12.19.06
Blog holiday
Right, you’ve all annoyed me too much (well, except for the lovely Alison. Smyths was great crack on Friday wasn’t it? ) and its Christmas week so I am going to bake mince pies. I’ll come back tomorrow.
12.18.06
Organic lemons
Superquinn.ie
3 ordinary lemons – 99c
3 organic lemons WRAPPED?? (how is that organic) – 2.39????
em, no. I’ll have the ordinary please.
Maeve Binchy and why things will never change….
because we are compliant and it suits the establishment…..
More Geraghty
I do hate to harp on, but I see that McDowell’s mouthpiece Sam Smyth has thrown in his tuppenceworth’s…or should that be FF’s. This article no doubt top of the”action” list from the Fianna Fail Meath West emergency meeting that took place on Wednesday night.
“Sorry Enda, but you’re way offside on this decision . . .
As a Fine Gael candidate in Meath, Graham Geraghty will stoop to conquer. The only question is: how low can he go?
In the past, the ultimate Meath alpha male’s record of getting down and dirty has shown all the qualities of a great Limbo dancer. Although his description of a young black Australian player as a “black c***” wouldn’t endear him to fellow dancers in its native West Indies.
And the Ceann Comhairle should be wary if he makes it to the Dail. As captain of the 1996 All-Ireland winning Meath team, he threw a bottle at the ref in a match in 2004 when he was suspended for 48 weeks.
A recitation of Geraghty’s bad behaviour would not be necessary if he had not chosen to enter public life. But it can’t be ignored because on Monday night Geraghty was added as the third candidate by the party’s headquarters in Dublin for fear that local Fine Gael members wouldn’t vote for him.
Imposing the highly controversial footballer was evidence of a growing panic at head office and against all perceived logic in Co Meath. Why would anyone sensible run three candidates, against the wishes of the local members, in a three-seat constituency? Locals say the answer is easy: because the party bosses are incompetent buffoons.
The sitting Fine Gael TD in Meath, Damien English, is probably the party’s most popular representative. He was expected to run with Councillor Peter Higgins, a solicitor from Trim who had distinguished himself with hard work over many years. [???????? Wonder what his source for this piece of information is?]
Two candidates would have been slugging it out, toe-to-toe, with the two sitting Fianna Fail TDs, Minister Noel Dempsey and Johnny Brady, for the three seats. Private polls have shown that the most likely result is two for Fianna Fail and one for Fine Gael. [eh, WHOSE private poll Sam, Fianna Fail's?????] In those circumstances, the inclusion of Geraghty seems quite daft. [THAT would explain the panic stricken reaction of Fianna Fail then....eh, NOT]
If he had been a lifelong member with a passion for Fine Gael, it would be easier to understand. But Geraghty’s enthusiasm ran to “Why not?” when he was asked on radio why he was standing for Fine Gael. [now, where did I hear that phrase before, oh yeah, I know! "You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?" GBS I think, but didn't some other low life politician use that one? Go on, someone remind me....
Some 400 members togged out at the selection convention in Athboy on Monday night. Fine Gaelers in Meath, who have turned out a former leader like John Bruton, [ whom you slagged off remorsely throughout his career] see the county’s political tradition as somewhat regal. Yet the men from head office in Dublin who insisted on imposing Geraghty seem to believe the public service tradition of the county should be realigned closer to Meath football.
If, say, the Tories in Britain had successfully run soccer beast Vinnie Jones as a candidate, it would be easier to understand Fine Gael’s fascination with Geraghty. ”
Now my friends, what’s the betting that if FF had secured GG and dumped Johnny Brady, that that article would have had a SLIGHTLY different slant? Something about the great stroke, the proof that FF weren’t taking any chances, that HQ were determined and efficient on Bertie’s orders to secure every seat and carry no passengers? And that meanwhile BORING old FG who had TRIED to GG on board had failed and instead were running the ultra-respectable middle class solicitor who didn’t bother canvassing the working class estates in Trim in the last local election and preferred instead to mail-merge his client list? Please……….
Claire Byrne
The lovely Claire gave an interview to that marvellous paper (Culture section, here) Most of it is the usual pap, but two things irked me
On being a news anchor..
“Being a news anchor is seen as being top of the tree, but it’s not a very challenging role,” she says. “I remember when that argument about news anchors was happening in the UK, I argued until my face was blue that you have to be across everything, know exactly what you’re doing and be up to speed on all the stories. You don’t.”
So did she lie and argue a case she knew to be untrue….or was she simply mistaken and came to her senses later. Just wondering…
“In short, the former television news anchor seems like a highly motivated professional for whom everything is finally going right. But at the suggestion that her image is that of a driven and ambitious woman, Byrne’s mood shifts, slightly but tellingly.
“I’d say that’s a fair comment, but I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with it,” she says. “If I can allow myself to be a feminist for a minute, and I’m actually not, I think if you saw that in a man, you’d probably say that’s a good thing, whereas the way you ask the question it’s almost like ‘Would you like to apologise for being a little bit ambitious?’ And I don’t see that you should.
