tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32572432073899350942024-03-06T02:11:24.616+00:00Mariseo MusingsViews, people, odd stuff from Brian Byrne, Kilcullen, IrelandUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-60117330479048587782017-06-10T04:59:00.000+01:002017-06-10T05:12:52.800+01:00Northern where ...?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzRhMT93Bw3tBmGjwxUz_3P64jox8O7L2k1scA193vCUtlOy5ILcEgrFKr2H5wnIOtwqJprGpfuyP0kGadP6pSkj3SnN8cqOhhI4C7mFXiMaxKlCe3QaAyST-z7YQ2NmnwPT8FzBbaKZbt/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-10+at+04.52.24.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="678" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzRhMT93Bw3tBmGjwxUz_3P64jox8O7L2k1scA193vCUtlOy5ILcEgrFKr2H5wnIOtwqJprGpfuyP0kGadP6pSkj3SnN8cqOhhI4C7mFXiMaxKlCe3QaAyST-z7YQ2NmnwPT8FzBbaKZbt/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-10+at+04.52.24.png" width="320" /></a></div>
An interesting graphic from <i>The Telegraph</i>. There are three well-defined parts of the United Kingdom (plus London) following this week's General Election there.<br />
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<i>Ehh ... there's no inclusion of Northern Ireland, on whose DUP MPs Teresa May is now depending so much to remain in government.</i><br />
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<i>Sure, I know the Conservatives and the British Labour Party don't technically have party machines in NI, but just sayin'.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-2010855741569216792017-06-05T11:00:00.001+01:002017-06-10T05:11:02.676+01:00Trumpian diarrhoea and beautiful destruction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Z7GSFqc2fCkqrx6xMMIOrbutlSXqE5SLhlYGYAHZF5cjdyhFrL_HkzgnSTKvf_6fnX2zzZJ0HJof5kWvqH1w9HNjOIeglZTfuQ0zdbjXY5krRj_dOTBU0JY4YKrctZ-VWP00AwlV5zA5/s1600/Minuteman3launch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1258" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Z7GSFqc2fCkqrx6xMMIOrbutlSXqE5SLhlYGYAHZF5cjdyhFrL_HkzgnSTKvf_6fnX2zzZJ0HJof5kWvqH1w9HNjOIeglZTfuQ0zdbjXY5krRj_dOTBU0JY4YKrctZ-VWP00AwlV5zA5/s320/Minuteman3launch.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
Donald Trump diarrhoeas tweets and silly statements, so it's very hard to stop and think too much about any single one of them before he trumps it with another. But one line from him after his visit to the Middle East gave me a particular chill.<br />
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It went something like, 'we have just concluded a deal with our Saudi friends to sell them $110 billion worth of weapons. Beautiful American weapons. Nobody makes them like the United States'.<br />
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Certainly, there can be a rather terrible beauty about the design of some weaponry, such as the intimidating symmetry of a fighter aeroplane's shape, the metallic sheen on a deadly handgun, the brief majesty of a ballistic missile as it lifts slowly from its launch pad before building up to supersonic speed and delivering its horrific payload of mass death and destruction.<br />
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But the Trumpet doesn't have, I think, the aesthetic consciousness to appreciate even any of that. No, his sense of beauty here was only the deal, of selling stuff. No matter that the stuff was designed for just one thing, to kill and maim, to destroy life and property. The 'beauty' was in the dollar signs that are imprinted on the American president's retinas, so that everything he sees is framed in that symbol.<br />
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I can't help feeling too that the same spoilt little boy who now lumbers around the White House is also itching to play with more of the 'beautiful' new toys that came with his current home. His 'lash out' temperament when he doesn't get his way is well established and doesn't bode well for when he faces a real international crisis, maybe with military, even nuclear confrontation aspects. His 'I do it because I can' attitude isn't what we need in the person who has the individual power to order nuclear annihilation.<br />
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The scary part is that he could do just that, without much hinderance. Those in line behind him don’t seem to have the capacity to rein him in. The mealy-mouthed, cringe-making introduction given by his vice-president when the Trumpet announced the US ‘we’re getting out’ departure from the Paris Accord on climate change doesn’t inspire confidence. And the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan isn’t in any way comforting on his grasp of the real world either.<br />
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For sure, there are still signs of rationality in the America that I’ve come to know, like and respect through many visits there. The reaction of key cities and industries to signal they will carry on with the spirit of the Paris Accord is one. The progress so far of the judiciary in becalming the Trumpet’s attempts to impose bans on Muslims travelling to the United States. The exceptionally strong and widespread work by the 'failing' news media to hold the president's utterances and actions to immediate public account and fact correction.<br />
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But this is a cunning man. And an amoral one, prepared to use everything at his disposal to spread both misinformation and malice, to make sure that the integrity and decency of those who oppose him is trashed in @realDonaldTrump twitterstorms and unashamedly twisted utterances by his spokespersons. And these are just the public actions ... who knows what's being done underneath the radar by a businessman who bragged about having deliberately turned up the volume of the music loudspeakers at Mar-a-Lago to 'bug the heck out of all of these so-and-sos' in Palm Beach 'who never wanted me around'? "I love cranking this music as loud as I can," he told his biographer.<br />
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Substitute cranking loudspeakers with setting the IRS on those who criticise or oppose him at home. Or putting in place FBI criminal investigations of them (if he finally gets a new boss of that organisation to replace the one he fired because he wouldn't do as he was told)? Or lobs a nuclear missile at North Korea because of something Kim Jong-il might slight him about?<br />
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(Actually, he mightn't do that last, because Kim is the same kind of person as himself — spoilt, authoritarian, narcissistic, petulant. On the other hand, maybe he would ... haven't we all seen like-minded petulant children throwing their toys at one another?)<br />
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The scary part is, he got elected even though most everyone in the world who gets to read or view the goings-on in the the United States could see him for what he is from long before the election. Boorish, arrogant, unable and unwilling to study beyond the sound/video snapchat of Fox News and, ultimately, totally incompetent and unsuitable for the highest office in his land. But then, much of his electorate comes from those worst affected by the bad side of the business world in which he had a gilded upbringing. They are the ones with least wealth, with the least hope, and with the least knowledge of anything that happens outside their own city, state, or nation. It's not their fault that they have been taken in by the Trumpet's rabble-rousing slogans and the theatrical histrionics of his campaign rallies. When you have little money or hope, you will latch onto anyone who offers you a cheap fix, even if that fix is unrealistic at best and more likely impossible. The other section of those who elected the Trumpet were the members of the Grand Old Party, Republicans prepared to prostitute their intelligence and what remained of their conscience for the sake of regaining the White House.<br />
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Actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, reacting last week to the Paris Accord debacle in the White House Rose Garden, said among other things that the Trump Presidency is a 'hiccup' for America. Hopefully for the planet he's right. But in the meantime, who knows what the Trumpet will do in a hiccuping fit that lasts four years?<br />
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Watch out for one of those 'beautiful American weapons', coming through a sky near you ... as a little boy petulantly throws it from his high-chair because somebody refuses to give him what he wants. Such little boys don't take aim, you know, they just throw.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-21446938925692381322016-07-31T16:37:00.004+01:002016-07-31T16:42:43.150+01:00Terrorism on Twitter, the new reality TV?The world news media has become the best propaganda machine for terrorism, of all stripes. What these people crave most is big coverage of their outrages. It adds a fear factor fallout which spreads far beyond the original shootings or bombings. And now social media both feeds and increases that reach enormously.<br />
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Two things used to work against the news multiplier of terrorism — distance and time. When it took days for news of an anarchy to make it to the front pages of newspapers back in the 1800s, for those reading it eventually there was the sense that it was over, and also not in their space. Then telegraph and radio came along and shortened time. The later advent of global TV and soon afterwards Ted Turner's CNN invention of the non-stop news cycle gave us always-on access to anything happening around the globe where a camera and microphone might be sent. Now, the reach of the internet has brought to us everywhere instant global news.<br />
