Monday, July 31, 2023

The All-Island Strategic Rail Review

The All-Island Strategic Rail Review published last week offers great hope to the life of railways in Ireland. The Review, as the name implies, covers the whole island of Ireland.

It’s interesting how so many of the railway lines that were closed in the first 50 years of the State are now to be rebuilt. Only less than 30 years ago there was the real possibility of closing the Killarney Tralee line.

It tells a story of the shortsightedness of earlier administrations.

Why is there no mention of building a rail spur from Farranfore to Kerry Airport? It would be simple, cheap and easy to do, involving the building of a railway line less than two kilometres in length.

All material associated with the SEA consultation process can be accessed via the Department of Transport’s website here and the Department of Infrastructure’s website here.

Sunday, July 30, 2023

The growth of Germany’s AfD with all its contradictions

The far-right AfD party in Germany held a conference in Magdeburg on Friday and Saturday to elect candidates for the European parliamentary elections next year.

The party currently polls at 22 per cent behind the opposition CDU party.

One of their best known MPs is Alice Weidel.

The AfD stresses that it supports traditional German values. It is opposed to the current German regulations on allowing refugees and asylum seekers enter the country.

Ms Weidel is in a civil union with a woman from Sri Lanka.

Another prominent member of the party is Björn Höcke whose views are close to the National Democratic Party of Germany.

In September 2019, a German court ruled that describing Höcke as fascist was not libellous. However, a later court ruling in 2020 ruled against the FDP politician Sebastian Czaja for stating that the court ruling had classified Höcke as a fascist.

Höcke has called for more "Prussian virtues" and promotes natalist views, specifically the "three-child family as a political and social model.”

He opposes gender mainstreaming and demands an end of what he calls "social experiments" that undermine what he deems the "natural gender order.”

In 2017, Höcke stated "dear young African men: for you there is no future and no home in Germany and in Europe!”

What is happening across the world is frightening.

Colm Tóibín’s novel The Magician captures in gripping detail how Thomas Mann experienced the rise of Hitler in his German homeland.

The novel, while talking about past events, constantly hints of what might well be happening in Europe and the US today.


 

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Kylian Mbappe offered €300 million by Saudis

French international footballer Kylian Mbappe is said to have been offered €300 million to join Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal.

Friday, July 28, 2023

In tribute to Sinead O’Connor and two historical moments

In tribute to Sinéad O'Connor.

https://youtu.be/T6zqb3gf5aA

https://youtu.be/FS5JE3OG07A

-----------------------------------------

With no reference to the above. It’s worth noting these two historical events. Order 227 was cruel but for it would the German Army have been defeated at Stalingrad?

On this day in 1942 Soviet leaderJoseph Stalin issued Order Number 227.

In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreated or otherwise left their positions without orders to do so were to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in ashtrafbatbattalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.

On this day in 2005 the IRA called an end to its 31-year long armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.


Thursday, July 27, 2023

Sinéad O’Connor RIP

Sinéad O’Connor dies at 56.

A woman ahead of her time, who had been tormented all her life.

She was gifted, provocative and outspoken.

The Dublin singer spoke out against authorities she believed to be unjust and corrupt.

It obviously cost her her life.

A lesson for life?

She was fragile and fearful.

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

In praise of BBC journalist George Alagiah RIP

BBC journalist and news presenter George Alagiah died yesterday.

Many fine words have been spoken and written about George’s life.

The link below is to a podcast called How to Fail. It makes for great listening.




Tuesday, July 25, 2023

As the world burns we take to the skies in reckless abandon

This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

On the same day that US climate envoy John Kerry met his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in Beijing to discuss the climate crisis, Irish media reported on a national strategic railway plan that is due to come before the cabinet later this month.


The report recommends a railway link between Ballina and Rosslare and the return of trains to Donegal.


Former shortsighted decisions by Irish governments saw the closure of what were then uneconomic railway lines, including services in Dublin, Kerry, Cork and Clare. The closure of the Harcourt Street to Bray line can only be described as vandalism. The then chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, Todd Andrews is reported to have said that only ‘Protestant solicitors from Carrickmines’ used the train.


As the world begins to burn, governments have at last realised that rail travel makes great environmental sense.


On the day John Kerry was in Beijing, a region in western China recorded a temperature of 52.2C.


