By Malachy McCourt

When I was running for governor on the Green Party ticket, I advocated for a number of quality of life improvements.

One of those improvements was to place a dollar tax on every stick of chewing gum. Then cut the idiotic spitting of that disgusting glob on subway platforms and sidewalks. See if we could remove the stupid look from the faces of the half-wits who are constantly chewing gum.

Other measures I would have enacted included: stopping baseball players from speaking so much and to stop calling New York “the Empire State,” as I didn’t want to be emperor, I wanted to be governor. (Little did I know that people who were supplying Gov. Spitzer’s girls were known as “The Emperor’s Club”).

I also advocated imposing the death penalty on graffiti artists (i.e. graph idiots) and on politicians who take money from corporations and tell lies.

Another item on my platform was to make sugar a controlled substance.

Now I am no lightweight when it comes to eating sugar, due to a very loving relationship with carbohydrates, particularly the potato and that “staff of life” bread.

These items have a close relationship to sugar and I think they actually become sugar at one point. So what was the point of making it a controlled substance?

Americans consume about 140 pounds. of sugar in one form or another every year. Suppose that some enterprising mayor secured 140-lb. bags and filled them with sugar and placed said bag in front of a food stamp recipient and instructed them to feed one of their children the contents of the bags before a year has elapsed. I’m sure that those parents would think again about the benefits of consuming sugar.

Mayor Bloomberg says sugar in soft drinks is a significant factor in childhood obesity and that our government is contributing to the problem by allowing people to use food stamps to purchase said poison. He says we should put a stop to that and only allow that which is nutritious to be doled out in vending machines. I say, if the vending of sugar products is allowed, then why not other addictive items such as beer, gin, cigarettes and glue for sniffing?

When I was a child in Ireland, the St. Vincent DePaul Society gave us poverty families a docket, which allowed us about a dollar’s worth of food every month. It helped to get that bit of food and sometimes there was a penny or two left over. That wouldn’t be enough to pay for anything and when we asked for some sweets, the righteous Catholic women who owned the shop erupted into a rage about charity cases who were lucky to get a loaf of bread for nothing. Of course we were ordered off the premises as these good Christians pocketed the pennies of the poor.

So I have mixed feelings about sweet things. But I maintain that sugar is not by any stretch of the imagination a food item. It rots teeth, helps cause diabetes and can turn ice cream into a danger to life and limb.

Still, should the government stick its nose into this controversy? If the government giveth, the government can taketh away. If it taketh away though, then it should offer alternatives such as reduced fat milk and real fruit juices.

By the way, all of the excess sugar should be donated to the Tea Party to help eliminate the sourness of their souls and to see what a sweet and wonderful place America is.n
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Check out more musings from Malachy McCourt at malachymccourt.com.

By Malachy McCourt

Concomitant with the rise of the Tea Party, we are now infested with the rise of that disgusting horror known as the bedbug. Some people would rather deal with al-Qaeda than the newest threat to our city. Very little is known about this verminous addition to our society except that it likes living with humans, particularly conservatives, as their blood has the bitterness quotient bedbugs need.

Our state government recently passed a law requiring landlords to reveal the history of bedbug infestation in any building or apartment they have for lease or rent. I can’t imagine landlords revealing anything about their closest relatives: the bedbug.

When I was a resident in some of the more colorful slums of Limerick, Ireland, we were hosts to all manner of bedbugs. My brother Frank wrote in vivid prose about how he and my father carried a mattress from the dreadful room we had moved into and beat it till clouds of bedbugs lost their hold and tumbled to the wet pavement.

Having fleas was also a cause of great shame in holy Limerick, as it was attributed to having a dirty home. You were not allowed fleas, lice or tuberculosis because you would be destroyed by the vicious whispering gossip of your Catholic neighbors. We moved from room to sordid room, accompanied by armies of hoppers, as my mother called them. Some people said you couldn’t have fleas and lice at the same time. They were wrong. We had everything that walked, crawled or flew. On any given morning, one look would indicate that measles had broken out during the night and dotted our fair skins.

My father refused to acknowledge the bugs’ existence except when nagged to do something. My mother spent hours catching them and crushing them on her thumbnails, but it was impossible to imagine an itch-free, bite-free night in any of our crowded beds.

Most people keep dogs, cats, birds and goldfish as household pets. Our pets were the aforementioned vermin, with whom we were on very intimate terms. In some cultures, men cut their thumbs and mingle their blood in order to become blood brothers. Our bugs just helped themselves. The result is that the McCourts are blood brothers to a vast number of the vermin world.

