|
Post by maolsheachlann on Nov 11, 2016 21:54:51 GMT
If America is a sexist and racist country because it voted for Trump, was it a non-racist country when it voted for Obama-- twice?
Somehow, it didn't seem to work the opposite way.
Congratulations on being able to read Mulally's articles-- it's a long time since I've been able to.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Nov 20, 2016 22:53:57 GMT
The standard of reporting at the IRISH TIMES is indicated by their claim that this will be the first time that the Republicans combinE the Presidency with majorities in both Houses of Congress since 1928. In fact Republicans had House and Senate majorities under Eisenhower from roughly 1952-8, and under George W Bush in 2001 (until a senator defected) and again in 2002-6. Does the IRISH TIMES really have no journalists who can remember when Dubya was president? Another gem is the statement that Breitbart News is anti-semitic because it published an article describing the NEver-Trumper Irving Kristol as a "renegade Jew". What I hear of Breitbart I don't like, but it appears that this particular accusation is false because the article in question (and the headline) was written by a well-known Jewish conservative-libertarian called David Horowitz, who said that Hillary's support for a Palestinian state and a deal with Iran endangered ISrael and that by refusing to support Trump against her MR Kristol deserved to be called a renegade. Now this statement is offensive in several different ways, but anti-semitic it ain't.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Feb 5, 2017 2:01:24 GMT
Politics.ie currently has a thread discussing VILLAGE magazine's latest cover, which shows Trump's head in the sights of a rifle. The magazine has an article discussing whether or not violence against Trump would be iustified before concluding it wouldn't. The problem with this, of course, is that even starting such a discussion implies that there might be legitimate arguments for the other option. This is why, for example, most serious historians will not debate holocaust deniers (and why it's usually a mistake to debate conspiracy theorists.) In the eighteenth century the young bucks studying at Trinity College used to refuse to pay their bills, and sometimes bailiffs would venture into the college to try and enforce payment. One day a Trinity academic passed a group of students dipping a bailiff under a pump." "Gentlemen, gentlemen" he said. "Stop this disgraceful behaviour. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Let him go at once - and whatever you do, don't nail his ears to the pump".
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 5, 2017 11:47:44 GMT
That's one reason it's usually a bad idea to debate conspiracy theorists. Another reason is because they've usually studied the subject at insane length and there's no way you can compete with the depth of their knowledge, or counter the abritrary facts or factoids they throw in.
I haven't heard any discussion of that disgraceful cover in the Irish media.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Feb 18, 2017 18:30:42 GMT
Theodore Dalrymple comments on the IRISH TIMES' celebration of a South Dublin school which got its pupils to write Valentine cards to themselves because they see self-esteem as the beginning and end of all education, whether the pupil has done anything to iustify it or not. Warning: I link to this article for its own sake only. The Takimag site where it appears has some monumentally nasty racists among its other contributors. takimag.com/article/feeding_your_inner_caligula_theodore_dalrymple/print#axzz4Z3qytffP
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 18, 2017 19:47:48 GMT
I think the idea of children writing Valentine's Day cards to themselves is stupid, but I don't agree with Dalrymple's attacks on the concept of self-esteem, or indeed the general conservative critique of self-esteem (although I am a conservative and hate victomology and political correctness).
When I was a kid, I had incredibly low self-esteem. It's something real and you don't realise how real it is unless you lack it in a pretty disastrous way. People say: "Self-esteem is believing that you don't even have to try". They don't understand. A person who is seriously deficient in self-esteem believes that trying isn't even worth it because he or she is bound to fail at everything anyway.
I overcame my lack of self-esteem to a great extent through encouragement from others. But I do remember how much generalised kind and encouraging words would console me. I remember, in my teens, almost being moved to tears by the epigraph on Everyman Library books:
"Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide In thy most need to go by thy side."
Getting kids to write Valentine's Cards to themselvess? Stupid. Teaching kids that, yes, they are all unique and valuable? I think it's incredibly important.
