Irish Eagle

Look before you Leap ... card OR dumb @IrishRail

2012-01-12T11:58:00.001Z

I didn't need to get a Leap card. I got it cause I thought it would be more convenient than having to buy a ticket each time I took the train. Also, it would be of use on those occasional bus or Luas journeys I make.

I was wrong. The Leap card is not convenient. First thing I learned is that you can't buy one at the train station. Stupid. You can't top up at the train station either, but you can't top up online I was told.

Okay so I drove to the nearest store to buy a Leap card. I paid to park, went in and bought the card. Ridiculously inconvenient, but a one-off I figured. Wrong. I learned from Twitter yesterday (@dickobrien) that you can't really top up online.

Oh yeah, you can buy the credit online, but you can't put it on your card. You have to go into one of the few stores that sell Leap cards and top-ups in order to get the credit added to your card.

The whole thing is so badly thought out that it boggles the mind that this is what we've been hearing about for years. How great this was supposed to be. It's awful. Even the swiping on and off seems buggy, but that could be just me getting used to it.

Still, I may not stick with it. To get the Leap Card I had to pay a €5 deposit. When my credit's gone I'll probably seek my deposit back. Wonder if I can do that where I bought it?

Save the dog = laughs

2011-12-07T12:18:00.003Z

If I was a dog lover I probably wouldn't find this video (http://bit.ly/uWomr6) so funny, but I'm not and I do.

I think whatever government body in Belfast that has taken Lennox the dog away from his owners should butt out and return the dog to his owners. However, no matter how you slice it we're talking about an animal and not a person.

A dog locked up - even unjustly - is not worthy of the sort of investment in emotion that this woman has invested in Lennox. I don't accept that "[t]here would be joy in the world, a time of celebration throughout the world" if Lennox were released this month. And while I'm sure Lennox would rather be with his owners than in Belfast's dog pound, I doubt he's really that worked up about missing Christmas.

Dáil TV and Oct 27 referendum

2011-10-20T13:01:00.000+01:00

Just wondering, but could there be a connection between our "coming soon" Dáil TV channel and next week's referendum on Oireachtas Inquiries? I mean, without all the extra inquiries that a 'Yes' vote will allow, how will our representatives fill all the hours of the new channel? They can't very well allow us to see hours of the chamber empty and unused or even hours of 3 people sitting there listening to another drone on. Can they?

Church's influence over Irish education not what's often claimed

2011-10-04T16:26:00.002+01:00

The Irish Times list of the 50 most powerful people in Irish education is interesting.

What really caught my eye, what really should get people talking about Irish education is the low listing of Fr Drumm - Chairman of the Catholic Schools Partnership - who is 30th and Archbishop Martin (36th). Apparently the Church doesn't have as much influence over Irish education as people like Ryan Tubridy would have us believe. As for Protestants or other religious groups - didn't make the list.

The head of Educate Together made the list - at 24, above anyone from any religion. Goes to show how certain perspectives are favored over others. That Educate Together is so high up the list demonstrates Labour's control over education.

Who else made the list? Many university heads (and ex-heads!), union heads, Department of Education mandarins. All of those groups have more influence over Irish education than does the Catholic Church. American money - multinational companies and philanthropist Chuck Feeney - is listed much higher in terms of power and influence than Fr Drumm and Archbishop Martin.

Next time someone talks about the Church's influence in our education system I'll cite this source as proof that its influence is nothing compared with loads of other interest groups.

Catching Hell – a decent first draft

2011-10-01T21:38:00.001+01:00

First, I want to say that all sports fans will enjoy Catching Hell. You don't have to be a baseball fan to get something out of the ESPN (@ESPNAmerica) documentary.

Having said that, Catching Hell is far from flawless. It's part of the story, but ultimately incomplete. That the those who made the film didn't get the main subject – Steve Bartman – to talk to them isn't the primary flaw.

No, the biggest problem I have is with the non-participation of the Chicago Cubs. To my mind the biggest culprits in the story were the Cubs. The Cubs – the players, the manager and those in the front office – allowed Bartman to be turned into a villain. They let it happen. In fact, they caused it to happen.

We got a short interview with the lead supporting actor in this play, Moises Alou, but that was unsatisfactory too. He was never asked if he felt that he could have done more to save Bartman from the fans' ire I wanted to know if looking back at it if he wishes he'd done or said something more.

Other than Eric Karros we heard nothing from anyone else associated with the Cubs. Why?

Maybe they know now that they should have said or done more for Bartman. Maybe they're ashamed. Or maybe they defiantly believe that Bartman did really cost them Game 6 of the NLCS and maybe they still blame him. Whatever the players, manager and front office folks feel today is still a mystery.

There are other problems with the documentary. At two hours it's too long thanks to an excessive amount of Boston Red Sox stuff. It's unnecessary for the story. And as for the lengthy theological treatise on scapegoats ... that should have been cut to a sentence. Without Bartman, without his friends or family, without the Cubs an hour would have been better.

It's too good a story to remain only partially told.

Why are so many kids today allergic to nuts?

2011-09-30T14:30:00.000+01:00

Are we going nuts about allergies?

My son came home from school with a note asking us not to send in any food containing "peanuts/nuts & cod-fish/shellfish." I had two reactions. First, who sends cod into school? Even shellfish seems a bit strange, but maybe a shrimp salad, I guess, isn't too odd. But cod?

Next, why does it seem so common for kids to be allergic to nuts these days? My son's been asked not to bring in nutty foods despite the fact that the child (children) with the nut allergy is (are) not in his class.

The note makes clear that even breathing the air with these foods around could cause Anaphylactic shock. For that reason every child in the school must avoid bringing in these proscribed foods.

If this was the first time we'd received such a note I might not find it so strange, but we've had these notes a few times with all our children. What's going on? Why are there so many children who are so violently allergic to nuts?

I went to a much bigger elementary school than any of the schools my kids have attended. We ate in a massive lunchroom with - I'm guessing - 200 kids. Never were we told that food containing nuts might cause anyone an issue. And, peanut butter was one of the more popular sandwich fillers.

Given that you'd expect that we would have been under strict orders to not bring in peanut butter sandwiches or that there would have been fatal or near fatal incident on an almost daily basis in our lunchroom.

I'm not ready to dismiss these allergies as a nonsense, but really I don't understand where they were in the 1970s.

Does mainstreaming hurt educational outcomes?

2011-09-21T13:12:00.000+01:00

Stephen Donnelly TD (@donnellystephen) says our the state of our education system is a "national emergency." To support that thesis Donnelly cites a 2010 OECD report on educational outcomes.

I read the report - it's really more of a summary of findings - and the overall message is that our standards in reading and math have slipped. Alarming. However, one finding in particular caught my eye.

The experts attribute some of the declines to changes in the profile of Ireland’s student population, including larger numbers of migrant students who do not speak English as a first language and greater inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream schools where the PISA tests were carried out.

What is this saying? It seems pretty straight-forward that the measures used showed a fall-off in standards due to too many non-English speakers and too many weak students in the classroom. But - and this is the key issue for most parents AND for the state - does this mean that the average student is achieving less due to these students being in the classroom with him/her OR are these children simply bringing down the scores?

If it's simply the case that they're bringing down the scores and making comparison with other countries less useful, then why not exclude the scores of those who are non-English-speaking or have special needs? Then we can compare like with like and get a better feel for how we're doing compared with other countries.

But what if the experts are actually saying, indirectly, that the influx of so many "migrants" and/or the mainstreaming of special needs students is actually having a negative effect on the education that most children get? Then what? I suspect these questions would be considered beyond the pale, not worthy of consideration because they're politically incorrect.

Donnelly, of course, doesn't go anywhere near the issue. He mentions 4 countries - Canada, Finland, South Korea and New Zealand - with better education systems than we have. I'd love to know how they handle these issues because the implication of the comment from the expert group is that they don't deal with these matters in the same way Ireland does.

When it comes to immigrants, I can't imagine that the experience in New Zealand and Canada could be much different from Ireland's. I'd love to know how they deal with non-English-speaking students and what impact they have on their overall educational outcome as measured by the OECD.

I'd also love to know how all four of those countries handle children with special needs. If these factors are not issues, then I want to know why our employed experts mentioned it in the first place.

Transition Year kills Mathematics learning

2011-09-09T12:42:00.001+01:00

The Minister for Education is "concerned" about the poor results our students are getting in mathematics. He's going to "examine ways to improve" those results.

If all the Minister and his department examine is the curriculum then they've already failed. At a minimum he has to explore whether the fact that so few of the teachers who teach math at Leaving Cert level are actually qualified math teachers is having an impact. Although I'm not so worried about "qualified" as able: able to fully understand the material and able to teach.

Something else they should consider is Transition Year. Transition Year is a real problem when it comes to math.

Based on my experience Transition Year is a math killer. How? Well, from the time the Junior Cert is over until 5th Year begins, students do very little meaningful math work. The hard-won skills and knowledge acquired in the years leading up to the JC do a lot of atrophying during the intervening 15 months while students 'explore other avenues' or whatever the excuse is for TY.

Other than for the occasional Einstein, math is all about learning through repetition. You learn a concept; you work it to death until it's second nature then you introduce another concept based on those concepts already learned.

Yet, as just about any graduate can tell you, once you leave the classroom behind most of those math skills and abilities fade. There's little call for trigonometry or geometry or simultaneous equations in the 'real world.' Only, in Ireland, our students are having that graduates' experience during TY. Years of learning is lost in 15 months of mathematical brain inactivity.

And don't try and tell me that math is part of TY. It's not, not really. Not the sort of math that would prepare a student for the content of the Leaving Cert program, especially the higher level program. There are no difficult concepts presented and no hours of homework doing repetitive problems during TY.

There is so much material to cover by the end of the Leaving Cert cycle that there is no time for a few weeks of review when 5th year begins. The teachers hit the ground running as if the students can recall all that they've learned, as if they possess all the skills they had 15 months earlier. One week into the school year and many 5th Year students are already talking about "dropping down" or how they don't understand anything. Kids get left behind in a hurry.

What about my daughter? Well, she's lucky that I have the time to help her. So far we've had to work together on her homework every night.

I have a degree in Math so I kind of enjoy dusting off skills and knowledge I haven't had much call for in decades. I bet there are a lot of parents, however, who couldn't adequately explain trigonometry or what have you to their child. Their children are falling behind from the get go.

How many of those children will have to "drop down" thanks to the fact that they couldn't keep pace when the gun went off in 5th year? How many would have been better off if they hadn't had a year off? Thousands.

Data-mining governments - an annoyance, but not a real danger to democracy

2011-09-07T15:38:00.004+01:00

I had to re-read Tom McGurk's column from this week's Sunday Business Post. I think this was because the headline – Legacy of September 11 corrodes all our lives – had me expecting something completely different than what he wrote.

McGurk's column is about all the personal data that our digital world has created and how it's stored and mined by various (nasty?) government agencies. He also notes that companies are storing a lot of information about each of us. McGurk claims - he could well be right, I have no idea - that these companies "want to exchange their information for the state’s information."

McGurk's thesis is that the government is gathering all that information in the name of security as a result of what happened on September 11, 2001. McGurk says, "the most disturbing legacy of that day, for all of us, is not on a global, macro scale, but on an individual, micro scale."

I guess my problem with what McGurk is saying is that he pins all of this on September 11. I just don't accept this. The vast amounts of information clearly would have come about if September 11 had never happened, but so would the state's impulse to warehouse and mine as much data as they could.

Maybe the voters in America would have been less willing to go along with this if not for September 11, but I suspect it would have happened anyway. Besides, if McGurk's thesis is true, this urge to accumulate information is not just American, but exists across "the west."

I think concerns about the amount of data that governments and companies have about us a legitimate concern, but it doesn't keep me awake nights. A government's first priority is to protect the citizens and for now many in the west are making a willing compromise - allowing the government to save and use all sorts of information on us in exchange for what we hope are better informed security forces.

Unlike the scare mongers who see conspiracies everywhere, I believe this can be changed if the public demands it. Maybe someday it will or maybe we'll all just learn to live with the knowledge that the government knows how many MB of data we download daily.

The Leaving cannot be the be all and end all of college admissions

2011-08-17T17:02:00.000+01:00

If it weren't so darned important, it would be easy to dismiss the Leaving Cert. The reason it's important is simply because it's the sole measure used to decide on a student's 'application' for college. Nothing else about the person matter, only the test scores from one three week period during June of their last year in school.

Nothing else matters.

