Nothing Worthy Of A Prize

What's this, cry the literati, no Pulitzer this year in fiction?

Did it never occur to them that there wasn't any fiction published in 2011 that was worthy of any sort of prize?

Author Ann Patchett sees the point, but she doesn't believe it.

In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Ms. Patchett lists several books that she feels are prize-worthy. I am a a voracious reader, but I never even heard of half the things she mentions. As for the rest, I picked them up, read the flap copy, and put them back as not right for my list.

Denis Johnson's Train Dreams is filled with perfectly crafted sentences, she says. But if you look over the reviews of people who read for enjoyment, the sentences don't matter.

Writers who have studied how to write are hung up on the words. Readers want a story. They want to be entertained.

The sentences can be pure poetry, but if there's no plot, no connection to the characters, the readers don't much care. What good is a hard-carved bookcase, even one that is a masterpiece of carpentry, if there is only one shelf?

Publishers are looking to turn profits, and they want blockbuster novels that follow the right formula. They want manuscripts that are ready to go so they don't have to pay for editors to smooth rough edges. That gives an edge to a writer who can create the product that matches the specifications.

What it doesn't give the reader is a story worth hearing, even if the words fall softly on the ear.

Ms. Patchett believes that literature suffers because it lacks the scandal factor that gets everyone's attention. It's all about The Hunger Games, so beloved of the common folk, rather than The Pale King.

It isn't scandal that's needed. It's stories told well, even stories that are literary.

Charles Dickens took the Victorians to task for the way the lower classes were treated and the poor ignored. He did it within the context of good stories with people the reader could warm to. He didn't beat his readers over the head with his point, as if they were too dumb to get it.

Would Dickens have been Pulitzer worthy? Or would he have been considered more of a Hunger Games kind of writer, appealing to the masses but not making the cut for sentences that were less than perfectly crafted?

The Vatican Gets Serious On Stifling Speech

You might think that the clerical sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is fading, but just because you haven't read a news story in the past month doesn't mean it's all gone away.

Echoes of the scandal are still rattling the windows of the Vatican.

The solution?

Stop anyone from saying anything negative about the Church's hierarchy.

Or else the hammer will fall.

Father Sean Fagan ran afoul of an Irish bishop back in 2003 when he re-printed a piece he had first published in 1997. Something was said to someone at the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Father Fagan was told that his theology was wrong.

And wouldn't you know, it was Cardinal Ratzinger himself who issued the decree as the head of that very office. He's the Pope now.

Father Fagan's book, Does Morality Change?, did not toe the party line and therefore, he had to stop espousing his theory.

The man's a theologian who thinks deep thoughts. He couldn't help himself. He kept thinking. And since he's a priest, he kept preaching.

The Holy See slapped Father Fagan down but he went public with the punishment, which launched a new firestorm of controversy over the way the Vatican does things. Given that they like the old ways, and the old ways gave us secrecy, abuse and scandal, the average Catholic isn't keen on a return to the past.

So, Father Fagan has been punished again, but if a word of his penance is leaked to the media, the Vatican has vowed to defrock him.

It's the ultimate punishment for any clergyman.

And one that they rarely took when presented with a pedophile.

Is it any wonder that Catholics feel no love for their Pope when he's stubbornly refusing to open up his eyes to reality?

Anyone who keeps trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube after it's been squeezed isn't going to win anyone's heart or mind.

But then again, the Catholic Church is squeezing out members with ham-handed tactics like this one, and no one in the Vatican seems to notice that it isn't working.

When You're Tech Support & You Need Tech Support

I'd rather be working on my next novel, but here I am doing battle against a new computer that I thought would make my life easier.

It never does, does it?

I need tech support to explain to me why the computer wants to use an old, outdated program to install new software.

The problem is, I am tech support around here.

Instead of writing or even working at the part of my job that brings in the money, I'll be installing and uninstalling and going back to the old computer to try to get into the network to move things around and can you tell I really don't know what I'm doing?

I hate computers some days.

That's probably why I do my first drafts with a fountain pen and a stack of paper.

Still Unforgiven

According to historians, King George III was outraged over the loss of the American colonies.

You'd think after all these years that the animosity would have worn off, but apparently, the sting is still fresh and George Washington is still unforgiven.

British historians took a poll and George Washington won. He is now considered to be the greatest enemy commander that England ever faced.

Yes, bigger than Erwin Rommel.

Bigger than Napoleon Bonaparte.

The first President of the United States just barely edged out Michael Collins, which makes me think that the British historians who voted in the poll are smarting over losses of land that reduced the size of the British Empire.

After all, neither Rommel or Bonaparte were residents of British colonies that rose up against the Crown and took their leave from London's control.

Looking at both military leaders, you could say that they battled against tough odds but came out on top, with the end result that English military might was made to look feeble. With little to work with, both Washington and Collins ran rings around a force that was supposed to be far superior.

The poll was conducted to coincide with the opening of the National Army Museum in London, a repository of the army's history and the role it has played in shaping the nation. Admission is free, which should make it a popular attraction for tourists and locals alike.

Certainly, any country would be a different place if not for its armed forces either conquering or protecting, and the museum aims to present that aspect of an army's purpose.

However, with the results of the poll to consider, it might be said that the museum is also fostering awareness of the dangers of hubris and a reliance on superior numbers when superior tactics can upend the most well-crafted battle plan.

Roma Locuta Est

Rome has spoken.

And the centurions don't like what they've heard.

If you've been fortunate enough to travel through Rome, you've seen the annoying centurion characters who harass one and all. They bombard you with an offer to take a picture together, and if you're fool enough to go along, they'll demand money after the picture's snapped.

The fact is, this so-called occupation has been around for quite some time, and the Italian government has done nothing about it. That army of uniformed men of the Guardia di Finanza never bothered them, perhaps in the belief that the red-caped ones were real centurions and were therefore both fearless and dangerous.

Italy is so broke there's a fear the nation will go bankrupt, and someone finally noticed that there's an untapped source of tax revenue, right out in front of the Coliseum.So it's now pay up or get out, follow some rules or go home.

The centurions have begun to protest, and the police have been called in to evict the law-breakers.

What the centurions claim is a right to work is being attacked by the government that not only wants the taxes due, but wants to place restrictions on the centurions. There should be only authentic uniform replicas, and no more running shoes in place of sandals or sweatpants under the toga in winter. If you want to play a centurion, you have to be serious about it.

The Populus Romani have taken the centurions' side, but it's largely because they're sick of the endless regulations on their lives and this is one they that they can voice their displeasure with the government.

All across Europe, the financial party has come to an end. The money's gone, but the people still demand bread and circuses. What's a government to do except find more money to keep the bread and circuses coming?

Roma locuta est. Causa finita est.

I'll See Your 250 And Make It Free

The estate of the late, great James Joyce has held publishing rights close to their hearts, to the extent that Joycean scholars had a time of it, trying to do their research.

One such scholar, Danis Rose, put together a collection of Joyceiana and plans to sell all the manuscripts...to the tune of 800 euro for the set.

He says he holds the copyright in the EU. Well, he's the first one to publish the manuscripts there, so in his interpretation of EU law, that makes him the copyright holder. As Mr. Joyce passed on seventy years ago, plus a year, that makes the manuscripts public domain.

In which case, the National Library of Ireland might end up owing the gentleman some money.

The National Library has been working on an online project for some time, and is ready to go live. They will put several of Mr. Joyce's previously unpublished manuscripts, which are part of the library's holdings, online.

For free.

