To Mac or not to Mac?

Surely that is the only question.

So I’m supposed to be doing a masters in September, in computers no less. This requires the acquisition of a laptop. Fair enough. There’s one issue though.

I WANT A MAC!!!
I don’t need ten reasons.
I don’t need great ad campaigns.
I don’t even need an iHiFi or whatever the official name is

But I NEED a Mac. I had four last year. Now I have none. Surely the arrival of Bootcamp was designed with me in mind??

My dilemma is clear. A Dell for €1700 or a Mac(Book Pro no less!) for €2500… the latter deal is financially more costly, but will ensure the sanctity of my inner soul. Surely that’s worth it??

Surely….

Squids, Whales and Lots More Besides

Went to see the Squid and the Whale tonight. Fantastic film. It’s the true(ish?) story of one son’s perspective on the break-up of his parents’ marriage - and a fairly unorthodox one at that. Not least because of a frankly unworkable ‘joint custody’ system. And the fact that the entire cast seems to be made up of borderline lunatics. Not least the younger son who takes to masturbating in the library at school and decorating the books and lockers in the school with the product of his activities.

What it really makes you think about - other than the obvious ‘my god why are people so cruel to each other’, not to mention ‘ah the inevitability of completely screwing up your kids‘ - is the issue of whether an autobiographical work can be a fair or just production. As is fairly obvious to all, all life is intertwined. You can’t write a book about your childhood without writing about your parents, your siblings, your neighbours. At the same time, yours is a very specific perspective. It would seem impossible to consult with all those involved to get your story straight first, and yet once one version of the story is in print, if the alternative is not similarly produced then it becomes the ‘final say’ on the matter.

The Squid & The Whale, as I said, is a wonderful film, and a fantastic observation of a terrible ordeal from a specific perspective. But as an audience to that ordeal, it’s impossible not to wonder how the rest of the real-life cast of characters may feel about seeing their name (and shame) in lights.

God forbid you challenge a stereotype

So there I was flicking through the Indo, hoping to find some vaguely relevant if slightly tarnished news stories. And there was a very relevant story, about the extent to which migrant workers are abused to various extents by their employers, purely on grounds of race.

Naturally, the editor thought “I need a photo for this page”. That’s what editors do at times like this, when they’re figuring out their pages. Or sometimes the writers even think it themselves. Kudos all round. Break up the text lads, you know you want to… But why, why I ask you, must you take such a supposedly obvious photo?

Yes my rage is irrational. There is no ‘good’ reason for being pissed off purely because to illustrate ‘migrant’ the Indo chose to ‘insert random black family’. But these are the moments on which years of stereotyping and bigotry are based. Why not take the opportunity to make people realise a fundamental truth?

The top six languages spoken by immigrants to Ireland at the moment - French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic. Polish and Russian lads. Translation? Caucasian (an ironic term in and of itself). Anyone who lives in this country must surely be realising that “caucasian” and “irish-born” are no longer synonymous on this island? So why on earth can the likes of the aforemention editor and/or journalist not take it upon themselves to take the next logical step?

It infuriates me, no doubt more than any ‘rational’ people I know could accept. But this country has been divided for the guts of a millenium by what are ultimately superficial differences. And we’re about to do it all again. We are fast becoming a ghetto state, and for some reason no matter how much certain groups scream “stop the train, i really, desperately want to get off”, it has no impact - no effect. We are consciously hurtling towards a situation where the various negativities of the past will in the future be aimed at anyone that wasn’t born here, anyone that isn’t caucasian, because “as we all know” those categories of people are fundamentally bad.

Change is bad, right? Difference is evil, right?

Yeah, I thought so…