The Bible tells us that Jesus wore a seamless robe, which kept the lice and bugs in a state of frustration, as they like to hang out in seams. Where else do they reside?

Beds, of course, as well as armchairs, and the film industry is quite annoyed that bedbugs are slipping into cinemas without paying one dime. Bedbugs love to travel and they are frequent flyers, much to the chagrin of the airline industry. They also hop rides on the most luxurious limousines to some of the best hotels in these United States. They snuggle in your luggage and disembark at the nearest bed, where frequently they meet the love of their lives and settle down for a while, particularly if it’s the honeymoon suite.

As they are a somewhat benign mini-terrorist, you won’t get much sympathy if you call on Homeland Security to help repel them.

However, there is a sure method of killing bedbugs.

A. Secure two small blocks of wood 2” x 2”.

B. Catch a bedbug.

C. Place the bedbug on one block of wood.

D. Strike said bedbug with the other block of wood.

E. Repeat with all other bedbugs until they are all dead.

I would advise against letting bedbugs into your house even if you are a Tea Party member, because they don’t vote and they bite you even when you feed them and they lay eggs all over the place. As well as that, they are always off somewhere, at the movies, on a jet, in an armchair, in other people’s luggage, at a luxury hotel, synagogue, mosque or church. And they will use you as a walking ATM for blood.

Bedbugs are not nice and I think they should be deported to a place that is without blood. Any conservative state will do.
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Check my website www.malachymccourt.com and read Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.

People often ask, “How do I know if I am an alcoholic?” There are many responses to this query. One being, if you have to ask, the answer is in the question. 2) Alcoholism is like having mice—if you think you have them, YOU DO! 3) What is your day like without booze? Miserable?

Alcoholics are great rationalizers about what we drink. We trot out the list of the “I onlies” and “I nevers,” i.e., “I only drink beer,” “I only drink wine,” “I only drink martinis because I like olives,” “I only drink a little sherry or a drop of port,” “I never drink before breakfast or when I am asleep,” “I never drink when I am sober” and “I am never too drunk to drive.”

Many of us will try counting drinks, but the fact is the first drink gets us drunk. Alcoholism is a family disease and it’s not curable, only manageable. The most loving parents are powerless when in the grip of this
malady. Abuse—physical, sexual and emotional—rampages triumphant in families with alcoholics, shaming children, humiliating spouses and battering marriages to pieces. There is an endless litany of unrelenting loss connected to this horrendous condition not known in any other disease. There is the loss of things material, like jobs, houses and income, and of health, rational thought, decent behavior, spiritual aspirations, truth, dignity, family and, above all, the dreadful loss of love. It’s a three-part physical-emotional-spiritual condition. Not all alkies are on Skid Row; the
others deny it, proclaiming, “I work hard, pay my taxes and just because I take a few drinks with my breakfast doesn’t mean I have a problem.”

Alcoholics usually contribute to their physical deterioration by smoking
cigarettes and marijuana, and ingesting other drugs. Consequently, the mind and brain take an uncontrolled journey into mad territory, wherein resides violence and mental imbalance. They are thus unable to be of any service to humanity.

The nature of alcoholism is totally diseased, totally evil, totally destructive. It is a slimy pit of stinking ooze composed of lies, deceit, revenge, righteousness, soul rot, rage, rape, selfishness and murder, and it will use any and all methods to gain a foothold in the family unit. If there is an alcoholic in your orbit, or if you are one, then it’s simple to take the first step to recovery. First, stop drinking now. And if it’s a bad situation, get to the hospital so you can sober up under medical supervision. Family should not allow any alcoholic home until sober—not next week or tomorrow, but sober now. Watch out for the lies and promises. It’s a day at a time. Good luck. 

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Check my website malachymccourt.com and read Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.

Prior to that event, the Romans celebrated the festival Saturnalia, a time of big feasts, bellowing bawdy ballads, gift giving and decking ye olde halls with holly, ivy and other green foliages. The idea being that evergreens are symbols of life and fertility and that they would keep out the winter’s dark demons of despair and depression.

Nobody seems to know exactly how St. Nicholas rose to such popularity. The Brits call him “Father Christmas,” as they believe he has a special interest in the wants and needs of the denizens of the United Kingdom. Some say he was a bishop who saved three daughters of an inn keeper from prostitution by giving each a bag of gold for their dowry. Holding three bags of gold also made him the patron saint of pawn-brokers and bankers.

In some European traditions, Santa has a helper who carries a birch rod for beating bad children. In Ireland, we were told to pray for what we wanted for Christmas and, providing we were good boys, Santa would be good to us. If we were bad boys, Santa would fly right over our hovel. We, the brothers Frank, Michael and Alphie, must have been the rottenest little kids in Christendom, ’cause Santa never stopped at our chimney. It makes one wish to have lived in Roman times, when dirty doings were fully rewarded.

