I taught this post was appropriate due to the recent heated discussions taking place as a result of the blog posted on this site entitled “a right to privacy or safety” which stated –
“The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) believe the Muslim community will be deliberately targeted. UK Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis has stipulated that no passenger will be targeted because of their “gender, age, race or ethnic origin.”
Call me racist if you want, but I would certainly feel more comfortable if passengers were targeted because of these precise reasons. Let’s call a spade, a spade. Everyone knows the group of people who pose the biggest risk. This isn’t a racist or discriminatory statement. It is a fact. I applaud the UK authorities for introducing this long overdue measure. I think security officers should be left do their job instead of being constrained from carrying out their duties for fear of causing offence.”
In this period of Middle Eastern conflict how can we get a balanced or unbiased viewpoint? The answer is, unfortunately, we can’t. Yet, we can at least attempt to listen to both sides of the story.
The two links I’ve attached lead you to the English version of al-jazeera while the other leads you to skynews' world news section. Notice the difference, especially in the reports detailing the US and British forthcoming attack on Helman province.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/2010291172480446.html
http://news.sky.com/skynews/World-News
The underlying point I’m getting to is that, in class yesterday the author of the “the right to privacy or safety” blog backed up his beliefs by referencing a list of “dangerous” countries compiled by the US government. However, this is only one side of the story, imagine if Afghanistan compiled a list of “dangerous” countries. I’m sure America would be at the top as a result of the amount of Afghani civilians killed by American forces. Would such a list lead to all American’s being subject to strict screening processes whenever they enter an airport? I think not.
I think the majority of our population are guilty of unintentional ignorance by simply ignoring stations such as al jazeera. And I therefore think they cannot make a fair, balanced or acceptable call on who are the most dangerous race, country or society in the world.
Craig.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Are the noughties just a bad eighties re-run?
Big hair, hi tops, drain pipe jeans, relatives emigrating, rambling dole queues. Is anyone crying déjà vu?
Weather you lived through it he first time or were told about it by your parents it’s easy to see how these staples of life in the 1980s are creeping into the lives of the noughties population.
Yesterday on RTE News they featured a segment on emigration. For the first time in well over twenty years more people are leaving Ireland then there are coming in. Canada and Australia apparently being the hot spots for emigrating Irish looking for jobs and a better life. This begs the question, is history repeating itself more vividly than ever, in twenty years have we learned anything?
Fashion is a notoriously fickle and ever changing market. Each season some new cutting edge, innovative designer comes up with an ‘eighties inspired look.’ Blazers, shoulder pads, oversized bows, prom dressed, stone washed denims are all stocked and overpriced ready for us to consume in shops nationwide. If that’s the case one trip to my mothers wardrobe will make me the fashionista of 2010! Even websites are devoted to styling you head to toe from the eighties. Personally I love the idea of ‘vintage’ and ‘retro’ but I can’t decide if I’m a fool for letting designers get away with not creating new ideas or creating them myself.
Music seems to be all about recycling or ‘remixing’ for the noughties. Synthesisers were popular in the eighties and now feature heavily in alternative and indie type bands of the last few years. The house music created in the eighties is being rehashed and remixed to this day. Even the best selling mainstream artists have covered, remixed or borrowed lyrics or backing tracks from eighties songs; Craig David, Westlife and Flo Rida to name a few. It is said that the kids who pop today will rock tomorrow and every year Irish pre and young teens discover puberty, how much they hate there parents and of course rock music. Each year bands who either began or ruled the charts in the eighties blare from the bedrooms of Irish teens; Nirvana, Greenday, AC DC, Iron Maiden.
The starkest resemblance between now and the eighties is the state of the Irish economy. As I mentioned above there are huge emigration rates. Job losses plague every county. The country is in an even worse recession than then. The number of people signing on to the live register is still rising. We studied the hardships of the eighties, we wrote them in our history books but have we learned from it?
There is a positive note here however, I can identify two industries that have progressed since the eighties. They are Media and Technology. Publications in this country have evolved and adapted as required by our society. Once just print, each title now has a website, pod casts, sound slides and are accessible via phones for constant up dates on the go. More recently the iPad offers the experience of reading your broadsheet on screen. Media has come on leaps and bounds from typing to metal plates.
