Friday, July 16, 2004
Watchdogs and parrotsThe editorial in today's New York Times apologises to its readers for not having been aggressive enough in challenging the Bush administration on their misleading claims.
"If we had known that there were probably no unconventional weapons, we would have argued earlier and harder that invading Iraq made no sense."
Fox news executive, John Moody has a different slant on the role of the fourth estate. 33 of his internal memos to staff have come to light. One such memo was circulated on a day when Bush was attending a meeting with Arab leaders.
"His political courage and tactical cunning ar[e] [wo]rth noting in our reporting through the day."
posted by Paul at 1:39 PM | link |
Lance's lot
Greg LeMond , who only won the Tour de France three times, has questioned five time winner Lance Armstong's cleanliness in matters of the blood. Not only that, but he asserts that Lance has a problem.
"The problem with Lance is that you're either a liar or you're out to destroy cycling."
Cycle-paths, the two of them...
posted by Paul at 10:24 AM |
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Thursday, July 15, 2004
The Downs SistersThe weekly ritual of thumbing through the Property Section of the Irish Times is, for me, a process of tut-tutting at prices and generally sighing in exasperation at the evangelical tone of the writing. During a miserable Irish July, the "Take Five" section, where an Irish property is compared with four others of a similiar price in more exotic locations, represents some useful emigration pointers.
Be careful though, these exotic properties may not always be named accordingly. Alpine Heights, as the location of one of today's properties, may spring to mind certain romantic pictures of flowers and fauna, skiiing and Von Trapp children. However, the house in Dublin 22, while probably with views of the Dublin mountains, is not exactly Alpine or indeed high.
Such perplexing names are spread across the country. Is this a case of builders and developers demonstrating the extent of their imaginations? Is it a desire for modern "cool"?
I was disappointed to find out that neither Tiffany nor Beverly Downs were sister sufragettes involved in the struggle for Irish freedom. Tiffany Downs is in fact a housing estate in Cork named after the Tiffany of that Breakfast fame. Beverly Downs in South Dublin seems to be simply a long lost cousin of Beverly Hills. Is this a tongue in cheek homage to post-modern Ireland? If it is, I like it. I doubt it though. I'm sure there's a Beverly Heights somewhere out there, just off the Monasterevan Boulevard.
Maybe this name-calling is a reaction to old skool religious spatial planning. In Cabra, we have roads named after saints Attracta, Eithne, and Finbar all in close proximity. While I welcome the lapsed interest in saintly spaces, I think I just about prefer Cabra's relics of auld daycency to their Hollywood makeover descendents. There's a welcome element of the Fureys about it. Although, I do tend to drop the "saint" when telling people where I live. Maybe, that's more apt. Laicised street names with a twist of Irishness.
Check out your saintly reference point to see when you should be celebrating your local fiesta.
posted by Paul at 1:49 PM | link |
Crisis of American masculinity
Kerry the soccer player versus Bush the cheerleader.
posted by Jon Ihle at 11:17 AM |
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USA: better than Ireland!
The UN says so. FIFA agrees.
posted by Jon Ihle at 10:37 AM |
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Re: The end of the Brussels Sugar Daddy?
I'm inclined to agree with Jon on this issue. Of course the challenge for the EU is to dismantle subsidies in such a way that it doesn't cause the entire agricultural economy to crash overnight. It's also complicated by the fact that farmers, in Ireland at least, are such a strong sector of the electorate.
What's the future for European agriculture? I think its the same as every other sector. You have to move up the value chain to survive. Speciality and premium quality foods are probably the way forward. Wine, olive oil, cured meats and cheeses are all areas in which European agriculture excels. Here in Ireland, our hope lies in becoming a world renowned name for beef and dairy products. It won't be easy though.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 10:26 AM |
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Re: The end of the Brussels Sugar Daddy?
The sooner we can buy all our sugar cheaply from economically struggling countries, the better off we'll all be. Predictably, Irish farmers and food processing companies such as Greencore (although they know which way the wind is blowing) are freaking out.
This comment from Elaine Farrell of the Irish Farmers' Association is typical of the breast-beating:"A lot of our growers could not stay in production on the basis of these proposals and it is a crop that keeps tillage farming viable around Ireland."
Of course, tillage farming simply isn't viable in Ireland if it needs subsidies and price supports, which is the real point, isn't it? The 4,000 Irish sugar beet farmers have a choice, the same choice faced by anyone in an uncompetitive business: adapt or die. The net long-term economic benefit to the country of a) paying lower subsidies and b) paying lower prices for sugar and processed foods will, I'd wager, outweight the short-term losses of farmers and processors.
Anyway, as a matter of principle, the EU shouldn't be in the business of funding the preservation of nostalgic and mythical national cultural identities.
posted by Jon Ihle at 9:50 AM |
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Re: Olympic flame sparks dope hunt
A day after discovering Greek dope, authorities have uncovered another American dope: world 100 meters champion Torri Edwards has tested positive for a banned stimulant and may miss the Athens games.
