Monthly Archives: February 2011

The campaign has been precisely the kind you’d expect in a context where the most fundamental decision facing the country is avoided, and where the real decision-makers don’t run for election. Informed opinion from left to right suggests that some form of default is inevitable. The broad strokes of the ‘austerity’ policies trumpeted by Fine Gael, and bashfully coded by Labour, are dictated by the terms of the IMF-EU agreement. So despite the fact that the political landscape will be changed significantly by this election, there is more than a hint of The Apprentice about it all. The candidates can swear all they like about their commitment and liathróidí, but Bill isn’t going to let them do any real business.

And we all know what happens when the apprentices get smacked around the head with penny apple wisdom. They turn on each other. That is our social future.

We have heard endlessly from the big parties and their media cheerleaders about a turn away from ‘auction politics’. No such turn away has happened; the nature of the auction has changed. In this auction, you’re not told what precisely you are buying. We are all promised pain, but nobody admits that the scale of the ‘pain’ required by the austerity lockdown, and the unjust impact on the poor, will rip the social fabric apart.

Labour may well give a Pat Rabbitte sigh and participate in this historical re-shaping of the state. For Fine Gael, that’s all part of the fun.

Gavan is Lecturer in Media in NUI Maynooth, and a contributor to Crisisjam on Politico.ie.

http://vimeo.com/3841165

The Canadian author and journalist, Pierre Berton hosted his own talk show in the 60s and early 70s. Among his many iconic guests were Malcolm X (1965), Lenny Bruce (1966), and Bruce Lee.

This is the only in-depth interview Lee ever took part in. It was filmed at the end of 1971, 20 months before his death, subsequently lost, then rediscovered in 1994, when it was aired  as a TV special.

Sure, it’s 25 minutes long. But if you’re any class of a Lee fan, that’s a good thing.

video via DailyWh.at/image: Rama’s Screen
Michael Lowry with principal Matthew Carr and pupils at Borrisokane school

See if you can hold it down after reading this:

THE majority have no vote, but that hasn’t stopped one of the country’s wiliest politicians from canvassing hundreds of secondary school students for votes ahead of the election.

Students attending Borrisokane Community College in Tipperary, and their parents, were asked to support independent TD Michael Lowry via a letter which was circulated throughout the school.

The Irish Independent has learnt that school principal Matthew Carr instructed two transition year students to distribute the Oireachtas-headed envelopes to all students during assembly last Friday.

In the letter addressed to parents and students, Mr Lowry claims credit for using his influence as an Independent TD to secure new facilities for the north Tipperary school.

He concluded the letter by writing: “In order that I can continue to offer effective support to Borrisokane Community School and to the wider locality, I am asking for your number 1 vote on February 25.”

Outcry As Lowry Uses Pupils In Bid For Votes (Irish Independent)