GSOC, Williams, Callinan and Shatter. Hardly Credible

A great piece here from Soundmigration covering some of the recent scandals involving the Gardai, with a wonderful Philip K. Dick quote to start:

Soundmigration

“Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups… So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.”  ―Philip K. Dick

Image: Thanks to Eamonn Crudden

Update: 12:53. The paragraph about Garda leaking info to journalists around what was called the “rape tape” by traditional media has been amended following  details from another person involved in the womens media support team at the time.

Update 13:57  Added info on Rabbles  discovery that the Indo has substantially…

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For all things Frankfurt School: Heathwood Press

This website is a fantastic resource for those interested in critical theory:

http://www.heathwoodpress.com/

Some notes on political pirate radio stations in Dublin. | Come here to me!

An interesting article on the history of pirate political radio stations in Ireland from the ‘come here to me’ blog:

http://comeheretome.com/2014/02/13/some-notes-on-political-pirate-radio-stations-in-dublin/

Inside Bias – class representation in the Irish Times

A piece on the Irish Times new podcast series ‘Inside Politics’ on renting and property gives some revealing insights on continued class biases in the newspaper. The section included three guests, a TD from the Labour Party, a speaker from the Residential Landlord’s association and a representative from Mortgage Brokers Ireland (who is also  a landlord). Who’s missing from the picture? You guessed it a tenant.  The framing of rent reforms as unnecessary, counterproductive and politically impossible quickly follows: