The Continued Relevance Of Twain

Life is too short to get in all the reading I've stacked up. Even so, I'm giving it my best shot.

It's Mark Twain on the docket these days.

Who would have expected to find "The Innocents Abroad" to b e so relevant to current events.

News readers describe the governments of Middle East despots as ossified, but it's beyond that. Read Twain and you'll realize that the people he met over 100 years ago have not changed a bit. And Twain believed that they were unchanged since the time of Christ.

There's something to be said for reading the classics. Much of what you read is as informative today as it was then.

Repent At Leisure

The laptop died and I knew I had to replace it. No sense of urgency propelled me.

A netbook was looking like the best choice. The portability of a smaller piece of equipment had some appeal. A netbook might fill the need for computing on the go.

But did I go beyond the research stage?

Did I go look at them? Did I try one to see if I liked the feel of the keyboard?

No.

So now I'm far from the desktop, without proper access to the web, and I'm sorry I didn't buy something before I left on my trip home.

I may now repent at leisure. Without a computer to call my own, I can't be myself.

A visit home is feeling like a chore

Going Out Of Business

Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

How likely is it that the chain can reorganize and recover? I'd put money on their ultimate demise.

With debts totaling $1.29 billion and assets in the range of $1.28 billion, there's a shortfall that won't easily be made up.

Several publishing houses have already written down Borders' past due account as uncollectable debt. How likely will they be to extend further credit later?

Also hurting Borders' chances is the trend towards on-line shopping, which Amazon mastered to the detriment of all others. The electronic reading device is gaining popularity, and again, Borders was last to the dance and all the partners were taken.

We can expect to see the usual round of store closings as the bookselling chain contracts down to a workable size. Deals will be cut to reduce the debt to pennies on the dollar, to get all those lingering balances off the books, and then what?

Borders can start over, if anyone will ship them product and risk not getting paid again.

In all likelihood, Barnes & Noble will fill the gap that will be created by the chaos that is restructuring. Local independent shops won't see much gain because they're small, without the room to hold as much inventory as B&N.

Amazon might pick up some of the slack, but for those who like to touch the book and read the pages that they, and not Amazon, select, the online option isn't a first choice.

Not enough books are sold to warrant the existence of Amazon, B&N and Borders. It's survival of the fittest, and Borders got old, slow and stodgy.

You don't see any dinosaurs around anymore, do you?

Targeting Louis Sullivan

There was a time before Mies van der Rohe and less is more.

Back in the day of form following function, Louis Sullivan enjoyed a period of fame before falling out of favor.

For a time, when Mies ruled the architectural world, the buildings that Sullivan designed were carelessly torn down, to make room for more minimalist structures that turned out to be cold and soul-less.

The iconic Sullivan building at the corner of State and Madison in Chicago was saved when people realized there were some things worth preserving. Unique styles of architecture that were born out of the ashes of the Chicago fire were deserving of preservation.

But can you picture a big red bulls-eye target somewhere among the cast iron trelliswork?

Target is coming to the city, to open a giant discount shop in what was once Chicago's downtown shopping district.

Nowdays it's more like an open-air discount mall, with all the off-price and slightly irregulars available for cheap purchase.

Since Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. moved out, steps ahead of the department store Grim Reaper, the massive space has stood forlorn, its magnificent facade restored but fronting empty space.

Target has been successful and manages to bring in foot traffic. The warmth of Sullivan's building needs the added warmth of human bodies, utilizing the space, admiring the plaster work at the tops of the support columns and milling about in the way that the architect intended.

Target is better than nothing when you're talking about a shuttered storefront on the busiest corner of a major city.

It is hoped that Target's presence will revitalize State Street and, in the process, generate some sales tax revenue for the city of Chicago.

All good things, to be sure, but Target won't be putting its bright red logo on top of Louis Sullivan's artistry. The building is a landmark, after all, and it will take some creativity on their part to design signage that says "Target" without shouting down a building that says "Prairie School of Architecture."

Father Ted Reincarnated

On the popular BBC comedy Father Ted, the premise turned on Father Ted's supposed embezzling of parish funds which led him to exile in on isolated Craggy Island.

Turns out that Father Ted is alive and well and living in the Chicago area. The Cook County Public Guardian is investigating Father Ted's financial dealings.

Is Father Dougal or Father Jack in the picture this time?

