The Agrinautica

   One of the LJ Idol topics this week is "Irish Revisionist History." I'm sure most (all) of you have dismissed this out of hand as ridiculous. I, of course, was all about it. But then I decided I don't actually feel like writing about it, but here's what it is:

Perhaps revisionism is more easily identified where one historical interpretation has very high political/moral stakes attached to it. We all know what "Revisionism" means in relation to the history of World War II and the Holocaust. In Irish history, revisionism began by challenging the "Irish-Ireland" tradition of history, which claimed the Irish people are a unified Celtic nation oppressed throughout their history by English/British imperialism. Revisionists questioned, among other things, the mythological scope of Irish suffering, and employed statistical methods to analyze the 1845-51 famine. They were deeply criticized by historians and politicians for this, accused of sucking the blood and heart out of Irish history and stealing the Irish story from Ireland's children. More recently, though, historians have begun using revisionist methods to verify that, in fact, Irish suffering during the famine was just about as extreme as traditionally held. The April 1996 issue of The Journal of British Studies contains several articles on trends in British and Irish revisionism. - Source

   So there you go. Irish history, revisioned, and unrevisioned. Turns out we did suffer Just That Much. And, personally, I still haven't forgiven Cromwell and throw mud at his memory every chance I get.

Topic 2: Holidays
   As sort of a piece of performance art blogging, I bring you the entire (comments included) wildly unofficial totally unindorsed nothing-to-do-with-lj-idol greenroom-like Holiday Party post I made. There was glögg, there was some kind of delicious looking Australian cake, there was superhappytime never showing up despite a young lady waiting for him under the mistletoe. There was pin-the-wreath on clauderainsrm. There apparently was also a major major scandalsplosion regarding it. I'd just like to reiterate for the record that I had no intention to hijack the Green Room (tm), and was using greenroom in strictly a non-proper-noun sense.


   And now, I'm off to Nor Cal! ::jumps in sleigh::