Pearse Dohery gets it wrong on the German government

Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty speaking on Drivetime today referred to the German government as a conservative government. And said it with such confidence and certitude. I doubt German chancellor Olaf Scholz would agree, indeed, I doubt not one of the 80 million citizens would agree. And not a word of correction, surprise or questioning from interviewer Sarah McInerney.

The current German government is a rainbow coalition of the SDP, The Greens and the FDP with the Social Democrats the lead party in the government.

The official opposition is the CDU with its sister Bavarian party the CSU.

Argentine presidential candidate sees pope as the evil one

Argentinian politician who sees Francis as a ‘communist pontiff’.

 “I am terrified of saviours of the nation without a political party history,” - Pope Francis

Link below is from the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/27/the-false-prophet-v-the-pope-argentina-faces-clash-of-ideologies-in-election?CMP=share_btn_link

European Union continues to import timber from Belarus

 Interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/23/belarus-people-still-resisting-exiled-leader-sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-calls-for-wests-support?CMP=share_btn_link

Special days in history

On this day in 1942 the battle at Stalingrad began.

The World Council of Churches was formed on this day in 1948. 147 churches joined from 44 countries.

In 1990 on this day Armenia declared independence from the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic announced that they would reunite on October 3, 1990.

Colm Tóibín’s book is truly a magical read

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

Michael Commane

I’m a slow reader and I’d also call myself something of a hit and miss reader. By that I mean I go through phases, could read a number books in a few weeks and then read nothing for months. 

Every now and again, on the recommendation of someone, I get lost in a book. And it’s happened me again, though on this occasion I faltered over the first few pages and it took me a while to get into it. I finished all 435 pages of the book just over two weeks ago and it’s still swirling about in my head. I’m genuinely excited about it.

The book is The Magician by Colm Tóibín. It was published in 2021 and a number of people suggested I read it. I had previously read two of his other books The Master and Brooklyn. Great reads but The Magician is number one for me.

 

It’s about the famous German writer Thomas Mann, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. He’s up there with Germany’s great writers. I think it’s fair to call Tóibín’s book an historical novel as it traces the life of Mann from his birth in 1875 in Lübeck to his death in Zürich in 1955. How much of it is fiction I don’t know because I don’t know enough about Mann to answer that.

 

What fascinated me about the book was the simplicity of the language that Tóibín uses to tell the story of this great man.

I can’t explain how he does it but he seems to get inside Mann’s head and tell his story in such a readable fashion. I’m astonished at the detail in the book, the research that Tóibín must have done to write such a novel.

There is nothing simple about Mann’s life. He has six children, married to a wealthy secular Jewish woman and yet there’s always the gossip about him that he is a homosexual. He certainly admires the bodies of handsome young men. But it would be a terrible mistake to get distracted by that.

 

Tóibín explains how Mann realised early that the Nazis were going to bring mayhem and destruction to Germany.  Two of his children in 1933 told him not to return home from France and eventually at the outbreak of war he and his wife moved to the United States.

He passionately believed in freedom in all its forms and realised that the Nazis were thugs and bullies, who had to have scapegoats at whom they could sneer. They were ever so clever in whipping up fear and anger and at the same time able to appeal to populist sentiment. 

Tóibín  strongly hints that Mann was at first hesitant to speak out clearly in public against the Nazis. Reading the book I kept thinking of political parties that have similar tactics today. And that is beyond frightening.

Mann is a complicated person, aren’t we all. Colm Tóibín has that skill in making Mann come alive, indeed, so much so I’m tempted now to get to know more about Thomas Mann. 

I think it’s a great gift of a writer to make the reader so curious as to go off and learn more about the subject matter. That’s also the hallmark of a good teacher.  And when you read it you’ll discover why it’s called The Magician.

Channel 4’s documentary this evening on Dmitry Muratov

Denmark and the Netherlands are to supply F-16s to Ukraine. The approximate price tag of an F-16 is €63 million.

Germany has promised €500 million to Ukraine over the next four years.

Channel 4 this evening is screening at 10pm a documentary on Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Russia’s only independent newspaper. The documentary focuses of the invasion of Ukraine, when Muratov remained determined to continue reporting on events.

The mystery: how come he has not been arrested?

