New York Stories...

At the beginning of December I travelled to New York. This series of articles will take a look at some of the issues that are making the news, there and in the US at the moment.

The City That Never Sleeps

Flying to the United States from Ireland does have the advantage that you can clear US Immigration at Dublin airport, where the friendly officials from the Department of Homeland Security will scan your passport, take your picture and your fingerprint in minutes. When you enter the concourse of the Transatlantic terminal in Dublin, you are effectively on US soil and are greeted by a large poster of the pre-9/11 World Trade Centre, emblazoned with the caption ’We will never forget’ - or something to that effect.

On arrival at Newark airport, the passengers of our flight were able to sail past the extremely long queues at immigration of those unlucky people whose countries have no such agreements with the United States. These queues of course are the result of the stringent new security checks put in place by US authorities in the aftermath of the horrendous terrorist attacks on New York and Washington over four years ago. They are the first visual manifestation that a visitor will notice of the fear that pervades American life in the era of the ‘War on Terror’.

This fear is no doubt especially felt in New York, the city that was most effected on that terrible day in September 2001. The physical scars remain in the form of the gaping hole left in the World Trade Centre and the emotional wounds resonate in the heavy and reverent atmosphere you experience when visiting Ground Zero. It really hits home when you see the wall filled with the names of those who fell on 9/11. New York is a damaged city still trying to recover from those murderous attacks.

This can perhaps be best seen in the psychological effect on the population and the authorities in charge of security for the city. Even that most quintessential activity of daily New York life - taking a yellow cab - is affected by the new security regime. Before entering the Holland Tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan you pass LED ticker displays advising people to watch out for suspicious activity and providing a telephone hotline number. There was also a police checkpoint (the driver hastily fastened his seatbelt and stopped talking on his mobile phone). In Manhattan itself there are billboards warning of the dangers of unattended bags and urging vigilance.

The most striking display of the increased security were the armed squads of New York Police Department officers. While armed police of any type can take some getting used to (Irish guards rely only on their trusty batons!); these cops had military style helmets, flak jackets and machine guns and looked ready to take on a horde of al-Qaida Jihadis. (although they’re more likely to be seen posing for pictures with gaggles of teenaged girls - see below) One American tourist, also staying at my hotel, who had just encountered such a squad in Times Square, said that ’sometimes it doesn’t even feel like my own country anymore.’

I can certainly understand where he was coming from. America is supposed to stand for Liberty, Equality and Democracy. While heavily armed police units and a certain amount of paranoia may be necessary to confront the very real threat of terrorism, legislation like the Patriot act, unlimited spying on American citizens, the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay and alleged official sanctioned torture and kidnappings by the CIA are all anathema to what American traditionally represents.

Nobody can fault the extra vigilance and wariness of the people of New York, a city that had its very foundations - real and metaphorical - shaken on September 11. It may be ’the city that never sleeps’ for a different reason now but it is still a welcoming place that seems to have lost none of its spirit. George W. Bush’s America on the other hand is in danger of losing the values that set it apart from its ruthless enemies.

New York Stories...

New York Stories...

At the beginning of December I travelled to New York. Starting with this post this series will take a look at some of the issues that are making the news in the US and 'the city that never sleeps' at the moment.

Putting the 'Christ' back in Christmas?

The tree, skating rink, lights and decorations in the Rockefeller Centre Plaza in Mid-Town Manhattan (above) are enough to get even the most hardened ‘Ebenezer Scrooge’ to get merry, sing carols, frolic in the snow, drink copiously, and come on to some unfortunate colleague at the office party. The place looks spectacular and it beats the hell out of the paltry attempts of Dublin Corporation to inject some festive spirit into the rainy Irish capital. You would have thought such things as fairy lights, tinsel, stars and angels weren’t the stuff of controversy. You’d be wrong.

Seemingly innocent festively decorated trees are currently enraging the Christian right of America. Apparently some more politically correct (if pedantically so) Americans have been referring to these trees as ’holiday trees’ rather than the more traditional term ’Christmas tree’ - presumably so as not to alienate America’s religious minorities. While this political correctness is quite ridiculous - I mean a Christmas tree is a tree with pretty lights and has no religious significance - what is even more preposterous is the rabid reaction of the Christian right to this nomenclature of decorative trees, which, I reiterate, have no religious significance whatsoever.

