The Police Farce (sic) Games

Posted on August 5, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

Of all the bad ideas….Titanic, City of Culture, G8 Summit, Poet Laureate for Belfast….the World Police and Firefighter Games is probably the worst since Justin Bieber and the MTV Awards.
There is the Olympic Games. There are regional competions such as the Pan-Am Games, Age related Games such as the Youth Olympics or Student Games….but it beggars belief that police officers and firefighters are competitors of genuine world standard.
It is of course true that Ethiopian double Olympic Gold medalist, Abebe Bikila was a police officer. And true that Geoff Capes, the British shot putter from the 1980s was a police officer….but there is no way that the 6,500 police and firefighters in Norn Iron this week are all elite athletes.
They certainly dont LOOK like elite athletes. Nor do they behave like elite athletes.
NYPD and LAPD cops eating pizza and drinking Smethwicks in West Belfast for An Feile is NOT Olympian.
The whole thing has the feel of an office or works annual picnic. A competition….RUNNING UP STAIRS (in Belfasts tallest building). It is at best a jamboree, harmless fun. I like the idea of harmless fun. And it is a happy coincidence that the Games coincide with An Feile…the West Belfast festival and various Sinn Fein types from the Mayor down get to show off their bonhomie.
If I know anything about American police officers and firefighters…mostly gleaned from “The Wire” and “Chicago Fire”, they all like an after-hours cocktail in bars called McGillicuddys.
So the opportunity to visit the Old Country in the guise of a major international sporting competition was too much temptation.
Yet it does have a serious side.
Yesterday as part of the nonsense, St Annes Cathedral hosted a service to honour those police and firefighters who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
And that surely resonates across the world. We recall New York in September 2001.
But this is….Belfast. Belfast, where three hundred police officers lost their lives between 1969 and 1998.
Ooops.
And leading the devotion to police officers who lost their lives yesterday was Belfasts First Citizen …Mayor O’Muilleoir. And nobody seems to notice.
No doubt some people from the Police Federation, the Prison Officers Association, and the RUC George Cross Association were all in the pews of St Annes.
But I suspect that in the rush to get as many Sinn Fein and other foreign dignatory arses on those pews, a fair number of RUC widows did not get invitations.
The service of their loved ones will be ritually commemorated but to all intents and purposes, they have been airbrushed out of the narrative.
They are inconvenient.
The War is Over.
Of course I am glad about that. And of course as a West Belfast Republican, I hold the RUC in contempt.
But we have seen too much airbrushing of people out of our History.
All in the name of Conflict Resolution.
It is a disgrace.
Two months ago President Obama managed to go thru a speech, name-checking those who had worked for Peace.
The young people cheered…Hume, Trimble, Adams, Paisley.
But no mention of Mairead Corrigan. Nobel Peace Prize winner from the 1970s.
I dont blame the young people for being gulled.
I blame those who are facilitating this obscenity.

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Harry Oh?

Posted on August 3, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

Good to see that Sheldon (on Slugger O’Toole) is chronicling the travails of West Belfast man Harry Fitzsimons.
He has recently been extradited from Senegal to Italy, where the feds are anxious to talk to him about some Italian dodginess.
Harry was an IRA man convicted in the 1970s for bombing the Woodburn Hotel (of blessed memory).
I hope its not an attempt to embarrass anyone. Sheldon would not do that. He does have an unfortunate tendency to note court appearances of family members of politicians.
He has manfully resisted the temptation to tell us that Harry is in fact the father of a wannabee politician here.
It would of course be inconsistent of Slugger O’Toole to say that this kinda linkage is only appropriate in the case of Sinn Fein and not appropriate when it involves a high profile member of a Party approved by Slugger and Sheldon.
I suppose the only way to test this unworthy theory would be to mention Harrys connexion to the high profile politician. But I personally dont see the relevance of naming the politician.
And why give Sheldon the satisfaction of waving a yellow card?

