A Novelist Writes History

What if there had been talking instead of fighting, suggests Nicholson Baker. The novelist has taken that question and put it to the events surrounding the onset of the Second World War. As one might expect from the perspective of hindsight, the author comes to a surprising conclusion in Human Smoke.

Winston Churchill figures prominently in Mr. Baker's treatise, being cast as a war-monger who had no inclination to sit down at a bargaining table with the Nazis. Mr. Churchill's father wasn't one to sit down at the table with the Irish who were pushing for Home Rule back in the day, so it comes as no surprise. Without His Lordship's machinations, there might not have ever been an Easter Rising in 1916. Like father, like son?

If only the pacifists had been given a chance, the author believes, then the Jews could have come out ahead via a negotiated settlement. Considering Hitler's love of his "final solution", I imagine that the negotiated settlement would have been something along the lines of killing off every Jew in Europe and then there'd be no war. Not everyone would have been happy with that, of course, but what's the lives of millions of Jews against the lives of thousands of soldiers and the preservation of some exquisite architecture?

Revisionist historians are forced to accept the premise that the madmen who ruled Germany were amenable to rational discussion. Winston Churchill was of a mind that they had to be eliminated because there was no reasoning with them. Mr. Baker feels that if the U.S. and other European countries had held talks, there would have been no need for war and therefore the European continent would not have been destroyed and millions of lives lost. A summit convened at the right time would have done it. After all, Hitler had proved his trustworthiness when he promised not to go past the Sudetenland, and he didn't. Or did he?

It makes for a grand plot for a novel, where the reader is willing to suspend disbelief. But for non-fiction? Hard to suspend disbelief in evil and the darkest side of man.

The Earth Stopped Spinning

Did you feel that? That rumbling. Not twenty-four hours ago. The earth must have stopped spinning on its axis and the mountains crashed into the sea and the continents shifted....

Ah, no, it was only the St. Patrick's Day parade in Belfast.

For the first time that anyone can recall, a big parade wound through Belfast. Ulster Unionist, and Lord Mayor of Belfast, Jim Rodgers led the parade. Stood at the head, walked from City Hall to Custom House Square, and he never once was struck down by a bolt from the heavens.

Green painted faces, green apparel, shamrocks and all the rest were in abundance on the streets of Belfast. Loyalist groups marched in the parade, and revelers enjoyed some trad and some samba. Ireland's multicultural now, and there was a touch of Carnival tossed in to the mix.

Tourists from foreign countries came to watch the parade and enjoy the festivities. No one worrying about bombs and bullets and goings-on. There's peace in the north.

Peace that Mrs. Clinton had a hand in creating, contrary to Mr. Obama's opinion. So said Bertie Ahern earlier, after he'd handed over the bowl of shamrock to himself in the White House. The Democratic Party could use a bit of that peace over here, if there's any left to go around.

A Holy St. Patrick's Day

Of course you all celebrated on Saturday so as not to be coming home drunk on the Monday of Holy Week.

Then there's the godless heathens who celebrated on Saturday and have every intention of celebrating today as well.

It happens but rarely, so take full advantage. Two St. Patrick's Days in one year. Sure it's brilliant.

If you're feeling extra Irish today, here's a little Dolores Keane in the native tongue:



Beanachtai na feile Padraig....and now you can learn how to pronounce it yourself:

Slap Down

The men who wrote the U.S. Constitution added amendments to protect certain rights that had been trampled underfoot by the British. The very first amendment, in fact, promised freedom of speech, which was sorely missed in the former colonies.

All these years later and the British never did cop on to the glories of free speech. That's why author Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued abroad. She's a Yank. The complainant is an Arab. The issue is free speech and where can a man sue an author who's accustomed to free speech. Let's go to England.

Ms. Ehrenfeld wrote an expose on the financing of Islamofascist terrorism. The bag man for the House of Saud was named, and the billionaire banker Khalid bin Mahfouz took her to court. In England. So much easier to prosecute for libel there, wouldn't you know.

That's what they call a slap suit in the halls of American justice. The rich bully tries to scare the poor writer into submission by suing. He's got more money than he knows what to do with, and he knows that Ms. Ehrenfeld is practically skint.

Publishers are watching the case closely. The implication? American books won't get published in England, and Amazon can't sell them in England, because of the libel laws. As long as a writer of any nationality can be sued in an English court if the book is available in England, there'll be corporate lawyers deciding that it's too risky to speak freely.

A British court found in Mr. bin Mahfouz's favor, and Ms. Ehrenfeld is facing a $225,000 judgment. She can't dare go to London or she'll be arrested. The state of New York, where she resides, is trying to pass a law that will protect American writers from foreign (i.e. British) judgments, by declaring that rulings from "libel tourism" cases aren't worth the foreign paper they're printed on. And you thought that the War of 1812 settled things.

The constitutional lawyers in New York State are wrangling over the new bill, not sure if it will pass muster.

Surviving a slap suit takes a great deal of courage and some powerful friends at one's back. Will Amazon step up with an open wallet to protect their right to sell products to England?

Losing The Low Profile

Nothing could better call attention to a person than to have that person followed about by a television crew. The reporter, the producer, the camera man, the sound man....it's a crowd, and too many people to go unnoticed.

A man suspected of being a top dog in the Real IRA was taken into custody yesterday in Donegal, near the border. Him and several BBC journalists, that is.

The gardai were busy with an investigation into paramilitary activity in Donegal. That's code for probing the activities of Real IRA members who are making money by the gallon along the border. They take cheap diesel meant for farm machinery, wash it up, and sell it on as more expensive motor fuel. It's been going on for a long time and the governments of both the Republic and Great Britain would like to stop it. They're losing money on the deal, and the fuel laundries are causing tremendous pollution problems.

There was the BBC crew, doing their reporting on paramilitary activity and fuel laundering, and didn't the gardai get a bead on their man when they saw the lights, camera, action. Everyone got brought in, swept up together with the criminals they were examining.

Gardai have confiscated the day's filming as well. That should provide all sorts of interesting facts for the courts to hear. The journalists are expected to protect their confidential sources, while gardai will be seeking to identify the same, with an eye to making more arrests and putting a crimp in the diesel laundry business.

The National Union of Journalists is waiting by the phone, in the event that the BBC reporters need legal aid. They are, after all, British citizens and they were lifted in Ireland, so the whole Offenses Against the State Act could cause them a bit of confusion.

The Real IRA operative? He's wishing he'd kept a low profile and not gone after his fifteen minutes of fame on the telly.

Obama - The Damage Control Tour

For months, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune has been after Barack Obama, looking for answers. How well did you know Tony Rezko, after all? How much did he actually donate to your campaigns? How involved was he when you bought the house and he bought the side yard?

Yesterday, Senator Obama sat down with editors of both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times to give some answers. Why now, you might ask.

Last night, Senator Obama sat down with a reporter for FoxNews and gave some answers.

What is happening? It's the damage control tour, to stop the rumor train before it runs away and the race to the White House goes off the rails.

The amount of money that Tony Rezko gave to the Obama campaigns has changed with every telling, ever climbing. It has now reached the admitted amount of $250,000. No favors asked for, mind you. Not at the time, at any rate.

It turns out that Mr. Obama knew that Tony Rezko was under indictment when they went house hunting. Did he not realize that the man was radioactive politically? Not to worry. Mr. Rezko assured his up and coming politician friend that there was no merit to the charges. Mr. Obama's instincts told him to believe the word of a man who is on trial and on the verge of jail time.

The Obama family minister has turned out to be a virulent racist, and where better than FoxNews to find the doughy white guys that are critical to Mr. Obama's success. What a shock for the Senator, to learn that his spiritual leader is anti-American, anti-white, and believes that the U.S. government invented AIDS to kill off the black folks. Now, if he'd heard such preaching, Mr. Obama would have quit the church. Everyone knows that you never listen to the sermons anyway. You sleep through them, eyes open, but brain not engaged.

The damage control tour will chug along, all the way to Pennsylvania. Will he manage to convince people that his faulty instincts aren't faulty any more, or will the Chicago Way prove effective once again? Deny, deny, deny.

Real Estate For The Unemployed

I make 40,000 sterling per year, David Patrick Belton told the banker. He secured a mortgage in 2000, and another in 2001, with a lovely tale of gainful employment at a filling station in Belfast.

As it turns out, Mr. Belton was on the dole at the time. Another cheater about to default on his mortgage, you're thinking, and you'll not waste a drop of sympathy for his fate. Nothing of the kind. He paid up regularly, in cash, or with third party checks. Never late, never missed a payment. Not bad for an unemployed gentleman.

The houses in County Louth and County Monaghan are about to be seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau. Even though Mr. Belton paid his bills, he got his money from cross-border fuel laundering, and a man can't launder money in real estate these days.

Diesel for use in farm equipment isn't taxed like motor fuel. Criminal gangs take the modified off-road diesel, clean it to remove elements that mark it as non-road fuel, and then sell it on to filling stations who don't mind getting petrol at a discount. The government, on the other hand, very much minds not getting the taxes due on vehicle fuel.

It's a lucrative business, and Mr. Belton made enough to buy a couple of lovely homes. But he got greedy, and went on the dole to pick up some walking around money. For fifteen years, he received handouts from either the Irish Republic or Northern Ireland, and as a charity case he paid no taxes.

That's the problem with criminal assets. You can't enjoy the fruits of your illegal labors without someone wondering how you were able to afford something and you not even working.

The Pus Arm Of The Law

Child endangerment is a serious issue. Children are often left unattended by mothers who are incapable of caring for them. Children are often left to fend for themselves when mothers have to go to work but can't afford child care.

Then there are mothers who leave a child in the car, lock the door, and walk thirty feet away to donate money to the Salvation Army. That's child endangerment in Crestwood, Illinois.