No stranger to controversy is Mr. Rose (or should we be calling him Denis O'Hanlon?). He has run afoul of the Joyce estate and the Joyce Foundation in Zurich in the past for some of his publications that infringed on copyrights that they held.

He's not at all delighted by the news that what he anticipated would be a profit-maker will become worthless once the library's content is live.

He went to the trouble of getting his opus published in the U.S., where copyright law regarding material in the public domain is more clear than that of the EU. But isn't Mr. Rose saying he holds the copyright in the EU? Published in the States?

So confusing.

The fact is, the library owns the original unpublished manuscripts, and as a public body, it will make items in its collection available to the public. These days, that availability includes Internet access, which makes things much more accessible to everyone with a computer.

No need to fly off to Dublin to peruse the valuable items.

And no need to pay Mr. Rose (O'Hanlon) a large sum for the same access.

The Irish government is examining all the laws, just in case, but it's believed the library is within its rights. The Department of Enterprise, Jobs, and Innovation is taking a good, hard look at the issue, and it's likely that the law will be tweaked to rid it of any "ambiguities" that Mr. Rose might try to massage.

Don't expect the other Joyce scholars to jump to Mr. Rose's defense. He's irritated too many of them to find any sympathy.

And if a poor scholar can look at the manuscripts on a computer screen, they sure won't be supporting Mr. Rose's attempts to corner the market.

Which way might things fall?

We all know that once something is loaded, it's out there forever.

No matter who thinks they own the copyright.

Dueling Words

When Amanda Knox sold the publication rights to her memoir, there was a bit of controversy surrounding the auction, with publishers worried about how the public might perceive the book. Would it sell, or would it result in an unpleasant backlash that would prevent said publisher from turning a profit?

She's back at home doing rewrites and edits and such, but HarperCollins might have to push the budding writer to submit a completed manuscript a bit earlier than anticipated.

The father of murder victim Meredith Kercher, who doesn't believe that Ms. Knox is innocent, is set to put out his own version of events. The book is due for release on April 26, well before Ms. Knox's memoir hits the shelves.

It's a case of dueling words, but will the first to speak win the battle, or will the rebuttal prove so strong that Mr. Kercher will be left looking like an embittered father?

The British sided with the prosecution, in large part because the murder victim was a British student in Perugia. Americans tended to believe Ms. Knox, especially when the case became less a murder investigation and more an example of prosecutorial misconduct and incompetence run wild.

Mr. Kercher says his book, published by Hodder & Stoughton, is a celebration of his daughter's life, but if he fails to provide something sensational within the pages, the public won't buy it.

Profit will come from a detailed, first person account of the family's experiences with the Italian legal system, which failed them as much as it failed Amanda Knox. The book's blurb states that Mr. Kercher writes of his ongoing quest for justice, which will provide a very interesting counterpoint to Ms. Knox's experiences with that same lack of justice.

A man is currently in prison, serving time for the murder of Meredith Kercher. The Italians made such an incredible mess of the murder investigation and subsequent trial that Mr. Kercher can be seen as a Don Quixote, dreaming an impossible dream of uncovering the truth.

And that is the outcome of the battle over words, over whose version is the more accurate. No one can ever know.

Seen And Not Heard

Things used to be so easy.

Once upon a time, only men became CEOs of big corporations and everyone just sailed along. The big corporation sponsored the Augusta National and the big corporation's head honcho was given a membership and no one had to kick up much of a fuss about women members because everything fell nicely into place.

Tradition! All about tradition! Women were never part of that tradition, until someone at IBM got cute.

Who didn't get the memo about women executives and the Augusta Golf Club?

Virginia Rometty was present at the tournament when Bubba Watson won the sartorially challenged green jacket.

She was not, however, extended membership like every other CEO of every other tournament sponsor. Because she's not of the male persuasion.

The woman who is capable of running IBM (my stock's doing very nicely thank you very much) as much as had a door slammed in her face by all those charming gentlemen who run the club and think of themselves as refined and polite to the fairer sex.

They're not.

But no amount of criticism from the real world is going to change their minds. Their heels are dug in. They will not let women soil the sacred ground of their club, and if they have to be rude in the process, that's how things go sometimes.

Boycott IBM? Why? Boycott Augusta National? Only if you're a member.

What might get the attention of the closed minds? How about if all the other CEOs declined the invitation, refusing membership unless Ms. Rometty (their equal and in some cases their better) is extended the same courtesy.


Of course, IBM could pull out, but Ms. Rometty didn't get where she is by thinking with her heart instead of her business brain.

The dinosaurs died out, grown too large for the changing environment in which they lived.

Eventually, August will change its policy. But it won't happen right now

The Dying Of The Light

Only 54 years old, but Thomas Kinkade's art seemed to have come from the brush of a much older man.

I always pictured the "Painter of Light" as someone closer in age to those who liked his work. He was a grandfather, in my mind, a very ancient artist with a vision that was beloved by grandmothers everywhere.

The highly successful painter has passed away at the age of 54.

He created a body of work that was easy on the eye and the mind. There was no deep thinking needed to understand his creations. What you saw was what you were meant to see.

When hundreds of people invested in a collection of Thomas Kinkade Signature galleries and then went bankrupt, it came as a surprise because anyone who painted light, a dedicated Christian, could not possibly have acted in bad faith. Just when a settlement was due, the company behind the galleries declared bankruptcy. Who could have seen that coming from someone who appeared to be so sincere, so honest, and so talented?

That's the problem with paint and canvas. What you see is what the artist created, which doesn't mean that it's absolutely real.

It's what the viewer wants it to be.

And sometimes it's rather dark behind all that light.

Hermes Opens The Box Of Lucky Charms

They're magically delicious!

Those marshmallow shapes as manufactured by General Mills have proven to be a real inspiration for Hermes, maker of ultra-luxe paraphernalia.

The storied handbag maker decided to manufacture a satchel that would pay homage to Ireland, by using something suitably Irish as an emblem.

What did they pick?

St. Patrick's more storied shamrock that was used to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to the heathens who trotted across the auld sod?

No, indeed.

Too religious in nature, perhaps. Instead, Hermes went to the box of Lucky Charms and found a four-leaf clover.

That says Ireland, doesn't it?

There's only one of these items to be had, and it's going to be auctioned at Christie's. So if you have a spare 27,000 euro burning a hole in your pocket, you could lay claim to an example of someone not doing their homework. Or knowing how to do a simple Google search.

Hermes is calling that bit of alligator skin hanging off the strap a "lucky charm", so we shouldn't be so hard on them for using the wrong emblem of Ireland. They've gone with the romanticized, Madison-Avenue-ized version of what represents Ireland, and they've called it by its proper name.

They couldn't have carved a dead Celtic tiger out of some equally deceased alligator to craft an authentic representation of the Emerald Isle?

To Remember The Unprotected

For centuries, epileptics were looked on as creatures to be shut away.

They were thought to be possessed by demons at one time, their seizures a sign of the devil's torment. Such people were too dangerous to  mingle with the population at large. During the height of the witch hunts, women with seizure disorders were burned at the stake.

Eliza Davis was an epileptic who might have been abandoned by her mother at a foundling home in Dublin. Coming from such a grim background, her only hope in life was to land a job as a servant.

At the age of 17, she was hired by a farmer. Being an unprotected female with no rights, she was either seduced or raped by her employer, who refused to marry her because he didn't have to. A Catholic man was not obliged to make an honest woman of a Protestant in the Ireland of the 1840's.

