Virtual Methodist

When I was a child at home we only ever had 2 newspapers come into the house... both on a Sunday. One was the News of the World the other was the Sunday Post. My mother endeavoured to never let me or my brother see the News of the World... that was Dad's paper... but every week we were allowed to read Dundee's finest, which included "Oor Wullie" and "The Broons", although even as a child I could see that "The Broons" consisted of one story about jumping to conclusions being repackaged a hundred different ways... Actually, I'm not too sure that a weekly diet of the Sunday Post is any more healthy than that of the News of the World... its like a moral choice between a diet of pure candyfloss and pure vodka... Both entirely legal, but neither good for you... The former moralising, the latter amoral... both appallingly parochial with no breadth or depth of perspective... both knowingly giving their contituencies what they want, because that sells, ...

Over recent weeks I have kept my own counsel regarding the two big controversy's that are orbiting this year's anniversary of the dreadful events of 9/11/2001 (I bow to the illogical US date order of m/d/y on this day alone); the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque and the threatened Koran burning by Terry Jones (not the Monty Python member, but the Pastor of the misnamed "Dove" World Outreach Centre in Gainesville Florida). There is enough coverage out there without me having to add my ill-informed comments from thousands of miles away, and indeed I haven't even offered links to the stories, because if you haven't come across them then you probably haven't been on the planet for the past 2 months. There is an extent to which the oxygen of sensationalist (and at times grossly innacurate) reporting has exacerbated both stories and the response of the wider world to them. On that subject I would like to flag up 2 pieces... one prompted by each story. On...

This is Virtual Methodist's electronic equivalent of those glossy supplements you get in weekend newspapers that take a full week to get through... at least in this household... Its a few of the more developed stories I've come across this week which are too long for a FB post and which I haven't had time or inclination to post on myself. The first involves story of Mary Bale, a 45-year-old bank clerk, and former church choir singer,dropping a cat into a wheelie bin... Now given what happened to our cat while on holiday (and I'm not blogging about that yet... still too angry) I can understand some of the outrage, but I'm with Will Crawley who is bemused by the wholesale hue and cry in the media given the other, bigger issues in the news. One of those issues has dominated Will's blog, and the Northern Ireland news this week, that being the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman's report into the Claudy bombing back in the very darkest days of our most recent Troub...

Didn't see the Spotlight expose on the Robinsons last night, or rather didn't hear it as it was on screen but muted in the background of the pub I was in for a weekly quiz in Mrs. Robinson's constituency... Certainly not much support for her there... Indeed most of the team names (including our own I must confess) showed a certain delight in her discomfiture... I intend to watch the programme when it is repeated at 2.30pm this afternoon on the news channel... But am frustrated again that this story is shoving into second place in local news the injury and attempted murder of a Catholic police officer by a car-bomb probably planted by dissident Republicans. My reading of the material this morning has not shifted my opinion from yesterday that the media, in this case BBCNI, knowing its audience, has used the sex scandal as a hook to hang this whole thing on. There are important issues in play here regarding the use and abuse of power and influence, but the thought of a 59 yea...

Let me make this clear from the outset... I'm not a fan of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson; he represents the constituency that I currently live as both an MP and an MLA, while she currently represents the area that I work in at a council, assembly and parliamentary level, and I have encountered them numerous times in numerous settings since I was at school. It's not primarily the brand of politics that they represent, but the manner in which they have tended to conduct themselves in the past, including, particularly on her part, a very vocal profession of faith whilst showing little public grace. She has, I will admit done some impressive work for local constiuents, but even in that I would, at time have been critical of how she has gone about that. In the past week, however, I have had to rethink my attitude to them and to politicians in general. First came Mrs. Robinson's announcement that she was standing down from political life because she was struggling with mental illness, or...