Technology pushed media to adapt and change and the industry has done so. However, who or what is going to push our government and other industries to change?
Yes, media has bettered itself along with technology and to a certain extent science. However I personally think it’s a little sad that in twenty years, excluding the aforementioned developments, all we’ve learned to do successfully is make phones smaller and Tvs bigger.
JM
Weather you lived through it he first time or were told about it by your parents it’s easy to see how these staples of life in the 1980s are creeping into the lives of the noughties population.
Yesterday on RTE News they featured a segment on emigration. For the first time in well over twenty years more people are leaving Ireland then there are coming in. Canada and Australia apparently being the hot spots for emigrating Irish looking for jobs and a better life. This begs the question, is history repeating itself more vividly than ever, in twenty years have we learned anything?
Fashion is a notoriously fickle and ever changing market. Each season some new cutting edge, innovative designer comes up with an ‘eighties inspired look.’ Blazers, shoulder pads, oversized bows, prom dressed, stone washed denims are all stocked and overpriced ready for us to consume in shops nationwide. If that’s the case one trip to my mothers wardrobe will make me the fashionista of 2010! Even websites are devoted to styling you head to toe from the eighties. Personally I love the idea of ‘vintage’ and ‘retro’ but I can’t decide if I’m a fool for letting designers get away with not creating new ideas or creating them myself.
Music seems to be all about recycling or ‘remixing’ for the noughties. Synthesisers were popular in the eighties and now feature heavily in alternative and indie type bands of the last few years. The house music created in the eighties is being rehashed and remixed to this day. Even the best selling mainstream artists have covered, remixed or borrowed lyrics or backing tracks from eighties songs; Craig David, Westlife and Flo Rida to name a few. It is said that the kids who pop today will rock tomorrow and every year Irish pre and young teens discover puberty, how much they hate there parents and of course rock music. Each year bands who either began or ruled the charts in the eighties blare from the bedrooms of Irish teens; Nirvana, Greenday, AC DC, Iron Maiden.
The starkest resemblance between now and the eighties is the state of the Irish economy. As I mentioned above there are huge emigration rates. Job losses plague every county. The country is in an even worse recession than then. The number of people signing on to the live register is still rising. We studied the hardships of the eighties, we wrote them in our history books but have we learned from it?
There is a positive note here however, I can identify two industries that have progressed since the eighties. They are Media and Technology. Publications in this country have evolved and adapted as required by our society. Once just print, each title now has a website, pod casts, sound slides and are accessible via phones for constant up dates on the go. More recently the iPad offers the experience of reading your broadsheet on screen. Media has come on leaps and bounds from typing to metal plates.
Technology pushed media to adapt and change and the industry has done so. However, who or what is going to push our government and other industries to change?
Yes, media has bettered itself along with technology and to a certain extent science. However I personally think it’s a little sad that in twenty years, excluding the aforementioned developments, all we’ve learned to do successfully is make phones smaller and Tvs bigger.
JM
How far is too far?
Ethics and morals is a very crucial issue in the Media Industry. A few of you have written on this subject and Orla in particular made some valid points on the issue. This piece is just a few examples I wish to share of the incidences, in both recent and past times, which made me think more on the subject.
So basically, morals are all about knowing the difference between right and wrong. However, I think in this celebrity obsessed time and ever more competitive media industry, morals have quite possibly been replaced by knowing how much you can get away with.
One thing we definitely know is that making someone cry is wrong, isn’t it? What if you make someone cry with the questions you ask in an interview? Is that overstepping the mark or is that nailing the tough questions and catching a usually plugging, PR spewing ‘celeb’ off guard?
A week ago, Peter Andre, ahem…singer and ex-husband of Katie Price broke down in a live Sky News interview with Kay Berley. The interviewer had played footage of Dwight Yorke, the biological father of the child Andre cares for and wishes to adopt, followed by probing questions about his relationship with his children. An investigation is now being carried out and Berley may run the risk of being fired.
