I got my first impressions of Kansas City through music. I can still remember belting out:
“Well I might take a train
I might take a plane, but if I have to walk
I'm gonna get there just the same.”
Sounded like a hell of a place and it didn’t disappoint. But whereas I visualized stockyards full of baying cattle and cowboys chatting up floozies in saloons, instead KC had more fountains than any city this side of Rome and was intensely Irish too boot.
Then again, the Irish seem to end up everywhere. They had already reached the town of Westport on their way to the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails; but it was a priest from Co. Cavan who single-handedly turned KC into an Irish town, proving once again that it’s hard to beat a Cavan man when he has his mind set on something.
Before his arrival in Missouri Fr. Bernard Donnelly had worked as a stonecutter in his native Kilnacreeva and as an engineer in the shipyards of Liverpool. He intrinsically understood that if his Kansas City parish were to flourish roads would need to be cut through the bluffs that bordered the river’s edge.
What better men to do it but the boys from home! He recruited 300 Irish day- laborers to not only slice the bluffs but level the ground and establish a brickworks. Thus was modern Kansas City born!
It’s interesting how the lie of the land affected the Irish that settled near the confluence of the Missouri and Kaw rivers. Say what you like about the merits of the East Coast Irish, it would be hard to argue that we haven’t been affected by close contact and the general lack of space in our cities. There’s a scrappiness to our nature and long may it live.
Likewise there’s a natural expansiveness to the KC Irish. And why wouldn’t there be – on the ride in from the airport you can’t help but be struck by the broad landscape and the sight of one beautiful fountain after another. The Van Wyck Expressway may have its charms but beautiful it ain’t!
Though it must be tiresome getting whipped by the Yankees on a regular basis – and I’m a Mets fan - KC has its compensations. They’re mad about music out there – not surprising in a city that fostered Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Big Joe Turner.
It doesn’t take more than a couple of pints to see horn-carrying ghosts in Zoot suits glide by, for if jazz was born in New Orleans it grew up around 12th Street in this “Paris of the Plains.”
The fact that local Irish political boss, Tom Pendergast, allowed liquor to flow during prohibition didn’t hurt when it came to attracting top-flight musicians.
When I first played the local Irish Festival it seemed as if it was being held in someone’s back yard but you could sense the enthusiasm and spirit of both organizers and patrons. Now the KC Irish Festival draws over 100,000 people to Crown Center Square usually with their own Celtic Rock phenomenon, The Elders, topping the bill.
But you can always measure the vibrancy of Irish culture by the strength of its Irish Center and how involved the local people are in its doings. With concerts, book clubs, dance and language classes the KC Irish Center located at historic Union Station is on a roll.
Having the vivacious and enterprising Nancy Wormington as executive producer doesn’t hurt. When I ran into her in New York last year she insisted I come down and do a Rock & Read solo show.
How could I resist? Fountains are good for the soul anytime of the year but particularly in this cruelest of months. Besides, Kansas Citians make for a lively audience, especially when they have a drink or two taken.
Though, no doubt, the teetotaler Fr. Bernard Donnelly would turn up his nose at the mere sniff of alcohol, I bet his ghost is never far from the Irish Center seeking recruits for his brickworks.
I’ll keep a weather eye out for him this coming Saturday night. Rockin’ & Readin’ is one thing – cutting through bluffs quite another!
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Staff Sergeant Robert Bales
There seems little doubt that Staff Sergeant Robert Bales will be proved guilty on 17 charges of murder in Afghanistan. The real question is – what guilt do we share?
Sergeant Bales didn’t want to go to Afghanistan. He’d had enough - three tours in Iraq, a piece of his foot missing, concussed in a bombing, obviously suffering from some form of Post Traumatic Stress.
What makes a man like that crack? War! Not to be mistaken with the sanitized “surgical strike” trotted out by Pentagon apologists, or the edited photo ops we witness on television where we’re warned beforehand if a drop of blood will be shown.
And it’s far from the trumpets, the drums and the self-righteous trash-talk of politicians as they dispatch fellow Americans to fulfill their think-tank theories and power-point strategies.
No war is always brutal, undiluted violence that solves little but ruins much. And when the curtain comes down on Sergeant Bales he’ll have been isolated and discarded – portrayed as nothing less than a bad apple who let the team down.
But was he a rogue soldier or a damaged person who broke under the unrelenting pressure of four tours of duty? By the time the lawyers and the media have done with him we’ll likely never know.
What he did was heinous, almost beyond belief, yet perhaps it will finally awaken us to the fact that we should have been out of Afghanistan a long time ago. Sergeant Hales’ murderous rampage may yet prove to be a tipping point as Lieutenant Calley’s gruesome My Lai incident was for the folly of Vietnam.
Unlike Iraq the vast majority of Americans did favor going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Very few, however, envisioned still being there ten years later. We could rehash the reasons we’re mired in this modern day Vietnam until the cows come home but let’s deal with the here and now.
We’re supporting a breathtakingly corrupt regime yet our presence is so toxic its leader, Hamid Karzai, has little choice but to rant against us even though he risks lynching on our departure. But by then he’ll likely be living it up with his cronies in Dubai where most of them have stashed their siphoned-off American Aid dollars.
