You know, I used to respect Yoyo Ma

Perspective

I have got the go-ahead to attend part of the African bishops's synod this week, to try to get some interviews with the boys from down south on issues of concern.

Don't know exactly yet what I'm going to be talking to them about, but doing a bit of research, it strikes me that there are some things going on in the world that they have to deal with that make our troubles look like a walk in the park.

Child sacrifice and ritual murders rise in Uganda as famine looms

If it makes you feel any better,

the Irish referendum really wasn't going to make any difference anyway.

French Europe Minister vows to push on with EU integration, regardless of Irish vote

in an interview with French radio station LCI, Pierre Lellouche, French Minister for Europe, was asked what will happen if Ireland votes ‘No’. He said: “We are waiting very impatiently because the future of 500 million Europeans lays in the hands of 3 or 4 million Irish voters… it is a very uncertain campaign”. He continued: “Whatever happens, Europe will keep on going because we do not have a choice…there is a lot of work to do in the energy, immigration, industry and social fields, and we are not going to stop. So we will find solutions if ever we were faced with such a situation.”

Eurocrats gave up on voting quite a while ago.

Who would dare say no?

to Tony getting the top job at the EU?

Just the electorate, so really, who cares?

On his Coulisses de Bruxelles blog, Jean Quatremer looks at whether or not Tony Blair might be the first EU permanent President if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, and quotes a high-level French diplomat saying "No-one dared to oppose Barroso. Who will dare say no to Tony Blair?" Quatremer adds that the Iraq war will not cause a problem for the former British PM, since, according to the same French diplomat, "only public opinion is concerned about this, not the 27 Heads of State and Government that will vote him in".

and

Who wants Tony Blair?

It means that the democratically elected prime ministers and presidents of each country are able to be EU President on a rotating basis. Nobody is pretending that this system is ideal. But it seems a damn sight fairer and more democratic than simply handing the post, complete with enormous new salary, perks, pension and prestige for two and a half years at a time to an ex-leader who has fallen from grace in his or her own country, as will be case under Lisbon.

Just the government. So it must be OK.

Right?

Way to GO Vaticanistas!

Right on the ball there, I see.

ON. THE. DAY. of the Lisbon vote, the Vatican puts out a statement.

Vatican issues Lisbon Treaty warning to Irish voters

European Union threatens the country's "identity, traditions and history".

Good work there boys.

Oh, oh, oh Ireland

Oh deary me.

What can be said?

Quite a lot, I expect, and I foresee posting quite a lot about it in the next little while.

This in first by email:

Re: the so-called re-run Referendum.

Can anyone please explain to me how a people who give their government and Taoiseach an approval rating of 20% or less one week, can turn round and in very contentious circumstances and with strong arguments made to further discredit the legitimacy of what they were saying, give them an approval rating of 60% the next week. An approval rating unheard of even in any general election.

Am I mad or is there something barmy going on?

...and on that cheery note...

I'll see y'all on Monday. Taking the long weekend off. I might go to Florence.

You can talk quietly amongst yourselves until the bell rings, but remember, I'm going to be right outside that door.

What do China, South Korea, Japan and the US have in common?

In that order, they are the world's largest consumers of pornograhpy.



Ah, the industrialised world. Ain't it grand?

Second best reason

I can think of for the Irish to vote No on Lisbon today and tomorrow,

Blair to be named EU President 'within weeks' if Irish ratify Lisbon Treaty

But it doesn't look good.

The latest survey on Sunday put support for the treaty at 55 percent, compared to 27 percent who said they were planning to vote against it.

Welcome to the New World Order, Ireland.

What if...

Ever read those Marvel comics things that explored what would have happened if some such thing or other hadn't happened in a given plotline? (Oh come on, you can admit you read comics; you can do what I do and say you did it as a kid and have, of course, long since grown out of them...ahem).

Well, Louise, who has kindly linked to my Death to Soothsayers! post below once wrote the funniest and best piece of what-if history I have ever read. I've linked to it a couple of times in the past, but it was so good it's worth revisiting regularly.

It asks,

what if Henry VIII

a. is not born, or
b. is the first person to successfully receive a personality transplant

Just think of the possibilities.

economics:

1. The monastic lands in England were not seized in 1538 - 1541

2. Hence the Great Revolt (aka “the reformation”) does not happen, because the European rulers do not learn from Henry’s disastrous policy that it is possible to go round plundering the Church for loot

Miraculously, machinery proves incapable of enslaving millions of people during Industrial Revolution, occurring as it does, within a distributive, rather than capitalist economy.

Religion and fashion:

the staunchly Catholic English population fail to become Anglicans. No-one is worried by this.

1553 Queen Elizabeth I fails to govern England properly due to non-existence caused by either a or b above.

World Decidedly Better Off.

Spared the Ruff.

Martin Luther sticks post-it note on door. Is instructed to “take a Bex and lie down.” No-one pays him much attention – it is merely “a quarrel of monks.” He sinks into obscurity after death, since Henry VIII has not given any ideas to continental princes re: Church loot.

Calvin writes tome. Causes localised kerfuffle. Tome dies natural death.

education:

Shakespeare continues business as usual (minus ruff).

Generation upon generation can recite all his sonnets – and understand them.

public art works:

(1607) New World fails to be colonised by English, due to non-existence of puritans.

New World left entirely for Spanish and Portuguese.

Consequently, New York fails to materialise.

World Spared Statue of Liberty.

philosophy:

(1596-1650) Descartes gets it right: “I am, therefore I think.”

Pope Innocent X Bestows “Angelic Doctor Award for True Enlightenment.”

(1694 – 1788) Voltaire has happy childhood, fails to become git. Things continue swimmingly.

psychology:

Sigmund Freud, with the help of his Confessor, overcomes his “issssues.” World Spared More Misery. Continues blissfully ignorant.

gender relations:

Since Christendom is free from constant struggles with protestants and muslims, the beauty of the Gospel continues to conform society to the mind of Christ and in time, people begin to act more equitably towards women. By this time, slavery has already been gently ousted from human history and now women are becoming the main beneficiaries.

By 1703, women in most democratic countries of the world have been given the vote. This and many other changes have ensured that women are increasingly treated with more dignity.

Consequently, Simone de Beauvoir lives good, holy life. Writes hymns, book of prayers, Life of St Clotilde. Dies in 1986 at the age of 78.

Maureen Dowd (“If you can afford to act on your craving for domesticity you are a pampered, glazed fem-bot, who gets high on homemaking”), by positive miracle of God, lives peaceably with women of all kinds. World is Staggeringly Better Off.

Oh, I can imagine it.

Ohhh...


Some things, however, remain unchanged:

2006 Catholic bloggers have little to report – fight among selves.

Endlessly discuss whether the predominant economic system throughout the world is “Distributism” or “Distributivism.”

The vicious Grammar Wars ensue…

Schism narrowly avoided.