Bertie was up with the milkman to head to Aras an Uachtarain and ask sweet mother of Ireland Mary McAleese to dissolve the 29th Dail - sitting of parliament.The Irish General Election will be held on May 24th. Let the glad-handling, schmoozing and lies begin.
They will talk about stamp duty. The Sunday Independent will tell us it is important. People who think this paper reflects modern Ireland will care.
They will talk about the environment. Everyone will care but few will understand what we can do except turn off lights, shop locally and smother your friends with pious rhetoric about the future of the planet and your children's children.
They will talk about crime. Each will be tougher than the last. None will make any difference but will seek to convince you they will. As long as they talk about being tough on crime we will continue to perpetuate it.
They will talk about these things and all a whole lot more. I will blog about them with enthusiasm for sincerity and change but crushing doubts that either will be much evident. The rule of my coverage is this: if they are open, fair and honest so will the coverage. If they are cynical, I will let them have it.
They will talk...watch how they talk. Listen to the opposition when they're asked about policy. 9 times out of ten they will respond "Our coalition's point of view has been very clear on this for a long time...". They always say this. They always try to ram home their solidarity, whether it exists or not. Watch for these masters of language, kings of deceptions...twisting, turning and fudging their way to your vote.
Watch our for bullshit buzzwords and cynical catchphrases. Think ASBO, MMR, and WMD. Ask why they have such catchy rings to them. Ask why why why. Make them work for it. We get the government we deserve; if we are lazy...
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
School buses
Saw a very Irish thing yesterday. Coming around past Christchurch on a bus i spotted another double decker parked on the right. It caught my eye because it was petrol blue and had stuff painted on the back: low floor, seat belts fitted, super green school bus. It was packed full of kids. There was another double bus in front of it. It was royal mail red, and old, with a high floor, no seat belts and about as eco-friendly as that SUV blocking the school gates. It was packed full of kids.
Why is it that one set of kids gets an adequate bus and another gets one that would make the peasants of Dickens blush?
I hate this half-assed cheapskate shit. Nearly two years ago a bus flipped over in navan and killed five schoolgirls. An outcry followed. Promises were made. Every child will have a seatbelt on their school bus by Christmas 2006 said lying ministers Martin Cullen and Mary Hanafin.
Tossers. Shame on them - shame on all the reactionaries on this island who ignore the dangers of skimping on a few quid until there are children in the ground. It's politics driven by media and it's very bad politics.
Where are the new school buses FF/PDs?
Why is it that one set of kids gets an adequate bus and another gets one that would make the peasants of Dickens blush?
I hate this half-assed cheapskate shit. Nearly two years ago a bus flipped over in navan and killed five schoolgirls. An outcry followed. Promises were made. Every child will have a seatbelt on their school bus by Christmas 2006 said lying ministers Martin Cullen and Mary Hanafin.
Tossers. Shame on them - shame on all the reactionaries on this island who ignore the dangers of skimping on a few quid until there are children in the ground. It's politics driven by media and it's very bad politics.
Where are the new school buses FF/PDs?
Momentum
One of the keys to good blogging, and most things in life, be they title challenges, first novels or learning to smoke is momentum. At first there is enthusiasm, then there is grind but if you have enough momentum behind you it's possible to leap from enthusiasm to grind to pleasent though slightly dull stablity. Took a few days off there at the weekend. Missed the presidential elections in France and all the other stuff. Hard to get the momentum back. Check back in a day or two and hopefully I'll have found it.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
About time too
Some good news today. Anybody with a half a brain can see that crime in Ireland is very predictable; where it happens and who does it. Now I'm talking about crime that people get sent to jail for - not harmless, victimless, tax-dodging/fraud/embezzlement or sexual assaults. I'm talking about drug users and dealers, thieves and fighters, your stereotypical, middle-Ireland, Paul Williams definition of a 'bad' guy.