Sad to see England beaten in Sydney

Most Irish people who follow soccer have close allegiances with English or Scottish clubs but when it comes to following the English national team it seems Irish people are generally supporting the ‘other side’.

Conscious of that, it was sad to the see the English team beaten in Sydney today.

While the Queen of Spain was present in Sydney to cheer on her compatriots, there was no sign of anyone present from the House of Windsor.

Von Storch’s grandfather was Hitler’s finance minister

Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard von Storch is the deputy leader of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) political party in Germany. The party is currently  polling at approximately 22 per cent in opinion polls.

Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard von Storch is a member of the German Parliament and is a former member of the European Parliament. She belongs to the conservative wing of the party.

Her grandfather,  Johann Ludwig Schwerin von Krosigk was finance minister in Germany from 1932 until 1945 when he became German chancellor/first minister from May 1 until May 23, 1945.

von Krosigk was one of five people, including Hitler, who served continuously in the Nazi cabinet.

He had been appointed by Franz von Papen. Many of his family members were involved in the plot to kill Hitler.

He was convicted of war crimes in 1949 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. His was freed in 1951 and died in Essen in 1977.

Sir Michael Parkinson’s secret to interviewing success

Former author and journalist John Sergeant talking about Michael Parkinson yesterday stressed how Parky was always interested in the story of the person he was interviewing.

He went on to say that it was never drink that destroyed a journalist but it was always self-importance. Sergeant said that Parkinson spent his like making sure he never became self-important.

No blessings for gay couples in German church

The article below appeared in The Irish Times yesterday. It is by the paper’s German correspondent Derek Scally

Catholic priest Herbert Ullmann spent most of July on a cycling holiday around Lake Constance in southern Germany. Throughout it all, he had a nagging feeling that something was brewing back home.

Returning a fortnight ago to his western German parish in Mettmann, half an hour east of Düsseldorf, Fr Ullmann found out he was headline news. The reason? The response of his church superiors to his “Mass of blessing for all loving couples” last March.

It was a ceremony with a “concentrated, calm, warm atmosphere”, he recalls, with one obviously same-sex couple among around 25 heterosexual couples attending.

“It was about blessing and showing respect for all forms of responsible partnerships among people of goodwill,” he told The Irish Times.

While other German Catholic bishops have turned a blind eye to similar services in their dioceses, many widely reported in the media, things worked out differently for Fr Ullmann.

Someone attending the ceremony in March tipped off the Vatican, he believes. How is so he sure?

“Rome knew details about the ceremony that were in no newspaper report,” said Fr Ullmann. “There is always a small number of people in any parish with their ‘deep concerns’ who creep to Rome. It’s less than 5 per cent, but they are very spiteful.”

Holy See intervention

Exactly a month after the March ceremony, the Holy See intervened through the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament – the oversight body for Catholic liturgy and sacraments.

It contacted the archdiocese of Cologne, responsible for the parish of Mettmann. In turn the archdiocese general vicar Guido Assmann reminded Fr Ullmann of Catholic teaching, renewed in 2021, which excludes same-sex couples from any blessing or sacraments because homosexual acts – with no prospect of procreation – are “intrinsically disordered”.

“Individuals can always be blessed regardless of disposition and life status,” added the general vicar in a letter. Catholic priests should stay clear of any such blessing services as they were likely to “cause confusion among the faithful about the teachings of the church”.

For Fr Ullmann his service, agreed with the local parish committee, was a pilot project that responded to the real needs on the ground of his parishioners. The priest told his superiors he hoped that such outreach events might even help lessen departures from the church.

A record 522,000 people left the Catholic Church in Germany last year. With 20.9 million members, the Catholic Church in Germany has lost more than a tenth of its following – nearly 2.4 million people – in the last decade.

Vow of obedience

After the story became public, Fr Ullmann said his vow of obedience to his local archbishop, Cardinal Woelki of Cologne, precludes him from carrying out such blessing services in the future. But he promises that “this issue isn’t over yet”. His parish is working on new plans and “they know they can count on me pastorally and theologically”.

The campaign group #OutinChurch has accused Cardinal Woelki of operating a “church of fear”, breaking a promise he made in March not to sanction anyone for such blessing ceremonies. Cardinal Woelki is a leading opponent in Germany of liberal Catholics’ reform demands – including an end to celibacy, the ordination of women and blessing services for homosexuals.

