barking mad, and painters, too

Art - William Butler Yeats’s Relationship With Maud Gonne Is Explored at the National Library of Ireland - NYTimes.com -- Here's a New York TIMES rundown on William Butler Yeats, Yeats Meets the Digital Age, Full of Passionate Intensity. There are things in this article we didn't cover in school, plus links and digital content related to the on-going exhibit at the National Library of Ireland.

learning from Belfast

Belfast: Open for Business -- There's a lot to learn here in this story of Northern Ireland's emergence from The Troubles and decades of dependence on the public sector for jobs. The reasons for their being attractive now include stability, a well-educated English-speaking workforce, and proximity to financial centers in Dublin, from which they get the overflow. Throughout the article the discussion focuses on relative costs and value.

eejits

Eejit: Northern Ohio's idiot wind -- I've been reading Frank Delaney's Tipperary lately, and in it he talks of things Irish, things that have emigrated to this area as well, like Home Rule, blatant exploitation of one class by another, and eejits. I began to wonder about the residency issue, and began thinking that anybody who would lobby to give up residency in a city that not only has Home Rule but also controls all the water is a fool, and should be allowed to go seek his or her fortune elsewhere.

With the water issue, Lee Fisher came to mind, and how he, too, is part of the gale-force idiot wind blowing though here, trying to position himself as the arbiter of good sense and the broker of water rights for political and economic gain. As is his wont, he was heavy-handed again, and that works to our benefit. He's not different from all your other politicians; his impatience just gets the better of him quicker.

And now you also have an inkling of why our politicians allowed one class, the lenders, to exploit the American neighborhoods as they did: If they, and foreign investors, own the majority of the land, and we are their indentured servants, they can dispose of their water any way they please.

We've already been exploited on things that make our machines go, like oil, and we've paid for it and continue to pay for it dearly. Don't let them disenfranchise us on water, one of the things that make people go.

Remember: Oil makes our machines go, water makes people go (We'll have to work on rephrasing that a bit.). And remember: In the Great Lakes region, we are sitting on top of a lot of fresh-water assets. We are valuable now for the same reason we were valuable 100 and 200 years ago: our "natural" heritage, as in natural assets.

Our "built" heritage is something we need to conserve, as well, and that's what the lenders have been going after and what they now sit on top of and hold, letting it lie fallow because our governments allow it. Are you starting to see the connections?

Natural heritage. Built heritage. What makes us great. What makes us valuable.

Ireland forever

A roundup of notable Irish films from Kevin Cullen - Boston.com -- Kevin gives us 15 slides here of film picks for St. Patrick's Day. Renew your Irish in the comfort of your own home, quietly, safely. How do we reconcile having St. Patrick's Day during Lent anyway? Is there a dispensation, a free pass, a get-out-of-Lenten-jail card that creates a window of festive opportunity in the middle of the somber contemplations of Holy Week? Are Irish Catholics eternally conflicted just because of the calendar and doomed to a lifetime of substance abuse to cover over the wrenching angst and guilt?

There's another thing, too. Many of us have mixed allegiances when it comes to being Americans who also originally hail from Ireland. Take my grandfather, for instance. During the First World War, he applied for his US citizenship and had to appear before a judge, who asked him why a fine, strapping young man like himself wasn't in the Army. My grandfather's reply, "Because my country's not at war," put his US citizenship on hold for a good while.

I wonder if they have banks gone wild?

The Story of Ireland’s Economic and Social Growth - New York Times: Seems a lot has changed since my grandfather hopped the ship at Londonderry about a century ago. There may be lessons to be gleaned from the Irish. Should we chalk a lot of it up to literacy and schooling?

"A rote list of statistics is more effective than pallid drama. Consider: The gross national product of Ireland grew 400 percent between 1986 and 2004, according to the documentary. The work force has doubled. Only Japan is now home to a higher proportion of scientists and engineers.

Church attendance in Ireland has halved in the same period. The average number of children per family has fallen from to two from five. Google, Intel, Wyeth, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple now have substantial Irish divisions. Finally, 20 percent of American foreign investment is now committed to Ireland. That’s amazing. "