Heightened Levels of Inactivity

One of the problems of blogging by one's self is that when life intrudes--as it frequently does--it appears that one has fallen off the face of the earth.

I have not fallen off the face of the earth (much to chagrin of several people I know who shall remain nameless--hear that, Howie?). Life--REAL life--is intervening big time right now, and IN THE DARK has remained for the last week or so, well, in the dark.

One of life's interventions about which I am fairly pleased, but which has kept me away from this blog, is my final submission of a manuscript which I've been working on, off and on, for the last twenty years. It is called (at this moment, anyway) Empowerment and Impotence: The Clash of Cultures and Media of Communication in Eighteenth Century Ireland and it will be published by the Edwin Mellen Press at a date to be announced. It's a book that investigates and tries to answer three questions: 1] Why did printing come so late to Ireland? 2] Why, once it appeared, did it spread so slowly? 3] Why, once it did spread and become a cultural phenomenon, did it serve to spread the English, rather than the Irish, language? There's a lot more to this story than is suggested by these three brief questions, but that's the nickel explanation.

This weekend, I am off to beautiful Nassau County, Long Island, New York to visit two of my three grown children there (my middle kid, Brigid, is currently spending a year teaching English in Tongliao, China). I will be visiting, sharing a beer with, and perhaps staying at least one night with my "right-wing friend from NY," Howie (you know I love ya, Howie). So it is very unlikely I will even think about blogging for the next several days, even if I have the physical opportunity to do so.

My apologies to the dozens (yes, there are dozens, and no, we're NOT the dailyKos) of readers who come by once, twice, or several times a week to read IN THE DARK. I promise to continue picking through the news and highlighting stories and bits of information that are important, but largely ignored in the mainstream.

See ya later.