So the good news. Brian Lenihan, candidate for Dublin West and a quite good one I must say, is not a complete moron so he doesn't state the above but he does act on it. Today he announces the funding for the Children's Act 2001 will FINALLY come on stream. This is less popular than ASBOs but it is much more effective in dealing with young people who get into crime (remember about 95% of children in St Pat's will get out, re-offend and end up in Mountjoy...95%! Evidence, I strongly say, that the criminal justice system is failing the Irish public).
Now we will have judges who can actually deal with 15 and 16 year olds, not condescend with arcane language. Families will also be brought in. This is to be welcomed and although the timing is spurious - six years after the Bill came in, six weeks before the general election - Lenihan deserves credit. Youth crime should not, unless it's particularly violent, be dealt with by just the Department of Justice - we need a more expansive approach that involves social welfare, education and justice. This is the only chance we have to make a better Ireland and end the cycles of poverty that are analogous to the cycles of crime.
I've left the key with my neighbour and he's promised to keep an eye on the place, but not sadly my blog. So I'll be away for the weekend and the blog will as productive as a student with a hangover. Alas I will miss blogging on the first round of the French elections - but you can keep in touch if you follow the links on the right of this posting.
So the good news. Brian Lenihan, candidate for Dublin West and a quite good one I must say, is not a complete moron so he doesn't state the above but he does act on it. Today he announces the funding for the Children's Act 2001 will FINALLY come on stream. This is less popular than ASBOs but it is much more effective in dealing with young people who get into crime (remember about 95% of children in St Pat's will get out, re-offend and end up in Mountjoy...95%! Evidence, I strongly say, that the criminal justice system is failing the Irish public).
Now we will have judges who can actually deal with 15 and 16 year olds, not condescend with arcane language. Families will also be brought in. This is to be welcomed and although the timing is spurious - six years after the Bill came in, six weeks before the general election - Lenihan deserves credit. Youth crime should not, unless it's particularly violent, be dealt with by just the Department of Justice - we need a more expansive approach that involves social welfare, education and justice. This is the only chance we have to make a better Ireland and end the cycles of poverty that are analogous to the cycles of crime.
I've left the key with my neighbour and he's promised to keep an eye on the place, but not sadly my blog. So I'll be away for the weekend and the blog will as productive as a student with a hangover. Alas I will miss blogging on the first round of the French elections - but you can keep in touch if you follow the links on the right of this posting.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The debate
Here's the letters page from the New York Times. They're talking about the murders at Virginia Tech.
Click here for the words of a Blacksburg, VA resident. And this is from another Washington Post writer. An LA Times columnist calls, not very strongly, for leadership. It's interesting to see what they write about; more interesting to see what they don't.
Click here for the words of a Blacksburg, VA resident. And this is from another Washington Post writer. An LA Times columnist calls, not very strongly, for leadership. It's interesting to see what they write about; more interesting to see what they don't.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Gruesome, Unbelievable, Bizarre, Unacceptable
I was in a sports shop in West Virginia last year. I was looking around. I was checking out the camping gear. I was amused. I was surprised at how much gear you could buy just to sleep in the woods. I was sniggering at rubbery dungarees in a thousand shades of grassy green and then I was distracted by a loud double-clicking sound.
Click click.
I was drawn to a corner. I was asked if I was ok, sir. I said I was. I was standing in front of a selection of guns, a couple of hundred perhaps. I was in a sports shop in West Virginia. I was distracted by a girl and her brother. She was younger than him. She was about 16. She was holding a shotgun.
The horse has bolted but it's long been clear - the United States of America has a gun problem. And it's this: they are acceptable - their presence, their appearance, their sound, their calibre, their ability to murder is accepted in the United States of America by more people than those who oppose it.
It is morally wrong. It de-sensitises people to have guns moving freely around society. The other people in the sports shop in West Virginia thought nothing of two people checking out some weapon of mass destruction. They don't say no. They are desensitised. They accept the presence of guns. They're even at football matches when the home team scores a touchdown.
