Civil Disunion

Christmas 2005 is going to be extra festive, extra gay if you will, for a good deal of people across the United Kingdom. In three weeks time, the Civil Partnerships Bill will come into effect in the UK which means same-sex couples will be able to enter into civil unions.

This Bill will allow for access to spousal-like benefits such as pensions, next-of-kin status and an exemption on paying inheritance tax. The same alimony and child support responsibilities in the event of separation will also be a feature of the Bill. The union will not be a 'marriage' per se - but will assume many of the rights attributable to the institution.

The news has been largely hailed as a positive move by gay rights groups. Two of the UK's most prominent gay publications - Gay Times and Attitude - have both devoted their December editions to the topic, covering everything from gay honeymoon packages to gay wedding planners! Ireland's Gay Community News (GCN) devoted its cover to Gráinne Close and Shannon Sickels, who will be married in Belfast when the law comes into effect.
Elton John and his partner David Furnish will be among the first to sign the register on December 21st - reportedly in the same place as Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles did in April of this year!

It is a huge step forward and the endlessly beleaguered Blair government should be commended for getting the Bill through parliament.

A civil arrangement is what many gay activists are seeking in this country. It's a long way off by the sounds of things.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell was the controversial choice to launch this years' Look Out! Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival at which he spoke at length on the government's commitment to introducing legislation for "co-habiting couples...some of which will resemble some of the incidents of marriage in law but in other respects differ substantially from marriage".

This years' festival was an expressly political one: its stated theme was 'Family Values' amd it choose screenings that portrayed the family - both real and imagined ones - in all their complexity.

In his speech at the festival, McDowell stated and I quote him at length here:


"I note that many of this year's films focus on the theme of family values and I know that the issue of legal recognition of same sex partnerships is of immediate concern to you. I have previously acknowledged, on behalf of the Government, during the debate on Senator David Norris' Civil Partnership Bill that the position of same sex couples before the law, and others in caring relationships, including extending State recognition to civil partnerships between such persons, needs to be addressed. There are a number of factors which will inform future decisions on this issue. Those factors include the Report of the Law Reform Commission on Rights and Duties of Cohabitants, the Report of the All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution of its examination of the Articles relating to the family and the outcome of current litigation regarding the recognition of a foreign same-sex marriage".

It is believed that the forthcoming Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution will not be advocating that the definition of 'the family' be sufficiently widened so as to allow for civil unions in the Republic. So that's that option out. Where does that leave us? Nowhere?

The areas covered by the British legislation - which McDowell deemed extraordinarily complex but yet seemed to get through pretty quickly - will need "careful study and realistic, sustainable responses" in the Irish context.

I'd like to draw your attention to one recent event that serves as an interesting frame for the whole question of civil arrangements in Ireland.

It's coming up to the first anniversary of the civil ceremony of Bernadette Coleman and Patrick Dunne. Who are they, you ask? Patrick and Bernadette were the winners of Dublin 98FM’s ‘Two Strangers and a Wedding’ competition. Bernadette and Patrick met at the altar for the first time on December 3rd of last year. Two complete strangers married as a result of a cash offering by the radio station and enjoyed a lavish ceremony at Clontarf Castle costing €63,000. This was a turn of events that should turn the stomach of every gay and lesbian person in Ireland.

It should also have rankled the forces who are out to protect marriage from the apparent degradation that same sex couples are seeking to bring to the revered institution (no offence guys, but I think heterosexuals are doing a pretty good job of undermining marriage themselves).

All of those commentators who oppose gay marriage – from pressure groups, the media and the political establishment – should have been up in arms over this blatant disregard for and cheapening of the institution.

A gay couple that have been in a meaningful, loving, deep-rooted relationship, perhaps for years or even decades, will have to drag their private life through the courts, at their own expense, in order to receive the legal and formal entitlements that were so frivolously granted to two complete strangers, who married, essentially, on the basis of a blind date.

Without even knowing each others' favourite colour or their middle names, this couple can completely exploit a legal avenue that a loving gay couple, such as Drs. Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan have to fight in the courts over to achieve recognition of their Canadian same sex marriage by the Irish State and the Irish Revenue Commissioners.

Most gay men and women in Ireland realistically acknowledge that full-blown gay marriage is a battle that just cannot be won, not at this point anyway. Judging by the mute reaction to 98FM’s prize, law-makers and the Irish public should have no problem with allowing gay people to formalise their relationships with a civil ceremony.

Afterall, if two total strangers can just avail of the option, with no regard for the subsequent taxation and legal consequences, and all to zero public outrage or consternation, what’s the hold-up with granting that right to a committed gay couple?

Ah but there’s the rub. What this points to, perhaps, is the homophobia that is still subterraneous in our ‘post-gay’, pseudo-liberal society. (Before I continue: I'm not saying that the partnership between Bernadette and Patrick will fail, nor do I hope it does. If two people can find love, then good luck to them. If you by chance know them, let us know how they're doing!).

