Exponential Growth

My MacBook is chock full of crap. My hard drive is jammed to the gills; I'm playing with mere megs of elbow room these days as I figure out which of my 3,452 songs I can delete, or finally go through all my photos and clean them up and archive them.

Or get rid of all my "files" on Scotticus.

I was talking with my Dad and of course he had an extra external hard drive lying around collecting dust, so he gave it to me. Score!

He mentioned that he recently bought a 500GB drive for $89 or thereabouts; back when he got our first computer, an Apple IIGS (which was an amazing, superior machine in its day), he eventually bought a 45MB - that's megs, not gigs - external hard drive for about $389, plus another $100 for a SCSI card for the thing - that's almost 500 clams for a mere extra 45MB. At the time, that was a lot of memory.

That's 11,111% more memory for less than 1/5th the price. Of course this was back about 1989 or so, so it was 20 years ago. Still, pretty amazing when you think about it.

Or is the real amazing thing that that was 20 years ago?!? Criminy.

Daingean Shéarlais

My Mom recently sent me this photo she took of me last summer with a tour group at Charles Fort, located outside of Kinsale in County Cork, Ireland. See if you can tell where I might be in this shot...



Fun Fact: I spent several hours meandering around the fort by myself, snapping tons of photos. They closed and locked the gate on me (actually not that uncommon - there were a couple other sheepish tourists let out by the jovial tour guide). Suffice it to say that Mom was not happy, having been waiting outside the gate for some time.

Day 3: Land of the Midnight Sun

This is one of a series of entries from my travel journal during my recent trip to Europe. You can click here for the archived entries.

Day 2 | Day 4

Baltimore, West Cork, The Republic of Ireland 08/06/08

I was awakened around noontime this morning by a persistent banging. It took me a few minutes to wake up from my deep slumber, but I finally jerked awake. At first I thought it was my Mom having returned from a morning of photography and forgotten her key. I ran downstairs and saw my uncle's face through the front door. They had arrived! I welcomed my aunt, uncle, and cousin to Baltimore and it was a bit of a déjà vu of cranky, tired, complaining travelers (as my Mom and I had been exactly the day previous). They regaled me and Mom (she returned soon after their arrival) with tales of their hairy travels from Shannon. It's a rite of passage for travelers flying into that airport I suppose. We had a chuckle at the similarities in our respective travails.

Our landlord, Bob Clarke, came by to pick up the security deposit and give us some info about the heat, showers, and some recommendations on local eateries, grocery stores, and sights. I then went out with Mom for a stroll around Baltimore. It's a small fishing town that's a popular destination for both the Irish and foreign tourists. There's a quaint town center overlooking the harbor. Sailing, water sports, cruises to islands in Roaringwater Bay, and other seafaring activities are what draw so many here. The scenery with the colorful little buildings on the water, surrounded by hills, with islands out in the distant bay, is beautiful (the enormous rusting skeleton of a dockyard building directly across the street from us notwithstanding).

While my relatives recovered, Mom and I decided to do some walking and photography around town. First we strolled down a path near the cottage to the Lifeboat Station, which is supported and run entirely by donations and volunteers. It's a small white building sitting on the beach overlooking the back inlet of Baltimore Harbor. We walked all along the beach, snapping some great pics of sailboats moored offshore, rusting derelict hulks run aground at low tide, and wonderful views of pretty little houses perched up on the surrounding hills, with the omnipresent fog rolling over the hilltops. We then walked through the town center and out to the Baltimore Beacon, about a 30 min. walk up into the hills just past the harbor entrance, looking out onto the Atlantic.

The Beacon itself is a squat stone tower, probably some 30 ft. high, that's simply been whitewashed (the last paint job was some time ago judging from the peeling). It sits high on this rocky promontory that is just absolutely majestic. The fog had rolled in thick and covered the top of the surrounding hills; sailboats and jet skis could only just be made out as they shot the gap in the straits below; across the way one could just make out a lighthouse perched on an even higher peak on Sherkin Island across the narrows. On either side of the Beacon were sheer cliff faces falling into sheltered coves covered in the slate or shale that comprises the shoreline of the area. It was windy, slightly chilly, but with the sun peeking through every so often. The lush, green hillsides; the path up bordered by stone walls; the dense fog rolling in and out was so mysterious - it felt otherworldly, fairy tale-like (or at least as if I were on a movie set). Several times Mom mentioned how easy it would be to "accidentally" push someone off the cliff. I made sure to not turn my back to her when I was near the edge, in case I had made one driving crack too many.

