Less Respect, More Argument

While there are no details as yet as to the motivations of the murderers of the English soldier at Woolwich, the web is already alive with opponents and defenders of Islam. More significantly for those of us who value public discourse, many thoughtful and tolerant people are taking the position that Islam – and by extension all religion – is not a problem. Paradoxically it is this kind of blanket tolerance that can lead to trouble.

For as long as religion is “respected” in public discourse, particular religions will be attacked because of the actions and statements of their most extreme adherents.

When we discuss values and matters concerning values, religion has to be ignored and certainly cannot be allowed become a trump card. For example, debates about abortion cannot be side-tracked by stuff about respect for catholic beliefs and nastiness to gays cannot be permitted because the speaker believes in Islam. When a society takes seriously claims that something should be or not be because God or a prophet said so, it encourages belief as opposed to argument. Every single cruel, divisive and – yes! – inegalitarian belief should be hauled out from under religious cloaks and tackled.

When that has been established, we can say with some confidence that an act of barbarity had nothing to do with religion.

They are known to be useless and they are all still there; a reminder from Eddie Hobbs

On this morning’s Marian Finucane radio programme * a discussion began about the culpability of former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, for Ireland’s economic mess. From former minister, Mary O’Rourke, came the familiar routine of “we all had a party, so no one is at fault” and then Eddie Hobbs offered the view that the ordinary person couldn’t be expected to understand an economic bubble and that those he calls “gatekeepers” failed to warn the general public.**

Eddie is wrong. Anyone with normal intelligence, a basic education and a little interest in their surroundings could see that – whatever about the wider world – Ireland was headed for a fall. Failing to see this required enormous stupidity or wilful blindness. It was a topic of discussion among ordinary people, many of whom could see that the property boom was a scam, bound to end. These ordinary people held on to their savings and/or didn’t borrow to buy property.

Eddie is right, however, to blame “gatekeepers” for failing. The term usually refers to media workers but Eddie included public service economists. Two points need to be made. Firstly, the distinction is correctly drawn here between people who are paid to think, write, speak up and manage and the rest who are merely expected to do these things. It is the difference between citizens and those whom society expects to do a particular job because they are paid for it. Who are these people? Clearly, elected politicians, advisers, civil servants, economics professionals, journalists, producers and researchers are included but so too are public commentators, lecturers, teachers and managers – particularly managers in banking and finance.

Secondly, nothing whatsoever has been done about this failure. Let’s be blunt: If an electrician or plumber failed to perform to the point of wrecking the house, they’d hardly be let continue. (Well, in view of the dangerous buildings now coming to light, that may be a topic in itself.) In the case of those paid to think, write and speak up … Nothing! They are all still there. They did not do what they were paid to do and they are all still there. They are known to be useless and they are all still there.

They didn’t fail to perform some difficult task. There are many failures trying to find cover in the fabrication that Ireland’s economic crash came as a surprise. It bears repeating that only a complete fool could have confused a building boom with a productive economy and only the wilfully blind could have failed to see the bricks and mortar evidence accumulating across the country. (That some did see the problem but remained silent is a different kind of failure. ***)

It is simply implausible to suggest that some kind of recovery could be achieved while so many of those paid to think and to manage are demonstrably unable or unwilling to do their jobs.
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* http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A10146436%3A70%3A12%2D05%2D2013%3A
** At about 11.00 mins. into the programme.
*** http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/time-for-a-clear-out-who-misled-and-who-remained-silent-as-a-completely-irish-made-fiasco-developed/

The attraction of the real thing

This morning I went to Collins Bridge on the Royal Canal. It’s right next to the Sligo rail line. I wanted to see the Railway Preservation Society’s * steam train come through. From the earliest whisper of that unmistakable sound to when it headed off towards Maynooth, I wasn’t disappointed. Perfect. I hadn’t gone out to see a mere train, any locomotive with rolling stock. I had gone to see something special: a working steam locomotive at the head of a train. O.K., it no longer serves a schedule but this locomotive was hauling carriages and doing what it is supposed to do. It wasn’t a display, giving some impression of what a working steam locomotive was like. It was the beautiful, working real deal. I was reminded of retrievers: they too have to look the part and do the work. One without the other isn’t enough, it’s insufficient to bring out an admirer.

