16April2014Home

I go all the way around the park listening to the Men from the Ministry: Our heroes meet the Martians Priceless

Mary in hospital brief visit get beat at Scrabble

Scrabbletoday, Mary wins Perhaps Iwill win tomorrow.

Obituary:

Guardian:

David Laws has noticed the approaching general election (Boost for teachers, 15 April), but his attempt to distance himself from the disastrous education policies of the coalition government is unconvincing. Much more than pre-election posturing is needed. The government should change direction. A responsible government would:

Congratulations to the Guardian on its Pulitzer prize (Guardian wins Pulitzer prize for surveillance revelations, 15 April). Though it is strange how little prominence BBC News 24 gave to the biggest story in the world. The fact that the BBC and the mainstream corporate media have played ideological favourites on its US coverage shows just how vital was the Guardian’s break from the pack on this issue.
Gavin Lewis
Manchester

Supporters throw flower petals as Bharatiya Janata party leader Narendra Modi rides in an open jeep on his way to file nomination papers on 9 April 2014 in Vadodra, India. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

There has been only one Guardian mention, briefly and disparagingly (Obituary, 11 April), of Richard Hoggart’s links with Unesco in the outpourings of tribute. But I know how important these were to him from my experience of working closely together in the 1990s to secure Britain’s return to that organisation after the shameful withdrawal by the Thatcher government in 1985.
He saw its work in promoting education, media freedom and culture as an important extension on the global stage of the ideals and values he championed so eloquently at home. When I last spoke to him, some years ago before dementia set in, he was saddened by the failure of Whitehall policymakers to promote Unesco as a major potential force for securing greater international understanding and peace, rather than as one more UN body to promote aid, and to bring economic benefit to the UK.
John Gordon
Former UK ambassador to Unesco

Sue Townsend and I were introduced over lunch in a Soho restaurant by the head of drama at Thames Television, Lloyd Shirley, soon after the company acquired the rights to The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ to find out if we two would “hit it off” and could develop this wonderfully entertaining book for television. As luck would have it, the opposite backgrounds of a Hungarian refugee TV director and an English housewife turned writer triggered off a similar sense of humour in the visual interpretation of the story and characters.

Fracking is a bad option

I am concerned at your editorial suggesting both nuclear and fracking may be alternatives, though unpalatable ones, to forms of fossil fuel-generated power (4 April). The horrors and costs of nuclear aside, fracking is not a sensible option, as it has been shown that gas generation is more greenhouse-gas intensive than the burning of coal.

A lot of energy is expended by extracting gas by fracking, the wells leak insidious greenhouse gases and tonnes of water, and fracking fluids are required in the extraction process that can leak into the environment and pollute water sources. The transportation of gas involves the burning of even more fossil fuels; this is aside from the actual gas generation process itself.

Fracking and gas generation of electricity represent the burning of fossil fuels at a time when we should be urgently cutting back on their use. We need to invest in sustainable, secure and independent energy supplies and more actively encourage reductions in our use of fossil fuels.
Seona Gunn
Deans Marsh, Victoria, Australia

• I wonder how many readers were disappointed and puzzled by the very obvious playing down by the Guardian Weekly of the latest IPCC report on global warming issues (4 April)? Relegated to just two-thirds of a page and a brief editorial, and was absent from the signpost headlines on page one. The now rather tedious Pistorius court case was deemed more significant and given far more prominent attention.

What is happening to the Guardian Weekly’s editorial priorities when this most important update on the potentially catastrophic threat we are all now facing is given such short shrift?
Robert Norton
Sydney, Australia

• With the effects of climate change already being felt across the globe, the best the Guardian can suggest is nuclear and fracking? Now there really is no hope!
Hilary Cadman
Bellingen, NSW, Australia

China’s threat to Russia

In 2011, I spent a month visiting China to see the world’s most populous nation on the march. I had an interesting discussion with a fluently English-speaking graduate student at Shanghai University. We talked about China’s meteoric rise as an economic superpower.

He was very upbeat and told me that China’s rise has been peaceful. When I asked him what did he think about China’s relations with Russia, which was a communist country before, he told me they are very good and getting better. China is already Russia’s biggest trading partner. Then he told me that despite its one-child policy, China is an overpopulated country and needs land to expand, and Russia should sell its vast and largely underpopulated areas in the far east in the same way it sold Alaska to the US in the 19th century. I told him it seems to be good idea, provided Russia agrees to it. He replied it is inevitable as Russia, with a population of only 140 million, simply doesn’t have the manpower to develop the world’s largest landmass.