As we strolled back to town I was struck by a sudden headache and hunger pangs. Despite its being in and out all afternoon, the sun had done a Rudolph job on my face (I often get headaches from sun overexposure). This was undoubtedly compounded by lack of food and Guinness (up until now I had a mere tuna fish sandwich and some cheese, crackers, soda bread and a banana in a day and a half on the Emerald Isle). Time for some serious noshing. I also had yet to have my first pint of the Black Stuff - I had purchased a six-pack of bottles at the store in Skibbereen to keep at the house but they were the extra stout (good but not the draught). They were also tiny 250ml bottles, which somehow I failed to notice when I bought them. They were like those bottles they give you on airplanes. So I was fiending. We made it back and met up with the rest of the folks - to La Jolie Brise in the town center for dinner!

Right above the harbor, the town center is dominated by an outdoor patio serving several nearby establishments. La Jolie Brise was one that caught our eye. I had the most amazing mussels - a truly gigantic bowl of the mollusks swimming in a broth of white wine, onions, garlic, and what I would conservatively estimate to be several pounds of butter. A bowl of tasty chips (french fries) accompanied it. Possibly the best mussels I've ever eaten. Tender, fresh, delicious, and rich in that heavenly broth (so heavenly that I found myself dipping everything in it that would take to it - chips, pizza crusts, etc.). We ordered a couple pizzas as well - decent but nothing earth-shattering. A sauvignon blanc went very nicely with the mussels. My cousin and I picked up a couple ice cream bars from Cotter's next door for dessert (he opted for Twix; I Snickers) while my uncle picked up the bare essentials: bars of soap and a bottle of Côtes du Rhône. We headed back to the house - my Mom and aunt were bushed, as was I. My uncle and cousin went walking around as I drifted in and out of consciousness on the living room couch. As it was getting close to sunset I decided to rally and head out. I met my uncle and cousin on the way back into town; Liam went back while Staley and I headed to Bushe's Bar to grab a pint and watch the sunset. It was a brilliant way to end the day. That first pint of Guinness was pure magic, poured into a perfect head after the lengthy but necessary two-part pouring process. We grabbed one of the wooden beer barrel tables and chatted and sipped our pints while we watched the sundown.

An interesting thing about Ireland, and one that escaped me during my first visit (or perhaps I plumb forgot) is that it stays light here very late. One could still see spots of orange in the cloudy sky well after 10PM, and it was light for some time thereafter. Even as I write this at around 12:30 in the morning, the sky possesses a dim glow. We are close to the same latitude here as Alaska. Did you know that? I certainly did not.

The plan tomorrow is to take a ferry out to one of several islands out in Baltimore Harbor. Clear Island is rumored to be more scenic and the largest by far of all the islands (it is home to an Irish school for children & adults), whereas Sherkin Island has ruins of a fort and friary and "a bit of a pub scene" according to Bob Clarke. I think I know which one I'll prefer.

The Old Country

Tickets are purchased and I have my renewed passport in hand.

I'm traveling to Ireland, Hungary, and England from June 6-22 (wow that looks really cool to type!) This has been in the works for some time. An aunt, uncle, and cousin are staying in a house in Baltimore, West Cork. It's a small village on the tip of one of the southwestern peninsulas. This is actually the same place to which another aunt took me and another cousin way back in 1991 to take sailing lessons. Baltimore is a quaint, quintessentially "Irish" experience and I very much look forward to going back. I'm able to go thanks to my very generous aunt, who is treating me to airfare and room/board. My Mom decided to go as well, so I am flying over with her.

Once over there we will be staying in the same house for the first week (6/7-13). Baltimore will be our base of operations and we will explore from there. Day car trips but nothing more - better to see "more of less" with limited time. And frankly I think there's no better way to experience a foreign country than simply hanging out with the locals.

