Althouse: "I appeal to the men and women, to the boys and girls of Tralee, to dissociate themselves from this attempt to besmirch the name of our town for the sake of filthy gain."

April 25, 2017

"I appeal to the men and women, to the boys and girls of Tralee, to dissociate themselves from this attempt to besmirch the name of our town for the sake of filthy gain."

"I ask the people to ignore the presence of this woman and her associates. They are attempting something that is contrary to the moral teaching of our faith, that is against our traditions and against the ordinary decencies of life, something that is against everything we hold dear."

71 comments:

Anonymous said...: Wait. With a name like "Tralee" what did they expect? Of *course* Jayne Mansfield would want to go there!; 4/25/17, 10:30 AM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/25/17, 10:34 AM
traditionalguy said...: Is it Breast Blog Day. Jayne Mansfield won the all time award, and she couldn't even sing music like Dolly.

Speaking of culture clashes, the Apostle Paul guy once did a number on the City of Ephesus by teaching there for 2.5 years. The Chamber of Commerce finally had to starta riot to protect The Breasty One. That was the nick name of the Goddess Artemis (a/k/a Diana). It had the town chanting over and over all day, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians."

Artemis: When two breasts are just not enough.; 4/25/17, 10:41 AM
Michael K said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/25/17, 10:42 AM
Michael K said...: Jayne's daughter, Mariska was asleep in the back seat and was injured but grew up to be a pretty good actress on "Law and Order." She speaks five languages which impressed me.; 4/25/17, 10:43 AM
Otto said...: Oh those hypocritical Christians - This oldie still being played by the tikkunistas.
You see Ann has never been hypocritical.; 4/25/17, 11:01 AM
tcrosse said...: The pale moon was rising above the green mountain,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea;
When I strayed with my love to the pure crystal fountain,
That stands in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.; 4/25/17, 11:10 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Jayne's daughter, Mariska was asleep in the back seat and was injured but grew up to be a pretty good actress on "Law and Order." She speaks five languages which impressed me."

Actually, she's not a very good actress.; 4/25/17, 11:11 AM
Michael K said...: "Actually, she's not a very good actress."

Fortunately, TV is still optional. The L&O SVU series is a step down in my opinion but the concept is pretty good.

The older, better cop shows like "Hill Street Blues" were too expensive to produce because of the outdoor shooting.; 4/25/17, 11:16 AM
buwaya said...: The new Streets of San Francisco is never going to be made. It would cost a fortune.; 4/25/17, 11:25 AM
Known Unknown said...: "Here they are, Jayne Mansfield."; 4/25/17, 11:33 AM
Bill said...: I think I've watched Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? about 30 times. It's a delightful movie, like MAD Magazine come to life. Jayne originated the role of Rita Marlowe on Broadway, and her scenes with Tony Randall and the great Joan Blondell are brilliant. Unfortunately, her career began its steep decline shortly thereafter.; 4/25/17, 11:34 AM
Known Unknown said...: "Actually, she's not a very good actress."

I tend to agree because she's basically been the same character her entire career.; 4/25/17, 11:34 AM
Known Unknown said...: Also, does the Screen Actors Guild do anything for actors? Except expunge money from them periodically?
I thought of this after the passing of Erin Moran, who was impoverished at death.

Worst union ever.; 4/25/17, 11:37 AM
Known Unknown said...: I think I used expunge incorrectly. I probably meant extract.; 4/25/17, 11:45 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Frequent references have been made to Mansfield's very high IQ, which she claimed was 163.[231] In addition to English, she spoke four other languages. She learned French, Spanish, and German in high school, and she studied Italian in 1963.[232] Reputed to be Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde", she later complained that the public did not care about her brains: "They're more interested in 40–21–35," she said.[2][27]"

Wikipedia; 4/25/17, 12:02 PM
Alex said...: Siouxsie and the Banshees created a song "Kiss Them For Me" about Jayne Mansfield's demise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySGSb3pCUEM; 4/25/17, 12:11 PM
gspencer said...: "On a Sunday morning, April 23, 1967, a statement was read at all masses in Killarney: 'Our attention has been drawn to an entertainment in Tralee tonight. The bishop requests you do not attend.'"

A 1960s' application of the Streisand Effect.; 4/25/17, 12:12 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: That Ireland – poor, prudish, and devoutly Catholic – is gone now; done in by both the priest sex scandals, which had an even more devastating effect in Ireland than they did here, and by the Celtic Tiger phenomenon and the prosperity it brought to the country. The short stories of William Trevor (Southern Irish Protestant, btw – a very gifted bunch) and Frank O’Connor portray that older Ireland, beautifully – and also make it clear why so many found the atmosphere stifling.

