This is the first time I have tried this, so here goes.
I spent a bit of time watching RTE news television today. The Irish elections are a lot slower than the American or British ones. The polls closed last night New York time, and the counting only began early this morning. Even then it's going to last until tomorrow. But it was a slaughter, so there wasn't that much suspense. The big loser was the governing party, and the big winner was what has been described as a pro-business party. Considering that the economy has been completely trashed by the pro-business forces this seems a little strange, but it has been the governing party that to a large extent has turned it over to them. Now FG will have to govern with the Labour Party, and this has some possibilities. But the old party has been in coalition with the Greens, and the Greens have been completely wiped out because of this or so they have been saying. Gerry Adams, the head of Sinn Fein, was quoted as telling the Labour Party people it wouldn't be a good idea to get so tight with Finna Gael. Things are pretty bad in Ireland right now, and if they get worse I wouldn't want to be too tight with a pro-business party myself. Of course we in America would know the feeling of seeing everything of value given to the rich and big business, and then being told that we have to tighten our belts because times is cruel 'ard. They don't seem to be too hard for the rich people, but they have a sense of entitlement that dwarfs anything seen in the big unions, public or private.
I also did watch a video from some of the rallies in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin. Imagine a video network run by progressives and people such as MoveOn, run on the internet and completely independent of the people who run CNN, MSNBC, and Fox! I can see Keith and Rachel putting their shows on that network. Somehow I don't see that network doing "reality" shows every weekend on life in San Quentin or such places.
I am still getting calls from NCO Financial. Apparently they can't do anything any more, other than to keep calling me up and annoying me in the hope that I will pay them off to get rid of them. They need to know that the more they annoy me the less likely I am to pay them back. But this is their business model, to annoy people on the telephone. It seems that Caller ID is something they haven't planned on, and I just let it ring through to the answering machine. I really wonder what would happen if a whole lot of people start calling their 800 number and hanging up on them. They would, I think, pay for all the calls. In any case, nearly everybody I know has been pestered by these people at one time or another. The debt they say they are trying to collect is an old one, from CitiCard. Citi tried for a number of years to get me to accept one of their cards, but I could see what sort of company they were and didn't. They got around this by buying two of the banks I had cards from. I tried to pay them down, but then my mother died and I lost my job, all at the same time. I had four credit cards, and three of them settled but Citi didn't. They sold the account to some lawyer, who sent me a summons to court, by regular mail, to my old address, and I got it after the date had passed for me to appear in court. The lawyers for my mother's estate told me to just ignore them. So there it lies!
Well, the weather is getting warmer. The car I have been driving around for 15 years has been rotting slowly. The bottom has rotted out to the extent that the gas tank nearly fell out, and the car itself only started in neutral. It did get me to the store and back, but the inspection was due and it would not have passed so I donated it to the take my car please programme, to benefit WJFF public radio in Sullivan County, NY. Now I have to rely on my brother to drive me to the store and back, and he is slightly less than reliable. But like I said, the weather is getting warmer and pretty soon the snow will be gone although we still have to the end of March that we might get heavy snow.
I will do a diary pretty much every day, and one or two extras if something important happens, such as Qadaffi gets kicked out or something happens here. Or maybe if some thought comes to me such as...I wonder if Boner took blubbering lessons from Glenn Beck. I remember that Jessica Tandy and John Gielgud could blubber whenever they felt like it, and it seems to have been some sort of technique that actors have. Speaking of Glenn Beck, I heard that he says that Reform Judaism isn't a religion because it is too political. So I wonder what that makes the Mormon Church, which spent a lot of money financing Proposition 8 in California, along with a lot of other reactionary initiatives.
So much for now.