Author: George

I recently came across the word ‘Vranyo’ in an article written by Michael Binyon in the Times. (14/09/18) It comes from the same people who brought us Glasnost and Perestroika and is one of those words that sum up a whole story in one word. For those too young to remember, Glasnost and Perestroika  were penned in the 1980’s and 1990’s to describe Mikhail Gorbachev’s program to make Soviet society more open and transparent. Vranyo, on the other hand, covers the rest of modern Soviet history and has become more meaningful  in the time of Vladimir Putin’s leadership.

Michael Binyon describes Vranyo as, ” meaning to tell a lie that you do not expect anyone to believe but that is told purely to save face. (The Times, 14/09/19)

This approach to the truth has been amply demonstrated by Mr Putin when he has made statements about the Crimea, Ukraine and the Skripal assassination  attempt. Winston Churchill had a view on the Soviet attitude to the truth, ” the Russian Bolsheviks have discovered that truth does not matter so long as there is reiteration . They have no difficulty whatever in countering a fact with a lie which, if repeated often enough and loud enough, becomes accepted by the people.” (Churchill, 1950)  Mr Putin, of course, is not the only politian to tell lies and a politician at the other end of the spectrum has something of a reputation in this regard. Although the Mueller report cleared Trump of spying for Russia and left the question of obstruction open, the presidents truthfulness or, lack of it became evident in the report. There is a kind of a childlike view of the truth with Trump, nothing cuddly or innocent  but low and cunning when  cornered. If we could transport little Trumpy back to earlier times and ask whether he cut down the apple tree, after a millisecond pause, he would respond that he couldn’t tell a lie and that it was the Brits who did it! There is something of a thread here, although one must be very careful in using any material applying to the President as so much of it is generated by the ‘anything but Trump’ camp, The Presidents language has a childlike quality to it. I am not sure that I would go as far as Emily Shugerman when she writes in the Independent that Trumps vocabulary is at the level of an 8 year old (Independent, 9/01/18) but in a way what you see is what you get with Trump and it seems to insulate him against accusations that would sink another leader.

I don’t think that Donald qualifies as a purveyor of Vranyo as he lacks the cold calculating, disciplined intellect that Putin possesses. However, we do have practitioners closer to home in the shape of our local muppets Statler and Waldorf, played by Mick Wallace and Clare Daly who returning from a trip to Venezuela declared that there is plenty of food and no humanitarian crisis there.(The Sunday Times, 21/04/19)  If the Red Cross were paying any attention to messers  Daly and Wallace they would be a little surprised as they have just delivered medical equipment, generators and medicine to Venezuela. Someone should also tell the UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock  who warned that “an estimated seven million people were in dire need of humanitarian assistance”  (BBC News, 17/04/19) This represents some 25% of the population in Venezuela.

Since 2014 an estimated three million Venezuelans have emigrated from the country citing a collapsed economy,  hyperinflation, food shortages, health issues (e.g. the return of malaria) political oppression and lawlessness. Statler and Waldorf didn’t seem to bump into any of this in their travels. One of the three million emigrants criticised  Waldorf’s claim saying that, “It is either a huge sign of ignorance or a huge sign of blindness, that Daly is saying there is no hunger in Venezuela.” ( The Sunday Times,21/04/19) To follow the theme of the essay so far, we have to ask the question as to whether Wallace and Daly are speaking Vranyo or, a straight lie (lozh) or, suffered from blindness. Just to make things interesting I think that it is a combination of all three options. I think that there is a political blindness that doesn’t accept that any socialist country can fail. I think that the lie is the things they must have seen and heard but refused to acknowledge  and I think that she exercises Vranyo when she talks about the one sided media and presumably lumps in three million emigrants, the Red Cross and the UN humanitarian chief in that group. Well done the Muppets!

Referenses

The Times, 14/09/18, Michael Binyon, Lies, dammed lies and lies you don’t expect anyone to believe.

Winston Churchill (1950). “Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948”, London, Cassell https://www.azquotes.com/author/2886-Winston_Churchill/tag/lying

The Independent (UK), 9/01/18, Emily Shugerman, Trump Speaks at Level of 8 year old. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-language-level-speaking-skills-age-eight-year-old-vocabulary-analysis-a8149926.html

The Sunday Times,21/04/19, Rosanna Cooney, Venezuelans Enraged by Daly’s Denial of Hunger.