The Irish variety of Catholicism was far more austere and grim than the Catholicism of warmer climes, due in large part to the Jansenist priests who imported it from France (where it never made much of a dent) to Ireland in the later part of the 18th century. The emphasis on human depravity and the sexual prudery became more pronounced after the Famine and again, after DeValera made it his mission to keep Holy Ireland safe from the uncorrupted outside world. Even into the 1980’s, Irish government censors were cutting out the naughtier bits of British newspapers sold in the Republic and you could not buy a copy of “Ulysses” in the city the novel was set.

Mary McCarthy noted that because the Irish were the first Catholics to arrive in significant numbers in the US, they gained control of the church hierarchy here and set the template and they imported their brand of Catholicism. McCarthy was speaking of the visual effect . She noted that Irish artistic greatness is almost entirely limited to words, and they have indeed punched way above their weight when it comes to producing great writers. But they don’t produce great visual artists and she thought that the character of American Catholicism would have been far different if, say, the Italians had arrived first.; 4/25/17, 12:14 PM
Carter Wood said...: No one ever writes about Mickey Hargity, Jayne's second husband and Mariska's father. Granted, he played roles like gladiators.But look! He was in a 2003 L&O SVU playing "grandfather."; 4/25/17, 12:22 PM
Floris said...: I love these "guess the person and location" quotes at Althouse. I guessed "Madonna in Istanbul."; 4/25/17, 12:23 PM
Roughcoat said...: The annual Rose of Tralee Festival in August is lots of fun and a great way to experience Ireland. I know, I've been.

Last year's winner was, wouldn't you just know, a Southside Chicago Irish girl, Maggie McEldowney. She's a Beverly (neighborhood) and graduate of Marist [Catholic] High School in the Mt. Greenwood neighborhood. Those there are some impressive Southside Irish credentials.

See: http://www.chicagotribune.com/redeye/redeye-chicagoan-maggie-mceldowney-wins-ireland-rose-of-tralee-competition-20160824-story.html; 4/25/17, 12:27 PM
Mark O said...: Breasts were big in the '50's.; 4/25/17, 12:30 PM
Michael K said...: "Those there are some impressive Southside Irish credentials."

My niece a few years ago was the queen, or whatever it is, of the Beverly St Patrick's Day Parade,

That was before they cancelled it for several years because of drunken rowdies.

She is the redhead and that is her band.

She is also a transplant nurse at Rush. She could have gone to medical school but her father is not in good health and she did not want to be far from him.; 4/25/17, 12:40 PM
Roughcoat said...: exileonmainstreet @12:14 PM:

Yes and no. It is certainly true that the sex scandals involving pedophile priests devastated the Church in Ireland, much more so than in the U.S., and devastated the Irish as well. In Ireland today, Catholicism as a belief system and a faith to be practiced is moribund and disgraced. The sex scandals were truly the devil's work, and I mean that literally. But the faith will recover in Ireland because the Irish are Catholic in their bones: it's in their cultural DNA.

Someone once said that Ireland was, for both good and ill, the last Medieval country in Europe. It has not yet shed all of its Medieval character, and I hope it never does. I doubt that it can, which seems a good thing to me.

I traveled in Ireland back in the day before the sex scandals, and I traveled all through Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Fascinating experiences.

Mary McCarthy, as usual, didn't know what she was talking about. Evidently she wasn't familiar with Celtic religious art, e.g. the Book of Kells. She should have visited the Irish immigrant churches in Chicago Irish neighborhoods like Bridgeport, Canaryville, Beverly, etc., where the visual art rivaled even that of the splendidly ornate Polish and Ukrainian churches in the city.

What a loathsome creature she was. She was a Communist ideologue and fellow-traveler who first supported Stalin and then shifted her allegiance to Trotsky. How piquant of her. She renounced her Catholic faith to become an outspoken atheist. She supposedly developed a critical view of Communism but that didn't stop her from repeatedly visiting North Vietnam to hobknob with the Ho Chi Minh and his cronies and, like Jane Fonda, to "meet with" American POWs in the Hanoi Hilton. She wrote glowingly about the Vietcong and once declared that "there was not a single documented case of the Viet Cong deliberately killing a South Vietnamese woman or child."; 4/25/17, 1:00 PM
Roughcoat said...: Michael K:

Pretty niece! Btw, the South Side parade is back in business.

