Whale's See Men in the Ocean

Pro Life Britney

Dear God almighty.

This weird, creepy sculpture by British artist Daniel Edwards depicts Britney Spears giving birth on a bear-skin rug. It's entitled "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston." Apparently, it's dedicated to the anti-abortion movement.

Just when you thought that the abortion debate couldn't get any stranger.

The pop star who's not a girl but, curiously not yet a woman either, has a song called 'Someday I Will Understand'.

Someday perhaps. Right now, I'm just baffled and disturbed.

Camels of Mass Destruction

From the Telegraph. So this is the threat to world peace that Bush and Blair were so worried about?

Saddam planned to deploy 'camels of mass destruction'

By James Langton(Filed: 26/03/2006)

Saddam Hussein planned to use "camels of mass destruction" as weapons to defend Iraq, loading them with bombs and directing them towards invading forces.

The animals were part of a plan to arm and equip foreign insurgents drawn up by the dictator shortly before the American-led invasion three years ago, reveals a 37-page report, captured after the fall of Baghdad and just released by the Pentagon. It is part of a cache of thousands of documents that the United States Department of Defence says it does not have the resources to translate.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon released copies in the original Arabic onto the internet in the hope that others would interpret them into English.

Handwritten on official paper, one of the reports appears to be a road map for the insurgency, with detailed instructions for training what it calls suicide bombers.

In the memo, they are described as "estishehadeyeen", Arabic for suicide martyrs, and would almost certainly have been foreign volunteers.

The memo details a training commission to be headed by senior officers, including a colonel from the "Directory of Political Orientation". Their job, says the report, was to "prepare a very intensive training course", "to raise the physical fitness and train in the use of Kalashnikovs and hand grenades".

It continues: "The largest section of the course will be specialised to focus on using the explosive material in the body, in motorcycle, in cars, and in camels". Camels will be "provided by the Directory of General Military Intelligence".

The memo also reveals the incredible bureaucracy that underpinned Saddam's Iraq. Rifles and hand grenades were to be provided by a Department of Armament and Equipping, explosives by the Directory of Military Engineering and "religious sermons that emphasise jihad'' by the Directory of Political Orientation and the Religious Scholars.

The papers have been translated by Arabic-speaking members of Free Republic, a conservative internet discussion forum that believes the documents will justify British and American claims that Saddam had made Iraq a haven for terrorists.

If the translation is correct, it suggests that many of the foreign fighters now attacking coalition forces and bombing Iraqi civilians were directly trained by the Saddam regime, although there are no known reports of camels being used in suicide attacks.

One for the boys

Review Me

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V for Vendetta

Hostel

The Hills Have Eyes

The Big White

Inside Man

Things that are difficult to say when you're drunk

Things that are difficult to say when you're drunk

a) Innovative
b) Preliminary
c) Proliferation
d) Cinnamon




Things that are VERY difficult to say when you're drunk

a) Specificity
b) British Constitution
c) Passive-aggressive disorder
d) Transubstantiate

Things that are DOWNRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE to say when you're drunk

a) Thanks, but I don't want to sleep with you.
b) Nope, no more booze for me.
c) Sorry, but you're not really my type.
d) No kebab for me, thank you.
e) Good evening officer, isn't it lovely out tonight?
f) I'm not interested in fighting you.
g) Oh, I just couldn't - no one wants to hear me sing.
h) Thank you, but I won't make any attempt to dance, I have zero co-ordination.
i) Where is the nearest toilet? I refuse to vomit in the street.
j) I must be going home now as I have work in the morning.
k) There is simply no way i would be able to jump that fence.
l) Do you really want to do this tonight.....

'Prepare for the Power of the Blog'

From today's Irish Times...

Prepare for the power of the blog
21/03/2006
Are Irish politicians ready for bloggers? They look set to become a force in the next election, writes Liam Reid, political reporter

It sounds unkind, but it is probably fair to say that the average TD or senator is not the most technically literate of people. Spending any time in Leinster House, a journalist learns that most TDs prefer the fax or the telephone to e-mail; better still a chat over a cuppa or a pint. Irish politics is still very much a world where presence at a funeral rather than on the web is seen as important.

Mention the word "blog" and some TDs are likely to ask if it is the new brand name for Bord na Móna briquettes. The main political parties might have impressive websites and use e-mail as a primary means of communication, but that is about as far as it goes. While they put huge resources into monitoring newspapers and radio phone-in shows around the country, the same cannot be said of the internet.

Politicians, party officials and indeed commentators and journalists are mostly oblivious to the growing army of Irish political bloggers, who are determined to emerge as a force in next year's general election.

