Navan Man was exercised this week with trying to find something more boring than the "war" on television, and even had his doubts about the qualifications of The Weakest Link. He might have tried the "war" on radio, where even The Last Word (Today FM, Monday to Friday) itself was having trouble scaring up much in the way of intriguing discussion, notwithstanding its admirable commitment to what's been arguably the widest range of viewpoints anywhere in Irish or British broadcasting.
Part of the problem is the dearth of information. Another issue is the obvious but almost unstatable inadequacy of words such as "war", "battle" and "combat" to describe cruise missiles being faced with derisory tracer and anti-aircraft fire - or the word "terrorism" to describe a "war target" that seems to include anything that's left of Afghanistan's communication or transport infrastructure.
Then there's the evident fact that in the US, the rhetorical engine of this campaign, the expectations for sophisticated argument in mass media are clearly exceptionally low. Thus we are expected to assume that Al-Qaeda will suffer a serious setback because abandoned "terrorist training camps" are destroyed - no doubt they'll miss their climbing ropes and obstacle courses, but perhaps they're reasonably well trained by now. And if you're a US network anchor, you roll over and pant at the word "humanitarian" when it's used to describe an intervention that has cut off most food aid to Afghanistan, then dropped a few packets of bean salad on to the world's most landmined landscape. (And, oh yes, well done destroying the de-mining agency.)
And so the media, boring and bored, in unseemly haste try to rush the discussion along to "where will the Americans bomb next?", quietly hoping it will be somewhere with more TV cameras.
Diminished journalistic responsibility was even on show when some of the US intellectuals came on air here. Richard Perle, the influential American hawk who helped bring you the Nicaraguan contras two decades ago, is obviously used to getting away with murder (rhetorically speaking, but of course), and Eamon Dunphy did a rather-too-good imitation of a US network anchor when he interviewed Perle this week. Or perhaps it was simply that Dunphy couldn't undrop his jaw while Perle delivered his analysis of the origins of terrorism: you see, there are these rogue states, and they act as "factories" for producing terrorists - hit the factories, and voilα!
Okay, no one expected Dunphy to say, "Hey Perley, on that basis Nicaragua, with a World Court judgment against the US to back it up, would have been justified in, let's say, flying a plane into your office." That might have been rude. But Eamon could at least have played, as it were, the green card, and suggested that Irish listeners were particularly unlikely to buy such pap about the roots of non-state political violence.
Meanwhile, thanks to the panic that's followed the slaughter of September 11th, and the renewal of slaughter this week, the only passengers stopping over at Shannon may soon be US grunts en route to any given front. Clare FM can hardly have been congratulating itself for grim good timing, but that's just what it got with its new eight-part series on the history of aviation in that region, From Foynes to Shannon.
Part one, Foynes and the Flying Boat Era, goes out on Clare FM today, but lucky for me I've heard it already. Valerie Sweeney smoothly presents a programme complete with fanfare and period ambiance, starting with the familiar story of the Pan American "flying boat" that landed at Foynes, Co Limerick, in July 1937 - the airline's first non-stop transatlantic flight.
And there was Dev, welcoming the trial crew with little broadcasting polish but with a reasonable ear for a soundbite nonetheless: "It's wonderful to see America and Ireland so near now, just 12 hours apart." (But how come Dev sounded like an old fella in 1937?) Passengers, and the first Irish air-mail post, only followed two years later.
On this evidence, From Foynes to Shannon will offer a really engaging mix of archive material, atmospherics and historical analysis. This is solid, classy local documentary, revealing as it goes some less familiar stories, dramatic, personal and technical. I never knew, anyway, that the airport was developed at Shannon because the location had the potential to offer "landing" facilities to aircraft descending on either runway or river - in the 1930s it wasn't clear which was going to be the mode of choice. The programmes are unlikely to offer comfort, beyond what nostalgia provides, for those who argue for the retention of the stopover. By the time the series finishes in December, it might be something of an epitaph for the airport.
With epitaphs or otherwise, many of the world's religious believers have faith in another stopover, or two, after an individual's death. A Rough Guide to Heaven and Hell (RTE Radio 1, Tuesday) is a new independently produced series from Kairos and producer Michael Cleere. It was apparently put together before we started feeling somehow less flippant about these destinations - and before we started feeling somehow more curious about conceptions of the "beyond-life" from outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
In Give-Up-Your-Old-Sins tradition, the series started this week with a charming child's monologue about heaven; the difference, however, from the old yarns of 1960s children is that as you listen to a 2001 child, you find yourself recalling the movies and TV shows from which images such as the escalator to heaven have been imported. "You're only allowed to have a certain amount of sins," says 12-year-old Catherine Hession. "He's very forgiving, but like if He comes across killing - oh God, you're sent straight right down to hell. But if you have no killing you go to this two-week course. And after the first week you receive your wings, then after the second week you receive your halo. And then you meet all the saints and Jesus and God and Hail Mary and they greet you. And then you go into another special room and you have a family reunion . . . And then you go into the dog part of Heaven and you see all the pets you had . . . Then you go through these gates and you're into Heaven for eternal bliss."
Cute. But the first programme in this six-part series, Facts for the Visitor, moved right along to the Rev Dermot Lane, a sticky-sweet priest who makes Father Brian D'Arcy sound like Eamonn McCann.
"There is no room in heaven for loners, or individuals, or mΘ-fΘiners; you can't survive in heaven if you don't like other people, and if you're not in communion with God, through Christ." Lest that sound a tad sectarian, Father Lane offers another terribly nice witness account: "I would see heaven as a place where all the different cultures and all the different religions of the world will flourish, with God at the centre, healing people, transforming them, elevating them, and glorifying them."
So, if you believe, as Sartre wrote, that "hell is other people", you've apparently got a fair chance of testing the proposition first-hand. And if you reckon that maybe our best bet for seeing some sort or semblance of paradise is trying to work on the world we know about, this Rough Guide - notwithstanding some sensible talk from Patricia Redlich and Rabbi Lionel Blue about the powerful presence of good among us - may prove to be of limited utility for planning the route.
hbrowne@irish-times.ie