Snow business makes show business.....

Is it just me or is the 'meejah' making a mountain out of a molehill out of the severe weather conditions?

I cannot listen to any of the three major news programmes on our national broadcaster - Morning Ireland, News at One and Drivetime - at the moment. Matt Cooper on Today FM isn't much better. News reporters in recent years seem to have strayed from reportage to standing in judgement, analysing without full facts and in general heckling any and all government members, public servants or whichever scapegoat they have identified for the latest crisis the country is lurching through. I have no problem with government ministers being severely criticised on most matters, but I really cannot understand the 'hoo-haw' about the government's reactions and attitude to the bloody weather.

Does our national broadcaster and other commercial stations think that this kind of scaremongering tabloid jouranalism attracts more listeners/viewers and therefore can sell more advertising? Perhaps it is simply an age thing. You can actually hear the discomfort in some of the older journalists voices as they pursue their quarry. Some of the younger crew on the other hand appear to enjoy the baying for blood.

I find it disturbing, I do not feel well served by such type of broadcasting. Do they assume that the government hasn't noticed the sever weather? Have they any idea how hard all public servants involved have worked - engineers, general operatives, drivers, ambulance men, paramedics, fire brigades crew, nurses, doctors. Some of these out during the night for hours in severe weather conditions to ensure cotinued service of those basics we all take for granted - water, roads, hospital services.

Lads, it's not Armageddon. Not yet anyway, and if it were I think the country could well be better served by its public servants and its government than by pointless squawking in the media.

Communication...or lack of same...

Some recent frustrations and difficulties in my life have all been down to miscommunication.

Corresponding by the dreaded texts or even by e-mail, on Twitter or Facebook can and do lead to misunderstanding, which can domino on to further misunderstandings. I sincerely believe all electronic communication should (and I include the phone/fax etc) only be used for transmitting information.

It certainly should never, ever replace face to face interaction with another human being. We haven’t learned yet how to parse sentences carefully enough with written text as our primary form of communication and it is incredibly easy to hit the ‘post’ or ‘send’ button in a flash of temper.

Of course, the all important body language and facial expressions are missing in electronic methods of ‘talking’. One person will inevitably (witness most discussion boards) accuse another of being a fascist, a bully or other less pleasant names.

Until we evolve enough – perhaps alá Avatar! - to communicate without words and ‘see’ each other then I sincerely think we should stop try to tell each other anything of importance without face to face human interaction.

And that is my new decade resolution…..it excludes fiction of course, I have to be able to exaggerate somewhere!