Milk

Went to see Milk last night. Mixed feelings.

First and foremost: great film, Penn is superb (unusual for him, I know). Also, it being Oscar Season, I’d put it a bit ahead of Frost/Nixon.

The story is equal parts inspirational and appalling. If you don’t go into the cinema knowing how it will end, you get told within five minutes, which sets a certain tone. Having said that, the seeming inevitability of what happened is maybe the reason for the filmmakers making that decision.

I read a review of the film last week which suggested that, despite the sad ending, you emerge from the film filled with a sense of hope.

I’m not so sure.

In 1978, the campaign shown in the film fought for basic civil rights and defeated Prop 6. Thirty years later, Prop 8 passed.

On the one hand, haven’t we come so far etc and isn’t it great. On the other hand, have we really?

It’s the kind of film you come out of and immediately need to get to google to find out more. Youtube has an incredible amount of material including the tape you see him recording in the film, used as a voiceover for images of the vigil held in San Francisco when he was killed. Worth taking a look at.

Hat-eating opportunity

The plans to improve Dublin Bus services are sensible, badly needed, and infinitely achievable.

As such, I hereby predict that they will only be fully implemented in a post-pigs-flying world.

If it happens, I will happily buy a hat for the sole purpose of later eating it.

While travelling on the newly efficient, prompt, reliable bus service.

Roscommon

I was in a bubble yesterday that allowed for no blogging on this – and by the time I sat down, Twenty Major pretty much had it covered.

But no matter how much I read about this story there’s one question I haven’t seen answered – or asked? – yet.

Which is: Where’s the father?

There are six kids. Basic biology suggests there’s got to be a father. So where on this godforsaken earth is he. And if he’s still on this earth, what’s his legal status? Could he have gotten custody? Should he have gotten custody? And on the flipside – should he be held responsible for not being there to stop it?

No idea what the answers to those questions are (except the custody one, he’s male, so he has no rights there in this enlightened country of ours), but I’d like to see someone do some hunting. There’s a story there, and one that needs to be followed up on.

I’m working peacefully on the assumption that the “Catholic right-wing organisation” isn’t being named because it’s being sued to pieces for it’s part in prolonging the suffering of those children. But the name(s) will come out, and in the name of all that is/n’t holy in the world, they must be held accountable. No (more) excuses.

Ikea opening

Quick thought.

Ikea will announce today the date that their Dublin branch will (finally) open, presumably ending the stream of people who have been travelling to Belfast since the store there opened in December 2007.

So, what kind of exchange rates should we be expecting on Ikea goods in the Republic’s branch?

Currently, for example, the Ikea website offers this EXPEDIT bookcase for €59.90 to spanish customers and for £47.96 (reduced to £29.99) to UK customers (UKx1.25). That’s not too bad all things considered.

So will Ikea have the grace and, maybe, the sense, to give a reasonable exchange rate at the time of opening? Or apply basic logic that seems to prevail in the Irish retail sector, that being “we’ll charge what we like and lie through our teeth about why”?

In the case of the latter, I sincerely hope that they are challenged on it, or at the very least find their Dublin store suitably empty on the opening weekend.

Yesterday…

I liked the speech.

I know plenty didn’t – RTE’s panel of guests seemed very impressed, Newstalk’s were the polar opposite – probably a good thing?

Honestly as I listened I couldn’t help wondering where our inauguration speech is – where’s our call to arms, or to duty, or to service?

It’s here – buried by the excitement in Washington:

The essential question now before us all is simple:

Are we prepared to work together, in partnership, to tackle this crisis, for the benefit of our fellow citizens and of our children?

Those who founded Dáil Eireann and who carved an independent Ireland out of the most powerful empire in the world faced daunting challenges.

They succeeded.

So too will we.

Seasaimis i dteannta a chéile.

Will we though?

I think this is Brian Cowen trying. But I’m not sure it’s working – the response from Miriam Lord certainly suggests otherwise.

Maybe President Obama has raised the oratorial bar, in which case we may never again be satisfied with a less personable leader.

But surely the words spoken yesterday – in Washington, and in the Mansion House – should resonate with us no matter what tone they are spoken in. The essential message is the same.

We are in this together. We can get through this time of crisis.

We have a plan? Maybe not so much…

MosaicWatch 2

In the context of this short piece in Saturday’s Independent, a quick update on the progress of Mosaic shops in reviewing their pricing for the Spring/Summer 2008 season.