Fired from her job, with an infant to care for, Eliza was turned away from the workhouse. They didn't want an epileptic mingling with the rest of the destitute.

At some point, Eliza's child drowned and she was charged with murder. Whether she killed the child in desperation or it was an accident, history does not say. What we do know is that the woman was sentenced to hang, appealed her sentence, and was transported to Tasmania, England's favorite dumping ground for the undesired and unprotected who had no means to protest the injustice.

As it turned out, Eliza Davis made a new life for herself once she was put in a place where she had a better chance than Dublin. She married twice, produced nine children, and made her mark as a midwife.

Gail Mulhern will watch a play tonight in Wicklow Gaol, where her great-great-grandmother awaited transportation. The former jail is now a museum that would like to tell the stories of the thousands of women who were shipped off to the dry arse of the earth.

Looking for a writing prompt? In need of the bones of a story of hardship and redemption and ultimate triumph? Write about Eliza Davis. All that you need to flesh out the tale can be found in historical records and a touch of imagination.

Lace Curtain Irish --- The E-Book

Grab one and go.

LACE CURTAIN IRISH is now available as an e-book for your reading pleasure.

Download a copy to your Kindle device (or your smartphone with the Kindle app). Have a Nook? There's an EPUB version of LACE CURTAIN IRISH for you over at BN.com.

The weekend is coming and you're looking for an escape from Easter bunnies and too much ham, or you've eaten your fill of matzah and you'd like to have a good book to keep you company. LACE CURTAIN IRISH, delivered electronically and immediately, is what you're looking for.

Leave the family you're with and join the Hanlon clan, a family in turmoil, caught between the way of life left behind in Ireland and the modern American world that the children seek to occupy. Finding their place, Julia and Daniel Hanlon will discover that melting into a boom town like Chicago is a slow and arduous journey in which many are left behind.

Set in the decades between the World's Columbian Exposition and the Century of Progress, LACE CURTAIN IRISH will keep you turning the pages until you come to the end.

Mistrusting The Government Since 1922

The Irish fought a civil war, although it didn't get the press coverage of that family spat in America back in the 1860's.

The Irish fought in that one as well, but there wasn't much for doing in Ireland at the time and it was a tremendous job opportunity for a man willing to emigrate.

At any rate, the Irish did battle over a decision to split the island nation into an independent, Catholic section and a smaller Protestant enclave that would remain a colony of England (there'd be no United Kingdom if not for that little bit of Ireland). Not everyone liked the treaty.

Especially not my ancestors.

The war in the 1920's was fought largely in the west of Ireland, a rural area populated by people who did not follow the government's rules because they hated the government. It was the Brits at first, and everyone connived and cheated to avoid onerous taxes and laws designed to wipe out Catholicism. Then it was the pro-Treaty crowd with De Valera at its head, crowing about how much he hated the Treaty once he got wind of the public's discontent with a policy he helped promote.

So in places like Donegal and Limerick, the whole conniving and cheating way of life became incorporated into the DNA. It should come as no surprise to hear that the areas of Ireland that are the most lax in paying the new homeowner's tax are residents of those areas.

The property tax has come about because the nation is skint and money must be raised. The good people of western Ireland see the bankruptcy as the result of the politicians in Dublin, and they aren't going to turn over their hard-earned money to a group of wastrels.

So they refused to pay.

There are threats to fine the offenders, but if your re-election depends on forcing the majority of your constituents to pay a tax or risk a fine, how likely are you to push the issue? There aren't many jobs in Ireland. Everyone wants to keep theirs.

The boycott is an Irish invention with roots in the Land Wars of the 1870's. The worst of that fighting? In the west of Ireland.

Nothing much has changed in the last century.

Maybe the esteemed members of the Dail should turn to history and see how the British handled boycotts back in the day....although the British aren't ruling in Dublin anymore. That's not the end result Fine Gael is looking for.

Re-Launching The Titanic, But Will It Float

One hundred years ago, the Titanic sank and shortly thereafter, so did the British Empire. More first class passengers than steerage passengers survived, but their privileged way of life went down as well.

There are countless stories from the famous sinking, of heroism and cowardice both.

All those stories are being re-told, and none is being spoken more loudly than that of the city of Belfast.

A new tourist center has opened on the site of the old Harland and Wolff shipyard where the doomed liner was designed and built. With all the buzz surrounding the Titanic's anniversary, it's hoped that people will come to the north of Ireland, a section of the island that has long been plagued by religious intolerance and outright bigotry.

And then there were The Troubles, of course, and no one with any sense would go to visit a city under siege.

They trotted out 105-year-old Cyril Quigley, who watched the launching of the Titanic as a very young child. He was the guest of honor when a Protestant and a Catholic jointly opened Titanic Belfast.

A joint public-private partnership, the museum was built to bring in tourists and the money that falls off them as they pass through. The Titanic has long loomed large, generating a blockbuster movie, traveling exhibits of artifacts, and a lasting interest in the ship, its passengers, and that fateful night.

Will the interest last?

England has long subsidized Northern Ireland, which hasn't been a ship-building powerhouse for a long, long time. The problem is, England is short on cash and money has to come from somewhere else besides London. Hence, an investment in a museum dedicated to a posh ocean liner that fell victim to hubris and human error.

Considering a trip? Don't forget, Dublin is only ninety miles away and once you've eyeballed the scale model of the wreck, you can be in the tasting room at Jameson's distillery in no time.

It's Not Only Priests Who Are Celibate

While the Catholic Church pretends that priestly celibacy has nothing whatsoever to do with attracting men of distorted sexual emotions, we would do well to remember that it isn't only priests who are celibate.

Add writer Chris Jones to the list.

Not that he intentionally took a vow to eschew contact with the female sex, but he won't be getting any for a long while.

Mr. Jones is now to be forever known as the man who penned the Esquire article that accused women of not being very good in bed.

When she asks if the dress makes her look fat, son, you lie. The same goes for the sex. If the earth didn't stop rotating on its axis, it's best to keep it to yourself, or whinge away with your best mates over a few pints.

Because it's your fault.

You complain that they're unresponsive, bored, not interested in all you have to offer? Once they're back home, they'll be ringing up a friend to laugh about your inadequacy and how they were sorry they'd gone home with you and what a waste of time that was.

It's your fault.

That's how it is with women. They're very different from the male of the species, and in ways that have a great deal to do with which genes on the X chromosome are turned off to gain equal amounts of genetic material to a male's Y. Yes, different genes do not function, and which genes are turned off varies from female to female, and that's why no two women are alike.

They're raised differently, no matter what you might be thinking about liberation and equality and all the rest. So when you expect them to be more like you, and they're not, and you're not happy about the sex because of it, well, it's your fault.

There's that, you see, for something consistent in women. It's the man's fault.

So go back and write another article that says she's right, you're wrong, and you're sorry.

Or you'll find out what it's like to live the ascetic life of a monk.

Throwing Money Away For A Thrill

I've been invited to be a guest blogger and I should be working on a post, shouldn't I, but instead I'm scrounging under the sofa cushions for some spare change.

Megamillions! Hundred of millions! Record-setting pay-out!

For once, the lottery officials in Illinois managed to time a new offering at just the right time.

You can buy Megamillions tickets on line, in your PJs, from the comfort of your home. As easy as online shopping. Point and click.

We all know the odds of winning are so minute as to be laughable, but there's that little thrill we all get when we're gambling. Maybe we'll win. Someone has to win. Maybe it's my turn this time.

So the writing is pushed aside until I can gather up a couple of dollars to buy myself a winning ticket. Or two.

