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Google’s stupid advice to newspapers: stop being newspapers
Education’s inflated virtues
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Slumming it

Recent comments

Very nice article.  At the end of the Cold War, many stations in Europe and especially VOA and Voice of Russia lost their focus.  VOA especially.

As a long time SWL from late 60s to present, the interest has really fallen off the past 2-3 years, largely when the BBC went dead for all practical purposes, and then when Radio Netherlands left the air, that was perhaps the last nail in the coffin.

Looking back to the late 80s through the Gulf War, that was perhaps the peak of many good stations still on the air.  I recently wrote an article about that time of the shortwave at its peak, if interested, follow the link.

http://www.helium.com/items/1746404-shortwave-radio-in-the-1980s

By Roger Chambers on 2010 03 11
From the entry 'Clandestine, not confidential'.

A good article; timely and well said. I’m very interested in the Irish newspaper version of this. All the time, it appears easier for journalists to prate with outrage and speculation, rather than with intent and investigation. For example, two big stories are the Irish property bubble and the death of teenagers under HSE supervision. Both stories could become true journalistic coups if only the writers and editors started from the start: [1] WHO is/was in authority, did they act, and what did they do wrong that these states of affairs actually arose (rather than nipped in the bud); then [2] what laws were either not known, not followed, ignored, or intentionally broken?
Civil servants and senior bank managers have evidently broken laws. There are thousands of laws on the Statute books, and there are many potential and interesting newspaper articles stating which laws should have been obeyed but have never have seen a posecution brought.
No-one seems to be chasing up these laws, when they were broken and whether or not the authorities will bring the individuals to book.
For example, if I moved you between a range of locked rooms for 5 years, failed to look after you and sontributed to your death, am I not guilty of transgressing even one law in the Republic? If I promise you a huge investment return, knowing it’s a guess rather than a certainty, am I really NOT guilty of some illegal financial behaviour?
Come on journalists - pick up your game!
Regards
James Hyde
Tallaght, D24

By James Hyde on 2010 03 08
From the entry 'Making the most out of ‘doing more with less’'.

The story goes that Lilly Bolero was chosen as a signature theme virtually at random by an engineer and he didn’t know its political significance, just picked it up from the vaults. I’m tempted to believe it because most engineers I’ve met have zero understanding of politics… but, then again,  that’s a bit of a cliché.

The key difference between SW and LW is, and forgive the physics lecture, LW is a ground wave whereas SW is a sky wave that bounces off the ionosphere. Ground waves require MASSIVE power – the old Atlantic 252 signal was a quarter of a million watts (Radio One uses lower power on the same frequency, I think) and BBC Radio 4 on 198 LW is half a million watts – that’s going to cost you in electricity. With SW you can cover a continent with a fraction of the output.

Of course, SW is notoriously flaky - and that brings us back to Lilly Bolero: all SW stations play a piece of music called a signature theme so that they can be identified by listeners. Why? Because they have to change frequency at different times of the day just so they can be heard, moving up and down the dial. I don’t think people today have the patience to chase a radio station like that.

All-Ireland anecdote is pretty funny! The Wolfe Tones version of ‘A Nation Once Again’ was voted most popular song in the world by BBC World Service listeners. They even played it. Hilarious.

FOOC is still on the air – and still better than it’s BBC News 24/BBC World TV equivalent.

Yes, the internet is replacing it and hooray for the internet, without which forth wouldn’t exist. But it lacks romance, somehow…

SW is really dying as a broadcast medium. Worth a listen just to hear some of the craziness emanating from the states: neo-nazis, gold buggers and all kinds of madness. Sadly, not the kind of stuff you’d tune into frequently. 

By Jason Walsh on 2010 03 08
From the entry 'Clandestine, not confidential'.

God, I remember the days of listening to BBC Radio World Service in the middle of the night, usually around 1 or 2 in the morning. I have to say some of the best radio journalism I ever heard was through the World Service, especially the documentary programs. I learned more about the world about through those programs than any amount of TV viewing. Wasn’t ‘From Our Own Correspondents’ one of those or something like that? And Alistair’s Cooke’s ‘Letter from America’?

Of course you had to put up with ‘Lilly Bolero’ being played and the occasional, old-style Imperial nonsense (I remember a report on Down winning the All-Ireland in 1994 emphasising the ‘unusual nature’ of a ‘British’ team from the United Kingdom playing and winning in a ‘foreign’ sports competition…! Ah, God bless the days when two-thirds of the world map were pink!).

But is the internet not the new SW/LW medium?

By Séamas Ó Sionnaigh on 2010 03 08
From the entry 'Clandestine, not confidential'.

