unwanted gifts to the stores they came from, hence its common association with hauling about boxes on the day after Christmas.

The holiday's roots can be traced to Britain, where Boxing Day is also known as St. Stephen's Day. Reduced to the simplest essence, its origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Gifts among equals were exchanged on or before Christmas Day, but beneficences to those less fortunate were bestowed the day after.

And that's about as much as anyone can definitively say about its origin because once you step beyond that point, it's straight into the quagmire of debated claims and dueling folklorists. Which, by the way, is what we're about to muddy our boots with.

Although there is general agreement that the holiday is of British origin and it has to do with giving presents to the less fortunate, there is still dispute as to how the name came about or precisely what unequal relationship is being recognized.

At various times, the following "origins" have been loudly asserted as the correct one:
• Centuries ago, ordinary members of the merchant class gave boxes of food and fruit to tradespeople and servants the day after Christmas in an ancient form of Yuletide tip. Those long-ago gifts were done up in boxes, hence the day coming to be known as "Boxing Day."
• Christmas celebrations in the old days entailed bringing everyone together from all over a large estate, thus creating one of the rare instances when everyone could be found in one place at one time. This gathering of his extended family, so to speak, presented the lord of the manor with a ready-made opportunity to easily hand out that year's stipend of necessities. Thus, the day after Christmas, after all the partying was over and it was almost time to go back to far-flung homesteads, serfs were presented with their annual allotment of practical goods. Who got what was determined by the status of the worker and his relative family size, with spun cloth, leather goods, durable food supplies, tools, and whatnot being handed out. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obligated to supply these goods. The items were chucked into boxes, one box for each family, to make carrying away the results of this annual restocking easier; thus, the day came to be known as "Boxing Day."
• Many years ago, on the day after Christmas, servants in Britain carried boxes to their masters when they arrived for the day's work. It was a tradition that on this day all employers would put coins in the boxes as a special end-of-the-year gift. In a closely-related version of this explanation, apprentices and servants would on that day get to smash open small earthenware boxes left for them by their masters. These boxes would house small sums of money specifically left for them.

Whichever theory one chooses to back, the one thread common to all is the theme of one-way provision to those not inhabiting the same social level. As mentioned previously, equals exchanged gifts on Christmas Day or before, but lessers (be they tradespeople, employees, servants, serfs, or the generic "poor") received their "boxes" on the day after. It is to be noted that the social superiors did not receive anything back from those they played Lord Bountiful to: a gift in return would have been seen as a presumptuous act of laying claim to equality, the very thing Boxing Day was an entrenched bastion against. Boxing Day was, after all, about preserving class lines.

The week before Thanksgiving

2005-11-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, Carol and I celebrated our 15th anniversary by eating out at the restaurant in Dun Laoghaire known as 40 foot. You can see the menu here (Word format). I had the monkfish and we shared a bottle of 2001 Chateauneuf du Pape

On Saturday, we took Sierra to a live taping of the Irish fashion show RTE Off the Rails - I don’t know what episode it will be, but other than the charity fashion show Dell put on in October, this was only the second show we’ve been to. And this show was surprisingly sedate by comparison, despite the fact the “fashion” shown was much more fashionable. On the way back, we stopped for scones and hot chocolate at Harry's café. Harry’s is a nice place around the corner from our house. Sierra passes it every day on the way to school. They recently made the Zagat’s list – one of only 3 cafes in Ireland to actually make the list.

Sunday we went, as usual, to the produce market at People’s Park, then walked along the harbour with Sierra’s friends, twins Eva and Susan.
Finally, we went to see the Harry Potter film, disappointing in most respects except the length. I’m really starting to appreciate the alternative writer Michael Gerber ...

Well, I had held off publishing this because I wanted to be able to post a picture of the Christmas lights along George's Street in Dun Laoghaire. Maybe I'll get one tonight.

A Week in France

2005-11-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

Our trip to France coincided with the mounting unrest in various suburbs of Paris. We saw it on the news like most of the rest of France. And, like most of France, we didn't see any violence at all. Our trip was just fine. The weather was nice and we got to see some sights I had never been to before.

I've posted some photos on my online photo album - http://mangum.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php. The rest of this post is the story Sierra wrote about the trip. I only edited some spelling and punctuation:

Hi,
I'm Sierra and I want to tell you about my trip. Well at first we were on a train and Dad went to get Mom a Diet Coke at a stop and then we heard a beeping sound and the doors shut and Dad was trapped! But fortunately a man was outside and he signalled to the driver to open the doors.

