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Christopher Owens ðŸ”– with a super review of a super game.

 

Christmas, 1994. Relatives have been and gone; presents have been opened, briefly appreciated, and thrown aside. But after the last aunt is waved off home and my stepbrother and I have been roped into shovelling discarded wrapping paper into a bin bag and clearing the table, my dad exclaims that something’s been forgotten down the back of the sofa.
I jump on the cushions and lean over, my brother close behind, my hands tightening on the well-worn fabric as I catch sight of a large, rectangular mystery object wrapped up behind it. Could it be . . .?
Inside is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System, bundled with Super Mario All-Stars – a gift beyond our wildest six-year-old dreams. If you’ve ever seen that early viral video of a pair of siblings screaming with joy as they unbox a Nintendo 64, you’ll have a fair idea of our reaction. Within ten minutes the box is raided, the chunky grey machine has been connected to our little CRT television (by us, not Dad, who insisted on performatively studying the manual even as we were plugging it into the TV and turning it on), and we are playing one of the greatest video games ever made.

📚📗📕

45 years since Donkey Kong first appeared in arcades in Japan, Nintendo have been a stalwart in the gaming industry.

Giving us iconic games like Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokémon and Animal Crossing as well as helping to legitimise the concept of family gaming through the likes of the Game Boy and the Wii, the near 140-year-old company keeps delivering time and time again when their peers have disappeared (Sega, Atari).

So it would seem that the time would be right for a book looking at the history of the company, the development of the games that are known the world over and where the company is in 2026.

And we get this in Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun.

Currently working as a games editor for The Guardian as well as having written for IGN, Edge and Eurogamer, Keza MacDonald seems like a suitable choice for such a task. She’s a few years younger than me, which is crucial as my generation would have spent the 90’s playing the likes of Mortal Kombat, Doom and Half-Life and so the likes of Pokémon and Mario Kart were for our younger siblings.

Cards on the table moment: I was a gamer throughout the 1990’s (from the age of five to fourteen) before losing interest when I became a teenager. This roughly coincided with the runaway success of the aforementioned Pokémon and Mario Kart so the position I take in reviewing this book is as someone who was more than aware of these games/trends but was a little too old for them.

Written with unconcealed joy, MacDonald tells the story of company that began life producing Japanese playing cards (karuta) before producing toys, arcade games and then video games.

Although there is not a terrible lot know about the early years of the company, what we do know is fascinating: Japan had banned most forms of gambling in 1882, a particular type of playing card known as hanafuda was tolerated and had become a favourite in areas run by the Yakuza. After several other companies stopped producing them (not wanting to be associated with gangsterism), Nintendo had cornered the market. By the 1920’s, the company was the largest company in Japan producing playing cards.

Funny how such a family friendly operation has its roots in organised crime but that’s history for you!

Each chapter deals with a different aspect of Nintendo history (Mario, Zelda etc) and MacDonald goes through her journalistic back catalogue to bring us interviews with the creators, game developers and executives responsible for these games and consoles. What comes across to the reader is how Nintendo is both representative of and different from traditional Japanese society: youth very much respect their elders but both young and old are involved in the creation of games and consoles. Indeed, seemingly everyone in the company has played the product before it has gone on sale!

As a result, Nintendo can legitimately claim that their items are timeless and family friendly but also still allow room for innovation.

📚📗📕

I have to admit that this is an odd book for me.

There’s no doubt that I enjoyed the hell out of it (if you can enjoy a book around a subject you’ve not much interest in, that makes it a winner). However, despite MacDonald’s mixture of positive musings and autobiography, I remain unconvinced by her overall cases for Nintendo being art and Pokémon being something akin to religion.