A community service officer jumped in to save the Coyne toddler. Ms. Coyne was met at her vehicle by a local police sergeant, who was in her face about this dangerous practice that the community service officer had come upon. "I've got your back, dearest, and let's charge this evil miscreant with child endangerment just like you said, honey," or would someone risk an intimate relationship and tell one's lover to get one's head out of one's ass? Ms. Coyne was at a disadvantage from the start.

The case has been dismissed. Security video showed that Ms. Coyne was not gone for more than three minutes, and she denied that her view of her car was obstructed. She had an eye on the sleeping toddler, and she had an eye on her other children. She was doing what mothers do. She was multitasking.

Ms. Coyne would like an apology, but she'd best not hold her breath while waiting. She could, of course, take satisfaction from the fact that this example of sheer idiocy is all over the news, and the Crestwood police are looking as competent as a troop of circus clowns.

Destruction For A Worthy Cause

Protesters have dug a hole in Rath Lugh. They aren't archaeologists, by any means, and they did not try to preserve the site. They dug a hole, constructed a trench and carved out a cave. All for a worthy cause.

The National Roads Authority is determined to build the M3 through the hills of Tara. If something of historical significance turns up, presuming that someone notices such items before they're clawed out of the ground and thrown into the waste pile, then archaeologists can come in and excavate. Chart and catalogue and photograph and what all, but important items must then be moved out of the way.

Plenty of people are adamantly against the road, which is going to destroy what has always been the seat of the Irish kings. Don't need a road, don't want a road, but the NRA is building them a road and they can all go feck off.

Lisa Feeney has taken up residence in Rath Lugh. She says she's quite comfortable, thanks, and plans to live on tinned foods and some seeds she's going to sprout. If she knew anything about horticulture, she'd be planning on growing mushrooms. For air circulation, there's a wind-powered pump, so she's hoping the gales continue to blow. Her chamber is stabilized by bits of wood and a car jack. A bit dicey, but she's determined.

Meath fire officials refused to enter the tunnel to evict Ms. Feeney, who has chained herself to the car jack. One tug on her arm and the whole cave crashes in, suffocating all who dare to enter. Ms. Feeney is willing to give her life to preserve Tara.

If protesters wish to occupy the sight, they're welcome to it. They've been working on their tunnel since August, and we all hope that they dug up an archaeologist while they were at it. Rather foolish to cry out for protecting a place if you've done a fair bit of damage to it yourself.

Politics Ain't Funny

For years, Saturday Night Live was seen as a television dinosaur, an old show that had long ago run out of funny bits and was broadcast out of habit. Enter a political season that has candidates going for jugulars, and finally there's something to mock.

Political strategists, however, have no sense of humour whatsoever. Nothing is funny to them because everything is serious. Poll numbers, public opinion, a spin here or a retort there...it's war.

The writers of SNL are in the entertainment business. They keep an ear to the ground, to pick up on current events that will resonate with viewers for one particular evening. This isn't writing for the history books. It's more fast food than haute cuisine.

Before Jim Downey touched a key and composed a line, plenty of other pundits had noticed that Senator Obama was getting press coverage as if he were the Second Coming. When the first bit aired, featuring a fawning press and a debate that sought to crucify the female candidate, people laughed. They saw it aired on news programs and they laughed again. They talked about the bit at work, and more viewers became aware that SNL was funny again. Mr. Downey did his job, and did it well.

Not so fast, sir, said the Obama handlers. You're clearly backing Ms. Clinton with your satire. We don't find it amusing in the least. That actor playing Obama, he isn't even black. Thanks a million, went the Clinton campers, for letting the public see how unfair the media have been.

The SNL writers are said to be pro-Obama. Their job is to make people laugh, and it doesn't make any difference who they skewer. That's the nature of political satire.

Obama's handlers come from Chicago by way of the Daley machine. They must not have ever spent a Saturday evening at The Second City. Even they had, they wouldn't have gotten the jokes.

The Poet And His Boys

Neasa Ni Chianain went to Nepal to make a documentary about poet Cathal O Searcaigh. What she came back with was a story of a Western man exploiting boys.

There has been an uproar, from those who felt that RTE should never have broadcast the program, to those who think An Garda Siochana should investigate the poet for child abuse. Was the director trying to tarnish the image of a talented writer? Was the talented writer an unrepentant pervert?

As a noted Irish poet, O Searcaigh's works are studied in Irish schools. If he's a pedophile as portrayed, should children study his poems? It took two hours of discussion before the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment could decide what to do.

In the end, it was determined that the work had literary merit, and should remain part of the curriculum. No need for teachers to say a word about the man's sexual preferences, no need to bring in his private life since that's private.

Minister of Education Mary Hanafin has taken the advice of the council and decreed that students sitting the Leaving Cert will find O Searcaigh on the test. The written words are too important to be cast aside. No one is complaining about Oscar Wilde any more, are they?

Envy Or Parsimony

What value to the citizens of Ireland, asks Enda Kenny. The entire cabinet takes to the skies, flying to every country with decent weather, and at taxpayer expense. Where's the return?

Mr. Kenny has questioned the benefit of the annual St. Patrick's Day migration. Last year, it cost more the 500,000 euro to send the ministers off on their various destinations. Mr. Kenny, being in opposition, was not invited to go along for the ride.

As usual, An Taoiseach will be in Washington D.C. on Saturday, to present the traditional Waterford crystal bowl of shamrock. Shamrock is nothing more than newly sprouted clover, but it's tradition and it has to be done.

There are trips planned to China, to Italy, to here and to there. What good does it do the Irish people?

It's exposure. On the news, on the radio, getting interviewed so the listening audience can be charmed by the brogue -- and won't you come visit us. Won't you come and invest in our country? Won't you come and build a factory or shuttle your profits through our low corporate tax rate nation?

Everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day. There's millions of descendants of the Irish diaspora all over the globe, and they buy things and run companies and travel. Once a year, the ministers head out to remind folks that there's a quaint little island tucked up near England, and the tourists do indeed show up and spend their money on food and lodging and souvenirs.

The value in travel? It's a sales call, a face to face encounter with the people you're selling to, and the ministers are selling Ireland. And don't think that Enda Kenny wouldn't love to be the one handing over the bowl of shamrock and sitting down to dinner with the most powerful man on the planet.

Was She Or Wasn't She

With a wave of her hand, Hillary Clinton brought peace to Northern Ireland....or not. Depends on who you talk to.

She didn't do a thing to bring peace, says Barack Obama. All talk, all puffery and posturing.

Easy for him to say, seeing as he wasn't there. What about the others, those who were there in Belfast when the dealing was done?

There's himself, of course, but you'd expect Bill to say that the missus was a key member of his team, ten years ago. Totally biased opinion, and not worth a second glance.

David Trimble was minister at the time. representing Whitehall. The Irish love Bill for the peace deal, so how can a proper English type be positive? According to Mr. Trimble, Ms. Clinton was along for the ride, like any other wife of any other executive. First Ladies are supposed to travel with their presidential mates. She wasn't there at the table when the negotiations took place. Why, she was nothing more than a cheerleader.

Gerry Adams was there at the time. As far as he's concerned, Ms. Clinton is within her rights to say that she played a role. As for David Trimble, he's a shower of shite that one. Mr. Adams met with Ms. Clinton, in her capacity as the First Lady and the Senator. What does Trimble know of their meetings, talking out of his head and he doesn't know a thing.

John Hume was there at the time. The former leader of the SDLP can't believe that anyone is so dense as to downplay Ms. Clinton's role in the peace process. She played a positive role, he says, and he ought to know since he was there at the table as well.

Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell was there at the time. He was the chairman who presided over the peace negotiations. In his opinion, Ms. Clinton was involved and she helped the process along. She did more than the average First Lady, and went so far as to found an organization to encourage women to engage in the political arena. Hence, Mr. Trimble's animosity towards a woman who encouraged others to get out of the kitchen and raise their voices.

Who's got it right? The nationalists like Gerry Adams and John Hume? Or the loyalists?

As Time Runs Out

Worried about global warming and all the ensuing catastrophes?

In a panic over global cooling and a new Ice Age?

Forget all that. It's all going to end in a horrible sequence of events that will culminate in our home planet being sucked into the sun's orbit. We, and all that we know, will be vaporized.

We have as little as 7.59 billion years to find another place to live.

It's never too soon to shop around for new digs. Our current neighborhood is going downhill and we have to move out before it's too late.

Scientific research must focus on interplanetary travel. The earth won't be around forever, so why waste money on tarting up a losing proposition? Ice, heat, pollution, overpopulation, what have you....none of it matters, does it, when you realize there is something much worse to be afraid of?

Thank You From The Governor Of Illinois

Since Tony Rezko went on trial, the spotlight has been shining on the governor of Illinois. Things have gotten so bad that Rod Blagojevich won't even leave his Chicago condominium for his office in the State of Illinois Building. All those reporters, all the time, ready to pounce and ask embarrassing questions about pay-to-play politics.

At this time, Governor Blagojevich would like to extend his bottomless gratitude to New York's Elliott Spitzer. Just when evidence given at trial showed how corrupt the Republican and Democratic leadership is in Illinois, Mr. Spitzer was good enough to hire a prostitute. Now the spotlight is glaring on him, and Mr. Blagojevich can breathe a little easier.

Doesn't everyone love a sex scandal? How very thoughtful of Mr. Spitzer to add that certain touch of arrogance coupled with outrageous sums of money. Wealth and deceit, all rolled up into a neat package. Who cares about the state of corruption in Illinois now?

Shaking down companies that wanted to get a piece of state business is dull fodder indeed, when a reporter can tell us all about ratings and fees for jet-setting whores. Rezko putting in the fix for those who paid the bribes, seeking plum posts on state boards? Who cares to hear about that, when psychologists can spend hours analyzing Mrs. Spitzer's body language and divorce lawyers can debate possible settlements and marriage counselors can preach about reconciliation and forgiveness.

