04.30.07
Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 11:26 am by Sarah
You know for all the dithering, I remembered this morning that the ST announced three weeks ago that the election would be held on May 24th……
Anyways, poster war has started already. Noel Dempsey got his up first RIGHT outside my father’s office (though that’s in the village, I found the one at the top of our cul-de-sac more annoying) but the mutterings about this appalling provocation are nothing to the rows between FG candidates. Apparently the constituency director gave orders we are only to get Higgins posters. There are a few English ones up already-not sure who the rebels are 
. No sign of Geraghty ones yet. I’ll put them up myself if required. Though I might have difficulty getting one. Someone got told, not sure if its either the constituency director or Geraghty’s unofficial campaign manger, to stick his posters up his arse. I’ll have to identify which is the arse in question.
Oh and THEN Bertie gets to address the Houses of Parliament but the Mahon Tribunal cancels their hearings. Honestly, Stalin couldn’t run things better.
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04.28.07
Posted in Domestic/Relationships, Feminism at 2:53 pm by Sarah
Dan highlights Fergus Finlay’s shocking piece in the Examiner. Unbelievable….
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04.27.07
Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 5:36 pm by Sarah
Donohue’s Election Drift in the Meath Chronicle has a little dig at the Careys. (The link is wrong, but I’ll leave it here just in case they fix it.)
Donohue remarks on the fun it must be at meal time in our house given that the esteemed Cllr pater nominated Peter Higgins, my sister Mary nominated Geraghty, while I devoted myself to complaining about Higgins on the blog. He quotes my father’s line at the convention about the lack of parental control, which was worth quoting.
Anyways, now that its all blown over and three candidates are in the field, I felt a bit shitty about being negative about Higgins. The thing is he is a perfectly decent chap, but I wanted the field left open for Geraghty and was pissed off that he wouldn’t stand back. In any event, from what I hear, it’ll all turn out right in the end. Higgins and Geraghty will compete for every single vote going. Higgins will be starting off with the die-hard respectable FGers but Geraghty will pull in non-FG working class votes – which are badly needed. The only question is which one will be ahead when it comes to elimination time. SF transfers going to Geraghty could be crucial and I’m not sure with 3 candidates going that English will have a surplus to help Higgins.
So its all to play for BUT the bottom line is, Meath West has a good chance of bringing in 2 seats and it could be a good “straw in the wind” constituency. If FG get 2, then FG are having a good day or more to the point, Johnny Brady is out and FF are having a really bad day.
In the meantime Noel Dempsey has just started a big outdoor campaign. HUGE poster up in Enfield. Dempsey’s alright though. He put that Marine/Fisheries bill through last year despite massive complaints from FF backbenchers (and FG shameful opposition) but it was the right thing to do. I guess Brady will be hoping ND will get a huge surplus and transfer on the 1st count putting Brady ahead of the two FGers.
What fun. So relieved there’s no electronic voting. Imagine missing all the crack of the count?
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04.26.07
Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 10:20 pm by Sarah
Just watched the last of the 3 part series of this programme in which I participated. I must confess, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Ivan Yates was great crack and Terry Prone so on the nail. Mary O’Rourke was hilarious. It was light hearted but everything was so TRUE. You can watch the episodes here.
By the way, tuned into Morning Ireland for more asynchronous political interviews. Liam Twomey on earlier to discuss the new VHI reforms and the later Mary Harney. I’m going to start tracking this. Do government ministers EVER debate directly with a member of the opposition now? Why does Morning Ireland let them do it?
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Posted in Feminism at 11:10 am by Sarah
AN outrage. What WILL the women of Belfast do? I must ask the sisters-in-law….From the Indo today…
“THE highest court in Britain yesterday blocked the way for the women of Belfast to buy ‘rabbit’ vibrators legitimately at one of the city’s most popular sex-toy sellers.
Five law lords in the rarefied confines of London’s House of Lords ruled in a complex 15,000-word judgment that one of the city’s top sex shops, Miss Behavin’, is not entitled to a licence to legitimise a shop in the city’s Gresham Road.
And in a case which Britain’s senior female judge, Baroness Hale, described as “taking the prize for the most entertaining name of any that have come before us in recent years”, the Lords rejected claims that refusal of a licence would amount to a breach of Miss Behavin’s human rights.
Miss Behavin’, which urges visitors to its website to ‘choose a gift or sexy gadget for your loved one or even better, yourself’ and which advertises itself as ‘Ireland’s Online Adult Superstore’ has been fighting a long-running battle for a licence.
