The Fool

Since the wise men have not spoken, I speak that am only a fool; A fool that hath loved his folly, Yea, more than the wise men their books or their counting houses, or their quiet homes, Or their fame in men’s mouths; A fool that in all his days hath done never a prudent thing, Never hath counted the cost, nor recked if another reaped The fruit of his mighty sowing, content to scatter the seed; A fool that is unrepentant, and that soon at the end of all Shall laugh in his lonely heart as the ripe ears fall to the reaping-hooks And the poor are filled that were empty, Tho’ he go hungry.   I have squandered the splendid years that the Lord God gave to my youth In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil. Was it folly or grace? Not men shall iudge me, but God.   I have squandered the splendid years: Lord, if I had the years I would squander them over again, Aye, fling them from me! For this I have heard in my heart, that a man shall scatter, not hoard, Shall do the deed of to-day, nor take thought of to-morrow’s teen, Shall not bargain or huxter with God; or was it a jest of Christ’s And is this my sin before men, to have taken Him at His word?   The lawyers have sat in council, the men with the keen, long faces, And said, “This man is a fool,” and others have said, “He blasphemeth;” And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things, To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.   O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true? What if the dream come true? and if millions unborn shall dwell In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought? Lord, I have staked my soul, I have staked the lives of my kin On the truth of Thy dreadful word. Do not remember my failures, But remember this my faith.   And so I speak. Yea, ere my hot youth pass, I speak to my people and say: Ye shall be foolish as I; ye shall scatter, not save; Ye shall venture your all, lest ye lose what is more than all; Ye shall call for a miracle, taking Christ at His word. And for this I will answer, O people, answer here and hereafter, O people that I have loved shall we not answer together?   —Pádraig Pearse

6 Women: 1916 Uprising portraits by David Rooney

Kathleen Lynn (1874–1955), a clergyman's daughter from Co. Mayo, was a medical doctor devoted to services for the poor, a woman's suffragist and separatist. Chief medical officer of the Irish Citizen Army, during the Easter Rising she supervised a first-aid station in Dublin City Hall until t he garrison's surrender. In 1919 she established St Ultan's Hospital for Infants, and in the 1930s pioneered BCG inoculations against tuberculosis.
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Constance Markievicz (1868–1927) was born in London, the daughter of Sir Henry Gore-Booth of Lissadell, Co. Sligo. Breaking with her Ascendancy background, she joined Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, and co-founded Na Fianna Éireann in 1909. During Easter week she served as second-in-command of the Irish Citizen Army garrison in the College of Surgeons. Her death sentence was commuted and she was released from prison in June 1917. The first woman to be elected a Westminster MP in 1918, she was minister for labour in the Dáil cabinet (1919–21).
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Helena Molony (1883–1967) was a grocer's daughter from Dublin's north city-centre market district. Active in the feminist and separatist movements, she was an Abbey Theatre actress, trade union official, secretary of the Irish Citizen Army women's group, and manager of the Liberty Hall women workers' co·operative which made uniforms and equipment in preparation for the Easter Rising. She served in the ICA City Hall garrison that surrendered on the evening of Easter Monday, and was interned in England until December 1916.
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Elizabeth O'Farrell (1884–1957) was born in Dublin and worked as a midwife at Holles Street hospital. A committed trade unionist, she was also involved in nationalist and suffragist organisations. She served in the GPO during Easter week. delivering Pearse's offer of surrender to British forces, and his surrender order to other insurgent garrisons. After the Easter Rising, she remained a dedicated republican activist.
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Mary Perolz (1874–1950) was born in Market Alley, Limerick city and raised in Tralee and Cork city, where her father worked on the Cork Examiner. Prominent in Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she was dispatched as a courier carrying the remobilisation orders from Patrick Pearse to the Cork city Volunteers. Elected acting president for the Irish Women Workers' Union in 1917. she remained an outspoken champion of the rights of women in industry and the labour movement.
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Margaret Skinnider (1893–1971) was a Glasgow-born mathematics teacher of Co. Monaghan extraction. Joining the lrish Citizen Army on a Dublin visit, she returned to assist in preparations for the Easter Rising. During Easter week she cycled around Dublin carrying dispatches and also took sniper duty in military uniform in the College of Surgeons. Critically wounded in a sortie, she was the most serious female casualty among the rebels, and recovered after seven weeks in hospital.
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Illustrations by David Rooney, from 1916: Portraits and Lives (Royal Irish Academy).