* http://www.steamtrainsireland.com/

Debating abortion in Ireland: The treatment/management of miscarriage

Dr. Katherine Astbury, a consultant obstetrician to Savita Halappanavar, told the inquest into Ms. Halappanvar’s death, “The law in Ireland does not permit termination even if there is no prospect of viability [for the foetus]. That would be my understanding of the legal position based on the legal judgement in the X-case and the Medical Council guidelines.” http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/midwife-manager-regrets-using-catholic-country-remark-to-savita-halappanavar-1.1355895?page=1

That is my understanding too. If we continue to give a foetus a right to life until the mother’s life is threatened, this will be the situation and no amount of clarification will change it.

The position in Ireland is that abortion is not a permissible part of the treatment/management of miscarriage. Now, I’ve no information on how often abortion might be considered in the treatment of miscarriage but it does seem to be an issue for Catholic hospitals outside Ireland.

“The experiences of physicians in our study indicate that uterine evacuation may not be approved during miscarriage by the hospital ethics committee if foetal heart tones are present and the pregnant woman is not yet ill, in effect delaying care until foetal heart tones cease, the pregnant woman becomes ill, or the patient is transported to a non–Catholic-owned facility for the procedure.” Freedman, L.R. et al “When There’s a Heartbeat: Miscarriage Management in Catholic-Owned Hospitals” in American Journal of Public Health. 2008 October; 98(10): 1774–1778. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636458/

A call to teach coding in schools takes little account of how technology has changed work and jobs

The list of things which well-meaning people have suggested should be added to the school curriculum is endless. Karlin Lillington, a very good tech. journalist, has argued in The Irish Times Business and Technology supplement (March 28th 2013) that coding be taught at school.* The thesis is that since many companies have started with the lone, self-taught coder, having a mass of people able to code would prompt business start-ups and would make many young people ready to take up employment in the tech. sector.

On the face of it, it seems an attractive idea but – and surprisingly from someone like Karlin Lillington – it is strangely outdated and out of touch with the reality of work today.

Two of the central planks supporting the argument are very weak. Firstly, while it is very likely that those who started and built a business on their inventive coding were at it from age 14 or younger, that observation has a familiar ring because it is made regularly about all manner of industry. Media regularly carry anecdotes about business people being enterprising from a very early age and these reports are often linked to a demand that business and enterprise appear on the school curriculum.

Secondly, there is nothing to indicate that anything like the majority of jobs in the tech. sector call for coding skills. A cursory examination of the recruitment sections on the websites of the large tech. companies reveals an interesting research project. Some of these companies recruit some coders, some recruit none. All, however, require competence in operating the new technology and in the ways of working that the technology has created. Indeed it might be argued that the belief that coding skills should be universal rests on a simple misunderstanding around the term “tech. industries”.**

Aside from the basics of the argument, Karlin may be getting too close to the technology and paying insufficient attention to its effects. “Today’s children,” she says, “will graduate into an overwhelmingly digital world, where daily life is immersed in code.” That’s simply untrue and misunderstands mass use of digital devices and media. Most young people don’t understand the word “digital” and think it means “modern” or even “cool”. Their life is not immersed in code; they are unaware of the code running their devices. Their playful indifference to matters technological, coupled with ease of use, may even obscure something that flies in the face of the thoughtless consensus that “the kids are great with the computers!” At the heart of the error is the observation that children and young people generally use computer devices almost constantly. They seem to be very comfortable with them and they learn to use new devices and apps quickly. To complete the myth there’s an endless supply of old duffers prepared to feed the stereotype that is the older person, unable to adapt and acquire the skills to operate these new gadgets. The truth is that technology always develops from specialist to mass or domestic use. In the 1970s a basic video recorder was analogue, huge, expensive, confined to TV companies and required a skilled operator. Similarly, there was a time – and it is a long time ago now – when expertise was needed to do anything on a computer. Nowadays little or no skill is required for many uses.

Those young people who appear so computer savvy for the most part are doing little that is creative or clever.*** It is true that being inventive and developing new apps etc. requires skill but that kind of activity is rare. The difficulty is that not only do the majority of young people make little creative or intellectual use of the technology but they generally lack the skills to go beyond social media and games or even to maximise the potential. Imagine years ago if someone had admired a young person for being able to operate a television set! Well, admiring a young person for being constantly and comfortably on-line is almost as daft. It is also patronising.

There is a final theme in Karlin’s piece. It seems reasonable to suggest that coding skills would teach people how to think. There certainly is a need to teach young people to analyse, criticise, organise, solve problems and present their findings/arguments. However, teaching coding skills with this end in mind would be very restrictive and conservative. It would be a poor substitute for logic or philosophy more generally.

