Terry Prone

Could someone get Terry Prone a job with RTE teaching their reporters and analysts how to open their eyes so that they can tell us what they see and not what they want to see? Probably also a good idea if she did some work for the Irish Times.

I've been meaning to say this for a while, but I think Terry Prone might be the most sensible columnist in Ireland. I don't always agree with her, but I never feel like she's ever browbeating or insulting me. She observes, then she reports and then she offers her analysis. Would it be too much to ask that one or two others do the same?

There are so many good passages in today's short column, that I feel like reprinting the whole thing. Instead, I'll give you this:

Up to last week, we thought America was a big diverse society, but this week we learned they were really one big Bible belt hiding 51 million [obviously should she means 59m] religious fundamentalists from us. Gun totin' religious maniacs, all of them: anti-abortion, anti-stem-cell research. Beer drinkin', boot scootin', Bible-totin' unsophisticates, too thick to deserve democracy.

Or that's what liberal Ireland, Britain, Europe and east coast America would have us believe.

It boils my brains to be so embarrassed by people I normally agree with.

You might have to register to read this article, but it's worth it. She goes from the US election to the Buttiglione affair. Each sentence is a scoring punch.