“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”
A novel written in the 19th century, scarily things are the same a hundred and twenty years on. Schools now tend to focus on English, Maths, Irish and then four to five other subjects yet nothing prepares young people for the savage side society comes out with. There should be as much time on encouraging people to
-Network with other people
-Cognitive behavioural therapy
-Develop empathy
-Good emotional intelligence
Rather than creating an automoton , then again perhaps the status quo may find this goes against them....
In 2010 the Green party suggested that a bill be introduced for economic treason. Consquently the legislation would have been zigged before it was zagged, an unruly mess as half of those they were in govt with could be done under it I reckon. . With Anglo being prosecuted under company law and illegal loans to directors, a more robust set of laws are needed to prevent an occurence of this again and a new law relating to economic treason be brought in. In scope it can be defined as a person whom knowingly benefits from a financial transaction which would see the economic infrastructure of a country be undermined be dealt punishable by up to twenty years in prison. Im unaware of any similar law in any other country. The current laws on treason are making war on the Irish state or aiding people who are waging war . Company law only targets specific degrees of irregularities on a smaller level, this new legislation would allow for it to be taken on a wider scope i.e. nationally.
A friend of mine asked me to post this, tis an example of what can happen for those who get elected as county councillors. One councillor,Enda Flynn. running in the South Meath area is running for Fine Gael on a strong education platform. This leaflet was dropped through the door the other morning
Now there is nothing to stop people holding a job as a councillor and working at another job as far as I am aware. They must attend the meetings as non attendance for six months to my understanding results in the council having seen you as resigning your seat unless there are special conditions. The reason why I mention this, like others in Fine Gael, Enda Flynn is also a school principal in a school in Enfield in Co.Meath. (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Enda-...72814852761880 & http://www.stmaryspsenfield.scoilnet.ie/about.html )
How much for being a councillor and a school principal were he to be elected?
Any other examples of this? Of course if this double jobbing is not allowed maybe Im wrong but I couldnt find anything about it online.
Curiously my friend said nothing was mentioned in the leaflet about him being the school principal in Enfield...
Trans-Dniester is currently a part of Moldova with an overwhelming majority of ethnic Russians . Trans-Dniester has asked the Russian govt to investigate the possibility of joining back with Russia with the view of terminating ties with Moldova. Already Trans-Dniester has its own currency and border guard and tensions always run high with Moldova. May this very well be next on the Russian hitlist? Putin imperialist expansion could move quicker than the west thinks.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26662721Maybe Russia may annex the South and East of Ukraine now? Ethnic Russians feel under threat from a Ukranian government that has had its territory annexed. Would Putin use this as an excuse to invade under the pretext of protecthing ethnic Russians?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0ME1WK20140317Kazakhstan is locked into a customs union with Russia, maybe Russia is eyeing them up?
Jungian school of psychoanalyses theorises human beings unconcious (the one we are unaware of) is constantly at conflict with itself. Men have a feminine side repressed so often that this conflict spews forth and can be seen as the basis for a lot of mental illness (sensetive men are viewed by society as being weak). Jung termed this the anima side of the man, in women the masculine side was termed animus. The modern male, the stereotypical metrosexual is more at ease with his feminine side, dressing in a way that for years would be typed as an effeminate quality, these men are much more at ease with themselves. Gay men I would theorise myself from experience have a much harder time of this one side enslaves itself to stereotype of campness and the other side jumps into this extreme macho butchness role. All of this representative of an inner conflict . It was an internal struggle for me personally for quite a long time but now I do believe Im at peace in terms of this conflict. Are fellow PW users aware of their opposing side? Do they believe it exists? Do they act on it? Are they comfortable with it?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/painful-truths-about-rugby-culture-1.1729828?page=2
The image many of us males have of what it means to be a man, is disturbing and it doesn’t much differ from the rugby world’s ideal. One feature it surely does not include is homosexuality – the ideal man, hegemonic man, is certainly heterosexual, perhaps aggressively so. A bit prone to violence or at least “able to look after himself” – ie able to beat the bejasus out of anyone who challenges him. A capacity to drink enormous amounts of pints – sensibly of course – is almost de rigeur. And being a good man with the girls, lots of girls
I tend to agree with Brownes points as regards the core argument as to how men view themselves, not too sure his point is borne out within the context of rugby though. Rugby has become more inclusive over the years but there is an element in Irish society that men must view themselves in a particular way. Brownes points may have been made better if he looked at two things. Firstly we have a male dominated hierarchial society, in government dictating to women what to do with their bodies and secondly there is this context that we men must not talk about our feelings, which has partially lead to a spike in suicides. Private schools encourage an elitest gentlemans club, a lot of these are the people who go on to be judges, civil servants etc. Maleness in general is consumed in Ireland with the pursuit of quarry in some cases when you go to Coppers or somewhere similar and yes as a red blooded (gay) male I have been like this in my younger years but grew out of it, some people never really do though do they? I have made the same argument about the effeminisation of gay men on the gay scene and the same point is also made about straight men feeling they have to butch because to be anything else is just not acceptable. Its more about being comfortable in who you are, not responding to peer pressure and if you want to drink ten pints in a night as I do, do it because you want to not because you feel you have to point out what some people think. There is a lot of men out there keeping up with the joneses, just be yourselves lads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw
Statistics present a strong argument when they are read into. If people are not familiar with them the Ted talks are a series of short talks given in Laymans terms for idiots like myself seeking a greater understanding of major problems. Above is one I linked to in which Richard Wilkinson,an epidemiologist gives evidence from his book, The Spirit level that there is a direct correleation between income gaps and social harm. The larger the income gap then the more problems there is at social level. Social harm was taken to mean things like infant mortality, obesity, drug use etc. In Sweden and Finland and Japan where income inequality between groups is less than those of Britan and the US, this has lead to lesser problems in Scandanavia and a hell of a lot of issues in the UK and USA.
