I suggested a while back that if Bertie Ahern were nominated for the presidency he would have a fair chance of winning so long as he managed to stay out of jail. It seems I was wrong.
 
An accredited constitutional expert that I bumped into at the Picnic explained the pertinent point – that it’s practically impossible to bring a criminal charge against a serving president. So it wasn’t that staying out of jail might help Ahern win the presidency, but that winning the presidency might help him stay out of jail.
I’d given Ahern a chance of winning because I reckoned that the sort of folk who’d backed him for years in Dubland Central might be daft enough to vote for him as president. Ahern himself seemed confident. Other FFers, he jeered on that TV3 programme a fortnight back, were afraid even to venture into Sean McDermott Street. Whereas he, Bertie, remained the apple of the inner city’s eye.
I put this to the effusion of Dubs accompanying the aforementioned constitutional expert, some of whose mas and das had been plumping for Bertie since before time began and who wanted me to understand that if the gobdaw ever showed his jowly bake in Ballybough again, “They’ll be queuing up to rip his arse inside out.”
Intrigued by the colourful patois, I inquired as to how one ripped another’s arse inside out. “We’d practise on him first.”
Hell hath no fury like a Dub who’s copped on that his ma had been taken for a fool.
 
Here’s another difference between everywhere else and the way we do things here.
I am told and have no reason to doubt that top-notch teams of professional nit-pickers were employed to give Ahern a full-body inspection every morning before his evidence to the Mahon Tribunal to check that there wasn’t a shred of dignity left on him. Fit to face the day’s proceedings, he’d then shamble his way to the witness box solemnly to swear that he couldn’t for the life of him remember who the fellows were who kept stuffing fistfuls of €50 notes into his mitt every time he put his head out the door, but that he did remember clearly that none of them ever asked for or expected anything whatsoever in return.
Meanwhile in Paris, former president Jacques Chirac, 78, has been excused from attending his trial on embezzlement charges after producing a note from his doctor saying he is suffering from memory loss and “would have trouble defending his positions logically and was not coherent.”
Here, illogicality and incoherence, far from being impediments to politicians trying to defend themselves against charges of corruption, are key requirements for emerging from the proceedings unscathed.
 
I saw ex-Irish Catholic editor David Quinn on The Frontline giving out about oppressive secularism making it difficult for Christians to force everybody else to conform to their views. Has he considered moving to Louisiana?
Damon Fowler was all set to graduate from Bastrop High in the Crawdaddy State when he discovered that the school authorities had included a Christian prayer in the graduation ceremony. Damon, an atheist, knew this was in breach of the constitutional ban on government-sponsored prayer in public schools. So he complained.
The school ignored both the complaint and the constitution and went ahead with the prayer. Damon’s class teacher, Mitzi Quinn (no relation, presumably), said that there had been atheists, agnostics and all manner of non-Christian eccentrics at Bastrop High in previous times, and that not one had had a problem with Christian prayers. “None of them ever said a word, until Mr. Fowler.” A writer in a local newspaper accused Damon of “trying to shove his views down people’s throats”. He was jeered at and threatened at school and in the community. His parents disowned him and threw him out of the house.
On the other hand, a “Support Damon” group on Facebook attracted more than 10,000 members, well-wishers provided him with places to stay, physical protection and legal advice, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation chipped in $1,000 to help fill the tuition fund shortfall arising from his parents’ withdrawal of support.
“This amount of support Mr. Fowler has had for his hate of religious freedom should be worrying us all,” said Louisiana Senator David Vitte (Rep.)
Louisiana strikes me as the sort of place where those who have given up on Bishop-baiting, God-hating, post-Christian Ireland might find solace and a meaningful role and might even make a difference.  
 
The minimum requirement for a festival experience is one transcendent performance a day.
Rebel balladeer PJ Harvey’s sweet-punk remix of ‘The Condition Of The English Working Class’.
And So I Watch You From Afar’s invocation of the Apocalypse.
Kate Tempest’s response to bone-headed blogger Guido Fawkes’s dismissal of the rioting classes: “These cannibal kids want to be kings/But there ain’t no royalty left/Because, round here, the sirens and screams float on the wind/And even the street shudders/Yes even the street shudders/Round here/These cannibal kids want to be kings/They don’t know that kindness is courage/Or that sympathy sings much louder than violence/They are bitter and drained/Eyes of ice stare from figures of flames/They, puff-chested, restless, nameless/They carry their pain to the point of being painless…”
I allude not at all to sharing a joint with Chuck D. Just thought I’d drop that one in casual.