The student pointed out that in the 19th century, China was forced to cede vast territories to Russia. China has not forgotten this humiliation. By annexing Crimea, Putin has created a precedent for a powerful China to reclaim its vast far eastern territories (21 March).

The European Union can sit back and let Putin go down in its folly. As Napoleon remarked: “Don’t interrupt the enemy when he is making a false move.”
Mahmood Elahi
Ottawa, Canada

The safety of statins

Medical experts clash over statin safety (28 March) provides a valuable public service, and calls for further discussion. Should anti-cholesterol drugs should be used at all?

If cholesterol is toxic to the walls of blood vessels, why does it attack only arteries? And why does it attack the hardest-working arteries (those in the heart) most of all? Veins are attacked only when they are put in the arterial system. I once did an autopsy on a 50-year-old diabetic woman, two of whose leg veins were moved, one year earlier, to her coronary arterial system. The walls of both veins were markedly increased in thickness, leading to her death.

These findings are consistent with the “wear-and-tear” hypothesis of arterial disease, and unrelated to cholesterol. They have serious implications for the way we live, and should lead to shorter working weeks, especially for manual labourers and all who are stressed by work.

As transplantation of veins into the heart was frequent, there must have been many similar autopsy findings. In 40 years I have seen none. On the other hand, soon after the American nutritionist Ancel Keys alleged in 1953 that dietary cholesterol was producing coronary heart disease, anti-cholesterol drugs, of which the statins are the most recent, appeared.

Promotion of anti-cholesterol drugs has been successful. The use of statins makes big bucks for big companies. Is it surprising that, in capitalist society, the theory that makes money for big companies is accepted, while the theory that could benefit workers is ignored? Is this one of Marx’s “contradictions of capitalism”?
Ken Ranney
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

Chandler remembered

While reading John Banville’s interesting account of his attempt to carry on the Raymond Chandler tradition (11 April), I was reminded of the day when Chandler appeared to be attempting suicide. I worked for 11 years for Hamish Hamilton at 90 Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury, and one morning about 1957, Jamie Hamilton said he had been woken in the night by Chandler, calling from California. Such a call was most unusual in those days and Hamilton was alarmed because it appeared that Chandler was making a sentimental goodbye.

Hamilton decided to contact the nearest police station to Chandler’s home, explained the situation and suggested they send someone to Chandler’s apartment. A few hours later the message came through that Chandler had been discovered standing in the shower with a gun in his hand. Thanks to this intervention, Chandler survived.

A few months later, he came to London and we gave a party for him in the office. He appeared in a suit of electric blue, a brilliant white shirt and a tie no Englishman would have been seen dead wearing. With him was a woman who appeared to be playing the role of nurse and companion, as he was obviously fragile. He charmed the guests, all of whom were delighted to meet the famous creator of Philip Marlowe, who moved around the room with a glass of whisky in his hand from which he was drinking deeply and which his companion was assiduously refilling.

This worried me. I shared my concern with his companion. She replied,” Not to worry, honey. It’s cold tea and he don’t know the difference.”
Ken Wilder
Bowral, NSW, Australia

A breath of fresh air?

Linda Woodhead, professor of the sociology of religion at Lancaster University, is right (A breath of fresh air, 21 March). This pope so far has done nothing but use cheap gestures.

Has he agreed to opening the Vatican’s books on sexual abuse, so that victims can at last see exposure of the crimes committed against them? What about handing over paedophile priests to the law? What about putting the Vatican’s artworks up for auction and using the money to build houses in the poorest parts of the poorest countries? What about standing up for equal respect for people who differ physically?

It takes my breath away to hear Jon O’Brien, chief executive for Catholics for Choice in the US, say “he has brought about real change”. Driving a Ford Focus? Wearing black boots instead of red shoes? This constitutes “real” change?