Short for web logs, blogs are normally personal websites, often in a diary format, updated regularly with whatever takes the blogger's fancy. They exist in the "blogosphere" - the wider online community of web-logs and bulletin boards, where users post comments, photos and video, and share information generally.

In Ireland, this community is keen to replicate the situation that emerged in the US during the 2004 presidential election where the blogosphere became a significant player. Bloggers and an online campaign are credited with transforming Howard Dean from an outsider to a front-runner in the Democratic nomination race. In September of that year, bloggers on a conservative site, "Free Republic", collated evidence which suggested a report by CBS 60 minutes, which had questioned the military record of President George W Bush, was based on forged documents. Not only did they kill the story, they turned the debate on its head and onto the conduct of the media. The bloggers were taken seriously by politicians, and enjoyed accreditation and access usually reserved for media.

In Ireland the blogosphere remains on the fringes of political life. Dr John Breslin, the computer scientist who created Boards.ie, the largest Irish internet bulletin board, is convinced that blogging and the internet will become a factor in Irish politics in the future. "They're psyching themselves up for next year, that's when they hope they are going to get noticed." He cites the explosion of blogging among the Irish internet community, often known as the "bogosphere". When he began monitoring the number of Irish blogs last year, there were about 100. Now there are more than 1,000, he believes, with more than 140 of them devoted to politics and current affairs.

There are only two TDs who have blogs, Liz McManus of Labour and Ciaran Cuffe of the Green party.

On Boards.ie, politics is always in the top five categories for messages and posts, after computer technology and soccer. But they have still to make any significant mark on the mainstream.
Dr Niall O'Dochartaigh, a political scientist at NUI Galway, says there are a number of key elements that need to exist for the blogosphere to become a factor in political life, the first being internet access. Despite the country's high-tech reputation, broadband penetration is still lower than in many other Western countries. He also believes there needs to be a major event that will motivate people to seek information on the internet, and again this event could be the next general election. The third element is for the blogs to be providing good quality information, analysis or debate that is otherwise unavailable.

However, even with these conditions, he believes Irish bloggers may never enjoy the influence of those in the US, because of the size of Ireland. "It is still very much about face-to-face contact," he explains. "A candidate for the Dáil can reasonably expect to personally canvass a good proportion of the electorate. That's an absolute impossibility in the US so voters can be much more reliant on the internet for information."

Dr O'Dochartaigh believes, however, that blogging will become increasingly important in Irish politics. He cites the Dublin riots last month as one of the first events in Ireland where these elements came together. It saw bloggers and internet users post large amounts of information, including photos and videos, onto websites in the aftermath of the incidents, a lot of which was not available through mainstream media.

In Northern Ireland, one blog has emerged as an essential reference tool for politicians, journalists and academics, and that is Slugger O'Toole. Established in 2002 by Mick Fealty, an England-based researcher and journalist, it quickly became a hub for the debate on the future of unionism. Fealty credits this partly to the fact that in 2003 he and his associates printed a pamphlet on unionism, which was distributed to every politician in Northern Ireland. Quality is a key element, he believes, pointing out that the pamphlet was the product of more than six months' research and interviews.

This is one of the biggest challenges Irish political blogs have to surmount if they are to become influential, Fealty says. "They need to be good at what they do if they are to have an impact. People are not going to come back to a blog if what you're posting is unreadable."
© The Irish Times

Fun at the Fair!

For those of you who don't know, the biggest funfair in Dublin is currently located on Merrion Square - and I'm not talking about the Dáil.

A rather large amusement park has been set up outside the Taoiseach's department as part of the St Patrick's Week (Month?) festival. I live around the corner from it and I can attest to the large numbers that the fair has been attracting.

I think that it would be a good idea to keep the funfair there permanently. The Taoiseach should seriously consider it as he could co-opt all the regalia of the fair for party political purposes.

Think of what all the promotional blurbs could be for the rides and attractions:

"Come and be taken for a ride on the Bertie Taoishocker Rollercoaster!"

"Go and get fleeced by renowned Candy Floss Man Cowen"

"Take a spooky and disturbing journey on the extra-scary Tribunal Ghost Train"

"Visit the PD Hall of Mirrors and behold their many deformed faces!"

"Take a spin on the All-Party Coalition Merry Go-Round!"

"And don't forget: come and play a game of pin the tail on the Cullen donkey!"

Brokeblock Mountain

Pride and Prejudice

Congratulations to Drs Katherine Zappone and Anna Louise Gilligan for so eloquently making their case on the ‘Late Late Show’ last night. They are taking a High Court action to have their marriage recognised by the Irish state.

They are magnificent figureheads for an important campaign that could have huge repercussions for co-habiting couples in Ireland. Their bravery, determination and honesty is inspiring and I wish them all the best with their case.

