August, 2012

Hooray for Todd Akin!

I’m in Boston and I’m itching to write about the different feeling you get from this society. Once, that is, you’ve got through US immigration, which isn’t necessarily easy. But I won’t, or not yet at least. I’d rather talk about  Todd Akin. He’s the  Republican who has put a banana skin under Mitt Romney […]

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Hooray for Todd Akin!

I’m in Boston and I’m itching to write about the different feeling you get from this society. Once, that is, you’ve got through US immigration, which isn’t necessarily easy. But I won’t, or not yet at least. I’d rather talk about  Todd Akin. He’s the  Republican who has put a banana skin under Mitt Romney […]

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Paul Ryan – one of our own, eh?

Paul Ryan.  You don’t get a name much more Irish than that. And by all accounts Ryan could be the kind of guy you’d have a pint with, go to Croke Park with – he’s a young guy proud of his Irish roots. His great-great-grandfather emigrated to America, with hundreds of thousands of others, to […]

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Paul Ryan – one of our own, eh?

Paul Ryan.  You don’t get a name much more Irish than that. And by all accounts Ryan could be the kind of guy you’d have a pint with, go to Croke Park with – he’s a young guy proud of his Irish roots. His great-great-grandfather emigrated to America, with hundreds of thousands of others, to […]

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Those Games: Britain’s pride or Britain’s shame?

Now that the fever of the London Olympic Games has passed, maybe we can draw breath and a few reasonable conclusions about the event. 1.    Britain did superbly well – both in terms of organizing the Games and collecting medals.  The sheer scale of the venture makes me weak at the knees but it was […]

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Those Games: Britain’s pride or Britain’s shame?

Now that the fever of the London Olympic Games has passed, maybe we can draw breath and a few reasonable conclusions about the event. 1.    Britain did superbly well – both in terms of organizing the Games and collecting medals.  The sheer scale of the venture makes me weak at the knees but it was […]

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Pussy Riot – worth protesting about?

 Those Pussy Riot women –  what do you think? Two years in jail, all for  singing a two-minute song.  Admittedly it was performed with some leg-kicking in front of the altar of a Moscow church and it was  denouncing the still-hugely-popular  Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. But hey –  what ever happened to free speech? Mind […]

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Pussy Riot – worth protesting about?

 Those Pussy Riot women –  what do you think? Two years in jail, all for  singing a two-minute song.  Admittedly it was performed with some leg-kicking in front of the altar of a Moscow church and it was  denouncing the still-hugely-popular  Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. But hey –  what ever happened to free speech? Mind […]

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John Waters, Katie Taylor and that religion thing.

Easily the most interesting article – and most read, according to the online listing – in today’s Irish Times  is one by John Waters. For some people, the mention of Waters’s name is sufficient to turn them off, because they feel his assertions of the rights of fathers somehow makes him anti-feminist.  I don’t know […]

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John Waters, Katie Taylor and that religion thing.

Easily the most interesting article – and most read, according to the online listing – in today’s Irish Times  is one by John Waters. For some people, the mention of Waters’s name is sufficient to turn them off, because they feel his assertions of the rights of fathers somehow makes him anti-feminist.  I don’t know […]

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