Will women’s rights be trampled on as soon as we leave? Of course, but we should have thought of that back in the 1980’s rather than supporting Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahideen in their holy war against the Soviet supported secular government. Chickens inevitably come home to roost.
Don’t any of these Washington warriors ever read history? Afghanistan has always been the graveyard of empires – Alexander The Great even took the long way home to Greece rather than set foot there again.
It would be nice to think that we have at least planted the seeds of democracy but most Afghanis view us as invading infidels. Burning their Korans and destroying their villages by drone attack hasn’t helped.
True, Afghanis care little for the religious zealots and drug dealers we dignify with the name Taliban, let alone foreigners like Al Qaeda. But they do share the same faith and culture and in a deeply religious country those certitudes will always trump mom, CNN and apple pie.
And now we’ve whisked Sergeant Bales away to be tried in a court and country that many Afghanis can’t even imagine. That won’t be the final nail in the coffin of our occupation but its days are numbered.
And when we’ve gone and Afghanis resume their fratricidal fighting Al Qaeda will have little to do with it. Why should they expose themselves to the Finger of God as they call our relentless drones? No, they’re far safer ensconced in the urban sprawls of Asia and Africa.
It’s ten years now since the shock attacks of 9/11. Yet we continue to fight useless wars based on outmoded strategies devised in the wake of that tragedy.
Just as we continue to send troubled men like Sergeant Bales to Afghanistan when we should be doing everything in our power to heal the damage they suffered in our service.
It’s truly time to go!
Sergeant Bales didn’t want to go to Afghanistan. He’d had enough - three tours in Iraq, a piece of his foot missing, concussed in a bombing, obviously suffering from some form of Post Traumatic Stress.
What makes a man like that crack? War! Not to be mistaken with the sanitized “surgical strike” trotted out by Pentagon apologists, or the edited photo ops we witness on television where we’re warned beforehand if a drop of blood will be shown.
And it’s far from the trumpets, the drums and the self-righteous trash-talk of politicians as they dispatch fellow Americans to fulfill their think-tank theories and power-point strategies.
No war is always brutal, undiluted violence that solves little but ruins much. And when the curtain comes down on Sergeant Bales he’ll have been isolated and discarded – portrayed as nothing less than a bad apple who let the team down.
But was he a rogue soldier or a damaged person who broke under the unrelenting pressure of four tours of duty? By the time the lawyers and the media have done with him we’ll likely never know.
What he did was heinous, almost beyond belief, yet perhaps it will finally awaken us to the fact that we should have been out of Afghanistan a long time ago. Sergeant Hales’ murderous rampage may yet prove to be a tipping point as Lieutenant Calley’s gruesome My Lai incident was for the folly of Vietnam.
Unlike Iraq the vast majority of Americans did favor going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Very few, however, envisioned still being there ten years later. We could rehash the reasons we’re mired in this modern day Vietnam until the cows come home but let’s deal with the here and now.
We’re supporting a breathtakingly corrupt regime yet our presence is so toxic its leader, Hamid Karzai, has little choice but to rant against us even though he risks lynching on our departure. But by then he’ll likely be living it up with his cronies in Dubai where most of them have stashed their siphoned-off American Aid dollars.
Will women’s rights be trampled on as soon as we leave? Of course, but we should have thought of that back in the 1980’s rather than supporting Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahideen in their holy war against the Soviet supported secular government. Chickens inevitably come home to roost.
Don’t any of these Washington warriors ever read history? Afghanistan has always been the graveyard of empires – Alexander The Great even took the long way home to Greece rather than set foot there again.
It would be nice to think that we have at least planted the seeds of democracy but most Afghanis view us as invading infidels. Burning their Korans and destroying their villages by drone attack hasn’t helped.
True, Afghanis care little for the religious zealots and drug dealers we dignify with the name Taliban, let alone foreigners like Al Qaeda. But they do share the same faith and culture and in a deeply religious country those certitudes will always trump mom, CNN and apple pie.
And now we’ve whisked Sergeant Bales away to be tried in a court and country that many Afghanis can’t even imagine. That won’t be the final nail in the coffin of our occupation but its days are numbered.
And when we’ve gone and Afghanis resume their fratricidal fighting Al Qaeda will have little to do with it. Why should they expose themselves to the Finger of God as they call our relentless drones? No, they’re far safer ensconced in the urban sprawls of Asia and Africa.
It’s ten years now since the shock attacks of 9/11. Yet we continue to fight useless wars based on outmoded strategies devised in the wake of that tragedy.
Just as we continue to send troubled men like Sergeant Bales to Afghanistan when we should be doing everything in our power to heal the damage they suffered in our service.
It’s truly time to go!
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Appointment with Mr. Yeats
How long since you heard a really great new CD?
I’m not talking about something with a couple of decent songs and a truckload of filler. I receive scores of those annually at SiriusXM – many with little thought or notion of originality.
And then you hear an album that floors you and renews your faith in artistry. An Appointment With Mr. Yeats by The Waterboys is such a work.
I’ve rarely liked Yeats set to music, and I know whereof I speak having tried it myself.
