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What you want to say – 25 March 2020 March 25, 2020

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.
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As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. Joe - March 25, 2020

Me n the missus have done a bit in the garden over the last month or so. I won’t put the details here but is it time for a Gardening thread?

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WorldbyStorm - March 25, 2020

Yes, great idea!

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WorldbyStorm - March 25, 2020

I’ll post it up tomorrow AM!

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2. Gearóid Clár - March 25, 2020

Off-licenses have been added to the UK’s “essential businesses” list.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/25/off-licences-added-to-essential-businesses-list-by-uk-government-covid-19

The list is likely written in crayon and is posted on a canteen wall in Whitehall for anybody to update.

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3. tomasoflatharta - March 25, 2020

Russia in the 1920’s was a one-Party State. The ruling Bolshevik Party banned internal oppositional currents. Different groups emerged opposing the party leadership centred around the dictator, Joseph Stalin.

On a smaller level today in Ireland, one-Faction “broader parties” – for example People Before Profit (ultimately controlled by the Socialist Workers’ Network) or Solidarity (ultimately controlled by the Socialist Party) – are a living contradiction. They are, because internal democracy is curtailed, bureaucratically deformed radical-left parties. RISE, originating from internal differences within Solidarity/Socialist Party, represents a serious effort to break free from the bureaucratically deformed model.

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, most of the opposition currents were reluctant to put their differences in perspective, and unite against the common ruling enemy. Tragic consequences followed – the Stalin machine murdered and framed all its opponents in infamous 1930’s Moscow Show-Trials. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/25/there-are-no-infallible-party-leaderships-or-individual-party-leaders-party-majorities-leninist-central-committees-and-so-on/

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Jolly Red Giant - March 25, 2020

Are we supposed to take this seriously?

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pettyburgess - March 26, 2020

What part of it should we not take seriously? I found the part about the United Secretariat of the Fourth International abandoning the monolithic sect form of organisation in the 80s very interesting.

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4. CL - March 25, 2020

“For postwar individualist philosophers like Ayn Rand — cheerleader for the primacy of private capital — the jig is well and truly up….

Whole sectors — notably airlines, hotels and cruise lines — will lack a raison d’être for months. For many companies, revenues will fall short of overheads. But state support, and the quid pro quos that go with it, are preferable to going bust….

If the state also takes equity stakes, it will wind up with a share portfolio again. All this after 40 years of privatisations interrupted only by a brief detour into bank bailouts….

Just about everything economic libertarians disapprove of is happening all at once. “If your house is burning, you have to put up with fire fighters flooding it with water,” sighs Matt Kilcoyne of the libertarian Adam Smith Institute….
the works of libertarian philosophers like Ayn Rand are among the chattels going up in smoke….
coronavirus is dispelling any doubts that ultimately the state, not business, is in charge. It can create money or pencil in future tax increases. Businesses cannot.”
https://www.ft.com/content/1447d50a-6ded-11ea-89df-41bea055720b

I recall similar opinion pieces after the 2008 crash. Maybe this time its different.
Or maybe not:

“in the final stimulus bill businesses get more than twice as much as do households and the working class!…

Unlike our prior war presidents, Roosevelt and Truman, Trump is not mobilizing production and distribution of key resources and supplies to fight the enemy. He simply asks the private sector to do it and then gives his daily ‘sales pitches’ to the nation press conferences to say what he’s doing when he’s not actually doing it….
it is clear from Trump’s statements in recent days that he knows this stimulus is only a one month hit to the economy. That’s why he—and the capitalist investors who have been lobbying him hard the past week—are turning up the message we should all start going back to work by mid-April….
But profits and money are more important to this wheeler-dealer, commercial property speculator capitalist in the White House. With the US budget deficit this fiscal year almost certainly to exceed $3 trillion, and his election looming on the horizon, Trump and friends see Wall St. and US business interests as more important than the rising death rate that is inevitable should we return to work prematurely by mid-April. …
Unfortunately, the American public—and especially the old and infirm—are becoming the ‘cannon fodder’ in Trump’s phony war.”
https://jackrasmus.com/

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5. Pasionario - March 25, 2020

I am struck by the near-total ideological consistency of responses to the lockdown question, where the Right is actively pushing for everyone to “get back to work” asap, whereas the Left and most of the liberal centre are in favour of continuing extreme social distancing for as long as it takes. AMLO, who’s telling people to go out to restaurants in Mexico, is the only exception to this rule that I’m aware of.

