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Pew Survey

Dan Drezner points to a recent survey by Pew on internet habits. He notes the figures for:

“the proportion of that daily population who are doing some well-known internet activities”:

Email 77%
Search engine 63%
Get news 46%
Do job-related research 29%
Use instant messaging 18%
Do online banking 18%
Take part in chat room 8%
Make a travel reservation 5%
Read blogs 3%
Participate in online auction 3%

And he rightly points out the one thing that is missing from it…take a guess what that might be. Hmm. I think he might mean looking at por… portable media players.

China and the US

This week’s Economist carries a special report on China, I thought this map to be quite interesting. It details US troop deployments in countries within China’s reach.

china

In Central Asia, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), a security forum comprising four Central Asian states plus China and Russia, is increasingly challenging America’s military presence in the region. In July the SCO, prompted by China and Russia, demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from member states. In August, China and Russia staged their first joint military manoeuvres since the cold war. “Peace Mission 2005”, billed as a counter-terrorist exercise, looked far more like preparation for a Chinese assault on Taiwan.

On the Korean peninsula, China and America have been drawn together by a common desire to prevent tensions over North Korea’s nuclear programmes from turning into a full-blown crisis. America has praised China’s role in hosting talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its projects. But China has also deftly used the process to boost its ties with South Korea, a participant in the talks whose conciliatory approach to the north is often closer to China’s than America’s.

Despite tensions between South Korea and America over how to handle North Korea, their defence relationship remains solid for now. But China has an eye on the longer term when, if relations between the two Koreas improve sufficiently, greater uncertainty will arise about the need for American bases in the south.

Smoker tried to open plane door

From the desperate for a fag department:

A French woman has admitted attempting to open an aeroplane door mid-flight so that she could smoke a cigarette.

Sandrine Helene Sellies, 34, who has a fear of flying, had drunk alcohol and taken sleeping tablets ahead of the flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane.

She was seen on the Cathay Pacific plane walking towards a door with an unlit cigarette and a lighter.

She then began tampering with the emergency exit until she was stopped by a flight attendant.

Reminds me of the Bill Hicks piece:

Now get this, I’ve been travelling all over the country on British Air. No smoking on British Air. Now let me get this straight, no smoking, right, but they allow children. Little fairness, huh? “Well smoking bothers me.” Well guess what? I was on this one flight right, I’m flying, I’m sleeping on the plane, I’m fucking “knackered”. Very tired right and I feel this tapping on my head. And I look up and there’s this little kid – loose! on the fucking plane, he’s just loose. It’s his playground in the sky. And he has decided that his job is to repetitively tap me on the top of the head. I look across the aisle at his mom. she’s just smiling, you know. Guy next to the mom goes, “They’re so cute when they’re that small.” Isn’t that amazing, letting your kid run loose on a fucking plane. And then the kid runs over to the emergency exit and he starts flipping that handle to the door. And the guy next to the mom starts to get up, and I go, “Wait a minute… we’re about to learn an important lesson right here.” Kwoooshh. Boy you’re right, the smaller he gets, the cuter he is. God, I wish I had a camera right now. With a telescopic lens. Love to get a picture of his face when his pudgy little legs hit that farmhouse down there. Aah, aah, kids. Ha hha. Stewardess, since we got a breeze in here can we smoke now? Fairly well circulated at this point. Woosh. True story. But, you know.

Joe Duffy loses it

The show today was all about the Willie O’Dea photos in todays papers – but half way through Liveline Joe Duffy took a call from a member of the public, and discussed a particular case recently of a man being shot dead in Carlow.

Start listening around the 36.41 mark, it’s the first time I have heard Joe completely lose the head.

At precisely 42.12 Joe’s head explodes and he goes into a rant that lasts a full minute.

Make my day

Dick O’Brien notes the odd picture on the front of the Irish Times today. What the hell is he doing pointing a gun at someone? Was the photographer crazy for asking him, or maybe he only put the camera in the line of fire? Always point a gun at the ground, loaded or not.

Interesting that the IT staffers named the JPEG ‘Make my day’, at least O’Dea seems happy with his first cabinet post 🙂

EMPLOYMENT EQUALITY ACT, 1998

For my records:

Exclusion of discrimination on particular grounds in certain employments.

37.—(1) A religious, educational or medical institution which is under the direction or control of a body established for religious purposes or whose objectives include the provision of services in an environment which promotes certain religious values shall not be taken to discriminate against a person for the purposes of this Part or Part II if—

(a) it gives more favourable treatment, on the religion ground, to an employee or a prospective employee over that person where it is reasonable to do so in order to maintain the religious ethos of the institution, or

(b) it takes action which is reasonably necessary to prevent an employee or a prospective employee from undermining the religious ethos of the institution.