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Budget-cost travel also means that if there's a terrorist incident anywhere now, it's likely that we, or someone perhaps only two degrees of separation from us, will be there. Probably filming the event live to social media on smartphones.<br />
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Terrorism outrages are the new reality TV. It's almost a full circle from when citizens gathered at the Coliseum in Rome to watch gladiators and animals savage each other as a spectator sport. Now though, we don't have to leave our sitting rooms, or the bars or cafes where we happen to be, to have a front seat view of slaughter of our kind by our kind. To even be shaping that view.<br />
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I'm both a working journalist and a longtime student of journalism. I happened to be watching BBC TV News when they broke word of a shooting in Munich, and as an exercise I hit #Munich on Twitter on my iPad. For the next several hours I watched in tandem the various TV news channels and the Twitter feed. It was an education in how professional news coverage is struggling under the deluging waves of social media. It's not pretty. And for all the hype about 'citizen journalism', it doesn't serve us well.<br />
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Journalism has never had a pristine record. From Victorian 'penny dreadfuls' right up through the newspaper career of Britain's newest Foreign Secretary, the craft has been riddled with misinformation, propaganda, plagiarism, and downright lying. But most serious practitioners do try to be truthful, accurate, and to tell a story as completely as possible. Doing that takes gathering facts, checking them, and checking again, and then filing copy.<br />
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There isn't time for that anymore. Pressures of getting the story out first on 24-hour news TV is playing hell with a fundamental of good journalism — checking the facts. On a running story now, there's a new person around the TV news desk: the one monitoring the social media feeds. When the news anchor runs out of questions to correspondents and 'experts', who are often as much in the dark as he or she is, it becomes time to turn to that 'extra leg' of modern news analysis.<br />
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As Munich developed, elements that came from the social media coverage were relevant, though very disturbing. The smartphone video of the shooter calmly levelling his Glock pistol at the people outside the McDonalds restaurant and then firing deliberately at them as they turned and ran. The one of the conversation with the shooter on the roof on the shopping centre, as he paced around the area, clearly more disturbed than coherent. Both were horrible. But they were grist to the mill of addictive television news watching, especially in the constant TV news loops.<br />
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At least the TV stations mostly blurred out the terrified people as they tried to flee from the gunman. Many posts of the same video on Twitter did not. The police said afterwards that many of the casualties happened at this point, so it may be that we were watching the last seconds of life for some of those people. And we kept watching over and over, with a prurience analogous to that of the citizens in the Coliseum. That's how we are now.<br />
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Watching Twitter unfold the story was essentially reading constant repetition of morsels of information bouncing off each other like atoms in a large particle collider, each impact creating multiple versions of the original pair and fragmenting, changing and adding to the content. So the next time one of the by–products came along it seemed new, but wasn't.<br />
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There were also interjections of untruths. Sometimes inadvertent, sometimes through ignorance, sometimes deliberate. These too were caught on the rip–tide of twit and swept wider and further, then rolled back in to us multiplied even more.<br />
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Reports of more shooting in a central Munich station went back and forth for hours before being discredited. But not before the city was put in lockdown, public transport was stopped, and people fled or cowered in their homes or wherever places they had been enjoying a normal evening’s activities.<br />
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A photograph circulated widely of bodies on a floor, purporting to be from inside the restaurant in Munich. Eventually somebody pointed out it was from an attack on a shopping centre in Nairobi in 2013.<br />
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Mug shots popped up captioned as having been released by police as a 'suspect'. Except that they weren't. I deliberately didn't record anything specific or screen grab any of the tweets. I wanted to see how the stream affected my later recollection and perception. But one of a number of ugly ones that sticks in my mind said 'Hey, Deutschland, how do ya like them apples?'<br />
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There was also the inevitable input from those who immediately associate such events with Muslims and Islamic terrorism. Incorrectly, as it turned out. The shooter’s inspiration was rooted in right-wing European hate and a crazed wish to be famous.<br />
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The police were attempting to clear the scene while not knowing if there were other shooters around, and trying to get a proper handle on casualties. Correctly, they tried not to say anything more than they knew as they carried out their work. News crews were kept at the distance necessary both for safety and for investigation management. But today’s news has to be fed incessantly, with regurgitations of whatever visuals are available, and of talking heads, and the Twitter stream contributed widely to uncertainty, wild inaccuracy, and fear.<br />
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I'm no Canute. I know the craft which I started into more than four decades ago has changed, and continues to change even faster, from when I was tapping out my early local stories on a mechanical typewriter. I'm not against change. Indeed, I'm an adopter of it and have in my own small way led with the new technology in local news. I use social media for elements of my current work. But I don't get involved on it, I don’t talk on it. Because it's too quick, too public, and too easy to rant without responsibility, carp without consequence. More seriously, it’s too easy to whip up individuals, and mobs, to extremism and evil acts.<br />
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Social media’s success is based on having provided to all of us gossiping at the corner shop, or sitting on bar stools, or commenting at our televisions, an instant and wider actual audience. To feel we’re ‘in’ rather than observing the minute and the major happenings in our neighbourhood and in the wide world. It has also allowed us as individuals, families, groups and whole populations to be targeted for manipulation in a way that even George Orwell didn’t anticipate. We carry the means of that manipulation voluntarily, in our pockets, in our bags. Mostly in our hands, constantly interacting with our Big Brother small screens in case we miss an amusement, or a scandal. Or more and more killings.<br />
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I’m well aware of the many good sides of social media, the many positive ways it can and does enrich our lives, and the lives of those we hold close and dear. It has shortened time and distance for globally scattered families. It can and does help bring communities together for good projects. It can and does allow the populace to make its wishes known in national debate. It can aid the election of good local leaders and national presidents. And it can and does help us to learn more about ourselves and our world.<br />
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When Gothenburg’s printing press provided opportunity for religious, social and political manipulators to propagate their themes and memes, it also began the process of taking education from the privileged few and offering it to all of us. On balance, it’s fairly safe to say that the benefits begun by his technology still outweigh the downsides. Social media is the latest extension of that process, and we can reasonably hope that the good will outbalance the bad in the long run.<br />
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In the meantime though, it would help if we all paused before we hit the ‘Tweet’ and ‘Retweet’ buttons, and asked ourselves are we adding to the truth or the good of the subject of the moment? Because, while our own individual contribution to the stream might be infinitesimal in the babel of the twittering cosmos, it’s like the butterfly flapping its wings in Chaos Theory, we could be helping to build a hurricane somewhere else.<br />
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It you’ve got this far, you’ll probably know what I mean. If you gave up after 140 characters, well maybe you are the future come to now.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-27350902353912036012014-03-29T10:32:00.002+00:002014-03-29T10:32:52.327+00:00The prison books banI've just read about a most horrendous thing perpetrated on our next door island, which throws a country that can often claim to be the most civilised nation in the world back into the Dark Ages.<br />
