Showing posts with label Irish Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish Times. Show all posts
Monday, September 30, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
NEWS YOU WONT FIND WITH IRISH TIMES PRESSTITUTES
.jpg)
LINK TO NEWS
YOU WON'T FIND WITH IRISH TIMES PRESTITUTES
"There is Difficulty Lower Down Whereby Sometimes Unauthorised Items Appear"
national | history and heritage | feature 
Monday April 19, 2004 01:08
by Captain White 
“The correspondence is being destroyed”
Irish Times Chief Executive asks British Government for help in stamping out "unauthorised" material appearing in the paper. "Secret and personal" letter from the British Ambassador details contacts and refers to then Irish Times Editor Douglas Gageby, a Protestant like Major McDowell, as a "renegade white nigger".
Strange things have a habit of appearing on the IMC Ireland newswire late in the evenings and are a sometimes meagre reward for weary unpaid hacks trawling through the daily deletions. This one exceptionally is a stone-cold classic and the image copy of the letter a downright exclusive as far as we can tell. Let us know if somebody else got there first. We now hand you over to 'Captain White'.
For Captain White's full commentary on the letter, a full size cut out and keep version of the letter and a fistful of interesting and provocative letters to the Irish Times Editor on surrounding issues which have remained unpublished just hit the 'feature continues' link below
The attached PDF document is a copy of a letter from A.G. Gilchrist, British Ambassador, Dublin, to a Mr W.K.K. White, Western European Department, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London, dated 2 October 1969. It is marked "secret & personal".
The letter relates to contacts between the British Ambassador and the proprietor of the Irish Times, Major Thomas B McDowell, in which the latter is seeking stronger guidance from the British government on how to control news on Britain’s actions and role in the North of Ireland.
The then Editor of the Irish Times, Douglas Gageby, "Protestant, Belfast born", is referred to as "an excellent man but on northern questions a renegade or white nigger".
McDowell is unhappy that “authorised” pro-British material is “left out” and that “unauthorised” material is appearing in the Irish Times.
The Major asks for direct guidance from No 10 Downing Street for "himself and one or two of this friends on the Board".
Major McDowell, served as chief executive of The Irish Times between 1962 and 1997. He retired as chairman of the Irish Times Trust in December 2001, when he was awarded the title of President for Life of the Irish Times Group.
It is surprising that no one demanded that the Major relinquish his title when this letter was released (probably inadvertently) with British state papers. Instead a discreet veil of silence was drawn over the affair in D’Olier Street, where the renegade Protestant white niggers have been gradually replaced by a gaggle of Roman Catholic uncle toms. Needless to say, when the details came out, the morose major was forced to deny its contents. He claimed rather feebly to be building contacts between the Irish and British governments.
However, during the 1970s the Irish Times was brought into line, especially after Gageby’s first retirement in 1974. Though Gageby was brought back in 1977, after the indifferent editorship of Fergus Pyle, a ‘Kulturkampf’ had been engineered by Conor Cruise O’Brien during the 1973-1977 labour Fine Gael Coalition. It set the political ‘culture’ of the Times and of the times along a path of general compliance with a British agenda.
The Anglo-Irish Majors and Captains had had their day and the British relied subsequently on the native parochialism and conservatism of the 26 County RC bourgeoisie to dampen down anti-British feeling. New money merged with old, as the new fat cats on the block set about preserving 26 County society from adequately confronting the instability of the sectarian Six County state. The media (especially the Section 31 censorship ridden RTE) ignored the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Family throughout the 1970s and Irish government representatives in the US mobilised against those campaigning for innocent Irish people in British jails.
The period that started with the framing of Captain James Kelly of the Irish Army by the Irish state, and that saw official government and Garda indifference (or worse!) to British complicity in the 1974 Dublin Monaghan bombings, was defined by the Garda heavy Gang beating and subsequent railroading of the IRSP Three (Nicky Kelly, Brian McNally and Osgur Breatnach) for a mail train robbery, of which they were clearly innocent.
In other words, the kak-handed methods of the Major and his MI5 friends were rendered historically redundant. The major and his editorial board team have meanwhile gutted the journalistic belly of the paper. Long-serving journalists have been let go and coverage of the North has been down graded. Long-winded pro-British and pro-war jingoism provided by Kevin Myers is the order of the day.