But everyone must realise how offensive it is to the gay community to see the one thing that they are striving to achieve being so taken for granted by a couple, all in the name of ratings, publicity and cheap sensationalism. The fact that this case did not provoke any indignant responses in defence of civil institutions shows that, deep down, people don’t really consider the ramifications for the tax and legal systems, not to mention the family and the institution of marriage itself, when a heterosexual couple (and do they even deserve that title considering that they didn’t even know each other beforehand?) avail of a civil union.

It’s when you substitute ‘straight’ for ‘gay’ in that equation that the some people shake themselves into public remonstration. If those who have appointed themselves as the ones to protect the basic tenets of society from exploitation are to do their job, then perhaps they should widen their gaze to include heterosexuals too. Otherwise, depriving civil union rights to gay people is nothing more than homophobia, pure and simple.

May I wish all those availing of the new law in the UK all the luck in the world for the future. If you're really smart, you'll synchronise your registering at the same time as Elton. You might even get a song out of him. As for achieving similar rights in Ireland, it sounds like we'll have to sing for that too.

Vatican's Rainbow

By the end of December, the Civil Partnerships Bill will have come into effect in the UK, allowing gay men and women to register their relationships as civil unions and acquire many of the technical tax and inheritance rights associated with marriage.

Just as some progress is being made in the international arena of gay rights, who better to come in and shit all over it than the Catholic Church? This week, the Vati-cant released a document, signed by Pope BeneDictator on August 31, that will bar "those who practice homosexuality", "candidates who have profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies" and those who "support the so-called gay culture" from becoming seminarians.

But it's not all bad. If your homosexuality is "simply the expression of a transitory problem...such tendencies must be overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate". How the Church plan on proving that the "tendency" has been overcome wasn't mentioned.

The document is full of the same old hoary chestnuts that the Church bullshits on about when denouncing gay people. Again, they emphasise in the document that the Catechism of the Catholic Church "differentiates between homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies". The "acts" are "grave sins" that are "intrinsically immoral", "contrary to natural law" and their practitioners "objectively disordered". But before you get upset, the document says that it teaches these views "while profoundly respecting the persons in question" at the same time. Ah, that's good to know. I'm not offended anymore!

There really is not a lot to be surprised about from this bizarre document. Gay people are well used to being demonised by the Church at this stage. What makes this document monumentally offensive is that it is being released in the context of the Church's move to atone for it's cataclysmic failure to halt - not just prevent but halt - the widespread rape and sexual, mental and physical abuse of young children by priests.

It's quite astonishing that the Vatican has released this document but we have not heard a peep from Papa Razzi or his cronies in the higher echelons of the Vatican regarding the devastating Ferns Report or similar audits that have come to attention in recent times. Apparently, the powers that be are too preoccupied with instigating their gay witch-hunt than exposing paedophiles and bringing them to justice.

But gay people and paedophiles are two sides of the same coin in the Vatican's eyes. Of course the document doesn't explicitly state this but they need a convenient scapegoat for the paedophilia crisis. So they focus on the fact that a lot of young boys were the victims of paedophiles to justify excluding gay men from the Church.

It's a clever tactic from their perspective. Why, gay men are nothing more than evil, leering child molesters anyway, right? You can't trust them around children, you must actively discriminate against them when it comes to hiring people in the caring professions such as teaching. And don't even think about giving them children to adopt or foster.

Their line of thinking is so hurtful, hateful, discriminatory and depraved that I wish there was a way that I could officially, legally and publicly renounce my Catholicism and put in place legal mechanisms that would make it a crime for my family to have a Church funeral for me when I die (How any gay man or woman would desire an official send-off from an institution that hates them so much and thinks so little of them is beyond me).

Yes, young boys were, tragically, targets of paedophiles. So were young girls yet heterosexual men are not the subject of any exclusion order from the Church. Male priests that raped young boys were psychopaths, not homosexuals. They held an affliction of the mind and soul that is so dark, so evil that none of us want to even think about it. They are not homosexuals - they are paedophiles.

Of course it's possible that there are paedophiles that are gay too. But a regular gay priest is not going to rape a child. They would be horrified at the very thought of it. Because a healthy adult gay man is not going to be attracted to a child any more than a healthy straight man would be to a young girl.

The people who rape defenseless boys and girls are paedophiles. It is a separate thing from being gay or straight. Regardless of this bifurcated orientation model, a paedophile, when he acts on his or her desires, becomes something else entirely. They are no longer just gay or straight: they are a paedophile and should be removed from children's society as quickly as humanly possible.

I ask all you straight men out there: how would you feel if you were not only grouped with collared paedophiles but were being officially arrogated the blame for all the evil depravity associated with that scandal? How did it come to a situation where gay men are seen to be the root of the Church's paedophilia crisis?