Maybe I just missed the boat, in which case I can live with that. At the same time, I can’t help but think of something Ross Benes wrote in 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America And Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times:

Capitalism may lead to the creation of rather silly and useless commodities, but it also encourages people to indulge in their fantasies. Guardian editor Joe Stone received an ‘inordinate amount of joy from hoarding pop merch.’ He had ‘no regrets’ about covering his adult bedroom with wallpaper featuring the Spice Girls…Although consumption is materialistic, it’s often joyous. Marketers might sway them, but by and large, entertainment sucks a large portion of many people’s budgets because they find it rewarding, at least in the short term. For all its faults, materialism keeps dopamine rolling, which can be a gratifying aspect of living in a capitalistic society.

There are one or two moments that reinforce this comment: when discussing the Pokémon Go phenomenon, MacDonald writes about how it took people’s minds off the “horrors of 2016: Brexit and Trump” (yawn). Retreating into childhood gaming may have been good for the mental well-being of such people, but it hardly changed the world, unlike Brexit and Trump which genuinely did (for better and worse).

Indeed, when I read about how the game was bringing disparate groups of people together to socialise outdoors, I couldn’t help but think of those notions people had in the late 90’s of having shopping centres integrate exhibitions, historical displays as well as having them featured in the high street in order to bring culture and history to the unwashed masses.

Likewise, there’s a moment where the author recollects how some gamers used Animal Crossing to signify their disgust at the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. Easily the most 2020 moment in the book and I couldn’t help but cringe. Once again, capitalism serves as a replacement for genuine political action and offers up dopamine hits for saying the right thing while keeping you glued to the product.

Despite these telling moments, Super Nintendo is a genuinely enthralling read that will help you see and understand the longevity and ubiquity of Nintendo.

Keza MacDonald, 2026, Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun. Guardian Faber Publishing. ISBN-13: 978-1783353057

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Super Nintendo 📚 How One Japanese Company Helped The World Have Fun

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Forty Two

 

Religious Derangement Syndrome @ 8

 

A Morning Thought @ 3215

Dixie Elliot ✊According to the Kenova Report Scappaticci sent word to his handlers that the net was closing in on the tout Joe Fenton.

What is more shocking is that 'some twenty separate sources warned the intelligence services that Fenton was highly likely to be shot.'

What this means is that there were twenty other touts in high enough positions to have knowledge that Fenton's days were numbered.

The Dark was right, Belfast was indeed rotten . . .

He was told to return by his handlers. Fenton returned to Belfast and was immediately executed by the IRA before I could get to interrogate him. I believe he was executed to protect someone bigger than him. I got actually very frightened that I discovered something here that was mirky, that was high-level, I was getting no help from anybody in Belfast. I didn't trust Belfast. Belfast was rotten . . .  - Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes.

When Brendan informed Gerry Adams of this he was told that he was being paranoid.

So Adams told the Director of GHQ Intelligence (Brendan), someone whose commitment to the IRA was beyond doubt, that he was being paranoid when he informed him that Belfast was rotten to the core. Adams didn't as much as have Brendan's claims investigated.

So Brendan walked away from the organisation he loved.

In the end Brendan was proven to have been totally correct in his assessment of the IRA in Belfast. Besides Scappaticci there were twenty other high-ranking touts in the city alone.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Rotten To The Core

Raw Story ★ Written by Alexander Willis, Recommended by Christy Walsh. 

Comedian Jon Stewart flagged a bizarre detail Monday night in a video of President Donald Trump captured shortly after the FIFA World Cup final, one that prompted the late night talk show host to float an outlandish theory.

Recorded Sunday evening, the video shows Trump speaking with reporters after having landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after the FIFA World Cup final. The president told reporters he believed the match was "incredible" and "four-times greater than any FIFA ever held," before correcting himself to say it was "probably five times" greater.

While Trump was speaking, however, a man could be seen walking in the background who immediately caught Stewart’s attention.

“What's up with the guy behind Trump? Can we see that again?” Stewart asked on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show.”

As the clip played back, a man behind Trump could be seen wearing a suit the same color as the president's, with a strikingly similar stature and build.

“Who the ... is this guy? Who in the world is this? Oh my god, is that a back-up Trump?” Stewart said. Wai it a minute, hold on a second! Wait, what? Is that a back-up Trump, or is that Trump? 