“My career is very important, it’s how I live my life, it’s always been a driving force for me. I don’t see any reason why that should change: it’s a good quality. And it’s a quality I admire in other people, being driven and being focused. I think it’s a shame for some people to put ambition and being career-focused in the same sentence as being a bitch.”
Ah, the successful career woman who goes out of her way to say she is not a feminist. How interesting.
I have written the following email to her:
“Dear Claire
Congratulations on the new job. I read your interview in the Culture section yesterday in the Sunday Times and found it most interesting. I was wondering about one thing though: your declaration that you are not a feminist.
I am just wondering which of the following feminist causes you are against:
- the right to vote
- the right to control your fertility
- the right to work after you married
- the right to equal pay
- the right not to get harassed at work
- the right to own property
- the right not to be raped, even by your husband
Thanks
Sarah Carey
Columnist, Sunday Times and Feminist (and not ashamed of it)
Update: Claire, fair dues, has responded
She has confirmed that she does support all the issues I outlined, but that she sees a ‘feminist’ as someone who campaigns on feminist issues and that since she is not an active campaigner on feminist issues, she feels it would be disingenuous to brand herself as such. In fact, she felt that if she claimed to be a feminist, this might annoy the actual feminists.
The tone was friendly.
I have responded
Hi Claire,
Thanks for the response, but I think you are mistaken
in your view.
Campaigning is an unnecessary qualification to place
on one’s political affiliations. A person can vote
Fianna Fail all their lives and never ask anyone else
to vote for them. Why would they then say “I am not a
Fianna Failer”?
The problem is that if you claim, in public, that you
are not a feminist then what do people think? They
think that you do not support the feminist agenda. You
went out of your way to disassociate yourself from a
movement from which you have benefited. What do other
women take from that? What do men take from that?
I don’t ask that you are all things to all men or
women. But you are a woman who was born into a life
with enormous expectations that other women worked
hard for. Perhap you don’t feel it necessary to
publicly acknowledge that work, but by expressly
disassociating yourself from them, you, by
implication, disown their hard labour.
I accept that this was not your intention, but perhaps
the next time, you’d think about the effect before you
go out of your way to distance yourself from them.
Best wishes,
Sarah Carey
Good grief, let Darren love
Love always seems to bring grief in its path. Sometimes, grief can bring love. So it has been for Darren Clarke. Four short months since his wife died, he is dating again.
His new girlfriend is Nicky Regan, a good-looking mother of six who was a close friend of Clarke’s wife, Heather. He would have preferred to keep the new relationship under wraps, but when the tabloids come knocking on the door your options are limited.
Your best course of action is to do a “personal” interview with one of the red-tops. That way, you get to put your own spin on the story. The low point of Clarke’s confession was the declaration: “We haven’t even slept together yet.”
Is this what we’ve come to? A respectable man has been obliged to share the private details of his relationship with a public whose approval must be sought. Victorian mourning customs may be long gone, but our collective behaviour resembles that of a stern spinster aunt whose permission is necessary before a courtship can proceed.
Technically, of course, it’s none of our business. But having wept with him on the 16th green of the K Club, we feel a sense of ownership. He thinks he’s ready to move on, but the question is, are we? The indecent haste with which Darren and Nicky have fallen in love borders on the suspicious. Were we taken for fools?
We would do well to remember that, though it was freely given, he never looked for our sympathy. In his demeanour throughout Heather’s illness and that heroic Ryder Cup, Clarke made every effort to dissuade us from offering pity. Still we provided it, and what a slap in the face to discover that the grieving widower isn’t grieving quite as much as we would like.
On the face of it, four months is way too soon. Surely Clarke can’t be in any fit state to form a relationship? Have his gratitude and her compassion been confused with love? Another week, another dilemma: to judge or not to judge, that is the question. I choose not to.
When it comes to new relationships, the rules are different for men and women because husbands and wives behave very differently when their partners die. Widowers remarry, and sometimes sooner than might be deemed appropriate. Chatting with my mother about Clarke last week, we surveyed the local area and could pick out several widowers who had remarried within six months of their wife’s death.
Widows don’t marry with the same frequency. A widow is probably less marketable than a widower. Perhaps women feel they can do without the hassle of taking on another man. Men may be braver in business or at war, but only with a woman providing a solid foundation. When faced with life alone, women are the ones who possess the reserves of strength required to cope, especially with a young family.
The Harvard Bereavement Study of the 1960s, a landmark investigation of spousal loss, reported that widowers tended to express the loss of their wife as “dismemberment”, as if they had lost something that kept them organised and whole. Widowers often depended on their wives for managing the household, caring for their children, and being their only true confidante.
Since Clarke’s golf career involves so much travel, he may have been more dependent than most on his wife holding the fort at home.
The other important factor is that Heather’s death followed a long illness. Sudden deaths produce totally different reactions. A surviving spouse can be in shock for months and overcome with anger. Many people who see a family member through a terminal illness start the grieving process before the actual death. In fact, sometimes they’ll feel guilty at the sense of relief that their loved one’s suffering is over.