This dress, shown online at price of £65? On sale in Ireland, with UK prices ripped off, at €94 (UK x 1.45)

Watch this space.

Or don’t, just skip that part and start throwing eggs at them.

Personally I’ve taken to hovering near the tills in the shops while others are considering a purchase, talking loudly on the phone about the price I saw the same stuff on their website that afternoon. It makes me laugh. The little things, etc.

Waterford’s college claim

Wouldn’t it be utterly hilarious if a US college ended up providing the sunny south east with a university campus?

Admittedly, it won’t.

Not least because it’s a college not a university.

But there’s still something quite funny about the story…

O’Keeffe starts telling the truth

So, is this game over for the fees debate?

Forgive me my bias, or not, but I find it ironic that he made the admission at the launch of a ‘Barnardos Brigher Futures Centre’.

Have a bright future. But don’t be an idiot and dream of going to college.

What Batty fails to clarify is what will happen to current third level funding. It’s been well known for years that the sector doesn’t have enough money to maintain standards, let alone compete internationally. On the one hand, bringing back fees (and you’ll forgive me if I don’t think for a second that they’ll bring with it the first fair grants system in the history of the state) is supposedly about generating extra funds for third level. But that presumes the government will maintain current levels of funding, pitiful and all as they are. It’s a little too easy to imagine that Batt’s plan is in fact to replace current government (under-)funding of third level with private funding from those who can afford it, to the exclusion of those who can’t.

In theory it’s a good time for the government to push this through – argue that “we the taxpayers” can’t afford to pay for rich kids to go to college. But at a time when we’re all supposed to be upskilling to try to get back to work, what kind of message does it send when that upskilling costs upwards of €5,000 a year? And at a time when people are struggling to find jobs when they have completed a primary degree, what does it say that the government is now essentially saying “third level is explicitly not available to everyone”.

That’s what it comes down to in the end. They can argue the point til the cows come home. They can talk about effectiveness of the current system, or the private schools they themselves are choosing to subsidise, or how the new grant system I must presume they are working on will somehow go against decades of experience and be a reasonable assessment of an individual student’s financial status.

But ultimately, the day Batt O’Keeffe says “no more free fees”, what he’s really saying is “close the borders lads, no more free travel zone here”.

Nice one.

Australia (not the film)

The Australian Open started today.

Sky Plus has long since been recording all the matches for me to watch tonight.

But thanks to news radio, I already know the results of all completed matches.

Which is all well and good, but in my own irrational little way I have to ask: could ye not just keep the scores til 6pm so I don’t have to hear them??

Hoping Mr Obama gets a decent sleep tonight…

The next 36 hours are going to be very, very strange.

The weekend, and last night in particular, will have been pretty surreal for the Obama family, but tomorrow morning their lives change even more, and the dream (surely someone out there is still pinching themselves?) will become a reality.

What next? In the literal sense, the first 100 hours of the new presidency have already been planned.

Beyond that, a not-so-subtle change will take place in the early evening tomorrow (GMT time). The messiah will become man. And suddenly, Barack Yes Pecan Obama becomes President Obama, the man who shattered the hope.

Pessimism? No: realism.

Right now, Barack Obama is the guy you meet on maybefriends.com.

He’s a couple of years older than you, has a high-paid job, likes sports but has feelings too. He’s into good restaurants and great music but he’s happy to watch any number of rom-coms with you and he can’t wait to spend time with your family. And tomorrow evening, he’ll pick you up in his 2001 ford fiesta. On the way to his favourite restaurant (KFC) he’ll turn out to be a lot more like PSH’s Allen from Happiness.

The point is, no matter what the new president does with his first 100 hours, 100 days or 4 years.. there is no way he can live up to all of the expectations, and the simple fact that those expectations exist means that every time he misses the mark even slightly it will be held up to him.

When Bush made a mess, particularly during his second term, to be frank nobody noticed. It was par for the course. Obama’s biggest problem is that we expect more. Even those who don’t support him, expect more of him – if only because it helps them take him down a peg or two.

Obama is going to disappoint most of the people who voted for him, and most of the people who supported him, and he’s going to do it more often than we might like.

The only redemption I can think of, is that when he is making those decisions, even the ones I will inevitably disagree with, at least this time I’ll feel like he put a lot of thought into it first.