Maman Poulet

All to be discussed on The Wide Angle on Newstalk 106 at about 9 a.m. Saturday with myself, Pat Carey T.D. (FF), John Gormley T.D. (Green), Phil Hogan (F.G.) and Liz McManus T.D. (Lab.)

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Or maybe they did not understand the question? Perhaps they were living apart the night the census took place… Nevertheless maybe there should be a tribunal into the missing same sex couples in Ireland.

The number of same sex cohabiting couples recorded in the 2006 census was 2,090 compared with 1,300 in 2002. Two thirds of these were male couples.

Read more about the changing Ireland in the CSO Census report.

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What you mean you missed it? Don’t worry so have a lot of people.

The Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2007 is currently going through the Oireachtas. Contained in that bill is a clause that will mean that private developers in the many areas of Dublin will be able to tell buyers that nobody on social welfare is renting in the area where they are building.

How is that the case? Well in a few weeks it will be the law that any area under regeneration will not be accessible to anyone in receipt of rent supplement. The builders and the land owners seem to have done a deal so that they don’t have to provide housing for people even if the government are paying for it. The government tried to do this without introducing a law in Ballymun of all places a few years ago. Now they are making sure that this apartheid is legal.
In the bill as amended by the Dail and due to go before the Seanad the clause reads

Section 25

…..(3B) Subject to subsection (3C), a payment referred to in subsection (3) shall not be payable in respect of a person’s residence where his or her residence is situated in an area notified to the Minister by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government as being an area of regeneration for the purpose of providing for greater social integration.

An area of regeneration for the purpose of providing for greater social integration? How socially integrated will an area be if families on low incomes, older pople, people with disabilities and others entitled to rent supplements will not be able to live there??

If one lives in the area already and is receiving rent supplement then one should not be affected. However that too could change. And then as many already know finding a landlord who would take rent supplement was hard enough.

Therefore those who rely on the private rented sector for housing and receive supplement will be forced to live in areas where accommodation is not regenerated, where there is no real social mix, and where the government have not done deals with builders and private property owners to banish the poor.

So the affordable housing (20%) deal has been shown to be a load of rubbish with builders doing deals with councils to absolve themselves of their responsibilities, and now in areas where they rent out or own properties they will be able to say that those who could never afford to buy any house or apartment will not be renting theirs either.

Ah yes Bertie we can all see what the next step is!

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Late last year Simon McGarr launched a competition and a website called Votetube. Lots of us think it is a great idea. Some of us had organised a conference on politics and blogging the election and there was talk about the impact of uploading videos and elections.. Some politicians take to blogging and videocasting on their blogs. Ah there may well be something in this…

Mary Harney sits behind a desk and tells us all we can’t really see how good the health service really is as we keep being told how bad it is. Lots of comments of her video style ensue elsewhere.

But then this week the use of You Tube and video uploading/social media as a response in Irish politics really arrived. Shame about the beard but I am wondering who will be next in political thicko’s line of sight.

Simon, you were right, never doubted ye but wondered how long we’d have to wait for it to kick off. So how’s about
getting the camcorders out for the general election campaign and telling the story as it would be terrible if this was a false start!

(*Apologies for not embedding the videos in this post – I can’t figure it out like many other things to do with wordpress. In fact I hereby offer dinner to a patient genius who will sort out my blog for me and make it work the way it should.)

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(I’ve been rambling on about this in my head as I travel about town today…I’m publishing the post even though it’s not quite worked out yet and I might not be in tune with my thoughts in order to engage in the comments it inspires either but that might change too.)

There is discussion ongoing about Kathy Sierra and the threats that were made to her, her reaction to them, and other bloggers reactions to them. The links are too many to list – try technorati and prepare to spend hours reading about it all. (And make sure you are feeling ok about reading some fairly disturbing thoughts along the way.)

I think I had only read Kathy’s blog once before in passing, I regularly read Robert Scoble who has taken a week off blogging in solidarity with Kathy and I sometimes read the blog of Maryam, his wife who has also been threatened in the recent events which are now being investigated by police in the USA. I don’t know who did what, why or how. But the issues of women blogging are raised in all of this. However even if one talks about women who blog and how it can be different to be public online, one can get attacked or questioned. So women are silenced again.

I have not fully worked out what I think on all of this but I am thinking about it because something strikes a chord. Recently I received a comment to a post which told me I was truly a reflection of fallen human nature.

That and a few others made me think for a minute and then chuckle and indeed adopt the phrase above as some sort of trophy.

Some people don’t like anonymous blogging, I understand it and indeed appreciate it’s existence for the richness of the subject matter that anonymous bloggers provide. And when one thinks of the the issues people blog about and the exposure that some receive I think we have to see why some people hide. Anonymous commenting is the same – I welcome it – I filter comments but only for spam.

