Pricetags - the drone and the SU-27 $30 million a piece

A US drone was downed in the Black Sea yesterday. The drone cost approximately $30 million. The Russian SU-27 that caused the downing of the drone also has a price tag of $30 million.

Shares in Rheinmetall, manufacturers of the Leopard battle tank, have made substantial gains on the stock market in recent weeks.

Every gun, every piece of killing equipment on both sides in the war in Ukraine, indeed, in all wars, is paid for by taxpayers.

And all the time, thousands of people are being killed and maimed, lives ruined, villages, towns and cities obliterated.

Below is a link to an interview with The Edge on the Ryan Tubridy RTÉ Radio show yesterday. In the interview the U2 lead guitarist talks about the war in Ukraine. The piece on Ukraine begins 41.23 minutes into the clip.

 

Wednesday 15 March 2023 12:07

 

The Ryan Tubridy Show Wednesday 15 March 2023 rte.ie

Different times, different people but the reign of death again

The poor people of Kharkiv in Ukraine.

On this day, March 15, 1943 in the third battle in Kharkiv the Germans defeated the Soviet Army. This in turn eventually led to the battle at Kursk where the Soviets were victorious. 

Kursk was the biggest tank battle in world history and it was the beginning of the end of the Hitler regime.

The US drone that was downed in the Black Sea yesterday cost up to €32 million. Every dollar of that drone was money from US taxpayers.

Every bullet, every tank, every gun being used in the war in Ukraine is paid for by ordinary people, millions of them as poor as mice.

Link below is to a Guardian article about the drone incident in the Black Sea.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/14/russia-downing-us-drone-ukraine-signalling-analysis?CMP=share_btn_link

Spring puts a spirit of youth in our step

This week’s Mediahuis/Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

There was a hint of cold weather last week. So far this winter we have got away very lightly. I remember one day, back in 1985 cycling in West Berlin, it was 20 degrees minus, indeed, it was so cold I had to get off the bicycle and go into a shop to warm myself.

We are fortunate to have such a mild climate in Ireland. We have no extremes of weather, at least not yet.

The garden in the hospital where I work is beginning to burst with new life. The birds are at full voice and making hay too.

Every day is getting longer, the clocks go forward at the end of the month, proof positive that spring is here.

It happens every year, you might say the same old story. But whatever it is about it, the arrival of spring and the expectation of summer days and nights gladdens our hearts.

 

We have been through some tough times but on the scale of things it is small compared to what people experience in catastrophes. 

I have no idea whatsoever what it must be like today in those parts of Turkey and Syria, which were hit by February’s earthquakes, or what it must be like in Ukraine as the invading Russian army kills, maims and razes buildings to the ground. It is unthinkable. 

When I see soldiers on the front line being interviewed and capable of laughing I’m lost for words. 

There must be some sort of mechanism in the human spirit that kicks in and gives people the strength to cope with almost any pain or suffering. Is that what resilience is? Honestly, I don’t understand it. You hear people talk about the adrenaline rush that kicks in in dangerous or stressful situations. 

The worlds of medicine and the related sciences are constantly discovering how our minds and bodies work and how we cope with all the situations with which we have to deal.

The anti-war film ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is an eye opener to the savagery of war and how people cope in unimaginable situations. And there are those who don’t cope. But why do we allow such evil to happen? What is it about us that drives us racing into such horrible acts of barbarity?

Is it all part of the cycle of our lives? A friend told me he had been watching the RTÉ programme ‘Reeling in the Years’ and it struck him how it’s the same old stories that keep turning up year after year. The events that were happening 20, 30, 40 years ago are the same events happening today, just dressed up in different clothes.

 

What at all is it all about? I keep asking the question, never getting closer to a satisfactory answer. 

But in the meantime, make the best of these fabulous days of spring. And guess what, a smile rather than a frown will put a spring in our step.

Everything about our lives is cyclical and right now we are on the up curve. Enjoy it.

‘April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.’ - Shakespeare. And we’re nearly there. 

No manual for perfect parenting

Maia Dunphy has an interesting article in yesterday’s

Sunday Independent.

It’s about the joy and wonder of parenthood and how it changes everything.

Dunphy goes on to talk about the Enoch Burke story and how she disagrees with their thinking. She writes: “What I’m not envious of  are those who only want to remind us eternity is forever, and the time for excuses is over.”

It’s an engaging piece of writing.

  

What happens when the ‘facts’ are actually not factual?

In the current issue, March 9, 2023, of The Irish Catholic the paper’s Editor’s Comments by Michael Kelly are about gender theory being a divisive issue and that parents have a right to be concerned.

The editor expresses his concerns and argues that there is a lack of scientific consensus on the issues.

He writes: "The latest battleground appears to be in primary schools with both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar backing calls for children as young as four to be taught 'more about what it means to be transgender’.” 

Fact or fiction? Who is Taoiseach and who is Tánaiste in March, 2023?

