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IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. Retirement is tough… even for dogs
Rebecca Frankel wrote a book about dogs that have gone to war… but what would happen if she decided to make one of them her own? Her essay for January’s Smithsonian magazine documents their adjustment to cohabitation, retirement and new love.
(Smithsonian Magazine, approx 21 mins reading time)
If you ask a family that’s never dealt with a military dog before if they wanted to adopt one, I bet they’d be all about it,” former Marine handler Matt Hatala told me. “But ask them if they want a random veteran who’s been to Afghanistan three times sleeping on the couch, they might be a little unnerved. It’s no different. That dog’s been through situations you’re not going to be able to understand and might not be able to handle.”
Alan Ellis is one of the most dangerous people in Ireland’s prison system, yet nobody wants him to be there – not his family, not the prison officers, not the prison management. In this provocative piece of journalism, Conor Gallagher speaks to his family, the security men tasked with keeping him, other staff and themselves safe, policy makers and others about what – if anything – can be done differently.
(The Irish Times, approx 16 mins reading time)
“It takes six men to bring him to the shower and they’re going to release him to Mam? And she’s going to stand there with her arms open to him saying: ‘Whatever it takes, that’s my baby. If he kills me, he kills me.’”
3. The Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie, Very Litigious Bikini
Businesswoman Ipek Irgit reacted with rage to companies who knocked off her bikini range, Katie Rosman reports this week in the New York Times. She got lawyers to scrub any #kiini hashtags from imposter Instagram posts to protect her brand. She told journalists she ‘despised copiers around the world’. And then, through the lawsuits she filed, the woman who created the bikini was found. Katherine Rosman reports on what happened next.
(The New York Times, approx 19 mins reading time)
I looked at one of the bikinis in her living room. Ms. Ferrarini’s standard two-piece has two dark denim triangles connected by visible stitches of embroidery thread to crochet straps with brightly colored elastics woven through them. The bottom is made to match. It is virtually identical to the bikini Ms. Irgit had copyrighted.“I created this bikini to survive,” Ms. Ferrarini said.
Max Read will blow your mind as he tries to find out if ads are the only ‘real’ thing on the Internet these days.
(New York Magazine, approx 25 mins reading time)
If a Russian troll using a Brazilian man’s photograph to masquerade as an American Trump supporter watches a video on Facebook, is that view “real”? Not only do we have bots masquerading as humans and humans masquerading as other humans, but also sometimes humans masquerading as bots, pretending to be “artificial-intelligence personal assistants”… Even humans who aren’t masquerading can contort themselves through layers of diminishing reality: The Atlantic reports that non-CGI human influencers are posting fake sponsored content — that is, content meant to look like content that is meant to look authentic, for free — to attract attention from brand reps, who, they hope, will pay them real money.
5. ‘I used to write for Sports Illustrated. Now I deliver packages for Amazon
He was a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, but now Austin Murphy is a delivery driver for Amazon. He tells his own story.
(The Atlantic, approx 14 mins reading time)
Lurching west in stop-and-go traffic on I-80 that morning, bound for Berkeley and a day of delivering in the rain, I had a low moment, dwelling on how far I’d come down in the world. Then I snapped out of it. I haven’t come down in the world. What’s come down in the world is the business model that sustained Time Inc. for decades. I’m pretty much the same writer, the same guy. I haven’t gone anywhere. My feet are the same.”
6. How hockey’s big moment was created
For many Irish sports fans, it was the highlight of the year – Ireland reaching a World Cup final, how could it not be? In the big interview with Kieran Shannon, penalty hero Gillian Pinder reveals how that band of sisters we saw over the summer was not always as tight.
(The Irish Examiner, approx 21 mins reading time)
When I started out, the attitude of senior players was almost, ‘I see this girl as a threat to me, so I’m going to make life a little bit harder for her.’ It wasn’t that anyone was a bad person but as a combined unit, compared to what we have now, I’m not surprised in the slightest that we weren’t successful. The culture just wasn’t there. Even though I was only young I remember making a note of the behaviours around me that I liked and noticing the times somebody would have done things around me and thought, ‘No, you know what, I don’t like that, I’m not going to replicate that.’
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
An Affair. The mob. A murder. Journalist Mary Jordan reopens a decades-old murder case after getting a phone call in the newsroom. What she discovers is a mystery which people are willing to talk about – but not provide answers.
