Yeah Right

From the NYT:

Aides to Mr. Giuliani dismiss questions about his use of statistics as nitpicking, arguing that no one can dispute the big points he makes by using the statistics: that crime dropped significantly during his tenure, say, or that he worked to restrain spending in New York.

"The mayor likes detail, and uses it frequently on the campaign trail in ways the other candidates don’t," said Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Mr. Giuliani. "And at the end of the day, he is making points that are true."

So Giuliani has no need to be accurate, but even if he isn't, he's still right. The hole in that logic should be blazingly apparent to anyone who isn't under some sort of magic spell or hasn't recently been hit on the head with a hammer.

I don't want to get all recursive here, but a few months back I wrote a bit about atheism and how the spirit of religious debate has bled into other areas of thought, and has even (incorrectly) been called "postmodernist" (start at the paragraph that begins "Now, my professors at NYU..."). But it's not just religious debate that is irrational nowadays. There's a feeling that you can say whatever you want and escape comment, because whatever it was that you said, it actually meant this. It's not often directly called postmodernism, but this thinking is associated with postmodernism, often negatively.

When this fake postmodernism is used to defend a point, it's usually under the assumption that postmodernism has unequivocally concluded that facts are meaningless and anything can be proven. As such, it's used to defend things that couldn't be defended in any other way: ideas that are fascist, dogmatic, or just plain stupid.

I think the classic example is the Bush aide sneering at a reporter for being a member of the "reality-based community": while the reporter sniffed at the ground, confined to what was (snicker) real (guffaw), Bush and his hero squad would be creating that reality simply by willing it to happen. Another good case is Stephen Colbert's "truthiness", but if I went any more into that, I might as well go work for the New York Times, rather than just quote from them. The common thread is the desire to legitimize something abstract and ideological, even after it is clear that such a thing cannot be done.

Now, postmodernism does generally conclude that one viewpoint is just as legitimate as another, but that's from a theoretical standpoint, not a practical one, at least in the less wacky interpretations. All viewpoints are legitimate in that they come from the same source, namely ourselves, and though they can be influenced by things like facts and statistics, your conscious consideration of facts when making a judgment doesn't in itself give your conclusion any special status, it just makes it more realistic, more practical. Facts can't tell you what to do; they can only describe something. The conclusions are yours to make.

When people invoke this anything-goes sentiment to deride postmodernism, they tend to deliberately misrepresent it as anarchic and dangerous (in that it does things like excuse Nazism) as well, and usually with a really bitchy attitude. These are usually older professors or self-affected champions of the common man. The old professors are just angry that the stuff they were taught when they were in school isn't being taught anymore. The champions of the common man are too intellectually lazy to examine the basic tenants of their own thought. The result for both, however, is the same: because postmodernism doesn't sanction a specific list of ideas, it cannot justify their own (or anyone else's), and they think that makes it useless in practical terms.

After all, if you really lived your life questioning the nature of your identity at every moment, you would be paralyzed with fear, and you'd eventually starve to death from distraction. But that's not putting the ideas to successful use. The important part of postmodernism, as with any stable of thinking, is to realize its implications - to recognize why the world is as it is.

Both of these failures, the intentional misinterpretation and the fatuous dismissal of postmodernism, hinge on a deliberate error in thinking that all postmodernist thinking is alike, or that it may only be applied in one way. It's unfair to attack postmodernism as nonsense because people abuse its name; it's even less fair if you're the one abusing it. These two groups are people that should know better: postmodernism is less of a single theory and more of a critical method that, in one of its many aspects, challenges assumptions about objectivity. That makes its definition elusive, but that's the whole point.

But because that's not obvious enough, not sexy enough to justify claiming that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, that first camp cuts out the practical end of the argument, or they just don't grasp it. They think indeterminacy means they can say whatever the hell they want and then back it up with "Well, that's what my thinking has brought me to", or "My facts differ from yours". All of a sudden, we no longer feel the need to debate using the same facts, the same independently verifiable figures. So debate is meaningless. It doesn't mean that everyone is right; it means everyone is wrong.

