Deficits of democracy

"THERE but for the grace of God ..." That's how This Week (RTE Radio 1, Sunday) summarised the low key mood in Dail Eireann when Michael Lowry's travails emerged.

Then on yesterday's Morning Ireland (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday), there was the audibly crestfallen man from Lowry's constituency, listing off the economic - benefits of "having a minister" - without the man in the Merc, he implied, north Tipperary's prospects had now dulled considerably.

And if you needed any further confirmation of the state of the republic, you could cast your mind back through the mists to Thursday, when 29 per cent of the electorate voted on a significant change to its Constitution.

The short lived radio postmortems to this poll were interesting for what wasn't said, in my hearing at least: that the bail amendment was, supposedly, proposed in the first place because of an overwhelming public outcry - a panic, even - about crime; surely the turnout puts paid to this manufactured panic? (For campaign purposes, the Right to Bail people had, to some extent, played along with the "outcry" thesis, arguing simply about the means to address it. This made it tough for them to shift to sceptical mode on Friday.)

In the midst of this happy week in the annals of our democracy came a distracting programme from a promising documentary maker. Anne Marie Power, whose impressive work on growing up with a mentally handicapped brother was aired just a few weeks backs gave us Daughter of the Sun (RTE Radio 1, Thursday).

This fell into one of the dustier folders in the crowded "diaspora" file. Maria Gurtrudis Hore was the beautiful, pale faced, Spanish born daughter of a wealthy Irish merchant family in mid 18th century Cadiz. Forced to marry one of her own ("doubling our strangeness"), she cheated tirelessly on "Senor Fleming" during his many business trips - until, at age 36, with Fleming's consent, she slipped into the convent (after a particularly nasty turn of events for a favourite lover).

Her story lives in the remarkable writings used liberally by Power - mixed in with "actuality" from Power's own research trip - but the programme told the tale with what seemed an overly tragic mien. After all, far from being a particularly repressed woman, Maria lived Ia highly entertaining life for many years; even the convent was a "punishment" that would have been heaven to a woman of a different class who had committed her indiscretions.

After all, far from being a particularly repressed woman, Maria lived a highly entertaining life for many years; even the convent was a "punishment" that would have been heaven to a woman of a different class who had committed her indiscretions.

Still, this was interesting, demanding listening for this mid afternoon slot. In the same slot, earlier in the week, the Arts Show (RTE Radio 1, Tuesday and Wednesday) has been making a good fist, I reckon, of reaching a broader, more casual audience.

Certainly last Tuesday's show made no great demands on its audience, as Sean Moncrieff slickly slagged punk rockers, on the pretext of discussing a new book, and Mike Murphy played welcome bits from the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Stooges and Talking Heads. But listen closely: is Sean having us on?

In about a quarter hour Moncrieff came out with such a litany of errors it could have been a listeners' competition: Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground date back to the late 1950s/early 60s, he said. They, in turn, were a big influence on Jim Morrison and the Doors. Both these bands were part of a trend to return to the classic three minute pop song. The MC5 was a hippie band. Iggy Pop was wearing dog collars on stage 10 or 15 years before the punk era. Dee Dee was the main member of the Ramones. Talking Heads emerged [only in the period after the breakup of the Sex Pistols.

Good grief, Moncrieff! To be fair, and assuming he wasn't messing, he's not the first guest who hasn't quite digested the facts in a book before moving on to the generalisations. Still, it leaves me wondering about other folks on the Arts Show yapping about topics that I don't know so much about (and I'm no expert on punk): are "they leading me astray?" Or is it only subjects deemed to be "low culture" that get such treatment?

Today with Pat Kenny (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) is staking its reputation on tomorrow's "Walk to Work Day". But it made its name for me and blessed my own walk to work last Thursday by having the good sense to feature a true radio artist, Asian American physicist Michio Kaku, plugging his book, Hyperspace.

Kaku is a long time regular of the Pacifica network of community radio stations in the US, where his deeply informed, passionately committed discussions of disarmament issues were a highlight of the Reagan era. With Pat, he was talking physics - or was it metaphysics? "We physicists are the only scientists who can talk about God without blushing," he enthused. Mixing wonderful analogies with new terms (e.g. we may live in a "multiverse" rather than a "universe"), he conjured up a science of space time that I thought was confined to X Men comics and Ursula Le Guin novels.

According to the plausible - if slightly hyper-spaced - Kaku, physicists now have the equations, though not the technology, to produce a time machine. He is convinced that our descendents and other civilisations will be (are?) capable of time travel. The only source of nagging doubt is this: where are they?