Imagine being able to buy a gun in Tescos. Imagine buying your child a gun for their 18th birthday. Imagine showing off your gun collection to friends after Christmas dinner.
You don't have to imagine it. Just move to America.
Surely now they will be woken from their slumber. Surely now someone will have the guts to honour the memory of the murdered. Surely the election candidates will get past being female, black, republican or democrat. Show some guts and take on the gun lobbies. What was right 200 years ago is not necessarily ok now - see slavery. Will the presidential candidates show true character, genuine leadership?
They must. The enemy lies within. America needs to realise that. College shooting don't happen in other countries.
There's no allowing for people losing the plot and murdering 33 people but more can be done to make it harder to do so. Questions should also be asked of the police and social services. But foremost of a country that prohibits an 18 year old to buy a bottle of beer and permits him to buy a gun.
Click click.
I was drawn to a corner. I was asked if I was ok, sir. I said I was. I was standing in front of a selection of guns, a couple of hundred perhaps. I was in a sports shop in West Virginia. I was distracted by a girl and her brother. She was younger than him. She was about 16. She was holding a shotgun.
The horse has bolted but it's long been clear - the United States of America has a gun problem. And it's this: they are acceptable - their presence, their appearance, their sound, their calibre, their ability to murder is accepted in the United States of America by more people than those who oppose it.
It is morally wrong. It de-sensitises people to have guns moving freely around society. The other people in the sports shop in West Virginia thought nothing of two people checking out some weapon of mass destruction. They don't say no. They are desensitised. They accept the presence of guns. They're even at football matches when the home team scores a touchdown.
Imagine being able to buy a gun in Tescos. Imagine buying your child a gun for their 18th birthday. Imagine showing off your gun collection to friends after Christmas dinner.
You don't have to imagine it. Just move to America.
Surely now they will be woken from their slumber. Surely now someone will have the guts to honour the memory of the murdered. Surely the election candidates will get past being female, black, republican or democrat. Show some guts and take on the gun lobbies. What was right 200 years ago is not necessarily ok now - see slavery. Will the presidential candidates show true character, genuine leadership?
They must. The enemy lies within. America needs to realise that. College shooting don't happen in other countries.
There's no allowing for people losing the plot and murdering 33 people but more can be done to make it harder to do so. Questions should also be asked of the police and social services. But foremost of a country that prohibits an 18 year old to buy a bottle of beer and permits him to buy a gun.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Irish General Election - 2007
Way out past the green fields of the Phoenix Park and just beyond the mind-crushing, bumper to bumper M50, lies West Dublin. Famous only for the odd sensational murder, it's also the fastest growing place in Ireland, with a population of over 90,000 at the 2006 census. More people than Galway city, so they say. It is the hearbeat of the new Ireland, the one where catholicism and the English language no longer dominate. There is no real history out here - housing estates are still being piled onto green space and it will take a while to see what effect all this change has. There's no-one really famous, for any reason, from west Dublin. So a place is being created, a community perhaps, a suburb for sure. It's where I live and where I will focus on for the general election.
I won't bore you with the candidates; instead, just to set the ball rolling, here's a taste of what one Fianna Fail man had to say about HIV at a recent meeting between young people and politicans.
"The reason there is a HIV and TB crisis here is because we let people into the country without medical screening. In the US and Australia you have to do a full medical if you want to emigrate there."
That was from Gerry Lynam (right - pun intended), the man with a ronnie that could shine shoes or sweep the streets, Fianna Fail's latest weapon in its war against Socialist Joe Higgins, Labour's Joan Burton and Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar. He's a decent bloke, Gerry Lynam, but is prone to populist, lazy, stereotypical rubbish. Besides pandering to fears, paranoia and uncertainty of the local electorate, he also does himself a diservice.
He has done admirable work for many years as part of the Greater Blanchardstown Repsonse to Drugs. So why come out with - what he surely knows to be - lies? Is he, a man who ran as an independent in the last election, that desperate to be elected that he will ignore what he knows and manipulate what people don't?