There needs to be a hard look at the easy assumptions that lead to demands for more and more training as opposed to education in schools. It was always the case that schooling needed to be general. Schools needed to produce people who could make their way in the world as both citizens and as workers. What technology has done is to emphasise this need. Put aside for now the making of decent, socialised people and of citizens prepared and able to participate in a republic. Those looking to serve the “jobs market” by reforming the education of children need to look more closely at the jobs.

It is absolutely certain that science and engineering specialists are required but there are two other things which are equally certain and they have been created by the technology at the heart of this discussion. Firstly, it is certain that aside from the most menial of jobs, there is now no employment in the developed world for the unskilled and uneducated. Secondly, outside of technical skills the world of work today calls for the generalist, someone who is adept with information, someone who can research, argue and present. These of course rest on literacy, numeracy and a great deal of general knowledge.**** In the short to medium term there is a demand for a second and third language.

There really is no place in the office (or at home or abroad linked to the office) for someone unable to speak and to write fluently and well, for someone unable to research independently, for someone without general knowledge and for someone with no grasp of mathematics, science and technology.

When thinking about the reform of education, it is a mistake to fall back on the centuries old division between humanities and science. It is a mistake too to emphasise training over education. These are not mistakes purely in terms of concerns that teaching should lead to the enjoyment of a full life. These are now mistakes in terms of serving industry.*****

If Karlin were to look around the office at the Irish Times and see what is actually being done and who does it best, and then travel to the tech. companies around Dublin, look again and perhaps sit in on a few routine meetings, she would see that teaching skills – other than literacy and numeracy – to children is a very outdated notion.

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* http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/net-results-digital-economy-begins-with-teaching-kids-coding-1.1340843
** http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/could-inaccurate-use-of-the-term-tech-sector-be-misguiding-education-policy/
*** http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/republican-citizens-on-facebook-need-to-choose-their-friends-deliberately/
**** http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-smart-economy-and-technologys-democratic-vector/
***** http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/increased-emphasis-on-vocational-education-is-a-pretty-bad-idea-now/

Will Croke Park 2 be another Irish victory for fairness over equality?

Anyone active in collective bargaining over the past few decades will be well aware of the offer and acceptance of “allowances” when the demand was for a pay increase. It is therefore ridiculous to categorise all allowances as some kind of luxury extra that can be cut without touching basic pay.

Any restructuring of the public service which fails significantly and very obviously to reduce inequality of income in the public service is a failure for the Labour Party.*

The final details have yet to emerge but all of the indications particularly over the past week suggest that the Croke Park 2 agreement has been poisoned by the conservative doctrine of “fairness”.**

It goes like this. Because it is planned to cut “allowances” for “frontline” workers, “fairness” demands that highly paid workers who don’t get allowances have their pay cut too. In other words, we are back to “sharing the pain” and leaving the structures of inequality intact. It is certain that rich public servants will be cut by proportionately more but clearly they are much more able to absorb small reductions even when these are expressed in impressive percentages.

It is of course a matter of the Labour Party being outmanoeuvred by market liberals and failing to reduce inequality but it is also a question of leftist acceptance of enormous levels of inequality while maintaining a vestige of credibility.*** Credibility is secured by talking about merely the richest 1% and arguing that it would be “unfair” to tackle one group of rich people unless all rich people can be similarly affected. Even opponents of Labour in government and those on the left whose ambition it is to destroy Labour effectively support inequality of income.
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* I am a longtime member of the Labour Party.

** http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/fairness-has-become-the-conservatives-shield/

http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/how-concerned-are-you-about-horizontal-fairness/

http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/inequality-of-income-can-labour-put-it-on-the-public-agenda-and-achieve-some-reduction-while-in-government/

*** http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/prioritising-public-spending-and-reducing-income-inequality-in-the-public-sector-a-motion-which-failed-to-make-the-agenda-for-the-labour-party-conference-2012/

“AIB chief executive vows to tackle property loans to managers” Is this a misleading headline or does it reflect acceptance of the view in Ireland that none among the establishment can be touched?

John Fallon reported in the Irish Times today that David Duffy, the CEO of Allied Irish Banks, intends a clean-up within the bank.* However, what is reported is that David Duffy has joined Fianna Fáil and Sinn Fein in asking citizens yet again to go WAWA (“We are where we are”). Yes, here we go again. What he proposes is that past wrongdoing be attributed to “culture” and that the bank makes a fresh start without getting rid of wrongdoers.

