Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Two Johnnies a symptom of dumbing down by RTÉ
THE 2 Johnnies, who were unveiled as 2FM’s latest broadcasting offering came in for a – deserved – backlash for a video promoting their new show Drive It. The video contained virulently sexist’ material and featured several crude references to female genitalia. The radio jocks were absent from 2FM as the row rumbled on.
The double act have attributed the deeply offensive content to poor editing and claimed the content lacked the ‘context’ of their condemnations saying it was their ‘intention’ to condemn the offensive car stickers.
The pair have been taken off air by bosses at radio towers with their future broadcasting career precarious. There is no arguing that the pair’s video was offensive and did women a huge disservice. So should they be allowed to apologise and carry on or be cancelled.
Personally, I think their apology should be taken at face value, as I find it incredible that anybody would be that stupid to post that content and call it comedy. But here is the real crux of the saga. What is also offensive is RTÉ bosses and their insistence to foist this juvenile, slapstick, nonsense and repackage it as entertainment.
I have interviewed The 2 Johnnies and found them perfectly pleasant. But 2FM, which purports to be the station for Ireland’s youth, have a skewed opinion of the young people of today and clearly think they have an IQ of a gnat.
They constantly bang out inane, nonsense. Never before have young people been so exposed to, invested in or affected by the geopolitical nature of the world.
Yet on the ‘station of the youth’ there is a total dearth of discourse with many presenters that are lacking the capacity to engage the audience in any type of intellectual conversation. That is by no means a jibe at their line-up. They are hired for their humour not their current affairs chops. So RTÉ is getting exactly what we pay for. RTÉ needs to reassess themselves if they persist in this policy of dumbing down the content.
Under Putin, Russia will never be silent
WHILE on the surface it may seem overly simplistic, but the diabolical assault on Ukraine is, in essence, the story of one man and a washing machine.
I have an enormous appetite for Russian history and the evolution of the red state from the Romanovs to the present regime.
While Stalin was the most tyrannical, Vladimir Putin is the most diabolical and devious dictator.
His war on the West has been festering for decades in his embittered mind. Putin’s problem dates back to December 1989 when he was a lowly KGB officer stationed in Dresden. He watched, in disgust, democracy in action as the Berlin Wall came down and toppled communism.
As the revolution swept through Germany, Putin called Moscow for orders to resist and was told ‘Moscow is silent’. These three words have haunted him and that abandonment shaped his ambitions for power. German unification was Russia’s humiliation.
As history tells it, Putin’s German friends give him a 20-year-old washing machine and packed him back to St Petersburg. But Russia under Mikhail Gorbachav was altered radically and Putin felt displaced in his own land. It was this sense of betrayal and deep-seated grievance that is fundamental to Putin’s core.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was an abiding memory and a lesson for future President Putin of how change can be shaped not only by force, but by misplaced patriotism and raw emotion.
In 1989 he saw in Dresden how patriotism fuelled by a desire for democracy, was the catalyst for change. Putin connived his way to the upper echelons of Russian ranks and was anointed by Boris Yelstin as his successor.
Bill Clinton had an uneasy sense of foreboding about Putin and told Yeltsin ’I’m a little bit concerned about this young man that you have turned over the presidency to. He doesn’t have democracy in his heart’.
Since then Putin, the disillusioned KGB officer, who was forced to flee Germany with nothing but a second-hand washing machine, has now been the overlord of Russia for more than two decades.
In that time President Putin has been engaged in an existential struggle with democracy. Putin under Russia has never been silent.
As tanks tore through Ukraine and bombs, bullets and terror reigned down on the people, Putin’s deepseated resentment metastasised to retribution causing human suffering on a catastrophic scale.
The human tragedy in this story can be encapsulated in a tiny Ukrainian child who was forced to flee her home and told to pack only what she needed was pictured pitifully carrying out her bucket and spade. A little girl with her bucket and spade torn from a home and a father she will probably never see again. That is the human tragedy the world must never again, forgive or forget.
Hogan must be having a laugh
AS desperate refugees flee Ukraine former EU commissioner Phil Hogan had the audacity to moan that he was so ‘traumatised’ over his treatment after Golfgate he was ‘forced to take refuge’ in sunny Portugal for six months.
I thought it was some kind of satirical take until I read the full newspaper interview. When I saw Hogan is seriously suggesting he will ‘demand’ compensation for the ‘damage’ suffered over his resignation in the wake of the controversy (and reportedly received a €300,000 golden handshake) my laughter turned to anger.
Hogan, an asylum seeker, seeking refuge from an oppressive Irish state led by the ‘media mob’ pouring his heart out – ironically enough to a member of the same media. He never received fair procedures from the EU, he says, as he demanded the Irish Government right the wrong.
Perhaps he would like the European Court of Justice to step in? Or maybe he expects one of those heartfelt apologies in the Dáil usually reserved for actual victims, such as the Mother and Baby Homes survivors?
A piece of advice for Mr Hogan – concentrate on your money-spinning European lobbyist gig, enjoy all the good food and wine Brussels has to offer and save your tale of woe for your golfing buddies before you turn yourself into a national laughing stock.