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Last November, Britain's Justice Secretary Chris Grayling stopped the sending of books and other necessities in parcels from families and friends to prisoners.<br />
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Writers, journalists and representatives of many human rights organisations are now, justifiably, incensed at what is clearly a very mean attempt to gain credibility with the hard liners who want prisons to be deeply punishing instead of places where rehabilitation might be possible. <br />
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Grayling is now at the receiving end of a massive backlash, including an online petition that has already received more than 3,000 signatories.<br />
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The UK's Prisons Minister Jeremy Wright has tried to defend the move, saying there are libraries in all prisons, and prisoners can have up to 12 books in their cells at any given time.<br />
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Protestors counter by noting that prison libraries are suffering the same cutbacks as any other such facility, and that anyhow the prisoners might have special interests that aren't catered for by the limited prison library services, and depend on family and friends to provide what they need.<br />
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The issue has raised discussion on whether the UK government is at all interested in rehabilitation and education in its prisons, especially against a background of prisoners often being confined to their cells for an much as 20 hours a day.<br />
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It's just basically bad. But it prompts me to wonder — and I will make it my business to find out — if similar restrictions apply here?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-22975006139782758072013-07-15T19:23:00.003+01:002013-07-15T21:15:39.388+01:00The Seanad Debates, an IntroductionWell, the campaign to decide the future of Seanad Eireann has got under way. But at least we're going to be asked to make the decision. I know that if Enda Kenny had his preferences, he'd just lock the doors and cut off the money stream.<br />
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We're going to hear a lot of spin in the coming months, About how anachronistic the Seanad is, and how much money will be saved by giving it and its seanadoiri the republic's boot. That it's a hot-air talking shop with no real teeth, a creche for 'resting' TDs, and completely without a mandate from the people who pay for it.<br />
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Most, or even all of that might be true. But I'm uncomfortable about a zealotic push to dump it altogether. If for no other reason than we're losing an opportunity to keep manners on the other lot in the lower house. God knows, they need something to keep them in line.<br />
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When the first Free State Seanad Eireann was established in 1922, its members were by appointment. The idea was that eventually all of the members would be directly elected by the public. And they were for its first election in 1925, but the system was then changed to indirect elections, similar to today but less complex. The lack of power that Senate had was demonstrated by its dissolution in 1936 because it delayed some Government legislation.<br />
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The revived Seanad in 1937 brought in the Vocational Panels for 43 of its membership, based on a theme promulgated by Pope Pius XI. It's complicated, with nominations controlled by the political parties, and voting by TDs, sitting senators and councillors. Just two third-level educational institutions, the National University of Ireland (UCD, UCG, UCC and Maynooth) and the University of Dublin (TCD) have the right to elect members, six of the 60 seanadoiri. The Taoiseach can nominate 11 members. <br />
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That's a potted statement of the current position, which shows that the major control is political, and that primarily held by the Government of the day.<br />
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The Seanad doesn't have much power over legislation produced by the lower house. It has the right to review it, suggest amendments which need not be accepted by the Government, and delay it to a finite length of time beyond which it can be 'deemed' to have accepted it even if it hasn't.<br />
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Lots of proposals for reform have been produced, going all the way back to the 1920s. The most recent, and most relevant one to today, was by a sub-committee of the Seanad's own in 2004. The Vocational Panels system would be abolished, with 21 members being directly elected by the public. All third level colleges should have a vote for the educational membership, and the Taoiseach's nominees should all represent Northern Ireland, the Irish abroad, and marginalised groups in the country. It also suggested that the Seanad should have a greater role scrutinising the Government and EU legislation.<br />
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Formally introduced in 2007, these concepts were never implemented. Not surprising, as the political control would be seriously undermined. In 2009, Enda Kenny said that a Fine Gael Government would abolish the upper house. It was to be part of a package of overall Oireachtas reform, including cutting the number of TDs by 20. That last hasn't happened yet, either.<br />
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No more than the Dail, the upper house of our national parliament hasn't always covered itself in glory. But there have been really good debates, some passionate interjections into our national conversation, and quite a number of seriously committed senators with no personal or political agendas who have helped make Seanad Eireann relevant for the rest of us ordinary Joes.<br />
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I'm not going to try and argue the case for the Seanad's retention, albeit in modified form, all in one go here. This is by way of placing the summer and autumnal conversation on the issue in some form of backstory. Bottom line, I'm uncomfortable about our Taoiseach's single-minded approach to abolishing the Seanad. That the Socialist Party and Sinn Fein have the same idea doesn't help. Labour is also for its abolition. We're kind of lucky that it is a Constitutional matter, and we, the people, get to decide on whether or not that'll happen.<br />
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I'd prefer, though, that we were being asked first to vote on that quite reasonable <i>Report on Seanad Reform</i> of 2004-2007. So, unless I'm convinced otherwise, I'm currently of a mind to vote 'no' in the referendum we're being offered.<br />
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Because, really, I don't trust your motives, guys. Convince me wrong.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-22367418839993170782012-10-26T07:54:00.001+01:002012-10-26T10:10:40.299+01:00'Keep changing the rules'If it did nothing else, yesterday's North Kildare Chamber Annual Conference fired up a geyser of optimism in the Killashee Hotel.<br />
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Against the background of the toughest financial situation faced by small and medium enterprises for decades, a stream of speakers talked up the opportunities possible, and how they might be accessed.<br />
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The key theme came early, with <b>Hugh Cooney</b> of Enterprise Ireland emphasising that 'successful businesses focus on innovation'. "Research and Development is essential for innovation," he urged. "And we need to continually innovate to compete globally." He said the upcoming innovation centre being established by Kerry Group in Naas should he 'held up high' as a model for industry in Ireland.<br />
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Enterprise Ireland is targeting 'mobile entrepreneurs' for investment, and also women in business. Opportunities in Sports, Communications and Financial Services are there, as there are in Agriculture, especially with the planned elimination of milk quotas. Noting that SMEs are the 'bread and butter' of Irish business and will be the major contributors to future growth, Cooney asked all present to become 'ambassadors for Irish business'.<br />
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Despite coming from a background of where he 'used to be' described as one of Ireland's most successful entrepreneurs, <b>Brody Sweeney</b> was sanguine about his 'riches to rags' experience, and expressed himself 'optimistic for the future of Irish business'.<br />
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He retailed the 'humiliating experience' of going around to landlords 'begging for lowered rents' for his chain of 350 O'Briens Sandwich outlets, before the business went into receivership. "I succeeded in negotiating down about a third of them, then I realised that the landlords were in just the same position as us, in hock at high prices to their banks, who in turn simply said it 'wasn't their problem'."<br />
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Always an entertaining storyteller, his subsequent up and down and up again attempts to get back in business were engaging. And frank. "It's no fun to have to acknowledge that you have failed, and you can be so crushed by the situation that you can make terrible decisions. After the receivership I was beaten up, didn't want to ever start another business." <br />