Did they underachieve? Could she have done better with different teachers? Is there a potential scholar inside that girl who only did a middling Leaving Cert? Could he be a world beater as a geneticist but for his English & Irish scores? Was the fact that she was ill or he lost his mother during May a factor in their lower scores? Could they have done better?

None of that matters.

All that matters is that the student's Leaving Cert scores. It's well past time that was changed, but the Leaving Cert's a sacred cow.

Spread out the state exams over the last three years of school. Include other factors, including aptitude tests, in college entrance requirements. Encourage (compel?) students to make a case for their admission to a particular course. That might help weed out all those who choose courses just because they "got the points."

Scrap the points system - or at least lessen its importance - and we might actually get a better second level system and more devoted, more capable third level students studying for degrees that suit them rather than in programs for which their collective Leaving results direct them.

If Martin is best Fianna Fáil can do, they should fold up the tent now

2011-08-15T11:23:00.003+01:00

Micheál Martin is a political lightweight, which was made all too obvious the past week. He's always been too keen to be seen as 'having his finger on the pulse' and this week he probably thought he was going to look really clever when he opted to ignore party stalwarts and try to hitch a ride on Gay Byrne's coattails.

Last Wednesday on Tonight With Vincent Browne, RTE's Derek Davis summed up why he thought Byrne wouldn't run. Everything Davis said made perfect sense. Davis said he didn't know Byrne that well, yet he was able to see that Gay Byrne was unlikely to run. How is it Micheál Martin didn't have the sense to put out feelers even to people like Davis, never mind those who know Byrne better, before he endorsed Gabyo?

My favorite part was that Martin had barely jumped onto the Byrne bandwagon before Byrne fired off his anti-EU broadside that proved that Martin had no idea who Gay Byrne, potential Presidential candidate, was. Right away Martin looked silly.

Three days later and Martin looks stupid. He backed a man whom he hadn't spoken to, whom he didn't know and in the process made it obvious that no one in his party was worthy of support. Even if a Fianna Fáil candidate were to emerge at this stage, why should the public support him/her if Micheál Martin considers him/her unworthy?

If this is the best they can do Fianna Fáil may as well call it a day right now.

A Marshall Plan is not what the EU needs

2011-07-06T07:25:00.001+01:00

A column in the Guardian calls for a new Marshall Plan to save the EU, but unfortunately the EU's dominated by leaders who believe in unconstrained free market capitalism, according to Mark Mazower. That's a load of twaddle.

The EU's problem right now is that EU enthusiasts ran too far out in front of the citizens of the various nations. They pushed for an integrated EU that required a lot more solidarity and a lot less nationalism than the people of the EU were ready for. Unfortunately they ended up with a fudge - a unified currency stretched over loosely unified national economies. It's stuck in between integration and a loose confederation, which is a disaster.

Mazower's call for an EU Marshall Plan is only a band-aid. The only solution now is for there to be one polity and one economy. The national identities need to be buried in favor of a new overarching European identity, one that accepts that the problems of Athens, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Paris, Dublin - are everyone's to share.

I just don't see that happening. It will have to be forced on people or as the integrationists have done for the past 20 years sold to them under false pretenses. That's not a winning formula.

Oh, and as for Mazower's history, he talks about Truman and the Marshall Plan without once mentioning the USSR, which the plan was designed to thwart. Methinks his love of central planning blinded him to this side of the central planners' history.

National coffers boosted by training corrupt regimes' armed forces

2011-07-04T16:03:00.000+01:00

So the Irish government got money for training the armies of dubious regimes. Isn't that one of those charges that's always flung at America - they're "America's creation" or "America's puppets."

I wouldn't want you to think that I'm criticizing the government for this decision. I just like the fact that this muddies the water for those who 'blame America first.'

Aer Lingus in T2 - better leave plenty of time.

2011-06-27T07:59:00.000+01:00

I know Dublin Airport's Terminal 2 is new and this is the first time they've had to deal with the busy summer season and there are probably a few kinks to work out, but really the lines to check-in or just drop your bag at Aer Lingus this morning were ridiculous.

I would not be surprised if the people in this picture had to wait 30 minutes to do a 'bag drop.' I presume this has more to do with Aer Lingus than anything wrong with T2, but I'm not sure. I didn't see too many unmanned bag-drop desks – I didn't have to go to check-in desk – so maybe it's just that Aer Lingus was not allocated sufficient desks? Or maybe Aer Lingus has decided that T2 means fewer employees on duty?

Whatever the issue, I hope they get it straightened out soon. The only lasting impression for T2 made on departing tourists this morning was chaos and mismanagement.

Is the state considering confiscating church property?

2011-06-25T09:11:00.000+01:00

A report in the Independent says the Department of Education will "take action on the divesting of schools if there was a delay in reaching agreement on a handover from Catholic-run schools to different patrons." What the report doesn't say is what action the government will take if the Forum on Pluralism and Patronage doesn't come to a speedy resolution of the issues that are currently being discussed.

It is intriguing to consider whether the state will simply confiscate church property in order to meet this "urgent" need for providing more diversity in primary education. I can't see any other option because to simply start opening new schools in temporary facilities while the Forum does its job would mean hiring a whole load of new teachers, which I would imagine our EU/ECB/IMF overlords would frown upon.

Until now I thought this process was going to be a voluntary one, but maybe not? Would Fine Gael back such a move? This could get interesting.

NY Times - American soccer's number 1 cheerleader

2011-06-24T14:41:00.000+01:00

Another NY Times article on how hot the MLS and soccer generally is in America. This time the NY Times reports on the "hottest ticket" in Portland – the Timbers. I'm sure the Times isn't about how popular the Timbers are seeing as there's no NFL, MLB or NHL team there so competition is light. Only the the Trailblazers offer major league competition. I don't know much about Portland so I can't say whether college football and basketball draw fans in Portland as they do in many American cities and towns.

The Timbers are a new franchise - this is their first season in the league - which helps make their games a bid faddish. This phenomenon is repeated in every town that suddenly finds itself with a new sports team.

The key is how popular the team is after the fad wears off. We won't know that about the Timbers for a few years yet. At the moment, revenue wise and franchise-value wise they're still far behind the local NBA team, the Trailblazers.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I don't wish the Timbers ill. I hope the franchise succeeds. In terms of weather and demographics - it's actually a pretty big market for so little major league focus - I would imagine soccer in Portland is a good fit.

It's just that the Times annoys me on the topic. They were too busy cheer-leading to offer much of a discordant note on the team's owners Peregrine Sports, LLC, which is controlled by Merritt Paulson. Merritt Paulson is the son of Henry M. Paulson Jr. - ex-Goldman head, ex-Treasury Secretary, who we got to know very well during the financial melt-down in 2008. Henry Paulson owns a chunk of the team himself.

I guess I'd have expected a bit more of a critical eye on the Paulsons than the Times offers. The most Times offers is that the Paulsons "raised eyebrows" in the " left-leaning and sometimes insular city."

Peregrine roped the city into spending a $30m to renovate the stadium - it had been renovated at a cost of nearly $40m in 2001 to accommodate the the local minor league baseball team, the Beavers. Peregrine bought the Beavers at the same time as it acquired the franchise rights to the Timbers, but when the city didn't pony up for a new baseball stadium in addition to the renovations at Timbers' home field they sold the Beavers, which then relocated to Tucson.

I would have imagined some of that possibly jiggery-pokery would have merited a bit of attention from the Times, but no. The Paulsons basically get a free pass because they're running the "hottest ticket" in town - a soccer team.

Leasing vs selling iPads for school

2011-06-24T08:40:00.000+01:00

A Lisburn school is leasing iPads to parents for £170 (€190) per year. The Mayo school in the news at the end of last month is selling the iPads at €700. I think I'd be happier with the leasing arrangement, but really I don't see the need for them at all. I'm happy knowing my children will still be using dead tree products for their schooling.

By the way, despite all the hoopla over that St Coleman's in Mayo, Rathdown in South County Dublin introduced iPads months ago.

No kidding - where are the missing goats going?

2011-06-24T06:51:00.000+01:00

Goats missing in Waterford may have been used to make bodhráns. I have half a memory of hearing of goats going missing before. Is this what's happening to them? Is this the dark side of one of Ireland's traditional instruments?

Irish newspapers back to free online

2011-06-24T06:25:00.000+01:00

I don't think I've seen it commented on elsewhere, but in the long running battle between free and paid for online newspaper content many Irish local papers recently rejoined the ranks of the 'free' after another failed effort to get people to pay. Local papers on the Independent.ie platform were "premium" options, but are now simply free to all. The Bray People, Drogheda Independent, Sligo Champion, Enniscorthy Guardian, etc. are among the titles that can now be read online without charge.

America is not riven by hatred

2011-06-17T12:31:00.000+01:00

Walter Ellis has followed up his Irish Times column from earlier in the week with a letter to the editor in today's paper. Ellis says Ireland looking to America for help would be a mistake because "the US is in desperate straits itself these days, uncertain of its place in the world, riven by internal hatreds."

Okay, I agree with the first point and can see the argument for the second (although I don't think this issue is much different than it has been since 1900), but the third point? Is America "riven by internal hatreds?"

I get over to America quite a bit and I haven't noticed any sudden surge in hatred. Political debates seem a bit more heated than was the case 25 years ago, but that's more a new media (talk radio, cable tv as well as online) phenomenon rather than anything all that real.

Too many people make that mistake, confusing the media world with the real world.

I would have thought Ellis, who lives in New York, wouldn't be one as I doubt he encounters anything like the hatred he must have experienced in his native Belfast. No, I would wager that the hatred Ellis is talking about is the excited language used in ratings-driven radio & television programs or in Facebook, Twitter and blog posts.

Real hatred would lead to real violence, but that seems, if anything, to be down from 25 years ago. Violent crime is in decline. Racial tensions are certainly in decline, although, again, politically motivated newspapers would never want that truth to be admitted. And general politically motivated violence? America experiences less of that than you'd get in Athens on what seems like a monthly basis.

America has been riven before and that led to 1 million dead. We're way short of that today.

Obama 2011 & Reagan 1984

2011-05-27T16:57:00.000+01:00

I still cannot get over how so many Irish people found President Obama's speech inspiring or moving or just great. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. I mean, it's not like everyone here hasn't heard the same tale a hundred-thousand times from all the Irish-American visitors over the years. {I've actually been relieved to see some letters to the Irish Times expressing the view that the speech wasn't much.}

Anyway, the President's speech was never intended to be taken all that seriously so I don't have any real problem with it. I do wonder why the Irish government was so keen to organize a pep rally for the American President, but whatever.

It's not a great comparison, but just as a point of interest if you read (I'm sure there has to be video somewhere) President Reagan's 1984 address to the Dáil you'll hear a man who engaged in some blarney/banter, but who also addressed serious topics of the day. You'll hear him acknowledge that the people of Ireland disagreed with him on some matters, but he made his points as a respectful democrat in the manner of a man who believed he was addressing freedom-loving adults with whom he could engage in debate.

I'm only saying this because in the run-up to President Obama's College Green event I heard many commentators refer to Reagan's visit as if it was all Ballyporeen fluff. That clearly wasn't true.

I don't believe all I've heard about Osama hit

2011-05-10T17:19:00.000+01:00

Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I don't believe the story about following the messenger who led the CIA to bin Laden. What I suspect is that after a good few years the CIA is now well and truly inside al Qaeda and that there was some definite, hot tip from a live body high up in the organization which led to bin Laden.

Funny enough, I'm also more willing to give Pakistan a bit of a pass than are most Americans. Yes, bin Laden was living near a military school and not far from Islamabad. Yes it seems kind of unlikely that he lived there for so long with no one in the Pakistani government or intelligence services knowing he was there. BUT, that same government and intelligence service delivered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into America hands, although that was 8 years ago. Have things changed that much inside Pakistan? Maybe they have. Besides, I don't believe the story we've been told

The other thing to consider is that we didn't want bin Laden alive, which is what we would probably have had if Pakistan had moved in to capture him. If bin Laden was taken alive it would have meant (a) he would have to have been moved to some secret prison, (b) no formal announcement of his capture and (c) either a military tribunal to convict him or a circus trial where the host city was under constant threat of attack.

No, bin Laden could not be taken alive, which means from September 11 onwards the United States was doomed to lose the good opinion of Mary Robinson and the Archbishop of Canterbury. A tragedy.

Microtechnology revolution was foreseeable

2011-04-29T07:26:00.000+01:00

Kevin Myers says no one in 1981 foresaw that "microtechnology was going to transform the world." I understand what he's saying, but my math teacher foresaw exactly that.

