About My Blog

My blog is about history, popular culture, politics and current events from a democratic socialist and Irish republican perspective. The two main topics are Northern Ireland on one hand and fighting anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia on the other. The third topic is supporting the Palestinians, and there are several minor topics. The three main topics overlap quite a bit. I have to admit that it’s not going to help me get a graduate degree, especially because it’s almost always written very casually. But there are some high-quality essays, some posts that come close to being high-quality essays, political reviews of Sci-Fi TV episodes (Star Trek and Babylon 5), and a unique kind of political, progressive poetry you won't find anywhere else. (there are also reviews of episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and reviews of Roseanne)

(my old blog was not showing up in Google search results AT ALL (99% of it wasn't being web-crawled or indexed or whatever) and there was another big problem with it, so this is a mirror of the old one although there will be some occassionnal editing of old posts and there will be new posts. I started this blog 12/16/20; 4/28/21 I am now done with re-doing the internal links on my blog) (the Google problem with my blog (only 1% of this new one is showing up in Google search results) is why I include a URL of my blog when commenting elsewhere, otherwise I would get almost no visitors at all)

(The "Table of Contents" offers brief descriptions of all but the most recent posts)

(I just recently realized that my definition of "disapora" was flawed- I thought it included, for example, Jews in Israel, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and with the Irish diaspora, the Irish on that island. I'll do some work on that soon (11/21/20 I have edited the relevant paragraph in my post about Zionism))

(If you're really cool and link to my blog from your site/blog, let me know) (if you contact me, use the word "blog" in the subject line so I'll know it's not spam)

YOU NEED TO READ THE POST "Trump, Netanyahu, and COVID-19 (Coronavirus)" here. It is a contrast of the two on COVID-19 and might be helpful in attacking Trump. And see the middle third of this about Trump being a for-real fascist.

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Law and Order: SVU Reviews II

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

Townhouse Incident” Season 17. See this for a plot summary.

Two minor characters are in an inter-racial relationship.

Collateral Damages” Season 17. See this for a plot summary.

This is about a senior NYPD official who gets caught with child porn.

Manhattan Transfer” and “Unholiest Alliance” Season 17. See this and this for a plot summary. 


Although it’s obscured by other suspects, part of this is about two corrupt cops moonlighting for a crime ring that traffics teenage minor girls.

Assaulting Reality” Season 17. For a plot summary see this.


It’s about a reality TV show and at one point a member of the crew (she seems like she’s senior) basically says that using a non-union crew makes it difficult to successfully complete episodes of a reality TV show.

Intersecting Lives” and “Heartfelt Passages” Season 17. For a plot summary see this and this.


This is about SVU investigating a jail guard who is raping inmates and ex-inmates. He’s white and all the women he targets are black and that’s part of his theory that no one will believe them. It also kind of makes it worse, as there is a history of white men using black women for non-consensual sex. Also, practically all of the other guards passionately support him and automatically believe him.

(We also learn that the ADA working for SVU has been getting threats on a frequent basis since he got a grand jury to indict three cops who killed an unarmed black man)

(The ADA is threatened by a street gang member in connection with his prosecution of a prison guard; it’s implied that the union for prison guards is behind it)