We simply can’t continue as we are. I find it bizarre to hear experts on the media advising Irish holidaymakers how to survive in the sweltering heat in many of the countries experiencing temperatures in the 40s and even 50 degrees Celsius. 


The world is on fire and I’m wondering are we really facing up to what is happening. Planes are renowned for being fuel guzzlers. Aer Lingus proudly advertises that it has four daily flights to New York. Our airports are bulging at the seams. People are flying here, there and everywhere. Only last month I heard of someone who plans to fly once a month to Rome. I can’t get my head around the current travel craze. 


Why would you want to go on holidays to somewhere where you have to avoid going outdoors. It sounds beyond absurd. We see and hear of tourists taking extreme measures to avoid the heat. And this is called a holiday? But besides the evident craziness of such behaviour, what about our carbon footprint? 


One minute we’re all talk about the importance of recycling but when it comes to buying aviation fossil fuel we do so with reckless abandon. Honestly, I’m confused and don’t really understand what’s happening. Did you know that aviation fuel used for international travel is liable to VAT at zero per cent? Can anyone explain why that is so?


Does it make sense that there are occasions when it is cheaper to fly from Dublin to Kerry than travel by rail?

  

Should air travel be more expensive? An unpopular question to ask but we need to be made aware of the extremely perilous times in which we are living. The world is on fire and we have to help stop the impending disaster. 


Over the years I’ve done my fair share of travel, indeed, only in April I went for a long weekend to Germany. Was it necessary? No. I’m not saying I am never going to fly again but when it comes to our current flying frenzy I have to admit I’m bewildered.


It seems we develop some sort of brain fog once we get the tiniest whiff of aviation fuel.

Monday, July 24, 2023

Vision of divided USA looks all too plausible

This piece by are Lara Marlowe in the Weekend edition of The Irish Times is most interesting.

This paragraph is eye catching. It appears int he second half of the piece:

But what if internal disaggregation was the greatest threat of all, as predicted by Kennedy? In earlier books, he wrote about the US Bible Belt and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. He is fascinated by the way religious fundamentalism pulls societies apart. Fundamentalism often goes hand in hand with populist nationalism. In Kennedy’s novel, the extreme right has also come to power in France, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the former Warsaw Pact countries.

It is August 8th, 2045, exactly 100 years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fundamentalist Christian United Confederacy marks the centenary by burning at the stake Maxime Lefkowitz, a transgender Jewish comedian from New York. Lefkowitz is an informer for the Bureau, the intelligence agency of the rival New Republic. She has offended the fundamentalist regime by making crude jokes about Jesus Christ in her comedy routine. Their agents abduct her in the neutral zone of Minneapolis, take her across the border into the Confederacy and try to execute her.

In the dystopian vision of the Irish-American author Douglas Kennedy, the US has split into the Confederacy, corresponding to present-day red, republican states and governed by 12 self-proclaimed apostles, and an ostensibly progressive, secular but totalitarian Republic corresponding to today’s blue, Democratic states. The book’s English-language title will be Flyover.

Published this year in France under the title This is How We Shall Live, Kennedy’s novel reads like an updated version of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Unlike Orwell’s central character, Winston Smith, intelligence agent Samantha Stengel supports the totalitarian regime that employs her. The intelligence agencies of the former United States are engaged in a savage war of kidnapping and assassination.

Divorce, abortion and gender-affirmation surgery are banned in the United Confederacy. The president of the secessionist New Republic, Morgan Chadwick, is an Elon Musk-like tech executive and inventor of the Chadwick chip, which all citizens must have implanted behind their ear.

Surveillance

In the Republic, The System uses Chadwick chips and facial recognition to track every movement and conversation. The System dispatches driverless taxis, automatically opens apartment doors, even monitors cholesterol and stress levels and knows when to send citizens to a womb-like DeStress box. Outdoor temperatures and prices are of course high. Ambitious people avoid emotional attachment by using the Tonight Only app for sex. As Leonard Cohen sang, “I have seen the future, it is murder”.

Kennedy wanted his novel to be plausible. “A world without freedom and under surveillance; I don’t think that’s far off,” he says. “A cop once told me, ‘If you have a smartphone, you are under surveillance already. We know everything. Unless you happen to be in North Korea, we are going to find you, probably within 10 seconds. When we arrest somebody, the first thing we do is take the phone, because it’s all there. This is not being paranoid. This is just true’.”

