the story of my argument with geraldine kennedy

On her retirement as editor of The Irish Times this week, Geraldine Kennedy made some remarks. My own comments are interposed

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Geraldine Kennedy: "Journalists must always be aware of their role to serve the public's right to know."

James Healy: "Has the public any right to know whether KGB agents ran your newspaper during the Cold War? Has the public a right to know whether one of your staffers drew up a list for the KGB of Irish journalists to be detained as class enemies at some time in the future when Russian Communists would presumably have taken over Ireland? Has the public a right to know whether Communist agents running your newspaper after the Cold War simply reconstituted themselves as Atheistic Humanists and continued to foster and promulgate a culture war against the Catholic Church? Has the public a right to know any of this? How dare you speak of a right to know? How dare you prance and preen in plain view speaking of the public's right to know when you have colluded so arrantly in the concealment of the truth about sex abuse, namely that 999 out of every thousand victims are abused by their own family and near relatives? How dare you lie to the general public about sex abuse? How dare you elevate a tiny minority of sex abuse victims over all the rest simply to press home your vile mendacious bigotries about the Catholic Church? How... dare.... you... Madam?"

***

Geraldine Kennedy: "The most difficult  challenge as editor was the internal and external threats to our journalism. They range from the mundane, such as operating within our diminishing means, which is hugely challenging in the current economic and internet climate, to the daily and incessant demand from diverse interests to control our editorial content.

James Healy: "That's a bit of a stretcher babe. Who were these mysterious figures trying to control your newspaper? If not your old handlers at the KGB? I certainly never wanted to control your editorial content. Although I see nothing wrong in subjecting you to a modicum of due scrutiny. I was always sure your hidden atheistic agendas would put you out of business unless our corrupt governments forced the citizenry to bail you out. As for the economic climate and your attempts to cope, well done! You managed to pay yourself 400,000 dollars a year even while The Irish Times was losing a hundred million a year under your watch. That's some coping right there. Well done to Medbh Donovan your Managing Director who was paying herself the same amount at precisely the same time. I hate to think what you'd have paid yourselves if the paper was actually making a profit.

***

Geraldine Kennedy: "I know there are those inside and outside The Irish Times who found me awkward, exacting about our verification processes, keenly aware of our responsibility given our influence - but the guiding light for meme was to produce an independent quality newspaper."

James Healy: "Oh come on. We never found you any of those things. You were just another anti Christian atheistic abortionist contrareceiving divorcenik crypto marxist islamist appeaser in a long line of such scruff holding court at The Irish Times. You were the ultimate conformist Geraldine Kennedy in an age of conformity. If everyone in the room is an anti Catholic Nazi, there's nothing too brave about being an anti Catholic Nazi.. For the past fifty years, you and your coterie of pseudo radicals have waxed fat on your own idolotrous egotism. In the abortion age you sang loud the abortion song. And you bust your own newspaper. It's gone.You squeezed out an extra few years on borrowings from idiot banks and improperly placed public funds from Health Board advertising. And yeah, you continued to pay yourself and Medbh Dunnywax half million dollar salaries while your newspaper was haemhorraging a hundred million a year. Now finally the bottom has dropped out. You've no readers. The banks have collapsed because they gave so much free money to worthless smooth talking leftist incompetents like you. Nice accent. Shame about the lack of basic human principles, and, er, journalistic skills. And there's nothing left. Unless you once more con the Irish government into financing you with my money. But ah. That's another story."

a claim to future fame

in an age that is yet unborn
will come some student of the written word
to the words that i have written down
he'll look askance at my little hoard
and scratch his head
and cough and frown
then in a voice quite ponderous
my god caruthers what was all the fuss

but that night by the light of a lantern moon
he'll toss and turn in fevered swoon
he'll wake with eyes staring wide
and heart beat pounding terrified
and cry
my god i am alive

chessnutz

Our weekly chess puzzle.
*********************** *******************
Boris Spassky (USSR) versus Bobby Fisher (America)
Reykjavik 1980.
*******************
White is moving towards an assured win with his pieces lining up for serial attacks on the cornered black king. But Black found an interesting gambit to deny the prize. Can you figure it out?
*******************
Solution: Bored witless, Fisher got up from his seat and went outside to the toilet. He did not return for fifteen years, by which time Spassky couldn't be arsed finishing the game. This really happened.

the last knight of europe

Driving through Dublin in the balmy sweetness of a late June.
Ermintrude, my vehicle, is stopped at the traffic lights on Thomas Street.
I glance to my right.
And lo!
There is a car beside me with a Hot Press logo on its door.
Here's larks, thinks I.
Hot Press is a music magazine.
The car is driven by a young tidy looking yuppy.
His window is wound down.
An impulse seizes me.
"Hey Hot Press," I call.
He looks up.
"Yes?" he answers, all smiles and clearly expecting tributes.
"Libelled any good religions lately?" I roar with that famous toothy snarl many of you have come to know and love.
"Not that I know of," he shoots back, grinning congenially.
"You anti Catholic bigots," I scream calmly.
"Oh right," he says in a mollifying tone.
"Go live in Islam," I thunder. "Go live in Islam and see how many of your pornographic crap sheets the Mussies let you publish. Only in a Catholic country would shitweasels like you be allowed to have their say. And you don't even realise how lucky you are. You don't even realise that only in countries influenced by Catholic traditions are half wits like you tolerated in the public square. And then the rest of us are forced to finance your readerless bollocksology by corrupt anti Catholic ultra leftist government Maoist swine like Michael D Higgins who gives you our money to propagate his bigotries. And still we don't rise up and slaughter you. Why? Because we're too f---ing nice. We're too f---ing nice. That's what it is. You vomitous low life scum."
Coherent what!
Well up to my usual standards.
And bear in mind it was off the cuff.
Ah yes.
Go live in Islam indeed.
That old gag.
Not gramatically correct of course but he knew what I meant.
I wound up my window.
A thought struck me.
I wound down my window.
The young man looked at me a bit wide eyed.
"Er, sorry about all that anti Catholic bigot and scum talk," I tell him in kindlier tones, reaching out through the window and dropping a Heelers Diaries business card into his car. "No hard feelings, eh? Gizza job."
Whereupon I drove away.
One other thing I gotta say folks.
The young man was absolutely good humoured, restrained and professional throughout our brief interaction.
He would be a credit to any satanic abortionist atheistic nazi commie rag posing as a music magazine on the planet.