GUBU

GUBU
An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Mommy Myth

Interesting article here about the pressures on mothers. Might check out the book; looks like I'd be in general agreement, altho' I'd be interested to see her opinion on breast feeding.

I've been getting a bit annoyed recently about the attitudes of other women towards breast feeding. I've done 4 months exclusive and am embarking on my 5th. I'm going to remove some of the pressure from myself and get a bottle and some formula for emergencies, but I'm quite proud of what I've achieved to date. There have been a few tears, but overall its a wonderful experience and I'll really miss it. What's so great, you might ask? Well, firstly its our private time; exclusively, since its the only thing no one else can do for him. He's thriving, so I feel really proud that not only was he literally built inside me, but I'm continuing to be solely responsible for his life. There is a pretty powerful sense of ownership when I look at him. But I'm also really happy knowing that its the absolute best thing I can do for his health. Breastfeeding protects him from disease, reduces allergies, is better nourishment, better for his digestive system; its just incomparable with formula feeding. I'm also happy that its the best thing for my health as it reduced significantly my risk of getting breast and cervical cancer.

So why are the bottle feeding Moms bugging me? I can understand the ignorant remarks of older women who were told that bottle feeding was great and that with breast feeding 'they didn't really get enough'. Newer moms know that breast is best. But they have adopted an attitude that most women 'can't' breastfeed and only the lucky can manage it. I've spent the last 4 months practically apologising to the bottle feeders for my success. The admission that I'm still feeding is followed by a string of guilty excuses as to why I'm still doing it (oh its easy for me with Dad around to help - he's a very easy baby - I'm lucky I suppose). Because God forbid I should be seen to judge the bottle feeders.

Luck had nothing to do with my success. I went to two classes before I had the baby, studied several times the best book on the subject, phoned La Leche beforehand and kept the phone numbers of 2 'lactation consultants' close at hand. Then I accepted the fact that having a baby and feeding it myself would entail 24 hour care for 3 months and abandoned any hope of a social life. Everyone knew where I was if they wanted to see me. And I didn't begrudge one hour; why have a baby if you don't want to change your life?

This did take effort, and the phone numbers were required, so why should I have to voluntarily dismiss this effort so I don't make the others feel guilty for not trying? I've no doubt some people have an awful time and despite all my determination I was still pretty vulnerable to the 'not getting enough' remarks. But the most recent figures show that about 35% of mothers are breast feeding at discharge from hospital and only 10% are still feeding at 4 months! I refuse to believe that 90% of mothers are so ill or traumatised that they are incapable of breast feeding. They just think it doesn't matter and they don't put it in the effort. And they seem to think that those of us who keep at it do so out of affectation. I swear that even some really nice women that I know are looking at me with a mixture of puzzlement and resentment as if the mere fact that I continue to feed, even with my apologies, is a rather unmannerly, show-off, stubborn, judgement on them. Well guess what - I am judging them. Especially if they start rabitting on about the dangers of immunisation and why they have to have the huge SUV so their little brats are safe. If they fed the said brats properly they'd be doing a lot more for them. Here's a report on the status in Ireland.

posted by Sarah | 00:29 0 comments

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Gay marriages

I like to think of myself as a liberal, but Darren is in a class of his own. Check out his little project. Mad. Make sure to look for the photos of the kids presenting the flowers.

posted by Sarah | 17:14 0 comments

FG entitlement to government

Paddy has been on to protest that FG have no entitlement to government. He is right of course. I've identified their chief problem. Complacency. 10 years ago if you were in opposition life was terrible. The pay was crap, there was no support staff, you were on no committees. FF have been quite clever and made life for the opposition quite tolerable. There are plenty of committees to consume one's time, the pay is pretty good now and there are plenty of staff. Being in opposition is not a bad career really. You can just tell when talking to them how relaxed they are. This is appalling of course. They should be angry. John Deasy is pretty good altho; far too right wing for me: but at least he gets pissed off every now and then and SAYS something. Olwyn Enright is an example of what's wrong. She looks great, is intelligent, articulate etc but I was on Q&A with her and I asked her afterwards why she didn't challenge Noel Ahern, Minister of State on one topic. He was terrible by the way, blathering on about something. She said "but he's so nice". Not good enough. She should have attacked him for being so uninformed. This happens all the time. People like him and Willie O'Dea are rolled out to sound nice and reasonable, and they are not being properly challenged. Where is the anger? Until they get some moral outrage under their belts, they will not succeed in engaging with the public. Must have a word with Enda.

posted by Sarah | 17:13 0 comments

Clare Short is great

She just pulls no punches.