And it's actually something I admire in the Catholic Ireland of my youth. A Catholic can really say we are all intended and necessary and MEAN it, since we believe in a loving God. I remember, on the day I collected my Junior Cert results, a priest was standing in the street shaking hands with every Junior Cert student who passed. He didn't ask anyone how they had done. He just shook their hands and said: "Congratulations". That really impressed me and planted a seed. I just don't think it's the case that we live in a world where self-satisfaction is promoted. That may be the case in class-rooms, but even in class-rooms kids are very aware of the points race and so on-- and outside the class room, we live in an extremely competitive society. Only in "lifestyle choices" and morality are we told that "I'm OK, you're OK"-- it's completely the wrong way around. We are held to very high standards in terms of looks, fitness, achievement, money etc. but extremely low standards in terms of morality and principle. So I am not in agreement with Dalrymple here.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 18, 2017 19:51:03 GMT
(Of course, we are not necessary. We are contingent. Only God is necessary. But the term is used to mean every human life is precious.)
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 1, 2017 21:38:34 GMT
Last Sunday Michael McDowell mentioned the CATHOLIC VOICE in his SUNDAY BUSINESS POST column - to sneer at its devotional content and its call on readers to pray for Donald Trump. I would be less enthusiastic about President Trump than the CATHOLIC VOICE, but it's good to see them irritate the comfortable.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 1, 2017 22:02:22 GMT
I found the article on his personal website-- it's fairly mild actually. He calls the Catholic Voice "well-produced", which is higher praise than it's had on this forum in the past!
I heard a rumour that a periodicals librarian in an Irish university library once jumped up and down on a donated copy of Alive! I can neither confirm nor deny this. I actually told Fr. Brian McKevitt, when I happened to sit next to him at a John Waters talk, but he didn't seem to understand me.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 7, 2017 21:16:05 GMT
In yesterday's IRISH TIMES Una Mullaly spoke of the recent discovery of dead babies' bodies in a pit at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home as showing the cruelty and barbarity of the Catholic Church. (BTW I agree this is disgraceful - I suspect neglect contributed to some of those deaths) Ms Mullaly went on to declare that this shows we need to respect women in their pregnancies. She then declared that this is to be done by legalising abortion. So we are supposed to show our disgust at the (quite likely) avoidable deaths of babies and disrespectful disposal of their remains by... slaughtering babies on an industrial scale and treating their remains as medical waste. This is what passes for reasoning in MOLOCH'S HERALD these days.
|
|
|
Post by Account Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 23:07:53 GMT
Ms Mullaly went on to declare that this shows we need to respect women in their pregnancies. She then declared that this is to be done by legalising abortion. I'm appalled by these deaths and conditions of their burial too and, like all the others demanding answers, would be eager to know the outcome of an investigation into all the circumstances. I'm also curious about the timing of the release of the report last week. It never ceases to amaze me how some express disgust at such tragic historical events, and yet aren't disgusted by their own behavior in exploiting the memories of those children, and using tragedy to abruptly forward their own agenda (an agenda that would see the similar events take place, many times over, on an on-going basis in this country) May they rest in peace. Hopefully their remains will receive a proper burial elsewhere now.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 20, 2017 21:50:08 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 22, 2017 13:48:54 GMT
The internal weakness in the Irish Church is something he needs to bring out. Much energy has and is being wasted in pursuing the fiction that the overwhelming majority are still good Catholics. When the bishops let go of that, we might get somewhere
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 24, 2017 20:47:03 GMT
Agreed, Alasdair. One of our problems was/is an unreally idealised national self-image, which when it breaks down easily turns into cynicism and nihilism. (In that sense THE BUTCHER BOY is quite perceptive, though I disagree with its cynicism and nihilism.) Irish patriots - and trads in particular - should bear in mind a little passage from the story "The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet. A poor New England farmer has sold his soul to the Devil, and the great lawyer-politician Daniel Webster has agreed to try to get him out of the contract. WEBSTER; My client is an American citizen and as such entitled to be tried by American citizens. You are a prince, which is contrary to our republican institutions, and I never heard tell that YOU were an American citizen. DEVIL: Oh, I go back a long ways in America. When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there; when the first slave ship sailed for Africa, I stood on her deck. I guess I have as much right as anyone to call myself an American citizen. I'm sure anyone with knowledge of Irish social and ecclesiastical history can think of some local examples.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 24, 2017 21:19:17 GMT
I'm not convinced of that, Hibernicus. I've never really seen any evidence of this idealized self-image-- I mean, from contemporary documents. It's often struck me, reading old copies of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record and similar journals, that this myth of the complacent, self-satisfied Irish Catholicism/Irish nationalism of the past is completely fabricated.
What happened is that one ideal was replaced by another. Why? I think it was television and pop culture. I think it's that simple.
|
|