Our school had Apple IIe machines. I still remember some kid asking the teacher why we had to 'learn how to use these things' and he responded, "Because these things are going to take over your life. Your children will not understand life without them."

He could hardly have been more right nor was he the only one. Many people could see where this was going, which is obvious given all the investment in the 'new technologies' in the early 1980s.

Note to Fergus Finlay: serious social problems need realistic solutions

2011-03-29T12:05:00.000+01:00

Fergus Finlay is asking why are young children and teenagers becoming increasingly violent. He doesn't cite any stats to show that teens and younger children are getting more violent, but I'll go along with him anyway because I suspect this is the case.

So who or what's to blame? Finlay says there's no easy answer; he wishes we could "just blame the parents, or society, or the Gardai."

Finlay then sets out the case that poverty is a big part of the problem and he then mentions the fact that most of the inmates in Moutnjoy Prison come from a few postal districts.

Those postal districts are associated, indelibly, with deeply embedded, multi-generational poverty. Ghettoised poverty. Stigmatised poverty. The kind of poverty that breaks down parenting, and that all too often turns the presumption of innocence into the assumption of guilt.

I can sort of go along with Finlay, but what's his solution? More social workers and playgrounds.

More playgrounds sounds doable. We should defund all programs that funnel money to professional athletes and use that money to build playgrounds. Celebrating an Irish gold medal at the Olympics just ain't all that important and even if we only get one playground for the money it will be worth it.

What about the social workers Finlay wants? They're expensive and there can be no extra spending. In fact, Finlay would have provided some service if he'd identified some aspect of public spending that could be cut to allow for the additional social workers he wants.

It's all well and good identifying the problem, which Finlay does. However, everyone living in Ireland could identify the problem. It's the solution that requires real insight. All Finlay has to offer is spend more money. Great. This is not 2004. Again, we are BROKE, which means this is one problem that will be put on the longest of long fingers as it will be YEARS before we can increase spending as Finlay suggests.

In the toughest of economic climates we have the Presidential candidate who has only pie-in-the-sky suggestions for a serious social problem. Yes the President is not where the action lies economically or politically, but we still need one who is realistic.

Tremendous pressure on Moriarty get it 'right'

2011-03-22T21:46:00.000Z

I just read this on Twitter (from @CharlieFlanagan):
Why would Judge Moriarty stitch up O'Brien, Lowry and Ben Dunne? This report is so scathing a criminal investigation should be held.
Now I'm not saying that Judge Moriarty took any of this into account, but let's face it he knew what the press and the public wanted. He knew what the mood of the country is given our economic collapse.

The word "stitch" is highly charged, but I could well imagine that Judge Moriarty knew the pressure was on to deliver a fairly damning report. This was not like hearing a case where a jury will deliver a verdict. He was judge and jury here. The pressure to provide a "result" must have been tremendous.

I have great sympathy for him and think the process is flawed, not the man. I believe Moriarty is beyond reproach, but I also will not be surprised when there are no prosecutions and the key findings are watered down following court action.

Wild horses couldn't drag me to Jesse Jackson event

2011-03-21T11:44:00.000Z

If I wasn't so busy tomorrow night cutting my toenails I might have tried to get to see Ryan Tubridy interviewing Jesse Jackson at UCD.

Actually I can't imagine anything worse. Are students so starved of political ideas these days that they're willing to listen to a discredited ex-"radical" like Jackson? And Ryan Tubridy asking the questions? Have they no self-respect?

At least I could hope that the cringing would keep me awake.

Irish Mirror's stupid front page

2011-03-15T13:32:00.001Z

I'm still shaking my head at the front page of yesterday's Irish Mirror. I only wish I'd taken a photograph of it so that I could relate it to you verbatim, but my memory will have to do. The front page was an attempt to paraphrase Japan's Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, with this, "The worst day since Hiroshima".

What the Prime Minister actually said was:

I think that the earthquake, tsunami and the situation at our nuclear reactors makes up the worst crisis in the 65 years since the war.

I have tried to figure out what drove the editor to make such a change to what the PM said. More drama? Maybe, but tens of thousands dead, entire towns missing, nuclear plant teetering on the edge of meltdown ain't enough for the Mirror's readers? If that's it then all I can say is that the Mirror's readers must be the kind who love jumping off a bridge with a frayed rope attached to their leg.

I don't know. Then I thought it was probably just an attempt to add to the editor's pacifist chic credentials. I guess that could be it too. I also toyed with the idea that it was a dig at America, you know, those war-mongering Americans who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

I have no idea what drove the decision to change the tone of the PM's statement, but I do know it was 100% stupid. Yes, stupid because whatever the motivation there is no way the Prime Minister of Japan would have been as ignorant of history as yesterday's front page showed the Irish Mirror's editor to be.

Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945 three days before Nagasaki was hit with an atomic bomb (August 9, 1945). The editor either didn't know about Nagasaki or didn't realize that it was the second city destroyed with an atomic bomb.

Still the dates of the two bombs make yesterday's headline laughably stupid. Of course the Mirror's readers won't have had time to notice this; they're probably too busy playing chicken on train tracks to worry about historical accuracy.

Are women safer drivers or do they drive less?

2011-03-04T12:32:00.003Z

"Women are safer drivers." That's the mantra in the Irish press these past few days following the ruling by the European Court of Justice that insurance companies cannot use gender to determine insurance rates. That's the mantra, but is it true?

Both David Quinn and Kevin Myers make this assertion in today's Irish Independent, but they're not alone. This is stated as a fact, but I've never seen any real data that backs up this statement. Sure women file fewer claims, but is that because they're safer drivers or because they drive fewer miles?

For a short while in the 1980s I worked at an actuarial firm that provided the statistics on which many car insurers set their rates. I remember how my boss showed me stats accumulated in an academic study of drivers in one or two states (might have been North Carolina & Virginia). Among the statistics collected was miles driven, which turned out to be a better determining factor with regards to claims than was gender.

However as my boss explained, getting accurate information from drivers on the number of miles they drove annually was really impossible. Gender was easier to ascertain and, well, women drove fewer miles than men. On average.

I don't know if it's still that case that annual mileage is not used as a factor in determining car insurance rates in America, but I'd like to know. I also don't know much about how car insurance rates are determined in Ireland, but I'd like to know that too.

What I do know is that I've played with insurance brokers' web sites, changing various factors to see how the rates are affected. What I've noticed is that it doesn't matter if I indicate annual mileage (kilometer-age?) of under 10,000 km/yr or 25-40,000 km/yr. The rates on offer are the same.

However, if I swap genders, I get a lower Comprehensive rate (3rd Party Fire & Theft are the same for male/female of my age/married/etc). Now why would this be? I presume it's because women file fewer claims than men do, which makes them better risks for insurance companies (but not necessarily "safer drivers.")

I find it a more than dubious assertion that a woman who drives 35,000 km/yr is a better risk than a man who drives 7,000 km/yr, all other factors being the same. Yet, that's what the insurance rates tell us, but I'd absolutely love to see the stats that back that up.

Labour cannot go into opposition

2011-03-02T11:15:00.003Z

Okay, so Labour had their best election ever. I get it, but it would be a huge mistake for them to go into opposition now. They went into the election hoping to catch the mood, build momentum and come out the biggest party with Eamon Gilmore as Taoiseach. It didn't happen.

Half way through the campaign they changed tack, admitted defeat and pleaded for votes on the basis that Fine Gael couldn't be trusted with an overall majority. That was the new pitch: we need to be in coalition with Fine Gael to ensure they don't do all these 'nutty things they're promising.'

That seems to have worked as Fine Gael's upward movement stalled around the same time. So, credit to Labour for adjusting the message and managing to come out of the vote with lots of positives.

However, if they now decide to opt out of coalition with Fine Gael on anything other than the most solid, irrefutable grounds, they will be doing just as they did after the '93 vote when Dick Spring put Fianna Fáil back in power. Those who wanted a left wing opposition grouping have that, but I would bet that most Labour voters thought they were voting for a party they thought was actually going to serve in government, was actually going to do something other than complain and debate.

I can see the attraction, but if being the biggest party in opposition was their goal they should have campaigned against Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the ULA and not Fine Gael. They didn't do that and any move towards that now will open the door for Fianna Fáil to reclaim that space as the populist, center-left movement they've been for most of their existence.

An education in Croke Park nonsense

2011-03-01T12:55:00.003Z

My son startled me this morning. He declared that he "hates Croke Park." Seeing as he's never been there and has no reason to be anti-GAA I was taken aback.

"Why do you hate Croke Park?"
"Because, thanks to the Croke Park deal we have no more half days."
"Ahh."

I'd forgotten. Until last week my son had a half day on the first Tuesday of every month. The students were dismissed early for teacher meetings. Now, however, thanks to the Croke Park deal, all teacher meetings must take place outside school hours.

Why is this? What benefit accrues to the state by insisting that all these meetings take place after school hours? I can't see how the state saves one penny from this. All I see is that my son, his classmates and children up and down the country can no longer look forward to the little treat of a monthly half day.

I know there are some educationistas out there who want their kids in school 9-5, M-F, January through December, but I'm not one of those. Yes, I want my children to get an education, but that doesn't only come in school.

I want my children to enjoy life too and half days are a part of that enjoyment. I see no benefit to my children from this 'deal' that forces the school to cancel these little treats for kids.

Children are the losers here and maybe the GAA. They may rue the day that they allowed the name of their stadium to be the nickname for extra time in school when kids would rather be out kicking a ball.

Poster vandalism is a denial of democracy

2011-02-19T10:00:00.005Z

It kills me to say this, but I agree with Dick Roche. Not about everything, but about one thing: those who are defacing his posters don't have a firm grasp of what a democracy means.

The poster was vandalized, a new one attached and that too was vandalized.

This happened during the Lisbon Treaty too. Roche's posters are being targeted by those who have some vendetta against him.

And it really is only Roche. This poster is not isolated, but in an area full of posters, including big ones like this from Labour & Fine Gael. Only Roche's poster has been damaged.

Does Minister Ó Cuív understand the bank guarantee?

2011-02-18T13:22:00.002Z

Éamon Ó Cuív has a really interesting letter to the editor of the Galway Advertiser. Ó Cuív's letter is in response to one published two weeks ago in which the letter writer describes Ó Cuív as "a high ranking member of the FF/Green government which has made the ordinary taxpayer suffer as a result of a banking crisis caused by individuals with greedy gambling habits."

Ó Cuív 's response to that was to defend the bank guarantee.

I would agree with Mr. Walsh's characterisation of some bankers. However, I cannot agree with his idea that we should have allowed, depositors (including depositors in Credit Unions, etc.), people with pension contributions and insurance policies of all types lose their money. To allow this to happen would have caused untold hardship to people over and above the present difficulties.

Or is Ó Cuív just spoofing or does just he have no idea what he's talking about? Bank deposits (including credit union deposits, I believe) were already guaranteed to €100,000 before the bank guarantee. If that was too low, why didn't the government just up the level to €500K or even €1m?

Ó Cuív's reference to pensions and insurance is even more baffling. Did we need to guarantee all those bank liabilities because some of the pension and insurance funds were invested in bank bonds? Surely pension funds and insurance companies are just as likely to be invested in Ryanair or CRH. Or even Diageo. Are we now going to guarantee every possible investment opportunity?

This is a cabinet minister. This is why we're in such trouble now and why Fianna Fáil needs to spend a long time in opposition weeding out all this dead weight.

Micheál Martin was impressive last night

2011-02-18T06:25:00.005Z

I don't like Micheál Martin, although today I can't remember exactly what it is that caused me to dislike him. I know I was really fed up with his reaction during the Gaza flotilla, his righteousness, his anti-Israel bias, but I didn't like him long before he became Minister for Foreign Affairs. I didn't like him when he was Minister for Education or when he was Minister for Health either. Just don't like him.

However, I was impressed with him on Vincent Browne's program last night. I thought he gave a commanding performance and even when he gave answers I wasn't all that happy with at no time did I think he showed himself to be out of his depth discussing the budgetary and banking failures, which I've often felt with Brian Lenihan. Compared with what we had with Brian Cowen he was cool under pressure and a more than able communicator. (Although I really wish Browne had asked Martin if it was a mistake to join the euro and how in the euro will we prevent the rapid influx and outflow of capital that gave us the boom/bust we have.}

If I had any quibbles I think Martin should have answered Browne's question as to why should anyone vote Fianna Fáil in this election by telling Browne, 'Fianna Fáil is going into opposition, but the incoming Fine Gael government will need to be watched by a strong, capable opposition and that is what Fianna Fáil will provide.' Would have been an honest answer and one that anyone watching might have accepted a Martin-led Fianna Fáil in opposition would be.