This situation vaguely resembles the foremost political event of our generation. Saudi-born Osama bin Laden organised the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. So George W. Bush invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein in retaliation for bin Laden's offence. It helps to have a convenient scapegoat that has already been singled out as a hate figure, a threat, a danger.

Please, please, please don't misunderstand me. I am not comparing gay people to the monstrous Saddam - that is not the purpose of the analogy. I use that example to demonstrate how messed-up and dangerous the Church's thinking on gay people is. The majority of paedophiles were - are - known to the Holy Father and the higher echelons of the Church. They were aware of the problem - well aware as a read of the Ferns Report will solemnly attest to. If they have incontrovertible proof that all these paedophiles were confessed homosexuals, I promise to rethink my opinions. But I doubt hugely that they do.

Because the Church's way of dealing with paedophiles wasn't to isolate them and remove them but to just move these paedophiles around, convinced that the crimes were a once off (ignoring also that once is one time too many). As soon as the scandal - and the extent of it - became apparent, Il Papa had to act to rebuild some part of the deservedly shattered institution that is the Catholic Church.

It can't openly admit its epic complicity in concealing the crimes of these paedophiles because to do so, I believe, would destroy many more reputations than it has already. Who knows how far up the criminal conspiracy of silence - which this is - goes? Who exactly knew what and when? Who else is a paedophile that we don't know about?

But these answers are a long way from being answered. Gay men are the culprits in the eyes of the Church. I hope that there will never be a paedophilia scandal of this sort in the Church again - I doubt there will be anyway. People are too aware - so aware that they are keeping their children away from spending any alone time with men of the cloth anymore. And who can blame them? If I had children, I wouldn't leave them with anyone anymore.

This will give the Pope and his men the opportunity to point out in a few years that their policy of barring gay people from joining the priesthood was justified, a success even. But any dimunition in paedophilia crimes in the Church will be down to brave victims past and present who have come forth to tell the world what the Catholic Church has done to them. It certainly won't be due to any move by the Vatican to root out paedophiles and destroy the rot forever.

These victims' courage will result in mainly retroactive convictions and indictments of paedophiles. The Church's cowardice and malicious scapegoating will result in more disenfranchisement for gay people, more discrimination, more fuel to add to the flame of homophobia that has been so worryingly resurgent all over the world in recent years.

In his novel Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon wrote a great line that demonstrates the thinking that underlies this latest Vatican inquisition: if they get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

'Desperate' Times

The complete first season of Desperate Housewives is now out on DVD and is sure to be found under more than one Christmas tree this year. After a phenomenally successful first year, the inevitable backlash seems to have started in the US, as the second series continues to underwhelm critics and audiences.

Whilst the show’s creative merits are now under scrutiny, this first series played an interesting role in the culture wars that surfaced during last year’s presidential election. When this show launched in September 2004, America was in the midst of a nasty, bitterly-contested presidential election. ‘Family values’ and moral virtue dominated the “debate” about who was fit to lead the nation – Bush or Kerry.

No doubt looking to ride on someone else’s success, Laura Bush professed herself an avid fan of the show. The First Lady is without a doubt the most popular person in the Bush White House but her critics couldn’t help but smile at the irony of Laura counting herself amongst the show’s fans. To them, she resembles Marcia Cross' character Bree Van der Kamp: the ultimate Stepford Wife, all smiling and perfectly coiffed, with no agenda or ambitions beyond raising her family, gazing adoringly at her husband and defending the Bush policies, no matter how catastrophic and ill-planned they are. Indeed, her recent astronomical approval ratings across the whole political spectrum speaks volumes about what some Americans believe is the appropriate and desirable role for women, mothers and wives in America today.

Desperate Housewives’ dark, irreverent and caustic look at the ultimate suburban manifestation of the American Dream is remarkable considering the cultural climate in which it was being produced. Ever since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US has swung more and more to the right, as evidenced by the decisive endorsement of George W. Bush in last years’ election. The political and social vision espoused by the Christian fundamentalists that have such a powerful voice in the Bush White House appeals to vast numbers of people in a traumatised nation, that was attacked so viciously for reasons that few understand and has since been existing in a world where fear and uncertainty pervade all aspects of life.

This fear and uncertainty has found expression – some would say opportunistic exploitation – in the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence and in the passing of new laws and regulations that curtail more and more freedoms. In such a climate, where all the comfortable certainties of the post-Cold War Clinton Era are suddenly gone, increasing numbers of Americans have consciously returned to the basic fundamentals that they feel they can control: namely family, morals and their religion. Whilst nearly everyone on both sides of the political and cultural divide have recognised and embraced the importance of family and the return to their faith, some have been more enthusiastic and fervent than others – and it so happens that these are the ones that have the conducive ear of the President and the powers that be.

