Friday, Jan 27th 2012
I gave up on Irish journalism about 18 months ago, just after the 2008 bank guarantee scheme and the December budget of that year. And while this has done my blood pressure no end of good - it’s not the news that drives me mad, it’s the inane analysis - it also means that I [...]
Abuse of Women in Conflict Zones
It is only in the last couple of decades that the world has focused on the horrific levels of violence perpetrated against women in times of war. Although women and girls have been the victims of sexual violence and other forms of aggression dating back several millennia, their plight has [...]
The most important aspect of the most recent Irish Times poll was not the 32% for Labour, but the combined 45% for Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
Individual polls tell you very little, it’s the overall trend that counts.
Since February 2009 Labour has scored from 20% to 25% in the MRBI polls. Their recent dramatic 10-point [...]
The performance troupe Scream Blue Murmur, formerly known as the Belfast Poets’ Touring Group, are pathbreakers in Ireland’s currently burgeoning live arts scene. Here they are interviewed by fellow poet and performer Dave Lordan of Irish Left Review on the eve of setting off on their latest North American Tour with their new show ”Something’s Gone [...]
Japanese Manga Newspapers Report Current Events in Graphic Detail
Japan is newspaper-crazy. Its biggest daily, Yomiuri Shimbun, has 10 times the circulation of The New York Times. For now, at least. Just as in the US, young people in Japan aren’t reading newspapers as often as their parents. But the Japanese have a solution: Manga No [...]
Over on Progressive Economy Michael Taft says that progressives need to unite around a common analysis and respond to what appears to be the aspirational nature of many of our demands. Or as he put’s it:
“…to call for all manner of good things without specifying where we are going to source the money: why should [...]
Asylum seekers living in hostels for several years are facing significant mental stress
The hostels are part of the direct provision system, which was established a decade ago as an emergency response to cope with large numbers of asylum seekers entering the country. Under this system asylum seekers are given a weekly allowance of €19.10 to [...]
It was a source of constant irritation to Joyce that Sean O’Casey had a bridge named after him when no writer had done more to integrate north and south sides of the Liffey into a cohesive and coherent lifeworld than Joyce had. Perhaps his irritation went deeper than that, though. After all, it was Casey [...]
Hugh Green | Redux: “Class Struggle in the EU”
As an antidote to dominance of the FG leadership debate in the media, which itself is a distraction from what is really happening in terms of the increasing support for Labour in the opinion polls, Hugh Green provides a translation of a piece that appeared on El [...]
New Left Project | Erik Olin Wright Interview
Interview on New Left Project with Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin Erik Olin Wright about his new book Envisioning Real Utopias. He says that the anti-Capitalist left has been very good at critiquing what is wrong with capitalism but has not been able to [...]