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But he did. Because like anyone else in business, he has a family to feed. Sweeney currently has a chain of four-becoming-six 'Camile' Thai takeaway food outlets in Dublin, catering for the internet generation 'who want food delivered to their laptops' instead of cooking for themselves. "And we're opening in London soon," he revealed, raising echoes of his previous global enterprise.<br />
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The former O'Briens emperor detailed what he had learned as the three key attributes of a successful business person. One, they take personal responsibility for the enterprise, its successes and failures. Two, they are prepared to do whatever it takes to make it work. And three, successful people have a plan. But even with all that in place, there are still no guarantees. "We're on a journey, and none of us know what the future brings. But one thing is sure, today is not the destination."<br />
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For Irish businesses not exporting, there's a 'very bleak' home retail market, <b>John Whelan</b> of the Irish Exporters Association warned those at the Conference. Noting that the country needed a lot more exporters, he outlined areas of opportunity in Transport, Tourism, Insurance, Back Office, and Financial Services. "Computer Services is our biggest services export, and the easiest to get into. Business services is also very big." Ireland also has successes in the food and drink industry, especially in recently-emerging big markets. "Russia, for instance, is the second largest market for Jameson whiskey, after the US."<br />
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Whelan said that Africa was becoming a very big consumer area, and many countries like China were moving in there to pick up the business. "We have a strong record in providing aid to the region, but we need to get smarter about opening up the business opportunities." He had blunt advice, though, for small businesses trying to access big new overseas markets. "Don't try and do it alone. Use a strategic partner already in the market. There's less cost, and much less risk."<br />
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How to break out of the natural human habit of doing the same thing all the time was the focus of <b>Dave Cagney</b> from Pfizer in Newbridge. "It's like a river following the shape of the land. Eventually it forms a gorge in our lives, and we're rooted into it."<br />
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His recipe for getting people thinking innovatively includes having them juggle balls at meetings. "Fun around the table helps people think creatively. Innovation requires using both sides of the brain. You can form a habit of doing things differently and get new things."<br />
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In a rapid-fire but fascinating presentation, Google's <b>Cera Ward</b> left participants in no doubt that consumer habits have changed and are continuing to change, because of the internet. The headline figure was sobering. Of €4bn spent by Irish consumers through the internet last year, €3bn left the country. "There's a big prize to be won," she said. "Two out of three people use a search engine before buying. You have to have a strong web presence, or people will buy from your competitor." In particular, businesses increasingly need to have a mobile version of their website, as the smartphone is becoming a major part of the consumer's pre-buy investigations. "Depending on product, between 10-20 percent of searches are now being conducted on mobile devices."<br />
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And with more than half of all retail sales expected to be done online by the end of 2014, there's both danger and opportunity. The opportunity can be grasped in a number of ways, the most important of which is to know what's happening by regular analysing of visitor patterns to a website. "Customer journeys on the internet are complex, clicking from site to site before converting to a defined search and purchase. The data can inform your marketing, your sales team."<br />
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Emphasising the small size of the home market, Ward gave examples of 'kitchen table' businesses which had grown substantial export markets. "Look at what you do as a global opportunity on the internet, and it can be huge." And her rules for success? Well, they're not really static enough to write down. "Never stop innovating, keep changing the rules, don't get left behind."<br />
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The absence of rules and regulations around 'The Gathering Ireland 2013' was also emphasised by <b>Andrew Cowan</b>, representing that Government initiative. "It's up to the steering groups around the country to do it themselves," he told the delegates, noting that there were already more than 850 'Gathering' events pledged around the country, with 4,600-plus ideas generated. And he had good news, of new grant money being available to local authorities and steering groups, ranging from €500-€2,500 per event. There are business opportunities attached to the Gathering, which is targeting four markets with strong Irish connections: the US, Canada, Britain and Australia.<br />
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"This isn't a new idea," he added, noting that the globally successful Rose of Tralee festival had been inaugurated with just the same thing in mind in 1959, when local businessmen with a budget of £750 put the concept in place. For 2013, the national 'event' will involve digital 'crowd-sourcing' and social media, as well as schoolchildren writing letters of invitation over the Scoilnet network. But it all comes down to one simple thought. Make the phone call. Ask the relatives, 'will ye come back for a visit?'. Like any sale, it won't happen if you don't lift the phone.<br />
<br />
Eirgrid was the keynote sponsor of the Conference, and that company's <b>John Lowry</b> noted that the concept of the 'Smart Grid' in electricity transmission offered opportunities for innovative businesses with ideas to improve efficiencies in the technologies used. "We have just announced a 'Smart Grid Innovation Hub' to help entrepreneurs bring such ideas to fruition."<br />
<br />
High quality and reliable electricity is key to attracting big businesses to the country, he noted, citing Intel as one such, which used as much power on its own as does the city of Galway. But the investment in energy for such companies must be made now. "We have to be ready for them when the economy turns."<br />
<br />
Lowry surprised most delegates when he revealed that innovation to date has resulted in Ireland now being in a position to provide half of its energy needs by alternative and sustainable means. A 75 percent ability is envisaged by 2020. The opportunities for Irish SMEs are in generating, transmission, logistics, smart vehicles, and smart industry.<br />
<br />
The final speaker, <b>Gary Keegan</b> of the Irish Institute of Sport, provided a fascinating insight into innovation by changing the mindset of a group or organisation. Drawing on his experience as the High Performance Director of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association, he punched home the importance of process in achieving performance. And he saw direct parallels in the mindset required to achieve in sport and achievement in business.<br />
<br />
"Before Beijing, we had had a 16 year drought of medals in Olympic boxing. In the period before the programme started, we had won two medals at world level. In the same period after it, we won 52. We started with a group of ordinary people, and found extraordinary things within ourselves."<br />
<br />
The process began with a 'hard look' at the situation in Irish boxing. It meant getting down to person level, and was challenging. "We found that we weren't fit for purpose." The keys to improvement included everyone in the team, boxers, coaches, physios, all 'visualising' themselves to be world class, standing on a podium.<br />
<br />
"A critical success factor is to identify what you can control, and then control the hell out of it," Keegan noted, adding that working on strengths and nurturing character were key elements in the strategy. He detailed how the programme concentrated on turning values into behaviour, and getting across the fact that 'nobody is bigger than the system', including the management. "Behaviour that generates high performance has to be maintained from the top down."<br />
<br />
His bottom line was that exceptional results are best achieved by focusing on performance, controlling the environment to promote challenge, and that the required high performance has to be defined.<br />
<br />
Opening the Conference earlier, North Kildare Chamber President <b>Eilis Quinlan</b> had questioned whether the Government had been strong enough in dealing with the issues which have had the country in recession for five years, and seen personal incomes and business revenues 'fall off a cliff'. "We must ensure that Government knows that Kildare is a place to do business, and we all have to work together to succeed," she said.<br />
<br />
Which made it all the more a pity that one of the Government TDs, present before the start of the event, had to leave very early to attend some Dail business. There was so much that could have been brought back to that same Dail if he had been able to wait. The positive vibes alone could have taken another half percent off our bond interest costs.<br />
<br />
