[Today’s blog post is a four-peat of one about Irish writers—celebrating St. Paddy’s Day, of course!  Somehow, I missed this last year.  Irish men and women have migrated to the far corners of the Earth.  Some have migrated back.  Some stayed home.  They have suffered the boom and bust of late 20^th and early 21^st century economics.  Their Church scandals involving priests and choirboys, and unwed mothers and evil nuns, have made ours in the U.S. seem minor, yet Ireland is still the most Catholic country in Europe.  The Irish, above all, are resilient.  Their writers reflect this resiliency.]

St. Patrick’s Day is March 17.  There’s controversy in NYC because the new mayor won’t march along with the anti-gay Hibernian hoofers—he’ll march in an “alternative parade.”  Of course, I’ll remind the loyal Hibernians that one of their greatest writers, Oscar Wilde, was gay and persecuted by the English, no less, and an apt hero for all Irish—at least, Irish writers.  The whole thing is a storm in a teacup and shows how uptight and immature America is—in Dublin, no one worries about who marches in the parade.  So, before I forget, I thought today was a perfect day to set the record straight: many great writers in the English language that you may have heard about are not English but Irish.  And I should add, hailing from old Eire too, just like Wilde.

The title quote is by George Bernard Shaw—an acerbic, old curmudgeon who successfully rankled British aristocracy.  His plays and other writings poked fun at the English establishment, a commendable thing to do even today—if you can get away with it.  His biting wit transferred easily into words on the page and probably embarrassed everyone from royalty on down.  On the other hand, the endurance of his work over the years is proof of its quality—it’s classic literature in the English language written by an Irishman.

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I’ve heard that phrase from various media pundits.  It’s comical.  Resurgence is what Godfather Putin would like Sochi to signify, but the only thing resurging in Russia is this narcissist strongman’s egotistical delusion.  Russia is spiraling down to insignificance.  For nearly a century, it has been ruled by mafiosos whose only interest is to ensure that Russian workers make them rich.  In the Soviet era, they hid all this under the cloak of ideology.  Now it’s clear that the only ideology is greed and exploitation.

Russian people are worn out and angry, except for those who participate in the corruption, of course.  A recent Sixty Minutes episode showed how extensive and lethal this can be, and that’s probably only the tip of the iceberg.  Persecution of singing groups and other protestors make the news here, but you can be sure that what goes on behind the scenes is worse.  Journalists, industrialists, and opposition leaders who don’t play by Putin’s rules are jailed on trumped-up charges, or simply killed.  A Russian gangster, a confident of Putin, bribes and threatens to bring the Olympics to Sochi and then scams the Russian people.

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#346: Aristocrats and Assassins.  This fourth novel in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” is in final edit and will soon be ready for my illustrious formatting and cover team of Donna Carrick (of Carrick Publishing) and Sara Carrick (graphics artist).  I hope to release it by the end of this month—if not, in early March.  (In this blog, I put out a pre-release excerpt some weeks ago.)  I was tempted to call this tale Castilblanco’s European Vacation, but that can imply comedy.  This thriller is definitely not a comedy.  It hops around Europe as my detective duo thwarts the plot of a terrorist who is kidnapping members of European royal families—not your Daddy’s Frommer’s, to say the least.  Like all novels in this series, you can read it independently of the previous ones, but they’re loads of fun too!

#347: The missing links.  An FYI for my readers: in case you didn’t realize it, The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan and Soldiers of God are two important links between three of my series.  The first connects the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” to the “Clones and Mutants Series”; the second connects the “Clones and Mutants Series” to “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.”  You have an ebook version of The Golden Years (now back on Smashwords for those with non-Kindle ereaders, although that free Kindle app allows you to read .mobi files on most any device).  I’m working on an ebook version of Soldiers—it will be a second edition.

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I’ve written about Putin before.  This narcissistic dictator trying to keep Russian in line thinks Sochi will bring him good PR.  I don’t get it.  The tyrants from the three Stans—the Three Musketeers of Thugdom—are featured guests at his Olympic extravaganza.  I’d guess they don’t have to stay in half-finished hotels, drinking brown water and being revolted by half-naked pictures of the great leader showing off his abs.  Rumor has it that bribes from a Russian Mafioso working for dear fearless leader Vladimir paved the way of obtaining the Olympics for Sochi.  Dunno.  It wouldn’t surprise me.

There’s the terrorist threat, of course.  Those antiaircraft installations above Sochi?  They’re ready to bring down any plane, commercial or otherwise, that even gives the hint of threatening the Olympic village.  I can’t see that they will be much use for stopping the famous Black Widow bombers—if Putin et al killed my husband, I’d probably be pissed too.  Maybe that famous ring will stop them, but watching the Russian police hasn’t given me a great deal of confidence.  And I’d bet they’d take a bribe in a minute—maybe a pair of blue jeans and some vodka?

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Perhaps you’re familiar with the Western song with a similar name, made popular by Marty Robbins, for example?  While the song is about demons and salvation, I intend no demonizing here…well, maybe a bit for people who use ghostwriters and never acknowledge them.  Writers trying to scratch out a living will do most anything from greeting card verses to entire books for big name celebrities who couldn’t write a complete sentence even if they tried.  These are unsung heroes because they receive no accolades.  Your marketers and editors are at least acknowledged in the writing business, but ghostwriters are like true phantoms.

We just learned, in fact, that ghost writing is not exclusive to the writing business.  Japan, where personal honor is a national prerequisite and dishonor is historically often dealt with in violent fashion, just learned that their most famous classical composer, Mamoru Samuragochi, is a complete fake (I’m referring to a NY Times article).  Not only did he pretend to be deaf—they called him the Japanese Beethoven—he paid Takashi Niigaki to write his music.  What Mr. Samuragochi will do as a consequence is an open question, but I suspect that the Japanese response will be one of national shame.  We Americans have something to learn from that culture.

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Posts like this one are hard to write.  At best, they’re dripping in nostalgia; at worst, they make you acutely aware of your own mortality.  Like many baby boomers, I grew up experiencing Pete Seeger.  From the unfair persecution by Sen. McCarthy to standing beside Bruce Springsteen at the Obama inaugural celebration, Pete was a part of American political life.  More than that, of course, his lyrics, voice, and banjo launched the folk song revival of the sixties.  He created songs that moved us, from “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” a quiet but powerful indictment of war mentality so popular to Vietnam War protestors, to “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem for the Civil Rights Movement.

The McCarthy era was a black blight in American history where anyone left of the Rotary Club was considered a Communist.  McCarthy destroyed individuals like Oppenheimer and Chaplin; he and the paranoia he nurtured launched the careers of right-wingers Nixon and Reagan, and even the so-called “liberal” Kennedys.  Somehow, Seeger survived, stood tall, and sang out to millions of us who knew the U.S. could be better.  The man who pissed off both the John Birch Society and NBC (their censorship of the Smothers Brothers is all but forgotten now) was an instant folk hero to us as we marched against the fascist and oppressive forces on the right who were trying to tear America down.  We weren’t communists or Communists—we were progressive pacifists who knew in our hearts there’s a better way.

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