Pope Francis has so far pushed back against German reform efforts and, in October, will open a gathering of world church representatives to discuss reform and renewal in a so-called “synod on synodality”.

In a statement, the archdiocese of Cologne said Cardinal Woelki was “aware of the deep desire of same-sex couples for a church blessing and has great understanding for their struggle”.

If the world synod changes its position on same-sex couples, a spokesman said, Cardinal Woelki “would of course follow suit”.

For Fr Ullmann, a trained historian, the row over his blessing service reveals less about him and much more about senior Catholic clergy.

“We have bishops and cardinals, many of whom with little or no pastoral experience and no grounding in people’s real concerns,” he said. “And the bureaucracy in Rome . . . is increasingly saying ‘it’s immaterial who the pope is under us because our system functions as it is’. They have a panicked fear of any kind of synodal understanding of Catholicism.”

Shockingly shoddy treatment from Bank of Ireland yesterday

Are we becoming slaves to modern technology, indeed are we being treated like slaves by the major corporations and banking institutions?

Yesterday Bank of Ireland’s 365Online and Mobile App went down sometime after 14.00. At 4pm Bank of Ireland customer support  promised the service would be back in operation within two hours. Not so.

Why did Bank of Ireland not inform customers via a text message of the outage?

Worried customers were left waiting 16 to 18 minutes for their calls to be answered. The ordinary business hour phone numbers were not available after business hours. Surely those numbers should have been open to deal with such an eventuality.

Customers could easily have thought their accounts had been hacked/scammed.

If customers did ask why they had not been informed via a text message they were advised to check the Bank of Ireland website. The note below appeared on the website. Would a customer have the presence of mind to check the website? Unlikely.

At midnight on Tuesday the system was still down.

Ongoing Issue: 365Online and Mobile App

We are aware that customers using our mobile app and 365Online are currently experiencing difficulties. We are working to fix this issue as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused. We will update here once service is restored.

Our bodies and minds are dodgy pieces of hardware

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

Michael Commane

Two weeks ago in this column I wrote about my encounter with a pregnant woman begging at the Luas stop at Heuston Station. To my shame I gave the woman nothing. Radio Kerry picked up the story and interviewed me about it. The interview compounded my belief that I had done the wrong thing not giving the woman anything. 

I have no idea about her background, know nothing at all about her. Is she a drug addict? I don’t know. But if she is, then the poor woman suffers from a horrible illness. And I’m intentionally using that word illness. Just think of the damage that any addiction causes, the pain too, and  how it destroys body and mind.

In my seven years working as a hospital chaplain I have come to learn how fragile our bodies are. One moment we think we are indestructible and at the flip of a coin we can be struck down with illness.

Last week there was a story in the national press about how the number of children on a waiting list for key spinal surgery has nearly doubled since 2019. 

I read the story but no sooner had I read it than I forgot about the seriousness of the topic.

 

Three weeks ago I got an infection. The previous day I had been swimming in the sea, cycling, and running about like a goat, carefree and not for a second thinking about health or how my body was working. And then suddenly, I’m feeling out of sorts, lethargic and really all I want to do is go back to bed. Nothing serious at all, nothing that a visit to the GP can’t fix. 

But it set me thinking what must it be like for people who are really sick, people struck down with  serious illness. What must it be like for parents who discover their young child has an illness that is going to be with them for the rest of their lives?

We are all fragile and if we are not currently fragile the day will arrive when we will realise that our bodies and minds too are dodgy pieces of hardware, that is unless we are suddenly knocked down by the proverbial bus. 

I lost a close friend when he was 57. He was found dead sitting at his desk. We could argue until the cows come home if sudden death is a good way to go. In the meantime it’s surely a good idea for all of us to offer a helping hand to the sick and frail.

 

During my few days of illness I was greatly impressed with those who went to the shop for me, dropped me down a litre of milk or a few oranges. I keep saying it’s the little things that always matter.

And on a more global level, you can measure the worth of a society by how it cares for its sick and old, those marginalised and unable to care for themselves. And yes, drug addicts too.

 

I know we do a lot of giving out about our health service but there are many positives about it. It’s healthy to criticise what’s wrong but it’s also important that we appreciate what works.  No harm to quote the wise words of the 18th century French writer and philosopher, Voltaire, ‘Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.’