I'm still mildly pissed off at you for saying, yesterday, that I was spoiled rotten. :); 4/25/17, 1:02 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Roughcoat: Holy hell, I didn't know that about McCarthy. Thanks for that post.

I only visited Ireland once. Warm, friendly people and stunningly beautiful scenery, particularly Kerry.; 4/25/17, 1:06 PM
Paddy O said...: The Irish aren't known for their representational art, but there's certainly a long tradition of art.

The difference between Classical Roman/Greek influences which spurred Michaelangelo and Celtic influences are deep indeed. Count me as one who thinks the Council of Whitby was a devastating moment for the historical church. It established uniformity rather than incorporating diversity within its definition of unity. Then the Protestants rejected art altogether for the most part.

American Christianity has a lot of problems in artistic past. Times are changing. But slowly.

Speaking of Irish influence in the American Church, I was very surprised to see Celtic motifs throughout the Catholic Church in Pasadena, which obviously is not itself a particularly Irish neighborhood. The art reflects the priests who were posted there when the church was built.

Now the priests are primarily coming from Asian backgrounds in my experience, especially Filipino but not nearly exclusively so.

Roughcoat is exactly right about the scandals being the devil's work. The Church failed its fundamental duty to the people and to the priests themselves, excusing and overlooking the crimes. It's nothing new and goes on elsewhere, but it's precisely the Church who should be living out the better way of the Spirit in our communities. Something Paul was quite clear about in 1 Corinthians 5. It brought evil into ministry settings and gave cause for all sorts of reasons to reject the rest of the church's teachings. It didn't have to be that way, and it was anti-Christ to let it happen and go on so long.; 4/25/17, 1:09 PM
Roughcoat said...: Paddy-O:

During a business trip to a small town just south of San Franciso, I attended mass at a blue-collar church with an African priest presiding. Very nice: the entire congregation was white and working class and the priest was a west African who spoke with a beautiful lilting accent.

The sex scandals = the devil's handiwork. Literally, not metaphorically. He won that battle. But he won't win the war.; 4/25/17, 1:32 PM
Michael K said...: "I'm still mildly pissed off at you for saying, yesterday, that I was spoiled rotten. :)"

I'm sure there must be exceptions.

I did not find the Irish all that friendly in 1977. My Irish doctor friend, who is no longer with us I believe, told me the reason.

He said, "The Irish are not all that fond of Americans coming here to look for their roots. The Irish know the cream left."

His father was a ship's pilot in Cork Harbor and when Chris told him he wanted to go to medical school, he father knocked him down and called him a "bloody snob." He and his brother owned a pub and hotel in Cobh.

My father was not that bad but told me to "give up this idea of going to college."; 4/25/17, 1:57 PM
Paddy O said...: Roughcoat, yes, West Africans are also a tremendous resource for the Catholic Church (and Anglicans too!). I agree in the literally too. The war is over, I'd argue, with the resurrection, but battles can be lost along the way. Sin has a nasty way of infecting and ruining and destroying, but it won't win.; 4/25/17, 2:07 PM
Roughcoat said...: I did not find the Irish all that friendly in 1977.

They can be real dicks, that's for sure. Lots of love/hate for America and Americans, lots of envy and resentment. Also disdain. They live in a Celtic bubble, protected from the sturm-und-drang of great power rivalries, and thus feel relieved of all the duties and responsibilities that America and Americans shoulder daily, as a matter of course. They complain a lot, like all the people of the British Isles, and they never conceived an opinion that they didn't feel a need to vocalize, especially with regard to American flaws and failings. Just as Gondor protected the Shire and received no thanks for, we protect them and ensure their national integrity and, like the Hobbits of the Shire, they are clueless, lacking in awareness and gratitude for what we do.; 4/25/17, 2:21 PM
Roughcoat said...: Sometimes I get sick and tired of my Irish heritage and its effect on me, on shaping my personality and character and self-hood. When that happens I fall back on my German heritage. But, of course, that also has its, er, problematic aspects . . .; 4/25/17, 2:26 PM
gspencer said...: Roughcoat,

I understand, and have the solution.

What you do is embrace the best of both cultures.

Fermented beverages are common to both.; 4/25/17, 2:45 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: BTW, Roughcoat, McCarthy did get one thing right: She said that everything Lillian Hellman wrote is a lie, including "and" and "the."

