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— village June - July
Villager
Landy has shown us how young readers can
be energised to care about books and read-
ing”. Serves him right for sponsoring a short-
list that included Cecilia Ahern’s PS I Love
You, described by the Irish Times as “wildly
popular chick-lit”, Bill Cullen’s It’s A Long
Way From Penny Apples, as well as Heart and
Soul by Maeve Binchy, Lessons in Heartbreak
by Cathy Kelly, This Charming Man by Marian
Keyes and Keane, the ghost-written autobiog-
raphy of Roy Keane. Which all goes to show
the low standards that apply on the ether, par-
ticularly in internet polls. Useless, really.
► top o’the mornin’, surr
Good to hear Áine Lawlor celebrating to the
great global Irish public just before signing off
at the end of June ’s Morning Ireland, pro-
pelling us, beaten but proud into the day. Her
excitement? That “such a prestigious” news-
paper as the Wall St Journal had devoted half
a page to an editorial noting how “mature”
Ireland’s workforce had been in dealing with
cuts – few strikes, little violence etc – not like
some they could name. In fact the Wall St
Journal’s editorial page is notoriously right-
field – doctrinaire, sceptical of man-made
climate-change, anti-Palestinian. Still, it mir-
rors the FT of May which quoted SIPTU
leader Jack O’Connor: “Let’s assume we could
win an industrial battle for a better deal we’d
still have to deal with the deficit. I think it’s
better to protect what people have and avoid
confrontation”. No surprise, then, the FT also
reported under the headline ‘Osborne looks
to Dublin for a lesson in prudence’, that UK
Treasury officials are now picking their Irish
counterparts’ brains as to how the Irish gov-
ernment “has managed to take the axe to pub-
lic spending without unleashing Greek-style
civil unrest”.
► village arrests blair,
basically
Occasional Village Brussels correspondent,
David Cronin arrested nice-guy war crimi-
nal, Tony Blair, during a scheduled visit to the
European Parliament. He said “It was only when
I saw the glow from Tony Blair’s tan that I knew
I couldn’t chicken out”. Cronin says Blair looked
at him with an expression that seemed to blend
puzzlement and contempt (his ‘Gordon Brown’
face perhaps?). The attempt was inspired
by the ‘Arrest Blair’ campaign that George
Monbiot, another Village correspondent, has
instigated. Britain, France and Belgium have
all ratified the Rome statute, which entered
into force in and covers the activities of
the International Criminal Court, referring to
the crime of aggression. In Cronin’s view, the
war that Blair and George Bush declared against
Iraq was such an act. Luckily Ireland doesn’t
have any native war criminals otherwise we’d
never get any copy from our activist writers.
► drumm’s new properties
share his ‘distress’
One-time Anglo Irish chief executive, David
Drumm who is suing his former employer for
‘mental distress’ hasn’t lost any of the busi-
ness savvy, that served this country so well, if
reports emanating from Cape Cod are to be
believed. While it’s been reported that Drumm
- who owes EUR.million in unpaid loans to,
well, the taxpayer - has started a new business
venture advising clients in Boston, little has
been revealed about the new fund’s intentions
beyond the usual corporate waffle employed by
the financial sector. Delta Corporate Finance
was described by Drumm as “a boutique con-
sulting firm offering bespoke, high-touch advi-
sory and transaction services to CEOs, senior
management and the businesses they run”. But
that’s not what we’ve heard. Villager under-
stands that DCF (which until February
th
was known as Harborlight Capital Partners)
intends to buy ‘distressed properties that are
currently underwater’ and wait for ‘an upturn
in the market’. That’s negative equity to you
and me. And they’re a growing problem for
the Obama administration. But distressed
Section properties are a different thing.
The US Department of Housing and Urban
Development’s ‘Section ’ programme spon-
sors subsidised housing for low-income fami-
lies, homeless and vulnerable US armed forces
veterans who qualify. Section tenants have
protected rents and a guaranteed payment
that comes from the US government. Some
are limited to specific apartment complexes.