HIV and TB were in Ireland long before we had immigration - they were spread, primarily, by repeatedly using the same needles while injecting heroin. That's why so many people with a heroin addiction in Ireland have HIV. That's why we have a crisis - trying to lay the blame on people who can't even vote in the next election is revolting.
(Local paper Community Voice picked up on this and that's where I got it so fair play, it's a good paper).
I won't bore you with the candidates; instead, just to set the ball rolling, here's a taste of what one Fianna Fail man had to say about HIV at a recent meeting between young people and politicans.
"The reason there is a HIV and TB crisis here is because we let people into the country without medical screening. In the US and Australia you have to do a full medical if you want to emigrate there."
That was from Gerry Lynam (right - pun intended), the man with a ronnie that could shine shoes or sweep the streets, Fianna Fail's latest weapon in its war against Socialist Joe Higgins, Labour's Joan Burton and Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar. He's a decent bloke, Gerry Lynam, but is prone to populist, lazy, stereotypical rubbish. Besides pandering to fears, paranoia and uncertainty of the local electorate, he also does himself a diservice.
He has done admirable work for many years as part of the Greater Blanchardstown Repsonse to Drugs. So why come out with - what he surely knows to be - lies? Is he, a man who ran as an independent in the last election, that desperate to be elected that he will ignore what he knows and manipulate what people don't?
HIV and TB were in Ireland long before we had immigration - they were spread, primarily, by repeatedly using the same needles while injecting heroin. That's why so many people with a heroin addiction in Ireland have HIV. That's why we have a crisis - trying to lay the blame on people who can't even vote in the next election is revolting.
(Local paper Community Voice picked up on this and that's where I got it so fair play, it's a good paper).
Sunday, April 8, 2007
The filth and their fury
The Sunday Times has 'Fury as the hostages sell stories' as the lead on its webpage. This caught my eye. Firstly, this was to be expected, no? In a world where everyone from Rio Ferdinand to Jade Goodey has an autobiography, there can't have been many people watching that lady who didn't think she would 'get a book out of it'. I call her 'that lady' becasue I have tried to ignore the petty details of this facile feud - and also because that's how she is viewed in the media ("the only female sailor!" they cry - so what?!).
Secondly the question must be who is furious? From the article I got the feeling the Times itself is furious. Which is a bit rich, since this drawn-out squabble lurched to its inevitably bemusing conclusion under the 24hour, rolling and intense glare of the jingo press. Before the hostage's release every angle of the story was sold - first to the press then to the readers. But now the pig has dropped a second litter this summer and the race is on to be the first to buy and the first to sell.
I'd imagine a more accurate headline would be 'Fury as hostages sell their stories to other newspapers!'. Because you can bet your last marine that Murdoch's rags would jump on the chance to do an tritely in-depth profile of this lady, and splash all over the Sun, the News of the World, The Times and Sky News tomorrow morning.
So really there is no fury - just indifference and acceptance, as with so much of what we watch and read.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Have you seen this bicycle?
Irish Green Party TD John Gormley's bicycle was stolen yesterday. Gormley will be the parties' candidate in Dublin south east at the upcoming general election. And according to Tom McGurk on RTE radio, none less than the Garda Commisioner himself will oversee the investigation into the theft.
Ironically for Gormley he has often called in the past for bicycles to me made freely available to rent all over Dublin City - just like in civilised places like Holland. Looks like somebody has stolen his thunder as well as his two-wheeler. I'm opening a book on who might do such a thing.
- a random chancer who never heard of John Gormley - 4/5
- michael mcdowell - 2/1
- on discovering his humour bone, trevor sargent - 5/1
- someone working for ford - 10/1
- an islamofacist - 50/1
- george bush - 1000/1
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Party Poopers
The Russian parliament has banned political rallies that have more than one person for every two square feet in Moscow. They've also banned political meetings where there are more chairs than people. They're doing it for 'the safety of Muscovites'. Rumours that they will soon ban chairs are unconfirmed.
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