With Porkins in Cambridge, England right now I decided to extend my trip for a week and go over to visit him since taking the extra time was no problem and it's just a puddle jump to England. As I was planning the trip, Rigs mentioned that one of his friends from Oxford is getting married in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday, 6/14. Jek asked me if I wanted to accompany him as his platonic date and I said, "Sure, when will I next have the opportunity to visit Budapest?" (Which I hear is fantastic.) So I'm flying from Dublin-Budapest on Friday 6/13. Jeff and I will likely do an extra day or two in Buda to check it out, then it's Budapest-London and I will spend the remainder of that week exploring JCB's haunts (Cambridge, Oxford, London). Foonyor also has his thesis defense at the end of the week so I plan on heckling him during that. [For those of you confused by this, Porkins, Rigs, JCB, Jek, Jeff and Foonyor are all the same person. And yes, I did that on purpose.]

I'm extremely psyched for this trip. I can't believe it's next week! I haven't been out of the country in years.

The Old Country awaits.

Xmas Decadence

My Mom made a tiramisu torte for dessert last night for Christmas Day at my uncle's house. It was probably the best dessert I've ever had. It consisted of espresso ice cream, a layer of chocolate sauce, and mascarpone ice cream bordered by ladyfingers, topped with cocoa powder, and liberally drizzled with hot chocolate sauce upon serving. She made the ice cream herself. Rich, creamy, and extraordinarily delicious. I had a second piece. I never have a second piece. And this sweetness-gushing comes from one who does not usually take dessert with any degree of frequency or excess. But I could not resist. It was heavenly, ethereal, otherwordly - a frozen confectionary concoction without peer in this life.

Brava, Mama.

A Day Late (Apologies to the Veterans)

Hanson says it better than I can, but:

Thank you, Chris, Bryan, Teresa, Nichole; other friends and family; and countless veterans, past, present, and future; who suffer hardship, pain, and death - without control over the policies which demand it of them - so that the rest of us can live relatively unaffected by so much of the evil in this world.

Happy Veterans Day.

Clams & Clam-related Foodstuffs

On Sunday I went down to Rhode Island to attend my uncle's clamboil. This is a traditional meal for family gatherings consisting of clams, hot dogs, sausages, potatoes, and onions tossed into a pot, boiled for an hour and simmered for another hour. The veggies get soft and delicious, and everything absorbs the clam broth flavor. Corn on the cob and brown bread (a sort of molasses bread) accompany the boiled foods. Bowls of melted butter await the dunking of clams.

Now it has been a long, long time since I've eaten steamers (technically "boilers" I suppose). I love clams - fried, chopped up in chowder, the occasional raw cherrystone - but I haven't had them in this style in some time. I ate roughly 200 of them. Clam after clam - head, body, bellies and all (save that nasty part covering the head) swam in butter and made its way to my mouth. By the time I was done there was a veritable midden sitting on my second plate. Unbelievable. Yet further proof that butter is the key to better living.

Also, as a sidenote: Sam Adams Octoberfest is out and about, and pleased the palates of many an imbiber on Sunday. I converted my Dad and half my extended family to the virtues of the O-fest.

Older Is Better

What do you think about this, Beebe?

Point to LB for the article.

Baghdad College

I went to dinner last night with my Mom, aunt and cousin, and we got to talking about Father Michael McCarthy (what does one call the first cousin of his grandfather?). My Mom mentioned that a lot of the players in the reconstruction of Iraq actually attended Baghdad College back in the 1950's. Here's a good NYT article on the subject. It's interesting because at the time, the Jesuits received a lot of flak from back home for not converting any of their students - they never prosyletized over there, but rather just made it their goal to instill academic discipline in their charges. There's something about this that really appeals to me. Also, it seems highly likely that Father Michael taught the likes of Allawi, Chalabi and others back in the day!