Many believe that the liberalism of the 1990s has incurred the wrath of God and that America is being punished for the Clintonian support of gay rights, a woman’s right to choose and increased secularism in all aspects of American life. The sex scandals that plagued the Clinton Presidency, whilst largely dismissed as partisan attacks and jokes in Europe, were and are viewed with extreme distaste in the States. Many Americans are happy in the knowledge that such a thing would never happen in the Bush White House – although the Iraq war and the CIA leak scandal (amongst other dishonours) has shown us that far more serious cheating and deception is taking place there.

Be that as it may, a puritanical streak has entered the cultural life of the US and has installed an unofficial set of moral guidelines for what is acceptable viewing in this new, ‘cleaned-up’ America. Janet Jackson’s infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the 2004 Superbowl had the country up in arms and incurred record fines for the networks. Suddenly all networks were cleansing their shows and broadcasts of all swearing and gratuitous nudity and violence, even when it’s an integral part of the show’s story, like in hospital drama ER. Even Steven Spielberg’s WWII epic Saving Private Ryan had to have vast portions of its violence edited out in order to be screened on NBC – surely the most extreme move yet in the censorious climate of Bush’s America. (Censoring bloody scenes of war on US screens? Not in Bushworld, surely?!)

The show is a fantastic example of the contradictory attitudes towards sex that is an essential component of American society. Sex has always been treated as a double standard in the US: it’s used to sell everything but there will be hell to pay if it’s mentioned or displayed on screens. This is a country where the modern precedent for a Presidential high crime and misdemeanour is lying about a blowjob – but not lying about the reasons for sending US troops into battle!

That attitude was in evidence in one advert used by the shows’ makers. A cheeky (!) promo for Desperate Housewives, that also served as a crossover ad for Monday Night Football, featured the outrageous Edie walking into the changing room of a football team and disrobing in front of an African-American player.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) immediately initiated an investigation into the ad and slapped Housewives’ network ABC on the knuckles. ‘Family-oriented’ companies such as Kellogs, Tyson Foods and Lowes pulled their advertising contracts from ABC (a subsidiary of Disney), after intense lobbying from the American Family Association, a self-proclaimed “traditional values” group.

But, proving that there really is no such thing as bad publicity, advertisers have been spurting Hydra-like as soon as others have pulled out. What’s more, a 30 second ad for the show now costs $300, 000 - more than double the original price than when the ad slots were originally sold in May 2004. On top of that, the show continued to draw in weekly audiences averaging at 25 million. Over 30 million Americans watched the last episode of the series – which is nearly the same amount of viewers who tuned into the last ever episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Raymond had been on for nine years and had built up huge critical and popular support. It’s remarkable for any show to trump an established series like that in its first season. (Ray got the last laugh though by beating the Housewives to the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in September).

In addition to its cultural impact, the show also threw a lifeline to struggling TV execs. ABC was the big TV winner of last year, possibly even of the new century so far, having launched Housewives and Lost to huge global success. With the demise of television behemoths like Friends, Sex and the City and Frasier, and with an all too pervasive network trend towards legal/police dramas and mind-numbing reality TV shows, it was feared that no new series could attract massive audiences and capture the imagination of viewers at the same time. These two shows tapped into the formula that keeps modern viewers hooked: mysteries, gimmicks, cliff-hangers, sex, sensationalism, the creation of a sense of an event, the ‘must-see’/’water-cooler’ factor.

So before the second series arrives on these shores along with the backlash, keep in mind the role this show played in cultural debate in the US, if only for a little while. Any show that subverts or slyly attacks the notion of the American family deserves credit for getting away with that. The alternative is the so-unbelievably-hilariously-nauseatingly-awful-that-it-must-surely-be-a-joke Seventh Heaven so thank your lucky stars!

The Irish Language: The Future, if any?

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny incurred the wrath of Gaelgeoirs across the land at the recent party Ard Fheis by calling for compulsory Irish to be taken off the school curriculum in Ireland. Needless to say that his iconoclastic assault on one of the few remaining shibboleths of Ireland's founding republican ideals was shot down before any debate was had on the matter. Abolish Irish? 'An bhfuil se as a mheabhair?'

First of all, 'ideal' is exactly what the restoration of the Irish language ever was and ever will be in Ireland. After Independence, it was believed that Irish could be effectively institutionalised as the mother tongue of the nation. That would show the Empire, right? What better way to distance ourselves from and punish the oppressor than relegate their language to second class status?

Yeah, the thing is, it didn't really work out that way. DeValera gave constitutional status to Irish as the first language of the state in 1937 and it became an essential component for success in schools, universities and the civil service.

'Grá gan chuiteamh' is an Irish term for 'unrequited love'. If ever there was an unrequited love affair, it was between Irish people and the Irish language. It might have loved us but, boy, was that love one-sided.