Possibilities of a Kennedy making it to the White House

What are the chances of Robert Kennedy Junior becoming the next president of the United States of America?

He is running for the Democratic nomination for president in the 2024 election. He comes from a long line of political giants, including his uncle, former President John F Kennedy and his father, former Attorney General Robert F Kennedy--both of whom were assassinated. 

He is noted for saying many unusual or strange things. But it appears his poll numbers are growing.

https://youtu.be/KaTUepQ_V34

The Wall that was built as an anti-fascist protection rampart

Construction of the Berlin Wall began on August 13, 1961. Its purpose was to prevent East Germans leaving the country. The German Democratic Republic was haemorrhaging skilled labour since the establishment of the state in October 1949.

The GDR authorities referred to it as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart. A similar style language that Vladimir Putin uses today to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and Germany was reunited in October 1990. There was a hefty discussion as to whether Germany was united or reunited. And then there was great care to fix the date of reunification so that it would not clash with any of Germany’s bad days in history.

Vladimir Putin weaponises and rewrites history

Lara Marlowe’s opinion piece in The Irish Times yesterday. 

It’s a great lesson in history. But if the West can say that D-Day was the turning point in World War II, surely Russia may say Stalingrad was the turning point. Stalingrad was the first significant defeat for the Wehrmacht. But that does not take away from Marlowe’s fascinating read.

Russian children will receive new history manuals when they return to school next month. It was important to explain why the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was “inevitable”, Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the update project, who served for eight years as Putin’s minister of culture, told Radio France.

Referring to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Medinsky said: “The Kyiv regime unilaterally aggressed parts of its territory who asser- ted their right to independence under international law.”

Younger children will not yet be taught about the Ukraine war, but their manuals have been amended to note that the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 was also “inevitable” because Finland “threatened” Russia.

Vladimir Putin demonstrated his obsession with history in an article foreshadowing the full-scale invasion, entitled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians and posted on the Kremlin website on July 12th, 2021.

“It is as if he decided to take his country back to the past,” says Laure Mandeville, a journalist at Le Figaro whose book The Russian Reconquest (2008) foresaw Putin’s attempts to reconstruct the Russian empire. “Putin uses history as a weapon,” Mandeville continues. “Permanently rewriting history is a Soviet tradition, for example erasing figures like Trotsky from school manuals, paintings and photographs when they fall out of favour.”

Three periods feature prominently in Putin’s rants about the Ukraine war: the 9th to 13th century Kyivan Rus empire, the 17th and 18th century reigns of Peter I and Catherine II, and the second World War, known to Russians as The Great Patriotic War.

The Kyivan Rus empire is mythologised as the cradle of Russian civilisation. But the name of the enemy capital has become toxic so the label for the medieval dynasty will henceforward be shortened to Rus empire.

Ivan the Terrible, Russia’s first tsar, took the name Russia from the Kyivan Rus, who were Swedish Scandinavians, not Slavs. Ivan was fraudulently portrayed as a descendant of the 10th century ruler Volodymyr.

The chief protagonists in today’s war, Zelenskiy and Putin, are named after St Volodymyr/Vladimir. Both consider him the founder of their nation.

“It would be disastrous for Putin to be deprived of the myth that Russia sprang from the Kyivan Rus empire,” says Mandeville. “Because if Russia did not originate with the Kyivan Rus it means their origins are farther east, in Muscovy, which was a vassal state to the Mongol Golden Horde.”

The territory Putin has seized along the Azov and Black Sea coast of Ukraine was colonised by Empress Catherine II and her lover, Prince Grigory Potemkin, in the late 18th century and called Novorossiya (New Russia). At the outset of the present war in 2014, separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk named their confederation Novorossiya.

When they retreated from Kherson last November, Russian forces disinterred Potemkin’s remains and took them to Crimea for reburial. On July 23rd, Russia fired missiles at the historic centre of Odesa, which was founded by decree of Catherine II in 1794. It was not the first time Russia has attacked vestiges of Russia’s presence in Ukraine. Putin’s message was clear: If I canot have it, no one else can either.