It boasts having a large range of sex toys including best-selling ‘rabbit’ vibrators which take their name from the similarity in appearance to rabbit ears, and which are claimed to stimulate the parts which other vibrators don’t.”
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04.25.07
Posted in Feminism at 7:01 pm by Sarah
Starting a new post since we wandered about on the previous one which ended with Paul suggesting I read his post on the matter and I’m glad I did.
I really like this bit:
“5. Can we hear the scream and help?
Yes i believe we can if we choose to, I feel we have lost the art of listening, the skills of listening to understand. We have no time to listen, and sometimes by listening to others we may have to confront the pain in ourselves. There is just not enough emphasis on listening, it’s not a panacea to solve all ills, but so many people wade through life feeling that nobody understands who they really are. I’m not talking about therapy here, although increased access to therapy would be a wonderful thing, i’m talking about friendship, and how we as friends can help to cut through the BS position of “everything’s wonderful” and “sure I’m as happy as Larry”.
6. Can we drop the illusion?
I’m not sure, i think it may be too powerfully ingrained, the connection that “if i’m not wonderfully happy, then i’m inadaquate and there’s something wrong with me and i better hide it” is very deeply entrenched.
There are too many guru’s, too many vested interests. I think the best we can do is develop the ability to listen to and support people and let them know just because they feel unhappy does not make them unique, does not make them inadaquate, does not make them failures…… IT JUST MAKES THEM HUMAN!”
Then Stephen responded
“Why is the pursuit of happiness such an important concept?”
I think that is THE question at the center of a lot of our dissappointment in life which you have articulated so well. To me the most important thing is the pursuit of meaning. [my emphasis] And whether your answer is found in a particular faith or philosophy of life it is essential that one can see some direction/purpose to it all – or at least be able to ask the questions in the hope that somewhere there are answers which we may just glimpse. If I can do that I am happy but that happiness is not an end in itself. Life is fascinating and mysterious – It is when we think there is nothing of lasting significance and value that it gets scary. I too find it hard to imagine the psyche of a suicidal person but I can only guess that a part of it may be a feeling that fear of meaninglessness.
I think the meaning issue is important. If faith gives people that meaning, great. Usually children give people that meaning. Or at least, a reason to stay alive and get up in the morning.
The only other thing I’d say is that I can see the logic of their (the Dunne’s) decision. In one way if you decide that life holds nothing for you, taking the children with you is perfectly logical. You won’t see anything for them and you won’t want to leave them behind missing you. You can interpret it into an act of love. The terrible terrible thing is that they (or he) was so unhappy that they or he, got into this way of thinking. And that’s when we need to catch people.
I think we really have an instinct, and I know I do and I consider myself to be a reasonably compassionate person, that when we think that someone is miserable or unhappy, we convince ourselves that its none of our business, we’re afraid to draw trouble into our lives, we think we don’t have the time, afraid we’ll say the wrong thing etc. And I think Paul’s emphasis on listening is sooo important. Sometimes, in fact MOST of the time, that’s all that’s needed – a neutral non-judgmental listener.
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04.23.07
Posted in Feminism at 7:48 pm by Sarah
The consequences of a terrible service at the best of times and none at the weekend has struck again….
From ireland.com
“The bodies of four people, including two young children, have been found in a house in Co Wexford.
The discovery was made in a house at Moine Rua, Monageer, near Enniscorthy, at 2pm, according to a statement released by the Garda Press Office.
The man and woman, aged in their 20s, and two girls aged two and four are believed to be from the same family.
When gardaà arrived, they had a quick look at the house, didn’t like what they saw and eventually effected a forcible entry through the rear door and made the tragic discovery of four bodies inside
Supt Kevin Donohoe, Garda press office A Garda spokeswoman said the scene had been sealed off and the State Pathologist’s office informed.
The Health Service Executive confirmed this evening that community services had been contacted by gardaà in relation to a family in the area in recent days.
In a statement, the HSE South said the childcare manager of Wexford Community Services was contacted last Saturday afternoon by gardaÃ.
“The childcare manager reminded the gardaà of the out-of-hours services: that is Caredoc for medical concerns and Section 12 of the Childcare Act 1991 for children at risk – which allows the gardai to remove a child to a place of safety, which in Wexford would be Wexford General Hospital,” the statement concluded.
A local priest confirmed there had been concerns about the family, which were sufficient for him to call to the house in recent days.
Although he declined to go into details, the priest said he spoke with the family for about two hours last Friday and left at about 10.30pm.
The priest said the gardaà had been contacted in relation to the family.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Six One news, Supt Kevin Donohoe of the Garda press office agreed it was now “obvious” the family had been one at risk.
