Putting Their Foot On Board Of A Ship

The Famine and emigration have shaped the Irish psyche.

New Ross hopes it's good for tourism.

Are you a descendant of the Irish diaspora? Then you'll be wanting to make your way to County Wexford to visit the Dunbrody. Thousands of Irish were exported to America on ships like this reproduction. What did it feel like? Here's where you can find out.

To kick off the opening of the tourist attraction, American-born Michael Flatley joined Minister for Tourism Leo Varadkar at the launch of the new visitor's center. Mr. Flatley is a product of the diaspora himself, although his mam didn't come over on something quite so uncomfortable as the Dunbrody.

The ship represents more than the hordes of starving Irish arriving in New York City clothed in rags during Black '47. The visitor's centre contains a museum of emigrant history, a long period that may not have fully ended.

In addition, visitors can wander through the Irish-American Hall of Fame, and perhaps find some surprises. Did you know that Walt Disney's family hailed from Kilkenny?

The history of the famine ships is grim, as were the times, but the Hall of Fame provides a reminder that there were those who left with nothing and made something of themselves in a country where such success was possible.

So it was fitting that Michael Flatley be there to watch the actors in period costume pretend to be emigrants, wailing and moaning in fear of their unknown future. If his own mother hadn't put her foot on board of a ship (air or water, it doesn't matter), he might not be the multimillionaire he is today.

Bacteria-Laden Milk As Economic Indicator

Yogurt, that dairy product created by bacteria infecting warm milk, has long been looked on as healthy.

There's all those pro-biotic bacteria for digestive regularity.

People on the West Coast are wild for spoiled milk in frozen form, hence the explosion of Pinkberry shops.

Now they're coming to Chicago, expecting Midwesterners to pay as much as $7 for a dollop of sweetened, frozen yogurt.

Pinkberry will be going head-to-head against Red Mango, a pricey frozen yogurt vendor that's been in town for a couple of years already.

Is there room in this economy for two places selling overpriced dairy products?

After all, Chicago isn't New York and it certainly isn't Los Angeles, where warm weather year-round makes for continued sales in December and January, when most Chicago-area ice cream parlors shut down (you can't get an Italian lemonade from Mario's after the first frost).

Just ask Michael Farah, who opened Berry Chill and then watched the chain go bankrupt.

Pinkberry and Red Mango may be counting on improvements in the economy, where people finally have a few extra dollars and they're looking to spend on something perceived as special.

Chicago is losing tourism, however, as the cost of visiting has become too high for those hard-pressed for extra dollars. Even the suburbanites are avoiding the city, with the price of parking seen as prohibitive.

As other ice cream shops leave, Pinkberry and Red Mango are moving in, but there's a reason those Ben and Jerry's shut their doors.

The economy is still floating near the bottom and people don't have money to burn on fancy frozen yogurt when they can get a cone at McDonald's for far less. New college graduates, who are more likely than grandma to buy frozen yogurt, don't have jobs and they aren't going to support one, let alone two or three, different yogurt purveyors.

There's all kinds of talk about the improving economy. If Pinkberry and Red Mango can make it in Chicago without suffering financial difficulties, then you'll know we're coming out of the recession.

Brilliant, Instinctive and Gone

Amid allegations that The News Of The World may have hacked phones belonging to British soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Murdoch clan stands behind Rebekah Brooks.

For now.

When news broke about the tabloid's hacking into phones of those killed in the London terrorist attack of 7/7, various advertisers fled from the pages of the British rag. They took their money with them, and without advertising revenue, there is no newspaper.

Circulation may drop, but it's hard to imagine that those who purchase NOTW would stop because they're looking for the sensational to begin with. It's the advertisers who matter more.

Not only does the scandal threaten the paper's financial standing, but there's the matter of Rupert Murdoch's plan to take over BSkyB. Ms. Brooks may be a close personal friend of Prime Minister Cameron, but in politics, friendship doesn't trump that which threatens to alienate a large block of voters.

The BSkyB matter is due to come before Parliament before the end of the month, which leaves little time to allow the scandal to blow over and Commons to cool.

A gesture of conciliation to those who will decide if Mr. Murdoch takes over the satellite broadcaster or not may be required to appease those who want Ms. Brooks' head on a News Corp. platter.

