Still Waters No Longer Running, Derp.

Sarky

Was he blathering on about polls being meaningless when the census suggested a catholic majority?

Dave!

Funny comment on the JW article:

"Excellent. That was a perfect parody of one those meaning-free pieces that John Waters used to write."

Dades

jank wrote: »

I don’t like what Ronan Mullen, Eoghain Harris, Ivana Bacik and Keiran Allen among others the regular posters in the A&A forum write about, doesn’t mean I eagerly await what they write or hunt down an interview of them so that I can have something to be aggrieved at. Life is too short and out of all forums this one should really 'get' that.

Seriously. This is what you do.

Subpopulus

Is it just me or is Waters getting crazier and angrier all the time?

Turtwig

Dades wrote: »

Seriously. This is what you do.

There's interviews of A&A folk? These I simply must see.
Pretty, pretty pleaseeeeeeee.

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

Was he blathering on about polls being meaningless when the census suggested a catholic majority?

Edited that for you.

lazygal

I laughed harder than I have in a very, very long time listening to Crystal Swing on Ryan Tubridy today. It seems one J. Waters, former Eurovision songsmith, has penned the Swing's latest ditty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSxat_qAfQ8

Enjoy.

Bannasidhe

lazygal wrote: »

I laughed harder than I have in a very, very long time listening to Crystal Swing on Ryan Tubridy today. It seems one J. Waters, former Eurovision songsmith, has penned the Swing's latest ditty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSxat_qAfQ8

Enjoy.

I would watch it but I'm not feeling even slightly masochistic today. Maybe tomorrow

goose2005

I wonder if the poll had said that 95% of Irish people were strongly religious, would John be disputing the idea of polling?

Nodin

jank wrote: »

I wonder the same thing. It is clear that he is off a different opinion than most of the posters here. Why then go off and read something deliberately to get pissed off at. To come to A+A and share in a group "tut tut"? Solidarity?

I don’t like what Ronan Mullen, Eoghain Harris, Ivana Bacik and Keiran Allen among others write about, doesn’t mean I eagerly await what they write or hunt down an interview of them so that I can have something to be aggrieved at. Life is too short and out of all forums this one should really 'get' that.

I was wondering what made todays article significant. In future I'd appreciate it if you'd bring your own soapbox, and not use me for the purpose, thanks.

Nodin

Dave! wrote: »

.......

The more pressing question is why am I wasting my time in this job that I don't like... and now that I think of it, why did I just waste my time replying to your trolling...

You need the money - shooting fish in a barrell takes your mind off the pain.

Nodin

Subpopulus wrote: »

Is it just me or is Waters getting crazier and angrier all the time?

I heard a clip of him on the radio this morning. 'When people have destroyed the catholic church, what will there be to give hope a hundred years from now'......Arse, arse, arse. The only hope people have had in regard to the church recently was the hope that Sean Brady would resign, and look how that panned out.

Plus its the church thats destroyed itself.

Bannasidhe

Nodin wrote: »

.

Plus its the church thats destroyed itself.

Did Not.
Holy Mother Chruch was infiltrated by secularist, homosexualist, Athiests (who may also have been post-modernist and deconstructionist) and they led innocent holy anointed ones into temptation and the arms of Satan (who was wearing Satin to make him extra attractive) and...and....it's not their fault!!!!:mad:

PopePalpatine

John Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!-ters wrote:

Opinion polls are really no more than measurements of the thinking of what Pope Benedict XVI, speaking at the Bundestag in Berlin last September, characterised as the “bunker” that man has built for himself so he can pretend to have dominion over all things.

Of course, having dominion over all things is religion's job. :rolleyes:

Corkfeen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Did Not.
Holy Mother Chruch was infiltrated by secularist, homosexualist, Athiests (who may also have been post-modernist and deconstructionist) and they led innocent holy anointed ones into temptation and the arms of Satan (who was wearing Satin to make him extra attractive) and...and....it's not their fault!!!!:mad:

I did actually hear that concept proposed by a certain poster... :eek:

Bannasidhe

Corkfeen wrote: »

I did actually hear that concept proposed by a certain poster... :eek:

*snort*


Thankfully I wasn't drinking coffee when I read that.

jank

Dave! wrote: »

It's good to challenge yourself from time to time and see do your beliefs and ideas stand up to the points made by people on the other end of the spectrum. ...

