Ignore Myers Campaign!!

dictatorcat

He's at it again and will possibly continue to do so for some time. Myers has gone from being a somewhat respectible mainstream columnist to a common muck shovelling tabloid journalist. His writings are now simply designed to provoke a reaction to the point that i no longer think he actually believes what he writes, and if he does he should be worried. The frustrating thing is that by becoming angry, and responding to his opinions we are playing into his hands, making him a more valuable member of the gutter press employed by the Times.

Hence i propose the following movement, The "ignore Myers" movement. By not expressing any opinion on his writings, by not writing letters of complaint, by not even acknowledging his existance, he can be defeated!!! Apathy is his Kryptonite.


From todays times:

An Irishman's Diary
Kevin Myers



How heartening to see Catherine McGuinness unveiling the Irish Human Rights Commission's proposals for a constitutional amendment to outlaw direct and indirect discrimination.

The grounds it cites are - deep breath - gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religious belief, membership of the Travelling community, language, political opinion, property, birth or political status. Phew.

Now. The next question: is there a single category which I do not find reason to object to? Let's start with gender. Should men be allowed to be full midwives, without chaperones? Should the Ranger Wing of the Army accept applications from women? Answers on one side of the paper, please.

Next, race. A Nigerian is opening an ethnic Nigerian restaurant in Dublin. What do you want the staff to be - Lithuanian, Russian, Irish, Chinese? Or would you prefer that they are Yoruba, Ibo or Hausa-Fulani? And when you go to a Japanese restaurant, wouldn't you prefer to be waited on by a Japanese waiter - or "wait-person" as the politically cretinous expression now goes? You would? You racist!

Category number three: age. Yes indeed: so we can all claim pensions whenever we want, and children can drive and vote and enter medical school and perform heart transplants, and the Army - yes, my friends again - has to consider applications from infants and nonagenarians.

Colour comes next. All right, in the absence of sufficient number of Nigerians in our Nigerian restaurant, who do you want to wait on you: Conor or Emma from Sandycove, or a Ghanaian or Kenyan who will at least look the part?

Disability. Hello, and here comes the Army again. And An Garda Síochána. And the fire brigades, and ambulance services, and buses, and airlines, because you can't have one-legged soldiers or police officers or bus-drivers or in-flight attendants who have to deal with emergencies.

Sexual orientation. A good one. After all, we have thousands of paederasts in Ireland; with their vigorous interest in children, we should certainly open the gates for them in their preferred careers as teachers, paediatricians, youth workers, scout masters and Montessori-minders.

Religious belief. Ah, so the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin is appointing a head teacher to one of its schools and so must consider applications from Tibetan Buddhists, Iraqi Muslims, New York Jews, East Belfast Free Presbyterians and English Mormons? A thoroughly sound idea.

Membership of the Travelling community. What is that, please? Where does the legally binding definition exist, as opposed to the working one used by councils? Does the term apply to New Age Travellers? And what about Touregs? And if the wife kicks me out of my home, how long do I have to be on the road before I too qualify as a Traveller?

Next, language. In which case, bang goes all those Gaeltacht grants for Irish-speakers, and bang goes Conradh na Gaeilge and Údarás and Comhaltas giving jobs to Irish speakers, and bang goes the entire language policy - and good riddance too. And so we have an air traffic controller who, in fluent Swahili, is guiding the jumbos one by one into Carrantouhil, boom boom boom, and a Korean-speaking hospital consultant who is performing a hysterectomy on a woman who only came in to clean the office.

Ah, and here comes the lawyer to take my complaint for discrimination after my application to become a shower attendant in Alex senior girls' school was turned down, and I see that you are both blind and deaf, and you speak what? I'm sorry, I can't make that out: can anyone translate? What? Commanche only, eh? Excellent! Now all we need is to choose a Commanche judge and a Commanche jury - except, of course, that would be illegal.

Now we have political opinion - and who can fault that? Which is why my Eskimo solicitor is suing Sinn Féin after it turned down my application to be general secretary: apparently there are a few trifling differences between us. But trifling or otherwise, these are no grounds for me to be excluded from working with the Shinners.

In the final stretch now, we have property: quite right too. It is outrageous that Tony Ryan, Tony O'Reilly and Michael O'Leary are not on the Dublin Corporation housing list. Something Must be Done.

Coming up to the finishing tape, and next we have birth: from which I can only conclude that the IHRC is adamant that the unborn must have equal rights with the born. Thus we shall have all those little foetuses square-bashing in the Curragh, sitting on extra tall cushions in the driver's seat of the Luas tram, and presenting, in fluent foetus, my court case against Holy Child Killiney for its refusal to admit me as a pupil into its third form.

Getting closer now, and the final one is "or other status". Which in effect means anything. You can't act? In other words, you are an unactor. Then good news! The Abbey has to take you. You've got a voice like a toad being wound rear feet first through a mangle? Irrelevant: you're singing in Wexford Festival Opera. You can't write? Here, have a job writing An Irishman's Diary.

So here we are again, back to using the Constitution as an expression of our national piety. Once upon a time we had meaningless, lofty aspirations of Catholicism, and others about the unity of the island. These were followed by a ban on abortion, which ended up having precisely the opposite effect to that intended. Nearly 20 years on, and we apparently still haven't learned anything. So let's have one final referendum: a constitutional referendum outlawing all further referendums.

mike65

You've failed already!

Mike.

..and I can't disagree with much in that article either....

dudara

I laughed my head off reading that article. I don't always agree with Kevin Myers, but I always read him. He's a verbose, self-important jornalist, who manages to iritate more often than not, but occasionally comes up with gems.

I have to say that there is a lot of truth in that article. And I'm glad that the Irish Times permit him to have his say. We live in a democracy after all. We're all allowed to rant here on boards. Myers is just fortunate enough to have the Times to rant in.

D!ve^Bomb!

to the OP, Do you realize the fact that you are contradicting yourself just by mentioning this article and actually posting on boards where people will actually read it?

_blank_

Fair play to him for that article, tbh.

koneko

Yes, you really proved your point there by posting up an article that makes a few interesting points... He's clearly insane!

magpie

So here we are again, back to using the Constitution as an expression of our national piety

Good Work Kevin.

banquo

LOVE kevin myers. he's a terrific writer, whether or not you agree with him.

Lex_Diamonds

Bravo Kevin, perhaps one of your greatest works.
Whoever the original poster was, I cant be bothered to scroll up, please leave.

Thank you.

Winters

/me holds thumbs up.

seamus

Moved from AH

Kingsize

interesingly enough RTE have had a very successful "unactor" policy in action for a very long time,coupled with an elite group of "unwriters" fair city still pulls in the ratings

Maximilian

Roflmao @ dictatorcat - the irony.

Great Article btw. Kevin Myers is class.

shelsfan

Thank God somebody makes those points in the media, otherwise there would be no discussion on moB's etc...

flogen

shelsfan wrote:

Thank God somebody makes those points in the media, otherwise there would be no discussion on moB's etc...

Well the Doctor who wrote the report that got Myers all rilled up said that Myers intervention didn't help discussion on the matter, he was so aggressive in his rant that he was instantly dismissed as ignorant and his point was lost.

Saying that, this piece isn't too bad, some of it is a bit much but more in a "oh shut up" kind of way than a "that's racist/sexist/ageist" kind of way. Pretty much all of his points are fair shots at a the culture of ultra-PC

flogen