Fiona McCann
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Woo hoo! This girl knows how to rant!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, now I don't have to rant about the new 20six because someone else has done it for me--and so well! And, SLYTHERIN HEAD GIRL, thanks so much for pointing the way to all those cool sparkly letters! Here I have been trying to behave myself because I know that if I get angry, people don't come running to hold my hand--they feel more like putting a contract out on me, but click on the above link to read a true rant from someone who has suffered a loss through this 'migration' thing. I think she feels like a lot of us. And please, all of you who are satisfied with everything now, don't write and tell me to fix my attitude. You should have seen my attitude yesterday! It's beautiful now in comparison. :p In additon, I would just like to add that now I cannot even post using my K-Meleon browser as when I use the raw HTML box and hit update, it does not arrive in the edit box. There is nothing, nada, emptiness, whiteness...
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at long last love...
Well, middle of the night. Still mucking about with this template. I am a woman obsessed damnit! But at least now I think I have something I can live with. I went to the layout dealer and typed the word 'green' in the search box. This template came up, and I chose it because it was the best loading and the simplest. Some of those wallpaper layouts took yonks to load. You guys on broadband don't care about stuff like that, but I have dial-up at home, so I know how frustrating it is to have to wait 3-5 minutes for a template to load fully. Anyway, then it asks you to type in your url if you want to use it. Then it shows you all the code for the whole page. You copy and paste, go back to 20six and click on 'expert' under the layout stuff. Then you paste the whole thing into the big box. You take a good look at it and change the things to match YOUR site. For example, this template came from a German site, so I put 20six instead. I enlarged the size of some of the fonts from 1 to 2. I went to the header maker and put the size and kind of font and the color I wanted and pasted the header image code there and put it all under the parts that says head. I had to delete the Place_Name tag or I would have had fiona32 next to Fiona McCann, cuz that is the name I typed into the font tag. As I type this, I am thinking this is like waaay too much HTML for a lot of people, and it is really the simplest there is. I can't do the more complex stuff. But those pre-made templates with the colours you see when you first log-in to 20six never let me use them again. I would click on them, but they never showed up. I also will never make a post on the web face again either because I had one earlier today, but then it timed me out and got rid of it after I logged in again. I would tell everyone to always make your post on notepad or Word, as Al does (if you like Word--I think it's possessed!). I use Semagic. If anyone wants any help, and I can help them, just ask. I'm certainly not very expert, but I do have one advantage and that is that I'm in front of the PC a lot. :p Cheers, Fiona |
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I've had it!
Tried all day to get this thing to look decent. The best I had was using a template amillionpieces made, but it would NOT frigging show in my K-Meleon browser--all I saw was background colour. Looked okay everywhere else. I have never ever seen a site that tortures its clients like 20six does. It is unbelievable. I am about to copy off my posts about my little Ouí and send this thing to hell in a handbasket. I don't need the grief. |
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Are we having fun yet?