Clarke’s new relationship isn’t a betrayal of his marriage; it just shows he’s taking comfort. And Nicky Regan isn’t just any woman. She has six children who are friendly with his two boys. She is in the middle of a divorce, but is by no means fickle. Her soon-to-be-former husband is Andrew Regan, a wealthy financier who faced three trials for allegedly stealing millions of pounds to bribe senior executives at the British firm Co-operative Wholesale Society. He has been cleared of all charges. That was some ordeal, and she supported him the whole way through it.
I don’t know why their marriage finally broke up, but between the accused husband and her six children, Nicky is a carer. Now she’s caring for Clarke. While the attention focuses on him, I’d be more concerned about her welfare in this relationship. She can look after Clarke, but who’ll look after her? The problem for both of them is that while it’s easy to condemn those who behave recklessly in order to indulge their love, death is a different matter. It has a peculiar effect on people and you have to hold back. Those Victorian customs, though harsh, had some benefits. Wearing the outward signs of mourning allowed others to tell from a subtle range of dress colour codes, including black and grey, exactly in which stage of grief a widow or widower considered themselves.
There are no such rules now, and those in mourning may not be sure what is deemed appropriate. Their grief is complicated by the confusion over how they are expected to behave in public.
Clarke’s public tears just six weeks after his wife’s death were acceptable. If he was still breaking down in public now, four months later, those same tabloids would advertise his excessive grief as a sign that he really needed to pull himself together. A spell in one of those celebrity clinics would be recommended and, should he wish to hold onto his sponsorship contracts, probably required.
On the other hand, coping “too well” also gives rise to talk, as it has in this case. A surviving spouse who seems to be getting on quite well must be either in denial or shock, or didn’t have a very good marriage in the first place.
The noble path is the brave face. We want to see the strain of grief, but prefer to see it contained. Clarke is being a little too brave for some people’s liking. I say, let the man have some happiness. He seems a decent sort; let them get on with it. In short, leave him alone.
12.14.06
Lesbians lose
aw, what a shame.
Oh well, the Revenue would never have allowed it.
“But Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne today dismissed their case, insisting there was no provision for same-sex marriage in the Constitution.
“Marriage was understood under the 1937 Constitution to be confined to persons of the opposite sex,” she said in her 138-page ruling. She also said she could not support the couple’s claim that the Constitution was incompatible with decisions from the European Court of Human Rights”
Strange but true?
How bizarre. I’d say Zionist conspiracy, but Muslim men are circumsised too, right?
From the NYT
“Circumcision appears to reduce a man’s risk of contracting AIDS from heterosexual sex by half, United States government health officials said yesterday, and the directors of the two largest funds for fighting the disease said they would consider paying for circumcisions in high-risk countries.
Trials in Kenya and Uganda (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)The announcement was made by officials of the National Institutes of Health as they halted two clinical trials, in Kenya and Uganda, on the ground that not offering circumcision to all the men taking part would be unethical. The success of the trials confirmed a study done last year in South Africa.
AIDS experts immediately hailed the finding. “This is very exciting news,” said Daniel Halperin, an H.I.V. specialist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development, who has argued that circumcision slows the spread of AIDS in the parts of Africa where it is common. ”
12.12.06
Funding nursing home care
I am not too sure if I want to join in the screeching about the State looking for some money from the sale of a house after its old age owner has died having been looked after by the state in their final years.
If a person has significant equity tied up in a house, why should the State have to look after the full cost of caring for that person, so that the children can sell the house and help themselves to their inheritance having not funded the care of their parent?
I think already there are cases where parents transfer the house to a child, and then since they own no house, they can get public care. Is it fair on the State that they should pay when the family can afford to contribute but chooses not to?
Sorting out the genuine cases from the meanies is so hard and usually ends up turning into a bureaucratic nightmare which some people are clever at getting around while a hard case gets nothing. But in principle, if an old person owns a house, and spends their last years in a public nursing home, I think the State is entitled to a cut.
The Convention
So its three candidates.
The organisers were armed with different directives from HQ, a decision to be made on the night which one to use – i.e. which system would ensure that Geraghty would get on the ticket.
The white haired, old-fashioned, ultra-respectable middle class burghers that constitute FG in Meath didn’t appear to be favouring change. With Higgins insisting on running it would mean a vote if only 2 people were put on the ticket. So with 3 going forward, they put 3 on the ticket and didn’t risk a vote.
What’s the betting that Higgins won’t be able to raise as much money as Geraghty? Higgins will attract decent old FG votes who will transfer to English who will transfer to Geraghty. If Geraghty can stay ahead of Higgins it’ll all work out on the night. (count night).
The sister was good I am told. She got some abuse for daring to propose “that thug” but she kept her cool. There is a bigger picture. My father’s line about “preserving democracy” proved deeply ironic since the whole purpose was to circumvent democracy. He did refer to a lack of parental control which went down well. I suppose most laughed because they thought it was true, and others laughed because they suspected it wasn’t true.
Oh well, roll on the fundraising.
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