book review

With some optimism I had ordered a copy of The Dictator Pope, purportedly written by someone called Henry Sire and published in hardback in 2018 by Regnery publications.
An earlier edition is said to have appeared on the internet in 2017 under a pseudonym.
The thing posits itself as an expose of Jorge Bergoglio, the present occupant of the Chair of Saint Peter.
You see!
I can't even bear to refer to Bergoglio as Pope.
You would expect me to be in the natural constituency for this book.
Rarely have I started a book with such optimism and been so utterly disappointed.
I'd gotten to page one hundred of a two hundred page tome before I admitted to myself that the work is without merit.
It's written in a style which I would normally associate with Italian journalism. There are many words. Nothing is said.
And nothing that is said is of substance.
That's a hundred pages in which in my assessment there was not a single legitimate criticism of Bergoglio.
The whole thing was built on innuendo and anonymous sources.
Very bad for the publisher's image.
Regnery is somewhat respected among principled people.
Naughty, naughty, very naughty.
One expects better of them.
Sources say this.
Sources say that.
Sources too terrified to be named say the other.
None of them legitimate or even real sources.
Witness the supposed author Henry Hire's description on page 57 of the previous Pope (Benedict) issuing a pardon to his valet Gabriele who had been stealing papal documents on behalf of journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.
According to Henry Sire the valet had: "decided to expose to the press the corruption that he saw around him. He simply picked up documents that were left in his shared office and handed them to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.... Benedict pardoned him... recognizing that Gabriele had acted to expose an inexcusable network of manipulation and intrigue."
Pope Benedict recognised no such thing.
And his valet was being paid by Gianluigi Nuzzi to steal documents from the Vatican.
The "journalist" Gianluigi Nuzzi who is cited so uncritically by Henry Hire was also complicit in a document steal at the Vatican using seductress Francesca Chaouqui to compromise a Monsignor thereby persuading him to hand over sensitive data to the unscrupulous nay nefarious couple.
Francesca Chaouqui further attempted to stampede the Monsignor to suicide by text messaging after he had ceased to be of use to her or Gianluigi Nuzzi.
None of this vileness  is clarified in the book.
In Henry Sire's version of events the thief/spy/blackmailer Gianluigi Nuzzi and his proxy murderous seductress Francesca Chaouqui emerge with purely fictitious honour from their rose tinted malicious activities.
Those of us who have considered Bergoglio a usurper occupying a position that is not his, in effect a  false Pope, and that's what I consider him to be, will find no proper or fair assessment of him in this book.
Oh it's salted with some truth.
But mostly it reads like italianate divide and conquer agit prop.
There's a drive by slander of some Bishop whom Henry Sire intimates is supposedly homosexual and whom Henry Sire accuses of commissioning a supposedly homosexual artist to paint a supposedly homosexual fresco in a possibly, gawdelpus, homosexual Cathedral.
This sort of twee fear based innuendo has nothing to do with the Catholic Church.
The church never assesses artists on the grounds of whether they've ever considered themselves to be attracted to persons of the same gender as themselves.
Nor do we assess art in that way.
Nor do we assess the worth or identity indeed of any human being whatsoever in that way.
Nor are we repressively fixated about artistic representations of the human form.
Such speculative fear based innuendos are not who we are.
But they are what some mischief making sensationalists might try to make us.
The Catholic Church has wisely gifted the world with an artistic tradition free, glorious and flourishing.
That is why the Church was used by God through its sponsorship to bless the world with the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo Buonarotti, and Caravaggio.
Under the Henry Sire rubrique we would never have let Leonardo paint The Last Supper because Saint John looks a bit gentle.
We would never have let Michaelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling the way he did because the creation scenes contain naked people.
And we wouldn't have let Caravaggio paint anything at all..
Obsessive scrupulosity is not Catholic.
I was left musing as to the possible motives of the supposed author Henry Sire.
We don't know if he really wrote this fishing expedition.
The initial pseudonym begs the question.
Was it written by committee and is this supposed Henry Sire merely a face for vexatious speculative attacks on Bergoglio?
I am asking myself what exactly is the supposed author Henry Sire's motive?
How can I explain the misconstruances of truth, the inaccuracies, the mendacious manipulations, the omissions of any real critique, and the outright falsehoods in this book?
I have a few possible explanations.
Consider the immediate possibilities such as I can enumerate them.