There will be a fundraising table quiz in the Front Lounge on Wednesday 15 March. €40 for a table of four.

Anatomy of an Eve-ning

My friend Gar called me the other evening and told me that he had won free tickets for the production of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in Spirit on Middle Abbey Street and asked me if I wanted to go.

Oh I was terrified.

I was totally clueless about this play. I had heard of it, of course and had even (unknowingly) met its author Eve Ensler (she had been a guest in the Long Island hotel I was working in three summers ago. One day I noticed her reading the Hillary Clinton memoirs on the beach and got talking to her. She loved the Irish accent. I only found out later who she was).

Before I saw it, I had two images in my mind as to what it would be like.

1) Something like that episode of ‘Friends’ where Joey wants to get rid of the others for the evening in order to hold a party for his actor friends so he gets them tickets to a one woman play. Chandler is the only one who can attend and spends the next two hours being shouted at by an angry, pre-menstrual uber-feminist.

2) Or/and there would be huge props on stage – kind of like the huge plant in ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ that sings and talks, which would result in my having nightmares for days, weeks, months to come.

As it turns out, this was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve seen in a long time. Yes, it was a predominantly female audience but this play (and subject matter) has, er, wide appeal. ‘The Vagina Monologues’ is uproariously funny, thought-provoking and poignant. Much of the humour stems from the unbridled honesty of the writing and the general shock of hearing women talk so intimately about their, you know...

You could hear a pin drop when the actresses – Norma Sheehan, Fenella Fielding and, ahem, Glenda Gilsen (surprisingly good!) – delivered monologues by women from Afghanistan and a Bosnian rape camp. These quiet, powerful moments are more than balanced out by tear-inducing comic set pieces, such as a thorough listing of all the different names for the vagina, a vocal, communal reclaiming of the word ‘cunt’ and – best of all – a cataloguing of all the different kinds of female orgasms. Norma Sheehan – best known from RTE’s ‘The Clinic’ – is a star in the making.

Hilarious, moving, entertaining, enlightening (perhaps too much so) plus a portion of the door charge goes to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre: going to see ‘The Vagina Monologues’ is as good a reason as I can muster for you to spend one evening away from the box (tee hee hee).

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Let them have Tayto!

The front page of the Irish Times yesterday (Thursday) featured a picture of 2,500 undocumented Irish people working in the US who converged on Washington in support of the Kennedy-McCain Bill that would grant the 11m of America's illegal immigrants a chance to apply for citizenship.

It brought to mind a woman that I worked with in the US three summers ago. I was on my J1 student working Visa and was working in a resort hotel in the Hamptons in New York state. My boss hadn't hired many Irish students for the few years prior to this - the summer staff consisted mainly of Eastern European students.

There was one woman working on the reception in this hotel. She was from Donegal and had come over to the US on a Morrison Visa in the 1980s but stayed there illegally when her visa expired.

She has lived in the US for nearly 20 years but yet cannot leave the country as she most certainly would not get back in. She drives illegally, cannot avail of full banking facilites, cannot travel. She works extremely hard in a number of seasonal jobs. She has built up a life in America - she has a teenage daughter, her family, her friends. Yet by the time I met her, she hadn't been home to Donegal in over a decade. She loved talking to me and my two friends about Ireland and her life back home. Everytime she spoke, her words were tinged with profound sadness. Yes, she had created a life for herself in the US but she didn't officially belong there. She is technically without a home country, a kind of bureaucratic refugee. Her life is characterised by fear, insecurity and a soul-sapping liminality.

We left the US soon after Labour Day and she was visibily upset and envious that we were leaving for home. I meant to stay in touch with her and send her some uniquely Irish things that all people abroad crave: Bachelors Beans, Meanies, Chipsticks, Cadbury chocolate and, of course Tayto! I never did though and I feel bad. I just got back into the swing of things here in Ireland and that summer faded into memory.

The topicality of this drive by the Irish lobby in the US at the moment has made me think more and more about this lady and all the thousands of other Irish people in the same position as her. It's such a sad situation to be from one country and live in another and yet be deprived of fully and freely engaging with both. Let's hope that the law is changed to allow these Irish people the chance to collect their Tayto crisps in person and legally bring them back to their homes for their American family and friends to consume!!

And, of course, we can't forget...

In the rush to comment on the Oscars, we can't forget the other awards ceremony held this weekend...

26th Annual Golden Raspberry (Razzie©) Award “Winners” 2006

Worst Picture: Dirty Love

Worst Actor: Rob Schneider, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Worst Actress: Jenny McCarthy, Dirty Love

Worst Supporting Actor: Hayden Christensen, Star Wars III: No Sith, He's Supposed to be Darth Vader

Worst Supporting Actress: Paris Hilton, House Of Whacks (Warner Bros.)