In recent testimony, it was revealed that the top Republican in Illinois held a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich. But the reporting focus has shifted back to New York, and the Governor of Illinois is hoping that no one will hear what comes up at the trial for the next few days. Thanks, Elliott, you're a pal.

A Man Walks Into A Bar

A man walks into a bar, right? And he's got a sawn-off shotgun.

Not a joke at all, when you see a weapon with that kind of firepower. That was the scenario last night in Limerick, when a man wearing a balaclava strolled into the local pub and pointed a shotgun at a customer.

What does any right-thinking person do? Run away and get help, you might suppose, but this is County Limerick, after all.

Gardai were eventually called in, but not before four people in the pub went to the aid of their fellow drinker. By the time help arrived, it was the criminal who was in need of help. Now, if he'd gone into the pub and the man he was after was alone, that's one thing. But to walk into a busy place and expect to hold the entire place at bay is quite another.

There was safety in numbers in this case. Four potential victims set upon the gunman and he ended up at the Mid-Western Regional hospital with head injuries.

And aren't we all relieved to know that none of the four got hurt in the altercation? Nor did they get arrested for battery. Good to know that four men won't be prosecuted for believing that they are, indeed, their brother's keeper.

The Shuttered Workshop

Aurora, Illinois, is a hard-scrabble sort of town. Part of the rust belt, it used to boast of a large population and plenty of heavy industry.

Heavy industry pulled out long ago. The population dropped, following the jobs.

How to generate taxes when the tax producers have gone? The city of Aurora started up a literary festival five years ago, to bring in the tourists and their tourist dollars. There's more to urban renewal than riverboat casinos and gamblers, after all.

There'll be no two-day Midwest Literary Festival this year. Too few people were coming, and the cost could no longer be justified by the diminishing returns.

Writers used to turn up at the one-day workshop, to mingle with published authors and the occasional literary agent. Well known novelists were brought in, to push their books and speak to those who would like to be in their place, but year after year, the numbers in the seats declined.

Rather than put together a festival, the city will spread things out and bring in whatever author happens to be on a book tour and is willing to stop in Aurora for a few hours. No more workshop for aspiring writers. The best they'll get is a chance to ask a question or two.

Local favorite Scott Turow is scheduled to appear on April 6, the first author of what is hoped to be a long series.

An expensive festival closes down, in favor of the more affordable collection of speaking engagements. Doesn't that prove that there's no money in writing?

Motoring In Ireland

In a land famous for tea drinking and beer by the pint, you'd not want to down too much liquid before hitting the road.

There was a time when few people had cars and not many people did much driving around the island. Back then, there was little need for rest areas and public toilets. Things have certainly changed in Ireland, but there still isn't any place to pull over and answer nature's call.

The National Roads Authority has come to see that driving with one's legs crossed and one's mind focused entirely on prayer (or locating a patch of scrub in which to find relief), is downright dangerous. An average, healthy human being cannot drive from the south end of Wexford all the way to the border without running out of petrol or running out of bladder space.

As Ireland enters another phase of its growth, the motorway rest area will soon be added to a fine list of accomplishments. Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has signed the order, and no less than two service stations will be built on the M1. Ten more are said to be coming for other major roads.

What was a nightmare before, driving for miles with small children and their small bladders, will become a joy. Families running up to Belfast to take advantage of the lower prices will not have to bundle the brood in nappies. No need to dehydrate before attempting a trip north. As they do in every other civilized and motorized country, you can pull into the service station area and make a mad dash to the jacks, rather than water the roadside flora and hope that no one can see you.

Pity that the cost of fuel is so high. Who can afford to drive at all these days?

More Time For The Book Tour

Don't feel sorry for Samantha Power. She's not worrying about how to pay her mortgage these days.

She's not even in America at the moment. Ms. Power is in Dublin, hawking her book. And maybe she'll be squeezing in a bit of a visit home at the same time.

Ms. Power is considered an expert on genocide, and as such she was serving as a foreign policy advisor to the Obama campaign. On top of that credential, she's won a Pulitzer Prize, so she's got some talent to fall back on, now that she's been forced to resign the advising post.

All those brains, and she didn't know that when you give an interview, on the record, to a reporter, you can't just mumble an aside about something being off the record and expect the reporter to not use the quote. This is off the record, she said, and you can bet that the reporter's ears pricked up and every word was transcribed with accuracy.

As an expert on genocide, Ms. Power described Ms. Clinton as a monster, hell bent on winning. That, in itself, is hardly news. Most people figured out long ago that the former First Lady was ambition on legs.

There was one other tiny remark that the author on her book tour made to the BBC. All the things that Barack Obama has been saying about pulling out the troops from Iraq and ending the war? Don't worry. He has no intention of following through on any of his campaign rhetoric. Isn't that the Chicago Way?

Make It A Lifetime Ban

Give it up for Foley's Pub in Manhattan. Management has banned any and all singing of Danny Boy for the month of March.

It's a wretched song, full of smarmy Victorian sentiments that wail about death and separation and when you come back for me I'll be dead and buried and let's have a good cry.

The song is popular with Irish-American politicians who can't quite hit all the notes but by God they won't be made to shut it. And they have to trot it out every year for St. Patrick's Day, like it's some kind of holiday carol.

There's more than enough sad songs in the Irish songbook, tunes that were actually written by Irish people. Forget the Danny Boy nonsense. It was penned by a Brit.

Favor the Shinners? Warble a few stanzas of Only Our Rivers Run Free and there'll not be a dry eye in the house. Thinking of romance? You'll melt a girl's heart with an on-key rendition of The Grey Lakes of Loughrea.

Please. No more pipes a'callin' from glen to glen and down the mountainside. Try a bit of this instead:

The Pot And The Kettle And The Black

Twenty years ago, Caoimhin MacBradaigh went to the funeral of an IRA member who had been killed in the "line of duty". A loyalist murdered Mr. MacBradaigh at the funeral. Now Sinn Fein would like to honor the memory of the man.

Edwin Poots is outraged. How dare the Shinners suggest that one of the new Irish language bodies in Northern Ireland be used to memorialize a terrorist? Of course the man was a terrorist. He was killed at a funeral for another terrorist so he's tarred by the same brush.

As culture minister, Mr. Poots must look out for the culture, and he doesn't want IRA culture to be glorified. It's deplorable, he says. It's a slap at the beautiful Irish language, and it's a slap at the unionists who might, should hell freeze over, wish to learn how to speak Irish. Sure, he was against funding for legislation that would have promoted the Irish language, but he's a unionist and unionists are in the majority and they aren't Irish so why waste money?

Having lost that battle, Mr. Poots has taken another tack, lambasting Sinn Fein over the choice of a name, and who cares that the murder victim spoke Irish? All those Shinners go around speaking Irish just to annoy the Democratic Unionists.

In other news, the most vicious and vile mural in Belfast is finally getting painted over, after ten years of negotiations. The huge image that celebrates the glories of the loyalist thugs who terrorized Belfast's Catholics will be no more. In its place will rise another mural, celebrating William of Orange and his victory over the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne.

Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot. Both black.

Taking Attendance At The Funeral

Was it a grand funeral, the late Ari Squire asked his widow. Did many attend?

Mrs. Squire did a fine job of pretending that she was mourning her beloved husband, killed in a freak accident. The corpse that she buried was not that of Mr. Squire.

Two weeks ago, authorities found a body crushed under a pick-up truck in a garage belonging to Ari Squire. The garage had been set ablaze, but the height and weight of the victim fit Mr. Squire's measurements and he was presumed dead. Mrs. Squire held a memorial service last week. Her husband sent her an e-mail, asking for the attendance figures.

A day after Mr. Squire's supposed demise, Justin Newman's mother reported him missing when he failed to come home after going out to take up a new job....with Ari Squire.

The local coroner was a bit confused by the evidence before him. Mr. Squire was inked, but the body was not tattooed. Then there were the dental records, which didn't match. Couldn't be Mr. Squire, in that case, so who was it? When the DNA test results came in, the police easily determined that it was Justin Newman who was dead. In which case, where was Ari Squire?

Police in Eureka, Missouri discovered Mr. Newman's car in a motel parking lot. They found his name on a list of missing persons and went to talk to him. They never did get to tell him to call his mother, she was worried about him.

Mr. Squire put a bullet in his head rather than surrender and face justice. He may have thought he was fooling everyone, by coloring his hair and wearing blue contact lenses so that he looked a bit like Justin Newman. He was not bright enough to figure out that his teeth and his genetic material could never be made to match the man he killed.

A man with substantial debt, Mr. Squire may have been driven to kill as a means to get his hands on a $5 million life insurance policy. Mrs. Squire was questioned but has yet to be charged as an accessory. That begs the question: is Mrs. Squires entitled to the settlement? After all, her late husband is really most sincerely dead this time.

Literary Representation And Hand-outs

You know that you need a literary agent to gain access to the halls of publishing. Did you know that your agent is good for a hand-out as well?

Faye Bender, the sucker who fell for Margaret Seltzer's literary scam, apparently is a soft touch. The woman's a talented agent and she's been in the trenches for a time, but anything outside of literary pursuits is a new world. The agent got her cut of the royalties, and then turned around and gave some of it back to Ms. Seltzer, and it was all another scam.

As part of her elaborate scheme, Margaret Seltzer not only passed a novel off as a memoir, she also claimed to have established a charitable foundation that was meant to help the poor and underprivileged that she wrote of. Poor Ms. Seltzer was poor indeed and couldn't afford to pay for server space. In steps her agent, Faye Bender, with wallet wide open.

The site promoted Ms. Seltzer's book, but as it turns out, there was actually no charitable foundation in existence. What Ms. Bender did was to pay for some of her client's publicity.