Yeats himself was apparently tone deaf although he obviously heard some stellar notes floating around inside his head. But it’s a whole different ballgame getting them down on the page; perhaps that’s why he never tried.
Yet what a poet he was! Every syllable is so sublimely calibrated; every poem finely balanced on some exacting fulcrum of taste and truth.
“Poetry should be as cold and passionate as the dawn,” he demanded. The problem with such a dictum is that should he have written something of sadness or longing and a composer adds a dash more of the same, then the resultant song risks becoming maudlin and morose.
Mike Scott of The Waterboys avoids this temptation like the plague. For one thing he eschews all forms of the twee folkiness that has tainted so much of Yeats set to music.
Instead he uses a full palette of rock & roll that, dare I say it, not only adds to but often deepens our understanding of Yeats’ perfection. Scott shakes the dust of a century from some poems with driving muscular beats, while others he caresses with fine sensitive musical fingers and coaxes forth elements that I had never before noticed.
At times he shouts, occasionally he whispers but even at his most animated there is an odd dispassion in his voice - he instinctively recognize that he must keep a distance for fear of sweeping Mister Yeats’ intricate gossamer web of poetry off its inner fulcrum.
Yet he is rarely reverential. He repeats lines and unleashes structures long calcified by tradition and academic mustiness. My God, he even adds a bridge with some fine lyrics to Sweet Dancer that could send purists howling for the hills. Amazingly, if airwaves weren’t so corporate controlled he’d have a hit single, for Dancer is as catchy as any Lady Gaga anthem.
And what of standards like Song of Wandering Aengus? Well it glides atop a graceful keyboard, anchored to a steady beat and augmented by an improvised flute on the outro that will keep you searching for your own glimmering girl long after you’ve located those fabled silver apples of the moon.
The Lake Isle of Inisfree is likewise a delight. Who would have dreamed that the bee-loud glade would shimmer to a restrained blues shuffle made heady by Steve Wickham’s pyschedelic fiddling?
It wouldn’t surprise me if Let The Earth Bear Witness becomes one of the great rallying cries for human rights. I wasn’t familiar with this piece lifted from Yeats’ play Cathleen Ní Houlihan but Scott transforms it into an elegy as riveting as it is haunting.
Despite its power I’ve always had mixed feelings about September 1913. Written at the height of the Dublin Lockout and printed in the Irish Times, I suppose I resented that the sacrifice of the workers led by James Connolly and Jim Larkin goes unmentioned while Yeats righteously rants against what he considers the greater calamities - the emergence of a new “greasy tilled” merchant class and the era’s general crassness.
Be that as it may, who would have thought that “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, it’s with O’Leary in the Grave” would make one of the finest rock choruses I’ve heard in many the year.
I’d hold off writing this but given our own insipid times Appointment with Mr. Yeats is unlikely to get the decently funded American release it deserves. So, jump the gun, go to www.mikescottwaterboys.com - and buy this revelatory CD. Believe me, I’ve only touched the surface; there’s genius to be had within.
I’m not talking about something with a couple of decent songs and a truckload of filler. I receive scores of those annually at SiriusXM – many with little thought or notion of originality.
And then you hear an album that floors you and renews your faith in artistry. An Appointment With Mr. Yeats by The Waterboys is such a work.
I’ve rarely liked Yeats set to music, and I know whereof I speak having tried it myself.
Yeats himself was apparently tone deaf although he obviously heard some stellar notes floating around inside his head. But it’s a whole different ballgame getting them down on the page; perhaps that’s why he never tried.
Yet what a poet he was! Every syllable is so sublimely calibrated; every poem finely balanced on some exacting fulcrum of taste and truth.
“Poetry should be as cold and passionate as the dawn,” he demanded. The problem with such a dictum is that should he have written something of sadness or longing and a composer adds a dash more of the same, then the resultant song risks becoming maudlin and morose.
Mike Scott of The Waterboys avoids this temptation like the plague. For one thing he eschews all forms of the twee folkiness that has tainted so much of Yeats set to music.
Instead he uses a full palette of rock & roll that, dare I say it, not only adds to but often deepens our understanding of Yeats’ perfection. Scott shakes the dust of a century from some poems with driving muscular beats, while others he caresses with fine sensitive musical fingers and coaxes forth elements that I had never before noticed.
At times he shouts, occasionally he whispers but even at his most animated there is an odd dispassion in his voice - he instinctively recognize that he must keep a distance for fear of sweeping Mister Yeats’ intricate gossamer web of poetry off its inner fulcrum.
Yet he is rarely reverential. He repeats lines and unleashes structures long calcified by tradition and academic mustiness. My God, he even adds a bridge with some fine lyrics to Sweet Dancer that could send purists howling for the hills. Amazingly, if airwaves weren’t so corporate controlled he’d have a hit single, for Dancer is as catchy as any Lady Gaga anthem.
And what of standards like Song of Wandering Aengus? Well it glides atop a graceful keyboard, anchored to a steady beat and augmented by an improvised flute on the outro that will keep you searching for your own glimmering girl long after you’ve located those fabled silver apples of the moon.