The suffering of people everywhere because of the church’s ruling on abortion, gay rights and female priests has not been alleviated one tiny bit by this pope’s trivial exercising of his personal preferences.
Susan Grimsdell
Auckland, New Zealand

Briefly

• The Italian court’s decision (28 March) to grant “short-term private interests” an injunction against a law to safeguard Venice’s heritage reflects the damage caused by out-of-control corporate interests. The only democratic measure with the capacity to stand up to democracy’s denigration is a constitutional provision that empowers citizens to say “enough already”, as Swiss voters did in February.
André Carrel
Terrace, British Columbia, Canada

• In his 2010 memoir of the Bush years, Tony Blair melodramatically cast himself as a martyr to hoi polloi – shades of St Sebastian – albeit in “armour which the arrows simply bounced off” (4 April). And he visualised himself “float[ing] above the demonic rabble”, ie the demos, those who bravely tried to forestall his martial ambitions. He aimed “to achieve a kind of weightlessness” – and that he did.
R M Fransson
Denver, Colorado, US

• Diane Francis is welcome to return to her native US any time she likes, but not to take Canada with her, as she seems to want to do (28 March).
Bruce Inksetter
Gatineau, Quebec, Canada

• Middle Earth does not meet Middle English (4 April). In translating Beowulf, written as early as the seventh century, Tolkien would have met Anglo-Saxon. Middle English was the language of Chaucer, used a half-millennium later. Alison Flood’s calling Beowulf an 11th-century poem makes it a very late edition.
Kenneth Rower
Newbury, Vermont

Independent:

Times:

Telegraph:

SIR – Four years ago, when we pledged £20 million towards the ArcelorMittal Orbit, we intended it not to end up a relic of the Games, but to come to symbolise tangible improvement in the local area, whose regeneration was part of the Olympic bid.

SIR – After a general election that is not based on proportional representation, Ukip will not hold a position of any sort of power, but the votes that have been cast for it are likely to have resulted in a number of marginal seats moving from Conservative to Labour.

SIR – Politicians traditionally over-promise on the NHS, especially in the run-up to an election. The promise of regular GP visits, longer opening hours and same-day appointments, all funded by the Prime Minister’s £50 million access fund, seems hardly credible when the funding amounts to a mere 87 pence per registered patient per year, and most practices will not receive any of this funding.

Irish Times:

Sir, – Please allow me to share the reservations expressed by Prof Diarmaid Ferriter (reported April 14th) about the proposed presence of British royals at the Easter Rising commemorations in 2016, or indeed at any of the subsequent commemorative events. I fail to see how such a presence could be at all appropriate or, if you think about it, anything less than bizarre.

At a history conference on the first World War in UCC last January, I pointed out, in the presence of the British ambassador, that it is not the business of historians to promote “inclusiveness” and reconciliation, essentially political objectives. Where commemorations are concerned, the role of historians is to enlighten students and the interested public about the events in question.

Otherwise, the expert advisory group ( of which I was a member for a brief period) might well reflect whether the Government is genuinely interested in their historical advice or simply requires a respectable academic cover for a political agenda. Yours, etc,

JOHN A MURPHY,

Emeritus Professor

of Irish History,

University College, Cork.

Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter’s comment – by way of rebuttal to the argument that the 1916 Rising was unnecessary – that there was “no evidence that Britain was prepared to settle its Irish question until it was forced to do it” raises interesting issues, not least what the settlement of the Irish question might be.

The Liberal Party had the opportunity to govern Britain from 1911, though to do so it was forced by its dependence on the votes of the Irish Parliamentary Party to provide for home rule. Implementation of the policy was hindered by unionist opposition in the northeastern portion of Ireland. The precise geographical and temporal extent of that exclusion dominated the politics of these months 100 years ago.

Events intervened. War was declared on Germany. As significant as the 1916 Rising was the parliamentary party’s loss of the balance of power on the formation of a national government in London. The political world of the Irish Parliamentary Party collapsed under the weight of Easter Week. Though the Rising – and particularly the executions – moved public opinion towards republicanism it can, I think, be fairly stated that a Liberal government, relying on Irish votes, and by then already radical on a number of fronts would not have been shy in implementing what would probably have been a mutually acceptable form of home rule (excluding all or a portion of Ulster) to maintain power. Yours, etc,

CONOR NELSON,

Conyngham Road

Dublin 8

Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter is worried that the presence of representatives of the British royal family at 1916 commemorations might give succour to those who believe the insurrection was unnecessary. In indicating his views on whether or not the rising was “necessary” and on the appropriateness or otherwise of potential guests, isn’t Prof Ferriter going beyond his remit as an historian to give us his personal political views?

