an open letter to the head of the united nations

Dear Banky Moon.
A few days ago the Second In Command of a Muslim terrror group calling itself Islamic Jihad, was sent home to Allah by the Israelis.
That is to say they blew him to smithereens.
A brave and fearless Islamic murderer, no doubt his last words were something along the lines of: "Allah U Akboooooooooom."
But I digress.
It has since emerged that this Islamic Jihad terrorist was also Vice Principal of a school in Gaza which the UN purports to run in the interests of humanitarianism.
That is to say this terrorist, while being Second In Command of Islamic Jihad, was also Second In Command of a school facility financed by the UN.
As many will be aware, the heroic humanitarian UN runs schools for several hundred thousand children in Palestine.
That is to say the UN finances and builds the schools and then allows terrorists to run them.
Here is the news.
I think it's time the UN began opening schools in impoverished regions that are not waging terror wars against the rest of the world.
I think it's time the starving Africans who have never crashed any aeroplanes into buildings, or the starving Hindus ditto, or the starving South Americans ditto, I think it's time, I say, that these starving oppressed people who have never committed mass murder, I think it's time they got a few free schools, a few free lunches and even, yes if the Arabs can spare them, a few free baseball caps.
(Arab culture's enduring paradox: Hate America, Love dem baseball caps.)
I am appealing to the UN to please, please, please stop propping up Islamic terrorism in Palestine.
You've provided quite enough free educations for the sons and daughters of terrorists.
That is to say you've provided quite enough free educations at the expense of mine and other tax paying citizens of the west, for the sons and daughters of people who are too busy spreading the peace loving religion of Islam by committing murder every day, too busy engaged in their permanently losing war with the State of Israel, too busy shouting Allah U Akbooom as they self detonate or the Israelis give them a helping hand to self detonate, people who are, let's face it, too busy doing all this worthless rubbish to actually go out and work for a living.
Let me this way put it.
The Palestinians have had their chance.
And their free schools.
And their free lunch.
And their freedom to commit murder against westerners while being provisioned and fed with western aid.
They've had their chance for half a century.
Let's give some non murderers a little humanitarian relief, eh?
It's about bloody time.
James Healy
PS: Any chance you would consider firing the entire UN agency staff who were associated with the appointment of Allah U Akbooom as Vice Principal of that school?

ontological proofs for the existence of hamsters

Afternoon at the Chateau de Healy.
I am sitting in the front room.
MC Hamster is clattering around on her wheel.
MC Hamster!
Good name, eh?
Purchased on Monday as a gift for my nephews.
It is highly doubtful she'll ever leave the chateau.
And lo!
The door bursts open.
In walks one of my uncles.
It is the inimitable Uncle Scutch.
He espies Ireland's greatest living poet and approaches.
"You don't really believe in the real presence of Jesus in communion, do you?" he challenges.
I kid you not gentle travellers of the internet.
This is the sort of life I lead.
This is the sort of thing people burst into rooms to say to me.
Without even a preliminary hello.
"I do believe it," I said.
"Hmmm," mused the Uncle. "I didn't want to say this. But listen. Jesus was a man. Maybe the most perfect man that ever lived. Maybe even the holy spirit made him perfect. But he was just a man."
"If you think he might have been the most perfect man that ever lived," I replied, "why do you refuse to accept what he said about himself?"
The Uncle flung himself into an armchair.
For the next hour he subjected my faith to the most fiendishly intense scrutiny imaginable.
If you could have seen him, you might have thought he was having a whale of a time.
I'm telling you folks, Thomas Aquinas never had to put with this crap.
All in all, I'd rather be playing with the hamster.
At the end of our discussion, the Uncle raised himself and bid me a cheery goodbye.
He vanished as quickly as he came.
I sat there brooding.
I know I can only make the act of faith for myself.
I know also the truth doesn't depend on me proving what a clever fellow I am in any intellectual argument.
The truth is always true.
More.
The truth is as accessible to an old woman mumbling in a country church as it is to the greatest genius of the age. (Ahem.)
The truth is... democratic.
But it is not elected.
The Israelites once wondered: "How should we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"
They were talking about the land of Egypt.
God alone knows what they would have made of the zoo that is the Republic of Ireland.

i would indulge in casual bigotry tonight but i haven't got a thing to wear

Landing in Dublin.
Welcomed by the rain.
Drove into the city.
Twiddled the dial.
The radio settled on something called Today FM.
A British singer known by the single name Morrissey was caterwauling merrily.
Squalls on the windscreen.
My spirit brooded.
Morrissey was singing: "Hang the deejay, hang the deejay, hang the deejay, hang the deejay, hang the deejay... Burn down the disco, burn down the disco, burn down the disco..."
And so on ad nauseum.
It was oddly catchy though.
When Morrissey had finished his hymnal to banality, a Today FM radio presenter informed us in a confident pseudo Dublin accent: "Of course that song was considered highly controversial. Lyrics such as "hang the deejay, hang the deejay," and "burn down the disco," were thought to contain racist undertones."
The noble Heelers rocked with laughter.
The presenter's words struck me as quite the funniest piece of musical analysis I'd ever heard.
Controversial Morrissey's lyrics may be.
But racist?
Are deejays an ethnic minority?
Are discos emblamatic of some particular cultural iconography?
Not by any stretch of the imagination.
No jury in the western world could convict Morrissey of racism on the strength of those lyrics.
And since whining interminably isn't actually a crime, we're going to have trouble finding a charge that will stick.
Cruelty to dumb lyrics, maybe?
Ah Ireland.
My glorious surreal country.
It's good to be back.