Depends on how extensive my housecleaning project becomes...wonder if he's got some forgotten folding money in those suit pants he hasn't worn for the past year?

Harry Potter Crashes The Kindle

The big news was the release of all the Harry Potters in digital form.

Granted, you'll be buying from Pottermore, with other suppliers like Amazon or BN only acting as gateways. Apple's not on board just yet, so take that, tech addicts. No Potter for you. And if you're trying to get online down under, Apple has asked that you return your sparkling new tablet because it won't work in Australia's 4G system.

At any rate, fans of the boy wizard were snatching up their copies when others noted that particular books were suddenly not available for purchase on Amazon.

Kindle users, and that would include those with the Kindle app on their smart phone, were being met with big green buttons that did not say "BUY" but "This Title Is Not Available In The United States."

Why did this bizarre error occur?

Amazon isn't talking. They blame a website issue, which is corporate speak for a variety of problems that could include someone screwing up, a hacker incident, or goblins in the system.

Things are working now.

Copies of A Terrible Beauty and The Leaven Of The Pharisees are only a click away. Happy reading.

Now That You've Asked, Don't Tell

Telling

According to Monsignor William J. Lynn, he asked.

His boss told him not to tell.

Therefore, Msgr. Lynn cannot be guilty of harboring pedophile priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

Case closed. Let's all go home. And pray.

The monsignor is going to trial, accused of not telling what he knew. As the man in charge of locating perverts in dog collars, he had plenty of information compiled. What he didn't do was turn his evidence over to the public sector for criminal prosecution. He says his boss wouldn't let him.

Obviously, Msgr. Lynn never thought to take it upon himself to mutiny against authority and accede to the highest authority (that would be God) and protect the children of Philadelphia. For that, he is to be put on trial? For being a coward?

In essence, yes.

Msgr. Lynn says he collected a list of complaints lodged by the faithful against priests within the diocese. In keeping with protocol, he gave the list to his superior, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who had the authority to remove offenders...or turn them over to the police for investigation and prosecution.

The Cardinal, who has since (and conveniently) died, took that list and tore it into bits.

So did the monsignor take it upon himself to over-rule what was clearly wrong? Hell no. He washed his hands of the mess, and returned to his parochial house with a clean conscience. He'd done his bit, followed the rules, tried his best within the framework provided.

Didn't think outside the box.

To do otherwise would be to bring scandal down on the Church, and it was imperative to protect the institution, rather than the individuals within it.

Except, of course, that all that they tried to hide was revealed by victims who dared to come forward.

The attempts at hiding the facts backfired, and you have only to look to Ireland, once the most Catholic of countries, to see that the Church is on the verge of bankruptcy. The faithful have lost faith. The churches lost donations, and nothing runs without money.

By not doing the right thing, Msgr. Lynn faces charges of conspiracy and endangering children. If convicted, he would spend a long, long time in prison.

There was another group of criminals who pleaded their innocence by insisting that they were only following orders. No one bought their excuse, either.

How To Find Success In Self-Publishing

For anyone who has slaved away over a novel, only to find the gates to publishing slammed shut against them by the gatekeepers, there is a secret to doing it yourself.

Step One: Flip off Penguin.

Step Two: Wait for Penguin's legal department to file a suit against you.

Step Three: Publicize the suit, and then sit back to watch those books fly off the shelves.

It's a technique that's worked for David Thorne, author of I'll Go Home, It's Warm And Has Chairs.

That gesturing penguin on the cover of his self-published collection of material, much of which previously appeared on his website, struck a nerve with the publishing house that also features a penguin logo, albeit without the single-fingered salute.

A cease and desist order has been issued. Mr. Thorne has posted it on his site, a clear indication that he's not exactly quaking in his boots over the threat.

Instead, the author is riding it to financial success. The book is only available in paperback, not heavily discounted, and it's selling rather well, judging by its Amazon ranking.

Are we to expect a rash of satirical caricatures of penguins, dolphins or running dogs?

You do what you have to do. It's a difficult business, this literacy.

The High Price Of Sex In The UK And Ireland

Two million British pounds for sex.

That's an expensive bit of snogging.

It's the price that Thomas J. Carroll has to pay to avoid having an additional ten years added to his sentence for keeping brothels in Ireland and the UK.

Mr. Carroll was a sexual entrepreneur, in a manner of speaking. He opened up brothels in Ireland and Northern Ireland, shuffled girls around the various houses, and then sat back to count the cash. His business was highly successful.

When an entrepreneur chooses to enter a business that is entirely illegal, however, there are costs to be paid, which tend to eat into the profits---and up-end one's entire business strategy.

After a lengthy investigation, Mr. Carroll was arrested in Wales and found himself in a London courtroom, facing a lengthy list of charges. Once convicted, he was ordered to turn over the proceeds of his multinational corporation. You can't keep the money if you didn't come by it honestly, a point which Mr. Carroll chose to dispute.

He tried a not-so-clever manuever in which he changed legal teams, representing himself in the interim, and then had the new clutch of solicitors cry foul. His human rights was being denied, they was, and they cried long and hard. The poor lad had no legal representation when the Court tried to confiscate his money that he pretended he didn't have.

The judges didn't buy into the excuse, which was flimsy at best.

Mr. Carroll is already serving seven years on the brothel-keeping charges. If he doesn't meet the confiscation order, he'll see another ten years.

His employees will be rather old for the sex business after that much time has passed. And it isn't easy to start up a new business in a very old industry, especially when suspicious gardai are keeping an eye on a pimp.

Too much regulation.

That's why the economy is in the state it's in.

Sometimes Imagination Goes Into Hiding

Now that LACE CURTAIN IRISH is out in the world, and the manuscript I was working on after Newcastlewest Books picked up the novel is edited and resting, I've gone back to work on an idea I had some time ago.

There's a rough outline of a narrative arc, the characters are alive in my head, and I know where the story is going.

It's the getting there that's a fleeting fantasy in my head.

As usual, the story tumbles around and tells itself, which makes it very distracting when I'm driving.

What's happening this time around is that I sit down to write the words that are just waiting to be put on paper, and before long, the string dies out and I'm left there to stare at a blank sheet of paper.

I think it's a case of over-thinking.

After going through edits on LACE CURTAIN IRISH, I learned some things about writing and the construction of a novel. Certain things have to happen by a certain time or the reader will lose interest. Characters that pop up over the course of the narrative have to pop up often enough for the reader to remember them, who they are, why they matter.

Instead of just telling the story, I find that I'm getting hung up by my inner editor.

It's a fight to beat that editor back into submission, but I'm working on it. That's the goal for this weekend. Get past the sticking points, concentrate on writing without worrying about the details, and send that inner editor a pink slip.

You're fired. Now let's write.

A Skewed Vision Of Carry-on Baggage

Airlines charge fees for checked luggage so anyone who flies will cram a single, small, carry-on bag full of what they need.

Many of us need something to read, however. It stands to reason that an airline passenger will make use of that which serves the purpose but is small, compact and/or lightweight.

All due apologies to Mr. Frank O'Mahony, but to accuse Ryanair's carry-on limits to a drop-off in summer holidays sales at his bookshops is a head-scratcher.

He admits that e-book sales have risen, and he knews that e-books have cut into his sales of hard copies. Even so, he claims that it's Ryanair that's to blame for a portion of the loss.