How is everyone doing? I myself am getting used to looking a bit anaemic here, but oh well. At least I got my title to be green. As one grows older, one must content oneself with simple victories. I put all my various reading links onto a blogroll, which can be accessed by clicking on the 'Blogroll of favourites' link. I'm still working on it, however. I did notice that some people seemed to take right off flying with the new set up. They had background images and all kinds of things. I always like to cover my lack of ability in splashy layouts by saying that I prefer quick-loading templates. Yes, quick-loading. Sounds good, doesn't it? Don't know about your profiles, but mine went out the window. I don't know how many times I can keep making all these details up! If I had one thing to complain about, I would just like to mention that I feel the particular placement of the Google ads SUCKS. Every time you click on your address, the ads hit you right in the face. Before, they were above your header. Now they are below it and right in the middle. We have no control over the things they advertise, and at any rate, the placement is just yucky. Mine today were talking about 'living wills'. Is Google trying to tell me something? |
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THE BITCH IS BACK
...and she was going to whinge away over here, but as I already have the reputation of being a big complainer, I will try very hard to reserve judgement until I have had more time to kick the tyres and go for a test drive. Until the bugs are worked out and I get the hang of things, however, anyone interested can come over and visit me at my other gaff, as I've mentioned before. It's very orderly and calm over there and you are most welcome. I'm sure I'll be around here as well, sooner or later.  Visit >>fuise<< |
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Websites as Graphs
One evening when I was looking around the net, I found this site which invited you to become part of a 'SocialtextWorkspace', and more specifically, the LoicLeMeur Wiki Workspace, so obviously I had to join because I didn't know what it was exactly, but it sounded cool. Well, it is cool. It's a wiki where members can add bits of information concerning the topic, which is the Blogosphere. It has a French AND English version, or I wouldn't be able to understand a word, and truthfully there are so many aspects to it that I don't pretend to be all that knowledgeable, but what I really like is that there are statistics about European blogging communities and links to the sites they use for blogging in each country. I have found some really interesting things by following the links. Yesterday I went to u-g-h.com because I liked the name. From there, I learned of my ultimate destination, which was aharef.info the owner of which has invented an application which graphs your site colourfully according to its HTML makeup. It's really quite awesome! I did 2 graphs--one of this site and one of >>fuise<<. Then I took a screen shot of each graph, cropped it and made them smaller for posting here. (Fiona32 is on the left) Click on each thumbnail to view the enlarged version. Click >>here for the complete explanation of all the colours and shapes and the link for you to graph your own site. Enjoy! |
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Mr A is rearrested
BN.ie 02/06/2006 - 19:14:16 The 41-year-old paedophile who had been released from jail after his detention for raping a 12-year old girl was deemed unlawful was rearrested today, less than two hours after the Supreme Court ordered he be returned to prison. After three days of freedom, the man was arrested by gardaí. Officers would not say where he was being held. A garda spokesman said: “Following the decision of the Supreme Court today, June 2, 2006, gardaí have arrested the man identified as Mr A and he is being returned to prison in Dublin.” It is believed he will be returned to Dublin’s Arbour Hill prison where he was serving his jail term before his release on Tuesday. Mr A has already served 18-months of his three year sentence for unlawful carnal knowledge of the girl. Minister fo Justice Michael McDowell said he believed today’s Supreme Court decision would mean that most convicted sex offenders would now remain in prison. “I’m confident that the great majority of the people who stood to benefit will not be released and will serve their full sentences,” he said. The minister earlier announced the Supreme Court verdict to Senators during the Seanad debate on the Bill to close the legal loophole which led to the sex offenders release and the chamber applauded. |
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NO JUSTICE IN THE SOUTH