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WorldbyStorm - March 25, 2020

Possibly the SDs in Sweden also?

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WorldbyStorm - March 25, 2020

As to the basis for political differentiation (excluding the exceptions already noted), I’d wonder is it a mixture of denialism about the severity of the impacts, potential and actual, that perhaps is a sort of second cousin of climate and other denialism mixed with a certain sense of contrarianism/so-called individualism. I actually think the UK gov exemplified that better than Trump et al during its first ‘nothing to see here’ phase.

Btw, it’s a very interesting point you raise Pasionario.

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CL - March 25, 2020

“Conservative supporters of President Trump are increasingly volunteering to risk death — and implicitly the deaths of elderly and at-risk Americans — from the coronavirus if it will help the economy.”
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-allies-trade-lives-for-stock-market-patrick-hume-beck-155442063.html

NY Gov Cuomo is in favour of a safe ‘back to work’ strategy.

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6. Paddy Healy - March 26, 2020

Former Senior Army Officer Dr Tom Clonan (TUD) on the Erosion of Irish Neutrality
(Defend our Neutrality on blog paddyhealywordpres)

Clonan, T., 2005: The Future of Ireland’s Neutrality and Security, Dublin: The Irish Times.
Abstract
The future for Ireland’s conventional defence forces and defence and security policy appears set to follow a peculiarly asymmetrical trajectory. On the one hand, Ireland’s skies, land mass and territorial waters lack even the most basic defensive military oversight or protection. On the other hand, in a process that has denied Irish citizens a healthy debate on military neutrality, Ireland’s Defence Forces are being integrated by stealth into the EU’s newly-created military structures. Ireland’s defence forces are being integrated into an EU with grand military ambitions. According to the EU St. Malo Declaration of 1998, this grand design involves Europe acquiring the capability to launch ‘autonomous’ military operations with ‘credible military forces’ for actions within and without Europe’s borders. Ireland’s second Nice referendum in October of 2002 formalised Europe’s newly formed EU Military Committee and EU Military Staffs – reporting to the European Council in Brussels.

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7. FergusD - March 26, 2020

Hancock, the U.K. Secretary of State for health has been saying fir some time that there is no shortage of PPE in the U.K. for health workers, it is a distribution problem. But suppliers and distributors of PPE to the NHS have said they haven’t received orders!

What is going on! The govt here is totally incompetent! The current crop of ministers just can’t govern. They are just sound bite and slogan politicians who can’t cope with a real crisis.

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8. tomasoflatharta - March 26, 2020

Donal O’Kelly’s article should be circulated far and wide – Action is Necessary.

Chain is a word I love. It’s the Irish word for quiet. It has a peaceful, secure and sleepy feel to it, ideal for a lullabye. Suantraí. Ciúin, ciúin, a stór .. as baby closes her eyes .

Last May I used my facebook page to highlight the fact that Ciúin House Carrick-on-Shannon, the then newly-opened emergency accommodation centre for asylum seekers, had just received 38 male international protection applicants who’d been transferred from Hatch Hall Direct Provision centre in Dublin. Hatch Hall was being converted into a luxury hotel. Ciúin House was accommodating these people on a general basis of two per room. It had a sign and a book in the reception hall that everyone had to sign. The sign said that all residents had to be in their rooms by 10pm nightly. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/ciuin-house-carrick-on-shannon-county-leitrim-gombeen-state-racism-in-ireland/

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9. tomasoflatharta - March 26, 2020

Guest post from Des Derwin

The suspension (and subsequent expulsion) by People Before Profit of its Galway West candidate on the day of the general election has been followed by accusations of dismissal of members’ complaints for long before that day, of exclusion of complainants since that day, and by discussion of the events and surrounding events on Facebook and Twitter. Now another left organisation, the Connolly Youth Movement, has taken it upon itself to enter the fray with a strong public statement (23rd March) supporting the woman at the centre of an assault allegation and criticizing the response and leadership of People Before Profit. And implicating a separate organisation (Solidarity-The Socialist Party) in the process.

