Dunnes Stores does Warsaw
Spotted in Dunnes Stores in Tallaght. It seems they are targetting Polish shoppers with goods from the old country. Dumplings and frozen fruits I think?
So whilst scrambling for the phone to take a snap I thought of my monthly trips to a shop in Leytonstone whilst a student nurse. It was a Greek Cypriot shop and it had an amazing range of Irish goods. On payday myself and other Irish nurses living in the nearby nurses home would head up for the important supplies. Tayto, kimberly biscuits, red lemonade and galtee sausages. Strange now nearly 18 years on that I have not bought any of the above items in years.
There is a Polish supermarket in Clondalkin which I aim to visit before I become a lilywhite next month. And maybe I can bring my real camera this time!
Lesbian.com is for sale
Would you pay $2 million for a domain name – even if were
Lesbian.com?
The owners of the domain name
are putting it up for sale. Sex.com went for $14 million earlier this year it seems.
I don’t think it’s worth the money. I fail to see what businesses or NGO’s other than porn sites would be interested. Porn sites had tried to buy the name before and the owners had refused but this time round they may not be so hesitant if the price is right. So let them off, in 2006 the surfers are more savvy, the lesbian audiences more diverse and there is a lot more choice available. But if the sellers can sleep easy in their beds knowing that their site, which lists first in a google search for lesbian, will bring those seeking information to internet porn then I wish them many healthy nights ahead.
So Long...Farewell
And what a lovely morning it is too!
Mr Myers has resigned from the Irish Times and is off touting his wares with the Indo or the Daily IRISH Mail. Could Mr. Waters go next? Oh that would be too much good news in one week!
Seriously for a minute, its time for the IT to bring women back to the paper especially in terms of op-eds. We have lost Mary Holland, Nuala O’Faolain, Christina Murphy, Mary Cummins, Mary Maher and many others through retirement or death. The days
of Donal’s babes were exciting times for women in journalism. And under a woman editor, there have been few new exciting voices brought to the paper (Roisin Ingle??)
What will
Cruiskeen Eile do now? Exciting days for the lads @ Myerswatch.
Chocolate and Honey...and a great blog
One of my favourite blogs at the moment is
Straight Talking, the blog of a young lesbian in Northern Ireland. Straight Talking’s insights into closets, school and coming out and culture and identity are extremely well written and often hilarious. More people need to read her!!!
Her
latest post on the practicality of the famous Dyke T-Shirt Slogan, ‘
Dip in me in Chocolate and throw me to the lesbians’ had me in stitches. (Although I do think the original was honey – and that is equally impractical and rather more stomach churning!)
I do believe I would have to hose Katherine Moennig down before I let her in to do my niceties.And I was only thinking yesterday about how Katherine Moennig was replacing Angelina as most younger lesbians shag of choice….
Where do we learn about lgb humanity and history rather than human rights?
Twelve years ago I co-wrote a
book with Junior Larkin. I get reminded of it from time to time when people come up to me and say they read it before they came out or their parents or friends gave it to them. I also get told the stories of the sneaky looks in the libraries that readers took when they were planning their escapes from wardrobes and the like. (I love the tales of the shocked librarians who look at the person borrowing the book and the deep breaths the borrowers took.)
I do very much appreciate the feedback and the memories from those who have read it and it seems such a long time ago but it’s interesting to hear that people still find it relevant today. I rang somewhere this morning to leave a message for someone and the person on the end of the phone recognised my name and said ‘Fair dues on the book girl.’ I blushed …even on the phone! But anyway it was nice.
I have been wondering over the past few years about where lesbians and gay men in the 21st century get their coming out information. Whilst there is no doubt the internet plays a huge part I think the Irish net is seriously lacking in a one stop shop for health legal, cultural, historical and other information for young or old or their allies on who lesbians and gay men are, how we live our sexuality and what to do if one gets into trouble in whatever way.
Twelve years ago was only one year after decriminalisation. It might have been a different time but I don’t think the issues have changed. People are still worried that they are the only one going through it. There is still bullying in schools, young people are still being thrown out of home for coming out. Parents are still worried about losing access to their children if they come out. Lesbian health is still no more on the agenda now than it was then. Whilst the dynamics of the HIV/AIDS pandemic have changed, those coming out today don’t know people who have the disease or have died and it seems to have slipped off the agenda and is seen as less threatening somehow. Whilst laws have been introduced to protect us, few seem willing to take cases on the basis of discrimination for fear of being marked. And most people still think of the sexual act when they think of homosexuality, rather than the culture, love and living that is involved with being a lesbian woman or gay man in Ireland.
