Dublin Zoo & Fianna Fail

I wonder if the nominations will be reopened on foot of this letter?

Madam, - Why would Maggie, Dublin Zoo's orang-utan, choose this week, of all weeks, to attempt an "escape" - after 26 years in residence?

I suspect it is a gesture of gratitude to the nation that has given her a home all these years. I think she knows there's a vacancy to be filled. After all, didn't another Maggie once lead the British Tories? Clearly, Maggie has shambled forward to serve the nation in its hour of need. I urge Fianna Fáil to reopen nominations. - Yours, etc

DUNCAN J MARTIN, Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary.

Via Ireland.com's Letters Page

Why I love the Irish Times Letters Page

How I love the Irish Times Letter page, first thing in the morning. If I had my way, I would extend he letters page into at least two pages and scrap the Crossword, give sudoko another two games and add horoscopes, but thats just me being lazy and not wanting to have to go online and find my horoscope every day. Anyway in todays' Letters pages two delightful contributers are writing in about the Civil Marriage debate. Anybody who has been reading here, or knows me personally will be aware of my opinion on this issue [if it hasn't already been stuffed down your throats enough. :-) ]. I particularly enjoyed the first of these letters from Brian Connolly of Birmingham, MI, USA and his rebuttle of Prof. Casey's assertations regarding the raising of children is ideal in a family of one father and one mother...oh wait sorry I misquoted, a "married father and mother", god forbid we would include anybody outside the box. A stable caring family unit provides the best option for a child. It does not matter if they are gay or straight. A child eventually grows up to be an adult, and personally (yes I am biased, but i'll acknowledge that) I would much prefer to see families of all kinds recognized under Irish law but more importantly that these families be protected under Irish Law.

• Irish Times Letters Page
• MarriagEquality
• Real Families (UK)

Irish Times Letter: Texting in the Dáil

I havent seen a good letter in the Times that has brought a smile to my face in a while so this one popped out of my Google Reader like a pen to paper when an assignment is due the following day. And while we are on the subject of the Dáíl, can somebody tell the TD's that they really need to be sitting in on all debates in order to make an informed decision.....OH WAIT sorry thats right we have the whip system.... its ok...my bad...

TEXTING INTHE DáIL

Madam, - Would someone tell Olwyn Enright of Fine Gael to stop texting
while on the front bench in the Dáil? It looks very bad - and I have never seen
any other TD do this.
The camera caught Ms Enright texting twice during the
course of the Oireachtas Reports I have seen since Christmas. Even children in
school are not allowed to use mobile phones during class! - Yours,
etc,
FLORENCE CRAVEN, Maynooth, Co Kildare.

Source & Cont'd: Irish Times (No sub required)

LGBT Noise & Gay Civil Marriage

So today I took part in a protest with the new group 'LGBT Noise' on Sth King st. (I think, yas should know how shocking my geography is.lol). Anyways I arrived at 12ish, and firstly because it was bleeding freezing out, despite my heavy jacket & scarf, I needed a fantastic White hot chocolate from Butlers on Grafton st.(Stephen's Green end). I did eventually warm up and was beginning to feel my feet again but not until after the Carols had begun. Anyway I was amazed at the range of people who showed up today; maybe it is because I have always been involved in events in Limerick so I knew who everybody was or half-knew who everybody was. However I was genuinely amazed at firstly seeing Sen. David Norris, a man whom I have the greatest of admiration and respect for but then to see Katherine Zappone and Anne-Louise Gilligan as well, well needless to say I was very impressed. I do sometimes find it quiet hard to speak with people I don't know. Mainly because I don't know what to say, but when it is people whom you admire, for a whole host of reasons, then the walls just build and build.