As if in apology for ousting their betters the pigs that now occupy the parlour have been snorting their derision at the efforts that went into putting them there in the first place: the fighting for and winning of the independence of their country (or the substantial part of it they now do so well in). Myers writes lyrically of the mass slaughter that sent millions to their deaths in the First World War in an imperialist adventure and derides as a criminal conspiracy the relatively tiny amount of violence that secured for this part of Ireland independence from the British Empire. Any lie that has the faint possibility of undermining the basis of the War of Independence is pounced upon with glee and published with the authority of Ireland’s “newspaper of record”.
It was Connolly who said “Ruling by fooling is a great British art, with great Irish fools to practice on”? Kevin Myers and the Irish Times, please take a bow.
In response to a recent advertising downturn, cost cutting measures have been applied to the journalists, while the upper tiers of management awarded themselves hefty monetary rewards. This has not gone down well on the newsroom floor.
The new editor, Geraldine Kennedy, has pursued the conservative Dublin Four agenda and has been found wanting in printing inaccurate information on the North time and again, mostly at the expense of republicans. She states: “Above all else, we commit ourselves to accuracy. If we fail the test of accuracy, we are failing the most essential test of our profession. We recognise, of course, that journalism in a daily newspaper operates in a deadline-driven environment in which mistakes can, and will, happen. When we get it wrong, we say so.”
Twice in one week an editorial writer (the ‘voice’ of the Irish Times) rushed to blame republicans for either something that unionists paramilitaries had done (nailing a Roman Catholic to a wooden fence) or that was the product of a sectarian papist-hunt (the PSNI arrest of a Roman Catholic civil servant in the offices of David Trimble and Mark Durkan for “spying”). In the case of the former a half-hearted and miserable correction was inserted, but the latter inaccuracy was left untroubled by the miniscule corrections that the Times inserts to draw as little attention as possible to errors, large and small.
The Major can rest assured; he has succeeded in his efforts to get the Irish Times to publish the “authorised” version of events.
Ironically, the British Ambassador’s letter ends “The correspondence is being destroyed”. This part of it is here provided for the edification of the masses.
The letter relates to contacts between the British Ambassador and the proprietor of the Irish Times, Major Thomas B McDowell, in which the latter is seeking stronger guidance from the British government on how to control news on Britain’s actions and role in the North of Ireland.
The then Editor of the Irish Times, Douglas Gageby, "Protestant, Belfast born", is referred to as "an excellent man but on northern questions a renegade or white nigger".
McDowell is unhappy that “authorised” pro-British material is “left out” and that “unauthorised” material is appearing in the Irish Times.
The Major asks for direct guidance from No 10 Downing Street for "himself and one or two of this friends on the Board".
Major McDowell, served as chief executive of The Irish Times between 1962 and 1997. He retired as chairman of the Irish Times Trust in December 2001, when he was awarded the title of President for Life of the Irish Times Group.
It is surprising that no one demanded that the Major relinquish his title when this letter was released (probably inadvertently) with British state papers. Instead a discreet veil of silence was drawn over the affair in D’Olier Street, where the renegade Protestant white niggers have been gradually replaced by a gaggle of Roman Catholic uncle toms. Needless to say, when the details came out, the morose major was forced to deny its contents. He claimed rather feebly to be building contacts between the Irish and British governments.
However, during the 1970s the Irish Times was brought into line, especially after Gageby’s first retirement in 1974. Though Gageby was brought back in 1977, after the indifferent editorship of Fergus Pyle, a ‘Kulturkampf’ had been engineered by Conor Cruise O’Brien during the 1973-1977 labour Fine Gael Coalition. It set the political ‘culture’ of the Times and of the times along a path of general compliance with a British agenda.
The Anglo-Irish Majors and Captains had had their day and the British relied subsequently on the native parochialism and conservatism of the 26 County RC bourgeoisie to dampen down anti-British feeling. New money merged with old, as the new fat cats on the block set about preserving 26 County society from adequately confronting the instability of the sectarian Six County state. The media (especially the Section 31 censorship ridden RTE) ignored the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Family throughout the 1970s and Irish government representatives in the US mobilised against those campaigning for innocent Irish people in British jails.
The period that started with the framing of Captain James Kelly of the Irish Army by the Irish state, and that saw official government and Garda indifference (or worse!) to British complicity in the 1974 Dublin Monaghan bombings, was defined by the Garda heavy Gang beating and subsequent railroading of the IRSP Three (Nicky Kelly, Brian McNally and Osgur Breatnach) for a mail train robbery, of which they were clearly innocent.
In other words, the kak-handed methods of the Major and his MI5 friends were rendered historically redundant. The major and his editorial board team have meanwhile gutted the journalistic belly of the paper. Long-serving journalists have been let go and coverage of the North has been down graded. Long-winded pro-British and pro-war jingoism provided by Kevin Myers is the order of the day.
