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EVERY WEEK, WE bring you a round-up of the best longreads of the past seven days in Sitdown Sunday.
For the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you an evening longread to enjoy which will help you to escape the news cycle.
We’ll be keeping an eye on new longreads and digging back into the archives for some classics.
In March 2007, pupils at Girlstown, a boarding schoolin Mexico, began to experience strange symptoms, including nausea and fevers. What was going on?
(Vox, approx 20 mins reading time)
And then she told Loa Zavala what she thought was haunting Girlstown. “I see babies that have their cord, like fetuses,” Zitlali said. “Sometimes they are very ugly, bloody and with red eyes and a wrinkled face.” She said she lived in terror of the babies, but that sometimes they became angelic. “The last time I saw one, it was a baby with no face,” she said. “It was beside the Lord.” Loa Zavala was trained to stay calm. She knew she could handle this. Then Zitlali told her something that sounded like a warning: “We have to be careful with our eyes because with our eyes we can go to hell.”
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Is there a reason some Gardai talk down to you like a teacher to a student? Genuine question. Never understood it. Making less sense the older I get. Emphasis on “some”, not all.
@IrelandForChange: it means you are maturing
@Sean Ahearne: and some of them are uppity little f–ks!!. Andin fairness they are in a minority:)
@IrelandForChange: its called power tone.
My dad has it hes a ex teacher
@IrelandForChange: With authority comes power. That’s natural. Abuse of it though different story. Same as anything else whether it be a politician or a business operator. It’s just personality at the end of the day. Some ride the power and get off on it. Others use the power to make life better. Depends on how you look at it and how they look at it.
@Louise Ni Riain: my dad does too and he’s an ex teacher you are right
Yeeey, go Ireland!
High visibility patrols, enforcement, intimidation, fines, scapegoating, shows of force, more enforcement! Let’s focus on crowd control, let’s send a strong message, let’s not rest until every head shall bow and every knee shall bend in submission!
That’s how others did it!
That’s why we have 2 lockdowns, other had none!
Meanwhile, even contact tracing seems too big a task…
@Stan Papusa: Its hard for people to accept the blame when the virus spreads from people. The public have themselves to blame for not following the rules. We have 6 weeks, lets get this muck down.
@Paul Cunningham: no they haven’t.
@Paul Cunningham: open borders brought the virus here (virus was known to exist long before lockdown in March) no action was taken. The authorities practically invited it here to spread. Lockdown 1 almost solved the virus but no, our genius overlords decided to leave ports and airports open. Wide open. Hence here we are with an incompetent test and trace system. And some scoff at trump? WTF?
@Paul Cunningham: https://www.facebook.com/218534128577975/posts/1063026874128692/
Watch that. Grafton street dublin tonight
@Paul Cunningham: ‘The virus spreads from people’ mantra is a bit overused these days. Of course it does, so what? Unless we’re genetically different from Kiwis (and I don’t mean the bird or the fruit) or significantly less clean/civilized than South Koreans, ‘the virus spreads from people’ means nothing and it doesn’t explain the state of affairs we are in.
The overwhelming majority of people already did their part during the first lockdown and that’s the bottom line. There no such thing as 100% compliance anywhere – regardless how many yearn for it – except maybe in North Korea.
So we had a lockdown, the exit strategy was poor, and they didn’t use that opportunity (numbers being low and situation being stable for over 3 months) to put better controls and measures in place. The exit strategy this time around is not even poor, is absent.
Worse still, they are lying through their teeth, again finding scapegoats (house parties this time around), again refusing to see the elephant in the room: schools and non-essential services.
@Daniel Dunne: another knuckledragger.
@Stan Papusa: you’re welcome to leave
@Stan Papusa: exit strategy is simple , masks social distancing and compliance as well as contact tracing and hospitals not overwhelmed
@Paul Cunningham: it’s hard for the government to accept we have a third world health care system that can’t cope with a Normal winter flu season and is now on show to the world for its ineptitude’s. This winter is no different the last 20, except for meek politicians hiding behind “corona virus” borrowing another 2 billion to pay for a six week lockdown that will cost billions more in lost revenue to the economy not to mention jobs in order to hide this fact, Lockdowns are not the answer and cause more damage than they say they solve.