Then when we got to Rosslare, they informed us that we have to wait 4 hours. So we went to the beach. The waves were going very high. Then our boat got there and when we got on it I was in heaven - almost. The carpet was beautiful. It goes up to eleven stories. And there was a game station with video games and a play pit, a cinema, a shopping centre, three resaurants and a bar with a lot of stairs and a man singing.

Or dorm wasn't so good. It was tiny - all there was was two bunks, a toilet, a shower, a shelf with very little space. First we got unpacked, then we went to the cinema and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was peaceful with the ship swaying side to side. Then we went to the resaurant and that was not good at all. I didn't take my motion sickness and I felt weird. Then Mom gave it to me - that's when it started. My stomach growled. It went mad. Some ugly little germ pushed the button - up and out. Dad got me the paper bag.

Then we got back to our dorm I had a lovely dream. It was about me and a famous gymnast called Monique. When I woke up I had breakfast. Then I got on the top deck and saw France. Then we took a train to Caen and it was late at night. Then we got a taxi and went to our hotel called Ibis. Then I was really in heaven. It was even more beautiful than a clean house, our boat, our train, People's Park, and the picture of the Mona Lisa. There was also a restaurant connected to it. First we got unpacked. The we went to La Storia and I had a wonderful Diavolo, which is a pizza with sausages, and an egg on it.

The next morning we went to the Peace Memorial. And I found out about the World War II. World War II is about a terrible man named Hitler who wanted to take over the world. But general Eisenhower wanted to stop war. And he kept his promise. After that he became President. Then he got elected again.

Then we got home. The next day we went to Tours and we went to castle tours. There was one in Caen, Chinon, Amboise, and I found out that I want to be like Leonardo Davinci, who was a famous man and made inventions and art and loved to do mathematics. He also made the Mona Lisa. Then we got on our boat and left France. We watched Herbie Fully Loaded.

And this was a really cool journey. I enjoyed it a lot.

Thanks

P.S. - I'm glad I'm home.

Halloween

2005-10-28T01:45:00.000-07:00

We're leaving on Sunday to take the ferry from Wexford to Cherbourg, France (in Normandy). We plan to spend All Souls' Day at the Peace Memorial in Caen, and then travel by train to Tours (west of Paris) to tour some chateaux, wineries, gardens, and possibly see the spot where Joan of Arc met King Richard.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures I took of Sierra this morning. Going to school in the costume her mother made her.

Online photo album

2005-10-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

I was going to publish some photos to this blog site, but decided to try out an online photo album.

http://mangum.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php has a few pictures of our trip to the Dublin Zoo and to the Howth peninsula.

A few pics

2005-08-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to get these pictures downloaded from my camera.

Carol and Sierra on the double-decker bus.

Carol at St. Stephen's Green in Dublin

On the trail up Bray's Head.

Monday, August 29

2005-08-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

Well, our household shipment arrived on Saturday. Imagine cramming the contents of a 3/2 house with garage into a 2/1 apartment with a small kitchen and what used to be a coal storage room for a garage. That's our life now. The furniture we bought over the years is oversized for this place and the boxes are creating a maze to navigate every morning. If the sparseness seemed improvrished before (I had saved a couple of boxes from my first shipment to use as "furniture" and we had a couple of lawn chairs), it now seems like a warehouse with floor to ceiling content.

The motherboard on my desktop blew, and the power supply on my laptop now pulses like a heart monitor. That partially explains the fact that I haven't posted in weeks. It at least explains why my camera's memory is still full. I blame the low quality of power here. Am researching a UPS and/or power scrubber.

Before our stuff arrived, Sierra had been really looking forward to getting started with her sewing projects. He has been dreaming up fashions for weeks, but lately her drawing has shifted to cartoons and portraits. Her style has taken on a very mature edge to it. She's experimenting with almost impressionistic exaggerations of features. I'll try to scan one and add it here.

This weekend was Dun Laoghaire's Festival of World Cultures We went to the crafts show and the outdoor concert of Ojo de Brujo. Carol was overwhelmed by the variety of nationalities here. On Sunday, Sierra got her face painted at People's Park.

