Gone Ridin'

Just a brief update to say that I'm out riding my bee-yoo-tee-ful new cruiser, a generous Christmas gift from my amazing children. :-)

Merry Christmas

Most embarrassing news anchor line on election day 2008

Brian Williams (white) to Tavis Smiley (black) after Smiley's observations about the import of this election:
"That's why we invited you to our family table."
Yikes.

The Troubles: 1968

Professor MacKenna teaches his children to spit through their gapped front teeth at the American flag. When asked, they are to say they’re not from America. Ameri-k-a, he spells it out in conversation. Boann MacKenna cringes each time.

The children don’t question. Well, Siobhan, the baby, six, asks: “Why can’t we be American, Da? My friends are.”

Her elders stifle groans. They’ve heard it, all.

“Shuvvy, my love,” Mam coos.

“You’re no more American than my R’s,” MacKenna lectures his giggling brood, his brow knitted all over in a complicated cable pattern.

Even the older kids think he means arse. They’ve been taught to call it bum.

Mam shakes her fair head. “Gair,” she murmurs.

Gair. His Irish name. Some of the neighbors call him Gary and he seethes.

Gaping teeth aside, the five of them look American, Boann thinks. Red, brown, blond heads. Wide-striped T-shirts, frayed jeans, sneakers with rubber-capped toes. (Trainers they’re called back home, which the children know is not Home anymore).

At school, where they wear St. Margaret Mary’s chosen plaid, they look much like the others, the Americans. Their names are anything but: Breandan, Aedan, Boann, Emer, Siobhan.

Boann—a misery of a name to wear to middle school, where she is called Boo Ann. “Close enough, Sister,” she says each September, a small smile painted on her face.

She’s stuck in the middle at home, too. And what’s she called when she’s at home? Her nickname’s worse: Bobo. She doesn’t explain to Da that he’s given her a clown name, that they’re all clowns. Worse, she doesn’t tell him the neighbor kids call him Mr. Magoo. A cartoon character. Well, aren’t they all?

Boann drives her father mad with her American desires, habits, terms. Her dreams he only guesses at. She cocks her hip out when he lectures, sticks a tolerant look across her face like a plaster. Boann has a friend, an open-faced Proddie girl from down the block who came to the house once. Da answered the door to her trusting knock and glared until she ran back down the messy front walk.

Now they only speak at school, and to and from. They stow their friendship at the corner every day.

Da is not all bad. It’s hard on him that he’s not allowed in Belfast anymore. What was he called when he was at Home, then? His friends there knew MacKenna as Mac Cionaoith—“sprung from fire.”

It’s a derivation his children never can forget.


© Erica Jeffrey 2008

Critical thinking is just code for . . .

. . . being an informed voter.

Who's your candidate in the upcoming election? Why?

If your man is Barack Obama, please visit the following site for a detailed, dispassionate overview of his stated policies, recorded votes, and issues on which he's been called to account and had to respond/recant publicly. Having read much of the material (and planning to read more via the copious links supplied), I wonder: Is Joe Biden running the most Freudian, passive-aggressive, covert campaign for VP in US history? When he said that Obama's response to an outside threat within 6 months of being elected would look like the wrong choice to the rest of us, I don't think he was being hyperbolic.

Please read carefully: The comprehensive argument against Barack Obama.

OUTRAGE!!!!!!!

A tragic bus accident a few weeks ago in a nearby county left several people dead, including the owner of the bus. The bus was on its way to a casino. Investigations revealed that the bus and driver weren't properly licensed and that the driver may have been impaired by medications and/or alcohol.

One can find any number of offenses in this story, right?

So, obviously, the first lawsuit I've heard about is directed against . . . THE CASINO!??

The lawyer who has brought the suit on behalf of family members of a woman killed in the accident said on camera (and I paraphrase) that the casino needs to be held responsible for the fact that it earns money from people who are transported to the casino on buses! NOT casino buses: privately-owned buses! NOT buses driven by casino employees! NOT buses that may crash on casino-owned land!

Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm not a fan of casinos. My outrage isn't about protecting the casino industry. It's about SHAMEFUL, SHAM lawsuits motivated by greed.

I'm wondering . . . if someone gets in a car accident on the way to the lawyer's house . . . is the lawyer responsible because the accident wouldn't have happened if the driver weren't on the way to the lawyer's house?

Turn Down the Rhetoric!

We're in the final push toward Election Day 2008. Of our honorable candidates, who, along with the rest of us, are staking so much on the ballots we'll cast in November, I make this request:

TURN DOWN THE RHETORIC!
TURN UP THE SUBSTANCE!

I don't want to hear another word about what the "other" candidate is hiding . . . I want to hear what you're planning.

I don't want to hear another word about failed economic policies or broken systems . . . unless it's a potential solution.

I don't want to hear another word about a citizen asking a "good question" in a town hall forum while the candidate stalls for a response . . . I want to hear a straightforward answer.

I don't want to hear another catchphrase from either side . . . We Americans are capable of analyzing sentences longer than 7 words, no matter what journalists have been taught. My comprehension is waaaay past that of an average 5th grader's, so I don't need your speeches and subsequent pundits' explanations broken down into small, manageable clauses lest they go over my head.

This election is serious business. Please, candidates and media, don't treat it like a sitcom that's geared toward the lowest common denominator.