As if in apology for ousting their betters the pigs that now occupy the parlour have been snorting their derision at the efforts that went into putting them there in the first place: the fighting for and winning of the independence of their country (or the substantial part of it they now do so well in). Myers writes lyrically of the mass slaughter that sent millions to their deaths in the First World War in an imperialist adventure and derides as a criminal conspiracy the relatively tiny amount of violence that secured for this part of Ireland independence from the British Empire. Any lie that has the faint possibility of undermining the basis of the War of Independence is pounced upon with glee and published with the authority of Ireland’s “newspaper of record”.
It was Connolly who said “Ruling by fooling is a great British art, with great Irish fools to practice on”? Kevin Myers and the Irish Times, please take a bow.
In response to a recent advertising downturn, cost cutting measures have been applied to the journalists, while the upper tiers of management awarded themselves hefty monetary rewards. This has not gone down well on the newsroom floor.
The new editor, Geraldine Kennedy, has pursued the conservative Dublin Four agenda and has been found wanting in printing inaccurate information on the North time and again, mostly at the expense of republicans. She states: “Above all else, we commit ourselves to accuracy. If we fail the test of accuracy, we are failing the most essential test of our profession. We recognise, of course, that journalism in a daily newspaper operates in a deadline-driven environment in which mistakes can, and will, happen. When we get it wrong, we say so.”
Twice in one week an editorial writer (the ‘voice’ of the Irish Times) rushed to blame republicans for either something that unionists paramilitaries had done (nailing a Roman Catholic to a wooden fence) or that was the product of a sectarian papist-hunt (the PSNI arrest of a Roman Catholic civil servant in the offices of David Trimble and Mark Durkan for “spying”). In the case of the former a half-hearted and miserable correction was inserted, but the latter inaccuracy was left untroubled by the miniscule corrections that the Times inserts to draw as little attention as possible to errors, large and small.
The Major can rest assured; he has succeeded in his efforts to get the Irish Times to publish the “authorised” version of events.
Ironically, the British Ambassador’s letter ends “The correspondence is being destroyed”. This part of it is here provided for the edification of the masses.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
VINCENT BROWNE ONE OF US ??
Is Vincent Browne One of Us?
international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Wednesday May 22, 2013 18:03 by Brian Clarke - AllVoices
Ireland’s Wild West Tax Haven
Occasionally I find an article in the Irish Times that is worth reading, sometimes written by Vincent Browne, which makes me wonder is Vincent one of us ? What do you think?
"Government zealously protects the wealthy in Ireland’s Wild West tax haven
Column: There is a determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax
Occasionally I find an article in the Irish Times that is worth reading, sometimes written by Vincent Browne, which makes me wonder is Vincent one of us ? What do you think?
"Government zealously protects the wealthy in Ireland’s Wild West tax haven
Column: There is a determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax
Vincent Browne
The deference to financial and corporate power that impelled Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan to give the blanket guarantee to the financial institutions on September 30th, 2008, speaks again in the obsequious secret deals done with multinational companies on tax and in the fastidious avoidance of taxing high earners.
We now know that one of the largest multinational corporations operating here, Apple, pays a derisory 2 per cent in corporation tax and, according to a US congressional report, this is done by way of a deal with the Irish Government. Whatever the truth of that – more probably it was done by way of an unspoken understanding – Ireland now features among the “wild west” tax havens of our time. So much so that an ingenious tax scheme called the “Double Irish”, based on Irish tax regulatory policy, permits the wholesale avoidance of billions in tax revenue to US, UK, Irish and other coffers.
About the only promise this Government made before the last election by which it still stands is to refuse to raise the Irish corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent. As it happens, the promise is meaningless.
According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the effective corporation profits tax rate in Ireland is 4.2 per cent. The rate in France, by comparison, is 26.8 per cent (this is quoted in Corporation Tax: How Important is the 12.5% Corporate Tax Rate in Ireland? by Jim Stewart of TCD school of business).
Complicity of State
Now new information has emerged about tax devices and Ireland, courtesy of the Economic and Social Research Institute. In an article in the current quarterly review of the economy published last Thursday, John FitzGerald shows that there has been an influx over the last few years of company headquarters from abroad, notably Britain, and the effect of this has been to boost Ireland’s gross national product by about €7.4 billion.