“On Friday we became aware of some information that caused us some concerns in relation to the family and we spoke to a priest and asked him to come out and have a chat with them. He did that…on Friday evening,” Supt Donohoe said.
“On Saturday, the local superintendent Peter Finn decided that he should contact the HSE. He did that, he contacted the HSE official and passed on the information that we had in respect of the family.
“They undertook to have a look at the case and, indeed, that official said he would speak to another official in respect of it.
“And this morning, Monday, we spoke again to the HSE and arranged to meet them out here at the family home. When gardaà arrived, they had a quick look at the house, didn’t like what they saw and eventually effected a forcible entry through the rear door and made the tragic discovery of four bodies inside.”
Looks like the cops rang the social workers who said either call a doctor or forcibly take the children. Presuming the former was not enough and the latter was over the top, they were told to wait til Monday. Nice one for the bureaucrats. All they were left with was the priest who did his best. Awful story.
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04.22.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:49 pm by Sarah
So I went, and enjoyed myself thoroughly and even learned some new buzz words.
Conor Halpin from Le Cayla made a very creative presentation about pricing using a straight-jacket. He kept talking about Saas. Julie Szabo told me it means Software as a Service, so Flickr and those things.
Sean O’Sullivan, Rococo gave us a round-up of what he called Voice 2.0 which was most enlightening. People have hilarious business models to make money from VOIP. He drew attention to the fact that Skype’s biggest problem is the necessity of plugging in headphones.
Darren Barefoot did a Social Media Marketing presentation which gave some great ideas for marketing through blogs and other social networking platforms. This was one of the best. Turbotax, a canadian tax software company, launched a competition for the best tax rap with a €25,000 that got huge traction. What a creative way to get people talking about tax software! I didn’t watch any of the entries, but apparently they’re hilarious and Vanilla ice announced the winner.
After the blogging panel discussion which threw up some interesting perspectives, I had a long chat with Karlin Lillington, to my mind the most interesting technology writer in the broadsheets. Turns out her mother is a great one for column ideas, just like mine. We agreed that the establishment panels on most Irish radio programmes are waaaaaaaay out of touch with the digital natives.
I missed Krishna De’s and Tom Raftery’s sessions due to my extended gossiping session with Karlin and Joe Drumgoole, who complained that I don’t put enough links on my blog. Satisfied now Joe? 
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Posted in Feminism at 2:27 pm by Sarah
The unedited version again. The ST website continues to leave out Irish articles and it maybe a matter of policy at this stage. Shame, because otherwise I’d link to some good stories which might advertise the paper and thus encourage people to buy it. I mean, why have the British edition and not the Irish online? Either the company thinks its a good idea to make the paper available online for free, or it doesn’t. Why leave out parts of it? It’s just irritating. Anyways, the British edition included this article by Bryan Appleyard about Web 2.0 which is kinda interesting though could drill much deeper.
Mine is on the EBS and I was ragin’ that the Marian Finucane show panel didn’t refer to it when they discussed the matter today. sigh. Shane Ross’s version of events is over on unison (sub reqd I think but free -just register). Funny that he used the term “smirking” in relation to Q4 as well.
“Who would have thought that the prospect of a row would put everyone into such a good mood? As I queued with other shareholders for the EBS AGM last Monday, the party atmosphere was bubbling as strangers quickly bonded with tales of terrible customer service and corporate conspiracies. For an angry mob, we were remarkably cheerful. Of course, EBS members make for extremely respectable revolutionaries. Mature in years, well dressed and thoroughly polite, the attacks would be made with nothing more than the rule book and passionate speeches.
The Board were calm but tense, the EBS staff members were defiant and the directors of Q4, the EBS PR agency tried not to think about the billable hours lest they were caught smirking. With 1200 people registered and seated in the Burlington ball room the meeting got underway. Item 5 on the agenda was a vote on whether or not director Ethna Tinney would be re-appointed to the Board without its support. This is as close as corporations get to Gladiator, and honestly, with a free lunch thrown in, who’d miss it?
Tinney had been on the Board for 6 years and with only press reports to go on I couldn’t tell if she was an argumentative pain in the neck or if she was simply being punished for disagreeing on strategic issues. In her favour she had been appointed as an EBS director after an open competition. Several other directors had been co-opted on by their existing friends on the Board. With a salary of €42,000 going, it’s a cushy number and I wouldn’t say “No” to a co-option myself. Nevertheless, I came to the meeting with an open mind and watched all the directors closely to see if I could tell from their body language who were the heroes and villains of the piece. Mostly, they looked cool enough to suggest they had sufficient proxies in advance of the meeting to guarantee the result they wanted.