Father Thaddeus Dzieszko did his priest business, visiting the sick and the home-bound. Over the course of his calls on Waleria Krzemien, he ended up as the trustee of her estate, with her home left to him after Ms. Krzemien's death.

There's always a relative waiting in the wings, and Ms. Krzemien has a niece who learned of the situation and filed a complaint.

She's family, after all, and she might have had her eye on the property for a long time.

The public guardian's interest stems from the involvement of the law firm of Przybylo and Kubiatowski, which has engaged in shady deals regarding fleecing the elderly in the past.

Father Ted has stepped down while the Archdiocese conducts a forensic audit. He doesn't believe he did anything wrong, and says he didn't understand the documents he signed. He's relinquished any control he was given over Ms. Krzemien's property.

Is there any parish equivalent to Craggy Island? Father Ted may end up re-assigned if the Chancery Office doesn't agree with his avowals of innocence.

Entering A No-Broadband Zone

The tickets are purchased, the passports are in order. I still need to stop the mail and newspaper delivery, but other than that, I'm ready for the trip home.

My only cost, by and large, is the price of the airfare and I'm not one who needs luxuries. Aer Lingus will do me, assuming of course that there's no industrial action being taken by the flight crew when it's time for me to go.

Once I get to Shannon, it will be broadband silence for the duration. That's the cost of staying with relatives who don't see the need for a computer and therefore are not connected to the world wide web.

It's not all bad. Without the distraction of web surfing, I can work on the manuscript I've been revising. Lucky thing I've reached the point where I require the hard copy to see where scenes break and determine if the transitions are evenly spaced and balanced.

There's mobile phone service, at least, so I can tweet if I'm so inclined, but Auntie expects social interaction with her overseas guests and I shall return to another era, when people sat around at night and chatted about current events or the neighbors.

Only ten days without my computer tether. God in Heaven, how will I survive?

He Who Pays The Piper Calls The Tune

When your state finances are in disarray, businesses located within the state are well aware of the situation. So it does no one any good to demand a new round of taxes on the world's largest purveyor of books.

The State of Texas has learned that lesson first-hand. Books are cheaper on Amazon because the company reaps the benefit of economy of scale. But their product is also cheaper because buyers aren't required to pay sales tax on the purchase. Depending on where one lives, that can be as much as 10% of the sale price, and that's not small beer.

Along comes the State of Texas, budget out of balance. They send a bill to Amazon for unpaid sales taxes, to the tune of $269 million to cover 2005-2009 plus penalties and interest.

Amazon has told Texas to fuck off.

Texas believes that Amazon owes them for sales made in Texas because the firm has a physical presence in the state, in the form of a distribution center. Other states have made the same argument, insisting that an Amazon sales associate is the same as a physical presence, hence Amazon owes back taxes.

Amazon disagrees, since it's engaged in interstate commerce and books shipped out of Texas don't all go to Texas residents. It's a matter of Federal regulation, and not subject to state tax.

Texas sent a bill, and Amazon sent a change of address notice. The Texas facility is going to be closed, and plans to expand the distribution center (and hire another 1000 people) has been axed.

While Texas stands on principle, insisting its position is legal and ethical and fair to the people of Texas, the people of Texas (some of them, at any rate) will be queuing up at the unemployment office. They and their families won't think Governor Rick Perry is such a genius after all, with his attempt to bring in revenue sending a large employer scurrying elsewhere.

Sure it was easy to puff up and talk tough about Amazon, but Texas isn't in a position to call the tune and expect Amazon to contribute to the piper's fee.

It looks more like Texas had a weak poker hand and was bluffing, only to have the bluff called. And the folks who work for Amazon in Texas are made to fold.

Nearly Forgotten

In her time, Irish novelist Kate O'Brien caused quite a stir with her writing. So shocking did the authorities find her themes of female sexuality that her books were banned in her homeland.

She is largely forgotten now, with her succes having come when the Irish Free State was newly born. Her books are out of print, but her memory is being celebrated in Limerick this weekend.

Ms. O'Brien is one of Limerick's lights, a skilled artist who worked with words to create images of her time, a time when women were expected to knuckle under to the authority of the Catholic Church. She had the audacity to mock Eamon de Valera when the rest of the nation was faint with adoration for the last man standing at the end of the Easter Rising. To top it all off, she managed to hint at the existence of homosexuality through her prose. No surprise, then, that she eventually emigrated to England in 1965 and never returned to her homeland.