Thus cushioning their owners somewhat from
the harsh realities so beloved of venture cap-
italists everywhere. And theoretically leav-
ing them well placed to take advantage of any
‘upturn’ in the market when it does come. That
in turn, makes them particularly attractive to
those with pockets deep enough to bide their
time. Drumm’s lavish lifestyle is a world apart
from the impoverished life now being led by
many pensioners who lost their life savings
when Anglo had to be taken over by the state.
Is there nothing the ‘mentally distressed’ wiz-
ard could do to alleviate their distress?
► re-classing universities
As an interesting, if intriguingly ignored,
antidote to Britain choosing Oxbridge grad-
uates as PM and deputy PM, and facing a
choice of Oxbridge Labour Party leader-
ships candidates, Guardian and Village
contributor, George Monbiot, backs the riot-
ously clever suggestion first proposed by
the journalist Peter Wilby, that Oxford and
Cambridge should offer places to the top one
or two pupils from every school, regardless
of grades. The next-best universities would
offer places to the pupils who come third and
fourth, and so on downwards. It would make
particular sense in England, but would not be
lacking in appeal here either.
► editor’s docklands’ fetish
‘Village editor leans on Villager again’: he says
he wrote letters in , wearing some sort
of environmental hat, to Brendan Howlin’s
Department of the Environment before it insti-
gated the Docklands Authority (DDDA) saying “as
we approach the Millennium it is unacceptable to
simply impose and outside development author-
ity to control the development of an area. The
drafting and implementation of a general area-
based Framework Plan should be undertaken by a
broadly-based sectoral forum operating as a part-
nership along the lines suggested in recent guide-
lines from the Department of the Environment. In
he also claims to have sent a complaint to
the Standards in Public Office Commission about
the relationship between Sean Fitzpatrick, Lar
Bradshaw, the DDDA and Anglo. He also noted
that Board member Angela Cavendish was a busi-
ness associate of Sean Fitzpatrick and that Board
member Dónall Curtin was married to the head
of private banking in Anglo. And went into some
detail about the Glass Bottle Site and some other
overlooked sites also.Seaun Fitzpatrick started
muttering about McCarthyite witch-hunts. SIPO
rejected the complaint on the grounds that the
‘conflict of interest’ legislation and regulations
don’t cover the relationship between a public
company and someone who is banker to people
who make money from that company. Villager
says if the editor was any good he’d have made
more noise about it.
► south africa 2010
Villager hates Eurovision but loves soccer (the
editor won’t allow either into his magazine).
The World Cup will keep all of us enthralled
hoping our enemies don’t win (indeed it’s a
pity anyone has to win). But South Africa, one
of the most popular countries because of its
successful conquest of Apartheid, has serious
problems that are easily glossed over. It is one
of the most unequal and erratically governed
- countries on earth. The UN Human
Development Index calculates that .
of South Africans live on less than two dol-
lars a day – up from . % a decade previ-
ously. According to the South African Medical
Research Council, life expectancy has fallen
by years in the same period. Against this
background, the spending of three and a half
billion Euro on the beautiful game is going to
attract ire.
► beyond pollution
It’s always good to see beyond the immediate
problem and draw lessons. The worst envi-
ronmental disaster in US history – the oil slick
in the Gulf caused by BP’s rig blowout, should
prompt reflection on disasters generally. The
precautionary principle suggests avoiding
risking catastrophic, even if the risk is low.
Cutting-edge drilling techniques backfired
off the coast of Louisiana. Nuclear power is a
similar phenomenon. In a world where some
people want to cause devastation to the impe-
rialist West the small risk of devastation to
nuclear plants makes it too dangerous to be
viable.
Villager was interested to read that Robert
Kennedy Junior, believes that dodgy former Dick
Cheney offshore vehicle, Halliburton, may emerge
as the primary villain in the BP rig blowout: “The
blowout occurred shortly after Halliburton com-
pleted an operation to reinforce drilling hole
casing with concrete slurry. This is a sensitive
process that can trigger catastrophic blow-
outs if not performed attentively. of
blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico since
were attributed to poor workman-
ship injecting cement around the metal
pipe. Halliburton is currently under
investigation by the Australian
government for a massive blowout in
the Timor Sea in caused by its
faulty application of concrete casing”. Villager
thinks Cheney and Halliburton were other risks
too dangerous to be viable.