Facts are indeed facts. And spin is always spin.

The link below is worth a read:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/11/farage-fox-and-rolling-outrage-the-inside-story-of-gb-news?CMP=share_btn_link

Pope Francis says war is fuelled not just by the Russians

 It will be interesting to hear what Pope Francis has to say. Will he explain what he means by ‘the empires from elsewhere’?

PopeFrancis said the conflict was fuelled by "imperial interests, not just of the Russian empire, but of empires from elsewhere”. 

He expressed a readiness to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin to call for peace. Pope Francis was speaking to Italian Swiss television RSI, in an interview due to be broadcast on Sunday.

Should HSE decide national gender policy?

This is an interesting article by Michael McDowell. It appeared in The Irish Times on Tuesday. 

The Health Service Executive proposes to develop a new policy in relation to gender dysphoria, transgender issues and the availability and access to gender transitional counselling and medical treatment.

This raises the immediate question as to who or what the HSE is at present. It is an executive agency of the State with wide responsibilities in the provision of public health services. But it is by no means clear that the board of the HSE is competent to evolve national policy on gender issues.

There have been repeated calls for proper parliamentary consideration of these issues based on reflective debate. That seems more urgent than ever.

The great majority of Irish people are not activists in relation to gender issues. But the airwaves and newspaper columns seem to be dominated by activists who seek to frame the discussion in terms of the denial of human rights and discrimination against the small minority who have dysphoria or who consider themselves to be gender fluid or who argue that the conventional male/female binary gender distinctions in society are oppressive or unjust.

For my part, I am very sympathetic to anyone who is experiencing gender dysphoria. I think most feel the people same.

Challenging

That does not mean discussion of these issues must be conducted only in the vocabulary or with the conceptual understanding of those activists. I have difficulty accepting that there are many genders; I readily accept that there are shades of gender.

Gender is important. Maleness and femaleness are realities for the great majority of people, including gay and lesbian people. The great majority is not obliged morally to simply discard fundamental social and psychological concepts such as masculinity or femininity because a minority find those concepts limiting, challenging or even offensive.

The linguistic chaos of using the plural pronoun to describe a single individual is, I think, contrived. Most people have no problem with addressing someone by their chosen name or dealing with them on the basis of their chosen gender identity. But using a plural pronoun with a single verb stretches, confuses and distorts meaning.

The idea of a broad LGBTQI+ coalition is fine. But I have been struck by the number of gay men and lesbian women who privately dissociate themselves from some of the demands of trans activists. One can readily appreciate a sense of mutual loyalty among members of the broad LGBTQI+ movement which has won out huge advances for equality for gay and lesbian people. One can sympathise with the idea that these successes should leave no one behind. But surely there is, at the same time, nothing wrong with straight, lesbian or bisexual women wanting to pursue feminist agendas on the basis of gender as they see it.

Particularly, as regards dysphoria among minors, we must be very careful and protective of children. Prepubescent, peri-pubescent and post-pubescent children are transitioning into adulthood. Adolescence is a psychologically challenging time for many children. We cannot simply expose children to a random lottery of ideologies or treatments in the light of what went wrong at the Tavistock clinic.

Conversion therapy

The emergence of transgender issues on social media in the last decade seems to have created a much greater interest among adolescent children in gender identity.

There is little evidence that there has been significant use of conversion therapy in Ireland for children with homosexual orientation, and all children must be legally protected from conversion therapy as we have seen it in the United States.

At the same time, children may or may not be experiencing long-term gender dysphoria. They may be experiencing different temporary uncertainties about their gender orientation or about their own personalities or identities.

The Tavistock clinic experience highlights the risks and dangers of irreversible and inappropriate interventions, from puberty blockers to reconstructive surgery, for highly vulnerable minors and for their parents.

At a recent highly informative briefing in Leinster House, Irish experts from the National Gender Service reported a very high correlation between adolescents and young adults seeking to transition and autism. It is not simply good enough to dismiss that correlation by saying that young people with autism have the same rights as anyone else. Of course, they do. This correlation needs to be explored and understood.

In developing policy on transgender health services, we badly need a fact-based objective approach which is firmly rooted in care, consultation and counselling. We need a national, inclusive debate.

This is not just a matter for the HSE. Nor is it a matter only for activists. It is a matter for all citizens and all politicians to devise good policies.

For that to happen there must be a broadly based national discussion from which, hopefully, a caring and careful consensus emerges.

Preacher on Fulham bus offers to take them to paradise

Mark Paul’s London Letter in The Irish Times yesterday.

While we have Enoch Burke London has the woman on the Fulham bus who offers to take the passengers to paradise.

The woman got on the 295 bus near Clapham Junction, the railway spaghetti junction in southwest London that is Europe’s busiest train hub. I wasn’t sure where exactly she boarded because I was sitting upstairs with my head in my phone, on my way to Fulham. The woman remained downstairs. She said she was on her way to paradise.

