The Remarkable Story of MeeJahLittle

Did you ever hear of MeeJahLittle and how he disturbed a whole country - nay, continent- nay, world with his foolish alarms?

Well, MeeJahLittle was running around in Mad Money's garden enjoying flowers and fruits not his when an apple dropped from a tree and fell on his head. The apple was overblown, scabby, filled with worms and such and had to fall. 

MeeJahLittle didn't wait around to work this out - off he ran shrieking to find MeeJahBig.

'Oh! MeejahBig' he said, 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling!'
'Why how do you know?' asked MeejahBig
'Didn't I hear it with my own ears and see it with my own eyes and part of it fell on my head!'shrieked MeejahLittle.
'Oh Lord! Come then, let us run as fast as we can,' said MeejahBig. And off they ran to find MeejahBigger .

'MeejahBigger! MeejahBigger! The sky is falling, the sky is falling,' screeched MeejahsLittleandBig
'How do you know?' asked MeejahBigger.
'Well, MeejahLittle told me!' squawked MeejahBig
'And I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears and part of it fell on my head. Twice,' shrieked MeejahLittle
'Lord save us!' cried MeejahBigger, 'We must run as fast as we can.'. And off they ran 'til they found MeejahBiggerAgain.

'Oh! MeejahBiggerAgain,' they caterwauled 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling!'
'How do you know' gasped MeejahBiggerAgain.
'Why MeejahsBigAndLittle told me' cried MeejahBigger.
'MeejahLittle told me' squawked MeejahBig.
'And I saw it with my own eyes heard it with my own ears, part of it fell on my head twice and then rolled along my back.' shrieked MeejahLittle

'Lord between us and all harm!We must run, we must run!' harumphed MeeJahBiggerAgain. And they ran and they ran until they found MeeJahNormous

.
'MeeJahNormous!MeeJahNormous!The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' they all roared
'How do you know?'queried MeeJahNormous
'MeeJahsLittleToBigger told me!' harumphed MeejahBiggerAgain
'MeeJahsLittleToBig told me too' cried MeeJahBigger
'MeeJahLittle told me first' squawked MeejahBig
'And I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, part of it crashed down TWICE on my head THEN rolled along my back and THEN fell on my toe.' shrieked MeeJahLittle.

'We better tell the people on the edge' decided MeeJahNormous. 'It's our duty.'

So they all ran as fast as they could to tell the people on the edge. And the people on the edge all ran over the edge screaming
 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling' and then fell down, down, down  into the abyss.

 And all this from the foolish shrieking of MeeJahLittle.

The End

A New Dawn.............

I know the title of this blog is a cliche but it is the only almost correct phrase to describe what is happening in Irish politics today. We seem to be finally witnessing the end of Civil War politics. Fianna Fail have taken an awful drubbing - even the best of their people losing their seats ( and they're not 'all the same'). Each party has strong people and weak people, good ideas and bad ideas, ideas which are worth trying and ideas that should be scrapped. But I think for the first time - at least in my memory of General Elections - an extremely loud and very, very clear message has been sent to our politicians. Fuck us up boys and we'll send you packing and we don't need to chase yiz with guns or bribe yiz with money to do it. We just don't want to play with you anymore - and you can take your ball, we'll make our own one. It might be made of newspaper and string or a straw-stuffed pigs bladder but we'll make do and mend. So there.

I feel relieved that it is looking like a coalition between Left and Right. A balance, I think, that will deliver better politics and accountability and a measured response to our current difficulties. We're grown up now as a nation, we don't need promises of sweeties or money to make us do what politicians want us to do. And it's great. We are witnessing the birth of an adult Ireland born today, the austerity of the Nanny state went for the most part in the last twenty years and now that the heedlessness of the teenage years of the Celtic Tiger has passed we can truly move forward as a confident, intelligent nation.

Jemser reckons that FF and FG will merge into one party within the next ten years. He may well be right. Labour and the Socialist Party will form the Left. I'd imagine the Greens will also go over the next also, they have done their job - putting environmental concerns on the table. So, a mature caring society with a balanced thoughtful government. We can but hope.

Election fatigue and the ghostly tiger......

