--In his online column today, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow sets out a very interesting chart comparing various "Revolutionary Measures" (democracy indices, household food spending, internet penetration, etc.) in the Middle East, North Africa, and the U.S. for comparison. Things to note: the U.S. has the highest income inequality rating on the board (45 on the Gini Index), five points higher than Egypt, 10.6 points higher than Tunisia, and half a point higher than Iran. Turkey is one point higher than Egypt and 6.6 points higher than Tunisia in income disparity; moreover, its regime type is listed as "Hybrid" and has a 5.7 (out of 10) democracy rating on the Economist Intelligence Unit scale, which is only 2.6 points higher than Egypt. Granted, Turkey leads the field in the Muslim world, but even Israel's "flawed democracy" regime clocks in at a 7.5. More food for thought as we keep reading about how the Muslim world should emulate Turkey.
--Interesting that the elected and unelected portions of the GOP/Tea Party/Angry Reactionary coalition have been so quiet on Egypt. Mother Jones and the Times speculated last week that the GOP is so focused on blocking Obama's domestic agenda that it simply can't be bothered to comment on the Middle East; some articles went further, citing Republican leaders (usually of the behind-the-scenes variety) who said the administration had been handling the situation pretty well and who wanted to stay out of it so that America could speak with one voice on the crises. Notably, Speaker John Boehner was quoted both for and against the "unity and quiet" thesis, falling into line late in the week but earlier being quoted as saying that he wished Mubarak would remain. Memo to the Tea Party and those who kowtow at the "Don't Tread on Me" flag: democracy was pretty high on the priority list of those infallible Founders and their Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson (aka the U.S. Constitution). Read the lesser-known and slightly hysterical second half of the Declaration and replace His Majesty with Mubarak and see what happens. Just sayin'.
--Everyone should read this article by Mother Jones' David Corn, in which he interviews a disgusted David Stockman, architect of the Reagan tax cuts, on the GOP's fetishization of a misremembered/misinterpreted version of those cuts. According to Stockman (who comes across as a little slimy, it must be said), even the Gipper understood that you had to cut spending alongside taxes and the Reagan cuts--which were originally opposed by congressional Republicans--were only meant to be temporary (they were eventually recouped with tax hikes). Stockman maintains that his and the Reagan administration's fiscal policy was a mistake and lambastes today's GOP for taking "the wrong lesson" from the Reagan years ("that big tax cuts are economic magic") and turning it into untouchable doctrine. He hasn't gone blue yet, but he was "horrified" at George W. Bush's economic policies and publicly argued that the Bush tax cuts should expire.
--Employing a perfect-in-the-glow-of-hindsight version of Reaganomics sounds a bit like reading a cleaned-up version of the infallible Constitution on the House floor to open this session, doesn't it? For Michele Bachmann to claim that the Founders did their best to get rid of slavery -- despite owning slaves and in some cases being especially, ahem, fond of them (just ask Jefferson's Sally Hemmings) -- in this, the 150th anniversary year of the start of the Civil War, is disingenuous at best and blatantly disrespectful at worst. First, read a history book (just not one of those newfangled school textbooks that puts forward the "happy slave" trope). Then, read the Constitution -- all of it (yes, the amendments are part of the Constitution). First of all, it was amended. Secondly, note that blacks got the right to vote before women (Bachmann could not have entered a ballot booth, much less been on the ballot, until 1919). Third, note that there are two amendments that abrogate each other (18 and 21, of Prohibition fame). Fourth, recall that those infallible Founders couldn't shoehorn the Bill of Rights (including the precious Second Amendment) into the original document and had to go back later. Perfect? Infallible? You tell me.
--Remember how incensed everyone was when the Chinese forcibly spruced up Beijing for their Summer Olympics? Apparently the good people of Arlington, Texas, don't: City Council passed an ordinance in December outlawing panhandling within a pretty wide radius of Cowboys Stadium, home of tonight's Super Bowl XLV. As a local advocate for the homeless -- and there are plenty of homeless people in Greater Dallas -- wryly noted, it's pretty ironic that we push out the poor to welcome those (the players) who grew up in poverty.
