Joe Biden

Biden is no old Irish hero

Biden is no old Irish hero

Making Irish boring was a feature of the Irish educational system, rather than a bug. Learning Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (or Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne), the epic retelling of a love triangle between the aging warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill, his loyal follower Diarmaid, and the beautiful and wily Gráinne, should have ensured rapt teenage attention with its tales of illicit sex and bloodthirsty feuds. Yet, I was bored senseless by the focus on grammar and pronunciation, with the wild language tamed into anaemic English approximations. I remembered thinking, as I stared out the window of Mrs. Mahon’s Irish class in Gortnor Abbey, why didn’t old Fionn just let the young lovers be? Why risk all your accomplishments in an obsessive pursuit of a young woman who found you too old and wanted a younger lover?

A Two Horse Race

A Two Horse Race

Following the notorious recent presidential debate hosted by CNN, The Hill reported on July 1st from a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll that 72% of voters have already decided who they will vote for in the upcoming election, with 58% of Independents, 16% of Republicans, and 28% of Democrats yet to decide. Meanwhile, Trump leads Biden in a head-to-head match-up in the poll by 6 points. Since then polling suggests that Biden has lost further valuable ground in swing states due to the public’s reaction to his dismal debate performance. These seven crucial states, where less than a hundred thousand votes can swing the election either way, have the Democratic Party in turmoil over whether Joe Biden should be the nominee to contest the upcoming election against Donald Trump.

‘If he runs, it’s over. Period’.

‘If he runs, it’s over. Period’.

‘If he runs, it’s over, period’ — the text glared at me from my phone, and I was at a loss for words. We had just left my local Ralph’s grocery store, the evening breeze offering a welcome break from the relentless summer heat of Southern California. A young couple stood by the fast food truck, intently listening to the CNN Presidential debate on the young man’s smartphone. They didn’t appear Eastern-European, and those who did weren’t paying attention to either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, instead going about their day — shopping, chatting at outdoor restaurant tables in Armenian or Russian, or hurrying home. My phone was buzzing with messages from my older Jewish friend in New York: ‘Are you watching the debate? We are in deep shit.’