The first thing we noticed from the top deck was her singing. It started off low; a soft, joyful melody pirouetting its way up the stairwell. I noticed it immediately because people usually don’t even make eye contact with each other on London’s public transport. Yet here was a woman singing unabashedly.

She sang sweetly and with real emotion, puncturing the anonymity of this often-hard city with verses about love. I didn’t recognise the tune but, as she sang so well, it didn’t dampen my enjoyment. Then came the first clue she wasn’t merely a joyful commuter letting it all out on a Sunday. “Jesus loves us all!” she proclaimed. “Bless you, bus driver. Jesus will take us to heaven!”

I would have settled for him just taking us to Sherbrooke Road. I was behind schedule on my way to a friend’s house. Not even Jesus can rise above the weekend traffic on Battersea’s Plough Road.

London is a proud bastion of the forces of Mammon, a hedonistic dominion where you can buy anything or anyone you desire at any time of the day or night. This is not a stronghold of puritans. Yet newcomers may notice, like other great global cities that attract diverse characters, there are street preachers everywhere.

It is most obvious on some of the busiest thoroughfares of the commercial heartland of the West End. Many use amplifiers to penetrate the crowds, the word of God booming up city streets. One particularly loud fellow hangs around near the John Lewis store on Oxford Street. He makes the windows rattle in the shops. I could still hear him clearly one day, warning me from outside to avoid damnation as I ascended an elevator to buy a duvet.

Britain’s values venerate the freedoms of the common man and woman, and its laws generally protect the right to speak publicly and to evangelise. But sometimes preachers are a source of annoyance or offence.

One Free Methodist minister wrote on a conservative blog about how he was approached by multiple police officers on a busy road a mile or two from Heathrow airport in 2021. There were complaints he was being homophobic as he preached the Book of Genesis. The way he told it, the response was overkill. Not everyone wants to hear your views on same-sex marriage outside Uxbridge station. But it shouldn’t take, as he claimed, 14 officers to deliver the message.

Arrested

The case of another preacher arrested for a breach of the peace in Enfield in 2019 was raised in the House of Commons by Theresa Villiers, the former secretary of state for Northern Ireland.

Back on the 295 to Fulham, things were kicking off. The woman’s joyful singing had given way to haranguing. A woman had clearly cursed at her to shut up. “Lady, don’t swear,” the preacher shouted. “The Bible says ‘let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth’.” From her accent and the sound of her voice, I concluded she was African. So-called “bus preaching” is common in countries such as Nigeria, where Christianity is more evangelical than here.

She demanded to know of the woman who had sworn whether her companion was her husband or her boyfriend. Neither answered. For those of us listening from upstairs, it was like tuning in to a rowdy radio play. “No ring on your finger! I pray that this time next year you are married and have children. Today is a good day to propose, sir.”

I had boarded alongside two women wearing hijabs and their kids. The preacher clocked them. “Muslim ladies, you think I’m going to tell you off. But I’m here to say Jesus loves you and your children belong to him.”

The bell rang. The woman proclaimed finally that “Jesus commands us to be courageous”, before alighting at Wandsworth Bridge. Upstairs, 20 faces were pressed against the windows trying to catch a glimpse of the source of the commotion.

The woman stepped off the bus, dropped to one knee and blessed herself. She had long hair tied back, although it was possibly a wig. She was aged about 45 and wore a long, lavish animal print coat and a flowing, bright red dress. She looked striking. Beautiful yet ferocious. She marched towards another bus stop, presumably to save more commuters.

“Thank God,” sighed a man across the aisle from me, “she didn’t come up those bloody stairs.”

Still no sign of Malaysia Airlines Flight 3

On this day, March 8, 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 329 passengers and crew disappeared off radar en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Nine years later there is still no account of the missing  aircraft. It is almost beyond belief that the plane disappeared without trace.

The lack of official information in the days immediately after the disappearance prompted fierce criticism from the Chinese public, particularly from relatives of the passengers, as most people on board Flight 370 were of Chinese origin. Several pieces of debris washed ashore in the western Indian Ocean during 2015 and 2016; many of these were confirmed to have originated from Flight 370.

Four months later, on July 17, 2014  Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine.

'Be yourself - everyone else is taken’

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

Michael Commane

Tell the truth, would you like to be someone else?

Over the last few months I have been watching closely events unfolding in Ukraine and how Ukrainian people, who have found refuge in Ireland, are coping. 

Their lives have been turned upside-down, many have lost family and friends, all their possessions. And yet I guess if any one of them were asked would they like to be someone else they would say no.

When people ask me if I got a second chance would I live my life differently I hesitate and probably say I’d do this or that differently but not for a million years would I like to be someone else. In many senses it is a silly question. 

We are where we are, and have what we have. It is a matter of making the best of what we have, cultivating our individual potential and running with it. 

Not for a moment am I suggesting we should not have ambition and drive but it’s so easy to fool ourselves by thinking that if we had this or that, if things were different, we’d be a much happier person.