Back to Jesus Christ, Esq. The 25th of December is an arbitrary date of birth, and not recorded until 400 years after the event. It says somewhere in the Judaic tradition that a person dies on the same day she is conceived. Now that means the man was conceived March 25, right after St. Patrick’s Day.

I am wondering if we couldn’t recalculate this birthday to the middle of July and leave December free to bring back the Saturnalia orgies. Which reminds me, the next time you get under the mistletoe, take a gander at the little white berries nestling in the greenery. Those berries, according to legend, are said to be the semen of the ancient Celtic gods.

Back to the Brits. Because drinking and dirty doings and debauchery did not cease, the beloved Oliver Cromwell decided to abolish Christmas, which the British Parliament did in 1647, with the result that George Wanker Bush was elected in 2000 A.D. That ban lasted 13 years because the most terrifying thing to a conservative is the thought that somewhere, somehow people are enjoying themselves.

There you have it, random thoughts on Christmas and Jesus. If you are reading this, don’t come back until we have a single payer health plan.

Now tigers growl, run and leap on tigresses, and generally have more than one mate, so what is all the fuss about? His children get fed, he has a house full of help, fresh food and he gets to sleep with some female friends. Most guys do the opposite. They bed down the wife for duty’s sake and play golf for recreation.

With all that in mind, I say I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t frighten the horses—with one exception. I do care when fellow workers cross my union’s (Screen Actors Guild) picket line. A few years ago, the smiley Tiger Woods crossed that line when we were on strike for just compensation. Necrophilia is not half as disgusting and revolting as a billionaire scab crossing a workers’ picket line, breaking their strike because he says he has a contract. But no contract can take precedence over the moral contract the worker has with her fellow workers. Any worker who feels more loyalty to the profiteer is a scab—and there is nothing lower than a scab, not even the testicles of a rat.

Not only does Tiger Woods cross picket lines, but he makes deals with companies like Chevron, a world polluter of such magnitude it is hard to catalogue. He designed the golf course in Dubai, a place built by slave labor and a starting point for the world’s sex slave trade. It is well known what the children who have to work in those sneaker factories have to endure, and yet the Tiger never says a word—only signs another multi-million dollar contract.

Jack London wrote, “After God finished making the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made the scab… who carries a tumor of rotten principles…. When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep them out. A scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow workers.”

Dave Zirin of The Nation recently wrote about the Chevron/Myanmar partnership in the $500 million Yadana pipeline, which was built by forced labor. Workers endured torture and rape, but never a word from the Tiger about his partner and the military dictatorship.

I am ashamed to say that Tiger Woods is a union member, not because of his sexual proclivities, but because of his lack of expressed human concern for his fellow workers. May all his golf sticks get woodworm.

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Check my website malachymccourt.com and read Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.

A casino’s mission is to entice the citizenry to enter carrying the coin of the realm and to leave without it. You could write a check and leave, but the casino folk like to give the impression that you have a chance to get rich. You gamble, they win. Except for a few people, like my friend Daniel Dravot (not his real name), who has a system to beat them at blackjack. It’s called card counting and he makes a nice living by not gambling. The book he wrote to help you relieve the casinos of a surfeit of profits is called The Color of Blackjack, and you may check it out at www.thecolorofblackjack.com.

My friend has been spotted by casino cameras and is then escorted from the premises as if he were a criminal. Sometimes he is allowed to play the slot machines and other games that the house is sure to win, but he is no gambler. For many years he was a corporate slave kowtowing to the nitwits above him and the idiot public. An event known as 9/11 catapulted him into a freer world, and a chance encounter with a book on card counting got him on the road to a new career.

Daniel D. has enjoyed casinos’ hospitality for years, but now they are on to him and in violation of anti-trust laws, they share information about him with each other. Oddly, casinos refer to card counters as geeks, cheaters, renegades, mavericks, loners and advantage players, although all they want is a small portion of the casino dough, whereas the casino wants all of yours. The amount of money spent on spotting and photographing card counters runs into the millions, but it’s good to know that someone is beating the system.

Daniel has assured me that if you read his book carefully, if you are patient and if you don’t get cocky and start to gamble, you will come out ahead and one day you too will get the tap on the shoulder and the voice from on high will say, “BACK OFF.”

Is it legal to throw you out? Well, there is a case being tried now in federal court, so it remains to be seen if only losers are allowed. In the meantime, our neighbor is doing his bit for America by winning at blackjack and enjoying life. Trump, you’re fired.