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Buying The T-Shirt

Posted on August 2, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

I am indebted to “Turgon” over on Slugger for the story on the Strabane T-Shirt Scandal.
Seemingly an American company is selling a T-Shirt with the logo “Strabane” with the British Flag.
Strabane is of course just about the most nationalistt town in Norn Iron.
Seemingly when this was pointed out to the T-Shirt people, they pointed out that they meant the “Strabane in Scotland”. Which is of course absolutely ok…except the Belfast Telegraph points out …there isnt a Strabane in Scotland.
Now of course, to a Unionist, that T-Shirt would be an amusing statement of fact. To the nationalist population of Strabane it would be offensive.
But we actually have a track record here in offensive T-Shirts.
I recall the Halloween mask from July (yes July) 1994….the British Flag with the legend “Trick or Treat”. Harmless in itself of course but less than a year after the Greysteele murders of several people in a County Derry bar at October 1993… The killers notoriously shouted ” Trick or Treat” as they opened up with automatic weapons.
Lets be honest, I got a lot of satisfaction out of wearing a Celtic football shirt in the summer of 2012, knowing that Rangers (RIP) was having their own problems. Its how me are.
Zero Sum T-Shirts.
So therefore a business ooportunity presents itself.
I will be starting a new company and wil present my case on Dragons Den. I am looking for investors.
My new company, located for tax purposes in the Cayman Islands is “Zero Sum T-Shirts” and will be a cross community business. This shold get me some financial grants from the Norn Iron Government and Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness can open my factory on the Peace Line between the Falls and Shankill Roads.
T-Shirts with the British Flag and “Crossmaglen”, “Coalisland” and “Ardboe” will be big sellers with unionists. T-Shirts with the Irish Flag and “Carrickfergus”, “Dundonald” and “Rathcoole”will go down well with nationalists.
The mission statement of my company will be to make as much money as possible.

So…if you wish to invest, just let me know.

It is hard to imagine anything funnier than an American company thinking Strabane is in Scotland.
And totally correct that the LetsgetAlongerist Belfast Telegraph holding them to public ridicule.
But rather unfortunately for the Belfast Telegraph….their story locates Strabane in County Fermanagh. It is of course in County Tyrone.
Of course nobody could reasonably expect a letsgetalongerist to be familiar with any place in Norn Iron more than twenty five miles from Helens Bay.

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New Football Season

Posted on August 1, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

So..I am lying in bed with my ipad and watching Sky Sports presenters visit all NINETY TWO League football clubs in England and Wales. So unless something major happens, no serious blogs.

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Keeping An Eye On The Mayor Of Belfast

Posted on July 31, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

I like to think I am as cultured as the next man….as long as it doesnt involve Opera, Ballet, Classical Music, Sculpture, Painting and Poetry….Oh and Mime Artists. ESPECIALLY Mime Artists.
I love Belfast. Its part of who I am.
But my Uncle Jackie would be laughing his leg off at the notion of a Poet Laureate for Belfast.
Its always worrying when a Politician has a VISION.
But I wish Mairtin O’ Muilleoir well.
Ive never met him….but he seems to evoke a certain amount of HOSTILITY.
He is of a certain age…and one of the few senior Sinn Fein figures of that certain age not to have a whiff of cordite about him. Of course Sinn Fein is bringing on a generation of people who are much too young to have been “involved”
But Mairtin seems to get some flak from moderate nationalists and letsgetalongerists. The implication is that he should know better than to get mixed up with Sinn Fein.
And he doesnt seem that popular with the ex-prisoners.

But he is certainly worth watching for eleven months.In addition to the Czar of Russia, I will be keeping an eye on the Mayor of Belfast.

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Mayor Appoints “Poet Laureate”

Posted on July 31, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

Just when you think that we have scraped the bottom of the bottom of the barrel in finding things to hide the squalid sectarian nature of Belfast….MTV Awards, Titanic, President Obama, World Police Games….the new Mayor Mairtin O’Muilleoir (Sinn Fein) shares his vision for his twelve months in office. Personally I distrust anyone who has a “vision”.
In fairness, appointing a Poet Laureate for the City has a certain charm. Very Gaelic Chieftain, complete with a Bard.
But it is COMEDY GOLD.
There is eleven months of one liners behind the phrase “Belfast Mayor Appoints Poet Laureate”
“Pretentious?…Mise” (“Pretentious?….Moi”).
How can we have a Poet Laureate.
The only rhyme I can think of for “Belfast” is “Elastoplast” which is apropriate as this is just another band aid…disguised as CULTURE.
Culture! What Crimes are committed in thy name?
Im as cultured as the next man….but honest to God.

