‘Debate’ was a glorified Punch and Judy show
THE American presidential debate, showed us two construction workers, dressed as gentlemen, shouting obscenities at each other.
The clown Trump mentioned that Joe Biden had a glass in his hand in the morning – a thinly disguised dig at alcohol abuse in the Biden family. He also accused Biden’s son Hunter of being fired from the military. How low can a president go?
The world is suffering from global warming, raging bush fires, and storms, and the dreaded Covid-19. Yet the Punch and Judy show goes out live to calm nerves.
We can all rest assured that this is democracy working at its best.
The three wise men, former premiers, José Aznar, Tony Blair, and George W. Bush, are swanning around the world dishing out experienced advice on all sorts of problems.
As long as they don’t return to Iraq, to fix things once again, like they did when they had power – we saw the results of their interference years after. HOLLY BARRETT,
Co. Cork. . . . IN the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, when the issue of Trump’s tax affairs was raised, his response left me confused.
It reminded me of Father Ted’s answer when he was questioned about money. He responded by saying it was just resting in his bank account. Trump’s reference to f ake news – one of his favourite sayings – was also well below average.
TONY MORIARTY, by email.
Covid blame game
WELL said Robert Sullivan (Letters, Wednesday). We are very quick to find scapegoats amongst ourselves and point the finger at each other regarding this horrible Covid virus.
So many have paid a terrible price, with much more to come. It’s long past time our weak leaders should wake up and at least call, in no uncertain terms, for an inquiry into this virus and put the blame on the initial source of it. There should be less pussyfooting about this and pointing the finger at each other. We Irish did not create or cause it to happen.
TOM MARTIN, by email.
A ref’s view of VAR
ALLOW me to give a referee’s insight into how VAR is supposed to operate. The criteria is designed to ensure that the use of VAR involves minimum interference in the flow of play and maximum bebfit to the quality of decision-making.
It is only to be used to identify clear and obvious errors.
The referee always takes the final decision but should make use of VAR in the same way in which he makes use of the contributions of the assistant referees and the fourth official.
VAR technology is permitted in order to review incidents in key match-changing situations in four specific situations: goals, penalty kicks, red cards, mistaken identity. This has not happened.
VAR has been overriding referees’ decisions which were not clear and obvious errors, which is what has frustrated stakeholders in the game regardless of whether they were beneficiaries or victims of said decisions.
The reason this has come to the f ore again i s because of the number of incorrect hand-ball calls which altered the results of Premier League games l ast weekend.
None of the onfield referees stood by their own original decisions so it put doubt in others’ minds as to who is really refereeing the game. To sum up: the video technology, which the experts called for in the first place, is being incorrectly used.
PAUL CUMISKEY, Dublin.