Supreme Court ruling today via Skin Flicks
Lost among all the important events of the day, like the Sopranos finale, was an interesting ruling from the Supreme Court.The birth mother of an infant was permitted the right to continue to appeal for guardianship and joint custody of her fourteen month old child, which the father wishes to remove to Australia for at least a year.The father, who is in a gay relationship, had sought to take the child to the ends of the earth with his gay lover, but the Supreme Court has ruled in a majority 2-1 decision that he must at least wait until the mother's court appeals to have the rights to see and know her own child have been heard.Ridiculous? Of course it is. No mother would ever be treated like that in Ireland. It never happened. Only it did, sort of. Swap the genders around and you have the...
Vote for Parents’ Rights via Skin Flicks
Voters in four constituencies in Ireland will get the chance to vote for parents' rights in the forthcoming election after the Fathers Rights-Responsibility Party became the state's newest official political party this week.Candidates include former MEP candidate Liam O'Gogain, a veteran campaigner for shared parenting and founder of campaigning organisation Parental Equality, and Alan Beirne, one of Parental Equality's leading members who came to public prominence when he featured in RTE's groundbreaking documentary series on divorce some years back.Unlike our current Taoiseach, who had wealthy pals to buy him a house and bankroll his marital separation, many divorced and separated fathers in Ireland suffer real financial hardship when their relationships break down.And unlike our...
Child-free aviation via Skin Flicks
As my first flight of the year approaches, I am filled with trepidation at hurling myself into the pit of contemporary human misery that is air travel today.Nothing can ever habituate you to the squalid overcrowding of Dublin airport, the terrorist frisk-downs at destination airports on arrival and on return, or to the contemptible service standards of certain low-cost airlines, where everything has a price and the customer has no value whatsoever.But I could, with the assistance of prescription pharmaceuticals, somehow manage to handle all of the above if only someone in the aviation industry would hear my plea and provide child-free flights.There has been reports that a smoking airline might be about to set up in business. But frankly, and I speak as a smoker here, that idea is really...
Baby’s called a bad, bad thing via Skin Flicks
I was reading last Christmas's cult non-fiction book 'Freakonomics' the other day, and was fascinated by the chapter on how what you name your child can actually harm them in later life prospects, as employers unconsciously discriminate when they see ridiculous names on CVs.Then I came across this primer on parental naming cruelty originating in the States, which uncovers the full horror of the lengths some morons will go to to burden their children with preposterous names, because 'they're unique.'The site is best enjoyed in its full glory, with a glass of beer in hand and no one in the house to come running when you scream with laughter at what some people actually thing passes for a decent name for their kid. It is compiled by a waspish and witty editor who scoured baby naming websites...