Russia’s victory in the second World War is the most tenacious of Putin’s historical obsessions. On May 9th, 2012, he said that Russia “gave freedom to the peoples of the entire world” by single-handedly defeating Nazi Germany, a version of history which conveniently forgets the 1939-1941 Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact and billions of dollars’ worth of US weapons supplied to the USSR under the Lend-Lease Act.

The USSR eventually accepted Soviet culpability for the massacre of 22,000 Poles at Katyn in 1940. Putin’s entourage now question that.

Putin’s glorification of Russia’s role is sometimes called a “memocracy”, or rule on the basis of memory.

“It’s about the only thing he has left to hang on to, the founding myth, if you erase the Germano-Soviet pact so as not to stain the Great Patriotic War,” says Mandeville. “Putin constantly says, ‘we are going to repeat our victory. We are confronting Nazis’.”

Putin also exploits memories of the second World War in the hope of sowing division. At a St Petersburg economic forum in June he showed archive footage of wartime massacres of Jews and Poles by Ukrainians.

In yet another grotesque distortion Putin compared the fate of Mariupol, the Ukrainian city on the Azov Sea coast which Russia flattened last year, to that of Leningrad during the German siege. Inaugurating a new tramway line in Mariupol from afar, Putin said Mariupol showed “what these people are capable of, then and now”. 

There was not the slightest indication from Putin that Russian forces destroyed Mariupol.

Imprisoned critics of Putin have courage of convictions

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

The name Alexei Navalny must be at this stage a familiar name around the world. Last Friday week he was given a 19- year jail sentence in a Russian penal colony. He is already serving an 11½ year sentence for charges he claims are bogus.

If he serves out all his sentences, he will be 74 before he will be released. His story, at least looking at it from this vantage point,  is simply extraordinary.

Navalny is one of the most charismatic and inspirational and thus dangerous opponents to Vladimir Putin and he has for many years protested against the Putin government. He has claimed it is a corrupt regime that is sucking the lifeblood out of Russia. 

In August 2020 he was flown to Berlin for treatment in the world-famous Charité Hospital having been poisoned in Siberia. He returned home to Russia the following year. On arrival in Moscow he was immediately arrested and has been in prison since.

It is a similar story with another Russian dissident. Vladimir Kara-Murza is serving a 25-year sentence for criticising the current Russian government and Russian army. He too spent much time living abroad and voluntarily returned home to Russia.

His wife  Evgenia Kara-Murza and their children live in the USA.  She is a strong critic of the Russian government and is constantly demanding freedom for her husband and the restoration of democracy in Russia. I have been following the paths of both Navalny and Kara-Murza. I’ve listened to a podcast of Evgenia and read what Navalny’s followers have to say about how he is being treated.

I can still vividly recall how Navalny was arrested on his arrival back in Moscow in 2022. Earlier this year his wife Yulia made an impassioned plea that her husband be provided with medicines. She continues to live  in Russia.

I have been flabbergasted by the bravery of both men and indeed their families. Both men had the choice of staying away from Russia but freely returned, knowing full well that they would be incarcerated and treated in Stalin-like conditions. 

As I saw both men return to Russia, I found myself asking if they were mad to do such a thing. Why would they do that, knowing what the future held for them? Not in a month of Sundays could I see myself doing something like that. I’m fairly sure I’d run the proverbial million miles to avoid any sort of suffering or torture. Why would you do it?

 

Yes, I know we read about the bravery and courage of famous people in the past. We salute  and honour them. We name streets and buildings after them. That’s easy to do but to place ourselves in their shoes – honestly that  seems impossible to me!

And then somehow the realisation  dawns on me that when someone really has a cause or belief to which they dedicate  their entire lives, then there is no other way for them but be prepared to take the consequences of their actions. Are there occasions when I call that fanaticism? Probably.

In tomorrow’s Gospel (Matthew 14: 22 - 33) when the disciples of Jesus saw him walk on the lake,  they were terrified. What does he say to them? He says: “Courage! It is I.”

I can imagine that Navalny and Kara-Murza and people of such noble behaviour are driven by such instinct. For them there can be no deviating, there can be no effort whatsoever to avoid or dodge the consequences of their actions. They have a job to do for the betterment of their society and nothing will stop them, nothing.

 

As Christians we are called to be brave and courageous. Isn’t that a vocation? We are called to trust in God. I often say those words but when I see what Navalny and Kara-Murza are doing I honestly can’t wonder but how real are my words about placing my trust in the hands of the risen Lord. Or will it be different  when the moment comes to stand up and be brave?  