I'm still not going to vote for them.

TV3 & Vincent Browne should not have injected themselves into the campaign

2011-02-07T13:21:00.004Z

Enda Kenny looks more foolish every day as he trots out a new excuse for skipping tomorrow night's TV3 debate. First he wants all 5 party leaders; next it's that he doesn't like Vincent Browne because Browne said something mean about him last year; next it's that he's just too busy, can't work it into his schedule. Sheesh.

Ridiculous. Still, there's no doubt that Vincent Browne & TV3 entered the political arena when they fixed on their 3-way debate for tomorrow night.

Kenny was onto the right answer when he insisted that all 5 party leaders should be in the debate. If he agrees to a 3-way debate that has a number of positive effects for Labour & Fianna Fáil and negative impact on Fine Gael.

Labour has put up "Gilmore for Taoiseach" posters, trying to implant that radical idea in the minds of the voters. Having Eamonn Gilmore appear along side Micheál Martin and Enda Kenny serves to promote that idea. Why would Kenny go along with that? Makes no sense politically.

Secondly, both Labour and Fianna Fáil have something to fear from Sinn Féin. They definitely gain a lot by sidelining Gerry Adams, regardless of how he might perform. Fine Gael has nothing to fear from Sinn Féin as they're not competing for the same voters. Based on poll numbers, SF has more right to stand along-side Labour & FF in a debate than either of those two have to stand alongside FG.

I don't know exactly why Browne was so determined to have a 3-way debate, but there's no way he innocently stumbled into this. He must have known this was playing politics. Maybe he didn't care and just figured a 3-way debate would be better television, which it probably will be. Still, he shouldn't have joined the anti-Enda campaign (not that Kenny doesn't deserve almost all of what he's getting today).

Phony Euromania has bitten the dust

2011-02-03T15:50:00.002Z

If there is one big casualty in the financial mess / bailout it's Ireland's love affair with Europe, the EU. That's over. People have had the wool removed from their eyes.

Even the nation's most committed Europhiles no longer refer to 'our partners in Europe'. Partners! That was the word used by everyone in the main parties for the past two decades or more. Partners.

Partners don't do to a partner what's being done to Ireland, unless they're going through an acrimonious split. That's what this feels like only we're not splitting but being forced to eat dirt and say "Please sir may I have some more" after each whack of the stick across our national back.

We have no "partners" in Europe. Quite clearly we're on our own. On our own to pay off the debts incurred in Ireland by private banks across the EU. We're being punished for not regulating what the ECB also spectacularly failed to regulate. This is not how partners behave.

We have no partners. We had competitors, but they're gradually morphing into enemies. Every politician who calls to my door will have the same question put to him/her: Do we have partners in Europe? Anyone who says yes, will NOT get my vote.

Attention candidates - spelling & punctuation count

2011-02-02T22:01:00.001Z

Despite the fact that I'm skeptical that independents will have anything like the effect that some of my fellow tweeters might hope, I'm still more than open to casting my vote for one. So I would have been open to voting for independent Thomas Clarke.

Note that "would have been." The other night I got a one page (A4) election leaflet. I don't mind the low budget aspect. In fact, in many ways it appealed to me. Unfortunately, as I read the leaflet I realized that either (a) he never bothered to proof-read his page or (b) he did, but didn't notice how badly written it was.

I'm going to discount the latter because I'm sure he never re-read what he'd produced. There are just way too many unreadable sentences. It's just a mess.

I could have lived with a few minor errors - such as his use of thrust for trust and policy's where he intended policies - but there are some gross errors. I'm sure there are some people who might not pay any attention to these errors, but I think these mistakes are telling.

Yes, I'm sure Clarke is pressed for time, but he really should have had someone read his letter before he distributed it to the voters. It gives an impression of someone who hasn't got time for details.

It's a shame too because I think policy-wise Clarke is someone I could have supported. Maybe somehow I'll find a reason to overlook this mess of a leaflet, but I doubt it.

No more teacher TD's

2011-02-02T13:24:00.001Z

There's all sorts of talk about reforming the political system. The independent candidates seem particularly in favor. Great. I'm in favor too.

Here's a suggestion: ban TD's from holding open other positions in the public service. That is, if you get elected to the Dáil you have to give up your teaching job.

There are too many teachers in the Dáil and this distorts our democracy and our education system. {There are too many lawyers too, but they're more difficult to restrict.) Teachers bring to the Dáil a certain mindset, one forged in the state run and operated schools. They can't conceive of what it means to work in the private sector.

Don't get me wrong, if teachers want to serve in the Dáil that's great. However, they should take the same risks as any other working stiff who stands: the chance that voters will tell them they have to go looking for a job again.

Where is Jihad Jane story on RTE news?

2011-02-01T21:35:00.002Z

On Friday night I read on CNN's web site that Jihad Jane, Colleen LaRose, was going to change her plea to guilty to all the charges against her arising from a terrorist plot broken up last year by the Gardaí in cooperation with the FBI. The charges are: providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements and attempted identity theft.

I'll forgive you if you don't recall the Irish media focusing on this Islamist plot based in Waterford over the weekend. I didn't see/hear/read one mention of it. And, yes, LaRose is American, but some/most of her co-conspirators were based here. Living here.

Today LaRose formally changed her plea in a Pennsylvania court. It's all over the American media. It's on the BBC's web site, but it got no mention at all on RTE tonight. How can this be? How can a an international conspiracy based in Ireland intending to carry out a murder in Sweden of a cartoonist whose offense was drawing cartoons not be of interest to the people of Ireland? I'm really at a loss.

Maybe it will make the Irish newspapers in the morning? We'll have to wait and see.

Hollywood never heard of the Gulags

2011-01-25T12:12:00.000Z

I don't go to the movies and don't read movie reviews as a rule. However a few headlines led me to believe that Colin Farrell's latest - The Way Back - ain't all that great.

Columnist Anne Applebaum acted as an adviser to the director and wonders if some of the reviews are due to the fact that the underlying story about Soviet Gulags is so unfamiliar. Director Peter Weir told Applebaum that people in Hollywood didn't know about the Gulags, "never heard of Soviet concentration camps, only German ones."

If true, that speaks volumes about Hollywood, bastion of stupid lefty views. How could Hollywood accept that the Soviet Union was capable of such institutionalized evil as the Gulags? Of course they couldn't so they ignored all the stories from survivors - Andrei Sakharov was hardly an unknown name in America - and references to the same by leading (mostly Republican) politicians, including and especially Ronald Reagan. To Hollywood if a Republican said it, it had to be untrue/ignored/denied.

Groupthink had a hold on Hollywood during the Cold War and it still does. They unlearn what's inconvenient.

March 11 is important, but so is St. Patrick's Day

2011-01-21T14:30:00.000Z

We cannot afford for the government AND opposition to blow St. Patrick's Day in America and elsewhere. Many people put no value on these trips abroad for the national day, but those people are wrong. St. Patrick's Day is a vitally important occasion for us to be represented abroad. {More here.}

Primary teachers need intensive math training, not Higher Level Math ability

2011-01-20T17:12:00.001Z

The Teaching Counil wants all potential teachers (primary, I presume) to take Higher Level Mathematics in the Leaving Cert. This is only one of a number of suggested changes to the entry requirements for teacher training/B Ed programs.

I have no problem with interviews and aptitude tests to screen applicants for primary school teacher, but surely there's little need for such an emphasis on higher level math. I have a degree in Math and I love it. And it's vitally important.

I just don't see why someone who teaches children up to the age of 12 should be able to "Express μ and σ in terms of a" where "real numbers a, 2a, 3a, 4a and 5a have mean μ and standard deviation σ." (Last year's higher level Paper 2.)

I've encountered enough teachers who are challenged by 6th class math to realize that we have a problem here. However, I'm not sure this is the solution. Better to double the emphasis on math in the college course. Math understanding and math teaching (something that not everyone who is good at Math can actually do) are crucial and we need to ensure our teachers are up to it.

Maybe we should consider teachers specializing in math/science and english/irish/history from 5th class on. I had that from 4th grade (4th class).

Elm Park was always going to be a failure

2010-11-26T11:07:00.000Z

Back in June 2008 I wondered if the Elm Park development would someday be seen as "a symbol of everything that went wrong as the economy went into its inevitable property price crash."

That it isn't seen that way today has nothing to do with Elm Park's success, but rather those symbols are too numerous for Elm Park to be singled out for any special acknowledgement. Regardless, the Elm Park development - part of Bernard McNamara's decaying world of properties - will shortly have a receiver. I can't claim any great prescience in our misfortunes, but I knew as soon as I saw what was happening at Elm Park that it would end in tears.

To stay in euro we need to learn how to tax and SAVE

2010-11-22T16:26:00.002Z

I've been looking for a robust defense of the euro, or more specifically, our membership in the euro following our financial/economic meltdown. I've found two recent columns (here and here).

They're both reasonable if the following assumption is valid: governments can tax and save. I have serious doubts about that, especially Irish governments. Money just seems to burn a hole in the pockets of people in government, partly because the electorate expects that hole to be burned.

I'd like to believe that our Central Bank could have insisted that the banks take a bigger chunk of their profits and put it towards a "rainy day" fund as is/was (apparently) done in Spain. That's the same instinct, though. The shareholders might not have accepted investing in a bank that was compelled to keep the capital ratios above the accepted 12% norm.

Even had the Central Bank done that would that only have opened the door wider to let foreign competition in to undermine the banks? This doesn't excuse the behavior of Anglo-Irish or our regulators or the government, but we should at least acknowledge that everyone was in a new situation - a currency union with countries that were not cyclically in synch with ours.

To be honest, of the three main players the one I blame the most is the regulators. They should have been more forceful with both government and the banks. They should have realized that the old capital ratio rules were at least somewhat in doubt in once we joined the euro.

We need a broader, more robust set of measures by which we assess the strength of the banks. And we need to learn how to tax and save as opposed to tax and spend, at which we've proven ourselves exemplary.

Better the euro dies than we leave it

2010-11-16T13:14:00.000Z

Okay, call me nuts and I don't really believe that our government or Department of Finance folks have this sort of courage, but what if our government has suddenly realized that the euro doesn't suit our economy? Would it be better to leave the euro with our tail between our legs or to hope for the complete collapse of the currency?

The more I think about it the more I think we have nothing to lose. There's no reason for us to simply quit the euro like bad children being asked to leave the playground (although we should never have joined and never have been allowed to join).

Either the Germans (& others) stop pussy-footing around and pledge a genuine solidarity with us, one that includes sharing the pain of the bailout (which was made in large measure by their banks and our forbearance of the cost of German reunification on exchange & interest rates when euro was born) OR we refuse to play ball and trigger a complete collapse of the euro.

If the euro collapsed there would be economic upheaval throughout the EU, particularly in eurozone countries. However, I'm not sure it would be much worse here than what we're facing anyway.

I would never have had such thoughts if not for the noises from Herman von Rompuy today. He sounds like the guy running through a burning building screaming 'Don't panic' while he tries to find the emergency exit.

One WWI story among tens of thousands - my wife's great grandfather

2010-11-11T12:03:00.002Z

I read Lucinda O'Sullivan's post on her uncle who died during WWI I wanted to read my July 2009 post on our search for my wife's great-grandfather's grave. Only it's no longer on the system at Irish Central, so I reposted it here.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Cpl. Patrick Conway, d. 28-APR-16

One of the great things about studying family history is that you find that members of your family did things that make you wonder what they were thinking, what drove them. Often they did things that don't fit the general historic themes you learn about in school and through books.

For my wife and I this process started with regards to Patrick Conway back at the end of May when we first found her great grandparents' census form on the 1911 Census web site. Patrick was "head of family", a "bricklayer's labourer", had been married for nine years and had four children. The oldest child, my wife's grandmother, was nearly 7.

It wasn't even that anything we found was all that surprising, but my wife had never really thought about Patrick Conway other than as the man who was her father's grandfather and that he died in the First World War. The census somehow brought him to life.

We have few hard facts, but we believe Patrick served with the British Army in the Boer War in South Africa around 1900. We also believe he was a member of the Citizen's Army - a worker's militia born out of the Lockout of 1913.

Now that's interesting because in Irish history the Citizen's Army and the British Army ended up on opposite sides during the 1916 Rising, but that was all in the future when Patrick Conway enlisted in January 1915.