The Lake Isle of Inisfree is likewise a delight. Who would have dreamed that the bee-loud glade would shimmer to a restrained blues shuffle made heady by Steve Wickham’s pyschedelic fiddling?
It wouldn’t surprise me if Let The Earth Bear Witness becomes one of the great rallying cries for human rights. I wasn’t familiar with this piece lifted from Yeats’ play Cathleen Ní Houlihan but Scott transforms it into an elegy as riveting as it is haunting.
Despite its power I’ve always had mixed feelings about September 1913. Written at the height of the Dublin Lockout and printed in the Irish Times, I suppose I resented that the sacrifice of the workers led by James Connolly and Jim Larkin goes unmentioned while Yeats righteously rants against what he considers the greater calamities - the emergence of a new “greasy tilled” merchant class and the era’s general crassness.
Be that as it may, who would have thought that “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, it’s with O’Leary in the Grave” would make one of the finest rock choruses I’ve heard in many the year.
I’d hold off writing this but given our own insipid times Appointment with Mr. Yeats is unlikely to get the decently funded American release it deserves. So, jump the gun, go to www.mikescottwaterboys.com - and buy this revelatory CD. Believe me, I’ve only touched the surface; there’s genius to be had within.
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Sandy Denny
A hush often falls on conversation when the name, Sandy Denny, arises, usually accompanied by sighs and a gentle shaking of the head. The initial pain at her passing over thirty years ago has eased but many of her admirers still experience a deep sense of loss.
What is it about Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny? And why does she touch us still? I really don’t know, but even as I write this I’m filled with a sense of gentle melancholia. It definitely had something to do with her voice. Even as a very young woman, that instrument ached with experience.
How could she have written a masterpiece like “Who Knows Where The Time Goes” as a teenager? And to compound matters, it was rumored to be her first composition. During an interview with Richard Thompson for Celtic Crush, I asked him if this was true. He replied that to the best of his knowledge it was and, at any rate, she’d had the song when he first met her.
Fairport Convention are merely a footnote now in rock history but there was a time in the late 6o’s/early 70’s when their influence was huge and their star shone brightly. There wasn’t a woman singer at the time that didn’t look up to Ms. Denny. Sandy, herself, was racked by insecurity. She longed for mainstream success but was unsure about, among other things, her appearance. Add to that a harsh shyness and an uncertainty about celebrity.
Despite these doubts she was an electric performer who devoured light. When she was onstage it was hard to take your eyes off her, notwithstanding the fact that she was always accompanied by stellar and equally charismatic musicians the like of Richard Thompson and her husband, Trevor Lucas. I guess it was her intensity. The song was everything to her and she effortlessly channeled the times, along with the ghosts of the people she sang about.
Take a listen to Banks of the Nile with her band Fotheringay. I still delight in the perfection of the song’s arrangement; and then that voice – laying bare the story of a girl who dresses as a soldier to find her lover in England’s army fighting Napoleon in Egypt.
Or lose yourself in the longing and regret of No End where she mourns for the idealism of an artist she loved and admired. Now that he’s forsaken his craft – and her – what’s left? Well, actually, a lot, in particular that ineffable feeling we’ve all experienced at being let down but were never quite able to put into words.
Sandy died from a brain hemorrhage after a fall down a stairs in 1978. At the end of our interview, I asked Richard Thompson to describe Sandy. After praising her originality, voice and craft, he halted for a moment then continued in his very understated English manner, “she was a woman of considerable appetites.”
Lucky for us, I suppose, for her songs, though delicate, throb with life, loss and pain. She was the best and we’re lucky to have been touched by her considerable talents, spirit and soul.
What is it about Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny? And why does she touch us still? I really don’t know, but even as I write this I’m filled with a sense of gentle melancholia. It definitely had something to do with her voice. Even as a very young woman, that instrument ached with experience.
How could she have written a masterpiece like “Who Knows Where The Time Goes” as a teenager? And to compound matters, it was rumored to be her first composition. During an interview with Richard Thompson for Celtic Crush, I asked him if this was true. He replied that to the best of his knowledge it was and, at any rate, she’d had the song when he first met her.
Fairport Convention are merely a footnote now in rock history but there was a time in the late 6o’s/early 70’s when their influence was huge and their star shone brightly. There wasn’t a woman singer at the time that didn’t look up to Ms. Denny. Sandy, herself, was racked by insecurity. She longed for mainstream success but was unsure about, among other things, her appearance. Add to that a harsh shyness and an uncertainty about celebrity.
Despite these doubts she was an electric performer who devoured light. When she was onstage it was hard to take your eyes off her, notwithstanding the fact that she was always accompanied by stellar and equally charismatic musicians the like of Richard Thompson and her husband, Trevor Lucas. I guess it was her intensity. The song was everything to her and she effortlessly channeled the times, along with the ghosts of the people she sang about.
Take a listen to Banks of the Nile with her band Fotheringay. I still delight in the perfection of the song’s arrangement; and then that voice – laying bare the story of a girl who dresses as a soldier to find her lover in England’s army fighting Napoleon in Egypt.