She was destined to bite the dust, but before that happened, the middle class mob wanted some answers.
The EBS is a mutual building society which means that it’s run on behalf of the members. The idea of mutuality is that without a stock market to please, they don’t need to focus on the short-term financial demands of external shareholders and can focus on the interest of all members.
I used to buy into this. My father became an EBS agent 28 years ago and my brother carries on that business. I even worked for them back in 1994. For years I preached to friends that they were far better off doing business with a mutual like the EBS who weren’t required to rape their own customers for profit. As rivals like Irish Permanent demutualised and their members collected windfall payments, we looked down our noses at their short term outlook. They’d all be sorry when with windfalls long spent, the stockmarket demands for increased profits would see customers lose out. Meanwhile back in the Paradise of mutuality, EBS members would profit in the long term with lower mortgage interest rates and higher deposit rates. After Monday, I won’t be giving that speech any more.
Three things at the meeting convinced me that the game is up for the EBS. Shane Ross, TCD Senator and Business Editor of a rival minor publication has been arguing with CEO Ted McGovern about the competitiveness of their mortgage and deposit rates. However, chairman Mark Moran referred to two other rates which concerned me.
During his presentation he boasted that profits were up 49% and the cost efficiency ratio was 0.56%. Moran was keen to stress that this had been achieved not by cutting services but by increasing income. From whom is this income earned? Well, us of course. If the cornerstone of mutuality is the lack of pressure to increase profits at the expense of customers, why would the Chairman brag about more income earned from EBS members? I’d prefer to see a static profit line with inarguably better value for customers. If the EBS is getting caught up in tit-for-tat rows with Shane Ross over product value, they’ve already lost the argument.
I had discovered for myself the poor value of products offered to customers a couple of months ago when my house insurance was automatically renewed by the EBS with their exclusive supplier : Allianz. I was taken aback to see my premium had increased to €734. I rang my car insurers Hibernian to get an alternative quote which came in at €520. That’s quite a discount. I spent the next fortnight examining both policies closely, terrified I was paying a cheaper price for a lesser product. In the end, it was clear that Hibernian’s policy was identical to Allianz’s who by the way, weren’t remotely interested in re-quoting for my business when I told them about the better offer. As Hibernian have no deal with the EBS it took some administration to switch over, but I did it. I am sure many don’t bother.
I was left wondering why the EBS did a deal with Allianz offering them a direct line to all their mortgage customers. Had Allianz offered better value to EBS customers or better commission to help the EBS bottom line? If it was the latter, what had happened to the benefits of mutuality? I asked this question at the AGM but got no answer. It was neatly sidestepped with an apples-for-oranges type platitude. I wasn’t impressed.
A woman who due to her striking suit, became known as the Lady in Red, later identified as solicitor Linda O’ Shea-Farren, made an excellent point which opened my eyes further. Why, she asked the Chairman, did he not propose someone else to be a director in Tinney’s place? Why not offer members a choice between two possible directors or had Moran a mate lined up for co-option next week? If he really believed in the democratic will of the members, as he had claimed, then why not allow us to vote for an alternative? That too was sidestepped and a pattern had emerged. Members could ask questions at this meeting, but there would be no answers and no power. It was later revealed that one member who had spoken in favour of the Board turned out be none other than Ted McGovern’s wife. I would fully expect an under-siege board to have a few plants in the audience : but the relying on the CEO’s wife indicated weirdly amateurish behaviour.
Finally when the votes were counted and Tinney had lost, though by only 800 out of the 20,000 votes cast, the EBS senior management staff cheered and clapped – delighted that they had seen off the enemy. But the enemy was us – their own customers. A management team that views the members as hostile natives to be beaten off is not only severely short-sighted but clearly hasn’t the remotest interest in acting for their benefit. The high-fiving was the last straw for me. Demutualise and bring on the windfall. Then EBS members will have something to cheer about.
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04.20.07
Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 4:27 pm by Sarah
RTE Radio 1 – 5-7 Live.
MAIN HEADLINES
EXCLUSIVE CHARLIE BIRD INTERVIEW WITH AN TAOISEACH
HE’S THE PROUD GRANDFATHER OF TWINS.
LEADING STORY? HANDY GOOD NEWS STORY? RTE’S CHIEF REPORTER DISPATCHED TO GET THE STORY?
And the names, Rocco and Jay? Rocco??????? That’s hardly a saints name is it? Mr wears his ashes prominently in the Dail Ahern. Puke time.
I do of course wish mother and babies all the best. But Bertie Ahern is enabled in his exploitation of his daughters’ PR value for too easily by RTE and other news outlets.
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