This has seriously distorted the GNP measurement of the Irish economy’s performance, for these companies have no presence of any kind in Ireland and are of no value to the Irish economy. However, because our contribution to the EU is measured on our GNP performance, this means, according to John FitzGerald, that we are paying €100 million more than we should be paying to the EU annually.
Nobody, as far as I know, has made any issue of this but then, given the state of the financial crisis, what is €100 million?
Enda Kenny is off to another EU summit tomorrow and in a few weeks’ time he will be representing the EU at the G8 meeting in Fermanagh. For both these meetings the issue of tax havens is on the agenda and Ireland probably will feature in the deliberations. What will Enda Kenny say about the complicity of the Irish State in these tax structures?
New information has emerged from the Revenue Commissioners on incomes and taxation here. In a written answer to a Dáil question from Labour TD Derek Nolan on April 30th last, Michael Noonan revealed the following estimates for 2013 (married couples who submit tax returns jointly are regarded as one tax unit and the data refers to tax units):
l The total gross income is estimated at €82.5 billion for a total of nearly 2.2 million income tax payers, giving an average income of €37,962 and an average income tax payment of €5,348.
l More than half (54 per cent, nearly 1.2 million) of income tax payers earning €30,000 and less have an average gross taxable income of €14,712.
l Nearly 110,000 earners getting more than €100,000 in gross taxable income have an average income of €183,750, they pay an average of €46,695 in income tax, representing 26 per cent.
l More than 22,000 earners getting more than €200,000 have gross taxable income of €389,742 on average and pay €108,666 in income tax on average – 28 per cent.
l The 141 paid more than €2 million a year have an average gross taxable income of €4.1 million. They pay an average of €1.1 million in tax – 27 per cent.
(The Revenue Commissioners’ chart is published on the Dáil record – question 151 — the above is based on analysis of it.)
The determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax (say an effective tax rate of 35 per for those earning more than €100,000) almost matches the zeal to protect the inviolability of the tax haven for the most powerful multinational corporations on earth. And the Labour Party goes along with this as obediently as it supports the abuse of office by Alan Shatter.
Perhaps more depressing is the conduct of the Economic and Social Research Institute. Never once has it even adverted to the social consequences of the policies it advocates in its regular economic commentaries. Never, as far as I am aware, does it address in its economic commentaries the huge discrepancies in wealth and incomes here. It now advocates more austerity and, by implication, it counsels against income tax increases, with no acknowledgment of the inevitable social consequences.
So why bother with the “social” in its title?"
"Government zealously protects the wealthy in Ireland’s Wild West tax haven
Column: There is a determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax
Vincent Browne
The deference to financial and corporate power that impelled Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan to give the blanket guarantee to the financial institutions on September 30th, 2008, speaks again in the obsequious secret deals done with multinational companies on tax and in the fastidious avoidance of taxing high earners.
We now know that one of the largest multinational corporations operating here, Apple, pays a derisory 2 per cent in corporation tax and, according to a US congressional report, this is done by way of a deal with the Irish Government. Whatever the truth of that – more probably it was done by way of an unspoken understanding – Ireland now features among the “wild west” tax havens of our time. So much so that an ingenious tax scheme called the “Double Irish”, based on Irish tax regulatory policy, permits the wholesale avoidance of billions in tax revenue to US, UK, Irish and other coffers.
About the only promise this Government made before the last election by which it still stands is to refuse to raise the Irish corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent. As it happens, the promise is meaningless.
According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the effective corporation profits tax rate in Ireland is 4.2 per cent. The rate in France, by comparison, is 26.8 per cent (this is quoted in Corporation Tax: How Important is the 12.5% Corporate Tax Rate in Ireland? by Jim Stewart of TCD school of business).
Complicity of State
Now new information has emerged about tax devices and Ireland, courtesy of the Economic and Social Research Institute. In an article in the current quarterly review of the economy published last Thursday, John FitzGerald shows that there has been an influx over the last few years of company headquarters from abroad, notably Britain, and the effect of this has been to boost Ireland’s gross national product by about €7.4 billion.
This has seriously distorted the GNP measurement of the Irish economy’s performance, for these companies have no presence of any kind in Ireland and are of no value to the Irish economy. However, because our contribution to the EU is measured on our GNP performance, this means, according to John FitzGerald, that we are paying €100 million more than we should be paying to the EU annually.
Nobody, as far as I know, has made any issue of this but then, given the state of the financial crisis, what is €100 million?