@Seán O’Sullivan: that’s not an exit strategy its a continuance model.As in we go back to where we were when we started level 5.
Exit strategy could be e.g.:
We set a date Oct 2021, if there is no clear regression of the virus, new treatment or vaccine in sight/in play. We are going to begin the slow return to normality and actually live with the virus not pretend live with it through lock downs.
Mission example to allow us to achieve that: we need to increase ICU capacity x 2 in this period and/or set up covid only hospitals/areas of hos so other health care can continue as normal. Win public support for continued open/close till then by providing the above endstate. Continued improvement care
Alternate endstate. Vaccine in the period achieving herd immunity and open up life again.
@Stan Papusa: excellent comment!
@Seán O’Sullivan: Wrt exit strategy I see you already received an answer.
Wrt me leaving yeah I could do that, but I have a better idea.
We could start with liars and incompetents (especially those holding high office), those who dream of an Orwellian society, those who see enforcement and intimidation not as a last resort but as a default response (again, you won’t find too many countries who had 2 lockdowns as draconian as ours).
If we start with those, then the rest of us wouldn’t have to leave, either because we won’t have jobs and a future in this country, or simply because we wish to live in a normal society…
Complete waste of time and resources. If they put all these garda on patrols around housing estates and parks were the all the people are out drinking and meeting up we might stand some sort of chance.
@Keith Dunne: It specifically mentions parks in the article.
@Keith Dunne: Didn’t read the article did
@Fred the Muss…: congratulations on making a balls of your comment. I did read the article I was pointing out the need for more gardai on the street and in parks as there will be more gardai on checkpoints then patrolling the parks.
@FrustratedASDMum: well done It does. Can you spot any other words in the article. Maybe you should read the comment I made again.
During the last lockdown I was treated fairly and politely at every Garda Checkpoint . They are doing the job they are instructed to do . Appalled by some of the comments on here tonight as Garda put their lives on the line every day or have you all forgotten about all the Gardai that were killed protecting the public
@Mary Mc Carthy: it’s just the usual plastic tough guys acting big…. perhaps they’re compensating for something
@Mary Mc Carthy: thats your point of view
Mine is totally different. as soon as he have heard my accent, he start asking all sort of questions and even at one point inspected my work badge even though i showed him my essential work letter! Madness.
@Mary Mc Carthy: lucky you. There were guards 24/7 on the bridge and outside Lidl in the town were I live. They made life very difficult for everyone. I have to go into work a few days a week. It is more than 5 km away. I’ll have to leave at 6 instead of 7 in case there are Garda checks
@Mary Mc Carthy: every word true thanks to the police
@Anne Marie Devlin: That is not the fault of the Gardai . They are following government orders in order to ensure the safety of the public . I would take a delay in my journey every day to stop people spreading and dying of this virus ! We are in this position because people refused to follow the guidelines. I hope you never have to endure the agony of a family member dying alone in an ICU unit without a family member present .
@transik: Are you accusing the Gardai of being racist ?
@Seán O’Sullivan: not at all,
@Mary Mc Carthy: I have no issue with the Gardai either. I travelled to work 5 days a week during the first lockdown and they never once demanded a letter from work. I told them I was going to work and that was enough for them. Sometimes they asked the name of my employer or where I was travelling too. Even with the new restrictions people are still allowed to travel outside their 5km for reasons such as visiting a grave, attending a funeral or wedding.
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/66269-ireland-placed-on-level-5-of-the-plan-for-living-with-covid/
I work in the Airport. Only yesterday i spoke to three girls who arrived from The Czech Republic for a 10 ‘vacation.’ Bus to Dublin city for 3 days, bus to Wexford for 3 days, bus to Galway for 3 days, bus back to Dublin Airport and off they pop. And i can’t go 3km for a game of Golf with my father. Totally wrong.
@Davy: sure you have… tourists coming to Ireland with nowhere to go, nowhere to eat, nothing to do. Pull the other one.
@Isabel Oliveira: Trust me Isabel. 100% true story.
@Davy: “work in the airport”
@J: Yes
From the video doing the rounds tonight on social media… The Gardai should have been on Grafton Street
@Geraldine O’Riordan: totally, with tools like those in the video we will never get out of this !
