Each year at St Patrick's Day, The Society celebrates its philosophical renewal, an abandonment of the pleasantries of the superficial vanities and pretenses of the current want-to-be world empire and its reunion with substantial thought free of the fluff, even that which we might have once admired.

US thought is locked into the progressive, linear rationality of the English enlightenment from which the US broke away. As it has evolved, US thought different from being American, has mutated into a secular religion of money, progress and success. Take away the money, retard the success and stiffle progress and there really is nothing, the current situation.

Awesome David Lawrence: SIRHAN SIRHAN There is not much I can say about Sirhan Sirhan. He was a typical obsessive leftist who hated Robert Kennedy for supporting Israel. He is too stupid to realize that Israel has always supported Palestinians by giving them jobs and helping them to rise out of squalor whereas other Arab nations despise them and throw them in camps. If Sirhan would look in the Palestinian mirror he would see bloodshed and a group of mentally and emotionally deficient people who have never accomplished anything. The Jews, despite their tiny part of the population, are responsible for a significant sector of the intellectual achievements of the 20th Century. Sirhan is mentally sick enough to think that Robert Kennedy would forgive him. I certainly hope not. Geoff Jackson: Cogadh na Saoirse The Irish War of Independence (in Irish Cogadh na Saoirse) 1919-21 claimed about a thousand lives at its height in June-July 1921 including revolutionaries, soldiers, civilians and police. It is, however, to be wondered at how a nation and empire, which could lose over a thousand men in a single day’s fighting on the Somme should cavil at losing a thousand lives in two months. Nonetheless, the times should be taken into account. Around 1920, for example, the British put down a strike of workers in Glasgow, Scotland, with soldiers and machine guns. On the continent, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were raising the banner of socialist revolt in Berlin and Lenin and Trotsky were toppling the Tsarist regime in Russia. Everywhere, the old order was under attack and the British may not have felt secure in their Sceptered Isle, given civil disobedience and widespread disorder in one corner. As it was, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which finished the war, was a fine compromise for England for it accorded Ireland Dominion status on a par with – say – Canada or Australia, and maintained bases especially naval bases on Irish soil. As a young Churchill wrote: “What was the alternative? It was to plunge one small corner into an iron repression, which could not be carried out without an admixture of murder and counter-murder….Only national preservation could have excused such a policy and no reasonable man could allege that self-preservation was involved.” The background to the War of Independence was the Easter Rising of 1916. This rising was mainly confined to Dublin and consisted of a conventional all-out military frontal attack on the British base there. It was put down severely and followed by a wave of thousands of arrests, indiscriminate persecution that enflamed public opinion. Moreover, the National Service Act of 1916 introduced conscription to Ireland and that, with massive losses to Irish regiments during the First World War inflamed Irish hatred of the British also. In the general election to Parliament of 1918, Sinn Fein won 70% of the popular vote and thereby 72 out of 105 seats. The only place it did not win was the north-east corner of Ireland, which remained staunchly Unionist and Protestant and today forms Ulster or Northern Ireland. The first Dail or Parliament refused to send MPs to the British Parliament at Westminster, London, and instead set itself up as an Irish Parliament meeting at Mansion House, Dublin. It convened on the 19th January, 1919, and on its very first day members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) shot dead two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) escorting a consignment of high explosives. That incident in County Tiperary became what it was meant to be, the start of the Irish armed struggle for independence. Britain declared Tiperary a Special Military Area under the Defence of the Realm Act. However, the insurgents were taking a leaf out the Boer War book and waging the first modern guerilla war. They wore no uniform, fought hit-and-run, and faded quickly into the local population, which sheltered them. Unlike in 1915 in Dublin, superior British forces, arms and discipline were to no avail. It was two years later in January 1921 that the Dail expressly debated “whether it was feasible to accept formally a state of war that was being thrust on them, or not.” Eamonn de Valera, the first Irish president, favored a conventional war as more pleasing to international powers but fortunately he was not listened to. Instead Michael Collins and the broader IRA leadership opposed the conventional tactics that had led to the 1916 debacle. It was to be Michael Collins, first and foremost, who was architect of the freedom of Ireland. Meanwhile, Arthur Griffith put forward a campaign of civil disobedience. In 1919-’20, the scale of violence was limited. However, the police, the RIC, became a special target. They numbered 9,700 men, 1,500 of whom were in barracks, and they were the eyes and ears of the British. The Dail declared the people should ostracize them and called for strikes. Attacks on RIC posts increased and especially the smaller posts in the countryside had to be given up in favor of a withdrawal to the towns. Trials by jury could not be held because the jurors simply would not meet up. The IRA benefited by popular support, which the British government lost by excessive brutality and repression. Con't col 2 Geoff Jackson: REBELS AND REDCOATS 14. THE FORT The fort stands deserted Where redcoats were