Such a day... Let's hope the delayed verdict goes the right way.

It was fun, but important fun, and the effort put in for the ONE advocacy group was brilliant, so if you want to find out and sign up go to www.one.org

Paul

Understanding the "recession" from a political perspective.

by NAOMI KLEIN

This article appeared in the February 18, 2008 edition of The Nation.
January 31, 2008

Remember the "ownership society," fixture of major George W. Bush addresses for the first four years of his presidency? "We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property," Bush said in October 2004. Washington think-tanker Grover Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be Bush's greatest legacy, remembered "long after people can no longer pronounce or spell Fallujah." Yet in Bush's final State of the Union address, the once-ubiquitous phrase was conspicuously absent. And little wonder: rather than its proud father, Bush has turned out to be the ownership society's undertaker.

Well before the ownership society had a neat label, its creation was central to the success of the right-wing economic revolution around the world. The idea was simple: if working-class people owned a small piece of the market--a home mortgage, a stock portfolio, a private pension--they would cease to identify as workers and start to see themselves as owners, with the same interests as their bosses. That meant they could vote for politicians promising to improve stock performance rather than job conditions. Class consciousness would be a relic.
It was always tempting to dismiss the ownership society as an empty slogan--"hokum" as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it. But the ownership society was quite real. It was the answer to a roadblock long faced by politicians favoring policies to benefit the wealthy. The problem boiled down to this: people tend to vote their economic interests. Even in the wealthy United States, most people earn less than the average income. That means it is in the interest of the majority to vote for politicians promising to redistribute wealth from the top down.
So what to do? It was Margaret Thatcher who pioneered a solution. The effort centered on Britain's public housing, or council estates, which were filled with die-hard Labour Party supporters. In a bold move, Thatcher offered strong incentives to residents to buy their council estate flats at reduced rates (much as Bush did decades later by promoting subprime mortgages). Those who could afford it became homeowners while those who couldn't faced rents almost twice as high as before, leading to an explosion of homelessness.
As a political strategy, it worked: the renters continued to oppose Thatcher, but polls showed that more than half of the newly minted owners did indeed switch their party affiliation to the Tories. The key was a psychological shift: they now thought like owners, and owners tend to vote Tory. The ownership society as a political project was born.
Across the Atlantic, Reagan ushered in a range of policies that similarly convinced the public that class divisions no longer existed. In 1988 only 26 percent of Americans told pollsters that they lived in a society bifurcated into "haves" and "have-nots"--71 percent rejected the whole idea of class. The real breakthrough, however, came in the 1990s, with the "democratization" of stock ownership, eventually leading to nearly half of American households owning stock. Stock watching became a national pastime, with tickers on TV screens becoming more common than weather forecasts. Main Street, we were told, had stormed the elite enclaves of Wall Street.
Once again, the shift was psychological. Stock ownership made up a relatively minor part of the average American's earnings, but in the era of frenetic downsizing and offshoring, this new class of amateur investor had a distinct shift in consciousness. Whenever a new round of layoffs was announced, sending another stock price soaring, many responded not by identifying with those who had lost their jobs, or by protesting the policies that had led to the layoffs, but by calling their brokers with instructions to buy.
Bush came to office determined to take these trends even further, to deliver Social Security accounts to Wall Street and target minority communities--traditionally out of the Republican Party's reach--for easy homeownership. "Under 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanic Americans own a home," Bush observed in 2002. "That's just too few." He called on Fannie Mae and the private sector "to unlock millions of dollars, to make it available for the purchase of a home"--an important reminder that subprime lenders were taking their cue straight from the top.
Today, the basic promises of the ownership society have been broken. First the dot-com bubble burst; then employees watched their stock-heavy pensions melt away with Enron and WorldCom. Now we have the subprime mortgage crisis, with more than 2 million homeowners facing foreclosure on their homes. Many are raiding their 401(k)s--their piece of the stock market--to pay their mortgage. Wall Street, meanwhile, has fallen out of love with Main Street. To avoid regulatory scrutiny, the new trend is away from publicly traded stocks and toward private equity. In November Nasdaq joined forces with several private banks, including Goldman Sachs, to form Portal Alliance, a private equity stock market open only to investors with assets upward of $100 million. In short order yesterday's ownership society has morphed into today's members-only society.
The mass eviction from the ownership society has profound political implications. According to a September Pew Research poll, 48 percent of Americans say they live in a society carved into haves and have-nots--nearly twice the number of 1988. Only 45 percent see themselves as part of the haves. In other words, we are seeing a return of the very class consciousness that the ownership society was supposed to erase. The free-market ideologues have lost an extremely potent psychological tool--and progressives have gained one. Now that John Edwards is out of the presidential race, the question is, will anyone dare to use it?