 The dishonourable Mary Laffoy Yesterday, as you may know, the government of the southern Republic of Ireland let walk a 41 year old child raper who had plied his 12 year old victim with 7 drinks of alcohol and then raped her when she became ill from the overdose. He freely admitted knowing she was only 12 at his trial and was convicted for having sex with a child. Yet somehow because some arsewipe on the Supreme Court and some twisted sister named Mary, of all names, Laffoy, sitting on the bench under the guise of a judge, let this sexual predator walk free, and all the buffoons in government, including the two chief buffoons, Bertie and McDowell, let it happen and protested ignorance (not hard to imagine in Bertie's case) and also continued to assert that children are safe in the society. Oh sure they are McDowell. Had it been YOUR daughter the man drugged and raped, I have no doubt the protected Mr A would still be serving a rather long sentence. There is no question of 'consent' when someone has been drugged with alcohol and raped, let alone when that someone is a mere 12 years old. Do you hear that MARY LAFFOY? You cannot drug a child and then abuse and attack her sexually and call it consensual sex. That is premeditated criminal offence. This so-called judge Mary Laffoy has her head up her arse and is overtly working to pervert justice and she knows it. McDowell is sitting around with his thumb up his rear and popping off with shite comments which have no meaning, while dozens more sexual predators line up in a perverted tango with their legal representatives, getting ready to reap the benefits of this government's appalling lack of morality, vision, intelligence, action and common sense. |
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Child rapist freed by woman judge
Okay, something is fecked up here when a 41 year old man can coerce a 12 year old child to become intoxicated by buying her alcoholic drinks--7 of them--and then when she gets up in the night because she is sick, he rapes her. Excuse me if I don't say that he had sexual intercourse with her as I believe when you deliberately get a young girl drunk and then have sex with her, that is RAPE. I don't care what the woman judge who has gone out of her way to protect this man's identity by referring to him only as 'Mr A', calls it. In fact, this judge's so-called reasoning needs to be examined in that the man has already previously admitted that he KNEW the girl was 12. None of this bullshit of saying oh, gee, I thought she was 16 or 17 or 20. No, he KNEW damn well she was 12, he got her drunk, and he had sex with her. How much more guilty under the law of having sex with underage children can you get? Yet Justic Mary Laffoy has freed the man without any further ado. Can somebody explain to me why this so-called judge--who needs her credentials yanked--can free a convicted sex offender? This is utter bullshit. ..................... BN.ie High Court urged not to free sex offender 29/05/2006 - 17:56:58 The High Court was warned today that it is wholly inconceivable to set free a convicted sex offender following the Supreme Court ruling that men who have sex with a minor should not automatically be deemed guilty of rape. Turning the rules of the age of consent on their head, the five-judge court ruled last Tuesday it is unconstitutional to convict a man who admits to having sex with a child if he does not know their true age. But counsel for the Attorney General and the Governor of Arbour Hill Prison Gerard Hogan SC told the Hugh Court that it should reject an application to free a 41-year-old man who admitted the unlawful carnal knowledge of a 12-year-old girl. The man, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty in November 2004 to one count of sexual assault. At the time he revealed that he knew the girl’s true age. His lawyer Connor Devally SC made an application to the High Curt to have him freed. Mr Devally said the man’s incarceration was unconstitutional as the law he was convicted under no longer existed. Ms Justice Mary Laffoy made an order that the man only be referred to as Mr A. “This is an application that is simply saying I am being held on foot of a warrant founded solely on a provision that is not law,” Mr Devally told the court. “I think it is ludicrous or absurd to suggest that Mr A while being held under a statute that is not law cannot complain about it.” Mr Devally told the court there was no issue of compensation and that the court should not concern itself with the consequences of releasing the convicted sex offender. He insisted the only issue at stake was Mr A’s liberty. “I do not stand here and say the conviction is invalid nor do I stand here and say the sentence is invalid. I am saying simply that there is no longer a lawful mechanism for the respondent to hold Mr A,” Mr Devally told the court. He went on to say that to continue Mr A’s incarceration would be to perpetuate a known unconstitutionality. The court was told that in November 2004 the man, who is in Arbour Hill Prison, was jailed for three years at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after being convicted of unlawful carnal knowledge of an underage girl. Mr A was 26 years older than the victim at the time of the offence. His application to the High Court came less than a week after the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the 1935 law under which any man is automatically guilty of a crime if he has sex with a girl under 15. But Mr Hogan SC told the court that granting the convict freedom would in effect give him a windfall bonus following the Supreme Court ruling. “These are matters that can only be properly ventilated in judicial review proceedings,” Mr Hogan said. “There is