All of us long for home at some point in our lives. Home may be a far-away place peopled by loved ones now gone, full of familiar voices and kitchen smells, or it may be a place we’ve never even been to that improbably asserts itself in our persistent dreams as a completion of our love and all that we wish for.
Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) edition of Late Nite Radio. Tonight, Irish band Planxty, led by singer Christy Moore, evokes this universal longing with a stirring and deceptively simple ballad. While the melodic line of each verse doesn’t resolve in the usual sense, this astute, hanging, circular structure imparts a sense of inevitable return.
It’s a song about a specific place that most of us have never seen, but through the alchemy of music and the words we end up longing for it as the singer does. Here it is, then, without further ado: Christy Moore sings his beautiful paean to his cherished and magical Cliffs of Dooneen.
Your Reader Tips will be greeted at the door with a warm smile and a serving of æblekage.
Ive always thought this was a call to Canadians. but its the most inhospitipal place occupied on the planet. a land so wide and savage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th-WDf42rG0
Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO:
“The problems of ACORN represent a…scandalous idea: the conventional acceptance of the Left’s self-righteous claim to have a monopoly on all politics, policy, and lifestyles that are good.”
Lopez thinks that the most disturbing thing about recent revelations about ACORN has been the reaction to them by those on the left:
“When the first video dropped, a blog on National Public Radio’s website excused crimes as part and parcel of the plight of the community organizer: ‘It’s also important to keep in mind that ACORN’s workers are coming from the same low-income neighborhoods the organization serves, with all that entails — poor schools, high crime, and the sorts of social problems that have been documented for decades.’ The post continued: ‘So the flaws conservatives are pointing out about ACORN are not so much problems associated with that organization per se but more about the problems of being poor and minority in urban America.’ Don’t blame them, in other words. They can’t help themselves; they’re poor people.”
spent some time up in the Arctic when I was a few years younger . . . stuck at some DEW Line base the Gordon Lightfoot song “This ol’ airport’s got me down, its no earthly good for, cause I’m stuck her on the ground cold & drunk as I can be” always made me pine for home & friends.
Especially after numerous pints and some howling the lyrics into an Arctic blizzard.
Fred, “Early Morning Rain” absolutely evokes a similar melancholy/longing. It’s a good one too.
Reader Tip: At the NYT “Room For Debate” blog, various academics and journalists respond to the questions “What is socialism in 2009” and “What does the word mean today?”
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel’s response is titled “Stoking Irrational Fears.” She writes that the “ferocious, well-organized and reactionary opposition” to Obama is “offensive and troubling,” and that “the rabid protesters calling President Obama a socialist are representatives of a long national tradition which features an irrational and well-stoked fear of a strong central government.”
[…]
“I head to Moscow this Sunday to interview the former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Moscow, I know that those who follow our politics are shocked that an educated nation…can attack a moderately liberal president for being socialist.”
Under the header “What’s All The Fuss?”, Emory University Professor Patrick Allitt professes “It’s odd that so many critics of the administration should use ‘socialism’ as a devil word. In fact millions of Americans, including many of these critics, are ardent supporters of socialism…”
In Arizona State University professor Terence Ball’s piece, “Socialist as Patriots,” he asks: “Why are some — mostly older, overwhelmingly white — Americans so afraid of ‘socialism’ and, by extension, ‘socialized medicine’? One explanation is that they don’t actually know what socialism is, namely the public ownership and/or control of the major means of production (mines, mills, factories, etc.) for the benefit of the public at large.”
Holy smokes. I didn’t think any Americans held openly socialist views.
EBD, this visit to your LNR segment is long overdue and I apologize for that…and you know damn well how I feel about “The Cliffs of Dooneen”. I think I’ll have to go put my claddagh on and have a couple of quick ones to chase the Gaelic Miasma away (tip of the cap to T.H. White)…
Prime Minister Harper did more for Canadian diplomacy today,from a Tim Hortons shop, than any speeches made in New York.
But CTV wants your opinion on where he ‘should have been’ today.
http://www.ctv.ca/
bluetech….and the comments on the story are closed also.Wonder if it had anything to do with the 97% support for PMSH? Naw.Our unbiased media wouldn’t do that,would they?
EBD, I find it appropriate that you insert Christy Moore with longing for home.
It was my first world journey. I spent 4 months bartending at a small pub in Mornington, Ireland. It was attached to an old moldy barn, but this place was the life of the town.
I was accepted into these peoples lives in a brief period of time. I loved the love,…but I missed home so much.
I remember being so pumped when I left Alberta, but that experience made me love Alberta and my Country so much more.
BTW, it was Billy Joel playing on the stereo most often but it was Christy Moore’s songs who were performed by the locals.
This presentation reminds me why I like folk music so much; it’s down-home, authentic, and modest. The musicians aren’t the look-at-me-aren’t-I-sexy-wonderful-and-G*d’s-gift-to-the-world types.
It’s enough to play and sing the song well and let it speak for itself.
EBD there is a very nice word in Portuguese to describe a similar feeling called “saudade”.
From the web:
The Portuguese word “saudade”, loosely translated,denotes “longing”, “melancholy”, or “nostalgia.” In the context of Portuguese, however, the term connotes a meaning that is irrevocably lost in translation. In his book In Portugal of 1912, A.F.G Bell makes a few disquisitional remarks on the meaning of “saudade” given its intended context:
“The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.”
Whereas a decontextualized reading of the “saudade” insinuates a rather dreary and destitute nostalgia for an impossible object, Bell’s recontextualization posits saudade’s meaning as a nostalgic yearning for an impossible object, only slightly tinged with the hues of melancholia.
