ED TOM BELL, the character played by Tommy Lee Jones in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, has a throwaway line that more or less captures our situation.

EVEN in normal times to be told that our response to a common but devastating illness is both less effective and more expensive than it might be is frustrating.

BY any standard, the alleged behaviour of Cork South West Deputy PJ Sheehan, who reportedly threatened to damage the career of a garda who prevented him driving his car from the Dáil because he was “extremely intoxicated”, is unacceptable of an elected representative.

FOLLOWING the worst week in Brian Cowen’s political career, there are growing signs his days as Taoiseach are numbered.

Jennifer Sleeman’s call for women to boycott Catholic Masses tomorrow week has certainly caught the imagination of many people. She has advocated the boycott as a means of protesting against the male dominance of the Church and the treatment of women as distinctly second-class members.

Your Country, Your Call, was a competition designed to encourage the thinking and creativity of people in order to come up with a couple of major proposals that would help transform our economy by generating jobs and creating opportunities. The competition attracted 9,000 submissions.

THE publication this week by the Comptroller and Auditor General John Buckley into how the state wastes resources did not disappoint.

HE may be the most imitated sports commentator of our time but he will never be surpassed.

WHEN Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in the middle of autumn 31 years ago the welcome was absolute, the joy considerable and genuine.

JUST as Kennedy used television to defeat Nixon, Obama used modern communications to win the White House.