lovely Cape May

Having experienced the vulgarity and sheer excessiveness of Atlantic City, I was bracing myself for another gaudy resort as I braved the heat and crowds down in South Jersey. Experience has taught me that seaside resorts are usually either brash and tawdry or faded and dull. Brighton, England is another matter, for it manages to be all these things and several more, but Bray in co. Dublin is typical of a resort that has seen better times and only survives by providing gruesome amusement arcades and the like. So I was wholly unprepared for Cape May. Not only is it un-vulgar, it is also remarkably un-faded. How and why I cannot say. For it must surely be a much-favoured resort and place to live, and yet all I saw was indescribably lovely. Streets of quiet, dignified Victorian timber houses line the popular beaches, and the beaches themselves have resisted most of the dross that I thought was part and parcel of a successful resort. The sand and sea were more than adequate, and the temperature was a great relief from the 95+ inland. I loved it and I want to go back. What more can I say?

failures in the US educational system

I have grown very fond of the local transit in my SE corner of Pennsylvania where it connects with Delaware. Usually within a few minutes of its published schedule it gets me in and out of Philadelphia every day, and I love the fact that we see real conductors: they've almost ceased to exist on many British and Irish trains, and they do make the train feel so much safer. However, turning up at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, I suffered a severe shock. After learning that the train to Thorndale PA departed at 1705 from platform 4, I walked towards the platforms, which you have to climb up to. First you encounter platform 1, then platform 2 -- am I boring you? -- and then ... platform 5. I turned round, wondering if I'd strolled into a Harry Potter movie, but no, behind me was platform 2. So I wandered on a bit to discover platform 6 and THEN ... platform 3 followed by platform 4.

I have to say I found this disturbing. They do say that numeracy and literacy are in steep decline, and as a university lecturer, I cannot deny it, but this?

America supporting war in the Middle East

I suppose it was foolish to expect America to try to stop Israel's excesses in the Middle East.

When you look at the tens of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese lives Isreal has blighted, and has been blighting for many years, and when you consider the level of provocation offered, the extraordinary violence of the Israeli reaction has to be condemned. I do not defend for one moment rocket attacks on Israel, but I do see them against the background of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and constant atrocities in these lands, including bombing, shelling, bulldozing homes, destroying government buildings, etc. Israel has every right to exist, but not in this way. If Israel continues with its 'nobody messes with us' approach to terrorism, it will go down in history as one of the most brutal democratic regimes of recent years. It will also inspire so much hatred in the region that the extremists in the arab world will usurp the moderates (in Lebanon, for example), which will be even less congenial for Israel, not to mention the rest of the civilised world.

But are the Israeli people bothered? 95% of them support the violence. Even now Bush's deplorable administration is sending bombs and rockets to help the Israelis slaughter civilians and spread misery through the Middle East (Israel is the biggest recipient of U.S. military aid and the only country in the world that can buy directly from U.S. arms corporations without the oversight of the U.S. government; it is also allowed to use US aid to purchase from non-U.S. firms). If America refused to export weapons and stopped pouring money into Israel, the peace process might stand a better chance. America has incalcuable power to do good, but with Bush it seems that war and arms suppliers matter most (which is great coming from a born-again Christian).

Longwood's Centennial

This was the scene on 22 July at Longwood an hour or so before their amazing fireworks and fountains display. The non-stop disturbed weather this summer meant that storms alternated with hints of sunlight and everything in between. The fireworks and fountains accompany music, which included a patriotic American medley, Stars and Stripes, and the last movement of Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony (No. 3), which was extraordinarily impressive. I don't think I've seen a better matching of music and image, and the precision with which pyrothechnics and music were co-ordinated was extraordinary. This was the third big display of fireworks I've seen since I came over in June and it was by far the best.

What I'll miss in the States

I'm less than halfway through my summer in Delaware and I'm already thinking about the things I'm going to miss when I return to Ireland. Certainly part of the rhythm of life for me here is a grocery store by the name of Trader Joe's. TJ's is a very modestly sized store (part of a chain) on Concorde Pike (R202). Compared with Giant and Acme it is a tiny foothill on the shopping landscape most people traverse at weekends, and yet it is amazing how many areas it covers. They have good shampoos, pretty fair cat food, all the fruit juices I ever need, fruit, veg., carbonated drinks of all sorts, meats, prepared meals, and so on. They have an unusally nice root beer (a drink that hardly exists at all in Ireland). It takes just a couple of minutes to walk around it, compared with SuperG nearby, which takes the better part of a week. The store is quirky, favours organic and unprocessed foods, and the prices of most things are below the monsters.

Frankly there's nothing in Ireland remotely like this. The supermarkets back home are pretty useless in terms of choice and price. Places favouring organic produce and so on tend to be up market and expensive. There are no really larger supermarkets with the range of value found in the UK and, much more, here in the US. I guess I'm just going to have to persuade TJ's to open in Ireland. Somehow I don't see it happening, alas.