It's not theoretically justifiable to just throw around any old facts or figures and claim that even if they're wrong, they're somehow not. Someone like Giuliani likes to say things that he just makes up because they make him sound smart and because it thus appears that it's the facts talking, not some guy puffing himself up. People turn to postmodernism to legitimize their zany, half-baked ideas because every other school of thought has turned them away. No theory, however, can support saying things that are just wrong. "At the end of the day", they're still wrong.

But Seriously, Folks

Here is a rapid-fire-style update and one big introspective self-hugfest that's probably only interesting to me.

- At the beginning of November, I moved from Sandyford to a place in Temple Bar, right in the middle of city centre. I am a six minute walk from Trinity. The new place is quiet, clean, neatly decorated and close to absolutely everything. I'm sharing it with a Finnish couple at the moment, but they're leaving in mid-December, and Simon and Louise will take their place.

- I've been seeing a girl from Galway named Susan for about two months. She's a English graduate of Trinity and she dressed up as a bag of tea on Halloween. I was a cowboy.

- Of my four classes, the two seminars, Post-War British Fiction and Mass Death and Apocalypse Fiction, are the clear standout favorites. The two required courses, The Book and Modernism, are dull but not hard or demanding.

- I have to decide in what classes I'm doing essays and what I'm doing them on very soon. I'm leaning towards Post-War British Fiction, because I've already got a ton of ideas, but the professor is a little chilly towards me; an essay in the Apocalypse Fiction course would guarantee me a high mark but would be much harder to write without any solid inspiration.

- I'm visiting New York City with Susan and some of her friends in December, then I'm heading on alone back to Philadelphia for a few days. I'll finally be 21 in the States when I return.

- Michael Nutter was elected as the new mayor of Philadelphia last week with an overwhelming majority (something like 83%). I am absolutely thrilled, as Nutter is singularly passionate about improving Philadelphia and making it a great place. A lot of people are behind him and it seems like a change for the better is on the way.

- "Nutter" in Irish slang means a crazy person or someone who lacks common sense.

- Public dissatisfaction with Bertie and his government is growing. Something like sixty percent say they want him gone sooner rather than later; no one honestly believes this government is going to last a full five years. The presumed alternative, a Fine Gael-led coalition with Enda Kenny as Taoiseach, depresses the hell out of me (something about "robbing Peter to pay Paul" comes to mind).

- I'm seeking out Irish language classes, but the most prominent organisation that offers courses, Gael Linn, charges over three hundred euro for a six-week beginner's course, which has drawn gasps of disbelief from everyone I mention this to. Some other cheaper courses are available, but Simon has suggested hiring a one-on-one teacher, which sounds much better than an expensive and lackluster evening class I would probably quickly grow to dislike.

- The public at large remains panicky about the economy, which is expected to cool off, if not turn south next year. The housing market has already become markedly sluggish, which is a big problem for Ireland, as a large portion of the Celtic Tiger was the developer boom. There is a real anxiety that Ireland will lose its status as an international business hotspot, or even that things will go back to the way they were in the "bad old days" before the late 1990's, which is, frankly, unrealistic. The media, which loves to scare the dickens out of people with this kind of stuff, is a significant factor in the economic chill.

- European leaders have agreed on a new treaty to replace the previous one that established the European Constitution and which was voted down by the Netherlands and France in referendum. The new treaty, called the Reform Treaty or the Treaty of Lisbon, is quite similar to the European Constitution, but makes significant concessions to the larger states and specifically puts Ireland back in terms of representation and clout. The treaty has now to be put to the 27 member states before it can be implemented. Ireland's constitution requires that international treaties be put to referendum; as of yet it's the only referendum being held by a European state this time around. The vote is due to be held in the first half of next year. Government ministers and European officials keep saying that Ireland will be "left behind" if they vote down the new treaty; in actuality it would probably just piss off the larger member states and deny a speedy ratification (the treaty can't come into effect unless the member states unanimously agree to it).

