This afternoon.
Grantham Street Dublin 2.
Stop stinging everyone so.
SWARM!
Thanks Maccers
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Further to an earlier post this morning in which the victims of convicted and jailed paedophile Bill Kenneally responded to claims Kenneally made, through an intermediary, to The Irish Times in an article supported by the Mary Raftery Journalism Fund…
Tonight.
On RTÉ One at 10.15pm.
Journalist Mick Peelo will present a Would You Believe documentary called Beyond Redemption?
An explanatory piece about the documentary on RTÉ’s website states:
“…this special, investigative Would You Believe? documentary lifts the lid on Ireland’s sex offenders to discover a number of unpalatable truths: most are not paedophiles, most are never caught or convicted and almost 40% of them are children under 18; most sexual abuse happens within families and is kept secret.”
“Demonising the few sex offenders who are convicted is understandable, perhaps, but takes the focus away from the majority, who continue to operate undetected. In fact, it endangers rather than protects our children and our society.”
“Like it or not, a more humane approach to sex offenders actually reduces further victims.”
In the documentary, Mr Peelo goes to Arbour Hill Prison where he talks to the prison’s Governor Liam Dowling and psychologist Dr Emma Regan about the prison’s sex offenders’ treatment programme. He also meets and interview sex offenders and people who work with them.
In addition, he travels to Canada where, over 20 years ago, a mennonite community took in a paedophile called Charles Taylor in which he took part in a Circle of Support.
RTÉ explains:
“This Christian community built a Circle of Support and Accountability around a man the public had good reason to regard as a dangerous, serial predator, so that he wouldn’t reoffend. For the rest of his life, Taylor never did and those Circles of Support continue to help other offenders to re-build their lives in safety in a community setting.”
These “circles of support” are operating in Ireland, too.
In an article in today’s Irish Times, court reporter Conor Gallagher reported:
Nearly 50 people have volunteered to support and monitor convicted sex offenders in the community, as part of a Probation Service programme which has substantially reduced reoffending in other countries.
The Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) programme, which was launched in Dublin last year, is designed to reintegrate medium to high-risk sex offenders into the community by including them in an informal social support circle of volunteers.
The model originated in a Canadian Mennonite community and has since been successful in Europe.
Studies suggest there has been a 70 per cent reduction in sexual reoffending by those who go through the programme.
…Last year, 45 volunteers were selected following a public recruitment campaign. Individual offenders were put in a group of between four and six volunteers.
… The programme is funded by the Probation Service, at a cost of €71,000 a year, but is run by PACE, an offender rehabilitation organisation headed by Lisa Cuthbert.
Further to this, on this morning’s Today with Seán O’Rourke on RTE One, Mr Peelo discussed his documentary.
Also present to discuss is was Cormac Walsh, who was abused by Michael Byrne, a former teacher and brass band leader, from Templerainey, Arklow, Co Wicklow, and former Toronto police officer Wendy Leaver, who is an advocate of the Circles of Support programme.
Mr Walsh and Ms Leaver – a retired detective of the Toronto Police Services and worked in its Sex Crimes Unit for 20 years – also feature in tonight’s documentary.
From the discussion on the Sean O’Rourke Show…
Sean O’Rourke: “Mick Peelo, can you first outline to us: how did this programme come about and when was that question first posed? Could the way we currently treat sex offenders be doing more harm than good?”
Mick Peelo: “Well, Would You Believe? is celebrating 25 years of making documentaries on RTE and I’ve been working on it for 24 of those 25 years. I’ve been privileged enough to do that. And I suppose in that I’ve made some of the most harrowing and difficult programmes about sexual abuse. But this one, this particular one tonight, is probably the most difficult I’ve ever had to make but, for me, it’s one of the most important. I suppose because it raises hard-hitting questions about offenders of sexual abuse. In a way, I suppose, it makes us sit back and think about how do we treat sex offenders and is the way we treat sex offenders demonising them, isolating them, having a negative impact. And, I suppose, I’ve been hearing back from, over the years, from people working with sex offenders, people who sexually harm, that ‘yes, you in the media are one, a serious problem’ is what they’re saying to me, so, basically, I suppose, I listen to that and listen to sex offenders and ask those questions.”
Poet, sound-artist and film-maker Robin Parmar sat down to watch Adam Curtis’ BBC documentary HyperNormalisation after all the hype.
How did that go?