Also see:  “Eight Women of the Easter Rising” by Sadhbh Walshe, New York Times, March 16, 2016

16 lives: portraits of the 1916 uprising martyrs by David Rooney

Pádraig Pearse


Thomas Clarke


Thomas MacDonagh


Joseph Plunkett


Ned Daly


Willie Pearse


Michael O’Hanrahan


John MacBride


Éamonn Ceannt


Michael Malliin


Con Colbert


Seán Heuston


Thomas Kent


Seán MacDiarmada


James Connolly


Roger Casement

Hillary Clinton’s donors

Besides the $125 million taken in by both Clintons for speeches since leaving the White House, including $2.9 milliion by Hillary for 12 speeches at financial firms since leaving the Department of State, and besides the many multi-million-dollar donors to the the Clinton Foundation whose business was affected by Hillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State (which apparent bribery is currently being investigated by the State Department, while her running the department out of her basement is being investigated by the FBI and Congress), the simple (ignoring the PACs and SuperPACs) funding of Hillary’s current campaign for the Democratic nomination for President is revealing.

According to Open Secrets, at the time of this writing, the proportions of donations to all of the presidential primary candidates from individuals working for various industries that have gone to Clinton are:

• 54% of all donations from casinos/gambling, 19 times as much as Sanders
• 35% of all donations from commercial banks, 25 times as much as Sanders
• 46% of all donations from computer/internet, 4 times as much as Sanders
• 60% of all donations from education, 5 times as much as Sanders
• 34% of all donations from health professionals, 7 times as much as Sanders
• 45% of all donations from health services/HMOs, 9 times as much as Sanders
• 28% of all donations from hedge funds and private equity, 141 times as much as Sanders
• 43% of all donations from hospitals/nursing homes, 7 times as much as Sanders
• 22% of all donations from insurance, 13 times as much as Sanders
• 62% of all donations from lawyers/law firms, 33 times as much as Sanders
• 45% of all donations from of donations from lobbyists, 173 times as much as Sanders
• 11% of all donations from oil and gas (one of the only categories where Clinton is not the top recipient), 16 times as much as Sanders
• 35% of all donations from pharmaceuticals/health products, 8 times as much as Sanders
• 31% of all donations from real estate, 20 times as much as Sanders
• 33% of all donations from securities and investment, 53 times as much as Sanders
• 38% of all donations from telephone utilities, 11 times as much as Sanders
• 9% of all donations from tobacco (the other category where Clinton is not the top recipient), none to Sanders
• 71% of all donations from TV/movies/music, 9 times as much as Sanders

Also according to Open Secrets, 71% of individuals’ donations to the Bernie Sanders campaign are less than $200, whereas for the Hillary Clinton campaign only 17% of individuals’ donations are less than $200.

CAILL: lose

Caillim, vl. cailleadh, cailleamh, cailleamhain(t), caill, caillt, p.a. caillte, v. tr. and intr., I lose, spend; I forget; I fail; with ar, neglect, fail disappoint, deceive; in pass., I die, perish, am ruined; do cailleadh é, he died; does not mean “die” in Don.; impers., caillfidh ar a neart, his strength will fail; ba dhóbair cailleamhaint ar a lúth, his limb-power nearly failed; ná caill orm, do not fail me; do chaill a chluasa, his ears failed (Fil.); c. le, I am a loser by, I spend on; chaillis é ná rabhais istigh, you lost a great treat by being out; chailleas é, I lost a good opportunity; c. mo náire, I lose my shame; cailleadh an tsolais, night fall (U.); cailleachaim (rare).

Caillseach, -sighe, -cha, f., an earwig; al. gaillseach.

Caillte, p.a., lost, drenched, ruined, destroyed, dead; very bad, as ba ch. an mhaise agat é, it ill became you to do, etc.; beart ch.. a very mean act; (O’N. also has caillte, dead); táim c. le, I am a loser by; táim c., I am lost, ruined; tá púnt c. agam le, I am a pound at a loss by, I have spent a pound on.

Caillteoir, -ora, -rí, m., a loser, a spender, a spoiler; a waster of time.

—Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, 1927, by Patrick Dinneen

Bernie Sanders: abortion

From the Bernie Sanders campaign:

The Supreme Court guaranteed a woman's right to choose in the Roe v. Wade decision 43 years ago today. This was a tremendous step to protect women's health and to affirm their control of their own bodies.

Unfortunately, since the Roe v. Wade decision, extreme right-wing politicians in states have made it more and more difficult for women to actually access abortion care, aided in many cases by the federal Hyde Amendment and other anti-abortion policies. Nearly a quarter of these restrictions have come in the last five years. This is unacceptable.

The extreme right-wing works tirelessly to make it more difficult for women to access reproductive health care. Republicans in office work to shut down clinics while extremists terrorize health care providers and their patients. Making women travel hundreds of miles, wait weeks for an appointment and face harassment at the clinic door is a national disgrace.