Ms. Brooks may find herself taking a leave of absence, travelling to exotic locales until the heat is off. If reports of Mr. Murdoch's loyalty hold true, she won't be sacked, but it isn't inconceivable that she'd be promoted.

Being a close friend of the Prime Minister has its uses, after all.

In Lieu Of Rent

We're skint say the religious orders who ran the industrial schools and Magadalene laundries.

Can't afford to compensate all those victims of abuse. We'll pray for their souls, at no extra charge.

The Irish Government is looking at a cost approaching E1.36 billion (with a b) to compensate victims of a social engineering scheme that went horribly wrong.

It's contained within the pages of Katie Hanrahan's The Leaven of the Pharisees.

Naturally, the State would like the religious orders to help financially, since they benefitted financially from the arrangement. Rather than cash, which is in short supply, they'd like the congregations to hand over some schools that are currently being rented by the State. The idea is make the punishment equal to both sides that had their hands in the instutionalized abuse of several generations of Irish children and women.

The clergy aren't stupid, however. They've long since been putting their properties into trusts, to protect their assets. The Christian Brothers don't own their schools, but the Edmund Rice Trust does. The Sisters of Mercy and the Daughters of Charity followed suit, and safeguarded their schools in their own trust.

Can't turn over to the Government what they don't own, now, can they?

Ruairi Quinn, Minister for Education, will be meeting with the religious orders to convince them that they really should transfer title to the Government in lieu of financial compensation.

Does anyone honestly expect him to make any headway at all?

Getting Out The Vote Doesn't Require Writing Skills

Drive near a road construction site in Illinois and you'll notice that there are a phenomenal number of workers not working.

There's one state worker to drive each truck. There's the guy who operates the steam roller. Neither one of them is allowed, according to union rules, to do anything else productive like shovel hot asphalt out of the back of a dump truck.

So it makes perfect sense for the State of Illinois to find savings by reducing education.

You don't need to know how to diagram a sentence to operate a concrete saw, do you? All you have to do is know how to vote for the right somebody's somebody and you've got that high-paying job.

Students in public schools won't be required to take writing tests when they sit down for their standardized exams. That means that the teachers won't be compelled to teach writing because it's a waste of effort when student performance (and the teacher's perceived competence) won't be assessed.

The State is pleased to announce that $2.4 million will be saved. That goes a long way towards taming that multi-billion dollar shortfall.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is also going to come out ahead.

For years, the university has tried to increase its crop of out-of-state students who pay a much higher rate for the privilege of attending. With Illinois students not knowing how to write, it will be much easier to deny them access because they'll make a mess of the application essay and that will ease the burden on the bottom line.

That will leave slots open for the children of privilege or those who attend parochial schools where grammar is still taught the old fashioned way. The numbers are limited and manageable.

Assuming that the budget crisis is solved before 2014, testing will resume.

And then we'll be reading about Illinois students who can't write coherent sentences, while fingers of blame point in every direction.

If Jay Gould Loved Books

In the 1870's, financier Jay Gould tried to corner the silver market and precipitated a financial panic.

As a result of that and other market manipulations, the U.S. Congress took steps to prevent anyone from creating a monopoly.

Not that corporations don't still try.

No one should be surprised that Amazon has decided to acquire The Book Depository, a UK-based online vendor of the written word. The Book Depository represents Amazon's competition, another firm that sells books online. The difference is that one ships for free, and makes that quite clear on its website.

Free shipping isn't what Amazon does. They sell books at low prices.

Fans of The Book Depository worry that Amazon will quickly end the free shipping program, and they don't like the idea of having to pay more for a product just because their preferred vendor was bought out. They'll seek other sources, but the competition is declining because Amazon is doing its best to corner the online book selling market.

The U.S. isn't the only nation concerned with unfair trade and anti-competitive business activities.

The U.K.'s Office of Fair Trade is calling on the public to voice their concerns about the deal. The merger will be subject to British anti-competition laws, and there is no guarantee that the deal will go forward.

It's natural for a business to want the entire market to itself, because when there's no other game in town, the prices can climb to the limit the customer will bear and that's how the bottom line gets padded.