The wrongdoing in question is managers borrowing from their own bank to become developers or investors. David Duffy is clearly of the view that this is not just a bad practice but unethical and lacking in integrity. He is resolute that it will never happen again and that if it does, the manager will be dismissed.

The problem of course is that it can’t be wrong today but not wrong yesterday. That’s where the old reliable WAWA escape clause comes in and it’s all too familiar: “No one is guilty; it was the culture”. It’s a constant refrain in Ireland today. It is offered as an excuse for all sorts of failure and for crimes: failure to speak up while the economy was ruined, child abuse, political murders, laundry slavery and now dodgy borrowing by bank managers has been added to the list.

It is simply not credible that the chancers who were involved in these loans will now suddenly become people of integrity fit to be managers in an important institution. It is not acceptable that the CEO of this institution is prepared to go WAWA and to leave those not fit for office in place.
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* http://m.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2013/0223/1224330416276.html?via=bnews

Rethinking the decline in the Flatcoat’s popularity

An article in The Field from February 2008 (http://www.thefield.co.uk/gundogs/178912/Joining_the_flatcoat_retriever_pack.html) has reemerged on Facebook and it has prompted me to return to something that’s been interesting me recetly.

“In the Fifties the flatcoat was in real decline and by the Eighties, when I began breeding, there was only a very small pool. I started with dogs bred by Ken Butler, which were fantastic. We both sought out all the old pre-war lines – the working breeding that had disappeared during the war. These original lines were the best workers – reliable, honest, lovely dogs – but there were so few of them.” – Chris Gwilliam, quoted in the article.

It was this sentence that most interested me when I first read the article some months ago. The significance for me was not only the recourse to old working genes but to the work itself. What I mean is this: the careful selective breeding which produced these 19th century retrievers addressed a job of work that needed to be done. However, the first driven shoot (battue) seems to have been in 1863 but as reported in the article, “By 1864 records show a Mr. Hull breeding flatcoats.”

What the evidence seems to suggest is that at the emergence of modern driven shoots the popular retriever was the Flatcoat. He wasn’t bred specifically for this (No retriever was; it was new.) but he was the incumbent popular worker. In time the breed fell out of favour because, it is generally argued,”Labradors were quicker to train and more predictable in their work.” The problem of course with the explanation is that the Labrador was not new at the end of the Edwardian period. It too was established during the 19th century. In other words, Labradors had been quicker to train and more predictable for all of those decades and yet the Flatcoat was more popular.

Something had changed but it wasn’t the dogs. The quotation immediately above continues, “When shoots began to suffer the effects of two World Wars, it wasn’t surprising that keepers, guns and pickers-up all turned away from the flatcoat to the cost-effective and less time-consuming lab.” In other words, pressure on costs and time forced a switch to Labradors. Now, this suggests an earlier period when people didn’t mind spending multiples of their time in training.

A more likely explanation is that the Flatcoat was the firm favourite for the forms of hunting which preceded the Battue and that his dominance well into the 20th century was a residue of this until large numbers of people became aware that the Labrador was a better bet for the changed circumstances.

This gives rise to concern for the survival of the old genes so carefully recovered by the likes of Chris Gwilliam. There’s some more on these concerns here: http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/retriever-breeds-use-them-or-conserve-and-use-them/

Could inaccurate use of the term “tech sector” be misguiding education policy?

I realise that Una Mulally’s piece in the Irish Times on Saturday (*) last was essentially about the lifestyles of young workers in successful, fashionable companies located in Dublin’s docklands but there is something odd about it which prompted me to return to doubts I have about the basis on which rests the view that Ireland needs to increase the numbers graduating in science and engineering.

While I fear that the level of general knowledge and basic expertise in maths, science and engineering is well short of what a competent citizen requires to participate fully today, I can’t seem to find data which compels support for the view that the third level educational system should increase significantly the number of specialist graduates. The conventional media view, fuelled by those who teach maths, science and engineering – especially I.T – is that students are foolish if they do not clamour for entry to these courses which more or less guarantee employment. This is at odds with anecdotal evidence which suggests at least some level of unemployment. The key to this puzzle may lie in the term “tech sector”.

Here’s what Una Mulally reports, “Apparently some kind of economic crisis is going on, but in Dublin’s tech sector, where Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, PayPal and Microsoft reign, the only way is up.” She then goes on to talk about skill shortages in Ireland which result in the immigration of bright young people from across Europe. However, here’s the interesting aspect: the only specific skill mentioned is languages and the only formal degree mentioned is a PhD in politics held by a young Italian woman who works in Dublin for PayPal.