(1) Henry Sire is a really bad writer, overly relying on anonymous speculation in his work which is untidy slanderous sensationalist partisan nonsense.
(2) Henry Sire is really an ally of Bergoglio's, seeking to help him by mounting what are clearly unfair and often untrue criticisms of him.
(3) Henry Sire has a deliberately vexatious agenda. He is a representative of some secret brotherhood of evil seeking to harm the Catholic Church any way he can. In this postulation we would ask is he a devil worshipper, a free mason, a soviet era leftist or some admixture of those.

I would counsel all Christians and all those who have respect for the ancient church, not to take their lead in framing a critique of Jorge Bergoglio from the slanders perpetrated in this book.

doctor detroit

Steering the car through unrecognised realms.
I'm not totally at ease driving in America.
Also my knowledge of Detroit has been gleaned from a John Landis' louche but occasionally funny and ultimately terribly worthy film styled Kentucky Fried Movie.
To wit: A young American agent has been captured by the evil forces of Doctor Clown. He is dragged before the villain. He is unbowed. Doctor Clown says: "If the CIA thinks it can infiltrate the island of Doctor Clown it has another thing coming." The America agent snarls back: "You don't scare me you -------." He spits on Doctor Clown who wipes the spit off and says: "Take him to Detroit." Instantly the American agent cowers and begs for mercy.
That's Detroit to me.
Also the director Paul Verhoeven whom I've suggested is a satanist, didn't do the place any favours in Robocop.
Ah but I've arrived.
A leaf fringed street.
Sedate and serene by any standards.
No sign of Robocop or Doctor Clown.
I park at the address I've been given which is that of an old friend.
He too is a Doctor but has never evinced any intention to take over the world.
Doctor Sean Baines.
Soon we are quaffing coffees like old times.
He mentions a case to me.
"This one you'll love," he says. "An elderly woman patient. She thinks giant worms are coming out her ass every time she goes to the toilet. What do you make of that?"
"What do you make of it?"
"She's mad."
"Don't rush to judgement."
"Ha, ha, ha. Heelers even you can't pretend that woman is sane."
"The diagnosis of madness is often given for reasons of convenience. Sometimes we're just insufferable, not mad at all."
"Heelers you maniac."
"Before I called her mad. I'd look at some other possibilities. First. Could there be giant worms coming out her bum? Is there an aetiology you and I don't know about? I don't think so. I don't think my first point is a runner. But I'd always ask it. Never presume you know the person is lying or deranged. Always listen. Lies and derangement can come from an actuality. Listen. Weigh what you're hearing. Discern. Do not presume. Okay. Second. She is an elderly woman. Does she use drugs? A lot of her generation have damaged their neural processing capacities by drug use, either casual or ongoing. And even through prescription drug use, anti depressants or anti psychotics which you guys so gleefully put them on. You can ask her that. You can ask her does she use drugs, did she ever. You're her clinician. Care enough to ask. Don't insult. Just ask. Thirdly. There are people who get their jollies from slipping drugs to other people without their knowledge. Could somebody have disrupted her in that way? A carer? A false friend? Ask. Ask yourself before you call her mad. Fifthly. There are tubular formations which can occur in pooh that can look like worms. Could she merely have misperceived tublar poohs? Sixthly. There are thread worms that people can see in their poohs. Could she have simply exaggerated such a sight? I'd be asking all this before I wrote her off as mad."

nothing lasts forever

Looking into the front room.
My eye falls upon a rifled treasure.
It is an antique tome telling the life of Joan of Ark.
It's a children's book but there are no really good adult tellings of Joan's story.
The book has been savaged.
Torn out pages adorn the table top.
Beaky Parrot looks up from his work and gives me a welcoming raukkkk.
"Beaky oh Beaky," I declaim, "oh feathery, chair poohing, curtain masticating Beaky, thou little knowest the damage thous hast done."
"Raukkkkkkkkkk," says Beaky.
It's almost as if he does know.