There's no need to get into the age-old stories of the language "being beaten into" our parents' generation, although that point should be remembered in the context of the present debate (or lack therof).

The fact of the matter is that our official Irish language policy has been an utter failure. Retaining Irish as a mandatory subject in the school curriculum is doing untold damage to the confidence and success of school students. We're not learning it to speak it on a daily basis nor to gain access to the vast majority of jobs in the country.

So why are we still forced to study it in school? Because our forefathers lost their lives so we could speak it. Because we will lose an essential component of our cultural identity.

Our forefathers also gave up their lives so that we could vote to elect our own leaders - yet there are no accusations of historical betrayal when there are appalling voter turnouts in successive Irish elections and referenda.

As for losing an essential component of our cultural identity: I hate to be the one to inform you but we lost that about 150 years ago when the practicalities and realities of life as a part of the British Empire put paid to any future for the Irish language. English was the language of the future - parents encouraged their children to learn it as it was the only hope of securing employment in Britain and its colonies. The importance placed on the role of English in our country not only hindered our abilty to adopt the Irish language- it arguably set the tone for Irish people's generally abysmal aptitude for any foreign language. English was always seen to be the only language that mattered to a nation so chronically dependent on our neighbours directly to our West and East.

Irish was beaten out of people then and beaten back into them after Independence. Government policy failed time and again to find the way to allow the language to grow naturally so that it wouldn't feel imposed. Hence the neverending tales of how people suffered at the hands of this language. No wonder it's seen to be such a drag.

The reality is that more people in Ireland today are unified by the fact that they don't speak the language rather than do. It's a source of dread for so many students in this country. Undoubtedly the way the langauge is taught in school has had an enormous effect on attitudes towards, and success at, attaining the liofa.

Speaking from my own experience, I can say, quite confidently and without reservation, that I had the worst Irish teacher ever seen in an Irish educational establishment. This man, lovely though he was, was drafted into my school to manage the senior hurling team, which is a dubious enough reason for hiring teachers. But then this joke was given the honours leaving cert class to wreak havoc on. Only separate, paid grinds got me through. My grind teacher was inspiring, a native speaker: but the likes of him are few and far between. In fact, I ended up loving the language and even did it in first year in college. But, yet again, atrocious, boring, uninspired teaching soon put an end to any grá I had for the Gaeilge.

The vast majority of Irish teachers in Ireland themselves had terrible teachers - it's a vicious circle of dire teaching and learning methods that has sounded the death knell for a language that was as imposed on the people of this country almost as much as English was. Unless we can clone my grinds teacher from Leaving Cert, there is little that can be done to save the language, and the teaching of it, in its current form.

Only a tiny amount of us can and do speak it on a daily basis. It is not the dominant language of our parliament, arts, media or popular culture. There is an overwhelmingly negative attitude towards it amongst huge number of young people - sure, most say that they would love to be able to speak it, but nobody can nor, more importantly, sees a need to.

So what is to be done? Well, it would serve the language a lot better to take Enda Kenny's initiative and start a real debate about the language. Instead of pursuing pointless, tokenistic gestures like making Irish an official working language of the EU, let's try and work out a realistic future for Irish.

The success at incorporating Irish into the workings of the EU is an embarrassment more than anything else: it draws attention to the fact that hardly any of us here can or will ever speak it. Our European partners would be correct to look at us in puzzlement and ask why on Earth it means so much to us. Surely our history has taught us that laws and officialdom are not going to save a language. A language is a living, breathing thing that is constantly evolving. It will thrive or perish depending on its use. Irish almost has the same living status as Latin at this stage.

I suggest that the future for Irish belongs in a new school subject: Irish Studies. There has been an alarming drop in the number of students taking History, especially irish history. Irish literature and cultural studies has to compete for attention in a crowded and time-constrained English curriculum. How about a new subject that would be composed of limited language study as well as the study of the works of Irish novelists, poets, playwrites and filmmakers? Folklore and historical topics could be pursued also. That way, those who want to learn the language can. Of course, the abolition of the compulsory element to the language will have an impact on the future learning of the langauge, even in that limited guise (most importantly, will there be any language teachers left after a while?).

I know my suggestion is shaky so tear it apart if you want. But for God's sake, don't ignore the opportunity to discuss options for the survival of the language. Dismissing Enda Kenny's call for a debate on language policy without even considering alternatives might, ironically, ensure the language's demise rather than its salvation.

What's Lost exactly?

The Hatch. The Hatch. The Hatch. That’s all we’re going to be talking about until RTE import the second series of J.J Abrams’ riveting, labyrinthine, frustrating mystery drama Lost, which concluded with a double episode a few weeks ago but which I just got round to watching recently.

We were left none the wiser, only with more questions and more conundrums to puzzle over. Fans that feel short changed would be well advised to check out the other masterwork from Abrams’ oeuvre, Alias (2001-present), the spy drama starring Jennifer Garner, that has consistently proven itself to be the most inventive, compelling, addictive TV show of the new century so far.

