She is a monster but that is off the record!!

By chance I heard this woman on Irish radio yesterday and she was awfully serious and very well educated and so on. She was talking about Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad in 2003. She has written a book on him. I felt like reaching for a dictionary after listening to her for ten minutes! Anyway, God help her. What people say when they think they are off the record.

Courtesy of RTE website www.rte.ie

An Irish-born foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama has resigned, after branding Hillary Clinton a monster that would stoop to anything to win the Democratic nomination.

'With deep regret, I am resigning from my role as an advisor (to) the Obama campaign effective today,' said Samantha Power, who made her comments in an interview with the Scotsman newspaper.

'Last Monday, I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign," she said in a statement.

'I extend my deepest apologies to Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, and the remarkable team I have worked with over these long 14 months.'

Ms Power's comments are the latest sign that Mr Obama's once flawless campaign is feeling the heat from increased pressure from the Clinton camp.

She had been an aide to Mr Obama in his Senate office before signing on to advise his presidential campaign.

'We f****d up in Ohio,' Ms Power told the Scottish daily, referring to the Illinois senator's loss to the former first lady in the midwestern state in Tuesday's primary.

'In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win,' Ms Power was quoted as saying.

'She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything,' Ms Power said.

'You just look at her and think 'Ergh'.'

Earlier, the Obama campaign attempted to tamp down the controversy, putting out a statement by Ms Power, and disavowing her remarks.

'These comments do not reflect my feelings about Senator Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired,' Ms Power said in a statement

'I should not have made these comments and I deeply regret them. It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms.

'I apologise to Senator Clinton and to Senator Obama, who has made very clear that these kinds of expressions should have no place in American politics.'

Ms Power's comments came as she was interviewed in London promoting her book on UN representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad in 2003.

Ms Power is a professor of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Her previous book 'A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide' won a Pulitzer Prize.

On Beauty

My nineteen year old niece took part in a local beauty pageant recently. Yes, in 2008 we still have beauty contests except that now the onus is on organizers to pretend that personality matters. That and it helps to have a degree so that the judges can keep up the charade they are looking for more than leggy lovely's with tiny waists.

Anyway, I won't lie -- when I heard she was taking part in the Miss x pageant I was absolutely horrified. My husband told me I was a being a snob about the whole thing and that if her looks were going to help her to achieve in life than she should go for it.

I managed to get out of the semi final citing work commitments but I really had to attend the final to show solidarity with my niece. To be honest I knew she didn't stand a chance of winning. She has a gorgeous face which she inherited from my sister's in laws (ie. she doesn't look like us) but she is lacking in the height department and is also a tad curvaceous. (Guess what she got from us?)

So the big night arrived and my niece did herself proud during the interview section. She is training to be a beautician and she talked a bit about her work and career hopes and aspirations and so on. She really did well.

I was completely taken aback by the girls with college degrees who couldn't string a sentence together. Young women with finance degrees who had no idea how to communicate other than to 'big themselves up.' Now self affirmation is not the Irish way. We just don't take kindly to people who go on about how wonderful/talented they are. It just has never been part of our psyche.

But there they were regaling the host with stories about how they were combining college with waterpolo and learning languages as they carried out charitable work near their home etc etc etc. It was one of the most boring nights of my life. By and large the girls showed no trace of personality. They were just there to win. The competition was a stepping stone to bigger things. A bonus for girls who had lucked out on the genetic lottery.

The winner was announced and it was a tall, thin girl who was in her final year as a medical student. I remembered her interview and she had really impressed me. She wasn't the prettiest of the girls but I thought she had the whole overall package of looks, brains and charm. So I was glad that she had triumphed if a little sad for my young niece.

I don't really know where I am going with this post. I suppose I just found the whole event a bit depressing. I am not opposed to beauty pageants per se but surely they are just relics of another age? Is there really a place for them in modern society?

That said I must admit my self esteem was truly rocked by seeing tonnes of 5ft 11 inch girls who were ten years younger, thinner and far prettier than me. At one stage my niece introduced me to two contestants saying "This is my Auntie". The two pretty giraffes smiled at me and said 'Hello' with the same tone of voice I probably unwittingly use with old people in nursing homes.

Maybe I am jealous of their youth and beauty. Perhaps I am becoming more conscious of my own mortality as 33, the year of the crucifixion draws near!

But something about that night made me deeply uncomfortable -- and it wasn't just the pair of magic knickers that I bought to keep my protruding stomach under control.

When we were young.....it starts here!

I was twelve when Dirty Dancing first hit theaters. I was very precocious and thought it was beneath me. Took me years to acknowledge that it was in in fact Star Wars for girls. (Yes, I know 'girls' like Star Wars but they are few and far between and I have yet to meet one).

