Cassandra Voices Podcast

'My Mother (at the Time)' is a special episode of our Cassandra Voices podcast, fitting for an installment that marks the one year point since its inception. For this episode, host Luke Sheehan travelled to Amsterdam to interview the Irish critic, art historian and Joycean named Patrick Healy. A brilliant scholar, Healy was born to an unmarried mother and raised in fosterage with multiple families. He impressed his peers at college in 80s Dublin but soon felt alienated enough to start a life of intermittent exile, wandering Europe, mastering German and Dutch, evolving into a scholar of art and rare books. The title of the episode represents the difficulties that affected Healy profoundly at the start of his life: a story about a calamitous piano lesson wherein he accidentally kicked a nun leads him to speak of "my mother at the time"—all told he had several "mothers", and was taught by the "sisters" (the nuns who were his first guardians) to think of and name each of them as "mother". The conversation with Healy also provided a chance for him to read from a newly completed work, a Joycean stream-of-unconsciousness memoir written during lockdown. With his famous voice, once deployed to read the unabridged entirety of Finnegan's Wake over several days, Healy conjured up vocal traces of an Ireland of half a century ago, in both dialogue and performance of his text. Something to cherish, without a doubt. No need to worry about linear logic or storyline, but rather (as with all good readings of the Wake) let the music take you somewhere.

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

John Field: Nocturne N. 5 in B-Flat Major

Guest Link: https://www.lilliputpress.ie/products/james-joyces-finnegans-wake-a-reading-by-patrick-healy

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Days-Mankind-Tragedy-Five/dp/9492027038

Part 2 of "It is Abhorrent to Me to Stage a Picture…" A Conversation with George Azar

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

George Azar: An Introduction

George Azar was born in 1959, the descendant of Lebanese olive farmers who had set sail from Beirut a century earlier. They settled in South Philadelphia, a working-class enclave—later immortalized in 'Rocky'. It was a mix of Italians, Irish, Polish, Jewish, and Lebanese families, a tough, mafia-controlled neighborhood where people staked their claims street by street.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in Political Science, he postponed graduate school to see first-hand a war he had only read about. He covered the Lebanese Civil War as a front line news photographer, immersing himself and seeing the conflict up-close.

The war brought moments that could be scripted for an absurdist play, like the teenage Shia gunmen and snipers who called themselves "The Smurfs". For the dissonance between their youth, and the brutal violence they lived mirrored the contradictions his photography sought to capture.

Azar learned the unwritten rules of the new industry where the pictures most in demand were 'Bang Bang' photos: high-drama, front-line images that convey the raw violence of war. His first photo captioned Machine Gun Alley, marked his entry into the profession. A strong image from the front line sold for $60, while a photo of a woman firing a weapon might land on front pages worldwide. Some photographers gave in to the temptation to stage scenes. Azar found the practice indefensible. "To me, it is abhorrent to stage an image."

The photographs Azar values most capture often quiet, deeply human moments: an elderly man weeping into his bed, a mother standing amidst the ruins of her Gaza kitchen, and Palestinian shepherd in a field of yellow wildflowers that grace the cover of his book, 'Palestine, A Photographic Journey' (UC Press, 1991).

Azar left Lebanon after the war physically and emotionally drained. He returned to Philadelphia, and worked for the local newspaper. But the pull of the Middle East proved irresistible. The First Intifada drew him back, beginning a new chapter in his career, this time focused on the freedom struggle in Palestine.

In conversation, Azar shared astonishing stories: the Irish junkies linked to the IRA who lived above him; Issa Abdullah Ali, a renegade African-American soldier who converted to Islam, defected and joined Iran's Revolutionary Guard and fought the Israelis in the 1982 battle for Beirut; and his encounters with journalism legends Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn and photojournalist Don McCullen.

The conversation unfolded against a backdrop of Israeli drone sounds, power outages, and rising tensions—a grim reminder that Lebanon is once again in the grip of war. The country faces yet another reshaping, one that will demand extraordinary resilience from its people and, perhaps, a reimagined political future.

"It is Abhorrent to Me to Stage a Picture…" A Conversation with George Azar

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

George Azar: An Introduction

George Azar was born in 1959, the descendant of Lebanese olive farmers who had set sail from Beirut a century earlier. They settled in South Philadelphia, a working-class enclave—later immortalized in 'Rocky'. It was a mix of Italians, Irish, Polish, Jewish, and Lebanese families, a tough, mafia-controlled neighborhood where people staked their claims street by street.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in Political Science, he postponed graduate school to see first-hand a war he had only read about. He covered the Lebanese Civil War as a front line news photographer, immersing himself and seeing the conflict up-close.

The war brought moments that could be scripted for an absurdist play, like the teenage Shia gunmen and snipers who called themselves "The Smurfs". For the dissonance between their youth, and the brutal violence they lived mirrored the contradictions his photography sought to capture.