provincial poets

this morning i read through the works of brian byrne
traced the words and music he had drawn
and after wondered as to what degree
his musings held in the rank halls of poetry

i scorned the traipsing metres and the mind
which brought them to this world i became
a defiler in the temple of the muse
now in broken spirit i start again

let the works of byrne shine thus
no greater and no less
than the darkness glistening in homer's verse
no more high or low
than keats first pure clarion call
which whispered in the timbrels of its gleaming
even a savage has feeling
even the gods must fall

encounters

Sitting in Kilcullen church.
The mass begins.
After a few moments, a woman styling herself Breda McKenna stands to read the Bible to the congregation.
I have no wish to see the word of God profaned, so I turn towards my right and contemplate an image of the Lord crucified on the wall.
Presently the obscenity on the altar has ceased.
The priest resumes the mass proper.
I return my attention.
The rest of the mass is mystic, beautiful and true.
As the congregation are leaving, I remain in a little pool of stillness.
I see Breda McKenna's brother, a character who calls himself Joe McKenna, approaching.
One of Preacher David Wilkerson's old gags comes to me.
It is a quotation from the Prophet Isaiah.
Not by might nor by power but by my spirit sayeth the Lord of hosts.
I repeat it to myself.
Joe McKenna and his sister are offspring of a man styled on his tombstone Northern Division Commander Of The IRA.
This is not the reason I do not consort with them.
Joe McKenna stands by my pew.
"He can't see me," he booms in his fake American accent.
"He sees you alright," I rap out sharply without thinking and without looking up.
The son of the Northern Division of the IRA recoils as though bitten.
A minute later he gets what passes for his courage up and comes back, handing twee supposedly Christian leaflets to my cousin.
Then he's gone again.
I am taking care of an elderly man seated beside me in the church.
I've driven him to mass and will drive him home.
I'm thinking ruefully: I bet no matter how long we linger, the McKennas will be outside when we emerge.
Eventually I take the old man to my car.
The son of the Northern Division Commander of the IRA is waiting outside with a little knot of accomplices and useful idiots.
He calls me by name a few times.
The old man I'm minding says: "James  that guy wants to talk to you."
"He doesn't know me," I answer.
"I do know you," booms Joe McKenna,
I wait.
He flounders.
"I know you," he says finally, "because you look like your uncle."
I let that remark drown in its own excresence.
Beckoning the old man in my care, I leave the McKennas to their acolytes and their fate.

notions

Our experience of the universe is in some way the universe.
The universe did not become what God wanted it to be until by his grace we perceived it.

a call to arms

Christy Byrne of Suncroft, County Kildare was 79 years old when a fire in an ambulance outside Naas hospital near where I live, killed him.
At first hospital sources lied to the police and to reporters claiming that Mr Byrne had been smoking a cigarette in the ambulance.
The lie was revealed when his family bravely went public and stated plainly that Mr Byrne did not smoke.
The ambulance fire took place in September 2016.
Four separate enquiries have been held into the death of Christy Byrne including a police enquiry.
Two paramedics in the ambulance are claimed to have suffered some injuries.
One of them is claimed to have had serious burns.
The paramedics have never been named.
The Health And Safety Authority is refusing to reveal the results of its internal enquiries even to the Coroner's Office.
This refusal amounts to a cover up and should not be tolerated by any of us.
A month ago the Irish police force finally sent a file on Mr Byrne's death to the Department of Public Prosecutions.
As a ciitzen I want to know did the paramedics murder Christy Byrne.
Naas hospital has had previous problems with members of its staff murdering patients.
Noreen Mulholland is known to have poisoned at least two elderly men in her care in 2003 at Naas hospital,
She terrorised, tortured and murdered John Gethings aged 72 from Baltinglass and Seamus Doherty aged 80 from Naas on the wards at the hospital.
She was charged with poisoning and assault  relating to each of the men she murdered and was convicted on three of four charges. The poisoning charge on Seamus Doherty was not upheld because a Jury of idiots used his initial survival as an excuse not to convict.
At her trial in 2006 Judge Frank O'Donnell (since deceased) refused to jail Noreen Mulholland. She is reported to have returned to the IRA's caliphate in County Armagh. Her real whereabouts remain unknown.

if heelers was a supreme court judge

(Judge Heelers is striding towards his courtroom all cloak and drama.)

Judge Milton Scherbitski (idling in corridor with friend): "Judge Heelers where are you going?"
Heelers: "I'm going to pick a fight."
Judge Ron Baines (idling with Judge Scherb): "He's what?"
Judge Scherbitski: "It must be another Braveheart parody."


(Cut to the courtroom.)

