Ignorance in action.

What is it about Ireland that encourages otherwise intelligent people to "climb over one gate" and trespass amongst curious farm animals? (Would you pull the same stunt in Wisconsin?) Nevermind not being able to distinguish between a bull and a herd of dairy cows...

You'd think an intelligent traveller might read up on her destination, and know a wee bit o' history before spoutin' expertise:

No, thank you, I just want the house.

It’s for sale now. A republican owns it, you know. I ponder the meaning of this comment: is the former presence of Great Britain here still on the minds of some? Ireland is a young republic (becoming formally an independent republic after World War II). An older man may still have feelings about the division between the north and south.

I think she must be confusing Ireland with Israel: The Irish Republic came into being after the 1918 Easter Uprising, which followed WWI, not the Second War.

When you can't tell a cow from a bull, and you stumble on such basic history, I'm beginning to wonder the accuracy of the rest of Nina's European travels...

But do tell me: how the heck do you get your kid right out of Yale undergrad and law school, with maybe a year or two practicing privately, hired on as a law professor at Wisconsin, where we value "Law in Action" knowledge...

On Friday we disperse. But I’m okay with that. My girls are coming back to Madison this summer: the littlest one will be waiting for her Chicago job to begin in January, and the older one will begin her own teaching career at our Law School.

I'm still amazed.

And some day, we'll all learn how to spin a passport oversight into American citizenship. Such luck, indeed!