a large stone in the road which he is now challenging and the stone in the road is his conviction.” Mr Hogan told the court that due to the large age difference between the victim and her attacker it was difficult to see how he could use the ruling from the Supreme Court to secure an order for his freedom. “Given the disparity of ages between the victim and Mr A, 12 and 36, it’s very hard to see how under any possible circumstances he could have raised that argument,” Mr Hogan said. “Why should he be allowed to get that benefit after. Why should he... be allowed to march through the resulting gap in the statute.” Ms Justice Laffoy will give judgement in the case at the High Court tomorrow. ....................................................... BN.ie Court frees man who had sex with 12-year-old 30/05/2006 - 14:49:43 A convicted sex offender who plied a 12-year-old girl with drink before having sex with her was today set free after a High Court judge ruled his imprisonment was unlawful. The 41-year-old man was halfway through a three-year jail term for unlawful carnal knowledge of the child and applied to be released on the grounds that his detention was unconstitutional. When he had sex with the youngster in 2003 he was 26 years older than her. Ms Justice Mary Laffoy told the court the law he was convicted under no longer stood following last week’s Supreme Court ruling that men who have sex with underage girls should not automatically be deemed guilty of rape. Counsel for the State, Paul Anthony McDermott SC applied to the court to put a stay on the release pending an appeal to the Supreme Court, but the judge refused the application. The judge said the Supreme Court had struck down Section 1.1 of the Criminal Law Act, 1935 in its entirety with the effect that that section ceased to have legislative existence when created in 1937. In her ruling she said thereafter there was no statutory offence of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 15. “To put it another way, the offence with which the applicant was charged did not exist in law when it was purported to charge him with it, nor at the respective dates of his purported conviction and sentencing,” the judge said. Ms Justice Laffoy told the court the only consequence of the Supreme Court declaration that she was concerned with was whether or not Mr A’s detention was unlawful. And she said submissions made by lawyers for Arbour Hill Prison that the only appropriate course of action for Mr A was a judicial review of his conviction were inappropriate. “The contention is that the conviction remains valid on its face. In my view that submission is not correct,” the judge said. “In the light of the declaration by the Supreme Court of the inconsistency of Section 1.1, the only offence of which the applicant was convicted, the conviction is a nullity and the warrant is bad on its face. “I would see no sense whatsoever in the applicant pursuing a remedy in judicial review proceedings to quash a conviction, a sentence, and a warrant which are patently bad.” Costs in the matter will be determined at a later stage and it was also indicated to the court that the decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court. |
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Aoife’s tale touches the hearts of the nation
Irish Examiner By Neans McSweeney, South-East Correspondent 29 May 2006  A GREYHOUND which had its ears hacked off by brutes who wanted to hide her identity has become a celebrity of sorts.Click photo to view and read 'Waterford Today' article Two-year-old Aoife was found abandoned, terrified and with blood spilling from her head near Tramore, Co Waterford, in March. Her ears were cut off to remove tattoos which would identify her and her owners. But with the love and care of Waterford Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (WSPCA) welfare officer Andrew Quinn, vets and his volunteers, Aoife has come along leaps and bounds. Her progress, as mapped by the Irish Examiner, has touched the hearts of so many people that get well cards, many of them packed with money, have flooded in from well-wishers all over the country. The ‘Aoife Fund’ at the WSPCA has now hit the €2,000 mark. Mr Quinn said: “We had one particularly touching card from a playschool in Kerry. The children made the card and signed it. “They also all brought in e1 each and sent us along €15 which has helped with Aoife’s care. We are hoping to be able to arrange to bring Aoife to the school soon so she can meet the children. “The response from the public, from as far away as Dublin and Donegal, Galway and Cavan has been nothing short of amazing. We’ve never seen anything like it.” Aoife is now up to her recommended weight and the scars where her ears were cut off are mending. “Long-term, Aoife may need more surgery. But at the moment, the advice from our vets is that she is hearing and does not need more surgery.” Mr Quinn said Aoife is “really happy” now. Bord na gCon has taken DNA samples to narrow down the litter from which Aoife came. In the meantime, she remains in the care of WSPCA. Mr Quinn said she is eligible for re-homing. “We’ve have hundreds of offers, even from as far away as the UK. She will make a loving pet for someone and will enjoy long years lounging on their couch.” Get well wishes can be sent to Aoife at the ISPCA office at Summerland Square, Yellow Road, Waterford. Alternatively people can ring (051) 841432. |