So, he was in the British Army, left, married, had a family, worked as a bricklayer, joined the Citizen's Army and joined the British Army again. As my wife thought about all these things and the fact that he was around 38 years old when he (re)enlisted in the Army, the main question was: why? Why did Patrick Conway, a 38-year-old husband and father of four decide to go to war?

And really there was only one answer. He must have been out of work. As a friend of mine said to me recently when I told him this story, "What employer would hire a 38-year-old militant trade unionist bricklayer's laborer?" So simple and straight-forward that it has to be true.

They were harsh times and he probably realized that the army at least offered a wage and, even in death, a pension. Something for his family to live on.

That man was the father of my wife's grandmother, somebody she knew well, but who had never talked about these things. This is why my wife had to go to Bethune, France to visit his grave. We were going to be too near to let the chance slip by.

Bethune is only about an hour over the border from Ypres so we changed our plans to include a visit there. Unlike all the other British military cemeteries that I saw, Bethune is a local cemetery, with a war graves section. It is mostly local French people who are buried there. The war graves aren't exclusively British either. Most of them are British, but there are French and German soldiers buried there as well.

The Commonwealth War Graves in Bethune Cemetery

We found Patrick Conway's grave and found that he was buried near four other members of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who all died within a day or two of each other. We guessed that they were all injured in the same engagement, but we have no way of knowing. More research.

Moneyball in the English Premier League?

2010-11-04T15:09:00.001Z

John Henry is going to try to employ Moneyball tactics at Liverpool, according to today's Irish Independent. Henry is a hedge fund manager so he's clearly comfortable with numbers and his GM at Boston, Theo Epstein, is of the Moneyball generation.

Moneyball was all about Oakland's Billy Beane and the 'genius' he was, but truthfully I always thought more of Epstein than Beane. Beane's teams were competitive, but always seemed to lack the winner's instinct, whereas Esptein built winners. Beane's teams seemed a bit 'soft' in crunch time. And, yes, I know their budgets were vastly different, but still big budget doesn't guarantee much (see NY Mets for all the proof you need). Epstein built good & tough teams - and the Red Sox had to be tough to overcome the curse, the failure of 2003 and the deficit they faced in the 2004 playoffs against the Yankees.

I know nothing of Damien Comolli, who the Independent says is expert at spotting young talent AND "close to Beane." That closeness means Comolli believes in statistics. I guess we're going to learn whether a similar appliance of science can be made in soccer. {I heard the guys on Off the Ball discussing this very subject on Monday, but didn't hear the name of the MLS man they were speaking to about the application of stats in American soccer.}

One thing I admired about Epstein is that, unlike a certain General Manager who used to work in Queens, he recognized that the introduction of drugs testing in baseball would turn a lot of older star players into has beens almost overnight. His team got young quickly, which resulted in their championship in 2008.

Today Liverpool and the Mets are a lot alike. Spending lots of money for little in return. Henry's goal is to make them more like the Red Sox than the Mets. It's an experiment, but I suspect Henry will get Liverpool winning titles again.

{And we Met fans can hope that our new GM will mean a rapid rise back to success.}

Court should have stayed out of Donegal by-election issue

2010-11-04T11:04:00.001Z

Other than Fianna Fail TD's - and probably not all of them - I think I'm the only person who is unhappy (or at least uneasy) with yesterday's ruling on the Donegal by-election.

Yes, the constituency should have 3 TD's and 16 months is an inordinately long time to wait for the by-election, but it's not like the people of Donegal SW are totally unrepresented - they still have local councillors, 2 TD's and 3 MEPs. The court should have left it up to the Dáil as to when the by-election takes place.

Don't get me wrong, I think we should have an election immediately. In fact, we should have had one in October 2008, but the Fianna Fail and Green TD's thought that an extra year or two for them in the Dáil was more important than the fate of the nation. They'll pay a price when the inevitable election comes. I just don't think this is the court's business.

Take That tix — "Inc booking fee" does not mean what it seems

2010-10-29T15:04:00.002+01:00

MCD says tickets to Take That are €70.70 including booking fee. What does that mean?

One their web site MCD says the tickets are available at that price through the following outlets:

From 100 Ticketmaster Outlets Nationwide
By Telephone (24 Hour):
ROI - 0818 719 300, Northern Ireland - 0844 277 44 55
Book On Line: www.ticketmaster.ie

Well, to me that means when you buy two tickets – regardless of how – you should pay €141.40. Yet someone I know was charged €154.10 for tickets bought through Ticketmaster.ie

Shouldn't part of their radio ads include this?

"When we say 'including booking fee' that does NOT mean that the tickets will actually cost what we claim. Additional charges may still apply."

Irish Times: Obama's unpopular — blame the American people

2010-10-27T16:43:00.000+01:00

I can understand a little how Lara Marlowe feels, but I'm too filled with hope to be worried that she's unhappy. Her idol has feet of clay, but she's having trouble accepting this.

She blames "Republican obstructionism in Congress" for President Obama's problems, but this ignores the fact that Obama had (a) large Democratic majorities in both houses and (b) a strong wind behind him when he took office. His problems have NOTHING to do with "Republican obstructionism in Congress" and everything to do with his failure to properly understand what it was that got him elected: (a) anger at the banks and (b) anger at government for failing to regulate.

Obama thought his election was a 1932 moment, a chance to greatly expand the size of government. However, that's not what the voters thought. They thought they were voting for better management, control over those things that were let run wild during the the Bush years. His stimulus plan was a failure and his health care bill was unpopular before it passed and has only become more unpopular since then.

Next Tuesday the Republicans will probably have control of the House and a larger minority in the Senate. If the President wants to get re-elected, he'll have to learn how to actually be bi-partisan rather than merely talking about it.

More than that, he'll have to show a willingness to accept that he has almost no gut-feel for what makes Americans tick. This is what President Clinton had and it served him well. Obama doesn't have it, which means he has to find someone who does and start listening.

Mets fans will go on suffering

2010-10-22T16:45:00.004+01:00

Two days ago all seemed perfect with the world. On the morning of the 20th Met fans woke up to the possibility that the baseball gods had finally stopped punishing us after 4 long years. We've endured great suffering for what? We still don't know.

It all started on October 19, 2006 when Yadier ******* Molina hit that home run to turn our dream season into a nightmare. That long winter was followed by two heart-breaking years where our hopes were dashed on the last day of the long season and then last year, which was a disaster from start to finish. The Mets were just plain awful and to top it off, we had to watch the hated Yankees beat the hated Phillies in the World Series.

This year was hardly looking much better until Tuesday night. By the end of the action on Tuesday the Yankees were on the brink of elimination and the Phillies were looking very beatable in their series with San Francisco.

That was only two days ago. Now we look to the future with dread. Both the Yankees and Phillies avoided elimination and, well, let's face it they'll probably go on to win the two in a row they each need. The baseball gods were only playing with us. We are doomed to suffer forever {or at least until April when the new season begins}.

CIT lecturer assumes a lot in wealth tax argument

2010-10-22T12:40:00.000+01:00

Cork Institute of Technology lecturer Tom O'Connor says that the "wealthy" have €121bn, which should be taxed. He seems unperturbed by the fact that these people have presumably paid taxes on all of their income while they accumulated this wealth and figures taxing them twice is no big deal.

I think that would be immoral, but I don't want to argue the wealth tax. No, I'm really bothered by the assumptions O'Connor used to arrive at this €121bn figure.

He uses a 2006 Bank of Ireland Private Banking report as the basis for his figures. He then updates the figures in that report using these assumptions.

BoI breaks down the wealthy into three cohorts: those whose net worth is greater than €30m, those whose net worth is between €5m and €30m, and those who fall between €1m and €5m. O'Connor assumes that each group will have an average wealth near the midpoint in the range. {I believe that it would skew strongly towards the low end each time.}

O'Connor assumes that the property holdings of the wealthy have fallen in value in line with the national average. {I suspect that quite a few of those wealthy people held land that - or owned shares in companies that held the land - that was valued on its development potential and that they didn't own large tracts of built up neighborhoods or farm land.}

The wealthy had perfectly diversified share portfolios across the FTSE 100. {He may be right about this, but it's also possible that Ireland's wealthy in 2006 held a disproportionate number of shares in Ireland's banks and property companies, whose prices have since collapsed.}

The bonds in their portfolio were all European government bonds. {I really don't understand this one. Are we really supposed to believe those were the only bonds these people bought? But, regardless, I could probably live with this one.}

Bank of Ireland Private Banking made this information public out of the goodness of their hearts and didn't produce a report that would emphasize the importance of their function to the bank.

O'Connor wants a 1% wealth tax, which is fine. I don't agree with him, but he says some EU states already have one and others are planning to introduce it. However, if we're going to debate the issue we need a better starting place for what such a tax might bring in.

Ireland's Greatest — joke night

2010-10-18T17:10:00.001+01:00

I'm giving serious consideration to watching Ireland's Greatest tonight to see if David McWilliams can make any sort of case that Mary Robinson even belongs in this list. I'm more than dubious.

That Daniel O'Connell didn't make the list is a travesty.

Good thing we have loads of money for wasteful road spending

2010-10-14T16:51:00.000+01:00

One of the worst aspects of the sort of boom times we're living in is the obvious waste of money among some public bodies. For example, a (completely unnecessary) virtually brand new roundabout in Dalkey, Co. Dublin (Dun Laoghaire County Council area) has been torn up and replaced. The original roundabout was comprised of red bricks, but for some reason that was replaced with a black tar-macadam roundabout this week. Good thing money's plentiful.

Along the same stretch of road the same authority (I assume) installed new red brick speed ramps about 20 feet in front of a new stop sign. Maybe the junction merited a stop sign, I can't say, but what's the point of putting in speed ramps just in front of a stop sign. You have to slow down anyway.

I suppose the only saving grace is that money's plentiful and there's no reason to worry too much about how it's spent.

Guinness targeting US market

2010-10-11T12:11:00.000+01:00

Guinness is about to undertake a big push for the American market, according to the Wall St Journal. Guinness Black is part of this push. Maybe some people like that, but not me. The four bottles I bought and drank will be the only four bottles of Guinness Black I'll ever buy (will drink it if I get it free!).

The Journal also says that Guinness is gong to start offering its "Extra Stout" product, which "hasn't been sold in the U.S. since before Prohibition." Hmm. Maybe, but I have a clear memory of seeing Guinness Extra Stout in the delis in the north Bronx when I was in college there in the 1980s. And, no, it wasn't only available to those who knew the secret knock that opened the door to the illicit beers.

INBS going after the mortgage market with gusto

2010-10-10T22:10:00.000+01:00

Jon Ihle in Sunday Tribune says Irish Nationwide Building Society is going all out to increase its share of the mortgage market for 2011. In 2010 INBS wrote €20m in mortgages, but hopes to get that figure up to €160m in 2011 and €325m in 2012.

That's the best news I've seen in weeks. That's the kind of cheery, optimistic news we've all been looking for. We don't have enough financial institutions willing to do whatever it takes to write new mortgage business. Maybe those 100% mortgages will seem so fuddy-duddy conservative, so 'yesterday' when INBS starts offering 140% mortgages next year. With any luck they'll get that up to 175% by 2012.

This is insanity. Rather than running wild with their bailout money, INBS should be wound up. It's bust, bankrupt, kaput. Time to shut say to goodnight to INBS.

Non-stop sports this weekend

2010-10-10T22:04:00.001+01:00

I'm pretty sure no one in the family is talking to me. They were on Friday, I know that for sure because we all watched the Ireland match together, but I haven't had much contact with anyone since then. I doubt anyone's angry, probably just forgot I was here.

Yup, since the soccer game ended on Friday I've watched or listened to 5 full baseball games - that's at least 15 hours of baseball in just over two days. I'm now on my 6th game - San Francisco at Atlanta.

I also spliced in healthy doses of Notre Dame's game with Pitt last night (on Eurosport 2, with worst ever in-studio, rather than at-game, commentary for any sporting event anywhere). What a weekend for sports watching. I had to squeeze in a couple of meals and cutting the grass, but it's been great. I love this time of year.

James Ellroy's book told me all I needed to know about him

2010-10-08T10:59:00.003+01:00

I was pleased yesterday to learn that my impression of the author of The Cold Six Thousand was right on the money. I heard some of the Matt Cooper's interview with James Ellroy yesterday and the guy is as big a jerk as I would have expected.

I had never heard of Ellroy when I was given this book, but I thought it was awful. I have no idea if Ellroy is considered good or bad, but I thought this is a book by a guy who has spent his life trying to be cool. Everything about the book - the language, tone, even his sentence structure (or lack of it) - shouted to me, "You gotta live on the edge, man."

