Events This Week
- RESTORATION COMMITTEE MEETING:The Restoration Committee met with the architect, Richard Hurley, on Wednesday last. We reviewed our progress to date and the task of assembling a Design Team was progressed further. We agreed to meet again on February 19th. In the meantime, the Restoration Committee will continue to meet in the front parlour on Monday evenings at 5.30.
- DISRUPTION: You will recall that we sent out an SOS from this corner last week. We were trying to track down a couple who intended to marry in the Augustinian in August. Thanks to your response to that appeal, we did manage to make contact with the couple. They are in a much sunnier clime than this, many miles from home! (Lucky devils!)
AS I WAS SAYING...
Terrorism is a horrible scourge. And Ireland should know. It was responsible for the murder of thousands, and the maiming of tens of thousands of our fellow countrymen and women over the last thirty years. The most frightening ingredient in the cocktail that is terrorism is its single-minded fanaticism, the fact that it is impervious to reasoned argument. Terrorism is abhorrent. As we all know, it found its most lethal, spectacular expression on September 11.
There is, sadly, another side to this horrible coin. Classically, terrorism is a response to a perceived wrong, a reaction to 'State terrorism', the terrorist would claim. Indeed recent history and human experience does seem to bear out this claim. For example, until Bloody Sunday and Internment, the Provisional IRA was the laughing-stock of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland. Their membership throughout the province consisted of no more than 200, according to the author Ed Moloney. "I.R.A=I Ran Away" taunted their fellow Nationalists.
Internment changed all that. Both within and outside the prisons, young men flocked in their hundreds to join up. Soon some senior British Ministers were acknowledging that the Provos could never be defeated militarily. The best the British could hope to do would be to 'contain them'.
The irony is obvious: the success of the Provos was entirely dependant upon the mistakes of the British. But the British couldn't see this at the time. They traded in crude certainties, in a world of black and white. The notion of 'state-terrorism' could not be countenanced. To the mind of the political and military establishment, these were mutually exclusive entities. Terrorism was on one side of the divide; security was on the other. No progress was possible until both sides recognised that the world was a far more complex place, that each side of the argument contained its own validity. Over thirty years and three thousand deaths later, the realisation began to dawn: this matter will only be settled by negotiation.
The same mistake is about to be played out again, but on a larger stage. As in the old Wild West days, the cowboys are still calling the shots. The world is still viewed in simplistic, 'black-and-white' terms: the cowboys facing down the Indians. The plot is simple too: confrontation will take place at high noon. After some initial tense moments, the Indian will be taught a lesson once again, and the superiority of the white cowboy will be obvious to all. The 'natural order' of things will be restored; the good guy will hold sway again, and peace will reign everywhere in the land.
This war is a moral crusade, we are told. It is a war against 'Terrorism'. But who identifies the 'terrorist'? Who is next after Saddam? There is, in addition of course, the traditional difficulty alluded to above: 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'. In other words, who will act as Sheriff in the New Wild West? The American establishment is under no illusions: in their book, Bush is the Sheriff !
This is a dangerous game. Of course America has the power to bring Iraq to its knees. However, in doing so, she is probably creating a whole new generation of terrorists.
-Dick Lyng.
"Quote, Unquote........ "
- "Peace: (n) In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting." -Ambrose Bierce.
- "How many pessimists end up by desiring the things they fear, in order to prove that they are right." -Robert Mallet.
- "If you think you have someone eating out of your hand, it's a very good idea to count your fingers rather frequently." -Martin Buxbaume.
- "The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it." -G. K. Chesterton.
- "All wars are popular for the first thirty days." -Arthur Schlesinger.
- "Freedom is of course highly precious, so precious in fact that it needs to be seriously rationed." -Lenin.
- "My people, I have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please." -Fredrick the Great.
- "It is difficult to be humble. Even if you aim at humility, there is no guarantee that when you have attained the desired state, you will not be proud of the feat." -Bonamy Dobree.
- "Thanks for the manuscript. I shall lose no time in reading it." -Benjamin Disraeli.
Muscular Christianity
"The author of "The Courage to be Catholic" is held in high esteem in Rome. In fact to George Weigel fell the lucrative task of penning the official biography of Pope John Paul II. He is considered to be the leader of a growing band of young conservative intellectuals who are enthusiastic supporters of the current papacy. (Liam Cosgrave would have called them 'Young Turks'!
In this most recent of his book, priests 'govern' people. Sister churches are dismissed as mere 'denominations', Vatican Two is what the Pope says it is. The main note struck is that of an unapologetic and at times aggressive triumphalism based on a gleeful assumption of having 'the fullness of the Catholic truth.'
A dangerous business. I think the Church has learned that those who imagine they have the fullness of the truth are to be kept on a short lead, no matter how loyal, committed or accomplished they may be. The important thing, as the Church has discovered, is to keep a sense of history, a respect for theology and a sense of proportion. There's an old saw that proclaims: 'Anything one pope does, another pope can undo.' The more pendulums swing in one direction, the more likely it is that a time will come when they will swing in the other. What goes round, come round."
-Brendan Hoban in The Furrow, February, 2003.
From Failure Up
Can a man grow from the dead clod of failure
Some consoling flower
Something humble as a dandelion or a daisy,
Something to wear as a buttonhole in Heaven?
Under that flat, flat grief of defeat maybe
Hope is a seed.
Maybe this is what he was born for, this hour
Of hopelessness.
Maybe it is here he must search
In this hell of unfaith
Where no one has a purpose
Where the web of Meaning is broken threads
And one man looks at another in fear.
O God can a man find You when he lies with his face downwards
And his nose in the rubble that was his achievements?
Is the music playing behind the door of despair?
O God give us purpose
-Patrick Kavanagh.
A (Sentimental) Short Story...
A poor couple, Clive and Elaine, lived in a poor suburban area of New York. While poor in the goods of this world, they were very secure in their love for each other. Elaine was blessed with good looks, her long golden hair testified to hours of careful grooming. But she was too poor to buy the rich Spanish comb she coveted.
Clive's only possession was a gold watch. Apart from its obvious material value, the watch had tremendous sentimental value for him, since he had inherited it from his late father. But he could not display the watch with the prominence it deserved, since he could not afford a matching gold chain.
Being very much in love, both were aware of each other's deepest longings. So Clive and Elaine, unknown to each other, decided on a sacrifice. He went into New York, sold his watch and bought her a lovely Spanish comb. Meanwhile, she went to the wig-maker, had her beautiful tresses cut, sold them to the wig-maker and bought her beloved a new golden watch-chain! As they headed for home, each tried to anticipate the surprise on the face of the beloved!
-O. Henry (1862-1910)
An (unsentimental) Short Story...
Two gangsters, James Gallo and Joe Conigliaro, set out to kidnap and murder an erstwhile partner-in-crime, Vinny Ensulo, alias Vinny Ba Ba. The two men judged the latter to be less than honest in his dealings with them! On November 1, 1973, as Vinny was walking along Columbia Street, Brooklyn a car drew up beside him. Gallo jumped out, placed a gun to Vinny's head and ordered him into the back seat beside Conigliaro who was also armed. Vinny was now a prisoner in the back seat of a speeding car, a gun stuck in each ear! A careless taxi driver pulled out without looking. The speeding car swerved violently. Vinny was hurled forward by the force of the impact. The two gangsters shot each other! Gallo died instantly. Conigliaro was hit in the spine and paralysed for life. Each year, on the anniversary of the crash, Vinny sent wheelchair batteries to Conigliaro. A small card bearing the following greeting accompanied the batteries: "Keep rolling Joe, from your best pal, Vinny Ba Ba."
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