Ryanair is akin to a flying bus, with cheap airfares and nothing resembling a single frill. No matter how inexpensive the airfare may be, the economy is still scraping along at the bottom and fewer people are traveling at all. They aren't buying all that many books, either. Knowledge is grand, but food is better if you have to choose between the two.

Even those who can manage a summer holiday aren't buying three or four or five books because they can't afford them, and then pay for a flight and lodging and meals and entertainment on top of that.

What they will buy are e-books, which are much cheaper than their paper versions. Best of all, those five or six books all fit onto a compact e-reader, or that smart phone the tourist is carrying anyway.

And when they get to where they're going, if they find that they have time for leisure, they can download an e-book whenever the mood strikes.

They won't be jetting back to Limerick or Tralee to peruse the stacks at O'Mahoney's.

It isn't Ryanair. It's the changing way in which we obtain and read books.

Not that paper and ink will go away completely. There's nothing like bookshelves filled with volumes to add warmth to a room. But casual reading, impulsive shopping, and the cost savings that accrue from packing light, combine to put added pressure on the bookselling business.

A Sad, Slow, Stupid Death

Once upon a time, in a long ago place when tigers prowled the streets of Dublin, Barry O'Callaghan swallowed up a mighty publisher, and then he sucked up another.

He created an enormous whale of an educational publishing behemoth, but it was sadly bloated by so much debt that most of the wise men predicted its demise.

Bits and pieces of this whale sloughed off, with residue left in Arab lands, but alas, the sheik who ruled that land was going under as well and had to go begging to pay for the world's largest skyscraper. There was little he could do to resuscitate the whale.

 John Paulson took on the bulk of the hulk, investing his hedge fund money into a publishing house that, on paper, seemed like it stood a chance in spite of the wheezing that resembled a death rattle.

The now emaciated whale, known to the world as HMH (from the merger of Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin), has been further reduced by those who rate investments.

HMH debt is down to Caa3.

According to Moody's, the debt is unsustainable unless some significant revenues appear, but those revenues are dependent on textbook sales. State coffers being close to bare, there has been a marked decline in textbook purchases and there is absolutely no indication that buying is going to tick up in the near future.

The only hope of survival is to restructure the debt. Again.

In June of 2014, two years from now, HMH will have to pay back $2.6 billion in loans coming due. Given the current economic climate, it doesn't seem possible to raise that kind of capital in that short a period of time.

Until Barry O'Callaghan came along with his dream, both Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin were muddling along. Now the firms are choking on the very debt that was generated by the minnow when it undertook to swallow a whale.

It doesn't seem likely that the creditors would write off much of the remaining loan, given that they already waved good-bye to $4 billion past due.

Someone, somewhere, might be interested in buying up some minnow-sized pieces in a structured bankruptcy. There's a chance that Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin could survive after shedding all the excess weight that is the debt load.

Oh, yes, and the Celtic Tiger? It's quite dead.

Cooking Up A Good Story

Take a good look at Chris Martin.

Does this man look like he eats much at all, let alone gourmet samplings worthy of cookbook? As for the missus, Gwyneth Paltrow has legs like twigs and there's a woman who could use a spud or two in her diet.

So pardon me if I, too, don't believe she was solely responsible for writing My Father's Daughter.

Julia Turshen claims that she helped Ms. Paltrow, although it's unclear if her role was ghostwriter or taster or quantity-checker (remember, a teaspoon in Ireland is heaping but a teaspoon in the States is level).

The dust-up began in an article in the New York Times, in which a cookbook ghostwriter makes the claim that celebrity chefs don't do all their own writing or recipe research, and Gwyneth Paltrow is just another one of the many in that category.

Ms. Paltrow took offense, denying that she needed that kind of help. Somehow or other, through self-instruction or meditation or sheer willpower, she's redesigned herself as a culinary marvel, the sort of cook Rachel Ray would be if Rachel Ray was the daughter of actors and was rolling in the kind of dough that turns into fully equipped kitchens with Aga ranges.

I don't much care, nor do I think the average cookbook buyer cares.

If someone buys Ms. Paltrow's book, they're more interested in the verbiage in between the recipes, to satisfy their curiosity about how the Paltrow family, celebrities all, gathered together. After all, the rich are different from you and me, and it might be fun to discover how and in what way when it comes to celebrating holidays.

As for the recipes? There isn't all that much difference between most of them.

I can't say that I'd want to cook like Ms. Paltrow. To come out at the end, looking like a walking stick? I mean, is the food any good at all if her husband is borderline emaciated?

Silence Is Golden So Don't Blow That Whistle

The Vatican was red-faced once again, thanks to insiders who leaked documents pertaining to the business management end of the Catholic Church.

So the Vatican will be investigating the allegations of cronyism, of corruption and fiscal mismanagement?

No, indeed, you'd say, if you possessed the slightest bit of knowledge about the Holy See's mindset.

It's the whistleblowers who are going to be outed.

Silence is golden in Vatican City. Anyone trying to save the Catholic Church from the hierarchy has been labeled as disloyal. They broke the Vatican's trust in not keeping the secrets safe, and their revelations have hurt the Pope.

It's not the facts hurting Benedict XVI, no. Everyone loves a CEO who protects the criminal element operating within a multi-national corporation.

Bureaucrats in the Church hierarchy have only to look at all those victims of clerical child abuse who dared to come forward. Look where that led. Never again, says the Vatican. Secrets must be protected at all costs. The laity doesn't need to know anything, as long as they keep sending in their money.

The Vatican police force will conduct the investigation, and they are authorized to prosecute the guilty parties to the full extent of Vatican law.

All of this will end up in newspapers, one way or another. Obviously, no one at the Vatican realizes that the faithful will not view the leaking as a crime, especially in light of the facts that came out about cardinals engaged in power struggles, to say nothing of the Mafia-like running of the city's infrastructure and the enormous funds that ended up in the pockets of a connected few.

The abuse scandal that circles the globe has damaged the Church to no small degree. Punishing the innocent and protecting the guilty yet again won't get those pews back to full on a Sunday, either.

Who's Here? From Where?

Chicagoans are blissfully unaware that Enda Kenny is in town.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel knows, of course, because he was invited to the dinner where Mr. Kenny was the keynote speaker.

The biggest selling newspaper in the city failed to mention anything at all about the visit, but given the fact that there's not much left to that paper after Sam Zell worked his magic, it's safe to say that they didn't have enough reporters available to cover everything.

That's because there's a presidential race going full gallop and the Republican primary is being held on Tuesday and there's all those stump speeches to cover. Then President Obama showed up to raise money for his re-election (and steal a bit of thunder from his rivals), so there's how many more reporters needed?

Let's not forget the college basketball tournament that started on Thursday, while Ireland's own An Taoiseach was jetting across the water. Add in the usual murder and mayhem, and it's a full slate.

No room for Mr. Kenny's visit or speech in which he assured Chicago business folk that Ireland was poised for a rebound.

According to some reports, Mr. Kenny and Mr. Emanuel chatted about their fondness for cycling, and Mr. Emanuel half-jokingly suggested that he'll be coming to visit Dublin soon.

So today, when you're standing on the kerb watching the St. Patrick's Day parade pass by, and every politician who's anyone in Chicago is marching, that very Irish-looking (i.e., pale) gentleman at the head of the line is the Prime Minister of Ireland.

How things have changed.

The Mayor of Chicago doesn't have a drop of Irish blood in his veins, and most of the descendants of the Irish diaspora lit out for the suburbs as Chicago slid under the weight of mismanagement and corruption and cronyism.

Alderman Ed Burke, famous for his ear-splitting rendition of "Danny Boy", lords over a segment of the city that's largely Hispanic.

