AS indicators of how a country functions go it’s as good as any. As an indicator of our ability to manage resources to confront everyday problems it works too.

ALMOST 30 years ago – August 3, 1981 – more than 12,000 of America’s air traffic controllers walked off the job, setting off a chain of events that would change labour relations in America forever.

TODAY we carry a report and pictures that will disturb anyone who cares for animal welfare. Even as the full human horror unfolds in Haiti the scale of the cruelty and indifference of the animals’ owners is staggering.

IT IS the hope that dare not speak its name; it may yet only be whispered even in the secure confines of 65-66 Lower Mount Street, but there is a nascent hope amongst Fianna Fáil’s true believers that they may have weathered the very worst of the storm.

JUST as every cloud has a silver lining every disaster presents dishonest parasites with an a opportunity to profit from others’ difficulties.

THE collapse of a once loving and supportive relationship is always sad.

THOUGH the recession has made it necessary for very many people to return to education the news that 700 people contacted the National Adult Literacy Agency since Christmas should give us all pause for thought.

JUST over 20 years ago – on October 17, 1989 – an earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter Scale hit California’s Bay Area. Sixty-three people died.

IT is a cause for relief that a scheme offering cervical cancer vaccines to young girls is to be established.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen indulged in the most fanciful wishful thinking when he ruled out an immediate inquiry into the events and policies, the Galway-tent pressing of the flesh and the shoddy politics and ineffective regulation that colluded to destroy our economy and banks.