Archive for the ‘Political activism’ Category

Safe routes to school

Thursday, June 9th, 2022

Galway City Council are currently running a set of consultations regarding proposed developments under the 'Safe Routes to School' programme, for a number of schools in Galway city. The schools involved include those in Mervue, Renmore, Raleigh Row (Scoil Íognáid), Shantalla, and Westside (GETNS and St Joseph's). The Renmore proposals ...

Eulogy – Dr Anne Boyle

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

We had the memorial service for my mother today - she died Monday, and the Irish tradition is to have a short few days of funereal rituals prior to the burial. In Mom's case - always the non-conformist - she asked for a non-religious service and a cremation, so the ...

Celebrating women

Monday, March 20th, 2017

(While I'd originally intended to publish this on 8th March, for International Women's Day, various events intervened. Still, it's never a bad day to celebrate the work of women, as they bend the arc of history towards justice.) Several recent news stories have caused me to reflect on women in my ...

From the archives – divorce referendum coverage

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

I've been 'rescuing' various pieces from my (primarily cassette-based) archive of content from my days at Flirt FM. One little nugget is this compendium of interviews and audio from the count following the divorce referendum in 1995. As a recap (or tutorial for those not in the know), divorce was ...

Unless…

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

The Change.org people have been touting a Nicholas Kristof piece about successful petition drives on their site. His first example is of a petition by a fourth grade class, looking for changes in how a movie (of a Dr. Seuss book) is promoted - "Don't lose the environmental message!" A ...

Reducing US spending? Cut the military budget

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

From Just Foreign Policy: FCNL has established a toll-free number: 1-877-429-0678. Urge your Rep. and/or Senators to press the Supercommittee to end the wars and cut the military budget. In talking to your Rep., urge support for the Lee-Campbell bipartisan letter to the Super Committee on cutting military spending.

Communicating in a crisis – what the Irish government did wrong (part 1 of 80-180 billion)

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

When I talk with my students about PR I explain that the first rule of crisis communication is to 'fess up - get out in front of the rumours and claims, admitting the truth (in order that you can have a say in framing that truth). This week the Irish government ...

GEO wins tuition waiver security! Pickets suspended!

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

In a successful 2-day strike - the first by a union local at the University of Illinois in 10-years, and one of the largest in the history of graduate unions in the US - the GEO has secured a commitment to retain tuition waivers for graduate employees. The University had ...

Call to action: Call the U of I this Wednesday, and support graduate employees

Monday, November 9th, 2009

This Thursday, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees will meet in Springfield. Members of the GEO will be there to remind them of the urgency of reaching agreement on a fair contract. You may not be able to be in Springfield, but you can play your part in persuading ...

GRC summary

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

I had planned to blog more from GRC, but my airport card stopped working on Friday, which was somewhat of an annoyance. I was pleased that my session on podcasting was reasonably successful - we didn't get into discussing much of the more arcane aspects of adopting podcasting for community ...