For its part, Amazon will do all it can to convince the regulatory body that there's plenty of competing fish in the sea. Those opposed to Amazon's take-over of the book business will have to prove that the behemoth is slowly choking out its competition, and somewhere down the road, the consumer will suffer.

He who brings the best argument can claim victory. Will it be Amazon or some average citizens of Western Australia who can show harm from the proposed merger?

Seeking Safety In Troubled Times

The world is pressing in on you, there seems to be no security, and the ground beneath your feet is shifting like sand.

You might turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the stress.

Some turn to religion. Not modern religion. Religion as it was practiced in a time that is perceived to be more safe and secure.

Hence, a group of Catholics have turned back the clock on centuries of scientific pursuit and declared that the Vatican was right, way back there in the 1500's.

They have come out in support of the Church's former position that the Earth is at the center of the universe, and Galileo is once again wrong.

A parish in Oak Park, Illinois, is a supporter of the Earth-centric system. They're flat out against all the Vatican's reforms of the Church as well, so they've been pretty unhappy since 1962.

It's all a vast conspiracy, according to them. Put the sun at the center and you're moving the Church away from its central location in daily life. Science and society should be controlled by the Church, like it was then, and weren't people all happy and not stressed out?

Except when the plague ran rampant, they'd probably grant you that. But in general, it was an easy time when all you had to do was ask your bishop what to think and you didn't have to trouble your brain.

Needless to say, the Catholic Church is embarrassed by the fringe group that can't find comfort in the modern Church.

Bad enough that the clerical sex abuse scandals are a constant source of negative publicity. A clutch of superstitious worshippers trumpeting nonsense to rival the fundamentalists who believe people and dinosaurs existed simultaneously does nothing to advance the faith.

Science doesn't have all the answers, but it has some. The answers aren't always pleasant, or exactly what someone wants to hear when they're looking for safety in a constantly shifting world.

Turning to God is often the most comforting path, to believe that there is something more, something better, than what is before us. Turning away from science doesn't make it go away.

You of little faith, why are you so afraid?

The Gatekeepers

The publishing trade likes to think of literary agents and publishers as gatekeepers.

They keep the reading public from all the dreck that they know is out there, a time-wasting forest of slush that they slash and burn so that you don't have to hunt alone when you'd like a literary gem.

You'll be sorry when they're gone, says Eric Felten. Those gatekeepers do an outstanding job and you'll be hard pressed to find something worth reading if self-publishing wins out.

Except that some literary agents, notably Dystel & Goderich, will guide their clients through the e-publishing forest for their usual 15% commission. The gatekeepers are still there, but the gate has relocated away from a publishing house. Self-publishing doesn't have to mean the slush pile is open to the public.

Some of the gatekeepers have shrunk the size of the gate's opening. Given the decline in book sales, publishers are scaling back their offerings, selecting only that which has been a proven winner before. Not the best strategy, of course, because the reading public doesn't want the same thing over and over again. They want new, and new is too risky for the beancounters at the major houses.

Anthony Cheetham has left Atlantic Books because he had great projects on his doorstep that Atlantic wouldn't let in because they're quite risk averse these day.

He's going to keep the gate at his own publishing firm, starting up a new provider of reading material. There are several small publishing houses opening up for the same reason as Mr. Cheetham's. There are a lot of good books out there, but the existing gatekeepers aren't doing their job as well as they should.

In spite of tightening belts, new publishers are cropping up because there are people who believe in books and believe that people will continue to indulge in reading.

They're looking at e-books because digital publishing provides a less expensive product. You might not have a fist full of euro to buy a hardcover, but it's not impossible to scrape up one or two for a download. Costs and overhead are lower for the publisher, so it's possible to take a flyer once in a while on something loved but without an obvious market.

The gatekeepers aren't disappearing. It's the old ones who are being left behind, with their carefully culled offerings not as desirable as they imagine. New gatekeepers are opening doors, taking advantage of e-publishing to fill niche markets that go ignored when the big houses only want blockbusters.

Pope Benedict Reads John Steinbeck

You thought he only read the Bible or the writings of St. Augustine, didn't you?

It turns out, the Pope has been reading John Steinbeck.