Today was Sierra's first day at school - Domican Convent Primary School She had a great day and is really looking forward to the school year. She said she was the only non-Irish kid in her class.

Because her school is a Catholic school, she has to get baptised soon. We had to schedule an appointment to meet with Father Mangan, who is also the priest and on the board of directors of the school.

The night we visited him, he kept offering to refill our (his and my) glasses with brandy. In the end, I got drunk drinking brandy on a week night with the Irish priest who's going to baptise my daughter. For the record, Dan, it was Hennessey, because he had just come back from France. And for the record, I'll take Irish Catholic brandy-drinking priests over your hatred spewing Kool-Aid drinking Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News any day.

The Irish Intellect (one point of view)

2005-07-20T00:48:00.000-07:00

Carol and Sierra arrived on Saturday. I went to the airport on Saturday, but their flight was delayed 3 hours, so I ended up finishing Marcel Pagnol’s Manon des Sources at the airport waiting for them.

The trouble with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, with absolutely no talent. -Hugh Leonard

" Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not: Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not: Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not: The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. What we do in life echoes in eternity " - Calvin Coolidge

Kids I’ve seen here have an almost voracious curiosity, their eyes flash almost despite inquisitiveness (mixed with embarrassment for their bad haircuts). That curiosity seems to leave after a certain point, if only to revive in later life. The practice of continuing education (either professional or personal) is uncommon. There are far more bookmakers (betting parlors) than bookstores. There are more bars than cafes, and I swear the fact that I can’t get a decent cup of coffee here is a direct reflection of the level of intellectualism here. In terms of technology, few of us at work have yet to see a “computer store”, although there is a €900.00 Compaq at Tesco (on the shelf next to hair dryers). Cell phone stores are everywhere; CD and DVD stores are almost as common. “Software” consists almost entirely of video games. To get internet access at home, I had to complete an application and have it witnessed by a notary or a member of the police or clergy, who also has to be a customer of the same phone company.

Perhaps the best way to describe the educational system is from a booklet “Hint For Living In Ireland”:

School may pose the single most difficult adjustment for American families in Ireland. The standard of education is generally high, but it is not always parallel or transferable to the American system. One long-time American resident describes the Irish school system as a marriage of convenience between church and state; the distinction between private and public schools often seems fuzzy to outsiders. Both primary and secondary education are organized primarily on a denominational basis. Catholic or Church of Ireland authorities often own the grounds on which Catholic or Protestant schools are built. The church involved owns a percentage of the buildings but teachers’ salaries are paid from a government contribution made on a per student basis. In most primary schools the local clergyman or priest is the chairman of the Board of Management. Religion is taught as a subject in all schools. All Irish schools follow a national curriculum.
Children are rarely ability grouped; rather, the class tends to work together as a unit on most subjects. There is a very strong emphasis on English, Irish and arithmetic with very little time allocated to other subjects.
Results obtained on the Leaving Certificate Exam determine what Irish university a student can enter and what program of study he/she can pursue. University applicants are evaluated solely on the basis of points obtained on the exam; Irish universities do not see any transcript of their term-to-term performance in secondary school. In an Irish school, a C grade and numerical exam grades of 50-6-% are considered good grades. A grade of B is hard to earn and an A is rare indeed.

Personally, I think it is this co-mingling of religion and education that has the biggest effect on the intellectual life here. People mentally reject the religion because it was mandatory study, but accept the anti-intellectual bias of religion. In an effort to reclaim their Irish “roots”, Gallic was made mandatory in public schools. Adults will say they spent 8-10 years studying the language but can’t remember more than a few phrases. They didn’t choose to learn it, the study of it was forced on them, and so they mentally reject it.

But none if this explains why I can’t get a good coffee here. This was at Bewley's Cafe on Grafton street. Nice presentation, but the same disappointment.

The Irish in Ireland (one point of view)

2005-07-10T04:29:00.000-07:00

I had thought to spend some time describing the Irish people. I will have to split this up into several sections, and I've decided to do so along the lines of my own philosophy - body, mind, and soul, and will talk about each section in turn.

Physically, people are are a lot less homogeneous than you might think. Of course there are red-heads with freckles, but they are striking because of their rarity. Most folks are pale complected with dark hair. Tanning salons and especially the spray on tans are fairly common here; the color looks pretty good, but the uniforrmity and perfection of the effect reveals its artificiality.