I am sorry but that is bull ****. Listening to a few minutes of Michael Graham is NOT challenging yourself, it is utterly lazy and in fact just an excuse to re-afrim your own already made up opinions and beliefs. Sounds religious doesnt it!

jank

Nodin wrote: »

I was wondering what made todays article significant. In future I'd appreciate it if you'd bring your own soapbox, and not use me for the purpose, thanks.

You mean I am not allowed to quote you in future?

Dave!

jank wrote: »

I am sorry but that is bull ****. Listening to a few minutes of Michael Graham is NOT challenging yourself, it is utterly lazy and in fact just an excuse to re-afrim your own already made up opinions and beliefs. Sounds religious doesnt it!

Well you've asserted that, so it must be the case! Listening to alternative points of view does challenge you, and I've been persuaded or pushed back towards uncertainty on certain issues by so doing.

Why do you waste your time trolling in this forum? Isn't life too short?

CerebralCortex

lazygal wrote: »

I laughed harder than I have in a very, very long time listening to Crystal Swing on Ryan Tubridy today. It seems one J. Waters, former Eurovision songsmith, has penned the Swing's latest ditty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSxat_qAfQ8

Enjoy.

Is that serious?

Turtwig

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Is that serious?

Well with Mr Waters, it's impossible to tell if he's a Poe or not. The optimist in me is hoping that on his deathbed he'll tell us all that his articles were just one big joke.

CerebralCortex

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I would watch it but I'm not feeling even slightly masochistic today. Maybe tomorrow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex-8bLAQIrI

A hedonists alternative.

goose2005

even better parody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqNHyB7WDOg

Galvasean

Never paid much attention to Crystal Swing, but now I have come to realise that the two kids look the spitting image of two people I went to college with! :eek:

Dave!

Katie Taylor's faith makes media throw in the towel

JOHN WATERS

Fri, Aug 17, 2012

The boxer’s faith makes interviewers squirm but is intrinsic to her world view, her personality and her right hook

THE OLYMPIC victory and homecoming of Katie Taylor has been one of the most telling episodes of Irish public reality in quite a while. Before our eyes, Katie became the centre of a drama in which our culture’s developing understanding of human life and possibility became briefly visible.

Were the implications less serious, it would have been entertaining to observe the squirming of sports presenters and journalists confronted by Katie’s matter-of-fact understanding of the centrality of God in her life, their discomfiture as she expressed her gratitude for the contribution to her success of the prayers of other believers.

Each time, it was as though she had not spoken or had said something else – as though she had been talking about her training regime or wittering about the thrill of winning a medal. Her interlocutor would jump upon some smaller dimension of what she had just said, as though terrified that the “religious” dimension of Katie Taylor might cause the medal to melt.

If, instead of referring repeatedly to Jesus, Katie had referenced her aunt Margaret, or Richard Dawkins, we can be certain that there would have been lots of follow-up questions, and that the newspapers next day would have provided chapter and verse of the life, times and perspectives of the credited mentor.

But it was as if Jesus had never been mentioned, as if each of us who had heard Katie Taylor speak His name had been suffering from some odd tic of hearing that had made some other word (perhaps “busier” or “easier”) seem to come out as “Jesus”.

They tell us that Katie is a “simple” and “humble” girl. Allow me to translate: “Katie is a great girl when it comes to the boxing. We wish she were more like us and did not have her head stuffed with this simple-minded stuff about Jesus, but in the circumstances we are prepared to overlook this eccentricity.

“Normally we would insist she keep her religious beliefs to herself, but we are tolerant people and, since she is the most successful Irish sportswoman for aeons, will not make an issue of it. Please understand, though, that in our endorsement of her there is no approval of the delusions which she, in her simplicity, insists upon purveying.”

