Neglect

I went on vacation and then I was going to write about it, but then I started a knitting course instead.  Check out my new project!

Split focus = hopefully I'll someday tell you about Sweden.

Ireland, Get Out The Vote!

It's voting day in Dublin, and the Lisbon Treaty is the hot issue.

Source: ft.com. Check out the full slideshow of images here.

When I first started seeing YES and NO to Lisbon signs about a month and half ago, I thought they were voting on whether to allow Lisbon into the EU.  Yes, it seemed a bit weird that they'd vote on a city rather than, say, the entire country of Portugal, but I'm just American, I don't know about this stuff.  

As it turns out, I still don't know much about it, but I did educate myself enough to know that it's a Treaty that was voted on in 2007, and that Ireland voted against it.  So, basically, there's now kind of a 're-vote' happening, and people are really, really divided on the issue.  The No People are like, WTF, didn't we already vote against this?  And the Yes Folks are all, Maybe we should stick with the European Union on this one?

More interesting to me than the issues, however, are the campaign tactics.  It's a pretty hilarious contrast.

The 'Yes to Lisbon' campaign is ridiculously upbeat and cheesy.  The street signs are simple enough: big YES FOR WORKERS and YES TO EUROPE posters stuck on street poles, each with a person of a different ethnicity leaning against a wall, arms crossed with a knowing smile, or looking up as they wipe their hands on their apron on a break in the local diner.  That kind of stuff.  A bit cliché, but harmless.  The video campaigns, however, as this article and several internet forums aptly point out, are just plain patronizing.  

I went to see Julie & Julia last weekend (great movie, adorable, teared up several times) and Away We Go the week before (a little meandering, but got better as it went).  So, just like the effing 'Twenty' that we have to sit through in the states, there are advertisement that run in Irish cinemas before the previews start, and now included among them is a pro-Lisbon (cleverly disguised in flashy cartoons and a friendly, female Irish voiceover) ad called 'what's this eu thingy doing for me?'  The nice lady proceeds to tell you, Not to worry, the seats you're sitting in right now are measured the the standards of European comfort! That popcorn you're eating isn't from China (okay, my words, not hers)!  And gosh, no matter which 'exotic' European location you want to travel to, no need to worry about the price of souvenirs, 'the Euro will sort you out'! 

 The most patronizing thing about it, though, is the repeated used of the word 'thingy,' as thought the Irish use it all the time because they're too stupid to use real, accurate words and that the word is the best way to explain a complicated treaty that would change the way the EU elects its officials and other EU processes and thing(y)s.

But the No campaign is even more (darkly) hilarious.

Source: indymedia.ie

It's basically fear-mongering, and from what I've read in 'non-biased' articles, a lot of it is based on false claims.  But I don't vote here, so again, I don't care much for the real issues.  It's the posters that really crack me up.

One features a tiny man in a hardhat, about to be stomped on my a giant, steel-toed workers boot, his arms flung desperately in front of him as though they will somehow protect him from this enormous foe: FOR WORKERS, NO TO LISBON.  This theme of people being crushed or bulldozed or otherwise physically harmed by large objects or beings is recurring in the No campaign, as though there's some clause in the treaty that will finally allow Giantland to join the EU and its citizens to lumber in and annihilate all the Irish.  

Leprechaun syndrome, anyone?  I think the Irish are a bit sensitive about feeling small.

My favorite No poster, however, doesn't involved direct depictions of violence and it only went up a few days ago, just in time to really impact the vote.  IRISH DEMOCRACY 1921*-2009? NO TO LISBON is written across the top half.  Pretty straight forward message; a yes to Lisbon is a no to democracy.  Covering the bottom half of the poster, however, is a picture of a tearful, green-eyed, creamy-skinned, Irish girl.  That's right.  Vote yes to Lisbon and you will make adorable, Gaelic children cry!  It's completely incongruous, but brilliant.  I'm sure some poor old lady changed her vote because of it.

In conclusion, politics are much the same everywhere.  It's the image that counts, not the issues.

*I'm not too sure about that date, but that is the year that Ireland became an independent state.  I wish I had had my camera to take a picture of the poster.

More cards

And also, some new toys.

Also...

I had a dream last night that the GD was away and Bret and Jemaine came to visit me, only at my mom's house in Vancouver, WA.  Jemaine wasn't around much, maybe he's just a more devoted husband slash father and so he had better things to do.  Too bad, because he's actually my favorite (no offense, Bret, if you're reading this, I'm just attracted to awkward and kind of weird looking).  Anyhow, I tried to pass Bret off as the Good Doctor so my mom wouldn't ask any questions, mostly by hiding him so she couldn't see that he wasn't actually the same Kiwi boyfriend she had met just months earlier.  She came into my room once as we were setting up my childhood trundle bed (that's right, I wasn't actually going to cheat on the GD with Bret-- we slept in separate, nestling beds), but a fortuitous blinding ray of sunlight came streaming through the window and prevented her from getting a good look.  Whew!  Anyhow, then Bret and I had kind of an awkward slumber party.  I drew a picture.