I am in two minds about his event. On the one hand, a person making millions from magazine interviews, photographs of them and their children in their home and sharing secrets about past relationships while posing as a so called ‘music artist’ has opened themselves up and has no grounds to be picky or sensitive in regards to what their asked. But at the same time it is no ones business what kind of relationship he has with his children, unless the children are in danger.
Again the argument of public interest versus what the public are interested in comes into play. This type of information can’t be considered news, surely. It isn’t going to have any impact on my life so I don’t have the right to know anything about his life, even if he does lay himself wide open to the public eye. However I still can’t settle comfortably on either side of this argument.
Say for instance the person being interviewed is a political figure shaping certain aspects of my life. If they are someone who decides how much tax I have to pay or how much money the university I attend has to spend in the next year, I have a right to know about them. The tricky question is how much information do I have the right to know and how much of what I know is just me being nosey?
On his first night as the presenter of The Late Late show Ryan Tubridy caused controversy with is hard hitting interview with Taoiseach Brian Cowen. Some of the questions were only all too well deserved giving the financial state of the country a year ago. It was refreshing to see tough questions being put before the bewildered Taoiseach who usually, I presume, prepares and has answers written well in advance.
The interview, for me at least, took an uneasy turn when Tubridy began to hit the Taoiseach hard and fast with questions regarding his drinking. Was this taking things too far? Does how much alcohol Cowen consumes really concern me? You could say no, of course not, how much he drinks in his free time is private. Alternatively you could argue if our Taoiseach drinks too much it may impair his ability to lead our government effectively. There is a third option, Tubridy may have been blowing the topic of drinking way out of proportion. This makes pin pointing the interview has too harsh or just right even harder.
One thing I will say is that Tubridy may have got carried away and even if you do see his questions as valid he asked them in such a speedy succession that Cowen could not answer. Effectively the manner in which he asked the questions made them irrelevant as they weren’t answered anyway. Again, I find it difficult to come to my own definite conclusion on whether the mark was over stepped in this interview. I think perhaps some of the questions were a bit much but it isn’t any harm for those in power to get a bit of a shake now and then.
One clear cut rule is that of defamation and it is obeyed, for the most part. One slight loophole I suppose you would call it, is that it is impossible to defame the dead. This means that after the death of anyone in the public eye most publications in the media industry have a field day, case in point Michael Jackson and even closer to home, Steven Gately.
The mail received thousands of complaints after Jan Moir wrote an article in October of last year in the days following Gatelys death. Moirs article speculated that the circumstances in which Gately died were a lot more suspicious than what was initially reported.
Ultimately, forgiving her criticism his singing and belittling his accomplishments as a gay right activist, I think it was they language used and the slightly negative portrayal of the life of a gay man is what drew all the complaints. Words like “sleazy” and “bitter truth” did not help the matter. Also, implying his parents were purposely downplaying his sudden death did not go down so well. So just because he is dead it doesn’t matter what is said about him?
What about his parents, his partner and his friends still grieving and subjected to this less than complimentary article? Should the editor have allowed this article to be printed at all or perhaps held of for at least a few days? It is a right to free speech and no laws were broken by the content but I think it was distasteful. Again the right and wrong of this article is hard to fathom.
On reflection I think that perhaps there is no right and wrong in Media. Morals are a huge and ever expanding grey area and will continue to be. Each individual case has to be looked at. I know bloging is all about your opinion but the jury’s still out on the events mentioned here.
What I do think is that it’s not a simple call to make, maybe you can make more sense of it.
JM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLXcQNQJ0qk
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death--.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErxADYAfJQ4
So basically, morals are all about knowing the difference between right and wrong. However, I think in this celebrity obsessed time and ever more competitive media industry, morals have quite possibly been replaced by knowing how much you can get away with.
One thing we definitely know is that making someone cry is wrong, isn’t it? What if you make someone cry with the questions you ask in an interview? Is that overstepping the mark or is that nailing the tough questions and catching a usually plugging, PR spewing ‘celeb’ off guard?
A week ago, Peter Andre, ahem…singer and ex-husband of Katie Price broke down in a live Sky News interview with Kay Berley. The interviewer had played footage of Dwight Yorke, the biological father of the child Andre cares for and wishes to adopt, followed by probing questions about his relationship with his children. An investigation is now being carried out and Berley may run the risk of being fired.