BBC News, 17/04/19, Venezuelans receive first Red Cross aid amid crisis, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47960734?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cp3mvpm3933t/venezuela-crisis&link_location=live-reporting-story

Well, what’s the Blog about today? Judging from the title something to do with the Borrowers perhaps or,  Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free  Men?  Hard to believe that this is an extract from a ‘blistering attack’ on men (Irish Independent, 08/03/19) delivered by a government Minister. Given the quote, you will be surprised to hear that it was delivered by the Minister for Higher Education, Mary Mitchell O’Connor. So, not entirely that far from the land of fiction and make believe.  The Minister was announcing the creation of 45 women only professorships in advance of International Woman’s Day and complaining that there was a lack of interest from men. Well not a total lack of interest but measured as, “… small, as in teeny-weeny small.”

I am not quite sure how to approach the speech as reported in the Independent. Certainly, Margaret Hickey went straight for the throat in her article in the Examiner entitled, Women-only Professorships a Triumph of Optics over Policy. Her main thrust was on the lines of ‘physician heal thyself’   referring to the low representation of women in the Fine Gael party and in the government as a whole.

Well, it just shows it comes down to optics, and lobbying too no doubt, and it is as crass a piece of social engineering as one could find. The worst aspect of it is that it does a disservice to women.(Irish Examiner,19/11/18)

Margaret was not holding back there but she has a point in that the Minister has picked an easy target in implementing discrimination or, affirmative action in the education industry whilst failing to look at her own glass house. At this point I must state that the other sneaky policy of funding parties according to their gender balance should also attract condemnation. Confidence in democracy depends on there being a secret and unconstrained vote and any social engineering by the government to ensure that only the ‘right choices’ are presented to the electorate are fundamentally distorting the democratic process and contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. (see note) To get back to the Ministers plan, what we are seeing is the doctrine of equality of outcomes. We have seen this in the explanation that Hilary Clinton gave for 52% of white women voting for Trump in the 2016 election. The thinking was that  there was no point polling white  women because they, as victims of the patriarchy, would obviously vote for a woman candidate. When they voted for a somewhat bizarre candidate, the only explanation Hilary  could think of was that they were misogynistic. In other words, if there is an imbalance in the gender equation or, if the party line isn’t followed then it must be down to discrimination.

David Quinn in his article (Sunday Times, 25/11/18) points out that it is not that simple and the Department of Educations own gender equality task force has found that, “… in the past 10 years, 30% of applications for professorships were women and 28% of those promoted were woman. Women made up 32% of applications for associate professor and got 31% of those jobs.”   If that is the case, it would suggest that women have a very high success rate when applying for promotion which we wouldn’t expect to see if there was institutional bias in the system. Part of the reason for the imbalance is the stereotyping of gender roles by girls making study choices. In the case of STEM subjects a study showed that, “of 1,500 girls between the ages of 11 and 18 and 2,500 women aged 19-23 in the UK and Ireland found 30 per cent felt Stem subjects were better fitted to boys’ brains, personalities and hobbies.” (Irish Times) The article goes on the describe various initiatives being undertaken by the business world to change this view but it also shows that the real way to sustainable changes in the gender balance is to have equal opportunity rather than outcomes.

I am glad that Margaret Hickey raised the next point . She says that, “There is plenty of research to show that women value work/life balance more than men and not just women with young children. Success at work even stellar success does not deliver happiness and often women get that before men do.” This is a difficult case to make as, with some  justification, it has been criticised for being the argument of the  ‘patrimony’ to keep women at home and not to maximise their potential. However, in the struggle to prove that women are as good as men there is a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As in the Clinton example we should be careful of committing ourselves to one explanation of events , to the exclusion of all others.  I think that the measure the Minister uses of absolute outcomes may suit the political argument but misses the true outcome of increased choices for women. To understand this we must accept that there is more than one way to success. The current measure of how many CEO’s or professors are women is only part of the equation. Women may decide that the current societal  model is not for them and make different choices that do not match our preconceptions. We can see this in the pressure for a better work/life balance that does not fit the political and ideological models used by some women’s groups.

Part of the package that the Minister is selling is not only reliance on an over simplistic and dated model but also the concept that equality between the sexes means that woman are the same as men. This is the logical result of focusing on outcomes and insisting that there should be a 50/50 split in the workforce.  The Minister has been very selective by not only ignoring her own party but also not taking affirmative action in the case of the gender imbalance in the health and teaching industries for example. Using her own arguments there should be a very large number of men only appointments for teachers and nurses which are heavily biased towards women. I would argue that there are a number of reasons for this imbalance and would suggest that the better solution is that men should be encouraged to  seek employment in these sectors. Like the girls who think that STEM subjects are more suited for boys perhaps boys need to be convinced that the caring professions  are not exclusively for girls.

