Éirí Amach na Cásca

Easter is approaching, which provides me with an excuse to post this.

It's almost ninety-six years since the Easter Rebellion.

They're marching again in Dublin on the anniversary after a hiatus since the early 1970s.





Yeats probably wrote it best, capturing grief, shock pride and regret -

Easter 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Update 17.03.12

And today is St Paddy's day.

Bella

This is Bella.

She will be looking after us for a while as her family (my sister and brother-in-law) are heading up North to Tasmania.

Posting about Bella is an excuse for using the iPad. Her pic was already available on what passes for a hard drive on the thing.

Blogging with the iPad is easier than for the iPhone, but the problem is migrating pics from the iPhone to the iPad. It can be done by emailing, iCloud or SMS.

The iPhone makes the whole deal more immediate.You can take a shot and post it immediately. The quality may not be great, but Cav's the only one who would notice.

Blogged from my iPad

iPhone Blogging

There is no special reason to post this photo.

It simply happened to be on my phone. I was trying to give my son an idea of how to mask an area on his car door prior to spray painting.

I hope it helped.

This post is experimental. I'm trying to establish the iPhone's viability as a blogging platform.

It's fiddly, but it works.

Of Unknown Origin

I won't tell you where this came from, but it had to be posted.

It is beautiful in its ugliness.

For the full effect, click on the pic.

WARNING - Don't stare at it too long.

The consequences could be dire, and I am in no way responsible.........

Poor Petal

 
Indeed, the Blot has a glass jaw.

He posted a critique of Katter's homophobic ad yesterday, and has been roundly trashed for it by some of the cross-eyed extremists that inhabit his blog.

He also saw fit to censor a comment of mine reminding him that the raison d’être of his website is the politics of fear and loathing - always has been.

For someone with such a rampant ego, he exhibits a fair whack of insecurity.

Poor petal.....

Toowoomba

Toowoomba’s a funny place.

It’s not a bad place to live – cheapest fuel in the country – agreeable climate (except for the week or two when the Westerlies blow) – lots of schools etc.

It is however, a hard place to move to.

What I mean by that tortured piece of prose is that if you move here from somewhere else – anywhere else, it takes a long time to be accepted.

I lived that when we moved here from Mt Isa in 1996. After living in North Queensland for a long time, where newcomers were always welcome, the narrow provincialism of Toowoomba came as a shock.

We’ve been here for sixteen years now, and I can’t walk down the street without being greeted by every second person. We’re still not “local” of course – that takes thirty years.

Nowhere is this provincialism reflected more clearly than in the local rag.

The background to this story relates to the very real possibility that Campbell Newman won’t win Ashgrove at the state election, but the LNP may win government.

Should this be the case, there is speculation that he would be parachuted into a safe seat. One of those seats is Toowoomba South, hence the Chronicle’s headline.

That headline reflects Toowoomba attitudes accurately.

Incidentally, I wouldn’t attempt to call the election results. Queensland is different.

All I would say is that you should expect a surprise, and don’t write Katter off.

He’s crazy in the same way a fox is crazy.