We seem to feel an inescapable compulsion to imagine our future. Haunted by the Cuban missile crisis, my generation half expected to perish in a nuclear Holocaust, a prospect renewed by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The American futurist philosopher Buckminster Fuller predicted in the 1960s that man would invent a device to connect everything, making it unnecessary for people to work from an office.

In the 1990s, two Harvard academics offered contrasting visions of the future. Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book said the triumph of liberal democracy spelled The End of History. Four years later, Samuel Huntington foresaw The Clash of Civilisations, a confrontation between Christianity and Islam. That fear was seemingly confirmed on 9/11 and has receded somewhat with the invasion of Ukraine.

Fundamentalism

But what if internal disaggregation was the greatest threat of all, as predicted by Kennedy? In earlier books, he wrote about the US Bible Belt and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. He is fascinated by the way religious fundamentalism pulls societies apart. Fundamentalism often goes hand in hand with populist nationalism. In Kennedy’s novel, the extreme right has also come to power in France, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the former Warsaw Pact countries.

The scenario is disturbingly credible when one recalls Donald Trump’s presidency and the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The conservative-dominated supreme court has overturned the right to abortion and reversed affirmative action. In Russia, the Duma assembly just banned gender change operations, because fundamentalist Orthodox Christians view the LGBTQ+ community as an existential threat.

Kennedy has known his greatest success in France, where his novels have sold eight million copies. Flyover, with its cover showing a torn US flag, is selling like popcorn. He bridles at the suggestion that the French enjoy a little schadenfreude at the thought of American misfortune. “That’s rubbish,” Kennedy says. “France is a much more nuanced country than that. There’s an American attitude that the French hate us. The relationship is very complex. I think there’s a sense of ‘If it’s happening in America, will it happen here too?’”

Kennedy recommends Rick Perlstein’s 2008 book Nixonland, which recounts how Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election by appealing to white middle-class voters who were shaken by race riots, the Vietnam war, and the sexual revolution. Nixon told them they were the real United States, the silent majority, dominated by elitist Democrats from the east and west coasts. “There was a subtext of racism, homophobia and misogyny behind it,” Kennedy says. “The fragmentation started more than 50 years ago.”


Sunday, July 23, 2023

The world and its mother turning to rail transport

Derek Scally in the Weekend edition of The Irish Times has an interesting article on the reintroduction of sleeper trains across Europe. And in that same paper there is a news report on Germany planning to invest €47 billion on the overhaul of Germany’s state railway company, Deutsche Bahn.

There has been a major improvement on railways in Ireland over the last 25 years but we are still lagging far behind European rail networks.

Why have freight/cargo trains disappeared off Iarnród Éireann tracks over the last 25 years? At Mallow station the entire freight yard has been decommissioned. Similar decommissioning has occurred across the network.

Why has there not been a rail spur built from the main Dublin Belfast line to Dublin Airport?

A rail link to Kerry Airport at Farranfore would have meant the building of a short two kilometre spur from the Tralee Mallow line. When the Mallow Tralee line was upgraded would it not have made sense to have upgraded the track to allow for faster speeds? 

Such a high speed rail link to Kerry Airport would have attracted passengers from Cork, Kerry, even parts of Limerick and Clare.


Saturday, July 22, 2023

Remembering two Irish Dominican brothers

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the death of Flannan Hynes. He died in Montevideo in 2019.

Flannan held many positions in the Dominican Order, including eight years as provincial of the Irish province.

He was disciplined, one might even call him an ascetic person.

We all praise those we like and admire and of course we are all biased.

Flannan was a kind and considerate person. He was provincial when I made my solemn vows and ordained a priest. It was Flannan, who gave me my first two assignations, to San Clemente in Rome and St Mary’s Pope’s Quay in Cork.

His younger brother Paul, also a Dominican, predeceased him by many years.

In 1972 Paul told young Dominicans that they should celebrate baptisms, weddings and funerals in a proper, dignified, sensible and prayerful manner because is would be the only time that they will be inside a church.

A man ahed of his time.


Friday, July 21, 2023

Austria is a 'veritable aircraft carrier' of illegal Russian spies.

Spying is not illegal in Austria, providing those spying are not  causing any disadvantage to Austria.

If, for example, Russia were spying on Germany in Austria, the authorities could do nothing about it.

Vienna is a perfect hub for spying. One diplomat said Austria is the Wild West when it comes to spying.