Yesterday, he walked out on Cooper when Cooper started asking questions about things Ellroy had written in his autobiography. Ellroy got annoyed when Cooper asked him about some of the racier, edgier details in the book. Then he got all high and mighty and walked out. Totally full of himself, his greatness, his relevance and an ignoramus too. Just as I'd imagined.

Is Ganley planning on more than this one cup of 'tea'?

2010-10-07T22:37:00.000+01:00

Declan Ganley back from the dead? He's been silent for the year or so since Lisbon passed on its second attempt. However, he's been making noise on Twitter the past few days and today he has a column at TheJournal.ie.

His political party went down in flames during the European elections and, well, Lisbon passed pretty easily at the second asking. So Ganley's pretty much a done deal, right?

I dunno.

I read his column and it's full of good ideas - if this were Sep 2008. It's pretty light on where to from here, but if this is just a first salvo then it's a good one. It puts him back on the scene, but not overly committed.

From the column I get the feeling Ganley would like to be the face of an Irish version of the Tea Party movement, but I don't know that he has the appeal to really get people to rally to him. I also don't think Irish people have that 'get government out of the way' attitude that drives the Tea Party.

I also suspect that even if he achieved some success he would find it nearly impossible to renege on all those government commitments to the Anglo bondholders. It's a scary, but popular idea, one that the Irish people would love to see, but one that we've been told would be disastrous.

Ganley probably has the credibility to get the people to believe we could burn the bondholders, that the price of doing so will be less than not doing so and that the EU & ECB will not overreact to such a move. Is he right? There are quite a few economists on his side, but the powers ranged against him are strong. Stronger.

Any effort at building a mass movement against bailing out the banks' bondholders and against higher taxes and more regulations will require tremendous leadership, charismatic leadership. Does Ganley have such ambitions? We'll just have to wait and see.

2010-10-06T12:07:00.000+01:00

Matthew Elderfield says don't burn senior bondholders (Anglo) because of "current difficult funding position for both the Irish government and the banking system." Well, okay, but if we burned them entirely we would undoubtedly have trouble raising money in the bond market, but at the same time we'd owe a helluva lot less. No?

Unmarried fathers would be better off wed

2010-10-06T11:14:00.000+01:00

"European family law expert Geoffrey Shannon" says we need new legislation because a court ruling yesterday means "unmarried fathers, even where heavily involved with their children, have to go to court to claim their rights of custody." Shannon was commenting a case decided by the European Court of Justice where an unmarried father was deemed to have no right to demand that his children be returned from England, where their mother had taken them. From the Irish Times report it sounds like the mother left for England before court proceedings here could progress.

I feel bad for the father, Mr McB, but I'm at a loss as to what legislation Mr. Shannon wants. The state already provides for two people to declare that they are committed to one another and that they will share the rights and responsibilities of parenthood. It's called marriage.

Mr. McB would have been better off if had married the mother, Ms E. That's obvious now, but it should have been obvious from day 1 of their relationship. That so many unmarried fathers find themselves in such situations would, you would imagine, eventually convince unmarried fathers and, preferably, unmarried men in serious relationships, to MARRY.

This is what marriage is for. Everything else that our Bridezillas and Weddings By Franc society has promoted is unnecessary. Even religion does not have to feature if the couple would prefer. A simply state ceremony will put the relationship on a solid legal foundation. I'm at a loss to understand why so many people have opted out of marriage and why we as a society deem this situation to be of little consequence.

What is "light touch regulation?"

2010-10-01T10:21:00.000+01:00

"Light touch regulation" is an expression I've heard a lot lately with regards to the banks disaster. My problem is that I can't quite make out if someone using this expression refers to the regulations being insufficient or whether they were simply lightly enforced.

Any enlightenment welcome.

Radio Nova — here to stay?

2010-09-30T15:38:00.002+01:00

I'm almost ridiculously happy with Radio Nova. I've been listening to it quite a bit since it came on air and I just can't get over the fact that after nearly 20 years after I moved here someone has finally started a Classic Rock station.

Will it last? I have no idea, but I was convinced on Sunday that TodayFM's changed its play-list to try and combat Radio Nova. Until I had that thought, I just assumed that Radio Nova would crash and burn, but that thought has made me think it might just succeed.

Why did I think Radio Nova would crash and burn? I guess because I figured a station that is playing music that seems almost perfectly tailored to 40+-year-old teenager would find that too many of those teens prefer political talk shows now.

Why hating the Green Party is so easy

2010-09-29T13:52:00.002+01:00

So, what are you supposed to do if you break one the new Gormley-special light bulbs? I spent a few minutes this morning looking for advice on the Department of the Environment's web site, but there's nothing obvious there. Wouldn't have mattered because I had already dealt with the broken CFL bulb long before I thought I'd have a look.

I'd warned everyone in the house that these bulbs could be dangerous and to be careful not to break one. However, in real life these things happen and when they do you don't have time to think or worry about what is the "right" thing to do. I just went into my daughter's bedroom, picked up the big pieces of glass and the base, threw them in the garbage and vacuumed up the rest. Oh, part of the bulb landed on her duvet so I took the cover off and threw it in the washing machine.

I was aware that there is mercury in these stupid bulbs, but my daughter needed to get ready for school. What are we supposed to do, stop living when we break a light bulb? I opened the windows because I knew that was a good idea, but if it had been raining I'd have had to forgo that bit of safety advice too.

Let me tell you, I was incandescent as I raged about our Minister [NOTE: I edited out some less than parliamentary language] for the Environment. These stupid CFL bulbs are just inappropriate for normal family living. If I had his home phone number I would have called him right there and then to give him a piece of my mind.

I found a 100W bulb in the attic and put it into the fixture in my daughter's room. She'll be good for a year or so with that.

It's bad enough that we're all going blind trying to read by the poor light these CFL bulbs generate, but we're also being poisoned by them. Oh, and one broken bulb more than wipes out the savings the government is touting in its stupid ad campaign.

I'm going to check around to see if the UK has the same stupid ban. If not I'll be heading north to stock up on traditional 100W bulbs.

New Look

2010-09-29T13:04:00.004+01:00

I've finally gotten around to getting this blog fixed. I expect to blog more, but you will see many more Twitter length posts.

Oh, and commenting will resume. I have all the old comments saved. If I can figure out to to populate the comments fields with the XML files all the old comments will return.

I have some work to do on the look. I kind of like font and colors, but I need my Eagle in the heading.

UPDATE 1:30PM — Eagle issue resolved.

OECD report on Education not worth 1 column in Irish Times

2010-09-07T11:30:00.004+01:00

Sometimes it's almost impossible to contain the frustration. Pointless reports, reported on by clueless journalists and used by shameless promoters/lobbyists to push home a point they want. What am I talking about? Well, the OECD report on education, Education at a Glance, 2010.

Why is it pointless? Because the study stops at 2007! Maybe the OECD hasn't noticed, but there may have been one or two economic changes that might have had an impact on some of the report's favored stats such as GDP, etc. So, this report is a fine as a history text, but offers nothing for the times in which we now live.

The clueless journalist? Charlie Taylor of the Irish Times, who claims that the figures show "that spending on education in Ireland has fallen back significantly since 1995 when the country invested 5.2 per cent of GDP on education." It's a fall in percentages, not actual spending, which has risen tremendously, but, really, who cares? We're bankrupt.

Shameless is how I'd describe all those teacher unions who think using a report based on 3-year-old GDP data is worth anything. Well, it isn't. Given that we've had a fall in GDP that is 3 or 4 times greater than the fall in spending on the Education (those are my rough estimates gleaned from here, here, here and here) will probably push us up and over that 'magical' OECD average.

To Charlie Taylor and teachers unions I pose this question: Was it better to have 4.4% of a big and growing pie or 5.4% of a small and shrinking pie?

If this were a war we'd have objectives and strategies to evaluate

2010-09-02T10:54:00.003+01:00

If the problems in our economy were a war the public would want to know: (a) What's at stake?; (b) What will it take for victory?; and (c) What will victory look like? From those answers would follow the tactics we'll be employing to win the war and a forecast as to how those tactics will play out.

I think this is one of the great problems of the current crisis and our political system. We have a government that's pursuing a policy that makes no sense to people because they're too scared to come on television and spell out what happens if we fail to save the banks; what it will cost collectively and individually; and what we'll have when we've won. {And, truthfully, this government is too discredited to undertake this now.}

I know there have been a few instances where the government, Brian Lenihan in particular, has given glimpses of what exactly is at stake and what it will take to fix the economy, but still everything's too vague. A year ago, more probably, Lenihan should have boldly stated that the debts the banks have incurred are enormous and we have to repay those because of a, b and c.

Then he would have explained that to repay those debts will require 10, 20, 30 years, whatever it will be and in the meantime this will mean more taxes, lower wages for government employees, reduced benefits for those on the dole and pensioners, lower cost health and education systems, etc. The government should have point blank said we'll be experiencing a significant reduction in our standard of living.

Never happened and never would because these people are too worried about their own jobs. So, we have hints at the darkness that's before us, but no explicit explanation as to what might happen. We have cuts to benefits for young people matched with an official indifference to the potential loss of thousands of young people to emigration. We have a government that caved at the first sign that older voters were objecting to small cost-saving changes (medical cards for over 70s). We have lots of little instances of people blowing on burning embers - trying to encourage banks to defer foreclosures, etc. - while the main fire (Anglo and even the other banks) is laying waste to our collective future.

The worst part of this is that our opposition is content to pick away at the government's tactics, but they're equally unwilling to make the big pitch. We don't need to hear how they'd tinker differently, we need a new strategy or at least new leadership willing to spell out exactly what is happening and what is going to happen.

The enemy's closing in and our leaders are hiding in their dugout.

Govt/EU funds hard to find for laid off Waterford Crystal workers

2010-08-31T11:17:00.004+01:00

This comes as no surprise: the EU's much heralded relief for Waterford in the wake of the crystal factory closing down has not worked out the way the workers thought it would. The workers say that "nonsensical rules and regulations" have meant that the advertised €4m relief fund has not materialized.

Those who are best at playing political games and making their lives and work fit specific government guidelines will get money, but most regular people aren't like that. This red tape allows the costs of such golden promises to be kept way below the headline figures that appear at the time of an economic calamity, such as in Waterford or Limerick when Dell closed.

Anglo's building a Celtic Zombie economy

2010-08-30T14:31:00.000+01:00

Until I read Ian Kehoe's report in yesterday's Sunday Business Post I was unaware of the great nationalization project that we're currently undertaking.

Thanks to the actions of everyone's favorite state-owned bank, Anglo-Irish, we are in the process of nationalizing all sorts of businesses. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a nationalized bank would think nothing of nationalizing other businesses, but somehow I'm shocked that this has been allowed.

Many of Anglo's corporate customers are unable to make their loan repayments so Anglo has been doing debt for equity swaps, which means that they're willing to write off loans in order to become owners in these businesses. They've already taken ownership of Arnotts, a number of hotels, golf clubs, service stations, etc. And, of course, there's the Quinn Group, which is the (sort of) sister black hole to Anglo.

Kehoe says that Anglo is well down the road with other businesses, which means that you & I will soon become full or part owners of the following: Calyx (ICT services), Champion Sports (footballs, Manchester United shirts, etc.) and more hotels and, I think, a chain of pharmacies.

All of this is really disturbing because it means that all these companies' employees are now only a small remove from civil service. Sure, they don't have permanent contracts, but you can bet your life that there are opposition TD's or prospective TD's only waiting to denounce any move to close these state-owned "assets" because of all the jobs at stake and what have you. All the political pressure will be to keep these dead businesses alive via artificial life support.

But, of course, keeping those companies alive artificially only threatens other competing businesses that might well survive the current calamity if the competition is thinned out. So, while we're bailing out Champion Sports maybe we're damaging Elvery's (or whomever).

It's one thing to keep Anglo alive - and I don't agree with that - but we must insist that Anglo stop using our money to breathe life into other dead or dying businesses. Or, as Brian Lucey puts it, "You have a zombie bank propping up zombie companies. This creates a zombie economy."

Zombie economy or (I'm sure it's soon to be known as) the "Celtic Zombie."

NRA shows they know salt's not the only answer to snowy/icy roads

2010-08-14T09:15:00.003+01:00

I should have waited to see more details. From what I read in today's Irish Independent, the NRA is actually thinking more about clearing snow and ice than yesterday's Evening Herald report implied.

The Independent says that businesses will be compelled to clear the sidewalks in front of their buildings and local groups will be encouraged to clear roads and footpaths themselves, with assistance regarding supplies etc.