Last week someone said to me that if you put your own troubles in the middle of the road with everyone else’s  you’d take back your own. That’s insightful.

I can give you examples, chapter and verse of people who have loads of money and are not at all happy. I know poor people, sick people who have impressed me with their happiness and contentment.

This life of ours is a gigantic mystery and I am amazed with all the complexities, contradictions and simple mess that I experience all around me. And the mess of my own life too.

That’s why I think we all need props, supports, indeed other people to keep us afloat. After all, we are forever saying that we are social animals. We sure are.

We all need a handrail to grip firmly to keep us on a reasonably steady path. Yes, we can reach to the heights but never forget we are all extremely fragile. 

Pull away the tiniest support and we can suddenly be at sea, lose our way. But even when that happens and the roof falls in on top of us we still never want to be someone else.

In January Ryan Tubridy on his RTÉ radio 1 programme interviewed 43-year-old Sarah de Lagarde, who lost her right leg and arm in a train accident in the London Underground the previous September. 

Listening to her talk I was amazed with her resilience. It sounded as if she had dusted herself down and was getting back to business. There was a great sense of joy and, indeed, contentment in her voice.

Yes, we can go through great trauma, our lives can be greatly damaged but we seem to survive and get on with it. I’ve never yet met a person who genuinely wished to be someone else. 

In preparing this column I asked a number of people would they wish to be someone else. Not one person said they would. 

Quoting Oscar Wilde, indeed, two weeks in a row: ‘Be yourself – everyone else is taken’.

Every one of us has gifts to offer the world. And there are no exceptions, none. The uniqueness of the individual person is really a master act. There is only ever going to be one ‘me’ and one you.

Russian leaders from 1721 to the present day

Russian leaders from 1721 to today. 

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is reported recently to have said that Vladimir has three ‘advisers’, among them is Catherine the Great.

Emperors of Russia (1721–1917) (Romanovs)

• Peter I the Great (October 22, 1721 — January 28, 1725)
• Catherine I (January 28, 1725 — May 6, 1727)
• Peter II (May 6, 1727 — January 19, 1730)
• Anna Ioannovna (February 4, 1730 — October 17, 1740)
• Ivan VI (October 17, 1740 — November 25, 1741)
• Elizabeth Petrovna (November 25, 1741 — December 25, 1761)
• Peter III (December 25, 1761 — June 28, 1762)
• Catherine II the Great (June 28, 1762 — November 6, 1796)
• Paul I (November 6, 1796 — March 11, 1801)
• Alexander I (March 12, 1801 — November 19, 1825)
• Nicholas I (November 19, actually from December 13, 1825 — February 18, 1855)
• Alexander II (February 18, 1855 — March 1, 1881)
• Alexander III (March 1, 1881 — October 20, 1894)
• Nicholas II (October 20, 1894 — March 2, 1917)

Chairmen of the Provisional Government (1917)

• Georgy Lvov (March 2 (15) — July 8 (21), 1917)
• Alexander Kerensky (July 8 (21) — October 25 (November 7), 1917)

Leaders of Soviet Russia (1917–1991)

• Vladimir Lenin (November 9, 1917 — January 21, 1924)
• Joseph Stalin (January 21, 1924 — March 5, 1953)
• Georgy Malenkov (March 5, 1953 — February 8, 1955)
• Nikita Khrushchev (February 8, 1955 — October 14, 1964)
• Leonid Brezhnev (October 14, 1964 — November 10, 1982)
• Yuri Andropov (November 12, 1982 — February 9, 1984)
• Konstantin Chernenko (February 13, 1984 — March 10, 1985)
• Mikhail Gorbachev (March 11, 1985 — December 25, 1991)

Presidents of Russia (1991–present)

• Boris Yeltsin (July 10, 1991 — December 31, 1999)
• Vladimir Putin (May 7, 2000 — May 7, 2008)
• Dmitry Medvedev (May 7, 2008 — May 7, 2012)
• Vladimir Putin (May 7, 2012 – Present)

Holly Cairns not yet ready to head down to the bookies

Some clever quotes from the newly appointed leader  of the Social Democrats, Holly Cairns:

“I’d rather be in a party that has abandoned Stephen Donnelly than a party that abandoned the principles of James Connolly.”

“There is a danger when as a political party you try to become everything to everybody you can become nothing to anybody. 

On her election as leader of the Social Democrats Holly Cairns,  when asked how many seats she expected to win in the next general election, replied: “If I knew that, I would be straight down to the bookies."

Defence Forces discriminated against atheist, WRC finds

An interesting news item in The Irish Times yesterday.

Patsy McGarry Religious Affairs Correspondent

An atheist whose application to be a chaplain was rejected by the Defence Forces had been discriminated against on religion grounds, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has found.John Hamill, a former officer with Atheist Ireland, complained to the WRC that he was discriminated against in the appointment of a military chaplain at Aiken Barracks and Gormanston army camp on November 6th, 2020. He was not considered for the post and told the WRC he wished to ensure that a post of chaplain was not filled in this way again.