When I walk down the street or go to an area I am unfamiliar with or at a time of day I would rather not be out, I am concious of my gender. I have had cause in the past to experience acts of violence against me because of my gender. I choose to blog and have my name attached to my blog and to also publicly comment as a blogger in the mainstream media. Does this make me fair game for online personal attacks? I have experienced similar in online communities where my persona both virtual and real has been attacked by both men and women – and yes it is something one has to adjust to and find a way of coping with. But should attacks not also be challenged and the gendering of some of these ‘attacks’ pointed out?

There is a gender issue about what Kathy has described and what she is feeling and indeed in what has been written. Other women have been pondering it also. Via Feminist Law Professors I came across this quote from a post by Dr. Violet Socks – which should instead become my trophy…

Every time I read somebody saying that patriarchy doesn’t exist anymore, feminism’s won, etc., etc., I think, try being a feminist blogger for a while. Or if you already are a feminist blogger, wait a bit until the shit finds you. Or try doing online research on anything connected to feminism and find yourself shoulder-deep in a slime pit of woman-hating so toxic it makes you want to weep with fear and despair.

I have not experienced anything in the way of attacks online which Kathy has described. The fact is I think about it and I fear it and it affects how I blog. And I often get immersed in feminist online research and reading that is a slime pit of women hating that is so toxic that it makes me upset and is written by both men and women. That for me is food for thought.

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Many thanks to the Ouch blog for telling me about a film I definitely want to miss. Those of you without disabilities may not know about the way in which disabled people are portrayed in films played by able bodied actors, seeking cures and falling in love with our ‘carers’.

Blind Dating (cringe….) scores on all three fronts and oh read the offical site blurb about the movie…

A hilarious comedy about Danny (Chris Pine), an intelligent, confident, handsome young man who also happens to be blind. Not that he’s letting that hold him back — for the most part, Danny refuses to let his visual impairment get in the way of anything. 

Ah yes handsome people can too be disabled or disabled people can also be handsome…. I’m confused… And get this our lead character Danny (played by some actor who no doubt will do interviews talking about how he got in character for the role!) is amazing cos he refuses to let being blind get in way of anything.

Oh yeah Danny is also a virgin – which of course is usual for us poor unfortunates cos we never get laid unless we get cured or fall in love with one of our carers….

Pardon me while I ….

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That’d be the deposit that’ll be taken away because in Dublin South Central Frank McNamara does not have a hope of getting a seat for the PD’s. Flying in off his piano stool from Dunboyne, (that’s Dunboyne, Co. Meath!) Mr McNamara has spent this afternoon on Liveline defending himself.

One of the last times I saw Frank was himself and his wife addressing a Pioneer Total Abstinence Association youth conference about 16 years ago. (yeah I had a very underspent rather than misspent youth!) So when I heard him being asked by a caller about Civil Unions and same sex partnerships I waited for his reply. And I waited.

The pause ended with him saying that she did not favour same sex marriage but did favour civil unions. And then he hoped that the question went away. (Interesting that a caller thinks that this is an election issue – my post on lesbian and gay issues and the general election is forthcoming!)

Whatever about Colm O’Gorman running in Wexford (he lives there and was born there!) and having a background in social policy and legislation and the like, Frank is more than a bit more removed from his potential electorate and like Rock the Vote, he too seems to believe in April Fools and that the voters of Dublin South Central will too forget the joke and vote for him.

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What will happen when one clicks on the new Fianna Fáil skype address link? Maybe all those people with disabilities living at home or other places on waiting lists for Personal Assistants could have a laptop with skype brought to them to ask FF what the next step will be for them?

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Apart from Ireland’s first entry into the Blookers… this stunning news from Sinead brings three words to mind….

Ross O’Carroll who???

(And Twenty no comments about Ross being a fat cunt in my comments please… a southside c maybe…)

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Now at this stage if you are a regular reader of Maman Poulet you’ll know that I think that Rock the Vote have a few organisiational problems – well more than a few.

Now yesterday Rock the Vote went around telling everyone about Cillian Murphy – the actor – and I’m wondering if Cillian is indeed registered to vote? Since he has not been home since last July and all….And he’s married and lives in London with his wife and child.
And Dara O’Briain the other celeb namedropped yesterday is based full time in the UK according to his agent’s website. Where is his vote based?
So that’s the two people that the Executive Director of Rock the Vote spent time yesterday telling people were going to Rock the vote and neither of them is resident in Ireland – and probably they don’t have a vote and if they did they are probably not entitled to it.
Only thinking like….with the people behind Rock the Vote that’d be dangerous…

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