How can we say for certain? Just listen to His Holiness' latest speech.

Pure Steinbeck. It's East of Eden, paraphrased.

The Pope has come out against commodities speculation. Yes, just like Adam Trask, who came down hard on his son Cal (as played by James Dean in the movie) for making money off the backs of hard-working farmers by betting on the market.

Food prices are high, in part because so much corn is going to produce ethanol and that takes land out of production for other crops. Weather comes into effect as well, and this year's wet spring has speculators guessing that the corn yield will be lower, which means higher prices.

The cost of tortillas in Mexico has gone up to the point where it's not the cheap staple it used to be. The poor can't afford to buy as much, so they end up going hungry.

Consider the human element, says the Pope. Don't speculate on the market and drive up prices. Prices will drive themselves up as an effect of high demand meeting low supply. We don't need people screaming their lungs out on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

How the farmers will get their crops to market in this global economy would be a matter for someone else to figure out. But the Pope, like Adam Trask, is appalled that someone who doesn't do the work can step in and make a profit on what is essentially gambling.

Catholic traders will shake their heads at the Pope's lack of understanding about what drives food prices. Then they'll go right back to the grain pits, arms and fingers in a blur of movement as they indicate buy or sell, the number of futures contracts that will lead to the grain in the field getting to a place where it can be processed for consumption.

The system is far from perfect, but it works. It's better than driving to the farm and buying direct from the farmer.

Border Of The Month Club

Borders may not have given up the ghost quite yet.

Reportedly, Direct Brands will purchase the dying book vendor's assets and assume some of its debt, if the bankruptcy court approves the deal.

How will Najafi Companies, the parent of Direct Brands, manage brick and mortar stores when they're accustomed to mail order sales?

You might be thinking that the investment firm is keen on Borders' online capability, or its Kobo reader and the downloadable book. Najafi Companies owns the likes of The Book Of The Month Club and Columbia House, neither of which ever involved stocking shelves or setting up display tables.

Yes, well. Columbia. Does anyone buy CDs anymore? And is there much movement in DVDs these days when Netflix can send what you want direct to your computer or video game console?

And would you expect much from a firm that has invested in the Phoenix Suns? Not linked to books in any way, but then again, neither are their restaurant interests. Borders is just another investment opportunity for them, and one they expect to return that investment.

Amazon is so far ahead of Borders in the online sales race that it's hard to imagine how Najafi Companies could make headway. Indeed, their book business model seems like the 1950's, not the instant gratification, download now, modern times.

Keep in mind that Najafi began as a real estate investment group. Borders' stores represent real estate....that can be sold or rented to other than a Borders book store. There may be value in the assets, and Najafi may plan to harvest those assets and make the Borders chain an empty shell, a memory.

Why Newspapers Are Dying

I believe in books.

If I didn't, I wouldn't be spending so much of my time in starting up Newcastlewest Books. I wouldn't be investing my money in a contract with Lightning Source to print the books and ship them off to the reading public.

How misguided am I?

Students enrolling in the journalism program at Dublin City University are not equipped to jump into their work. They don't have the basic writing skills needed to put together a simple news article.

First year students are being taught basic grammar and English, to compensate for all that they failed to learn as children.

Clearly, someone who is a poor writer is likely a poor reader. There's a great deal that can be absorbed by frequent exposure to the written word, and the digital generation isn't getting it.

They can text, but they can't spell and they don't know how to use punctuation. They want to be journalists but they can't communicate in a standard, accepted fashion.

Do these would-be journalists even read a daily newspaper? If they did, how could they have avoided learning proper sentence structure and the use of the comma?

Those who wish to be journalists can't write. Does it matter? There won't be anyone to read their words because children don't seem to be reading.

Will there be enough literate people in five or ten or twenty years to buy books and support the publishing industries?

Or do we return to the days of the town crier, calling out the news for those who are incapable of either reading or writing it.

Chicago Takes Over The World

The press has been busy lauding Christine Lagarde as the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund. The fact that she's replacing a man accused of rape (and serial groping) has been proclaimed ironic.

Has no one noticed that yet another Chicagoan has risen to a position of power and prominence?