Liz’s irrational tirade against the Church serves no useful purpose

In a predictable piece, Ronan Mullen argues that Liz O’Donnell’s speech last week in the Dail amounted to a liberal attack on the Church. After a fairly incoherent argument (even I am guilty of that sometimes) he concludes:

By presenting an outdated notion of a priest-ridden society, in order to exclude the Church from consultation on sensitive social issues, O’Donnell was doing us all a disservice. “Get off the stage and make it easier for us ‘liberals’ to get our point across,” would appear to be her message to the Church.

Now that would be a cosy arrangement.

I’ll nail my colours to the mast here. I am an agnostic humanist, and find the power the Catholic Church continues to have in the Irish State to be regrettable. So I agree completely with O’Donnell, perhaps she should have even been more vocal.

Have a listen
(Realplayer) to Vincent Browne last week, November 9th. Browne does a very good job taking apart the position of the priest on the show, who made laughable excuses concerning the lack of action on the part of the Church. In fact, the interview is a demonstration of Browne’s ability to bring in a guest and completely wipe the floor with him.

Father Vincent Twomey of Maynooth wrote an article in the Irish Times the day previously.

He peddles the ‘learning curve’ argument, that Vincent successfully rubbishes. Jim O’Keefe TD, Mark Hennessy, Dan Neville TD and Prof Michael Fitzgerald are on the panel also.

If you have 30 minutes to spare I suggest you listen to the start – at 8.20, and continue to the 38th minute. Vincent grabs onto the idea that the bishops insured their dioceses against claims made by people against the clergy as far back as 1987 up to 1990. From then on Vincent Twomey is on the defensive, and in a way tries to defend the indefensible. By the end this exchange occurs:

Twomey: You took up my statement about the learning curve and took it completely out of context

Browne: Ohhhh really now, explain that now

Twomey: The thing is that…

Browne: Explain…explain how this was taken out of context…

Twomey: Because, because I am trying to, I am trying to explain how…

Browne: I think you are digging a hole now but anyways, go on

Twomey: I’ll stop, I withdraw that remark.

Browne: Ok

Liz O'Donnell speech

For my own records:

Liz O’Donnell:

I wish to preface my remarks with a word of support for those priests who have done no wrong. They deserve our support and sympathy at this difficult time. The majority of priests are living out their Christian message in an exemplary fashion and have our support at this time.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of this report, produced by Mr. Justice Frank Murphy and his colleagues. It is a landmark document in the context of child sexual abuse — abuse which was compounded in its gravity because the actors were members of one of the most trusted groups in our society. The victims, children of all ages, suffered not only the most awful forms of sexual, physical and psychological abuse at the hands of clergy but also suffered the silence, betrayal and inaction on the part of the church who placed the protection of the most vulnerable below the church’s priority of protecting themselves and the church. Child protection came last.

I heard a chilling description of what these abusive clergy did to their victims as the equivalent of eating their souls and destroying their souls. Unlike other forms of ill-treatment, sexual abuse of children by priests, and the subsequent disbelief of their stories if they have the courage to speak out, is uniquely destructive of the individual spirit of a person, that inner place or core. Given the scale and brutality outlined in the report, it is truly remarkable, indeed awesome, to witness the human capacity to heal and even forgive among some victims.

This report, however, is a landmark in another respect. I hope it will change forever the special relationship that has existed for many decades between church and State. This report must be the starting point for the State’s response to all contained in it. But this new beginning cannot happen unless the old relationship ends. The unrelenting deference, which constituted the relations between church and State, must end. It was given for many decades and expected for many decades. This special deference and relationship was extremely influential in terms of outcome, and it must end. Only then can the State act as it should, which is objectively.

The systemic failure outlined in the report means nothing less is acceptable. If the church leadership, the hierarchy, was a cabinet, it would resign en masse or be thrown out of office. However, the church is neither democratic nor accountable. In many ways it is a secret organisation, with its own diplomatic service, civil service, laws and self-regulatory codes, which have all failed the public. Because the church in Ireland was the main interface with God, the Irish people and the State have shown deference personally and collectively over many decades. This veil of deference is the root cause of society’s failure to stop the church’s systemic maladministration and dereliction of duty to protect children as outlined in the report. Because what happened in one diocese is just a microcosm of the situation in all diocese, the findings are damning in their import. The fact is there have been hundreds of crimes of clerical abuse against children which went unpunished. Priests were transferred instead of being exposed. Priests with a propensity to offend were ordained, appointed to curacies, and bishops colluded and covered up these matters.