Enda Kenny is off to another EU summit tomorrow and in a few weeks’ time he will be representing the EU at the G8 meeting in Fermanagh. For both these meetings the issue of tax havens is on the agenda and Ireland probably will feature in the deliberations. What will Enda Kenny say about the complicity of the Irish State in these tax structures?
New information has emerged from the Revenue Commissioners on incomes and taxation here. In a written answer to a Dáil question from Labour TD Derek Nolan on April 30th last, Michael Noonan revealed the following estimates for 2013 (married couples who submit tax returns jointly are regarded as one tax unit and the data refers to tax units):
l The total gross income is estimated at €82.5 billion for a total of nearly 2.2 million income tax payers, giving an average income of €37,962 and an average income tax payment of €5,348.
l More than half (54 per cent, nearly 1.2 million) of income tax payers earning €30,000 and less have an average gross taxable income of €14,712.
l Nearly 110,000 earners getting more than €100,000 in gross taxable income have an average income of €183,750, they pay an average of €46,695 in income tax, representing 26 per cent.
l More than 22,000 earners getting more than €200,000 have gross taxable income of €389,742 on average and pay €108,666 in income tax on average – 28 per cent.
l The 141 paid more than €2 million a year have an average gross taxable income of €4.1 million. They pay an average of €1.1 million in tax – 27 per cent.
(The Revenue Commissioners’ chart is published on the Dáil record – question 151 — the above is based on analysis of it.)
The determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax (say an effective tax rate of 35 per for those earning more than €100,000) almost matches the zeal to protect the inviolability of the tax haven for the most powerful multinational corporations on earth. And the Labour Party goes along with this as obediently as it supports the abuse of office by Alan Shatter.
Perhaps more depressing is the conduct of the Economic and Social Research Institute. Never once has it even adverted to the social consequences of the policies it advocates in its regular economic commentaries. Never, as far as I am aware, does it address in its economic commentaries the huge discrepancies in wealth and incomes here. It now advocates more austerity and, by implication, it counsels against income tax increases, with no acknowledgment of the inevitable social consequences.
So why bother with the “social” in its title?"
Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic - 1980
Thursday, May 9, 2013
FREE MEDIA Not an Order of Mates
Hold the Front Page! We Need Free Media, Not an Order of Mates
By John PilgerMay 09, 2013 - ICH - The other day, I stood outside the strangely silent building where I began life as a journalist. It is no longer the human warren that was Consolidated Press in Sydney, though ghosts still drink at the King's Head pub nearby. As a cadet reporter, I might have walked on to the set of Lewis Milestone's The Front Page. Men in red braces did shout, "Hold the front page", and tilt back their felt hats and talk rapidly with a roll-your-own attached indefinitely to their lower lip. You could feel the presses rumbling beneath and smell the ink.
This was the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, where I learned to report crime, courts, sport, killer bees, Rotary meetings and the arrival of almost famous people from that mysterious land, "overseas". The proprietor was a former boxer, Frank Packer, immortalised in Cyril Pearl's Wild Men of Sydney, and knighted for his vendettas against anyone to the political left of Pontius Pilate.
"Sir Frank" was seen on the editorial floor on Saturday nights after the races. If his horse had lost, fear and loathing were a presence. Once, he cancelled all the late editions and exiled the production staff to the King's Head, where their necessary return was negotiated from a phone on the public bar.
My only encounter with Sir Frank was when I foolishly boarded a geriatric lift precariously filled with the corpulent proprietor and his two gargantuan sons, Clyde and Kerry. "Who the fuck are you?" said Kerry, later to find distinction as the money bags behind World Series cricket.
The training was superb. A style developed by a highly literate editor, Brian Penton, who had published poetry in the Telegraph, instilled a respect for English grammar and the value of informed simplicity. Words like "during" were banned; "in" was quite enough. The passive voice was considered lazy and banned, along with most clichés and adjectives - except those in the splenetic editorials demanding all Reds went to hell. When I boarded a rust-streaked Greek ship for Europe, I was sorry to leave; I had begun to learn about the craft of journalism and about those who controlled it and used it and why.
A lesson that endures is that when the rich and powerful and own the means of popular enlightenment and dress it up as a "free press", bestowing a false respectability called the "mainstream", the opposite is usually true. Sir Frank turned out to be a minnow compared compared with Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch bought the Packer newspapers in 1972 and today controls 70 per cent of Australia's capital city press, along with dozens of local and regional newspapers. In Adelaide and Brisbane he owns almost everything. Two conglomerates dedicated to a doctrinaire, often extreme world view - Murdoch's News Limited and Fairfax Media - control 86 per cent of the Australian press.