Sounds pretty good.

We need a plan as well as salt for winter freeze

2010-08-13T16:43:00.003+01:00

"Lesson learned" is the message from the National Roads Authority and they are buying 80,000 tonnes of salt for the coming winter. They want to be ready for the once every 40 years event.

I don't know. To me if that's the only lesson they learned then they've learned little. Salt is not the be all and end of all of winter road maintenance.

First of all, salt ruins the road surface. If all the authorities here are planning to do is dump tons of salt on snow-covered and/or icy roads we'll be left with little segments of roadway to connect our potholes come spring time. Salt really ruins the roads.

Sometimes you have to actually move the snow/ice off the road. And the sooner you do that after a snowfall the better. If the NRA and county councils had reacted quickly when the snow first fell, organized work crews to shovel the little bit of snow off the roads at key intersections and off hilly sections of the roads that would have gone a long way towards keeping these issues to a minimum in January.

They didn't do that, however, and simply relied on salt or "grit" (still not entirely sure what that is). Salt melts snow and ice, but it won't work through a fall of several inches of snow. All that will happen in that case is that salt will melt the snow to slush, which will refreeze at night as the traffic dies down and the temperature falls.

You have to move snow. You can melt the ice, but you have to move snow. And, notice above I said they should organize work crews. I'm not talking about full time employees of the county council, but why not ask for volunteers to clear the key roads in a neighborhood and employ temporary work crews to clear more important routes?

We don't have dozens of snow plows and we shouldn't. There would be no point in buying and housing such machines for a once every 40 years event. But, our planners authorities could have hundreds of snow shovels stored for such events. Our planners could have local civic groups prepared to organize the crews - voluntary and paid - to use those shovels to clear the roads.

There is much that should be done to prepare for that rare snow emergency here and we don't have to spend a fortune. Call on the people to contribute. Why is everyone so wary of invoking civic pride and voluntarism for rare events.

How can Democrats sell health care if BP not to blame for al Megrahi prison release?

2010-07-22T13:42:00.000+01:00

Of course the Democrats are going to try to blame BP for the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi from prison. If BP's not to blame then the only other possible scapegoat is Britain's NHS. After all, under NHS care al Megrahi had only 3 months to live, but as soon as he was able to avail of Libyan health care his life expectancy expanded by 10 years (or more).

Now how does this help the Democrats sell federalized health care to Americans?

Mortgage bail-out recipients should be publicly named

2010-07-10T09:27:00.005+01:00

Just listened to a discussion on Newstalk about a possible plan to bail-out people in difficulties with their mortgages. I'm of two minds on this one: I have a lot of sympathy for those who bought their first homes in the period 2006-2008 and who now can't pay, but I'm loathe to help those who lived (& still live) better than my family & I do in our modest home.

I also have sympathy for those who find themselves out of work and can't afford their mortgage, but again I would like any help that we taxpayers are to provide to be at a flat rate: that is mortgage subsidies should be a set amount for all. I don't want to see taxpayers' money used to pay mortgages for those who live in substantial dwellings that even in a depressed would sell for a fair amount.

I can kind of see how something may have to be done to help people, but I can just as easily see how this could end up being nothing more than a government-mandated attempt to force the prudent to pay to sustain the lifestyles of the imprudent.

One other feature of any bail-out that I'd like to see is that all such payments should be public. That is, all of us should know who among our neighbors is getting money to help them pay their mortgage. We'll be able to assess the size of their home, the quality of their car(s) and the frequency of their vacations, etc. Why not?

I know this runs counter to the way things are generally done here, but too little transparency runs the risk of all sorts of abuse. Publicly naming those who are in receipt of government mortgage assistance might ensure that only those who are really in need avail of such aid.

Capello should encourage wives to join the players

2010-06-24T09:47:00.005+01:00

Today's Sun (I know) says that England's manager F. Capello allowed the team to have a few beers on Monday night. The paper says he did this to let the team relax.

This goes right to the heart of something that I can't understand when it comes to the World Cup. Why are the so-called "wags" banned from the England camp? The English players - & I don't know if other nations' do the same - play the full season in a pretty intense league, many also play in the Champions League. High level competition.

Yet, after every game the players head home to their wives or girlfriends or head out on the town with their pals. Why should they behave differently just because it's the World Cup? Why would any manager mess with the formula that they've proven is successful?

If I was managing the English team I'd encourage them to bring their families with them, to as close as possible set up home away from home. I don't know, maybe that would bring all sorts of problems too, but it should be up to the players themselves whether their families join them at the World Cup or not.

A happy side effect is that the wives and girlfriends could give the voracious English press something to write about other than the minutiae of what's going on with the players. Might take some of the pressure off them.

And a side note: I don't equate "wives" with "girlfriends", those are two completely different roles and relationships. Yet, the players' wives definitely, and their girlfriends too, are mistreated and equated with something akin to concubines in the manner they're treated by Capello and written about in the media. That's just plain wrong.

What does bad journalism cost the state?

2010-06-22T06:50:00.000+01:00

Today the Irish Times tells us that tax relief on health insurance costs the state around €400m per year. They arrive at that figure by simply producing the total of all tax credits due to taxpayers' health insurance policies.

Okay, that's the amount of relief taxpayers avail of, but is that the total cost? Surely if that relief were eliminated a certain percentage of those taxpayers would find the cost of health insurance prohibitive or simply not worth it. That would mean they would become 100% public patients, which would add to the state's costs.

I can accept that it would be nearly impossible to make a reasonable attempt at quantifying that figure, but to not even mention it is the difference between journalism and activism.

The state again makes the case for its removal from education

2010-06-22T06:42:00.003+01:00

Another Leaving Cert blunder. The state makes the best case for getting it out of the education process. Local testing, local standards. This overly centralized system provides too few benefits despite the rigidity and pompous declarations about "fairness."

Peace activist's statement on Palestinian "genocide" is wrong

2010-06-09T16:52:00.004+01:00

I don't doubt Nobel Prize winner Mairead Corrigan cared deeply about the Palestinian people. Very deeply. She's emotionally invested in their plight.

However, her emotional investment doesn't change the fact that she should - as a Nobel Prize winner - avoid factually suspect, but highly emotive statements on the situation in the Middle East and/or Gaza.

The other day Corrigan said the Palestinian people were experiencing a "slow genocide." Genocide is pretty clear cut - an ethnic or religious group is being exterminated. Now if the Palestinians were indeed being slowly exterminated we would see evidence of that. At a minimum the Palestinian population would be in decline.

However, on the West Bank the population is increasing at a 2.13% rate. That's a fairly healthy growth rate. More than Ireland at 1.10% and America at 0.97%. That's just the West Bank.

In Gaza the population growth rate is 3.29%, which is the 6th highest population growth rate in the world. Israel's own population growth rate is about 1.6%, which is less than the West Bank/Gaza combined rate (roughly 2.6%). That's not genocide.

I won't dispute that life in Gaza is extremely unpleasant and unfair on the vast majority of people living there, but genocide it is not.

I'd love to see that remedied and for peace to break out suddenly in the region, but we're not going to get there if Nobel Peace Prize winners feel free to toss linguistic gasoline on the fire.

When did lesbians take over softball?

2010-05-23T15:19:00.003+01:00

It's been nearly 20 years since I lived in America. Lots of things have changed. Still, I find it hard to accept that these days only lesbian women play softball because it wasn't the case in the 1980s.

This all goes back to that Wall Street Journal picture of Elena Kagan. Apparently anyone looking at that picture would have known that Kagan is a lesbian. Why? Because she's playing softball, that's why. I just don't know.

I didn't see the picture before I heard about the controversy, but I would not have associated a woman playing softball with lesbianism. Softball is not a tough game; you do not have to be 'butch' to play. I played quite a bit in the late 80s/early 90s in the mixed-sex company league when I was working for Citibank. I don't think any of the women I played with were lesbians.

When I look at the picture of Kagan all I see is a woman playing in a game at an office picnic or something like that. No uniform shirt or proper footware. Why read anything more than that into the picture?

Of course, the Irish media has picked up on all this nonsense and regurgitated what they're reading in the American press. As far as I can tell not a single Irish journalist has bothered to contact Softball Ireland, despite the fact that there are dozens of teams playing the game here, almost all in mixed-sex leagues. They might have been able to help the Irish Times by explaining that the women who play softball don't fit that or any stereotype.

Maybe there's a grain of truth to this whole 'women who play softball' thing, but all I can imagine is that this will make it that bit tougher to convince women in the office to turn out for the summer softball league.

No shortage of public money in Bray

2010-05-21T17:26:00.000+01:00

Aren't we in a severe budget crisis? Aren't government bodies cutting back everywhere? I only ask because I've been wondering for the past few weeks where the money came from to re-landscape the roundabouts in south Bray? They used to be grassy areas, but now they're like half desert and half prairie with a small woodlands area.

Truth is, I don't know which public body paid for these 'upgrades', but it hardly matters. Money's supposedly tight and one of our local authorities - Bray Town Council, Wicklow County Council - thought this a wise investment. I liked the old style roundabouts better. And how long had it been since the last upgrade?

Walking away from mortgages will be Irish emigrants' revenge

2010-05-20T11:35:00.001+01:00

{Posted in wrong spot. Click here for this post.}

Leaving cert students should have option to take 2 math exams

2010-05-10T14:19:00.004+01:00

The Tainaiste has suggested that universities accept students who fail the Honours Leaving Cert in Mathematics. That doesn't seem quite right to me, although I understand where she's coming from - too many students are bailing out of the honours paper and settling for the pass paper.

A simple and equitable solution would be to do the following: let all students take both the pass and honours paper (with an option to skip either). That's not feasible at the moment because the two exams are held simultaneously, but they could be held on different days.

That way any student who was afraid of losing out on a college place all together for failing honours math could take the pass paper as a fall back. There'd be no extra studying required as anyone who has put the work into an honours level course should have no difficulty passing the pass level paper.

We should follow Minister's logic and scrap TV license

2010-04-28T11:25:00.003+01:00

The Minister for Comms says the TV license won't exist in 2020. Well, why don't we follow the Minister's logic on the electric cars - be first in Europe to force pace of change - why don't we scrap license as of 2012. That would have the effect of focusing minds at RTE and open up television production & distribution to all sorts of creative people here.

There's absolutely no reason Irish cultural products can't compete in a free market in our wired world. Irish authors, playwrights, songwriters, actors, etc. all manage well, why not those who create digital media? Oh yeah, we also have some excellent games and other software producers.

Scrap the license and free the market now - we'll be ahead of the curve as other countries are forced to do likewise.

Euro's crisis is thanks to hubris of European elites

2010-04-27T22:42:00.000+01:00

I missed most of the 9:00 news tonight and so didn't see how (or if) RTE reported on today's news on the euro, but it's gotten a lot more serious. Greek debt is now junk, the euro fell by more than 2¢ against the dollar (a currency with its own concerns) and today a member of the FDP - junior coalition partner in the German Government - said Greece might have to "leave the euro zone for a time."

The German and Greek peoples are pulling in opposite directions. The Germans don't want to bail out the Greeks (or any other errant euro members) and the Greeks don't want to endure the pain required to get their government spending under control to German satisfaction.

Are we approaching the moment of truth for the euro (& the EU)? I've said before that I'm not anti-EU, but I've never understood why the European elite kept plowing on with their political project when the people were so far behind. The European project was too important to allow it be forced on people, but never sufficiently explained.

Now you see the results. First real difficult moment arrives and the various peoples of Europe are pulling apart. The Greek & German governments are like rubber bands stretching, stretching trying to keep holding hands with each other while their respective voters pull them back from any sense of European solidarity.

How do you think this image from Athens on Die Zeit's web site plays with the German people?

The stupid things is, if the euro disintegrates, the European Union will follow. It should never have come to this. The hubris of the Europhiles was as great, maybe greater, than that of the bankers who are public enemy number one today.

Maol Muire Tynan - still can't pronounce it

2010-04-14T20:22:00.003+01:00

Maol Muire Tynan is a name I used to see regularly in the Irish Times. It also stuck in my head because I always used to wonder how you pronounced the name. I could probably have a stab at it now having lived her for 20 years, but from the day I moved here the name was just a mystery to me. In fact, for a while I didn't even know if the name belonged to a man or woman (woman, if you don't know).

I only mention her name because I just stumbled across it. She's now the Public Affairs Manager at ESB. Good for her. I'm sure it's a better paying job than journalist at the Irish Times. Probably less pressure too - at least until we start having rolling strikes and electricity cuts that I keep hearing about.