Great quote, TJ. Extraordinarily apt for the post. Thanks.
SAHO offers support health care workers a slap in the face. 2.75, 2, 2.25, and 2.25 is an insult. A sterile process worker, a person who makes up trays of Operating Room utencils gets 16.80 to 18.80 dollars per hour. The secretary at SAHO make more than most health care support workers. Sask Tel, Sask Energy, Sask Power, SGI, and other government agencies all got 4,4 and 4. The nurses recieved 37% over 4 tears and are now back at the table looking for more. Gready pill pushing NURSES. If setting up internet in your home is a job of more importance than a healthcare worker then so be it. But be prepared to clean up your own bedpan when visiting the hospital next time. Take the bull by the horns Mr. Premier and give these workers a decent increase.
Re: an “irrational and well-stoked fear of a strong central government”
Yeah, well Adolf Hitler ran a “strong central government”, so maybe that’s why people want to avoid it.
The Liberals in Canada have often used this same phrase, meaning one to counteract the power of the provinces, as if the normal state of affairs were feds and provinces at war with each other.
Re: “what socialism is, namely the public ownership and/or control of the major means of production (mines, mills, factories, etc.) for the benefit of the public at large”
That’s pretty much correct, except for the “benefit of the public at large” part at the end. Socialism benefits a small, parasitical ruling elite, and makes life miserable for everyone else. Always has, always will. Capitalism is based on freedom, socialism on violence.
Not sure why the ACORN lawsuit isn’t a lead story on here. If/when it is, you might want to consider this lawyer’s thoughts about it, as expressed to Jonah Goldberg.
I contributed $$$ to free speech efforts here in Canada and will do so immediately if Breitbart, O’Keefe, and Giles put out the call for donations. For if the New Media is not given support when attacked by thugs like ACORN then we truly are entering a dark period in our history.
EBD @8:20- of course, according to the NPR’s logic, poor people from bad neighborhoods should never be employed anywhere in any capacity – let alone be given millions in federal funding to “help” with voter turnout and the Census.
Cal2. That is my all time favorite Stan rogers song.
If anyone thinks that any time in the next 10,000 years that there will be shipping through the passage I would like to talk to them about a bridge I know about thats for sale.
Check out the song Saudade by the band Love and Rockets. It’s one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard. And now I know what the title means. Thanks TJ.
Fred at 8:22 PM-
What an interesting coincidence… My father, in 1958, helped man the CAM-3 DEW Line substation at Shepherd Bay, right after it was constructed. I’m lucky he was quite the photographer then, and saved all the pix that tell the story of life way up there inside the Arctic Circle… it’s because of these pictures and the truth behind them that I know that the Arctic from that point on down south belongs to Canada, no doubt.
http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2009/08/original-canadian-sentinel.html
Yep. He was a pioneer in the whole “watching-out-for-the-Bears” biz, in the beginning of NORAD. Interesting, as he was a real-life “Canadian sentinel”, and I’m the “Canadian Sentinel” blogger…
Obama Had Terrorist Ayers Help Write ‘Dreams’
http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-had-terrorist-ayers-help-write.html
Un-be-liev-able:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090924/world/international_us_un_assembly
Absolutely no mention of Canada’s walking out of
Ahmadinejad’s speech, though there was mention of “U.S. and British officials in the assembly hall left at the time of Ahmadinejad’s comments about Israel.”
Huh?
Who writes this stuff?
Alert! Alert! Alert!
Lucy is being investigated by the Canadian HRC!
AMAZING new blog I stumbled across, Kate I know how much you love Warren Kinsella so you’ll enjoy this one: http://kinsellawatch.wordpress.com/
Pop Quiz!! Indoctrination 101
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/23/more-dear-leader-in-the-classroom-obamacare-propaganda-pop-quiz/
Mississauga Matt @7:59 – Cool!!!
(Don’t you love the way nice people throw their buddies under the bus!?)
0820hrs –
Which event should the prime minister have attended?
United Nations assembly in New York 3734 votes (58 %)
Tim Hortons reorganization in Ontario
2739 votes (42 %)
Total Votes: 6473
Highway racism or something.
“The Washington State Traffic Safety Commission has used funding as a way to gain access and trust among Native American populations. Even though the Bureau of Indian Affairs highway safety office manages funds for Native American nations, Native American groups have received direct grants from the WTSC. This tactic has helped build confidence and rapport particularly with tribal police who have sovereignty on Indian Reservations.”
“So there’s a direct connection between taxpayer handouts to ethnic groups and highway safety. Who knew?”
Headline today at National Post:
Arkansas woman expecting two babies, but not twins
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/#ixzz0S2ZNO9GK
Did Slick Willy slip in there?
(Sorry, ‘not in very good taste but I couldn’t resist … 😉
Mark Steyn is filling in for Rush Limbaugh today:
http://www.kgmi.com
Steyn: “Thank God I’m not staying beside Khaddafi’s bedouin tent; the last thing I wanted to hear is goats being sacrificed all night. But nowadays the goats automatically sacrifice themselves when they hear Khadaffi speak.”
It’s deja vue all over again here in Nova Scotia. The NDP have just put forth a budget that looks vaguely familiar. It is essentially the same one they defeated last spring as opposition, right down to changing the same laws to allow a defecit! Talk about a waste of taxpayer’s dollars. Mind you, anyone who thought that the NDP would be the party of hope and change probably have relatives that voted for the great “0” down south.