A new thread on Facebook (25th March) about this was tagged to my timeline. So, in a way, involving me, a bit, publicly. I’m reluctant to add fuel to the Facebook fire, for reasons I hope are explained below. I have removed the tag. But not commenting at all would, I feel, amount to the type of polite silence that has accompanied allegations of abuse down the years. Maybe here might be a cooler and quieter place to say a few initial words. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/galway-pbp-2020-time-for-clarity-on-the-allegations-or-for-moving-on/

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10. Starkadder - March 26, 2020

Interesting article by Sanjay Srivastava on the background to India’s current problems:

https://scroll.in/article/955374/indian-liberalism-is-a-historical-myth-that-must-be-countered-if-we-escape-our-current-nightmare

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11. Joe - March 27, 2020

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/sweden-is-doing-the-opposite-of-almost-all-of-europe-to-tackle-coronavirus-39080526.html

Strange days. When all this is over, said the swineherd… there’ll be interesting reviews of the different approaches. Probably with final body count as one of the most important metrics.

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Liberius - March 27, 2020

Starting to move inline with everyone else it seems.

https://twitter.com/radiosweden/status/1243517391142879240?s=19

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WorldbyStorm - March 27, 2020

Hard to think that’s a bad thing.

The thing I don’t understand about this sort of approach to the virus is that we have a good idea of how easily it spreads through communities when there are no procedures to check it, we know the broad sickness and mortality rate in communities and we know the stresses that the those two rates place on health systems. All this before we get to the genuinely tragic aspect of so many deaths. So how do the Swedish think knowing those different aspects of the overall problem they can avoid the latter by continuing with the former approach?

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tafkaGW - March 29, 2020

Sweden is seeing exponential case increases, probably greater than those with harsher measures. But it depends on the rate of testing which isn’t consistent across regions.

It’s simple really: a disease passed on by being close to people is going to spread faster when people are allowed to be close together.

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12. sonofstan - March 27, 2020

Boris, hoist, petard?

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WorldbyStorm - March 27, 2020

What can one say?

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13. CL - March 27, 2020

“Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Rick Scott (Fla.) said Wednesday that they would object to fast-tracking the bill over a provision that would grant an extra $600 per week in unemployment benefits to low-wage workers who lose their jobs.
The Republican senators argue that because the unemployment benefits would be larger than what low-wage workers usually make, it would incentivize them to get laid off and not return to the workforce.
The amendment they want to introduce would limit unemployment benefits to 100% of a worker’s salary….
Sen. Bernie Sanders later released a statement saying that unless the senators drop their “anti-worker objections,” he is prepared to block the legislation in order to impose “strong conditions on the $500 billion corporate welfare fund”
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-relief-bill-lindsey-graham-bernie-sanders-619d2d7e-fea5-4884-ae48-a80fcb029e40.html

“The Senate bill’s most notable provision adds $600 per week on top on every unemployment check for four months….
The House bill, too, includes a $600-a-week boost to unemployment”
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/24/21188470/coronavirus-unemployment-benefits-senate-stimulus

The Senate approved the bill, 96-0. The House is expected to approve the bill today.

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14. CL - March 27, 2020

a new disease-modelling study from the University of Oxford,…suggests that the majority of coronavirus infections are so mild as to have passed unrecorded by the authorities and perhaps even un­noticed by the people infected….
it stands in stark contrast to the far grimmer modelling from a group at Imperial College London, which concluded that if the epidemic was not aggressively contained, half a million people would die in the UK — and more than 2m in the US. Models such as this one helped to persuade the British government to follow much of continental Europe in putting the economy into a coma….
The differing perspectives are made possible by the fact that the data we have so far are not very good. …
We do have solid statistics about deaths, and as the epidemiologist Adam Kucharski, author of The Rules of Contagion, observes, a wide variety of scenarios are consistent with the deaths we’ve seen so far. Perhaps Covid-19 is uncommon and deadly; perhaps it is ubiquitous and kills only a tiny proportion of those it affects. Deaths alone cannot tell us….
some infections are being missed, and we have little idea how many. Therefore we have little idea how deadly Covid-19 really is….
the fatality rate could plausibly lie between one in 100 and one in 2,000 cases. Either way, it is dangerous; but the difference is vast….
We know less than we think….
So while it is possible that most of us could have been infected without ever knowing — and that herd immunity is within easy reach — it is not likely. That may explain why neutral experts have responded to the Oxford study with caution, and some concern that it might provoke a reckless response from individuals or policymakers…..
The epidemiologists are doing their best, but they are not omniscient. They need facts with which to work. Gathering those facts systematically is one of many urgent tasks ahead of us.”
https://www.ft.com/content/14df8908-6f47-11ea-9bca-bf503995cd6f

