Skip to main content

School is back, so the learning continues!? – Don’t be fooled!!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
School is back, so the learning continues!? – Don’t be fooled!!

Now that the kids will soon be back in school, the parents breath a sigh of relief. Not only because now school is doing the child minding again for a large part of the day, but also because now their sons and daughters will get smarter again and learn lots of great stuff. But do they really?

If parents have the time and the energy, I would say that kids can learn a LOT more during the holidays than during the school year. Not more maths or chemistry, but more about life and about other cultures and maybe some hobbies.

In the Feel Good Slot of the Dublin Event Guide on 26 August, I quoted Mitch Joel, who said “I’m not going to let school get in the way of my child’s education.” and he refers to a big big problem. The problem is that the subject in school are very very limited.

There is no classes about Emotional Intelligence, a HUGELY important area if your kids will ever be in management or in a customer facing role or have ANYTHING to do with people that might feel stressed (and which job does not have that?). There are no classes about financial or business affairs. How to save, how to invest, how to start a business, how to market a product or a service or even just how to market yourself. And there are no classes about entrepreneurship, or how to deal with bad experiences or failures (your own or others) or how to stay innovative. OR and EVEN simpler: How to remain curious throughout life.

And the things that school teaches you are taught in a way that never occurs again! You don’t have to sit in a corner or at a table and come up with all great ideas yourself because you learned them by hear in weeks of hard work? No, in life you need to work with other people, you need to get/demand/invite ideas and suggestions and contributions from others and sometimes deal with harsh critique.

Maths and languages and chemistry and biology are definitely needed and probably with the exception of Irish all the current subjects make sense, but then the parent should try to find other teachers/mentors for their children to give them a chance to discover all or at least some of the other non-school-taught subjects.

So, Mitch Joel’s opinion “I’m not going to let school get in the way of my child’s education.” makes sense!

Education, Society, ,

“Freedom of Expression” vs “Discrimination of Women”

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
“Freedom of Expression” vs “Discrimination of Women”

On Friday it was announced that the Mayor of Cannes has banned the wearing of Burkinis at the beach in Cannes and thinking about that, I discovered a sizeable conflict in my and maybe your thinking!

I should start with an explanation, Burkinis look like a long-sleeved pyjama and they also have a form of hoodie that covers the head, but does not cover the face. In that respect they differ from Burkas (despite the similar name), which are more like a gown and also cover the face. The head part of a Burkini is more like that of a Hijab. And if all that confuses you, check out this head gear comparison here (with pictures).

Now back to the conflict that I mentioned above. The Cannes Mayor reasoned the ban with “risks of disrupting public order”, which I really don’t get and think is quite far fetched, but my concern is a different one:

I am all for Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Religion. So (as long as I don’t harm anybody else!!) nobody should be told what they are allowed to believe and what not and everybody should be allowed to express their own opinion (as long as they don’t invite others to harm anybody). To “Freedom of Expression” belongs the freedom to wear whatever clothes I want to wear. With that in mind, muslim women should be allowed to wear Burkinis on the beach if they want to do that.

But there is a flipside! Religions and rules about clothing based on your religion is usually man made nonsense and I am strictly against the oppression of women that is practised in nearly all religions and is particularly strong in Islam. And being against oppression, I think the oppressors should not get away with their ridiculous rules and we as a open and tolerant society should stop or at least hinder them from oppressing women.

Can you see the conflict? On one hand, I think women should be allowed to wear what they want, because these clothes rules is only a means to oppress them. So ban Burkas and Hijabs and Burkinis etc. But tolerance means that the woman who WANTS to wear it should be allowed. How can we assess is SHE really wants to wear it or if she obliges because of the threats by her religious leaders?

I know at least one girl who absolutely wanted to wear a Hijab, because she felt it was showing the appropriate respect to her god. And I also know muslim women who have told me that NOT wearing clothes that cover all bit of skins will expose you to such an imitating lecherous attitude in their countries that they happily wear clothes that are covering as much as possible. Sure they would like to change the attitude of the men in their world, but they don’t see that as feasible in the short term.

So, what should we do? Band the Burkini to help or allow the Burkini to be tolerant and accepting?

I know we are not in Cannes (and we don’t have a proper beach), but it is a problem that is already relevant in our society regarding Burkas and Hijabs and Niqabs.

Elsewhere, Society, , ,

Censorship or not? Maser Art and Dublin City

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Censorship or not? Maser Art and Dublin City

Dublin is never boring and Dublin City regularly gets into hot water and often enough screws up big time. Something emerged again last week that had “Big Screw-up” written all over it, but is it that?

The Background: Street Artist Maser painted a big mural on the wall of the Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar about 4 weeks ago. It was a read heart that had “Repeal the 8th” written in it. To understand that fully, you need to know that it refers to the 8th amendment, which was added to the Irish constitution in 1983 and which says “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

Supporters see it as a clause protecting life, but the flip side is that it makes abortion illegal by constitution. Now, abortion was always illegal based on Irish laws and that amendment wouldn’t have been needed, but the anti-abortion campaigners were worried back then that the other laws wouldn’t be strong enough. At the time 67% of the voters in a referendum were in favour of this amendment.

Many people’s views about abortion have changed, however in the last 33 years and these changed views do support the availability of abortion in Ireland either in a restricted number of situations/scenarios or in every situation. And since the Irish laws haven’t prevented abortions, but made it extremely difficult and emotionally stressful for women in Ireland to get an abortion by travelling to other countries, these laws are useless anyway.