On the surface, Alias seems too high concept, too constrained by the narrative technique that has been chosen for it. But Abrams is a genius and has, on a number of occasions, completely upended the show, altering its dynamic entirely – yet it somehow manages to remain the same.

This regular rejigging and reinvention does not impinge on the show’s cohesion but instead, opens it out to reveal a much wider, deeper, thrilling story. Charles Dickens tried to end each chapter of his novels with a cliffhanger and Abrams has sought to stamp that trait onto his work. Plot arcs introduced in season one of Alias were not resolved until the end of the fourth series – so on that basis alone (not to mention how commercially viable Lost is), we could be in for a long run with this desert island thriller.

The Lost finale left American critics and fans decidedly under whelmed when it screened last May – but why did they expect anything less? Had they not been watching the same show we were? It’s beginning to look like the whole point of the show is that these characters – and us fans – are meant to be left in limbo, not knowing why things are happening or how it’s all going to end.

Devoted followers of the show have had the Internet buzzing for months about what is going on in this show. The common belief is that the plane crash survivors are in Purgatory and are all specifically stranded on some celestial island where they are to atone for whatever misdemeanours they perpetrated in the living world.

Other rumours suggest that they are in the Bermuda Triangle or that the island is part of some government experiment. But I think the answer is more philosophical and has been dangled before our eyes on more than one occasion throughout the series, conveyed through the enigmatic character John Locke (played so fantastically by Terry O’Quinn, who was criminally deprived of an Emmy in September).

He has frequently said to numerous characters that fate has brought them all to the island and that faith alone is all that can ensure their survival. This world in which they find themselves is dangerous: random, baffling crimes take place; the innocent are punished along with the guilty, often even instead of them. Nobody really understands why they have fallen on such hard luck.

Strangers are thrown together and must learn to trust each other and cooperate through some form of social contract in order to get by. All these people are flawed; they are equally capable of acts of kindness, love and generosity as they are of selfishness, greed and evil. Is this ‘the island’ we’re talking about, or just life itself? (ooohhhh!)

Our world is obsessed with ‘meaning’: everything must have a purpose, every person, act, event must be able to be explained rationally and some lesson derived from that contemplation. But as Locke stresses to the ‘man of science’ Jack (Matthew Fox), not everything can be explained by reason alone. Trying to extrapolate meaning from Lost is as futile as trying to figure out the meaning of life. That’s why we don’t have answers: because we’re not meant to.

Now, I've been known to read too much into things (way too much sometimes!) and I certainly would not be a Johnny Religious Head. But it is possible that Lost’s scriptwriters have ingeniously constructed a metaphorical discussion about the limits of post-Enlightenment thinking: that science and reason can, must provide answers in our world.

Maybe they can’t. Life is mysterious and its many plot twists can enthral and delight, intrigue and horrify in equal measure. The hatch, the strange polar bear, the numbers, ‘the Others’ are all MacGuffins that divert our attention from what this show is really trying to tell us: that the modern world we inherited from the Enlightenment, whilst equipping us with essential mental tools for survival, has left us with an incapacity to believe that faith might be the only quality that gets us through a baffling world that makes no sense and whose mysterious forces we can never truly grasp. Maybe that is what is truly lost.

Or perhaps it's all just a prank constructed by the writers to see how much nonsense fans will put up with and to what extent saddos like me will read too much into it! Either way, it's food for thought.

Something about the Twentysomethings

Author CS Lewis once wrote that we read to know we are not alone. Sometimes, we listen instead.

Ryan Tubridy recently held the second of his 'My Generation' shows in the new 9-10am slot on Radio 1. The first Monday of every month is set aside for certain age groups to come into the studio and discuss issues that surround and affect their lives. This month (7th Nov) , it was the turn of the Twentysomethings.

Ryan's selection of listeners came from all backgrounds and experiences. One girl had become a mother in her late teens and was only now getting round to getting her career on track. One other speaker was a twentysomething priest. Another was the artist, Rasher, who has forged an extraordinarily successful career out of his wild, unhappy teenage years.

The majority of the speakers, however, were just ordinary young people, working in jobs they don't particularly care about but which are a necessity in order to survive. The general feeling from the studio that morning was that we are the first generation of Irish people to grow up in the Celtic Tiger golden age. We were teenagers when the boom began - we benefited from the rising tide and now we are adults struggling to find a ship in which to traverse that tide.

Is 'struggling' the right word to use? Yes, I think so.

Too much choice is nearly as bad as no choice at all. When I was in my Leaving Cert year, we were told we could be anything we wanted, do anything we wanted, study anything we wanted (the points race aside!). Even at that stage, trying to decide what to do with your life was an impossible decision to make. You try to choose the path that is truest to whatever nascent plan you have for your life. I chose Arts in UCC because the only things I was ever any good at were humanities. After three years, I was none the wiser so went into an MA in UCD for reasons I know longer remember. That year was the best thing to happen to me personally, certainly not professionally (or academically, shame on you UCD).