And of course Hellman sued her over that. Commie catfight.; 4/25/17, 3:17 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Gee, I liked the Irish. They were nice to me. But then so were the French and the Brits.

Perhaps I would not find them so friendly now, not because they have changed but because I have. I'm not a young woman in my 20's now.

It didn't occur to me at the time but I know now that is a definite advantage when it comes to being treated nicely - and also holds certain risks as well.; 4/25/17, 3:30 PM
Rumpletweezer said...: If I had a time machine, instead of trying to kill Hitler, I'd try to save Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Jayne Mansfield, and Carol Wayne. How could that not make the world better?; 4/25/17, 3:51 PM
The Bear said...: My God ... in the black and white photo (even with the wig) she looks so much like her daughter.; 4/25/17, 4:08 PM
Michael K said...: "Sometimes I get sick and tired of my Irish heritage"

The Irish are a little bit like Russians. They would get almost as much pleasure from seeing others having trouble as themselves having good fortune.

We met an interesting couple one of our trips. She was South African and he was working as an agent on one of her father's ships when they met. They lived in Cork.

She decided the Catholic schools were too crowded so she enrolled her kids in the Protestant school, which outraged their neighbors. The Irish Republic has (or had) a law that required every school district to have Protestant schools for non-Catholics. Her kids were Catholic but she chose the other schools anyway.

I guess it was the source of considerable gossip.; 4/25/17, 4:37 PM
Roughcoat said...: exileonmainstreet:

I like the Irish too. Don't get me wrong. I'm a Catholic Irish American after all; I like being such. But, being such, I know all the flaws and virtues in equal measure. For instance, my mother was mad and difficult in the way only an old Irish women could be, and my dear genial German father never knew quite how to handle her. He died before she did and I half believe that his death was partly volitional, as way of getting away from her. I'm not a starry-eyed romantic about the Irish or about being Irish American. Well, sometimes I am. That's what it means to be Irish: you live in a sort of cultural fugue state of cognitive dissonance. Freud said the Irish are the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis. They cannot, he said, be psychoanalyzed. There's a reason for that.; 4/25/17, 5:26 PM
Roughcoat said...: Michael K:

The Irish are suspicious of success. They don't trust it. They think they'll somehow be made to pay too dearly for it, or that it'll be taken away from them. When their friends enjoy success they have tendency to get angry over their good fortune. When the Celtic Tiger boom was going strong (it's since cooled off considerably) I might be hoisting a few in a pub in Mayo with a few lads who were doing well, and inevitably one of them would say, "It's goin' well now, sure, but it won't last," and the others would nod in agreement, with great grim solemnity. The joke goes, why is it that Irish men drinking in a pub together all leave together, and only at closing time? Answer: because they know that whoever leaves early, all the other men are going to talk about him, and they're going to talk him down real hard.

Except it isn't just a joke, it's also true.; 4/25/17, 5:37 PM
Anonymous said...: So basically Tralee was Berkeley and Mansfield was Milo?; 4/25/17, 5:51 PM
Anonymous said...: Roughcoat: Sometimes I get sick and tired of my Irish heritage and its effect on me, on shaping my personality and character and self-hood. When that happens I fall back on my German heritage. But, of course, that also has its, er, problematic aspects . . .

Irish and German? The most felicitous of human genetic combinations!

But I guess it could go either way. You could end up with a bunch of gloomy, belligerent OCD bullshitting alcoholic crabs-in-a-bucket, instead of what I mostly see among my own - the Teutonic "blessed rage for order" and killer work ethics, but with a sense of humor, and an inability to give authority an iota more than its proper due. (Those last two are no doubt essentially the same trait.) Plus a salutary dose of "no fucks given" fightin' Irish spirit, that only gets the upper hand over the law-abiding impulse when it should.

Not that I don't have a relative or two who didn't get the optimum recombinatory package. That fear of success, and resentment of the successful, really is A Thing among the Irish, that my father rejected. All of us sibs distinctly remember the old relatives who resented his ambition, his intelligence, hell, even his good looks and charm, and his generosity to them!

But the Irish are tragic. They spend centuries bitching about English oppression, finally get rid of them, but now seem to be falling all over themselves to sell their birthright for a mess of "multicultural" globalist pottage, as fast as they can. I'd like to do some walking tours in the fabled West (my grandfather was a Kerryman), but I guess I'd better go soon, since the Irish, or at least their PTBs, seem hell-bent (according to some disgruntled Irishmen of my acquaintance) on turning the Irish into a minority in their homeland, and Ireland into Nigeria North or Pakistan West. Great pity, since the Irish, for all their flaws and failings, are a unique and compelling people, which one would think promoters of "diversity" might like to preserve.; 4/25/17, 6:16 PM
John henry said...: Irish Alzheimers: You forget everything except the grudges.