He told the commission that he had written to the Defence Forces several times regarding its appointment of military chaplains and expressed an interest in the role. In this correspondence he noted that the Defence Forces was not a religious body or under the control of a religious body, so section 37 of the Employment Equality Act did not apply. It was also the case that the Defence Forces employed those of all faiths and none, he said, but that Christianity was being “imposed” on members.

A WRC hearing on March 8th last year was told that currently “there are there are about 15 Roman Catholic chaplains and one Church of Ireland chaplain” in the Defence Forces, each appointed by a relevant bishop. In each case, it was told, the Defence Forces had “followed an established path of seeking a nomination from the relevant bishop, and then appointed the priest put forward by that bishop”.

Other faiths

At the hearing, Mr Hamill questioned whether it was a genuine occupational requirement for the role to be a Christian appointed by a bishop. This excluded other faiths as well as non-believers. The evidence was that there were good humanist military chaplains in other militaries. He should have been able to apply for the role of chaplain and the role should be allocated to the best applicant, he said.

WRC adjudication officer Kevin Baneham ruled Mr Hamill had been discriminated against on grounds of religion. “I order that the respondent [Defence Forces] review the process of appointing military chaplains to ensure compliance with the Employment Equality Act [which prohibits discrimination on religion grounds] and to ensure that suitably-qualified candidates can apply for military chaplaincy roles in order to reflect and foster the diversity of members of the Defence Forces,” he said in a written adjudication.

“I have no doubt religious leaders make very good military chaplains and would likely succeed during any assessment and interview process because of their pastoral work in the community,” he wrote. “It is not, however, proportionate that no one else can apply or be considered for appointment as chaplain, irrespective of that potential candidate’s qualities and competencies.”

In arriving at his conclusions, Mr Baneham made reference to Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces last year which found that “the Defence Forces’ chaplaincy service needs to be adjusted in line with international best practice to better reflect the religious/non-religious affiliations of younger Irish people today”.

That report also “noted a number of examples of outdated practices which should be discontinued,” in the Defence Forces. “These include, but are not limited to, the convening of a Roman Catholic Mass associated with an induction ceremony; treatment of pregnancy/childbirth as an irregular absence from duty; and not permitting certain styles of facial hair, such as beards,” it said.

Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland, who gave evidence at the WRC hearing, welcomed the ruling. Praising Mr Hamill’s “tenacity”, he said the WRC decision “vindicates the arguments made in 2021 by Atheist Ireland, the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Ireland in our joint submission to the public consultation commission on the Defence Forces.” 

The story of oil in Saudi Arabia

Oil was first discovered in Saudi Arabia on this day, March 3, 1938

In 2021 Saudi Arabia’s oil production was 10.95 million barrels per day, which was down from 11.04 in 2020.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s most important oil producing country. Between 1998 and 2021 the country saw its production increase by 1.5 million barrels per day, peaking at 12,4 million barrels per day in 2016.

A far cry from that day on March 3, 1938.

What will happen Saudi Arabia as the world moves away from fossil fuels?

German TV show discusses possibilities of a nuclear strike

Last evening on the ZDF Markus Lanz discussion programme there was a frightening discussion on the possibility of a nuclear war.

ZDF is one of two German public television stations and the Markus Lanz show airs week evenings from Tuesday to Friday.

On last night’s show an expert from Germany's military university in Munich explained the difference between a tactical and strategic nuclear strike, how the West would react to a Russian attack. 

He does not believe that President Putin is actively planning a nuclear attack and explained why he believes Putin is a very poor strategist.

That people are talking in the media in such detail of a nuclear strike is worrying in the extreme.

On last evening’s show with the military expert there was a politician  from the Left Party and a journalist.

This from today’s Guardian:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday urged China not to send weapons to help Russia’s war in Ukraine, and instead asked Beijing to exert pressure on Moscow to pull back its forces.

In a speech to the German parliament, Reuters reports Scholz said it was disappointing that Beijing had refrained from condemning the Russian invasion, though he welcomed its efforts towards nuclear de-escalation.

“My message to Beijing is clear: use your influence in Moscow to urge the withdrawal of Russian troops,” he said. “And don’t deliver any weapons to the aggressor Russia.”

Dancers or warriors?

When asked if he would lead the DUP back into the Northern Ireland Parliament Jeffrey Donaldson replied: "I’m not a dancer, I’m a warrior."

A quick, even clever, retort but it would seem the DUP have been dancing to and fro, using Stormont as a theatre, where they come and go to play out the politics of an age long gone.

The bond of all companionship is conversation

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

Michael Commane

I’m beginning to think that it’s time for me to make a definitive decision not to marry.

Though when I read about octogenarian Mick O’Dwyer of Kerry footballing fame tying the knot and saw a picture of US astronaut Buzz Aldrin in his 90s with his newly-wed wife, it did cross my mind it’s never too late.

