From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Within minutes of opening his mouth to announce an official review of Leaving Cert and university results last week, Batt O’Keeffe was doing his bit to make the case for those bemoaning falling standards in our education system.
“I’ve asked the State examinations commission and the HEA and my own senior officials [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
It’s nearing the end of her shift, and Ciara is exhausted. She can no longer feel her fingers as they fly instinctively across her keyboard.
But she can’t afford to stop now for a coffee, or to exchange a few words with one of the 500 colleagues occupying the [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism,
By Natasha Walter
Virago
Reviewed by Jennifer O’Connell
It’s always a pleasure to hear someone else admit they were wrong. And when that someone else is a pre-eminent feminist, playwright and Guardian journalist, there’s not so much pleasure in some quarters, as barely-disguised glee.
Natasha Walter is most famous as the mouthy [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Michelle Obama found herself in hot water recently after she launched a strategy aimed at combating childhood obesity. The US First Lady spoke frankly about her eldest daughter’s weight, controversially revealing that Malia’s body mass index was too high at one point.
Her purpose in doing so wasn’t to [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
I thought we’d said goodbye to the lazy, casual misogyny that once characterised so much public discourse in this country.
But lately – like acid-wash denim, Charlie Bird and interest rate hikes – it seems to be on its way back.
Perhaps it’s the recession; maybe it’s a [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
In the last 24 hours, I have read roughly 57,626 words.
I know this because I kept a diary.
For a while now, I’ve had a niggling suspicion that I’m not reading anymore; that my brain has responded to the cacophony of noise and chatter to which it is constantly [...]
From Strong Language » political:
First published in Sunday Business Post, Ireland
Oct 6, 2001
By Margaret E Ward
Sculptor Michael Richards spent his last evening on top of the world. After watching Monday night football in his studio on the 92nd floor of One World Trade Center with fellow artist Jeff Konigsberg, he knuckled down to the work [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Last Saturday morning, several hundred people in a handful of cities in Britain and elsewhere around the world waved their families a cheery goodbye, and headed off to engage in a mass suicide attempt.
Like members of some slogan t-shirt wearing cult, they congregated in large groups at street corners. They stood [...]
From Jennifer O’Connell:
By Jennifer O’Connell
Jean Treacy didn’t have a hope. The primitive courtroom sketches were never going to cut it.
Even if the gardai had whisked her out of the Central Criminal Court in a UFO, it was only a matter of time before the one-time mistress of Eamonn Lillis was gazing out [...]
From Newspaper Man: Last week we got the news that Emily O’Reilly, the Information Commissioner, had decided to rule against The Sunday Times on an important Freedom of Information request. A copy of the decision should be up on the Office of the Information Commissioner’s (OIC) website soon but here is the copy I [...]