If Fianna Fáil used "deem and pass" ...

2010-03-19T18:14:00.004Z

Just imagine the reaction of Fintan O'Toole and Vincent Browne if Fianna Fáil ever tried a stunt like deem and pass? Just imagine the tut-tutting of Pat Kenny and George Hook. Just imagine.

I hadn't been paying much attention to America's health care debate and I still don't have a firm grasp what exactly it is Congress may pass, but using this "deem and pass" method is outrageous.

First, what is "deem and pass"?

... the health-care bill would be voted on INDIRECTLY, tucked into what's known as "the rule." The rule essentially outlines the rules for an upcoming vote -- in this case, it would be the vote on the package of reconciliation fixes.

By passing "the rule," the House also would "deem" the Senate bill passed (with a "hereby" statement. "We hereby deem..."). The House would then vote on the package of reconciliation fixes. But the Senate health-care bill would be considered passed even if they never vote on the reconciliation fixes.

Get that? No, well basically it's a trick where the health care package is passed, but nobody has to be tarred as having voted for it.

I like how David Brooks sums up what this means.

Deem and pass? Are you kidding me? Is this what the Revolutionary War was fought for? Is this what the boys on Normandy beach were trying to defend? Is this where we thought we would end up when Obama was speaking so beautifully in Iowa or promising to put away childish things?

... This is the largest piece of legislation in a generation and Pelosi wants to pass it without a vote. It’s unbelievable that people even talk about this with a straight face.

And he voted for Obama.

This will be Barak Obama's legacy.

Night in Dublin's new theater will cost you

2010-03-19T12:16:00.002Z

Dublin's new Grand Canal Theatre opened last night. I presume it's as spectacular inside as outside (eh, no, I don't know what's going on with those red things).

It sure will be a pricey experience to go to the new theater. My wife and daughters were looking at tickets for Hairspray later this year. The cost of the tickets - including booking charge - was a lot more than they paid last summer for flight to London, train journey into the city and tickets to the show there.

American troops don't "stop off" in tax havens

2010-03-17T20:51:00.004Z

President Obama thanked Brian Cowen for allowing American troops use Shannon as a transit stop on the way to Iraq and Afghanistan. That's the insurance policy against being tagged as a tax haven. Avoiding tax haven designation is one of the keys to economic recovery.

The cost of November strike day

2010-03-16T06:25:00.003Z

Remember last November when just about all teachers and civil servants and others went on strike for a day? That was before the budget when all the pay cuts were implemented. Remember?

Well, I know of one state body that has only now gotten around to deducting the pay for that day - at the 2010 salary scale. That means the strike day was 5% (if that was the pay cut) less expensive to each of that body's employees than they had a right to expect AND 5% more expensive for the state than it should have been.

I'd love to know if this is the case throughout the public sector.

Housekeeping issues

2010-03-16T06:22:00.003Z

Still working on comments. Sorry about the big delay. I'm regularly posting on Twitter. My goal is to get this blog to be more like a series of short twitter posts, but with comments. Haloscan pulled the rug out from under me and I haven't had enough time to get Disqus comments working. I also probably need a new blog template, but haven't found one I like yet.

Should we adopt an education credits system?

2010-02-02T10:57:00.002Z

Youth unemployment is a huge issue here, so I'm not really opposed to the state offering training for young people. The fact that the state is looking for "private organisations" to do the training and "reskilling" is a plus as far as I'm concerned. Again, FÁS should be closed down.

I'm just wondering, however, if the fact that so many under 35s need "reskilling" is not an indictment of the way we organize our education? I mean if a person's education is dated before he's 35 how does it make sense that each individual and we as as a nation invest so much in university courses?

I'm more thinking out loud than definitely in favor of massive change, but maybe it would be better if there were some way that people could use education credits at any time in their lives to "reskill" rather than the current system, which assumes you really need nothing more once you're 21.

Bush admin's response to tsunami better comparison for current efforts

2010-01-22T12:44:00.004Z

After listening to the last few minutes of Pat Kenny's show today I'm ready to explode. Okay, his panel was stuffed with Obamaphiles, but I'm just so sick of people comparing President Obama's handling of Haiti with President Bush's handling of Katrina.

President Bush made one big blunder in New Orleans and two less crucial blunders. The biggest error Bush made was not treating the New Orleans government, especially the mayor, like an ineffectual, tin-head, tin-pot third world leader that he actually imagined himself to be. Bush and the governor at the time should have jointly ousted him because he was a nincompoop.

I know the relief effort was bogged down and troubled, but I don't believe anyone died due to it. People were discommoded and upset, but what upset those the people whose homes and cities had been ruined were issues on a different scale from what the people of Haiti are putting up with now.

Bush's biggest political blunder, although only a small error really, was not decamping from Washington to set up a temporary White House in the region. It wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference to anyone's life, but the media would have been satisfied that at least he was 'doing something.'

Of course Pat Kenny and seemingly everyone else in RTE hasn't grasped that the media performed worse than did the Bush administration. And that was Bush's second minor error - not calling the media out on the lies they peddled at the time.

And, Dan Boyle - who I actually have a sneaking regard for - I'm sorry if you don't like that the United States has to defend itself, but you could have at least acknowledged the massive effort by the American navy and other forces to get supplies to the people of Indonesia. I hate that sort of 'knowing', 'little-smile-on-the-lips', 'amusing-to-all-euro-hipsters', snide anti-Americanism that Boyle displayed today when he said, "It's the best use of the American military I've seen in at least two decades." (I may not have it verbatim, but that's pretty close.) I thought he was better than that.

A better comparison with today's relief effort was the United States' response to the 2004 tsunami, which the Bush administration handled well.Not perfectly, of course, just as I'm sure today's relief effort is not going perfectly. Nothing goes perfectly.

Mass. election proves America's still not Europe

2010-01-20T15:19:00.005Z

I posted this on Twitter earlier:

One year anniversary of Obama's election. He can still right ship, but Brown's win ends European dream of what Obama would mean.

I thought I'd expand on that a bit.

A lot of Europeans believed - more than hoped - that the election of Barak Obama meant that America had finally woken up to all that was wrong with their country (ie - all the ways it wasn't European). Although I imagine most Europeans aren't aware of it yet, last night's election result from Massachusetts has put paid to that idea.

That doesn't mean President Obama's Presidency is doomed. There's plenty of time left for him to fix the obvious problems and go on in the job for 7 more years.

Much the same applies to the Democratic Party. They too can adjust their ambitions and look for American solutions to America's problems and avert their wistful gazes from the European social and economic models. And, of course, the Republican Party is still a mess so clearly nothing is decided other than that the American people don't want to be Europeans.

Brown vs Coakley in Mass and vs health care in US

2010-01-18T14:20:00.003Z

RTE & the Irish Times have been trumpeting President Obama's success in getting his health care proposals through the various stages in both houses of Congress. In fact, sometimes the headlines are so excited that I'm sure the average Irish Times reader or RTE viewer who's paid any attention at all figures that Americans already have their government health care.

However, both RTE & the Irish Times have gone quiet on that front the past week, understandably, with Haiti dominating the news. Still, just in case you're vaguely interested, tomorrow's election in Massachusetts could be the end of America's national health care dalliance.

If Republican Scott Brown manages to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley for what was Senator Kennedy's US Senate seat, the President's health care plan is probably dead in the water. Not only will the Republicans have that crucial 41st vote to enable them to filibuster the Senate, but every Democrat from a state less Democrat-blue than Massachusetts (pretty much all of them) is going to be wondering about his own political health if he/she votes for the President's plan. Something much less watered down is probably all that could be hoped for if Brown wins.

As of right now the polls show him up slightly and Intrade says the good money's on a Brown victory.

Haloscan comments have vanished

2010-01-11T16:55:00.003Z

I don't know what happened to the comments. Something seems to have changed with Haloscan.com. I can't access my account. I hope all's not lost there.

In the meantime I decided to reinstate the Twitter box, which was interfering with the comments. Maybe I'll add another Twitter box for my posts as American in Ireland.

The overly centralized mind

2010-01-11T08:01:00.000Z

On Friday the Minister for Education, panicked by complaints from teachers and parents and the press, announced all schools were closed until Thursday of this week. Every school throughout the state.

No doubt he made that decision based almost entirely on the forecast provided by Met Eireann, who assured us that the 'bitter cold' and 'arctic conditions' would continue throughout this week. They were wrong about that, but these things happen. If there's one thing anyone in Ireland knows - even the government should know this - it is that you cannot rely on the weather.

The minister is the commissar in our soviet-style, centralized system. All of us little peasants look to him to be in charge, to 'do something' about everything. On Friday all the clamoring was for the government or the Minister to 'do something' about the schools deciding whether they should be open or closed. So, he did something, but it was the wrong thing.

Today the minister looks like an idiot. There's no reason why the schools in and around Dublin cannot be open today, let alone tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm sure the story's similar in other parts of the country too.

Yes, there probably are areas where this rain is snow, but why can't schools coordinate their response with the Gardaí and take such decisions locally? Why does the minister have to be involved?

Of course he didn't have to step in. He shouldn't have, but still the media and the peasants wanted to see the commissar act and he did. And now, starting today, we'll all start complaining again about the schools being unnecessarily closed and demand that the minister 'do something.'

Will week off eliminate strike threat?

2010-01-08T23:31:00.003Z

At a minimum pretty much every kid in the state is going to miss a week of school due to the weather. So are the teachers. http://bit.ly/7km9Kx

I wonder if the Minister is hoping that these missed days will head off any strike action later in the school year? If not, how many days can kids miss before vacation days have to be sacrificed? As far as I'm concerned it's not a biggie for the primary school kids. The secondary school year is a lot shorter, however and a full week off now combined with any length of strike could mean a lot of missed material.

Now that the Lisbon Treaty is secure out pop the tax harmonizers

2010-01-04T12:03:00.003Z

We're a long way from out of our economic disaster, but the EU is ready to bash our hopes of recovery again. Yesterday's Sunday Business Post said the EU is set to push again for a common "tax base" for business taxes.

Of course our government will oppose such an effort, but any serious attempt at forcing this through will prove the utter cynicism of those in charge of the EU project. We were assured time and again over the past two years - before Lisbon I & II - that such a move was not possible. Now, in our severely weakened state, we may have to burn a lot of political capital to prevent from happening that which was supposedly not possible.

Yet, it must be done. Without the business tax advantage, Ireland is too small, too isolated and too remote to be a viable economy inside the EU.

Lone Parents Allowance encourages dependecy

2010-01-03T09:07:00.004Z

Brenda Power says that the pajamas in daytime phenomenon is connected to the culture fostered by the Lone Parents Allowance. The LPA is a disincentive to education, training and work (and marriage), but instead encourages young girls to have babies on their own.

Power says the LPA was well-intentioned back in the 1970s when it was introduced, but the fact that the number of lone parents has grown from 3,000 to 90,000 over the 30+ years since it was introduced is evidence that the scheme has had an unanticipated affect: that is, the LPA now provides girls with an "income and a status in their community that they wouldn’t otherwise enjoy, without the need to seek work, training or education."

Power says it's well past time that this scheme was wound up as being a lone parent is not a disability and only serves to encourage dependency on the state.

A 'real' New Year's Day for President Obama

2010-01-01T08:40:00.003Z

From today's NY Times:

Christmas Day terror attempt may stop Guantanamo closing
Man appointed by Pres Obama to lead investigation into what went wrong in case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had to be granted an ethics waiver.
Federal judge dismisses charges against 5 Blackwater security guards

More reality for the President.

'Neutral' cannot include training of combatant's forces

2009-12-31T08:00:00.003Z

Surely training Egypt's air force pilots in '79 was as much a breach of neutrality as allowing 12,000 American troops to land at Shannon for a re-fueling stop in the same year.

In 1979 only a few years had passed since Egypt was last at war with Israel and another war was not unimaginable, but the Irish government took the decision to allow Aer Lingus – 100% state-owned at the time – to train Egyptian air force pilots. The same year, the United States – with clumsy diplomacy, it seems – landed 12,000 troops at Shannon for refueling after a NATO exercise.

Maybe the two articles aren't telling the full story, but only in the case of the American soldiers did the government appear to worry about Ireland's neutrality.

You can't neglect the 4th R

2009-12-29T07:27:00.002Z

All boys instinctively know that if you spend too much time on the 3 R's - reading, riting & rithmetic - you won't fully develop the 4th R - riding a bike. Only a boy would go with no hands on icy ground. Great picture on the front of today's Irish Times.