Worst Screen Couple: Will Ferrell & Nicole Kidman, Bewitched (Sony/Columbia)

Worst Remake Or Sequel: Son Of The Mask

Worst Screenplay: Dirty Love, Written by Jenny McCarthy

Worst Director: John Asher / Dirty Love

Most Tiresome Tabloid Targets:(New Category, Saluting the Celebs We're ALL Sick & Tired Of!) Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Oprah Winfrey's Couch,The Eiffel Tower & "Tom's Baby"

"Wins" per Picture:

Dirty Love — 4 "Wins":Worst Picture, Worst Actress,Worst Director, Worst Screenplay

One Award Each: Bewitched (Worst Screen Couple)
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo(Worst Actor)
House Of Wax (Worst Supporting Actress) Son Of The Mask (Worst Remake or Sequel)
Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith(Worst Supporting Actor)

Crash-ing Brokeback's party

It's a good thing that I didn't head off to bed after the announcement that Ang Lee had won Best Director for 'Brokeback Mountain'. Having sat through four hours of an interminably predictable and lifeless ceremony - exacerbated by Sky's segues to the abysmally clueless Mariella Frostrup - everything seemed to be going according to plan. All of the expected winners - deservedly in the vast majority of cases - had been to the podium to claim their prizes. 'Brokeback' was on the way to capping its incredible year by taking home Hollywood's top honour.

And then, out came Jack Nicholson to reveal the winner of the Best Picture Oscar. We were a bit surprised seven years ago when 'Shakespeare in Love' pipped 'Saving Private Ryan' to the top award but nothing in recent Academy Award history compared to the gasps and stunned silence that greeted the proclamation that melting-pot ensemble drama 'Crash' had emerged as victor.

It's a good movie, no doubt, but 'Brokeback Mountain' was infinitely superior in nearly every respect. But, Lions Gate, the backers of 'Crash', ran a brilliant (and expensive) marketing campaign that played on 'Brokeback's frontrunner status.

'Crash' was released last summer: never before has a movie released so early in the award year won the Best Film Oscar. In the pre-award analysis, commentators noticed that this was the first time since 1981 that the nominees for Best Picture and Director were for all the same movies. There was a premonition of last night's final shock in that fact: 25 years ago, Warren Beatty won the Directing prize for 'Reds' but was beaten at the last minute for Best Film by 'Chariots of Fire'.

'Crash' was an actors movie, set in L.A, the home to the majority of Academy members so it must have resonated with them. It's also the first film to win Best Picture without winning a single Best Film prize in the pre-Oscar award blitz. This is also the first time that there has been consecutive Best Picture winners that were written by the same person ('Crash' writer, director and producer Paul Haggis wrote last year's big winner 'Million Dollar Baby').

A clearly devastated Ang Lee saw his film - the most acclaimed of the year by a long stretch - tie with 'Crash', 'King Kong' and 'Memoirs of a Geisha' for award wins (three apiece). 'Brokeback' took home Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score. 'Crash' also won Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. That latter award went some way to prove a point that I remember 'LA Times' critic David Ansen making a few years back: that the film that wins the Editing prize nearly always goes on to win Best Film.

The acting prizes went as expected. Bafta, Golden Globe and SAG winners Philip Seymour Hoffman and Reese Witherspoon took home Best Actor and Actress for 'Capote' and 'Walk the Line' respectively. Hoffman had an easy win whereas Witherspoon arguably had a much closer result over chief competitor Felicity Huffman.

Hollywood favourite George Clooney saw off a last minute surge from Paul Giamatti to win Best Supporting Actor for the complex geopolitical drama 'Syriana'. Clooney's 'Good Night, and Good Luck' (for which he was also nominated as Director and Writer) went home empty-handed as did Steven Spielberg's controversial 'Munich'. Both movies had six nominations each.

British actress Rachel Weisz made up enough lost ground at the Baftas to emerge victorious in the closely contested Best Supporting Actress category. Weisz won for her movie-stealing role opposite Ralph Fiennes in 'The Constant Gardener'.

Emcee for the night was freshman Jon Stewart, acerbic host of satirical news programme 'The Daily Show'. It's fair to say that Stewart's performance was mixed at best. His opening monologue died a death and many of his jokes and asides were met with silence. He improved as the dreadful show dragged on however. A great spoof reel claiming dirty campaigning in the Best Actress race went down a storm as did the joke about Bjork (who attended the Oscars five years ago dressed as a swan) being shot by Dick Cheney. Other highlights included a beautiful performance by Dolly Parton of her nominated song 'Travellin Thru' whilst Meryl Streep's and Lily Tomlin's tribute to Robert Altman was inspired.

