A beautiful essay as endorsement of Obama by the great Alice Walker, who argues that

we must build alliances not on ethnicity or gender, but on truth.
Alice Walker on Obama, The Root.com
[via Daily Kos]

Apologies to those of you who use Internet Explorer and have got an “Aborted” message when visiting this website. Hopefully the issue is resolved now.
I would have continued to be unaware of it but for Christine Clear and Rosemarie Rowley. Rosemarie sent me an email wondering if my website had moved. In Christine’s case, [...]

hello! spring is here… and the Shell AGM approaches in May. We have 6 shell shares to give away! You must be prepared to be an active shareholder!! (go along to the meetings either in London or Holland on Tuesday 20th May 2008)
http://www.shell.com/home/content/investor-en/shareholder/faq/rds_shareholder_faqs.html
You will have to give some personal details.
for contact see The Rossport Solidary [...]

Who would have thought it? Ireland owns part of the US debt, according to a scary article in The Daily Telegraph.
As of June 2007, foreigners owned $6,007bn of long-term US debt. (Equal to 66pc of the entire US federal debt). The biggest holdings by country are, in billions: Japan (901), China (870), UK (475), [...]

Tempus fugit.
When I was asked some time ago by Sarah from 7Towers to read with Oran Ryan, March 19th seemed like an age away.
Now suddenly it’s here.
In case you think that Chapters is still in Abbey Street, it moved to a fine, spacious premises on Parnell Street, a minutes walk from the top of [...]

In my rare idle moments of late, I’ve been musing on South America, a kind of daydream, really, probably because I was playing a little flamenco on my computer which progressed to a little tango and eventually to Vuelvo al Sur, with Astor Piazzolla & Roberto Goyeneche. You can look up the lyrics in Spanish [...]

I don’t know how many events I can make myself, but the Dublin Book Festival is on from tomorrow till Sunday.

See the schedule here.

There is a fascinating excerpt from Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing, by Katherine Ashenburg in today’s London Times.

Excerpt from Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing, The Times, London
In the spirit of the book, I thought I’d quote My Masculine Skin, from my last book of poems, Dialogue in Fading Light (Dublin, New Island [...]