With the possible exception of risk management (**) none of the jobs mentioned suggest that a degree in science or technology is a requirement; these people are working in marketing, customer support, business development and recruitment. However, they see themselves as working in the “tech sector”. It seems plausible to suggest that when journalists talk about career opportunities in the “tech sector”, they are not talking exclusively about technical jobs but about jobs traditionally filled by humanities and business graduates who now need a range of skills – well short of graduate level expertise – such as to make them employable not in a technological role but in office-type industries created by or fundamentally changed by I.T. generally and the net in particular. (***)

The almost cavalier use of the term “tech sector” may be contributing to woolly thinking about third level education in two distinct ways. (****) Firstly, there is risk that the requirement for science and engineering graduates becomes overstated. Secondly, there is a risk that the degree to which the office workplace has changed is not recognised and – language skills aside – this may be why the companies mentioned in the article need to search far and wide when recruiting graduates.
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* http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2013/0209/1224329821083.html

** The article doesn’t mention it but it is posibble that maths graduates are involved here.

*** I’ve written before about the changes wrought by technology and the skills which are now essentially a precondition for the employment of humanities graduates: http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/increased-emphasis-on-vocational-education-is-a-pretty-bad-idea-now/

**** The two are discussed here:http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-smart-economy-and-technologys-democratic-vector/

There’s nothing surprising in the return of support for FF

The rise of Fianna Fáil in opinion polls has come as a great shock to some. If comments on Facebook are any indication, the people who now favour FF have at best lost their memories and at worst have gone mad. The revival of FF, however, is neither mad nor surprising but entirely understandable and predictable.

Firstly, the overwhelming majority of those voters who abandoned FF at the last election most certainly did not act because they had been persuaded to change their political views. They abandoned FF because FF had provided extraordinarily poor management and FG was offering better management. (The Labour Party was quite similar, offering better management but with a more caring approach.)

Without encroaching very far into the realm of theory, it is clear that a citizen who believes that we live in a post-political age and that elections are about choosing managers, would be acting sensibly in supporting FF as soon as the worst managers had been purged. This – together with portraying the FG/Labour government as poor managers – is what has happened.

Secondly, the overriding political perspective offered by the media eases the rehabilitation of management under the FF brand. While this perspective can be viewed as a variation on the managerial or post-political approach, at the very least the two are perfectly compatible. The dominant media perspective sees the political system in terms of a “political class” ruling over supplicants and groups who seek concessions.* A citizen who adopts this perspective might compare the present government with FF’s record and conclude that FF had granted more or better concessions in the past.
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* http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/conservative-journalism-and-the-victims-of-austerity/

The McAleese Report is disgraceful: No profits, no assaults! This is mockery and it should be stopped now

All the indications are that the McAleese report on the Magdalen Laundries is a disgrace. Criminals are hiding behind the familiar device of highlighting the formal responsibility of the state. Moreover, discussion of this awful report is diverted into guff about whether or not the Taoiseach should apologise now or next week.

Look at and listen to the woman at 08.30 here: http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10108232/ She is owed wages and pension contributions by people who hid her from factory inspectors. She was kept away from school. She was beaten. She is not old. It is certain that at least some of the perpetrators of the crimes against her are still alive. The state has a responsibility alright: to investigate these crimes and to apprehend the perps. There is a role too for the Criminal Assets Bureau.

Sample maths paper for proposed certification of basic industrial competence

National Certificate of Competence for Workers in the Media and Food Industries 2013

Mathematics paper one: Basic burger mixing

Please read the paper.
Please answer all five questions.
You may use a calculator, a computer connected to the web or both. You may phone to consult a friend.

Q 1. A burger is made from a mixture of Irish beef and an imported filler material. The burger contains 29% horse meat. If the filler is not 100% horsemeat, what is the maximum Irish beef content of the burger?

Q 2. Burgers are made from a mixture of Irish beef and an imported filler material. If there is one kilo of Irish beef, what weight of filler material must be added in order to ensure that the burgers comprise 29% imported filler material?

Q 3. Burgers are made from a mixture of Irish beef and horsemeat. If there is one kilo of Irish beef, what weight of horsemeat must be added in order to ensure that the burgers comprise 29% horsemeat?

Q 4. Burgers are made from a mixture of Irish beef and an imported filler material. If one kilo of burger mix contains 71% Irish beef and 29% horsemeat, what proportion (percentage) of the filler material is horsemeat?