Overall, the show was dire and was made all the worse by a seemingly endless stream of movie montages and some nauseating, self-pitying pleas from presenters for audiences to abandon DVD and return to the cinemas. 2005 was a hard year for the Hollywood studios so there is a lot of lost ground - and money - to make up for. Expect a slew of big budget movies to dominate next year's ceremony.

Despite the quality of the delivery, most of the awards were deserving. The problem is that most of the winners have been front-runners since January. Apart from Best Picture, there were literally no other surprises. Congratulations to Irish playwrite Martin McDonagh, who won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short for 'Six Shooter'. Let's hope that we'll be hearing more Irish accents at the show over the next few years.

And that's all I want to say about Oscar 2006 because, like an Irish general election campaign, it feels as if the contest has been on-going for the last seven months. Some great work was produced and, true to form, the Academy failed to award the year's best film with the Best Film Oscar. Next, please. The challenge to Hollywood is to find a way to move forward from one of the most unusual award years' in recent memory. If the current trend for topical, political cinema continues into the next movie year, it'll be interesting to see what 'hammers to mould society' Tinseltown produces next.

Oscar Predix

And so the long campaign is over. The winners of the 78th Annual Academy Awards are announced Sunday night in LA, which means that viewers on this side of the pond will have to stay up until the wee hours to watch the whole orgy of self-congratulation live on Sky Movies.

This awards year has been dominated by Ang Lee's 'Brokeback Mountain', which so far has won 14 Best Film citations, including the Producers Guild, the Golden Globe and the Bafta. It's just one of a series of nominated films this year that tackle topical issues, transforming the mid-Noughties into the most politicised era of film-making since the 1970s.

'Brokeback' is entering the race with the most nominations (8) but, if the ceremony turns out to be as predictable as anticipated, it will win perhaps only 4, possibly 5 of those categories. There is no landslide on the cards for any nominee so it looks as if there will be a more even spread of winners than there has been in recent years.

All of the main categories have had their frontrunners the whole way through the pre-Oscar award blitz and there is little expectation that Sunday's awards will diverge greatly from what's gone before. However, there is the potential for one or two surprises: early favourites may have peaked too soon or, in the case of one category, the favourite has kept changing. Also, you can never underestimate the bizarre tastes and voting patterns of the Academy. They tend to vote with their hearts rather than their heads so with that in mind, I have given my predictions for who I want to win (the 'heart' option) and who I think will win (the 'head' option).

Best Picture:
It has only ever been a two-way race in this category: 'Brokeback' vs 'Crash'. However, the only major pre-Oscar gong that 'Crash' was won was the Ensemble prize at the Screen Actors Guild. It is an actors movie but might be a bit too edgy for Academy tastes. Having said that, its backers have spent almost twice 'Crash's' original budget in marketing the movie. An intensive Miramax marketing campaign for 'Shakespeare in Love' was enough for it to snag the top award from favourite 'Saving Private Ryan' in 1998. I can't see the same thing happening here though. If 'Crash', which was released last summer, manages this feat, it will count as one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history. It'd sure shake things up on the night, that's for sure.

My heart says: 'Brokeback Mountain'
My head says: 'Brokeback Mountain'

Best Director:
There has been some speculation that there might be a Picture/Director split this year. It's a possibility - especially considering that Ang Lee was in this exact position going into the awards with 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' in 2000. That year, Lee had won the Directors Guild, the Golden Globe and the Bafta (like this year) but fell at the last hurdle to Steven Soderbergh for 'Traffic'. However, it is highly unlikely that Lee will be snubbed this year having delivered the years' most acclaimed movie. Also, Soderbergh was a double Directing nominee that year (he was also nominated for 'Erin Brockovich') so he was being justly awarded for directing 2 actors, a screenwriter and an editor to Oscar wins for two different movies on the same night. This is Lee's for the taking.

My heart says: Ang Lee
My head says: Ang Lee

Best Actor:
Unless there is a major 'Brokeback' sweep on the night, this award belongs - and has belonged all year - to 'Capote's' Philip Seymour Hoffman. With the Golden Globe, Bafta and Screen Actors Guild under his belt, in addition to 12 other critics' citations, I will be flabbergasted if he doesn't take home the gold. Besides, he deserves if for a truly astonishing performance.

My heart says: Philip Seymour Hoffman
My head says: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Actress:
I'm quite torn here. It's been a miserable year for lead actresses and this has always been a two horse race. Reese Witherspoon is the favourite going into the ceremony - she's won the Golden Globe, Bafta and SAG as well as 8 other prizes for her turn as June Carter in 'Walk the Line'. She is the heart of that movie. Although she doesn't appear until a third of the way in, the movie literally loses its sparkle afterwards when she's not on screen. It's a terrific, multi-layered performance that would certainly not be the worst choice the Academy has made.

