a Day of Reflection for the conflict in and about Northern Ireland

I grew up in a place where people killed each other. This happened regularly. Beyond the deaths there was violence, intimidation, threats and no end of personal unpleasantness that perpetuated the situation. The situation improved after the Good Friday Agreement, but it did not change everything and many things are yet to be sorted out to everyone's liking.
It might be easy to say that we should all forget about it and move on, but forgetting is impossible and even if we all wanted to do it we couldn't. So in its place we try peace initiatives, cross-community work and power sharing. These aren't great but no-one expected the problems to be solved overnight.
In all of this, too little has been done to remember the suffering of so many that the conflict produced. The Day of Reflection offered by Healing Through Remembering is an opportunity to do this. (FYI I have worked for them in the past and continue to support what they do.) 

The Day of Private Reflection on 21 June is a day to acknowledge the deep hurt and pain caused by the conflict, to reflect on our own attitudes, on what more we might have done or might still do, and to make a personal commitment that such loss should never be allowed to happen again. 

It is not the only one. And having an inclusive day will not receive the support of all. But it is something and I hope more can come from it. I hope you do too.


Click here to mark the Day on facebook and here to follow on twitter.

on the skin conditions of ostriches

Holidaying is strange thing, that often leads to strange things. So when the opportunity to ride an ostrich presented itself and a friend gleefully offered to pay for it, animal rights and environmental concerns were overridden and I duly stepped on-board the exploitation train.
If you look carefully at the picture you will see two thing. 'As skin conditions' written on the sign and a rather poor skin condition on the poor bird's rear end. The two things are connected and presumably the ostriches are a risk when they are not feeling the best.. This is my interpretation only, the possibility of being wrong doesn't lessen the burden of guilt. The poor thing seemed incredibly unhappy, and would only run when pushed, and I am guessing something was done to it to stop it biting.
A bit like that camel I met on the Great Wall of China, ostriches are brought to tourist attractions in Vietnam for the sake of making a quick buck off the eejit that will do it for the craic. I am not alone in having done it, but with any luck a bit more thought will be paid next time to the plight of the animal. The fact that this experience was pretty lame (you couldn't even steer the thing) will no doubt help this.


Click here for video on facebook, apologies if you need to be logged in etc.