Senior Counsel: "Your Honour, the Quinns have reached an agreement with the bank. There will be a settlement of 88 Million  Euro against each one of the five adult children of Sean Quinn, ie Settlements have been agreed for 88 million Euro with Sean Quinn Junior, with Aoife Quinn for a separate 88 million Euro, with Brenda Quinn for another 88 million Euro, with Colette Quinn for another 88 million Euro, and with Ciara Quinn for yet another 88 million Euro. The settlements will be stayed on condition that they take steps to ensure the return of certain assets held by them in international portfolios. Your Honour. Your Honour. What are you doing?"

(Judge Heelers has entered the witness box and is walking around, jostling the Quinns, an elbow here, a nudge there, a buttock clench there.)

Ciara Quinn:" Ow. Oh. Oh. Ow. The Quinn family... are... ow... at war... and oh, ow, when... the war is over... ow, ow, ow, the Quinn, oh, ow, family... will still...oh... still be standing. Ow." (She is quoting from her famous 2012 speech to a mob of yobs at the Border in which she threatened the Irish people and their representatives with unspecified Quinn IRA warfare.)

Senior Counsel: "This is highly irregular. Your Honour. Stop it."

Judge Heelers: "Ah she'll stop herself in a minute."

Senior Counsel: "I meant you."

(Judge Heelers has returned to his own chair and is throwing rotten eggs at Sean Quinn Junior, Aoife Quinn, Brenda Quinn, Ciara Quinn and Collette Quinn)

Senior Counsel: "Your Honour please. The parties have agreed to a settlement."

Ciara Quinn: (Sounding very like the character Cartman from the opprobrious television cartoon Southpark.) "That one was in the bawls. No.No. Heelers no. No hitting in the bawls."

Judge Heelers: "You pulled out Kevin Lunney's fingernails you IRA Nazi bitch. So you think we're going to let you off your billion dollar theft on behalf of big Daddy Warbucks? No we are not."

Senior Counsel: "Objection M'Lud."

Judge Heelers: "**** off."

(Heelers now has a power hose attached to a hydrant somewhere and is drenching the Quinns.)

Judge Heelers: "Still threatening the Irish people with open warfare, eh? How do you like them apples you IRA scruff."

Ciara Quinn: "Glug, glug, glug. You're not throwing apples anymore. Glug. You're using a power hose. Glug."

(Heelers starts pitching cow pies at the Quinns using a shovel.)

Senior Counsel: "Objection m'Lud. Objection with renewed vigour. Oh. You got her in the bawls again with that one. Good shot. But strenuous objection m'Lud. Like Demi Moore in A Few Good Men. I strenuously object. It was the only good bit in a really formulaically anodynely lousy film."

Judge Heelers: "There'll be nae settlement. Not until the Quinns call to every house in Ireland and beg the people of Ireland individually and collectively for forgiveness for one hundred years of IRA rape, torture, extortion, people trafficking, child abuse and murder.."

Senior Counsel: "I must keep protesting. It's what I do for a living. Protesting on behalf of IRA skang gangs. I protest. I protest."

Judge Heelers: "I'm not finished. After that the Quinns will personally remunerate every household in Ireland for the burglarisation of the entire populace which they engineered on behalf of their father Sean Quinn, an IRA mafia capo, and on behalf of the IRA mafia itself, by taking illegal billion dollar loans from the IRA controlled Anglo Irish Bank in order to facilitate the IRA in robbing its own bank through those loans using a mafia business model which first came to international prominence in Italy when the Sicilian Cosa Nostra used it to rob the Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s."

Senior Counsel: "This is highly irregular. The truth in a court room. I must protest. I must protest... oh you know."

Judge Heelers: "I'm not finished. After that the Quinns will visit every town and village in Ireland, Britain, America and Europe, and make restitution to every single down and out of Irish extraction who has had his or her life ruined through addiction to IRA drugs or through being unable to live in, or find a job in, his own country because the Quinns IRA has turned Ireland overnight into a Third World charnel house..."

Ciara Quinn: "You don't scare us. The Quinns and the IRA are bigger than you. We're bigger than the law. We own the police. We own the Judges. We own the government. We're bigger than the people of Ireland. We'll have the last laugh. And you'll be looking for your fingernails... (Doing Cartman again.) We... are... god..."