Well…
Throughout the film he repeats absolutes like “all” and “every”, without support or justification. For example, in the Soviet Union in the 1980s “no-one believed in anything, or had any vision of the future” This is an essentially stupid statement that cannot possibly be true. It betrays Curtis as unwilling to allow his viewer the freedom to consider any reading of a situation, outside his own narrow view.
This attitude is in place from the outset of the film. “No-one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future” he states categorically. Er, “no-one”? Curtis is simply ignorant of the many thinkers from the 1970s until today, who proposed Green, anarchist, communitarian, or other alternatives to state power (a phrase I believe that Curtis never utters)….
It is telling that the film quotes not a single philosopher or political theorist, leaving us in an intellectual vacuum to be filled only by Curtis and his measured inflexible tones….
This is meant to reassure us. But such certitude and absolutist statements are suspect from the beginning, as they replace any deeper or broader understanding…
…I have belaboured this point since it’s symptomatic of Curtis’ approach. He creates a fictional totalising narrative in order to “make sense” of the apparent chaos of today’s society. He essentially uses the same techniques that the film pretends to critique. It’s theatre with himself as the protagonist, a documentary dictator if you will…
“…Patti Smith is singled out for derision, typified as “a new kind of individual radical”. Apparently Curtis is unaware of the antecedents, even though he might have studied the likes of Rimbaud when getting his humanities degree.
Curtis refuses the challenge of placing Smith within the context of rock music, photography (Mapplethorpe), the gallery scene, sexual expression, or, well, anything really. Instead he claims that people like her didn’t try to change anything but instead “turned to art and music as a means of expressing their criticism of society…
…This documentary is a cautionary tale, and Curtis offers no solutions. Those that lie directly under his nose are lost in his hyperopia. Instead, he repeats tired fears that were already played out in the last millennium.”
Gulp.
FIGHT!
The BBC Echo Chamber (Robin Parmar, Theatre of Noise)
Pic: BBC
Yesterday, with a Family pass to Tayto Park’s After Dark VIP experience TONIGHT to giveaway, we asked you to recall your most frightening crisp-related experience..
You answered in your singles.
Runners up:
SB: “My scariest crisp-related experience to date involved doing the tour of the factory at Tayto Park and realising that Tayto and King crisps are both made by the same people!!! And let’s not even mention Hunky Dorys and all the rest.”
IrishStu: “I accidentally ate a green one and almost died.”
Toe Up: “My scariest crisp related experience to date involved watching a particularly tense episode of Home & Away (Alf was about to go nuclear on some flaming mongrels), There I was engrossed in the show when my flatmate snuck up behind me with an empty crisp packet that he had inflated and he burst it beside my ear. I jumped about a foot off the couch with the shock and had a ringing in my ear for the rest of the episode. I’ve never been able to watch Home & Away since, mainly because it’s a pile of poo.”
Papi: “When they go sideways and in between [teeth] and actually get stuck. True story.”
Hank: “My scariest Crisp-related experience to date involved taking a relaxing bath with Quentin.”
But there could only be one winner.
Damien wins the VIP pass for this monstrous snack0fueled nightmare:
‘My scariest crisp-related experience to date involved my late mother making crisp sandwiches for me for my lunch when I was in primary school, when lunchtime came I was so looking forward to my crisp sandwich but the crisps were soggy as she added them to the buttered bread that morning, I was devastated.”
Damien and his family will experience the House of Horrors, night ride the Cu Chulainn Coaster, Air Race, Rotator, Windstar and endeavor the terrifying 5D Horror Movie,
Thanks alNOMNOMNOM
Yesterday: Things That Go Crunch In The Night
Thanks Ian Collins
Ho Thuy Tien waterpark, just outside the city of Hue, between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.
Abandoned before opening for reasons never quite clarified – its existence denied by some travel agencies – the waterpark has become something of a cult destination for tourists, as nature slowly reclaims its territory.
Twelve years after completion, the park sits empty, except, perhaps, for a family of crocodiles rumoured to live there.
Stutterer
at
The 2016 Oscar winning live action short film by Irish writer/director Benjamin Cleary – now available to view online in its entirety courtesy of the New Yorker.
Thirteen minutes well spent (if, God forbid, you’re using a regional masking browser plugin), to wit:
…a young London typographer named Greenwood (Matthew Needham) stutters to the extent that verbal conversation is difficult. When he tries to resolve an issue with a service representative over the phone, he can’t get the words out; the operator, gruff and impatient, hangs up. (For surliness, she rivals the operator in the old Yaz song.) When a woman approaches Greenwood on the street, he uses sign language to avoid talking. But in his thoughts, which we hear, he does not stutter.