- Even though I have absolutely no say in the matter, I'd vote against the treaty, because it's a confused jumble of kickbacks and pork—it's simply the result of way too much compromise. The EU needs to decide whether they want a more federal system that has a direct hand in the affairs of the member states or a loose confederacy that normalises things like trade, health standards, and human rights. They can't have both. Until then it's just gonna be endless horsetrading in place of coherent policy.

- Lately I've started trying to put some perspective on my recent life. The move from Sandyford, which was contentious, and the beginning of my second year in Ireland has gotten me in a persistently reflective mood, specifically about my own behavior, both internally and when dealing with others. And I do count solving my personal hang-ups and personality defects as one of my long-term goals, and I think progress is slow but steady.

One of the major things I realised over the summer is my need to change. I don't really see introversion as a virtue anymore. I used to think that my reluctance to reveal too much of myself made me "mysterious", or at least interesting. It didn't engender that reluctance, it only justified it. Though I was always willing to hang out with people, I also never made any effort to reach out to people, and I became content with sitting on the periphery. Earlier in life, that "mysteriousness" can be misconstrued as intriguing, but it gets tiresome later. To people with greater experience, it only reveals oneself as lacking in confidence, which alienates all the right types of people and attracts all the wrong types.

It's also become clear that I have to stop feeding my insecurities. If my reticence with others is the problem from the outside, my lack of confidence is the problem from within. On many occasions it's been impossible for me to simply shrug my shoulders and move on, as if I was determined to let things bother me. Previously, if I didn't over-analyze things, I would feel unprepared, like the nastiest surprise would be my reward, and I would find myself totally unprepared when it came. At least when I fretted over something to absolute death, and things didn't turn out like I expected them to, I was happily surprised.

But in these cases, the outcome is the exactly the same, no matter what you do to mentally prepare for it. Like my transfer to Trinity, for example. Once I had submitted the application, the situation was totally out of my hands. And yet that didn't give me any sense of calm: I panicked daily, and ended up bugging the crap out of the people handling my transfer (in both the Admissions dept. and the School of English). And then when I was finally accepted, I panicked once again when I fought so hard against my instinct and nearly convinced myself that New York was a better place for me. Though it was Kelly, with a patience I have seen demonstrated in my lifetime by fewer people than the fingers on my hand, who ultimately helped me recognize my instinct and to go with it.

That sense of confidence and exhilaration that I felt when I came back to Dublin was the final confirmation that I had acted correctly - not only that I had made the right decision, but that I had come about that decision in the right way. I had known the right answer all along, but I was so afraid of making a misstep that I basically invented an excuse to back away from the act of decision—I had obligations in New York, NYU is a better-suited school, I can always come back if I want, and so on.

The alternative to making decisions squarely and confidently is living in fear, not only of others and what they may think, but of oneself. I am never going to reach my potential by second-guessing. So it's in this light that I think that re-examining oneself is good. It's not second-guessing, and it's not retreating from lack of confidence.

I have been consciously asking myself lately:

• Am I confronting problems directly and confidently?
• Am I recognising indecision? Am I identifying what has caused it?
• Am I recognising when my insecurities manifest? What am I doing to talk myself down?
• Am I associating with people who encourage good behavior?

The answers are rewarding, because while they signal that I still have to make big changes in my life that will at times be uncomfortable, I know good will come of it.

Of course I've recognised my problems for a long time, but I'm getting the sense that I'm finally tackling them with real decision. Hooray for me.

The Nose Knows

Oh yeah—the international student orientation meeting had one odd point. The Scotch director of international students woman was explaining how to deal with culture shock, what to expect when adjusting to Irish culture, things like that, when her focus turned to the different foods one would eat here rather than elsewhere. She then expanded on this, quite casually mentioning that as one's diet was going to change, one's body smell would change with it. "So, you know, don't be surprised if your body smells differently. It's going to happen."