Judge Heelers: "Take them to Detroit. "

Ciara Quinn: "No. No, please. Nooooo. Not Detroit. Mercy. Pleeeease. Nooooooooo."

kilcullen town 700 celebrations

Events scheduled for the coming months to celebrate the town's official number of accredited drug dealers passing the 700 mark.
(700th anniversary of the foundation of the town surely? - Ed note)


* Inauguration Of The Fairy Path. Ceremony on the Valley trail to honour the presence in our community of a pagan suicide cult which uses fairies as its primary symbology.

* Medal Of Honour. Presentation of award to Officer Kadorsky on behalf of gangland in recognition of services rendered over a decade.

* History Night. The Kilcullen History Club gathering will listen to popular community activist Noel Clare's perennially wearisome rehash of his story about Canon Furlong hitting him in the street when he was a little boy. (When Noel Clare was a little boy, not Canon Furlong.) The audience will view newly discovered Cine camera footage from the 1930s which appears to show a moustachio twirling Canon Furlong in black cape and top hat (played by Wallace Beery) adopting a Kung Fu pose before giving the childhood version of Noel Clare (played by Ricky Schroeder) a Karate chop on the back of the neck, punching him repeatedly in the face, then delivering a root in the bawls and a butt of the lug as he's going down. There won't be a dry eye in the house. You'll be laughing so hard.

* Satanists Convention. Hosted by Kilcullen Prayer Group in association with "Father" Ruari O'Domhnaill's Medjugorje Prayer Group in Newbridge. Members of the coven will attempt to raise the spirit of Joe McKenna and his sister Breda. Failing that, the devil.

* Yarn Bombing Of The Bridge. Explosives courtesy of the Muslim Clan Gang currently using the Alke Babish Chipper as a front for their criminal activities: NB: This will be a live fire yarn bombing. No knitting allowed.

* Parade To The Spear Monument. The dual purpose monument, created by Noel Scullion, honours the role of spear chuckers in establishing our nation and also honours the role of Britney Spears in debauching it. If the Christian religion has played any role in Ireland or Irishness, Mr Scullion and the organisers of the Kilcullen 700 celebrations apparently haven't noticed.

* Heritage Centre Plaque Unveiling. The unveiling of a plaque in memory of a 1930s terrorist who, according to a few ultra left wing gulpens, purportedly lived in Kilcullen at some stage before he went to Spain at the behest of Joe Stalin and the IRA to murder Spanish people. Guests on the night will include Christy Moore and the usual suspects. Afterwards the audience will attend an unveiling in the Town Square of a bronze statue of present day IRA chief Slab Murphy in honour of his masterminding of the Enniskillen bombing which successfully killed lots of Irish people who just weren't Irish enough for Slab Murphy.and his drug dealing, people trafficking, child abusing IRA terrorist mafia.

* The History Of Speeches. A short five hour lecture by Nessa Dunlea on speeches through the ages. (Well it will feel like five hours.)

* Community Wellness Night. A convivial gathering open to all, hosted by Teach Na nDrug Ndealers.

All events will be covered live on Brian Byrne's blog unless something actually newsworthy happens.

a vision of my death

It was very immediate.
That's the quality people try to evoke when they suspect a dream is more than a dream.
I knew I was dying.
The surroundings were nondescript like a County Council vehicle workshop where I had worked in my youth.
I was cradling a blue crystal object.
The more I tried to mind it, the more it shattered in my hands.
This did not upset me and I continued to cradle the blue crystal as best I could.
I knew I was dying.
There was a slight urgency to complete some job in helping a particular person.
I knew I was about to enter a realm of pure truth.
I knew that none of my justifications would stand in that realm.
Golden light began to suffuse the concrete walls.
I prayed with profound sincerity: "Blessed Mother please let it be you who comes for me."
Then I was out of my body.
And I woke.
Certain things seemed instantly clear.
The blue crystal seemed to represent my mortal life.
The guy I was mean to help had featured in some sort of an intimation I had thirty years ago which I believed was from God.
The prayer to Mary was perfectly natural. Still I smiled as I thought of it. There are many accounts of saints of heaven coming for people at the end of their lives. But the prayer was hilarious to me because I had recently written an article warning that scoundrels within and without the ancient church were capable of seeking to deify the Blessed Mother in order to sow division and confusion among Christians.
The scoundrels exist.
The Blessed Mother is still the highest saint of heaven and available to us at every moment.
As we live.
As we die.
And as we dream.