Old folks here look about the same as anywhere, if somewhat more cheerful. I wouldn't say there is a reverence for elders here, but I do think they're more able to age gracefully and with great dignity. And the social system is set up so that almost no one is left destitute.

This being Europe, I expected the populace to be in better shape than they are. While outright obesity is rare, the majority are actually a bit overweight. It's easy to tell that if they didn't have to walk as much as they do that many of them would be outright obese. Even so, the fitness center is not planning any expansion in the near future; I've never seen more than 10 people on the field of aerobic machines that occupies the ground floor.

The fashion for girls right now seems to be those oddly faded, ill-fitting, hip constricting, low-riding jeans that look time consuming to put on and painful to wear. Very few of the bodies should be so encased, as the tight, low waistline simply causes the flab to reveal itself more in the overflow. They do some interesting things with layers of clothing - colors, fabrics, sleeve and hem length. Hair styles tends to be natural - those with curly hair leave it curly and usually long, those with straight hair leave it straight and hack it up for the most part. I saw some manequins in a store window whose hair looked like a Barbie doll after a couple of weeks of rough play. I think the weather prevents anyone from making too much of a fuss about their hair.

The fashion for guys, such as it ever is, consists of the shirt collar half pulled up - not James Dean rebellion, but rather rumpled nonchalance. They wear a lot of fashionable sweats (which they call track suits) or soccer shirts with jeans. Most guys have short hair that shows they don't pay much for haircuts. Most of the yound kids have painfully bad haircuts - the kind you get as punishment or that look like your dad was drunk when he cut your hair, and their eyes show their embarassment. Luckily, most of the other kids have really bad haircuts, too, so it works out. Very little facial hair; men of all ages shave regularly. There is a guy at the internet cafe who looks just like Ben Affleck's little brother, but with a bad hair cut.

The faces of the people are hard to describe without sounding like a budding writer. The good-looking women I would have to call handsome. There is a hardness of the brow and jawline, and a darkness in their eyes that defies cuteness, and some of them have a sly look, like they're trying to keep from laughing at some joke you didn't hear. I found this excerpt from an Irish folk tale: “He could not say the face was beautiful; it was too strong, too austere for beauty,… gold-brown eyes stared back at him from under thick straight brows. The lips were full but firmly held, the chin strong under cheeks that were slightly hollowed by high cheekbones. “
The not so good looking ones, well, do you remember when you were a kid and the grown-ups would tell you not to make those faces because your face would get stuck that way? Guess what, they may have been right. Some have a look of bewilderment or confusion or slight disgust. Others have faces that are pulled down, not in sadness, but in that contortion you get right before a good hard sneeze. (think Vincent Schiavelli in Ghost) When I'm out on the street, they always remind me to smile. Not everyone takes great care of their skin, and many have aged beyond their years. Note to self: always use lotion or suncreen in the morning, even if it's not going to be hot; it's the kind of thing you can't go back and do later. Also, I've basically quit drinking since I got here. Ironic, isn't it? It's not some sort of morality play - I've just seen what it does physically to the people who drink a lot (and there are a lot of people who drink a lot). In their faces, their bodies, their skin tone, their musculature. Besides, I'm experimenting with meditation techniques and lucid dreaming, both of which alcohol interferes with.

So, there it is. Remember to smile. Go easy on the drink. But whatever you take away from this, take my advice about the sunscreen.

So, what’s the weather like in Ireland?

2005-07-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

Today was cool in the morning, then rainy, then sunny, then sunny and windy, then rainy and windy, then partly sunny with light showers. From what I’ve seen, the clouds tend to stay pretty low, so the rain comes and goes fairly quickly. We’re on an island and on the coast of the Irish Sea west of England, so the temperature is going to remain fairly constant throughout the year – not too hot in the summer, cold but not terribly so in the winter. I’ve learned to have with me at all times a jacket, an umbrella, and sun screen.

http://www.ireland.com/weather/cam.htm
http://www.visitdublin.com/weather/

I remember the year I spent in Monterey, CA where we called it “perpetual autumn”. One day I biked 30 miles to Salinas for a rodeo. Coming back it was so hot and even the top of my head got sunburned. But over the last three miles to the Presidio at the top of Monterey Peninsula, the temperature dropped 30 degrees and by the time I got there I was cold.

