Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

An arts venue was the location for the latest step in Northern Ireland's peace process. The recently rebuilt Lyric Theatre hosted a highly anticipated event on the second day of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee visit to Northern Ireland. It was particularly anticipated as the Deputy First Minister and former(?) IRA commander, Martin McGuinness, has always previously refused to meet the Queen. Slicer has posted previously on how we had hoped that might be about to change. To Martin McGuinness, HM is the Head of a state of a Kingdom with which he has considered he was at war.  The Queen too has suffered much - at the hands of the IRA, not only in terms of members of her government, police force, army and citizens being killed or maimed, but also her own family. Her historic visit to the Irish Republic last year was commented on by Slicer here.

On this occasion, however, Mr McGuinness was present along with other Northern Ireland Assembly Members and cameras recorded a hugely important handshake that will have been painful for both HM and Mr McGuinness. Its brevity belies its magnitude. Given the name of the Theatre which hosted the event, some pertinent lyrics are called for - something joyous. The King has done a version, but Slicer prefers the upbeat enthusiasm of Little Richard's take:

 

"Come over baby

whole lot of shakin' goin' on

Yes, I said come over baby

Baby you can't go wrong

We ain't fakin'

Whole lot of shakin' goin' on...

...Come over baby

Babe we got the bull by the horn-a

We ain't fakin'

Whole lot of shakin' goin' on."

Some have said this handshake is nothing more than a sham. Slicer begs to differ and suggests that they're not fakin.' Whilst different political aspirations remain, the origin of the handshake as a form of greeting is a strong signal to how we might best realise our aspirations.

For those who dream in colour, here's another version c/o Willie Nelson & Jerry Lee Lewis:

 

The clip is from the DVD "Outlaws and Angels." Slicer thinks it's not his job to determine who's an outlaw and who's an angel. 

 "Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise."

Then again
"You can’t get to glory by the raising and the lowering of no flag
Put your goodness next to God’s and it comes out like a filthy rag
In a city of darkness there’s no need of the sun
And there ain’t no man righteous, no not one." 

Comments

[Michael Slippery Gray]

No Bob Dylan connection, though that's nothing new (on more than one level), apart from what you didn't mention: sometimes Satan comes as a Man of Peace. Just McGuinness's shifty eyes in his expressionless (beyond that of frozen hate) face says he's hypocritically dripping in the blood of self-conscious willful denial.

But given that you omitted that, the in-one's-faceness of your (wafer-thin) slice belies its relevance.

The problem of Irish feudal (and feuding) bloodlust* goes back to at least the first colonization by Partholan around 1484 BC (about 2520 years since the Creation according to the PAGAN Irish Annals [of the Four Masters]). Partholan landed in the estuary of the river Kenmare. Partholan was the grandson of Magog: the biblical grandson of Noah as recorded in the Genesis fairy tale.

As for why this migration, and others, by early descendants of biblical cartoon characters is documented outside the Bible when:

i) modern man had been around for 100 to 200,000 years earlier and so should have already been in Ireland, leaving visible traces;
ii) there is no scientific evidence of a humanity-destroying global Flood or the consequent migration of humanity, descended from only 8 surviving persons, from the parochial confines of a post-Flood Babel, this will have to be left to those with intellectual integrity to ponder.

But if the descent of humanity is to be traced, even from extra-biblical sources, from immediate descendants of Noah, then the extreme antiquity of humanity belies its brevity. If humanity did get wiped out by a global Flood, then that would have left a geological imprint too, for which there is no evidence. Why? Because the geological record proves the extreme antiquity of humanity and even greater antiquity of the earth.

In which case, why do ancient extrabiblical records trace colonization of Europe (and elsewhere) to recent post-Noah ancestors clearly documented in the Bible (Genesis's Table of Nations)? If we're Out of Africa 200,000 years ago, dispersing all over the globe, we shouldn't be coming from a Middle East Babel from well under 4,500 years ago.

But then if Herr Knoll has a better explanation of the evolution of human language, ug ug ug...

Of course this is beyond your slice-thin Bob Dylan "news" attention span.

As for your closing recycled-Dylan altar call, are you getting many converts from among the Bobheads? Dawkins holds you in even greater contempt than "YEC". And the divine indignation of Dawkins is a terrible thing to behold. At the apocalypse Dawkins's judgmental glare will disintegrate you into a puff of smoke.

Don't look for him, he'll see you

* As for whether the bloodthirstiness of the Irish is genetic (in which case blame evolution) or induced by cramped living space, I'll leave to the intellectuals.

[Michael Slippery Gray]

ps: was Martin searched for offensive weapons first? Where are the bodyguards in suits who would have rugby tackled either him or the Queen to the floor?

[Michael Slippery Gray]

And doesn't Martin "repeatedly deny" having been IRA commander? Not that the denial has ever rung even remotely true.

[Michael Slippery Gray]

Incidentally the whole of Sin Feign have that same look: creepy, shifty, motionless faces given away by twitchy evil eye movements, masquerading as totally reasonable and put-upon by the injustice of "the British government", a compulsive mantra which they must include within at least every third sentence.

Martin has "murderer" written across his brow - in dripping blood. Of course all those deaths are "very regrettable", meaning: "I killed them, even though I won't admit it, because I wasn't getting my own way". After all, it was "war".