Down Memory Lane

The Informer (1935)

Movie Info

The Informer, Liam O'Flaherty's novel of the Irish "troubles" of the early 1920s, was first filmed in England in 1929, with Cyril McLaglen in the lead. When director John Ford remade The Informer in 1935, the role of the tragic Irish roisterer Gypo Nolan went to Cyril's brother Victor McLaglen. The scene is Dublin, during the Sinn Fein rebellion. Gypo has tried to join the IRA, but has been bounced because he lacked full commitment to the cause. Gypo's best friend is Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford) a fugitive from the British "Black and Tans" with a price on his head. Hoping to start a new life with his streetwalker girlfriend Katie Madden (Margot Grahame), Gypo informs on Frankie, collecting the twenty-pound reward. Frankie is cornered and killed by the British troops; Gypo briefly suffers the pangs of conscience, but is too simple-minded to grasp the full impact of his betrayal. Suspecting that Gypo has turned in Frankie, IRA commander Gallegher (Preston Foster) orders his men to keep tabs on the big lout. As Gypo stupidly squanders his money on food, drink and entertainment, Gallegher's lieutenants keep tab of every penny spent. Finally dragged before the rebel court, Gypo tries to bluff his way out of trouble, fingering another man (Donald Meek) as the informer, but this subterfuge quickly falls apart. Sobbingly, Gypo confesses his treachery. Before his execution can be carried out, he escapes, but his hiding place is given away inadvertently by Katie. Regretfully, because they realize Gypo is too childish to be fully responsible for his actions, the IRA members shoot the man down. With his last ounce of strength, Gypo drags himself into the church where Frankie's mother (Una O'Connor) prays for his son's soul. "Twas I informed on your son, Mrs. McPhillip," Gypo weeps, "Forgive me." "Ah, Gypo, I forgive you," the grieving mother replies. "You didn't know what you were doing." Exultantly, Gypo looks heavenward, and, just before succumbing to his wounds, bellows "Frankie! Frankie! Your mother forgives me!" The Informer earned Victor McLaglen an Oscar, as well as several other nominations; the film did poorly at the box office, but John Ford had anticipated this reaction, reportedly waiving his considerable salary just to make certain that picture--a labor of love for the director, who was himself a native of Ireland--would be completed. The film was remade in 1968, relocated to the black ghetto of Los Angeles and retitled Uptight!. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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Support Irish Producers

Veggie price war ruining Christmas market for Irish producers: Ferris

18 December, 2013 - by Martin Ferris TD

The vegetable price war between German and Irish

multiple retailers has ruined what should be one of the best weeks of the year for Irish producers, according to Sinn Féin spokesperson on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Ferris TD.

“Producers are contacting me about this price war which is destroying the Christmas market for them, when this should be one of the best weeks of the year for Irish vegetable growers,” he said.

“This is also a disaster for the small local vegetable shop, which cannot hope to compete when the retail giants go to war.

“The German multiples and some Irish ones too are charging almost nothing for imported vegetables. In those circumstances, the growers are being squeezed out of the market. This farming sector is one of those that has managed to survive the economic disaster of the crash. It should be supported by government and protected against this kind of practice.

“Everyone knows that if a supermarket is charging below cost for one product, it is making its profit on other lines, but it is very tempting when people are hard pressed financially to go for the cheaper vegetables.

“I would appeal to people to buy Irish and remember that our indigenous farming industry is the backbone of our economy and should be supported.”

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No Comment

Iceland’s jailed bankers ‘a model’ for dealing with ‘financial terrorist’

RT

Published time: December 14, 2013 15:05

Reuters / Bob Strong

By jailing four top officers of Iceland's failed Kaupthing Bank, the country showed the world the right way to deal with the people largely responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, said Charlie McGrath, founder of news website, Wide Awake News.

The US and other nations must take it as a model for the next time the too-big- to-fail corporations screw things up and ask for a bailout with taxpayers’ money, he added.

RT: The jail terms are the biggest penalty for such crimes in Iceland's history. What is the significance of the precedent?

Charlie McGrath: It’s significant in regards to the 2008 crisis, if you happen to be living here in the United States, where the majority of these too-big-to-fail institutions are headquartered, where the true corporates are, where the CEOs and COOs of these massive corporations live. Not one of them went to jail. Not one of them has been indicted. There’s been a handful of token fines, that had been paid by these corporations – and let me reiterate ‘by the corporations’, not by these individuals themselves.

So we see an actual government, an actual people and nation stepping up and saying: “I’m sorry, you committed fraud. You screwed over a nation. And you are going to pay for it by your butt being put behind bars.”

This is exactly what needed to happen in the United States and in the rest of the world. And my hat is off to Iceland for standing up to these bankers.

RT: Could there be broader ramifications of this case. Is Iceland setting a new bar for prosecution of financial fraud?

CMcG: I hope so, but I am not optimistic of that. Unfortunately I myself and lots of other people – Jim Rogers, Mark Favors, Harry Dent – we all believe that there is another mega-collapse coming.

And let’s face it, these institutions that we called too big to fail in 2008 – the six largest of them are 37 percent bigger than they were in 2008. They hold sway over the economy. They hold sway over the government. And we are doing the exact same things that led to a collapse in 2008.

I truly believe that 2008 was a financial terrorist event. It was a financial 9/11 committed by these institutions, and when we go into the next crisis that is going to affect the entire globe. I hope that Iceland is held up as a model on how you deal with this scum!

RT: In light of this scandal, how much involvement do you think governments should have over the dealings of financial institutions?

CMcG: Here in the United States, we pretend that it is socialism when you start talking about government control over financial institutions. But we have something far worse here.