Israel-Lebanon

When confronted by Israel's excesses I sometimes can't find the right words. I think in this instance it's sufficient to quote an Irish Times report (a paper with no disernible political bias, it has tended to express a belief in the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to secure homelands, a view I'm wholly in sympathy with), which says it all. Others, considering the extreme violence Israel is inflicting on the civilian population of Lebanon, are speaking in terms of ethnic cleansing, a process that Israel has employed in the past. So, over to the Irish Times:

'The civilian toll continued to mount in Lebanon yesterday as Israeli planes struck dozens of targets. Nine civilians, including two children, were killed when they were hit by a missile that struck a bridge in the southern port city of Sidon . In the southern city of Tyre , rescue workers pulled nine more bodies from the civil defence building that was hit on Sunday in an Israeli strike. Close to 200 civilians have been killed in Lebanon since the Israeli offensive began last week, when Hizbullah attacked an Israeli border patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing two. Five more soldiers were killed when they gave chase into Lebanon .'

the land of plenty?

It's Wednesday morning around 11.00 a.m. I'm experiencing the not unusual need for coffee and doughnuts. Being in rural Pennsylvania there's only one thing to do: drive through the land of plenty until I find what I want. It's not quite instant gratification, but it's not that far away. Ten minutes or so later I'm in Thorndale, which has an endless string of commercial premises with parking lots offering all sorts of consumer treats. Not being a fan of Dunkin' Donuts' coffee (it's hard to tell what it is) I decide to get the black stuff from Starbucks after securing the doughnuts. If only I had known then what I know now ...

So I drive up to Dunkin', Krispy Kreme being nowhere near, and look at the shelves. Not a doughnut in sight. The customer before me in line is gazing in disbelief at the naked shelves and asking the unpopular guy behind the counter 'Is that all ya got?!?' So I get back into the car and drive a short distance to Starbucks, the land of the espresso brownie, which is housed in Acme. I ask for a grande brew and am told there is none. So I reconsider and ask for a grande americano. Nothing doing. I can have iced latte or iced coffee. Hot coffee, it seems, is not on the menu, so I would have to have yesterday's refigerated leftovers. Lovely. And I don't like iced tea and coffee anyway.

Mortified I go back home with exactly what I left with: nothing. Coffee and doughnuts never did enter my mouth on that memorable day in July.

People blame all this on the violent storm that ravaged the area on Tuesday night, but I don't believe them. This is another manifestation of a conspiracy to recreate the Soviet Union on US soil. It's only a short step from aggressive security measures at airports and gulags to food shortages. Just wait until all those stars and stripes start sprouting hammers and sickles.

Feuding footballers and fisticuffs

Without wishing to sound prissy, I wonder if we really have to look for excuses for the likes of Rooney and Zidane. Doubtless they were wound up, but so what? If they learnt a bit of self-discipline they would know how to walk away when an opponent is being verbally offensive. Stamping on a player's balls and head butting another don't really sound to me like things we want to see in sporting events. There's a bit too much of the school playground in this for my taste. Perhaps I also show my age a little when I say that I can't imagine the 1966 World Cup was played with so much shoddy behaviour on the pitch. The French were wrong to attempt to vindicate their sporting hero on his return home. Ideally we should see long exclusions for players who cannot control their aggression. That or teach them meditation.

Guantanamo Bay

It doesn't matter how much people wriggle or attempt to justify it, Guantanamo Bay is an obscenity. It's America doing precisely what it condemned in Iraq -- imprisoning people without representation and legal process, torturing them, etc. America insists it is at war, which is fine, albeit pretty stupid. If these are enemy combatants give them the rights of the Geneva Convention. If they are criminals and not enemy combatants try them in a court of law. Don't make up this grey middleground and claim you are entitled to deny basic human rights. Given the miserable performance of the intelligence services in the US and UK, it is very likely that most of the people held in Guantanamo Bay are innocent. Terrorists are not stupid and are unlikely to have been found so easily. If all they were doing was defending their country from an invading force, make them prisoners-of-war. Or try them. Or let them go. Even if you accidently let a terrorist go free, the good will engendered will far outweigh the harm. At present a large part of the world is very angry with America, and this is nurturing terrorism. Let them go and you will deflate some of this anger and diminish support for terrorist groups.

It's not rocket science. But Bush and his supporters are so very, very stupid. They cannot see that the way to stop terrorists involves thought and science, cunning even, not the cowboy mentality of the twats displaying 'Support our Troops' on their car posteriors.

It really is time America stood up and proclaimed its greatest assets, which could yet rule the world: its constitution and respect for freedom.

'Palestinian militants'

It's interesting how we use language, isn't it? In many of today's papers armed Palestinians fighting Israelis in Gaza are called 'Palestinian militants'. I was puzzled by this use of language until I imagined another scenario. Let's suppose Canada invaded New York state in response to the kidnapping of a Canadian soldier by an American organisation (e.g. a CIA extraordinary rendition). Let's think about this one carefully, shall we. Ah yes, I've got it. It all makes sense now. Armed Americans fighting back the Canadians would be called 'American militants'. Excellent. So we do use language in a democratic, accountable, unbiased way.