► gormley gets it right
Pity to see so many on the left slagging off
Gormley’s plans to impose water charges to
fund water infrastructure. The Left often
claims that this is double taxation. But this
misses the point. If you accept that the envi-
ronment is a legitimate policy goal then you
have to accept that taxing for environmen-
tal purposes is acceptable, indeed desira-
ble. The polluter pays is a good springboard
for a move away from penalising (i.e.) tax-
ing people for working. Any inequities can
be righted by adjustments to social –welfare
laws to avoid water- or fuel-poverty. Such
remediable inequities are not enough to
undermine the legitimacy of taxing for envi-
ronmental purposes.
► germany’s kate nash
Villager was out that night but it was good
to hear that Germany triumphed in the
Eurovision with Lena. Lena bounced around
and sang in a sort of Dick Van Dyck Cockney
“there’s now escipe”. When she won, she
informed Europe “I’m not strong enough to
take this the whole time. Oh my Gad”. At least
greater Europe rewarded the Germans for its
economic fortitude and capacity to share.
Unlike the profligates in the UK and Ireland
who came third last and last respectively.
► struggling media
Villager was horrified to see that the Sunday
Business Post’s holding company, Thomas
Crosbie Holdings lost .m Euro in
and that the Post is said to be responsi-
ble for losses of around m Euro annually
– apparently leading to the recent resigna-
tion of Tony Dinan as managing director,
after thirty years with the Examiner group.
While the Post is all a little more right wing
than would be allowed in these particular
parts, and publishes quare views on some
things (and Tom McGurk), it does break
many a good story. Village, after a period
under other management when it managed
to lose almost this amount over five years,
now loses next to nothing – as will be shown
in its exciting forthcoming accounts. This
is because it runs on a very thin shoe lace
indeed, as proofreading aficianados will
have gathered. Villager extends his thanks to
all loyal readers and can here announce that
things have improved under a management
in hypocritical thrall to the Ryanair school
of cost-slashing (times ten), and thanks to
increased advertising, to the extent that by
year’s end it expects to revert to monthly.
► hero
Almost a year ago Phoenix magazine offered
the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign
space to publish a -page supplement on
Palestine. Four activists collaborated on edit-
ing the supplement, which concentrates on
Israel’s - assault on Gaza, the subse-
quent Goldstone Report, and the call for sup-
port for an international campaign of Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
The IPSC launched the supplement at a
press conference in Buswell’s Hotel on th
May. Present were, among others: TDs Chris
Andrews (FF) and Aengus O Snodaigh (SF,
who subsequently was prevented by Cypriot
authorities from joining the Free Gaza flotilla),
Senator David Norris, trade unionists Michael
Taft, Anne Speed and Jack O’Connor, and
Adnan Shebab from the Palestinian Delegation
to Ireland. Absent were - the media. Even the
redoubtable Ian O’Doherty of the Indo, who
had savaged the supplement in advance for
featuring a Hamas (“terrorists’”) statement
and threatened to show up and vilify, could
bring himself to put in an appearance. For the
moment, the supplement will continue to be
available separately from the IPSC (http://
www.facebook.com/l/ebd;www.ipsc.ie/
phoenix/) and friendly bookshops for the
price of €. O’Snodaigh incidentally was pre-
vented by Cypriot authorities from joining the
Free Gaza flotilla, though Fiachra O’ Luain,
whose travails in the European Parliament
election-count in Ireland North-West fea-
tured in the March Village, made it out of port
but, was detained in Israel after Israeli com-
mandos murderously and illegally stormed
the flotilla.
► the hand of god
Did you see Cowen’s palm emerging over the
side of that vintage Bentley or whatever it
was) as he opened yet another of his unvi-
sionary motorways. Villager has never seen
a palm that has so clearly been through the
mill and is looking for suggestions as to
what Cowen could possibly have been doing
with it. In any event, he should keep it under
wraps.