the trapmann exchange

The broadcaster Brian Byrne beetled across the cafe and stood at my table.
He sympathised.
His words were perfectly chosen, gracious, courtly and kind.
I was sitting there thinking: "This is a decent man. A renaissance man. How on earth am I going to keep attacking him in print from now on?"

the james healy story

There was a film years ago with a great advertisement for it.
The advertisement ran:
"This is not the Marilyn Monroe story.
Not even the way she told it.
This is the way it was."
I found the ad compelling, poetic and somehow beautiful although I never bothered with the actual film.
I loved that ad.
A few days ago I attended a community event.
While moving like a ghost through the crowd, I happened to overhear (listen in on) Farmer Jones who was chatting to a very pretty woman.
The girl was saying: "Where's James Healy? Is he here? I used to read him every week in the newspaper. Is he writing still?"
Farmer Jones replied: "James gave up journalism to look after some family members. Then they died and times had changed. He was a bit older. The newspaper industry was contracting. Titles were shutting down, going bankrupt, reducing staff. James was older now too. He never managed to get back into the newspaper business."
Fascinating.
Aside from the implication that people I look after keep dying, bold readers, I could quibble with one or two items there.
Ah yes.
This isn't the James Healy story.
Not even the way he told it.
This is the version Farmer Jones made up.

belling the skangs

The good burghers of the dulcet south Kildare gangland enclave of Kilcullen are once more discussing the installation of closed circuit television cameras on the thoroughfares of our fair town.
The more suggestible gulpens think that filming gang activity somehow might discourage it.
I would ask the following.
What if, as occasionally theoretically might happen, a corrupt cop is stationed in the town?
What would he do with CCTV footage?
The solution to crime is not to let criminals film us.
The soultion to crime is to stop tipping your forelocks to the drug dealers who live at my gate, to the corrupt cop, to the IRA, to the Hutch gang, and to the clan of hoodlums operating out of the Alke Babish chipper and other chippers in the town.
Get up off your knees.
That is all.

hoopla

Some time ago I completed a year long programme called a Tus course.
Tus is the Irish word for beginning.
The course is intended to help long term unemployed people return to the work place
During the period I was on the course, I occasionally dropped into a local Tus office to get some paperwork signed by the area supervisor of the programme, a former elected councillor called Pat Black.
In getting the paperwork signed, I never had any real conversational contact with this individual.
Civil enough. No chit chat. Just business.
On the last day of the course I dropped into his office to collect a letter from him confirming I had completed the course.
He motioned me to a chair and began tapping at his computer.
I waited.
Out of the blue he asked me a question about a corrupt cop who had been stationed in the town for some years.
Why on earth was he asking me this?
He surely couldn't be taping me.
I considered his question inappropriate and did not trouble to answer it.
Pat Black continued to fooster at his computer.
Presently he said: "My son is gay. Nothing wrong with it. Perfectly natural."
This too I considered an inappropriate topic of conversation to be raising with me.
Of course often I'll talk to anybody about anything.
But I'm less inclined to do so if I have a paranoid delusion about them taping me.
Now if an individual I adjudged to be sincere, asked my advice about sexual orientation issues, I'd rabbit on till the cows came home, that is to say I'd talk and I'd listen.
I'd say the gay rights movement and the media haven't figured out everything or indeed anything.
I'd say take some time to read the New Testament, the whole thing.
I'd say the only truth I've ever found on earth has been Jesus Christ.
I'd say the world is imposing notional identities on people through a hyper sexualised hyper speculative hyper atheised culture.
I'd say children are bullying other children into notions of themselves which are not true.
I'd say that the glut of louche sexualised imagery in our society is acting as aversion therapy on the young and on adults, feminising the males, masculinising the females, and neutering the rest of us.
I'd say that there are people who claim to be sexually attracted to chair legs. We don't call them chairosexuals. We don't suggest they marry a chair. We don't say it's genetic. We don't say it's who they are. And we don't say it defines them. We recognise it is as a thought that has entered their minds. They should not act on it. And they should not accord it definitional seriousness or legitimacy
I'd have pointed to the disruptive effects on human sexuality of pornography.
I'd have pointed to the disorienting effects on human self image of drug use.
I'd have pointed to the possible effects of hormonal contraceptives finding their way into the food chain via bodily waste excretions in the environment thereby again  feminising males and masculinising females.
I'd have pointed to similar effects arising from the entry into the human food chain of illegal growth hormones that farmers buy from the IRA mafia for their cows. (I'd also suggest that Mad Cow Disease and much of our Alzheimer style illnesses are arising from the presence of these IRA mafia supplied illegal growth hormones in our food supply.)
I'd have pointed to observable masculinisation of males and feminisation of females occurring in the broader animal kingdom, possibly arising from chemical pollutants in some way, and I'd have suggested if some pollutant by product is affecting animals thusly it will also be affecting us but it's not the arbiter of our personhood.
And I'd have said this may not be who your are.
And I'd have said: "God made you and he didn't make any mistakes."
And I'd have said this is my honest testimony to you not based on what you want to hear or on what conformists permit me to say, but based solely on caring enough to make an effort to speak the truth to you as I see it as sincerely and gently as I can, from the heart to the best of my ability.
I'd have said all that if I wasn't talking to Pat Black.
What on earth was he playing at?