@Geraldine O’Riordan: Lockdowns do not work. Never before in human history has a lockdown ever been used to stop the spread of a virus. You’re trying to stop hundreds of thousands of years of human behaviour, and especially in teenagers. It just won’t work. The Government have fed the media stories about everything from face masks, house parties, air travel to GAA Matches and people now take that as scientific fact when in reality it’s BS.. What should have been done the world over is protecting the vulnerable and elderly and let the rest of society get on with life. Now what we’re left with is a society divided and blaming each other, an economy destroyed and the vast majority of people are depressed and lying awake at night worried about the future.
@David Garland:
You post the same comments day in day out, yet you still don’t understand that everyone may be vulnerable to this disease. It can kill perfectly healthy people.
But that doesn’t shout your anti mask and anti lockdown crusade.
@dublinguide.ie: Everyone is vulnerable to any illness. Healthy People die from the flu every year. Plus Pneumonia kills thousands of healthy People every year. Plus I’m not anti mask, I wear mine everyday in work and where ever else I have to wear it..
@David Garland: “Lockdown” is just another word for quarantine. Such physical separation has been used throughout human history. Leprosy colonies immediately come to mind as an example, though really that’s probably more like how people like you got put in asylums in the past. That the nature of the current transmissible infection is viral, rather than bacterial, does not change the fundamental principle.
@David Garland: lockdowns were used in the 1900’s for the “Spanish Flu” and other versions of quarantine have existed since civilisation began and are recorded.
All for supporting a lockdown but, it is completely pointless exercise while schools remain open.
Out walking earlier and a group of 8 or so teenagers by the Luas. Another couple rocked up, hugged everyone, started high fiving then went on their merry way.
@Jack Inman: Is that where we’re at as a society now? Giving out about kids being kids.. Look at how 8 months of Government spin and media BS have turned society on each other.. People wondered how easily the Nazis gained power and brainwashed an entire Country and turned the local Population against the Jews in every Country they invaded.. In Eight Months look how we’ve flipped as a nation. Banned from having People in your house, banned from going to work, banned from eating in a restaurant, banned from any social interaction, not allowed 5 km from your house, banned from doing any kind of sport. Not only that but blaming everybody and anybody for spreading a virus that let’s face it, can’t to stopped. Plus the testing is way off, the PCR test is flawed and can be as much as 90% off and then we have the Government not investing in more ICU beds and not doing one thing to protect nursing homes. Yet we have People blaming kids on being kids. It’s a complete joke
@David Garland: Are you familiar with Godwin’s Law?
@David Garland: you are unbelievable, comparing Goverment measures in a Global Pandemic to Nazi Germany…… And you are wrong about Nazi Germany and brain washing against Jews … the relationship between Jewish Communities in Europe and non-Jewish had been a negative one for the previous 2,000 years… do a bit of reading will you….
@David Garland: a lot of Germans were afraid of Nazis too. , and Polish ,
@Paul Buckley: You tell me what other pandemic caused such extreme measures to be brought in that took away People’s civil liberties? The Hong Kong flu in 1968 killed nearly 8 Million People and life went on. Swine flu in 2009 killed around 800,000 and life went on. Mortality Rate for Covid 19 is around 1%, the WHO publish figures the other day saying the case fatality rate is 0.23% and yet Governments persist with lockdowns and Society blaming each other for something that’s out of their Control..
@David Garland: the measures are not about just saving lives. It us about the long term side effects that this virus impacts on the organs of those that get it.
Yes 85% of people will be fine with this and 0.23 % fatality rate compared to 0.01% of seasonal flu, but there is a vaccine for seasonal flu not for Covid 19.
The Swine Flu was a known virus, it was the strain mutation that affected Himans , it was a flu , Covid 19 is not a Flu…. Two completely different virus , complications are different…. in terms of organ failure and long term recovery.
Stick to driving the Taxi and let experts in virology do their job.
@Paul Buckley: Seasonal flu has a 0.01% fatality rate? 0.1% maybe. Also where do you get the idea from that only 85% of those infected will be fine. Surely it’ll be more around 99% that don’t die or suffer from any any long term side effect that by the way the flu can cause as well.