I am in two minds about his event. On the one hand, a person making millions from magazine interviews, photographs of them and their children in their home and sharing secrets about past relationships while posing as a so called ‘music artist’ has opened themselves up and has no grounds to be picky or sensitive in regards to what their asked. But at the same time it is no ones business what kind of relationship he has with his children, unless the children are in danger.
Again the argument of public interest versus what the public are interested in comes into play. This type of information can’t be considered news, surely. It isn’t going to have any impact on my life so I don’t have the right to know anything about his life, even if he does lay himself wide open to the public eye. However I still can’t settle comfortably on either side of this argument.
Say for instance the person being interviewed is a political figure shaping certain aspects of my life. If they are someone who decides how much tax I have to pay or how much money the university I attend has to spend in the next year, I have a right to know about them. The tricky question is how much information do I have the right to know and how much of what I know is just me being nosey?
On his first night as the presenter of The Late Late show Ryan Tubridy caused controversy with is hard hitting interview with Taoiseach Brian Cowen. Some of the questions were only all too well deserved giving the financial state of the country a year ago. It was refreshing to see tough questions being put before the bewildered Taoiseach who usually, I presume, prepares and has answers written well in advance.
The interview, for me at least, took an uneasy turn when Tubridy began to hit the Taoiseach hard and fast with questions regarding his drinking. Was this taking things too far? Does how much alcohol Cowen consumes really concern me? You could say no, of course not, how much he drinks in his free time is private. Alternatively you could argue if our Taoiseach drinks too much it may impair his ability to lead our government effectively. There is a third option, Tubridy may have been blowing the topic of drinking way out of proportion. This makes pin pointing the interview has too harsh or just right even harder.
One thing I will say is that Tubridy may have got carried away and even if you do see his questions as valid he asked them in such a speedy succession that Cowen could not answer. Effectively the manner in which he asked the questions made them irrelevant as they weren’t answered anyway. Again, I find it difficult to come to my own definite conclusion on whether the mark was over stepped in this interview. I think perhaps some of the questions were a bit much but it isn’t any harm for those in power to get a bit of a shake now and then.
One clear cut rule is that of defamation and it is obeyed, for the most part. One slight loophole I suppose you would call it, is that it is impossible to defame the dead. This means that after the death of anyone in the public eye most publications in the media industry have a field day, case in point Michael Jackson and even closer to home, Steven Gately.
The mail received thousands of complaints after Jan Moir wrote an article in October of last year in the days following Gatelys death. Moirs article speculated that the circumstances in which Gately died were a lot more suspicious than what was initially reported.
Ultimately, forgiving her criticism his singing and belittling his accomplishments as a gay right activist, I think it was they language used and the slightly negative portrayal of the life of a gay man is what drew all the complaints. Words like “sleazy” and “bitter truth” did not help the matter. Also, implying his parents were purposely downplaying his sudden death did not go down so well. So just because he is dead it doesn’t matter what is said about him?
What about his parents, his partner and his friends still grieving and subjected to this less than complimentary article? Should the editor have allowed this article to be printed at all or perhaps held of for at least a few days? It is a right to free speech and no laws were broken by the content but I think it was distasteful. Again the right and wrong of this article is hard to fathom.
On reflection I think that perhaps there is no right and wrong in Media. Morals are a huge and ever expanding grey area and will continue to be. Each individual case has to be looked at. I know bloging is all about your opinion but the jury’s still out on the events mentioned here.
What I do think is that it’s not a simple call to make, maybe you can make more sense of it.
JM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLXcQNQJ0qk
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death--.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErxADYAfJQ4
Not So Private Life
This weekend, shamed soccer star John Terry graced the front pages of the majority of newspapers. Vanessa Perroncell, the lingerie model that he was alleged to have had an affair with also appeared in the papers but did not, however, sell her story because of the €458,000 sum paid to her by Terry to keep her silence. It seems strange that this affair should make front page news of almost every paper when affairs go on everyday, everywhere both noticed and unnoticed. But, this is what comes with the territory of being a public figure.
http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/around-town/terry-tried-to-buy-vanessas-silence-in-8364458k-deal-2051486.html
Is this, however, the way it should be? Are these 'celebrities' not entitled to a private life away from the cameras and press? Why is it that we should know the in's and out's of their lives?