And besides, geysers of optimism can't be sustained unless there's an underlying and consistent pressure of encouragement. Which many of those attending weren't confident is coming from Government.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-12468503372573911482012-07-17T21:57:00.005+01:002012-07-17T22:29:32.314+01:00A dream of eliminating famineIf you haven't ever visited Strokestown Park in Co Roscommon, make the time when you next drive that way.<br />
<br />
It's an 18th century Palladian mansion surrounded by 300 acres of parkland and traditional gardens. But Strokestown is also the memorial heart of one of the blackest periods of Irish history, the Great Famine. And thanks to the passion of one man, Jim Callery, that history is brought to life at Strokestown.<br />
<br />
The plantation itself was described as one of the best examples of how a big estate should be run, back in the 1700s. But when the Famine began it became a classic example of how Irish tenant farmers found themselves at the starvation end of existence.<br />
<br />
Much of our knowledge of the period is coming from the study of some 40,000 papers found in Strokestown House by Jim Callery after he bought it from the Packenham-Mahon family. Now being restored and curated at Maynooth, the small proportion so far available reveals extraordinary details of the lives inside and outside the house, and how they interacted, or didn't, to deal with the catastrophe.<br />
<br />
That's partly why the National Famine Museum was located in a stable yard of the house by the Westward Group founded by Jim Callery, who have also been restoring the house and its gardens and parklands to what it once was.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-A50VV2OAhXw/UAXPxaNWZNI/AAAAAAAAH90/v9N4NF_SEAc/s1024/IMAGE_80049980-CB9C-413E-8600-63672B4B93F1.JPG" width="400"><br />
<i>Soup kitchen pots designed especially for famine relief work in Ireland of the mid-1800s.</i><br />
<br />
It isn't just a repositary for the memory of the Great Famine in Ireland, it has the potential to provide a focus from which solutions to modern famines across the world might be developed.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5OVux-mPBaU/UAXQHw6GwLI/AAAAAAAAH-E/C0rDbal_2NU/s1024/IMAGE_DF3B5DE5-021E-4C16-BB2A-1613D2B26E38.JPG" align="left" width="170" hspace=10>Now in his late 70s, this is Jim Callery's final passion. He believes that Strokestown could become a global centre to fight famine by learning the causes and dealing with them. He says it will require a 'global effort' to establish and fund such an institute.<br />
<br />
The bottom line is that there's generally a fixable shortage of food or water in the regions of Africa and other places where famine has become endemic. That was the situation in Ireland in the middle of the 1800s when a third of the population disappeared either through starvation or emigration.<br />
<br />
Irish landlords were exporting food in large quantities during that period, making substantial profits while at the same time demanding full rents from their tenant farmer families starving because of the blight devastating their staple potato food crop. If they couldn't pay they were evicted, their cottages razed to provide fresh lands for grazing as the landlords shifted from tillage to pasture for raising beef.<br />
<br />
I came out of a special tour of the Strokestown Famine Museum yesterday with feelings very similar to when I exited the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem some years ago. Maybe I was taking it a little too hard? Maybe not. It is the case that we have only in recent years begun to come to terms with the Famine. Something about a collective 'survivor guilt' is suggested.<br />
<br />
There are arguable parallels today. Banks demanding full repayments from their mortgagees trying to survive with very diminished incomes in the recession caused in large part by those same institutions. Evictions are happening, as is emigration of the best of our young people. Organisations like the St Vincent de Paul and Simon will tell us that there's also real hunger in today's Ireland.<br />
<br />
But the Famine Museum makes strong argument that what is happening in other famine parts of our world also has direct reflections with the position of the Irish people in the mid-1800s. And that there are similar political and commercial reasons underpinning the perpetuation of those modern and all too enduring catastrophic situations.<br />
<br />
There are many other, and very pleasant reasons to visit Strokestown Park too. And I'll put those down in coming weeks. But let's for the moment just think of how our nation's darkest period might become the impetus for preventing it happening to people today in other lands.<br />
<br />
Before Jim Callery leaves us, wouldn't it be a really great epitaph to give him?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-82221126826363732672012-04-29T11:18:00.012+01:002012-04-30T07:24:10.350+01:00Bouncing off my foreheadTwo priests have played significant roles in where I am today. And coincidentally, I heard both of them on the airways over the last couple of weeks.<br />
<br />
Neither influenced me in a religious sense. What they did was respectively offer me a belief in myself, and a space from which to do something with that belief.<br />
<br />
In the late 1970s Fr Brian D'Arcy was teaching the journalism module of a Broadcasting course I was attending at the then Catholic Communications Centre in Booterstown, Dublin. Fr Colm Kilcoyne was the Director of the Centre.<br />
<br />
Recently left the family business, I was working to find some kind of slot in journalism, having found that I really liked writing. Or, the other description, telling stories.<br />
<br />
I was already moving onward from my efforts in <i>The Bridge</i>, Kilcullen's community magazine, with which I had been variously involved since it was founded. Both local papers, the <i>Leader</i> and the <i>Nationalist</i>, were taking material from me. I'd had some small successes with pieces in a couple of national titles. But it was a struggle, not least because I never had any training in the craft.<br />
<br />
I was at this stage in my early 30s, and even if I had been young enough to undertake the two-year course which was then the only official way into journalism, I really couldn't afford the time. <i>('Young enough'? You had to be under 20 to start in it!)</i> I found the Communications Centre course in a 'Night Classes' booklet. There was a place left, which was lucky because it was strictly limited to a dozen people. <br />
<br />
The Journalism module was just a week in a six-week event. But it was extraordinarily formative to me, not least because it put me in touch with a number of professionals in the business whom I would never otherwise have met. Among them Tom Savage, Terry Prone, Mike Burns, Frank Delaney, Emer O'Kelly and several more who had inputs as tutors or had other involvements on the course. Some later became friends, others colleagues, which is often the same thing. After the Journalism week, I stayed on to complete the full course.<br />
<br />
At the end of the Journalism module, Fr Brian had said that if I wanted to, I had what it took to be a professional journalist. When the overall course was over, Fr Colm offered me a job at the Centre.<br />
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By saying and doing what they did, both men gave me a self-belief which I badly needed at the time. I stayed with the Communication Centre for more than two years, continuing to learn and also teaching the essentials of journalism, broadcasting and audio-visual skills. At the same time I was building up my freelance work in a variety of publications, specialist and national. In particular I found I had an aptitude for radio, and it was while teaching the Journalism module on one occasion that the opportunity presented itself for me to begin broadcasting with RTE. A beginning which eventually resulted in me spending a decade as a broadcast news journalist with the national station.<br />
<br />
Over the years since, I have bumped into both men on infrequent occasions, though I have always followed them through their own journalistic work. In particular Fr Brian, because he has tended to appear on radio and TV more.<br />
<br />
Fr Colm was recently talking with Marian Finucane about his new book on Knock, which he was persuaded to write from his retirement. He no longer writes his weekly columns in a provincial newspaper, but for very many years in them he presented his religious thoughts as they could be worked out in real daily lives, and probably did more for the Catholic Church over that time than would a legion of Vatican cardinals. His gentle comments on matters such as celibacy for priests and homosexuality in that interview showed that, even at the venerable age of 77, he retains the thoughtfulness and wonderful compassion for which I remember him.<br />
<br />
Fr Brian has also been in the news lately, most recently relating to the fact that he was 'censured' by a Vatican version of a Kangaroo Court last year, and has since had to submit all his writing and broadcasting scripts to a Church censor before publication. For a man whose lifelong journalism has spread the best of Christian principles as widely as possible in these islands, this is a fundamental and most undeserved humiliation from an organisation to which he has given his life.<br />
<br />
In the Communications Centre, Fr Colm had one particular phrase which he used if any of us, or our students, said or wrote something which he believed wasn't clear. "That's bouncing off my forehead," he'd say, tapping said forehead with a finger. It was a signal that we were saying something which he—or by extension those with whom we were trying to communicate—couldn't understand.<br />