Driving through Bailieborough at lunchtime today, secondary school pupils leaving the school and no one was wearing a
Mask! What’s the point in lock down with that behavior prevalent!! No wonder Cavan has worse stats!!
@Margaret O Neill: same in Leixlip! All the secondary school students hanging around in gangs not a mask between them getting on the train.No one patrolling trains either.
@Margaret O Neill: The only sane group left in this country. It’s taking the supposedly braindead teenagers to show us all how absurdly brainwashed their elders are.
@Sandra Gilgunn: why don’t you look after yourself and stop expecting others to do it for you. Let others look after themselves
@Margaret O Neill: Masks should be made compulsory in the street as well.
I’ll stop for a garda, as I’m required to do by law, but I won’t be complying with any request not to travel more than 5km.
This is pure blackguarding of the worst kind. The powers that be are trying to kill the country. All so we can have another lockdown in Jan/Feb. When will they realise they don’t work, the one in March didn’t and this one won’t either. All the while they cause enumerable chaos to other parts of the health (cancer etc), cost thousands their livelihoods and make sure we all have to pay back this debt for the next decade
I refuse to go along with this suicide mission. I do not consent to this nonsense and never will.
@Colm O’Sullivan: Well said Colm!
@Colm O’Sullivan: The problem is here. Come December 1st when lockdown is lifted,
People will go crazy, pubs,restaurants open, panic buying for Christmas, streets congested because it’s only 3.5 weeks until the big day apart from New Years celebrations. The government says relaxation only to level 3 but a U turn to level 1 or 2.
We will then be back to lockdown end of January just because a minority will not pay attention
The checkpoints are pointless. The only reason they are there are so guards have an easy task to soak up all the overtime
@MentalAsAnything: Also our love of making life more difficult than it needs to be.The one silver lining was commuter time reductions. We cant have that! Here’s another hour on your journey… ‘Work?’… ‘Work guard’… carry on.
Meanwhile the Dail bar remains open! (Rumour has it)
@Paul Buckley: this article on the independent seems to indicate it is open… Only ex Dáil members are asked to stay away at the moment.
The article ran under the original headline ”ex-tds-asked-to-stay-away-from-dail-BAR during-lockdown’. It was later updated to remove the word BAR.
@Paul Buckley: link to article
@Sean Whelan: Never thought of that. One rule for the political and elite class and another for us.
Where you off to Sir? To me Ma’s, toddle on young man
@Anthony Edward Healy:
- to visit a grave
- to a wedding
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/66269-ireland-placed-on-level-5-of-the-plan-for-living-with-covid/
@Anna Anna: I know you post the stats everyday, but have you, we, lost our sense of humour? Let’s just be doom and gloom everyday yea?
@Anthony Edward Healy: you are like the Grim Reaper of the the Journal, people are allowed to try to lighten things up and try to make others smile, sorry if that offends your daily stats
@Anthony Edward Healy: all she did was give you few extra options. I think its you that has the sense of humour bypass:):)
@Franny Ando: thanks Franny. As we know the doom and gloomers don’t like to see my stats post on the cases article. I’d say they’re not happy the ICU/hospital numbers aren’t higher. Anthony is probably one of them
If we really need to get serious about covid we need army check points everywhere. Cut the bs. If it’s as serious as they are telling us, get them out to enforce it. If it’s an ICU issue then the government should walk with their heads held low.
@Paddy O Sullivan: Why. Someone going for a spin without leaving their car will not spread covid. But the government have a sin to answer for with regards to I.C.U, contact tracing and the never ending waiting lists for other treatments. They are making a right hames of it and crippling the country along the way.
@Tony Humphreys: people caused the lockdown by acting the rick 89 out of the million were politicians
@Paddy O Sullivan: the army don’t have any civil powers….
Can someone please enlighten me as a front line worker why I just sat in a 50minute checkpoint? Surely my time would have been better spent at work
@Louise Lennon: exactly, who else but those travelling for essential work are out that early. Let the checkpoints commence at 9am when those who need to be at work are not pointlessly delayed at 7.30 or 8am.