Ms. Lagarde's early years haven't drawn much coverage. In fact, she was once employed by Baker and McKenzie, a large and politically powerful law firm in Chicago.

The President of the United States came out of the swamp that is Chicago politics. His first Chief of Staff is now the mayor of that same city. The current Chief of Staff is the brother of the man who Rahm Emanuel replaced. And Bill Daley's father was the mayor for decades before that.

Not only is Bill Daley a Chicagoan, but he was employed by JP Morgan Chase, which everyone knows is a financial powerhouse. And now comes Ms. Lagarde, to lead the International Monetary Fund.

Mere coincidence?

Or has the moving and shaking, the wheeling and dealing, been carried on too quietly for the Washington press corps to hear, too far from Chicago to pick up on the murmurs?

You can't help but notice that a lot of muscle, both political and financial, has found a center on the shores of Lake Michigan. In a city where it isn't what you know, but who you know, it should come as no surprise that a long line is forming behind Ms. Lagarde, seeking the return of favors granted.

Just don't expect representatives from JP Morgan Chase to be there with their hands out when Ms. Lagarde starts dispensing Greek debt. After the subprime loan disaster, no one is looking to take on another bad risk.

Exported Rebellion

On Monday, America will shut down and spend the day in celebrating its independence from England.

On open fields where the North meets the South, many will gather to remember the bloody battles that united the states.

In some circles, the memories of the Irish who fought alongside their Yankee counterparts will be toasted.

If you believe Hollywood's treatment, you'd be thinking that those Irish lads walked off the emigrant ships and into a blue coat out of desperation, but you'd be a bit misguided.

The American Civil War served as Ireland's West Point.

Men enlisted to learn how to be soldiers so they could go back to Ireland and stand a decent chance against the British army. America exported cotton to England and unwittingly exported trained soldiers to Ireland.

The story is told in A Terrible Beauty, a novel that traces the long path of Ireland's rebellion from the Fenian movement that found a home in the hearts of Irish soldiers fighting for American unity, through the Easter Rising of 1916.

The plot has twists and turns that reflect the real trajectory of history. Fighting gives way to political intrigue and espionage before the fighting flares anew. Told from the perspective of one family that is divided by a struggle with its roots in the American Civil War, A Terrible Beauty will keep you on the edge of your seat and perhaps bring a tear to your eye.

Newcastlewest Books is offering the e-book for a reduced price, so how can you say no to the bold Fenian men. Pick up a copy, sit back and be transported to an era when there were no holds barred in the drive for independence.

The State of Illinois: Now A Charitable Organization

Taxpayers in Illinois can opt to donate some of their income tax refund to Habitat for Humanity, child abuse prevention, or military family relief, to name a few.

How much better is it to tick a box on a tax form and know that your donation will go to help a homeless person? No chance of being scammed by a professional beggar, you'd think.

Turns out that anyone foolish enough to think their hard-earned cash was going to a good cause have proved P.T. Barnum right. There are suckers born every minute.

The State of Illinois considers itself a deserving charity.

Over $1 million that taxpayers donated to charity has been "borrowed" by the state to help pay its bills.

That's $1 million not passed through to those in need. Illinois considers itself far more needy.

Hungry people in eastern Illinois can go to the food bank and find....an IOU from the Illinois General Assembly. Whatever money was donated in 2009 and 2010 hasn't shown up in the group's coffers. Hard to stock a food bank with nutritious debt, isn't it?

It'll be repaid, says Kelly Kraft of the Office of Management and Budget. Why, it's the law. The money has to be returned in eighteen months.

Except that laws can be changed, and in a state with a single-party government, it's not all that difficult to manipulate the rules well after the game has begun.

Now you've been warned. If you want to donate to charity, and have your money actually go to the charity, you can't expect the government to do it for you.

Some things you have to do yourself.

Voting, for example.....

Unbowed, Unrepetant, Un-Free

A reasonable person could indeed conclude that Conrad Black is guilty.

He's right on that count.

The man dipped into the coffers of Hollinger International to fund his lavish (dare we say, lordly) life style, as if he were entitled to special treatment.

That same reasonable person, in His Lordship's eyes, would also conclude that poor, put-upon Conrad has been punished enough.