After that year, I went out into the big bad world to earn a living. I had no plan, just survival. I temped, working in a tourist information centre and later a bank. In between, I even managed to work for a few weeks in AOL Europe - farcical considering that I had trouble creating this blog, nevermind no anything more complicated.

I always wanted to be a journalist but was too afraid - too afraid of not being good enough, of not making it, of not ever having a job. But I got over it and now I love what I'm doing. I'm still absolutely terrified but it's a good terror that keeps me on my toes, keeps me hungry, ambitious and focused.

It's took me a long time to get this still-unfinished point - as it does for the vast majority of twentysomethings. Some are even older before realising who they are, what they want. Trying to find your professional orientation and trying to balance that with personal and familial matters would be enough to drive you to drink. And it does.

As one speaker on Tubridy's show said, he looks forward to going out as many nights as he can afford to just to forget all that pressure, that expectation, that sense that your life and your dreams are dangling in front of you but you can't seem to quite reach them.

You might see that as just an excuse for binge drinking but I see the guy's point. Last year, when I was working in jobs I could care less about, I went out about 4-5 nights a week just because I felt like I was entitled to some relief after college but mainly to forget that I seemed to have lost track of where I was going and what I wanted.

The so-called quarter-life crisis is increasingly becoming part of the cultural dialogue of society. Part of the reason for the success of Zach Braff's 2004 movie Garden State is that it struck a chord with this generation who are over-privileged by comparative historical standards but are directionless and overwhelmed by it all too. Whilst promoting the movie, Braff made an interesting remark. He said that your teenage years are for your physical adolescence but your twenties are for you mental adolescence.

Damian Barr, a freelance journalist, wrote a book two years ago entitled 'Get It Together: Surviving Your Quarter-Life Crisis'. In that book, he interviewed a number of twentysomethings and charted the struggles they had to find work and a career, pay rent, find love, save, have some kind of social life - and all on very little money and with not enough work or life experience to meet the crazy demands of employers who seemingly want 22-23 year olds to have 3-4 years work experience on top of a 3-4 year degree.

His book didn't offer any answers per se - but it fulfilled CS Lewis' maxim quoted at the start of this piece. What it did was show readers that nearly everyone their age, no matter where they lived, was going through the same thing. People seem to dismiss just how stressed many twentysomethings become as they try to figure out how to get started in adult life. A leitmotif in Barr's book is that today's twentysomethings are too young to be old and too old to be young - so where does that leave us? No, I don't know either so give us a break, ok?

What I do know is that more people in their twenties should talk about the stresses they are under - if not with friends, then in blogs, articles or web forums. It helps to know that you are most certainly not the only person your age who hates their job, knows they can do better, who is made to feel guilty for wanting to party instead of settling down or working 12-14 hours a day for crap pay just to get on the radar of some corporation, who thinks that everyone is a success but them.

Some might call it 'me-me-me' self indulgence. Write or talk about it folks - because whilst you or I might have caught some glimpse of a light at the end of it all, there are many others who have not. Sharing your experience may just ease their lonliness, their confusion, their fear -as well as keeping your own further at bay for at least another day.

Take that Dubya!

You gotta love this!

Esquire: Clinton is world's "most influential man"

Email this StoryNov 15, 6:29 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is "The Most Influential Man in the World," according to Esquire magazine.
The magazine has designated him as "the most powerful agent of change in the world" despite his lack of electoral standing and the fact he was laid low by a heart attack ahead of last year's presidential election.

The magazine highlights Clinton's accomplishments in its December issue, which goes on newsstands on Thursday, profiling the world's "Best and Brightest" men and women.
Since leaving office, Clinton has been so active that his post-presidency amounts to "a third term" for the Democrat who held the White House from 1992 to 2000, the magazine said. He has tackled global issues from AIDS, poverty and global warming to the recovery from last December's Indian Ocean tsunami.

Esquire editor David Granger argued that Clinton was poised to become "something like a president of the world or at least a president of the world's non-governmental organizations."
But it will mean giving up a leadership role in the Democratic party or pushing the political career of his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, seen as a 2008 White House contender.
In the article, Clinton said that he remained loyal to his party, adding: "I'm not the leader of the opposition anymore."

World Class Film Reviews

The very best in filmic reviewness can be found at www.frankthemonkey.com - I think that Cashin fella is so talented. Don't know him. Honest. Go. Go now! Also keep an eye out in The Event Guide every fortnight.













