EVERY SATURDAY MORNING, we like to take a look back at all the best comments left on the site by you lot over the past week.
It’s our way of highlighting the strongest, funniest and most thought-provoking things that readers have said on the big topics of the past few days.
So in no particular order, here are the standout comments from the week.
Sean Higgins empathised with the news that Axl Rose’s jewellery had been stolen after a gig in Paris:
Someone robbed my inflatable hammer after a gig in 2006………
There was minor panic for an Irish fan yesterday evening when he left his tickets for the Euros in a shop in Dublin airport (he got them back, don’t worry). Readers were on the case: Darren Moore had this plan:
The full resources of the Irish state should be mobilised to help this citizen .I suggest fuel up the government jet and send a crack team of army rangers to Poland to track this man down.
Meanwhile Rónán O Suilleabháin was more nefarious about it (and got a lot of thumbs up at the same time):
I’m Oliver Couglan and so’s my wife
This slideshow from earlier in the week looked at household gadgets from the 1950s and 1960s. Did gadgets from back then last longer? Margaret Noonan thinks so:
If it’s not broke I would see no need to replace them with newer goods. Just goes to show that the old stuff lasts way longer than what they make these days. Have a tumbledryer from 1977 that still dries the clothes and a mixer from 1980 that still does the job perfectly and a gas cooker from circa 1943 that was left by the previous owners of my current home. Got it serviced and 20 odd years later it is still going strong, and a novelty for the Engineer when he comes once a year to service our heating.
Did you see the Olympic torch as it passed through Ireland earlier in the week? Steven Murray liked the ceremony but wasn’t mad about Jedward taking part:
I was having a terrible morning stuck in traffic in the city centre on a bus, found myself cursing that torch. I decided to stop being a grump and stopped off at Stephens green and join in. Definitely cheered me up. The pa system broke when Sebastian Coe went to speak but unfortunately was fixed when jedward came on. I hate to knock our own but man they are head wreckers.
The story about the heads of two seals nailed to the gates of a seal sanctuary in Dingle angered a lot of readers. Elmo got a lot of support for this comment:
God, this kind of thing makes me so angry. I understand people rely on fishing to make a living but the idea that seals which are a natural predator of fish, and that only eat what they need are more of a problem than overfishing and by catch and other fisheries related issues is ridiculous.The people in that sanctuary give their time freely to try and do a bit of good for the animals and this is how they’re treated. Irish people can be so incredibly thick and ignorant sometimes it makes me ashamed. It really does.
The worst part of it is that even if they find who did it they’ll probably get off with a slap on the wrist or a half arsed fine.
New proposals could see cheese banned from being advertised during children’s television programmes. Gerry Ryan wasn’t impressed with the plan:
Why is it that this government always tackles the symptom and not the cause. Why stop at cheese? Include chocolate, fast foods, bread, cereal, jam………It’s all about education on eating the right foods and exercise. Children usually eat what their parents give them, so make it easy for the parents by introducing the traffic light food labeling system. Make it mandatory for the labeling to be X% size of overall packaging. As for exercise, this can be part of the school curriculum along with food nutrition.
Should teachers be friends with students on Facebook or follow them on Twitter? There was a big debate on Tuesday about how teachers should use social media, and this advice from teacher William O’Brien seemed sensible:
As a teacher, I have a subject-specific site on Facebook which I use to share articles, upload files, post videos and pass on advice regarding exams and assignments. The students do not have access to my personal page nor I to theirs. There are strict rules in place governing the uploading of content, comments, times which content can be posted (nothing past 10:30pm) and other online etiquette. I have been using it for over a year now and both students and parents have commented on its efficacy. If I have neglected to cover something in class, I tell my students “I’ll post it on Facebook later”.
As students these days spend a significant amount of time on Facebook, I think it would be negligible not to try direct students towards more enlightening educational topics. Learning is being re-defined by social media and students are becoming more ‘displaced’ in virtual spaces such as Facebook. This is serving to ‘displace’ learning itself. As teachers, we must be willing to enter this space in a professional and rule-bound manner or we risk losing students.
This video of a Dutch artist who turned his dead cat into a helicopter (yes, really) stirred a lot of debate. Féilim Mac an Iomaire went for a classic pun:
That will put the cat amongst the pigeons.
CERN yesterday conceded that Einstein had been right all along: neutrinos don’t travel faster than light. Which, predictably, led to this from The LCD:
neutrino. knock knock. who’s there?
These pictures yesterday showed the dramatic moment when a van became trapped in a road in China after the road suddenly caved in. Jay funk had a solution:
Jackie Healy Rae could fix that in 5 mins
Spot any good comments which you think should make it here for next week? Mail christine@thejournal.ie
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