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WorldbyStorm - March 27, 2020

The thing is that in the case of a novel virus it makes perfect sense to go very very cautiously. Particularly when we have the examples of the PRC, Italy and Spain – the manner in which health systems there were overwhelmed suggests that the mortality rate is significantly higher than influenza (which in the US saw 1 in every 1,000 of those catch it die in 2018-19, albeit the spread of it appears to have been more limited than the current virus). As this notes: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-compared-to-flu-mortality-rates-2020-3?r=US&IR=T

However, breaking down the numbers by age range reveals a more complex story. Among children, there was about one death in every 10,000 cases. In adults between 50 and 64, about six out of every 10,000 people who got the flu died. For people 65 and older, the rate rose to about 83 out of 10,000.

And:

The coronavirus is more fatal than the flu across all age ranges, but especially among older people, according to research from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention published in mid-February. It also more seriously affects people who already have health problems.

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CL - March 27, 2020

Yes.
Comparisons between ‘regular’ flu and covid-19 are still being made by those who are trying to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic.
What they miss is that the flu is a known quantity and a vaccine does exist and its incidence is not increasing appreciably each year.
Covid-19 by contrast is new, much about it unknown, no vaccine exists, and is increasing exponentially.

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WorldbyStorm - March 27, 2020

+1 CL. Btw, hope you are okay.

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CL - March 27, 2020

I’m well, WBS, hope you are too.

Haven’t changed my routine much. ‘What can’t be cured must be endured’.
In a very busy grocery store the other day I was thinking of “Appointment in Samarra’
https://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/Maugham-AS.htm

The book by John O’Hara is worth a read too.

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WorldbyStorm - March 27, 2020

Glad to hear it! Stay careful.

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tafkaGW - March 29, 2020

The Oxford study has been debunked. Loads of bad ‘what the ruling classes wish to hear’ pseudo-science around.

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15. tomasoflatharta - March 27, 2020

https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/statement-on-the-irish-governments-response-to-covid-19-in-direct-provision-masi/ The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland is appalled by the discriminatory response to the Covid19 pandemic in Direct Provision. On the 20th March 2020, MASI asked members of the public to email Minister Charlie Flanagan with a simple ask: protect asylum seekers in Direct Provision by ensuring that they are able observe all the Health Service Executive guidelines on social distancing and self isolation, particularly for asylum seekers 60 years of age or older, people with pre-existing health conditions, and asylum seekers in shared and crammed bedrooms, and other congregated gatherings such as canteens during meal times.

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16. tomasoflatharta - March 27, 2020

Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, and Matt Hancock, British Health Minister, Got the Pox – “Ten Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall; And if One Blue Bottle Should Accidentally Fall?; There’ll be Nine Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall…”

https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/bluebottle-alert-british-prime-minister-johnson-and-his-health-minister-hancock-have-the-covid-19-pox-schadenfreude-moments/

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17. Tomboktu - March 27, 2020

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tafkaGW - March 29, 2020

🙂 Well put.

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18. Alibaba - March 28, 2020

Here’s an update on PPE from a mate who is a nurse in a state nursing home:

‘Very small delivery the other day. No eye protection. FFP2 masks, gowns and gloves only. Won’t last piddling time once we start using them. None left in DIY shops! HSE playing it down, say there’s a ‘huge shipment from China’ coming on Sun. We’ll see. Paddy Cosgrave (Web Summit) had already personally negotiated a huge consignment from China, and apparently the HSE turned it down saving we have enough!!! Not the word from the floor in most places. Consultant respirologist in James’ online yesterday begging for PPEs from anyone … shops/builders/beauticians etc. Tons of nurses begging. Whole situation beggars belief. 25% of cases are healthcare workers … one died today. Of the 66 clusters, 9 are in nursing homes. IMHO this is only the beginning for nursing home. I think the current clusters in nursing home are related to agency staff moving between centres.’