The temperature here has been consistently around 17-20° C (65-70°F). They say it seldom gets above 25, but also that it hardly ever freezes in the winter. I had to turn the heater on in the apartment the other day – not because it was cold, but because I had just done a load of laundry and it wouldn’t dry otherwise.

I finished Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man yesterday. My second shipment of personal goods arrived today, which included the copy of Finegan’s Wake I bought with the Barnes & Nobles gift certificate Tania and Matt gave me. I also visited the local library just down the street from Sierra’s school. They have a good selection and even have a surprisingly good collection of foreign language literature. When I came out, the sun was shining from the west, but gray clouds were coming from the north and a light rain chased me home.

Moved to Dun Laoghaire

2005-07-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

I moved out of the apartment in south Dublin and into the one in Dun Laoghaire. Everything is very convenient from this location. The Crunch Fitness Center is around the corner, right across from the Dart station. Two streets over is the Dominican Convent Primary School where Sierra will go to school. And right down the road from that is the public library build by Dale Carnegie in 1912.

Dun Laoghaire is really a suburb of Dublin, and is still in Dublin country. You can see from this map the geographic location in relation to Dublin.

I took a taxi to work on Friday and my driver, who turned out to be a neighbour, told me the basic history of this once small fishing village.
Dún Laoghaire gets its name from the Irish Translation, Fort (Dún) of Laoghaire. King Laoghaire was the ancient High King of Ireland before the Vikings arrived. When the English came they renamed the town Dunlary (Dunleary) to suit the English tongue. In 1821 it was renamed Kingstown by King George IV of England to honour his visit to the town that year. It remained Kingstown through Victorian times until in 1921, one year before independence, the town council voted to change the name back to the ancient Irish name Dún Laoghaire.

The apartment is the garden level section of a 3 story townhouse built in the 1850’s for the British admiralty. My landlord is none other than the “Dun Laoghaire Borough Old Folks Association”. They split the townshouse in two and rent out the top floor of both sides as well as our side of the ground level. The middle level was left intact and serves as the Old Folks Association’s meeting area. It’s a 2/1 with a porch leading out to the garden. The rooms were larger than I was mentally bracing for and the location is absolutely perfect.

The first thing I did upon moving to Dun Laoghaire was to join the Crunch Fitness Center – easily the nicest “gym” I’ve been in. I bought a copy of James (Seamus) Joyce’s A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, having finished A Brief History of Ireland in French.

Musical Night Life

2005-06-25T03:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently, June 21 is Le Jour de Musique in France. This year it was on a Tuesday, so I ended up at the Café en Seine in Dublin . None of the sites I’ve found really do this place justice. It’s the kind of place I would never have thought to go into if the French people I work with hadn’t invited me. Really very nice. I hope to take Carol there someday for lunch; it’s a café during the day and a bar at night.

On Friday, Dell paid for a night out for all the server teams at Johnny Fox’s Pub – the highest pub in Ireland. Technically, geographically, it was the most altitudinous pub on the island. The décor was a bit over the top, but it worked for this place. They managed to pack so many people in by putting the tables in long rows and close together. Forced congeniality at its best. You can see from their web site that they specialize in seafood. I’d have to say their real speciality was entertainment.

The “headliners” were a 4 member band consisting of two young guys playing guitar and banjo, an older man on bass, and an old skinny Irishman in a beret on violin – all playing traditional Irish folk music. The intermission entertainment was a group of dancers – 2 guys and 3 girls doing what I suppose was traditional Irish folk dancing. If you can let go of the cliché for a second, it resembled somewhat the River Dance – a combination of ballet, tap, and clogging. The girls kept running off to change costume, which I found a bit excessive. The 2 guys were pretty good and didn’t seem terribly self-absorbed. It’s not until you see them up close and watch the feet that you realize how complex that style of dance really is.

Anyway, the band came back and played again. To describe the most striking song of the night requires that I set the scene. I’m sitting with the French techs; at the end of our table are the Spanish. Past the Spanish in the corner are the Italians, and behind us all, against the wall are the Germans. The rest of the place is filled with either Irish locals or British tourists. I’m sitting next to a really cool bald-headed Algerian named Kalid. Having set the scene, I’ll now tell that the song played by the afore-described band is none other than Four Non-Blondes’ “What’s Going On?” Not only everyone around me, but even the middle-aged British tourists across the room are all singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

Getting back to Dublin was going to be tricky. At that hour, the trains and buses had all stopped running, and there was some question of whether or not the taxis were going into Dublin – not because of the time, but because of the massive traffic jams from people coming to Dublin for U2’s concerts. I shared a taxi with two French techs who are staying in the same apartment complex as me.