There is another threat to the Ministers plan that is blowing in from the campus’s of the U.S. If we have accepted that women are the same as men then isn’t it logical that gender is a state of mind rather that a matter of biology? Janice Turner has  documented the expulsion of Martina Navratilova from an advisory board of the LGBT sports body, Athlete Ally.(The Times, 23/2/19) Her crime is that she opposed the self identification of male athletes as women, so that they could compete in women’s sports using their physical advantages to win.

The Emperors New Running Shoes doctrine dictates that biological sex does not exist: all that counts is the amorphous inner feeling of “gender identity” . (The Times, 23/2/19)

This has created another step in the hierarchy  of victimhood and has given woman’s groups some difficulties. What is the situation if a transgender man self identifies as a woman and applies for one of the Ministers woman only professorships? An unlikely event do you think? The case of Karen White, formerly Stephen Wood, illustrates what happens when you substitute ideology over common sense. Wood was 18 months into a sentence for gross indecency against a child when he self identified as a woman and demanded a transfer to a woman’s prison where he committed further assaults against the inmates. (The Times, 08/09/18) Something that was entirely predictable and put the safety of women below that of political dogma.

The problem is that if you live in the Ministers bubble you become separated from the very people you represent. The more you base policy on outcomes and ideology and only listen to single issue activists, the more you distance yourself from reality and end up with Clintonistic logic. Unfortunately, there is no political dividend in creating more choices for both men and women in partnership, as today we have to have an oppressor and a victim and  ‘if you are  not for us, then you are agin us’. I would suggest that there are two reason why the Minister didn’t hear any applause from men on this issue. In todays environment it is difficult for a man to make any public comment on gender issues without being identified as the oppressor and shouted down. If you support that line then you shouldn’t be surprised by the resulting silent and passive resistance and growing resentment of men. The second reason is that men and women, in the real world, just don’t see that logic. In the main, fathers with daughters, wives, mothers etc  and women with male relatives don’t see each other as the enemy and don’t see discrimination as the solution to the problem. They understand that things have to change but life is a little more complicated than the slogans on the placards  suggest. Provision of day care facilities for children and equal parental leave are practical steps in the right direction. The changing nature of employment and higher take up of third level education by women is another positive trend.

I think that the Minister needs to  break the glass floor and bridge the gap between the elitist polemic she currently espouses and the reality of her constituents every day life. Take this ‘teeny-weeny’ step Minister and you might be able to hear what people really think about your policies.

Note The Supreme Court has given leave for Brian Mohan to challenge the constitutionality of funding based on gender quotas as set out in Sect 42 of the 2012 Act,

The Irish Independent, 09/03/19, Katherine Donnelly, Men Have ‘Teeny-Weeny’ interest in Gender Equality.

Irish Examiner,19/11/18, Margaret Hickey, Women-only Professorships a Triumph of Optics over Policy https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/women-only-professorships-a-triumph-of-optics-over-policy-886200.html

Sunday Times, 25/11/18, David Quinn, Jobs for the Girls do Women No Favours

The Irish Times, 4/10/18, Peter McGuire, Stem Steps Up to Win Women Over, https://www.irishtimes.com/special-reports/diversity-inclusion/stem-steps-up-to-win-women-over-1.3641047

The Times, 23/02/19, Janice Turner, Male Bodies Don’t Belong in Womens Sport.

The Times, 08/09/18, Janice Turner, Trans Rapists are a danger in women’s jails

I had just finished a blog and was casting around for another subject when I saw an article on the Serena Williams implosion at the US Open in September. I had kept some cuttings on the subject but hadn’t done anything about it until I saw India Knights piece in the Sunday Times in the same month. Still doing nothing more than digging out the original cuttings I saw the incident referred to once again by Jo Konya in the Mail, Well I can take a hint and I reread the cuttings to see whether my original concerns still valid.

