Villagers: Letters to the Editor 2006-06-29
Yet again, Russia has assassinated a president of Chechnya and displayed his bloodied corpse on national television. The killing of Abdul-Khalim Saidulayev mirrors that of Aslan Maskhadov in March 2004.
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'Beaten by gardaí'
A 34-year-old man claims gardaí assaulted him without reason in Dublin city centre. By Frank Connolly
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Edinburgh Literary festival
Is Irish poetry is finding new favour across the water? The BBC has been reporting that Seamus Heaney has become the top attraction at the upcoming Edinburgh Literary festival (12-28 August), an offshoot of the annual Arts festival.
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Football for thinkers
A new guide to the World Cup, which gives a rundown of every country competing, is good for the lapsed football fan but often has nothing to do with football. By Michael McCaughan
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Dublin, by Terry Deary
Part of the Horrible Histories series, Dublin by Terry Deary is a real blast that combines history and totally irreverent observations in a way to delight any reader and, most of all, teenagers recovering from a year of history lessons. Adding to the delights of the book are cartoons that are genuinely funny.
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The Chorus: Guilty Giving
'Have you got a few minutes for the homeless?", a man asked me on Georges Street, Dun Laoghaire last week. I shook my head and walked on, trying to explain to myself why. I already have, I reasoned, three or four direct debits which drip from my bank account on a monthly basis towards one "good cause" or another. Any more and I'll need to keep an eye on cashflow. Nearly every day now, there's a bunch of guys with clipboards lined up between the shopping centre and Penneys. "You're a hero, Sir", one such chugger (for "charity muggers", as I'm told they're called) hailed me recently. I kicked for touch but hung around to watch him operate. He said the same thing to everyone.
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Football brings us home
In fact, the coffee shop was the busiest business in a row of establishments in the station. Every seat was taken. Customers lined the walls. Even the employees were watching what was happening on the one small TV screen where Germany and Sweden were duking it out in the first knock-out round. It wasn't as if it was even a close game, yet it was extraordinary to see how every face was upward turned to the television. Nor was it as if the US were playing, or Mexico, or Trinidad. There were certainly no German jerseys or Swedish helmets among the crowd. It was a tiny, anonymous coffee shop, as antiseptic as they come, and yet it was packed out.
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Fianna Fáil mutiny and the Political Dysfunctionals
Joe Higgins caught the mood of despondency within the government in his remarks in the Dáil on Tuesday 27 June. He referred to headlines in that morning's newspapers about the negligible tax being paid by the wealthiest in society, and the revelation that we have one of the worst health services in Europe. He said: "The government has wasted the fruits of the boom. This is the key issue. It slashes taxes on the super-rich, but social and educational infrastructure in areas of booming population increases is stunningly absent. Children with disabilities, for example, are still denied occupational and speech therapy.
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No value in prison system
You've probably seen the Fine Gael posters around the town: Enda Kenny proclaiming that he will make the criminals pay. He doesn't tell us how, of course. And he doesn't tell us what making them pay means, but it's good, old-fashioned, law-and-order stuff.
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Gilligan talks about Veronica
John Gilligan challenges the Special Criminal Court's findings on his motivation for the murder of Veronica Guerin. By Vincent Browne
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RTÉ Radio seeks digital license
After a six-month trial of its new DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) service along the east coast, RTÉ Radio is applying for a licence for a digital radio station to continue to transmit in the area, with plans to extend it nationally.
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New rivals to You Tube and MySpace
MSN is set to launch a video sharing community website to try and capitalise on the phenomenon of sites such as You Tube and MySpace. You Tube has become the fourth largest site of its kind, acquiring around 43 per cent of the market share since being launched in January of 2005. Up until now, other online media companies such as Google and Yahoo have failed to capture any significant part of this new internet traffic, combining to hold only 9 per cent of the market share.
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Modern deerhunters
Éanna Ní Lamhna on a scientific study taking place in public,
and in broad daylight, all this month
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