Garden Squares Day this Weekend

Join me this Saturday in Mountjoy Square for the first ever Garden Squares Day, organised by the Dublin Civic Trust. I’ll be acting as a steward at Mountjoy Square, but there are four other squares hosting events: Parnell Square, St. Stephen’s Green, Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square will all have their own festivities. In Mountjoy Square, we’ll have:

• 11am – Walking tour
• 12pm – Brass band and hot food
• 2pm – Tango Argentino
• 3pm – Chinese cultural exhibition of dance and kite flying (These aren’t going ahead but they’re looking for replacements!)

as well as:

• Plant stalls
• Mr. Whippy
• and Hot  food

Check out the news item and programme here – see you on Saturday!

 

On Panti’s Radio Show Tomorrow

Just a quick update to let you know that Daragh (the lil bro) and I will be on Ms. Panti’s radio show tomorrow. The show, broadcast on Open FM, has a special guest on (no, not us). You can listen in through OpenFM.ie or on 89.9FM on the old wireless. We’ll be on at about 7:20pm, so tune in and have a listen. We recorded it during the week and it was very relaxed and great fun to do so I’d like to thank Panti and the team for having us on!

 

PZ Meyers in UCD next Tuesday

Next Tuesday at 6:30pm in Theatre B in the Science Hub of UCD, the UCD Secular Humanist Society will be presenting its first Honorary Life Membership to PZ Meyers, the writer, blogger and Humanist of the Year 2009 (named by the American Humanist Association). The event is open to UCD students (for free) and a limited number of members of the public (for a mere €5). Check out the Facebook event page here or e-mail ucdhumanistsociety@gmail.com for more details.

– Conor

 

Group Pressure, or Renew, Repair, Refresh

Today, on my morning commute to college, one of the ears of my headphones started acting up. The right ear started flickering and sure enough, a few minutes later, died out totally. Playing with the connection could save it occasionally, but by this stage it’s completely buggered. I really like my headphones, they’re good at keeping noise out and the sound quality is fairly decent. They’re kind like this model, except older and without all that design jazz. So, as you can imagine, I was slightly annoyed. I immediately started thinking about ordering a new pair on the internet and getting them delivered. I got to the library and was updating my Facebook status to share the news, when I felt a little twinge: Guilt. I thought to myself, “What’ll everyone think of me if I just buy a new pair of headphones, without even trying to fix these ones?”. So, I changed my mind. I decided to give repairing them a go first, to see if I can get them working.

Interesting, that, isn’t it? Exposing my potential consumer habits to the opinions, values and, most importantly, feedback of my peers changed my intention. I wonder how this can be used to affect what people do with their electrical waste, but also (and more importantly) what people do when their stuff breaks? I’ve noticed (and I’m sure I’m guilty of it myself) a move away from people getting their stuff (clothes, pots, pans, electrical goods) fixed and towards just buying new stuff. Now, given that people are more careful with their money at the moment (or at least are in theory) maybe people consider repair as an option more frequently now. I think it’s a great idea. I, for one, need to stop relying on new items and other people and start fixing stuff for myself. I guess this is where things like Project Sugru come in. Their concept is don’t buy new stuff, hack your old stuff!. Smart gang. They’re on Twitter too (which, incidentally, is how I remembered that they exist and have included them here. Very smart) and on Facebook.

[edit: Take a look at the video on this page for an idea of how it works]

Alright, anyway, that’s my idea. Group pressure influencing people into fixing stuff, instead of buying new things. Think that it’s ridiculous that someone should waste money buying something new when a quick job will fix what they already have? Tell them! You might just change their mind.

As an aside, I’ve started a Tumblr account for things longer than a Tweet and shorter than a blog post. That’s how this post started (but then it got longer).

Happy World AIDS Day and if you have an opinion, share it as a comment.

 

 

Stuckinthemilli.eu: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

So, as you may have noticed, I have redesigned the blog. This was done, as I have mentioned in previous posts, to reflect the fact that I will be using the blog for a slightly different purpose from now on. In the past I posted exclusively about the civil partnership bill, my family and the various LGBT issues that I noticed. From now on, I want to use it on a much more regular basis, and want to blog about other things too. These posts will revolve around my life, food (I fricking love food), vegetarianism (yeah, I’m one of those folk) and anything else that pops into my head. I suppose this is all reflective of why I blog, and why I love the idea of blogging. Blogging can be a great way to get ideas out of your head and properly work them out.

With the new domain names, it makes it easier to tell people about the blog. You can send them to either stuckinthemilli.eu or conorp.eu. 

So then, more blogging and less dossing. Have a photo to celebrate.

 

Photo owned by J.D. Abolins (cc)

 

Results of poll

So, the results are in and have been counted. Based upon the poll in the previous post, the two new domain names I will be registering are:

• stuckinthemilli.eu (Stuck in the middle) – 42% and
• conorp.eu – 70%

What I think I’ll do is adopt stuckinthemilli.eu as the name for the blog, and then keep conorp.eu for a shorter and snappier offline address, so that people can find it easier. Both will direct to the same blog.

