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Sir, I would welcome news of restricting motor vehicles in Dublin city centre and airport if the Government agreed to meet the public halfway and fast-track public transport infrastructure such as the metro and new Luas lines, but that wont happen. My 15km commute to work takes over two hours by public transport and involves multiple buses each way, so the car is my only choice. If the Government were serious about taking cars off the road, they might look at the fact Dublin has the worst public transport of any capital city in Europe. And Im not even mentioning people who live outside Dublin, where the issue isnt the quality of public transport, it is that it doesnt exist. Yours, etc,

STEPHEN OREILLY,

Malahide,

Co Dublin.

A chara, Yesterday morning I took part in the D12 bike bus. About 50 children cycled to Riverview Educate Together National School, as they do nearly every week. The kids love it, and its a healthy, active way to start their day, it takes cars off the road and reduces pollution.

Everyone benefits.

To get to school safely, these children needed an escort of parents, supporters, and garda. There are no protected cycle lanes on their way to school. No provision has been made for their safety.

When were our councils and politicians given a mandate to prioritise cars over the health and happiness of our children? Is mise,

RAY CUNNINGHAM,

Walkinstown,

Dublin 12.

Sir, As a mature citizen far from the first flush of youth, I fear that should I take charge of a two-wheeled vehicle steered by handlebars and propelled by pedals, my safety and that of all whom I might encounter would be at risk.

Surely our emergency departments are under enough pressure. Yours, etc,

CATHERINE

OCONNOR,

Rathgar,

Dublin 6.

Sir, Letter writers seem to think that Dublin City Councils Owen Keegan is trying to turn the city into a Flann OBrien novel with bicycles as the sole mode of transport.

Flann OBriens favourite fictional savant, de Selby, offers an alternative to the bicycle or car because a journey is simply a series of infinitely brief static experiences, you can replicate one by viewing picture postcards of the route and making the appropriate adjustments to your lighting. You then just step out of your room having arrived at your destination. Yours, etc,

TOM POWER,

Cabra,

Dublin 7.

Sir, While not a resident of Dublin, whenever I visit our capital city I am always dismayed by the proliferation of Dublin City and private buses clogging up the city centre emitting noise and fumes, idling in congested traffic and obscuring many of the wonderful facades. I have travelled much in my lifetime and lived in foreign cities; elsewhere public transport systems have been efficient, quiet, reliable and far less obtrusive, be they underground or overground.

While the debate about cycle lanes and decreasing motor traffic continues, I believe that our focus should be on providing citizens with a far cleaner and reliable public transport system which will reduce the reliance on cars. Yours, etc,

MARTIN KRASA,

Cork.

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Local democracy and restricting cars - Dublin - The Irish Times

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy has announced the formation of a 26-member advisory board spanning multiple backgrounds and fieldsfrom former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and biographer Walter Isaacson to Grammy-winning artists Faith Hill and Tim McGrawthat is committed to the projects mission to elevate facts and evidence-based reasoning in American political discourse.

American democracy rests on the foundational idea that people come together from all walks of life and diverse perspectives to work for the common good of our country, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said. The advisory board being announced today embodies this ideal and will be instrumental in helping the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy achieve its goal of fostering a shared understanding and productive dialogue to help our nation heal its frayed bonds.

Todays American democracy is struggling amid the nations deep polarization and eroding trust in foundational institutions. The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy was founded just over one year ago in direct response to that dynamic, with the goals of exploring how higher education and other leading institutions can play a productive, active and meaningful role in healing our deepest divides and bridging our widest differences.

The country remains at an inflection point, with many questioning the continued durability of the American experiment, said Jon Meacham, one of the projects three co-chairs and the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Chair in American Presidency at Vanderbilt. This exceptional group will help the project push back against the falsehoods and conspiracy theories passing for political rhetoric and reintroduce facts and evidence in the national debate.