And there's no big news stories about An Taoiseach coming to call and marching in the parade.

After so many decades, it's as if the Irish don't matter in Chicago any more.

Robber Baron Role Reversal

The bosses used to be rich and the workers used to be slaves.

Unionized workers couldn't hardly be considered slaves these days, and the bosses aren't rich any more. They're going bankrupt, or struggling to keep their heads above water.

The unionized employees of The Strand Bookstore in New York City, however, think the shop's owners are still wealthy robber barons trying to steal bread from the mouths of hungry laborers.

They're bringing in non-union workers, those evil bosses. They want to bust the union.

And that's not the worst of it.

The workers are now expected to pay more for their health care, get fewer paid sick days, and the automatic raises aren't automatic anymore.

You'd think people who work in bookstores would be more well-read, but then again, if they're mostly into fiction it's to be understood that they aren't aware of the steep decline in book sales. And they're clearly not browsing the economics tomes or they'd understand how businesses operate in a free market.

The Strand is trying to keep its doors open in an area where rents are high. They look at the bottom line, which is shrinking, and then look at the overhead which includes things like salaries and health care premiums and rent and utility costs, and see that those are going up.

It's not too hard to figure out that costs have to go down while profits slide, or pretty soon there's no money left to pay any sort of laborer at all. 

Unless the union members would prefer to be unemployed.

Is it any wonder that union membership has plummeted over the years? When someone is barking at you to cut off your nose to spite your face, pretty soon you figure out that you're better off without that kind of advice. You're better off working with your evil boss to keep the place open, instead of acting like the struggling store owner is the enemy.

That's what happens when the party's over and the revelers don't want the music to stop. The scene gets ugly. And it won't be long before we'll be hearing that The Strand is closing its doors for goods, citing high operating costs in a climate of declining revenue, while the disgruntled employees claim a Pyrrhic victory for the working man.

Doing The Bunny Hop

Squish.

That's the sound the bunny made when the photographer stepped on it.

PETA forgive me, but this is the funniest story I've heard this year.

In Germany, a rabbit was born without ears due to a genetic defect. The zoo where the seventeen-day-old bundle of fluff was residing called the press to announce the exciting news, that little Til the earless bunny was going to be put on display so everyone could see what an earless rabbit looks like.

Poor Til.

Never heard the photographer's feet slapping the ground. Never had a chance to hop away out of danger.

At its moment of glory, Til took fright and hid in a pile of straw. The unsuspecting photographer merely took a step back from where he was standing, and the rest is history.

It was a direct hit, according to the zoo's director.

Bunny pancake. Sans ears.

The moral of the story? Don't give your child a baby bunny as an Easter present.

I know that has nothing to do with the story, but you shouldn't be giving children small animals on a holiday. That ought to square me with PETA, so.

To Convince The BEA To Come To Chicago

Listen up, Book Expo America.

You're wondering if it's time to move the annual convention out of New York City's Javits Center, and if so, where to go. Chicago or Vegas, you're asking your members.

Please. Come to Chicago. The city needs your money. Desperately.

There's plans in the works to install speed cameras near every single school and park. That's how bad things have gotten financially. Mayor Rahm "Tiny Dancer" Emanuel is squeezing blood of resident turnips by sending them speeding tickets in the mail for driving too fast around schools, and at times of day when the kids aren't even there.

Have you been getting some pressure from his brother Ari, agent extraordinaire? You will soon.

Come on, Vegas? Really?

It's in a desert and all they've got to offer is gambling and a museum dedicated to the Mob.

Chicago has the actual Mob, the real people who descended from those memorialized in an old building in Vegas.

And who needs gambling? You're a bunch of book sellers. You want art and culture, and if you were a fan of Devil In The White City, you want to get yourself over to the Museum of Science and Industry because that was the art pavilion back in 1893. An actual building from the World's Columbian Exposition, and you can go inside and wander around to your heart's content. And the lagoon, and the Wooded Island, are all still there.

It's time to leave New York and get gouged in Chicago, where the taxes are high and the residents pray that someone will come from out of town to help pay them.

Willa Cather came to Chicago. The Fine Arts Building mentioned in one of her novels is still standing. Edna Ferber, Saul Bellow, Sherwood Anderson and James T. Farrell all helped put Chicago on the map.

Who can Vegas claim, when it comes to books? Lefty Rosenthal?

Not All Tea And Cakes Or Roses Or Whatever

I've spent the better part of the past two hours trying to make the cover of LACE CURTAIN IRISH more palatable to the taste of Amazon's "Search Inside The Book" team.

How is it that Barnes & Noble could get the image down so clearly all on their own?

And then sell the book much cheaper than the competition?

I did what I could, and figured out what more I might have done after I'd sent Amazon the file. Too hasty, what with the book going live on Saturday. Readers need to at least peruse the back flap copy before making a decision, but that isn't possible until we're all on the same page, me and Amazon.

In the meantime, there's the opening pages posted at Newcastlewest Books. Click on the link and read about the Hanlon clan, in all its dysfunctional and messy glory.

However, it's asking too much of a potential buyer to navigate from site to site. All that's left to do is wait on Amazon, again, to see if I've made the cut, or if I have to copy and paste from BN.com to get a better image. And wait again.

Then there's the other alternative. We're still giving away free copies for those brave enough to fill out a form and take a chance.

The cover's lovely, really. It follows the underlying theme that runs through the novel, as expressed by Daniel Hanlon. The slaughterhouse, where a burly Irishman knocked cattle senseless day in and day out, is real life in a compressed form, but the Hanlons saw that life through a haze of white lace curtains.

Read the book. You'll see how perfect the cover is....even if Amazon is having a little difficulty with the quality of the image.

Let's Get The Party Started

With only days to go before LACE CURTAIN IRISH hits the market officially, there's not much left to be done here.

I'm ready to start the launch party. But if you don't have copy yet, you're not part of the fun.

If you haven't entered the contest to win a free book, you'll want to move along to Newcastlewest Books and fill out the form. That's all you need to do, and the odds are fairly decent that you'll win yourself a free copy of a novel that will transport you to Chicago.

1890's Chicago, yes, but read a few pages and you'll soon realize that things haven't changed all that much. New arrivals, whether Irish or Mexican or Chinese, all experience the same difficulties in finding their place in the strange new world that is America.

And you'll notice that families haven't changed at all in the past hundred years. There are still expectations and burdens and duties that seem to have been assigned by an unseen hand. The pull of the Old World still tugs at the children born in the New World, to bring them back even as they do all they can to walk away.

The book is well worth the price of purchase, but if you can get it for nothing, why not give it a try? There's no strings attached. And the novel won't give you a hangover like that disgusting green beer.

Marketing To The Irish Via Paddywhackery

Some will call it Guinness with training wheels, but you can walk into an Irish-themed establishment in the States and order a mixture of Guinness stout and Bass ale. It's called a "Black and Tan".

Naturally, when Nike decided to market a new range of runners to the Irish market, they picked up on the color of the shoes and called the dark ones "Guinness" and the black/brown ones "Black and Tan".

Brilliant, Nike.

Did your marketing geniuses never think to research the term "Black and Tan" before pasting it on a shoe?

They learned nothing from Ben and Jerry's fiasco in 2006, when they named an ice cream flavor after one of the most notorious paramilitary groups that ever wore a British uniform. Nor did anyone go to their Netflix account to watch Michael Collins, where the Black and Tans figured prominently. And not in a good way.