When I look at and listen to Katie, I do not detect simplicity, nor is “humble” a word that springs to mind, anymore than it might in respect of Muhammad Ali. The word that occurs is “grace”, followed shortly by “centred”, and “whole”. I see a woman inspired by a singular, irreducible idea, who as a consequence shines more brightly than gold.

There is nothing simple here: such certainty about reality requires long reflection, contemplation and asking. Humility? Perhaps – if you have in mind the idea of a human creature contemplating her place amid the dizzying firmament and understanding what power really means.

Katie Taylor understands her own heart. In her I see an intensely lived humanity of a kind being rendered atypical by the crudity and stupidity of contemporary culture. Katie is totally at ease in the world because she has come to understand reality as coherent and positive. This understanding is not an extraneous, add-on element of her personality but intrinsic to it, generating her smile, her ease, her right hook.

When she refers to Jesus there is no hint of piety or preaching. Her tone doesn’t change or shift gears. There is always the sense that she is speaking about something obvious. And when she thanks her supporters for their prayers it is as though she has never contemplated the possibility that she could have won without them. The whole thing is a seamless exposition of an understanding of reality in which boxing is just one element – and by no means the most important one.

Occasionally nowadays, the culturally imposed banality and meaninglessness of Irish public reality is punctuated by some famous sporting achievement, provoking a massive expression of vicarious triumphalism.

In the disproportionate commotion of the occasion it escapes mention that such moments increasingly serve as a destination point for the collective imagination, generating a feeling that, with the addition of injudicious quantities of alcohol, seems vaguely to pass for a “reward” for the attrition of the quotidian grind.

An Olympic medal, or a creditable appearance by an Irish team in the finals of some international competition, is proposed as something fundamental, rather than a mere passing cause for celebration. This enhanced sense of meaning can be detected not just in the intensity of the partying but in the repeated invocation of the concept of “hope”, which the sporting victory is deemed to have delivered.

And it is indeed as if such successes occur to provide a kind of hope by proxy for the entire population, for whom more enduring forms of hope are nowadays culturally inaccessible. Sport, in this schema, stands as a shield against the nothingness that is the logical end of the collective thought process, a fragile, short-lived distraction that usually ends in drunken tears.

But here’s the news, folks: the medal belongs to nobody but Katie, who alone seems to know that it’s but a token of the embrace that enfolds her.

© 2012 The Irish Times

.

coffee_cake

what the fcuk is his problem
they all witter on about being humble for jesus and now that someone backs it up he's on about another flipping conspiracy theory
how is he given ANY air or print time, seriously

Katie Taylor understands her own heart. In her I see an intensely lived humanity of a kind being rendered atypical by the crudity and stupidity of contemporary culture. Katie is totally at ease in the world because she has come to understand reality as coherent and positive. This understanding is not an extraneous, add-on element of her personality but intrinsic to it, generating her smile, her ease, her right hook.

do you know her? no? then fcuk off

Delirium

what did he expect from a sports journalist? For them to ask Katie to tell us the story of Christ? They were interviewing her about her boxing, if she mentions her faith as something that helps her get motivated to train/win, fair enough.

A sports reporter is writing for a specific audience, i.e. generally folk who want to read about sports. Why would a reporter use up valuable column inches with discussion on Christianity when they should be writing about sports?

Turtwig

Isn't Waters teaching a diploma course in journalism at City Colleges? Anybody want to enrol?

Handsome Bob

I wouldn't hold it against a sports journalist for not asking her about her faith, he or she would be going into territory that they are not trained to deal with and thus, they would probably end up embarrassing themselves AND Katie.

That being said, he made one fair point which was this:

Allow me to translate: “Katie is a great girl when it comes to the boxing. We wish she were more like us and did not have her head stuffed with this simple-minded stuff about Jesus, but in the circumstances we are prepared to overlook this eccentricity.

There is a strong whiff of this attitude going around, especially online.

Dave!

meh, if we're going the way of the UK, where a strong religious belief is considered a bit weird, then that's not a bad thing IMO. Everyone's free to have their beliefs, but some beliefs are weird, pretending otherwise is a bit disingenuous.

The person shouldn't be treated differently, but it's pretty understandable that someone might consider them eccentric for having a strong faith.