The family home in Limerick is on the market, damaged by fire and put to hard use by drinking parties and junkies. The government has no money to save the building, which may well tumble into ruin.

Kate O'Brien's books, however, will always be there, somewhere, either as a reprint or an e-book or a used book in an antiquarian's shop. In the end, it's the words that make a difference and it's the words that must survive.

Query Season

Joanna Volpe, literary agent at Nancy Coffey's fine establishment, is actively building her client list. She rejected my query.

Bernadette Baker left her own operation and joined forces with Victoria Sanders. She's actively building her client list. She also rejected my query.

Adrainn Ranta of Wolf Literary? Looking for clients, she says, but I haven't heard a word from her since I submitted a query over a month ago. No response means no, I believe.

To me, it also means that the query letter I sweated over for weeks isn't good enough to generate the slightest interest. That's why I've spent another few weeks revising it. The new letter is ready for its test run.

At this rate, I may run out of agents to query before the year is out, but I'll have another manuscript ready by that time and I'll be able to start all over again, with a new list of new agents looking to expand their client lists.

Remarkable. The writing-querying-revising process just runs on endlessly like a river that never runs dry.

Claiming The Inheritance At Death's Door

At the moment, one could say that the Sunday Tribune is, essentially, on life support with limited hope of recovery.

The weekly newspaper won't be printed for the next couple of weeks, and maybe not ever again if a buyer can't be found to resurrect a rag that's gone into receivership.

So the paper's giving up the ghost, you might say. Who claims the departed's effects? Not waiting for a death rattle, the Irish Mail has stepped in and robbed the closet. Friends and family of the gravely ill newspaper are outraged.

This Sunday's edition of the Irish Mail stood out at the newstand because it looked just like the Sunday Tribune in typeface and lay-out. The masthead was swiped when the rest of the family was distracted.

The editors clearly intended to pull the wool over the eyes of the dedicated Tribune reader who tends to grab based on external appearances. Once that person started reading, the reasoning went, they'd be so taken with the stellar quality of the Mail's journalism that they'd be hooked, and continue to purchase the rival paper in the future. It's not as if the Sunday Tribune was there on the stand next to it, now, was it, all upset that the bitch stole its look?

The National Union of Journalists has said their piece. Like any other legatee waiting for their share of the inheritance, they're quite upset that one of the relations has jumped the gun and claimed something that the rest of the family might have wanted to bury with the dear departed. Naturally, the union has hope that someone will step in and revive the journal, and they'd like to keep the same face to present to the buying public. A newspaper's masthead is the face it presents to the public, the recognizable image that's all important.

So was it a cynical ploy on the part of the Irish Mail's editors, or was it a smart move to snap up potential customers before anyone else thought of it?

The Irish Mail says it was only trying to survive by picking off readers who would be looking for something to replace their usual source. There are 161 jobs to be protected, as opposed to the 43 Sunday Tribune employees who are out of work, so what's wrong with a little marketing gimmick?

There's always the question of appearances when it comes to claiming the inheritance. It is rather bad form to help yourself to the personal effects of someone who's not yet breathed their last.

And You Get A Carrot, And You Get A Carrot

Visitors to Chicago had plenty of options when it came to touring. One of the must-see sites was the Beef House.

Guides conducted tours through Armour's slaughterhouse and people found it fascinating.

Back then, everyone knew where the food on their table came from, and it wasn't packed into shrink-wrapped containers. They marveled at the efficiency of production, as hundred of head of cattle were processed into steaks and roasts.

Fast forward to modern day Chicago. The Union Stockyards are gone and most folks have little or no idea what butchering cattle involves.

God in Heaven! The horror! We must all become vegans. And Oprah Winfrey, who happens to be pushing Kathy Freston's how-to book, has put her staff on a week-long vegan diet.

You get a carrot and you get a carrot and you get a carrot!!!

For anyone with agrarian roots (or relatives who made a living in the meat industry when the Stockyards were churning out America's meat), you shake your head and wonder how we've stumbled into such a dense bubble of unreality.

The animals in Lisa Ling's video tour of a Colorado slaughterhouse are more humanely treated than any steer that trotted into Armour's Beef House. And these are animals we're talking about, not creatures capable of the complex emotions found in homo sapiens.

Animals eat other animals to survive. It's biology. Treating animals like they're Disney characters isn't biology, but a mindset that the rest of the meat-eating world, and those who hunt their food, find laughably pathetic.