Continue @ Raw Story.

Jon Stewart's Mind Blown As He Spots Bizarre Man Behind Trump 🪶 'Who In The World?'

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ In recent times in the six and twenty-six counties of modern Ireland we have witnessed a level of racism not thought possible, certainly in the Twenty-Six-Counties, a few years ago. 

In the occupied Six-Counties among elements within loyalism the concept has been present for many years often manifested through sectarianism. 

Late last year, 2025, racist and fascist thugs using lumpenproletariat gangs attacked a hostel for International Protection Applicants at City West, Saggart, in South West Dublin. Scenes not dissimilar to the Nazi Kristallnacht in Germany, 1938, occurred and were organised it appeared by fascist and far right groups whose leaders kept out of the way, not wishing to get their hands dirty. Organisations taking part, one of which would have been vehemently opposed to such activities only a couple of years ago, ranged from concerned residents and parents who perhaps took least part in the rioting to organised thugs superintended by the far-right. 

The pretext for the activities at City West was an alleged sexual assault of a 10-year- old girl near the City West Hotel used to house International Protection Applicants, and a 26-year-old man, an asylum seeker, was charged with the assault. Within 24 hours the ‘incident outrage online’ had escalated into unrest and violent clashes with gardai occurred outside the hotel. This led to an arson attack on accommodation housing 2,400 International Protection Applicants and immigrants. Other attacks on migrant centres across the Twenty-Six-Counties have happened with one group travelling to the Six-Counties to show support with racist Belfast loyalists! More recently in Belfast scenes reminiscent to the pogroms carried out by loyalist groups against Catholics (when in 1969 Bombay Street was completely burned-out leaving hundreds of Catholic families homeless and bereft of all furniture) took place after a stabbing attack allegedly committed by a Sudanese man. Anti-immigrant pogroms took place across the Six-Counties chiefly, though not exclusively, in Belfast. A few weeks later another knifing incident took place in Belfast yet not a murmur of protest! Could this have been because the latter incident did not involve a migrant? Far-right groups and individuals from the UK are reportedly involved in fuelling these pogroms, the same groups incidentally who, in many cases, see the whole of Ireland as coming back under the British yolk!

Anti-immigrant feeling is certainly on the rise in the Twenty-Six-Counties but as of yet still a minority, thankfully. People once linked to the left wing of republicanism like Malachy Steenson, formerly associated with Official Sinn Fein the Workers Party, have changed their clothing, joining in with the turmoil spread by the far-right who in turn, though perhaps not realising it, are taking their lead from the British fascists. Serious political activists do not change their position every time an opportunity knocks, this is known as ‘political opportunism’. Many parliamentarians are not serious about their political positions and are unprincipled when it comes to fudging their stance on issues as the Twenty-Six-County government are bowing to far-right pressure, changing their position on Ukrainian refugees who were once made welcome, when it was fashionable! 

One reasonable sounding argument put forward by these far-right groups and individuals against asylum seekers and immigration in general, coloured immigration that is, not white migrants it appears, is that ‘Ireland is overcrowded’. The housing shortage and our health service being stretched to the limit are cited by these dangerous neo-fascist and far-right individuals and groups to “send them back”, claiming ‘Ireland is overpopulated’. The outcome of such propaganda can, and unfortunately did, result in such events as those at City West and other places resulting in an Irish Kristallnacht. Are the Twenty-Six-Counties overpopulated? Do the far-right have a point? Here are some figures showing the population density per square mile of some EU and non-EU countries.