I can positively say I noticed no change in my body smell when I moved to Ireland.

It was funny as well to hear the orientation people explain basic Irish parlance like "craic" or "yer man". They spent about five minutes on how "You okay?" doesn't actually mean "Are you alright?". In my view, that kind of crash course in parochial slang never, ever works. You need to go out and talk to people before you get it. Language is definitely something you need to speak to understand. Hell, I still don't understand plenty of the things said to me around here. I will admit to using some slang, even some of the more dodgy stuff that just sounds stupid when an American says it (ex. "That's grand"), but a lot of it is involuntary—I don't wake up and say, "I'm going to slip in a 'lad' or two today." I'm not going to cling desperately to my completely generalized East Coast American accent or vamp up the Philadelphia nasal twang just because some Irish get huffy when an outsider demonstrates familiarity with their culture.

Ah, I don't know. I do know I don't smell any differently. You can take a whiff when you see me next if you don't believe me.

A Snake Swallowing its Own Tail

Trinity has started up again, though the main event begins next week when classes start up. This is Fresher's Week, which means endless orientation meetings and profuse congratulations to the new students for managing to enter college. I've been told Trinity's admissions standards are ridiculously high, especially for the English program—out of a possible 600 score on the Leaving Certification test every student must take to complete their version of high school, the School of English apparently accepts no less than a 590 score. So there must be something to that. I certainly didn't score the equivalent on the SATs, but then again it's not the same test. Taking the SATs was a miserable, endless experience for me: I took it three times and only pushed my score up thirty points on the last try. I did, however, completely demolish the SAT II's. That was a proud moment.

Fresher's Week is also the week the international students are supposed to come out of their jet lag and let the realization sink in that they're actually staying here for a while. I guess it was stipulated that I had to attend the same orientations as the first year students and the international kids, even though I heard nothing at all that I didn't already know in these meetings. It was good to be refreshed anyways.

It's also the week for me to register for classes, which actually worked out without any hangups at all. On meeting my advisor, I explained my situation and she practically leaped out of her chair and into the School's administration to get me sorted out. She even gave me first pick of my option courses—as a full-fledged student now, I can't just pick whatever I want to take like last year. Instead, I have four required courses that run for one out of three terms each, as well as two optional "sophister" courses that run all year. Essentially given free license to take whatever I wanted, I first chose a class in Postwar British Fiction (still riding high from my enthusiasm for the Alan Sillitoe/Kingsley Amis/James Kelman/Nell Dunn books I've read this year), maybe because they demonstrate so well my opinions/thoughts on the process of reading and the interaction of the text and the reader. Next on the list was a course in...get this...apocalypse fiction. From the 17th century to today. All stuff about the end of the world. For an entire year. It's my dream class.

As classes haven't started yet, and I'm a little further along than not knowing where the library is, which kind of defeats the purpose of Fresher's Week, it still doesn't feel like school has begun. But this is the last week of the summer period. I've been reassigned duties at work, which I'll be starting up on Sunday. It's actually pretty interesting stuff: instead of just scanning papers in and going through them for general clients, I'll be writing up summaries of stories that have to do with the European Commission, the "executive branch" of the European Union. The European Commission has twenty-seven Commissioners, sort of like ministers, one for each member state, and Ireland's Charlie McCreevy currently holds the Internal Market portfolio. So it'll be mainly stories about trade regulation within the EU, which doesn't make me backflip with excitement, but it's a chance for me to learn about the administration side of the EU, which in truth really interests me. If a continent can, within the span of sixty years, go from nearly destroying itself to unifying and creating universal standards for trade, labor, human rights, and law, and make it work effectively...maybe there's hope for the world yet. So that's my new job. Watching the EU save the world from itself.