Transportation & Accomodations

2005-06-23T01:03:00.000-07:00

People have been asking me about my living accomodations over here. Dell has provided me with an apartment in east Dublin, across from the greyhound race tracks. See this map from http://www.softguides.com/dublin/maps/centre.html To get to work, I walk to the Dart station at Landsdown and take the train into Dun Laoghaire. Dun Laoghaire is the small town (pop. 200,000) where I’m moving next week. I walk up the road half a block to the bus stop and take the either the 7 or the 111 to Cherrywood on the south end of Dun Laoghaire. Most of the buses are double-decker and if you pay by coin you have to tell the driver how far you want to go. I buy a week pass at the SPAR (Ireland’s 7-11).

It’s in waiting for either the train or the bus that I waste the most time. Each trip (bus or train) only takes 20 minutes, but if I don’t time it right, I end up waiting 10-20 minutes for each. That combined with the walking means I spend easily 1:30 one way. Needless to say, I have a lot of time to read.

Cars here are small. That 2 door GEO Metro I drove for a few years would be on the large side or average over here. I’m not kidding. Ford makes a newer 2 door Ka that kind of slopes forward over the back wheels. There is an older Nissan model (Micra) that is really small, but the winner has to be the Daewoo Matiz ; it’s probably 70% the size of the GEO Metro. I’ve only seen one Smart Car, but it seemed large compared to the DaeWoo.

Oh yeah, they drive on the left hand side of the road. It’s not the driving that throws you off (not that I can speak from experience) – it’s walking around. You’re always looking out for cars in the wrong direction.

Books I’ve read since arriving:

Marc Bloch l’Etrange Défaite

Gregg Easterbrook The Progress Paradox

Morgan Spurlock Don’t Eat This Book

Merrill Chapman In Search of Stupidity

John Kay The Truth About Markets

Dublin - International City

2005-06-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

My temporary apartment is on the east side of Dublin, just across a canal from the greyhound race tracks. Dell is letting me stay there for a month while my rental in Dun Laoghaire is finalized. (By the way, if you want to know how tight the real estate market is in Ireland, check out www.daft.ie. A majority of the other users of the Internet cafe I frequent are playing tag team on the phone and using daft.ie to locate a place to live before it gets rented out from underneath them. Unfurnished places are a lot harder to find than furnished). I took the bus into the city today. As I was coming in, it struck me how international this place is. There are always lots of people walking on the sidewalks, but today a couple of groups caught my eye. Heading one direction was a group of pre-adolescents from South America, all wearing matching yellow backpacks. In the other direction was a group of mixed age women wearing matching black t-shirts personalized for each of them. The two groups didn't pass each other so much as blended together for a moment before emerging from the other side.

The internet cafe I like to go to is run by a group of Africans. I often hear French and Italian there, some Russian, but mostly Slavic languages I can't understand. Some of the stations have video cameras, and some people teleconference there.

On the streets, you hear all sorts of languages. Because of the proximity to water, there are a lot of Philipinos here - merchant marines and their families. It's summertime, so a lot of the people I'm seeing are on vacation - especially the French.

Dublin is home to Trinity College but is too big to be influenced by the students into becoming a college town. Still, when school is in, I'm sure there are a lot of foreign students there, too.

The weather today is nice. I might try to get a sandwich and hang out at St. Stephen's Green. I still haven't found a really good coffee shop here, yet.

A Place For Thoughts

2005-06-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm in Ireland. So, of course, the template for this blog site would have to be green.

I hope to use this site to post notes and pictures of our sojourn in Ireland. Right now, I just want to get something posted.

As far as internet access goes, it's not as direct as we're used to in the states. Even getting a phone line is not necessarily automatic. The apartment I found in Dun Laoghaire still had a box for the ISDN line the previous tenant used. So, I'll probably be typing my stuff on a laptop at home (which has the French version of Windows XP and a different keyboard layout), save to a USB drive, and then post them at an internet café.

Anyway, that's the idea. That and the reduction of spam.

Enjoy