In a campaign that aims to ‘put the Christ back in Christmas’ various elements of the Christian right have, according to the New York Times, already forced the Governor of Georgia (the deep South - where else…?) to retract a reference to the State’s ’holiday tree’, and are boycotting any businesses that don’t mention Christmas in their advertising.

Such pettiness astounds me. I find it very difficult to understand what motivates these people to care about such a triviality. It reminds me of the time when the conservative former US attorney-general John Ashcroft had the bare breasts of a statue in the Department of justice expensively covered up because they offended his Christian sensitivities. These people are very easily offended. When you think of all the other actually important issues that Christians should be concerned with - the aleviation of poverty, the fostering of world peace etc., it’s absurd that this campaign is being conducted with such fervour by some in the Christian right. Imagine what could be done if equal energy was put into trying to solve worthwhile problems.

Perhaps all of this furore could be viewed as a worthy endeavour to combat the rampant consumerism that Christmas has come to represent. However this is clearly not the case when some of the most conservative Christians in America - the evangelical variety - aren’t even holding services in their ‘mega-churches’ on Christmas day because it would be inconvenient for their congregations. Nevermind that this year Christmas falls on a Sunday - supposedly the most ‘holy’ day of the week to Christians. Such hypocrisy undermines any arguments over terminology in advertising or the names of purely decorative trees and simply shows the Christian right for what they are, silly, small-minded and just plain weird; and that’s before you take into account evangelical preachers on TV, their views on evolution, and Presidents that think God is speaking to them…

It seems that for some of these wound-up, over-zealous, Christian Fundamentalists, Happy Holidays these are not.

Nuclear Power is Not the Solution

This was the view that greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he arrived at a conference centre in London last week to announce the re-opening of the debate on Nuclear Energy. The daredevil Greenpeace protesters, dangling from the roof, dropped flyers and demanded to be allowed speak at the event in return for ending their protest. They were refused and of course arrested.

Blair gave the speech in an adjoining room making his case for a re-evaluation of the nuclear option. The argument goes as follows: though nuclear power is costly, oil and gas are getting more and more expensive, supplies are dwindling, and reserves are in unstable parts of the world; nuclear power is a secure source of energy for Britain that won't produce the carbon emissions like fossil fuels and so won't contribute to global warming.

It sounds like the perfect solution but we've been down this road before. In the 1950s civil nuclear technology was heralded as an endless, cheap and safe supply of power. It turned out to produce waste that's almost endlessly radioactive, it's not cheap, and as the accidents at Three-Mile-Island and, more disastrously, Chernobyl proved nuclear power can be far from safe. Add to this the recognised problem of increased rates of cancer among those who live near nuclear plants and the modern threat of terrorist attacks on such institutions, and the nuclear option seems to be less of a panacea for dealing with the current energy crisis than Tony Blair would like to say it is.

These proposed new power plants would be located on current nuclear sites so as to encounter less obstacles in the planning process. This would be of major concern to people in Ireland as the Sellafield nuclear power and reprocessing plant in Cumbria has long been blamed for making the Irish Sea the most radioactive in the world. Waste from the plant- admittedly of lower radioactive content than previously - pumped into the sea, has been linked to cancer in the north-east of the country and there has long been a campaign to have the facility closed down. Indeed it was due to be shut in 2010. This date looks unlikely if Britain pursues a renewed nuclear program as the site would surely be pick for one of the new power plants.

What astounds me is not only the disregard for human health in the UK and indeed Ireland that this idea represents, but also the brushing aside of other forms of energy generation to take over from fossil fuel. The atrocious weather in this part of the world rules out solar power as a viable option to replace fossil fuels and nuclear power. However that same weather gives us (as I've said before) truly endless potential for energy generation should we stump up the cash for expensive and ugly wind turbines instead of expensive, ugly and possibly lethal nuclear power plants.

While Blair says he only wants a debate on nuclear energy his speech was clearly a U-turn from the view his government held on the issue just a couple of years ago when nuclear power was ruled out. It is a lazy, short-sighted and reckless idea that must be fervently opposed not only in Britain but in Ireland as well.