Totally believable!

This is our new pride and joy in Limerick, you gotta hand it to the people behind Knock, Lourdes and Medjourdwhateveryacallit.

This stuff is as good for business as a beach full of Pamela Anderson's in red swimsuits, I'm just a little disappointed that Michael O'Leary has not figured out how to put one close to the funny airports an hour from every European city.

Now here's a few you may not have seen
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The Nun bun.
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Oh and I can't find the cheese on toast one... I know I left it somewhere.




And the images won't go up right, it must be a sign...... lol

Magnificent Lily!

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oh pure credit to Lily, I'd love to be seeing her at Oxygen this weekend, but Roscommon are playing and hey... needs must.

This is a brilliant take on all the world had become pre recession, she produced it in April 2008, Lots of interesting things happened that month, but to write and produce this work of art was totally fabulous, she explains how the "fear" had worked and what people wanted in modern society, and how simply fucked up and ridiculous it all was.

So Hat's off to Lily Allen, she was the first artist to explain the consumption bullshit that had taken over society, I was amazed when one day my daughter had 2 friends in the car and I played the song, and the other girls did not know Lily was takin the piss, they thought she really did want those things... I wish people would just pay attention to the lyrics, which is why I've printed them here.

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and i want fuckloads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them

And i’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
Cuz everyone knows that’s how you get famous
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah I’m on to a winner

[Chorus]
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
‘Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers -
It’s all about fast cars concussing each other
But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic
and that’s what makes my life so fucking fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption
And its not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function
I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror
I’m on the right track yeah we're on to a winner

Chorus
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
‘Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear

[Bridge]
Forget about guns and forget ammunition
Cause I’m killing them all on my own little mission
Now I’m not a saint but I’m not a sinner
Now everything's cool as long as I’m gettin thinner

[Chorus]
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?
‘Cause I’m being taken over by fear

Brilliant!!!!

I really did LOL

It's not often I crack up at a joke, but this one I loved, maybe Einstein's theory of Relativity did have common practical applications after all

A pure favourite.

Those who know me fairly well will know that I have far too many interests in life, too many hobbies, one the tricks in life is to spend time doing things you love, and you have to eat too.

So this winter I'm going to combine many interests in a fun way, philosophy, psychology, comedy and magic should be fun together, it's doubtful if I can be within an asses roar of Steve Martin, but sure you never know

The only real failure in life is the failure to get back up.

I love this video, it hurts me to think of the way people get treated by society, the lack of understanding that people have for setbacks and dilemmas.



It hurts me because I have experienced setbacks in the last 14 months, I was fortunate enough to be able to get back up, I also had friends who did not get the opportunity to get back up, they had real difficulties which ended in death, mine did not, not because of me, but because fortune shone on me and allowed me to do what was needed to get back on my feet.

It was challenging because I was taken away for a while, my survival was assisted by machines, by the medics, but they also drugged me to the extent that I temporarily ceased to exist, and as Rene Descartes would say, “I think, therefore I am”

In my life for a short while I was not allowed to think. In subsequent setbacks there have been further attempts to “control” my life, inferring that I am not capable of thinking and others should do the thinking for me, perhaps I have interpreted Descartes to mean “I drink, therefore I am”. I don’t think so, but others limited opinions on my life seem to be more important than mine, inferring that the dilemmas were all my fault, and that their opinions can protect me from any sort of setback in the future,

Perhaps we should pay more attention to the philosophy of Winston Churchill.