And what of the other organizations that were listed on the website? Strange how it turned out that no one involved in those charitable groups had ever heard of Ms. Seltzer or her foundation.

Trying to land an agent? Close out your query letter with a promise not to come begging. The commission that they earn will be theirs to keep in its entirety, and you'll cover the cost of your own webspace.

No Mid-Week Nudity

Pole dancing is so much in demand in Kilkenny that Whispers has to shut down on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Now, you'd think that the pole-dancing club was doing poorly, but you'd have reached a wrong conclusion. No, the place has to close two nights of the week so the dancers can rest. Up and down the pole, spinning until their brains are scrambled, and it's no wonder that they have to put their feet up every now and again.

Dave Coughlan, Whispers' director, promises to fling the doors open every night of the week after St. Patrick's Day, when all Irishmen miraculously begin to go out to lap-dancing clubs every night of the week. Do the girls not need a rest after the 17th of March? If they're too tired now, what's so magical about St. Patrick's Day that they could last the week?

All of Kilkenny is still waiting for An Bord Pleanala to reach a decision on whether or not the facility requires planning permission. The group that gathers every Friday to shame the patrons is, of course, praying to St. Patrick for a positive response. There'd be a better chance of Whispers being shut down if the planning people could determine that the pole dancing business violates planning laws.

Given that it's been so busy that the ladies need a two day rest, and assuming that Mr. Coughlan's prediction comes true, it's only a matter of time before the place has to close its doors every day. The dancers would spin themselves to death otherwise, with such a press of business.

Trust Me

Your fiancee is about to have her manuscript published. She's been given an advance that approaches $100,000. A freelance reporter asks you to verify her story. What do you say?

Ah, sure it's all as she's said, a wise man would say. Who'd be fool enough to give up that kind of money? Especially when Penguin is fool enough to print a nonsense and pay handsomely for it.

Margaret Seltzer made up a whopping great lie of a tale. She said it was true, and her word was good enough for literary agent Faye Bender and publisher Geoffrey Kloske and editor Sarah McGrath. The book that Ms. Seltzer wrote was not a memoir at all, at all, and isn't the entire publishing world shocked.

A white girl in a black foster home? Don't question that impossible scenario, lest you appear to be racist.

A white girl, running drugs for a black gang? In a racially unmixed neighborhood? Does this not defy all credibility?

Who's your foster uncle, Ms. Seltzer was asked. He's in prison, she said. And then she named a prison. Did anyone check with the Bureau of Prisons to be sure that the uncle was indeed locked up there? No, but they did verify that the prison actually existed. How difficult is it to say that he's locked up in Folsom, Dwight, Pontiac, Leavenworth, or what all? And the freelance reporter is stunned that Ms. Seltzer's fable wasn't outed?

Ira Silverberg, the literary agent who represented the fraud that was J.T. Leroy, doesn't believe that the publishing industry is capable of fact checking. How about just listening to the little voice in one's head that says this is the biggest load of shite ever yet produced. Publishers should keep in mind that there's plenty of would-be authors out there who hold to the axiom that there's a sucker born every minute.

Pepsi Prize

I'm truly honored, Pepsi, that you've chosen me as a prize winner.

What has me stumped is your address. You claim to be located on Canary Wharf in London, or at least the Pepsi Company's Promotion/Prize Award Department is there. I'd have expected an e-mail that originated in New York or San Antonio or the like.

The Promo Board is going to pay me 1.5 million pounds sterling. Lovely, but could I get it in euros? Easier to bank, and I don't want to cause too much trouble for the bank teller, having to calculate the exchange rate and all.

Time to get down to business if I'm to be a newly minted millionaire. Mr. Vanden MacAlister is sitting in his office on Canada Square, just waiting for my information. What does he need to know? My name, oddly enough. You'd think he'd have that data at hand, since he's the one contacting me. Why, it almost sounds like he's picked my e-mail address at random.

Age, occupation, phone, fax and mobile, annual income, how often I drink Pepsi. Easy to answer. Sex? Yes, please.

There's another puzzle here as well. The web address of the computer that sent me this exciting news is based in a private residence in Whitecourt, Alberta. That's in Canada. Nowhere near Canary Wharf, which is in London, England.

Perhaps that's where Rhonda Williams, the Online Co-ordinator, is co-ordinating all these prize notifications. Of course, that explains it. This couldn't possibly be any sort of scam.

Please Look In On Granny

Is she still breathing? Able to sign over her pension check? The Department of Social and Family Affairs would like to know.

It's possible that as many as 8,000 pension recipients living outside of Ireland are receiving their weekly stipend, but they're a bit, shall we say, dead. No one is quite certain.

Money is sent overseas but there has been no verification that it arrives into the hands of the person who is entitled to collect. If funds are tight, the heirs might be tempted to deposit granny's pension in the bank and then use the funds for themselves, while dear granny is enjoying her heavenly reward. After all, if no one in Ireland is looking, what's the harm?

The harm is somewhere in the vicinity of one million euro per week if all 8,000 recipients are six feet under. Even if the percentage of dead pensioners is small, it's still money thrown away.

Social welfare staff has begun the process of verification, sending notices to overseas pension recipients and asking them to please confirm that they are, indeed, alive. After a set period of time, a lack of response will be taken as an indication of death, and the checks will stop.

Been living on the pig's back, have you, with pension funds that your granny can't use anymore because she's deceased? The party will soon be over. Social and Family Affairs have copped on.

Make It A Memoir

A riveting tale, set on the border at the height of The Troubles. A young man, running guns for the IRA, forced into service to save his family. Faye Bender will love it. She's a great one for the fiction. I mean memoir.

James Frey did it. Misha Defonseca did it. Most recently, Margaret Seltzer did it. Why not me? Sure I'd love to read a review of my great work in the New York Times, penned by noted critic Michiko Kakutani. She'll call my memoir humane and deeply affecting. My publisher will give me a high five figure advance.

Grand, until a sibling rings up the publisher and tells them it's a cod. Never lived further north than Rathkeale, they'd say. Never touched a gun and wouldn't know a Shinner from shinola.

Margaret Seltzer lied through her teeth, but her cause was noble if you listen to her excuses. Giving a voice to the voiceless, she penned a tale of a white girl raised by black gang bangers, running drugs for the Bloods or the Crips or the Ulster Volunteers for all we know. No one questioned her details. No one checked her facts.

Faye Bender fell in love with the prose, sent the manuscript out on submission, and got an editor at Riverhead to bite. The book was laid down; the author went out on a tour, and then her sister ratted her out.

Fiction is such a tough market, the agents like to tell us in the rejection letters. Is it any wonder that some would lie and cheat to get their prose published?

But just in case I can pull off my own scam, Up the 'RA.

More Response Times

Just over three weeks, and Mary Beth Chappel of Zachary Shuster Harmsworth has decided to pass on the full manuscript. Strong writing, she says, but the story's not for her. Maybe it's been told too many times. Maybe there aren't enough famous characters in it.

That's hot these days, historical fiction that re-tells the life of some famous person. No one cares about the servants' lives, or the existence of those who only watched the important person pass by. The story that agents want is not the one I tell, so it's a pass.

Someone was intrigued enough by the query to visit my website and read the excerpt posted there. But that strong writing must not have been enough to garner a request for more, because I've yet to get an e-mail from anyone I've queried in the past couple of weeks.

It wasn't Joy Harris knocking at my digital door. I sent her a query letter via snail-mail ten days ago. Her rejection letter arrived today, postmarked Friday afternoon, but my web visitor came calling well after dinner on that same day.

I've reached that hazy point between giving up and continuing. I could do the research for the next manuscript I've been plotting out. Or I could drop the whole thing and give up the stress of waiting and querying and the whole idiotic business. I could write another short story and pursue some tonier literary journals for a decent credential. Or I could abandon the lot.

I'd go read something, to take my mind off it, but my last trip to the library resulted in slim pickings. There's nothing there that piques my interest. Good thing I'm not a literary agent. I'd have starved to death by now.

The State of Denial

What went on, exactly, at the meetings that were held at St. Andrews? Did Ian Paisley really say what Gerry Adams says he said? Sir Reg Empey, leader of the Ulster Unionists, would like to know.

According to the St. Andrews agreement, police service in the northern six counties was to be put under local control. Instead of being run from London, the PSNI was to be answerable to the boys and girls sitting in Stormont. Some of those boys and girls are Catholics, as luck would have it, and can any unionist really accept a Papist having anything to do with police business?

Speaking for the Democratic Unionists, Mr. Paisley insists that his group never said that May of 2008 was the deadline for devolution of policing powers. No dates were set at all, and the IRA has to disband their army council, and end their sectarian campaigns against the sectarian Orange Orders and did that last bit change the subject for once and all?

The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom are both pushing for devolution, and both governments believe that May, 2008, was the agreed month. Sinn Fein has been trumpeting the deadline as well, so you'd think that if three out of the four attendees believe in the date, then the fourth attendee is in a state of denial.

With Shinners nosing around the police records, and investigators looking into collusion between the British Army and the RUC, it isn't looking good for the old loyalist dinosaurs. Are they headed for extinction after May, or will Westminster blink?

Homeless In New York City

Gramercy Green was on the verge of becoming an outpost of Ireland. Around eighty investors had paid their deposits on luxury condominiums, planning to snap up a holiday home in the city that never sleeps. Wouldn't you know it, but just when the new owners were ready to take possession, New York University barges in and the holiday home plan is up the flue.

The developer ran into a problem when the booming housing market took a tumble. The Irish had bought up 80 flats, but JD Carlisle had the rest of the 290 condos to unload and there were precious few takers.

Looking around for another buyer, the developer was approached by New York University. The school needed additional accommodation for their students, and what better place than the luxuriously kitted out Gramercy Green?