However, I'm rooting for Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman for her engaging, brave and moving performance as a pre-operative male-to-female transexual who meets the son she never knew existed in 'TransAmerica'. Witherspoon may be the heart of her movie, but Huffman is her movie. She's in almost every scene and brilliantly captures her characters gaucheness, vulnerabilty and determination. It's an astonishing performance that might bring Huffman to the podium. Hollywood seems to love her survival story ('20 years to achieve overnight success' as she has said herself), they love her husband (William H. Macy) just as much and she's already very familiar to voters thanks to her role in a high-profile TV show from which this movie is a considerable stretch. Plus she's paid her dues more than Reese Whippersnapper. I anticipate this result with bated breath.

My heart says: Felicity Huffman
My head says: Reese Witherspoon

Best Supporting Actor:
The two Supporting categories are arguably the strongest and most competitive ones this year. The Supporting Actor race has been particularly tough to call. I still think that multi-tasker George Clooney is the one to beat for his role in 'Syriana'. Clooney gained an early lead by claiming the Golden Globe but appeared to be losing the actors' sympathy by losing the SAG to 'Cinderella Man's' Paul Giamatti (who has been snubbed for the past two years).

Giamatti definitely has potential to carry this: he is a supporting player more than a leading man. Clooney is the opposite. Plus, it looks as if Clooney will lose the other categories he's competing in (Director and Screenplay) so this will be the chance for the Academy to award him. I also think they will be interested in hearing what he has to say by way of a speech, known as he is for his strong anti-Bush feeling.

Then, there's Matt Dillon, who hasn't won any of the pre-Oscar awards for his revelatory turn as racist cop John Ryan in 'Crash'. Dillon might well harness the obvious good-will that the actors feel towards the movie and become a conduit for those voters who want to reward the fine ensemble work done in the movie.

The one really to watch, however, might well be 25 year old Jake Gyllenhall. Nominated as support for a lead performance, Gyllenhall seemed to be a non-runner - until he won the Bafta 2 weeks ago. That will have raised his profile considerably in the crucial final weeks of balloting. There's also a sense that he's been unduly overlooked whilst Heath Ledger got all the praise. I think he could well seal the deal but Clooney should just about shade it.

My heart says: Jake Gyllenhall
My head says: George Clooney

Best Supporting Actress:
Another extremely hard one to call. Rachel Weisz has dominated until now for a brilliant performance in 'The Constant Gardener'. Like Witherspoon, she is the heart and soul of the movie and makes such an impression, that you look forward to her reappearing on screen.

The movie itself has not been really embraced outside of her fine workthough. This might hurt her chances. Weisz lost the Lead Actress Bafta to Witherspoon, which left that Supporting category free for the non-Oscar nominated Thandie Newton to win for 'Crash'.

Amy Adams made enough of an impact to get nominated out of nowhere for 'Junebug' but I suspect that the nomination is her reward. Ditto Frances McDormand for some great supporting work in the poorly-received 'North Country'.

Catherine Keener is one to watch. She has had a prolific year in which she demonstrated her true versatility - in addition to her subtle nominated work as Harper Lee in 'Capote', she also appeared in 'The Forty Year Old Virgin', 'The Interpreter', and 'The Ballad of Jack and Rose'. Hoffman's landslide victory will also keep her in the spotlight.

My choice is former 'Dawson's Creek' star Michelle Williams for a remarkably expressive and poignant performance as Heath Ledger's devastated wife in 'Brokeback Mountain'. Williams nailed that part and her scenes seared into the memory. A 'Brokeback' sweep could well push it in her direction. Weisz seems the safe pick but this is the one race that I'm going to stick my neck out on.

My heart says: Michelle Williams
My head says: Michelle Williams

Best Original Screenplay:
'Crash' should comfortably take this one home. Clooney could upset if the Academy put their support behind him here, rather than in the acting race.

My heart and head says: 'Crash'

Best Adapted Screenplay:
'Brokeback' will win and it thoroughly deserves it too.

My heart and head says: 'Brokeback Mountain'

All in all, I predict that 'Brokeback' will win 5 Oscars and 'Crash' will win 3. Remaining Best Picture nominees 'Capote' will win 1 whilst both 'Munich' and 'Good Night, and Good Luck' will be lucky to snag single victories.