“When you are going through hell - Keep going”

Social armour can be important, it can protect us from genuine dangers and threats, but society nowadays has embraced fear, control, health and safety to the extent that social armour has grown so cumbersome that it is restrictive, people are not allowed to live their own lives outside the social norms, and are not acceptable unless they don the required social armour. (first time I ever felt the need to adapt a post, but apologies to all concerned)

Well I am not buying it, and I sure as hell am not wearing it.

A happy happy Sunday!

Brilliant day, an achievement which has been worked towards for a long time, and by a lot of people, to see the happiness on children's faces is well worth all the time and effort.

But nothing is never totally finished or complete in life, as the Beautiful South so wonderfully explain in this video, and the amazing thing is that the beautiful vocalist Jacqui Abbot was stacking shelves in supermarket in the north of England until Paul Heaton heard her doing Karaoke in a pub and asked her to join up, that was 15 years ago.



She stayed until 2000, and then departed, maybe she did find a man who was not happy to stay married to whoever and wanted to "cluck her"

Feck Fridays

I have an old habit of posting quotes and amusing (to me anyway) stuff on a Friday, but today I just don't feel like it, so instead you get something which to me is really bloody important.... so watch this and maybe you can re-evaluate the rubbish that commonly passes for "happiness' in modern society.



Paul

Isn't life interesting?

Life is interesting alright!

A "slight" interest in sport?

What a brilliant day in Edinburgh, Leinster win and it was unbelievable to be in the in Murrayfield at the finish to savour the moment. There are so many swept up in sport for entertainment, but thanks to my late father I have a huge appreciation for sport as a very important way of life. My dad did not really have a preference for one sport over any other, he was there working with children and adults, at training, at matches, at celebrations and post mortems regardless of whether it was athletics, boxing, rugby, soccer, gaelic, basketball, darts or anything else.

So many people ask for your background in their particular sport, if they are Sligo rovers fans, Munster rugby fans, English cricket fans or many more, but thanks to my father and many experiences in life I'm fortunate to have a background in many sports, my lack of deciding to concentrate on one possibly cost me fame for any of them, so i did not make myself exclusive to athletics, darts, gaelic football, rugby, soccer, basketball or cricket, but what i did get was an enjoyment from them all, and an appreciation of them all, a huge appreciation of them all as part of life.

A few pics from the past will show how many sports and clubs I've fallen for over the years, due to a variety of factors and I have gained so many friends from each one that I consider myself a very fortunate boy.

I have many pics that still need to be scanned in, we had no digital stuff back then except a company in Galway that went bust.


1976, an 11 year old get a national athletics award from Leinster's sponsors.


1981, a fifteen year old (white shirt, no bird) has had a coaching session with his friends and Ollie Campbell and Mike Gibson, organised from our club East Connacht.


1991. A newly married man, now 26, standing in the old paradise, I was there yesterday too, some traditions never leave ya.


1996. a 31 year old and now a dad of 2 beauts (Maggie and baby Cathy are behind the posts) scores for St. Mary's on the way to a county championship, and people wonder why Mary's is so important to me?

I am happy to try to replicate my dad's input by passing on my love of sport, it's brilliant that my gorgeous wife is the manager of the girls under 12 team, that one of the beauts (Joy) is a coach, and the other (Cathy) is a player but is also in the county community games final as a shot putter, which I was in the first picture, some traditions never end.

and it's not just Susan Boyle....

Oh I often wonder why sport releases emotions in me that are largely absent most of the time.

There are several causes of nervousness at the moment, first today is a vital day for my club St. Mary's, it's celebrating 125 years of the GAA, but more importantly it gives us a chance to connect those who have played and worked for the club with those younger ones who have never heard of them never mind know them, it's a huge chance to celebrate community which is vital to me, so let's hope it goes well.