The questions and queries about different things to do with being lesbian or gay still exist and I am sure the internet, message boards and chatrooms all help those who want to know more. But the physical services that were run voluntarily back in the mid 90’s seem to have been more visible and more active than those that exist today. There’s lots of talk about our human rights but so little about the human. Not everyone has net access or the tools needed to negotiate the crap from the good stuff online. However maybe I’m wrong in all of this and maybe those coming out with the support of online resources are getting what they need. It would be interesting to research this more and find out what the information needs are and how they are being addressed.
PS. This is not a plug, the book is out of print, and I made more from my appearance fee on the Late Late Show than I did from the royalties I received from writing the thing!
Searching for Maman's
Red Mum’s post about the guy who emailed her following a search for ‘Mum’s in bed’ which led to her blog reminded me that I have not yet got round to posting about the various searches that lead readers to Maman Poulet.
I get a lot of searches for the term ‘Maman Sex’ or ‘Sex Maman’. But in order of popularity the leading search terms which lead readers to MP are…
Rachel Allen (On a Saturday Morning following the showing of her programme on the BBC I get lots of searches from the UK and the Benelux region – you’d think I was her number 1 fan or something!)
Ryan Tubridy (fairly international searches, UK, Germany, Ireland Brussels, USA)
Daily IRISH Mail (there is no website presence for articles in the paper so it seems people end up here – however many of the visitors are from Associated Newspapers, the Publishers. Hi lads and lassies!)
Brenda Power
Ryanair Dispatches
Damien Needs (now I don’t have a clue what this is about but they end up here because of
this post )
And in the past 10 Days I have had a lot of googlers for
Finola Kennedy arriving here.
Watch the Birdies
There are
crows nesting outside the Guardian’s offices in London. Sheryl produced 3 eggs and they are expected to hatch next week. Russell and Sheryl (yes, I also groaned) were seen building a nest a few weeks ago and the whole office is now delighting in their every move.
However my real find in reading the piece was a link to
Brian the Pigeon’s Blog. Brian is not any old pigeon – he is ‘Britain’s premier blogging pigeon’ – and he’s a political one, planning on organising a protest at Trafalgar square to protest the ban on feeding him and his mates.
And he’s getting the chants ready
"One, two, three, four - we're the birds you can't ignoreFive, six, seven, eight - pigeons, we retaliate!"How do we get Brian to Aine Status?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle ala Maman Poulet
Clearing up the kitchen presses today to see what I have and have not and what can be dumped as never going to be used. We are moving house in a few weeks and its time to unload, freecycle, cheapcycle, recycle and donate.
When it comes to the food press, there was very little to throw out, everything seemed to be well within its use by date. There was coconut milk, tomatoes, tuna, pineapple (I never eat tinned pineapple – how did that end up in there?) and rice (5 different kinds!) and enough pasta to feed an army. (Ok not the 2,500 lads and ladies strutting their stuff down O’Connell Street maybe but plenty to last a few months if I ever ate any of the stuff)
And then there are the pulses and seeds - lentils, aduki beans, more lentils, haricot beans, chickpeas, lots of Indian spices, bay leaves, vinegars and packets of asian sauce mixes that I picked up from the Asian market thinking ‘I’ll experiment with that some time’! Lots of crackers/biscuits for cheese and organic stockcubes (ok I try to make myself feel better about using organic stock cubes rather than making my own stock).
Just put up my first things on
Leinster-Freecycle, a coffee maker (never out of its box) and a footspa (used once) It’s a email list where you giveaway stuff you don’t need. Amazing the things that people have to giveaway before they end up in landfill. I am on the look out for an office desk and a decent chair and a TV at some stage so I hope it will come via freecycle. Recently someone started up
Cheapcycle Ireland. This is where you advertise stuff you want to sell cheaply.
The next job is the bookshelves. I am determined not to bring books that I am not emotionally attached to. The cookery books of course will be coming with me but there is an awful lot of fiction and academia that will be heading to
Oxfambooks in the next few weeks. I brought a few bags into them a few weeks ago and there is more on the way there soon or else I will have no room to breathe wherever I end up.