The mighty church has fallen from grace because of its failure to protect children. The first response of the State must be to state unequivocally that the special relationship is no more and to take steps to demonstrate that disconnect between State and church. From now on, with that veil of deference removed, the State can deal with the church authorities in the same way as it would with any other voluntary or State agency that provides services for children and families. This means no longer accepting the bona fides or the good offices of an admittedly remorseful hierarchy after the event. The track record is such that we cannot accept that the church will be truthful or capable of self-regulation. The late disclosure of files by the church authorities to Ferns shows that the instinct for self-preservation and denial is still rife.

This “no more Mr. Nice Guy” approach by the State means no longer countenancing the unhealthy enmeshing of the church in the secular layers of our society. It means no more consultation between church and State on IVF, abortion services, stem cell research, Ireland’s support for family planning in the Third World, contraception or supports for single mothers, adoption, homosexuality and civil marriage. In a democracy, all views can be articulated but the special relationship must be over. The deference must be over. The cosy phone calls from All Hallows to Government Buildings must end.

This also means, like it or not, looking at the church’s almost universal control of education in this country. Our national school system was established 170 years ago and while it was originally meant to be, to use today’s terminology, mixed religion or multi-denominational, in practice this did not happen and, as a result, virtually all national schools are under the management of one church, the Catholic Church. Despite the State paying the bulk of the building and running costs, the relevant church authorities privately own and control the vast majority of national schools. The bishops are patrons of 95% of national schools. The same institution that has been so found wanting effectively decides who is suitable or not to work in our children’s schools. If our stated commitment to taking all necessary steps to protect children is to be more than just rhetoric, it is imperative that we radically address this issue. Indeed, the investigation into the archdiocese of Dublin should deal with transfers of lay teachers for allegations of child abuse without due regard to child protection.

I would like to turn to the money trail. The question of finances is perhaps a neuralgic issue. Again, in light of the terrible wrongs done to the victims, discussing finances might be seen as unseemly, but I believe money has been the motivating factor in the actions and inaction of the church authorities in this whole affair. Central to the church’s self-serving response over the years has been private financial settlements, without liability, as well as confidentiality deals. If the State is carrying out audits in every diocese, investigations that could uncover scores of previously undiscovered abuse cases, we must also audit the church’s wealth. Given the nature and extent of the wrongdoing of this institution against citizens, the church should be obliged to open up its books. Discovery orders could be made to gain some understanding of the money trail. Such an audit of church assets and wealth is long overdue and, in fact, should have been in place prior to the indemnity deal given to the religious orders.

I note that, true to form, the church has the temerity to claim €100,000 for its legal costs for dealing with the Ferns Inquiry. It is estimated that the church now faces a compensation bill of up to €250 million for clerical sex abuse resulting from existing claims and new claims set to emerge following publication of the Ferns Report. On top of this is the €128 million already paid to victims of abuse in children’s homes run by religious orders.

Going back to the need for separation and objectivity between church and State, sadly, it is difficult to argue that this was the paradigm within which the negotiations on the indemnity deal struck by the Government with the religious orders took place. The cost to the orders was approximately €128 million, while the cost to the State would be a blank cheque, the State covering every lawsuit brought against the congregations for child abuse in reformatories and industrial schools. This is not to understate the share of responsibility the State has for some of the horrors that unfolded in these terrible places. The uncomfortable fact is that, in several cases taken in the courts recently by victims outside the redress scheme, the liability of the State has not been proven. Therefore, the blanket indemnity was over-generous on behalf of the State. Why? All roads lead to the deference of the special relationship. The result was a bad deal for the State and a good deal for the religious orders. Initial estimates of the potential liability were in the region of €250 million. Three or four times that amount may prove closer to reality in terms of liability to the taxpayer.

The special relationship has not served Ireland or its citizens well. It did not serve the victims of abuse well. For example, the implication in the Ferns Report is that complaints of sexual abuse made against priests to the gardaí were not handled appropriately. Some of the complaints were not even recorded in any Garda file. They were not investigated in an appropriate manner due, perhaps, to reluctance by members of the Garda to investigate allegations against members of the Catholic clergy. Again, the deference descended. Undoubtedly progress has been made in terms of the independence of the Garda now vis-à-vis the church and that must continue.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to introduce new legislation as outlined by the Minister. However, legislation alone will not suffice. The law must operate and apply in a context of objectivity and cool detachment. Victims, family members, friends, Ministers, politicians, gardaí, judges and all of us must not be deterred or reluctant to speak out and to act robustly on these matters. I welcome the fact the Government will move to allow for barring orders against persons, including priests, who are a risk to children in order to restrain them from occupying any employment that exposes them to children, and provide for a new criminal offence of failing to protect children from injury, sexual abuse or reckless endangerment.


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