My sister used to sleep in that thing.

Then, back in real life, the GD woke me up to say goodbye, he was going to work.  I told him what I was dreaming about.  He whispered, "Go back to them.  Go back to sleep."

What new music should I buy?

It just occurred to me that I haven't bought a new CD in over a year.  I am bad at keeping up with new artists in the States, but when I'm abroad, I don't listen to the radio at all and (apparently) don't hang out with people who know about new music.  I am sick of my iPod and the Good Doctor is in the same boat.

Suggestions?  Dissuasions?  Food for my starving artist?

On fashion: the tracksuit

Ireland is not (ahem) at the height of fashion, but it really, really wants to be.  

There are the knackers (not my term) who are unwavering in their determination to make the tracksuit an outfit for all occasions-- shopping; eating fast food; weddings; running drunkenly into oncoming traffic; celebrating 14th birthdays with tall boys on the top story of a Dublin bus; cursing; pick-pocketing a woman in broad daylight and then denying it when that woman and her friends follow her, demand the wallet back, and finally call the Garda (this really happened to someone I know); and probably, in a tasteful black, funerals.

I do not, as a rule, wish to make sweeping generalizations about a population.  "Knacker" began as degrading term for "travelers," those living in mobile homes and trailer parks and generally viewed with the same disdain as the Romanian Gypsies are in Italy.  I don't like using it (though the Irish pull it out without censor) because it is, in essence, a discriminatory slur.  There is also the more severe term "scumbag," which was developed to describe a smaller subset; those who might pull a rusty needle out of their own arm and stab you with it if the heroin isn't doing its job yet.

Things have become a bit more simplified.  

Knacker = any boisterous, drunk, track-suited person with a gelled mullet (man) or scrunchied ponytail (woman) who is openly breaking the law (e.g. drinking in public, running against a traffic light, screaming at the Gardaí who pulled them kicking from the restaurant where they were causing a stir); age does not make a difference, but the majority seem to be between the age of 13 and 20; annoying, but generally harmless (just watch out for the purse-snatchers).

Scumbag = junkie stabbing.  You do not want this.  

It's a bit of a square, rectangle situation.  A scumbag is a knacker, but a knacker isn't necessarily a scumbag.

So I've moved to Ireland, learned some degrading words for the locals, noted that track suits really aren't a good look on anyone (I felt this way several years ago when J-Lo popularized the pink velour version); drinking is not an organized sport, folks, you don't all need to look the same.  

No!

Not everyone here is strung out or an alcoholic, so how to explain the overwhelming bad taste? When the GD first moved to Ireland, he was working in A&E (that's Accidents & Emergencies, a.k.a. the E.R., for all y'all Americans), and I think, for a time, he did believe that every Irish person had a serious addiction problem.  But those were the only people he ever saw.  And I, despite seeing people shooting up or smoking heroin on our street on nearly a daily basis, know that this is not everyone.  Just the ones who think that a doorway is a secret hiding place to do drugs.

What's really to blame?  Well, I think peer pressure is always a part of bad fashion choices, but the cyclical nature of the fashion world is always what astonishes me most.  I remember when I had to stop wearing leggings because they were not cool anymore and I had enough other reasons to be picked on (I know you can back me up on this, J).  So yes, I am moving away from the tracksuit, and on to Ireland's secondary fashion crime: a full return to the 80s.  

I know that hipsters in the States have been moving in that direction for years-- the skinny jeans (guilty) eventually had to lead back to the source, right?  A return to leggings was inevitable.  People really started re-embracing them around my junior and senior years in college, but only the really cool, skinny girls could pull it off, and I secretly thought they looked ridiculous.  I will wear skinny jeans.  I will wear leggings under a dress.  I will not wear leggings with a tee-shirt that exposes my bum and makes me feel as though I'm wearing nothing at all.*

I think the irony of the whole hipster movement was lost long ago, really as soon as it because a cultural phenomenon and Target started selling those fake leather stretch pants (the worst!).  But in Ireland, there is no irony.  There never was.  There are just throngs of teenage girls who maybe never saw Sixteen Candles and don't realize that what they are doing has all been done before.  The neon colors are back and the bad, bright make-up with it (though I think the orange shellac as foundation never went out of style in some circles).  Some of the more daring girls have "edgy" haircuts-- short! asymmetrical!--, salon-styled and product-filled as ever.  The longer-haired ones make sure that their ponytails are good and frizzy; no one thinks you just rolled out of bed, honey, your eyeliner would be on your chin if you went to sleep like that.

So maybe I sound mean, or just plain bitter.  Maybe I am longing for my own days of legging innocence, before I tried on my first pair of jeans and thought Horrible!  Stiff!  Who would wear these?  The result?  Years of wearing wide-leg jeans (again, long after they were in fashion), more awkwardness and being ostracized by peers.  Or maybe I just want these young women to realize that they don't have to wear a tracksuit or leggings to fit in and be cool.  In fact, it doesn't really look cool at all.

*I may some day eat these words.

I'm making business cards

Attempt number one.  Later versions are tidier and more regular in size.