Through the Looking Glass

Yesterday I went back to the Mahon Tribunal for another round of Bertiemania with Simon and Louise. This time around, while it certainly wasn't the most exciting two hours of my life, it was still remarkable to me that Ireland's No. 1 was sitting in plain view not fifty yards away.

This session of Bertie's testimony had to do almost entirely with exchanging money from Irish pounds into either sterling or dollars. The implications are a little lost on me, whether he was dealing in dollars or sterling (he vehemently denies ever using the former), but this much was clear: there sat in the witness box a man trying to hide something. It was the only explanation for the amount of nothingness coming out of his mouth, all just sheer obfuscation. Ahern's lawyer was no better, frequently objecting that Ahern was not on trial any time his client was asked a question. It certainly must have been trying for prosecutor Des O'Neill, who whenever asking a new question, reiterated it six different ways, so that Ahern may know exactly what was being asked and so (in theory) could give a straightforward answer (which he never did).

Ahern's credibility is withering, and everyone knows it. But there is no drama in this "scandal". It's nowhere near "sexy" enough; frankly, it's boring. As a result, no one is demanding Bertie's head on a platter, and the man himself is so entrenched that he's only leaving when he wants to.

How he still masses so much support from the Irish public, despite the gawkish transparency of his game, is what baffles me. To me, he represents the worst kind of politician: the 19th-century Teapot Dome political machine kind, totally uninterested in improving or even changing anything with the powers of his office. Ahern sees his position as a way to help out his buddies, make a little cash on the side, and satisfy his own dreams of importance. He's not a tyrant, so he's not easily identifiable as malicious; given a cursory glance, at the worst he seems incompetent. Yet Ahern knows exactly what he's doing, even if he's laughably poor at hiding it. The charm just doesn't reach me, a charm that seems at odds with the very nature of a culture that has little use for pretense.

Or maybe the public has just passively accepted that he's a crook, but a rather benign one, as long as he's just serving himself. It's a conclusion that dismisses a lot, but as Kevin Rafter of the Sunday Tribune said last Sunday:

...the public may simply be weary of revelations about another senior politician with unexplainable financial affairs. After over a decade of tribunal investigations the public have come to expect little better from their political leaders. Ahern's evasiveness is probably hurting the perception of politics more than it is damaging his own reputation.

On Ahern's future, he continues:

There will be no move against Ahern in the short term. The negative mutterings in the parliamentary party for now remain private. [...] But the longer the tribunal appearances go on the more Ahern will become a nuisance if not a liability for Fianna Fáil politicians who have to fight the next general election.

It's much harder to argue for the preservation of political faith than it is to cry out for blood. The latter is premature, so the former prevails, and everyone goes home happy: Fianna Fáil gets to keep their "embattled" leader, and the opposition gets to claim it objected all along to these shenanigans.

Read All About It

As I've mentioned before, Ireland's news coverage is primarily just siphoned from the British media. And if you didn't know, the British media has a reputation for being ridiculously sensational, a reputation that is well-deserved. It differs from American media sensationalism, however, first in that there are less flashy graphics and theme music flourishes for each story, and second in that the media's coverage and comment is explicit in what the viewer should feel—it is readily apparent how you are expected to react. While I'm not calling American news more objective—it's not—the news in the States lends more of an air of impartiality by the way it is presented (always harping about "balance", which, for example, will lead to covering 12 pro-war protesters at a 100,000-strong anti-war rally). Surprisingly to me, presenting a story as a series of facts and withholding judgment for the viewer turns out to be a strictly American fetish*. So the Irish media borrows more from the British than from the US, owing to greater proximity and to the simple fact that most tabloids here are just British ones with an "Irish" prefix tacked onto the name (the Sun, the Star, the Mirror, the Irish Daily Mail). To its credit, however, Ireland has been named number one in the world in terms of freedom of the press.