On Friday, John Terry lost his England captaincy after his very public fall from favour. He remains as Chelsea captain. Moving away from my above questions but not unrelated, I now pose the question, should the goings on in Terry's life really have impacted on his footballing career? I understand that hundreds of young boys and girls uphold Terry as their idol, one day they want to be just as successful as him whilst mothers around the country deem him to be a homewrecker. Not exactly leadership material, I hear you say.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/0206/1224263886072.html
Leaders captain teams. Traits of a leader include a person of good character, a person who does everything they are supposed to do, someone who can command trust and someone of honourable character. Okay, so he hasn't exactly ticked all the boxes, alright then he ticked none of the boxes. But, before the country knew anything about his promiscuity, the boxes would have been all ticked.
John Terry worked hard to excell at football to be where he is today, nobody can argue that. So why then, should a slip-up in his private life prove detrimental for his footballing career? Are we judging his skill on or off the field? Should a player not be judged on his merit as a footballer rather than his scandalous private life? In my opinion, if you become a celebrity, automatically your right to privacy is infringed. However, I believe that a football player such as John Terry should be judged solely upon his ability to play football and captain a team rather than to introduce outside factors, like his private life, into the equation.
If today's game was anything to go by, Terry had no problem on the field, captaining Chelsea to victory over Liverpool, 2-0. Didier Drogba revealed after the game that the team had rallied around Terry in support.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/2843086/Didier-Drogba-We-had-to-stick-together.html
I have a feeling that Terry will be reinstated as England captain sometime in the future, much like Peter Robinson stepping down for a few weeks, just waiting for the dust to settle and another scandal to come along.
DA
http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/around-town/terry-tried-to-buy-vanessas-silence-in-8364458k-deal-2051486.html
Is this, however, the way it should be? Are these 'celebrities' not entitled to a private life away from the cameras and press? Why is it that we should know the in's and out's of their lives?
On Friday, John Terry lost his England captaincy after his very public fall from favour. He remains as Chelsea captain. Moving away from my above questions but not unrelated, I now pose the question, should the goings on in Terry's life really have impacted on his footballing career? I understand that hundreds of young boys and girls uphold Terry as their idol, one day they want to be just as successful as him whilst mothers around the country deem him to be a homewrecker. Not exactly leadership material, I hear you say.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/0206/1224263886072.html
Leaders captain teams. Traits of a leader include a person of good character, a person who does everything they are supposed to do, someone who can command trust and someone of honourable character. Okay, so he hasn't exactly ticked all the boxes, alright then he ticked none of the boxes. But, before the country knew anything about his promiscuity, the boxes would have been all ticked.
John Terry worked hard to excell at football to be where he is today, nobody can argue that. So why then, should a slip-up in his private life prove detrimental for his footballing career? Are we judging his skill on or off the field? Should a player not be judged on his merit as a footballer rather than his scandalous private life? In my opinion, if you become a celebrity, automatically your right to privacy is infringed. However, I believe that a football player such as John Terry should be judged solely upon his ability to play football and captain a team rather than to introduce outside factors, like his private life, into the equation.
If today's game was anything to go by, Terry had no problem on the field, captaining Chelsea to victory over Liverpool, 2-0. Didier Drogba revealed after the game that the team had rallied around Terry in support.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/2843086/Didier-Drogba-We-had-to-stick-together.html
I have a feeling that Terry will be reinstated as England captain sometime in the future, much like Peter Robinson stepping down for a few weeks, just waiting for the dust to settle and another scandal to come along.