The shoe is being released today, compounding the injury with St. Patrick's Day only a week away.

It's a case of paddywhackery, in which someone who isn't familiar with Irish history takes a page from the marketer's guidebook and creates a sales campaign that is clearly based on ignorance.

Unless the Nike marketing team is made up of unionists who think the Black and Tans were the victims of bad press and Irish-Catholic thuggery, it's a really, really, really bad name for a shoe.

We should be getting an apology before long....definitely before next Saturday, when Irish eyes will be smiling and Irish shoe buyers will be aggravated by the insensitivity of a shoe company with its knowledge of all things Irish coming from the decor of Bennigans.

Everyone Loves A Wedding

I'm in a wedding drought.

All of my friends are married, cousins paired up, and distant relations united in holy wedlock.

No one has children of marrying age.

There's no weddings to look forward to for the next several years, and who doesn't miss that grand party?

Oliver Killeen loves weddings so much that he's had, let's see, as many as nineteen is it?

A native of Mayo, the man is possessed of a singular charm. Con men are usually quite charming, aren't they, as they scam their way through life.

He had a predilection for beating his wives as well, and even though his marriages were short-lived, he didn't bother with unpleasant divorce proceedings. He simply moved on.

He advertised himself as a "media psychologist" but like so much else about him, the university degrees were bogus. That didn't stop him from earning a considerable living through therapy sessions, media appearances, and all sorts of high profile activities.

Mr. Killeen's travels brought to life the image of a sailor with a wife in every port. Clearly he was mad for weddings, but who isn't? The drinking, the food, the happy times---and if you can't wrangle enough invitations to suit your fancy, why not just stage your own?

He's finally been sentenced in Toronto for a fraudulent marriage that took place in 1978, but he'll only have to serve 90 days, all of it on weekends because he's 75 and is entitled to the senior discount.

Yet he managed to serve out his bigamy sentence in England in 2004 without needing special treatment.

Those Canadians. Always so polite and considerate. Perhaps they, too, enjoy a good wedding celebration and can't sincerely fault a man who enjoys a good time.

Collusion And The Agency Model

Ever since the electronic book was invented, publishing houses have struggled with pricing.

There's no paper or printing or trucking. It doesn't cost much to produce or distribute. What's the author's cut? What's in it for the publisher? How much can they get away with before the public stops buying?

The last component of the price equation is based on what the competition is doing. You won't last long if your competitor undercuts your price. At the same time, your competitor risks bankruptcy through excessively deep cuts, which isn't an ideal situation either.

If you could only get together and come to some mutually agreeable price point.....

Which you can't do if you do business in the U.S. of A., where collusion on pricing is forbidden.

As far as the Justice Department is concerned, the 'agency model' of pricing on e-books smells a lot like collusion, with publishers trying to fix the price so they all make money at the expense of the book-buying public, instead of allowing competitive pressures to bring prices in line with the free market.

Word is, several of the big houses are looking to settle the anti-trust lawsuit that's been threatened.

Steve Jobs is the one to blame.

In the dark ages before digital, a publisher would sell a book at 50% off retail and the seller could set the final retail price. Along came Steve Jobs, who thought it best that publishers sell e-books to one and all at a fixed price, with the seller (Apple in this case) getting a 30% cut for the effort. Every book wholesaler had to agree to that price, or be cut off from the supply.

That's why Congress, many years ago, made it illegal to fix prices. There's nothing in it for the consumer, and the robber baron publishers get to rake in the cash without limit.

The agency model has been much debated, with literary agents wondering if it's best for their clients or damaging to an author's financial picture.

Now the Feds have stepped in, and are about to settle the matter.

Good-bye agency model. There are no short-cuts to profitability. There is no easy road away from red ink.

Too Smart/Too Stupid

By all accounts, Donncha O'Cearbhail, Darren Martyn and Jeremy Hammond are brilliant. They are also exceedingly stupid.

Smart enough to bypass all sorts of cyber-security and hack into computers.

Stupid enough to not understand the gravity of the offense.

Mr. O'Cearbhail and Mr. Martyn are college students, 19 years old, and when you think back to yourself at that age, you shake your head in understanding. You were pretty stupid back then as well, but at the time, you thought you knew it all. You thought you were infallible.

Jeremy Hammond was raised to be a genius, trained from birth to be a great brain. His Irish colleagues in hacking earned high marks on their Leaving Certs. Their parents might have dreamed of great things, shining futures, for their brilliant boys.

What the young men didn't learn, apparently, were social skills.

Isn't that the definition of a geek, however?

Mr. Hammond is on his way to New York to stand trial, where his juvenile brain will be hard-pressed to process the fact that he's come up against authority that is not malleable like his father, or sympathetic to the cause of social justice as a no-holds-barred sport.

Mr. Martyn claims he is helping the gardai to unravel the hacking network. There's a lad who's smart enough to understand that he's in a world of trouble and he's grabbed the only lifeline that's been thrown his way.

He's not particularly interested in a one-way ticket to New York.

Did someone explain to him how extradition works? Or is he taking a page from the purported leader of the hacking crew, Hector Monsegur, who has been singing like a chirpy parakeet to the FBI since his arrest last August?

Texas Is Not The Best State In Which To Be Arrested

Tourists need vital information as they travel across the vastness of the United States.

They have a tendency to think they're in one country, or something like the European Union where there's some degree of consistency across borders.

For example, Christopher Tappin was taken into custody in Texas, and now his poor wife is discovering that Texas isn't at all like Manhattan. You'd think someone would have put up a sign at the border, for feck's sake, to warn the man that he's not in New York City any more.

How about some kind of warning? Why not proclaim, in reflective lettering: "You are now entering Texas, a highly conservative state in which dealings with America's enemies will be treated far more harshly than in, say, liberal New York City."

Then Mrs. Tappin wouldn't have been shocked that her husband, arrested for trying to smuggle batteries for surface-to-air missiles to Iran, wasn't granted bail.

She wouldn't be shocked that her hubbie is behind bars in El Paso and likely to remain there.

How will he bear up, she'd like to know. He's in a cell for 23 hours of the day...ah, and there's the need for another sign.

Some of the other inmates, this being west Texas, are no doubt less than pleased with Mr. Tappin's business strategy. It's more likely that they have friends or family in the military, as compared to, say, the lock-up in New York City. Mr. Tappin is safer in his cell than out of it. But there again, how would Mrs. Tappin know this without some sort of tourist-geared advice?

Friends of Mr. Tappin are pressurizing David Cameron, but there's not much he can do.

The jail is in west Texas, not Washington, D.C., and it's an election year.

So they can bark all they like about the harmless 65-year-old granddad. The fact remains, he tried to sell military supplies to Iran, and he was arrested in El Paso.

Can someone please advise Mrs. Tappin about the mindset of the jury that will hear her husband's case? Don't want her fainting dead away when he's sentenced to the maximum.

Not A Good Time For A Reconciliation

It's sad when a mother is estranged from any of her children. There's something almost unnatural about such a situation, even though there are countless good reasons for the split.

We don't know why Matt Topham and his mother Julie Gamble haven't spoken for years.

We do know that Ms. Gamble picked a really, really, really bad time to attempt a reconciliation.

After her son won E54 million in the lottery.

According to Ms. Gamble, the two hadn't spoken since 2004, when the Topham marriage fell apart. Matt went with his dad, but it wasn't a case of a teen-aged boy needing a father's guidance. His mother lived down the street and he could have maintained a relationship with ease---if there'd been any desire on his part to do so.