Members of the advisory board join the project from across the political spectrum, diverse backgrounds and a wide range of expertise. From politics and law, to journalism, higher education, religion and music, each member of the advisory board brings unique perspective and valuable insight into solving the countrys most pressing challenges. Music and film also hold a special power to unite people from all different political stripes and geographies, especially in our current fragile moment as a nation. The advisory board will help the project reach audiences far and wide with its core messagethat fact and evidence must serve as the basis for our national dialogue, and we must commit to a shared future as country.

We have a trust gap in this country, said Samar Ali, Vanderbilt research professor and project co-chair. By lending their voice to the project, this group can help restore trust in the democratic system by talking with, rather than simply talking to, Americans of all backgrounds.

As the project continues to develop original research, programming and content throughout the coming year, the advisory board will amplify key findings and raise important topics of discussion at home and abroad. By lowering the temperature and drawing on a broad selection of experiences, advisory board members will speak from positions of authority and trust, helping the project reach new audiences and develop deeper understanding for a more peaceful and united nation.

Divisiveness and rancor never built a bridge or educated a child, said Bill Haslam, former two-term governor of Tennessee and project co-chair. This impressive collection of national leaders understands the importance of approaching the difficult challenges facing our country with humility and civility.

The advisory board comprises the following members:

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy aims to elevate facts, research and historical evidence to reinvigorate our national discourse, the public and our leaders in the possibilities and promises of democracy. Through this crucial work, the project shines a light on what binds Americans together, allowing it to illuminate the path toward that more perfect union. Visit vu.edu/unity to stay informed on news, events and research from the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy.

Excerpt from:
Famed writers, musicians and politicians among new advisory board for Vanderbilt Project on Unity and Ameri... - Vanderbilt University News

Imagine a city with a weak government and no police force. Gangs would take over and battle each other until they carved up the place for themselves if they didnt destroy it first.

This is our global village, now more than ever.

Roaming its streets are various gangs, some called Groups, their membership largely self-appointed on the basis of size, strength, wealth and weapons. We have theGroup of 7(G-7) and theGroup of 20(G-20), agroup of three superpowers(G-3) and another of thefive permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, not to forgetNATO.

The G-7 and G-20 have the wealth, the G-3 has the power and the five permanent members of the Security Council have the authority at least to veto the efforts of all the others. These five members of the Security Council, which include all G-3 countries, have a history of colonizing other countries. They have the five largest arsenals of nuclear weapons in the world (accounting for97 percent of the total); and with Germany, they are the largest exporters of armaments (81percent of the worlds total).

This is an Insecurity Council.

We hardly needed this latest crisis to appreciate that, as go the three superpowers, so goes the world. That includes the future of you, me and everyone we care about: Our survival is only as good as the mental health of three world leaders who clash with each other like kids in a schoolyard. Sooner or later, this madness will assure our mutual assured destruction.

How to get out of this mess? Certainly not with the groups we have: They exacerbate it, if not directly, then by inflaming their rivalries with powers that do so indirectly. It is obvious, yet imperative, that we must change course immediately. Interestingly, COVID carries a message in this regard. Sufficiently alarmed, we were prepared to do theunthinkable.Who would have thought that governments would act within weeks to lock down their populations and close much of their economies? COVID made the unimaginable imperative.

Here, then, is anotherhard to imaginepossibility. It begins with democracy. We are not about to get planetary elections mercifully. But we may be able to grow legitimate global government from the roots of domestic democracy, much as cities and nations have done to be able to remove leadership that is corrupt or malicious.

Each year, The Economist publishes a Global Democracy Index, compiled from measures of electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties. The score for each country ranks it as a full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, or autocratic regime. In the full democracies of the 2021 index are21 countries, many of them small, includingUruguay and Costa Rica. The first with apopulation of more than 20 million is Taiwan (at number eight), and the largest is Japan (at number 17). This means that none of the worlds10 most populous countriesis ranked as a full democracy, including the most prominent liberal democracy. So ranked only oneof the G-3, one of the five permanent Security Council members,four members of the G-7 and six members of the G-20.

