facile insolence towards the famous

i was reading WH Auden
writing about the death of WB Yeats
not bad says i with a weary smile
for i was in the mood to disparage the dead greats

not bad says i with short laugh
and it seemed a strange and fitting epitaph
for two considered king of the road
when knickerbockers were considered a la mode

perhaps i should temper my vain exultancy
with some dull reference to their immortality
but i don't think that applies
the great poet strives and self promotes and dies
his flesh his verse his bones consign to ground
i'm not a great poet
but i'm still around

syriana

I was rather surprised to learn recently that the previous dictator of Syria, Mr Hafez Al Assad, Daddy of the current dictator of Syria Mr Bashir Al Assad, had several decades ago machined gunned and tank rolled more than ten thousand citizens to death during one of his recurrent repudiations of the popular desire for change in his country.
Don't get me wrong.
I had known Syria was one of the most vicious police States on the planet, right up there with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I was familiar with the rulership through terror policies of the Assad family.
And yet I'd never heard that on a specific occasion Papa Assad had slaughtered em with tanks and guns, in the streets, in their thousands.
All these years I've been listening to Amnesty International and their CNN/Sky News shills accusing Israel of war crimes, and somehow I'd missed any mention of ten thousand dead in the Syriana streets.
No mention of em in George Clooney's leftist anti American Syriana movie either.
No mention of em anywhere.
Hmmm.
I am excessively familiar with the tales of several dozen Palestinians being killed in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon.
This happened during the 1980's supposedly at the hands of militias backed by Israel.
The Amnesty International handwringers still ocasionally refer to the militias as being composed of Arab Christians if I remember rightly.
Mostly they like to leave the general impression that the Israelis did it themselves.
But Sabra and Chatilla are the most talked about supposed massacres in the history of the Middle East.
And somehow, some way, some why, the Assads' ten thousands disembowelled in the streets got overlooked.
For decades.
As recently as 2006, Amnesty International sent a retired Irish army officer called Des Travers to South Lebanon to investigate Israel for yet more contrived war crimes.
That same year, Iran's proxy terror army the Hezbollah had launched a cowardly sneak attack against Israel from sovereign Lebanese territory.
The Israelis pursued the Hezbollah back into South Lebanon and promptly taught a thousand of them that there are easier ways of committing suicide than launching sneak attacks on Israel.
Amnesty International was as usual keen to criminalise the Israelis for defending their territory and avenging their soldiers.
So they sent their best man.
I have a vague acquaintance with Colonel Des Travers.
He is a decent fellow.
I do not hold his analysis of the Middle East situation in any regard.
To get to South Lebanon he transitted through Syria.
I ask you.
Why would young Bashir Al Assad so happily assist Amnesty International in getting Colonel Des Travers into South Lebanon?
I find the whole thing very strange.
Interestingly enough, as he transitted through Syria, Colonel Des Travers failed to notice the murderous criminal oppression under which Syrians live their daily lives.
He failed to notice the Soviet style lordship of the army and secret service over the life of the nation.
He failed to notice the abject slavery of the citizenry.
He failed to notice the chattel status of women and children and Christians.
He passed blithely on to South Lebanon where as per the usual arrangements and expectations, he found Israel guilty of war crimes.
The irony... is screaming.

our television listings

RTE1
(The Irish national fraudcaster. Financed by compulsory taxation on the Catholic citizenry but run by atheistic drug addicted whoremasters. By the Bolshevicks, for the Bolshevicks, of the Bolshevicks, as we do say in the trade. Ordinary Irish people are prevented by law from setting up television stations to compete with it. The wheel is rigged and it's the only game in town.)

9.00 Morning Call. Atheistic prayer programme hosted by the ghost of Gerry Ryan.
10.00 Friends. Monica gives Chandler a blow job in return for designing a website. Based on a true story.
11.00 The Diarmuid Martin Love In. RTE eulogy to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin's attempts to shut down the Catholic Church through the repeated iteration of the tiny minority of old sex abuse cases which have involved church employees. No mention will be made of the vast preponderance of sex abuse cases which are currently taking place, as they always have, at the hands of non Christians in hospitals, schools, sports clubs, health board care facilities, orphanages, and family homes.
12.00 The News. A programme that will not be reporting on the Irish Times journalist who has recently been discovered having sex with children. An Irish media black out on the case has ensured most people remain blissfully unaware that the publication which has done most along with Independent Newspapers and RTE to foster the false notion that abuse primarily occurs at the hands of churchmen, is itself harbouring and blatently concealing paedophiles. How has the case stayed out of the limelight? Initially claims were circulated that the Irish Times journalist had attempted to commit suicide. It was stated that he was currently receiving psychiatric treatment. This gave the media an excuse to pretend they weren't reporting the case for fear the man might kill himself. Clever isn't it? Never stopped them when the allegations concerned Padres. But never mind. The thugs of the Irish police force have also used the supposed suicide attempt and psychiatric treatment of the Irish Times paedophile as an excuse... An excuse  not to interview the child rapist, an excuse not to investigate the case properly and press charges, in short an excuse to do nothing. This stuff would embarass the Nazi's.
1.00 Lunchtime With Snodgrass. RTE's consumer affairs programme.
2.00 Midafternoon Leg Waxing Harridans. The Catholic Church gives you ten thousand years off purgatory for watching five minutes of this programme.
6.00 Angelus. Quasimodo sells his bells and buys a bike.
7.00 Coronation Street. Unwatchable Brit porn.
8.00 Home And Away. Unwatchable Aussie porn.
9.00 The Evening News. Unwatchable home produced Bolshevick RTE porn.
9.30 The Late Late Show. Light entertainment presented by the youngest son of a Fianna Fail polical dynaty. You think the Syrians and the Iranians and the Libyans are oppressed. Look at the crudd we Irish have to put up with. Pass the sick bag Alice. On second thoughts... Show me the way to the vomitorium.

confucius he say

The pen may be mightier than the sword.
But it can in no way match the speed and accuracy of a machine gun.

kilcullen easter

the lambing time
evanescent leaves
provincial poets stitching worn out rhymes
into patchwork quilted semaphores of praise
all of these
mist like matting on muddy fields
old men rejoicing in campaniles
all of these
everything that breathes is on its knees
for the coming of the lord
peace