Or lose yourself in the longing and regret of No End where she mourns for the idealism of an artist she loved and admired. Now that he’s forsaken his craft – and her – what’s left? Well, actually, a lot, in particular that ineffable feeling we’ve all experienced at being let down but were never quite able to put into words.
Sandy died from a brain hemorrhage after a fall down a stairs in 1978. At the end of our interview, I asked Richard Thompson to describe Sandy. After praising her originality, voice and craft, he halted for a moment then continued in his very understated English manner, “she was a woman of considerable appetites.”
Lucky for us, I suppose, for her songs, though delicate, throb with life, loss and pain. She was the best and we’re lucky to have been touched by her considerable talents, spirit and soul.
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Divine Right To Slash and Burn
Sometimes it seems that things are so carved in stone there’s not a prayer of changing them. Though only enacted in 2003 the Bush Tax Cuts are a case in point.
Don’t worry I’m not proposing a raise in taxes. But I am broaching something even more sacrosanct – the idea that a commercial corporation’s only responsibility is to turn a profit.
Geez, exclaims your man up in Pearl River, the next thing he’ll be doing is criticizing Jeremy Lin!
Not really but with profits at an all time high it’s easy forget that corporations do not have a divine right to slash and burn regardless of workers or community.
Travel the roads of America, however, and the scales will soon fall from your eyes at the sight of abandoned factories nestled amidst once bustling neighborhoods. And everywhere workers jittery about their prospects while their unions bend backwards in an effort to save jobs.
What you won’t see is any meaningful effort from large corporations to give back to their communities despite robust balance sheets and unusually large cash reserves.
Why should they? Their god-assumed sole goal is to make a buck.
Take Apple, for instance. The company delivers astounding profits yet never seems to have given a thought to manufacturing its products totally in the US; why bother when big savings can be made by subcontracting to Chinese firms. The irony is that Apple microprocessors are manufactured in Texas, sent to China where they are placed in iPads then shipped back to the U.S.
No doubt it’s more expensive to assemble the iPad in Austin so why not turn a quick buck and to hell with American manufacturing jobs – the portals of entry to the middle class.
But what a battering even those vanishing portals have taken. The $28 per hour UAW contract has been “shaved” to $14. That’s less than $30K per annum - hardly enough to buy the white picket fence let alone the house.
What’s the solution? Well, social media brought the almighty Rush Limbaugh to his knees over his deplorable “Slutgate.” With almost 100 billion dollars in cash reserves I don’t have the least doubt that Apple would “sacrifice” a billion or two for job creation to prevent a community boycott. The same pressure could be applied to every company with the good fortune to be ensconced in the S&P index.
A politician unbeholden to donors and lobbyists wouldn’t hurt either. Perhaps some pale imitation of a Teddy Roosevelt who in similar circumstances challenged the right of the robber barons to ride herd over America workers?
How about Governor Romney? Forget about it! His sole solution is the George Bush vanishing card trick – cut taxes, balloon deficits! Besides, he comes from a venture capitalist background where the standard remedy when acquiring ailing companies is to cut jobs. Imagine letting him loose on an ailing country?
Contrast this approach with how Germany dealt with the recent recession. Its unemployment figures remained remarkably low because many corporations instituted a three-day week rather than cast off their workers like old dishrags.
Nor are German firms unaware of their social responsibility; most maintain an apprenticeship system in association with government, colleges and trade unions that trains young workers while providing them with entry level jobs.
You think President Obama might consider introducing such a practical solution? No way, he’d be accused of being Karl Marx’s bastard son and born in Berlin to boot!
Besides, he’ll have his hands full shaking the corporate money tree in his re-election bid. That in itself should lead to a strategic watering down of the Dodd-Frank Act passed to regulate the financial entities that brought the country to the brink of disaster.
Still, half a loaf or no loaf at all – and there is a slim chance that if he wins in November he just might use his bully pulpit to call out the corporations who continue to view the US as a cash cow instead of the home of a proud people whose only aspiration is an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.
Don’t worry I’m not proposing a raise in taxes. But I am broaching something even more sacrosanct – the idea that a commercial corporation’s only responsibility is to turn a profit.
Geez, exclaims your man up in Pearl River, the next thing he’ll be doing is criticizing Jeremy Lin!
Not really but with profits at an all time high it’s easy forget that corporations do not have a divine right to slash and burn regardless of workers or community.
Travel the roads of America, however, and the scales will soon fall from your eyes at the sight of abandoned factories nestled amidst once bustling neighborhoods. And everywhere workers jittery about their prospects while their unions bend backwards in an effort to save jobs.
What you won’t see is any meaningful effort from large corporations to give back to their communities despite robust balance sheets and unusually large cash reserves.
Why should they? Their god-assumed sole goal is to make a buck.
Take Apple, for instance. The company delivers astounding profits yet never seems to have given a thought to manufacturing its products totally in the US; why bother when big savings can be made by subcontracting to Chinese firms. The irony is that Apple microprocessors are manufactured in Texas, sent to China where they are placed in iPads then shipped back to the U.S.
No doubt it’s more expensive to assemble the iPad in Austin so why not turn a quick buck and to hell with American manufacturing jobs – the portals of entry to the middle class.