Q 5. “In mathematics and in the manufacture of burgers quantity is the property of magnitude involving comparability with other magnitudes.” Explain. (Your answer should make reference to the distinction between trace elements and ingredients.)

Good luck with that!

Conservative journalism and the victims of austerity

“The Frontline’s speakers often had knowledge of specific cutbacks that prompted blank expressions, never mind any justification, from ministerial faces. The audience, regularly comprising the many victims of austerity, would be hard-pressed to come away from the RTÉ studio feeling in any way satisfied with the empty promises and emergency damage-limitation words they heard back from officialdom.” – Laura Slattery ‘The Frontline’ is dead, long live a revamped ‘Prime Time’, Irish Times Thursday, January 31, 2013 (http://m.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2013/0131/1224329469784.html)

Laura is getting close to the problem with the mass communication of political debate but she remains within the tent that is journalism.

Journalism has a political perspective. It is conservative, it poses no challenge but it manages to appear anti-establishment, pro-“people” and remain within the strictures of balance and fairness.

What it amounts to is this. There is, it is said, a “political class”. From this point on journalists are on safe ground. There’s now not the slightest chance of an accusation of bias or lack of balance because politics as a clash of parties, ideologies or major political perspectives – like liberalism or socialism – has been excluded.

There is of course a range of views which sees this as a managerial or a technocratic or a post-political approach. There’s quite a lot of sense here but it’s a whole lot worse because the participative citizen developed over centuries is about to be demoted to peasant!

Back to journalists. The “political class” controls the state, taxes and spending. People participate by putting pressure on the “political class” (Sometimes referred to as the “establishment” so as to secure an anti-establishment image for the commentator.) through pressure groups led by “activists” who share the journalists’ disdain for politics. An effective group wins a concession from the “political class” usually at the expense of a poorer and/or less well organised pressure group. Journalists function by siding with, reporting on and sorting out which pressure groups are most powerful, and then helping the “political class” decide which concessions must be made so as to maintain the system.

Yep, it’s really a great distance from citizens talking about great public controversies. It’s more like supplicants or peasants appealing to the ruler for preferential treatment and threatening unrest if that doesn’t work.
Laura Slattery came close when she observed the conservative futility of having “victims of austerity” state their cases for preferment. She then opted for the attractive diversion that is talk about broadcast programme formats. The problem is the abandonment of politics. The citizens need to talk about public priorities – setting a hierarchy of public spending – for in here lie real political differences over freedom and economic inequality.

Fear in the family: Are mothers who remain silent always blameless?

Very many criminals and other wrongdoers are victims. Many have had a dreadful childhood or have committed crimes while in fear of someone. It is right to be sympathetic but it is wrong to excuse them completely. We have developed ways of dealing with different levels of responsibility; lesser charges can be laid or lenient – perhaps suspended – sentences can be applied. It is, however, wrong to ignore completely crimes committed under duress or being an accessory to crime while under duress. This is because duress is variable and requires judgement. It is expected that a person with integrity will stand up to duress and do the right thing but it is also accepted that duress may be so extreme that no one could be expected to resist. Each case calls for judgement.

The case of a mother who was silent or who facilitated the rape of her child must be examined and judged.

The following appeared in the Irish Times in relation to the conviction of Fiona Doyle’s father for rape. “The problem most people have when stories like Fiona’s come out is that everyone wants to know about the mother – why she didn’t intervene – and it takes the focus off the father and the abuser,” says Paula. “But, in most cases, the mothers are as much the victims.” (i)

Certainly nothing should happen to divert attention from or dilute the guilt of the rapist but to say that “in most cases” the mothers of child victims of rape are “as much the victims” diverts attention from the seriousness of rape and undermines the child’s particular and terrible grievance.

Another Irish Times piece on the same page argues that it would be very wrong to blame the mothers in such situations. (ii) That might appear progressive and decent at first sight but it suggests that all are blameless.

It is worthwhile to consider a further wrong committed against Fiona Doyle in which duress might be the defence.

The following is from another piece in The Irish Times. “Rape survivor Fiona Doyle has said no alarm bells rang when as a child she was treated for a sexually transmitted infection. ‘I was brought to the doctor . . . and the doctor told my mother I had warts and they were that bad that I had to go to hospital to have them lasered off. But I didn’t know until I was in my late twenties that I had an STI,’ she told last night’s Late Late Show.” (iii)

The doctor and those at the hospital who remained silent having treated a child for an illness that was sexually transmitted, bear some responsibility for subsequent rape attacks on the child. The duress which motivated their silence would be of a different type and a much, much smaller degree than that faced by the mother but the medical staff, like the mother, have questions to answer.