The reasoning behind this protest/Carol Service was to give some momentum behind a push for civil marriage in Ireland. As the website states:

"The purpose of this event is to create an awareness of the need for FULL equality for gay people and to let the public know that Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered (LGBT) people no longer wish to remain second-class citizens under Irish law. The current government is promising to publish the heads of a bill for same-sex civil partnership in Spring 2008: Bullet points for discussion, not commitments to equal rights. This bill promises to demote rather than promote equality and is an insult to all who believe in human, civil and equal rights"

Doing the Masters that I am doing, has this year given me a whole new lease of life. I have begun to see things in a completely different light and also a recognition that while change is hard as hell, change is always necessary when inherent inequalities persist. While this was a view I had in the past, I think i have finally realized how hard it is to fight for something continuously when you know you should have it from the beginning.

I am Irish. I am a Constitutional Republican. I am a citizen of my wonderful Ireland. Yet my wonderful Ireland, in all her Constitutional Republican virtues, refuses to bestow all the rights and privileges which she gives to those who are married to me or any of us who identify as Lesbian or Gay. Instead, my wonderful Ireland will next year bring forward a piece of legislation which will apparently bring "equality" within my community. Well I say that this Civil Partnership/Civil Union is not equality. Equality which has restrictions is not equality. It is another institutional bloc which exists to prevent people from participating fully and openly in Irish society.

There is only one way to have equality between those who are gay and lesbian and those who are straight and that is the complete equalization of relationships in the State institution of Civil marriage. Those who argue that Gay marriage is not constitutional should examine their Government's own report on this, which says that the only way for full equality is for Gay Civil Marriage. It is also of note to point out that marriage has never been defined as one man and one women in the Irish constitution. The only piece of legislation which was brought in on this was the Social Welfare Miscellaneous Act in 2003, which specifically defined marriage as one man and one women, in order to further stigmatize and institutionalize homophobia within the Irish state.

I yet again call on those who read this blog to voice their opinions to all in their power. Make representations to your local T.D.s, get involved in a campaign, Support a Campaign, but ultimately get out and make some noise because be dammed sure that nobody else is going to do it for you. You are the only person who knows your story well enough that you can recount it. As the cliché goes "Be the change you want to be yourself". However as much as a cliché as that is, it was Mahatma Ghandi who said it.

The changes in the Leaving Certificate exam Timetable

So another Social Irish Institution, bends and changes to the needs of our educational customers.Minister Mary Hanafin (T.D.), has decided after listening to the responses from students from the last Leaving Certificate exam, to change the timetable for the first three days.

English, Maths & Irish will now be spread over the whole exam period and this move will mean that some 156,000 students will benefit from this measure. It was said yesterday on Mary Wilson's show that only 90 students will be affected by the new timetable, in that they will have the combination which will happen on the first three days.

All I can think of is, well it never did me any harm, but I don't deny that stress levels in those first three days go off the scale! This is a good measure and sure to appeal to those new voters who will come on stream in time for the Local Elections in 2009. Now Mary all you have to do, is ensure that you get them all on the Electoral register.

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Revised Leaving Cert timetable will ease writing burden

Seán Flynn, Education Editor

The huge writing burden on Leaving Cert students in the first week of the exam will be eased from next summer.

The new timetable will result in many of the heavier writing subjects being spread out over the course of the exams, instead of being "frontloaded" into the first few days.

Students, for example, will no longer be asked to take two "heavy" papers like geography and business on the one day.

In another change, each of the two papers in Irish, English and maths will be taken on different days.

The reforms were pushed through by the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, who has been critical of the intolerable burden placed on students in the first week of the exams.

However, the Minister has been forced to abandon her plan for a two-tier Leaving Cert, which would have seen English Paper 1 (featuring the essay and comprehension questions) taken on a Saturday morning in May. School managers claimed this would have put huge new pressures on schools.

Despite this setback, Ms Hanafin said the "new revised timetable is the most significant and student-centred reform of the exams timetable in decades".

Under the new timetable, most students will get at least one half-day without any exam in the first week

Students taking both exams on the first day will also have their time spent in the exam hall shortened by 50 minutes, compared with recent years when the two English papers were taken.

Last night Ms Hanafin said: "While exams are always a test and an acceptable level of stress is a normal part of any testing procedure, I think the new timetable is very student-friendly."

Source & Contd:Irish Times