We take the so-called private corporations, these free-market capitalist corporations –they are in control of the economy here – we take these corporations and put them on a pedestal, and when they fail, we spread their debt to the people of this country.

That’s something far worse than socialism. It’s the worst form of fascism! So to pretend that government has no place in overseeing these institutions is to sit back and say: “Go ahead, bankers! Go ahead and take over the future of this nation and lead us into financial ruin!” And that’s exactly what happened.

What happened in Iceland is what the people demanded of the government. In 2009 they marched on the parliament and said: “We are not going to take the fraudulent failures of these banks lying down.”

They cordoned off these institutions. They’ve formed state banks. And they hit at the problem head on. They helped the people rather than the banking institutions. So I again hope this is the model that we are looking forward to.

Sinn Féin Mountmellick – Serving The Community

Food Poverty Stalks the Land

One in 10 people suffer food poverty in Ireland, new figures have revealed.

As trade unions Mandate and Unite called for the Government to release vital funds to help tackle the problem, they cited pensioners, the newly unemployed and lone parents as among the worst off.

Mandate general secretary John Douglas said food poverty means someone has been forced to miss a meal because they could not afford it.

“It may mean they cannot afford a meal with meat or the vegetarian equivalent every second day or afford a roast or vegetarian equivalent once a week,” Mr Douglas said.

“Those suffering food poverty may be lone-parent families, they may be the newly unemployed, they may be pensioners - and they may be people in work, struggling to survive on low wages.”

In their Hungry for Action report, the unions revealed the county-by-county breakdown of food poverty.

It revealed people in Donegal are among the worst hit, with one in nine unable to afford basic meals.

The unions have urged the Government to support organisations that work to tackle food poverty to make sure they have enough funds.

They have also appealed for an increase in the minimum wage and more support in benefits to social welfare recipients.

Unite regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said food poverty is a problem in every county across Ireland.

He said the Government should give €10 million to organisations that provide food assistance, which he said are stretched to their limits.

“Food poverty in Ireland today is part of a policy-made disaster - austerity, and the collapse in incomes it has brought in its wake,” Mr Kelly said.

He added: “But the cause of food poverty will only be addressed by starting to increase the incomes of the most deprived in our society, which is why we are also calling for an increase in basic Social Protection rates, and an increase in the minimum wage to help address the growing problem of in-work poverty.”

Mandate and Unite have also called for an emergency relief budget in the new year to start reversing cuts to low-income groups.

They have claimed the food poverty crisis has increased dramatically since the start of the economic crisis.

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Fluoride Are You Happy Having It Added To The Public Water Supply

Harvard Study Confirms Fluoride Reduces Children’s IQ

Read more at http://www.realfarmacy.com/harvard-study-confirms-fluoride-reduces-childrens-iq/#cmhVveYhqgmh37i5.99

A recently-published Harvard University meta-analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded that children who live in areas with highly fluoridated water have “significantly lower” IQ scores than those who live in low fluoride areas.

In a 32-page report that can be downloaded free of charge from Environmental Health Perspectives, the researchers said:

A recent report from the U.S. National Research Council (NRC 2006) concluded that adverse effects of high fluoride concentrations in drinking water may be of concern and that additional research is warranted. Fluoride may cause neurotoxicity in laboratory animals, including effects on learning and memory …
To summarize the available literature, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies on increased fluoride exposure in drinking water and neurodevelopmental delays. We specifically targeted studies carried out in rural China that have not been widely disseminated, thus complementing the studies that have been included in previous reviews and risk assessment reports …

Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children’s intelligence … The results suggest that fluoride may be a developmental neurotoxicant that affects brain development at exposures much below those that can cause toxicity in adults …

Serum-fluoride concentrations associated with high intakes from drinking-water may exceed 1 mg/L, or 50 Smol/L, thus more than 1000-times the levels of some other neurotoxicants that cause neurodevelopmental damage. Supporting the plausibility of our findings, rats exposed to 1 ppm (50 Smol/L) of water-fluoride for one year showed morphological alterations in the brain and increased levels of aluminum in brain tissue compared with controls …

In conclusion, our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment. Future research should formally evaluate dose-response relations based on individual-level measures of exposure over time, including more precise prenatal exposure assessment and more extensive standardized measures of neurobehavioral performance, in addition to improving assessment and control of potential confounders.

Studies Have Repeatedly Linked Fluoride to Reduced IQ and Brain Damage

There are so many scientific studies showing the direct, toxic effects of fluoride on your body, it’s truly remarkable that it’s NOT considered a scientific consensus by now. Despite the evidence against it, fluoride is still added to 70 percent of U.S. public drinking water supplies.

It amazes me that the medical (and dental) communities are so stubbornly resistant to connect the dots when it comes to the skyrocketing increase of cognitive decline in adults and behavioral issues in children (ADD, ADHD, depression and learning disabilities of all kinds). In fact, there have been more than 23 human studies and 100 animal studies linking fluoride to brain damage. Fluoride can also increase manganese absorption, compounding problems, since manganese in drinking water has also been linked to lower IQ in children.

Reported effects of fluoride on your brain include:

• Reduction in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors
• Damage to your hippocampus
• Formation of beta-amyloid plaques (the classic brain abnormality in Alzheimer’s disease)
• Reduction in lipid content
• Damage to purkinje cells
• Exacerbation of lesions induced by iodine deficiency
• Impaired antioxidant defense systems
• Increased uptake of aluminum
• Accumulation of fluoride in your pineal gland

Read more at http://www.realfarmacy.com/harvard-study-confirms-fluoride-reduces-childrens-iq/#cmhVveYhqgmh37i5.99

Sinn Féin Mountmellick – Serving The Community