There he was still tapping at the computer.

How hard can it be to print off that letter he's supposed to have had ready for me?
Is he fondling the blooming computer?
Maybe he's computersexual, or ray, as they call it.
I remained stoically silent, gazing into the middle distance.
After a few minutes Pat Black said apropos of nothing at all: "About time we legalised abortion. Long overdue. Absolutely necessary. I know Rhona Mahoney personally. She saved the life of a friend of mine."
Rhona Mahoney was a leading abortion activist in Ireland at the time. She was the Manager in Charge of the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street.
The following year I would accuse her in print of being responsible for the cover up of the murder of Malak Thawley on the operating table at her hospital.
But all that was in the future.
I smiled ruefully.
His latest conversational gambit was as inappropriate as everything else he'd said.
But I wasn't laughing at Pat Black.
I was laughing at myself.
Here I was thinking this fellow was taping me and determined to say nothing of interest, nothing amusing, nothing insightful indeed nothing at all, to him.

Here I was thinking he was holding up a hoop up for me to jump through.
But he'd found the one subject.
I was smiling because I knew I would speak.
I would jump through his hoop.
"If you legalise abortion," I said quietly, "you will bring down the wrath of God on Ireland. There will be nothing left. The good will die with the bad. The glittering cities will crumble in dust. All you Irish Times types will be wringing your hands and whining: 'How could a merciful God let this happen?' But it's not God who will have destroyed us. It's you. You will have done it. You will have destroyed all that Ireland is or was or might have been. By embracing evil, you will give evil power over us. By rejecting God you and RTE and the Irish Times and Independent Newspapers and Rhona Mahoney will put us beyond his help. You will have rejected his protection from the cosmic evils that will lay waste this green and pleasant land. It will be your work."
Pat Black coughed, shifted in his seat, and handed me a letter confirming I'd completed the Tus course.
I left his office.
A few months later I saw a picture in a magazine of Pat Black and Officer Kadorskey at some public event.
They looked awfully happy about something.
Like a pair of old rays basking in their depravity.

juridical manoeuvres in the dark

Cofffee with Rowena.
"They're after your friend Judge Kavanagh again," she said.
She was referring to renewed attempts by the Democratic Party of the United States to discredit newly installed Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
I smiled thinly.
I was curious.
"Have you admitted yet that the initial fishing expedition accusation allegation against Judge Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford was a complete tissue of lies?" I asked her. "I mean even some of her most partisan initial supporters now say she was lying. Her lawyer Debra Katz has been filmed admitting that the whole thing was politically motivated. I said it right at the beginning. The fembos want a Trump scalp. They wanted to publicly humiliate and force from office someone appointed by President Donald Trump. So Helen Blasey Ford lied to order. Think about it. She was claiming she couldn't remember where her made up assault occurred. She was claiming she didn't know when her made up assault occurred. She was claiming she didn't know how she got home after her made up assault occurred. And in order to avoid testifying to congress without having a few days to prep her lies about her made up assault with her lawyers, she was claiming she was afraid to get on aeroplanes. It was all just a piece of feminist manipulation designed to smear a pro life candidate for the Supreme Court on the eve of his nomination. And if she'd gotten away with it, the falsehood of her allegation would have been a footnote in history. She'd have been eulogised like Anita Hill who tried to do the same thing, using the same methods for the same reasons, to Judge Clarence Thomas thirty years ago. If Christine Blasey Ford had pulled it off, Judge Kavanaugh's career would have been destroyed. What about the effects on his life and friendships? His family? No one would have rewound the tape. These slanders are not victimless crimes. The slanderers are not innocent victims."
Rowena appeared pensive.
Then.
"Well James what would you do if you heard John Herlihey was about to be promoted in the Kerry Education and Training Board?"
Her words gave me pause.
I took my time to answer.
"He was promoted. I did nothing."
"Are you proud of that?"
"Look, my point is not that there's no such thing as a true allegation. I'm not saying assaults don't happen. I'm not saying abuse of power doesn't happen. I'm not saying malicious harassment in the workplace doesn't happen. I'm saying some allegations are transparently false from the word go. I'm saying some allegations are resentment based score settling. I'm saying some allegations are made to sabotage careers. I'm saying some allegations are propagated out of pure spite. I'm saying each case should be weighed on its merits. Opportunistic slanders or slanders as with Christine Blasey Ford where an abortionist wishes to discredit a perceived pro lifer, should not be entertained. And I'm saying that there is a particular traffic in opportunistic slander right this moment by left wingers and feminists and other scoundrels within our culture and society, and that we must develop a critical attitude to it and to them. We cannot continue to reward opportunistic showboating scoundrels every time they emerge attempting to ruin someone's life."

