Kenny v Cowen heats up

Speaking at FG’s ardfheis at Citywest over the weekend party leader Enda Kenny had the following to say:

“I want to speak to you about my optimism for our people, about my confidence in the advantages we have and about my belief that with courage, fairness and decisiveness, we can point the way ahead to a new future, a fairer Ireland and a truly just society….I believe that Ireland can recover fully from this recession inside five years.’

‘These are our targets:
1. Create 100,000 new jobs by the end of 2013
2. Return the public finances to stability by 2012 – without increasing the standard and current top rates of income tax
3. Deliver a radical plan for renewable energy – pumped storage, wind, wave and biomass – that will meet a quarter of our energy needs by 2015, and make us net exporters of energy within 10 years.
4. Transform our education system so that 9 out of 10 children complete secondary school by 2013 and two thirds go onto third level.
5. Restore Ireland to the top five most competitive countries in the world within three years.
6. To continue to support the Lisbon Treaty.'



Taoiseach Brian Cowen, speaking at his own party’s conference (also in Citywest) on 1 March spelled out his take on the Ireland of the near future:

“I believe, and my government believes, that Ireland can recover fully from this recession inside of five years. We have six targets.
1. Create 100,000 new jobs by the end of 2013
2. Return the public finances to stability by 2012
3. Deliver a radical plan for renewable energy.
4. More of the same successful formula for our education system.
5. Restore Ireland to the top 5 most competitive countries in the world within three years.
6. To continue to support the Lisbon Treaty."

Guerrilla Portraits

Gillray's Pitt - fair game.



Steve Bell's Bush - fair game



Nude Cowens by Conor Casby - not fair game.
(Bring that man in for questioning)

Cultural howlers at the Irish Times

What we learn from Eileen Battersby's review of Marina Carr

What is society increasingly becoming? Strange, even terrifying.
What is the family? A minefield.
What kind of humour and realism has Marina Carr brought to her handling of the family? Sudden humour & savage realism.
What kind of grasp of simplicity has Marina Carr? A sophisticated one.
How was The Cordelia Dream mauled by the British critics? Comprehensively.
How does Carr think? On several levels at once.
What is her imaginative energy well served by? Her practical reasoning.

The Battersby piece is at
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0207/1233867924563.html



Meanwhile, Fintan O Toole felt ‘almost unbelievably blessed’ to attend a Keith Jarrett concert in Carnegie Hall. (O Toole specifies that Carnegie Hall is in New York & that Jarrett is a musician though he later calls him a ‘great high-wire artist.’)

Jarret is a ‘performer working at the edge of possibility’ whose imagination is ‘flawless.’ Mr O Toole did not explain what a flawed imagination is like, though he did confirm that they existed, nor did he discuss what working conditions are like in the safer areas of possibility (such as the centre, and the corners of possibility).

‘There is no finer experience in contemporary art’ than when a genius ‘plucks music from the air and makes it suddenly (and in some cases violently) audible.’

Mr O Toole has since apologised for the article, which can be read at
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0207/1233867924546.html

He has admitted to JWR an overfondness for ‘sheer’ and for sentences that begin ‘It is not just that….......but….’ Mr O Toole also acknowledged that whatever he reviews is always ‘nothing less than’ something. He has pledged to cut this out in the future.

For a musical review of a Jarrett concert see Nate Chinen, nytimes, September 28, 2005:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/arts/music/28jarr.html?sq=keith%20jarrett&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=2&adxnnlx=1234094469-BbSIxjJZYHpUT0aIUMNQPw

Dail reconvenes after 40-day fast

The Dail reconvened today after a 40 day holiday period. Business commenced with a very welcome piece of news from the Taoiseach. Mr Cowen pledged the establishment of a special Task Force on Indecision.

The Task Force will investigate whether or not the current government is ‘floundering’ in the face of the economic crisis and report back to an Ombudsman for Decisiveness, a role that is shortly to be filled on the Taoiseach’s nomination.

Mr Cowen moved swiftly to deny that he had any problems with democratic accountability. ‘No, I have no problem with democratic accountability,’ he said, before qualifying: ‘but as long as I am running this Government I will run it as I see fit, as I believe, based on my philosophy.’

The Taoiseach spared the House an explanation of his philosophy, but he is widely understood to be a pragmatist of the William James school.

*

Minister for the Environment John Gormley spoke next. He had intended to phase out incandescent light bulbs from June this year, but has decided not proceed with the measure until September, when the EU will require us to do so.

‘The EU plan is more ambitious,’ Mr Gormley told the House. ‘There’s not much point in passing legislation now if the EU was going to require us to do so in the near future.’

Last week Mr Gormley refuted claims by resigning Green councilor Bronwyn Maher that the Green party was ‘only implementing EU policy.’

*

Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith told the House that as much as €400 million could be saved if farmers were to take the ‘mature, patriotic and courageous’ decision not to claim the repayments owed to them by the Government for the successful Farm Waste Management plan.
Members of the FF party pressed the Taoiseach to give a ‘state of the nation’ address to the country but he just smiled.

*

Shortly after 11 o’ clock positive news from Kerry trickled into Leinster House. A pub and shop owned by Páidí Ó Sé was unanimously rezoned by Kerry County Council. The pub and shop are now a village. Up until now the land had been a prime special amenity, a designation that scenic landscapes receive. Mr Ó Sé will now be able to build a sports interpretative centre and a commercial residential development for the citizens of his premises. A ripple of nostalgia touched the Fianna Fail parliamentary party.

Mr Ó Sé was made president of Bord Failte ‘because he is my friend,’ former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern emphasized at the time.

Icelandic Government meltdown

Taoiseach-in-waiting Enda Kenny was in ebullient form this afternoon with the news that Iceland's coalition government had collapsed. Mr Kenny managed to pun twice on the Icelandic PM's name.

That Taoiseach would 'want to get in Geir' if the same thing wasn't to happen to his government, Mr Kenny warned, before joking that there were 'Haarde decisions to be made.'

In a surprise move, the Icelandic Foreign Minister, who was recently tipped to succeed Mr Haarde, announced this afternoon a two month leave of absence.

President’s heart ‘lacerated’ by Holocaust

‘And God forbid it should be any other way,’ said Mrs McAleese at the National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration at the Mansion House last night. No future generation should ever know ‘the indulgence of forgetting’ and for all time the Holocaust should be ‘probed for how it came to be.’

The President lashed out against ‘toxic teaching’ that is taking place ‘somewhere in our world.’ The victims of this teaching are told to ‘hate the otherness of others.’

The President's keynote address was followed by a choreographed representation of life in Auschwitz. Dancers moved to the Take That hit Never Forget.

All four of the Jews to whom Ireland gave refuge during the Second World War were present at what was described by one Gentile as a ‘moving’ ceremony.

An Post attacks the leadership

An Post has launched a stinging attack on the Cowen Government with the release of a new stamp commemorating Louis Braille.

Chairman of An Post, John Fitzgerald, who was appointed in the dying days of the Ahern era, said yesterday: ‘We already launched a Braille commemoration stamp in 2006 so strictly, there’s no need for another one. But the symbolism of the blind leading the blind was too great to pass over.’

‘Louis Braille was a unique example of a blind person leading the blind and making a success of it,’ he continued. ‘The Taoiseach is at the other end of that scale, and seems to be leading us into the ditch.’

Braille lost his sight at the age of three and from his early teenage years began developing the system of reading and writing for the blind and visually impaired that is used today.