"The UK in this time was also getting spies on Kofi Annan's office and getting reports from him about what was going on," she said. "These things are done and in the case of Kofi's office, it was being done for some time." Asked if Britain was involved in this, she replied; "Well I know - I've seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations. "

Brilliant. And of course, what does Blair say: "She's deeply irresponsible". No, Tony. You are.

posted by Sarah | 17:02 0 comments

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

E-voting and ministerial orders

Have been v. busy for a few days but good news. I'm taking redundancy from my job and can devote myself to blogging and other non-revenue related activities.

So, Martin Cullen came back from his trade trip out East, attended his first cabinet meeting and told them all to stop panicking. E-voting will be introduced whether we like it or not. Apart from the substantive issue, it seems to me that this episode illustrates some of the dangers of having a party, Fianna Fail, which not only believes in its inherent entitlement to power, but has been in power so long that it no longer sees any necessity to achieve consensus on certain issues, since it believes that its interests and the national interest are now identical. Thus, we see the frequent use of government via ministerial order rather than legislation; the MO being the instrument found unconsitutional just two weeks ago. (This was in relation to the immigration bill - it wasn't the rules on immigration per se that the courts found unconstitutional, but the fact that they had been implemented by order rather than by primary legislation).

Were it not for that court case, e-voting would be introduced also by order. Now they are required to introduce legislation, which will of course be forced through on a guillotined debate under a 3-line whip. Making such a fundamental change to our system of voting without opposition consent displays the most extraordinary arrogance. This is particularly so since no one asked for e-voting. There is no compelling argument to dispense with the existing system. The only flaws in the current system are that surpluses after the 1st count are selected randomly for distribution and that in one constituency in each election there is a prolonged re-count. The first flaw is being carried into the new system and the second hardly seems worth the expense and loss of transparency required. Minister Cullen's claimed motivation is that the new system will eliminate spoiled votes. This argument is extraordinarily spurious since the number of spoiled votes in each election is insignificant and a good proportion of those are spoiled deliberately. Moreover, I am sure that many votes under the new system will also be spoiled but we just won't be able to tell, i.e. without VVAT (verifiable voter audit trail) a voter's intention may not coincide with the vote cast. Anyway, the point is that there was no public demand for a change. Fianna Fail just thought it might be a good idea and decided to implement it without either consulting or caring what the opposition or indeed, the hoi polloi thought about it.

Now, should one argue that e-voting may be a good thing and we're just luddites (despite the fact that all my software buddies are appalled by it) one should not overlook another piece of legislation rammed through last week. This gem abolished the Civil Service Appointments Commission so that recruitment to the service can now be conducted via agencies. In a 'what did the British ever do for us?' competition, top of the list would be our independent civil service and its neutral method of recruitment. This is now gone because FF can simply distribute recruitment contracts to their buddies who will recruit their buddies and the door to a politicised civil service is wide open. If you think this is Oliver Stonesque conspiracy stuff, just go back to the e-voting. Who got the €4.5m PR contract to tell us how easy e-voting will be? Why, none other than recently established Q4; an agency run by Martin Macken, former FF general secretary and Jackie Gallagher, former advisor to the Taoiseach.

One more point: connected as I am to local politics, I've had the opportunity to observe that despite the above praise for the independent civil service, staff in government departments and county councils seem overly subservient to their FF political masters. Not only have they been in power so long - 13 out of the last 15 years - but they seem likely to remain so for possibly another 7!

The bottom line: we have now reached the point where our democracy is being attacked from all sides. We have to get them out!! So gentle-registered-to-vote-in-Ireland-reader you have little choice: You can't vote PD since they are there to keep FF in power; you can't vote for Labour - remember 1994!; it would be morally irresponsible to vote for the vigilantes in Sinn Fein and the organic potato middle class protesters in the Greens: you have to vote Fine Gael. I know they are wimpy and terribly polite and boring: you know, being honest etc. But they are the only alternative government. Don't be too disappointed; Kenny is a lovely guy.

posted by Sarah | 16:33 0 comments

Monday, February 16, 2004

More on e-voting

Paddy sends this link for more on e-voting. The bottom line is credibility. The people don't trust anything anymore. The paper ballot's most important benefit was its total transparency. No one could dispute it because everyone got to see exactly where the votes went. The behind closed doors feel to e-voting will just add to the existing sense of alienation and cyncism.

posted by Sarah | 12:45 0 comments

Thursday, February 12, 2004

Sex and the BacklashCity

Finally, irrefutable proof that Sex and the City's attempt to parade itself as a post-feminist paradise was always just glamourised backlash material. They've punished Samantha, their epitomy of sexual liberation, by giving her breast cancer. They are unbelievable. They gave the career woman Miranda a baby that she couldn't cope with. Charlotte was punished for leaving her impotent husband with infertility. Can't wait to see what they do to Carrie. I doubt if they'll let her away with dumping Aidan. A lonely singledom beckons.

posted by Sarah | 14:29 0 comments

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Electronic Voting again

Justin sends word of this website with more details.

posted by Sarah | 22:33 0 comments

Those damned elusive WMD (2)

Second favourite reason for failure to find WMD: "Its the spy's fault, not ours!"

(I distinctly remember Colin Powell doing his presentation at the UN bragging about the infallibility of their spies.)

posted by Sarah | 16:00 0 comments

Electronic Voting latest

So the government launched their 4.5m PR campaign on electronic voting today. (awarding the lucrative contract to Martin Macken and Jackie Gallagher, both former FF officials of course). The leaflet depicts a good citizen casting their vote. The person is of course voting clearly for a Fianna Fail candidate on a ballot 'paper' (i.e. screen) which contains no Fine Gael candidate.

Maybe, just maybe, they have been in power too long?

posted by Sarah | 15:58 0 comments

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Ryanair in the wars

I've sent the following mail to Michael O'Leary. If I get a response will publish here.

Dear Mr O' Leary,

First off, let me say that I rather stupidly did not
bet on your horse Economy Drive at the point to point
in Clegarrow/Rainstown some months ago as it won very
well. I had lost on all the previous races and took a
'chip' break and thus missed the opportunity. I hope
the horse continues to do well.

I'm just writing to let you know that I think you
played the pr badly this week. I know a lot of people
who thing the EU is dealing with Ryanair unjustly. My
husband used to work in Brussels and flew with Ryanair
to Charleroi every week. The flights were always on
time and very affordable. If we had been left to the mercy
of Aer Lingus and their fares we would have had to move to Brussels altogether. Aer Lingus has received millions
in state aid over the years so why should you not
receive some? The development of Charleroi provided
lots of local jobs there as well as generating more
business for Dublin Airport. The Belgians should be
let subsidise just as much we keep Shannon going. This
adverse decision will create a lot of sympathy for
Ryanair.

However, the reaction to the wheel chair case totally
destroyed any goodwill available. Announcing a charge
on all tickets which transparently earns significantly
more than the cost of the wheelchairs appeared very
spiteful. There was a legitimate point to your case in
that the airports were doing the charging. But
announcing the 'wheel chair tax' really turned me off
the brand as it was a really petulant and greedy
move.If I were you I would reverse this decision and
perhaps reflect on John McManus' column some months
back when he listed the 10 reasons why a CEO should go
and why they all seemed extremely appropriate to
yourself. Here's the link in case you missed it. (subsrc. required) I am not suggesting that you should leave, but it might be a good idea to go on retreat or something and calm down a bit.

Yours sincerely, Sarah Carey

posted by Sarah | 13:06 0 comments