If I was stranded on a desert island, I'd rather share the space with a hunter armed with a .410 than a vegan armed with sympathy for the poor little fishies and birdies.

Snow Day Of Historic Proportions

We're snowed in. Snow piled up against the doors. Snow drifted across the driveway. Snow piled up against fences and tumbled into corners.

Someone has to dig the house out. I won't be sitting down with a hot cup of coffee and the manuscript I've been revising. I'll be shoveling.

Not that I need to get out. Well, the road's not plowed so I can't go anyplace if I wanted to, but the point is, there's no place I have to be.

On non-snow days, I'd be at the computer, making up stories.

This being a snow day of historic proportions, I'll be outside in below zero wind chill, my ergonomic shovel in hand.

Explain to me again why we can't just hunker down until spring when all this white stuff will melt.

Check The Facts And Make Things Up

With a flash of inspiration, I launched into a re-write of the last manuscript I finished. Part of the inspiration came from a literary agent's comments on a rejection of a different novel, but all novels need tension to keep the pages turning.

Read anything you have at hand and you'll see that something of interest is ever present. There's often little subplots thrown in, with an issue brought up in Chapter Five but resolved in Chapter Ten, and then leading to a new issue that has you following along to see what happens.

When you're writing historical fiction, you've got the history right there to provide the flow of events. The problem is, real life doesn't always have cliffhangers at the end of every month and the last thing you want is a re-hash that's rather dull and plodding.

Hence, the need to make stuff up. My main character is on trial for murder, and the day-to-day in the courtroom doesn't make for brilliant prose, yet the trial is central to what happens later.

How to make it interesting enough for the reader to get past the middle bits?

That's where I'm getting bogged down. I have to create some conflict, maybe between the protagonist and his devoted wife. The conflict has to fit within the historical context, of course. Women weren't liberated back in the day and a fan of historical fiction could be put off by something so far beyond the realm of possibility as to abandon the novel unfinished.

At the same time, whatever made-up conflict I introduce has to fit into the frame of the story. There's no point in throwing in some action for the sake of action if it makes for a bump in the narrative road.

No one ever said writing novels was easy.

A Word To Define Sides

Do you get your news from a nationalist or a loyalist source? One word can tell you.

Depending on which news source you read, the story came out of Derry (nationalist) or Londonderry (loyalist). Include or omit "London" and the reporter says a great deal. All with one word.

Before the English came, the town was Doire and its inhabitants were Hibernian. Conquerors get to name things as they like, and Doire became Anglicized to Derry. When the inhabitants grew restive, those in charge decided that the recalcitrant Irish-Catholics needed reminding of who was running things, and "London" was slapped on to Derry.

In spite of the gerrymandered border that came about as the result of the 1920's treaty, Derry was predominantly Irish and Catholic. A flexing of political muscle and changing attitudes has resulted in a retreat. Unless you're a staunch Unionist, of course. Then you'd not be cutting London out of anything.

It's just Derry, officially, or Londonderry if you must.

But back to the news. There was a huge march in Derry (or do you say Londonderry? I'm looking at you, Associated Press) on Sunday. The final march, the participants say.

It took decades for the authorities in London to admit that British paratroopers lost their cool and fired on peaceful, unarmed protesters. It took decades to launch an investigation into the Bloody Sunday killings of 1972. It took decades for the Crown to admit that the first report was a complete whitewash and that its troops did indeed murder innocent people who happened to be Irish and Catholic.

Those who marched every year, seeking an honest assessment of a tragedy, have been heard and they don't need to march anymore.

How long will it take the news sources to cop on to the advancements in human rights that have been made in Northern Ireland? Unless, that is, the reporters covering Ulster are staunch unionists themselves?

A Profitable Lay-Over

Next time you're stuck at an airport with your flight cancelled, the snow falling and no hope of getting away, don't complain. Go buy a lottery ticket.

Patricia Daly Eisel, formerly of Tullamore but lately of Long Island, was stranded at the airport when the storms hit over the holidays. With little to do to occupy her time, she bought $8 worth of lottery tickets. She had no hope of making millions at her job as a waitress, and what could it hurt to take a flyer?

Her plans were well and truly spoiled by the storm. But there were those tickets in her handbag, and as long as she wasn't going to Ireland, she went ahead and checked the winning numbers. You never know, do you? The mother of three is now $7.9 million the richer, after taxes.

