Manhattan Diary
by Cahir O'DohertyRSS 
Recent Posts
- Violent attacks on gays in New York up 70 percent in 2013
- Will New York Senator Chuck Schumer ditch gay couples for an immigration deal?
- If nobody's happy, it's working – the abortion debate and Irish politics of stalemate
- Conservative news entertainment complex claim Barack Obama leader of Al Qaeda
- Why Irish grudges are passed on - a long tradition of never forgetting
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It's simple really, easy to get your head around.
Never mind that America's rich haven't created any worthwhile jobs or industries in a decade, just accept that the rich should be getting richer at an even faster pace.
Let me clarify something at the outset: I don't like it. It's human nature to resist profound upheaval, particularly when it's international. Change of this magnitude - even positive change - can be scary.
But dramatic change, and the growing desire for it, is now the defining characteristic of our era because we find ourselves living in an age where our government - both sides - seems increasingly incapable of governing well, where our faceless corporations have been ruled 'people' by our Supreme Court, where those same corporations seem to have more power than elected officials, where social inequality is off the charts and where special interests apparently hold more sway than the voting public.
Her acceptance speech was classic McAleese: informed, heartfelt, genuinely supportive and speaking as a president for all of the Irish people.
She will be a very tough act to follow. I hope the Irish public will keep her example in mind when they go to the polls to elect a new president on Friday.
In comparison to his immediate predecessor his success in bringing the world's most wanted terrorists and dictators to justice has been nothing short of remarkable.
In fact the contrast speaks for itself.
Thanks to his presidency, and the utterly lost decade he presided over, America has now reached the point where anyone - anyone - thinks they'd make a fine president.
How else to explain the clown car of 2012 Republican presidential contenders currently running? These are not world class political operatives by any yard stick - most of them are not even sophisticated enough to head up a suburban Rotary Club - but they'll probably be the last to know.
The shocking practice began during General Franco’s dictatorship, trafficking babies by a secret network of doctors, nurses, priests and nuns, and it continued until the early 1990's.
Children were removed from the homes of politically suspect parents, or from single mothers or the unreligious, and transferred to good Catholic homes.
So spare a thought for hard working Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who'll be playing a round of strenuous golf at Newport Beach in California today in the company of some of the richest people in America.
As Wall Street is under siege from a growing international protest that's condemning corporate influence on our elections, apparently tone deaf Boehner is cozying up the richest 1% they blame for our woes.
Many plots were hatched to help her and other royals escape the approaching Terror, but she rejected all of them because she felt assured it would all blow over. When you're that rich it almost always does.
So it's hard not to think of her high-handed arrogance when you listen to Herman Cain talk.
'The problem is that sexual activity with people who you are in close quarters with who happen to be of the same sex is different than being open about your sexuality,' Santorum said.
That quip raised Fox host Chris Wallace's eyebrows, forcing him to ask Santorum if he was suggesting gay soldiers would 'go after' their straight colleagues.
Speaking on the Laura Ingraham radio show this weekend King did his best to vilify the growing movement as a 'ragtag' band of malcontents, rather than a populist movement riding the surge of anger at the income inequality that is still growing in the United States (and which is now so unequal it puts us closer to Honduras than Sweden, say).
King recalled that such protests arose before in the 1960's. And that's when he also remembered how effective they ultimately were in changing the national debate.
When the Obama administration stepped in to put an end to the geyser of ridiculous charges, fees, and dodgy rates, for a while there it looked like the banks didn't know who to shakedown.
Fear no more. Our banks have found brilliant new ways to charge the under privileged for the privilege of being allowed to use their own money.
Fox News went down to Wall Street to meet the Occupy Wall Street protestors. Should have been an easy gig, right? Just point the camera at these wooly headed socialists and pop it on Greta Van Susteren.
But that's not what played out at all. In fact, they interviewed protester Jesse LaGreca and got schooled. The offer to LaGreca to go 'on the record' was forgotten and its understood this interview ended up on the cutting room floor.
And what if, as you watched your friends run out to dances and teenage parties, you realized that you would never find anything you were looking for there? What if you watched the doors to love and life opening for your friends, but all you saw were doors being slammed shut?
Then things get weirder. Suddenly you became a stranger in your own home. Your parents, once the source of all comfort to you, became potential jurors. Your siblings started to give evidence against you. You start to dread coming home.