All the people who once worked for Hollinger, all the reporters and staff who put out the Chicago Sun Times under Black's ownership, must not be very reasonable then.

As for Judge Amy St. Eve, well, she must not be reasonable either.

To this day, Mr. Black thinks he's being picked on by zealous prosecutors, jealous corporate heads, and possibly God Himself. He doesn't think he did anything wrong when he stole funds and then tried to keep the Feds from uncovering the extent of his crime.

For the next thirteen months, he can stew over the injustice done him. Once he's out, he'll resume his lavish lifestyle with his remaining funds. He'll probably write a book that details his many grievances and some publisher will give him a hefty advance for the privilege of printing up the whine festival.

If all goes well, Conrad Black will return to Canada, where his peerage means something, and he will drift into obscurity within American circles.

Except for those left at the Chicago Sun Times, who will joyfully report on every mis-step, every social slight, and every humiliation that might befall an unrepetant thief.

Quoth The Raven: Pottermore!

Brick and mortar bookshops are very concerned about the e-book. It's cutting into their profits.

Now comes J.K. Rowling and the electronic versions of the Harry Potter books, and the concern has become annoyance.

Ms. Rowling made a fortune off the hard-cover series and both her publisher and book vendors delighted with every new installment. People flocked to actual stores, rather than order from Amazon, so that they could have Harry Potter instantly in their hands, rather than wait for An Post to get around to making the delivery.

The author has decided to join the ranks of the digitally published, to capture what audience might be left. She is not, however, cutting the bookstores in on the game. Ms. Rowling is doing what so many other authors have done and is going direct to digital herself.

Bloomsbury will receive a portion of the profits, and it's only fitting since they took a chance on an unpublished writer with a YA manuscript without knowing if it would tank or end up defining a genre.

But the only place you can buy the electronic Harry is through the Pottermore website. You can't wander into Waterstone's and download there. You can't go to Amazon and purchase a Kindle version.

Book store owners are upset because they've served as the browsing department for too long. You can always stroll into a shop, pick up the book, thumb through the pages, and then whip out your smart phone to order the e-book from someone else. The shop still has to pay their rent and overhead, but they don't benefit from the transaction.

It's the author's prerogative, of course. Ms. Rowling stands to make more by controlling the digital edition herself. In addition, the website will offer interactive games and the like, to generate continued interest and enthusiasm for all things Potter.

In the end, Pottermore might boost hardcover sales among adults who are purchasing for the children in their lives. You want to give something a bit more permanent than an electronic download for Christmas, and an e-book isn't something to wrap and put under the tree.

There is no easy answer, as a new technology undercuts the old and leaves everyone wondering where things are headed. Buy digital, but support your local independent book seller. There's still something to be said for a wall covered with books, and that's not a setting you can create with a Kindle.

The Word Made Product

Do you photocopy? Or do you Xerox?

Did you pull a tissue from that box, or is it a Kleenex?

Do you associate the term "App Store" with Apple products, or do you think in generalities?

A Federal judge in California appears to be leaning in the direction of words made products when it comes to Apple's lawsuit against Amazon.

Apple took Amazon to court, claiming infringement on "App Store". Clients will be confused, Apple said, and that will harm their business. For its part, Amazon insists that "app store" is a generic term that refers to anyplace selling applications for any electronic device.

Like Xerox, the brand name has become the product.

Apple might have invented the label, but it's become so ubiquitous that the general public doesn't associate it strictly with Apple. Anyone with an Apple device will go to Apple's app store because they know that's where they'll find the programs to make their iPod or iPad or iPhone perform a desired function.

Customers aren't so stupid as Apple would like to make them out to be in its effort to force Amazon to stop using "app store" for its collection of Android applications. End users know what they want and they know where to find it.

There is no trademark infringement here.

It's a case of a business developing a product that swept through the industry and became a common name. Apple's problem isn't with Amazon, it's with the public who embraced the new technology.

As much as Apple would like them to think that "App Store" is Apple, they don't see it that way.

Apple has lost control of a couple of words and there's no going back in the public's mind. There's no changing terminology when the brand name becomes the common name and there's no suing the world for mis-using a phrase.

Just ask Kimberly-Clark.

Propaganda on Parade

In an American tradition, local communities stage parades on the Fourth of July.