A great page here about the founding and history of the College. I love this quotation, which perfectly captures both the frustrating idiocy and hilarity of religious absolutism and intolerance, as well the potential that religious pluralism can exist peacefully:

I was one of many Jesuits who, from 1932 to 1969, taught and learned from 7,000 young Iraqis. That the latter appreciated the Jesuits is best illustrated by the two Muslims who once told me: "We like the fadheria very much, but you won't be with us in paradise because you are infidels." Both took it in stride when I informed them that when I was their age, I was told that they were the infidels, so we seemed to be involved in a tie ball game.

Also, another nice article at The New Republic (you need a subscription but there's a free trial option). I particularly like this quotation toward the end by Father Alfred Hicks:

"The liberal arts humanize people. That's why you teach them. Iraq has been dehumanized for thirty years." And perhaps that's all the Jesuits and their former students can hope for: that a renewed Baghdad College High School will help Iraq recover a bit of its lost soul.

Primary Source Document

Recently my Mom was going through some stuff in what is referred to in my family as "Upstairs" - the top floor of the house in which my Nana currently lives. This is where my great-uncle and two of my great-aunts used to live; when my brother and my cousins and I were younger we would always go up to visit "the Upstairses." Sugarless hard candy and tiny powdered donuts were the standard fare in a place where the air was thick with stale cigarette smoke. They have all passed now; my aunt is now living in the renovated Upstairs and my Mom has been going through a vast number of old photos recently and scanning them into her computer. She put together a slideshow for my aunt for her 50th birthday and she's now working on one for my Nana.

My Mom's father, who died before I was born, had a cousin, Father Michael, who was one of the Jesuit priests assigned to Baghdad College, back when Iraq was pro-Western, ruled by King Faisal II - before the rise of the Soviet-friendly Baath party, before Saddam, before our wars with Iraq. My Mom said he would come home to visit every couple years with stories of the Middle East - exotic fare for a young girl raised in a poor Irish-Catholic New England family.

She recently found a letter from Father Michael Upstairs, scanned it and emailed it out to the family. It's essentially just a quick note home, but it's from half a century ago. I thought it was a cool piece of history, from a time when we were threatened by a very different enemy, but from a place that is all too familiar to us today.


(Click to enlarge)

There's also an interesting Globe article from 2000 about the Jesuits who were over there below:

[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]

Alumni reminisce on Jesuits' role in Iraq

By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff, 8/5/2000

They are old men now, these Jesuit
priests; their legs weak, their
hair thin and white. But their eyes still
flash with the intense commitment that
propelled them to Iraq a half-century ago.
They still glow with the sense of purpose
that won respect from generations of
schoolboys at Baghdad College.

Starting in 1931, New England's branch of
the Society of Jesus dispatched a stream of
teachers to the Tigris River campus, a high
school akin to Boston College High. They
taught boys math and science, and, more
importantly, how to think.

In a testimony to the bonds they forged,
600 former students - surgeons, engineers,
and executives from around the world - have
gathered in Framingham this weekend,
renewing ties with one another and with
their old teachers. The reunion comes 32
years after the Jesuits were forced to flee
Iraq, expelled by the Baathist regime that
gave rise to Saddam Hussein.

''Want to see a miracle?'' asks the Rev.
Tony Paquet, 72, the youngest of four Roman
Catholic priests reminiscing at the Jesuit
health center in Weston about Baghdad
College days. A man of French Canadian
ancestry and Dorchester nativity, with a
talent for leavening gravitas with humor,
he stands up from his wheelchair, steps
forward to greet a visitor, and sits down
again. ''That's a miracle!''

Then, with tears punctuating their laughter
and nostalgia, Paquet and the other priests
talk about the joys of teaching in Iraq,
the emotional wounds inflicted by the
expulsion, and what they consider the
immorality of US-backed sanctions that, a
decade after they were laid on Iraq for its
invasion of Kuwait, are estimated by the
United Nations to be killing 5,000 children
a month.

''The American press beats up on Saddam
Hussein,'' Paquet says, ''but they don't
tell you about all the little kids in the
streets selling Chiclets by the one.''

Baghdad College grew out of a petition from
Iraq's Christian community to Pope Pius XI
for a school, according to the Rev. Robert
J. Sullivan, 88. ''The Holy Father went to
the general [of the Society of Jesus], the
general told the New England province
`You!' and that was it,'' Sullivan said.

