Posted by jbwan | Posted in Life in General | Posted on 26-12-2007
View Comments
Alas poor Joe Dolan has passed away following a sudden illness. Joe, who played for over 40 years on the Irish music scene, was well-known performer who brought great entertainment to many. Famous for hits like “Good lookin’ woman” there was never a show like a Joe show. Sadly on this post-Christmas Day, Joe has left the stage for the last time. Sympathies and respects to Joe’s family and close friends and to the career of a man who served as a mainstay of the Irish music scene for over four decades. RIP. source: RTE
Posted by jbwan | Posted in Life in General | Posted on 19-12-2007
View Comments
This evening while driving home from work I was listening to the Last Word on Today FM, listening to Brian Farrell from the RSA talking about decreasing the alcohol limit for drinking and driving. Providing balance to the debate was a publican from Co. Wexford whom I must say made some excellent points with respect to the futility of reducing the limit by a fraction of a drink when it’s entirely possible that people who are that concerned will not actually get behind the wheel while others will drink way past 2 pints and then drive. Mr. Farrell, of course, then started talking about the statistics and the reports on alochol affecting driver ability. The RSA love to pick out these wonderful reports and statistics whenever they’re chasing a minority group with details from a majority survey. It brought my mind around to thinking that over the last 7 or so years I have been actively campaigning and tackling the issue of discrimination against drivers purely based on age, in particular the discrimination against young drivers. Here Mr. Farrell was again using a generalised population report and statistical analysis to add weight to an argument focussing solely on a minority group. All the statistics in the world won’t change that fact. Just like the young driver issue where it is accurate to say that about 75% of driver deaths on our roads are not caused by the under-25 driver bracket, yet we see no advertising campaigns aimed at anyone else. So, why is it that the RSA seeks only to target minority groups in the grand scheme of a larger problem? Sure drunk drivers will cause accidents, sure young drivers will die but so do many, many more people outside of those particular statistical brackets. I personally think it’s time that we started to demand some action from the RSA and the judiciary that deals with the overall problem of road deaths and not particular scapegoat groupings that are easy to blame for our problems, groupings that are easy to rally support against. When will we start to realise that any life saved on our roads is equally important, whether it be the life of a young driver or a drunk driver or generic human, every life is precious. From now on if the RSA want to be treated seriously in my estimation they should tackle the greater problem and not gain their support through stereotyping classes of driver that don’t apply to the majority using our roads.
Posted by jbwan | Posted in Life in General | Posted on 14-12-2007
View Comments
… a thought that I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world to think this. In these times of “global warming”, concerns about “carbon footprint” and everything else that’s going on, why is it that American cars are still less efficient than their European counterparts? We all know about these huge engine vehicles driven by Americans up to 5 litre, gas guzzlers and yet, in some cases, they only get the performance of what we’re taking from a 2 litre engine in Europe with nowhere near the same economy. Why aren’t American cars fitted with the same economical engines that their European friends have and get the same performance with better economy? Is it just me or am I missing something here?
Posted by jbwan | Posted in Life in General | Posted on 11-12-2007
View Comments
Yesterday we saw the tragic funeral of Katy French and also the removal of John Grey who died this weekend following the death of Kevin Doyle also. Such terrible times for all families involved; Christmas around the corner and nothing can offer comfort to those who have lost loved ones. Last night I sat down eagerly awaiting a Primetime documentary on the state of cocaine usage in Ireland. Hence I sat through the news at 9. I was amazed to see the funeral of Katy French take centre stage as the main headline when a much later article focussed on the deaths of about 11 people on our roads this week and 2 of them in Galway in the last 24 hours. The reasons behind Katy’s death have not yet hit the mainstream news and as such there is no lesson to be learned from this. The car crash victims however could have sent a vital safety message to anyone who didn’t change station after the main headline. Maybe it’s because none of the victims in Galway were “young male drivers”, perhaps if we had a situation whereby the drivers were u-25 then it would have made the main headline. Nobody wants to hear that people aged 40+ can crash and kill themselves and others. — throws eyes to heaven —
Anyway following the news, the Primetime documentary commenced. In all it was an interesting documentary that showed the ineptitude of the customs services to do random checks on vehicles without the country’s only x-ray scanner that moves from port to port giving drug trafficers a timetable to work to. It also showed a seemingly massive number of public houses in this country that have a protruding boxed in cistern for the toilet. Now it may sound strange to say that but it struck me as unusual as I’ve hardly ever been in a public bathroom that doesn’t have the cistern behind a fake wall rather than boxed in with a marble shelf for cocaine snorters to use conveniently. In addition, the testimony given to the ease of availability of the drug was staggering. Yep, drunken people in the early hours of the morning falling around the streets being interviewed with respect to the acquisition of cocaine. The answers were along the lines of (in your best slurred accent) “ah ye sure, Jaysus I’m a superman, I could get you whatever, that lad over there no wait it’s a girl, what did you want again, sure I’ll look after you”; you get the picture. Finally what annoyed me the most was that in a documentary that should have been highlighting the widespread usage of cocaine as a drug affecting the full complement of society the documentary chose to focus purely on lower class criminals and such rather than probing the rich and famous – an attempt to distance recent events from this problem perhaps?
What always really amazes me however is the statement that society is riddled with drugs. That drugs are everywhere and across the entire spectrum of our community and most recently that Waterford has hit the news, that Waterford is supposedly drug-riddled. I’ve lived in Waterford all my life: I’ve been in pubs and clubs since the age of 17, some places that were even later revealed as drug hotspots. For well over a decade I have been in nearly every pub in the city and club on most nights of the week over the years that I have been socialising. Not once, ever, was I ever offered anything for sale and I’m not a Garda nor do I hang around with them. Drugs might affect people right across the spectrum of society but the fact is that these people it affects, all gather upon the same scene rather than being from completely different scenes. If people want drugs then they will find them, drugs don’t find people. I never wanted to touch anything in my life, don’t even take what the doctor prescribes at times, and I have never been offered anything as such. I’m not alone, there are many others. To say that the drugs problem is sweeping throughout the community is simply not true, people don’t get what they don’t go looking for. Lower class, upper class no matter what background people come from, the instant that they go in search of drugs, makes them all from the same class, they are the same people then.
Posted by jbwan | Posted in Humour, Life in General | Posted on 10-12-2007
View Comments
Not a question that I would imagine, surfaces that regularly. Seemingly in India at the moment there is a long running land battle and two of the supposed land owners are named as two Hindu gods. Seriously without any disrespect, you could not make this up. The two gods, Ram and Hanuman, have been summoned to appear in court by the judge. When they initially failed to turn up, the judge wasn’t happy. This is a snippet from the Irish Times article on the case:
Sunil Kumar Singh has placed adverts in newspapers in the coal-mining town of Dhanbad, northeast of the state capital, Ranchi, asking widely worshipped gods Ram and Hanuman to appear in his court next week to present their side of the argument in the long- running land ownership case.
“You failed to appear in court despite notices sent by a peon and later through registered post. You are hereby directed to appear before the court personally,” Judge Singh’s notice stated.
source: Irish Times
Note: Irish Times article may require login
