The Irish government are planning to hold a series of “public forums” on the question of Ireland’s military neutrality later this year. These forums and their expert panels have been given the reins on this issue, rather than a Citizens’ Assembly, because the Irish government has a preconceived answer to that question it wants our political processes to arrive at. I am not saying these public forums will necessarily be “rigged” in some way, per se, just acknowledging what anyone can see, but no one in support of ending Irish neutrality would ever admit: that they were very blatantly chosen in lieu of a Citizens’ Assembly because given the two options on the table, one is more likely to produce a more supportive result for their preferred future vision of Irish foreign policy. I am 100% confident that is the case, for the simple reason that support for maintaining Irish neutrality remains consistently high and support for Ireland joining NATO remains consistently low, so even if a panel is only composed of an equal number of experts for and against neutrality – however expert is defined! – it’s still more likely to produce a result favourable to the government than a group drawn from the citizenry. I don’t think that means these forums aren’t worth engaging with; if anything I encourage everyone in the country to look into the process for making submissions to them whenever that’s announced and do whatever else you can to fight for maintaining our neutrality.
Continue reading “The End of Neutrality is the End of Peace”Prolegomena to Any Future Posts
Please read this post before or after reading this one.
I haven’t written on this blog in over five years, and I’ve turned most of what I did write private because it’s embarrassing. I want to start writing on it again soon, so I thought it might be good to contextualise it a bit. People tend to assume context if you don’t provide it and I really don’t enjoy being misunderstood.
My name is Dean Buckley, and I’m just some guy. I’m not a pundit or activist or commentator or whatever. I write and edit pop culture criticism for The Sundae, a website I co-created with my friend Ciara, and I co-host and edit our film podcast, The Sundae Presents. I want to write about social, political and philosophical topics on this blog because I enjoy doing that, not because I am trying to convince anyone of anything. I did competitive debating for eight years and studied philosophy in college and one of the things I liked most about both those things was just picking apart logic and rhetoric and arguments and ideas, for what I imagine are the same reasons other people like to tinker with machinery. I’ve noticed a lot of people online seem to think if you write a post about something, you must think it’s a very important topic and that you are making a very urgent intervention into it. They especially think so if you do a blog about it in an era when, frankly, who even fucking blogs anymore? After all, the only reason to post on the Internet is for attention, so if you’re posting you must want attention, which means you must think what you’re posting is attention-worthy.
So, with all that in mind, I want to say: unless I say that what I’m writing about on this blog is important, please presume I merely find it interesting. I know I can’t actually make anyone do that, but if something I post here does get attention for some reason, I thought it would be handy to have this already written.
Continue reading “Prolegomena to Any Future Posts”Stitches May Strain, but Sutures Don’t Split: In Defense of Gotham’s Gothic Identity
Gotham is not a perfect show, and maybe not even a good show. I’m not going to defend the crazy pacing of Penguin’s rehabilitation/relapse storyline, the utter waste of Tabitha or pretty much any of Bruce’s dialogue, at any point, ever. I’m not going to pretend I’m not disappointed by the ways in which its second season has failed to live up to my highest hopes.
But there’s this notion about Gotham, most abrasively trumpeted by The AV Club, but parroted elsewhere as received knowledge, that Gotham is a show that struggles with its identity, and particularly that it’s “two shows, and never knows which it wants to be at any time” or some variation thereof.
This is not true now, nor has it ever been true. Gotham has a perfectly coherent identity, possibly one of the most rigidly-defined identities of any show on television right now.
Congratulations, Nerds, You’ve Finally Ruined Everything
(Author’s Note: This is a bad article that makes a bad argument, and I only keep it up because I link to it in a better article refuting the argument of this piece. I strongly advise reading that article before or after reading this one, or better yet, not reading this one at all.)
In the very near future, all four superhero shows that will be airing on The CW as of this autumn – Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl – will have a four-way crossover event, as announced by the network’s president, Mark Pedowitz.
Congratulations, nerds, you have finally crossed the line from merely damaging the properties you claim to love to actively destroying them.
Continue reading “Congratulations, Nerds, You’ve Finally Ruined Everything”
Exile of the Wolves
Such things bring strife amongst my folk.
They will destroy him
if he comes in threat.
We are not the same.
Wulf is on one island,
I the other.
That island is anchored
deep in the marsh,
a nation of cruel killers.
They will destroy him
if he comes in threat.
We are not the same.
I brooded and pined for wandering Wulf,
ensconced in my grief,
steeped in the rain,
yet when the bold one pulled me close,
I perished in pleasure,
but lived in pain.
O Wulf, my Wulf,
my sickness is longing
your seldom-coming,
my spirit’s mourning,
not mere lack of food.
Do you hear, Eadwacer?
Wulf bears the wretched
thing
we made into the woods.
He tears what was never seamed,
the tapestry of our story together.
Left in the Lurch 