When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.

Short term George - The Political Demise of Mr Lee

After just 8 months as an elected TD in Dail Eireann,
former RTE economics editor George Lee resigned today.
27,000 people in this country gave him their No. 1 vote
27,000 people hoped he'd make a difference
he walked away
he couldn't hack it
Did you ever hear of the words probation? stamina? staying power? determination? reality check?

FG leader Enda Kenny apparently offered him a front bench seat to coax him into staying on.
Instead he resigned. I think most other TDs would have jumped at the chance of a front bench seat after 8 months
Somebody pointed out that he could have resigned from the Fine Gael party and still retained his seat in the Dail as an Independent TD - now why not? If he really meant business why not?He could have eschewed his stunning economical advice constantly in the Dail where he should have stayed if he really cared.
But I guess he couldn't hack it.
So for all the bullcrap being aired tonite about him beign so honest etc., methinks he is not being honest. He can't do committees. He can't listen or debate. He's not patient. He's a bad politician.

He, unlike most other politicians (except Arnold Schwarzenegger) was able to use his celebrity status to get votes. Mind you, Arnie was a body builder and an actor and George Lee was RTE's economics editor - neither of them "the guy who spreads the slurry" as Pat Kenny so arrogantly used as an example to compare super George to the non expert politician.

Who is still in politics?
Arnie or Georgie?
Dear Georgie a Schwarzeneger you are not

The following are just some words which describe the way I feel after hearing this news: Disappointed, disgusted, saddened, depressed, excited, interested, intrigued.

The following are just some words which come when I think about George Lee: fool, useless, self obssessed, myopic, egomaniac, eejit, arrogant. unrealistic, nerd, impatient, impetuous,




and tonight on Pat Kenny's Frontline show, George said he wasn't prepared to play the party games, 'I don't see how schmoozing in the bars will change the economic situation '.
Sorry, Georgie boy, you joined a party....which means mixing, working together, arguing, debating, not getting yoru own way - not barking orders in the RTE newsroom or having a team of people working for you as editor - media, especially RTE is just as 'institutionalised' as the political system. Your host Plank Kenny must have said the word institutionalised almost as many times as he says the word issue. Anyway after watching the news and Frontline, my original fury towards Mr Lee has somewhat evaporated and I tend to agree with Ivan Yates - that he's just an eejit.


Never mind all that claptrap about Lee being symbolic of the dysfunctional state of the Irish political system. C'mon he lasted 8 months! What did he think was going to happen in an opposition seat in that amount of time? Pat Kenny and himself kept yakking on about how institutionalised TDs become. Yada yada yada, what about RTE? Now there's an organisation that's clunking along just as slowly. For Chrissake we have had to listen to so much Charlie Bird (another institutionalised scaredy cat who's planning on packing in a big job) now we'll have to listen to fecking George Lee - if he gets that job back I might have to leave the country or put a hit out on him (and Charlie and Pat and Gaybo)

Deportation challenge and news values

This extract is from Ian Dunt in Talking Politics (Death Of The Newspaper): "People consistently rate journalists as one of their least favourite people, battling it out at the top spot with lawyers and estate agents. This is not innate. It is a product of a growing awareness that the media is fundamentally failing in its duty, and reporting on facts which may or may not be true. When so much news comes from PR agencies, whose aims are often at odds with those of truth-telling, you know something somewhere is going wrong."

Often it isn't as clear cut as reporting something that may or may not be true. The irresponsibility in reporting is far more subtle than that. It often comes down to the in-built news values of the writer. What is the real news angle of this story? If you look closely at this story on the front page of today's Irish Times the actual "news" is buried way beyond the opening par.

In this story, look to paragraph five:
"The Sligo-based Nigerian woman acknowledged yesterday that documents used in her legal challenge were bogus. She said her husband had admitted to her on Friday that he had obtained fake documents after the doctor who had treated Elizabeth demanded a substantial payment in exchange for the genuine papers."

that, to me, should have been the opening paragraph
and later,

"In a statement, the Irish Refugee Council, which had supported Ms Izevbekhai’s campaign, said the facts in the case that Elizabeth died as a result of severe bleeding due to FGM were never disputed by the State during the legal process to date."

From reading the headline and first few paragraphs (which incidentally is usually ALL people can manage in this paper), I thought, oh dear, forgeries yeah, it was all a hoax and I even had conversations yesterday with people who read the Sunday papers saying that now it seems the child did not exist at all. All from irresponsible journalism. To me, whether lawyers continue working on the case will depend on a matter of law. The story is what she and her husband say and whether they will be proven right or wrong, no?

citizen of the world

Yes.

I am a citizen of the world.

You may think it odd
but if you were lucky enough to be a fly on my soul
You’d want to be me. You silly vainglorious fool.

I know I’ve been around for eons
and I’m not the least bit worried about
where I go or when I come

You may be over-ripe and seething
but you’ll have to bear with me as I
Flesh out my own republic,
my field
my house
Myself

You see

I did not kill a baby or maim a child.
I will not kill a baby or maim a child.

So. No more will I do what I am told.
I distrust what I am told.
Do not speak to me of
Hasty land grabs
Tribunal funerals
Citizenry or Politics

When all your sound bites and smart quotes
are poor meat for my famished heart

Hear me
Do you dare
to tell me
to think
what I can think?

Assume nothing. Fool.

(c) Amy Redmond 2004

Excuse me, Mr Cowen...

We have to look at pictures like this?




And then you have the audacity to say no




to this?




for Goodness sake, you've more to be worrying about than us seeing your diddies.
Background info to: Cowengate.

Pokerface Mary

from The Irish Times, March 29, 1859: under the heading Police Intelligence, Capel Street Office: "Mary Byrne was sent for trial to city sessions on a charge of stealing a poker and fire shovel, the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners from Grangegorman Church last Sunday evening. "

G'wan ya good thing ya. You showed em who was boss, Mary

The Late Late Show: Pat Kenny does us a favour

Woo hoo. Yee hah. Well ba low me down!! What a wonderful way to wake up on a Saturday morning - to be greeted with the knowledge that no longer do we have to suffer the stiff physicality, the flat interviewing, the awkward pauses and corny dialogue of Cat Penny on the Late Late Show. Bliss. (does this mean that in the future when I tune in I might see a fair reflection of 21st century Ireland and hear some meaningful debate? Hold your horses Amy, it is RTE we're talking about, they did punish you with the Pat angle for more than 10 years after all! ) So what happened? He tired of trawling the RTE canteen in a desperate bid for last minute in house guests because, oddly enough, the numbers of celebs willing to suffer his rigid 'stick to the cards'-style was dwindling, dwindling, dwindling? And he says, for him it's a case of "quit while you're ahead" !! Yeah sure Pat, everything in the garden is rosy. Oops, don't mention the garden, Geraldine might sniff a real news story and whack another spate of full-page spreads in our paper of record, The Irish Times. Sticking to the important things on the news agenda, as always. Ah well, perhaps, this Monday current affairs gig will make a difference. On with you Pat, get back in your box. You shouldn't have been let out of hard news in the first place. Sure you've made your moola now, you should have a few shekels spare to pick up a few nice bulbs and saplings in Lidl for your garden! Hope you have the cojones to ask a few HARD questions.....