Above is a sample of the graphs and how they relate. The x axis represents the Income Inequality going from left (low income inequality) to right (high income inequality). On the Y axis is social problems faced by those . The countries are plotted according to their income inequality and social problems. Ireland ranks about centre but US and UK and Singapore have large income inequality and thus large social issues.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/201...n.out.beringiaLinguists have studied the grammar and vocabulary of both languages and have concluded there may be evidence of migration from Eastern Russia back to Central Asia and others into North America. The scientists used a technique called phylogenetic analysis where a tree is drawn up which shows the shared traits that some languages may have with others and then this can be used to trace back a languages development.This model was then compared to migration patters of ancient peoples from various sub groups.
Results show an early dispersal of Na-Dene along the North American coast with a Yeniseian back migration through Siberia and a later dispersal of North American interior Na-Dene languages. Sicoli explained, "we used computational phylogenetic methods to impose constraints on possible family tree relationships modeling both an Out-of-Beringia hypothesis and an Out-of-Asia hypothesis and tested these against the linguistic data. We found substantial support for the out-of-Beringia dispersal adding to a growing body of evidence for an ancestral population in Beringia before the land bridge was inundated by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age."
Unions are the cornerstone of any movement against austerity...
James Larkin's character was that of a man who was raised in a tough part of Liverpool. Larkins father died when he was eleven and he took a succession of jobs. From butchers assistant to docker, Larkins early life and experiences moulded him into becoming the successful trade unionist that he was. The ITWGU was formed by Larkin when he came to Dublin and fought against the dreadful conditions that employees had to endure at the time and he won concessions for employees.
SIPTU, the progeny of this union has now in the modern day no backbone along with most of the other unions in existence. Through the subs that go to Labour, the Quislings who dropped us into austerity to signing up for Haddington Road and a leader like Jack O Connor at helm, SIPTU have ultimately failed in their current existence to agitate for better conditions for the majority of wokers in Ireland. When pen was put to paper on Haddington Road, this was the signalling of the downfall for most trade unions in Ireland.
(A picture above of Jack O Connor receiving a portrait of James Larkin, have a glass of milk just in case your stomach churns)
SIPTU leadership and its connections with the Labour party effectively makes them part of the problem of ineffective unions in Ireland .
Unions abroad are not tied to the government as much and if they are, still have no fear of bringing the country to a halt. COATSU in South Africa has ridden on the coat tails of the current South African Administration with a massive public sector strike and they fought off Walmart who had an interest in South Africa through a group called Massmart. Confederation Generale du Travail from France caused massive consternation when protests erupted in Paris as Sarkozy aimed at introducing zero hour contracts for students. Others that come to mind are Solidarity in Poland etc.
Trade Unions need effective leadership to achieve successful goals of equality, fairness and progress for all in society. Irish trade unions have done very little of this. There is a cure for this malaise, the members change the in efftive leadership and change the dynamics in a union so that a Union
-Can lobby for change, better laws and more social and economic equality for the upper classes.
-Creating better pay and conditions for workers.
-Ensuring better structures in society to protect the most vunerable.
The only person of note in the Irish trade union landscape with any balls is Brendan Ogle. The man who the Indo described as a 'firebrand negotiator' stood up to the corporate elite.
All of this is borne out of personal experience for me. I have been sold out I feel by CPSU as I imagine numerous others feel about trade unions.
Does anyone feel the same?
http://www.daft.ie/searchcommercial.daft?id=62090Thats the second floor (part of it) for rent...doesnt look that big really.
Yet there are 776 companies all registered there or were registered there (thanks to Young Activist Network lecture on it)
One director has 60+ directorships here (all available on CRO records)
My favourite spots to eat
Lemon Jelly – Millenium Walkway
Excellent banana hot chocolate, crepes are massive and the best service of any cafe. Tad expensive but worth the money
Wok u Like – North Earl St
Cheap eats! Love the noodles, big box for a fiver!
Viet Pho – Dorset St
Currys are amazing, BYOB (fiver corking charge but keep cost down with bottle of wine from Lidl, some nice wines for under a fiver)
Thai Spice – Behind Bus Aras
Real Thai food! Gang dang (yep thats what its called!) and satay chicken are paradise. Nice beers
Black Sheep – Capel St
The beer selection is massive. Food is good sized portions and tastes great. Club sandwiches are the dogs bollox
KC Peaches
Massive plate of food for a tenner or salad for eight quid. Love their white hot chocolate
Boojum – Italian Quarter
Massive burritos and Samuel Adams beer (dont make me crave one!
