Thoughts about Ted Kennedy

I'm Irish and, of course, that means I'm supposed to hero-worship the Kennedy's as a matter of principle.

Well, I didn't. In fact, I never really was much concerned about their doings as I went about my life. I was a kid when JFK died. What I read about the senior father disgusted me, though I did like Rose. One flaw was her religiosity, so intense she could not forgive Kathleen for marrying into a British aristocratic family because they were Anglicans and would not attend her funeral after her tragic death.

I didn't intend to watch the funeral mass for Ted today. However, I did. I was riveted. Absolutely riveted. It was as if a President had died, perhaps more so.
I haven't really felt such biting sympathy for someone I didn't know since Princess Diana died.

Over the last couple of days, as I've watched the media, another picture of Teddy Kennedy began to emerge. One in which he was shown to be amazingly human and flawed, and kind, a man who wanted to do much good in his life, a man I know I'd have liked a lot if I'd ever met him.

It's true, the Kennedy's are quintessentially an American family. To borrow a cliche, they are indeed the closest a family will ever become to being American aristocracy.

And, of course, in their fiber and DNA, the Kennedy's are stolidly Irish no matter how far they've risen and American they've become. They celebrate raucously, sing the cheesy American ballads, gather together and love/hate one another. They relished their Irishness, celebrated it, never forgot it. They just wouldn't want to return to the old sod because it offered them nothing to begin with.

And there's a lot to be said about a modest family hungry with ambition, not content to rest until they achieve the farthest they can.

So, I'm sad he has passed before he had the opportunity to realize his dearest desire. I'm sure universal medical coverage will come. It's just he won;'t see it.

It's a given that the Irish like to tear down their own, sort of keep them in tehir place. I don't know why that is. Maybe other nationalities do it too.

Today I feel very proud to be Irish in America.

Rest in Peace, Senator Kennedy. You made this country a better place.

And my sincere condolences to the extended Kennedy family.

Chia Obama: But wait there's more

So now certain sections of the African American population are annoyed because a fried chicken joint in New York City has named its restaurant "Obama Fried Chicken." They said it's racist and must not be allowed. It's like linking African Americans to watermelon and collard greens is also racist. The restaurant said it is not backing down--the owner was Korean. Sure the Irish have been poked fun of for their fondness for potatoes and they don't get all upset about it. However, if a sign went up at a business establishment saying "No Irish need apply", that would be a horse of a very different color.

The objectors are also angry at the Chia Pet's "Obama" heads. One of the heads is lighthearted and the other a "serious Obama." Again, they say it's racist. (I must say anyone who buys Chia Pets needs to have their heads examined. They're ALL naff.) Already one drugstore chain, Walgreens, has bowed to the imaginary fear of a boycott or plummeting sales and stopped stocking the silly thing.

The official White House position is they discourage use of Obama's likeness for commercial gain.

With all due respect to the African American population, I think the dissenters need to lighten up a bit. It's not racism. It's poor taste--crass commercialism. That's it, period.

We poked fun at George Bush for the last eight years and enjoyed doing it. Before that, it was Bill Clinton and blue dresses.

This is in the same vein as Bush cards and nodding heads. Stop playing silly victim. Focus on what is truly racist and go after that full speed.

A buying frenzy

Well, it was inevitable, wasn't it?

Now that the dollar is sinking fast--it hurt when I was in the UK two months ago and the exchange rate then was 2 dollars to the pound, but now its 2 dollars ten cents--there are plane loads of Brits, Irish, Germans, French, Italians, etc. arriving at JFK and Newark to buy us out of our increasingly probable recession . They're coming armed to the teeth--with Euros and empty suitcases, of course. And they're not heading for the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.

Apparently they're heading for some obscure town up state where there's a huge complex of outlet stores--DKNY, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, etc... One guy from Dublin was interviewed on the telly this morning, gleefully telling us that he can buy 5 polo shirts here for the price of one in Ireland. And the stores are accommodating them cheerfully, offering them discounts for every $100 they spend, because Americans have their wallets tightly closed this season. The chains here are stating they're going to have a miserable Christmas season.

I wonder how long it's going to take the European Community to realize they should be collecting taxes on all this booty that's a comin' westward.

Now we hear China's considering dumping some of its huge dollar reserves, though we did also learn last week that the size of their burgeoning economy has been grossly overstated and the US will remain dominant for many, many years to come.

There's even talk that the Euro might become the world currency.

The only good side for us is that American exports are up and our deficit is shrinking. I am a bit cynical here because, given the trend in America for the past ten years according to the Gospel of Lou Dobbs to send all our manufacturing overseas, I'm wondering what American products we have left to sell. And it's not just physical goods I'm talking about either, because people from India call at night trying to get me to take out a mortgage, swap my phone service or try a new credit card.

Human quirks

It's amazing how anticipation and excitement affects us humans, how it causes a natural high that makes us act out of character sometimes.