When he states that there is “no evidence that Britain was prepared to settle its Irish question until it was forced to do it”, he is of course speaking as a historian; unfortunately, his historical opinions are questionable.

Where is the evidence that Asquith’s administration on the eve of the Easter Rising was preparing to abandon home rule? The Government of Ireland Act had been passed in September 1914 against unionist protests. The Act suspending implementation had effect only for the duration of hostilities. The formation of a coalition in 1915 did little to alter matters: the legislative position of September 1914 was unchanged in April 1916 and John Redmond’s Irish Party was still dominant, retaining the confidence of most nationalists before the rising.   It was the Rising, the executions and conscription which killed home rule;  but Prof Ferriter would do well not to confuse the aftermath of Easter 1916 with the period before that date. Yours, etc,

CDC ARMSTRONG,

Ulidia House,

Belfast BT125JN

Sir, – Liam Cooke (Letters, April 14th) is dismayed by the cyclists he sees around him, sinning merrily and shouting cheerily.

Clearly he would be happier on a bike himself. He says “Motorists have more to lose than cyclists.” No, sorry, I don’t get that. “Cycling in the cities is a dangerous practice” – statistically, not as dangerous as driving, or being driven. Anecdotally (that is to say, in my experience) cycling in Dublin is a lot safer than it was 50 years ago, when few drivers used their indicators or mirrors and lane discipline was non-existent.

“Cycle lanes are not always available” —nor can they ever be universal. Problems arise where cycle lanes suddenly cease, as they must, whatever the budget.

But as Liam and others join us, surely our ubiquity will give us the best protection, while the remaining drivers fume in dismay at our merriment. Yours, etc,

ANDREW ROBINSON,

Marlborough Road,

Dublin 4

Sir, – I must repeat my call for education on the rules of the road. The attitudes expressed by Liam Cooke in response to my letter (April 11th) demonstrate precisely why it is needed. It is hard to know which is more worrying: that Mr Cooke believes motorists can “safely” break red lights or that he thinks a motorist fined for such behaviour has more to lose than a cyclist, who could pay with his life when others fail to obey the law. Yours, etc,

GARRET LEDWITH,

Tudor Road,

Ranelagh,

Dublin 6

Sir, – Cyclists breaking red lights should at least shout a warning. I would suggest something along the lines of “I’m cycling to save the Earth!” Thus elderly or encumbered pedestrians could take evasive action knowing there’s a strong moral reason why they are being terrorised. Yours, etc,

BRIAN AHERN,

Meadow Copse,

Clonsilla,

Dublin 15

Sir, – Were any other readers apart from myself struck by the juxtaposed headlines on page 4 of today’s paper (April 15th)? “Government pushes for leeway on emissions” and “Two decades left to save the world, says Robinson”.

If the agricultural industry has its way and our dairying sector expands when milk quotas are abolished next year, then meeting our obligations in relation to emission targets for 2020 will become an impossibility.

We are an agricultural country and it is a sector that needs to expand but what is required is an incentive to increase tillage and horticulture, fruit and vegetables rather than dairy and livestock. In terms of food security, as well as environment, this would make a lot of sense.

The day will have to come when the quality of our children’s and grandchildren’s future wins out over big bucks. Yours, etc,

SALLY SWEENEY,

Carrigavantry,

Co Waterford

Sir, – So after all the years of telling the world that we need to change our ways to save the planet – by the environmentalists, Greens, hippies , eco-warriors, nature lovers, gardeners etc, Mary Robinson et al decide that it’s now time for us to “decarbonise” and that we only have 20 years to do so. Get a grip people, the truth is that it is already too late, because we will never change our ways and live in harmony with nature as we should and we cannot depend on politicians or corporations to do the right thing. At the end of the day the planet will have the last laugh – and it will be on us. Yours, etc,

JIM CREAGH,

Castlefreke ,

Sir, – Paul Gillespie’s column on the writings of Thomas Piketty (“Inequality grows as world’s rich get much richer”, April 12th, 2014) was both timely and incisive.

