So I go away on a two-week vacation, and in my absence the second London bombing occurs, a judge is nominated to the Supreme Court, the IRA declares peace, British police subsequently round up all the bombing suspects (including shooting to death a wrong one), the attempt to "impeach" Rove sputters, a goaded Nicole Kidman announces she is giving up acting to find love, and Jane Fonda revives her sell-out Vietcong act of the 1970s in a cross-country bus tour denouncing Iraq. Bush appoints Bolton during the recess, and King Fahd dies. For a blogger it's a little like coming home to a huge pile of laundry.
I've spent much of the past two weeks riding a bicycle around western Ireland, marveling at the peace and prosperity that has settled over the long-cursed land. If there is a price for all this, much of it comes from EU farming subsidies, keeping the pastures rich and scenic. Perhaps the EU should offer farming subsidies to the Middle East. The lovely seaside towns that tourists might once have praised as "unspoilt" (their occupants would have condemned them as simply "poor") are now being transformed by vacation home developments, New Age boutiques, gourmet black puddings and organic local cheeses. The tiny roads are now so lethally crowded that signs every few miles alert drivers to the number of recent highway deaths in that county. Hotel reception desks and dining rooms are staffed by Lithuanian immigrants. Immigrants, at last, TO Ireland!
The biggest puzzle for me, however, were the fields of sheep spray-painted in day-glo colors. The sheep, that is, not the fields. They came in many colors: orange, red, green, yellow. I'd be whizzing along in third gear, and grazing nonchalantly by the roadside would be clusters of sheep as gaily spray-painted as New York subway cars in the pre-Giuliani days. Was this some strange EU regulation? A color code to which the sheep had to conform? My favorite was an entire herd spray-painted blue like Mel Gibson's face in "Braveheart."
If the IRA can end it's reign of terror, I can't help but wonder whether one day I'll be riding a bike through southern Iraq, marveling at all the tour buses and crowded hotels, the EU-subsidized herds, the improvement in the local cuisine...
But for now it's back to the laundry.