Remember of the Austrian parliament, Stephanie Krisper said: "If you are a Russian intelligence officer and want to run a source in Germany, why would you run the risk of meeting him there? You invite this guy on a skiing holiday in Austria. Or to a ball in Vienna... you can basically recruit sources and exfiltrate information completely unmolested.”

Austria is a 'veritable aircraft carrier' of illegal Russian spies.

The Austrian capital is likely hosting an outsize Russian signals intelligence operation, a fact barely disguised at street level to a casual passer-by.

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Russian war makes millions for German arms industry

German arms group Rheinmetall’s shares have jumped more than 150 per cent since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has calculated that the value of the shares of the chief executive of Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger had risen by €30 million since the start of the war. Papperger was paid €5 million in salary last year.

The Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall makes the cannon for the Leopard 2, and Munich-based KMW makes the chassis.

The Leopard 2 fires rounds at supersonic speeds. 

The price tag on the tank is between  €13 and €15 million.

A Russian artillery strike on a Ukrainian vehicle column during a daytime assault on or near the town of Novopokrovka—60 kilometres south east of Zaporizhzhia city in southern Ukraine knocked out at least one Leopard 2 tank in June.

And then think of the loss of human life on both sides, people maimed for life. It is unthinkable, barbaric too.


Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Lutz Seiler wins Georg Büchner prize

German writer Lutz Seiler

was awarded the Georg Büchner prize yesterday. It is Germany’s most prestigious literature award.

Lutz Seiler is best known for his novels Kruso and Starr 111. Both novels were influenced by his early life growing up in Gera in the German Democratic Republic.

He originally qualified as a carpenter and began to take an interest in literature while completing his military service with the National People’s Army of the GDR.

After his military service he studied language, literature  and history. 

His first publications were poetry collections, including the debut "Berührt-Geführt" (Touched-Guided), as well as the acclaimed "Pech & Blende" (Pitch and Blend), "Vierzig Kilometer Nacht" (Forty Kilometer Night), and "Schrift für Blinde Riesen" (Writing for Blind Giants).

In 2007, he was the recipient of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for the short story collection "Turksib" but it was the novel Kruso that propelled him to wider fame.

The story was inspired by Seiler's own life working as a seasonal employee on the island of Hiddensee, off the northeastern coast of Germany, which became a refuge for free thinkers and disillusioned East Germans wishing to escape across the sea to Denmark.

Kruso (a reference to Robinson Crusoe) documents the community of 'shipwrecked people' on Hiddensee during the final months of the German Democratic Republic. 

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

RTÉ has become our scapegoat

This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column.


Michael Commane

RTÉ has been all over the news for a month. I’m beginning to think our national broadcaster has become a scapegoat. Throw all the blame on them and we can easily forget about other agencies that are in shambolic condition.


I often wonder what’s going on inside the management of so many organisations.


Over many years I’ve had experiences with State and church groups, which have made me wonder who are the people in charge. I often find myself saying I would not leave them in charge of a chicken run. Indeed, a chicken run would require good and proper management.

Some weeks ago I wrote in this column about the new Transport for Ireland, TFI Live app. 


I had problems with navigating around it and how it published timetables. I emailed the National Transport Authority with my enquiry on May 25. That same day I received an email reply not answering my specific questions. I emailed again on June 18. Guess what happened? They replied telling me that they had dealt with my issues in the email of May 25. 


On another occasion I received a generic email informing me that I would receive a reply within 15 working days. I can’t recall receiving a reply. I phoned them and spoke with a pleasant and competent-sounding person. I explained my story and I could hear from her voice she knew exactly my predicament. She assured me she would inform the relevant department of my complaint. So far I have received nothing from the NTA. 


And I am still completely confused about what Transport for Ireland and the National Transport Authority do. Why should the National Transport Authority be responsible for the Transport for Ireland app? Is there anyone out there who is able to distinguish what is the different remit of both agencies? Should State agencies really be as obtuse as this? 

Now to my second unwholesome experience. Anyone who has been Garda vetted for their work, be it paid or voluntary, will be aware of the tedious process of having to list all the addresses they have lived in since birth. 

The system is not fit for purpose. 

I have to be Garda vetted for at least four agencies/organisations. My Garda vetting comes up every few years and every time I have to give all my addresses from birth. 

On this occasion, listing all my addresses, in error, I omitted the postal code of an address in Northern Ireland. My application was refused because of the missing postal code. 

