Lá an díoltais

 ‘An díoltas seo, cad a bheidh ann?’

Thóg sé meandar go bhfásfadh an cheist isteach ina aghaidh. Shíl mé ar an neomat sin go raibh sé cosúil le fear rince Ghaelaigh, marbh ón gcom aníos, go dtí gur dhúisigh sé.

‘Beidh le fáinne an lae,’ ar seisean. ‘Ní hé an lá amárach atá i gceist agam, ach lá an tsléibhe. Lá na cinniúna. Lá an luain. Lá a bheicfear an sleánaitheoir ag teacht ina charbad. Lá an bháire. An lá ruabhán. Lá coillte. Lá coillidh. Lá na marbh. Lá chligeann bliana. Lá fiaigh. Lá córa. Lá gach coise tinne. Lá Thadhg na dTaodann. Lá na sprice seirbhe. Lá an chuntais. An lá go gcuirfear an ceart ina shuí. An lá go luath. Lá an díoltais.’

Bhain siar asam, agus in ainneoin na doircheachta, bhí an seomra lán le solas an teasa.

‘Cé tá igceist?’ d’fhiafraigh mé chomh séimh is a d’fhéadfainn tar éis don fhuarloch imeacht tharm.

‘Na Mac Donnchadhadhaigh,’ ar seisean, agus snag in ghlór, ‘cé eile? Na focdonachúaigh, na focandonachuntaigh, na donachuntaigh siar amach, na micídonas, na macdunnasachaí gránna, na donadhonnachachuntachímhacdonchaílíochaí a bhain an lámh díom. Cé eile?’

—Lámh, Lámh Eile le Alan Titley (Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2018)

“the evil around us”

Namoi Wolf writes (excerpts):

“Is It Time for Intellectuals to Talk About God?”:

«I felt around us, in the majestic nature of the awfulness of the evil around us, the presence of “principalities and powers” — almost awe-inspiring levels of darkness and of inhuman, anti-human forces. In the policies unfolding around us I saw again and again anti-human outcomes being generated: policies aimed at killing children’s joy; at literally suffocating children, restricting their breath, speech and laughter; at killing school; at killing ties between families and extended families; at killing churches and synagogues and mosques; and, from the highest levels, from the President’s own bully pulpit, demands for people to collude in excluding, rejecting, dismissing, shunning, hating their neighbors and loved ones and friends.» https://naomiwolf.substack.com/.../is-it-time-for...

“Thinking Like a Tyrant”:

«[M]eta-national organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations, agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and global corporate and investment communities, founded after the carnage of the Second World War, have served to create a class of global elite policymakers, nonprofit leaders, and bureaucrats, who are able to engage in cruel and oppressive policymaking precisely because they are no longer part of the communities whose lives are affected by what they have done.»

«What happened in the seventy-plus years since the end of the Second World War, is that an elite international class of technocrats, EU bureaucrats, global nonprofit leaders and international investors has developed, in which allegiance to the relationships, programs, profits and outcomes of that global class is more immediate and important to its members, than are any of the relationships, allegiances, rights, property and outrage of their fellow countrymen and women.»

“On the Subtlety of Monsters”:

«Casual, escalating cruelty, a culture of degradation of the “othered,” and a two-tier society, were built up in those years certainly at the behest of Nazi social policy. But the construction of a world of evil out of what had been a modern civil society, if a fragile one, was also endorsed and even policed by doctors, by medical associations, by journalists, by famous composers and filmmakers, by universities; by neighbors, by teachers, by shopkeepers — for years before the death camp guards were tasked with their own far more heinous cruelty.»

«Currently, forty-seven US states are operating with emergency measures, which suspend or bypass normal legislative checks and balances …. Under emergency measures, pretty much anything can be done.»

«People are [being] asked to join a cult and offer up their bodies; if they don’t, they are ostracized and denied social life and professional advancement.»

Life is risk. Certainty is death.

Olaf Errwigge writes:

I was thinking last night about risk – that of c19 vs that from the vaccine – why fear one more than the other, or ignore one over the other? The word I came to was "certainty". Even though after a month it was clear that the risk from c19 was minimal for most people, and there were effective preventive and early treatments, and even though the mRNA and DNA vaccines aren't vaccines in the sense of inoculation but rather gene therapies to program your own cells to produce the disease (and previous experience with them had been utter failures), people latched onto the sense of certainty they provided, just as they had latched on the face bras and 6 feet of separation. It was purely magical thinking, and therefore it only increased in the face of its futility.

That would be fine, though sad, in individual cases, but it is dangerous indeed when whole mobs, including governments and media, share this madness and are further egged on by "science" itself.