It seems that “the average income of working-class Americans around 1920 doubled in real terms by 1955 and tripled by 1970. In the four decades since 1970, there has been almost no improvement on average for the lower 90 per cent of American households. By 2007, the top 1 per cent of households had almost five times the real income they had in 1920; the top 0.1 per cent had about six times; the top 0.01 per cent nearly 10 times. Piketty’s research shows similar tendencies in Europe …”

Well surprise, surprise: isn’t that where we live?

Among US economic writers suggesting that these conditions amount to an emerging oligarchy are Simon Johnson, Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Winters, “who all analyse how the rich have captured the political process, making necessary taxation and redistributive reforms virtually impossible in a dysfunctional Washington”.

Substitute “Ireland” for “Washington” and not many among those struggling to cope here would quibble. The gap between rich and poor has increased, lower-end taxpayers have been hammered, private pension funds have been raided, pensioners have had their waivers and allowances slashed while facing a raft of new taxes without any additional income. Well, those low-income folks did all party, didn’t they? So they had it coming.

Fine Gael gave us exactly what it says on their tin but Labour ought to be ashamed. The successors of James Connolly, while looking to their inflated salaries and pension pots, have spent the past three years making Ireland safe again for this kind of capitalism.Yours, etc,

BERNARD KEOGH,

Dollymount Park,

Clontarf,

Sir, – The comments made by Phil Hogan in a Seanad debate in relation to the impacts of the new building regulations (“New building regulations will exclude non-professionals”, April 11th) are frankly disrespectful and misleading.

I am an architectural technologist with 30 years’ experience in the UK and Ireland. I qualified from a three-year course at DIT Bolton Street in 1982 and after 10 years in practice as a graduate architectural technologist I applied for chartered membership of the professional representative body in the UK, the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT) and following an interview by an admission panel was admitted. Subsequently I was admitted as an architectural technologist member of the RIAI in 2007, having met their entry criteria and served as the architectural technologist member on RIAI Council between 2009 and 2011. The RIAI represents approximately 230 architectural technologist members.

When the consultations on building control amendments with the Department of the Environment were being conducted with stakeholders, and in spite of a plea by the RIAI architectural technologist committee to RIAI council to support the inclusion of their members, we were refused the institute’s support. The CIAT, which represents approximately 100 chartered members in the Ireland branch, was excluded from access to the stakeholder representation process by Department of the Environment officials.

To be informed now by Mr Hogan that in spite of being deemed to be qualified and competent by the CIAT and the RIAI I am now a “draftsman” and that “the new building regulations will make it more difficult for unqualified people to pass themselves off as construction professionals” is offensive and potentially catastrophic to the livelihoods of many architectural technologists. Where does this leave us and the many students who are at various stages on three-and four-year full-time courses? Yours, etc

BRIAN MAHER MSc

MCIAT MCABE,

Ballacolla Road,

Abbeyleix,

Co Laois

Sir, – Blaise Pascal thought it sensible to believe in the existence of God, as not to believe carried the risk of one being sent to hell. This is known as Pascal’s Wager. There are some who have used this form of decision-making to suggest that we should take steps to avoid the terrible consequences of global warming even if we are unsure as to whether global warming is inevitable. But we can do better than rely on such a wager: the evidence is all too clear and our former president, Mary Robinson, referred today to the report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a wake-up call.

Unfortunately there have been many such wake-up calls and governments have in the round ignored them. Perhaps Pascal’s Wager in its simplicity needs to be dusted down, after all, and used as means to force action. Yours, etc,

BILL GRIMSON,

Villiers Road,

Dublin 6

Sir, – Unemployment: Ireland 11.8 per cent; Greece 26.9 per cent. Youth unemployment: Ireland 26 per cent; Greece 58 per cent. Decline in GDP 2009-2014: Ireland 19 per cent; Greece 26 per cent. Riot deaths 2009-2014: Ireland 0; Greece 5. Stick to arts and culture, Fintan. Yours, etc,

PAUL KILCULLEN,

Laurleen,

Stillorgan,

Co Dublin

Sir, – In Monday’s “Weather watch” for Dublin, I read that “a fine is expected as it will be dry and bright etc”. Is it only Dubliners who will have to pay for good weather, and who will be responsible for collection of the fine? I think we need to know. Yours, etc,

DEE NEESON,

Wyvern,

Killiney,

Co Dublin

LETTERSE Property Section Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 23:24:59 +0100

(Sent in by – “aquinn” (ajquinn_at_eircom.net))

Sir,

I see once again excellent properties on the front of this section priced

at some millions.