garrisoned And cold snow decks the rampars 18. West Weeping shores Look west To a promised land and an uncertain future 19. Ireland An emerald Lain in the bosom Of the Atlantic	Geoff Jackson: Cogadh na Saoirsecon't The British responded to escalating violence by setting up two new paramilitary forces. The Black-and-Tans (derisorily so-called because their uniforms were cobbled out of Army surplus khaki and RIC black uniforms) were formed in 1920. In the summer of 1920 they attacked and burned a number of small towns and gained themselves a reputation for drunkenness and ill-discipline. In July 1920, the Auxiliaries were formed from former British World War l officers and soon obtained as bad a reputation for mishandling the local civilian population. However, they were more effective than the Black-and-Tans and more willing to take on the IRA. The civil code was replaced by military law and courts martial extended to the whole of Ireland, including the death penalty and internment without trial. In 1921, the war intensified. In November 1920, the IRA killed about a dozen paramilitary, who retaliated by entering a Gaelic football match in Dublin and shooting and killing a dozen spectators, while wounding many others. The IRA meanwhile began stepping up its killing of people thought to be involved with and collaborating with the British. Michael Collins established a special squad called ‘G-men’ or sometimes The Twelve Apostles, to assassinate the British and Irish traitors. In summer 1921, there was also an intense propaganda war between the British and Irish nationalists. British newspaper articles depicted nationalists as anti-Protestant and suggested links between the IRA and Soviet Russia. Otherwise, English articles on Ireland were heavily ‘doctored’. Meanwhile, the Irish bulletin came out, which offered a catalogue of British government atrocities. Finally, a treaty was negotiated between England and Ireland from December 1921 – March 1922 and the Anglo-Irish Treaty recognized the existence of the Irish Free State. It was accepted both by the Dail Eirean or Irish Parliament and the House of Commons. Eamonn de Valera negotiated for Ireland and it was signed by both him and Michael Collins. It may be that Michael Collins realized he was signing his own death warrant, when he signed the treaty. Officially, Minister of Finance, no one had done more to coordinate the campaign of terror of the IRA than he. Many IRA extremists felt that the Anglo-Irish Treaty did not go far enough in recognizing a free Ireland and many were angry that the Unionist North had been conceded to Britain. Michael Collins’ popularity with his own rank-and-file led to his untimely death shortly afterwards. In spite of his name ‘Collins’ meaning ‘the boys’, ‘the boys’ shot him for what they saw as his ultimate betrayal. ~ Geoff Jackson Bob Djurdjevic: Preamble to St. Patrick's Day Adventure Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. To all of my fellow-Irish friends, I send you an early Happy St. Patrick's Day greeting! As some of you know, St. Patrick's Day is also my North American birthday. So I will be again 41 tomorrow. Isn't it wonderful how St. Patrick works his magic and helps us regress in age? :-) Anyway, since I am alone and the moment (Elizabeth is in Arizona), and my knee has fully healed thanks to Mary Magdalene's and other spirits' help, I plan to take off on a special adventure first thing tomorrow morning in the jungles of eastern Maui. And to do it with my open-air roofless Jeep (thus the "weather permitting" proviso). On the first leg of the trip, I plane to drive up to Kula and then go counter-clockwise on dirt roads to Pipiway Stream. The 4-mile jungle trail with an elevation difference of 650 feet is supposed to be one of the wonders of Maui. Along the way, I hope two see two magnificent waterfalls. Makahiku Falls is 180 ft drop, while the Waimoku Falls at the end of the trail is 400 feet in height (clock to see Oheo Gulch in Hawaii travel guide). Then if I survive the first trail with no injuries or other mishaps, I hope to continue counter-clockwise toward Hana (northeast tip of Maui) and do another one at Wai'anapanapa State Park & Trail (right). Needless to say, I do not hold out much hope that I will have mobile phone connection during the day tomorrow. Which is why I am sending you my early St. Patrick's Day wishes and this heads-up. And if you don't hear from me again, at least you can talk about how lucky Rainbow Bob was to have gone to the rainbow heaven from Goddess Pele's home (Hawaiian legends say her final resting place was near Hana). [Just kidding, of course. I fully expect to be back home by tomorrow night. After all, I have to water my new sage plants. And to put some green coloring in my ginger ale. That's the closest you will see me drinking ale. Yes, even on Paddy's Day]. :-) Finally, you can see in the right picture Elizabeth's St Patrick's Day birthday gift to me - a jade shamrock paperweight she bought in New York last October. She gave it to me before she left for AZ. Bob Djurdjevic: St. Patrick's Day 2011: Exciting, Unpredictable... A day's trip to Waimoku Falls, Pele's watery "grave," Hana and points north on Maui's shore HAIKU, Maui, Mar 17 - Well, my big St. Patrick's Day adventure didn't exactly go according to my plan. But then, things never do, Which makes them all the more exciting. In the end, things turn out the way they are supposed to happen. The disappointing part was a loss of over 30 mins of lovely video I had shot with my new camera. When I reviewed the pictures this evening, I found all of them to be blurry. And the still pictures I took with that camera were overexposed. Obviously, I god a lemon. So it's going back to the store today.	