Irish Stew #28…
Item: Putin’s ventriloquist dummy. Foreign Minister Lavrov uttered these words in Paris: “We don’t have a common vision of the situation.” You think! He was analyzing the difference between Putin’s, and ergo the official, viewpoint of the Ukrainian situation and the point-of-view of the rest of the world. Some idiots are saying that a vote in Crimea for independence is just the expression of democratic choice. What BS! It’s the typical strong-arm approach to neocolonialism in the world, the desire for some countries (in this case, Russia) to steal territory (or even justify a complete invasion?) at the cost of a weaker one. It’s how Hitler took Poland and Austria (the former sits right next to the Ukraine, by the way). It’s how we justified taking Texas, Panama, and the Phillippines. It’s how the Chinese justified taking Tibet. The fact that all the bully countries in the world have done it or are doing it doesn’t make it right.
Moreover, Putin is giving the West his middle finger and mooning everything about international treaties…and the stupid Russians love it! Crimea voted to secede. Welcome back, Soviet Union! Never mind that the Ukraine gave all those nukes back to Russia on the condition that Russia would always respect Ukrainian independence. Clearly you can’t trust Putin and you can’t trust Russians, who yearn for the old days of Stalin when the Soviet Union was feared round the world. Are we heading for WWIII? Possibly. I sure wish now that the Ukraine had kept some of those nukes. It would have leveled the playing field a lot and possibly kept any conflagration local. Apparently that’s the only thing the Soviet Union—oops! I mean Russia—respects, good old-fashioned détente. Now gay-bashing ex-KGB dictator Volodya holds all the cards and the Ukraine is out of chips.
Item: Go Everywhere! While the stereotypical Ugly American still exists and is often enforced by U.S. tourists brandishing their ignorance overseas, Americans who spend time living in foreign countries often develop different perspectives that provincial stay-at-homes are lacking. Nicholas Kristoff in the op-ed “Go West, Young People! And East!” in last Sunday’s NY Times Review suggests that every college in America should require students to study abroad as part of their education. (This is something I should have mentioned in my post “Education Overhaul” that will appear tomorrow.) In fact, I’d go further than what Kristoff said. I’d also reinstate the draft but have the option of soldiering AND community service, either in the U.S. or overseas. College study abroad tends to be prohibitively expensive. Unless colleges and universities become all public here and overseas semesters are competitive and government-funded, that’s not a viable option for already cash-strapped parents.
Item: Speaking of living abroad…. The Irish have been doing it for years. First, there was the forced splitting up and resettling of Irish families engineered by Cromwell—the Irish haven’t been treated nice by the Brits long before the Troubles. Then there was the English indifference to the potato famine that made Irish flee elsewhere…or starve. Then there were the Troubles. These are three major reasons for Irish leaving their homeland, but it’s been going on forever, at least since Irish monks saved Western civilization by copying and protecting all those ancient manuscripts from the great Western cultures. Of course, you’ll find Irish in the U.S., from gangsters (remember Goodfellas, based on a true story) to football players (e.g. the fighting Irish of Notre Dame) to cardinals and other heavyweights in the Catholic Church (often literally), but also in the Caribbean and Latin America, not to mention in the Far East and the rest of the world. One of my favorites is Bernardo O’Higgins who, along with Jose de San Martin, is the father of Chilean independence accused of becoming a benevolent dictator (often by the Church) and kicked out of Chile by a coup d’etat.
Item: Knowledgeable about his roots? One person who is confused about his Irish heritage is GOP budget wonk and mean-kid wannabe-leader of the Tea Party, the most dishonorable Paul Ryan. Timothy Egan in the op-ed “Paul Ryan’s Irish Amnesia,” in last Sunday’s NY Times Review, analyzes Ryan’s historical hypocrisy: “…can’t help noticing the deep historic irony that finds a Tea Party favorite and descendant of famine Irish using the same language that English Tories used to justify an indifference to an epic tragedy.” Egan and Sons is one of my favorite Irish pubs in Montclair NJ, but this Egan (presumably no relation, except that he’s Irish) is talking about GOP stinginess, led by Ryan, in refusing to continue federal unemployment, cutting food stamps, attacking any raise in the minimum wage, and voting against Obamacare (how many times? Was it 40?) Maybe he’s really ashamed of his humble origins. If so, why not shut up about it? Happy St. Paddy’s Day, Mr. Ryan!
Item: Tooting My Own Horn. Here’s a press release about my new book Aristocrats and Assassins. Klesc’s New Book Journal is useful for this—Raymond posts to other sites besides his own. And it’s all free, bless his soul!
And so it goes…Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