When I moan and groan that I’ve never been married, most times people assure me that I have chosen the better path. I’m never sure if they are telling me the truth. In this column last week I wrote about what I thought of Martin McDonagh’s film The Banshees of Inisherin. And since seeing the film my mind has gone on a journey, thinking about all the different types of friendships, the myriad relationships we form with one another.

I often think had I married and the marriage had broken down I would have found the ensuing turmoil almost impossible to bear. I’ve no idea how people deal with such upset in their lives. It’s another sign of how resilient we human beings are. 

Has it ever dawned on you how accidentally friendships are formed or begin? How young people meet someone, fall in love, live together, get married and then stay together for the rest of their lives. 

I’m not married but I can imagine it must be one of the great miracles of our lives how people set up home and build great friendships with one another. It certainly must involve making many compromises. Marriage can’t be for the selfish.

When it works it must really be a dream come true and then the flip side of the coin, when it doesn’t work it must be close to hell on earth. What at all must it be like when people simply get bored with each other? What happens when people grow to dislike their partners? It must be a minefield.

I often ask myself how is it possible for young people to make lifelong commitments to stay with someone for the rest of their lives. I suppose that’s the beauty and wonder of nature. Also, I’m inclined to ask how can young people make lifelong commitments to be celibate, certainly there is nothing natural about that. 

Of course celibacy has its success stories, but no doubt it has caused harm and turmoil too.

In the same breath, what must be the toll on the person who lives with someone they no longer like?

There is no instruction manual for a fulfilling lifestyle. I was at a wedding before Christmas where I heard the father of the groom say there is no template for a happy married life, and guess what, it was the best wedding speech I ever heard. Short too.

Isn’t it really spectacular the changes that have taken place in the last say 50 years and how society has developed mechanisms to cope with the difficulties people experience.

The Banshees of Inisherin must have cast some sort of spell on me. Not at all, I’ve been thinking along these lines for most of my adult life.

Wise words from Oscar Wilde: ‘The bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.’

The bishop who as hustled out of a Catholic hospital

“The pandemic had exposed all the old divisions - the struggles, the hostilities, the madness. And that was just between the bishops.”

And his comment having been hustled out of a Catholic hospital by security guards.

“If this is what a Catholic hospital does to a Catholic priest, what are they doing to the workers.”

Bishop David O’Connell, Auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles, who was murdered in his home on Saturday, February 18.

Putin takes page after page out of the Hitler copy book

German built battle tanks have arrived in Ukraine. The first of the Leopard 2 tanks have been supplied by Poland to the Ukrainian Army,

Last week German chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that Germany will now send an extra two Leopards to Ukraine, bring the number of Bundeswehr tanks on Ukrainian soil to 15.

The last German tanks left Ukraine in 1943 as the Red Army headed for Berlin.

President Putin has taken so many pages out of the Hilter copy book that he is turning history upside down.

Poland sending German tanks to Ukraine must be truly mind boggling to octogenarian and nonagenarian Poles.

Between 30,000 and 50,000 people demonstrated in Berlin yesterday against German involvement in the war, demanding that Ukraine and Russia sit down and talk.

Left wing German politician Sahra Wagenknecht spoke at the meeting. It has been noted by many politicians and commentators that the far right and far left have united in opposing the German government in supporting Ukraine as it currently is.

The wonder and mystery of friendship

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane 

When two colleagues asked me in early February what I was doing for Lent I was taken aback, indeed, surprised. Before I had time to reply, they told me they were going to put a kernel of a popcorn in their shoe. 

I still don’t know if they were being serious. Perhaps they were testing me? Checking if I knew the song from  the musical  Godspell: “Let me skip the road with you/I can dare myself/I can dare myself/ I'll put a pebble in my shoe/ And watch me walk.”

Over the years I’ve done the ‘usuals’ but in recent times I’m not sure if I’ve done something or given up anything. Lent provides a good opportunity to live our faith in practical ways, for people to stop smoking or drinking alcohol. In the past large numbers attended church services during the 40 days of Lent.

It’s a fortnight since I saw The Banshees of Inisherin and there are themes of the film still racing through my head, but one idea stands out, and it is that of friendship.

Friendship is an extraordinary phenomenon. I’m not sure that’s the best  word to use. Is there any word that can pin down friendship? There are myriad friendships. Think about it, friendship is essential to our lives. And most times it begins in the most accidental of ways. 

Friendship can bring great delights into our lives, but it also can bring us down the road of profound darkness and sadness. When friendship works it is truly extraordinary.

 

We can so easily say that God loves us. Honestly, I have little or no understanding of the word God. I have at last got the courage to say exactly that. I often hear the word being used. 

Just as there is an underlying mystery in all friendships so too is there a mystery about our relationship with God. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is God and one of the important features of the man God Jesus is his sense of kindness and friendship with those with whom he is associated. 