John Henry; 4/25/17, 6:25 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Paul Zrimsek, excellent!

Roughcoat and Angel-Dyne, those are very interesting insights. Regarding multi-culturalism: I wonder if the Irish rush to embrace "diversity" doesn't come, in their case, from a desire to finally be part of the European mainstream. It's a isolated country. Their closest neighbor was also their ruler for many centuries and on the other side, nothing but water until you reach the New World. Being European might mean in their minds, accepting the conventional wisdom issued from Brussels. The English have historically always been leery of the ways of those strange people on the Continent; having an Empire kept the Brits from getting too insular. In a way, Brexit is a return to the traditional English mindset. But that's not something the Irish would share - or want to share.; 4/25/17, 6:29 PM
Roughcoat said...: Angel-Dyne:

Excellent, especially your final paragraph. Yes, the Irish do seem hellbent on becoming a minority in their own homeland, another manifestation of the decline and fall) of the West. A Irish friend of mine, who is also a Catholic priest, once remarked that "Ireland sold her soul to the EU, and for what? So that they could get the money to build a few good roads in the West."

Granted, they need a few good roads in the west. But seriously.

Btw: the Irish-German mix is still the most common/numerous ethnic mix in northern Illinois. Long after the end of the Irish and German diasporas that sent millions of Micks and Krauts to the Midwest, and even with the influx of other ethnic groups (e.g., Mexicans, of whom their seems to be an endless supply), the Irish-Germans still outnumber everyone else. Chicago has the second largest population of people with Irish heritage in the U.S., or anywhere else for that matter outside of Ireland. Philadelphia -- not New York, not Boston -- has the largest ethnic Irish grouping.; 4/25/17, 6:46 PM
Anonymous said...: exiled @6:29: What you say about "being European" does seem to be true. (Hey, I've even thought of taking Irish citizenship, to which I'm entitled, to make it easier to buy property in France! But it all - citizenship and the EU - seems to be getting too messy to bother with now.) I just hope "being European" doesn't end with Ireland not "being Irish". That's a problem for all European people now, but there's only a few million native Irish.

But the "being European" thing is something that resonates even with an American Irish Catholic. I was inculcated, from a very early age, with the sense of being the inheritor of European civilization, all of it, not just this or that European ethnicity. It's mine, damn it, all two millenia + of it, and I felt this, from that very early age. I love and am grateful for the catholicity of my Catholic upbringing. This sense of inheritance can be true for non-Catholics - e.g., my WASPy Protestant husband - but it wasn't anywhere near as explicit in his upbringing, as it was in mine.; 4/25/17, 7:06 PM
Roughcoat said...: Irish Alzheimers: You forget everything except the grudges.

Heh, so true, after a fashion. My mother, God rest her, didn't have Alzheimers but her grudges were legion. She was mad in both senses of the word, angry and crazy. When my siblings and I were told that her condition was terminal, we all scoffed, saying that she was too ornery and stubborn to die. Well, almost: she made it to 95, but still three years short of her Ireland-born grandmother.

Oh, yes: she was also very tough and very funny, with a great sense of humor. One of the few women I've known who found the Three Stooges hilarious. We used to watch their movie shorts together, laughing to beat the band. And if I experienced some sort of misfortune and I came home crying about it, she would tell me to stop crying and be a man. I appreciate that about her, along with a lot of things. I do miss her.

Angel-Dyne: I could also get Irish citizenship, and when I was younger I almost did because it seemed a very cool thing to do. But I didn't do it, and never will. In part because it occurred to me that to do so would have been like spitting on the grave, and heritage, and sacrifices of my Irish immigrant great-grandparents, who gave up everything to come to the United States, to be Americans, to fight for the Union in the Civil War. But, most of all: after 9/11, I thought, fuck that. I'm an American, and that's that.; 4/25/17, 7:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Roughcoat: Granted, they need a few good roads in the west. But seriously.

I had that same feeling, a few years ago, toodling around on some very nice roads/bridges in the Greek hinterland. EU cheese is wonderful stuff, I thought then, but the devil will have his due.