DA
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The Inebriation of Society
At midnight last Thursday night, a 21-year-old man adorned in suit and tie lay bloodied and lifeless on the South Link Road in Cork. Passer-bys pulled in at the side of the road, shook and jelly-legged they emerged from their cars. Shock and disbelief painted across their faces. They had witnessed the whole horrific slideshow of events. What had begun as a celebratory UCC Arts ball in the Rochestown Park Hotel had resulted in the tragic end of one young student’s life.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0205/breaking10.html
This young man’s story is just one of many. Countless, pointless deaths have been caused by the consumption of too much alcohol. Research shows that one-in-four pedestrians killed in road accidents are drunk. Drunk and disorderly conduct has become far too commonplace in today’s society. So much so that it is scary even for a young woman like myself.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/alcohols-role-in-pedestrian-deaths-revealed-1956003.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0921/1224254909449.html
A study by the Health Research Board reported that the high levels of alcohol-related social harm “does not bode well for the future health and well-being of the Irish population.” It’s a dark and dangerous road that we’re going down as a society where drinking copious amounts of alcohol is the norm. I dread to think about the liver damage and other long term side-effects of our consistent consumption of alcohol.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/alcohol-related-social-harm-does-not-bode-well-106416.html
This Sunday heralds the beginning of UCC’s Raising and Giving Week (Rag Week). An awful start to what will be an eventful week. One can only hope that it will pass off without incident or casualty. This is more than unlikely. This year, however, Gardaí are cracking down on celebrations by taking a zero tolerance approach to anti-social behaviour. Many precautions have also been taken by the student’s union to prevent any repeat of last year. I think it’s only right that student patrols take place but also that students are warned of the implications of being arrested such as the consequences it will have for J1 applications and future job prospects.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2010/0205/ireland/gardai-to-lead-ucc-rag-week-crackdown-111352.html
Personally, I feel that the media do not highlight the abuse of alcohol in this country adequately. Why is it socially acceptable for our society to be so alcohol orientated? Alcohol is present and flowing,in this country, at all celebrations, christenings all the way through to funerals. Why is this, when it is so distant from the norms and traditions of other cultures around the world? Why can’t the media counteract this norm? We as a society need to change, and change fast, before things escalate. It is in my opinion, that the media can be used as a tool to sculpt a new and better society for ourselves.
DA
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0205/breaking10.html
This young man’s story is just one of many. Countless, pointless deaths have been caused by the consumption of too much alcohol. Research shows that one-in-four pedestrians killed in road accidents are drunk. Drunk and disorderly conduct has become far too commonplace in today’s society. So much so that it is scary even for a young woman like myself.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/alcohols-role-in-pedestrian-deaths-revealed-1956003.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0921/1224254909449.html
A study by the Health Research Board reported that the high levels of alcohol-related social harm “does not bode well for the future health and well-being of the Irish population.” It’s a dark and dangerous road that we’re going down as a society where drinking copious amounts of alcohol is the norm. I dread to think about the liver damage and other long term side-effects of our consistent consumption of alcohol.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/alcohol-related-social-harm-does-not-bode-well-106416.html
This Sunday heralds the beginning of UCC’s Raising and Giving Week (Rag Week). An awful start to what will be an eventful week. One can only hope that it will pass off without incident or casualty. This is more than unlikely. This year, however, Gardaí are cracking down on celebrations by taking a zero tolerance approach to anti-social behaviour. Many precautions have also been taken by the student’s union to prevent any repeat of last year. I think it’s only right that student patrols take place but also that students are warned of the implications of being arrested such as the consequences it will have for J1 applications and future job prospects.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2010/0205/ireland/gardai-to-lead-ucc-rag-week-crackdown-111352.html
Personally, I feel that the media do not highlight the abuse of alcohol in this country adequately. Why is it socially acceptable for our society to be so alcohol orientated? Alcohol is present and flowing,in this country, at all celebrations, christenings all the way through to funerals. Why is this, when it is so distant from the norms and traditions of other cultures around the world? Why can’t the media counteract this norm? We as a society need to change, and change fast, before things escalate. It is in my opinion, that the media can be used as a tool to sculpt a new and better society for ourselves.
DA
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Papal Visit
RTÉ News recently reported the confirmation of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK later this year.
On February 1st, it was reported that the Pontiff would be paying at least a 4 day visit to the UK on September 16th, travelling to Scotland on September 19th before returning to the Vatican. The news article entitled “Pope Benedict to visit Britain” said that the revelation came in an address to the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, marking the end of their pilgrimage to Rome.