<br />
Well, what the Vatican is now doing to priests whom the cardinals feel are stepping out of line is having that effect on me, and no doubt many others. As a communicator, I find the latest repressive actions of the Church against some of the best of its own to be reprehensible. As an observer, what they are up to is truly bouncing off my forehead.<br />
<br />
No wonder the churches are no longer full.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-53040568271542908032012-04-27T16:50:00.003+01:002012-04-27T17:33:11.199+01:00Financially tagging the talking headsI have a lomgtime friend in the motor business who is great company, has a sometimes quirky sense of humour, and is a rock of sense about business matters.<br />
<br />
This week he came up with what I think is a great idea.<br />
<br />
We’re all too familiar with the political and business ’spokespersons’ trotted out on our visual and audial airwaves to explain stuff. Whether a Government department civil servant, a political head of a committee, a university ’expert’ providing an opinion on our national financial policy, or whatever.<br />
<br />
Most of the time they’re telling us what they think we at the listening end, the frontliners, should be doing. It can be Big Phil swingeing around with his big stick threats on the Household Charge, or Euro MP Joe Higgins articulately flailing his oar at everybody who isn’t a Socialist. It could be the Consumer Agency’s Ann Fitzgerald urging us to shop around as prices rise and incomes fall but mobile phone costs here are still three times what they are in the UK. Or representative men and women from industry and business lobby groups and unions.<br />
<br />
Whoever. They’re all talking heads. Mostly they’re all saying the same things over and over. And pretty well all of that on the gloom end of the emotion spectrum.<br />
<br />
Also, most are very well paid for their main jobs of telling us that we must tighten our belts even further.<br />
<br />
So here’s my friend’s idea. The simplicity gets it a top score. He suggests that every time a public or semi-public servant is captioned while talking on a TV screen, their salary as paid by the citizen taxpayer should also be displayed. On radio, the ID out should also provide the information.<br />
<br />
Similarly for Members of the Dail and Seanad, industry spokespersons, trade union leaders, bankers, judges, and anyone else speaking about the economy and other public matters on behalf of a large state or public company who is paid a salary for their position. And there might even be a case for the same relating to journalistic pundits, though not to reporters.<br />
<br />
Academics who are regularly trotted out to pontificate on one side or the other would also come under the rule. After all, their salaries in their institutions are paid for out of the public purse.<br />
<br />
To be fair, perhaps there should be a ceiling under which such information need not be provided. Say €60,000 a year, which also happens to be the salary which I believe ought to be the top payment to a TD, and then only if he or she manages to be elected to a second term. But that’s <a href="http://kilcullenbridge.blogspot.com/2010/12/we-need-new-butterflies.html" target="_blank">another story</a>.<br />
<br />
Y’know, if the idea was taken on board, we might well find that there are far less economic and political theatrics and talking heads preaching at us to tighten our belts any further. That would be a result.<br />
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If you have any thoughts on it, send them along (with a note of your annual salary if over the limit above).Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-79118782910243839932012-02-19T21:54:00.000+00:002012-02-19T21:54:27.115+00:00Switching off from the bitchingFirst, an admission.<br />
<br />
I’m a news junkie. Especially radio news and current affairs. Probably in part because I spent a decade working in the RTE newsroom as a broadcast journalist through the 1980s. And also because I’m still a journalist, and still interested in what goes on around me.<br />
<br />
But after a month in Australia with my daughter and her family to start 2012, I’ve been trying to kick the habit. A little bit, sure. But definitely trying to tune out somewhat.<br />
<br />
The time difference meant that I couldn’t conveniently listen in over the internet to Morning Ireland, Today PK, News at One, Liveline, or Drivetime. I could, and did, read the online newspapers and radio stories, but it wasn’t the direct part of my day which those and similar programmes have been over many years.<br />
<br />
As a perspective, I have been away for long periods before without that same kind of contact. I was usually glad to come back to the norm of being all the time up to date with the happenings.<br />
<br />
When I was in Australia this time I didn’t at all miss the direct connection. I could have made the effort, with the various internet playback and podcast facilities, but I didn’t. That there’s still a buzz of optimism about the Australian scene was no small element in my switching off from home.<br />
<br />
But, you know what was the key thing? Not hearing the whinging. Not listening to the tit-for-tat reactive politicking in the Dail. Not having to wince when a Fianna Fail former minister complained about something the successor Government was doing. Not reacting to current Government constantly blaming their predecessors for where we are (time they stopped that). <br />
<br />
Not switching off the radio every time Gerry Adams or his acolytes pontificated about what was wrong with an Ireland they had done their proxy damndest to put out of business. And being quite glad that a pink shirt and similars, along with a long-established and lugubrious Socialist bottom-feeding Euro MP who wouldn’t know positive if it was a gene replacement, were not twittering in my ear.<br />
<br />
I came home. Had a think. Did I want to get back into the flow? I suppose, honest, I wasn’t really sure. I compromised. <br />
<br />
I decided, for an indeterminate period, to abstain. Not cold turkey. I still light up my MacBook in the morning to check out the news, locally and global. And I’ll listen to the Irish radio news. But not the local current affairs programmes, radio or TV. Foreign is OK, so BBC News 24 is a sometimes thing, Al Jazeera also. But these not even that much. I do check the global edition of the New York Times most of the time, because the journalism is excellent and their viewpoints are considered.<br />
<br />
I have tuned into my local radio station a bit more. Because local news is what I’m at anyhow, apart from my global automotive and travel stuff. All three are part of my living.<br />
<br />
I told a longtime friend of mine last week—he’s a career editor in RTE—what I had been doing. “I don’t feel deprived,” I said. “In fact, I feel very positive.”<br />
<br />
He shrugged. In a non-offensive way. “You’re right. And I understand. But remember, we have to present all sides. We’re a state organisation, we can’t take sides.”<br />
<br />
I used to be like that. Presenting all sides. I’m a journalist more than three decades, and I have done my best all those years to write my stories in a fair and balanced manner. I still do.<br />
<br />
But I have now gone beyond what I call the journalistic balancing act. I will be fair, always, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take sides sometimes.<br />
<br />
And in the last couple of weeks, tuning myself out of the whinging, I feel better off.<br />
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Hey, I run a small business. Anything that makes me feel more positive has to be good for that. Also, I’m a person like any other of us on this island. If we all listened more to positives, we could be quicker out of this.<br />
<br />
And that’s the side I’m taking.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-21083720157379109722011-10-06T15:44:00.004+01:002011-10-06T16:01:04.231+01:00We're not done for yetIreland ranks 12th out of 82 countries in a new Global Creativity Index which puts Sweden at the top, followed by the United States, Finland, Denmark and Australia.<br />
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The rest ahead of Ireland are New Zealand, Canada, Norway, Singapore, The Netherlands and Belgium. Following us are the UK, Switzerland, France, Germany, Spain, Taiwan, Italy and Hong Kong. Israel, Russia, Brazil, India and China are middle ranked at positions 24, 30, 46, 50 and 58 respectively.<br />
<br />
The Index was created at the University of Toronto as a more modern measurement of competitiveness and prosperity.<br />
<br />
It is designed in the turbulence of the global economic recession as a broader way of measuring a country than the long-standing Gross National Product, which many social and financial experts believe has outlived its usefulness.<br />
<br />
The Index measures in essence what the authors call the ’Three Ts’—Technology, Talent and Tolerance. It applies broader measures of economic prosperity, sustainability, happiness and subjective well-being than are done for GNP or GDP.<br />
<br />
The technological aspects included are R&D investment, researchers, and patents per capita. On talent the key element is educational attainment and the creative class. Tolerance is ascertained from surveys of the treatment of immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and gays and lesbians.<br />
<br />
Without going into the nitty gritty of the Index, it must show that there's hope for us yet. If we win the Rugby World Cup, it should be worth a couple more rungs closer to the top.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-56342546771634057412011-06-29T21:22:00.007+01:002011-06-29T22:01:38.228+01:00Too much informationWe're drowning in too much information.<br />
<br />
About everything. But especially about the financial underpinnings of our way of life.<br />
<br />
I'm a journalist. Have been for 35-plus years. I know that getting information out is not just important, but essential to making sure we are in some level of control of our destinies. It's the basis of what I have been doing for most of my working life. Besides which, it has given me a living.<br />
<br />
Information is power. Spreading information gives power to more people. Making it absolutely available means that the power is with all the people.<br />
<br />
Or does it? On another side of the coin, is it desirable? Maybe it opens up more possibility of manipulation? Or, less conspiratorially, mistakes?<br />
<br />
Reporters, by the nature of what we do, need new stories every day. Even several times a day. On a slow news beat, we look towards possibilities. To avoid being bollicked by our News Editors. Who in turn want to avoid being bollicked by their Managing Editors. Who in turn ...<br />
<br />
(Hmm—my iPad's word processor doesn't seem to understand the word 'bollicked'.)<br />
<br />
Say, in a newsroom in America, a financial reporter looks at the situation in Ireland where (there's a potential that—in an as yet hypothetical situation) Ireland's economy has found itself exposed (again) to a (possible) substantial difficulty.<br />
<br />
So our financial reporter fiddles around with some figures, comes up with possibilities, adds a dash of speculative future (hey, this is what the global financial market system does all the time, so there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, right?). He comes up with a proposition that Ireland is (once more) on the brink of financial collapse (take out the round brackets in the par above and you have it). He files it and goes home (or to his favourite Irish bar on Wall Street).<br />
<br />
The story is read by an intern in one of the financial rating agencies—Fitch, Moodys, Standard & Poor's. Take your pick (and ignore the wandering apostrophe). He hasn't yet got to the Irish bar, because he needs to provide a report before he can go. It is a given for somebody in his game that good news is not a valid report—financial rating agencies must be feared, or nobody takes them seriously.<br />
<br />
On the basis of the 'potential/hypothetical/possible' but now 'factual because it is published' story, our intern downgrades Ireland's sovereign credit rating by a letter and then heads off to have an Obama-certified sub-standard pint of Guinness in the Irish bar.<br />
<br />
The <i>Wall Street Journal</i> picks up the downgrading, and makes it a front-page, third column, below-the-fold item. The story is moved on by the news services. In most EU countries, they have much more to be involved with than stuff from Ireland, but it might make a 'kicker' for the next day.<br />
<br />
The Night Editor on <i>Morning Ireland</i> on RTE Radio One hasn't yet realised that there's a jaded public out there in relation to Ireland's financial problems. He or she locks on to the latest financial bashing of the country. It's bad news, therefore 'good' news.<br />
<br />
The next day the programme leads with the story. A brace of standard commentators—tame economist and on-the-make politician—are given space to fill. What they say becomes lead on the subsequent nine o'clock News. An hour later, Pat Kenny has a couple of different 'experts', working to make the matter more grave because otherwise nobody will hear them again. By the time the <i>News at One</i> broadcasts its version, Joe Duffy has <i>Liveline</i> listeners cued up to offer 'real people' views. <i>Drivetime</i> gets the hind tit, but that doesn't stop it from sucking furiously to get a last pull of the witch's milk before the country gets into Sport.<br />
<br />
That evening, the Taoiseach, or maybe the Minister for Finance, has to deny—from an opposition query in the Dail—that Ireland is in even deeper financial manure. Denial is how small stuff gets longer legs.<br />
<br />
What had been a mere 'kicker' in the European news channels now gains traction. It moves up the news schedule. Financial pundits are trollied out across the TV business spectrum. By the late evening, Ireland is further in the financial mire by a quantum.<br />
<br />
A late desk American reporter picks up the story. It is something that will save him at his deadline ... <br />
<br />
Nationally, and globally, that's possibly why we are where we are.<br />
<br />
If we turned in our iPhones for smoke signals, we might be better off.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-15906721224142133132011-06-12T15:10:00.008+01:002011-06-12T16:23:26.490+01:00Coffee with JoeThere's this guy. I'll call him Joe. Mainly because that's his name anyhow. Joe Bongiovanni.<br />
<br />
Joe and his wife Helen like to sail their boat. Up and down the east coast of the US, and locally in Chesapeake Bay, where they live.<br />
<br />
Helen's an artist. Joe is—<br />
<br />
—well, hard to describe, really, what Joe does. Both he and Helen have reached the age where they get a Social Security pension. And Joe 'consults' sometimes. That's a vague description, because I don't know what he consults about. Though I suspect it's money-related.<br />
<br />
Joe has this thing about money. He figures it needs a complete reinvention.<br />
<br />
I got Joe's take on Money Reform over a wonderfully simple Italian dinner cooked up by Helen at their home in Harborton, Virginia. Helen had done most of the talking, catching up with her niece, my daughter-in-law, on family doings and undoings. A constant sparrage of words. Joe stayed quiet unless asked about something. Grey bearded. Lean, weather-browned. Laid back to a hippy level that nobody under 30 years of age might remotely recognise.<br />
<br />
Then— "You're a journalist, I hear?" <br />
<br />
Well, of course he would have. His niece would have set up the background to the people from Ireland she had brought to visit. We talked words and writing for a while, which led to blogs. I keep a few going.<br />
<br />
"I do one too," Joe said.<br />
<br />
"What about?"<br />
<br />
"Monetary Reform."<br />
<br />
Hmmh.<br />
<br />
Still, very soon we—well, Joe anyhow—were deep into the concepts of Joe's third passion, after Helen and sailing. I floundered a bit at the start on the idea of producing 'money without debt'. Fortunately I'm used to asking questions. And not embarrassed to admit it when I don't understand something.<br />
<br />
Joe's father had turned him onto it. Had gotten into the idea himself when, as a local businessman, he had once asked his bank for a loan to expand his business. He was turned down.<br />
<br />
"I employ all these other people," Joe's father had said to his unhelpful banker. "They all have loans from you. For their houses. For their children's education. If I couldn't carry on, they'd lose their jobs. What would happen to those loans then?"<br />
<br />
The banker had shrugged. "I have collateral committed for those loans. I wouldn't lose anything."<br />
<br />
Of course he wouldn't. And Joe's dad then understood the politics of providing money as a debt. The house—as the banker—always wins. That set him on a lifelong campaign on monetary reform. He didn't invent it. There were, and are, many others on the same mission on both sides of the Atlantic. He was so involved in it that he gave testimony before a government committee. <br />
<br />
I didn't learn much more about Joe's dad, except that Joe himself didn't really accept his ideas until rather later in life. Finally, after his dad had challenged him to look at all the information and find any faults, he did so.<br />
<br />
"And I couldn't disprove anything he said," Joe told me.<br />
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I had a difficulty during the whole encounter. I was the designated driver because nobody else was insured to drive the car I had on loan. Which meant I wasn't going to be able to drink my usual quota of red wine and thus keep up with Joe's flow of ideas.<br />
<br />
But here's the short version. I mightn't have it absolutely right, but it's enough to be thinking about.<br />
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Basically, Joe and those who espouse the same ideas want the bankers taken out of the money production business. As things stood before the recent economic crash—and maybe still do—bankers were able to 'create' money to lend on the basis of having a fraction of that amount held in other people's savings. That's fractional capitalisation or some such description.<br />
<br />
So, essentially, banking is a kind of virtual thimblerig, with nothing under any of the thimbles that represent money lent out at a usually exorbitant profitable rate. With the bankers—including the Federal Reserve Bank in the US, which Joe figures is just designed to make the whole shell game seem legitimate—in total control of the 'production' of money, there's no possibility of either citizens or their state not being in debt to a private enterprise.<br />
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What Joe and friends propose is a quite different way of doing the money game. Essentially by bringing back the 'sovereign' system of money production. "In the old days, the monarch manufactured money to pay for goods and services. I believe the state should get back to that, and produce its own money instead of leaving it to the private banking system."<br />