The population density of the Twenty-Six-Counties is 201-207 people per square mile. The United Kingdom is 700 people per square mile, Monaco, one of Europe’s smallest states, 47,000 people per square mile while Malta, the EUs smallest country with the highest population density in the bloc, 4,704 people per square mile. Holland comes in at 1,402 with Belgium 1,007 people per square mile. Luxembourg has 696, with Italy at 513 people per square mile, while Poland accommodates 320 people per square mile. France comes in at 303 per square mile, Liechtenstein wades in at 663, with Germany standing at 612. Romania is at 212 with neighbouring Bulgaria at 151. Austria at 287 people per square mile, Hungary 268, Spain 253, Portugal 294. Within the EU the Twenty-Six-Counties lay 20th of the 27 member states regarding population density with seven countries only having lower figures in this regard. They are; Croatia with 176 people per square mile, Bulgaria at 151, Lithuania 114, Estonia 80, Latvia 75, Sweden 67 and Finland 49 people per square mile. As can be seen the figure for population density for Ireland (twenty-six counties) is very low and does not stack up with the far-right argument about being “overpopulated”. As for land mass, the area size of countries, Ireland as a whole is 32,595 square miles, 32 counties, with the Twenty-Six-Counties holding 27,133 square miles under its jurisdiction. Holland has a land mass of 16,040 square miles, Belgium 11,849, Luxembourg 998 square miles, Malta 122 square miles, Monaco 0.78 (about 500 acres). Monaco with the highest population by a distance also has the smallest land mass, do these figures square with the far-right argument? (EBSCO database)

With a higher land mass and lower population density the Twenty-Six-Counties should have no problem with housing, and yet it has! This is due solely to government policies since the formation of the state in 1922 and various administrations continue to promote policy not conducive to solving our housing problem. One thing for sure is the housing shortage has nothing to do with immigration or, more precisely, International Protection Applicants. Immigrants are being scapegoated by the far right because this diverts attention away from the inherent economic contradictions within capitalism. The far-right are pro-free market capitalist parties who pose no threat to the ruling-class or their economy (which is why the Gardai take an easier line with them compared to left-wing demonstrations) and use any considered viable and visible excuse to blame other than the real cause, government policy and wealth inequality. In other words the people who have been sucked into this racist avenue of blame are attacking the wrong enemy! 

A leading factor towards our housing crisis is the concentration of dwellings around Dublin neglecting other areas. Anybody would think the state began and ended with the boundaries of County Dublin! It is now time for those who have, understandably to a certain extent, followed this right-wing rubbish to turn their attention away from the straw men of immigration and start attacking government policies regarding housing and the housing crisis. Opportunistic politicians jumping on right wing populism will lead only to perdition (not in its Biblical sense). If every immigrant was shipped out of the Twenty-Six-Counties tomorrow it would unlikely improve the housing situation and leave our health service decimated.

As for our health service it is no more stretched, again down to government policies, than it would be with very little or no immigration. In fact without migrant workers we would have no health service. On this myself and the government can find common ground. Many of our nurses are of migrant origin as are some of our doctors and consultants. And a fantastic job they do along with those indigenous employees in the same jobs. 

Stop blaming migration for societies problems, they are not the root cause, start addressing the real and fundamental problems. The fascists and far-right are lying through their teeth and are using the well-meaning but mistaken people of the Twenty-Six-Counties for their own ends. I suggest those who are following these morons read the fate in Germany of some of those who did the same. Hitler had them executed once they became surplus to requirements in an incident often referred to as the Night of the Long Knives. Think about it very long and hard the next time an anti-immigration rally is advertised, you are being used and will then in all probability be abused!!     

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Fascist Propaganda And Lies In Ireland

Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.


Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Forty One

 


Hate Theology @ 8

 

A Morning Thought @ 3214

Jim Duffy ✍ I am glad to see that the police are taking the vile hate-filled comment by the University of Aberdeen staff member, and that she has been arrested. I have read the comments and they made he feel sick.
 
I did meet Ann Widdecombe once. Most of her views where diametrically opposed to mine. Yet like many gay people that came to know her I found her personally impossible to dislike even while fundamentally disagreeing with her on so many things. 

I could never imagine making the comments that staffer made following the death of someone, no matter what I thought about the dead person's views. She deserved to be arrested and deserves to be prosecuted for pure hate. It is likely that the university will sack her, while the Greens are reviewing her membership of their party and may expel her. She deserves it for what she posted, especially when she refused to take them down despite universal appeals to - especially when it was revealed that Ann had been murdered following a brutal assault.
 