The facts behind the incidents are that in the US Open final Williams was penalised for three code violations, the first for throwing her racket to the ground; the second for receiving coaching during the match and finally for verbally abusing the referee. As the tennis correspondent of The Times reported,

“A read of the grand slam rulebook, something from which players and some pundits would benefit, showed that Ramos was undoubtedly correct n each of the three code violations that he issued…” The Times

We have to stop at this point and decide whether we agree that the rules were, in fact, broken before we enter into the furore that followed. All three offenses were caught on camera with her coach further admitting that he did coach in contravention of the rules. The argument from now on is not whether it was right that she was punished  but whether  the rules were equally applied. In her post match press conference Williams said, ” I can’t sit here and say I wouldn’t say he’s a thief because I thought he took a game from me. But I’ve seen other men call other umpires several things. I’m here fighting for woman’s rights and for woman’s equality and for all kinds of stuff …. ” (The Times) She went on further to say that the Umpires remark was sexist and that no man had lost a match for calling the Umpire a ‘thief’. Having pressed the gender button we may pause to note that at the time of her outburst, men had been fined 23 out of 33 fines imposed at the Open and that her fine was at the lower end of the scale (The Times). The other thing to note was that she was not penalised for just one offense but for the sum of three violations.

This cut very little ice with The American National Organisation for Women who pressed the racial  as well as the sexist button. Both Sue Barker and Billie Jean King joined in with King claiming that, “when a women is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and penalised for it” (The Times) This is a theme that was picked up in India Knights article in the Sunday Times. Her take was that women’s rage was considered unfeminine and out of character by a misogynistic society and therefore had to be controlled. In contrast men who had a ‘short fuse’ were somewhat admiringly regarded as being  red blooded and alpha male. I wonder what world India Knight lives in where boorish and bullying behaviour is applauded?

In anyone’s world, “to threaten, with the help of a few expletive, to shove a tennis ball down the throat of Shino Tsurubuchi” (The Times) is unacceptable

This incident occurred during the 2009 US Open when Tsurubuchi called a foot fault. Two years later Williams imploded again,

“I truly despise you” Williams said to Asderaki before later expanding on her thoughts during a change of ends. “I promise you, if you ever see me walking down the Hall look the other way because you’re  are out of control. You’re a hater and you’re just unattractive inside.” (The Times)

I wonder what Knight would have said if a man had made the same threats to the same female officials? Note in all of these incidents there is little discussion on the facts of the case but an immediate ‘fall to the ground’ to claim victimhood. There is some equality in the fact that Williams can sink to the level of the worst male offender but I assume that is not something that Knight and the other Williams supporters would choose to celebrate.

Mathew Syed wrote a sympathetic review of the problems that Williams has had to face to get to where she is (The Times). He describes a constant series of overt and subtle forms of racism that she suffered and applaused her championship of equality and woman’s rights. He also understands that sometimes the decisions that go against Williams can appear to be a part of the general discrimination that she has suffered on a daily basis. However, in this case he argues that sometimes, ” … heroes can cross the line in their personal conduct and can sometimes claim prejudice in specific circumstances where non exists.”

In her tirade against Ramos she said, “I have never cheated in my life. I have a daughter and I stand for what’s right for her.” What lessons should her daughter take from this particular episode? Should it be that any woman can match any man in a race to the bottom? I disagree with the view that a women’s anger is hysterical whilst angry men are admired but I suspect that society holds woman to a higher standard and that may be unfair. Should the lesson be that any unfavourable action against a woman can be attributes to sexism and victimhood? I refer to this as the ‘fall to the floor’ gambit and as  Jo Konta says “I’m all for equal rights but I don’t necessarily always agree when you don’t like something, you brush it onto the inequality carpet and say because I’m a woman I didn’t get this,”(Mail Online)

I think that Serena should say to her daughter that she has had to fight hard to be where she is and sometimes all the tension and emotion overspills and she says or does something she regrets. The right thing to do is to lead by example and say that this time she was wrong and she should offer an apology to Ramos however much some of her supporters will see this as a betrayal. In the end her daughter should see the sense of fairness and compassion that was shown to Osaka at the victory ceremony when Williams asked the crowd not to boo and spoil Osaka’s day.

References: The Times, 10/09/18, Stuart Fraser, Umpire was not Sexist – Serena Broke the Rules

The Times, 10/09/18,Mathew Syed , She endured a lot but should apologise

The Sunday Times Magazine, 16/10/18, India Knight, Serena Williams, like all women, is entitled to her Rage….