Infelicitous
at
From top: Star Wars poster featuring Felicity Jones (top) and Inferno Dublin Bus ad.
Alan O Regan writes:
I saw a poster for Inferno on a Dublin Bus this morning. I thought the actress looked like Felicity Jones so I was scanning the poster for her name. No sign of her name on the poster despite sharing prominence (space-wise) with Tom Hanks.
Now I know Tom Hanks is a huge star and everything but to not have his co-star’s name on the poster at all?
It’s a pity too because I was just thinking how great it was that she’s featured so prominently on the new Star Wars poster (with the men much less so) and in a non-sexualised way and that this was a good step forward.
Anyway, if it was obvious enough to slap me out of my usual apathy I thought it can’t be right.
Anyone?
Top pic: Lucasfilm
Newtendo
at
Coming up at 3pm:
Nintendo announce their next videogame console, off the back of the commercial disappointments of the tablet-based Wii U.
Codenamed NX, it launches in March, and is rumoured to be a hybrid of home and portable consoles.
Expect: a new name, early looks at games and explanation of the tech. All will be revealed in an episode of Nintendo Direct, the company’s online video magazine, going up shortly.
More as we have it.
UPDATE:
Nintendo Switch is coming March 2017! Catch the Preview Trailer and visit https://t.co/j4Unm459lg for more details. pic.twitter.com/EV7zPiVf35
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) October 20, 2016
Just announced this minute on Nintendo of America’s online presence, but not Europe’s for some odd reason, despite being heavily advertised across the company’s UK social media.
Say hello to the Nintendo Switch – a game console playable across several form-factors, from home console, to handheld device, to novel self-contained mini-machine.
Red Dead Redemption 2, you say? Covered in more detail elsewhere online.
Kurdish Peshmerga display antique weapons used against well-equipped Isis fighters on the Bashiq frontline, approximately 18km from Mosul
Kurdish Peshmerga Forces on the Bashiq frontline
A Kurdish Peshmerga soldier holds what he claims is a German Luger from World War 2
A Kurdish Peshmerga soldier standing on the Bashiq frontline against Isis, with Mosul on the horizon
A 63-year-old Peshmerga figher Mamuri Purida at a Kurdish frontline post near Makhmur, 3km from Isis-held territory
Mamuri Purida points to a picture of President Masoud Barzani beside a map of greater Kurdistan at a frontline post near Makhmur
Kurdish Peshmerga driving between outposts on Bashiq frontline
The Isis-held town of Bashiq, northern Iraq, seen from the Kurdish Peshmerga frontline with Mosul on the far horizon
A ruined bus stop on the road to Qayyarah with burning oil wells in the distance
Qayyarah, a town of 15,000 people engulfed in smoke from burning oil wells lit by retreating Isis fighters in August
Photographs from Dublin journalist Ruaidhrí Giblin, who has recently returned from Iraq.
Ruaidhrí spent six weeks reporting on the build-up to the military offensive by Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi special forces towards Mosul which is seen as the de-facto capital of Isis.
He toured several frontlines with the Kurds and Iraqi forces.
On Sunday, he will broadcast a report on the Kurdish Peshmerga on RTÉ’s World Report.
Ahead of this, Ruaidhrí writes:
Iraqi Kurds don’t have a country, they have a Regional Government. They don’t have a regular army, they have an irregular militia, whose name the ‘Peshmerga’ literally means those that face death.
They don’t have modern weapons, advanced technology or heavy artillery and often appear in button down shirts and traditional Kurdish trousers.
They’ve gone months without being paid because Iraqi Kurdistan is overwhelmed with two million refugees from Syria and other parts of Iraq.
Yet, they, along with their Syrian counterparts, are the most effective fighting force against Isis since the terror group emerged on their doorstep in 2014.
All they want, they say, is recognition from the world – to be able to put their flag on the international map. The story of the Kurds deserves attention.
World Report is on Sunday at 8am on RTÉ Radio One.
Meanwhile…
Kurdish peshmerga and Iraqi special forces have advanced to within around six miles of the city of Mosul, after launching a major three-pronged attack early on Thursday against dug-in Islamic State militants.
Hundreds of armoured vehicles including tanks and humvees began a large-scale offensive at around 6am local time, the Kurdish peshmerga general command said in a statement. Their target was a series of villages to the north and north-east of Mosul held by Isis fighters.
Iraqi and Kurdish forces close in on Mosul after making quick gains (The Guardian)
Photographs: Ruaidhrí Giblin