Flush with cash, she booked a new flight to Tullamore and you couldn't blame her if she chose to fly first class. It made for a most pleasant surprise for her extended family.

Being Irish, the first thing she plans to do is buy a house with a big yard. For a people with a long history of losing their homes to the bailiffs and their land to an occupying foreign force, there's thought to be no better investment than land. After all, they're not making any more of it.

Turning A Profit On Mystery

Television commercials are somewhat unavoidable, if you're not fast enough with the clicker. Many's the night that I was engrossed in reading (non-fiction lately), only to look up and see an advertisement for IBM flowing through the hi-def screen.

My holdings in IBM have been doing quite well, so I paused to listen. What were they up to next that would boost stock prices?

What's this? A super-intelligent computer that can out-think the smart people who stand apart as all-time champions of Jeopardy?

Sorry, all you hard-working folk at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Riverdeep EMPG et al. I'm not so captivated as to purchase an unfinished e-book about the project. You can send me a link for a free download if you'd like, but I can wait to hear about the final outcome.

HMH, of whale-swallowing minnow fame, has issued an e-book that details IBM's efforts to create a smart computer. The final chapter is missing, and it's an intentional omission.

Did IBM succeed, you'd like to know. The television show on which the computer is tested against two human brains will no doubt receive all sorts of hype prior to broadcast, at which time the question will be answered.

Of course the show is already in the can and Stephen Baker already knows if his invention works. The sponsors of Jeopardy want the world to be waiting in breathless anticipation for that particular broadcast, enough that ratings will get a huge boost and the sponsors empty their wallets with greedy smiles.

The e-book is part of the marketing strategy. Add to the build-up and you add to the potential audience, who may not channel-surf away from all the commercials out of fear of missing a moment of excitement as man battles machine.

After the show, the final chapter and the hard copy book will be on the market.

It's been noted that novels used to be serialized in newspapers, which is probably why Charles Dickens has such long, wordy chapters (paid by the word, do you think?). This manner of book publishing is following the old model.

I'd say that's a long stretch to reach parity.

Release a chapter a week, with the final chapter issued right after the show airs, and I'd call it a serial edition. Put everything out except the last chapter and I'd call it a marketing strategy that takes a page from Hollywood's treatment of the last Harry Potter book.

Battling With Words

On one side the headlines scream that Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has asked the Crown for a paying job.

The other side is saying that the politician resigned his seat because he's going to run as a candidate from County Louth in the upcoming general election. He didn't ask for a job or the title of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.

As it turns out, by resigning his seat in Westminster, Mr. Adams had to then be given a posh posting in accord with British law going back 400 years. That gives the DUP plenty of fodder to paint the man as a hypcrite, seeking a wage from the very country he claims he's not a citizen of.

The British, being so very protocol-oriented, would make no exception for Mr. Adams. England's Prime Minister declared before Parliament that Mr. Adams had agreed to become the baron of the Manor of Northstead, but he did qualify the announcement by explaining that it's the only way a Member of Parliament can resign.

Speaking on behalf of DUP loyalists everywhere, Nigel Dodds took advantage of Question Time to speechify and lambaste his hated nemesis. Gerry Adams has emigrated, Mr. Dodds chortled, because he's going to run for office in Ireland.

Gerry Adams, of course, has long held that he has always lived in Ireland, and just because some political chicanery created a border in the 1920s doesn't mean he's bound to recognize it. He didn't recognize the Crown as having authority over the Irish people either, and he never took his seat in the Commons.

'Resign' sounds like such a simple term, easy to understand. Apparently, for MPs who wish to step down, one word doesn't fit.

Who would have guessed that "Gerry Adams has accepted an office of profit under the Crown' would translate into 'Gerry Adams has resigned'? Isn't it all the English language that we're speaking?

Except for Gerry Adams, that is. He opened and closed his letter of resignation in Irish. Maybe that's where the error in translation occurred.

Go raibh maith agat, indeed.

Defining A Library

While Illinois raises taxes to deal with a bloated debt load, New York takes an axe to spending.

Hence, the public library system in Queens, New York, will stop buying books.

What is a library these days? Doesn't it exist as a repository to hold books so that those of us who can't afford to fund our voracious reading habit have an affordable source?

Apparently not, or at least not in Queens.

After spending tons of money on expansion and facility upgrades, the library system finds that it's broke. Newly added facilities require heating and lighting, along with computers and librarians and pages to stack the shelves. Expenses went up, while revenue has dropped during the current recession.