Mail Online, 22/11/18, Mike Dickson, Everyone is human, including Serenahttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-6423275/Jo-Konta-believes-Serena-Williams-wrong-accuse-umpire-sexism.html

I didn’t vote for a second term for Michael D, not because I feel that he is not qualified for the job but that he is too qualified when measured by the old time political metrics. Don’t misunderstand me, at the first election he was the only one who understood the constitutional role and limitations of the Presidency. I had hoped that his promise for a one term Presidency meant that perhaps this was the final fling of the political consensus that sent an old politician to the Aras for a nice retirement, leaving the major centrist  parties free to ignore an inconvenient and expensive election. But leopards don’t change their spots, especially old ones. Once Michael D had his feet under the Presidential Desk at the Aras for seven years the prospect of unemployment seemed less inviting. Had either of the two Mary’s  made this about face there would have been outrage but because it was Michael D, no one was really surprised. No one was surprised about delaying his decision to run so that opponents had to scramble to seek adoption by councils that were on holiday. No surprise either that they would have no time to build a campaign or, that he was suddenly so busy that he could only debate on his terms. This was old style and typical of the smoke filled rooms that gerrymandered politics of the past.

I had hoped that with the election of Presidents Robinson and McAleese that we had broken with the past and signalled a new approach but the only change was that the smoke filled rooms are now non smoking.

Does it really matter? Michael D is a safe pair of hands and will not disgrace Ireland by choosing the wrong fork at the Heads of State dinners. He occasionally shows his Old Labour affiliation as with the panegyric to his old Soviet comrade, Castro but does anyone really care? After all he ‘creamed’ the vote even with a low turnout and Leo has agreed to shorten the term to five years and look at the cost of the Presidency. The problem was the Casey vote. I have argued in the past (Sinn Fein ) that we are sleepwalking into a situation where support for the centre dissolves and dissipates to the Left and Right extremes.

John Lahart said “The Casey vote has to be heeded and acknowledged or it will escalate into something larger and we will have our own Nigel Farrage  style politician in the making” (Sunday Times)

The only thing that I would dispute with the above is that because the right is noisier and they feature in the Press more, that we ignore the extremists on the Left. Be that as it may there is a feeling of frustration in the Country that Lahart has identified. This is not because Casey is particularly popular or has anything worthwhile saying,

as Fintan O’Toole said,” Casey didn’t create an audience – it found him”. (Irish Times 27/10/18)

The Editorial in the Sunday Times (Sunday Times 28/10/18) described the current political status as a,” suffocating consensus that was slowly killing robust political debate.”  Indeed the subtext to Michael D’s acceptance speech was that words hurt and difficult and possibly painful issues are best not aired in public and best left in the safe hands of the centrist liberal elite. I have argued elsewhere that  this arrogant attitude, together with the breakdown of trust with the political class,  has increasingly frustrated the middle ground voters.

The matters raised by Casey were not the main issue but,” … by actually speaking his mind he managed to breach the stultifying political correctness that sanitises most statements made by our career Politian’s,” (Sunday Times 28/10/18) 

We always believe that we are different, what happens to others will never happen to us. We should take the lessons from the Presidential election of centrist indifference and frustration of the middle ground and ensure that we do not make the same mistakes as others.

references: The Irish Times, 27/10/18, Finton O’Toole                                                The Sunday Times, 28/10/18, Stephen O’Brien/Justine McCarthy, Higgins Keeps Crown.                                                                                                                                  The Sunday Times, 28/10/18, Editorial, Election shows we need a Party to Break our Consencus.

I would think that it is fairly rare that one day after the implementation date of a new Act that headlines such as ‘Drink Driving Laws too Weak’  would appear(The Times 27/10/18) . However, this is the Act that Minister Ross introduced to appease public pressure to do something about the mess that are the RTA’s and their policing. It was also a Bill that was heavily criticised, not for the proposed penalties but for any realistic attempt to reform the rickety structure that governs enforcement of the Road Traffic Acts in Ireland. I wrote an essay on the subject in July, using data mainly drawn from an RTE program and the basic issues that were raised were not addressed in any serious way (.At the Stroke of a Pen) In summary the main recommendations were:

1. A reformed and properly resourced traffic corps.
2. Consolidate the RTA’s to reduce the possibility of legal loopholes
3. Ensure equal application of the law in all Courts
4. Enforce the banning orders. Compliance is currently estimated to be  around 35%

Politicians believe that passing a law solves a problem but it is obvious that unless it is resourced and enforced that we are only tinkering with the matter, I would repeat my closing question from my July essay.

How about it Minister? Do you think that yet another Amendment will cut road deaths or, would joined up enforcement make a bigger difference?