Tallyman

Date for people’s diary, and it’s open to DCU graduates. Professor Horgan, Press Ombudsman will be addressing the DCU Journalism Society on Feb. 18th at 6.30pm in the Henry Grattan Building, DCU. First floor, room C104.

For more information just drop me an email.

I had cause to think of parenting and childhood today.

Neil Postman once lamented the death of childhood thanks to the idiot box. Wonder what he would have to say about the death of parenthood at times. We live in a society where adults are afraid of their own offspring once they reach the age of violence, as Theodore Dalrymple so susinctly put it.

Then I was sent the image below. Says a lot.

It can only be described as an outrageous statement and a terrible inditement of the evil that dwells in the mind of priest Patrick Hughes (82). I write of course of his attempt to distance his raping of young Altar Boys from the same activity with those sitting in the isles. In a statement to the court Hughes said he was not a paedophile. He ‘was only attracted to altar boys’.

The very fact that his statement is of court record and was broadcast turns my stomach, but it shows just how warped these members of the priesthood actually are.

His attempts to avoid a custodial sentence by showing how ‘reformed’ he was due to the treatments he received in the US do little to take away the pain of his victim. Read the rest of this entry »

Cynthia Ozick, a US writer once said: “It is the function of a liberal university not to give the right answers, but to ask the right questions.” In my humble opinion questioning one’s beliefs and challenging one’s ideals is core to a successful academic career. After all sacred cows make the best hamburgers!

DCU is my third liberal institution. I have studied in IT Sligo, and UCD, so, yes, I would consider myself exceedingly stupid.

The liberal pedagogical water boarding inflicted upon me by these establishments over the course of those five years (just about the same detention-span as a Guantanamo detainee I may add) has yet to make me conform to the left agenda. Score one for the academic terrorist! Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently I only uploaded a teaser of the Minister Batt O’Keeffe interview. I didn’t notice, even though I had forty odd emails from readers indicating as much. Apologies about this, but I changed my email passwords and forgot to update my main Gmail pop 3 details so I hadn’t received them on the Blackberry.

So here it is the full interview. Apologies again!

This interview was first aired on DCUfm in Novemeber on my show Studio One. Studio One is sponsored by The Irish Times.