Then it's may 9th 2009, the 11th anniversary of the day Celtic stopped the rot and overcame an arrogant and wealthy Rangers to put us back after 9 seasons of being nearly men, and of course today I will often think of my friend Ger, he has now passed on, but our conversations and passion coming up to the day I celebrated in paradise will always be with me.

and I really hope Hull win today, my friend of 32 years was always a bit weird in the 70's by being a Hull City supporter, and for him I hope their win today will avoid a trip away from the arrogant and wealthy Drogba's Renaldo's and Ferguson's of the premiership.

And finally.... Cetic's year will be largely decided by 90 minutes at Ibrox today, so nervousness has been going on all morning, no more than many peoples doubt over Liam supporting Hull all those years ago, I constantly have to put up with ill informed and under educated people who tell me that Scottish football is dire, rank, and a few more adjectives, so let's show them as we did to Leeds Utd, Man United, Blackburn Rovers and Liverpool FC over the years, hey Scotland's got talent.

So brilliant to see.......

So many young people enjoying themselves and being magic at whatever they choose to do, last night was my daughter Joy's first big night on the stage, and herself, her friends and her classmates put on a great night of entertainment, singing, dancing, acting and generally showing the enthusiasm that I often only experience on the sports field. Maggie was brilliant at this too, and Cathy plays the piano and is starting to write songs.

I'd be proud of them all, with so much moaning in the world, last night I did not hear a word from two hundred people except admiration and encouragement for the efforts of the brilliant next generation.

My daughters tell me I'm too old to use the word, but this was MINT!

So long

Typical of me when life gets really interesting and really busy, have not blogged for weeks and have let the 5th anniversary of this blog pass by without a mention, and still to busy to write anything decent, simple to say a friend of mine, told me about a piece another friend had done for the RTE news, so I watched it and thought..... bloody brilliant Eileen, I always knew you were a serious professional on the broadcast journalism end.... just never realised you were this bloody funny.

so here it is



Another brilliant cat... there are almost too many of them

It's my 5th birthday.......

Strangely Saturday will be my 5th blogging birthday, and I will mark the occasion in Paradise, that's Celtic Park to the uninitiated.

So here's a photo of Maggie and Charlie Nicholas from 1991, Ok I'd been traveling over for 10 years before that, but what type of a man ends up in Paradise on his honeymoon, Ok maybe most do, but not the real paradise!

C'mon the hoops.

Cold feet

It's strange how life evolves and changes, I used to love this programme on the telly as it seemed to give an interesting insight into how life could be, the ups and downs.

Today I went to Cavan to see Roscommon (the first chance I've had in ages) and in truth they were well beaten, it was just interesting to listen to peoples views afterwards and realise the people are either supportive or dismissive of something that is ongoing and important. It was strange how much i actually enjoyed being there, if all you get are the good moments, then you take them for granted and it means little really, sometimes you have to go through the bad times in order to appreciate the good times.

In Cardiff last week it was lovely to remember all the games I'd been to where we lost, even the half time cigarette with John O'Shea and Gerry Thornley at the New Zealand game last November, when they were giving out about this and that (Gerry some players and John the referee) because days like that made the final grand slam day special. I'm niot great at taking photographs, but this is where I watched the game from.... special....as Radiohead put it in "creep" so fuckin special.

Ok, can't get the photo, this new 17" macbook pro is beautiful, but like all new stuff it will take a bit of getting used too.

oh here we go.....

Typical me, I just don't like hotel's much, so when I decided it might be the biggest day in Rugby sporting history I looked around and found a lighthouse, it's only a small one, but it has a hot tub, where i can while away five minutes on the roof......

My other problem was the Welsh National Anthem, which is always sung in welsh, and to me it's a lovely but largely undecipherable language, so my research threw up an english version written by a Swansea poet years ago, it's largely taking the mick, but it sounds just the same and if you can sing it with a straight face they'll think it's in Welsh, so my bluffing party piece is ready for the weekend.