This absence of choice and real dissent, let alone "balance", extends to the national broadcaster, the ABC, a progeny of the BBC run as a corporate hierarchy. There are honourable exceptions, of course, among them Philip Dorling, Kate McClymont and Quentin Dempster. Unlike the US and Britain, independent online journalism is rare. The result is a sameness that seems remarkable and demeaning in a first world, educated society.
Murdoch's augmented obsessions rule. The Labor government of Julia Gillard is loathed by his newspapers. This is inexplicable as Labor's policies are more or less those of the conservative coalition of Tony "Mad Monk" Abbott. When Communications Minister Stephen Conroy proposed timid post-Leveson regulation, he was depicted as Stalin in the fashion of the Sun in London. When Labor's prime minister in 2010, Kevin Rudd, announced a modest tax on the mega-profits of the mining companies, he was deposed by his own party following a propaganda campaign across the media, largely funded by the mining lobby.
Public perception of non-conformist minorities, especially Australia's indigenous people, is often taken from the media. These unique first people are seen as "bludgers" - spongers. This inverts a truth that is never news: a parasitical, lucrative white industry is effectively licensed by federal and state governments to exploit indigenous hardship.
Like America, Australia in its early colonial days had a vibrant press, a "medley of competing voices", wrote Edward Smith Hall, editor of the crusading Sydney Monitor. Journalists were "the voice of the people" and not of the "trade of authority". In the late 19th century, there were 143 independent newspapers in New South Wales alone. By 1988, the empires of Murdoch, Fairfax, Packer empires and Alan Bond, later imprisoned for the country's biggest corporate fraud, dominated the "mainstream" as an exclusive Order of Mates.
This is true across much of the democratic world. The medley of voices on the internet has dented monopoly media power, though the same monopolies are now consuming the web. "Social media" are largely introverted, a look-at-me peep show for the digitally besotted. As the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta approaches, hard-won rights such as the presumption of innocence are buried beneath the tentacular might of corporate systems.
Ironically, in the "information age", censorship by omission is a weapon of this power - the silencing of whistleblowers without whom journalism can never be free, and of a compliant, privileged "left". Militarised policing, displayed recently in Boston, consumes an America waging "perpetual war" and now threatening China. In Europe, a savage class war rages from Greece to Spain and Britain. It is no surprise that newspapers in thrall to this corrupt power are ailing.
Edmund Burke mythologised the press as a Fourth Estate. Today, we need a "fifth estate" right across the media and in journalism training and on the streets. We need those like Edward Smith Hall, who see themselves as agents of people not power.
www.johnpilger.com
How Socrates could save your life
by Sylvia Thompson
Greek philosophy may be ancient, but it’s a razor-sharp tool for dealing with modern life, says author Jules Evans, who used philosophy as a path out of depression
It’s a sunny Saturday in May and up to 60 people have gathered to hear an academic philosopher, an existential analyst and a journalist/writer share their insights into the human condition.
London-based writer Jules Evans begins by telling people about his mental-health decline in his late teens. “About 15 years ago, my friends and I experimented with hash and grass and then with LSD, Ecstasy and amphetamines. We had some great times – spiritually interesting and challenging – but it had bad effects on my friends, triggering a psychotic breakdown in one who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic, and bipolar disorder in another.”
Evans says it didn’t seem to affect him until a few years later, when he was a first-year student studying English literature at Oxford University. “The drugs caught up with me and I started to get panic attacks. It frightened and confused me, and undermined my confidence and I found myself depressed for days and then weeks.” All the way through university, he became increasingly withdrawn and upon graduation had “a mini breakdown”.
Now 34, Evans says his turning point came when he attended a social-anxiety support group in London, which followed a 10-week course in cognitive-behaviour therapy. Not only did it bolster his confidence, it gave him a whole new subject to research as a journalist and writer.
Evans is in Dublin to promote a new edition of his book Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations (Rider Books, €8.99) and to speak at a day-long Socrates seminar in the United Arts Club. With his open and friendly demeanour, he describes his so-called “street philosophy”, examining how the “four noble truths” of the ancient Greek philosophers can help you to know yourself, change yourself, and create new habits of thinking, feeling and acting so as to have a more flourishing life.
Building character“The idea of Greek philosophy is to build a character that is morally consistent in different situations at home and at work,” says Evans. He emphasises the importance of creating habits: repeating helpful maxims to yourself aloud, writing a journal to track your progress, putting yourself in new situations, having role models.