The point is this: The time to have sympathy for those who under duress participated in or facilitated a crime is after their behaviour has been examined and the extent of the duress established.
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i. This is Rosita Boland quoting Paula Kavanagh, another victim of a father’s sexual abuse. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2013/0126/1224329285532.html
ii. The piece is by Kitty Holland and it appears on-line at the same URL and follows on from Rosita Boland’s article.
iii. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0126/1224329304072.html

Horsemeat and the teaching of mathematics: Do journalists and citizens know enough to understand the public controversy?

It is intriguing that the presence of tiny amounts of horse DNA in beef burgers and the presence of 29% of horse in one beef burger continues to be covered by media as one story. It may be a profoundly depressing suggestion but it is possible that the reason for the conflation is an alarmingly poor grasp of basic mathematics.

Industry explanations for the presence of horse DNA go something like this: “We use pure Irish beef but we add some filler which we buy in from the continent and it is possible that this may have somehow been contaminated by horsemeat.”

Clearly if this explanation is applied to the 29% finding, it is complete bollocks. 29% is pushing on for one third horsemeat.

Let’s slap the beef down in front of us. It’s 100% Irish beef but in order to make it stick together and/or to reduce cost, we increase its volume by adding 50% imported filler. It is now roughly 60% Irish beef and 30% imported filler.

Assuming that the truth has been told about the Irish beef content, there is only one way that there could be 29% horsemeat in the burgers: the filler must have been almost 100% horsemeat! Pure horsemeat, not traces of horse DNA!

Yes, the figures above were made up but they are not fantastic. The point is that the story about traces of horse DNA is not the same story as the 29% horsemeat content. That it is treated as such feeds a fear either that journalists can’t grasp the numbers or that they can but they believe that citizens cannot.
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I’ve mentioned poor basic maths before:

http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/the-smart-economy-and-technologys-democratic-vector/

http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/increased-emphasis-on-vocational-education-is-a-pretty-bad-idea-now/

The Higher Education Authority’s document, Completing the Landscape Process for Irish Higher Education, should be ignored until it is rewritten

The Higher Education Authority’s document, Completing the Landscape Process for Irish Higher Education, can be accessed here: http://www.hea.ie/en/node/1497

While it is a disgrace, we can of course to have some fun. Complete bollocks invites derision. Ok, ok, ok, let’s play before getting to the serious point. As slagging goes, I think this will do:

A Prayer for The Landscape Process

For the sake of the stakeholders let us pray that the landscape process is robust and sustainable with sufficient key drivers, outcomes and benchmarks, that it is fit for purpose and in accordance with best practice, that its diversity of mission matches the diversity of needs, pathways, clusters and linkages and that its knowledge transfer services can keep pace with its rolling programme of thematic reviews. Amen.

Fun over! Jesus wept; this is the Higher Education Authority! Talking in bafflegab, unspeak or complete bollocks betokens managerialism which must be rooted out of the public service. The Minister for Education or the Oireachtas Committee on Education could take a stand by sending this report back marked “Unacceptable. Rewrite.” It is probable that without the scaffolding of fashionable buzzwords and phrases, the entire structure of the report would fall apart. Let’s put the question in a crude and easily understood form: without the complete bollocks is there anything of substance here?

 

Left versus right disguised as old versus new

Deciding which political values will motivate policy is a great public controversy and it is one which the left is losing.

Contrast the following quotations.

Young people are “bringing a completely different set of values to the workplace. They’re not interested in a permanent pensionable job. They’re not interested in someone to mind them . . . They are interested in experiences and satisfaction and will move if the work is not satisfying for them.

“Organisations can satisfy that today because they are not providing permanent pensionable jobs. So there’s a completely different psychological relationship, and a really different type of commitment, between the employer and the employee. It’s far more contractual.” – Dr Melrona Kirrane, an organisational psychologist at DCU Business School, quoted by Joe Humphreys in the Irish Times January 12^th 2013

http://m.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2013/0112/1224328726217.html?via=rel

In this article radical individualism is presented by Joe Humphreys as realism, youthful, progressive, satisfying.

Now try something very different.