It's impossible to reverse the upgrades and recoup the costs, so where to find savings?

Other libraries might reduce operating hours and decrease staff positions. Tom Galante, the Queens Public Library CEO, decided that the new books could go.

What is a library? In Queens, it's not so much a place to borrow books as it a place where one obtains English as a second language instruction. It's a place to go when you need Internet access for your job hunt. It can even be a place to go if you're homeless and seek a safe place to find warm shelter.

But it's not the books that are critical any more. So the library in Queens won't be adding to its collection any time soon.

The public is being tapped to donate, if they believe that libraries are first and foremost a place for the general public to find knowledge and entertainment in the written word. If everyone gave $25, Queens could have a traditional library, and not one of those modern inventions that isn't much of a library at all.

It's the cost of a single hard cover. Not much to ask, considering how much use a single hard cover could get as a lendable commodity.

Stretched Thin To The Point Of Transparency

A physician and a solicitor would be expected to generate a substantial annual income, but to the point of supporting a total debt load of E886 million?

During the property boom, values rose beyond reason and you can just picture Brian O'Donnell and his wife looking over things and deciding that their best investment was in real estate. They borrowed and bought, and values went up, so they borrowed and bought some more. They didn't see any dark clouds on the horizon.

What goes up comes down, of course, and the same could be said of land valuation. The property that served as collateral for other loans is no longer worth as much as it once was, and now that the O'Donnells have amassed a large portfolio, the find themselves running short.

The Bank of Ireland is suing the couple because they're running behind on loan payments. The family assets were laid bare in court, but the bank is casting doubt as to the true value of the couple's home on Vico Road in Kilkenny. And the office block near the White House might not be worth $138.4 million these days, so does that mean the outstanding balance on the loan of $97.7 million indicates the mortgage is under water?

The same could be said of the investment property in London's Canary Wharf district, along with a building in Sweden. Mr. and Mrs. O'Connell say they have assets valued at E1.089 billion, but can they really expect to pay back E886 million that funded the purchase of those assets?

Are the O'Connells in over their heads at this point?

Like Frank Cowperwood of The Financier, all they need is more time, until the dust settles on the latest financial crisis. And like Mr. Cowperwood, they may not be granted that time.

It's clear that they're stretched to the limit and now that their creditors have seen the level of debt, what are the chances that other lenders will call in their loans as well?

At least these days there's not the stigma attached to bankruptcy as there once was. And Mr. O'Donnell can always hope and pray that his income as a solicitor reaches the level he's claimed to the Bank of Ireland. The bankers, however, have their doubts.

It Worked For The Landlords

During the Great Famine, over one million people left Ireland. In many cases, the landlords paid their passage to America.

Starving, unemployed masses tend to agitate for reform so that they will no longer be starving or unemployed. Help them find what they're looking for elsewhere, and you're rid of a danger.

The failed Young Ireland movement proved that those without were tending towards armed insurrection. No government wants its citizens to consider taking up arms to gain the basics of existence.

Willie Penrose is quite right to say that modern emigration is easing the strain on the current Fianna Fail-led government. Rather than sit around Dublin and seethe, able-bodied university graduates are packing their bags and flying off to Australia or England or America, where they believe they have a better chance of finding something to earn a daily wage.

What's the government to do, asks Mr. Penrose, to put a stop to the Irish diaspora that never seems to end?

As a member of the Labour Party, he can't be happy with the first move that's been made. The minimum wage in Ireland has been dropped by one euro, to decrease one business expense in the hope of attracting other businesses looking for lower costs.

There's no money in the Exchequeuer, of course, to pay for any sort of government-backed schemes. Those were tried during the Famine days, with pointless road construction projects that provided wages for those who weren't already half dead with starvation, but did nothing to improve transportation.

It has to be up to private concerns to find reason to locate in Ireland, and the government is doing a fair job of promoting the well-educated, motivated workforce that's waiting for jobs to appear. It's up to the government to ensure that corporate taxes are kept low, in spite of Sarkozy's drive to get a higher, trans-EU rate approved.

In the end, there's not much the government can do but create the right environment, and that environment is pro-business, not pro-worker. Will Mr.Penrose applaud the government's efforts when jobs rise up from the earth, or will he be highly critical because those jobs are low-paying, low-benefit creations that enrich the employer more than the employee? At least the kids would be staying at home, right?