It is not, however, without its sensationalist streak. Right now, gripping the country for the fifth straight month is the case of a missing four-year-old British girl named Madeleine McCann. "Maddie"'s parents brought her and her infant twin brothers to a resort in Portugal last May, then left their children completely alone in their unlocked hotel room one night while they had dinner. When they returned, Madeleine was gone, and the McCanns have traversed the whole of Europe raising publicity, hoping for someone to recognize her and return her to her totally undeserving parents. The hook is that both daughter and parents are handsome and snowy white, the latter being rich doctors to boot. At first, a media firestorm the likes of which haven't been seen since Diana's death gripped the UK: a photograph of the child hung in every shop window there (and even a good many here), the story received attention every night on Sky News at first, then eventually every night and day, each detail breathlessly advanced to a hungry public. This process was somewhat slowed by the Portuguese police, who by law declined to release any information pertaining to an open case (this earned the particular ire of the tabloids, who thus portrayed the police as incompetent). Apparently members of British Parliament were even wearing yellow armbands in solidarity.

Eventually the inevitable sunk in, and the world came to its senses and began to move on, much to the consternation of the McCanns, who continued to demand media attention and heaps of sympathy for their misfortune prompted solely by their fatally negligent parenting. The public, however, was weary of a missing child case going nowhere, and by the end of the summer it looked like the child would never be found and the McCanns would earn their place in infamy and eventually (if not so quietly) recede into obscurity.

A backlash began as people finally started wondering: who leaves their children alone and unprotected in a strange place while they go have drinks with friends? Others found it odd that the McCanns would go through such superhuman effort and such extravagant expense to draw attention to their self-induced plight, when it all could have been prevented with a turn of a deadbolt. Still others pointed out that all the while this was happening, other children, not as pretty, not as rich, not as white, go missing every day. Where was their media frenzy?

But such pertinent questions were suddenly put on hold a week or so ago when the sensational side of this case struck back with a vengeance. Portuguese police announced that mother Kate McCann was now a suspect in her daughter's disappearance. It came out that the McCann's car in Portugal had blood matching Madeleine's in the trunk, blood that indicated its owner had taken a large dose of sleeping medication. While the McCanns were permitted to finally return home to England by the police, they may be called back at any time. As it stands now, every little detail is once again front-page news, and talk of "Maddie" is still on everyone's lips. This time, however, there is no sympathy for the two parents, and the two have "fought back" to the press, professing their unbesmirched innocence.

If anything is fascinating about this whole affair (and very little is), it's the dynamic relationship between the media coverage of the case and its audience. At the beginning, to even suggest that the McCanns were unwise to abandon their children to the wolves while they wined and dined was to invite a vile sort of contempt, and revealed the unbeliever as lacking any soul to speak of. Now, the same tabloids that elevated the McCanns to such great heights hurl some pretty strong invective at them—not because anyone feels "fooled", oddly, and not because everyone has suddenly realized that the parents doomed their own daughter, but simply because they are suspects. It's eerie how easily led the general public is on this case, shifting it as it goes on from irrelevant to to irritating to unsettling.

And of course, eventually came the coverage of the coverage, of the media phenomenon that is the Madeleine McCann story; apparently outlets like Sky News and the Daily Mail feel no shame in recursively reporting on themselves, instead acutely aware that anything mentioning Madeleine at all is guaranteed to sell. It all goes to prove that the British media has perfected the transformation of human misery to light entertainment. This is the real primetime; they were just cutting their teeth with Lady Di. Utterly forgotten is that a child has been lost, that children continue to be lost; instead Madeleine and her parents have been propelled to a sick celebrity status to sate a very credulous public. They have become these vague symbols of a "glad-it-wasn't-us" mentality, a dark spot that refuses to wash away, no matter how much feigned sympathy is poured on. The public at large doesn't follow the Madeleine case because they feel sorry for the missing girl; they follow it to get a cheap thrill, in the hopes that a symbolic evil figure will be punished for a symbolic wrongdoing. Then, whatever the outcome, they can move on, their vicarious bloodthirst satisfied; the McCanns can tack on "famous" (or "infamous") to their list of self-description, aware that they will always be able to bask in some of the limelight which they so clearly enjoy; and the tabloids can run off with that much more money, encouraged to do the same all over again with whatever story happens to bite, whatever torment gives people such pleasure in watching while completely removed from its consequences.