As for the changes to the blog, over the next few days I will redesign it, so that it can be used as a blog for both my personal life and for my posts about civil partnership and other same-sex family stuff. As always, if you have any suggestions e-mail them to me at conorpendergrast[at]gmail[dot]com or Twitter me.

Finally, the RSS feed is here.

Happy Thursday,

Conor P

 

Domain names and some changes

POLLS CLOSED. Results tomorrow.

 

Thanks to the wonderful people over at Blacknight, I managed to win two .eu domain names via their Twitter page! (If you’re on Twitter, have a go yourself by following them and watching their feed… but you have to be quick off the mark).
So, I thought I’d be semi-democratic and put it to a vote to decide what domain names to register. Since I have two to register, I decided to make two different polls. So, have a look and vote in each. Please.

All this is happening with a redesign of the blog in mind. Should be fun 😉 I’ll be making it more personal, and be posting more regularly.

Conor P

[edit: Voting ends next Wednesday 5pm French time 🙂 ]

[edit 2: More suggestions include sacrebl.eu and filmbl.eu. To vote for these two leave a comment below!]

 

Liveblogging tonight’s Questions and Answers 22:45 Irish time

As mentioned on Saturday, David Quinn will be on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers tonight. One of the topics up for discussion is Cardinal Brady’s recent remarks about the Civil Partnership Bill. There will be a liveblog available here, with the programme itself starting at 22:45 Irish time. Feel free to drop in and comment on the action as it happens, it should be fun! You can also watch it online from here.

 

In other news, “rebel cleric” (thank you, Indo) Father Iggy O’Donovan has expressed alarm at Cardinal Brady’s recent remarks, and has said that when it came to sexual morality and relationships, “clergymen often make the worst leaders possible” (see the article here). Nice to see that he understands the sense in keeping the Church out of the bedroom, and of not prescribing one family-type for everyone in the audience.

 

David Quinn on Q and A Monday evening!

Thanks to Ian for this information:

David Quinn of Iona Institute fame will be on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers this Monday evening. Other guests will include Olivia Mitchell, Maureen Gaffney and Ed Walsh. One of the topics they will be discussing is the Cardinal’s remarks on the Civil Partnership Bill (see here and here). What with me living in France I can’t be there, but if anyone can get their hands on tickets or volunteer to go on (and I’ll try and get some) and do some intelligent heckling and support the cause, I would be ever grateful. Please e-mail me on conorpendergrast@gmail.com to let me know either way.

In other news, I’ve added a way to subscribe to the blog by e-mail on the left, and a new section called “Fact Finder: My Family“. The latter will hopefully act as an info point for people about my family, and the former will hopefull encourage people to keep up-to-date with the blog.

 

Ubiquitous Election Post, David Quinn and other stuff from Ireland

It was a busy and very exciting week, as we all know, with the US Presidential Elections happening on Tuesday night. I was glued to the TV (until 4am, when I became cold and sober, at which point I went home) and pretty excited to see Obama winning. While we can never be sure what a politician will actually do, he does state support for “full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples” and expanding adoption rights to give people fair consideration as parents, regardless of sexual orientation (see this pdf).

But of course, this silver lining came with a cloud for many Americans, with Arizona, California and Florida banning gay marriage (even though California and Floria both voted for Obama) and Arkansas banning gay couples from adopting children. Pretty bleak stuff, but sure the rights groups will be challenging the ban. Ironically, some have suggested that the increase in black people voting this year might have lead to the passing of the ban.

Back to Ireland, and the Catholic Church is again getting angsty about the Civil Partnership Bill.

“…Ireland looks set to repeat the mistakes of societies like Britain and the US by introducing legislation which will promote cohabitation, remove most incentives to marry and grant same-sex couples the same rights as marriage in all but adoption.”

Ah, if only he knew that if I was writing the legislation I would add in proper legislation to recognise families of same-sex couples. Ah well, at least earlier fears the government sidelining the Civil Partnership Bill due to the economic turmoil (of course, there is no recession) have been squashed.

And, following in the footsteps of Cardinal Brady threatening legal action when the Civil Partnership Bill is introduced, the ever-pleasant David Quinn has written another opinion piece, stating that he believes that the Government is launching a “direct attack on the special status of marriage”.

This got me thinking, why is it that opponents focus on the “institution” of marriage so frequently? An idea came to me today. Maybe the Catholic Church (in Ireland) has been feeling its grasp on Irish people slipping away gradually since the foundation of the State. Could it be that marriage is the final hold it has over society, and it will do anything in its power to keep from losing that power?

Or maybe it’s just that they don’t want marriage demeaned by giving it to the gays. Ouch.

PS: David, you erred in saying that there was a “lack of any real public demand” for civil partnership. To quote Moninne Griffith of MarriagEquality:

“It is high time that the lesbian and gay family unit, including children, are recognised and protected in Ireland. Indeed, 84% of the Irish population support civil partnership or civil marriage being made available to lesbians and gay men and an overwhelming 86% agree that children of gay and lesbian parents should have the same family rights as the children of married parents.”