But what a battering even those vanishing portals have taken. The $28 per hour UAW contract has been “shaved” to $14. That’s less than $30K per annum - hardly enough to buy the white picket fence let alone the house.
What’s the solution? Well, social media brought the almighty Rush Limbaugh to his knees over his deplorable “Slutgate.” With almost 100 billion dollars in cash reserves I don’t have the least doubt that Apple would “sacrifice” a billion or two for job creation to prevent a community boycott. The same pressure could be applied to every company with the good fortune to be ensconced in the S&P index.
A politician unbeholden to donors and lobbyists wouldn’t hurt either. Perhaps some pale imitation of a Teddy Roosevelt who in similar circumstances challenged the right of the robber barons to ride herd over America workers?
How about Governor Romney? Forget about it! His sole solution is the George Bush vanishing card trick – cut taxes, balloon deficits! Besides, he comes from a venture capitalist background where the standard remedy when acquiring ailing companies is to cut jobs. Imagine letting him loose on an ailing country?
Contrast this approach with how Germany dealt with the recent recession. Its unemployment figures remained remarkably low because many corporations instituted a three-day week rather than cast off their workers like old dishrags.
Nor are German firms unaware of their social responsibility; most maintain an apprenticeship system in association with government, colleges and trade unions that trains young workers while providing them with entry level jobs.
You think President Obama might consider introducing such a practical solution? No way, he’d be accused of being Karl Marx’s bastard son and born in Berlin to boot!
Besides, he’ll have his hands full shaking the corporate money tree in his re-election bid. That in itself should lead to a strategic watering down of the Dodd-Frank Act passed to regulate the financial entities that brought the country to the brink of disaster.
Still, half a loaf or no loaf at all – and there is a slim chance that if he wins in November he just might use his bully pulpit to call out the corporations who continue to view the US as a cash cow instead of the home of a proud people whose only aspiration is an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Unlucky Green
He was the most famous Irishman of his era and yet he abhorred the color green, considered it the height of bad luck, and blanched at the many gifts and awards presented to him in the national color.
One of the shrewdest political tacticians, his parliamentary battles with Prime Minister William Gladstone were legendary, and yet he was hopelessly superstitious.
A belief in predestination led him into divorce court thereby sacrificing the last chance to gain a united Ireland with a minimum of violence.
Charles Stewart Parnell is no less a paradox now than he was as uncrowned King of Ireland between 1880 and 1891. Mysterious and aloof he rarely entertained questions let alone criticisms.
Though we can now rake through the minutiae of his life, a veil of secrecy and claustrophobia still shrouds the man.
Sound a bit like Sherlock Holmes? Well, the analogy is not far off the mark as the fictional Holmes and the larger-than-life Parnell strode the same foggy Victorian streets of London when a right to privacy was still accepted.
Still, how Mister Parnell could live for almost a decade and raise two children with Catherine O’Shea without the knowledge of his party or the press is hard to fathom in our own media-intrusive age.
And yes, her name was Catherine. In a successful effort to demean her, Tim Healy, one of Parnell’s bitterest opponents, coined “Kitty” – then a codeword for prostitute.
But even Healy had no idea of the depth of attachment of Parnell for Mrs. O’Shea until her husband sued for divorce on Christmas Eve 1889. Nor indeed did anyone suspect that Mrs. O’Shea’s two girls were Parnell’s children.
Ireland was “shook” by the news of the divorce proceedings. In typical fashion, Parnell ignored both the consternation and ramifications. He was the king, what would be would be. Religion and money, however, always trump destiny.
Parnell had aligned himself with Gladstone’s Liberals in a “union of hearts” that promised Home Rule for Ireland. However, the god-fearing Methodist wing of the Liberal Party could have no dealings with an adulterer. The pragmatic Gladstone let it be known that the Irish would need a new leader.
This split the Home Rule Party; many stood with Parnell because of loyalty and a rejection of English interference, but a majority sided with Healy and the Catholic Church, long suspicious of a charismatic Irish Protestant leader. The battle was fierce, sectarian and bitterly personal – many families split on the matter.
And money? Well, back in 1880 when Parnell was first introduced to Catherine O’Shea she was to be the benefactor of an old Aunt’s huge estate. Catherine and her husband, Capt. William O’Shea, had more or less gone their separate ways on the understanding that on the old lady’s demise Capt. Willie would “be well looked after.” Alas, the aunt lived on “to spite them all.”
Shortly after the old lady’s expiration, O’Shea arrived at Catherine’s house expecting that a financial deal would finally be hammered out.
Parnell refused to sully his hands with such negotiations, while Catherine was “short” with Willie who stormed out and filed for divorce.
Parnell achieved one goal – he finally married the woman he loved. However, since his girls were born while Catherine was married to Willie, the good captain threatened to use them in all future legal negotiations.
Undaunted, Parnell fought on believing that “no matter what the Irish will not desert me.” In torrential rain he delivered an election speech at Creggs on the Galway-Roscommon border, took ill and died barely a week later in Catherine’s arms.
Though they had deserted him in large numbers, the Irish people were stunned. Over 200,000 attended his funeral in Dublin.