There is no allocated extra time to preventative household tasks such as regular cleaning of door handles, surfaces etc. etc. High maintenance patients are being dumped in the state homes (as distinct from private ones), needing more attention and care, and less staff available to keep an eye on them and their distressed relatives. What a stinker!

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EWI - March 29, 2020

Even FFP3 protection could be gotten in town three or four weeks ago (I got some, nearly all since donated to a worthy cause). What we’re seeing is the failure of just-in-time ‘efficiency’.

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19. Starkadder - March 28, 2020

Slight distraction from C19 – Bob Dylan has a new song about the JFK assassination out, “Murder Most Foul” :

https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2020/0327/1126695-bob-dylan-posts-unreleased-song-about-jfk/

Interesting.

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20. ar scáth a chéile - March 28, 2020

Praise for Simon Harris from.Jeffrey St. Clair in this weekend’s Counterpunch. Strange days:

” Here’s what a real leader sounds like in the tumult of a catastrophe, Irish health minister Simon Harris: “We must of course have equality of treatment, patients with this virus will be treated for free, and they’ll be treated as part of a single, national hospital service. For the duration of this crisis the State will take control of all private hospital facilities and manage all of the resources for the common benefit of all of our people…”

+ In a crisis, I’d take the Cubans, the Irish and the Palestinians versus the rest of the field… “

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WorldbyStorm - March 28, 2020

+1 Small countries – all. More localised, flatter class structures, greater sense of social solidarity. Not perfect, not anywhere near it but… even an FGer like Harris (though in fairness his dad is a taxi driver and his mother an ex-SNA) can’t escape that contextual reality.

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ar scáth a chéile - March 28, 2020

Not going to be easy for FFG when the crisis is over to pretend all this state intervention and solidarity talk never happened.

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WorldbyStorm - March 28, 2020

They mustn’t be allowed to get away with that!

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sonofstan - March 28, 2020

“We must of course have equality of treatment, patients with this virus will be treated for free, and they’ll be treated as part of a single, national hospital service”
Which is what ‘we’ in the UK pretty much take for granted.

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WorldbyStorm - March 28, 2020

The ROI is good on critical/emergency care and treatment. It’s not great where there is less critical care. Almost personal experience of same this last year where an illness in the family was initially dealt brilliantly at the public emergency/critical level. All stops pulled out, a week and a half in the Mater, aftercare excellent, tests and so on great. However, to then go to a non-critical but far from unimportant follow up op later in the year meant in the public system some delay and no ability to schedule broad date of op and in the private system less delay and some ability. That’s an outcome that delivers glaring inequity but the real inequity is that step back in a system that allows for this division rather than marshalling all the resources to offer as rapid an outcome as possible.

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sonofstan - March 28, 2020

I agree.
The public health system in Ireland is, for the most part, a lot better than it is presented in the media (why is that, I wonder?). But the inequality and the diversion of resources from ‘non-urgent, but still need’ to ‘non-urgent but able to pay’ is unacceptable.

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WorldbyStorm - March 28, 2020

100% agree. It’s a disgrace. And it does lead to potential negative outcomes further down the line – for obvious reasons. By the way that’s a great point re the monstering of it in the media. That has to have a political effect too.

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CL - March 29, 2020

” For the first time in the history of the state, necessity has created the possibility of a health service, staffed and led in a way, consistent with the concept of an Irish version of Bevan’s NHS.” -Tommie Gorman
https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2020/0329/1127081-sligo-family-business/

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Alibaba - March 29, 2020

This reminds me of opposition from the British Medical Association and its privileged backers to Bevan’s NHS.

‘One leading member of the BMA reckoned a nationalised health service was “the first step, and a big one, towards national socialism”, in which Bevan and succeeding health ministers would fill the role of “medical Führer”. … Bevan was pragmatic enough to know that he could not run the NHS without consultants, doctors and nurses. Faced with the threat of a BMA strike, he conceded that GPs would retain the freedom to run their practices as small businesses. The consultants were given more money, and allowed to keep their private practices. In Bevan’s own blunt words: “I stuffed their mouths with gold.” Faced with a shortage of nurses, he also pushed up their wages to attract recruits.’