To use the word mystery yet again, one of the great mysteries of Christianity is the idea of the Trinity, three persons in one God. What at all is it about? 

Here’s an idea: it  hints to us how union can lead to such perfection that there is a oneness about it. 

Communion is a big word in the Christian vocabulary. Holy Communion is at the centre of our faith. It is about our being in union with one another and with God, and our lives are leading us to perfect union.

Sometimes we need to pause and think about what we are doing. I’m surprised by how we, especially in Ireland, make the Sign of the Cross, or bless ourselves as we say.  Too often, the words are mumbled, and the action is done with a quick move of the hand. Why do we treat such an important prayer as ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ so casually, when it is at the centre of our faith? It is a statement of the perfection of God, a perfection beyond our understanding. One slight insight into that idea is our belief that the union of the three persons is so perfect it forms one being.

I’ve decided this Lent, whatever about putting a popcorn kernel into my shoe, to spend more time thinking and maybe even praying about the mystery and wonder of friendship that finds its perfection in God. Having said that, I greatly admire my work colleagues for their selflessness, indeed, I see the living spirit of God every day in the people with whom I have the good fortune to work. For me, pausing to recognise what friendship truly means may be enough for my Lent 2023. 

Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin has reminded me of the wonder and mystery of friendship, the sadness and darkness of it too. But also, how ultimately it can lead us to God.

Tomorrow’s Gospel (Matthew 4: 1- 11) is more of the story about the dark side of friendship, what happens friendship when it breaks down. The story of good and evil? 

“For all who take the sword will perish by the sword"

A reader of this blog posted a comment quoting the New Testament. It is a major dilemma that must face all pacifists. If the people of Ukraine had not opposed the Russian invasion what would have been the outcome? Most likely there would now be a puppet government in Kyiv, and as in Russia, people would be denied their freedom.

Had the Soviet Army not defended Stalingrad in 1942 what would have been the outcome?

Russia has broken international law.

If Russia feels it has an existential link with Ukraine could Poland or Germany not claim that Kaliningrad/Königsberg should return to its motherland?

The world is a fragile place and international borders should be respected.

Link below is worth a read.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/19/ukraine-war-over-unless-eu-boosts-military-support-says-top-diplomat?CMP=share_btn_link

Germany faces down its demons

Derek Scally in The Irish Times yesterday. 

It is an insightful piece on the dilemma facing Germany. And President Putin will milk it for all its worth. Within days of Germany agreeing to send their Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine Putin pointed out that once again German tanks with iron cross marking would be once again churning up Ukrainian soil.

If you want to know how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed Germany, and how Germany is helping Ukraine’s fightback, it’s worth heading to a military town like Munster.

Hidden in a brown, marshy woodland midway between Hanover and Hamburg, Munster is home to Germany’s largest army base; nearly half of the 15,000 residents here are soldiers.

At the town’s main intersection, a bronze embracing couple beneath a lantern recreates the longing and parting of military life immortalised in the wartime anthem Lili Marleen. Opposite, a sniper rifle with accessories is for sale in the window of a “Nato Shop” selling fatigues, flasks and helmets.

When Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, Germany’s first offer of assistance to Kyiv was 5,000 helmets. For Vitali Klitschko, the ex-boxer and mayor of the Ukrainian capital, the offer was a “bad joke”.

A year on in the drizzle of the Munster army base, his brother Volodymyr seems much happier. As his eyes run approvingly over the sharp lines of a Leopard 2 battle tank, a half-smile plays on his lips.

After a slow start, Klitschko says, Berlin is now “one of our greatest supporters”. Germany is ranked third – behind the United States and the UK – in military and humanitarian supplies to Ukraine. In its greatest leap yet, Germany agreed last month to deliver 14 Leopard 2 battle tanks.

Klitschko lived for years in Germany and speaks the language. What does he think changed minds here? He thinks for a moment, then says that many Germans have overcome their history, their instinctive postwar fears.

“Weapons were a difficult topic in the German mentality. More and more I think they accept that sometimes supplying weapons can save more lives than not,” he tells The Irish Times. “Hopefully these tanks are going to be on the front lines in Ukraine sooner rather than later.”

In a landmark post-invasion speech last year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz – barely two months in the job – described Moscow’s war on Ukraine as a Zeitenwende – a watershed or turning point in history. That was an understatement, in particular for his own country.

In the months since, Germany has broken with decades-old certainties – in particular any lingering respect for Russia and an addiction to cheap Russian energy – and embraced far-reaching new realities at speed. First came a €100 billion defence fund aimed at rectifying years of military underinvestment. Then came floating LNG terminals and other deals to fill energy needs. Berlin took in more than a million Ukrainians and passed two inflation-fighting packages worth €300 billion. Beyond material and technical concerns, the Ukraine war has sparked a lively, emotional and soul-searching debate in Germany over its role and responsibilities in Europe given its size, location – and its past.