Since 1981, the “Repeal the 8th” campaign has grown and become stronger and the website “The HunReal Issues”, which promotes women’s issues, has commissioned street artist Maser to create this mural in Temple Bar.

Dublin City received 50 complaints and then told the Project Arts Centre that they will have to remove the mural because it is against planning legislation. But it seems that legal situation is not crystal clear.

The Journal.ie writes “A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said that class 12 of schedule two in part one of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 “exempts the painting of the external part of any building or other structure from requiring planning permission”.” So that means you do NOT have to ask for permission to paint the external part of a building, right? But then the Dublin City folks continued saying “Murals and other artistic designs require planning permission when applied to the external part of any structure.” I might be missing something here and maybe the key is in “painting” vs “mural”, but JUST with that information I can’t see how the law was broken.

What got me at first was that the Project Arts Centre said that they never experienced any planning legislation issues despite the fact that they regularly have murals on the side of the building. If a abortion related mural was treated differently by Dublin City than other murals, that would certainly not be ok.

But then I tried to “test” a few other angles:

What if Dublin City didn’t get any complaints for previous paintings? If they don’t get active UNLESS they get complaints, then the current situation is not censorship. – What if previous murals didn’t contain a political (or commercial) message but were just pieces of art? Then it would be more about an “ad” vs a pretty picture. – And how would I feel if someone put a big promotion on a building of an idea I was opposed to? Anti-abortion murals on house walls maybe? How tolerant would we then be?

And taking all this into consideration, I can see why this specific mural is different than someone painting a pretty flower pot on the side of a building.

The mural is the expression of a free opinion and the expression of opinions has to be protected by our laws, but there are MANY ways to express an opinion and not every way has to be allowed. So, I would have a serious problem if it was made illegal to express “Repeal the 8th”, but I don’t think if one path of expression was declared as not permitted.

And, to be honest, it couldn’t have come better for the Repeal the 8th campaign: Many people (including myself) hadn’t heard anything about this mural before Dublin City stepped in. Best PR ever! ;-)

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Politics, Society, , , ,

Serious disease targets men in Ireland! – No cure found for Umbrellaphobia yet.

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Serious disease targets men in Ireland! – No cure found for Umbrellaphobia yet.

New empirical studies have shown that men in Ireland suffer from a debilitating disease that not only affects men, but also attacks their wardrobe. The disease only breaks out on rainy days, but then spreads faster than the feared winter vomiting bug until it reaches every corner of Dublin. The disease is called Umbrellaphobia and is a chronic aversion against the use of umbrellas and it can even escalate to an outright fear of umbrellas. Luckily the Umbrellaphobia disappears once the rain stop, but subsequent wet days show that it never gets cured, it only gets temporarily pushed back a bit.

This Umbrellaphobia seems to affect the brain of the majority of men in Ireland and makes logical thinking and the slightest bit of risk assessment an impossible thing. The prevalence of the disease is significantly higher in Irish males in comparison to non-irish males, but it does affect both population groups.

What happened? Last Wednesday, a wet early morning, I saw with my own eyes how Irish men in particular and many men in general have such a fear of umbrellas – or the image that the use of an umbrella might create (or destroy), – that destroying their clothes, walking around looking like a wet cat and getting drowned in the Dublin rain is preferred over using a stretched out piece of fabric, spanned over a collapsible metal frame.

I saw not one, not two, not three, no FOUR men who had full suits on, but walked along the canal with no jacket and no umbrella, looking like someone had dragged them through the canal. What is wrong with (Irish) men!? Why does a simple umbrella scare the bejaysus out of them so that they would be rather seen dead (or drowned) than with an umbrella in their hand.

Odd!! Luckily the women are significantly more logical and analytical when it comes to the rain and its effects.

Dublin, Irish, Society, , ,

First find a woman then start your drink driving ban – Legal System in Ireland

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
First find a woman then start your drink driving ban – Legal System in Ireland

The legal system in Ireland, of which judges are a cornerstone, keeps puzzling me. I haven’t checked yet how judges are chosen, but whoever does the choosing must be some odd ball or alternatively these judges become odd balls themselves only AFTER they are appointed.

The Irish Times reported about the case of a bachelor farmer in County Kerry and the Irish Examiner had a slightly different interpretation of the story. The guy is called John O’Shea and he is 60 years of age. In July 2014 he went from Mastergeeha to Waterville (approx. 9km) to get food for his cows and drank too much when discussing football. On the way home, he drove into a ditch and was found to have nearly four (!!) times the legal alcohol limit in his blood (198mg). The penalty for that will be a a 3-year driving ban and luckily, the judge didn’t indicate that he plans to deviate from that.

The solicitor asked for the driving ban to be delayed until after the summer and here starts the oddness. It seems that the solicitor asked for the delay so that the farmer can look after the cows, but the judge seemed to have suggested the 60 year old never-married farmer should find a “nice woman” that will drive him around and – possibly seeing the opportunity – the solicitor quickly suggested that he could go to Lisdoonvarna to the matchmaking festival if he still had a car for the summer.

It seems that there is a lot of stupid-talk in court rooms in Ireland and it also could be that the solicitor just saw the opportunity that the judge provided and jumped on it without having planned to go for the “find a woman” reason for the delay.

But it really makes you wonder about the ability of Irish judges to do their job. This farmer had FOUR times the amount of alcohol in himself than he should have, so he didn’t just drink a little bit more than he knew he should have, but he filled himself up. Luckily nobody got hurt, but is it really the right message a judge should send??

Odd!!

Elsewhere, Justice, Odd, Society, , ,
 
Malcare WordPress Security