I was sitting at my desk in a small office in Ballincollig when John burst through the open doorway, “A plane has hit the World Trade Center!”
My office, a few years later.
The rest of the day was a blur, but someone found a TV and set it up in the next office, where John and Una worked, I think. We went in and out looking at it and keeping an eye on news sites.
It’s hard to say for sure, but I think it was the first time I became aware of the World Trade Center. This was 2001. I’d only left the country a couple of times, and never been to the US. In an age before we were so connected the world wasn’t so small.
It didn’t matter because the enormity of it soon became clear, and the horror was plain to see. I remember being very upset that evening.
“Make no mistake, empathy is not weak, or woke. And by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.”
While I have your attention, watch this video, where Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson interview Jane Fonda. It’s a great interview where you’ll learn about her activism and her life.
SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station and the first thing I notice is that they are probably one of the few groups of strangers on or off the planet who can safely hug right now.
Aaron Feis threw himself in front of students and was shot protecting them from a gunman during a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Another staff member, Scott Beigel, was also killed while ushering his students into his classroom out of harm's way. Image found on Reddit.
Hi everyone, my name is Sid, I'm a Junior at Stoneman Douglas and I'd like to share my story of what went on in room 1214, the third room that was shot into by the shooter, and where Nick Dworet (second to top right) and Helena Ramsey (second to bottom right) were killed. 2:20 PM – We are working on the laptops doing an online activity when we hear about 10-15 gunshots outside of our door. Everyone scatters and from about 25 kids, two groups were split in different corners. I was in the corner that is immediately to the right of the entrance, Nick was in the back right corner that could be immediately seen from the entrance. The group with Nick and Helena were trying to form a barricade with a cabinet and a computer cart (one that holds laptops and charges them) but without even 20 seconds to react, the shooter comes to our door and starts shooting through the window of the door. He was shooting at the corner that Nick and Helena were in as well as about 12 other students with them in that corner. Nick got caught in the fire and died immediately, Helena also got caught and was shot twice in her chest. I was in the opposite corner so I couldn't see his body because a cabinet was in the way, and I'm thankful that I didn't witness his body because it probably would have affected me much more. A girl told me she had to use Nick's body as a shield once she saw he was dead immediately 🙁 Here is an edited version of the map to show the corner where I was hiding (blue), where Nick and Helena were (orange) and where the shooter was shooting from (red). Thank you for the support you have been giving. And if any of you came out to the vigil yesterday, I have no words for how happy I am that you came to support.
I honestly have no idea what’s happening here. Were the customers inside there closing accounts? Is that reason enough to close the branch and lock them inside?
Why would security guards drag a woman into the bank? Was it because she was attempting to take names while she was outside the bank? Can they be charged with common assault? I presume she wasn’t trespassing as she was on the pavement.
Athens has become a battlefield of late. The country has to save 28 billion Euro by 2015 or risk default. I’d ask how the hell that happened but then all you have to do is look at the mess Ireland is in. Sure, they’re very different situations but the end result is the same. Recession and austerity.
How did things get so bad in Greece? This post might go some way to explaining things.
You see, as precipitous as the rise in national debt has been over the last couple of years, it is still amateur stuff compared to the way we piled on the debt between 1981, the year of ??????, the Change, ushered in by a massive 48% majority, (Time coverage here) and 1993, when the Maastricht rules finally started to bite and we were forced to pull the handbreak on our burgeoning government budget.
Didn’t the Irish Government do something like that in the 70’s? Borrow and borrow and borrow again? Cue Charlie Haughey’s famous quote in 1980. Even though he was living the high life the rest of the country suffered through a bad recession in the 80’s, as it is now..
I don’t know what’s going to happen in Greece. The impression I’ve got from the media here is of a country of self employed people who mostly don’t pay taxes and where jobs go to family members (rather than on merit), of a massive civil service that people aspire to join rather than go into private business (due in no small part to the fact that family members get the best jobs). How depressing but as an outsider looking in I don’t know what’s fact and what’s fiction!
For more, follow some English speaking Greek people on Twitter:
If you’ve been watching the news you probably missed the bit about the protests in Spain recently. I certainly haven’t heard anything about them on Irish radio stations and among those I follow on Twitter only Allan Cavanagh seems to be talking about it. Spanish TV stations aren’t talking about it either apparently:
Meanwhile, Barcelona TV has a cooking show; TV1 is covering an actress with depression; TV3 (Catalan) discussing bass guitars. #acampadabcn
He linked to a very distressing video showing Police brutality against unarmed protesters in Barcelona. Unfortunately (or thankfully depending on how sensitive you are to violence) I can’t embed it here.
I remember years ago a Spanish friend warning me that the Police there weren’t to be messed with, and she was only referring to traffic police.
THIS IS BARCELONA. THIS IS IN SPAIN WHERE YOU WENT ON HOLIDAY. WHAT THE HELL?
Where were you when you heard? My wife and I were relaxing in the sitting room of the Dingle Skellig Hotel when we heard that Michael Jackson had died. An elderly couple across the room had the Irish Examiner and were poring over the news.
I remember the day he played in Cork. I lived in Blackrock, only a mile and a bit from the stadium, Pairc Ui Chaoimh, where he played to a sold out audience. That day my French exchange student arrived by ferry and spent the evening in bed recovering from the trip. I hung around the house since I didn’t want to be away in case he woke up.
I could hear the glorious pop tunes from my front door and I longed to walk down and sneak into the grounds around the stadium for a better listen, but nooooo, I bloody well stayed at home. He never woke up. He slept through until the morning! Argh!
Thankfully my wife has better memories of the day. She was there, and even before today she’s said it was the best concert she’s been to. She has mentioned it several times over the years. She remembers the 15 year old teenager with tears of joy as MJ sang “Man in the Mirror”. She went on and on about how he played all his hits rather than pushing “the new stuff” nobody knew yet.
*Sigh*. Jean-Jacques, I wonder if you’ll ever read this. I don’t hold it against you, but I should have had the sense to wander off down there!
Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.
uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.