We never truly  know how we’ll behave until the situation arises. In the meantime it seems wise and sensible to do the little things as well as we can. And do them with courage, as Christ asks us. 

Link between atomic bombing and Dominican Order

On Wednesday this blog remembered the USA unleashing the atomic bomb in Japan in 1945.

A reader contacted this blog with the following story.

An American Dominican, visiting Ireland between 1958 and 1964, gave a lecture to Dominican students in Tallaght.

The American Dominican, whose name is not available, was a member of the US Air Force in 1945 and was a crew member of one of the aircraft involved in the atomic bombing in Japan.

On being discharged from the US Air Force he joined the Dominican Order.

Woke is the number one meaningless word right now

 An extract from Kathy Sheridan’s column in The Irish Times yesterday.

Though not a politician,  Jack Smith would recognise some of the language in a country where every word and deed is politicised and polarising. 

Woke, as one writer put it, is the number one meaningless word right now, used to signify any acknowledgment of racism or sexism, expressing an opinion while black or female, or “just a new thing that I don’t like”.

But silly and hackneyed as it is, it has the potential to be damaging. Observe how Donald Trump harnesses the word. This week he poured scorn on the US Women’s World Cup team and trolled its striker Megan Rapinoe – a high-profile advocate for racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights and women’s rights in sports – for missing a penalty. “WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA”.

78 years ago the USA dropped atomic bomb on Nagasaki

While the world holds its breath as Russia wages war in Ukraine and has on a number of occasions made threatening comments of the possibility of tactical nuclear warfare, it remembers this day, August 9, 1945.

Seventy eight years ago today a United States B-29 Bockscar bomber, Fat Man dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Thirty five thousand people were killed on the day.

Three days earlier another US bomber called Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing between 70,000 and 120,000 people.

The United States is the only country ever to have used the atomic bomb.

USA, China, Russia, France, UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are nuclear powers.

Is the media a messenger or an influencer?

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

Michael Commane

I’m often surprised as to what makes the news and what doesn’t.

How are decisions made as to what should be on the front page of a newspaper or the lead story on radio or television news? There are stories that are natural front page news. 

The death of Sinéad O’Connor was a natural front page story. Dublin winning the All-Ireland, Ireland being knocked out of the World Cup are of course front page stories. But what about an explosion in Pakistan that kills 54 people, among them 20 children, does that merit front page news? 

The day that happened it was the first item on RTÉ television news, whereas it was way down the news the same evening on Germany’s public service broadcaster, ARD.

Are newspapers, radio and television stations influenced by their owners and those who manage and control them? Do editors have to think like their employers? Is it possible for anyone to be objective?  

Does the media influence its readership/listenership. What actually is news? Is news entertainment?

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24, 2022 journalists from all over the world rushed to the country and gave us minute-to-minute account of what was happening. 

That war is still as intense as it was then but while it is in the news it has lost its sensational impact on us. Indeed, the war in Ukraine really began on February 20, 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. But on that occasion the West did not come to the help of Ukraine and the story more or less fizzled out. 

It often happens that items on PrimeTime or the Joe Duffy show become national stories and then go on to merit serious news stories. The sexual abuse of children in Blackrock College came to light as a result of two brothers, who were former pupils of the school, speaking about their sexual abuse on an RTÉ Radio 1 documentary in 2022. 

That documentary and the courage of the two men to tell their story led to the Government commissioning a scoping inquiry into schools run by religious orders.

Last week I saw on Twitter, now X, where entertainer Cardi B threw a microphone at an audience member who threw a drink at her as she was performing in Las Vegas. The next day Oliver Callan referred to the incident on his morning RTÉ Radio 1 programme. I doubt RTÉ had an intrepid reporter covering the event. Of course not, they too most likely picked it up on Twitter.

If I read a news story on a subject that I know something about I can be surprised  with some of the detail in the story. Often the coverage is not completely accurate. 

Do we ever change our views on topics because of what we read or hear in the media? 

The million dollar question: is the media the messenger or is it an influencer?

Certainly social media never claims to be solely a messenger. Isn’t it all about being an influencer?

I’d love to know what the newspaper barons think about social media.