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 ...
Posted in Education, Electoral politics, Flirt FM, Labour issues, Meta, Personal, Political activism, Radio, Rowing, Society and culture | Comments Off on Eulogy – Dr Anne Boyle
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 ...
Posted in Education, Political activism, Society and culture | Comments Off on Unless…
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
This to me is the key section from George Lakey's piece in the Indypendent's blog:
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though ...
Posted in Income and poverty, International Affairs, Labour issues | Comments Off on Solidarity, unions, and the unemployed
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 ...
Posted in Education, Income and poverty, Labour issues, Political activism | Comments Off on GEO wins tuition waiver security! Pickets suspended!
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 ...
Posted in Education, Labour issues, Political activism | Comments Off on Call to action: Call the U of I this Wednesday, and support graduate employees
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
This is the first Irish election in many years where I have not been following the results from the counting centre. I remember in 1987 heading in to see the last few hours of the Galway-West count, as Michael D. regained his seat in the Dáil. There's something special for ...
Posted in Citizenship, migration, race, and ethnicity, Electoral politics, International Affairs, Public Service Media, Radio | 3 Comments »
Friday, June 6th, 2008
I'm at a grassroots action session at the Media Reform conference in Minneapolis. There's some useful tips on productive activity, but perhaps the most useful aspect, for me, is a reminder is of the common aspects across organizing - talk to people, identify goals, set achievable (and concrete) targets.
I got ...
Posted in Alternative Media, Freedom of the press, Media regulation, Political activism | 3 Comments »
Friday, November 16th, 2007
One of my Google Alerts pointed me in the direction of this interesting post on a site devoted to advising people on improving their sites' search placements. I usually stay clear of such sites, but this wasn't your run-of-the-mill recommendation from such a site:Take Your Blog to the Airwaves - ...
Posted in Alternative Media, Online communication, Political activism | 1 Comment »