If the G7 and G20 have created themselves, whats to stop theDemocracy 21 (D-21)from creating an Assembly of Democracies? Compared with the established groups, its membership(using the Global Democracy Index as a guide)would be more legitimate,its reach more global and its concern for the collective interest more credible. Many of its members are among themost progressive countries in the world,having managed to sustain a healthy balance across sectors of society, unlike the three superpowers that tilt toward public sector communism, private sector capitalism, or plural sector populism.

Should democracy weaken in these countries, the procedure for removing it would be as objective as that for including it: a factual assessment of its performance as a democracy. Indeed, this adaptability could be an assemblys greatest strength. With widespread recognition, some political parties might campaign on a promise to get their country inducted (with the Global Democracy Index holding them to account). Democracy could become fashionable again!

Is it outrageous to believe that a D-21, comprising a bunch of pipsqueak countries (as a Harvard colleague once called Canada after I criticized the U.S.), can provide a different voice in the world, and so begin to reverse this madness? The situation we tolerate is outrageous. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is outrageous. A global grouping of full democracies is not. Even and especially now.

The established powers will hardly step aside. But, for starters, an Assembly of Democracies could be a conspicuous alternative to them all. It might even serve as a kind of peace council in-waiting. Should a nuclear confrontation become imminent, it may be the only place to turn for resolution beyond confrontation. Moreover, by getting their collective act together, these countries could challenge the superpowers as well as the divide-and-rule maneuvering of economic globalization, which now faces no countervailing power. (We recently celebrated a global agreement for a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on corporations. Is it truly considered a minimum or maximum?) Eventually, an expanded Assembly of Democracies might metamorphose into a Council of Democracies for serious global government. Imagine that.

When we recognize the obvious as outrageous, we can recognize the outrageous as obvious.

Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Canada and the author of several books about management. He is also the author of "Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal Beyond Left, Right and Center" and (rebalancingsociety.orginfo).

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Our groups of global superpowers need a balancing force for democracy | TheHill - The Hill

By Gail Travers | on March 18, 2022

To the Editor:

March 13 was the Ocean County Democratic Committee meeting and the annual mini-convention to nominate county and congressional candidates to appear on the party line for the primary ballot in June. It was quite an example of the people demanding democracy.

The Democratic leadership sent out notice of the meeting and most committee members received this postcard less than a week before the meeting. Also contained in this notice was an amendment to be voted on at this meeting. This amendment was to allow vote by mail (VBM) to be used for the election of the Democratic leadership, currently led by one of New Jerseys infamous bosses.

After reading the amendment, it seemed like dj vu, going back 12 years when Wyatt Earp did the same thing with extending the term of County Committee members and leadership from two to four years.He gave short notice about the meeting, including the fact that we would be voting on this amendment at the meeting/mini-convention.Its very sad that he didnt learn from that past experience where he failed to give members enough time to understand and digest all the implications of pushing through such an important amendment.

The current VBM amendment has so many loopholes and dangerous precedents that utilizing this voting method for a party election being controlled by the current leadership from the creation of the ballot to the counting and announcing the results opens up so many opportunities for fraud and deception. Its like putting the fox in the hen house.

I think we should have three meetings on this proposed amendment before adopting it. The first meeting should be the presentation of the amendment and the formation of a committee to develop the iron-clad procedures and send out a draft document to members. The second meeting should be for the appointed committee to present its results to the membership and get feedback. The third meeting could be to vote on the amendment. Thats what a responsible organization would do.

The scenario stated above is not what happened this past Sunday. We were not willing to just vote for this amendment without adequate vetting. Many committee members had valid questions.As a result, the chairman kept pushing back on us until a motion was made to table the discussion for a future date with follow-up containing air-tight procedures and controls before we would vote on such a major change in how we do business.

Leadership must understand that gone are the days of backdoor deals and ruling over political fiefdoms within our local Democratic organizations.We must continue to fight for participatory democracy within our County Committee. We are committed to winning this fight and our victory on Sunday is just a start.