Here is a video and the words, try them out and see if they work for you.



My hen laid a haddock, one hand oiled a flea,
Glad farts and centurions threw dogs in the sea,
I could stew a hare here and brandish Dan's flan,
Don's ruddy bog's blocked up with sand.
Dad! Dad! Why don't you oil Auntie Glad?
Can whores appear in beer bottle pies,
O butter the hens as they fly!

Enjoy the weekend, I'm sure Maggie and I will.

Oh my, the penny is finally dropping!

Oh look, people may be finally getting the connection between Chelsea & Glasgow Rangers!

Nothing to do with myself and Maurice having to run like hell from our hotel 10 years ago because some of the Chelsea "firms" were in town for the Scottish cup final, and they did not sing too many Celtic songs, mostly stuff to do with Fenian Ssum and Irish bastards if i remember.

Oh how surprising that some Chelsea "fans" were in Manchester for the UEFA cup final, it's a good job it was before the Champions League final or Moscow would have had to handle busloads of Rangers "fans".

Those two clubs have a tighter connection that Celtic and Liverpool, we like to sing "you'll never walk alone" together, but Chelsea & Rangers fans prefer to sing "you'll never walk again".

Hail Hail

Oh my god...... unbelievable.......

I literally could not believe finding this tonight, it's truly amazing, on facebook a friend called Barry Guckian had posted a 9 minute video of footage shot by a leaving cert student in 1978, and although I was only a first year that time, and 13 years old, I can still remember most of the faces in this low quality video... totally amazing..although it's all senior's sport and I was in first year so I'm not in any of the sporting footage, but was still amazed to spot myself briefly at the same age my youngest daughter is now... you'll spot me from 5.00 to 5.03 I'm the guy in the Arsenal scarf who even then did not like the media and turns away from the camera... wow... but before that I spotted my father, my God... almost 30 years before he died, he's the big guy you'll spot from 4.52 to 4.56 and finally you may recognise the best teacher I've ever encountered in my whole life.. Her name was Frankie Watson, and she was my english teacher, and was so interesting she managed to give me a love of reading and writing that has stayed with me ever since.... you'll see Frankie from 5.37 to 5.40 (and of course I had a crush on her), but then she introduced me to McGahern, and I got thrown out of school for sneaking "The Barracks" into geography class and reading it while pretending to read geography....

God and why do I wonder why I'm really only interested in Interesting people...

I love it when people make the best of themselves!

Don't you just love it to see people doing different things and doing them with loads of energy and enthusiasm, these are 4 of the lad's I enjoy coaching in gaelic football, and we have more who do brilliantly at different things, like today some of our lads were unlucky to lose the Connacht schools final in rugby with Sligo Grammar School, I have such an interest in these lads doing their best than of course I was at the talent show and drove to Galway today to watch the rugby, it's not that important what code people excel at, but it is so important that they are open to new and bigger experiences.

SO of course I'd love to see BLTN going from strength to strength, we do have a bit of tradition as most of westlife played underage for clubs in Sligo including Cian Egan who played for our club St. Mary's and we now have his younger brother Colm as a super member of our squad.

I do have a problem with ageism, i encounter it myself because people think I'm too old to be going to nightclubs and playing competitive gaelic, soccer or basketball (cricket too in the summer) and some people also think these guys are too young to be great at football, singing or rugby. enough with the ageism, it's not about whether you're old enough or young enough, it's about whether you're good enough or courageous enough to give things a go.

Oh and if you do watch the video, have a listen to what Tabby Callaghan (another of X Factor fame) who was a judge on the night, says at the end, when talking about the recession and the economic situation he says "

"We could do with a bit of that energy in the country right now, there might not be many jobs, but there's plenty of talent"

Hat's off Tabby, and hats off to all the young people in our club who make us proud as hell to know them.