Good Friday Not Such Good Food
Another quickie review of a restaurant’s daily special menu. This time it’s
Luigi Malones. Good Friday is a weird day, no pubs open but lots of other places are. Many restaurants were closed yesterday and it did not seem to have much to do with licencing laws as to whether which were closed and which were not. I popped my head into Fallon and Byrne’s Foodhall which opened this week in Exchequer Street. I hear there will be a restaurant here, there is a café bar with high stools in one part of it which was not what we were looking for. Apart from thinking
Morgan and his camera would have a great time taking pics of the fruit and veg stall, we did not have a good look inside and I will be back next week once my back is up to walking around.
We decided to head to Temple Bar and I suggested
Luigi Malones given that I had seen a sign earlier in the week that said it was open on Good Friday and had heard good things about it from my ex and her sister who eat there regularly.
Well yesterday it had all the hallmarks of a tourist trap on a Good Friday. Many tables filled with tourists who had nowhere else to go. The service was attentive and
the daily specials menu seemed good value with different Mexican, pasta, burger and noodle dishes on offer with a soft drink included for €9.90.
I ordered the chicken ramen noodles – this was a mistake really. If you eat at
Wagamama or Yamamori then having ramen dishes anywhere else is a mistake. The dish was heavy on the noodles and light on the veg and the stock tasted very fishy. The chicken looked like salmon which is always a bad sign.
My friend had the chicken tequila fettuccine which was heavy on the pasta and light on the sauce. See a trend here? Whilst there is no doubt then food is cheap and there seems to be good value on offer on the menu there are other places in Dublin which do budget menus well and don’t make you feel like you are a cheapskate and they are treating you likewise.
We couldn’t wait to get out of the place and headed to
Lemon Jelly for a spot of tea and watching the world go by.
In Memoriam: Ursula Haggerty
From the Irish Independent April 11 2006
An activist remembered
Tuesday April 11th 2006
Ursula Haggerty died on March 27. Ursula was a political activist, but she won't be written about by Gene McKenna or Sam Smyth, or any of the recognised political columnists in Ireland.
Neither will the actions she took part in be discussed on any current affairs programme on radio andtelevision.
Not even Nuala O'Faolain or Nell McCafferty will see Ursula as a fellow struggler in the campaign for women's rights. This is because Ursula all her life used a wheelchair for mobility and the aforementioned people refuse to see disability as serious civil rights issue that can make good copy.
No more than society in general, they see people like Ursula as unfortunates who are in need of care.
In 1994 Ursula took part in events that changed the landscape of disability. That was the year that people with physical disabilities first forced the authorities to recognise that they had the right and the capability of controlling their own lives rather than being the passive recipients of care. Ursula played a significant part in this movement.
From 1990 until the momentous events of 1994, she served on the steering committee that brought about Ireland's first Centre for Independent Living. But Ursula's struggle did not end in 1994. She served on CIL's board for some years after that. No less than a year ago Ursula's service provider pressurised her to accept that her personal assistants must wear latex gloves when assisting her, as if Ursula had some terrible infectiousdisease.
People closest to her say this broke her heart because she was given no logical or legal reason beyond that it was the service provider's policy.
This writer remembers the emotion in Ursula's voice as she read out embarrassing details of what she had to endure in the privacy of her own home. This is the same service provider whose representative at a conference in 2002 effectively ignored the events of 1994 and tried to maintain that the concept of independent living was an intellectual evolution, mostly on their behalf, from the notion of care, to care assistance, to personal assistance.
This demonstrates that the service provider, although using the language of independent living, did not see Ursula as an adult who could be negotiated with, but somebody who needed to be controlled like a bold child who wanted more and more sweets.
Rest in Peace Ursula. Not even you recognised your own significance.
Peter Moore
Donaghmede, Dublin 13.
Defamation and blogging on Morning Ireland
Karyn Harty, head of defamation at McCann Fitzgerald was interviewed about blogging and defamation on Morning Ireland this morning. You can hear the piece
here. (Real Player required)
(Hattip: Lazyhazy)
Welcome to the Blogosphere....
Councillor Eric Byrne, veteran of never ending election counts. Well done on starting a blog!