Do 22 million Soviet Russian war dead preclude it from acting? Or is Germany, of all countries, morally obliged to defend the postwar, rules-based democratic order that rose from the ruins of the Nazi dictatorship?

Overnight, Germany’s postwar pacifist culture ban on weapons exports to war zones went out the window. Berlin insists it will not be dragged into the conflict; it has supplied Ukraine with ammunition, missiles, air defence systems with training for 1,200 soldiers so far.

Peace talks

Many on Germany’s left are increasingly uneasy with this shift, demanding more is done to push for peace talks. But the 93-year-old philosopher Jürgen Habermas attracted considerable blowback for warning that, unchecked, German support for Ukraine could “drive us more or less unnoticed beyond the threshold for a third World War”. German economics minister Robert Habeck, who has to sign off on all tank and arms exports, says it is not something “done lightly”.“Sometimes I have the feeling that the whole thing is seen by some as a game,” he told Die Zeit weekly. “We are talking about weapons of war, produced and maintained in Germany . . . yet at the same time it’s also true that we cannot leave Ukraine alone just because of our own fears.”

In the chilly drizzle of the Munster army base, Ukrainian soldiers Vitalii and Anatolii are among those taking a tank crash course. The fatigue from the last year of battle is written in their tired eyes and lined faces, obscured with ski masks and orange visors to protect their identity. “We’re not on holiday here,” said 33-year-old Vitalii. “Hopefully this will help a Ukraine victory, or at least bring us a little closer to that goal.”

Both men are used to ageing Soviet-era equipment and praise the modern Marder 1 A3 and Leopard 2 A6 on which they are training as “incredible”.

“It’s like the difference between a Mercedes and a Zhiguli,” says fiftysomething Anatolii, name-checking the Soviet-era Lada rival.

Anatolii says his family is praying for his safe return, though he knows safety is relative given that his training means that the eastern front beckons. “We are all afraid but it’s about how you deal with it,” he adds. “How, despite fear, you fight.” Their tank-training programme in Munster has been compressed into five weeks of 12-hour days: six days a week of technical and tactical instruction, regular recaps, simulator work and practical war games with real tanks and live ammunition. This is Germany’s contribution to the European Union military assistance mission (EUMAM), established last October with 24 participating countries. By March some 15,000 Ukrainians will have completed their training across Europe; that target has now been doubled to 30,000 and Germany – ahead of schedule in training 9,000 people this year – is ready to take on more if necessary.

Military background

German army officials in Munster say just one in five of the Ukrainians here to date have had any sort of military background, but all are highly motivated and anxious to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible.“They suck up everything like a dry sponge,” says first lieutenant Peter, who would rather not give his surname. “It’s shocking sometimes to hear their stories but emotion is part of being a soldier and it gives an extra motivational push.”

Though cautious about details, German army officials say they have trained 16 tank crews so far. The current Ukrainian trainees will be sent back east with 14 Leopard 2 tanks and 40 Marder armed transport vehicles. In addition, Germany is ready to hand over 80 older, decommissioned Leopard 1s to Ukraine, once it finds trainers still familiar with the older tanks.

Visiting the Munster base, Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin Oleksii Makeiev says “Germany’s leadership role in the tank coalition should not be underestimated”. For him the key figure – “a man of his word” – is defence minister Boris Pistorius.

A month after replacing his luckless predecessor, Pistorius has hit the ground running. “We have cleared the way now but see that not all who made demands then are acting now,” he said in Munster, a dig at those who demanded Germany deliver tanks and accused Berlin of blocking deliveries from others. Asked last Friday about this sudden role reversal, with Germany now leading on battle tanks while waiting for others to catch up, Chancellor Scholz exhaled loudly and said: “Tja” – which translated roughly as: “Ah, sure.” After a year-long baptism of fire, Scholz is now performing at least three balancing acts simultaneously: co-ordinating supplies with EU Nato partners to avoid solo runs; ensuring backing of German voters who – according to opinion polls – remain deeply sceptical that arms supplies will help secure Ukraine victory; and balancing a three-way coalition that has held together far beyond its comfort zone.

A year on, Russia’s war on Ukraine has ended Germany’s three-decade post-cold war era with a bang. Forced to face down its historical demons, Germany is now driving by sight and hoping for the best.

“It’s one thing to talk about war,” argued Pistorius in Munster on Monday, “and something else entirely to look into faces of people who have come from war for training and will be going back to war.”

Words like that chime with Ukraine trainees and their German trainers. They are effectively embedded together: they eat breakfast and dinner together, discuss what has happened in the last year and what is to come when the Ukrainians return to the front.

“We can only wish them well, knowing we are making an important contribution here,” said Capt Stefan, a 30-year-old German trainer. As old certainties slip away, he senses a shift in German society towards its armed forces. “When times are peaceful people don’t want to think about us,” he said, “but the need for us has been made clear – in a shocking way – with Russia’s attack on Ukraine.”

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