Archive for the ‘Society and culture’ Category
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Fianna Fáil backbenchers have been predictably reactionary in their response to the proposal to reduce the drink driving limit in Ireland. However, there have been some interesting suggestions from the head of Macra na Feirme (the young farmers' association), who has largely supported the change, while looking for policy changes ...
Posted in Society and culture, Tobacco and drugs | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Le sigh! World Carfree Day 2009 (today), would fall on the first rainy day we've had in a while here in Cazenovia. So, rather than biking in - as I usually do - I ended up getting driven in to work. It's a short enough journey (under a mile) that ...
Posted in Society and culture | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Well this could be awkward. (Are we expected to cut off all communications?) The EU is threatening a visa war with Canada, because of its withdrawal of visa waivers from visitors from the Czech Republic. That decision, in turn, had been prompted by a large number of applications for asylum ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, International Affairs, International law and structures, Society and culture | No Comments »
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
People 'fed up' with negativity of Opposition
So goes a headline in tomorrow's Irish Times. Intrigued when it showed up in my daily email bulletin, I clicked through. Had there been a survey showing annoyance on the part of the public? Were the opposition failing to strike a chord with the ...
Posted in Corporate media, Society and culture | No Comments »
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
The Irish Times aren't generally known for coherent or incisive editorials, but their reaction to the Ryan report makes for sobering reading:
We have to call this kind of abuse by its proper name – torture. We must also call the organised exploitation of unpaid child labour – young girls placed ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Education, Prisons and crime, Society and culture | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Amidst a BBC report on Roma migration in Europe is this note on education policy in Hungary, which :
In Hungary, an earlier policy to give money to schools for the mentally disabled, to which a disproportionate number of Roma were sent, was abandoned when it was realised that it encouraged ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Education, Society and culture | No Comments »
Monday, August 18th, 2008
If ever you go to Dublin town, a hundred years from now...
So that line's from Patrick Kavanagh, but it came to mind on hearing of the passing of Ronnie Drew today. The music of Ronnie and the Dubliners has been a constant in my music-focused radio shows, so it's poignant ...
Posted in Radio, Society and culture | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
A follow-up to my recent posting on the break-down of national pay talks in Ireland. The unions have now developed guidelines for local bargaining platforms:
Under the guidelines, unions are to seek flat-rate increases of €30 per week for low-paid workers and rises that match inflation - about 5 per cent ...
Posted in Labour issues, Society and culture | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Approximately 225,000 people left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina flooded most city neighborhoods in August 2005. A sizeable number came from the 9th ward. Some 1800 people died during the floods; later, hundreds more succumbed to stress-related ailments. [Saul Landau]
My parents visited the US recently, and we took the opportunity ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Income and poverty, Political activism, Society and culture | No Comments »
Monday, July 21st, 2008
The American Federation of Teachers - with which my union, the GEO, is affiliated - has voted to endorse a bill to provide Universal Healthcare in the United States:
HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system in the U.S. by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to every resident.
HR ...
Posted in Political activism, Society and culture | No Comments »