Julie Gamble watched her son win all that money and for some reason she thought it was a brilliant time to sit down and pen a three page letter. To better set the table, she stated clearly that she had always wanted a relationship with her boy, just in case he might be thinking she was asking after money.

Whether or not Matt got that far in his reading, if he read it at all, is unknown. His reply wasn't particularly warm, in that it was addressed to "Julie" and not 'Mum".

As for the reconciliation, well, good luck with that.

Mr. Topham and his fiancee are not going to have anything to do with Julie Gamble in the future. She won't be seeing any future grandchildren and she's not welcome in their lives at all.

She wasn't invited to the celebration party, either. It was held at Matt's dad's house.

Perhaps if she'd started the reconciliation business a little earlier?

A Day For Family

And you thought it was all about drinking green beer.

St. Patrick's Day is all about family. It used to be about religion and going to Mass, but as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will tell American audiences on Sunday night, there's not much Mass-going at all, at all.

So that leaves family. Getting together, re-uniting, socializing, and maybe even tucking into a heap of boiled bacon and cabbage---that's the genuine way to celebrate the day.

President Barack Obama is doing St. Paddy's Day the Irish way. He's invited some Irish relations to dinner at the White House.

Henry Healy and Ollie Hayes, descended from common ancestors on the maternal side, plan to set off on the journey made by so many emigrants, albeit in the comfort of a modern airplane rather than a coffin ship.

Now, the event won't be held exactly on the 17th of March, what with Mr. Obama's busy schedule and all, but come 20 March, Moneygall's proud sons will be made welcome in Washington, D.C.

Ever since the Irish came to America in droves, it's been important to sew up the Irish vote. Not that anyone would accuse a man in the middle of a re-election campaign of pandering to any particular electorate---but will photos taken at the event become part of the campaign literature reaching every demographic, or only the Hibernian one?

Remember Me But Not In Europe

Google starts its new privacy policy and the world is on edge, wondering how it will all play out.

Are we being spied on? We'd like to know how much Google will remember of us, and where it's keeping those precious memories.

As far as France is concerned, Google is going too far with its plan to track individual users and store up their search history for future reference.

That being the case, the European Union has asked France to investigate this new Google policy to see if it does, indeed, break various EU laws on privacy. And then what? No more Google in the EU?

Moving with its usual speed, the French Data Protection Agency will be submitting questions in mid-March, which is obviously a couple of weeks after the fact. In the meantime, any European who googles is an accessory to a crime. Possibly. The Agency will get back to everyone on that in due time.

The EU did ask Google for some time to get things together, but Google said "non, nein, no" and launched its service today just the same.

Part of the issue is that you can't just opt out of Google doing this to you. Use Google and they spy on you. If you don't want to be spied on, you have to use another search engine but if you've used other search engines, you know that they don't work as well as Google.

There's the problem for the EU and every other country with privacy laws. Google has become too big and too powerful. The search engine can laugh off fines and you know that if any country threatened to ban Google, the populace would be up in arms.

Except those holding stock in Yahoo. They're all for that outright ban.

So Much To Say

If the Irish are great talkers, then the Shinners are the greatest Irish of all.

Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams has admitted to running through his allotment of printer cartridges already, while his fellow Shinners have been proclaimed winners in the all-Dail printing competition.

Sinn Fein TD's are at the top of the heap when it comes to official printing costs, and everyone is wondering what it is that they're printing. It's all supposed to be for official government business, after all, and how many A4 leaflets can one political party produce in any given year?

Aengus O Snodaigh has been dubbed "Wolfe Toner" after running 434 cartridges dry in a two year period.

Clever name, but to hard-pressed Irish taxpayers, it isn't all that funny. Cost of those printer cartridges is estimated at E50,000. That's a lot of money for producing a lot of words in one constituency.

There are calls on Mr. O Snodaigh to reimburse the State for some excessive verbiage creation, but he's insisting that it was all government business and he wasn't printing things for other Shinners.

Opposition leaders are calling for an investigation, but all they have to do is match up paper use to cartridge capacity and determine if there's a correlation. Who knows, but maybe the Shinners were laundering printer cartridges to fund their ongoing war against British oppression in the north. Can someone verify the amount of copy paper used to see if the two items match up?

Unless, of course, they were clever enough to launder reams of paper at the same time. Then you'd have to see if there were tons of leaflets dropped in Dublin South Central.

The people in Mr. O Snodaigh's constituency say they never received enough leaflets to account for all that printing.

Could it be that he's really an aspiring author, sending off submissions to literary agents who require the first fifty pages and a three-page synopsis via snail mail?

That could account for all those printer cartridges, especially if Mr. O Snodaigh is a particularly determined writer who doesn't want anyone to know of his secret yearning to be published.

On The Menu: Cold Shoulder

The Irish are ascendant in Chicago once more.

An Taoiseach Enda Kenny could have gone to California as part of his St. Paddy's Day tour of the States. He could have gone to Disney World.

He's going to Chicago.

The Irish Fellowship Club will play host to Ireland's leader on March 16 at a splendid dinner. There will be good food, and of course, there will be speeches.

Chicago's leader of the Catholic Church, however, has declined the invitation. Francis Cardinal George has a previous engagement at a local high school.

Not that he's been to every single dinner in his career as head of the Chicago Archdiocese, but he's been to most of them, and this is the first time he'd have the chance to dine with the man who tore into the Vatican for the sex abuse scandal......oh. Right.

So it's to be a big platter of cold shoulder from Cardinal George to Enda Kenny, to further express the Holy See's displeasure at criticism from a nation that was once under the Church's thumb.

The coldness evolved into a deep freeze when Ireland decided to close its embassy in Vatican City as a cost-cutting move. There is plenty of speculation that Cardinal George is snubbing Mr. Kenny on behalf of his pal, Pope Benedict, who doesn't take kindly to harsh rhetoric about pedophile priests and how the Vatican looked the other way while innocent children were damaged. Shuttering the embassy only served to highlight the tension, as if Ireland slammed its door on the face of the Catholic Church.

Maybe if the Cardinal were to read The Leaven of the Pharisees, he'd get a better understanding of why the Irish people are so infuriated, and why they applauded Mr. Kenny when he laid into the bureaucracy that moved perverts around from parish to parish and then covered up the whole disgusting mess that was left behind.

The Cardinal will be missing from the March 16 dinner, and everyone will notice.

Will Chicago's Catholics really care?

More Readers Than Writers

News flash from HarperCollins! They have determined that there are more readers than there are writers.

Who would have guessed it?

High school English teachers, probably, or those familiar with teen-aged girls and all their angst. But not, apparently, the thinkers at HarperCollins' children's division.

A few years back, the publisher created a web portal for young writers, thinking that it would encourage them to read and to buy HarperCollins products.

Inkpop never did amount to much of anything. HarperCollins has just sold it to Figment, another online writing community that has more members than Inkpop and is willing to pay for Inkpop's 95,000 subscribers.

The sale was precipatated by the realization that the website was a money pit for the publisher, and wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, which is generate revenue.

It isn't just the fact that most of the writing would have something to do with not getting asked to a dance or being ignored by the cool guy or not getting to sit at the popular table in the lunchroom. When you get right down to it, writing is hard work. Just because someone likes to read doesn't mean they'd love to sit alone in a room with a blank piece of paper staring at them, or puzzle over words and paragraphs and narrative arcs.

Reading is entertaining. Writing is a hard slog with little reward at the end.

HarperCollins understands that now. They're going to focus on their readers in the future, and leave the writing portals to others.