reputations

"You missed the meeting in the Heritage Centre. There were some great reminiscences."
"Good, was it?"
"Have you heard Noel Clare's story about Canon Furlong?"
"Ughhh, not that hoary old chestnut."
"You have heard it?"
"Well not from Noel himself. But it's been around the town for a couple of decades. Noel was a little boy and Canon Furlong cycled up, hopped off his bike and slapped him."
"He got off his bike, James, called the little boy over, and said 'you didn't salute me,' and then punched him, punched him James, three times."
"Do you not think the story might be growing a bit in the telling?"
"Are you saying you don't believe it?"
"Not exactly. But every time I see Noel Clare I want to punch.him too. And he does salute me."
"James!!!"
"Oh come on. Canon Fulong spent his life performing the sacrifice of the mass for us. Conducting weddings for us. Baptising our sprogs. Burying our dead with honours, Visiting our sick. In between times contributing to the gaiety of the peasantry by flying around the hinterland in his biplane with a little Jack Russell dog looking out of the back seat. If in his senescence the dotty old coot really gave Noel Clare a few stuffs fifty years ago, are we content to allow that to be his epitaph? Is that to be the summation of his life? Do we write off his whole lifetime of service on our behalf? I don't think we should."

the biggest favour anyone ever did me

It was an Arab man working in the Costa cafe on Dawson Street, Dublin.
This particular fellow had a bit of a reputation round town for being rude to Americans and apparently as I was finding out, to, er, how shall I put this, to people who are somewhat vaguely well disposed towards America.
He had no personal acquaintanceship with me that I knew of.
He was however trying to be rude and flung my cash change down on the counter.
I felt a flash of fury.
The fury was surprisingly disproportionate to the offence.
At  the same time as I felt the fury, there came a stabbing pain in the small of my back.
It was so acute.
I tried to cover it because I didn't want the man to think I was bowing to him.
Even as the pain stabbed into me, I recognised what it meant.,
I was actually fascinated, thrilled mark you, the pain notwithstanding, at the knowledge.
I knew this was a unique moment.
It was the best evidence I would ever have of the mind body connection.
The fury, or stress, or might we say hatred, the manner in which I was mentally dealing with the challenge of the situation, equalled instant damage to my own body.
Experience is a proof.
A demonstration of a truth or insight, to me as one who experienced it.
Ergo.
The mind body connection is real.
This is something that has interested me most of my life.
It ties in with the ancient faith of course.
The notion that we are eternal spirits.
That how we handle things can affect how we are.
I had wondered could the mind body connection really be proven.
Though I thought it likely to be true, did I really believe it?
And did it indicate if proven, the reality beyond mind and body, of the spirit, by which I mean the immortal soul?
I think it does indicate the reality of the spirit.
And I say again, this was the best, the most incontrovertible, the clearest direct evidence I had ever gotten for it.
Evidence for the mind body connection.
By extension evidence the notion of the soul is true.
Not a bad life lesson either.
I am reminded of one of Jesus' gags.
The Lord turns to the good all things for those who love him.
Thank you Mr Dawid.
I am in your debt.