Al's Blog from the Bog

…is encapsulated by the UK politician who, on BBC Radio 4 this morning, said in relation to his party’s manifesto commitments: “…it is our firm intention to keep the promises…” [Today, Monday 12 April, approx 08:18]

Politicians live in a parallel universe that is inexorably drifting away from the reality that the rest of us know. In their universe it is, apparently, acceptable to make promises that they do not intend to keep, for that is the implication of the quote above. I accept that circumstances may change and plans may have to be altered in response to them, but this politician was not prepared to say so. Perhaps this was from a simple fear that an unhelpful soundbite may result. So why did he have to say anything?

I’ve deliberately not named the politician responsible for this quote, or even the party concerned, because it seems to me that most (if not all) politicians, from all parties, exhibit this behaviour. Their media appearances are tightly focussed on saying what they want to say, regardless of the question posed, with the use of potential soundbites to the fore. Interviewers, meanwhile, are mainly concerned with tripping up the interviewee. So it becomes a battle of semantics, of word play.

The end result, for me at least, is that no real information is imparted and little or no respect earned. Is it any wonder that there is a universal lack of trust in the political classes?

international politics, politics BBC, international, politics, radio

I don’t claim to know very much about this and all my ‘knowledge’ has come from reading news stories and blogs, which of course may be biased or ’spun’, but I am slightly troubled. I am (politically) a liberal fence sitter, which obviously affects my perspective. There you are, I’ve declared my leanings.

As I understand it, President Obama wants to make it possible for everyone to receive medical care regardless of their means. A noble ideal, but someone still has to pay for it. In other words, taxes. This has caused a bit of a ruckus in the US, with the loud voices at either end of the political spectrum grabbing the headlines: down with taxes/don’t kill my baby; you know the sort of thing. Naturally there are also the (somewhat more subtle) corporates, lobbyists, pressure groups and so on, feeding money and (mis)information to those doing the shouting.

Daring Fireball has a couple of amusing (kind of) anecdotes:

From an Investor’s Business Daily editorial ¹ arguing against the current U.S. health care reform proposals:

“The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the “quality adjusted life year.” One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on. The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.”

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”

Stephen Hawking was born and has lived his entire life in the U.K.

and

Anti-health-care-reform activist, reportedly injured in a fight at a town hall meeting last week, is collecting donations to pay his medical bills because he was recently laid off and lost his health insurance. [more]

I read both of these with a sense of wonder and despair. The inaccuracy and hypocrisy shown is astonishing and made me wonder if many US citizens are taken in by this stuff. I suppose there must be quite a few, or it wouldn’t be worth publishing. And yes, I have seen Fox News.

Society, community, nation: surely these terms imply some kind of structure of care, of support for those who (hopefully temporarily) cannot support themselves? It would be easy to believe that those who have the resources are simply unwilling to share and that the flip side of ‘land of opportunity’ is ‘tough luck if you don’t succeed’. Systems such as those in Britain and Ireland may be far from perfect but they at least attempt to be humane.

I started to think about The American Ideal (or my understanding of it); how it has been corrupted and where, ultimately, it will take the USA. Immediately my mind conjured up images of anarchy; a sort of ‘Mad Max’ post-apocalyptic scenario where it’s every person for themselves and the only law comes from the barrel of a gun.

I can only hope I am very wrong, and as I said I am only seeing this through the eyes of the media.

1. since edited, removing refernces to Stephen Hawking ↑

miscellaneous, politics international, life, people, politics, USA

Many of you will have heard about the report, published a few days ago, into the abuse of children in Industrial Schools in Ireland during the 20th Century.

The report, a massive work that has taken nine years to compile, documents the enormous scale of the abuses – every type imaginable – inflicted on both boys and girls by the, supposedly Christian, people responsible for their education and welfare. It documents the awareness of the abuses, some might say collusion, of both the Irish State and the Catholic Church. What the report does not document, thanks to a High Court ruling in 2004, is the names of the guilty parties.

Much has been written and broadcast about the report, by people far more qualified to comment than I am. Indeed, the abuses are not really news. These appalling abuses have been widely recognised for some considerable time, but the report brings together many of the stories of the victims and highlights the scale of the tragedy. It is important for all of us to be aware of what happened, in the hope that a blind eye is never again turned towards such dreadful crimes.

Read more about the abuses committed by the Catholic Church in Ireland by clicking this link.

miscellaneous, national politics, politics Ireland, life, politics

This week saw the official announcement of something or other to do with broadband in Ireland. If that sounds a bit vague, well I’m sorry. I’m never quite clear about these ‘official’ events/launches/occasions: there is no new information – we all knew that 3 had got the job of supposedly providing broadband for all the places in Ireland that don’t already have it – just lots of smiling and congratulating and posing and repeating of tired mantras and ignoring difficult questions. Political posturing at its finest.

Now that it’s all ‘official’ (rather than just decided?) I suppose we can all comment on it. The newspapers are, briefly, full of smiley, posey pictures; all the politicians and aspiring politicians crawl out of the slime to either congratulate the government on another brilliant scheme or berate them for wasting money on another half-baked idea.

As far as the national picture is concerned, looking at the positives, it’s great that the government is prepared to step in and fund the provision of broadband for everybody. On the negative side, the government have surely set the bar too low, in that: less than 2MB cannot really be considered broadband in the 21st century (forget the moans about bandwidth reducing when there are lots of users – all broadband is contended); the target of ‘covering the whole country’ is imprecise – in the UK they are specifying the supply of broadband ‘to every household’, which is quite different.

To illustrate the second criticism, consider Achill. The island, as far as the NBS is concerned, is split into two parts: one is on the ‘planned’ list, the other is on the ‘not included’ list. Why does one part of the island miss out? Well, there is already a 3 mast which, notionally, covers this part of the island. The reality, as anyone with the slightest experience of cellphone signals will realise, is that in some spots there is a great signal but move around the corner and there is none. Achill is not flat; hills get in the way, leaving ’shadows’ where there is no signal. Then there are walls: most broadband users do not want to sit in the garden surfing the net, at least not in Ireland. So again, some houses and offices are fine, others get nothing. There is no reason to believe that the ‘planned’ part of Achill will fare any better.

Achill is not a special case: this picture will be repeated all over the country. Hence to say that the whole country will be covered by broadband, one way or another, is meaningless. You’ll find the usual ‘haves and have-nots’ thing between wired and wireless areas, and between good and bad signal areas. Let’s not pretend, either, that the proposed satellite coverage for areas where a cellular signal is impractical is the answer. As a satellite ‘broadband’ user for several years, I can attest to the deeply unsatisfactory nature of this ’solution’.

I have no doubt that, if I am one of the lucky ones, I will appreciate the improvements of cellular broadband over satellite broadband, but I will continue to look with envy at those a few miles up the road with their DSL lines.

Life in Currane, national politics, politics, technology achill, Broadband, Currane, Ireland, life, politics, technology

Liam & Noel Gallagher, stars of British rock band Oasis, were at the centre of a row at a recent meeting of Mayo County Council.

According to a report in the Mayo News, councillors disagreed about a proposal to honour the brothers, whose mother is from Charlestown, with a Civic reception. Despite the objections, the Council agreed to invite the brothers to an event in the east Mayo town which, according to one councillor, would be “claiming these sons of emigrants back.”

It is not known if Liam & Noel would be interested in such an event.

Seems a bit presumptuous to me; just because someone is part Irish it is assumed that they would want to be ‘claimed back.’

entertainment, local politics County Council, entertainment, Ireland, Mayo, politics