The Irish are getting their money back, along with a little extra to cover the difference in the exchange rate so that they don't take a bath on their investment. Even with such generous terms, the buyers are stunned. They had no idea that there was a back-out clause in the contract, and they're not at all happy to have their dream of New York City living crushed so coldly.

KMS, the Dublin agency that handled the sales, will be left to sort things out and handle the fall-out from some angry investors who are wealthy enough to afford a second home that's worth close to $1 million. That's going to be some kind of angry.

Look Before You Leap

Leap year day is upon us. By tradition, women are allowed to turn the tables on the men and do the proposing when they've marriage in mind.

At the same time, some alarming news has come out of New York. It seems that Gabriel Byrne, the Dublin-born actor, has been declared "hot" and "a hunk, totally". It's his hands, some say, so expressive.

He listens with a rapt expression, exuding sensitivity while his beady little Irish eyes and great honking potato nose preclude any suggestion of softness. He's a manly man, but he's vulnerable and cuddly and you'd like to take him home and fix him a nice cuppa tea.

Through transference, women will pick up on Irish accents and associate the sound with Gabriel Byrne's sensitive psychiatrist from In Treatment. With Mr. Byrne on the mind, they're liable to fall head over heels for that Irish ex-pat at the end of the bar, and with Leap Year Day as an excuse, it's a mistake in the making.

Should you find yourself falling into this trap, keep in mind the advice of my elderly neighbor. Don't marry an Irishman, she said, they won't notice if you're covered in soot or dressed up to the nines. Marry an Italian. He'll always tell you how beautiful you look.

So Far, Little Conflict

So said the New York Times on Monday. In an article about global migration, Jason DeParle stated that Ireland could boast of little anti-immigrant violence. From his perch in the Big Apple, it might appear to be so, but the poor lad's a touch misguided.

While there are those who protest loudly when the government tries to expel the illegal immigrants, there are also those who attack the non-Irish. Little conflict? For the families of Pawel Kalite and Marius Szwajkos,, there's too much conflict.

Hooliganism at its worst, according to Bertie Ahern. It's the drink, according to Mary Upton of the Labour Party. There's no swimming pool, there's no teen cafe or gymnasium or library or hang-out available. There's nothing for teens to do without clubs open late hours.

The official line, of course, is that a double murder had nothing to do with immigration, but it's hard to argue that two Poles were not targeted because they were different. This isn't the first time that the gardai have been called to the scene of a crime involving foreigners.

To read the New York Times, you'd think that the Irish are welcoming the waves of new faces, but the reality on the ground is very different. Strange faces and different languages are not welcomed with open arms.

The two Polish nationals had come to Ireland in search of work, but when a gang of teens confronted them outside of a chip shop in Drimnagh, the kids weren't concernced with the men's troubles. They wanted the men to buy alcohol for them, and the Poles refused. A young man went home, got a screwdriver, and came back so that he could stab Mr. Kalite and Mr. Szwajkos.

They aren't the first foreign nationals to be murdered. They won't be the last.

Waiting For The First Move

Get up off your feckin' arses, says the deputy mayor of Kilkenny. If there's to be something done to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, then move on it.

Last year, the clever tourism officials of Kilkenny declared that a parade was so last century, so dated and downscale. They brought in a street festival that smacked of continental flair, ever so European in scope, thinking that an updated affair would bring in the tourists.

It brought in the begrudgers, didn't it? Oh, sure, they wanted something grand and when performers failed to show up and the stewards couldn't keep order, then the complaints came pouring in. Visitors hated it, and it was done for their benefit. The mayor was quick to jump in, saving his reputation with a call to review the review of the parade.

So all you who have whinged about the festival, come up with something better. You weren't happy with what was done; you plan out what you want. A parade? Fine, then organize it. Go to your neighbors, go to the civic organizations in the community, go to whoever you need to get with and put a parade together.

Just try to organize a parade and see how feckin' impossible it is to please some people who like nothing better than criticizing what others have slaved over. It's all on you. Make your own parade and don't start crying about the failure when it flops. And don't blame the deputy mayor. It'll be your fault when everyone goes off to Dublin's grand spectacle and no one bothers with Kilkenny.

Let Them Eat Cake

Bad weather last season. The wheat crop in Europe came in below expectations. Drought in Australia and New Zealand put a crimp in grain production. Poor harvests in Russia and Argentina, coupled with limited stocks in storage, resulted in a decrease in exports. Russia and Argentina will keep their wheat for their own people, thank you very much, so go look elsewhere.

Prices are going up, as anyone who buys carbs is aware. Price hikes lead to inflation, and countries who export grain are keeping it at home, to keep local prices down and hedge against inflation that leads to price hikes which lead to revolutionary tendencies. Just ask King Louis and his lovely missus, Marie Antoinette.

People want to eat wheat, carbaphobics excepted. Low supply, high demand, and there goes the price curve. But if exporters won't sell at any price, where does a nation go to get its daily bread?

The wheat market in Chicago was a wild ride yesterday. Given the capitalistic system, it's easy to buy wheat in America as long as you're willing to meet the price. Americans will watch their amber waves of grain shipped overseas, and then head to the bakery to pay even more for a hamburger bun, but that's the nature of a free market.

Farmers will make a bit more per bushel, the middlemen will rake in the cash, and only the wealthy will be able to afford a loaf. At least hair powdering isn't figuring into the mix, to elevate the price of grain into the stratosphere.

We're heading back to the good old days, when the ancestors lived on spuds and buttermilk because it was all they could afford, while ships left Irish harbours loaded with grain for the export market.

This no carb diet business is starting to sound like a good idea.....except that the price of corn is running off the charts and meat protein comes from corn-fed creatures.

It's been suggested that higher grain prices will encourage farmers to plant more and the increased supply will yield lower prices next year. Unless we really are headed into another Ice Age and grain-growing weather doesn't come through. Marie Antoinette was a victim of that exact sort of foul weather.

The Minnow's Second Fishbowl

The new digs on St. Stephen's Green are working out well for the executives of Education Media and Publishing Group, aka HM Riverdeep, aka HMH, or whatever alias they're using these days. The lovely fishbowl that was created by developer Garret Kelleher has been so functional that the little minnows in the creative department are to get a new home for themselves as well.

Price Waterhouse Cooper has moved out of their space on Tara Street over to Spencer Dock, which sounds like a better place to house a whale of publishing firm. Instead of locating near water, EMPG's clever set is shifting to Tara Street. The current offices at the Digital Exchange Building are too small, now that the little minnow Riverdeep has swallowed up some big meals.

They'll swim up to the second floor of Ashford House, where the rent is pegged at 611,000 euro per year, on a nine year sub-lease. After that, one would suppose, they'll need an even bigger place because EMPG is going to keep on growing.

Of course, this being accommodation for staff, the place isn't so grand and the rent works out to around 41 euro per square foot. Compare that to Barry O'Callaghan's office space in the former Department of Justice building, which costs 65 euro per square foot. Rather like the difference between an exotic coral reef reproduction and a ten gallon tank with a noisy filter.

If HM Riverdeep-Harcourt-Greenwood-etc. is getting bigger space in Dublin, does it mean that the Irish employees aren't facing the rounds of lay-offs that have rumbled through Orlando, Boston and San Diego? An bhfuil gaeilge agat*?

*pronounced: on will gale-geh ah-gat....meaning: do you speak Irish.

Literally Outsourced

Court documents are important bits of paper, and the British government believes in storing them safely. The Court Service in Belfast found that an outsourced venue was the way to go, and it turns out that their documents were, literally, outsourced.

A search of outbuildings on a farm in County Tyrone turned up five filing cabinets, stuffed with legal papers. No one had reported them missing, since the storage of the documents had been outsourced and there was no presumption that the paperwork was not being properly minded.

It was confirmed today that some of the documents are thirty years old, and no one is saying if anything of importance was tucked away on the farm near Ballygawley. Private information, data that could be of importance to the IRA, or anything along those lines? No one's talking.

Expect the independent contractor who was charged with keeping tabs on the files to be sued for dereliction of duty, breach of contract, and that sort of thing. Expect that further outsourcing of records storage will be examined, and the use of outbuildings when outsourcing will be made illegal.

Doesn't that just prove that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?

As Told By Mom, Dad, Granny, Aunt, Uncle....

Starbucks will be selling a book for you to read while you sip your carmel machiatto espresso corretto concoction. But their book is only one side of the story. Is this the wave of the publishing future? One tale, as told by father and son. When will the mother put out her version? Maybe a take on things from the dog are in the offing.

Misery lit is coming to the coffee shop. David Sheff tells the story of his son's meth addiction in all its gory detail, so that you can wallow in his tragedy and feel quite good about yourself. You can afford a cup of fancy brew at Starbucks, after all, so you've got that going for you. Now you can read about someone else's troubles and pat yourself on the back, knowing that you and yours would never sink so low.

Son Nic, the one who lived through the addiction, has put his deep thoughts and horrible experiences on paper as well. Through his lens of meth-muddled memory, you can explore the world of the addict as he journeys deeper into the depths of despair. Then you can turn to dad's book and see what it was like to watch such events unfold.

The twin tomes are made for book groups. Read them both, compare and contrast, what was it like for him and how could he cope with that.....before long you've descended into a chat about how it would never happen to you because your child doesn't do this, that, and the other, and you're a better parent than David, thank God.

Sheff pere et fils are on good terms these days, reading each other's books and gaining insight into one another's heads. How long will the camaraderie last, you have to wonder. How long before someone checks his Amazon ranking and compares it to the other, to revel in higher book sales and greater popularity? It's a dangerous and slippery slope, this notion of literary competition in the family.

The Weak Dollar

Economists have not been terribly upset by the sinking value of the American dollar. With an election in the offing, the politicians are trying to spin the exchange rate to their favor, but there is a positive side to the current state of monetary affairs.