Template Tantrums
If anyone knows why all my links and stuff have dropped to the bottom of the page and I have not touched my template let me know!!! Or maybe it’s time for a new template.
A little not so light reading and listening
The Women’s Environment and Development Organisation have launched a new project
MisFortune500 (geddit?) which will "expose how corporate activities violate women's human rights, workers' rights and the environment and highlight what women worldwide are doing about it."
You can email your testimonies/nominations etc. to info@misfortune500.org
Rachel Maddow from Air America interviews a New York Times Magazine writer about his recent trip to El Salvador where he found police standing by the beds of women who had illegal abortions and were in comas. Listen
here. (The article on which the interview is based will be online tomorrow - update link to article
here (Hattip:
Mulley) Much of what happens in El Salvador could happen in Ireland except we don’t have people taking women’s uterui (sp?) into evidence or Forensic Vaginal Specialists. Do we? Rachel tells us that the representative of Human Life International describes the situation in El Salvador as ‘an inspiration’.
As South Dakota’s women prepare to have no access to abortion, a 70 year old doctor came out of retirement to provide a service to women in the one remaining clinic in the state. You can watch her interview and read more
here.
The Carnival of the Feminists XII is hosted at
Written World, if you have nothing to do of an afternoon and want to see what feminists are talking about in their blogs under different themes this is a great stop off point.
(Hat Tips to Feministing)
Dr. Kennedy I Presume?
In the comments
here a few people have remarked on Finola Kennedy’s appointment and there have been a few ‘who is she?’s as well.
Well I knew her name and background and understand why she has been appointed to the Working Group on Domestic Partnership. It’s by way of a nod to Rome and Archbishops House. But I will not digress any further and let google do the talking.
Dr. Kennedy is an economist and recently served as chair of
the Housing Finance Agency. She currently serves as a board member of the
Railway Procurement Agency and is a director of ACC bank. She previously worked for the
ESRI. I could not find a current academic affiliation for Dr. Kennedy.
She would be remembered by many women as the dissenting voice from the Second Commission on the Status of Women. Dissenting in that she has did not support several areas of the report which focussed on women’s economic rights to access the workplace and she published a minority report outlining how women would receive supports instead to stay at home.
Dr. Kennedy is also somewhat of an expert on Frank Duff and the Legion of Mary. You can hear her
here speaking about what would have happened if Frank Duff had not founded the Legion of Mary. She wrote
John Henry Newman and Frank Duff in 1982.
Her latest publication is
Cottage to Crèche. Family Change in Modern Ireland. She writes an
article in Irish on the book on CatholicIreland.net. The Wikipedia
entry on the Riordans notes that in this text Dr. Kennedy highlighted that the Riordans (a rural soap opera on RTE – before Glenroe)’ introduced one of the most sensitive issues in rural family life – the links between property, farm ownership and marriage at the very time of the debate on the Succession Bill’. One wonders what she will make of the succession bill with regard to the rights of the child of a non-biological mother in a lesbian parenting relationship.
In her biography on the RPA website Dr. Kennedy’s areas of expertise are listed as public expenditure and demography.
I don’t know what expertise Dr. Kennedy has in the area of policy with regard to non-marital relationships and in particular same sex relationships. If her expertise is demography and family economics then the 1300 same sex couples counted in the last census will tell her this is not an important area. However we know that these figures are not a true representation of the situation due to the difficulties posed in answering the question on the form. Can we speculate on what Frank Duff and the Legion of Mary would have thought!
Apart from one representative from
GLEN and someone from the Family Lawyers Association (of which I know nothing) there is no representative from any of the statutory or non statutory bodies which deal with one parent or unmarried parents. Surely
Treoir or
One Family or the
NWCI could also have been targeted to provide a family economics or social policy specialist.
Podcasting Friday #2
So it’s Friday and that means an update on Podcasting Friday.
Firstly I succumbed and bought an mp3 player last weekend. It’s the Creative Zen Nano if you’re interested and is really good apart from the earphones which are a bit big.