Mrs Henderson Presents
http://www.frankthemonkey.com/film_full_review.php?page=356

Dig
http://http://www.frankthemonkey.com/dvd_full_review.php?page=102

Factotum
http://www.frankthemonkey.com/film_full_review.php?page=353

The Constant Gardener
http://www.frankthemonkey.com/film_full_review.php?page=357

The Family Stone
http://www.eventguide.ie/articles.elive?session_id=1133536352304344&sku=051129020210

What do you want from the Great and Mighty Oz, Bertie?

There's a consistency to how cowardly An Taoiseach Blandie Ahern is that is almost reassuring.

Liz O'Donnell, a high profile member of the junior coalition partner in the Irish government, delivered a speech in which she criticized the Catholic Church's stranglehold on the institutions of the Irish state. She called for greater - if not total - separation of Church and State in this country by ending the deference to and fear of the Church, which were overriding factors in prolonging the revolting and depraved abuse of children by priests.

It was a brave, timely speech that expressed a lot of the anger and disgust that the majority of people in this country feel and think today. Elements within the Church abused their position horrendously and inflicted untold suffering upon too many children. Higher powers in the Church then saw fit to cover it all up and move paedohiles around to wreck more destruction wherever they went. It was an active, willing criminal conspiracy.

When the scandal broke in Ireland, the government, under Ahern and with the approval of O'Donnell's party, made a deal with the Church whereby the taxpayer would foot the majority of the bill for compensation for abuse victims and the church would make a one-off payment of €128m. The taxpayer could end up paying up to €2billion.

People are profoundly angry at the Church - and mad at themselves too for allowing ourselves to be kept under the foot of the Church for so long. So if a politcian articulates the rage that the country is feeling, it should be welcomed and supported.

But no. The Prime Minister of our country not only disowned O'Donnell's remarks but in doing so demonstrated the type of softly-softly, sycophantic approach to the Church that O'Donnell correctly identified as a problem.

Bertie has always been Everyman to Everyone; decision-making is not his strong-point nor is showing strong, unambiguous leadership or, for that matter, doing anything that might make him unpopular with anyone. Just what you need in a Prime Minister.

He might trust the Church completely to investigate itself and self-regulate in order to implement the change that is drastically needed to ensure that this type of abuse never happens again. I certainly don't nor should anyone else. The Church, afterall, is involved in a cover-up that leads all the way to Il Papa in the Vatican - the supreme guardian of the Catholic faith who has yet to make a statement on the Ferns report by the way. So you'll forgive me if I don't share the Taoiseach's faith in the Church.



Maybe some day, the Cowardly Bertie will be blown to the magical world of Oz, where he can journey to the the great Wizard himself in the Emerald City and ask for some courage.

"Life is sad, believe me Missy,
When you're born to be a sissy
Without the vim and verve.

But I could change my habits,
Nevermore be scared of rabbits
If I only had the nerve.

I'm afraid there's no denyin'
I'm just a dandylion
A fate I don't deserve.

But I could show my prowess,
Be a lion not a mowess
If I only had the nerve.

Oh, I'd be in my stride,
a king down to the core
Oh, I'd roar the way I never roared before
And then I'd rrrwoof
And roar some more.

I would show the dinosaurus
Who's king around the fores'
A king they'd better serve.

Why with my regal beezer,
I could be another Caesar
If I only had the nerve".

Security risk frisked and searched

So there I was, on a windy, wet Friday morning in November, waiting to get inside when two burly security men, dressed all in black, ask me to step aside so that they can check my bag and belongings. "Have I any equipment inside my bag?", they ask, rummaging through my things. "Why do you...?", I begin to ask before it dawns on me. "Oh right, because of the...", I say and the bouncers nod solemnly.
"Can I see your mobile phone please sir?", one asks. I produce it for them. Mine is a phone with a video camera. "I'm going to have to ask you to turn that off and keep it off for the duration", he says. I do so. He hands me back my bag which hold nothing more than a newspaper, an umbrella, a notebook and a bottle of water. I'm clean. I'm not a risk to the enterprise.

"Enjoy the movie", he says cheerily.

The movie in question is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was at a press screening yesterday morning and because it's not released generally until next Friday, the distributors are deploying severe measures to prevent any leaks or bootleg copies getting out before then. In fact, I don't think I should even be talking about it now! By sending my review to my editor yesterday afternoon, I may be liable for prosecution for writing a word about it before Nov 18!

Harry Potter mania has unquestionably reached its zenith. The kind of insane security measures that accompany the launch of the books is now part and parcel of the movie adaptations. It's all about creating a sense of event - and Goblet of Fire is arguably the event movie of the year so far. The studio is trying to drum up an air of suspense about everything from the injection of hormones into the Potter story to how Ralph Fiennes looks as Lord Voldemort - and I'm not going to reveal anything.

What I will say is that it is extremely dark, quite frightening, unexpectedly sad and incredibly long, clocking in at two and a half hours. It's all I need to say about Harry Potter from here on -
the rest of the world can take it from here. Roll on King Kong I say!