Thursday, December 20, 2007

Kneejerk Reaction to some recent news stories

Adjective

kneejerk

  1. Of a reply or reaction, automatic and easily predictable; reacting spontaneously in the expected manner.[1]



This evening, Newstalk reported the following:

Falling employment in the construction sector can be an opportunity for Ireland - that's according to Enterprise Minister Micheal Martin.

Speaking in Dublin at the launch of the Fas annual labour market review the minister said the slowdown in house building gives us the chance to help wean our economy off its dependence on construction.


You can read the full story here.

(My emphasis added).

Now if this isn't the biggest example of Doublespeak since Kevin Keegan told us that yes, David Batty would comfortably slot his penalty home against Argentina back in 1998, well then I don't know what is. Or maybe it isn't Doublespeak, but it's something similar.

How can huge job losses in the construction industry be presented as an opportunity or a chance? How come this chance is only presenting itself now? Surely there were plenty of opportunities to "wean our economy off its dependence on construction" a few years ago when the sector was genuinely booming. Why wasn't the chance grabbed then?

On 27 November, two stories in
The Irish Times caught my eye. They were both in the international section. The first was in the 'other stories' sidebar:

Bin Laden to address Europe

DUBAI - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden will address the people of Europe in a message to be posted on the internet "soon", an Islamist website said yesterday.

"Soon, God willing, [ we will post] a new message to the European people from the lion Imam who defeated the Americans and tyrants, Sheikh Osama bin Laden," said the pro-al Qaeda website which regularly posts messages from the militant leader. -
(Reuters)


When were the Americans and tyrants defeated by Sheikh bin Laden? Is he referring to attacks on US soldiers in Iraq? The killing of civilians in Manhattan? By his reasoning, does killing a number of US citizens equate with defeating the whole US nation? By the same logic, can I claim to have beaten John McEnroe in tennis, because I have beaten a tennis player before, so therefore I have beaten all tennis players, so therefore I have beaten John McEnroe?

On the same day, Lorna Siggins of The Irish Times reported on a speech given by an Indian journalist, Palagummi Sainath, at Irish Aid's conference in NUI Galway. According to Siggins, he laments the media's role in propping up rampant corporate power. He said that:
'EU subsidies to Irish and other European farmers are having a "devastating" effect on farmers in India and Africa.'
Regarding this devastating effect, Jeffrey Sachs, in 'The End of Poverty' had some things to say about EU protection of EU farmers in the context of global inequality. Sachs argued that the tarrifs are in place to protect EU food producers from the large food producers of North America, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina. Where the barriers to come down, chances are that it would be those markets who would gain the most, rather than the less developed Indian and African ones.

Picture: University of Miami Department of Biology

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Seven Mile Run

What is the point in having a few links to some (presumably useful) websites to the left of my blog postings if I’m not going to give some background on each of the websites?

That is a matter open to debate. Anyway, without further ado, I would like to extol the virtues of Mapmyrun.com.


The website is very user-friendly, and does exactly what it says on the address bar. Instead of using the tried and trusted secondary school geography class trick of an Ordnance Survey map, piece of paper and a ruler, users can now plot out routes (for running, walking, cycling, whatever-your-having-yourself) on maps of any location in the world, to calculate the distance of their run, walk, cycle or whatever-their-having-themselves.


I was pointed to the site in one of The Irish Times’ soccer correspondent, Emmet Malone's articles in which he detailed his preparations to run last October’s Dublin Marathon. This is what he said of the site:


The most straightforward website is mapmyrun.com , an easy to use site that allows you to mark out, record and share training routes in any location. Other features (these require free registration) include a training log, in which you can record every aspect of marathon build-up from distances and times to calorie intake and weight loss.


To cut to the chase, a couple of months ago I decided I would attempt a marathon myself, some time in Spring 2008. I spoke to a friend of mine, a veteran of one-and-a-half marathons, and he suggested running a half-marathon in January, in order to get his tally up to two but also as a preparation for a full one. So back onto Google I went, and found out about the Genk Half-Marathon, which is taking place in the town of Genk in Northern Belgium on January 13th. That is the only reason why I did the below run this afternoon.


Started at my house, then went to Ivan's, up by Thomond Park, right along Clancy Strand, crossed Sarsfield Bridge, down the steps, left up to Henry Street at Jury's, up along South Circular Road past Mary I, down Courtbrack Avenue, turned right passing heavy traffic, lots of trucks on the Dock Road, over the New Bridge, along the lower North Circular Road and home. Less than a month to go. In future I think I'm gonna try and avoid the Dock Road, you may as well put your mouth up to a truck's exhaust pipe and inhale.