@Louise Lennon: Guards don’t want it, the people don’t want it. It’s all to make two or three people look like their ‘handling it’…
Operation control commences…..
https://www.facebook.com/218534128577975/posts/1063026874128692/
Watch that. Grafton street dublin tonight
@Louise Ni Riain: No wonder we are where we are. Absolutely ridiculous carry on, makes my blood boil watching that.
@Louise Ni Riain: pr*icks. Every last one of them
@Kevin O’Brien: and her singing at the end…cringe fest.
@transik: I thought that was a cat being strangled, I stand corrected.
Why were they not in Grafton street last night
You had me at The Grave
Watch real crime rise and go unchecked?
I have absolutely nowhere within 5kms to go for a walk. The local roads are busy and the fields are wet and mucky and have cattle in them. If I drive 6/7 kms I have loads of options, forest walks, suburban roads with paths, riverside tarred paths, etc. So I think I’ll be taking my chances. Either that or walk in never-ending circles around my garden.
A bunch of yellow pack dopes trying to do the impossible
@Paul Dolan: get a load Mr tough guy over here !
@Mark: And probably an, yes sir, no sir, 3 bags full. Tough guy when stopped by them.
The gardai will have no problem affording a good Christmas with all that overtime, just a pity that the increased garda presence on the roads and elsewhere will to nothing to reduce the spread of Covid. Public will be slower to buy in this time and understandably so when GAA games not stopped while golf is. Who can explain the logic here? We have also sacrificed retail and other businesses for the GAA who will spread the virus throughout the country. One county team currently restricting movements while awaiting testing but it’s confirmed that they are playing an inter-county match this Saturday!!!!!! Government a spineless disgrace for allowing GAA to be played while destroying businesses and livelihoods.
How many Garda are out with Covid 19?
Did the weekly number’s increase recently?
Maybe a Journalist might ask Drew next time he is in front of them
Please God more dog thieves will be caught also with the increased restrictions and checkpoints
It took me 2 hours to bring my son to school and back home again. Not looking forward to 4 hours a day on the roads for school runs. Something will have to change because today was not sustainable!
I just hope they don’t cause the chaos they did the last time. Two hours foe some people to get home from work is ridiculous. I’m all for checkpoints but done in the appropriate way!!
meanwhile the usual crowd not wearing masks (or just on the chin in case the inspectors walk past) are still on the DART this morning…
Where were the police last night when all the stuck up c##ts dancing round grafton st last night . Nothing about it on the journal
@Smokeycarroll: 200 yards from Pearse St garda station and the busiest shopping street in the country. Gobs1tes should have been hosed off the street. We’re fighting a losing battle.
I just hope they have learned frim the last debacle. Two hours getting home from work is ridiculous. I’m all for checkpoints but done in the appropriate way!!
@ger costello: I’d be betting my money not esp with schools still open so all that traffic still on the roads
Curious as to why people are so furious at airports being left open? Figures show that it is community transmission that accounts for most of the spread of the virus…not travel! i was in Spain in August, came back, isolated, didn’t have the virus…I think you’ll find this is the same with the majority of people!
God bless the iriah guards
Gardai helping the vulnerable?
I did t see a single Garda car in my way to work this morning and traffic was as busy as usual.
@Ed: Neither did I from Dalkey to Grand Canal. In first lockdown they were everywhere. Roads were as busy as ever this morning. Not starting well and with the shambles in the contact tracing and all the other State failings this does not bode well
@Ed: Good. I hope it stays that way.
@Louise Ni Riain: the irony is one or two of those people will probably loose somone to the Virus….
The Crowd Mentality is nothing but ignorance,
I wonder how many of them felt at conflict with their own conscience….when they were behaving like immature prats…
@Paul Buckley: No you are wrong. It’s extremely unlikely that one or two will loose someone to the virus! By far the most likely outcome is that it won’t have any consequences at all.
I love it when a guard talks down to me like a student. It reminds me of how stiff an organisation they are, and how happy I am to have nothing got to do with them.
There was tonnes of traffic this morning and no Garda check points between Dun Laoghaire and city centre
I hope they have enough energy and staff to last for 6 weeks. I also hope they bought stocks of masks this time around.
have your say