I won't post the comments here because they are too vile to. She should be ashamed of herself.
Update: it appears Ms Herbert, who has now been charged, has a history of extreme language and vicious posts. She also appeared in a video where the man beside her said "if people don't show love [to trans people], show bullets", a comment Ms Herbert did not disown or react to. 

Horrific.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Too Vile To Post

Common Dreams ★ Written by Brett Wilkins.

“All states and people who care for freedom must rise up in defense of the ICC and international justice now, before it’s too late,” the UN Palestine expert implored.

More defenders of human rights and the rule of law weighed on Tuesday after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement of a “campaign to dismantle” the International Criminal Court, many of whose judges and prosecutors have already been sanctioned by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Rubio raised eyebrows around the world by accusing the International Criminal Court—which is based in The Hague, Netherlands—of “waging a war against our country—not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts, and the force of so-called international law,” and cryptically vowing that the Trump administration “will teach the ICC the full meaning of American resolve.”

On Tuesday, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, called Rubio’s announcement “utterly shocking but not a surprise.”

“All states and people who care for freedom must rise up in defense of the ICC and international justice now, before it’s too late,” added Albanese . . . 

Continue @ Common Dreams.

‘It’s Rule Of Law Or Barbarism,’ Says Francesca Albanese After Rubio Attack On ICC

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ★ To All of the “united Irelanders” . . . 


. . .  it will be the British, the Yanks, the EU, the powerful and wealthy minority, along with the ruling class i mBaile Atha Cliath, who will 'grant'....yes, grant you.... a "United Ireland" ; that is, if and when, They decide to do so. Just as they granted their version of a 26 counties Statelet, in 1922.

On the subject of 'having or not having, an alternative'. First, a 30 year war was fought by men and women who were killed and went to jails. That war was fought for an end to British occupation and equally, a 32 County Socialist Republic. Article 3.2 of the Army Constitution is clear on this. That is what the majority, the poor and working poor, in Ireland, will benefit from.

Secondly, we have 850 odd years of colonialism, 300 hundred years of that, has been under capitalist and bourgeois parliaments. As Connolly said '..parliaments are but the committees of the rich, to manage their affairs… '. And we know, that capitalism and their parliaments, have failed the majority, working class. Pursuing a failed, now 300 year-old tactic, of trying to make capitalism do our biding, is illogical?

You can advance all the legislation you want in their parliaments. They will just change the rules or ignore the outcomes. However, as Lenin carried it out; and, as Engels and Connolly pointed out, people incorrectly, perceive power to be in their parliaments, so, we must use the platform of being in them…and/or the local Councils, to tactically prosecute our struggle, in a strictly Revolutionary way. We are not there to promote bourgeois parliaments or capitalism, we are there to end and replace it all.
 
A Socialist Republican, alternative starts from the position of a 32 County Socialist Republic. Sinn Fein’s “strategy” does not.

Want to build for a Socialist/workers Republic. A Socialist Republic that has to be built from the 'bottom up' Not from the 'top down'. A democracy, Not to be derailed or co-opted by capitalism, imperialism or their parliaments.

A 'people powered decentralised democracy' built in every region in Éireann. Local, people's community councils. An alternative and parallel, people's power base. Not politicians 'acting out Democracy' within the rules of the capitalist parliaments.

A brilliant opportunity to do just that was squandered, when we had the 'H-Block/Armagh' Committees network. But someone, somewhere, decided to abolish them. Why I wonder?

What has Sinn Fein done to promote, amongst the working class, the concept of a 'people powered participatory democracy'? If Sinn Fein had championed this, even as late as 1998, we would be a long way down the road to having a Revolutionary, people powered, political force.

It is dangerously delusional to think that a 32 County Socialist Republic can be achieved, via the charade of politicking in bourgeois parliaments. And l think Sinn Fein know that as well as l do.

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig 
is an independent councillor on Donegal County Council.

Whose “United Ireland” Are We Talking About?

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