Marianne P. Clemente, president

Barnegat Democrat Club

County Committee member

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Democracy in Action - The SandPaper

How is it possible, you might ask yourself, that nearly half the country believes the 2020 election was stolen? Or that the QAnon conspiracy, which holds Barack Obama is part of a pedophile cabal that eats babies, is now as popular as some major religions?

How could the best educated nation in the world be full of people who cant distinguish fact from fiction?

False information travels six times faster than the truth on Twitter, research has shown, but while 95 percent of Americans agree this is a problem, only 2 in 10 say theyre very concerned that they have personally spread misinformation, a 2021 poll found.

Yet misperceptions abound, and the left is not immune: During former FBI Director Robert Muellers investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Democrats were falling for unfounded conspiracy theories about Trump having sexual trysts with prostitutes in Russia. Still, Republicans in the Trump era have embraced the most dangerous misinformation of all, President Trumps baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The challenge now is for Americans to learn to sort good information from bad, a skill that seems to be in short supply. And the place to start is in our public schools.

You get some information you dont just put that information into a story, you check it out. Thats the core of what were asking everyone to do, thats the core of media literacy, says Sen. Vin Gopal, chair of the states education committee. You dont just take something as fact, you compare it with other information, you use your brain a little.

New Jersey, to its great credit, is trying to do something to fix this. As Florida is banning schools from using the word gay, we are charging in the other direction. A bipartisan bill reintroduced in January would have them learn in the classroom how to spot false news and use critical thinking skills when assessing the truth of what theyve read.

A troubling 2019 study by Stanford University of prospective young voters found they were easily duped by what they saw online. More than 96 percent of high schoolers failed to do a simple Google search to reveal the organization behind a climate change website was funded by fossil fuel companies, for instance, and more than half believed a grainy video on Facebook was strong evidence of voter fraud in the U.S., even though it was actually shot in Russia.

Interestingly, it was Sen. Michael Testa, co-chairman of the Trump campaign in New Jersey, who first approached Sen. Shirley Turner with this legislation to combat disinformation among students. It seems like we make strange bedfellows in some respects, said Turner, a Democrat, but I felt this was a good bill and asked him if I could co-prime it.

We agree we do need more than a course on civics; this should be woven into a K-12 education. Testa told us his wife, a school librarian, has spoken to him about students over-relying on Internet sources such as Wikipedia; they need to have the skills to use their own critical thinking to decide if the resource theyre looking at is a reliable resource, he said. Right.

But Trump was a man known to spread inaccurate stuff on social media, like his rigged election lie that spawned the violent insurrection at the Capitol. So how does Testa square this with his role as chairman of the Trump campaign?

I mean, I gotta be honest with you, I havent been really following Ive been focused on my constituents in Legislative district 1, he said, after a long pause. I was focused on, you know, maybe selfishly, my own reelection in 2021. To me, that election was now two years ago. So, I think those of us in New Jersey have moved on from the 2020 election.

But does he believe that Trump was spreading disinformation? I dont know why youre even going there, Testa said. This is a bill that looks like its getting bipartisan support, and how this is even tied to President Trump is beyond me. Because its not.

Lets move on: A good bill is a good bill. The New Jersey Center for Civic Studies at Rutgers already offers a PowerPoint for teachers to use on media literacy, a useful starting point. It offers tips for spotting false news and identifying errors in reasoning, like a red herring: An intentional diversion to redirect the conversation away from a topic that someone does not want to address.

This problem, of course, is not limited to kids. American adults need this kind of education as well.

What do we do with all of the adults who havent had media literacy instruction or a civics course? Thats tougher, asks Arlene Gardner at the New Jersey Center for Civic Studies at Rutgers. Several people have asked us about a civics course for adults. Maybe Ill suggest to Rutgers that we offer such a course.

Not a bad idea.

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Fight the disinformation that threatens our democracy: Think like a fact-checker | Editorial - NJ.com