The name of the drug? Nikethamide. It is used to treat pulmonary disease and increases the rate and depth of respiration, with predictable benefits for runners - hence, presumably, its eponymity with the winged goddess of victory. The fact that Nike, the purveyor of fine sporting apparel which more or less underwrites American athletics, shares a name with this drug is purely coincidental, if richly ironic.
posted by Jon Ihle at 9:39 AM |
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Arms to China
Interesting post from Gavin about the possibility of the EU reopening arms trade with China. I'd tend to agree that the EU ought to start practicising what it preaches.
It's a topic that has been occupying my mind of late, since I'm sick of reading about who's armed various tyrannical regimes. So what's the solution? An international treaty banning arms exports perhaps? The EU could take the lead by confining arms exports to other EU countries.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:31 AM |
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The end of the Brussels Sugar Daddy?
The EU has announced that it is to tackle sugar subsidies:Farm commissioner Franz Fischler confirmed leaked proposals to reduce EU farmers' production quotas, cut the guaranteed price they receive by a third and slash export subsidies...Under the current scheme, EU sugar prices are kept at more than £400 a tonne, three times world market prices, through quotas and import barriers. Campaign groups say Malawi, Mozambique and Ethiopia lost nearly £200m in 2001 because of the EU's sugar regime.
Is it a drop in the ocean or the beginning of real reform?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:27 AM |
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Olympic flame sparks dope hunt
It seems that the journey of the Olympic flame to Athens has help Greek police bust a drug farm without even trying. A police helicopter accompanying the procession through the island of Crete spotted several cannabis farms in remote parts of the island. If only the Olympic authorities had as much success with drug takers as they do with drug growers.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:17 AM |
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Re: Anti-semitism in France
As first flagged by Jon in the comments section, the anti-semitic attack discussed in my post on Tuesday now appears to have been a hoax. The Guardian has the story:A thorough study of CCTV footage at the stations where they allegedly got on and got off found no trace of the six north African teenagers. Nor did it find the alleged victim, identified only as Marie, or her pushchair...Marie's mother then admitted her daughter had some mental health problems and a tendency to fantasise.
France has suffered a spate of all too real incidents lately. Hoaxes such as this don't help, playing into the hands of those who want to pretend there isn't a problem.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:12 AM |
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Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Fiesta!Patrice Harrington in yesterday's Irish Times (subscription required) reports from the Fiesta de San Fermin. Made famous by Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, one of the highlights of Pamplona's fiesta is the daily running of the bulls, who pursue foolhardy fiesta-goers through the streets to the bull ring. Back when I read Hemmingway first, at the impressionable age of nineteen, I harboured ambitions of running with the bulls. Over the years I came to realise that the sport is mainly confined to crazy locals and drunken foreigners. Harrington's description of a drink soaked and vomit strewn Pamplona doesn't really lend it the air of adventure that Hemmingway conveyed.
Fiestas are a regular feature of the Spanish summer and most towns have their own. One I would love to attend involves a tomato fight in which the entire town participate. Another town's fiesta incorporates the annual ritual of throwing a goat off a church roof, something I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to witness.
Tres Cantos, the northern suburb of Madrid we were staying in recently, held it's annual fiesta while we were there. Although there were no bulls, tomatos or flying goats, the event was a bit of fun nonetheless and probably more typical of the average Spanish fiesta. Not surprisingly, given the high daytime temperatures, most of the festivities took place at night, when people descended on the local park to enjoy a nightly series of concerts and a fun fair. The main part of the festival area was occupied a series of makeshift bars, operated by a local organisations and clubs. The bigger bars were run by the political parties, something I don't think you'd see in Ireland. The Spanish take their politics far more seriously than we do here. No prizes for guessing which party's bar we weren't patronising. Suffice to say that the party whose bar we did give our festive allegiance to made excellent mojitos and particularly fine bocadillos (Spanish style sandwiches).
One of the highlights of the festival was the giant paella (pictured below) a local charity made. They claimed it was enough to feed a thousand people.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:16 AM | link |
How I learned to stop worrying and love the Tour
Well Paul beat me to it by putting up the first Tour de France post. Cycling is the next most popular sport in Spain after football and I got hooked on the Tour while I was over there. With Eurosport gone from the standard cable package these days, I have to rely on the web to follow the race now I'm home. Even the papers here these days don't carry much coverage.
So who am I rooting for? Well, like Paul, I've been following the fortunes of the young Irish rider Mark Scanlon. It's Scanlon's first tour and he's no hope of winning. His role this year is to gain experience and work to help his senior team mates. For the main prize I'm cheering on Iban Mayo. The little Basque climber was hotly tipped this year after coming sixth in last year's tour and winning the gruelling Alpe d'Huez stage.
However, Mayo had a disasterous start to his race. During the third stage, he fell as the peloton jockyed for position approaching the cobbled roads near Waterloo. Mayo was reportedly furious that Armstrong and the rest of the pack failed to wait for him following the crash. Armstrong's US Postal team instead picked up the pace to widen the gap. Mayo's beef is that Jan Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton waited when he and Armstrong both crashed at a critical stage last year. Others say that two situations are hardly comparable. Many feel that the time Mayo lost during the third stage has wrecked his chances of winning the tour. It certainly caused a national outpouring of grief in Spain, with one radio commentator seemingly having a nervours breakdown on air.