It used to be all about the community and children and dogs and the local high school band. Lately, it's become a forum for propaganda.

Last year, in the all-American enclave of Palatine, Illinois, a group put in their request to be allowed to march in the parade. The Jaycees, who run the parade, said it would be fine. All sorts of community groups march in the parade, and it would be fitting for a group of Catholics to represent their segment of Palatine's diversity.

And there they marched, with their banner proclaiming their anti-abortion stance. The picture of the near-term foetus frightened some and disgusted others.

The group wants to come back this year to proclaim their message, with the same banner that they find to be so effective. The Jaycees have said thanks, but no.

There's a time and a place for protest. The Fourth of July parade, heavily attended by families with small children, is not the place for images that are offensive, alarming or unpleasant.

Some people get wrapped up in their cause and fail to consider the sentiments of others. The crusading Catholics have become insensitive, as if their cause is higher than any dictate to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Courtesy? Consideration? When you're busy waving your cudgel, it's easy to forget the most important commandment.

Love one another.

And if you loved your neighbor and their little children, you would think about the impact of your message on them, rather than focus on your own satisfaction at proclaiming your pro-life stance with graphic images.

The Magdalene women used to march in parades as well, and the Catholic Church used the setting to spread their version of morality far and wide.

The parade is a public venue where images are used to deliver a powerful message, but because it is public, those in charge have to weed out that which is not suitable for a family setting. The Jaycees aren't picking on the Catholics. They're being responsible when others are not.

Now Comes Plaintiff

If you felt cheated by Greg Mortenson's revelation that his blockbuster memoir, Three Cups of Tea, was partly fiction, you can do more than grumble about the lack of honesty.

You can join Deborah Netter in a lawsuit.

Ms. Netter feels duped. She never would have bought the book if she'd known that the author exaggerated certain elements of his tale. Not unlike James Frey's literary debacle, the Mortenson memoirs should have been marketed as fiction, rather than non-fiction. Therefore, Mr. Mortenson is liable, as is his publisher, Penguin Group.

In essence, the lawsuit claims that Mortenson profited from fraud, and that's illegal in Illinois where Ms. Netter filed her suit. All readers who wasted their time, and book buyers who wasted their money, can be a party to the class action suit.

Chances are, Penguin Group will claim that Mr. Mortenson defrauded them as well, and they aren't to blame. The author can claim that it's a memoir, and memoirs are always based on recollections that are often faulty.

A judge in the U.S. Northern District court will decide if the plaintiffs should be given some financial compensation for their loss. How much might that be? A full refund of the purchase price if you present your receipt? What about the cost of the reader's time?

It's unlikely that the judge would also block further sales of the book, especially since it's become common knowledge that there is a Mt. Everest-sized pile of discrepancies within the pages. Penguin might be required to paste a disclaimer on the cover of the book to warn consumers, but to expect Penguin to take all profits from the book and put them into a trust fund to compensate the plaintiffs sounds like a stretch.

Who wins out in a case like this?

The attorneys, of course. If Ms. Netter et al. win the suit, Mortenson and Penguin will be required to cover legal expenses. If there's anything left, you might get a refund, but who keeps receipts for five or six years?

Promises, Promises

Long ago, a lady could sue her ex-fiance for breach of promise if the gentleman changed his mind about marriage.


Breach of promise is alive and well and living in the U.S. State Department.

Recently, the State Department informed 22,000 lucky winners that they had been randomly selected to receive the object of their desire----a green card.

Permanent residency in the United States. Free to work, to travel, and not worry about deportation back to the old country where work is scarce.

It wasn't long before the State Department notified the lucky few that it was all a misunderstanding, a computer glitch. They weren't getting those green cards after all.

Legal firm White and Associates is representing the jilted party, pro bono. Partner Kenneth Wright believes that the good name of the U.S. Government is on the line in this case. Having made a promise, the State Department should be forced to keep it.

Unless the State Department reverses itself yet again, it will be up to a judge to decide how sincere and binding the original offer was.

Can the U.S. be dragged to the altar and forced to issue those green cards, or will a cash settlement to ease the broken hearts of 22,000 would-be permanent resident aliens be the final outcome?