Sir, – Elaine Byrne (May 6th) asks "What is the difference between politicians looking to the market to solve all their problems and the drug addicts looking for drugs to solve all their problems?". Easy one; the former are beneficiaries of the Wildean cynicism that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing; the latter its victims, trying to deaden by self-medication the pain it inflicts on those less brazen. See also Dean Swift, A Modest Proposal; as well as Joyce's Portrait and ". . . the old sow that eats her farrow".
For those of curious disposition it is suggested they also read up on the 19th-century origins of this problem as a tool of elimination of budget deficits, via Britannia’s Opium Wars to recover her bullion from China while simultaneously de-moralising its people. Britannia rules the brainwaves. – Yours, etc,
DAMIEN FLINTER,
Castleview Estate,
Headford,
Co Galway.
Sir, – Nora Scott (May 30th) asks “When did the ordinary citizens . . . simply become unheard and unseen entities . . .while the criminals were cast in the role of the victims?”
Very simply answered, it was the day that Jim “Lugs” Brannigan retired. – Yours, etc,
JON WILLIAMS,
The Haugh,
Donegal.