Catherine was not amongst them. Overcome, she sank into a lonely life hallucinating that Parnell appeared to her late at night.
Ireland never achieved unified Home Rule. Would things have been different had there been another outcome to the negotiations between Catherine and Willie O’Shea on that awful night of Dec. 23rd, 1889?
Perhaps, Parnell was right, green was an unlucky color for him - and Ireland.
One of the shrewdest political tacticians, his parliamentary battles with Prime Minister William Gladstone were legendary, and yet he was hopelessly superstitious.
A belief in predestination led him into divorce court thereby sacrificing the last chance to gain a united Ireland with a minimum of violence.
Charles Stewart Parnell is no less a paradox now than he was as uncrowned King of Ireland between 1880 and 1891. Mysterious and aloof he rarely entertained questions let alone criticisms.
Though we can now rake through the minutiae of his life, a veil of secrecy and claustrophobia still shrouds the man.
Sound a bit like Sherlock Holmes? Well, the analogy is not far off the mark as the fictional Holmes and the larger-than-life Parnell strode the same foggy Victorian streets of London when a right to privacy was still accepted.
Still, how Mister Parnell could live for almost a decade and raise two children with Catherine O’Shea without the knowledge of his party or the press is hard to fathom in our own media-intrusive age.
And yes, her name was Catherine. In a successful effort to demean her, Tim Healy, one of Parnell’s bitterest opponents, coined “Kitty” – then a codeword for prostitute.
But even Healy had no idea of the depth of attachment of Parnell for Mrs. O’Shea until her husband sued for divorce on Christmas Eve 1889. Nor indeed did anyone suspect that Mrs. O’Shea’s two girls were Parnell’s children.
Ireland was “shook” by the news of the divorce proceedings. In typical fashion, Parnell ignored both the consternation and ramifications. He was the king, what would be would be. Religion and money, however, always trump destiny.
Parnell had aligned himself with Gladstone’s Liberals in a “union of hearts” that promised Home Rule for Ireland. However, the god-fearing Methodist wing of the Liberal Party could have no dealings with an adulterer. The pragmatic Gladstone let it be known that the Irish would need a new leader.
This split the Home Rule Party; many stood with Parnell because of loyalty and a rejection of English interference, but a majority sided with Healy and the Catholic Church, long suspicious of a charismatic Irish Protestant leader. The battle was fierce, sectarian and bitterly personal – many families split on the matter.
And money? Well, back in 1880 when Parnell was first introduced to Catherine O’Shea she was to be the benefactor of an old Aunt’s huge estate. Catherine and her husband, Capt. William O’Shea, had more or less gone their separate ways on the understanding that on the old lady’s demise Capt. Willie would “be well looked after.” Alas, the aunt lived on “to spite them all.”
Shortly after the old lady’s expiration, O’Shea arrived at Catherine’s house expecting that a financial deal would finally be hammered out.
Parnell refused to sully his hands with such negotiations, while Catherine was “short” with Willie who stormed out and filed for divorce.
Parnell achieved one goal – he finally married the woman he loved. However, since his girls were born while Catherine was married to Willie, the good captain threatened to use them in all future legal negotiations.
Undaunted, Parnell fought on believing that “no matter what the Irish will not desert me.” In torrential rain he delivered an election speech at Creggs on the Galway-Roscommon border, took ill and died barely a week later in Catherine’s arms.
Though they had deserted him in large numbers, the Irish people were stunned. Over 200,000 attended his funeral in Dublin.
Catherine was not amongst them. Overcome, she sank into a lonely life hallucinating that Parnell appeared to her late at night.
Ireland never achieved unified Home Rule. Would things have been different had there been another outcome to the negotiations between Catherine and Willie O’Shea on that awful night of Dec. 23rd, 1889?
Perhaps, Parnell was right, green was an unlucky color for him - and Ireland.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Saint Patrick's Day Message
On one day a year, they congregated outside St. Patrick's Cathedral off Prince Street in New York City and marched in celebration. To some of these immigrant Irish and their American born children it was a religious occasion, but to most the gathering was an affirmation of their right, not only to survive but to thrive in their adopted country.
That's what I sense on St. Patrick's Day - an echo from a time when the Irish were despised outsiders. And that's why I go along with the raucous energy, the excitement and even the green beer, the plastic shamrocks and the ubiquitous leprechaun.
I didn't always feel that way. When I arrived from Ireland, these manifestations of Irish-America were at best embarrassing. Back home, our own celebrations were rigid and religious; we did sport actual sprigs of shamrock but there was no beer, green or otherwise. The Parade up Fifth Avenue and the ensuing bacchanal seemed downright pagan by comparison.
I had other immigrant battles of my own ahead. Black 47 was formed to create music that would reflect the complexity of immigrant and contemporary Irish-American life and to banish When Irish Eyes Are Smiling off to a well earned rest in the depths of Galway Bay.
This idea met with not a little resistance in the north Bronx and the south sides of Boston and Chicago; but when irate patrons would yell out in the middle of a reggae/reel "Why can't yez sing somethin' Irish?" I would return the compliment with, "I'm from Ireland, I wrote it! That makes it Irish!"