‘Your Country, Your Call’... For God’s sake, what are we, AMERICANS?! Gee whiz, like, it’s like, y’know, like, your call, man, like that’s just so, like, far out, like, right, y’know, like, gee, wow, ‘mazing…!

Ireland’s political classes looking for some ideas on how to run the nation, yeah?
Looking for a bit of inspiration, yeah?
Some political beliefs or philosophies to reinvigorate the nation and the body politic, yeah?

Here’s an idea. Why not try reading the goddamned 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic! Why not try reading the goddamned 1919 Declaration of Independence! Why not try reading the goddamned 1919 Democratic Programme! Why not try reading the goddamned 1867 Proclamation of the Irish Republic! Why not try reading the goddamned works of Pádraig Mac Piarais, Séamas Ó Conghaile, Séamas Fionntán Ó Leathlobhair, Tomás Dabhis or any of another hundred Irish politicians, revolutionaries, poets, writers and philosophers.

Why not take their collective snouts out of the trough they have had them buried in since the 1940s and ‘50s, and actually see their fellow citizens as that, fellow Irish men and women, and not mere worker drones there to make money, pay taxes, and keep the fat pigs in the luxury they have come to be accustomed too!

A ‘cash prize’ for the chosen or favoured ideas?! Ah yeah, let them eat cake!

You know what I say? Vive le Revolucion!

By Séamas Ó Sionnaigh on 2010 03 06
From the entry 'Your country, my arse!'.

Fingers crossed, the Tories and David Cameron take power in Britain as a minority government, with UUP support, leading to an early SNP sponsored referendum in Scotland on independence with a vote for separation, a linked collapse in the so-called power sharing agreement at Torment – sorry, Stormont - and a move towards All-Ireland institutions and a process of national reunification as Nationalists/Republicans turn irrevocably from the dead-end concept of an accommodation with Unionism in Ireland at the point of a (Unionist/British!) gun…

By Séamas Ó Sionnaigh on 2010 03 06
From the entry 'Brown and Cameron's hangdog looks'.

Perhaps if you read the entire article rather than the opening two paragraphs you would see that I don’t jump to any ‘tired conspiracies’.

“Sounds like a great idea, why not embrace it instead of doing what we always do”

Because it is an affront to politics, an anti-political and managerial exercise that will have precisely no benefit. Ireland’s key problem is a lack of capital investment in productive activity, business having retreated to arbitrage and the sale of legal titles. Given the total absence of a meaningful public sphere this issue has no traction in society.

By Jason Walsh on 2010 03 04
From the entry 'Your country, my arse!'.

You might do a bit of research before jumping to the same tired conclusions that all the other conspiracy theorists have jumped to…

I read this somewhere: ‘An Smaoineamh Mór is a registered company with charitable status, put in place to govern this competition and the implementation of the winning proposals. The 70+ people involved are providing their services on a completely pro bono basis.’

Garreth, totally agree with you. My point is this seems to be an independant group, have not seen any political affiliation whatsoever? Sounds like a great idea, why not embrace it instead of doing what we always do - criticise and then put the laptop away!

By Zara on 2010 03 04
From the entry 'Your country, my arse!'.

I doubt whether Your Country Your Call is expecting individuals to save the country - and I don’t think governments can achieve the same task either. It seems to me that the President’s spouse is mainly asking individuals to submit their job creation ideas, the best of which will win some seed money so the winners can implement their ideas. I’d say that job creation can come from assorted sources: from government-funded programmes, from organisations like FAS (but remember that some big shots there squandered money on ‘expenses’), from private enterprise and from individuals and groups (co-ops and the like). Who do you think can save the country?

By Garreth Byrne on 2010 03 04
From the entry 'Your country, my arse!'.

Argentina isn’t really interested in the territory, the war was about other things, principally shoring-up domestic support for the regime at the time.

I don’t think anyone will argue with you on that point. But does that mean the islanders would get a fair deal from Argentinian sovereignty? Political pawns rarely do.

The problem with national self-determination as a doctrine stems from the unspoken assumption at its core. “Nations” have the right to sovereign power, but political power in the modern world is based on territory. The unspoken assumption is that the “nation” which requests sovereign power can be unambiguously identified with the territorial jurisdiction that actually operates it (the nation-state). In cases where this assumption applies, it provides for a remarkably accountable form of governance. In the cases where the assumption does not fit, the doctrine of nationalism encourages people to try to make it fit, whether through flat denial of the existence of minorities, suppression of minority rights, or even ethnic cleansing.

We must accept that the nation-state is an ideal which cannot always be achieved, but that self-determination is still a desirable basis for governance. Territorial self-determination is the only way to reconcile these principles. If the territory happens to conform reasonably to a given nation, that’s icing.

By Andrew Gallagher on 2010 03 03
From the entry 'Malvinas still Argentinas'.