Bob Djurdjevic: St. Patrick's Day 2011: con't Fortunately, I also took my old camera as a backup for still pictures. Lucky I did. For those turned out to be the only photos worth publishing. When I woke up on St. Patrick's Day morning, it was raining. I had been also raining on an off during the night. So I thought I may have to forego my plans (topless Jeep and all). Before I did, I thought I'd double check with the spirits. The mystic medicine card I drewI was Ancient Wisdom again. The Grandmother showed up for a second time this week. She seemed to assure me that I will be under her shield of protection (in the painting, Grandmother marches with the shield and drum of protection for Mother Earth and her children). So I took took off, rain or shine. And boy, was Grandma ever right. It was shine all the way. Within a mile from home, the rain had stopped. By the time I made it to Makawao, it was sunny. It stayed sunny all day even though the official forecast was for clouds with occasional showers, Thank you, Grandmother and St. Patrick! I did wear green, as you can see and was enveloped by greenery most of the day. There is a large time gap between that first shot on the left and the one on the right. The latter was taken at the start of the Waimoku Falls trail. I left home at 8AM. That shot was taken around 11AM. By then, I had made nine video clips with my new camera which I have had to trash now. I may try to split off the narration and superimpose it over some of the still images, but that's an arduous process which will take time. So anyway, back to the trail... The vegetation along the way is very similar to what we have in the gulch of the Rainbow Shower. It's just that everything is bigger. More rain. You can see a giant banyan in the middle left, and a huge mango tree under which I am crouching in the next shot to the right. There is even a regular Milo tree jungle (two right shots). The density and the size of the trees made me chuckle. I planted two Milo trees last fall and have been nursing them like babies trying to keep them alive. They have just started to grow but are still not more than four feet tall. And look at here... they are growing like weeds. And then take a look at those green tea plants high up in the air (far right), growing right out of the limbs of big trees. Symbioses - is that the right word? I seem to remember something like that from my high school biology classes. [Which I hated, by the way :-) ]. I even saw some giant coffee trees, Alas, I can't show them to you. They are in my video trash bin. There are Seven Sacred Pools leading up to Waimoku Falls. The one in the right photo is the first one. Ancient Hawaiians considered this entire area a holy site. And I can see why. Not only is it beautiful, you can feel the good "mana" (positive earth energy) as you walk the trail. For me, the walk through the bamboo forest was the most interesting experience of the day. Of course, we have bamboo groves at the Rainwbow Shower. And I have talked about written about their song. But I never got this kind of a primordial feeling there as I did with Waimoku Falls bamboos. I did not time my hike with all the stops and detours,, but I figure it probably took a an hour and a half to climb 700 feet over two-miles to reach Waimoku Falls. As you approach the Falls, you hear it before you can see it. Once you emerge from the jungle, the sight is spectacular. A 400-ft vertical drop... too high to fit into a single camera shot. It took two of them vertically and three horizontally to give you the panoramic views below... On my way back to the trailhead, I took pictures of a couple of things I had missed on the way in. Then I as I drove on northward toward Hana, I stopped to take a picture of one of many spectacular ocean views. And then, just before reaching Hana, I stopped to pay homage to Goddess Pele at her final resting place, according to Hawaiian legends, her watery grave just off Koki Beach. Elizabeth and I had been there before back in 2009. But that was before I was aware of the place's spiritual significance. I just turned off the road on a spur of the moment back then, and we ended up on Koki Beach. Pele, who has guided me to move from Arizona to Maui, and has been a constant presence in my life ever since, was probably holding on to the steering with me that day. This time around, I came to bow before her grave in full loving consciousness. My next stop was much more earthly. I was getting hungry. And the Ono Organic Farms fruit stand in Hana looked very appealing. Whenever I stop at a fruit stand like this, I get educated about some new exotic fruit I had never seen before. This time, it was the egg fruit (third from the left in the line up on my Jeep's railing (left). I ate that beautiful looking mango. It was as delicious as it was pretty. And I bought that Surinam Cherry glaze for Elizabeth (who loves cherries) for when she comes back from Arizona. I paused briefly in Hana to take a picture of that giant cross that rises above the town. I had never noticed it before. And being St. Patrick's Day... you know. Then I drove westward to my second intended destination of the day - the Waianapanapa State Park and its famous black sand beach. But "best laid plans of mice and men." It was not to be. I found the entrance to the park barred by a long barrier. Not being one to be so easily thwarted, I walked past the barrier and followed the road on foot for about half a mile. The deeper I got into the jungle, the less travel the road was. At one point, a baby African Tulip tree was growing in the middle of what was once the road. "This road has not seen any traffic for a long time," I figured. So I turned around and walked back to the Jeep. "Oh well, it's not meant to be." And then I drove on. On my way back home, I did find a black beach... at Honomanu Gulch, where a gentle stream flows into the ocean. "Guess that's the black beach St. Patrick wanted me to see today," I thought. After that, I caught some pretty spectacular views from Hana Highway. There were even more on video. Alas, they are in my trash bin now. Thus ended an exciting and unpredictable St. Patrick's Day trip. Back home, I managed a corned beef dinner to round out the experience.
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