* Though, copying-and-pasting from White House press releases and giving a voice to people completely removed from reality is another.

Famous Faces

I woke early Friday to get to the immigration bureau and re-register for my studies, a tedious and painful task but one that has to be done. So I was up at 7:00, almost unheard of for me on a day off. Kelly was up just after, since he had work, so we took a shuttle to the Luas, then the Luas into town. Usually when I take the Luas, it's nearly deserted; just two hours later, there wasn't enough room to look out the window unblocked.

Dublin (or really any Irish town) when it is waking up is a great sight: the shops and pubs have box trucks right out front, loading stock and big steel kegs of beer and Guinness, the park gates are swung open, the very haunting, very sad atmosphere that exists around 5 AM, when no one is out, not even the holdouts from clubs and parties. So for once it was refreshing to see the city as it sprang to life.

As we passed the HMV music store on Grafton Street, a man ran up to us and asked us if we could go inside and grab a wristband for his friend for some event tonight, since he had already gotten one himself. We obliged, but when we saw the name on the wristband—"Quentin Tarantino"—we realized he was coming tonight for a signing session, and the pleasure of seeing him far outstripped the pleasure of helping out an anonymous stranger. We tracked down another man to grab another wristband, however.

I've seen very few celebrities and met even less, which is actually strange, considering I've lived in the West Village of New York City. I guess I'm just not very observant, as I don't notice other people on the street too much, or at least scrutinize them enough to pick out famous faces. All I can claim as my own are Michael Myers (ugh), Billy Zane (yawn), Cindy Crawford (yay!), and Scarlett Johansson (emphatic yay!). I've met some political people, and, um, Buzz Aldrin. My share is very small, you may say. Tarantino was so unexpected to add to the list, however, and so sudden. Kelly and I made plans to meet up for the signing, then parted.

Leaving him, I headed to the Garda National Immigration Bureau, otherwise known as Where Satan Fell to Earth. For whatever reason, Immigration requires that students come no earlier than 9:30 in the morning, an hour and a half after the place opens, and thus guaranteeing that any student will be waiting for an extra two hours, at least. Discovering that it was indeed 9:30 and no earlier, I walked around Temple Bar, got some coffee, drank it at Trinity's Front Square, and generally rambled around. Even this late, none of the shops were open yet.

Back at the GNIB, I stood in line for a ticket; you have to first pass one gatekeeper who makes sure you have all the necessary documents, just to make sure you don't waste their precious time. As soon as I stood in line, I realized my fatal mistake: I had forgotten my old GNIB card from when I registered last year. Well, it shouldn't matter, I thought, since it's expired anyways. But it did, and I was promptly Bounced. At 8:00, when the office opens, it would have been possible to run back home and get the card and arrive back in time to get one of the last tickets of the day (they always run out before noon). But 9:30 was just too late, so it'll wait until next week.

With absolutely nothing else to do, I took a stroll around town, and ended up at the St. Stephen's Green Shopping Centre, picking up a pair of earphones and a kettle at Argos. As I left, considering going home and writing instead of wasting my time wandering aimlessly around town, Simon called.

We met up and walked to Dublin Castle. A little confused, I asked him why we were here, and he reminded me that he was looking for the Mahon Tribunal—the commission set up to determine if Bertie Ahern took any bribes or distributed any graft while he was Minister for Finance during the 1990's. Bertie was testifying today, at long last, after having dodged it for nearly a year. Predictably so, because very few believe his lawyers' acrobatic interpretations of his bank statements and exchanges in cash, and the speculation for a while is anything but a straightforward and honest presentation from the Taoiseach (admittedly impossible) that completely clears him of wrongdoing will cripple him politically, maybe even forcing his resignation and a new election. In a perfect world, anyways.