“We know that the present economic morass through which we are struggling did not come about by accident. We know it came about because of a failed paradigm of economic policy, undeclared assumptions, skewed values, and the growth of a culture where our assets were valued and utilised on purely material considerations. It was a version of economics that was rooted in a radical individualism and a theory of infallible efficient markets delivered through policies of light or no regulation. We are all now grappling with the enormous consequences of that failure and must now move forward to a better model – one that will build social cohesion and provide a sustainable basis for economic development. We must reject the notion of normative citizens being reduced to the status of disaggregated rational utility maximisers in our theories and policies.” - President Michael D. Higgins at the Trinity Economic Forum, Friday, 3rd February, 2012  http://www.president.ie/speeches/trinity-economic-forum/

Michael D. bangs on in this vein regularly. He tends to be presented in the media as everyone’s favourite old uncle. He is heard with respect and ignored and all the while the causes of the economic collapse are pushed as antidotes under the pretence that they are new.

Pat Rabbitte, Journalism and the citizen

It was reported in The Irish Times of Jan. 4^th that the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte, was concerned about where Irish journalists’ denigration of politics will take us. He is essentially correct. However, his approach is far too simplistic.

He seems to think that better reporting would be a remedy. He neglects to consider that there is a consensus among journalists that amounts to a political theory. The informed, deliberative citizen of a republic does not feature. Rather the customer is supplied with revelations of wrongdoing and “unfairness”. Not convinced? Think about what even the best journalists say they want to do: investigative reporting! Politics is seen as antagonism between the “political class” which has control over endless resources which they are too mean (“not in touch with reality on the ground”) or too stupid (“It’s not rocket science.”) to spend, and pressure groups who force the “political class” to spend on whatever mobilises effective “activists” at the expense of groups less powerful.

It is both a complex and a deeply conservative political viewpoint and Pat poses no challenge to it other than to raise again the decades-old worry about the derision of representative democracy. A challenge, I’m convinced, will come only from siding with a republican/participative model of citizenship (as opposed to a liberal/consumerist model) and thinking about what – very approximately – the citizen requires of media. Then consideration of regulation can follow. After working out citizen service Pat could start with a broadcasting bill whose core is citizenship and not existing structures, practices and conventions.

How concerned are you about “horizontal fairness”?

“HORIZONTAL FAIRNESS”!!! Jesus wept!

Have a listen here: http://media.newstalk.ie/archive Colman at Large 2/1/13 part 2 at about 26 mins.

Not only was the term used but the programme presenter didn’t question it. It is a nasty concept slathered in the familiar balm of “fairness” and it should have been explored. Sean Healy reckons that in Ireland we are relatively strong on redistribution but weak on “horizontal fairness”.

What this boils down to is that no one among the better off is to have their income reduced unless everyone in the same income band is similarly affected, and until this happens, the default position of taking from the poor can continue because it’s “fairer”.

See also: http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/fairness-has-become-the-conservatives-shield/

 

 

There are priorities and a question of life or death for Irish citizens is way up there

Lest it be thought that I’m keeping quiet about it, I want to state at the outset that Orla Tinsley [i] is a friend of mine. I was one of her teachers in her earliest days at UCD and we’ve stayed in touch. I like her and I feel very protective of her. Now, that’s out of the way, let’s get on.

Ireland has the highest incidence of cystic fibrosis in the world. It could be said to be a particularly Irish problem. [ii]

Because infection poses a much greater risk, those hospitalised with CF have an absolute need for an area of their own.

Let’s accept that money to spend on health services is very limited now (It wasn’t always so.) and that there are many, many worthy claims on that money. We must therefore prioritise. We must set our priorities not by way of who can generate most noise or get most people on the street or imply some financial threat but by thought and discussion. [iii]

In terms of how public money is spent we need to identify what is important, what is of least importance and things in between. So where does CF beds fit into this? It doesn’t get more important than death. The very acceptance of special hospital conditions emphasises this. It isn’t a matter of quality of life. It’s a question of life or death.

Now if someone can tell me about a greater spending priority, I’ll concede and agree that spending should be routed there first. If someone has squandered resources intended for CF hospital facilities, their priorities are very different to mine or possibly they have no sense of priority and if so, they must go.

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[i] http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/1129/1224327257274.html

 

[ii] http://www.cfireland.ie/index.php/aboutcf

 

[iii] http://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/prioritising-public-spending-and-reducing-income-inequality-in-the-public-sector-a-motion-which-failed-to-make-the-agenda-for-the-labour-party-conference-2012/