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-birth-of-the-nhs-856091.html

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21. Paddy Healy - March 28, 2020

David McWilliams: Unfortunately, our Central Bank has unforgivably abdicated in this crisis, precisely when it was needed….Obviously, the Irish banks are overcharging…More broadly, the most important thing is to ensure that this (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime health crisis, and the reaction to it, does not encumber our countries with huge debts that might prompt austerity in the future or prevent the State from building infrastructure and housing when this passes. If we don’t change the rules, this will happen
David McWilliams; Irish Times Saturday, March 28, 2020,
See New World Economic Crash on Way paddyhealywordpress

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CL - March 28, 2020

“Our Central Bank”. Is he referring to the ECB?

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Paddy Healy - March 28, 2020

No. The Irish Central Bank. He says the Irish government should use its powers to over-rule the Central Bank

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CL - March 28, 2020

O.K. thanks. Interesting

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22. Paddy Healy - March 28, 2020

Key Passge in David McWilliams’ piece
“On Thursday morning, the ECB provided a clear pathway to reducing monthly mortgages. The ECB has opened up the taps and indicated that it will do whatever it takes to prevent a recession becoming a depression. …….
We can start by refinancing Irish mortgages and availing of the ECB’s new commitment to finance everything that the banks need.

Unfortunately, our Central Bank has unforgivably abdicated in this crisis, precisely when it was needed.”

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tafkaGW - March 29, 2020

Property-based rent extraction and capital accumulation always comes first in the RoI.

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23. Starkadder - March 28, 2020

I don’t know if this has been mentioned on the CLR, but there’s a disturbing accusation of alleged sexual assault against Joe Biden:

Time’s Up Said It Could Not Fund a #MeToo Allegation Against Joe Biden, Citing Its Nonprofit Status and His Presidential Run

I don’t know if this serious allegation is true or not, but the Democratic Party needs to investigate this NOW.

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EWI - March 29, 2020

I don’t know if this serious allegation is true or not, but the Democratic Party needs to investigate this NOW

True or not, the reality is that the Trumpists have already taken a leaf from the Dubya playbook and are insinuating that Biden is the actual ‘sexual predator’ among the likely candidates. I’m sure I’m not the only one here who recalls the Swiftboating of John Kerry.

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Starkadder - March 29, 2020

Aren’t the Democrats supposed to be the party fighting against sexual harassment and sexual assault, though? The Republicans don’t give a crap about the issue inside their own party (look at how they handwaved the sexual assault accusations against Trump and
Brett Kavanaugh).

Rather than John Kerry, a better analogy might be how Hillary Clinton refused to address the sexual assault allegations against her husband Bill in 2016. Something Richard Seymour wrote about at the time:

Put it like this. Juanita Broaddrick plausibly alleges that she was raped by Bill Clinton…Now, is that worth discussing?

If you take liberal principles seriously, if you consider yourself a feminist, the answer has to be ‘yes’. Otherwise, how can you expect anyone to take your fully justified attacks on Trump seriously? If you have no respect for the principles underpinning your attack, why should anyone else? And if your loyalty to Clinton undermines your principled opposition to Trump, what comes first: your principles, or your loyalty?

http://www.leninology.co.uk/2016/10/a-rapist-in-oval-office.html

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24. Jim Monaghan - March 28, 2020

RTE are really quite rubbish. Announcements of a primary school, school hub, supposedly on RTE 2. No sign of it omn the schedule. I am all for television based eduation, especially now. Indeed the Irish language course should be up as well. Public Service broadcasting? ”
RTÉjr
@RTEjr
·
26 Mar
#RTEHomeSchool launches this Monday! 👩‍🎓👨‍🎓🏫🎒 A daily, scheduled virtual classroom for all primary school kids. Watch it weekdays on #RTE2 from 11am, anytime on the
@RTEPlayer
and get all the resources at http://rte.ie/learn
@rte” While imprisoned, we could all do a language or something.

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Bartholomew - March 28, 2020

It’s on the schedule each day 11-12. Checked 21.28 on the 28th.