So today, on the anniversary of this important Supreme Court decision, we must affirm not only the right to have an abortion, but we must protect the right to access a doctor or clinic who can perform that procedure.

Add your name to mine if you agree we must expand access to reproductive health care and protect Roe v. Wade.

We are not going back to the days when women had to risk their lives to end an unwanted pregnancy. The decision about abortion must remain a decision for a woman and her doctor to make, not the government.

We are not going to allow the extreme right-wing to defund Planned Parenthood, we are going to expand it. Planned Parenthood provides vital healthcare services for millions of people, who rely on its clinics every year for affordable, quality health care services including cancer prevention, STI and HIV testing and general primary health care services. The current attempt to malign Planned Parenthood is part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies.

We are not going back to the days when women did not have full access to birth control. Incredibly, almost all of the Republicans in Congress are in favor of giving any employer who provides health insurance, or any insurance company, the ability to deny coverage for contraception or any other kind of procedure if the employer had a “moral” objection to it. That is unacceptable.

Under my administration, we will protect and expand the fundamental rights of women to control their own bodies. I promise to only nominate Supreme Court Justices who support Roe v. Wade. Our Medicare-for-all plan would cover reproductive health care, including abortion, because all health care is a right, not a privilege. And I would work to repeal the federal Hyde Amendment, which currently restricts the federal government from spending any money on abortion care. That is wrong, and it will be abolished when I am president.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders: gun violence

From the Bernie Sanders campaign:

Here is the very sad truth: it is very difficult for the American people to keep up with the mass shootings we seem to see every day in the news. Yesterday, San Bernardino. Last week, Colorado Springs. Last month, Colorado Springs again. Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Isla Vista, Virginia Tech, Navy Yard, Roseburg, and far too many others.

The crisis of gun violence has reached epidemic levels in this country to the point that we are averaging more than one mass shooting per day. Now, I am going to tell you something that most candidates wouldn’t say: I am not sure there is a magical answer to how we end gun violence in America. But I do know that while thoughts and prayers are important, they are insufficient and it is long past time for action.

That’s why I want to talk to you today about a few concrete actions we should take as a country that will save lives.

1. We can expand background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill. This is an idea that over 80% of Americans agree with, even a majority of gun owners.

2. & 3. We can renew the assault weapons ban and end the sale of high capacity magazines — military-style tools created for the purpose of killing people as efficiently as possible.

4. Since 2004, over 2,000 people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list have legally purchased guns in the United States. Let’s close the “terror gap” and make sure known foreign and domestic terrorists are included on prohibited purchaser lists.

5. We can close loopholes in our laws that allow perpetrators of stalking and dating violence to buy guns. In the United States, the intended targets of a majority of our mass shootings are intimate partners or family members, and over 60% of victims are women and children. Indeed, a woman is five times more likely to die in a domestic violence incident when a gun is present.

6. We should close the loophole that allows prohibited purchasers to buy a gun without a completed background check after a three-day waiting period expires. Earlier this year, Dylann Roof shot and killed nine of our fellow Americans while they prayed in a historic church, simply because of the color of their skin. This act of terror was possible because of loopholes in our background check laws. Congress should act to ensure the standard for ALL gun purchases is a completed background check. No check — no sale.

7. It’s time to pass federal gun trafficking laws. I support Kirsten Gillibrand’s Hadiya Pendleton and Nyasia Pryear-Yard Gun Trafficking & Crime Prevention Act of 2015, which would “make gun trafficking a federal crime and provide tools to law enforcement to get illegal guns off the streets and away from criminal networks and street gangs.”

8. It’s time to strengthen penalties for straw purchasers who buy guns from licensed dealers on behalf of a prohibited purchaser.

9. We must authorize resources for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study and research the causes and effects of gun violence in the United States of America.

10. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are over 21,000 firearm suicides every year in the United States. It’s time we expand and improve our mental health capabilities in this country so that people who need care can get care when they need it, regardless of their level of income.

Add your name in support of these commonsense measures Congress can take to make our communities safer from gun violence.

Earlier today [Dec. 3, 2015], the U.S. Senate voted against non-binding legislation to expand background checks, close the “terror gap,” and improve our mental health systems. I voted for all three, although each of them came up short.

They failed for the same reason the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey legislation failed in 2013, just months after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School: because of the financial political power of a gun lobby that has bought candidates and elections for the better part of the last several decades.

In 2014 alone, the gun lobby spent over $30 million on political advertising and lobbying to influence legislators in Congress and state capitals across the country. And just last month, it was reported that the Koch brothers made a $5 million contribution to the NRA.

Americans of all political stripes agree. It's time to address the all too common scene of our neighbors being killed. It's time to pass a common sense package of gun safety legislation.

With your help, that's what we’ll do when I’m president.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders