Hero of the Week

Willie Walsh – what can you say, other than buy that man a pint?

And on that, what’s in the drinking water in England that allows people to take responsibility for their actions? And can we import it, whatever it is??

Sad but true

Marie Cocco’s article in yesterday’s Washington Post sheds an uncomfortable light on the reality of the Democratic nomination process that seems to be finally coming to a conclusion.

When I have mentioned the role gender has played in the race, far too many people have dismissed as nonsense the possibility that Clinton has in any way been discriminated against for being a woman. I have had difficulty deciding if this is because they don’t think misogyny is a problem, or they don’t recognise misogyny at all.

Similarly, when all that nonsense with the (blissfully) EX taoiseach’s slush funds was going on, there were far too many people actively denying that there was any corruption involved. Even when a full list of the amount of money involved was presented.

Cocco raises questions that at some point are going to require an answer -

Would the silence prevail if Obama’s likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they’d compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama’s sex organs play?

What worries me is the prospect that they won’t be answered in the lifetime of this generation. What with all this equality and how women are grand now that we’re allowed to work sometimes for 17% less pay.

I have been swayed by Obama’s apparent ability, and I have loved watching the level of engagement he seems to have inspired, particularly in young people. But if he is to be the Democratic nominee, and if he is to be the next president, then will he rise to this platform, and challenge this discrimination?

Surely nobody has watched the press coverage of Hilary Clinton’s campaign as closely as he has.

If he is as intelligent as he seems, he can’t have missed the ‘highlights’ that Cocco’s article lists.

If he is as worthy as he claims, he can’t miss the opportunity to make this change.

Busy postering bees

Someone, or indeed many people, were up early this morning plastering every available pole with Lisbon Treaty posters. There is something distinctly disconcerting about it though.

Imagine there was a general election on, and you walked the length of your street, and every single poster had the same face and the same name on it. You’d assume you had wandered onto the set of the latest 1984 rip-off and you wouldn’t be far off.

Instead we have green posters saying ‘YES’, yellow posters saying ‘YES’, and, in the name of balance, blue posters saying ‘YES’. They’ve chosen slightly different reasons, but the creepiness remains.

I haven’t read the treaty in full yet, so for that reason I’m not going to comment on the merits of the Yes/No arguments. But on face value, it’s more than a little disturbing seeing such one-sided ‘debate’ in the public sphere. I know Libertas are doing all they can to even things out, but the fact is that they aren’t being taken particularly seriously, which, no matter what the reason, is a bad thing in terms of the standard of debate around the issues.

One of the main faults I can see with the information being distributed so far, is the implicit assumption that everyone knows what the status quo is. So the form being taken is “Vote Yes, for these wonderful improvements”, when the reality is that many voters are likely to have very little idea what we’re trying to improve upon. It’s an obvious weakness, particularly in the case of the supposedly unbiased information.

I can’t help but get the feeling that nobody cares if we understand what we’re voting for, as long as we vote YES – and while that may seem slightly unfair, it’s a case of calling it as I see it. I would gladly be proven wrong.

Brian – or is that Briain?

Brian Cowen has done an awful thing.

By actively engaging in bilingual debate in the Dáil since he was made Taoiseach, he has made me… jesus I can’t even say it… he has made me wonder if I could in some parallel universe… vote for Fianna Fáil.

I know.

What has been particularly interesting is the press coverage of all this public Gaeilge.

Breaking news on ireland.com gave the full text of his speech on Wednesday, the first half of which was in Irish, and blissfully enough when he started speaking English he didn’t simply repeat himself thereby engaging in crass tokenism… I may be in trouble here, my heart did in fact skip a beat…

Yesterday’s Irish Times seems to have skipped over that part of the day.

Now, I can understand them not wanting to print the whole speech – in fact if they were going with the “sure why would we report that, it’s the first language of the country, of course the leader of the country can and does speak it” I might even buy them a pint or two. But it doesn’t feel like that’s what’s going on. Not least because every other paper I saw seems to have taken the same approach.

Which leads to an interesting, and in my case mildly amusing question – if Mr Cowen persists in speaking that mad language with all the CHHHHH sounds… at what point will mainstream media say “oh, right, eh… does somebody have a dictionary?”

What’s the policy, will they simply translate as they would from French or Russian? Or will they have the good grace to respect our language enough to print it? Or better still (and we’re strolling right into fantasyland here) will they print the original and the translation, with a bit of a foclóir, and take the opportunity that is clearly being presented to help everyone develop their language skills?

If nothing else, it will be an interesting little development to keep an eye on.

What is your attitude to ageism?

Better question: what is your definition of ageism?

‘Say No to Ageism’ week has been launched, and bus stops are being plastered in delightful posters that ask us to question our ageist attitudes – as long as we only do it in one direction.

Once again, the ‘equality‘ authority asks us to remember that older people are people too. Personally I hadn’t forgotten, but I appreciate that some people might. What I don’t appreciate is the way them equality folk supposedly aim to challenge that view, every year.

This year’s posters feature four portrait images – for example: three old men, in grey/b&w photos, with words like ‘grumpy’ and ‘over the hill’ stamped on them; and the fourth is a full colour image of a young woman, where the caption is simply ‘Lucy’.

I got angry enough to design my own version of the poster.

But then I decided being sued wouldn’t be ideal so I’m not going to post it. Probably.

The point is, this isn’t “Say No To Ageism” this is “Say No To Old-Ageism, but go ahead and keep stereotyping young people”. It seems particularly ironic in the context of this alternative initiative – but it says a lot that this is separated from the general ageism campaign.

Look at the latest drinkaware ads – there were four different scenarios where someone was too drunk and thus ruining society – and every one of the drunk people were of the under-30 variety. Because we’re all drunks, without exception – and more importantly, there are no drunks over 30. They’re just lovely social drinkers who not only drink responsibly at all times, but have a fundamental human right to drink a few pints then hop in the car and drive themselves home.

Can you imagine the reaction if rural students (a fundamental evil, how dare they be young while also working hard to get a decent education, clearly they are up to no good, ever!) had reacted to the new licensing laws by announcing that there should be a dispensation for 18-24 year olds because if they didn’t go to the bar with their classmates and then drive home after pints they’d be socially isolated??

I’m not trying to belittle the importance of appreciating older members of society – in fact, as I’m confident I’ve mentioned before, I think the lack of a widespread ‘respect your elders’ attitude is nothing short of disgusting – but the fact remains that if you are claiming to address ageism, then address all of it!

So it’s not just me!!

This afternoon on Newstalk/Lunchtime, Bertie’s “HISTORIC” speech was being discussed. Again.

Thankfully this time around there was less text-in-your-tale-of-weeping-to-the-sound-of-Bertie’s-voice nonsense, but the discussion did centre around what a miraculous moment this was for all of us and how proud we should be, not to mention how proud Bertie should be of himself(???!!!!!).

Then, the moment of sublime intervention from one of the panellists.

What’s all this nonsense lads, it was a crap speech.

Or, to quote the man (didn’t catch the name, I’m thinking Michael something?),

“It was statesmanlike – it said nothing”

And he’s right.

Before the speech, George Hook was talking about the Gettysburg address. Ahern himself referred to JFK.

But, while the speech was a perfectly reasonable synopsis of Irish history, there was nothing worth talking about – nothing worth debating, and certainly nothing worth quoting.

Admittedly his impending departure took a lot of the punch out of the speech, but given that at the very least some coverage of the speech was inevitable, surely it would have been the perfect opportunity to say something worth saying?