On to the podcasts, well apart from a few that I listened to through the PC which I
mentioned last week, I am now downloading daily instalments of
Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code
, The Gay Parenting Show,
The Ian Dempsey Show (Gift Grub in particular) and
Woman’s Hour from BBC Radio 4. I also found the first episode of the
Ouch Podcast, the BBC Disability podcast - with a tagline that says
‘You’re so special, we’ve made a podcast for you!’. A very irreverent look at disability and culture and the first episode tears strips off the Paralympics in a manner which most able bodied people won’t get at all but had me chuckling away.
But my favourite thing from this week of listening has been Amy Goodman and
Democracy Now. I have watched many episodes and clips before from DemocracyNow.org but to be able to download the show each day has been heavenly. I have to admit that I am in love with Amy’s voice – its knowledgeable and authoritative and also quite calming even when discussing the most difficult of subjects. (I have quite a thing for voices of which I should blog about again.)
The software has been easy to use and my bus journeys are heavenly!
However as I get into listening to podcasts I find out that I might be very alone amongst online households. In the
USA research has indicated that only 1 percent of online households are listening in.
But I’m enjoying it and might even get into podsafe music whatever that is for next weeks update!
And here we go again
Yesterday Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform
announced the composition of the Working Group on Domestic Partnership.
The terms of reference of the group are narrow.
I see the establishment of this Working Group as a crucial step in the development of the debate on civil or domestic partnership. I have asked the Group to elaborate an analysis of the range of options available to the legislature for giving legal recognition to alternative forms of partnership or cohabitation, consistent with Constitutional provisions. I am confident that the work of the Group will prove a sound basis for the formulation of legislative proposals in this area.” Noticeably the group will not be able to make recommendations for change which would go beyond current constitutional provisions.
This group’s formation comes after the following reports already written on the matter.
The Report of the
ICCL Partnership Rights Group which will be published next month.
And the members of the group who are charged with deciding on matters that will effect the lives of thousands of same-sex and opposite sex non marital couples?
Anne Colley, Chair, (Solicitor and Current Chair of the Legal Aid Board
Eoin Collins, Gay and Lesbian Equality Network
Carmel Stewart, Family Lawyers Association
Eilis Barry, Equality Authority
Christine O’Rourke, Advisory Counsel, Attorney General’s Office
Vincent Palmer, Principal, Department of Finance
Helen Faughnan, Principal, Department of Social and Family Affairs
Kieran Feely, Department of Health and Children
Dr. Finola Kennedy, Economist
Niall McCutcheon, Principal, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform
John Kenny, Principal, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform
There is no representative on this group from a lone parents or unmarried parents group or a woman’s organisation or a lesbian organisation. Lesbian parents are not represented either. (Ah yes they are not really families according to the All Party Report on the Constitution and the Family)
It is interesting that the Department of Finance is represented on the group. Are we going to hear again about how much this will cost or maybe pigs will fly and it can be computed how much tax, inheritance, pension contributions and other monies unmarried couples have contributed and lost the benefit of due to the lack of equality afforded to them. Maybe the representative from Social Welfare will tell of the way in which same sex couples and survivors have lost out due to discrimination? Or the civil servant from Health document the many times that same sex partner has been denied access to their sick loved one?
Blogging about Bertie
Further Update: Creature @
State of the Day and I have been emailing today where I attempt to explain something about the role and status of the Catholic Church in Ireland and the reality that is the same sex partnership recognition debate. I also got into a bit of rant on modern Ireland. He posts some of my email to him on
his blog. I’m sure not everyone will agree with what I said but I think it’s important to deconstruct some of the overseas news reporting on Bertie Ahern’s visit and his words and actions so far on lesbian and gay rights.
-----------------------------------------------
Apart from the
news coverage of the launch of
GLEN’s new offices and workplan, Bertie’s visit and speech are being covered internationally by bloggers.
Queerty
says that
‘Ahern's pledge is especially significant because Ireland's constitution is tied to the Roman Catholic Church, and there is a specific provision that states the Irish government must protect "the institution of marriage" as one man and one woman.’I don’t think that’s quite correct but they probably think we all ride about on donkeys, cutting turf and eating spuds or something.
Andrew Sullivan gives Bertie his
Quote of the day spot.