Bombardier, a Belfast-based airplane manufacturer, is hoping to drum up some business among airlines looking to replace old fleets. All those DC-9s and MD-80s are logging enough miles to wear them out, and Bombardier would like to promote its new CSeries as the natural choice for the likes of Lufthansa.

The planes would be ready by 2013, as long as the company has orders for 50 -100 units, to make it economically feasible to develop. With little manufacturing in Belfast, the British government was hoping for the boost, but sterling is dear these days.

Bombardier may turn to their factories in Canada, and farm out wing production to a country offering cheaper costs....the U.S.

Thanks to the weak dollar, Belfast could lose out to the Yanks and the favorable exchange rate. There's an economic stimulus that we can all applaud.

Looking For Answers

So Joelle Delbourgo wasn't impressed with my meagre credentials. Nor was she swept away by the first chapter of the manuscript.

What might an agent be looking for? I picked up a copy of Mozart's Sister, to get some idea of what makes the cut for debut fiction. Picked it up and put it down. I wasn't drawn in by the prose.

Don't start a novel with an info dump we're told, but the novel begins with a long section of "As you know, Bob" details. I understand why the tactic is generally forbidden. It makes for a dull run of prose that I skimmed over in search of something concrete.

I tried to keep going, but I was surprised! by the number of surprising! statements. I had to turn to the frontispiece, to see if by some chance the novel was put out by a vanity press without editors on board. No, it was Crown Books, a real publisher. Turn to the back flap, and discover that the writer lives in Italy. That explains the emotion, the use of exclamation marks to substitute for the hands that Italians cannot help but flap about as they speak.

If this is what agents are seeking, I have no hope. I not only can't write like that, but I wouldn't want to. Mozart's Sister might be shelved with historical fiction, but there are different styles within the genre and I don't fit.

It doesn't matter in the end. The author thanks her literary agent but I've never heard of her and I've queried them all. I'm not ready to start an agent search in Europe. Not yet, at any rate.

Foreclosing On Edith Wharton

Literature students may not have a love of Edith Wharton, having been forced to read Ethan Frome at too early an age. One has to have a few years on them to fully appreciate the sense of despair.

There is despair in Lenox, Massachusetts. Ms. Wharton's first home, the one she shared for a time with her husband until she had enough, was turned into a museum some time ago. The house and property are about to be foreclosed. Rather like a House of Mirth, as it turns out.

Directors of the site had been borrowing for years to fund operating expenses associated with operating the Mount. Then there was the loan taken out to purchase Ms. Wharton's huge library from a British book collector.

Like Lily Bart, they relished the elegance but had no means to pay for it. Taking advantage of debt financing only delayed the inevitable, as loans will come due and banks will ask for their money. Donations from Ms. Wharton's many fans does not begin to cover the expense of borrowing, just as Lily Bart learned that the lifestyle she wanted was not within her means.

The Mount is a listed building, and someone might wish to own the home, but as a private residence and not a public place where writers could come and soak up the atmosphere that inspired Edith Wharton.

A new board of directors was installed over a year ago, filled with people who know something about business and less about literature. Given a debt-riddled property to manage, the directors may have arrived too late to salvage the Mount unless someone with deep pockets comes forward. If not, the Mount will die as a public venue, as Lily Bart died in penury.

A fitting end, in a way. Edith Wharton wrote The House of Mirth at the Mount.

And You Thought It Was Generosity

Politicians have to shell out all the time to look good. A few donations here, raffle tickets there, this charity, that charity, and it all adds up. Turns out it's not their personal money paying for all the good will after all.

Bertie Ahern has explained the means by which the savvy office-seeker makes himself look generous. Some donations made to his constituency office were sidetracked into his personal pocket, so that he could give to charity and make it look like he was contributing from his own coffers. Brilliant, isn't it.

What else can a politician do with the money that gets donated to his constituency funds? Well, he can contribute some of that cash to yet another worthy cause. For example, Mr. Ahern gave a bit to the "Help Celia Larkin's Parents Buy A House" charity drive, albeit in a roundabout way. 30,000 Irish pounds were drawn on the mysterious "BT" account that was supposed to be used to cover constituency expenses, and given over to help the elderly couple out of a tight spot. If a man can't help the elderly in need, what good is all that money?

Those same needy elderly paid back the money recently, but somehow the funds ended up in Fianna Fail's account and someone has to run to the bank to transfer the money into the BT account and then it's all square.

What makes the whole thing so mind-boggling is the fact that Mr. Ahern was the Minister for Finance at the time all this bank account/donation/walking-around money was floating through his fingers. If a man can't understand his own accounts and doesn't know where the money's come from or where it's going, is he at all qualified to manage the funds for an entire nation?

This Way To The Exit, Please Use It

An eighty-year-old man doesn't move very fast. Sure, his mind is still sharp. He knows all the words to the hymns and he can dress himself. Still capable of arguing and not losing his train of thought. He may not know, however, when it's time to leave.

Ian Paisley stepped down as head of the church he invented when mainline churches failed to permit him to despise Catholics. He was getting on in years, and while he was still physically capable of doing the old job, everyone knew that he wasn't going to live forever. Better then to get the successor in place so that the transition would flow smoothly. Besides, the codger was clearly going soft in the head, since he went into government with the Shinners. Getting a bit dotty, no doubt, and so Mr. Paisley was shuffled off.

The members of the DUP would like their titular head to step aside. There's tremendous dissatisfaction among the rank and file, who still fume over home rule and the Stormont Assembly. Seeing their beloved diploma mill reverend on the same stage as Martin McGuinness is too much to take, and the old man's going off the rails isn't he?

Citing the need for a transition, since Mr. Paisley will be called to meet his maker at some point sooner rather than later, higher ups in the DUP have tried to show him the door. On the heels of certain revelations that Paisley Junior was stuffing his pockets and helping a loyal Loyalist stuff his as well, the average voter is losing their love of a man who once called the Pope the Anti-Christ.

Make way for Peter Robinson and his mate Nigel Dodds. They'd like to close the door on an exiting Ian Paisley and then get rid of the St. Andrews Agreement and the Good Friday Agreement and the Shinners and home rule.

The problem is, clocks don't run backwards and neither does time.

After The Fact

It's been said that there's a fine line between madness and genius. Some years ago, Niall Clarke crossed that line. The brilliant computer science student morphed into a paranoid schizophrenic, but only his family cared about the dangerous transition.

Mr. Clarke was at the top of his class at Trinity College, on the verge of earning his degree and thinking of starting up his own software company. Before that day arrived, he dropped it all and headed off to Thailand. His calls home were nothing more than angry outbursts directed at his father. The family knew that the boy had gone over the edge.

Michael Clarke recognized the symptoms. His mother had gone mad as well, just like Niall, and the father was quick to seek help from the national health care system. The boy would have to be committed.

Don't want him, thanks, see yaz, said the authorities.

Niall left Ireland and went to America, where he self-medicated with alcohol, but Guinness isn't a proper treatment for insanity. One fine day, he walked into a bank in Bangor, Maine, and held up the teller at gunpoint. Being a rank amateur in the robbery game, he was caught in no time.

An American judge handed down a lenient sentence for Mr. Clarke, recommending that he be jailed in a place with a psychiatric facility. At last, Niall will get the help that he needs -- courtesy of the United States taxpayers.

If he had been put away when his father asked, Niall would never have endangered anyone in Bangor. But if he had been locked up in Ireland, the Irish would have to cover the costs of his treatment, and in the end, the Health Service Executive is that much more to the good.

Are we to expect a flood of sick people, tired of waiting for treatment through Ireland's national health care system? Stick 'em up, I've got a gun and a bad heart in need of a pacemaker.....

In The Words Of Macbeth

Political speechifying has brought this to mind:

"...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Out, out, brief campaign season. I can't take much more of the rhetoric and the finger-pointing and the name calling.

The Minnow Binges And Purges

The minnow that was Riverdeep swallowed up one educational publisher after another, feeding an insatiable hunger.

Sooner or later, all that feasting would result in a most undesired weight gain. The HMRiverdeep-Harcourt-Greenwood-etc. buffet left the minnow all bloated and too heavy to move.

Employees of the newly merged firm have been getting the sack, bit by bit, department after department. All that the minnow swallowed cannot be fully digested and therefore has to go.

It hasn't been all back office staff, the extraneous bean counters and clerks and administrative assistants. Now the editorial staff is shedding a few. Three editors from Houghton Mifflin and one from Harcourt are leaving, as if they know that they're in line to be disgorged from the overstuffed HMS Minnow. Or is that supposed to be HMH....or HHM?

The Way We Were

The Protestants always had the upper hand in Northern Ireland. For centuries, it was the Free Presbyterians who did what they pleased and if that meant ignoring the Catholics, well, that's how it was and how it would be.

Until the peace process and the return of the Stormont Assembly, that is. With such an abrupt turn, who could blame Ian Paisley Junior for doing things as they used to be done?

While the Shinners and the Brits and the Irish and the Unionists were hashing things out at St. Andrew's in Scotland, making deals to bring two opposing sides into government together, little Ian was making deals for himself. Poor lad didn't know any better, and now he's caught up in something that is considered a political scandal everywhere else on the globe.

One of his pals wanted to build a visitor's center near the Giant's Causeway in Antrim. Bring in the tourists, of course, but Seymour Sweeney stood to make a nice piece of change for himself with the project. Junior lobbied hard for Mr. Sweeney, putting the screws to former Prime Minister Tony Blair while home rule was under construction. What matters the future of Northern Ireland when a friend could use a hand?

Then there was the revelation that little Ian was double-dipping, taking a salary as a junior minister to his loving daddy while also being paid as papa's researcher in Westminster. On top of that deal, it has been discovered that the rent on the Paisley constituency office in Ballymena is sky-high, and it's the taxpayers footing the bill.