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Problems With Site?

Posted on July 30, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

Mick has kindly pointed out that he has a problem accessing site in recent days.
Im curious to know if anyone else is having a problem.
As you all probably know I do not pay Word Press for hosting this Blog.
There is a PAID “premium” service that I dont use.
It might just be that the traffic over the past few days is causing a problem.

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Party Funding…Alliance Party

Posted on July 30, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

Over on Slugger O’Toole, Mick Fealty produces an excellent post on Party Funding and speculates as to why SDLP are a bit reluctant to have donors based in the Republic of Ireland named publicly. He speculates that it does not want a list of “wealthy Dublin donors” in the public domain.
He further sprculates that Sinn Fein might have a prolem with the “elastic industrial wages” of their Elected politicians.
And he speculates that DUP dont want their property developer friends named.

Alas Mick makes no speculation about Alliance Party funding. They now publish donations. But have I ever mentioned Alliance Party got £98,000 from A Rowntree trust between 2007-2011?
It has been described as “chocolate money…innocent money….Quaker money” by….er Sluggers good friend Quintin Oliver.

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“I Wont Be Reconstructed…And I Do Not Give A Damn”

Posted on July 29, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

The headline comes from a Confederate song from the American Civil War. You can listen to an excellent version by Hoyt Axton on You Tube. You may also have heard it in the first scene of the 1950s movie “Run Of The Arrow” when embittered returning war veteran (Rod Steiger) sings it. The site on which I found the lyrics mentions no author or copyrite.
It is of course relevant to our situation in Norn Iron.
The US Federal Government aided and abetted by self righteous and sophisticated people in New England tried to change the nature of Southern Society, having defeated the Confederate States on the battlefield. Nobody can reasonably deny that Southern Society needed change…but merely trying to make Dixieland in the image of the North was hardly going to work. And of course the Northerners just gave up after about ten years and let the South rot in its racist cess pit for nearly a century.
Of course I am NOT equating Irish Republicanism with Confederate Racism.
Quite the opposite…the unionists are the supremacists in Norn Iron.
We talk about Conflict Resolution like it was something new.
It isnt.
There was Reconstruction after the American Civil War.
There was the the loss of the German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies after World War One.
There was de-Nazification after World War Two.
There were re-education camps in the Vietnamese jungles after that War.
Conflict Resolution is dependent on Victory and Defeat.
The Victors impose the settlement.
In Norn Iron…we are told….NOBODY won and NOBODY lost.
We achieved Peace and therefore…so the narrative goes…We are all Victors. Hooray for us.
So why do we actually NEED Conflict Resolution. After all there is no Conflict.
Well in our terms, Conflict Resolution is essentially three things.
The first is the Good Friday Agreement and the Creative Ambiguity which was the Good Friday Agreement.
The second stage is the measures implemented by the Agreement…prisoner releases, RUC abolished….AND the measures NOT implemented such as the Bill of Rights and Irish Language Act ….AND the St Andrews Agreement which undermined the Good Friday Agreement.
And the third thing is the SOCIAL ENGINEEERING….such as Integrated Education, Shared Future etc, which sets out the procedures for Norn Iron to be a homogenous and liberal unionist society. A LetsGetAlongerist Theme Park.

I am far too old to be impressed by Conflict Resolution…If nobody won and nobody lost, I dont want Conflict Resolution imposing victory and mostly defeat on me.
I will NOT be RECONSTRUCTED.
I will NOT be DE-NAZIED.
I will NOT be dragged off to the South Belfast jungle…the Tropical Plant House in the Botanic Gardens…to be re-educated out of my Republican and Nationalist ways.
I am not in any way inferior to the Golden Halo of well remunerated people who are behind Conflict Resolution.