Actually, there was a bit more to it than
that. New England became a free-standing
Jesuit province in 1926, and was burgeoning
with young people entering religious
orders, when the opening came in Iraq,
according to Brother Jim McDavitt, a
reunion organizer and the director of the
Jesuit seminary in the South End.

McDavitt became aware of Baghdad College
long before he knew much about Iraq or
considered entering a religious order.
While he was growing up in Worcester, his
aunt was active in the Iraqi Club, through
which mothers, sisters, and other
supporters of the Jesuits organized school
fund-raisers.

The priests were gung-ho as well, as was
reflected in an introduction by one
founder, the Rev. Edward F. Madaras, to a
1936 complilation of articles from the
mission newsletter.

The newsletter ''treated the Baghdad
venture, not as a lark, to be sure, but as
a gay adventure for the King of Kings,''
Madaras wrote. ''The fathers were knights
setting out on a jousting match to defend
the honor of their Liege Lord, and although
they felt they were going to get many a
hard knock and be unhorsed more than once,
they looked forward to the contest with a
glint in their eye, a smile on their lips,
and a song in their hearts.''

Their jousting ground was an oasis amid the
dusty streets and yellow brick of Baghdad.
The school's site was large and removed
from the city center, fronting the historic
Tigris, which watered the school's gardens
and playing fields, and the orchards around
them.

''It was very green,'' says Laith Kubba, a
longtime opponent of Hussein's who now is
senior program officer for the Middle East
at the congressionally funded National
Endowment for Democracy. ''The moment you
entered the school you entered a different
world. Everything inside was American.''

If the adventure was a jousting match, the
manner of scoring remained obscure.

The school for Christians that was
envisioned in the petition to the pope did
nurture Christian youths, offering low-cost
education to boys whose families otherwise
could not have afforded it. But Muslims,
Jews, and members of smaller ethnic groups
knocked at the doors of Baghdad College and
were accepted, and, Paquet says, ''in all
my years in Baghdad, I never baptized
anyone.''

In the 1960s, ''Baghdad College was
overwhelmingly Muslim, which I am,'' says
Kanan Makiya, author of a bestseller on
Iraq titled ''Republic of Fear'' and
director of the Iraq Research and
Documentation Project at Harvard
University. ''They never proselytized in
our faces at all. They did set an example,
and one admired them, for their
capabilities as teachers and for their
personal characteristics.''

When folks back in New England heard that
the Jesuits were not making converts to
Christianity, Paquet recalls, they often
would ask: ''What do you go there for? Why
pour yourself down the drain in Iraq?''

The fathers wrestled with that question.
The answer, he decided, was that ''we
established a visible and admirable
presence of Christ in this land that was no
more than 5 percent Christian, and provided
a shot in the arm to Iraqi Christians, gave
them something to look up to.''

When the Baath Party swept into power in
1968, the days of the Jesuit school were
numbered.

Waves of anti-American sentiment swept the
Mideast after the US-backed Israelis
humiliated their Arab neighbors in the 1967
Six-Day War. Iraq's new secular leaders
also saw a threat in the nation's Shiite
Islamic movement as well as a US-linked
establishment, says Dahfir Nona, an alumnus
who is now a Detroit-based engineer.

The new rulers ''really wanted to close the
Shi'a schools,'' Nona said, ''and they
couldn't close Muslim schools without
closing the Christian schools, too.''

Whether they are apolitical or fiercely
opposed to the regime, all agree the
sanctions imposed on Iraq - technically by
the United Nations but primarily due to US
policy - are ineffective against Hussein
and are depriving innocents of basic
nutrition and medical care.

''Millions of people are in misery,'' Kubba
says. ''They are losing their dignity, and
the physical effect on them is horrifying.
The reason many of us have opposed Saddam
all these years is because he harmed
people. Now this policy is also harming
people, and I feel an equal moral
obligation to oppose it.''

The priests and their former students sent
their own mission last December to
investigate.

''What the Jesuits really taught us was how
to think,'' says Kubba, ''how we break a
problem apart in our minds, how we seek an
answer. It is a formula I use even today.''

This story ran on page A01 of the Boston
Globe on 8/5/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.