Sean O'Rourke Today Show

alaimacerc wrote: »

Oh dear. This spluffer again. He's to the Gardai what Iona is to "moral issues". Doesn't seem to represent anyone, certainly isn't elected by anyone, is rarely off the radio giving out "we're grand as we are, no need for change whatsoever!" yards.

Who is this?

Joe Duffy seems to have him on speed dial too. I wonder does he get appearance fees.

alaimacerc wrote: »

That'd be him, yes thanks. Forgot his name from the intro, was too lazy to check the running order.

It wasn't his worst contribution, to be as fair as I can. But one gets rather inoculated to his little pieces after a while. Rtd mid-level garda harumphs his way through the latest garda issue, rather pompously insisting that it's not an issue at all.

I mean, we do already have numerous not-technically-a-union gardai unions for all that!

He has all the answers now when he is retired. :rolleyes: There are a few others who are on the RTE playlist too, similarly endowed with buckets of superannuated wisdom on how to police properly.

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Supd. John O'Brien (retired), I assume based on when that was posted.

Seemed like a fairly sensible contribution to me, he was talking about the Frederick St. occupation, and the issue of Gardaí wearing balaclavas.

Ahem..... Chief Supt.....:D

Thanks Tyrant. I think that by and large he is reasonable and generally knows his stuff.

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

just listening back to this now, love the name Bunty Tuntingdom McFuff (aka Norma Burke), who's putting herself forward as a presidential candidate, calling for a reality tv show called 'In your Áras'.

She made herself a 'joke' candidate to object to the dopes who are making themselves candidates for the presidency, purely to further their popular profiles.

She's dead right.

And she definitely wasn't doing anything like that herself of course.

alaimacerc wrote: »

There's about three or four of these securipromoflakcrat types, and I think These Various Programmes, as Irish Pictorial Weekly might say, pretty much have them on slow rotation. Occasionally you'll get a detectable bit of "expertise", but generally they're just laundering the same agenda they had the previous time they were on.



Exactly, hence the Iona comparison. Get a Quinn, an O'Brien, or a Steen to say something reactionary and theocratic that might be a bad look coming directly out of a bishop's mouth.

Mind you, previous time he was harumphing about how terrible it would be do have a Nordie in charge, so I guess he's not saying that any more, if he's taking his marching orders from the GPO! ... depending on whom the GPO is taking theirs from, I suppose.

The fellah is sorta like the animal spirit of garda institutional resistance to change.

I listened back to John O’Brien’s excerpt and thought he was very fair and balanced in his observations.

There seems to be an attitude from some that one can make an omelette without breaking eggs.

realitykeeper wrote: »

When RTE lighten the tone, what they usually end up doing is dumbing it down. I think Pat Kenny is biased on a lot of things but at least he keeps it relatively serious.

It's a good job that he does, as while he's bumptious and partisan on "relatively serious", he's excruciating when he attempts to do "light".

I personally find SO'R much better on both. But 'news and current affairs' is definitely his core competency. Going for fluffier could go pear-shaped fast.

I was a bit concerned about this, coming as it apparently did hard on the heels of the "career break" AKA "grand long holiday of Duffyesque proportions". Then I noticed the reply was to "news" that was five years old!

John McMahon does not yet seem to have reduced SO'R to Tubridy levels of inane triviality. A cheer and a half for that, at least.

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Maybe she was, but it does expose a problem with the Council's procedures: any head-the-ball can just rock up and gain an audience just because he wants to be the President.

There probably should be some filtering process, like gathering 500 signatures.

The Councils should have better things to be doing, such as working on the housing crisis, for example.

That's fair enough, but I don't think her approach is all that ironic. If anything she is the one most guilty of time wasting, at least the others (I assume all of them) are at least genuinely interested in getting nominated. As part of a proper democracy I'm glad that people have a reasonably low barrier to get themselves on the voting slip.

I genuinely don't know how many resources are required from the Council to adhere to these procedures when it comes to Presidential elections. They are only once every 7 years though, and more importantly are an inbuilt aspect of how councils are run. They are not an add-on, it's an important aspect of the work that they do. The councils should be able to take care of this process as well as their BAU stuff, and judging by the housing crisis in Ireland at present, particularly in Dublin, I'm curious if they are doing any work on this at all in the other 6.999999 years of the 7 year Presidential term as it is.

I dislike the fact that councils have such control over the process that party heads can request for them to decide a certain way, worse still when this request is not to nominate anybody at all.

alaimacerc wrote: »

Yes, you pre-announced this conclusion before you listened, too.



There is indeed. Especially from Garda old-stagers, that you can produce a modern, fit-for-purpose police force, without upsetting their entrenched habits of running matters to suit themselves. (Or more plausibly, that you can continue to pretend you're doing that, while not doing a tap of work in that direction.)

Stop putting words in my mouth, my friend, I drew my earlier conclusion from listening to other excerpts and other programmers in which O’Brien contributed.
You should really not have me correcting you on every engagement you have with me.

alaimacerc wrote: »

I ascribed no words to you. I described what you did. Do stop attempting to misrepresent me.

The two were such similar -- and utterly predictable -- sentiments that any distinction between them in your own mind is hardly likely to be of any interest to anyone else.



I really shouldn't, but you will persist in banging on with the purported "corrections". Absent yourself actually being correct about anything, of course. So I guess they'll continue, unless and until I hit ignore.

You'll be telling us again in a minute how these attempted quibbles are "senior hurling".

I have no wish to disrupt this thread or get personal, but maybe you might explain this collection of words for me.

“Absent yourself actually being correct about anything, of course”

Couldn’t quite understand that particular sentence?

I’m sure others are in the same boat.

Ta ta.

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Really enjoyed listening to the interview with Sr. Martina Purdy just now, discussing tge journey from being a BBC correspondent to becoming a nun. Sounds like an absolutely lovely, decent human being. Really uplifting stuff, would recommend giving it a listen!

Must listen back to it. I remember her well over the years from watching BBC NI news.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-32704120

You wouldn't think it was the same person!:eek:

neris wrote: »

Was that Francis "I can't handle my booze" black? Some of these "reformed" drinkers and drug users are the worst sort of anti loby

The zeal of the convert :rolleyes:

"Sean" at the beginning & end of every sentence .....