Who came out ahead on the rip-off? Junior's father-in-law, for one, as he's the director of the firm that rented the office space. Hard to say if Seymour Sweeney made out at all, since he used to be the firm's director but isn't any more.

Ah, memories of the way we were, the DUP can warble. Someone should put them on to Bob Dylan's old tunes. The times they are a-changin'.

Why You Can't Write

Your entire problem with literary pursuits can be put down to one simple fact. You must be happy.

Wake Forest University's pride and joy, Eric G. Wilson, has put out a new book that explains his concept of misery as a source of creativity. You don't need Prozac or any other pill that lifts your glum mood. You need the core of your sad being to tap into if you're to make it in the writing game.

According to the professor, creativity springs from sorrow and sadness. If you aren't gloomy over impending doom, how can you appreciate that which is beautiful? If you're so feckin' busy pursuing happiness, you can't begin to examine the unhappiness that novels are built upon.

To read Mr. Wilson's Against Happiness is to understand why writers turn to drink. If your world isn't already full of ups and downs, you have no choice but to create the roller coaster of emotion that is so essential to good writing. Nothing like the downside of a pounding hangover to make you ponder some conflict that you can then assign to your imaginary characters.

Feeling perky today? Suffering from writer's block? Consider your own mortality, and the possibility that you'll never see your name in print and no one will ever listen to what you have to say. Sliding into abject misery, are you? Good. You're well on your way to completing your novel and achieving literary fame, which should make you even more miserable in a different way, and won't it be easy to compose that second book?

Raining and Pouring

There's nothing like a blizzard in the heartland to bring the return trip to a screeching halt. Go to Sunday Mass or leave first thing in the morning, we wondered. Beat the storm or take our chances? Go to Mass, of course. And stay an extra day when the storm hit and spoiled our best intentions to be home by Sunday night.

It never rains but it pours, unless it freezes, which it did, before the snow came down sideways and the wind gusted up to 30 miles per hour.

After a long weekend, I finally got back home to my snail mail. Nothing at all from a single agent, and you'd think there'd be a rejection or two to the query letters sent a couple of weeks ago.

What about e-mail? Not a peep out of the agents who received my lovely personalized query. They're stunned into silence, no doubt.

But it paid off, going to Mass. Another short story has been accepted. Sure and it's the time of miracles.

Do You Love Me Now

Dear Agent, I have personalized the query with a mention of your blog. The part where you say you're looking for the very book I've written, do you remember posting that?

I've written the best query I could. Plot summed up, conflict described, what's at stake, all the usual stuff that goes into an intriguing little billet deux.

And look, I've added a bio paragraph to cite my one and only credential.

Do you love me now? Will you ask to see my manuscript? Will you fall in love with my words?

Take a bit of time to think it over. Sure it's a big step, making a commitment like that.

I won't know of your love until Monday. We're off for a long weekend, no computers, just a lot of hiking and nature and time to think about the manuscript I'm currently refining.

Don't break my heart. Don't let me come back on Monday to find an empty e-mail box, the rejection signified by the lack of your response.

Iron Bars Do Not A Prison Make

Theme tours are all the rage, and Ireland will not be left behind. Plans are in the works so that you, the blase tourist, can enjoy a unique experience while in Dublin.

You'll have to wait until some time after 2011, but what a joy awaits you. The 'Joy, in fact, will be awaiting you. Iron bars optional, one would hope.

The massive stone pile that is Mountjoy Gaol has changed little since Queen Victoria's day. That would be the day before indoor plumbing, and inmates at the 'Joy are made to slop out their cells every morning. Talk about hard time.

A new and modern facility is due to be built, which means that Mountjoy will be empty. As a listed building, its facade is untouchable, and what could a developer do with such limitations? There's no need for a museum, not when Kilmainham serves so well. The inside is already chopped up into cells, which speaks of the typical hotel room, doesn't it?

Close to the Mater Hospital, right there on the outskirts of Dublin city, conveniently accessed via public transportation....no better location. And if you're tracing your ancestry back through the penal colonies and transportation, wouldn't it be a treat to stay in the same cell as your great-great-great-great-grandparents called home until they were shipped off to Van Diemen's Land?

As Good As Your Last

Publishing is very much a "What have you done for me lately" sort of business model. Sell through, generate clamor, and your publisher will love you. Your next book will be received with open arms -- and an open wallet.

What happens, then, if you don't sell through? What if you're a popular writer who's lost the edge and written something that no one cared to buy? Don't expect to get a big advance on your next piece.

Even winning a Pulitzer prize couldn't help Richard Ford. For seventeen years he trusted his manuscripts to the folks at Knopf and editor Gary Fisketjon. Mr. Ford's next three books will be coming from the presses of HarperCollins.

What have you done for me lately said the bean counters at Knopf. Sold 51,000 hardcover and 36,000 paperback. Poor numbers indeed, and not good enough to meet the advance. That being the case, Knopf would like to break even so the next batch of novels will be granted a smaller advance. Just a bit of risk assessment, nothing to be alarmed about.

Super-agent Binky Urban was not about to let her client take a pay cut. She worked out a deal with HarperCollins that would bring in the sort of price that Knopf wasn't willing to meet. HarperCollins decided that they'd risk it on Mr. Ford hitting a winner again, while Knopf waved good-bye. Plenty of other fish in the literary sea.

You're only as good as your last book, no matter how big you've grown. It's business, not art.

The First Step On A Long Road

Writers are supposed to be in their mid-thirties, living in New York City after attending prestigious universities, thinking deep thoughts, composing literature.

If you subscribe to that notion, and you don't fit the stereotype, you might wonder why you bother. Older than the ideal? Sure there's no hope of getting published. Residing in a hick town? Sure there's no hope of seeing your name in print.

Suppose you've been driving a truck for a paper mill for thirty-two years, and you went to college later in life, part time after work. Suppose you decide to make use of your love of writing and get a short story published in a university journal. Suppose the journal's editor tells you your story's rejected, but keep writing. Do you give it up?

Donald Ray Pollock accepted the editor's positive spin and signed on to the MFA program. He kept writing and submitting short stories. An assistant at InkWell Management saw one of those stories. Mr. Pollock got an agent.

His collection of short stories is due to be laid down soon. The publisher is promoting Mr. Pollock's blue collar background, making much of the characters that parade across the pages. He's the second coming of Erskine Caldwell, the marketing department would like everyone to know. The sort of people you might know, but would never be spotted in Manhattan.

He's in his early fifties. He lives in a small town in Ohio.

Keep writing. Keep trying.

Tabulating The Data

Only 97 short story submissions made in the past eighteen months. I have to send out three more to get to an even hundred before the end of this month.

How many rejections? Up to a few hours ago, there were 75. Nice, round figure. That left 22 open, waiting for the word.

And then came an acceptance. Someone actually wants to publish something that I wrote. In an edited, reviewed publication. A real live credential, just for me. No money in it, but it's the credit that matters. The copies of the journal will be nice, but recognition is what we're after.

That leaves 18 open submissions. One acceptance. The rest were withdrawn.

What a grand feeling.

The Rush Is Over

What else would a writer do but write? Literary agents must have been swamped these past three months, inundated by queries from striking writers with time on their hands and a desire to generate a quick buck.

Publishing being utterly unlike screenwriting, the potential novelists would have had no chance to get a penny out of any accepted manuscript for months. From beginning to end, it's a crawl to the cash window.

On top of that, several literary agents were not excited about the new material, given the fact that screenwriters are good with dialogue but not great with exposition and narrative. The novels that were produced were not very good, and agents spent time reading and rejecting while your query was given a quick rejection in an attempt to clear up the backlog.

A writer with credentials stands a better chance of getting a request for more material, which means you as a novice author were shuttled aside as the strikers made a mad dash for representation. The strike is over, the writers are going back to work by Wednesday, and the coast is clear.

The influx of screenwriter novels will grind to a halt, and the publishing industry will get back to its normal, stodgy pace. It's safe to submit to agents again, without having to compete against someone who knows someone. Have at it.

What Would The Prophet Do?

Memorizing the Quran is hardly preparation for the business world. The ability to recite some particular passage from memory does not mean that the speaker could interpret a cost/benefit analysis. Profits dropping, sales off, and the CEO won't get far by asking what The Prophet (peace be upon him) would do to rescue the bottom line. The religious rulers of Iran are beginning to figure this one out.

The linchpin in the axis of evil is out to privatize part of its energy sector, in the hope that foreign devils will come in and shore up a failing industry. Sure there's power in prayer, but God isn't going to come down from on high and serve as board chairman. This new umbrella group would be listed on Tehran's stock exchange, with an eye to propping up that financial invalid as well with foreign investment.

Iran is looking for $90 billion out of the privatization scheme. Considering the price of oil these days, you'd have to believe that they've made a complete mess of things financially. Where did all the oil money go, if they've gone begging for billions?

The holding company for Iran's privatized oil companies is going to be listed on four markets, a spokesman has said, but which national markets are coming on board is a big secret. No details will be released until the end of March, but you can pretty much figure that the only interested parties will be other axis of evil members, and they're not exactly the most sound financially.

It's time for the ayatollahs to pay closer attention to Bloomberg's financial advice. Ah, no, that would never do. Too Jewish.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Never query a literary agent until your manuscript is polished, perfect, and ready to go. Don't jump the gun. Don't be in a great hurry to submit.

Sure I'm always being rejected so what could it hurt to test out a new query for the manuscript that was finished two months ago? Query, and then do the final polish, or that was the plan. The first chapter's done, and there's time to do the other twenty-three. Three hundreds pages of words, how long could that take?

Don't try this at home. I sent out three queries yesterday morning, and had three replies in a matter of hours. Two rejections, as expected, and a request for a full. To be sent via e-mail.