--I like the Steelers to get one for the other thumb, 27-24.
--I've been in Galway for a month. Wow. As usual, it's still simultaneously brand new and old hat. Four months to go, and suddenly that doesn't seem very long if they go as fast as this month did...
--Finally, a thought on language: this first occurred to me last semester as I struggled to learn Turkish, but I think the power of learning language can't be overstated. Let's face it: the whole world knows English. There are few places left where I couldn't find someone who speaks my language; many countries (including Turkey) begin universal English education in primary school. Ireland is the same in many ways since almost everyone here speaks English, yet it is different because English is the colonial language here. As much as it was nice to be able to speak a little Turkish to get by and feel connected to the place I was living in last semester, I actually feel even more urgency with learning Irish than with Turkish. Why so? Ireland has a long and complicated relationship with language and culture, with the situation today being that hardly anyone speaks Irish here anymore outside of the Gaeltacht areas. (Galway is on the edge of the Connemara Gaeltacht, one of the biggest in the country.) Between the Famine and the English-language-only instruction in schools under British rule, Irish was pushed to the brink before the Gaelic League and cultural nationalism took off in the early 1900's.
These days, the language is making a little bit of a comeback, particularly in the west. And that is one of the reasons I'm so happy I chose Galway: NUIG is bilingual by charter, with a vibrant Centre for Irish Studies and the Acadamh na hOllscolaiochta Gaelige (Irish department). My two hours of Irish class every Thursday morning are my favorite class, and I'm desperate to learn as much of the language as I can before I leave. Not only is Irish an interesting and beautiful language (though not an easy one!), but it is a piece of my own heritage and an intimate part of this place. Many people predicted before I left that it would be nice to go back to speaking English in the spring, and it has been in some ways, but I'm actually a lot more interested in picking up Irish. Thanks to the British, everyone here now speaks English and there is absolutely zero expectation that anyone -- especially Mhic Leinn on Iasacht (visiting students) like me -- know two words of the language, but there are enough Irish speakers in and around Galway to make Irish occasionally useful in daily life (buying eggs at the market, say). And they are invariably surprised and impressed that an American would go to the trouble of learning Irish.
Two weekends ago, I went hiking in Connemara with the Mountaineering Club, my usual Sunday activity. Walking back up the road to the pub at the end of the hike, we passed a sign reading "An Gaeltacht" (the Gaeltacht) on the side of the road, on which someone with a sense of irony had spray-painted "RIP." A small but memorable bit of social commentary on the state of Irish and Irish-speakers in Ireland today (minimal and marginalized, respectively). The Gaeltacht areas are dying due to lack of economic opportunity, and English -- as it was before independence -- remains the de facto language of progress, so Irish speakers are fleeing the Gaeltacht for the cities and/or other countries as their homes suffer even more than the rest of Ireland in the economic crisis.
As my Irish professor pointed out at orientation, to understand how a people think, you have to understand their language, and the language of Ireland is Irish, whether spoken or simply evoked in modern Hiberno-English. Just as in Turkey, learning the Irish language itself is much more important than simply picking up a slang word or two or assimilating some Hiberno-Englishims into my vocabulary. It is a very powerful and humbling thing to leave the sure footing of English and step onto someone else's linguistic home field, where I distinctly do not have the advantage. Thankfully, the Irish, like the Turks, are usually tickled by and willing to work with a new learner of their language. As such, I make an effort to use Irish when and where possible, and take advantage of people's willingness to play along, for example by inserting English words into Irish sentence structures when I don't have the Irish word I need. We'll see what happens by the end of the semester, but for now it's a new, exciting and treasured challenge to be picking up a new language in a nominally English-speaking country. Slan!
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