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25. Jim Monaghan - March 28, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/mar/28/lyra-mckee-last-piece-ceasefire-babies-growing-up-northern-ireland-in-90s “The second promise was prosperity. Peace, we were assured, would bring a thriving new economy. It never appeared. It didn’t matter what qualifications you had, the most plentiful work was to be found in call centres, answering or making calls for a minimum wage. They were egalitarian shitholes; middle-class kids with PhDs mixed with kids with no GCSEs, and they all earned the same for doing the same grunt work. If you were lucky, the job didn’t come with timed toilet breaks. In the end, most graduates ended up leaving. People who’d been searching for jobs for two years in Northern Ireland would find one within eight weeks in London. But it was like escaping from one trap only to walk into another; London offered jobs but it didn’t offer a life. Most people I knew out there were just scraping by, paying £650 a month for a bedroom in a grotty apartment. Eventually, they’d figure out you couldn’t buy a house for £100K in London the way you could in Belfast and would either return, settling for what work they could find and swapping career dreams for family life, or head farther afield.”

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26. ar scáth a chéile - March 28, 2020

Diem25 interview with Noam Chomsky , self isolating with his dog and parrot in Arizona https://youtu.be/t-N3In2rLI4

Sound isnt great but id stay listening to him in a snowstorm.

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Alibaba - March 29, 2020

My sentiments exactly.

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27. CL - March 28, 2020

“Just over a week after Christine Lagarde stepped in to shield European Union governments from a market rout, they rejected her appeal to show more solidarity in the face of the coronavirus pandemic…..
The European Central Bank president reiterated her appeal for joint debt issuance on a video conference with EU leaders on Thursday, saying the bloc is facing a crisis of “epic” dimensions because of the viral outbreak…
She suggested that all available instruments should be used, including credit lines from the currency bloc’s bailout fund, liquidity and guarantees from the European Investment Bank as well as joint debt issuance to share the burden and the risk of the required spending spree….
While German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed with the bleak assessment of the situation, she resisted calls for mutualizing debt…
Merkel’s tone was more categorical than before, one of the officials said, after nine EU leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, backed the idea of jointly issued “coronabonds” in a letter ahead of the meeting. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte backed the German chancellor’s stance on the joint instruments, the officials said….
Macron warned that the political reaction after this crisis could kill the European project”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-26/after-bailing-out-euro-area-lagarde-takes-on-merkel-over-debt

“”The coronavirus pandemic is a human tragedy of potentially biblical proportions,” Draghi said.
“a deep recession is inevitable,” the ECB chief between 2011 and 2019 said. Governments can only work to minimize its magnitude and duration, he continued….
“The challenge we face is how to act with sufficient strength and speed to prevent the recession from morphing into a prolonged depression,”
https://www.businessinsider.com/deep-recession-inevitable-ex-ecb-boss-draghi-warns-depression-2020-3

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28. Philip Ferguson - March 29, 2020

Ireland’s Marxist guerrillas: the story of the Saor Eire Action Group:

Ireland’s Marxist guerrillas: the story of the Saor Éire Action Group, 1967-73

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29. Philip Ferguson - March 29, 2020

Above is written by Mick Healy in conjunction with several members of Saor Eire who are still with us.

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30. Philip Ferguson - March 29, 2020

Liam Mellows’ Dail speech against the Treaty:

Liam Mellows’ Dail speech against the Treaty, January 4, 1922

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31. roddy - March 29, 2020

Philip,it is worth pointing out that by the 1980sthe Connolly association had become an ally of Gerry Adams.

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32. roddy - March 29, 2020

Red C poll out.Blueshirts taking votes from everybody bar SF.

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WorldbyStorm - March 29, 2020

Would you have a. link?

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33. roddy - March 29, 2020

Gavan Reilly twitter.

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WorldbyStorm - March 29, 2020

Thanks got it, cheers, a chara.

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34. sonofstan - March 29, 2020

‘There is such a thing as society, says PM from bunker’

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35. yourcousin - March 30, 2020

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WorldbyStorm - March 30, 2020

I hope he gets better soon. That’s not great news about him.

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Joe - March 30, 2020

Yep. Hang on in there John.