For Ireland…I DO GIVE A DAMN.
I applaud the generations of people who used appropriate means to further the idea of an Irish Nation.
I DO NOT GIVE A DAMN for a stand-alone Norn Iron. Our Wee Country should be confined to the dustbin of History.
I hold in utter contempt the supremacist, sectarian and racist nature of unionism and Orangeism. I refuse to be called a bigot by liberals, who like myself would condemn this quasi-facism in the Ku Klux Klan.
I will not repent my egalitarian ways to promote the Shared Space-No Mans Land of Norn Iron.
I will recognise the good news narrative of MTV Awards, Titanic, Derry City of Culture, G8 Summit and World Police and Firefighter Games as little more than a calculated attempt to show Norn Iron is “normal” This artificially created state is NOT normal and does not deserve to be.
I support the Good Friday Agreement. It DID bring Peace and/or Passivity. No mean achievement. But its undermining and lack of implementation means that there is nothing more than Peace/Passivity. I want no more than to sit back and watch Demographics do its work, which means opposing any letsgetalongist scheme to undermine the demographics.

Oh, I’m a good old rebel
Now thats just what I am
And for this yankee nation
I do not give a damn.

I’m glad I fit (fought) against ‘er (her)
I only wish we’d won
I ain’t asked any pardon
For anything I’ve done.

I hates the Yankee nation
And eveything they do
I hates the declaration
Of independence too.

I hates the glorious union
‘Tis dripping with our blood
I hates the striped banner
And fit (fought) it all I could.

I rode with Robert E. Lee
For three years there about
Got wounded in four places
And I starved at Pint (Point) Lookout.

I coutch (caught) the roomatism (rheumatism)
Campin’ in the snow
But I killed a chance of Yankees
And I’d like to kill some mo’. (more.)

Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in southern dust
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.

They died of southern fever
And southern steel and shot
I wish they was three million
Instead of what we got.

I can’t take up my musket
And fight ’em down no mo’ (more)
But I ain’t a-goin’ to love ’em (them)
Now that is serten sho. (certain sure.)

And I don’t want no pardon
For what I was and am
I won’t be reconstructed
And I do not give a damn.

Oh, I’m a good old rebel
Now that’s just what I am
And for this Yankee nation
I do no give a damn.

I’m glad I fought against ‘er (her)
I only wish we’d won
I ain’t asked any pardon
For anything I’ve done.

I ain’t asked any pardon
For anything I’ve done…

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Back To The Future With Naomi Long

Posted on July 26, 2013 by fitzjameshorse

Kudos to Naomi Long MP for East Belfast, for suggesting that a new bridge in East Belfast be named for the newest member of the British “Royal Family”.
I am not entirely sure how this fits in with the Alliance Party’s vision of a shared future. Indeed the bridge is inside Belfast City Council property…Victoria Park. Shared Future? Shared Space?
But I think it DOES neatly fit in with Naomi’s need to rehabilitate herself and her discredited Alliance Party with the unionist voters in East Belfast.
That should bring out the Garden Centre vote after the debacle of the Flegs Dispute, which was totally mismanaged by Alliance.
Even if she loses Westminster in 2015, Naomi can put her feet up on a bench in the “House of Lords”.
I have often made the point that living in Norn Iron in 2013 is a bit like living here in the 1960s. A passive time.
And in December 2012,I blogged about the naming of a Bridge in Belfast…in the 1960s. With loyalists calling for a new bridge over the River Lagan to be called after Edward Carson, the letsgetalongerist/liberal unionist Prime Minister, Terence O’Neill decided on “Queen Elizabeth Bridge”
Choosing a “royal” name did not help Terence O’Neill because within a few years, he was ousted by extremists.
The precedent is not therefore good for Naomi Long.
But thats the whole point of “British Royalty” in Norn Iron. To provide cover for “letsgetalongerists”.
But the new “royal baby” seems a bit young to be shamelessly used by Naomi Long to save her Westminster seat.

Most readers will be far too young to be familiar with the 1960s song “The Bridge” I believe it was by the Go Lucky Four and had the lines.
“Is it Wolfe Tone, Carson, Lagan Bridge…somebody called it Paul….I think that we would be better off of we had no bridge at all”.
It doesnt sound like Naomi has it in her record collection.

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