Saturday, December 15, 2007

Student Life in Limerick

What do the general public of Limerick think about students from their dealings with them? What do students themselves feel Limerick has to offer? Have a listen here.

Limerick has quite a high ratio of full-time students to the city’s total population. There are at least 15,000 full-time students here. However, perhaps due to the biggest third-level institution, the University of Limerick, being located on the outskirts of the city – in actual fact, it is in fact outside the city boundaries, in Limerick County Council’s administration area – sometimes people don’t associate Limerick with being a ‘university town’, in the same manner that, say, Galway is often considered.

In recent years, many articles have been published in the media about Limerick’s development taking the shape of a ‘doughnut’ - in other words, while there is much investment in the outskirts of the city, the city centre itself is losing out. The Irish Times reported this week that ‘retail values in Limerick city centre were lower than in the periphery’. I find this whole area of the city’s development a very interesting one, and so was happy to find out what people thought about students’ contribution to the city.

For this podcast, I went out onto the streets of Limerick to get some people's views on students' contribution. I also caught up with St. John Ó Donnabháin, President of the University of Limerick Students' Union, to find out what he thinks Limerick has to offer for students.

Backing track used: The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Photo: Tony Bracjun

Monday, December 10, 2007

Experts gather for International Resuscitation Conference 2007

RESUS 2007

Every year up to 360 people die as a result of overcrowding in Irish hospitals, delegates heard at the 2007 RESUS International Resuscitation Conference and Skills Showcase held at the South Court Hotel last weekend. Fergal Hickey, President of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine said that: ‘An overcrowded hospital should now be regarded as an unsafe hospital.’ He was referring to Australian research which showed conclusively the link between Emergency Department overcrowding and mortality rates.

RESUS is an event that aims to increase survival for cardiac arrest, trauma resuscitation, road traffic accidents and poisonings, according to Geraldine Quinn of the HSE. The two day event was chaired by Dr Cathal O’Donnell, Emergency Consultant in Limerick and Ennis Regional Hospitals and was attended by 450 people from the medical, nursing, emergency and voluntary services. It combined presentations from national and international experts; a demonstration of emergency service providers in action and a national skills showcase and competition.

Quoting from the HSE’s Emergency Taskforce Report Findings, published last June, Mr Hickey said that the overcrowding problem is not the fault of Emergency Departments themselves, but a symptom of a lack of hospital capacity and community services.

He said that conditions in Emergency Departments, along with the constant barrage of criticism of them in the media, criticism which is often unjustified in his view, have a detrimental effect on morale, resulting in serious problems for the departments retaining and recruiting staff. ‘Why would want to you work in a relative hellhole?’ he asked.

He also expressed his grave concerns about how Irish hospitals would cope with a SARS-type epidemic in the future. He recalled that in the 2003 Canadian SARS outbreak, one person carrying the respiratory disease caused the infection of 128 patients and staff on a Toronto emergency ward resulting in 17 deaths. He predicted the figures would be far grimmer should something similar happen on an Irish emergency ward.

The conference also heard from Michael Hughes of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service who spoke about paramedic preparedness for terrorist attacks. His message was that the attitude of, ‘It could never happen here,’ has to be scrapped, so that the emergency services are, ‘Prepared for it when it does.’

Dr Joe Treacy, Director of the National Poisons Information Centre outlined some facts that have been becoming all too apparent from recent news stories – that ecstasy use has plummeted, while cocaine use is going up. The chances of death from cocaine are quadrupled when it is taken with alcohol, he said. Deaths resulting from cocaine use are increasing exponentially. Earlier delegates heard from Gardaí that in a sample of recent cases involving people driving under the influence of intoxicants, 50% of the offenders had been driving under the influence of illegal substances.

Teams of emergency service personnel from across the country took part in competitions demonstrating the best provision of emergency life support and resuscitation skills. The winning teams came from the Dublin Fire Brigade, Red Cross Limerick and Lough Derg Lifeboat Station.

On Friday Limerick County Fire & Rescue Service, the Midwest Ambulance Services and members of the Garda Traffic Corps demonstrated best practice in managing road traffic casualties and safe patient removal techniques in a re-enactment of the aftermath of a crash.

‘It’s just to show people what it’s like,’ said Garda Tony Miniter of the Limerick Traffic Corps, explaining why they staged the reconstruction. ‘To see the dirty raw edge of it can even catch the medical experts by surprise.’

Garda Miniter fronts the Lifesaver Project, a pilot initiative aimed at showing young people in the Midwest the harsh consequences of dangerous driving. Their message is ‘Especially important coming up to Christmas time,’ he added.