The Riots and Wrongs of Modern Ireland

Like the majority of Irish people, I was embarrassed by what happened at the 'Love Ulster' march last Saturday and was ashamed to call myself Irish that day. The protest was hijacked by skangers and political and historical illiterates, whose Christmases all came in one, giving them the perfect opportunity to cause mayhem. International news coverage, as always, decontextualised the dispute and filed the conflagration under the resurrected title of 'Nationalists vs Unionists'.

The riots that ensued told us many things about the Ireland we live in today.

We were all so smug in the build-up to the march. We sat back with self-satisfied grins on our faces that seemed to say 'look how politically mature we are?' and 'See how things have normalised here?' We didn't even consider that elements of Dublin city were planning to use the event to unleash chaos on the streets.

Why? My guess is that we all assumed that the people who did eventually unleash all that chaos were apolitical and totally disengaged from the political process. They would carry on with whatever it is they do and the march would be over before we know it.

I think that claim is true. But this riot, at its heart, had nothing - and everything - to do with politics. In one sense, it was just an excuse to riot, loot and attack members of Ireland’s security forces and media figures. However, a cursory survey of some of the tribal, ‘catch-cry of a clown’ phrases and chants spouted during the clashes exposed the perverted, warped and dangerously misinformed version of history that these people seem to subscribe to. Where those opinions originate from is hard to pinpoint but the first witness I’d call is an education system that seems to have utterly failed to cultivate a rounded, multi-facetted approach to the teaching and learning about our past.

Our history and the very nature of the circumstances in which Ireland became a State have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate lately. There is no clear argument and all sides make interesting points. Our relationship with revolution and the concept of 'blood sacrifice' is at the heart of this debate. Should we be ashamed of 1916 or should we embrace it? Were the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation - whom I would like all those rioters to name for me since they seem to mean so much to them - terrorists or freedom-fighters? Should we reinstate the Easter military parade to commemorate the Rising or does that send out a repugnant and inappropriate message in today's volatile political and cultural climate?

These are difficult questions but they are just the tip of the iceberg for a country that has never come to terms with its origins and never engaged in national debate and self-reflection. If everything seems confused and chaotic and, at times even surreal at, don’t panic, because it's always been that way. Civil War in the North and decades of near-economic bankruptcy dominated and distracted national discourse up until now. This is the first time in our history that we have the space and time with which to deal with the questions of who and what we are as a nation – but it may be too late for that.

The government wants to reclaim an interpretation of 1916 from Sinn Fein-IRA in order to curtail – or perhaps, cash-in on - their political and electoral momentum before next year's (?) general election. But how can you explain that momentum in the first place? This is an organisation who is elected to a democratic parliament that they don't officially recognise of a state (i.e. the Republic) that they don't officially recognise. We know full well of that organisation's ties to crime and criminality, murder, punishment beatings, bank robberies and money laundering. They undoubtedly stoked tensions in the build-up to the parade last Saturday.

And yet, Sinn Fein-IRA will probably top the poll in many constituencies in the next election. Bertie et al are right to be worried - but the rise and/or regeneration of this republican movement is largely the fault of our established political parties. The standard of public representation must be so abysmal that people are willing to give the most precious thing that exists in a democracy - the vote - to the likes of Sinn Fein-IRA rather than to Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour or the PDs.

This is a political establishment that has remained purposefully vague about the very legitimacy of the Irish republic, allowing a vacuum to develop that was going to be filled by someone with the braggadocio to come out publicly with some sort of ideology, regardless of how dangerous that might be.

What do I mean by that? For instance, instead of trying to appear like Sinn Fein by claiming back 1916 - the Irish equivalent of the Taoiseach donning a military uniform like George W Bush did to announce the 'end' of the Iraq war three years ago - why doesn't the government hold a parade to commemorate the Republic of Ireland Act? That Act came into effect on 18 April 1949 and the state has been known as the Republic of Ireland since then.

But no. That's something else we have to be ashamed of on top of 1916. It was the Inter-Party government with a Fine Gael Taoiseach that proclaimed the Republic. Fianna Fáil opposed it at the time as they deemed it unnecessary: they argued, disingenuously, that DeValera's 1937 Constitution declared the Republic in all but name and so they saw the 1949 Act as serving no purpose. What they really meant was that (a) we refuse to be upstaged as republicans by Fine Gael and (b) we will not offically endorse a 26 county republic.

Fianna Fáil have been in power for 40 of the 57 years that have elapsed since then and it appears as if they have refused to change their original view of the 1949 Act in the meantime. Otherwise, as the most dominant political party in any Western democracy since WWII, what's stopping them from marking out 18 April as the Republic Day?