With time and familiarity, Irish-America came to accept and even treasure Black 47, probably more for our insistence that each generation bears responsibility for solving the political problems in the North of Ireland, than for recasting Danny Boy as a formidable gay construction worker.
I, in turn, learned to appreciate the traditions of the community I had joined along with the reasons for the ritualized celebration of our patron saint. And now on St. Patrick's Day, no matter what stage I'm on, mixed in with the swirl of guitars, horns, pipes and drums, I hear an old, but jarring, memory of a people rejoicing as they rose up from their knees.
Our battles, for the most part, have been won; indeed, one has to search an encyclopedia for mention of the Know-Nothing Party or various 19th Century nativist politicians and gangs. Anti-Irish sentiment, not to mention Anti-Catholicism is a thing of the past. Might it not be time then that our New York St. Patrick's Day Parade broadens its parameters to celebrate all Irishness no matter what religion (or lack thereof), sexuality or political conviction?
It's a broad step, I know. But with the makings of a just peace finally taking seed in the North of Ireland, might we not some day witness Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and various members of the Irish Gay community walk arm in arm up Fifth Avenue. Impossible? Perhaps, but I, for one, would have wagered heavily 20 years ago that the Sinn Fein party would never sit in a Northern Irish Parliament. Times change and with them tactics and even treasured principles!
Whatever about Parade pipe dreams, we still must honor the memory of those who paved the way for us. Part of that responsibility is that Irish-Americans should never forget the new immigrants from other lands, legal and otherwise. Many, like our forebears, are fleeing tyranny and are striving to feed and educate their families. It would be the ultimate irony if an Irish-American were to look down upon the least of them; for, in my mind anyway, there is no place in the Irish soul for racism, sectarianism, homophobia or even dumb old Archie Bunker type xenophobia.
I once heard Pete Hamill ask: "What does the Pakistani taxi driver say to his children when he gets home after 12 hours behind the wheel?" I can't answer for certain but I'll bet he echoes many of the sentiments of those Irish who gathered outside St. Patrick's Cathedral so many immigrant tears and years ago.
That's what I sense on St. Patrick's Day - an echo from a time when the Irish were despised outsiders. And that's why I go along with the raucous energy, the excitement and even the green beer, the plastic shamrocks and the ubiquitous leprechaun.
I didn't always feel that way. When I arrived from Ireland, these manifestations of Irish-America were at best embarrassing. Back home, our own celebrations were rigid and religious; we did sport actual sprigs of shamrock but there was no beer, green or otherwise. The Parade up Fifth Avenue and the ensuing bacchanal seemed downright pagan by comparison.
I had other immigrant battles of my own ahead. Black 47 was formed to create music that would reflect the complexity of immigrant and contemporary Irish-American life and to banish When Irish Eyes Are Smiling off to a well earned rest in the depths of Galway Bay.
This idea met with not a little resistance in the north Bronx and the south sides of Boston and Chicago; but when irate patrons would yell out in the middle of a reggae/reel "Why can't yez sing somethin' Irish?" I would return the compliment with, "I'm from Ireland, I wrote it! That makes it Irish!"
With time and familiarity, Irish-America came to accept and even treasure Black 47, probably more for our insistence that each generation bears responsibility for solving the political problems in the North of Ireland, than for recasting Danny Boy as a formidable gay construction worker.
I, in turn, learned to appreciate the traditions of the community I had joined along with the reasons for the ritualized celebration of our patron saint. And now on St. Patrick's Day, no matter what stage I'm on, mixed in with the swirl of guitars, horns, pipes and drums, I hear an old, but jarring, memory of a people rejoicing as they rose up from their knees.
Our battles, for the most part, have been won; indeed, one has to search an encyclopedia for mention of the Know-Nothing Party or various 19th Century nativist politicians and gangs. Anti-Irish sentiment, not to mention Anti-Catholicism is a thing of the past. Might it not be time then that our New York St. Patrick's Day Parade broadens its parameters to celebrate all Irishness no matter what religion (or lack thereof), sexuality or political conviction?
It's a broad step, I know. But with the makings of a just peace finally taking seed in the North of Ireland, might we not some day witness Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and various members of the Irish Gay community walk arm in arm up Fifth Avenue. Impossible? Perhaps, but I, for one, would have wagered heavily 20 years ago that the Sinn Fein party would never sit in a Northern Irish Parliament. Times change and with them tactics and even treasured principles!
Whatever about Parade pipe dreams, we still must honor the memory of those who paved the way for us. Part of that responsibility is that Irish-Americans should never forget the new immigrants from other lands, legal and otherwise. Many, like our forebears, are fleeing tyranny and are striving to feed and educate their families. It would be the ultimate irony if an Irish-American were to look down upon the least of them; for, in my mind anyway, there is no place in the Irish soul for racism, sectarianism, homophobia or even dumb old Archie Bunker type xenophobia.
I once heard Pete Hamill ask: "What does the Pakistani taxi driver say to his children when he gets home after 12 hours behind the wheel?" I can't answer for certain but I'll bet he echoes many of the sentiments of those Irish who gathered outside St. Patrick's Cathedral so many immigrant tears and years ago.
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