OMG another fortnight of this wall-to-wall coverage of our political wannabes and I’ll be in severe distress.
‘Switch it off,’ you cry.
I can’t. It’s bloody everywhere. Newspapers, TV, radio, twitter, facebook, blogs that I normally devour for their witty intelligent comment. The journalists and political commentators are on highs, whipping themselves and presumably their audience into a fury. This is their gladiatorial arena with the politicians as bait and us - the baying masses, I assume - urging them all on.
Ok, hyperbole - but you get my drift. And for what?

In roughly a fortnight’s time we’ll make our ticks, the votes will be counted and another shower will be in to try and stay there for a full term. Will anything change? I don’t think so but I’m old and cynical. Having said that, fifty years ago a man I could not understand anyone trusting was voted in as a TD and stayed there for forty five years. I’m not particularly a political animal. But I am an animal. And my animal instincts made me wary, very very wary of this man, hackles up etcetera.I watched in despair as he held high office and actually led our government three times over a thirty year period. And surrounded himself with like-minded individuals. By your friends shall ye know them. It was, I think , this atmosphere that started back then that led finally to the spectacular rise and fall of our unregulated banking industry and the notion by those with wealth that this wealth could continue to self-generate without anything of substance behind it. Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.

So perhaps I’ve always been cycnical about politics. Mind you, it is beyond me why anybody wants to stand for public office so maybe my mindset is just incapable of understanding their mindset.

We're now a haunted nation. If the Tiger was just dead it might be ok- we could bury him, grieve a little and get on with our lives. Unfortunately he is now a ghostly tiger who will wander this land for generations. The developers washed their hands of their debts, the banks started to cry and passed it on to the Government because above all capitalism cannot be seen to fail. Why? I know it’s a simplistic question but perhaps it's one that needs asking. The Berlin Wall came down when communism was finally allowed to fail. If our banks failed and those who really owned the debt , German and British banks and bond holders or other even more globalised forces depending on which website you read - had to pick up the tab and reduce their share dividends to the already wealthy the world’s wall might collapse. But. Is that a bad thing? I think not.

Most of us would still get up each day, feed our kids, work, shop, play and the great cycle of birth, life, death would continue. It’s only the economy, stupid.

Yes, I’m cynical and jaded and no I don’t have any solutions. But at least I’m not behaving as if what happened to our lovely little country was nothing to do with me. If I hear one more outraged, unapologetic politician I might be forced to smack them. Hard. Except I don't believe in slapping naughty children.

Frozen Out..........

The news yesterday of the closure of the 'frozen goods' section of Gallagher's Bakery in Ardara in southwest Donegal was a huge blow to the area. It is thought that 124 jobs will go immediately as the company that now owns Gallaghers (originally a family business) has been subsumed into another yet bigger company and globalisation means amalgamating certain functions in certain areas and blah blah blah. Some actuary with a spreadsheet in a skyscraper within a Financial Centre in Hong Kong or New York or Berlin produces a flow chart and 'bam' a little town in a corner of a small island is crippled.

What this closure means, in terms of people's lives, is catastrophe. Ardara is a small vibrant little village, local people worked in the factory - whole families of them. In many houses three or more pay packets now cease to come home. The knock on effect for local shops, tradesmen and small businesses cannot yet be measured. The factory has been one of the main employers in the area for almost twenty years. For younger employees, not yet settled and rearing families the option of emigration is there. Again. Nothing personal, you were doing a good job, it's just business. Aging parents may be left isolated and lonely. Nothing personal,we don't dislike you but your job is no longer viable on our balance sheet.Again.

And so lumbering corporate giants roll on and on and on, crushing lives, extinguishing hope in individuals and families and killing off communities. Surely they (whoever 'they' are) must see that eventually they will kill off all the very consumers they need to fund their profit accounts.And the world will consist of one company, one big brother, one god - and his name is money. And he'll have no friends or family, no one to have a laugh with to lighten the gloom of a January afternoon. There will just be money, all on his lonesome.

All anyone wants is the chance to do a day's work for a reasonable wage. Somehow, somewhere, someone has to say 'halt' - people have to come before profit or at least have equal footing. I have no idea who this someone will be. But I think I'll recognise them when they start to speak. And I don't think I hear that voice in the clamour of idiocies I hear from Leinster House. I cringed when I saw Mr Bertie Aherne's latest sound byte. How on earth can that man say that the only thing he regrets as his political life ends is the fact that he didn't get a world class national stadium built in Ireland. Bertie is definitely a Martian, and he may go back to Mars and take the rest of the sons of destiny with him.

I think I think too much.