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36. CL - March 30, 2020

“Last night the Prime Minister posted a video to social media, insisting the country will get through the coronavirus crisis together.
Revealing that 20,000 former NHS workers had returned to the service, he said: “There really is such a thing as society.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/30/politics-latest-news-government-adviser-neil-ferguson-says-early/

Thatcherism to the dustbin?

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sonofstan - March 30, 2020

As someone commented BTL in the Guardian: ‘of course there’s such a thing as society. Parasites like the tories need a host’

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37. tomasoflatharta - March 30, 2020

An Inspiration For All of Us Today
Manolis Glezos, Greek left-wing politician best known for his participation in the World War II resistance, passed away on Monday morning aged 98.

A sad day. Manolis Glezos, who tore the swastika down from the Acropolis in 1941, has died. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/a-sad-day-manolis-glezos-who-tore-the-swastika-down-from-the-acropolis-in-1941-has-died/

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38. Starkadder - March 30, 2020

Worrying News. Writer Michael Rosen has been hospitalized – his family say he’s “very poorly”: 😦

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/michael-rosen-hospital-ill-intensive-care-latest-a9436401.html

My nephews love Rosen’s books, so this is sad news.

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39. CL - March 31, 2020

March 1, number of confirmed coronavirus cases in NYC- 1

March 31, number of confirmed case in NYC- 38,000

“In a hopeful note, Mr. Cuomo said that while the number of hospitalizations continues to grow, the rate which it is growing was tapering off. “We had a doubling of cases every two days, then a doubling every three days and a doubling every four days, then every five,” Mr. Cuomo said. “We now have a doubling of cases every six days. So while the overall number is going up, the rate of doubling is actually down.”-NYT.

projections made by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation….

“In New York, the peak is expect on April 10, with the analysts fearing 798 deaths will be recorded on that day alone….

The authors of the research article containing these findings wrote, “Our estimate of 81,000 deaths in the US over the next 4 months is an alarming number, but this number could be substantially higher if excess demand for health system resources is not addressed and if social distancing policies are not vigorously implemented and enforced across all states.”
https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/grim-projection-suggests-coronavirus-will-kill-15k-ny-aug

“Crowds of gawkers ignored New York’s social-distance regulations and packed the west side of Manhattan on Monday to watch a US Navy hospital ship arrive to give badly needed coronavirus aid.”
https://nypost.com/2020/03/30/crowds-ignore-social-distancing-rules-to-watch-usns-comfort/

The above stats. are already out of date. All projections should be treated with skepticism. Just heard some clever chap talking about the ‘second derivative’, -so enough with the avalanche of confusing data.

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40. CL - March 31, 2020

“Amazon has terminated an employee based in the company’s Staten Island, New York, warehouse after he participated in a worker walkout protesting the company’s response to the novel coronavirus.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/tech/amazon-worker-fired-staten-island-warehouse/index.html

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41. sonofstan - March 31, 2020

Shopping adventures, pt96:
I just got waved past the queue at Sainsbury’s on account of my grey hair and ‘dintinguished’ appearance. Torn between protesting my age – still clinging just about to my fifties – or taking advantage.

I took advantage.

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Joe - March 31, 2020

One year and two days ago, 29th March 2019, a girl stood up and offered me her seat on the Luas. Embrace it!

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sonofstan - March 31, 2020

Happened to me a few years ago on the tube. Was simultaneously touched and insulted!

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Alibaba - March 31, 2020

Last January, while on a weekend holiday in Berlin, I bought a wrong two-hour train ticket. Apparently it was meant for one-way only and I did a return. Being informed the fine was €60, the inspector told grey-haired late fifties me, in English, “Since you are elderly and confused, we won’t fine you”. LOL I sighed with relief.

And getting offered the seat on busy buses here does me nicely too.

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42. Joe - April 1, 2020

Interesting bit of history from the Guardian. Last surviving Spanish republican soldier from the first unit that entered liberated Paris in 1944, dies aged 99 from Covid 19. I knew 24th August was a significant day in world history, but didn’t know it was also the date of the liberation of Paris.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/01/coronavirus-live-news-us-deaths-could-reach-240000-un-secretary-general-crisis-worst-since-second-world-war-us-uk-europe-latest-updates#block-5e8465168f087564da1e3998

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