Life is risk. Certainty is death.

later …

Of course there is also the cynical (sinister, evil) political opportunism at play, very much a putsch against populism and nonconformists.

and later …

And thus enforcement by the courtier class to protect their status.

J’Accuse!

Ministry of Health, it’s time to admit failure

In the end, the truth will always be revealed, and the truth about the coronavirus policy is beginning to be revealed. When the destructive concepts collapse one by one, there is nothing left but to tell the experts who led the management of the pandemic – we told you so.

Two years late, you finally realize that a respiratory virus cannot be defeated and that any such attempt is doomed to fail. You do not admit it, because you have admitted almost no mistake in the last two years, but in retrospect it is clear that you have failed miserably in almost all of your actions, and even the media is already having a hard time covering your shame.

You refused to admit that the infection comes in waves that fade by themselves, despite years of observations and scientific knowledge. You insisted on attributing every decline of a wave solely to your actions, and so through false propaganda “you overcame the plague.” And again you defeated it, and again and again and again.

You refused to admit that mass testing is ineffective, despite your own contingency plans explicitly stating so (“Pandemic Influenza Health System Preparedness Plan, 2007”, p. 26).

You refused to admit that recovery is more protective than a vaccine, despite previous knowledge and observations showing that non-recovered vaccinated people are more likely to be infected than recovered people. You refused to admit that the vaccinated are contagious despite the observations. Based on this, you hoped to achieve herd immunity by vaccination — and you failed in that as well.

You insisted on ignoring the fact that the disease is dozens of times more dangerous for risk groups and older adults, than for young people who are not in risk groups, despite the knowledge that came from China as early as 2020.

You refused to adopt the “Great Barrington Declaration”, signed by more than 60,000 scientists and medical professionals, or other common sense programs. You chose to ridicule, slander, distort and discredit them. Instead of the right programs and people, you have chosen professionals who lack relevant training for pandemic management (physicists as chief government advisers, veterinarians, security officers, media personnel, and so on).

You have not set up an effective system for reporting side effects from the vaccines, and reports on side effects have even been deleted from your Facebook page. Doctors avoid linking side effects to the vaccine, lest you persecute them as you did with some of their colleagues. You have ignored many reports of changes in menstrual intensity and menstrual cycle times. You hid data that allows for objective and proper research (for example, you removed the data on passengers at Ben Gurion Airport). Instead, you chose to publish non-objective articles together with senior Pfizer executives on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

Irreversible damage to trust

However, from the heights of your hubris, you have also ignored the fact that in the end the truth will be revealed. And it begins to be revealed. The truth is that you have brought the public’s trust in you to an unprecedented low, and you have eroded your status as a source of authority. The truth is that you have burned hundreds of billions of shekels to no avail – for publishing intimidation, for ineffective tests, for destructive lockdowns and for disrupting the routine of life in the last two years.

You have destroyed the education of our children and their future. You made children feel guilty, scared, smoke, drink, get addicted, drop out, and quarrel, as school principals around the country attest. You have harmed livelihoods, the economy, human rights, mental health and physical health.

You slandered colleagues who did not surrender to you, you turned the people against each other, divided society and polarized the discourse. You branded, without any scientific basis, people who chose not to get vaccinated as enemies of the public and as spreaders of disease. You promote, in an unprecedented way, a draconian policy of discrimination, denial of rights and selection of people, including children, for their medical choice. A selection that lacks any epidemiological justification.

When you compare the destructive policies you are pursuing with the sane policies of some other countries – you can clearly see that the destruction you have caused has only added victims beyond the vulnerable to the virus. The economy you ruined, the unemployed you caused, and the children whose education you destroyed — they are the surplus victims as a result of your own actions only.

There is currently no medical emergency, but you have been cultivating such a condition for two years now because of lust for power, budgets and control. The only emergency now is that you still set policies and hold huge budgets for propaganda and psychological engineering instead of directing them to strengthen the health care system.

This emergency must stop!

—Professor Udi Qimron, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University

(Google translation from Hebrew original)

Ag Stopadh sa Choill Oíche Shneacht

Ag Stopadh sa Choill Oíche Shneacht Aistriúchán le Cathal Ó Manacháin ar ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ le Robert Frost Is eol dom an choill seo agus cé leis í, Ach is sa bhaile a bhíonn sé ag cur faoi. Ní fheicfidh sé muid ag stopadh dúinn Le hamharc ar a choill ag bánú di. Is saoithiúil le mo chapaillín, Sinn stopadh gan áitreabh in aice linn, Idir an choill agus an t-oighearloch An oíche is dorcha den bhliain. Tosaíonn an clog ar a chuing a chlingíneach, Ag fiafraí díom cá bhfuil an teach, Ach seachas fannghaoth agus sneachta ag séideadh, Ní chluintear fuaim ó aon neach. Is breá liom an choill seo sa dúgheimhreadh, Ach tá gealltanais agam le comhlíonadh, Is na mílte le taisteal roimh chodladh, Is na mílte le taisteal roimh chodladh.