P.S. Irish-Germans rule.; 4/25/17, 7:22 PM
Roughcoat said...: Angel-Dyne:

I've toodled around on many roads in the Greek hinterland. The Irish roads in the West are, or were, worse. Because they're so narrow and sunk down between hedgerow-type embankments with heavy foliage. "Meeting" a drunk driver on one of those roads can be a harrowing experience. And on any given night, the roads in the West have their share of drunk drivers. A friend of mine owned a farm in Mayo and he told me that he always tried not to get too attached to his herding dogs because they ran loose and so many got killed by cars speeding along those narrow sunken roads. Is that sad, or what? And so Irish.; 4/25/17, 7:30 PM
Roughcoat said...: P.P.S.: Agree, kinswoman: Irish-Germans do indeed rule!; 4/25/17, 7:34 PM
Roughcoat said...: Angel-Dyne: One more story. When I became a member of the Irish-American Heritage Center in Chicago, while filling out the form I said jokingly to the person taking my application, "I hope you don't hold it against me that I have a German last name." She laughed and said: "Are you kidding? Half of our membership have last names that are either German or Polish!"; 4/25/17, 7:38 PM
Anonymous said...: Roughcoat: Angel-Dyne: I could also get Irish citizenship, and when I was younger I almost did because it seemed a very cool thing to do. But I didn't do it, and never will. In part because it occurred to me that to do so would have been like spitting on the grave, and heritage, and sacrifices of my Irish immigrant great-grandparents, who gave up everything to come to the United States, to be Americans, to fight for the Union in the Civil War. But, most of all: after 9/11, I thought, fuck that. I'm an American, and that's that.

I agree; I don't think dual-citizenship should be allowed. I'm an American and have no interest in being anything but. My forebears and siblings are buried at Arlington. "Pretend you're Canadian when you go to Europe so people don't hate you." Fuck that, you cringing candy asses. I'm an unapologetic 'murcan and people in Europe treat me just fine. But if everybody else is allowed dual citizenship (some of whom don't give a rat's about this country), I didn't see a problem with taking it for bureaucratic convenience. I would never use it to "pass".; 4/25/17, 7:53 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Oh right! Ireland and its morality and sexually pure baby-rearing ways!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4278876/Mass-grave-former-Catholic-mother-baby-home.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/09/the-truth-behind-irelands-dead-babies-scandal-five-questions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_scandal_in_the_Sisters_of_Mercy; 4/25/17, 7:54 PM
Paddy O said...: "Irish-Germans rule."

I think the proper term is Krautch-Irish; 4/25/17, 8:03 PM
Michael K said...: "I could also get Irish citizenship, and when I was younger I almost did because it seemed a very cool thing to do. "

My mother thought of doing it and could have done so.

The roads, called "boreens" when I was driving around on them, are sunk because the hedges never get cut back. It's the same in Normandy.

Another story about my friends in Cork. The Irish, as you have probably noticed drive on the wrong side so they can see who's coming, Then they swerve back to the correct side but tourists occasionally get confused. We were at this guy's house for dinner and he was late. Finally he showed up having had a few pints and said he thought he might have run someone off the road. We all trooped out on the road in the dark looking for a car off the road. He wasn't sure, having had a pint or two too many, and we never found anyone.

I think Irishman who have taken a drink were better off with horses.; 4/25/17, 8:06 PM
William said...: I'm German-Irish. In America, the German gene is definitely recessive. You just don't brag about being German in this country. The Germans made good Americans but not such good Europeans. They're more famous for Hitler than for Goethe. I guess that's as it should be, but I think fate and circumstances had more to do with Hitler than the German national character........My father was In the carpenter's union and died an alcoholic as his father did before him. He was very Irish. The Irish side of my family has a number of alcoholics. Maybe the heavy drinking had something to do with the residual effects of English colonialism, but my father laid the blame for his alcoholism squarely on the shoulders of my mother. There are different theories.; 4/25/17, 8:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Roughcoat: I've toodled around on many roads in the Greek hinterland. The Irish roads in the West are, or were, worse.

And will be again! Hopefully they'll hold up until after my planned visit.

Oddly, even my 100% Irish relatives are ferociously efficient, energetic, get shit done, on-time-and-under-budget people. (And among the men, there's a great deal of engineering/mechanical/scientific talent. No mooning poets. Or rather, they don't moon until the project's done.) But maybe that's why our ancestors cleared out of Ireland.