I guess less than 1% of your readers would be in a position to purchase such.

I am at a loss as to why you feature these.

Are we on the way to more stupidity encouraged by the media?

aj quinn

whitefield

fortmary park

Sir, – To anyone reading about the events in Ukraine over the past months a number of things seem clear. Firstly, the overthrow of the elected government by violent protesters in Kiev was a victory for democracy. Secondly, the rejection by Crimea, after a peaceful referendum, of the new, unelected, government was an attack on democracy, while the protests of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country against that unelected government are an affront to democracy. It would appear that elections are not as critical a part of democracy as we once believed. Yours, etc,

DAVE ROBBIE,

Seafield Crescent,

Booterstown,

Co Dublin

Sir, – In your Health Supplement (April 15th) it was reported that “extending free GP care to under-6s will result in only a modest rise in the workload of the average GP” (77 consultations per doctor per year).

In addition to visits, the draft contract for the under-6s stipulates that GPs must undertake significant additional workload which currently is not covered by a medical card. Under the proposed contract GPs would be required to “periodically monitor and record the growth development of all children under the age of two, and the BMI of those aged between the ages of two and six”.

The recording of growth development is currently undertaken by public health nurses. By age two, four measurements will have been taken and recorded. Based on the last census, if GPs take over these assessments it will result in 850,000 additional visits over the first two years.

Only time will tell what the true figure for additional consultation will be as a result of this contract. If however GPs have to carry out these, non-evidence-based, assessments it will result in over 1.5 million additional visits in the first two years. Yours, etc,

Dr REGGIE SPELMAN,

Bridgetown,

Irish Independent:

– Published 16 April 2014 02:30 AM

* Nothing beats spelling it out – especially when the ramifications are all-pervasive, and the potential counter-benefits patently ubiquitous.

Also in this section

Letters: Bible is a collection of metaphors, not a book of evidence

World War I and the tragic historic waste of lives

Supporting our food producers

Philip O’Neil (Letters, April 8) sustains his relentless ‘missive-mission’ with another ‘tonic-tablet’ of weathered wisdom.

Hitting the societal nail squarely on the head with a firm evocation of some key home truths permeating in and around the modern penchant for free-market materialism, he lays it clearly on the line.

“Moral sensitivity does not sit easily with unfettered capitalism; it tends to subvert it.” Ne’er a truer sentiment uttered.

Chalk it down, boom it from the mountain-tops, and have it tattooed on every new-born child in the nation.

In many ways, it’s screamingly obvious. How could addiction to profiteering, usury, entrepreneurial overkill and bottom-line corporatism ever offer a template of empathic decency or ethical morality for an egalitarian society. A ‘greed-is-good’ mentality is the only logical outcome for dedication to the false icons of the filthy lucre.

“We have colluded in allowing economic activity to develop a life of its own, accountable only to itself,” Philip O’Neil adroitly states.

We are left, thus, with a ‘pig-in-a-poke’ fallacy of pseudo-aggrandisement debilitating a nation. By omission and/or commission, we all have allowed this to take root, flourish and fester.

It implicates us all. We seem to tolerate the status-quo as something of an inevitability and demur to the gods of a monstrous global failure, ie free-market libertarianism with its in-built survival-of-the-fittest motto.

The planet has only a finite amount of wealth potential, be that energy, food, water or other precious natural resources. Skewed consumption/comfort quotients coupled with a steady ‘diet’ of famines, wars and pestilence ensure that an uneasy, unstable and grossly unfair ‘balance’ prevails.

However, we seem to persist with a corrupted/distorted democratic dynamic, electing inept folk of questionable ability or generosity of spirit who perpetuate a flawed concept on a sadly under-motivated, uninitiated and/or unsuspecting populace.

Jim Cosgrove Lismore, Co Waterford

HACKING AT OUR NATURAL BEAUTY

* The current mindless rage for killing trees in our public spaces is heartbreaking. No prior gesture towards consultancy is given by the nameless folk who authorise such wanton felling.