Building character“The idea of Greek philosophy is to build a character that is morally consistent in different situations at home and at work,” says Evans. He emphasises the importance of creating habits: repeating helpful maxims to yourself aloud, writing a journal to track your progress, putting yourself in new situations, having role models.
The book is the result of five years of autodidactic study into Greek philosophy and how it influenced modern psychology – in particular, cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT). Evans researched the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Diogenes, Seneca, Pythagoras and others. He interviewed psychologists, such as Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, and a range of modern-day characters (an American soldier, an astronaut, a policeman, Occupy London and Climate Camp activists) who drew inspiration from the ancient Greeks to help them through dangerous situations.
“Originally I was just interested in stoics,” he says. “The stoic philosopher Epictetus said that it is not by events but opinions of events that we are formed. The serenity prayer used in Alcoholic Anonymous meetings is similar to the idea of Epictetus’s idea of staying strong. The stoics saw all adversity as training.
“The core idea of Greek philosophy is that our emotions are caused by our beliefs and interpretations, and we can learn to examine how we see the world by bringing our unconscious beliefs and attitudes to consciousness. This is very similar to CBT, which engages us in dialogue about our beliefs using the Socratic method.”
The Irish Times
Sunday, February 17, 2013
IRISH TIMES ; RUBBERBANDITS Brain research faces ethical issues
Brain research faces ethical issues
Related
- Scientists developing 'superglue' from mussels | 17/02/2013
- Political preference 'all in the genes' | 16/02/2013
- Bad back? Flat feet? Blame it on evolution | 16/02/2013
- Link found between speech and birdsong | 15/02/2013
- Researchers try to fix broken tomato | 14/02/2013
- Nobel winner Heath turns up the heat on State | 05/11/2012
- Longevity expert exercises minds on how to live to be 120 | 18/07/2012
External
The Irish Times takes no responsibility for the contentor availability of other websites
DICK AHLSTROM, Science Editor, in Boston
Research advances in building brain-machine interfaces have the potential to change lives in rehabilitation medicine, yet the area is bristling with difficult ethical issues. It opens the potential to control one’s environment with the power of thought alone, but it also raises questions about what it means to be human and how far we should go with this technology, and what would happen if a hacker or a computer virus got into the interface?
The business of wiring the brain directly into a machine or computer has become a Hollywood staple with films such as The Matrix and Robocop, but in reality very real advances are being made in this area, a session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science heard over the weekend. A panel including brain-machine researchers and ethicists debated the issues, including whether augmentation of this kind makes us all a little less human.
One of the panellists, Prof Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University Medical Centre only five days ago published research in Nature Communications into the creation of a completely new sense built into laboratory rats. It allowed them to “feel” the presence of infrared light, he said. “It allows light to be converted into touch,” he said. “The animal is not seeing the light, it is feeling it.” In previous work he and his research team demonstrated how monkeys fitted with brain-machine interfaces could control both real and virtual limbs.
There are good reasons to pursue the research, he argued. Such interfaces could allow a quadriplegic the ability to move limbs, but also add tactile sensations for example to robot hands as they grasp an object. The research helps to provide feedback to help you control a device that is separated from you. Other types of interfaces were also emerging, for example cochlear implants to provide limited hearing or the latest, retinal implants wired into the optic nerve.
Plugging the brain into such devices raised many questions however, said Prof Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania. How might it affect our sense of being human, who should decide to apply the technology and how bad did a disability need to be to warrant intervention.
Plastic surgery was developed to help soldiers with disfigurements after the second World War, but today is used to make often unnecessary cosmetic changes, she said. Would this technology also become used for less than essential purposes? And what would happen if a hacker broke into your interface or someone planted a computer virus? “There will be some pretty important ethical issues,” she suggested.
“From a religious perspective I don’t see a problem with the technology,” said ethicist Brent Waters of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. A bigger issue was what would happen when brain-machine augmentation became commonplace, he said. There was also the potential to misuse the technology. “We have to be vigilant, good things can always be used in bad ways.”
While Prof Nicolelis works with implanted devices, Prof Todd Coleman of University of California, San Diego is researching very thin flexible electronics that can be applied to the skin like a temporary tattoo. These pick up brain waves, providing a signal that could be exploited in different ways, he said. The technology was already in commercial development.
- |
- 29
We reserve the right to remove any content at any time from this Community, including without limitation if it violates the Community Standards. We ask that you report content that you in good faith believe violates the above rules by clicking the Flag link next to the offending comment or by filling outthis form. New comments are only accepted for 10 days from the date of publication.
