David Higgins writes:
With the focus now turning to a Fine Gael minority government, I began to explore just how many ways this new government could form. There are around seven groups/parties which may join, meaning 114 different coalition combinations.
READ ON: There are 114 ways for a FG minority government to form (Irish Election Stats)/
Yesterday.
Mulranny Beach, Mayo.
Jim O’Callaghan writes:
Went down for a jog on the beach last evening. Could not believe what I saw. ! Barnacle geese all the way from Greenland. They are born in Greenland and because it’s too cold there ,they come to Ireland for the winter.
On the way ,they stop off in Iceland for refreshments . 2,500 of them winter on Inishkea Islands ( means Goose Islands) just behind Achill’s Slievemore More . These ones came over to Mulranny for a spin. In my second photo, you can see them learning to surf the little waves !!!
MORE to folly
MORE to folly
‘sup?
Joe Collins writes:
Georgie our one eyed cat went missing over FOUR years ago having climbed under a neighbour’s car bonnet to avoid a heavy rain shower.
The neighbour got into the car and travelled from East Wall [Dublin 3] to a garage in Sallynoggin [Co Dublin]. A car mechanic got a shock when he opened the bonnet and the cat fled.
We drove out to the area to search for him and put up posters. We gave him little chance as only having one eye was such a disadvantage.
Yesterday we received a call from the DSPCA Rathfarnham to say he was handed in. Shook, starving and quite unwell but still with the same old attitude.
What’s the lesson? Always chip your pets…
MORE to folly.
Just look at how many of those comments are about my gender. Those comments are because I’m a woman expressing an opinion. It is hateful.
— Una Mullally (@UnaMullally) April 15, 2016
The Guardian trawled through 70 million comments and found that, of the newspaper’s 10 most abused writers – in the comments section – eight were women and two were black men.
The 10 writers who received the least abuse were all men.
Further to this, Una Mullally wrote about the matter in today’s Irish Times…
Una writes:
The vitriol that women and minorities experience online is anecdotally obvious, but now we have the data. Perhaps finally, news organisations will wake up to how the scale and scales of abuse are tipped towards women and minorities.
The bigger picture also calls into question the value of comment sections at all. Whatever the motivations for the Guardian study, what it shows is something any journalist who is not male, straight, white, or all three already knew, but that was often undermined by their male, straight, white, peers.
Women get more flack because they are female. That doesn’t mean that male journalists never get abuse, but the motivation for that abuse is different.
Gendered abuse or criticism is not as obvious as “I hate this article because you’re a woman”. It is more insidious than that. Male journalists are often criticised for the opinions they hold, whereas women are often criticised just for holding opinions.
…Where is the value in making potential comment posters and readers angry and annoyed when they go below the line? The authors of articles are not the only victims of abuse, but also other comment posters who go up against the most domineering comment posters.
…Comment sections as they currently exist have failed. Instead of fostering intelligent debate, they are taken over by ranters and ravers. Instead of adding value for the reader, they detract from the reading experience.
Instead of representing alternative points of view, they are specifically hateful of women and minorities. In an industry obsessed with what its readership wants, the tail has ended up wagging the dog.
FIGHT!
Nothing
at
Lane Shaming
at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8kJStpcaOs
Ranelagh, Dublin 6
Mickeyfex writes:
Is it time for another one of these?