A straight catholic (note I flatly to ever refuse to use a capital letter for that religion) patriarchial society has taken it upon itself to dictate to me whom I can and cannot marry. Famous drag act, Panti (aka Rory Neill) was sent solicitors letters after comments he made recently on the Saturday night show but its very easy to see why Rory felt aggrieved at the comments that are directed at the gay community in Dublin. For too long the gay community has been seen as being freaks, second class citizens and slightly eccentric (perhaps the latter ;) ).
The Iona Institute as has been covered on this blog are a catholic research institute. Numerous commentators and media personalities are members of this institute while others are not. What do they have in common though? The common denominator is a lot of them believe that gay marriage should not be legalised for reasons that its different to other marriages through to it is not the correct environment for a child to be raised in. Im not going to bother posting the links to papers which show the first point on gay marriage being different as utter tosh (read them on google scholar). The research from the catholic right is from faith based institutions in a lot of cases, institutions who if they had even bothered to understand in researching that any faith makes their research impossible as biases must be checked at the door. Secondly, there are a lot of single parent families whom have raised children single handedly to become upstanding citizens of society which puts paid to the myth that a father or a mother are needed. A gay couple will adapt to the role of mother or father with both of these being a social construct anyways. Once a child will be brought into a loving home its what really matters. So that is the research bulldozed what about the belief?
Any belief that a homosexual person is less capable of being a member of society based on their sexuality is inherently a judgement and henceforth homophobic, its really that easy to see. The word homophobe is not being thrown around lightly here, its being used to address what is the last great fundamental civil rights movement in humanity. Apartheid era South Africa banned inter racial marriage under the Afrikaaner government as they viewed black people to be lesser people based on their skin colour, a similar judgement has been passed but note we replace the words South Africa with Ireland, inter racial/black with gay ,Afrikaaner with Irish conservative society and skin colour with sexuality and how does the sentence read? Not much of a difference if I was to be asked . The apartheid government fell and laws were repealed as they did a severe injustice to those whom they affected. Ireland is now at this point.
The belief that I am somehow lesser a person than others and therefore cannot get married is an outdated concept. catholicism is at a crossroads in Ireland and its going to cross and get ploughed out of it by a massive artic rigid truck and go splat hopefully…
Im falling victim to Haddington Road agreement, the agreement where all the unions bent right over and got their arses torn apart as they went bottom for the government to go top. Notwithstanding the very Quisling-esqu stance they took, the jobs they have been redeploying people to reads like jobs no one wants. Being stuck in a back office photocopying documents all day and not seeing the light of day? Erm no thanks Im not interested. I want somewhere where Im dealing with the public and not some plank screaming at me for post to be scanned in, Im more interested in dealing with the public. Redeployment is stressing me out big time, Im happy ish in my current position but just want to be left alone to do my job and get on with life, I do my job as Im not a career sorted type, Im more orientatied to a 5-9 lifestyle where I can do my own silly little side projects.
As the point I made on twitter this morning to Richard Waghorne and Panti is that in Apartheid South Africa, inter racial marriage was banned by the Afrikaaner government and this policy was racially driven, it treated black citizens as second class citizens . This policy was driven by the belief that Afrikaaners were superior to others and this was reinforced by the ex presidents of South Africa.
Back in November 2013 – David Quinn published an article in the Indo enttitled
Denying a child’s right to have a mother has become state policy
In it he says
The ‘right’ of two men or two women to have a child is a purely invented legal right, not a natural one. It is a simple fact of life that they will find it impossible to have a child unless they can find a member of the opposite sex who is willing to facilitate them
The right of citizens to be treated equally under the is not an invented legal right, it is the natural right of any society that people be treated just and fairly and not as second class citizens. Just as the black population of South Africa was banned from marrying who they like, the Iona Insitute does not want to see same sex marriage or same sex adoption for gay couples and the following is proof of that
http://www.thejournal.ie/david-norris-iona-institute-constitutional-convention-875170-Apr2013/
THERE HAVE BEEN calls for an investigation into allegations that the Iona Institute tried to mislead last weekend’s Constitutional Convention hearings on same-sex marriage.
Senator David Norris has sought an inquiry into whether the conservative think-tank deliberately cited an academic paper arguing in favour of a child being raised by its biological parents, presenting it as an argument in favour of excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage.
The Iona Institute’s submission to the convention summarised the paper as follows:
Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage… There is thus value in promoting strong, stable marriage between biological parents.
When accessed online now, however, the study carries a disclaimer on the front page from its authors – saying the research summarised surveys in 2002 which identified neither same-sex nor adoptive parents.
On a personal note I feel that the Iona Institute is an organisation with a prejudicial attitude and in the defence of fair comment as above I believe that this and other evidence is reasonable belief. You cannot sue someone for having an opinion. The Iona Institute really need to repair their time machine and go back to Victorian times where they may be lauded as heros and David Quinn can be hero worshipped ….