Trees that graced the city for decades are being cut – witness the recent destruction in Dun Laoghaire’s Peoples’ Park and last week’s uprooting of the flowering magnolias at the entrance to the National Gallery. In this time of austerity, surely the joy and spirit-lift gained from the free enjoyment of natural beauty should be augmented, not lessened.

Jackie O’Brien, Glasthule, Co Dublin

UNLOCKING THE CHAINS OF 1916

* In the Royal Gallery at the Palace of Westminster on April 8, President Higgins said, in his address, that independence for Ireland cast its long shadow across our relations with Britain, causing us, in the words of Irish MP Stephen Gwynn, to “look at each other with doubtful eyes”.

Stephen Gwynn, a grandson of William Smith O’Brien, also said in 1926, that 10 years had been added to the waiting period for Irish political unity and that Ireland would wait forever if it remained chained to the ideal of 1916. The waiting seems now to be over. A champion of Home Rule, Gwynn once described it as a post-dated cheque.

Patrick O’Brien, Phisborough, Dublin 7

TURN OFF THIS DISGUSTING SHOWER

* An old proverb crushed by modernity . “You can’t get water from a stone” they said, but what they didn’t say was water could get cash from the populace.

If I buy petrol, I don’t expect to pay a standing fixed charge equivalent to a third of the purchase. If I buy a pint, I expect to pay for what I get when I buy it. Naturally, those burdened with income tax, LPT, UHC, unemployed children etc, will carry the latest burden in addition to the daily diet of austerity soup.

Once upon a time, governments purportedly represented their populace. This one of ours represents itself, its pals and its backers, and we pick up the tab. Anyone out there with the balls to turn off the tap on this disgusting shower?

John Cuffe, Meath

CHRISTIAN MARKING OF PASSOVER

* The Last Supper of Jesus and His disciples took place on Passover, a holiday of redemption set in place by God, Jesus, or Yeshua – as He would have been called in His lifetime, who instructed His followers to remember His death (not His resurrection) until He come.

Strangely, the church ignores Passover altogether, as most of the early church fathers were extremely anti-Semitic and deemed the feast as ‘too Jewish.’ Instead, the majority of Yeshua’s followers today commemo-rate the event on ‘Maundy Thursday’, although no specific day of the week is mentioned in any of the Gospels for the Last Supper or the Crucifixion.

A Biblical day, however, according to the Book of Genesis and the calendar that Yeshua Himself would have kept, begins in the evening at sunset, the second daylight portion then follows. A day divided at midnight is the invention of man.

This year, Passover fell on April 14, which in the biblical calendar is Nisan 14, and as it begins at sunset, the second daylight part follows the next morning which allowed for the Last Supper and the Crucifixion to both occur on the same day, according to the Genesis ruling. In the Gentile/Christian calendar, this takes two days to commemorate, ie Maundy Thursday and Good Friday due to the midnight time division.

If Yeshua were to come back today, the natural day for commemorating these events would be on the date of Passover itself, not Maundy Thursday. The symbolism of the slaughter of the Passover lamb, the redemptive qualities of the shed blood. Maybe it’s time the church re-examined the status of Passover, also demonstrating that the hierarchy is no longer anti-Jewish and that the holiday has benefits and significance for both Jews and Christians.

Colin Nevin, Bangor, Co Down

LIVELIHOODS SOLD TO HIGHEST BIDDER

* One of the most invidious acts, regrettably among many others, needlessly perpetrated by this Government on Irish citizens, must be the recent sale of the 13,000 mortgages of Irish Nationwide to two American distressed fund companies. These companies bought the mortgages from the special liquidators KPMG at a huge discount of several billion euro, again courtesy of a lazy and uncaring government and, ultimately, the Irish taxpayer.

The most appalling and callous aspect of this deal was that the owners of these mortgages, Irish people in the main, were not afforded an equal opportunity by their government to buy their own loans to ease their distressed financial state; it is almost certain that many of these unfortunates will lose their homes as a result.

The modus operandi of the new owners will be to relentlessly chase the unfortunate mortgagees for the full amount, pocketing huge profits in the process. There will be little or no sympathy from the Government for the dire personal, familial and societal consequences.

What is also disturbing is the almost complete failure of the media to report on the injustice of the matter. Not a peep as usual from the top brass of the trade unions. God be with the days when the Catholic Church would raise its voice.

John Leahy, Wilton Road, Cork

Irish Independent