Because, like Sinn Fein, they still cling to some half-arsed notion of All-Ireland Unification, a process that appears to be a long-way off if last Saturday is anything to go by. Don't get me wrong; the alternative governments in the interim - the Inter-Party governments of 1948-1951, 1951 - 1957, the Fine Gael-Labour coalitions of 1973-1977 and 1982-1987 and the Rainbow Government 1994-1997 - could have done likewise. All of them are afraid to officially and permanently institutionalise and acclaim the Republic of Ireland Act lest they be cast as bad republicans.

They ARE bad republicans already. We have no Republic Day. In fact, I'd bet that the majority of Irish people - and that includes the members of the cabinet and Dáil Eireann - don't even know the date and year that Ireland was proclaimed a Republic. We have no Constitution Day, no EU Accession Day - all major events in the development of this Republic, wouldn't you think?

No, our political leaders have been happy to treat the Republic of Ireland as, at best, some kind of booby prize and, at worst, an illegitimate state - or to borrow a phrase from a former Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, "a temporary little arrangement". If we have no sense of permanency or pride about our very State, not to mention its many historical and political intricacies - is it any wonder that criminal organisations and yobs can swoop in with a perverted sense of Irish-ness and republicanism and unleash chaos?

You might not agree with my drawing together strands as seemingly diverse as the Republic of Ireland Act 1949 and the riots of February 2006. But there is a link. This country, fundamentally, does not know what it is or what we stand for. Maybe it’s a post-colonial thing – another aspect of our history and culture we have to get to grips with – or maybe it’s the result of hysterical and over-zealous political posturing for the last 100 years.

For example, Ireland is a country with a constitutionally inscribed first language – which hardly anyone can speak. There is a small scale, fashionable (i.e. middle-class) movement to resurrect it by way of Gaelscoileanna and glamourous advertising campaigns. But it is not, and has not, been the language of Irish life or popular culture, indeed of the Irish soul, for nearly 150 years. The vast majority of us can’t speak it – something else to feel guilty about. We don’t converse, gossip, argue, sing or dream in the language. We don’t seduce with it, don’t use it in the work place or in our homes. We don’t want to hear it as the means of our filmic and television entertainment. Irish today is more like a hobby or a museum relic – not a constitutional first language.

But, no. The Irish language – the repository of so much negative memories for most of us – was as imposed on this state after Independence as English was in the nineteenth century. The linguistic Gaelic revival failed. But the State has clung to it ever since, resulting in the creation of a kind of schizophrenic identity whereby proudly using the language you are born into (i.e. English) is hypocritically tainted as a form of historical and cultural betrayal and even inferiority.

Just last week, a mini-storm blew up over the fact that the majority of the Irish people can’t sing along to our national anthem – because it is in Irish. Another thing to feel guilty about folks. So not only can we not converse in the language that we were told is the only true expression of the Irish soul, we can’t join in the public celebration of national pride – all because of an unrealistic, failed language policy.

We are all over the place, historically and culturally. As stated earlier, this is really the first time in history where war or poverty is not the main preoccupations of the national consciousness. But those deep traumas from our past have left indelible marks. We are war-weary, complacent about the North, sick of it, in all honesty.

Money has also been a double-edged sword. This is an old argument: all the Celtic Tiger clichés are back to haunt us but they merit repeating. Yes, we are all – theoretically – better off than ever before. Yes, we’ve had a great run of it over the past 12 years. We had just been let out of the strict, puritanical boarding school of the 1980s and let loose in the fin-de siecle 1990s university, where endless partying and consumerism were the most popular courses on offer.

And we were bought off. We have become complacent. The next election will – is - being fought on economic issues. It’s all that really concerns us now. It’s of no matter that our very being as a state, as a nation, as a culture is in dire need of examination.

Of course, by ‘we’ and ‘us’, I mean middle-Ireland – because last Saturday also showed us once and for all that there is a class-war in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. As the rising tide lifted so many boats, a lot of passengers fell overboard and have not been able to get back on board since. It has created gross divisions and inequalities – financially, socially, and educationally – that are just storing up problems for the future. We know all this already: well the future is here folks.

Those last three paragraphs are SO 2001. We live in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland now – when the rush is calming, when the party is creeping towards dawn and that hangover is on the way. Now is the time for the really tough decisions, when we need real ideas and vision, qualities that - and I think you’ll agree with me here - are missing in abundance in our political establishment today.

What happened last Saturday served as a visible signpost pointing to far deeper problems within the Irish nation. The riots struck at the heart of far-reaching failings in our cultural, intellectual and social experiment of the last 80 years. Martin Luther King said that ‘a riot is the language of the unheard’. What were these rioters trying to tell us by their loaded words, their actions, their very existence in the first place?

If all the disparate forces discussed above that fed into last Saturday’s violence were unheard before, we’ve certainly heard them now.

We’ve heard – but is anybody really listening?