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Here's the thought. When a government sets out its budget for the coming year, it estimates what it needs to spend on the services required by the citizens. It then works out what can realistically be raised in taxes from those same citizens. Then it generally goes out to the private banking system to raise the difference.<br />
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The state is then in hock to the banks, and must find ways of paying back the debt. Sometimes with supplementary taxes, sometimes by cutting services, sometimes by rolling over the debt. Often a combination of all. "Money raised by debt," Joe says. "And outside the control of either the state or the people." <br />
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Instead, Joe proposes that the state 'creates' its own money as required, as did the sovereign monarchs of old. There would be a 'public money authority', which would determine the amount of money required to provide for what economists call the potential for national economic growth (GDP). Once that new-money amount is determined, then the taxation amount is the result of 'expenditures minus new money'.<br />
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Sure. But money is an artificial medium, which must be based on something of value. Preferably productivity, or the old way of pegging it to something made valuable by scarcity or high value useablity, like gold. Otherwise it's just a piece of fancy paper, signifying not much. Money is something which we trust as a promise that underpins the value of each of us in a format more negotiable than the barter system. Start printing it beyond real value and you're heading towards the kind of hyperflation in Germany that ended up bringing Hitler to power.<br />
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Joe agrees. But his premise is, I think, that by the state creating the money to make up the difference between tax income and necessary services to keep the country operating in a manner that will promote growth, it is betting on the entrepreneurial spirit of the citizens to provide that growth. So it is 'created' money based on the potential of a vibrant economy. Therefore without the risk of the inflation that required German citizens to take home their wages in wheelbarrows.<br />
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And the bankers are out of the loop. At least in the finance creating end. They become simply the agents of fuelling growth by lending money which they haven't manufactured on margins. Rather it is the savings of those paid to provide the state's services, and those who run businesses with the help of those services. The taxes of both revert to the state which created the money in the first place, thus decreasing further the inflationary effect.<br />
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The politicians are out of the loop too, in terms of the creation of new money. Simply because otherwise they'd be tempted to print new money as a political policy, instead of making hard and practical decisions on taxation. "By having an independent monetary authority, the new-money amount is independently determined away from the political process. And the continual summing of new monies determines the permanent money supply."<br />
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Right, it is surely much more complicated than that. But I only had one short dinner at Joe's house. To get the whole thing in some better perspective, it is worthwhile to look at Joe's blog. Mostly video-based, it's a weekly chat with a colleague about today's financial situation, in a very laid-back format. <br />
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Google 'Coffee with Joe'. There are gems of wisdom there. Which I need to absorb myself.<br />
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In the meantime, Helen's Bolognaise pasta is beyond the value of anything we discussed that night in steamy Virginia.<br />
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<i>NOTE: Subsequent to my musings above, Joe sent me a quote from Robert Hemphill, a former Credit Manager with the 'Fed', or US Federal Reserve Bank. He sums up a situation that is really kind of scary. Well, very scary.</i><br />
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<blockquote><i>"If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is.<br />
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It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. <br />
<br />
It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon."</i></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-9299821125041994212011-05-08T10:10:00.003+01:002011-05-09T05:54:43.152+01:00Ads that make me worryObviously, given what I do, I am naturally inclined towards the unfettered dissemination of information. That people have the right to know, and on the basis of knowing can make up their own minds, about all sorts of things.<br />
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And in general, in this country we have a fairly free access to much in this regard, notwithstanding the blatant actions by the last Government to make the Freedom of Information Act too expensive for ordinary people to use.<br />
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But I have for some time been perturbed by a series of 'public information' advertisements which run on RTE Radio. I believe they are designed to manipulate our fears.<br />
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They are the 'medical problem' ads, urging us to have investigated a whole range of potential ailments, from erectile dysfunction to bowel cancer and stuff about practically every other part of our body in between.<br />
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I have no problem with people being encouraged to be pro-active about the state of their health. There is no truism more true than that a health issue caught early has a much better chance of being successfully treated than if left to fester quietly until later. Lives, and money, can be saved by making us aware of potential problems within ourselves.<br />
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What bothers me is the proliferation of these ads, mostly on radio, over recent years. Not because we are being pushed to investigate if we have the symptoms of the particular issue being aired. Rather because of who is pushing the issue.<br />
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Public health information provided by the State, whether through education or through such advertisements, can only be regarded as positive. But are these ads being provided by the State altruistically as a public service?<br />
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Because at the end of each one, you will have noticed that they are sponsored by one or more pharmaceutical companies. Each of which has a vested interest in fuelling health angst about the subject under discussion.<br />
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I remember being told some years ago, by a friend involved in the retail pharmaceutical business, that there was no money in being a local chemist until the era of 'preventative' rather than only 'curative' pharmacy. In other words, we now spend a lot more money on taking stuff to prevent us getting ill than on dealing with illnesses.<br />
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My bottom line on this is, rather than depend on the support of — and therefore the advertising of — pharmaceutical companies to provide such public health information, it should come independently and paid for out of a public health budget.<br />
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Am I being too picky?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3257243207389935094.post-75959890953866257742011-05-02T08:09:00.001+01:002011-05-02T08:19:47.267+01:00Bertie on the (China) ball<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Bbi1qfSUZitPZkZ5nm3ZxQ?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_bzyfB_mJteI/Tb5atSjnpfI/AAAAAAAAEek/NaIiNDJAdHA/s400/2011%2008%3A18%3A57.jpg" height="270" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
Wondering what Bertie Ahern was up to last week? <br />
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Well, as his economic legacy here continued to melt down faster than a nuclear reactor with a faulty regulatory system, he was busy congratulating the Communist leader of a province in China on their economic progress.<br />
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Our man of the yellow suit was dressed more soberly to chat up Zhang Baoshun, secretary of the Anhui Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC), in Hefei, Anhui province, on April 28. He was leading a delegation sent by the Ireland China Cooperation Council (ICCC).<br />
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Describing Mr Ahern's promotion of Sino-Ireland ties as 'unremitting', Zhang said Anhui province and Ireland 'complement each other' in economy.<br />
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(Rich man, poor man?)<br />
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Bertie said the ICCC will strive to promote exchanges and cooperation between Ireland and Anhui province.<br />
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The Irish delegation was due to sign an investment memorandum about co-establishing a European industrial park with the Jiangbei Industrial Centralization Zone.<br />
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Good to know that, far from resting on his own laurels, and taking a break between Bank Holidays, Bertie was still working his butt off for us...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com