Hothouse says‘As we read the short AP piece about Ireland’s support move towards civil partnerships for gay couples, we noticed several things that would never happen in the United States. First, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern himself announced the plan, saying, “Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship.” That would never happen here. Second, he made the announcement as he personally opened the new offices for Ireland’s biggest gay rights group. Surely, you must be joking. Third, he said that the government intended to overcome the problems with the Irish constitution which contains a clause “requiring the predominantly Roman Catholic state to protect the institution of marriage.” Allowing religious dogma to determine the course of civil life? Oh wait, sorry that does happen here. So one for us.’Em... actually we are swimming in announcements and reports on this stuff, for years, we’ve been told that we don’t want marriage by our government, that we would need a referendum that would not be won, that they can sort us out whilst giving all sorts of relationships rights like brothers and sisters and that these things take time.
Bertie was out on his usual Monday open a bookies or a pub thing…yesterday it just happened to be the queers. Sure his speech was good, he was the first prime minister to do it and he can’t go back on in terms of stating his aspirations and respect but nothing new was really said and no timetable agreed to. And we have an election next year so as per usual nothing much will happen.
The spin on this is amazing. Next thing Bertie will be winning
the Outspoken Award from IGLHRC or something. (MR actually did something to win her one).
Saying and doing are two very different things.Technorati search on Bertie Ahern
here.
Updates:
EWI drew my attention to
Best of Both Worlds who were far more on the money than anything else stateside.
Creature @
State of the Day is embarrassed to be American.
People, this is Ireland. Home of the strictest Catholics around. If they can embrace different sexual orientations, why can't we?Anyone else want to tell him about the strict Catholics? Or the embracing?
Equality
Our sexual orientation is not an incidental attribute. It is an essential part of who and what we are. All citizens, regardless of sexual orientation, stand equal in the eyes of our laws. Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship. Our laws have changed, and will continue to change, to reflect this principle.Bertie Ahern
speaking at the launch of the
GLEN offices and 5 year work programme.
It saddens me that it took until 2006 to hear an Irish Taoiseach say those words. I think it will be well after the next general election before we see any action on them.
Mugging and mobiles
To the wanker who crept up behind me today and grabbed my mobile phone (and my ear!) whilst I was talking to a friend and then ran off with it…I had the phone decommissioned within 5 minutes. Rather brave of them stealing from a crip wasn't it. Can I find any other word other than wanker? Oh I am sure I can…but I won’t bother.
And for
all my bitching about O2 – they were really good and asked me if there was anyone they could call for me to come to me and was I able to go somewhere for a cup of tea etc. and said they hoped I would feel better soon.
And now I am off to ring the Gardai cos I think McDowell should know about it in his crime figures. Most people would not bother and I know why but
I'm trying to be normally sensible rather than the village busybody.
Richardheads
Update: EPT says that the story about being closed down was a hoax. I await comment from the Sunday Times and Dearbhail McDonald. The orginal matter behind the story still occured to my knowledge and the way in which EPT operate behind a cloak of anonymity and commenters who are also anonymous can only lead to trouble in the future given the recent case in the UK. As an administrator of a busy internet forum I have an interest in the matter and have worked at my understanding (and moderation) on the difference between fair comment and defamation. Maybe it will be good for us (blogging/forums/online communities) to have a court case but I won't be putting my hands in my pockets to help in this particular matter. Whilst the Irish blogosphere (or the interested part of it anyway) does some reflecting on the El Paso Times situation, my reaction to this is 'Was anyone surprised it was them who got themselves into this mess?'
I don't think I will be blogging any differently today than I was yesterday! Whilst I have previously expressed my concerns over my lack of knowledge of libel and the law regarding blogging, I think bloggers can stop doing the 'Oh what will we do now' and 'the end is nigh' and all that stuff.
This is not about a free speech issue. The team behind El Paso Times were dickheads and still are if they think that excuse for an apology was going to get them out of it. I think that most bloggers posses the common sense needed to run their blogs and the rest of the bloggers around them will take them to task or give helpful reminders about what can and can't be published. EPT telling the Sunday Times to piss off a few weeks ago over their interest in a story featured on the blog will not have helped matters either. You reap what you sow.
But I won't be spending my days worrying any more than usual about what I write or the impact of this incident on bloggers. Hopefully the blogger academy will cover the issues needed but I think some of us need to calla spade a spade - this incident did not come about because some blogger did not know what they were doing or could not control the blog or comments section - EPT operates its own agenda entirely, has a large readership and little regard for the law or the society it represents. They had it coming to them.