Guess what, they have asked me to list all my addresses again, from the day I was born, which works out at 15. They would not accept a simple addition of the missing postal code. 

How much must all this pen pushing/keyboard stroking and bureaucracy cost the State? And on it trundles and we seem to accept it all sitting down. 

Someone needs to cry stop. And the sooner the better. This is our tax money, that is being wasted on the silliest of bureaucracy. 

What about the politicians who appoint so many people to State boards? How competent are these people? 

Monday, July 17, 2023

Soviets yield power in Yekaterinburg and Potsdam

Two important historical events that took place on July 17.

On this date in 1918 the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family at their home in Yekaterinburg.

And another July 17, this time in 1945 Stalin, Truman and Churchill met in Cecilienhof in Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany. At the time Potsdam was in the Soviet zone of divided Germany.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

We are all cafeteria Catholics, so what?

This from the NCR and well worth a read.

By Daryl Grigsby

July 7, 2023

Some Catholics speak derisively of other Catholics as "cafeteria" believers. The real issue is whether we are still feasting at the banquet of Catholic life, says commentator Daryl Grigsby. 

Read more: https://www.ncronline.org/node/248116

Saturday, July 15, 2023

We are the children of our history

The Thinking Anew  in The Irish Times today.


Michael Commane

The moment I got off the train in Tralee on the first Sunday of July it began to rain. 


I was heading for a week’s holiday in West Kerry. And that was disappointing, especially after the June heatwave. It rained most days but the sun shone too, which meant I could swim, both in the sun and in the rain.


While I was annoyed about the rain the local farmers were glad to see rain as they badly needed it for their vegetables.


Because of the wet and cold it meant I spent more time reading newspapers.


Tomorrow’s Gospel is the well known parable of the sower who goes out to sow the seed. (Matthew  13: 1 - 23) The seed that is sown on rich soil naturally produces the best crops while that sown on less fertile soil is a far poorer product. It makes perfect sense.


There is always the discussion about what makes a person do what is good and behave in a way that adds to the general wellbeing of society. What role does one’s environment play in how we live our lives? Of course there is individual responsibility but surely all our actions are heavily loaded by our environment.


Since Joe Biden became US president there’s been background noise about his son, Hunter. Martin Wall in the Weekend edition of this newspaper on July 1 reported on the saga. It’s not within my remit to know the specific details of the rights and wrongs of the life of Hunter Biden but reading Martin Wall’s story I was reminded of tomorrow’s Gospel. 


In spite of Hunter’s wealth and privilege the dice was stacked against him from an early age. He lost his mother and baby sister when he was three in a car crash in which he and his older brother, Beau were seriously injured.


In 2015 when his brother Beau died of cancer, Martin Wall explains: “…he seemed to go off the rails completely.”


Hunter readily admits to abusing alcohol and drugs. He’s done it all, placing much emphasis on the bad stuff.


The story of Hunter Biden certainly brings home how we are all influenced by our environment and the things that happen us on our life’s journey. I’d go as far as saying that the moment we are conceived in our mother’s wombs the pathways of our lives begin to take shape and that is something neurosurgeon and author Henry Marsh comes back to in his books recalling his career as a doctor.


It is often said that the Irish obsession about land and property can be traced back to how we were treated by the British, also that the famine has left an indelible mark on our psyche. Scratch the US surface and the shadow of the Vietnam war becomes ever so real.


However and whenever the war in Ukraine ends, the damage being done today will last for generations. Whatever about the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, the Russian people have not forgotten the horrors of what invading armies unleashed on their country. Putin is not slow in reminding the world of that.


We are the children of our history. Our past is marked all over our DNA. And in a similar way our environment plays a great influence in who and what we are.


That’s why it is essential for governments to make it their business to go that proverbial extra mile to support and nurture the less well off in our society. 

The fragile, the marginalised, those who feel hopeless, deserve special attention. And guess what, it is also the message of Jesus Christ. Read tomorrow’s Gospel, indeed, scroll through the New Testament and observe how Jesus spends his time in support of those less privileged. 

I’m just thinking, isn’t it odd how we can so often miss what is right in front of our noses and how we use every conceivable excuse not to face up to what needs to be done. 

Friday, July 14, 2023

The legacy of Rupert Murdoch and his style of newspapers

In the story, which ran  in the Sun newspaper since last Saturday about Huw Edwards, it’s worth noting that Rebekah Brooks is CEO of News UK, which is the publishing house of the Sun newspaper.