Anyway, my friend Lorna loved Dirty Dancing. She even bought the video cassette which was a big deal in 1987. Bear in mind in backwards Ireland the mere fact of having a machine to play the tape on was the height of coolness.

I never quite understood the Patrick Swayze thing myself. All I saw was a mullet. I didn't swoon over him but I secretly was impressed by the storyline. Like any twelve year old I wanted the strong but silent type to come and rescue me too. All young teens are like 'Baby' and I would have done anything for someone to tell me that I shouldn't be put in a corner.

By coincidence I came across the tail end of Patrick's Swayze's biography on the surprise surprise Biography Channel a couple of months ago. I started to reminisce about that whole era. The sheer innocence of it all. The fact that half the storyline went over our heads.

Swayze described Dirty Dancing as being the movie that 'wouldn't die.' Not that he wasn't grateful for the career boost but it really has, with the exception of Ghost, overshadowed all his subsequent work.

Swayze came across as being a very down to earth humble guy. It is to his credit in the transient world that is Hollywood that he has managed to stay married to the same woman for thirty years.

I was surprised by how saddened I was to hear of his battle with pancreatic cancer. I have never been a fan as such but he brings me back to an earlier perhaps gentler era when my biggest problems revolved around what to wear at a student disco.

I wish him the best and I hope he makes a full recovery from this relatively rare but deadly form of cancer.

So the nostalgia train boards here. The aging process is catching up with us all. I remember throwing my eyes up to heaven when I was a teenager as my mother waxed lyrical about some teen idol who had passed away.

Now I understand. In a few short years time I will be picking up the paper and expressing shock about the sudden passing of, I don't know, the front man of Simple Minds or A-ha.

I will mourn these people for what they represented in a particular moment in my life. I will mourn them not only for their merits but for that chapter in my history they inhabit.

Oh the Madonna's and the Prince's will all be a big media splash when they kick the bucket but I think I will weep more for forgotten idols. The ones who meant so much for fifteen minutes when I was young.

The high profile stars stay in our consciousness . But the artists who define an era are the ones who only had successful careers for a few years. Or a few months. The one hit wonders.

So on a lighter note I could be crying for Adam Ant yet!

Gratitude

Gratitude. Life's precious blessings. Mindfulness. Sound like something from the Oprah magazine. Before you know it we will be having a panel discussion with Maya Angelou, Oprah's pal Gayle and Maria Shriver about living in the moment -- being aware -- blah blah blah blah blah.

But sometimes you really do have to be thankful for the little things. Saturday is my unofficial day off. I am paid to work on Saturday's but generally it is a quiet day. It is the reporter's answer to going on the hop from school.

Not today. At 8.40am I found out that three young men had died in a crash in the west of the county. To my eternal shame my first thought was that my day was ruined! Yes, my day -- not a thought for the bereaved whose lives have been forever changed. Just the ruination of a couple of hours of my life.

It is a guilty secret really but I think everyone in the media feels the same. We all want stories on our terms in the allocated time slots. What we don't want, particularly as work at home journalists, are stories which happen at anti social times. Like the 11 year old boy who went missing a few days after Christmas and who was found murdered. Or the poor unfortunate mother who drowned her toddler in August after a battle with postnatal depression.

Anyway, I digress. I threw myself in front of the computer. Made a few calls. Turns out one of the boys lost his father in a fishing accident in September 2006. His father died in a freak accident. Basically, the boat capsized on him.

So you have a mother in West Cork who has lost her husband and only son within an 18 month period. Kind of puts my 'inconvenience' in perspective.

It is mother's day tomorrow. How cruel that such a holiday would fall twenty four hours after a mother loses her beloved son. Meanwhile, a mother in Kildare lies in hospital battling for her life just a day after she was involved in a crash which claimed her seven year old son and eight year old daughter.

So I am thankful. Thankful for my darling four year old son who took part in a 'fashion show' today at my sister's workplace and made quite an impression on the 'catwalk.' (Who knew walking down a ramp was so hard? Let's 'trip' and see what kind of reaction we can get. )

Meanwhile, the carnage on the roads continues. A whole weekend can pay by without a single fatality and then suddenly six or seven families receive visits from police officers that start with the dreaded "I am very sorry but..."

I pray that such a thing never darkens my doors. I am grateful for my son, husband and family and for my mother on her special day.

Now if I could just get around to cleaning my home 'office' I would be truly grateful. Eliminating the dark circles under my eyes and sudden weight loss would also be welcome. Winning the lottery would be nice too. Not the jackpot just that inconsequential number at the end. I am not greedy!

But what is going on in my life now is just fine. Life is good. I will stop looking for faults and instead focus on the plentiful riches that life has provided.