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A Farewell
 ONLY in my deep heart I love you, sweetest heart. Many another vesture hath the soul, I pray Call me not forth from this. If from the light I part Only with clay I cling unto the clay. And ah! my bright companion, you and I must go Our ways, unfolding lonely glories, not our own, Nor from each other gathered, but an inward glow Breathed by the Lone One on the seeker lone. If for the heart’s own sake we break the heart, we may When the last ruby drop dissolves in diamond light Meet in a deeper vesture in another day. Until that dawn, dear heart, good-night, good-night. Poem by AE (George William Russell) Painting by Catherine Smith |
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Hypocrites, fuckwits, child molesters and rapists
Irish Independent **When a child is 12, and the other one is like 41, I don't think the term should be called 'consensual'. That is a travesty. All these specious arguments are just so much shite. Teen-sex jail plan as law crisis deepens Fine Gael bill revealed - Cabinet to meet on ruling THE fallout from this week's landmark Supreme Court decision on underage sex stretched from the legal to the political arenas last night. It claimed its first 'casualty' after a 26-year-old Romanian was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea of unlawful carnal knowledge of a 14-year-old Irish girl. In a second case, a 41-year-old man who has served two years of a three-year sentence for statutory rape of an underage girl is to ask the High Court on Monday to release him from detention. And Fine Gael drafted a bill, which would jail 16-year-olds for having sex with each other. The series of developments come as Justice Minister Michael McDowell prepares to go to Cabinet on Tuesday with a general outline of new law reform in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Yesterday, he denied the Supreme Court decision had resulted in an "open day for perverts". And he claimed there was no "gaping black hole in our criminal law". But the CARI Foundation, which provides therapy to sexually abused children, called for urgent action to protect children from sexual "predators". The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) warned that offenders who might now appeal their convictions would in turn be taken off the sex offenders register if their appeals succeeded. And Rape Crisis Network Ireland said this week's events signalled to sex offenders that the law could be manipulated. Fine Gael's new bill, which has not yet been published, is bound to result in a fresh storm of controversy. It would make it it an offence to have sexual intercourse with a person aged between 15 and 17 years. The bill also states that if the offender is a person in authority, such as a parent, uncle, aunt or guardian, or somebody at least five years older than the other person involved, a jail term of up to five years is proposed. However, the bill states that where the offender is not included in either of those categories, a three-year jail term could be imposed. Last night there were growing calls for the loophole in the law to be plugged as up to a dozen convicted and accused sex offenders are lining up to have their sentences quashed or cases dropped in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told yesterday the DPP was not proceeding with its case against Valintan Stan of St Theresa's Gardens, Rialto, Dublin. He had initially pleaded guilty to having unlawful carnal knowledge of an under 15-year-old girl. The second case of a man already serving a sentence is the first of seven expected to come back to the courts in the coming weeks following the Supreme Court ruling striking down the law on statutory rape. The man, who was 38 at the time when he was convicted of unlawful carnal knowledge of a 12-year-old girl, will challenge his continued detention in prison at a High Court hearing on Monday. Mrs Justice Mary Laffoy ordered an inquiry into the man's detention under Article 40 of the Constitution. The man is currently being held in Arbour Hill Prison after being sentenced to three years in 2004. Fine Gael had initially planned to publish its proposals, titled the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2006, next week. But party strategists have now decided to wait until they see the briefing to be given by Justice Minister Michael McDowell to the Cabinet on Tuesday. The party intends to submit the proposals as a private members bill to replace the provisions of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 1935 in light of the Supreme Court decision that a section of that act was against the Constitution. That decision left a gap in terms of legislation on sexual offences and meant there was currently no statute that prohibited consensual sexual intercourse with a person under 17 years. Fine Gael said the aim of its bill was to fill that gap in the law and set out specific offences and penalties in line with the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission in its report on child sexual abuse in September 1990. Under the party's proposals, it would be an offence for anybody to have sexual intercourse with a teenager aged between 13 and 15. Conviction would result in a prison term of up to seven years. It would also be an offence for any person to have sexual intercourse with a child under 13 years and conviction will mean a sentence of life imprisonment. Tom Brady, Fergus Black and Ann O'Loughlin |
