Old people know what is best... so listen to us!
THANK you Mary Carr for your article on retirement villages (Mail, Monday).
I totally agree with her views and so do the rest of older people in Ireland. People are living longer now, are better educated, know what they want and will not be told what is good for them.
Because these people have lived long lives and have valuable experience, politicians need to listen to them very carefully.
Older people will not blind you with science, use numerous acronyms or synonyms or quote unending research. They will tell you how it is and what they want.
All politicians and those in authority have to do is listen very carefully and act accordingly.
I am in my seventies and a member Active Retirement and Clare’s Older People’s Council. I talk with older people everyday. We know what we want.
STELLA O’GORMAN, by email.
Consumerism is rife
POLARIZED American society will be temporarily united this coming holiday weekend by its slavish devotion to consumerism. As USA citizens tuck into Thanksgiving Day dinner on Thursday, the conversation around the table will centre on where the best bargains are to be found.
Thanksgiving Day used to be sacrosanct in the USA as a major national family holiday giving thanks for the year’s harvest. Regrettably, the deeper meaning of Thanksgiving Day has been lost in an undignified rush to a frantic shopping spree, where Americans engage in an unbecoming scramble for consumer goods. It’s also the day before Black Friday, the shopping frenzy that marks the start of the USA’s Christmas holiday season.
Many Americans take both Thanksgiving Day and Friday off work, making it a four-day weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers. Marketing companies have now created ‘Cyber Monday’ to add another shopping day to the Thanksgiving weekend and to persuade people to shop online. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the busiest shopping days in the USA.
In 2017, $75billion was spent during the four-day Black Friday weekend in cash, credit, loans and hire purchase agreements by about 145 million US consumers.
Many Americans were left wallowing in debt in January having lost the run of themselves during the Black Friday weekend shopping frenzy.
The narcissistic materialism of the USA’s Black Friday weekend, offering little other than huge debts, maxed-out credit cards and unneeded goods, conflicts with the values of inclusion, compassion and care, so eloquently espoused by Michael D Higgins in his Presidential inauguration speech.
Let us take ownership of those values by sharing some of our time and our resources with the lonely, the needy and the homeless this Christmas season.
BILLY RYLE, Tralee, Co. Kerry.
No more comebacks!
MY downward spiral started a month and a half ago thanks to the Daily Mail. I think it started with the headline ‘They are back’. Was it an alien invasion I asked my self? Worse – it was the earthshattering news that Boyzone are reforming.
A few days later came the news that Westlife were reforming. Just weeks later it was the turn of the Spice Girls. How many times are these ‘music icons’ going to have a final farewell gig only to spring up a few years later for another reunion? Can some sort of injunction be taken against the lot of them? That news was bad enough but what sent my coffee spewing over the table was the news that Mary Hanafin wants to be an MEP.
Boyzone, Westlife, Spice Girls and Mary Hanafin… it is too much for me to take. How am I supposed to enjoy life with that mob lurking in the shadows. Is there a support group? I need to know.
DAVID KEOGH, by email.
Heading for disaster
POLITICIANS don’t ever seem to learn. Almost one hundred years ago a humiliating and vindictive treaty was imposed on a broken and weakened Germany with the result that within a generation, extremist politics led to the most destructive war ever seen.
At present, a humiliating and vindictive treaty is being imposed on Britain which if implemented will almost certain foment extremist politics in a humiliated and weakened world power, causing untold hostility, strife and retributive action in the not too distant future.
So much damage has already been caused by protracted and bitter negotiations that Britain is far less likely to swing towards extremism if separated from, rather than subservient to, an increasingly dictatorial and very smug EU.
We can only hope that Britain will be allowed leave peaceably with as little interrupted EU commercial interaction as possible. If forced into a humiliating climbdown or banished with shut-out hostility, extremist politics are likely to flourish.
Should this happen, Ireland, the EU and Britain itself are likely to suffer great upheaval.
As for the Irish border, it is likely to be the EU which insists on its revival to prevent American beef flavouring the dinner tables of Europe.