Azar learned the unwritten rules of the new industry where the pictures most in demand were 'Bang Bang' photos: high-drama, front-line images that convey the raw violence of war. His first photo captioned Machine Gun Alley, marked his entry into the profession. A strong image from the front line sold for $60, while a photo of a woman firing a weapon might land on front pages worldwide. Some photographers gave in to the temptation to stage scenes. Azar found the practice indefensible. "To me, it is abhorrent to stage an image."

The photographs Azar values most capture often quiet, deeply human moments: an elderly man weeping into his bed, a mother standing amidst the ruins of her Gaza kitchen, and Palestinian shepherd in a field of yellow wildflowers that grace the cover of his book, 'Palestine, A Photographic Journey' (UC Press, 1991).

Azar left Lebanon after the war physically and emotionally drained. He returned to Philadelphia, and worked for the local newspaper. But the pull of the Middle East proved irresistible. The First Intifada drew him back, beginning a new chapter in his career, this time focused on the freedom struggle in Palestine.

In conversation, Azar shared astonishing stories: the Irish junkies linked to the IRA who lived above him; Issa Abdullah Ali, a renegade African-American soldier who converted to Islam, defected and joined Iran's Revolutionary Guard and fought the Israelis in the 1982 battle for Beirut; and his encounters with journalism legends Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn and photojournalist Don McCullen.

The conversation unfolded against a backdrop of Israeli drone sounds, power outages, and rising tensions—a grim reminder that Lebanon is once again in the grip of war. The country faces yet another reshaping, one that will demand extraordinary resilience from its people and, perhaps, a reimagined political future.

As a journalist, Anya Parampil is unafraid of rattling the cage. She now writes for the Grayzone, founded by her husband Max Blumenthal in 2015, an online publication which aims to 'break through any narrative of the day that is pushing the United States' public in support of war.' Previously she worked as a producer and broadcaster, then an anchor correspondent, for Russia Today (U.S.), from which she was fired, after refusing to accept restrictions on her reporting of U.S. foreign policy.

In this podcast Anya likens writing about U.S. foreign policy from Washington D.C. to working inside 'the belly of the beast'. Her work charts the policy machinations emanating from what she describes as a 'deep state' whose power, she argues, exceeds democratically elected politicians.

Anya is the author of Corporate Coup – Venezuela and the End of US Empire (Or Books, New York, 2023), which dissects the motivations of the U.S. government, under the presidency of Donald Trump – directed in particular by figures such as John Bolton and Eliot Abrams – to sponsor a shadow government of Venezuela under Juan Guaído to challenge President Nicolás Maduro.

As we approach another Presidential election, Anya sees little hope of a change in approach from the U.S. towards a country containing greater oil reserves than any other country on planet Earth. She maintains hope, however, that an alliance that includes isolationist supporters of Trump and progressive elements within the Democratic Party could in time tame the beast of this seemingly permanent government, and retains a faith that the First Amendment of the US Constitution on free speech will allow her to continue her work.

Episode Credits:

Host: Frank Armstrong

Music:

Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

Dr. Max McGuinness is a Teaching Fellow in French at Trinity College Dublin. He previously taught at University College Dublin, the University of Limerick, and Columbia University, where he received his PhD in French in 2019. His first book – published this Spring – is Hustlers in the Ivory Tower: Press and Modernism from Mallarmé to Proust (Liverpool University Press, 2024), which explores how French modernist writers used the press as a forum for literary experimentation. He is currently co-editing a collection about Marcel Proust and Ireland, The Irish Proust, which is forthcoming from Bloomsbury Academic. Other publications include articles in the Bulletin d'informations proustiennes, Dix-Neuf, French Studies Bulletin, and Paragraph. Max is also a theatre critic for The Financial Times and has written for many other newspapers and magazines, including The Irish Times, The New European, Air Mail, The Daily Beast, and Private Eye.

Here we delve into this dense, lovingly layered study of the French writing and journalism that arose during a period of intense change and experimentation

Episode Credits:

Host: Luke Sheehan

Episode Music:

Played by: National Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: Leopold Stokowski

Danse Macabre (first performed in 1875) is the name of opus 40 by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM

Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

Toby Green is Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at King's College, London and the author of A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (2019). He also wrote, along with Thomas Fazi, The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality (2023). This latter work engages with the impact of lockdowns on African countries which were, for the most part, unaffected by the disease itself. In this podcast, Green discusses the application, more widely, of a form of authoritarian capitalism that lingers to this day, with the onset of perma-crises, continued restrictions on civil rights, and the ascendancy of techno-billionaires. He also points to an intellectual failure on the part of many on the left, who failed to recognise there were two versions of accumulation in conflict, one representing traditional forms of small businesses reliant on in-person contact, the other the monopolies which digital capitalism has favoured and whose power is now far, far greater.

Episode Credits

Host: Frank Armstrong

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Shakalak - https://shakalak.bandcamp.com/music

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

In late 2021, Matt Ridley and Alina Chan published the hardback edition of 'Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19'. Well received by many and loathed by some, it remains the most comprehensive book on the origin of the pandemic that leans in the direction of the lab. In a debate that has neither gone away nor gotten more polite over time, there is one thing that both sides tend to agree upon: unanswered questions lead back to China, to Wuhan, the WIV and Zhongnanhai, the leaders' compound in Beijing – and to the tropical southern borderlands of Yunnan, Burma and Laos. Evidence has trickled into the debate like the steady drops in water torture: by summer 2022, when the paperback of Viral was published, it was necessary to add an update to the epilogue. A genetically closer virus to COVID-19 had been found, this time in Laos. That discovery added to the vast puzzle around the origins, and, like the account of Chinese workers falling sick in a Yunnan cave at the start of the work, directed attention to the tropical south, the home of the bat colonies sampled by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In this conversation, Matt Ridley and Luke Sheehan trace out some of the local particularities of the pandemic's eruption in China, with the latter's personal experience there coming to the fore.

Episode Credits:

Host: Luke Sheehan

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

Links:

'Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19' by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/viral-matt-ridleyalina-chan?variant=40127936987170

China and COVID origins essay by Luke Sheehan:

https://www.lilliputpress.ie/uncategorized/post-china-post-5-by-%E9%B2%81%E7%A7%91

Associated Press article by Dake Kang:

https://apnews.com/article/china-covid-virus-origins-pandemic-lab-leak-bed5ab50dca8e318ab00f60b5911da0c

Aficionados of the Dublin cultural scene over the past decade or two are likely to be familiar with John Cummins. Cutting a dash with a distinctive Rasputin beard and Reggae styles, John's poetic performances in the Dublin vernacular have mesmerised audiences young and old. His playful, rhyming verse always had great musicality, and it seemed a natural progression for him to begin collaborating with musicians, culminating in the formation of the band Shakalak in 2018, which also contains another former Musician of the Month in Fin Divilly. If you haven't made it along to one of their gigs yet, you are in for a treat. In this special Musician of the Month podcast John discusses his first musical adventures, the evolution of his craft, football analogies and his ambitions for global domination.

Episode Credits:

Host: Frank Armstrong

Music: Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

Shakalak - https://www.youtube.com/@shakalak2096

- https://shakalak.bandcamp.com/music

- https://tr.ee/dz8Syxk3BA

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com

An economist by training, Nadim Shehadi has spent his career analyzing the long, ongoing story of Lebanon. Having lived through Beirut's 'golden era' of post-WW2 prosperity, and subsequently having started out as an academic as the country suffered through civil war and occupation, Nadim has honed his voice and knowledge to become a compelling narrator of everything Lebanese. He is also adept at using themes arising from present-day crises to draw a much bigger historical picture, scanning the horizons of the Ottoman Empire and showing how countries and peoples like Lebanon and Israel, the Druze and the Palestinians and numerous European adventurers fit into the epic story of that fragmented power. We cover the current (late March 2024) war in Gaza, the threat of another erupting on Lebanon's southern border, and the current "mood in Beirut." (it isn't great). And, of course, spies.

Lebanon is sometimes accused, as Nadim admits, of "not being a real country." But then, what is a real country?

Episode Credits:

Host & Producer: Luke Sheehan

Music: Evin O'Brien - cassandravoices.com/culture/music/musician-of-the-month-evin-obrien/

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - www.massimilianogalli.com

In early 2020, Sunetra Gupta was quietly working on a universal influenza vaccine as Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University, while finishing her sixth novel. By then, a new coronavirus had been discovered in Wuhan, China. In response, she and her group produced a paper suggesting, among other scenarios, as much as 50% of the U.K. population had already been infected.

This was in stark contrast to the assessment of Professor Neil Ferguson at Imperial College London, whose modelling assumed COVID-19 had just arrived in the West and that we had no cross-immunity from other coronaviruses against it, meaning it would kill almost one in a hundred of those who contracted it. For reasons still inadequately explored, the U.K., Irish and most Western governments – along with many in the Global South – followed Ferguson's (and others') doomsday prediction and chose untested lockdowns in anticipation of a vaccine – a containment strategy to 'flatten the curve', as opposed to a (Chinese-style) elimination strategy.

Sunetra Gupta has been vindicated in her assessment that COVID-19 had been circulating far longer than initially understood, and also that it had a much lower fatality rate than Ferguson and others assumed from limited data. Moreover, it was obvious that this social experiment would cause serious harms, while the capacity of the strategy to contain the virus was unknown.

Sunetra Gupta did not take lockdown lying down. She and a number of academic colleagues authored the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, advocating for an end to lockdowns, and promoting the targeted protection of the elderly – who were by far the most susceptible to death from the virus. What followed was not, as she hoped, a civilised discussion weighing the costs and benefits of each strategy, but abuse and even an attempt to have her silenced.

Host: Frank Armstrong

Music:

Loafing Heroes - ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

PostPrimitive - https://postprimitive.bandcamp.com/album/limits

Produced by Massimiliano Galli - https://www.massimilianogalli.com