Because they're so narrow and sunk down between hedgerow-type embankments with heavy foliage. "Meeting" a drunk driver on one of those roads can be a harrowing experience. And on any given night, the roads in the West have their share of drunk drivers. A friend of mine owned a farm in Mayo and he told me that he always tried not to get too attached to his herding dogs because they ran loose and so many got killed by cars speeding along those narrow sunken roads. Is that sad, or what? And so Irish.

Man, that is sad. I'd shoot the drunk drivers to save the dogs.; 4/25/17, 8:09 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Paddy O your new avatar is very intriguing, but I can't interpret it. Is it a new fangled type of fern that only grows out west? An CGI of something out of Dr. Seuss, but with more light? What is it, exactly?; 4/25/17, 8:18 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: toothless revolutionary: your sarcasm would be appropriate if this thread was filled with Irish Americans waxing sentimental over the Old Country or excusing the abuses committed by Catholic clergy. I don't see anybody doing that; the responses have been complex and interesting to me, as a person with some knowledge of Irish history but no Irish blood.

It's like you never actually read what people here write and simply respond with your own preprogrammed response, as if nobody here has ever heard of the Magdalen laundries. The automatic derision is really quite boring.; 4/25/17, 8:32 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Sure, Ms Mainstreet. It's interesting to read all the twists and turns of this particular chapter of Irish tragedy that your learned troupe of scholars bring to the discussion above. But I don't see why a sensationalistic headline or two is so out of order. At some point, wouldn't some action on the problem, in its many manifestations, be a good thing? How is that cause helped with such politeness and deference? I am not afraid of the church, which despite whatever good you think it does has obviously been horrible at doing something about all this - which as the most powerful and directly involved authority, it damn well should have done.

Are you afraid of the church? What is it that makes my directness so objectionable?

I admit to not being someone with an "inside stake" in the game. But does that mean I'm supposed to butt out when it comes to the horrors inflicted on its kids? Do you feel non-Muslims should "butt out" when it comes to the horrors that belief system inflicts on its adherents - both current and former?

Civilization is an inclusive, all-encompassing event.; 4/25/17, 8:41 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Do you get upset when people who aren't Islamic theologians/scholars opine on the problems with Islam? Would you tell them that they are inappropriately ignorant? Or filled with "preprogrammed responses" and "automatic derision?"; 4/25/17, 8:43 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Show me where I denied the sexual abuses and cover ups. My very first post in this thread noted the prudery and austerity of the Irish variety of Catholicism Church as compared to, say, the church in Italy. As Hypenated American, noted, you are very fond of telling people they believe and say things they don't believe and never said.

Afraid of the Church? Why would I be? It's not 1217. This might come as a surprise to you but I didn't darken the door of a Church for 15 years and the Church didn't send out the Inquisition, put me on the rack or do one damn thing to me. I returned but not because I was afraid of hellfire or excommunication. The idea that I am afraid of the Church or of acknowledging negative things about the Church is ridiculous, but I find most of your ideas about the Church are ridiculous.

I'm also amused by the idea that, because I pointed out the many contributions to science made by devoutly Catholic scientists that that makes me some sort of super Catholic. I wish I was, as I admire people of strong faith, but you flatter me too much. I'm just an ordinary not very good mackerel snapper.; 4/25/17, 9:07 PM
Paddy O said...: " Is it a new fangled type of fern that only grows out west? An CGI of something out of Dr. Seuss, but with more light? What is it, exactly?"

Happy you noticed! It's definitely Dr. Seuss-like. And it only grows out west, but it's not new-fangled. It's a field of giant coreopsis's that grow especially large and thick on the Channel Islands. That picture was taken on the trail out of the campground on San Miguel Island.

I've been keeping the Anacapa Island webcam on a lot these days, so changed my picture as another memory. Those islands are some of my favorite places.; 4/25/17, 9:11 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/25/17, 9:15 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Thanks, Paddy O!

California really is blessed with some of the most unusual and interesting flora and fauna in the states. It's so great to see how even along the coasts you get these beautifully flowering succulent groundcovers that can't be found elsewhere, AFAIK.

The people there really do take to investing themselves with care and regard for the different species of things. I often found that to be the case when visiting relatives/friends - and can't even remember a number of the taxons around us they casually pointed out to me. But I'll be sure to remember that coreposis and look upon that as another reason to finally take a greater look to the south, including the Channel Islands.; 4/25/17, 9:18 PM
Paddy O said...: I'm excited about your excitement! Well worth even a day trip. Island Packers is the primary way of getting out there. Anacapa is the easiest to get to and has a lot of quintessential Channel Islands experience in a relatively small space. Well, Catalina is the easiest to get to but it's not part of the national park system and is a lot, lot more occupied.