Rupert Murdoch and his people again. Rupert Murdoch is now an old man. A wealthy man too, who has made his fortune on his newspapers.

His legacy?

Thursday, July 13, 2023

From diesel to hybrid to electric, nearly

The piece below is an extract from Michael McDowell’s column in The Irish Times yesterday.

It all sounds bizarre. And to make it all sound even more bizarre why did the NTA buy these electric buses so close to the purchase of approximately 200 hybrid buses over the last tw0 years?

Why did the NTA move away from buying Volvo vehicles?


Michael McDowell

"The National Transport Authority (NTA) bought 134 new all-electric buses in June 2022 for use in Dublin.

There are 100 new double-decker buses and 34 single-deck electric buses in storage around the city, but none are in use because the NTA failed to get planning permission for the charging infrastructure to enable them to operate.

An NTA spokesperson said that the project to plan, commission and seek planning approval for the infrastructure is now “under way”. The buses cost us at least €50 million and we don’t yet know the cost of the unbuilt charging infrastructure.

These buses will not be on the streets until the substations and charge points are installed. Planning permission, it seems, must await precise specification of the proposed infrastructure. Registering the vehicles for road use is also “now under way”. They will use the chargers already installed for existing hybrid buses in the fleet to train drivers over the coming months. The testing and training phase will last “about three months”.

Maybe they will manage to get the buses into service in early 2024, but that will be done on an “incremental basis”.

This shambles is what bureaucratic Ireland describes as “rolling out” new programmes and projects. In the meantime, the buses lie idle and the people whose job it was to plan and install the charging infrastructure in tandem with the ordering and purchase sit at their desks. Or maybe they are working from home these days."

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Julian Assange sees Pope Francis as a moral protection

From the current edition of The Tablet

Stella Assange, wife of the imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, has described Pope Francis as a “massive moral protection” after she met him in the Vatican.  “He’s been following the case, and he understands the situation is critical,” she told Christopher Lamb last week. “We discussed the way in which political prosecutions use processes to prolong incarceration and that Julian is not convicted of any crime, that he’s been in the wing of his prison the longest, but he’s there without formally being a prisoner.”

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Gay Byrne’s wise words on turning off the radio

This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane
I can still remember Gay Byrne advising people that there was a turnoff switch on their radio. If someone was complaining about this or that he would politely suggest that if they were so upset about the topic being discussed on radio then they should switch off.


I’ve been thinking about Gay’s wise words these days, asking myself is it time to turn off the radio and television, and stop reading newspapers.


Honestly, it’s all depressing me greatly, indeed, it maybe a contributing factor to my morose mood at present.


We’ve had many days of the RTÉ crock of gold saga. Yes, I’ve been reading it but I’m wondering is it doing me any good. I’ve always had a sceptical opinion about the ‘higher-ups’ in RTÉ and the salaries they earn. 

Any time I ever heard Ryan Tubridy talk about the very rich or very poor I’d pause for a moment, wince and wonder what exactly did he mean. I’ve never been able to understand why we put so many people on pedestals.

 

While RTÉ can play around with hundreds of thousands of euro we have over 12,000 people classified as homeless.  The editor of The Irish Catholic, Michael Kelly talks about the 30 per cent increase in homelessness in a year, and then adds ‘but at least the pronoun police will be ok’. 


I consider it a nasty barb and unbecoming from the editor of a newspaper that uses the word Catholic in its title. Alas, it’s the sort of thing he regularly says.


The war in Ukraine trundles on. Every day soldiers are dying, others being maimed forever. Buildings being razed to the ground, young beautiful children being killed as they eat their pizzas. It’s catastrophic for all those who are suffering.


We’ve had the riots in France caused by the teenager who was shot at pointblank range by a Parisian policeman. He was 17, of Algerian origin living in a poor-man’s ghetto.


And all the while China is creeping across the world. I’ve heard it said they have JCBs and diggers in every square metre of the African continent and are now in the process of gaining great influence in the World Health Organisation.


There are all the issues surrounding the intricacies of gender: transitioning, the number of genders. Honestly, I’m lost.

 

Late in June I saw pictures of German  police arriving at the residence of the archbishop of Cologne, Rainer Woelki as part of a perjury investigation against him.


Germany has just elected a far-right mayor in Sonneberg in the former East Germany. That’s beyond scary. The vulgarity and vocabulary of Donald Trump, how he sneers at his opponents is unacceptable. What’s even worse is how people applaud him as he belittles everyone who disagrees with him. 


Then there’s Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, once a KGB agent in Dresden in the former East Germany. He was not good enough to serve as a spy in West Germany. Today he is responsible for the torturing and killing of anyone who disagrees with him. 


Time to turn off the radio and stop reading newspapers? Would the quality of my life improve?


Monday, July 10, 2023

Remembering the killing of Kevin O’Higgins TD

On this day, July 10, 1927 Kevin O’Higgins, the vice president of the executive council of the Free State, was assassinated by the IRA.

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Money no object for Germany’s RTÉ equivalent

The piece below is from The Irish Times Weekend newspaper. It is by Berlin correspondent Derek Scally. It throws some perspective on the current RTÉ ongoing saga.

As spending by public broadcasters goes, RTÉ largesse towards “talent” is remarkable – but not unique, as this reporter discovered in mid-2011.

Ireland had just entered its bailout and the troika was in town – and so were the Germans. Tom Buhrow, a high-profile evening news anchor for Germany’s ARD public television, was in Dublin for a live broadcast.

By chance so was I. We arranged to meet for an interview in Temple Bar, where I expected to talk for five minutes with him and a cameraman.

Waiting for me outside the Quay’s Bar, however, were Buhrow, at least one cameraman, two producers, a make-up man and a satellite truck parked up a lane with at least one technical person inside. The grandest touch was someone laying dolly tracks for a smooth camera pan across the Temple Bar cobblestones. As the camera rolled in the drizzle, Buhrow asked me why the pre-crisis the Irish had been so spendthrift.

Feeling dizzy, I suppressed the urge to turn to the camera and tell viewers that their licence fee was being squandered – on hotels, flights and hourly rates – for five minutes of television from Dublin.

It was my introduction to how – for some, at least – money is no object inside Germany’s equivalent to RTÉ or the BBC.

Sprawling federation

ARD, a sprawling federation of nine independent regional public broadcasting networks, shares with a second television network (ZDF) and public radio (Deutschlandfunk) a huge funding pot of €8.4 billion annually.This is replenished by an annual household charge of €220, deducted irrespective of whether you have a television or not. This reformed licence fee was introduced a decade ago and boosted public broadcasting income considerably – but has also triggered more critical debate of how the money is spent. The focus in Germany is less on well-paid “talent” – of which there is plenty – but the ARD’s nine directors general. Together they take home €2.9 million annually (before bonuses) – the equivalent of 13,000 household charges.

Buhrow has risen to become director general of WDR, the largest ARD affiliate, with the highest salary of €416,000 – 16 per cent more than that of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The most notorious ARD director general is Patricia Schlesinger. A year ago she was forced out as head of RBB, the ARD affiliate in Berlin-Brandenburg over a series of undeclared bonuses and a consultant contract for her husband worth €100,000 a year.

While overseeing huge cost cuts in production, Schlesinger found €650,000 to renovate her own office suite. There was a company car, a €145,000 Audi A8 in midnight blue with special “massage seats”, and at least six private trips with family members and eight catered private dinners at her Berlin apartment – all charged to the broadcaster.

Echoes of the crisis

With echoes of the crisis at RTÉ, news journalists at RBB spent weeks this time last year reporting on management avarice and ineffectual supervisory board oversight. A year on, the focus has shifted to the wider ARD network and whether structures created in the 1950s are fit for purpose in the 2020s. With nine main television stations, 76 radio stations and extensive online offerings, the German-wide ARD system operates on another scale to RTÉ. And yet certain reform demands are familiar.For instance some ARD affiliates are promising salary caps of €180,000 for leading managers. Buhrow has supported the move – for others, not himself. But a year after their boss departed in Berlin, RBB employees say little has changed: journalists and production staff, many working on precarious work contracts, face cost cut demands from managers and supervisory board members – often appointees from the unions and political parties – earning six-figure salaries.

“Public service broadcasting is a giant cruise ship with sun deck after sun deck of people who drink champagne, eat canapés and feel very important,” said one RBB employee.

“Below deck in the galley, meanwhile, slaves row for their lives, getting a little bread and water. If times are tough, those upstairs say: ‘Oh, we have to shed some load’ and throw a few slaves overboard.”


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