(Washington Post, approx 12 mins reading time)
Goldstein, the detective, agreed to meet me in person to talk more about the case. But when I drove to his house, he had second thoughts and wouldn’t unlatch the door chain to let me in. But through the crack, he told me something startling about Cunn: “I send him a Christmas card every year so he knows I have not forgotten him.” I asked if he did that because he believed Cunn either shot his girlfriend or knew who did. “I address the Christmas card to him and family,” Goldstein said, closing the door.
Not a mortgage holder, and I’m not unbiased, but fair play to the Govt for staring them down
No vested interests either, but I’m even more shocked that at the stance they took in the first place.
Like It takes guts to do that when the bank is state owned! Give yourselves a salary increase for help with our spin.
The PTSB are the biggest gangsters in this and are gettin away with it. They increased the rates 3 times recently and although they will be reducing this .25% they are still by far the dearest.
I think you’ll find Ulster bank are the most expensive at 5.1%
AIB only exists because stupid taxpayers pay their bills.
I can not believe that they are getting away with this. The Bank has 3,000 employees it does not need and coupled with a host of branches that should be shut the cost to the tax payer is truly astronomical. recent salary increases on top of inflated salary levels add to the pension fund cost.
Why is the EBS rate 1.5% higher than AIB and they are merged institutions?
The EBS borrowers are being excessively penalised….
I think every aib or bank worker on the journal is giving the thumbs down
What recent salary increase would that be?
I started with EBS, some years ago when they were among the cheapest on the market, and I liked the whole idea of a mutual. Because of the race to the bottom, driven in part by Anglo, AIB were at one (later) point the second cheapest on the market for mortgages, and this received some publicity, with the IT publishing a comprehensive “scoresheet” as it were of the rates available at that time-late ’06 or very early ’07.
So I called into them, just before the whole thing went South, and, like the guy on the bus, I didn’t know what a tracker mortgage was, but they offered me one, as well as the (declined by me) chance to buy another investment property, or take an ‘oul holiday.
Happily I took it, and even happier, they took on board a ridiculously high valuation of my family home, giving me a loan to value that bore no relation to reality. I still have that-and am gladdened by the fact that those on variable rates are getting a bite of the cherry-I could still be there myself but by chance.
if every aib account holder withdrew their deposits and moved them elsewhere, they’d get a rude awakening!
The Dutch did this a fews years ago over bonuses to top staff. They gave them back More power to the people
They didn’t rise rates in the first place like all the other wanks. People should do some research before judging.
People are just looking for money for nothing, now they are getting a better rate than before the ECB increases.
The ESB is state owned but does not entitle people to free electricity, why should it be different with the banks.
Still doesnt stop them giving there staff a pay rise
I think it was quite reasonable that if AIB didn’t pass on the recent rises, they should not have to pass on the cut. This turn around seems totally illogical to me. Nice for those affected & good luck to them but nevertheless quite daft!
Wow great, lucky us – taxpayer to pay back reckless mortgage holders loans
This is a direct transfer of cash from depositors to mortgage holders
Is there anything stopping the banks from raising their rates in say a months time, irrespective of any change in the ECB rate? It never seems to stop PTSB as far as i can see.
Great stuff, with govt interference like this how do they hope to get private investment in order to get the NPRF’s investment in AIB back? Very short sighted decision, especially given AIB never passed on the last two increases.
You couldn’t make this stuff up
Yeah but if you raise interest rates it pushes more people into the cannot pay bracket and so we end up paying anyway, at least this makes repayments more affordable.
Why does it feel wrong that banks are passing on a saving to customers ?
Oh no, wait a second ……
News flash – Banks claim PR error and state that it should of read raise rates by 0.25%. The error is set to cost taxpayers a Further 10billion for some reason but banks have decided the double the rate increase to 0.5% because a senior exec was afraid they mightn’t be able to fund the regular replacement of the gold chairs that they use while at their weekly meetings in their ivory tower in the Bahamas.
Instead of posting the new rates in papers banks have simply setup a very easy system in every branch to accommodate these new costs. All customers of the branches should empty their pockets into barrels that are marked “slush funds”. An Taoiseach should simply sign a blank cheque (as they might need more the 10bil, you never know) and make it payable to cash or C#^?s , either way the ecb will know who it’s for!
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