“In a speech to the bishops, the Pope spoke of the 'living faith and devotion' among Catholics in England and Wales, highlighting the recent visit of the relics of St Therese and the forthcoming beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman.”
Great. I wouldn’t usually be interested in this kind of article but it is news and should be reported. The article was almost celebratory in its writing, ending with a quote from Cardinal Seán Brady conveying his best wishes to the bishops, priests and faithful of England and Wales on the “wonderful news” announced that day on the Pope’s visit to Britain.
But why Britain? Why is he visiting a country which has, for centuries, been traditionally Protestant? A country which has never been above 20% in terms of its Catholic population, which is dwarfed by our historic usual figure of 90% or more. Even as of the 2006 Census the percentage of Irish people who were Catholic stood at a very generous 87%. It may be a bit of a fib but no doubt it’s something for the Vatican to boast about.
So why is the Pope choosing to visit a country where anti-Catholicism was present for many years, since the Act of Supremacy of 1534, which stated that King Henry VIII was “the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England” to today’s tradition of burning effigies of the Catholic, Guy Fawkes on November 5th.
Now, granted, it’s more of a tradition without hateful connotations today, without a “feckin’ Catholics” mentality (They wouldn’t say “feckin’” anyway but you get what I mean). Just a tradition, albeit one with clear anti-Catholic origins. In a town called Lewes in England every year they still burn an effigy of the Pope on Guy Fawkes Night, amidst anti-Catholic slogans and chants.
Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t care that this takes place; I think the world would be much better off without inevitable religious divisions. But it still makes me wonder why the Pope chose to visit the UK rather than Ireland. In my eyes he’s nothing but a coward, ignoring our country when we’ve just emerged from the darkness and shone a much needed light on our dark and shameful past, with the publication of the Ryan and Murphy Reports.
I won’t give my full honest opinion in detail here as it would involve all sorts of swear words and spelling mistakes for which Tom would be at me, but you understand my stance on the organisation of the Church as a whole.
Now, as if this wasn’t enough, I noticed the next day, RTÉ had published another article on Pope Benedict. On February 2nd, an article entitled “Archbishop defends Popes comments” was published. The article concerned the Archbishop of Westminster defending the Popes right to speak out against the British Government’s Equality Bill. Apparently Roman Catholic bishops are afraid the Bill could end the right of their church to bar gay people and transsexuals from senior positions.
The article says:
“Speaking to a gathering of Catholic Bishops of England and Wales in Rome yesterday, Pope Benedict said he thinks that the bill is unfair” and that he “said the Bill could impose unjust limitations on religious freedom.”
The irony here is delicious. The Pope commenting on an Equality Bill designed to improve the welfare of Britain’s citizens, when he himself has failed to account for the welfare of those who have fallen victim to the abuses in the Church for decades. Forget the elephant in the room; the elephant’s so big that it’s burst through the entire house. You couldn’t make it up.
However, my issue here is with RTÉ’s reporting of it. Why did they not include some of the Popes comments the day before, on February 1? Is this biased reporting on the part of RTÉ? The first time we hear about the comments are on the next day when they report that the Archbishop of Westminster is defending them. Very odd indeed.
I wonder if they’ll sing “God Save the Queen” at some stage during the Pope’s visit next Autumn. “God knows”, he didn’t save our children.
“Peace”
NK
Links:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0201/pope.htmlhttp://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0202/pope.html
Government refusals to compensate family in Lost at Sea controversy a dangerous development
The ‘Lost at Sea’ scheme was introduced by the former Minister Frank Fahey when he was Marine Minister in 2001. It was designed to compensate fishermen whose boats had sunk by giving them replacement fishing quotas.
Six people were awarded replacement quotas under the scheme, two of these were from Mr Fahey’s constituency, and they received almost three quarters of all the replacement quotas given out.
The scheme was investigated by Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, who uncovered serious flaws in the way it was run. Before Christmas she recommended a Donegal family refused under the scheme be compensated.
Mr Fahey today again defended his role in the scheme.
(originally posted at tomfelle.com)
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