No stalling, no playing for time, not with the speed of e-mail. No need to save up for a ream of paper and the cost of the postage, no indeed. Touch a key, hit a button, and the manuscript's away, but it's not ready to be sent yet is it?

In between doing such things as, oh, say, earning a living, I have to polish the manuscript, slice out the extra words and make sure it's all clear. The longest I can stall is probably until Sunday night.

Trust me. Don't do this. You get one chance with an agent who asks for your manuscript, and you don't want to rush into submitting when you could blow that chance.

All People Are Sick, But Some Are Sicker Than Others

If you're sick in Drogheda, you have to be really sick. Severely ill. At death's door. Or you'll be asked to give up your space to someone who's sicker than you.

There aren't enough beds at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, but then again, there aren't enough beds in other hospitals as well. Patients have to go somewhere, so if there's no bed, they'll be assigned to a trolley in the hall. And when the trolleys run out, it's time for the nurses to go into triage mode. If you're prone on a gurney and you could sit up without collapsing, you'll be given a seat in the emergency room so that someone who needs to lie down can have a flat surface off the floor.

All it took yesterday was a traffic accident and four injured motorists brought to Our Lady, and four people who were admitted to hospital had to get up so that the accident victims could take their place. You have to marvel at the ability of the nurses and doctors to handle the work load, with the hospital taking in more people than it can reasonably accomodate.

National health care -- is it any wonder that those who can afford private insurance and private hospitals and private doctors avoid the national system at all costs?

Re-arranging The Deck Chairs

Sales continue to fall at Macy's. The current state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue, and the time has come to re-arrange the deck chairs on the sinking department store hulk.

Given the chore of reviving sales in Chicago, Frank Guzzetta will be allowed to quietly retire rather than be sacked for failing. Macy's grand shop on State Street never recovered from the change of name, and there was nothing that Mr. Guzzetta could have done that would have appeased both the Chicago shoppers (who loved Marshall Field's) and the suits in New York (who demand that all be Macy's).

What else will help? Having already shed a few jobs, Macy's will shed a few more. About 2,500 more. The thinking is that letting x number of people go resulted in a sales decline of y, therefore making a bigger chunk of the staff redundant will send sales skyrocketing.

The staff cuts are part of a bigger plan to re-organize the chain of command. Rather than have seven headquarters, there'll be four. Best of all, within those four centers, the executives will be allowed to run things with an ear to regional tastes. If that sounds familiar, it's because that is the very structure that existed before Terry Lundgren set out to re-invent the American department store.

No word on whether or not a regional chairman in the Chicago-area satellite office could opt to change the name of the Macy's sites in a bid to reinvigorate sales. After stubbornly refusing to keep the Marshall Field name, Mr. Lundgren would never accept such absolute and utter defeat.

Cancer Services At The Super Bowl

It could be that Mary Harney, Minister for Health, is a huge Tom Petty fan. No one has suggested that she's interested in American football. Why else would she have attended such a premier sporting event?

Fine Gael's Alan Shatter would like to know why Ms. Harney was sitting in the stands on Sunday night, when she was supposed to be on government business. Why, he would like to know, was she absent from the Dail's debate about cystic fibrosis yet present in Phoenix?

As it turns out, the trip had been organized some time ago. Ms. Harney's itinerary took in stops in Arizona, Texas and Washington, where she was looking over cancer treatment at U.S. hospitals. She'd probably like to introduce some of the techniques to the Irish health services, but expensive protocols don't mix with national health. Someone has to pay, and the taxpayers don't care to be the ones doing the paying, but they're the only ones paying for national health care so there you go, around and around in another endless loop.

Mr. Shatter may have forgotten that the cystic fibrosis debate was tabled on Friday when Ms. Harney left on the junket. He probably doesn't know how impossible it is to get tickets to something like the Super Bowl, and he wouldn't realize that Ms. Harney's hosts in Arizona were being gracious when they took her along to the game.

There was plenty of time during the match to discuss cancer treatments. Tom Petty's half-time show was only about twenty minutes long, and then there were those long stretches when Tom Brady wasn't on the field, bending over the center in his skin-tight, body-hugging pants.....

Disclosure Wars

One man is determined to uncover the truth about child sexual abuse at the hands of clerics. One man has claimed executive privilege and is determined that Church records be kept locked away from prying eyes.

Current Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin doesn't understand why his predecessor, Cardinal Desmond Connell, isn't in favor of disclosing what was known about perverts in Roman collars. The two have been discussing the release of some documents for months, as Archbishop Martin cooperated with the commission inquiring into the Church's handling of a problem that was thoroughly bungled. Now the Cardinal is going to court, to stop the disclosure. Archbishop Martin doesn't understand.

"Truth is not served by polemics" the Archbishop said when asked about the Cardinal's legal action. This whole inquiry is about the kids whose lives were destroyed, and it is not about the priests who were moved from one parish to the next when they interfered with children. Archbishop Martin doesn't understand why the Cardinal is attempting to block a full and open disclosure, to confess and find absolution.

The reason is obvious. The parish-hopping was done under the Cardinal's watch. He's responsible for failing to take assertive action to stop the sex abusers from carrying on their sick game. He was on top of the corporate ladder when the policy was in place, to hush things up and move the priests along to some other parish and some other children. When the victims of clerical sex abuse look to see who's to blame, they'll be pointing their fingers at Cardinal Connell, and that's not the legacy he's looking to leave behind.

The Democratic Insult

How dare they call him a Democrat! David Cay Johnston demands satisfaction, after his own newspaper had the audacity to insult him so harshly.

Mr. Johnston wrote a book, as columnists are wont to do, and his employer, The New York Times, was good enough to review his book. Who wouldn't want a review in such a prestigious rag? The mention of one's book would be good for who knows how great in increase in sales. With Mr. Johnston's background in economics, he should easily see the benefits as compared to the costs.

Sadly, Mr. Johnston is less than pleased with his press. As reviewed by Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, Mr. Johnston's non-fiction tome comes across as little more than a re-hash of his newspaper columns, padded with additional material supplied by paid researchers. The book is weak, it takes a decided populist approach to government, and Mr. Johnston is too dense to see that the government taxes the rich and the burden isn't falling on the poor. That, my friends, is a Democrat by definition.

Mr. Johnston would like everyone to know that he is a card-carrying Republican, and to be dumped in the same cesspool as the Democrats is too much to endure. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Chait has a competing book that's just come out. Do you think there's a connection between that tidbit and the negative review?

The Quarterback Gets The Cheerleader

Who was sitting in the luxury skybox to cheer on Tom Brady? His super-model girlfriend, of course, sipping red wine and looking perfect. That's the way of the world, isn't it? The star quarterback gets the prettiest cheerleader and the linemen get what's left.

Who was sitting in the luxury skybox to cheer on Eli Manning? His brother Peyton, a fellow quarterback who isn't the ugliest man in town but he doesn't have Tom Brady's good looks. He's a clean cut American youth sort of man, personable, a role model for children. Peyton Manning is the sort of lad that your mother points to and asks you why can't you be more like him.

Tom Brady went home with Ms. Bundchen tonight. Eli Manning went home with a Super Bowl victory. Sure the quarterback got the cheerleader, but he'd dump her into Boston Harbor if it meant he could trade places with Eli Manning. What good is the super-model girlfriend and the undefeated season if you don't win the big game?

Other men were jealous of Tom Brady's way with the ladies, but they'd rather be the quarterback who won the Super Bowl. Ms. Bundchen will grow old, but the Lombardi trophy will shine forever.

No Changes To Be Made

Kirsten Neuhaus of Vigliano Associates passed on the full manuscript. It happens so often, these rejections, that I don't even notice. Check it off the list and move on.

You always hope that an agent who reads your manuscript would pass along a clue as to why they passed. Too slow of an opening? The writing needs a polish? Nice to have an idea of where to go and how to improve before trying other agents.

Then there are times like this when the agent doesn't feel that the story is fresh. There are no new stories, when you think about it. There are a bunch of old stories told in a new way, and that is what an agent wants. Apparently, the story I told doesn't stand out from the crowd.

There's no fixing that. The plot is what it is. You can't rewrite a bit or remove the extraneous adverbs. The story is too much like other stories. You can change whole subplots, but then you're not telling the story you want to tell, and who could say if a different story line would resonate?

Might as well try other agents with the manuscript as it stands. It's just as likely that another agent might find the manuscript to be a fresh take on an age-old problem. Or I could save it, to use for a second book in a multi-book deal.

Still Seasoning With Hypocrisy

Beware the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy, it says in the Bible.

For years, the Catholic Church was guilty of perpetrating abuse in Ireland. Recently, the government has been investigating the abuse of children by clergy, hearing from young men and women who were shut away in industrial schools and Magdalen laundries for the crime of being poor or illegitimate. In response, members of the Church hierarchy have been cooperating, in the hope of erasing their sins and hanging on to their ever dwindling congregations.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin handed over some documents that were requested by the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation when he was elevated to the higher post. Get the dirt out from under the rug, air out everything and start fresh, he implied. Make a confession and receive absolution, just like the priests preach to the faithful.

Not so fast, says now retired Cardinal Desmond Connell. Those documents are from my era and I didn't say they could be revealed. The outraged cleric has taken a case to the High Court to get those documents hidden away again, lest some bad things about perverted priests make the news.

Heaven forbid that we gain any knowledge about the rampant sexual abuse of innocent children by clergy. It would make the Church look bad, and God knows that it would make the cardinal look even worse. Best for all concerned to invoke executive privilege, or at any rate, best for the cardinal.

What of the victims who were left with ruined lives? What of their offspring who suffer from mental health issues related to their parents' misery? Rest assured, Cardinal Connell is praying for them. That ought to take care of it.