WE’RE off again – and it’s still only March. The crazy flags, marches and bonfire season is well and truly under way and in the time since the last one nothing has been done to suggest that things are about to change any time soon.
It was an open goal for deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly in Washington DC this week.
With every passing day, the evidence of two diverging economies on the island becomes all the clearer - a Southern Government awash in money looming over a Northern Executive which is effectively bust.
WE don't know as much about St Patrick as one might think considering he is our national saint.
THE White House will once again have a peculiarly unionist feel on St Patrick’s Day as the DUP and UUP cross the pond to accept a bowl of shamrock from President Donald Trump in a green tie.
IT'S a striking reflection of this era of misinformation, disinformation and non-information, that, in their reporting of the death of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, none of our mainstream media reported on several consequential visits he made to this benighted backwater.
BUILDING the infrastructure of bias and discrimination which continues to permeate every aspect of our lives was the work of several generations of unionist and British administrations. It stands to reason, therefore, that undoing the damage wrought by countless decisions made by blinkered mandarins and bigoted ministers will also take time.
WHEN news filtered through on Tuesday that Queen's University had cut all links with an American politician of international renown, it's fair to say that many folks in these parts thought, “About time they dismissed Hillary Clinton.”
COMPLAINTS this week from some of the biggest hospitality operators in town over soaring rates bills are easy to dismiss as more whining from the usual quarters.
AS FORMER senior PSNI officer Jon Burrows prepares to take over the leadership of the UUP uncontested, he will be fully aware of the huge challenges that face him. Or at least we think he will be, because Mr Burrows is so fond of an arresting soundbite and accompanying picture that it is sometimes hard to tell what lies beneath the bluster and blow.
THE vacuous debate involving the Communities Minister over the flag to be used to represent these benighted six counties in the Commonwealth Games speaks to a wider problem: the nationalist community of the North is simply still not seen by our former masters.
ENOUGH’S enough. And not only is enough enough, enough’s enough of us having to say enough’s enough every couple of months.
The Squamish Nation of western Canada have a phrase for their approach to community development — their aim is "to manage wealth not manage poverty".
THE failure of the Irish and UK media to acknowledge the continuing hunger strike by remand prisoners in England is an eye-opening example of the propaganda that passes for journalism when it comes to the issue of Gaza and Israel.
THERE is something awry with the world when it's impossible to find anywhere on the BBC mention of the fact that UK citizens are on a hunger strike in British prisons in solidarity with the beleaguered people of Palestine.