Mayo now lies in 86th place, 15 minutes behind the leader Thomas Voeckler and around six minutes behind Armstrong. Now that gap doesn't sound unsurmountable. Remember the winning group of five in last Thursday's stage put twelve and a half minutes on the rest of the pack. However, Mayo can hardly afford to spare a second. According to the experts, in order to win, he'd have to hold his own in the early stages and then build up such a lead in the mountains that no amount of monster riding by Armstrong, Ullrich and Co in the time trials will catch him.
The first part of Mayo's plan has gone out the window. However, with the Tour finally hitting the mountains today, we'll see what he can do. The fact that he now holds a grudge against Armstrong may spur him on further.
POSTSCRIPT: You can follow the Tour live on the web at the official Tour de France website or at Eurosport. There's also at least one dedicated Tour de France weblog, which was kind enough to link to us yesterday.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:04 AM |
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Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Far from Galtee they've been munching onI've been keeping an eye on the Tour de France and Mark Scanlon's experiences, the first Irish rider since Stephen Roche in 1993 to ride the Tour. Growing up in the heyday of Irish cycling with Stephen, Sean Kelly, Paul Kimmage and Martin Earley, the Tour was a highlight of the sporting summer (that and the Leinster Final, when Dublin used to make it that far).
Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride did a fine job of exposing the wheeling and dealing of professional cycling, however in the process eliminating much of the Tour magic from my eyes.
I'm asking myself as I prepare to follow the Tour into the horrors and glories of the mountain stages, is it too naive to think that Scanlon, Voeckler, Boonen and the new young breed of the Peloton will rescue the tarnished image of the sport. Is doping being Lanced from the eye of cycling? On the bigger picture, is the dramatic decline of Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery et al heralding a dope-free Olympics?
I'm not overly confident.
posted by Paul at 4:32 PM | link |
Anti-semitism in France
This attack, reported in yesterday's Irish Times (subscription required), is pretty horrific:A group of young men attacked a mother travelling with her child on a Parisian suburban railway, chopping off her hair and drawing swastikas on her stomach in the latest anti-Semitic incident to unsettle France.
French president Jacques Chirac says he's taking such incidents very seriously:President Chirac led a chorus of condemnations from across the spectrum of France's political elite yesterday, expressing his horror at the "shameful attack", which came just a day after he launched a nationwide campaign to stem a rise in racist assaults.
Indeed, the Irish Times last week reported on Chirac's address at the launch of the campaign:"Discrimination, anti-Semitism, racism ... are spreading insidiously. They strike our Jewish compatriots who've been present in our country since time immemorial. They strike our compatriots of Muslim culture who have chosen to work and live in our country."
While Chirac's words are certainly welcome, you have to wonder what deeds are intended to back them up. How does one combat racist violence? Awareness campaigns? Tougher sentencing? Dedicated law enforcement units? Either way, you don't solve these problems over night and if the French government is serious about this, it faces an uphill battle.
Finally, it was probably this aspect of the story which upset me the most:The other passengers in the carriage stood by watching, but none of them came to help her, according to the report she made to the police.
How on earth can someone stand by and let this happen? It isn't unique and I've heard countless stories of attacks and muggings taking place in crowded areas while passers by pretend nothing is happening.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:12 PM |
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More Irish blogs
I've come across a few more Irish blogs in recent days. Dialectical Confusions calls iteself a pseudo Marxist weblog. Stewed Tea meanwhile has been nice enough to link to us. Finally, Gavin's discovered Northern Irish blog Journalesque.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:10 PM |
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The reluctant beauty queen
Emily Yoffe at Slate volunteers to do a human guinea pig column by entering the Mrs Washington DC pageant. In a bizarre series of events she actually ends up winning without really trying to.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:08 PM |
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Monday, July 12, 2004
A meeting of mindsSaturday's blogger meeting seemed to go pretty well and it was nice to see so many people showing up. Early arrivals included Bernie Goldbach, Frank McGahon (and family), Chris Reid, David Stewart and Gavin Sheridan. The evening saw Annette and Gary, Tony Allwright and our own Jon Ihle join the party. It was a pleasure to finally put faces to names and meet the people behind the blogs.
A word of thanks should go to Gavin for doing much of the work in organising the event. Gavin put in a sterling performance and thoughougly deserved the yellow jersey. Arriving at around half four with an alleged hangover, he proceeded to drink nine or ten pints, go for a kebab in Zaytoon (the thinking man's kebab) and finish up at five in the morning in my kitchen talking about the Irish media scene. Stamina indeed.
Hopefully it won't be too long before we all get around to hooking up again and it may be an idea to try and make it regular thing, such as every six months or so. Perhaps those who couldn't make it this time, such as Mick and Peter, should be given first call on picking a date next time around?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 3:52 PM | link |
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