An Chircín Rua

Is é an leagan seo leabhar cláir a léigh muid go minic le L— nuair a bhí sé ina lapadán.

An Chircín Rua
Scríofa le Byron Barton (1997, Harper Festival)
Aistrithe le Oiric Mac Róis Fá Bhláth (2021)

Bhí ceathrar cara ann aon uair amháin: muc, lacha, cat, agus circín rua. Tá triúr éanán ag an chircín rua.

Lá amháin bhí an chircín rua ag piocadh sa talún, agus bhfuair sí roinnt síolta.

Chuaigh sí go dtí a triúr cara agus d’fhiafraigh leo: Cé an cuidiú a thabharfas dom na síolta seo a chur?

Ní mise, a scréach an mhuc.
Ní mise, a vách an lacha.
Ní mise, a meamh an cat.

Más ea, cuirfidh mise féin na síolta, a deir an chircín rua. Agus chuir sí.

Agus gheamhraigh na síolta agus d’fhás a bheith gasa móra cruithneachta.

Ansin d’fhiafraigh an chircín rua lena triúr cara: Cé an cuidiú a thabharfas dom na gasa seo a bhaint?

Ní mise, a meamh an cat.
Ní mise, a scréach an mhuc.
Ní mise, a vách an lacha.

Más ea, bainfeadh mise féin an cruithneacht, a deir an chircín rua. Agus bhain sí.

Ansin d’fhiafraigh an chircín rua lena triúr cara: Cé an cuidiú a thabharfas dom an cruithneachta seo a cháith?

Ní mise, a scréach an mhuc.
Ní mise, a vách an lacha.
Ní mise, a meamh an cat.

Más ea, cáithfeadh mise féin an cruithneacht, a deir an chircín rua. Agus cháith sí.

Ansin d’fhiafraigh an chircín rua lena triúr cara: Cé an cuidiú a thabharfas dom na gráin seo a mheilt i bplúr?

Ní mise, a scréach an mhuc.
Ní mise, a vách an lacha.
Ní mise, a meamh an cat.

Más ea, mealfaidh mise féin an cruithneacht i bplúr, a deir an chircín rua. Agus mheal sí.

Ansin d’fhiafraigh an chircín rua lena triúr cara: Cé an cuidiú a thabharfas dom an plúr seo a dhéanamh in arán?

Ní mise, a meamh an cat.
Ní mise, a scréach an mhuc.
Ní mise, a vách an lacha.

Más ea, déanfaidh mise féin an plúr in arán, a deir sí. Agus rinne.

Ansin scairt an chircín rua lena cairde: Cé an cuidiú a thabharfas dom an arán seo a ithe?

Tabharfaidh mise, vhách an lacha.
Tabharfaidh mise, mheamh an cat.
Tabharfaidh mise, scréach an mhuc.

Ára, ní thabharfaidh, dúirt an chircín rua leo.

Iosfaidh muidne féin an t-arán.

Nótaí ó thaobh “An Dochtúir Áthas” le Liam Mac Cóil

Cá bhfuil an áthas a bheith faighte? An ionann úd an áthas agus an fíor? An fíor agus an réaltach? An bhfuil an áthas faighte san réaltach amuigh sa domhain nó san réaltach intinn? Nó áit éigin eile? Gén faoi galar?

Tá neart ceisteanna ann, leoga an ceist an bhfuil an scéalaí féin tinn i ndáiríre. Is amhail go bhfuil na seisiúin atá sé ag insint agus a machnaimh tar éis gach ceann – tá siad cosúil le scaoileadh an leabhar féin, cosúil leis an bhealach a bheith an léitheoir féin ag déanamh roimh.

Is é an phárnóia a éirionn príomhthéma san scéal, mar tósaíonn a creidimh an athriseoir go bhfuil seisean an fadhb leis féin. Nó b’fhéidir stiúrann an Dochtúir Áthas rudaí an phárnóia a chur leis. Is éisean é an t-athriseoir ach cé hé an t-údar?

Agus i gcoinne an phárnóia – nó b’fhéidir de thoisc leis – déanann an t-athriseoir saidéar faoin Áthas féin, faoin bpróiseas, na seisiúin, agus phearsanta agus rún an doctúir.

Agus ó sin, faoin síocanailís féin. Is arís, is é an phróiseas den léitheoir féin é – ag léamh mar is atá a shaol féin i gceist.

(Bhí An Dochtúir Áthas foilsithe le Leabhar Breac ag 1994 agus 2004.)

(Ar ndóigh, is é áthas é an focal Gaeilge don freud as Gearmáinis.)