Wide Angle

Quotation Of The Week # 12

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

'What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes!'

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Quotation Of The Week # 11

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

'Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.'
Friedrich Nietzsche

Quotation Of The Week # 10

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:50:00 +0000

'It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.'

Abraham Lincoln

Absence

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:41:00 +0000

Dear reader

I will hit the road and travel until end of June this year. 'Wide Angle' will be off air for this period. See below blog for updates.

Along The Way

Bye for now..

Quotation Of The Week # 9

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:33:00 +0000

'We are what we do, especially what we do to change what we are...'
Eduardo Galeano

Quotaion Of The Week # 8

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:25:00 +0000

'Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.'
Leonardo da Vinci

Quotation Of The Week # 7

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 01:00:00 +0000

'We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves'

Galileo Galilei

Quotation Of The Week Special Edition: Italy's 150th Anniversary 17.March

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:42:00 +0000

'I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me.'

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Enda Kenny in Washington; Barack Obama surprises

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:40:00 +0000

Enda Kenny met with Barack Obama at the White House during the St.Patrick's Celebrations. After performing friendly exchanges Obama confirmed his intent to visit Ireland in May this year. What an eventful month this is going to be since the English Queen Elizabeth II will also come to town. The former will receive an enthusiastic and warm welcoming from the local crowd, the latter less so. He will be loved, she will be respected.

Japan: Earthquake, Tsunami, Nuclear Disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:56:00 +0000

I keep watching the broadcasts from Japan. I see the pictures. I read the reports. But I am still struggling to comprehend the extent of the disaster. Many lives have been lost. For all advances in research and technology human beings remain vulnerable creatures when nature flexes its muscles. Earthquakes and tsunamis are natural phenomenons that we can predict with some certainty but not prevent from happening.

A nuclear disaster by contrast is a self-inflicted catastrophe in my opinion. The risks involved are known but were ether ignored or misjudged. Nature has got nothing to do with it. Men decided to built those power plans. Men must rethink and reverse this decision. I believe the technology is available to produce energy environmental friendly. We also need to save energy where ever possible to make nuclear power obsolete.

No time to waste. Lets start right now.

Quotation Of The Week # 6

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:00:00 +0000

'Young blood must have its course, lad, and every dog its day'
Charles Kingsley

General Elections Ireland 2011 - Results and Opinions

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:56:00 +0000

See: results

The dust has settled. The Irish electorate voted for change. Fine Gael (FG) and Labour (LAB) have formed a coalition government. Fianna Fáil (FF) and the Greens got a hammering. That are the facts. But what are the implications?

Let's turn our attention first to the winners. Here is the new Taoiseach Enda Kenny (FG), a man who has taken his party from the political abyss of only 31 seats (the all time low) to where it is now in only 9years since he became party leader in 2002. The party managed under his leadership to increase the number of seats to 51 in 2007 and to 76 in 2011 (the all time high). An overall majority of 84 seats for FG had been a real possibility until few days before polling day. The pendulum then begun to swing towards Labour. The people apparently favoured a coalition over a one party government. Nonetheless this is a phenomenal achievement.

Labour under Eamon Gilmore almost doubled its presence in parliament from 20 to 37 seats. What looks like a very respectable number might be viewed by many party supporters as a rather disappointing result under the present circumstances. Labour did not benefit to the same extent like for instance FG from the willingness of many voters to change their voting pattern. One reason for this might have been that Labour did not manage to present themselves as a real alternative with creditable policies on key issues like the economy and taxation.

Sinn Féin (SF) took this approach much more successfully. Gerry Adams clearly distanced himself and his party, for which he stood for election in the republic for the first time, from all the other established parties. The promise to oppose any further recapitalisation of the broken Irish banking system without adequate burden sharing by the bondholders of those institutions was well received by the electorate. The number of seats for Sinn Féin went up from 4 to 14. The Socialist Party (SOC), People Before Profit (PBP) and an unusual large number of left leaning Independents have done equally well.

And the loser is: Fianna Fáil. The main government party of the last 14 years saw its share of seats plummeting from 78 to 20. This is without precedent in the history of the state. In Dublin's 12 constituencies with a total number of seats of 47 only 1 FF TD (the former minister for finance Brian Lenihan) was returned to the new Dáil Éireann. He managed to hang on to his seat by his fingers tips. He got elected on the 5th count. I mention this just to put the result in some sort of context. The election of Micheál Martin as the new FF party leader days before the general elections might had limited the damage.

That the Green Party was wiped out entirely is not more than a footnote.

Only time will provide answers to the following questions:

Have the party preferences of voters shifted permanently?
Does Fianna Fáil have a future in Irish politics?
Will the Green Party dissolve itself just as the Progressive Democrats did in 2009?
Will there be a reform of the electoral system with the aim to strengthen local government?

The new FG/LAB administration got a strong mandate from the Irish voters. To translate this into a strong government an equally strong opposition is needed. Lets hope both will emerge rather soon.

Quotation Of The Week # 5

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:48:00 +0000

'Advice is seldom welcome, and those who want it the most always like it the least'
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield

Quotation Of The Week # 4

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:02:00 +0000

'Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim'
George Santayana

Quotation Of The Week # 3

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:38:00 +0000

'Would you be shocked if I changed into something more comfortable?'
Jean Harlow

General Elections In Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 21:33:00 +0000

This blog now deserves its first proper article. It coincides with the upcoming general election in Ireland on the 25/02/2011. The campaign has just entered its final week. The most likely outcome is a coalition government comprised of Fine Gael (FG) and the Labour Party (LAB). There is also a growing possibility that FG might me able to achieve an overall majority in the next Dáil Éireann (first chamber of the Irish parliament). The once mighty party Fianna Fáil (FF) will fight with Sinn Féin for third place. This would be a landslide in Irish politics.

If the election day will see an equally dramatic shift in the policies of the incoming government that remains to be seen. I personally doubt this. The constrains are just to severe. The deficit of public finances of over 10% of GDP needs to be reduced in accordance with the EU/IMF bailout package. To achieve this taxes will have to be increased while spending will have to be cut further one way or the other. At least we will have new faces behind the same microphones that will tell us that we need to face the inevitable.
Democracy is about change, not so much in policies but in personnel.

Quotation Of The Week # 2

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:28:00 +0000

'What I tell I tell for precisely what it is'
Walt Whitman

Quotation Of The Week # 1

noreply@blogger.com (Ulf Czerwinski) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:22:00 +0000

'Ego cogito, ergo sum'
(I think, therefore I am)

Rene' Descartes