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Freeflux.net
If anyone is interested, you can go over to freeflux.net and sign up for a CMS. Now don't tell me you don't know what a CMS is. It's like all those other things like mySql or php or drupal or any number of strange-sounding things that were only ever invented to make the common person feel like an idiot. It's a content management system'. When something says I can sign up for it and it's wonderful and it's FREE, I don't waste any time. I'm over >>here on it, and you will know, because of course it's bright green. I have also made a gravatar. Now don't tell me you don't know what a gravatar is! (like I didn't) It's a wee pic that follows you around the net wherever you sign in. If you comment on someone's blog, your wee gravatar shows up too. Then of course, all over the net, people can see you coming, and they say, oh god, there is that annoying Fiona and her stupid gravatar again! I also have made a friend at Freeflux named 'chegru' who helped me sort out a lot of stuff I couldn't understand. I'm sure he was one of the first to think the phrase 'annoying Fiona' over there. The site is in 2 different languages as well. I still don't have the hang of most of it, but it's been fun playing with it. I'm positive that now that I have a CMS, my life will get sorted and be in perfect order. I'm sure that's what was missing from my existence heretofore. Now that my content is managed, all I will have to worry about is getting some actual...content, but as we all know, this has always been a problem. But at least now I will be managed! |
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At 65, Dylan Remains the Voice of Conscience
Indymedia.ie By Danny Morrison Daily Ireland - 24 May 2006 It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall  One day Bob Dylan poured a bottle of whiskey over his head and walked into a department store pretending to be drunk so that he would get some bad press. He found that being thrust into the role of ‘the conscience of a nation’ encroached on his privacy and interfered with his creativity and he wanted his freedom back.Those involved in political struggle in the USA placed an onerous responsibility on Dylan, demanding of him his talent, his time, his total commitment. Regardless of how he later revised his stance, the early songs which shot him to fame were the work of an artist responding to injustice and oppression and the politics of the day. He was heavily influenced by, of course, Woodie Guthrie, but was also open to the songs of Brecht and Weill as well as Irish rebel music. “All through the night they [the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem] would sing drinking songs, country ballads and rousing rebel songs that would lift the roof. The rebellion songs were a really serious thing. The language was flashy and provocative – a lot of action in the words, all sung with great gusto… I loved these songs and could still hear them in my head long after and into the next day. They weren’t protest songs, though, they were rebel ballads … even in a simple, melodic wooing ballad there’d be rebellion waiting around the corner.” That quote, describing the early 1960s, is from Dylan’s extraordinary autobiography, ‘Chronicles’, published in 2004. I think I heard my first Dylan song in late 1963, around about the time of the assassination of President Kennedy. It was ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ covered by Peter, Paul and Mary. The song made great sense against the scenes on television of blacks being beaten in the USA, but still taking to the streets demanding civil rights; blacks being cut down in South Africa, but still marching against apartheid, villagers being strafed and napalmed in Vietnam, but still heroically fighting back. Dylan sings it best in that smoky, hurt voice of his: How many roads must a man walk down Before they call him a man?... How many times must the cannon balls fly Before they’re forever banned?... How many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free?... How many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? How many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind. A year later he released his rallying call ‘to the nation’, so to speak, a recruiting address to writers and critics, and a warning to Congressmen and Senators: There’s a battle outside And it is ragin’. It’ll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin’. His songs became anthems of the civil rights and anti-war movements and he was often at marches alongside people like Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte. I love most of his early material which was often dark and foreboding, and his love songs such as the sensually delectable ‘Lay, Lady Lay’, but little from 1973 until his re-emergence with the short-lived Travellin Wilburys in 1988. I saw him a few years ago playing to a very small audience and thought, what a comedown, how sad. But reading ‘Chronicles’ one realises how he actually despised all the attention that came with fame and is probably now more content. Unlike the majority of artists who have nuclear-fuelled egos, Dylan actually comes across as humble though morose, learned, philosophical, flawed, scarily self-possessed, a reticent and private person, all at odds with the artist who has something to say. He is a phenomenon certainly at odds besides someone like the extrovert Bruce Springsteen – once called the ‘new Dylan’ - whose current tour is around “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions”. That tour consists of covers of folk songs popularised by one of Dylan’s mentors, Pete Seeger, and it has a contemporary resonance given the US war on Iraq. One of the songs Springsteen sang in Dublin recently is the nineteenth century Irish anti-war/anti-recruitment song, ‘Mrs McGrath’. It was once recorded by Makem and the Clancys, and was also popular with republicans after 1916 when the British government threatened to introduce conscription. One would be tempted to charge Dylan with deliberate naivety for not realising the demands that his powerful ballads would unleash and the hopes they raised. But in last year’s Scorsese’s film, ‘No Direction Home’, which covered his life from 1961-66, Dylan says that he learned early on “not to give away too easily anything that was dear to me,” which included surrendering the personal life which fame inevitably consumes. In ‘Chronicles’ he writes: “All I ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.” He said fame and riches did not translate into happiness and describes how he and his wife and three children sought anonymity and normality. However, “demonstrators found our house and paraded up and down in front of it chanting and shouting, demanding for me to come out and lead them somewhere – stop shirking my duties as the conscience of a generation.” His former lover, Joan Baez, even wrote a song challenging him to lead the masses. In restaurants he would be pointed out: “That’s him over there.” Necks would stretch and people would stop eating. “I was sick of the way my lyrics had been extrapolated, their meanings subverted into polemics and that I had been anointed as… High Priest of Protest, the Czar of Dissent…” It was around this time that he poured the whiskey over his head and went shopping. He even went to Jerusalem and got himself photographed at the Wailing Wall wearing a skullcap. The papers called him a Zionist. “This helped a little,” he said. He made what appeared to be a country and western record to throw his fans off. “I had assumed that when critics dismissed my work, the same thing would happen to me, that the public would forget about me.” In the late 1970s he became a born-again Christian but in the mid-80s it was rumoured that he was affiliated to a branch of Hasidic Judaism. In 1997 he performed before Pope John Paul II. Who or what is Bob Dylan, indeed! Today is his 65th birthday. But at the age of 22, when he wrote the following about the cost of struggle, he showed that he was a witness, a poet and a man of deep conscience: I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest, Where the people are many and their hands are all empty, Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters, Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison, Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden, Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten, Where black is the color, where none is the number, And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it, Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’, But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’, And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall. |
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Blind Faith
 Those of you who are not music connasewers, connaisseurs--screw it--music enthusiasts will probably not know the group about which I am imminently to speak...or write. Click photo to view - image from the Blind Faith website They are called 'Blind Faith' and they consisted of, when they consisted of anyone, Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton, Ric Grech, and Stevie Winwood. You have to like to dig around in old music in order to know about some of these groups and their stuff. Of couse, any idiot knows who Eric Clapton is. You might also know Stevie Winwood. You might think that Ginger Baker OD'd a long time ago, but you would be wrong. He is still extant. I know these things because as I mentioned on 'fuise' the other day, my da was big into music and played it morning, noon and night. There was no genre he wasn't interested in, and I grew up listening to it all. Sometimes it drove me crazy because of the clash between the different kinds, but I'm really glad that it happened this way because now when someone mentions this or that, I at least have an inkling of what they are talking about--although I never became a specialist in any of it. I just knew what I liked. Now that I am a working woman and perpetually poor, I can't afford to buy it either, so I catch it where I can. That's one reason I think the net is so awesome. Every once in awhile you find a site that has a lot of goodies on it you can listen to. I don't make a habit of downloading music because I really have no desire to have the men in black coming to my room to lift me for:
I mean, a person can only live just so dangerously before they draw the line somewhere. So imagine my joy when I found this sweet site where you just click a link for a certain song and BANG, there it is playing. I think it is Real Player, but it happens so fast on my computer at work that I'm not quite sure. Of course, it doesn't happen at home at all. That's precisely why I have to move into my classroom. Really, there are several computers there, a humongously big and fast connection, lots of airy windows, great heat and air, proximity to vending machines with something similar to food and drink and not many people around at night and on weekends. What more could you ask for? I think the cats would like it. I know the bird might be freaked out at first because she dislikes anything new. She suffers from PTSD, having been abused as a child in the pet store. But I digress. I want to share this song with you, which you have probably never heard before, but which is one of my favourites. I could listen to it over and over, which is possible now, although for some reason, the students are starting to complain. It's called: CAN'T FIND MY WAY HOME (**Click on that title to listen to it - actual music is from Ray's site) {Winwood} Alamo Music, Inc. 1969 Come down off your throne And leave your body alone Somebody must change You are the reason I've been waiting so long Somebody holds the key Well, I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time Well, I'm wasted and I can't find my way home Come down on your own And leave your money at home Somebody must change You are the reason I've been waiting all these years Somebody holds the key I'm near the end, and I just ain't got the time Oh, and I'm wasted, and I can't find my way home But I can't find my way home But I can't find my way home But I can't find my way home But I can't find my way home Still, I can't find my way home And, I ain't done nothing wrong But, I can't find my way home |
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The beautiful Fiona McCann
You think I'm being self-congratulatory? No! I am speaking of the person who wrote to me last week to tell me that people come to my blog here expecting to find her. I had no idea she was THE writer for the Irish Times who now lives in Argentina because she has a mad passionate thing for Maradona. I'm not making this up. Here is a >>photo of the affair in case you don't believe me! You can read more about this blue-eyed Irish lass at her Blogspot blog The Buenos Aires Experience. Me? I'm going to go have a cry in my Guinness. Oh wait! I have to get back to work :p |
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Mistaken Identity
Today I received this as a comment: Dear Fiona McCann, I have noticed this same thing many times myself. I didn't realise how commonplace my name was until I started googling myself. I mean, there is even a cat named Fiona32 (and she's quite cute and talented!) Unfortunately, there is also a porno star named the same thing (I suppose she is cute and talented too!) I plan to definitely email this Fiona McCann immediately and ask her some pertinent questions about her life and if I like what I hear, I will offer to exchange identities with her so that people looking for her who end up here will be in the right place. I could use a change, anyway. |
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Sick children in Eurodisney trip
BreakingNews.ie 13/05/2006 - 09:05:55  Some 42 sick youngsters from the south west were today heading to EuroDisney Paris on a trip organisers say is just what the doctor ordered.The children from Kerry, Cork city and county and Tipperary, many of whom have spent time in hospital this year, will travel to France for the weekend. Breda Chandler, chairwoman for the Cork city hospitals children’s club, revealed around 5,000 children are treated each year at Cork University Hospital. “While their stay is usually relatively short – two-and-a-half-days on average – children are usually only brought to hospital when they are very sick,” she said. “Going to EuroDisney is just what the doctor ordered for many of them, especially those who have had a particularly difficult year. “A trip like this is a real boost for them, a chance to show them that although they’ve been sick, that they can still have lots of fun.” The money for the break was raised by the children’s Club and the Kinsale & District Lion’s Club. This annual EuroDisney trip will include not only sick children from Cork University Hospital, but also from the Cork Association for the Deaf, the Mercy University Hospital and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital. “We’re delighted that this event is expanding to include more children than in previous years,” said event co-ordinator John Looney. |
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