JOSEF PAVELKA died last week, a celebrity and a ‘nobody’.

IN years to come, the last week may be looked back on as seminal. When economics dominates public discourse, the news was full of abortion, euthanasia and population forecasts. It was a glimpse of what the future might hold.

IT is unfortunate that last week’s handbags between the Government and judiciary was sparked by Judge Peter Kelly.

THE controversy that has come to be known as The Lowry Tapes tells us much about what passes for democracy in this State.

DEVELOPERS have had a raw deal. Anybody who built something big during the bubble has been cast as reckless and greedy. It’s not a fair portrayal: many of them got caught up in the madness, carried on a wave that promised to deliver eternal prosperity.

BE GRATEFUL for small mercies.

ALWAYS beware an Irishman speaking with an American accent.

THERE are inmates of the Irish prison system who have been incarcerated for most of their lives.

LAST week, “ideology” was bandied about like a term of abuse. Two ongoing stories on education were peppered with references to ideology as if it was something that the cat dragged in. In education, it would seem, the only ideology that should be applied is “what we have we hold.”