Various groups have done an amazing job on those islands bringing back species that were just about lost. It's like traveling back to pre-Spanish California.; 4/25/17, 9:25 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: You know, it's perfectly acceptable to gloat over the murders of people killed by Nazis -

Oh, I know. I do this a lot! Almost as much as Spicer!

Actually, I never remember doing that.

What the Nazis did was simply a predictable culmination of much calumny over centuries to millennia, often casually condoned by the authority that had the most power to do something about it. You'll notice that lands run by the Eastern Orthodox sects typically didn't have the sort of problem with anti-semitism that Europe did.

Hitler's party started in Catholic Bavaria, and both he and the closest and most powerful among his coterie - Josef Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Müllerv and Rudolf Hoess - were not raised to be very liberal, atheistic, secular or even Protestant. Of course, Hitler and his party had an uneasy relationship with the old religion and took none too kindly to it themselves. But to presume that they had a problem with its sense of hierarchy, authority, dominance, etc. is a bit of a facile dismissal. I don't discount that there was something there. Their relationship to Catholicism wasn't to rebel against it, but to take its sense of grandeur and power and wonder and all that jazz and to have that pasted onto an old, revived Germanic pagan cult or two.

That might not include you and tons of other decent people, but if there wasn't an influence then what was the point of the Second Vatican Council? What do you make of strange people like Mel Gibson and other rejectionists of those reforms? And finally, why do you keep bringing things up that lead to these inevitable questions and observations? Your anti-anti-semitism is convenient in 2017 America with the world's most powerful nincompoop (whom you admire or at least condone) having no choice but to appoint his Jewish son-in-law, the new court Jew, to every position and initiative he can think of.

But where would you have stood in 1517, I wonder? With criticism as mild as you can muster nowadays, I'm pretty sure the stances you could have taken when they counted would have been 10,000 times more milquetoast than they are today.; 4/25/17, 9:37 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: And 10,000 times less helpful to the family of Mr. "Hyphentated American".; 4/25/17, 10:34 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: I removed that comment, toothless, because it was out of place in what was a pleasant and interesting thread before you arrived.

Why do I have to defend Mel Gibson? I have nothing to do with whatever Sedevacantist group he's a part of. How do you stand on the many mass murderers of the Left?

"But where would you have stood in 1517, I wonder?"

I dunno. I think you would have probably made a pretty ruthless Inquisitor though. Same personality type, different century.; 4/25/17, 10:59 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Your response raises an interesting dilemma.

You've removed a comment, referring to another thread, that prompted a response on my part that you've now responded to and with questions in that response to which I'm now asked to respond.

Do I respond to them, or don't I?

I'm pretty much always against mass murder. This is one of the Great Lies of the Right: That everyone not on the right is Stalin and Mao. But it's time to smash this calumnious garbage once and for all. Most of the opposition to them in America was within the left - as the left was ascendant politically after WWII and just as much on the anti-communist foreign policy bent as anyone else. And yet, somehow FDR's substantially socialistic modern state survived intact all that time. Pretty strange, huh? Who were the American Democrats mass-murdering from 1945 until 1980? Who were the Republicans who went along with them until Reagan mass-murdering? And somehow we did all that while maintaining social security, Medicare, Medicaid and other leftist/socialist schemes. Amazing.

But at least you got in another political cheap shot.

As for interrogation, I'll interrogate myself as much as I would anyone else.

But somehow, without the murdering, banishment and torture, it tends to go better. I guess I'm not into wantonly destroying things and witch-hunts - at least, not without first understanding what such investigation reveals; the things I'm supposed to "hate" so much and so destructively.

Understanding things is a good thing. Maybe if Mr. H. American's family had (along with the resources) a better understanding of what was going on in Europe - a continuation of the same as it had always been, except combined with a more modern and toxic mix of nationalism and industrial power, they'd have avoided their fate.

Maybe if your family was there and had a better understanding of it, you could have helped them. (Or at least, that's what I presume. Your "1517" comment leaves a lot to interpretation).

But I get it. It's now 2017 and everyone gets to talk-the-talk and the real-life lessons of those things be damned. Let alone the real-life lessons of how they even came to be (and how to avoid them) in the first place.; 4/25/17, 11:21 PM