In 1994 Craig Newmark was looking for ways to improve his social life, as I often find myself doing. As I rarely find myself doing however, Craig actually bit the bullet and did something about it? he started CCing his friends a list of cool events and happenings in the San Francisco Bay Area. His friends thought it was great, and they started CCing the list to their friends. The word spread and the list grew exponentially.
Which is more important? Dry, abstract legal principles or justice, which takes account of real life, and which equalises the power of ordinary people against the might of a foreign multinational?
Near the village of Rossport, in the far-flung corner of Ireland that is North Mayo, people who have never been involved in protests in their lives have mounted a 24-hour vigil outside the largest construction site in the region. Five local men are in prison for obstructing the work in the area and a couple of weeks ago one man described what was going on there as an area in open revolt against the Government and Shell.
National liberation struggles can have different phases. There is a time to resist, to stand up and to confront the enemy by arms if necessary. In other words there is a time for war. There is also a time to engage. To reach out. To put war behind us all.
Naomi Wolf compares the new Hillary Clinton 'biography' to a new biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, both examples of anti-feminist fiction, linking real political figures to folklore, rather than telling their true histories
With terms used such as 'grossly polluted' and news that Laois is the only county with a playground for one in every thousand children, Hilary Curley finds Ireland's first performance table for local government grim reading
In most, if not all, the media coverage of the trial of Mayo farmer Pádraig Nally, the murder victim, John (Frog) Ward was portrayed as a violent, drug-fuelled petty criminal. Ward was already known to the gardaí, had 12 sets of convictions and was due in court to face charges for threatening a Garda with a slash hook.
Fianna Fáil are at the races. At the Galway Races for the annual, elite
fund-raising circus, at the races in spin, with the Government claiming to have met most of its election commitments while breaking almost all key commitments, and at the races in the next election with pundits predicting Bertie Ahern will be Taoiseach again (see page 16).
'I am in a constituency of stars, yet no one outside Tallaght really knows who I am." Charlie O'Connor, backbench Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin South West, enjoys his anonymity.
The copper beech provides good shade against the scorching sun. And if you hide underneath its thick foliage, in the most aggressive downpour, you will remain dry.