The Tribunal room was not difficult to find, and we strolled in through the foyer, completely absent of security, and into the chamber, where Bertie himself sat in the witness box, sullen and hunched over and contrarian with the prosecutor. We watched him squirm, and I contemplated just how little security surrounded him: all of two Garda were in the room, back by the entrance, commiserating with each other. It's a testament to how safe Ireland is, I suppose, a suggestion which made Simon chuckle, however much it rings true with me. No bouncer has ever patted me down before I enter a club or concert in Dublin; I have never felt any sort of imminent danger on the Luas or avoid it at certain times of night when alone; bad neighborhoods exist but nothing even approaching places like in West Philadelphia. That the most important person in the country can stroll in and out of a publicly trafficked building with just two policemen is a great thing, I think.

After a recess and some more Bertie-flopping about a "personal contribution" of £8,000 sterling, we left and split up back in town. I took the Luas home and did some creative writing, something that I've been able to keep up for the past few days and which excites me, the rise in quality and quantity. I'm considering trying National Novel Writing Month, which seems like a pie-in-the-sky dream, but the potential satisfaction of writing a book-length story before I turn twenty-one is enticing, so much so that I might be willing to sacrifice an entire month's worth of free time to the endeavor. So these writing sessions are good practice. I have a month and a half before it begins, so I may just cheat and begin beforehand, just so I'm not writing 1700 words a day (roughly four hours of work a day). What I'm thinking of is making a detailed outline, very detailed, and then just filling it out, much like I'll write an essay or blog entry, since that seems to work. Only on a massive scale. The point of "NaNoWriMo" is volume, only volume, so I'm not expecting a masterpiece, but it'll be something to tinker with, and it'll give me experience. Since the idea has stayed with me for about three weeks now, it might actually happen.

In the late afternoon I came back into town to pick up something for Mr. Tarantino to sign—unfortunately the DVD of True Romance I picked up isn't worth much to me, since I don't have a Region 2 DVD player at the moment. I met Simon again, and he stood with Kelly and I outside of the HMV as we waited to go in, then, losing interest, headed off himself. Kelly and I waited, thick with anticipation, for an hour, passing through line after line both downstairs and up. Tarantino sat at the back of the store, characteristically enthusiastic and peppy, wearing some hideous '70s shirt and saddle shoes. Kelly went first, and I snapped a picture of him grinning wide with a thumbs-up while Tarantino signed his copy of Pulp Fiction (with a grin of his own). I guess I choked, because I briefly thanked him, then said nothing else, and forgot to turn to the man behind me so he could take a picture of the two of us (and so I have a wonderful picture of Quentin Tarantino with my right hand as I pull away from the table). It was a minor celebrity encounter, despite the massive presence of bouncers and handlers (much more than what Bertie had earlier in the day, come to think of it), and the great amount of anticipation.

Still high on our elation at meeting a modern cinematic genius (except, honestly, for the last few things he's put out...yikes), we decided to stay out and get some food at Wagamama, a Japanese restaurant on South King Street. Wagamama is set up such as you are sharing a long table with several other diners, and we ended up sitting next to two American girls from California, just on a trip to visit a mutual friend. We regaled them with our account of a utopian Ireland (in that we obviously highlighted only the good parts), and they took in our story very willingly. They lingered long after they were finished their meal, like they were waiting for something, but the obligation was on them to invite us out, so we said goodbye and they melted away into the many hydra heads of the tourist trade.

Finally, Kelly and I headed to the Duke off Grafton Street for a drink. A game from the Rugby World Cup played on a large-screen TV near the bar, neither team from Ireland, but the rapt bar-goers whooped and yelled out and spilled their drinks anyways. We took the Luas home and shuffled off to bed before midnight.