On Saturday morning, someone whom I've seen at the gym for nearly two years but whom I've never spoken to approached as I was completing my first set of arm curls.

He's a man in his early sixties and is a friend of another guy who's Irish-American who once told me he's conservative and doesn't care for Hillary Clinton, couldn't imagine America being led by a woman. I'd imagine this chap feels the same way. We've passed each other on the way to the various pieces of equipment but never spoken or acknowledged one another. He's always come across as unfriendly, actually.

"You're Irish, aren't you?" he said, his smile as broad as Nellie's dresser. (an Irish saying.)
I had to clamp my mouth shut so as to stop my jaw from slamming into the floor. "Er...yes," I said after I finished the last rep of my set. "The genuine article." I tossed him a grin.
"My wife and I are going to Ireland."
"Really. That's very nice. When?"
"Tonight...at six." He smiled like a schoolboy who'd been praised for good marks.
"Out of Newark?" I said.
"Nah. Philly."
"Which part?"
"County Meath."
"I'm from the North. That's in the republic...but it's not far. Everything in Ireland isn't far from anywhere else."
He laughed. "Yeah, I'm Irish American and my relatives live in Meath."
"Well, have a good time."
"Thanks. Will do."
"Have a nice time."

I picked up the handles to start another set but stopped to watch the man walk away. He knew I was Irish yet we hadn't even traded names. This isn't the first time I've seen this sort of behavior. He was buzzing. I think the anticipation of something pleasurable makes normally reticent people drop their guard or shyness and approach others to share their news. It's almost a compulsion--a snap decision by the brain to act when an opportunity presents. In this case, the nexus was my Irishness and his trip to Ireland to see his relatives. Wonderful. It'll be most interesting to see if he speaks on his return.

What a nerve!

Goodness. So I open my email this morning and was informed that some chap called Mr. Joe Kerr who's of Irish descent and commissioning editor at one of the biggest houses in the US received the first six chapters of my memoir America and me late yesterday, spent until the wee hours of the morning reading it and rereading it in some fancy New York hotel, and now has made an offer and are prepared to pay a colossal sum. The catch is I have to make my decision by Friday at latest and title should change to From Ulster to here;the saga.

So excited was this person that they emailed the manuscript without my permission to a famous Hollywood director who has already been on the phone to him. Famous Hollywood Director will not under any circumstances allow me to know who she is until I agree to sign on the day I meet her. That is outrageous and wholly un-American. The nerve.
And they want Colin Farrel to play me. Oh, please!!!

What to do? What to do?

A spot of rationing

In the afternoons, I like to brew a cup of tea and have it with a biscuit--that's a cookie here, not one of those God-awful doughy things called biscuits that looks like an English tea scone (though not in taste) which one can buy together with a bucket of fried chicken at KFC and other places and is regarded as a deliciously Southern thing. I hate Grits and I hate Southern biscuits.

Coffee is my preferred beverage in the morning--not the weak American blends that are flogged by Maxwell House and Folgers--good strong blends like Pilon, which is Puerto Rican and tastes rather like Italian coffee. I've even been known to mix the Pilon with the mass-marketed stuff to improve it.

I am just as fussy about my tea. It must be a British blend, something like English breakfast or the more smokey tasting Irish breakfast blend. But my fussiness does not end there. The tea must actually come from Britain or Ireland. I cannot abide what masquerades as tea on the supermarket shelves in the United States. No matter how long it's brewed, it never seems to break through the 'dishwater' barrier. It looks sickly no matter how pretty the teacup it's in. It's flavorless on a bad day, tinny on a good. That the tea over here is not good is quite understandable because Americans are not a tea-drinking nation--though Larry has informed me that coffee was once offered as a freebie to American housewives who bought a packet of tea.

This afternoon I noticed my 'tea tin' in the cupboard contained only two more bags and so I went into the pantry to retrieve more from the Tetley 'self-closing' packet (the glue on the red tab device is poorly designed and so it doesn't close as stated) I'd brought back from Northern Ireland. There were only ten left. A chill ran through my heart.

This weekend when I speak to Mum I'll have to ask her to send me over a care package chop-chop. Also must remember to tell her to write 'professional sample' or 'book' on the package or I'll get stuck with ridiculous import charges, which will spoil enjoyment of exported tea because I will remember as I indulge. The other alternative, of course, is to go to one of those pseudo Brit shops they have over here where they sell things like sausages, bacon, steak and kidney pie, pork pie, Cornish pasties, shortbread, Hartley's jams, lemon curd and Digestive biscuits, most of which are in various stages of fossilization or moldy as a good Stilton because no self-respecting ex-pat is going to fork out eight dollars for a jar of marmalade or packet of McVities biscuits that they can get for a quid over there.

Oh, what to do...what to do. Must go. Kettle's boiling.