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Check my website malachymccourt.com and read Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.

Diana, my spouse and friend, was on a conjugal visit and summoned the emergency services and got me to Fletcher Allen Hospital, where the good doctors (highly experienced in fractures, due to the proximity of skiing places) put the titanium plate in and braced me with a boot. After five days, I was transported to the Helen Hayes Rehab hospital just outside of the city. That was a seven-hour journey by NYPD ambulance, courtesy of my son Conor. It is a service provided to police officers and their families, and it is funded by the police themselves, with a couple of dollars in contributions each month

Now don’t tell anyone, but the Helen Hayes Hospital is a prime rehab facility and, to my astonishment, a state-run place. The outside architecture is somewhat bland, but the buildings rise out of the trees, plants, flowers and grass, giving one a splendid view of the lordly Hudson. The inside part is institutional in appearance, with wide passages, accessible elevators and corridor handrails.

But the human factor is extraordinary. I am referring to the people who minister to masses of badly injured, traumatized, frightened patients. There are people there for optional surgery, like hip replacements and knee replacements, which by now are almost routine. On another floor there are the accident automobile injuries and the large number of young men rendered paraplegic and quadriplegic by motorcycle bravado. One young mother told me she had begged her 19-year-old son not to buy the machine. But he had saved for it: $9,000 and four hours later, he was paralyzed for life, and she was a 42-year-old woman with a future of caring for a helpless, grown-up infant, feeding him, wiping his bottom, emptying his piss bottle and bedpan and watching him shrivel as her own life dwindles into nothingness. Don’t let ’em near a motorbike.

Back to Helen Hayes Hospital. Despite being surrounded by medical instruments and devices, the central energy is generated by a remarkable staff. Every member seemed to share a sense of mission, which was to get you as well as possible. Activities that are ordinary for the average citizen seem miraculous when performed by the folks with the disability, such as taking a step, squeezing a ball, standing up, turning the head and getting out of a chair. If you stumbled, they said, “Rest up,” and, “We will do better next time.” The most important part of the treatment was the fact was the staff understands that no matter how severe your injury, your life could be better if you were willing. They did not promise you could walk again if your spine was severed, only that your life is not over till you fall into despair

I only had the broken leg, but there were times when I thought, “What’s the use? This leg will never be normal,” only to be told, “You are doing great and you are going home.”

Here I am walking laboriously. I am out of the wheelchair. Thanks to Helen Hayes Hospital, the great staff and Diana for the encouragement and the titanium plate in the limb.

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Check my website malachymccourt.com and read Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.

Sincerely,
Malachy McCourt

Check my website malachymccourt.com and read  Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.

Eight years ago, an election was stolen by the most malignant, malevolent, evil gang of terrorists and thugs ever to hijack a country. With all the accoutrements of technology and under the cover of fundamentalism, they robbed us of our rights under the Constitution, and they robbed thousands of young people of their lives. With Orwellian propaganda, they convinced the unthinking populace that to be patriotic, you had to kill people and to wear flag emblems. Any intelligent person knows you don’t have to wave a flag to prove your love of country—indeed you must

The New First Family

distrust anyone who claims to be a patriot as you would distrust a man who wears an “I love my wife” sign.

Obama is on a road strewn with death, decay and destruction—a seemingly impassible road with booby-traps set to blow up the unwary. Expectations are high that this 47-year-old will be able to rebuild and restore our country to the vision we all have for it.

A short poem by Yeats, paraphrased, is applicable to our situation:

A man came down the road and saw a man breaking stones
Ireland will get her freedom, he said, but you will go on breaking stones

That means that despite high hopes and the cheers, our lives will not change that much. The minimum-wage worker will go on breaking stones. The idiotic yap about being the best country in the world will not stop. When was the last time you saw a sign that read “God bless South Korea”? You see, God has to be careful the blessing does not leak over the border into North Korea, just as he has to be sure his blessing on America does not accidentally get over the wall into Mexico or snuck into Canada.

Anyway, Obama will have his work cut out for him. First he will have to fumigate the White House. He will have to tear down the walls that they built to keep us from contact with other human beings. The only wall that needs rebuilding is the one between church and state.

Teach the people that all humans are created equal, no matter the disability: be they sightless, legless, deaf, afflicted with conservatism or victims of poverty. Obama must restore the beacon of light that was the U.S.A., the one that destroyed the tyranny of kings, popes and dictators so that hope and trust will flourish again. Tell God, “Don’t bother us. Go and bless those who need it.”

Check my website malachymccourt.com and read  Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.

Reba Shimansky
West End Avenue

Letters have been edited for clarity, style and brevity.