BrianClarkeNUJ
Logout
Sort By:
Ceiteria For Civil Disobedience in Ireland http://podcastireland-irishblog.blogspot.com/
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Marian Price MP ? McGuinness Resigns
McGuinness resigns MP seat
Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has formally resigned as Sinn Féin MP for Mid-Ulster.
Mr McGuinness said the move was “in line with [his] party’s commitment to end double jobbing”, but that he had “no intention of leaving Mid-Ulster”.
“I will always be grateful to the people of this area for trusting me to represent them and their interests,” he said.
“I will of course continue to represent the Mid-Ulster Constituency in the Assembly. I am honoured to do so both as an MLA and as deputy First Minister in equal partnership with Peter Robinson.”
“I can assure them and everyone else that my party, our fivemMinisters, our MPs, our 29 MLAs, our MEP and our huge number of councillors will continue the journey we have embarked upon.
“As the political landscape in the north continues to change, as it surely will, we remain committed to the goals of Irish republicanism and to serving the interests of all sections of society.
“I firmly believe that we can make further progress. This will require positive leadership from all parties. Sinn Féin remains firmly committed to playing a constructive role in the period ahead.”
- |
- 22
We reserve the right to remove any content at any time from this Community, including without limitation if it violates the Community Standards. We ask that you report content that you in good faith believe violates the above rules by clicking the Flag link next to the offending comment or by filling outthis form. New comments are only accepted for 10 days from the date of publication.
BrianClarkeNUJ
Logout
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
FriendFeed
My Blog List
THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY IN IRELAND - SHARE
Facebook Badge
Facebook Badge
BOBBY SAND'S COMRADES TORTURED AGAIN OCCUPIED IRELAND
Fwicki
networkedblogs
AllVoices
Iraq Death Estimator
LinkWithin
Stop British Censorship of Irish Dissidents
BlogCatalog
LinkWithin
FriendFeed badge
Irishblogdirectory
STOP CENSORSHIP !
Subscribe Now: Feed Icon
irishblogs
Subscribe Now: Feed Icon
Ireland Headline Animator
Newstrust
Follow Blog
IrelandYouTube Headline Animator
Subscribe Now: Feed Icon
TweetIt
My Blog List
-
Links for 2017-02-22 [del.icio.us] - - Sponsored: 64% off Code Black Drone with HD Camera Our #1 Best-Selling Drone--Meet the Dark Night of the Sky!9 years ago
-
-
Irish Blog: MUSIC FOR PENSIVE VVANKERS - Irish Blog: MUSIC FOR PENSIVE VVANKERS: 'via Blog this' [image: StumbleUpon] My StumbleUpon Page
11 years ago -
Irish Blog: MUSIC FOR PENSIVE VVANKERS - Irish Blog: MUSIC FOR PENSIVE VVANKERS: 'via Blog this'
11 years ago -
Irish Blog: MUSIC FOR PENSIVE VVANKERS - Irish Blog: MUSIC FOR PENSIVE VVANKERS: 'via Blog this'
11 years ago -
-
BOYCOTT BRITISH GOODS ReTweet See Link for Details http://bit... on Twitpic - BOYCOTT BRITISH GOODS ReTweet See Link for Details http://bit... on Twitpic: 'via Blog this'13 years ago
-
RT BOYCOTT BRITISH BRUTISH HUMAN RIGHTS CRIMINALS http://bit... on Twitpic - RT BOYCOTT BRITISH BRUTISH HUMAN RIGHTS CRIMINALS http://bit... on Twitpic: 'via Blog this'13 years ago
-
BBC BRITISH BUGGER CHILDREN World Service http://irishblog-irelandblog.blogspot.com/ rt #BBC - BBC BRITISH BUGGER CHILDREN World Service http://irishblog-irelandblog.blogspot.com/ rt #BBC: BBC BRITISH BUGGER CHILDREN World Service http://irishblog-...
13 years ago -
WOMEN DYING IN BRITISH CONCENTRATION CAMPS - CARE2SHARE ! htt... on Twitpic - WOMEN DYING IN BRITISH CONCENTRATION CAMPS - CARE2SHARE ! htt... on Twitpic Peaceful protesters worldwide are now met with police wearing body armour, ...
14 years ago -
-
INDYMEDIA IRELAND DRIBBLES FROM BOTH SIDES OF ITS MUBARAK MOUTH - Irish Blog: INDYMEDIA IRELAND DRIBBLES FROM BOTH SIDES OF ITS MUBARAK MOUTH15 years ago
-
-
-
